“Well done, independence! I like that boy more than ever, Mr. Narkom. What followed? Did the father relent, or did he invite the pair of them to clear out and hoe their own row in future?”
“He did neither; he simply ignored their existence. Young Drake brought his wife down to Suffolk and took rooms at a village inn, and then set out to interview his father. When he arrived at the Hall he was told by the lodgekeeper that strangers weren’t admitted, and, on his asking to have his name sent in, was informed that the lodgekeeper had ‘never heard of no sich person as Mr. James Drake—that there wasn’t none, and that the master said there never had been, neither’—and promptly double-locked the gates. What young James Drake did after that it appears that nobody knows, for nobody saw him again until this morning; and it was only yesterday, I must tell you, that he made that unsuccessful attempt to get into the place to see his father. He says, however, that he spent the time in going over to Ipswich and back in the hope of seeing a friend there to whom he might apply for work. He says, too, that when he got there he found that that friend—an American acquaintance—had given up his rooms the day before, and rushed off to Italy in answer to a cable from his sister; or so, at least, the landlady told him.”
“Which, of course, the landlady can be relied upon to corroborate if there is any question regarding the matter? Is there?”
“Well, he seems to think that there may be. He’s the client, you must know. It was he that gave me the details over the telephone, and asked me to put you on the case. As he says himself, it’s easy enough to prove about his having gone to Ipswich to see his friend, but it isn’t so easy to prove about his coming back in the manner he did. It seems he was too late for any return train, that he hadn’t money enough left in the world to waste any by taking a private conveyance, so he walked back; and that, as it’s a goodish stretch of country, and he didn’t know the way, and couldn’t at night find anybody to ask, he lost himself more than once, with the consequence that it was daylight when he got back to the inn, where his frightened wife sat awaiting him, never having gone to bed nor closed an eye all night, poor girl, fearing that some accident had befallen him. But, be that as it may, Cleek, during those hours he was absent his father was mysteriously murdered in a round box of a room in which he had locked himself, and to which, owing to structural arrangements, it would seem impossible for anything to have entered; and, as young Drake rightly says, the worst of it is that the murder followed so close upon the heels of his quarrel and promised disinheritance, that his father had no time to alter the will which left him sole heir to everything; so that possibly people will talk.”
“Undoubtedly,” agreed Cleek. “And yet you said there was no motive and absolutely no clue. M’ yes! I wonder if I shall like this independent young gentleman quite so well after I have seen him.”
“Oh, my dear fellow! Good heavens, man, you can’t possibly think of suspecting him. Remember, it is he himself who brings the case—that the Yard would never have had anything to do with it but for him.”
“Quite so. But the local constabulary would; and the simplest way to blind a jackass is to throw dust in his eyes. They are natural born actors, the Americans; they are good schemers and fine planners. Their native game is ‘bluff,’ and they are very, very careful in the matter of detail.”
Then he pinched up his chin and sat silent for a moment, watching the green fields and the pleasant farmlands as the limousine went pelting steadily on.