“Mr. Bickerdale,” said Pawley. “Take my advice! I—I understand—from Mr. Parslewe—you’ll not be a loser.”
Bickerdale gave him a searching look. Then, suddenly, he thrust a hand into his inner breast pocket and drew out a small square envelope, which, with equal quickness, he handed across the table to Parslewe. In its passage, the light from the lamp gleamed upon this envelope; it seemed to me that I saw a crest on the flap.
“Rid of it now, anyway!” growled Bickerdale, sullenly. “Done!”
We were all watching Parslewe. He drew back to a corner of the room, where a second lamp stood on a wall bracket. Beneath this he turned the envelope over, examining it back and front; I saw then that it had been slit open by Bickerdale or Weech, or somebody through whose hands it had passed. And out of it Parslewe drew what seemed to be an ordinary sheet of notepaper. Whatever was written on it, he had read through in a minute. There were six pairs of eyes watching him, but you might as well have hoped to get news out of a stone wall as gain any information from his face; it was more inscrutable and impassive than I had ever seen it. He showed nothing—and suddenly he thrust paper and envelope into his pocket, sat down at the table, pulled out a cheque-book and a fountain-pen, and began to write. A moment later, he threw a cheque across to Bickerdale; then, without a word to him, or to Weech, or to Pawley, he strode out, motioning us to follow.
We made a little procession down town. Parslewe and the inspector walked first; I heard them talking about county business—the levying of a new rate, or some triviality of that sort. The plain-clothes man and I brought up the rear; we talked about the weather, and he told me that he had an allotment garden somewhere on the outskirts and wanted rain for what he had just planted. Presently we all parted, and Parslewe and I went to the hotel and up to the private sitting-room. There was whisky and soda on the sideboard, and he mixed a couple of glasses, handed me one, and drank his own off at a draught. Then, when I had finished mine, he gave me a questioning look.
“Bed, my lad?” he suggested. “Just so! Come on, then—your room’s next to mine; we’ll go together.” We walked along the corridor outside. “Do you want an idea—not an original one—to go to bed with, Craye?” he asked abruptly, as we reached our doors. “I’ll give you one. There are some damned queer things in this world!”
Then, with one of his loud, sardonic peals of laughter, he shook my hand and shot into his room.
X
Known at the Crown
THE various doings of that evening had not been of a nature that conduced to sleep, and I lay awake for a long time wondering about them. Naturally, my speculations chiefly ran on what I had seen in Bickerdale’s back parlour. How came Pawley there? What did Parslewe say to Pawley in that kitchen that made Pawley suddenly transformed into a state of almost servile acquiescence in Parslewe’s further doings? What was the document that Bickerdale handed over to Parslewe? Had Bickerdale found it during his repairing of the copper box, or had Augustus Weech abstracted it when Madrasia and I left him alone in the parlour at Kelpieshaw? All these questions ran helter-skelter through my brain as I lay there, anything but sleepy, and, needless to say, I hadn’t satisfactorily answered one of them when at last I dropped off to a more or less uneasy slumber. The truth was that in spite of various developments the whole thing, at two o’clock that morning, was to me a bigger and more exasperating mystery than ever.
And it was still there when I woke, sharply, at six o’clock; so much so, indeed, that I felt as if I should like to march into Parslewe’s room next door, shake him out of his no doubt sound sleep, and tell him that he’d got to make a clean breast of things, there and then. As I knew no man in the world less likely to be forced into confession until such time as he chose to speak, I took another course to calm my perplexed state of mind. I rose, shaved, dressed, and going downstairs, went out into the big station. Railway stations, at any hour of the day, but especially early in the morning, have a fascination for me—the goings and comings of the first trains, the gradually increasing signs of waking up, the arrival of the newspapers and opening of the bookstalls, even the unloading and carrying away of the milk cans, are sources of mighty attraction. I lounged about for some time, watching and observing; finally, as the hands of the clock pointed to seven, and knowing that neither Parslewe nor Madrasia would be ready for breakfast much before nine, I turned into the refreshment room for a cup of coffee. And there at the counter, a suit-case at his feet and a rug over his arm, stood Pawley.