“What is your opinion, inspector, with regard to the money?” asked Marsland. “Do you think that young Lumsden found it and refused to pay the legacies, or that it has never been found?”
“It has never been found,” said Inspector Murchison in a positive tone. “I’m quite certain of that. Why, it is scarcely more than a week ago that young Lumsden and his friend Brett came to ask me if I could throw any light on it. They had a mysterious looking cryptogram that young Lumsden had found among his grandfather’s papers, and they were certain that it referred to the hidden money. They showed it to me, but I could not make head or tail of it. I recommended them to go and see a man named Grange who keeps a second-hand book shop in Curzon Street, off High Street. He’s a bibliophile, and would be able to put them on the track of a book about cryptograms, even if he hadn’t one in stock himself.”
“What was the cryptogram like?” asked Marsland. “Was it like this?” He took up a pen from the table and attempted to reproduce a sketch of the mysterious document he had found on the stairs at Cliff Farm.
“Something like that,” said the inspector. “How do you come to know about it?”
“I found it at the dead man’s house before I discovered the body. I left it there, but it was stolen between the time I left the house and when I returned with Sergeant Westaway. At any rate it has not been seen since.”
“Ah,” said the inspector, “there you have the motive for the murder.”
“You spoke just now of young Lumsden’s friend, Brett,” said Crewe. “Who is Brett?”
“He lives in Staveley—a young fellow with a little private means. He and Lumsden were close friends—I have often seen them together about the town. They served in the same regiment, were wounded together, taken prisoners together by the Germans, tortured together, and escaped together.”
“Brett?” exclaimed Marsland in a tone which awakened Crewe’s interest. “I know no one named Brett.”
“No, of course you wouldn’t know him, Mr. Marsland,” said the inspector genially. “You have not been so long in Staveley that you can expect to know all the residents. It’s not a very large place, but it takes time to know all the people in it.”