THE

CHESTERMARKE

INSTINCT

THE MYSTERY STORIES OF

J. S. FLETCHER

"We always feel as though we were really spreading happiness when we can announce a genuinely satisfactory mystery story, such as J. B. Fletcher's new one."—N. P. D. in the New York Globe.

THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER [1918]

"Unquestionably, the detective story of the season and, therefore, one which no lover of detective fiction should miss."—The Broadside.

THE TALLEYRAND MAXIM [1920]

"A crackerjack mystery tale; the story of Linford Pratt, who earnestly desired to get on in life, by hook or by crook—with no objection whatever to crookedness, so long as it could be performed in safety and secrecy."—Knickerbocker Press.

THE PARADISE MYSTERY [1920]

"As a weaver of detective tales Mr. Fletcher is entitled to a seat among the elect. His numerous followers will find his latest book fully as absorbing as anything from his pen that has previously appeared."—New York Times.

DEAD MEN'S MONEY [1920]

"The story is one that holds the reader with more than the mere interest of sensational events: Mr. Fletcher writes in a notable style, and he has a knack for sketching character rapidly. Reminds one of Stevenson—and Mr. Fletcher sustains the comparison well."—Newark Evening News.

THE ORANGE-YELLOW DIAMOND [1921]

"... A rattling good yarn.... The excellence of The Orange yellow Diamond does not depend, however, entirely upon its plot. It is an uncommonly well written tale."—New York Times.

To be published July 1st, 1921:

THE BOROUGH TREASURER

Blackmail, murder and the secret of an ancient quarry go to make a very exciting yarn.

$2.00 net each at all booksellers or from the Publisher

ALFRED A. KNOPF, New York.

THE

CHESTERMARKE

INSTINCT

BY

J. S. FLETCHER

NEW YORK

ALFRED A KNOPF

MCMXXI

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY

ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE MISSING BANK MANAGER

Every Monday morning, when the clock of the old parish church in Scarnham Market-Place struck eight, Wallington Neale asked himself why on earth he had chosen to be a bank clerk. On all the other mornings of the week this question never occurred to him: on Sunday he never allowed a thought of the bank to cross his mind: from Sunday to Saturday he was firmly settled in the usual rut, and never dreamed of tearing himself out of it. But Sunday's break was unsettling: there was always an effort in starting afresh on Monday. The striking of St. Alkmund's clock at eight on Monday morning invariably found him sitting down to his breakfast in his rooms, overlooking the quaint old Market-Place, once more faced by the fact that a week of dull, uninteresting work lay before him. He would go to the bank at nine, and at the bank he would remain, more or less, until five. He would do that again on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday and on Friday, and on Saturday. One afternoon, strolling in the adjacent country, he had seen a horse walking round and round and round in a small paddock, turning a crank which worked some machine or other in an adjoining shed: that horse had somehow suggested himself to himself.

On this particular Monday morning, Neale, happening to catch sight of his reflection in the mirror which stood on his parlour mantelpiece, propounded the usual question with added force. There were reasons. It was a beautiful morning. It was early spring. There was a blue sky, and the rooks and jackdaws were circling in a clear air about the church tower and over the old Market-Cross. He could hear thrushes singing in the trees in the Vicarage garden, close by. Everything was young. And he was young. It would have been affectation on his part to deny either his youth or his good looks. He glanced at his mirrored self without pride, but with due recognition of his good figure, his strong muscles, his handsome, boyish face, with its cluster of chestnut hair and steady grey eyes. All that, he knew, wanted life, animation, movement. At twenty-three he was longing for something to take him out of the treadmill round in which he had been fixed for five years. He had no taste for handing out money in exchange for cheques, in posting up ledgers, in writing dull, formal letters. He would have been much happier with an old flannel shirt, open at the throat, a pick in his hands, making a new road in a new country, or in driving a path through some primeval wood. There would have been liberty in either occupation: he could have flung down the pick at any moment and taken up the hunter's gun: he could have turned right or left at his own will in the unexplored forest. But there at the bank it was just doing the same thing over and over again: what he had done last week he would do again this week: what had happened last year would happen again this year. It was all pure, unadulterated, dismal monotony.

Like most things, it had come about without design: he had just drifted into it. His father and mother had both died when he was a boy; he had inherited a small property which brought in precisely one hundred and fifty pounds a year: it was tied up to him in such a fashion that he would have his three pounds a week as long as ever he lived. But as his guardian, Mr. John Horbury, the manager of Chestermarke's Bank at Scarnham, pointed out to him when he left school, he needed more than three pounds a week if he wished to live comfortably and like a gentleman. Still, a hundred and fifty a year of sure and settled income was a fine thing, an uncommonly fine thing—all that was necessary was to supplement it. Therefore—a nice, quiet, genteel profession—banking, to wit. Light work, an honourable calling, an eminently respectable one. In a few years he would have another hundred and fifty a year: a few years more, and he would be a manager, with at least six hundred: he might, well before he was a middle-aged man, be commanding a salary of a thousand a year. Banking, by all means, counselled Mr. Horbury—and offered him a vacancy which had just then arisen at Chestermarke's. And Neale, willing to be guided by a man for whom he had much respect, took the post, and settled down in the old bank in the quiet, sleepy market-town, wherein one day was precisely like another day—and every year his dislike for his work increased, and sometimes grew unbearably keen, especially when spring skies and spring air set up a sudden stirring in his blood. On this Monday morning that stirring amounted to something very like a physical ache.

"Hang the old bank!" he muttered. "I'd rather be a ploughman!"

Nevertheless, the bank must be attended, and, at ten minutes to nine, Neale lighted a cigarette, put on his hat, and strolled slowly across the Market-Place. Although he knew every single one of its cobblestones, every shop window, every landmark in it, that queer old square always fascinated him. It was a bit of old England. The ancient church and equally ancient Moot Hall spread along one side of it; the other three sides were filled with gabled and half-timbered houses; the Market-Cross which stood in the middle of the open space had been erected there in Henry the Seventh's time. Amidst all the change and development of the nineteenth century, Scarnham had been left untouched: even the bank itself was a time-worn building, and the manager's house which flanked it was still older. Underneath all these ancient structures were queer nooks and corners, secret passages and stairs, hiding-places, cellarings going far beneath the gardens at the backs of the houses: Neale, as a boy, had made many an exploration in them, especially beneath the bank-house, which was a veritable treasury of concealed stairways and cunningly contrived doors in the black oak of the panellings.

But on this occasion Neale did not stare admiringly at the old church, nor at the pilastered Moot Hall, nor at the toppling gables: his eyes were fixed on something else, something unusual. As soon as he walked out of the door of the house in which he lodged he saw his two fellow-clerks, Shirley and Patten, standing on the steps of the hall by which entrance was joined to the bank and to the bank-house. They stood there looking about them. Now they looked towards Finkleway—a narrow street which led to the railway station at the far end of the town. Now they looked towards Middlegate—a street which led into the open country, in the direction of Ellersdeane, where Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke, senior proprietor of the bank, resided. All that was unusual. If Patten, a mere boy, had been lounging there, Neale would not have noticed it. But it was Shirley's first duty, on arriving every morning, to get the keys at the house door, and to let himself into the bank by the adjoining private entrance. It was Patten's duty, on arrival, to take the letter-bag to the post-office and bring the bank's correspondence back in it. Never, in all his experience, had Neale seen any of Chestermarke's clerks lounging on the steps at nine o'clock in the morning, and he quickened his pace. Shirley, turning from a prolonged stare towards Finkleway, caught sight of him.

"Can't get in," he observed laconically, in answer to Neale's inquiring look. "Mr. Horbury isn't there, and he's got the keys."

"What do you mean—isn't there!" asked Neale, mounting the steps. "Not in the house?"

"Mean just what I say," replied Shirley. "Mrs. Carswell says she hasn't seen him since Saturday. She thinks he's been week-ending. I've been looking out for him coming along from the station. But if he came in by the 8.30, he's a long time getting up here. And if he hasn't come by that, there's no other train till the 10.45."

Neale made no answer. He, too, glanced towards Finkleway, and then at the church clock. It was just going to strike nine—and the station was only eight minutes away at the most. He passed the two junior clerks, went down the hall to the door of the bank-house, and entered. And just within he came face to face with the housekeeper, Mrs. Carswell.

Mrs. Carswell had kept house for Mr. John Horbury for some years—Neale remembered her from boyhood. He had always been puzzled about her age. Of late, since he knew more of grown-up folk, he had been still more puzzled. Sometimes he thought she was forty; sometimes he was sure she could not be more than thirty-two or three. Anyway, she was a fine, handsome woman—tall, perfectly shaped, with glossy black hair and dark eyes, and a firm, resolute mouth. It was rarely that Mrs. Carswell went out; when she did, she was easily the best-looking woman in Scarnham. Few Scarnham people, however, had the chance of cultivating her acquaintance; Mrs. Carswell kept herself to herself and seemed content to keep up her reputation as a model housekeeper. She ordered Mr. Horbury's domestic affairs in perfect fashion, and it had come upon Neale as a surprise to hear Shirley say that Mrs. Carswell did not know where the manager was.

"What's all this?" he demanded, as he met her within the hall. "Shirley says Mr. Horbury isn't at home? Where is he, then?"

"But I don't know, Mr. Neale," replied the housekeeper. "I know no more than you do. I've been expecting him to come in by that 8.30 train, but he can't have done that, or he'd have been up here by now."

"Perhaps it's late," suggested Neale.

"No—it's in," she said. "I saw it come in from my window, at the back. It was on time. So—I don't know what's become of him."

"But—what about Saturday?" asked Neale. "Shirley says you said Mr. Horbury went off on Saturday. Didn't he leave any word—didn't he say where he was going?"

"Mr. Horbury went out on Saturday evening," answered Mrs. Carswell. "He didn't say a word about where he was going. He went out just before dusk, as if for a walk. I'd no idea that he wasn't at home until Sunday morning. You see, the servants and I went to bed at our usual time on Saturday night, and though he wasn't in then, I thought nothing of it, because, of course, he'd his latch-key. He was often out late at night, as you know, Mr. Neale. And when I found that he hadn't come back, as I did find out before breakfast yesterday, I thought nothing of that either—I thought he'd gone to see some friend or other, and had been persuaded to stop the night. Then, when he didn't come home yesterday at all, I thought he was staying the week-end somewhere. So I wasn't anxious, nor surprised. But I am surprised he's not back here first thing this morning."

"So am I," agreed Neale. "And more than surprised." He stood for a moment, running over the list of the manager's friends and acquaintances in the neighbourhood, and he shook his head as he came to the end of his mental reckoning of it. "It's very odd," he remarked. "Very surprising, Mrs. Carswell."

"It's all the more surprising," remarked the housekeeper, "because of his going off for his holiday tomorrow. And Miss Fosdyke's coming down from London today to go with him."

Neale pricked his ears. Miss Fosdyke was the manager's niece—a young lady whom Neale remembered as a mere slip of a girl that he had met years before and never seen since.

"I didn't know that," he remarked.

"Neither did Mr. Horbury until Saturday afternoon—that is, for certain," said Mrs. Carswell. "He'd asked her to go with him to Scotland on this holiday, but it wasn't settled. However, he got a wire from her, about tea-time on Saturday, to say she'd go, and would be down here today. They're to start tomorrow morning."

Neale turned to the door. He was distinctly puzzled and uneasy. He had known John Horbury since his own childhood, and had always regarded him as the personification of everything that was precise, systematic, and regular. All things considered, it was most remarkable that he should not be at the bank at opening hours. And already a vague suspicion that something had happened began to steal into his mind.

"Did you happen to notice which way he went, Mrs. Carswell?" he asked. "Was it towards the station?"

"He went out down the garden and through the orchard," replied the housekeeper. "He could have got to the station that way, of course. But I do know that he never said a word about going anywhere by train, and he'd no bag or anything with him—he'd nothing but that old oak stick he generally carried when he went out for his walks."

Neale pushed open the house door and went into the outer hall to the junior clerks. Little as he cared about banking as a calling, he was punctilious about rules and observances, and it seemed to him somewhat indecorous that the staff of a bank should hang about its front door, as if they were workshop assistants awaiting the arrival of a belated foreman.

"Better come inside the house, Shirley," he said. "Patten, you go to the post-office and get the letters."

"No good without the bag," answered Patten, a calm youth of seventeen. "Tried that once before. Don't you know!—they've one key—we've another."

"Well, come inside, then," commanded Neale. "It doesn't look well to hang about those steps."

"Might just as well go away," muttered Shirley, stepping into the hall. "If Horbury's got to come back by train from wherever he's gone to, he can't get here till the 10.45, and then he's got to walk up. Might as well go home for an hour."

"The partners'll be here before an hour's over," said Neale. "One of them's always here by ten."

Shirley, a somewhat grumpy-countenanced young man, made no answer. He began to pace the hall with looks of eminent dissatisfaction. But he had only taken a turn or two when a quietly appointed one-horse coupé brougham came up to the open door, and a well-known face was seen at its window. Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke, senior proprietor, had come an hour before his time.

CHAPTER II

THE ELLERSDEANE DEPOSIT

Had the three young men waiting in that hall not been so familiar with him by reason of daily and hourly acquaintance, the least observant amongst them would surely have paused in whatever task he was busied with, if Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke had crossed his path for the first time. The senior partner of Chestermarke's Bank was a noticeable person. Wallington Neale, who possessed some small gift of imagination, always felt that his principal suggested something more than was accounted for by his mere presence. He was a little, broadly built man, somewhat inclined to stoutness, who carried himself in very upright fashion, and habitually wore the look of a man engaged in operations of serious and far-reaching importance, further heightened by an air of reserve and a trick of sparingness in speech. But more noticeable than anything else in Mr. Gabriel Chestermarke was his head, a member of his body which was much out of proportion to the rest of it. It was a very big, well-shaped head, on which, out of doors, invariably rested the latest-styled and glossiest of silk hats—no man had ever seen Gabriel Chestermarke in any other form of head-gear, unless it was in a railway carriage, there he condescended to assume a checked cap. Underneath the brim of the silk hat looked out a countenance as remarkable as the head of which it was a part. A broad, smooth forehead, a pair of large, deep-set eyes, the pupils of which were black as sloes, a prominent, slightly hooked nose, a firm, thin-lipped mouth, a square, resolute jaw—these features were thrown into prominence by the extraordinary pallor of Mr. Chestermarke's face, and the dark shade of the hair which framed it. That black hair, those black eyes, burning always with a strange, slumbering fire, the colourless cheeks, the vigorous set of the lips, these made an effect on all who came in contact with the banker which was of a not wholly comfortable nature. It was as if you were talking to a statue rather than to a fellow-creature.

Mr. Chestermarke stepped quietly from his brougham and walked up the steps. He was one of those men who are never taken aback and never show surprise, and as his eyes ran over the three young men, there was no sign from him that he saw anything out of the common. But he turned to Neale, as senior clerk, with one word.

"Well?"

Neale glanced uncomfortably at the house door. "Mr. Horbury is not at home," he answered. "He has the keys."

Mr. Chestermarke made no reply. His hand went to his waistcoat pocket, his feet moved lower down the hall to a side-door sacred to the partners. He produced a key, opened the door, and motioned the clerks to enter. Once within, he turned into the partners' room. Five minutes passed before his voice was heard.

"Neale!"

Neale hurried in and found the banker standing on the hearth-rug, beneath the portrait of a former Chestermarke, founder of the bank in a bygone age. He was suddenly struck by the curious resemblance between that dead Chestermarke and the living one, and he wondered that he had never seen it before. But Mr. Chestermarke gave him no time for speculation.

"Where is Mr. Horbury?" he asked.

Neale told all he knew: the banker listened in his usual fashion, keeping his eyes steadily fixed on his informant. When Neale had finished, Mr. Chestermarke shook his head.

"If Horbury had meant to come into town by the 8.30 train and had missed it," he remarked, "he would have wired or telephoned by this. Telephoned, of course: there are telephones at every station on that branch line. Very well, let things go on."

Neale went out and set his fellow-clerks to the usual routine. Patten went for the letters. Neale carried them into the partners' room. At ten o'clock the street door was opened. A customer or two began to drop in. The business of the day had begun. It went on just as it would have gone on if Mr. Horbury had been away on holiday. And at half-past ten in walked the junior partner, Mr. Joseph Chestermarke.

Mr. Joseph was the exact opposite of his uncle. He was so much his opposite that it was difficult to believe, seeing them together, that they were related to each other. Mr. Joseph Chestermarke, a man of apparently thirty years of age, was tall and loose of figure, easy of demeanour, and a little untidy in his dress. He wore a not over well-fitting tweed suit, a slouch hat, a flannel shirt. His brown beard usually needed trimming; he affected loose, flowing neckties, more suited to an artist than to a banker. His face was amiable in expression, a little weak, a little speculative. All these characteristics came out most strongly when he and his uncle were seen in company: nothing could be more in contrast to the precise severity of Gabriel than the somewhat slovenly carelessness of Joseph. Joseph, indeed, was the last man in the world that any one would ever have expected to see in charge and direction of a bank, and there were people in Scarnham who said that he was no more than a lay-figure, and that Gabriel Chestermarke did all the business.

The junior partner passed through the outer room, nodding affably to the clerks and went into the private parlour. Several minutes elapsed: then a bell rang. Neale answered it, and Shirley and Patten glanced at each other and shook their heads: already they scented an odour of suspicion and uncertainty.

"What's up?" whispered Patten, leaning forward over his desk to Shirley, who stood between it and the counter. "Something wrong?"

"Something that Gabriel doesn't like, anyhow," muttered Shirley. "Did you see his eyes when Neale said that Horbury wasn't here? If Horbury doesn't turn up by this next train—ah!"

"Think he's sloped?" asked Patten, already seething with boyish desire of excitement. "Done a bunk with the money?"

But Shirley shook his head at the closed door through which Neale had vanished.

"They're carpeting Neale about it, anyhow," he answered. "Gabriel'll want to know the whys and wherefores, you bet. But Neale won't tell us anything—he's too thick with Horbury."

Neale, entering the partners' room, found them in characteristic attitudes. The senior partner sat at his desk, stern, upright, his eyes burning a little more fiercely than usual: the junior, his slouch hat still on his head, his hands thrust in his pockets, lounged against the mantelpiece, staring at his uncle.

"Now, Neale," said Gabriel Chestermarke. "What do you know about this? Have you any idea where Mr. Horbury is?"

"None," replied Neale. "None whatever!"

"When did you see him last?" demanded Gabriel. "You often see him out of bank hours, I know."

"I last saw him here at two o'clock on Saturday," replied Neale. "I have not seen him since."

"And you never heard him mention that he was thinking of going away for the week-end?" asked Gabriel.

"No!" replied Neale.

He made his answer tersely and definitely, having an idea that the senior partner looked at him as if he thought that something was being kept back. And Gabriel, after a moment's pause, shifted some of the papers on his desk, with an impatient movement.

"Ask Mr. Horbury's housekeeper to step in here for a few minutes," he said.

Neale went out by the private door, and presently returned with Mrs. Carswell.

By that time Joseph had lounged over to his own desk and seated himself, and when the housekeeper came in he tilted his chair back and sat idly swaying in it while he watched her and his uncle. But Gabriel, waving Mrs. Carswell to a seat, remained upright as ever, and as he turned to the housekeeper, he motioned Neale to stay in the room.

"Just tell us all you know about Mr. Horbury's movements on Saturday afternoon and evening, Mrs. Carswell," he said. "This is a most extraordinary business altogether, and I want to account for it. You say he went out just about dusk."

Mrs. Carswell repeated the story which she had told to Neale. The two partners listened; Gabriel keenly attentive; Joseph as if he were no more than mildly interested.

"Odd!" remarked Gabriel, when the story had come to an end. "Most strange! Very well—thank you, Mrs. Carswell. Neale," he added, when the housekeeper had gone away, "Mr. Horbury always carried the more important keys on him, didn't he?"

"Always," responded Neale.

"Very good! Let things go on," said Gabriel. "But don't come bothering me or Mr. Joseph Chestermarke unless you're obliged to. Of course, Mr. Horbury may come in by the next train. That'll do, Neale."

Neale went back to the outer room. Things went on, but the missing manager did not come in by the 10.45, and nothing had been heard or seen of him at noon, when Patten went to get his dinner. Nor had anything been seen or heard at one o'clock, when Patten came back, and it became Shirley and Neale's turn to go out. And thereupon arose a difficulty. In the ordinary course the two elder clerks would have left for an hour and the manager would have been on duty until they returned. But now the manager was not there.

"You go," said Neale to Shirley. "I'll wait. Perhaps Mr. Joseph will come out."

Shirley went—but neither of the partners emerged from the private room. As a rule they both went across to the Scarnham Arms Hotel at half-past one for lunch—a private room had been kept for them at that old-world hostelry from time immemorial—but now they remained within their parlour, apparently interned from their usual business world. And Neale had a very good idea of what they were doing. The bank's strong room was entered from that parlour—Gabriel and Joseph were examining and checking its contents. The knowledge distressed Neale beyond measure, and it was only by a resolute effort that he could give his mind to his duties.

Two o'clock had gone, and Shirley had come back, before the bell rang again. Neale went into the private room and knew at once that something had happened. Gabriel stood by his desk, which was loaded with papers and documents; Joseph leaned against a sideboard, whereon was a decanter of sherry and a box of biscuits; he had a glass of wine in one hand, and a half-nibbled biscuit in the other. The smell of the sherry—fine old brown stuff, which the clerks were permitted to taste now and then, on such occasions as the partners' birthdays—filled the room.

"Neale," said Gabriel, "have you been out to lunch? No? Take a glass of wine and eat a biscuit—we shall all have to put off our lunches for an hour or so."

Neale obeyed—more because he was under order than because he was hungry. He was too much bothered, too full of vague fears, to think of his midday dinner. He took the glass which Joseph handed to him, and picked a couple of biscuits out of the box. And at the first sip Gabriel spoke again.

"Neale!" he said. "You've been here five years, so one can speak confidentially. There's something wrong—seriously wrong. Securities are missing. Securities representing—a lot!"

Neale's face flushed as if he himself had been charged with abstracting those securities. His hand shook as he set down his glass, and he looked helplessly from one partner to another. Joseph merely shook his head, and poured out another glass of sherry for himself: Gabriel shook his head, too, but with a different expression.

"We don't know exactly how things are," he continued. "But there's the fact—on a superficial examination. And—Horbury! Of all men in the world, Horbury!"

"I can't believe it, Mr. Chestermarke!" exclaimed Neale. "Surely, sir, there's some mistake!"

Joseph brushed crumbs of biscuit off his beard and wagged his head.

"No mistake!" he said softly. "None! The thing is—what's best to do? Because—he'd have laid his plans. It'll all have been thought out—carefully."

"I'm afraid so," assented Gabriel. "That's the worst of it. Everything points to premeditation. And when a man has been so fully trusted——"

A knock at the door prefaced the introduction of Shirley's head. He glanced into the room with an obvious desire to see what was going on, but somehow contrived to fix his eyes on the senior partner.

"Lord Ellersdeane, sir," he announced. "Can he see you?"

The two partners looked at each other in evident surprise; then Gabriel moved to the door and bowed solemnly to some person outside.

"Will your lordship come in?" he said politely.

Lord Ellersdeane, a big, bustling, country-squire type of man, came into the room, nodding cheerily to its occupants.

"Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Chestermarke," he said. "I understand Horbury isn't at home, but of course you'll do just as well. The Countess and I only got back from abroad night before last. She wants her jewels, so I'll take 'em with me, if you please."

Gabriel Chestermarke, who was drawing forward a chair, took his hand off it and stared at his visitor.

"The Countess's—jewels!" he said. "Does your lordship mean——"

"Deposited them with Horbury, you know, some weeks ago—when we went abroad," replied Lord Ellersdeane. "Safe keeping, you know—said he'd lock 'em up."

Gabriel turned slowly to Joseph. But Joseph shook his head—and Neale, glancing from one partner to the other, felt himself turning sick with apprehension.

CHAPTER III

MR. CHESTERMARKE DISCLAIMS LIABILITY

Gabriel Chestermarke, after that one look at his nephew, turned again to the Earl, politely motioning him to the chair which he had already drawn forward. And the Earl, whose eyes had been wandering over the pile of documents on the senior partner's desk, glancing curiously at the open door of the strong room, and generally taking in a sense of some unusual occurrence, dropped into it and looked expectantly at the banker.

"There's nothing wrong?" he asked suddenly. "You look—surprised."

Gabriel stiffened his already upright figure.

"Surprised—yes!" he answered. "And something more than surprised—I am astonished! Your lordship left the Countess's jewels with our manager? May I ask when—and under what circumstances?"

"About six weeks ago," replied the Earl promptly. "As a rule the jewels are kept at my bankers in London. The Countess wanted them to wear at the Hunt Ball, so I fetched them from London myself. Then, as we were going off to the Continent two days after the ball, and sailing direct from Kingsport to Hamburg, I didn't want the bother of going up to town with them, and I thought of Horbury. So I drove in here with them one evening—the night before we sailed, as a matter of fact—and asked him to lock them up until our return. And as I said just now, we only got home the night before last, and we're going up to town tomorrow, and the Countess wants them to take with her. Of course, you've got 'em all right?"

Gabriel Chestermarke spread out his hands.

"I know nothing whatever about them!" he said. "I never heard of them being here."

"Nor I," affirmed Joseph. "Not a word!"

Gabriel looked at Neale, and drew Lord Ellersdeane's attention to him.

"Our senior clerk—Mr. Neale," he said. "Neale—have you heard of this transaction?"

"Never!" replied Neale. "Mr. Horbury never mentioned it to me."

Gabriel waved his hand towards the open door of the strong room.

"Any valuables of that sort would have been in there," he remarked. "There is nothing of that sort there—beyond what I and my nephew know of. I am sure your lordship's jewels are not there."

"But—Horbury?" exclaimed the Earl. "Where is he? He would tell you!"

"We don't know where Mr. Horbury is," answered Gabriel "The truth may as well be told—he's missing. And so are some of our most valuable securities."

The Earl slowly looked from one partner to another. His face flushed, almost as hotly as if he himself had been accused of theft.

"Oh, come!" he said. "Horbury, now, of all men! Come—come!—you don't mean to tell me that Horbury's been playing games of that sort? There must be some mistake."

"I shall be glad to be assured that I am making it," said Gabriel coolly. "But it will be more to the purpose if your lordship will tell us all about the deposit of these jewels. And—there's an important matter which I must first mention. We have not the honour of reckoning your lordship among our customers. Therefore, whatever you handed to Horbury was handed to him privately—not to us."

Joseph Chestermarke nodded his head at that, and the Earl stirred a little uneasily in his chair.

"Oh, well!" he said. "I—to tell you the truth, I didn't think about that, Mr. Chestermarke. It's true I don't keep any account with you—it's never seemed—er, necessary, you know. But, of course, I knew Horbury so well—he's a member of our golf club and our archæological society—that——"

"Precisely," interrupted Gabriel, with a bow. "You came to Mr. Horbury privately. Not to the firm."

"I came to him knowing that he was your manager, and a man to be thoroughly trusted, and that he'd have safes and things in which he could deposit valuables in perfect safety," answered the Earl. "I never reflected for a moment on the niceties of the matter. I just explained to him that I wanted those jewels taken care of, and handed them over. That's all!"

"And—their precise nature?" asked Gabriel.

"And—their value?" added Joseph.

"As to their nature," replied the Earl, "there was my wife's coronet, her diamond necklace, and the Ellersdeane butterfly, of which I suppose all the world's heard—heirloom, you know. It's a thing that can be worn in a lady's hair or as a pendant—diamonds, of course. As to their value—well, I had them valued some years ago. They're worth about a hundred thousand pounds."

Gabriel turned to his desk and began to arrange some papers on it, and Neale, who was watching everything with close attention, saw that his fingers trembled a little. He made no remark, and the silence was next broken by Joseph Chestermarke's soft accents.

"Did Horbury give your lordship any receipt, or acknowledgment that he had received these jewels on deposit?" he asked. "I mean, of course, in our name?"

The Earl twisted sharply in his chair, and Neale fancied that he saw a shade of annoyance pass over his good-natured face.

"Certainly not!" he answered. "I should never have dreamt of asking for a receipt from a man whom I knew as well as I knew—or thought I knew—Horbury. The whole thing was just as if—well, as if I should ask any friend to take care of something for me for a while."

"Did Horbury know what you were giving him?" asked Joseph.

"Of course!" replied the Earl. "As a matter of fact, he'd never seen these things, and I took them out of their case and showed them to him."

"And he said he would lock them up?—in our strong room?" suggested the soft voice.

"He said nothing about your strong room," answered the Earl. "Nor about where he'd put them. That was understood. It was understood—a tacit understanding—that he'd take care of them until our return."

"Did your lordship give him the date of your return?" persisted Joseph, with the thorough-going air of a cross-examiner.

"Yes—I told him exactly when we should be back," replied the Earl. "The twelfth of May—day before yesterday."

Joseph moved away from the sideboard towards the hearth, and leaning against the mantelpiece threw a glance at the strong room.

"The jewels are not in our possession," he said, half indolently. "There is nothing of that sort in there. There are two safes in the outer room of the bank—I should say that Mr. Neale here knows everything that is in them. Do you know anything of these jewels, Neale?"

"Nothing!" said Neale. "I never heard of them."

Gabriel looked up from his papers.

"None of us have heard of them," he remarked. "Horbury could not have put them in this strong room without my knowledge. They are certainly not there. The safes my nephew mentioned just now are used only for books and papers. Your lordship's casket is not in either."

The Earl rose slowly from his chair. It was evident to Neale that he was more surprised than angry: he looked around him as a man looks whose understanding is suddenly brought up against something unexplainable.

"All I know is that I handed that casket to Mr. Horbury in his own dining-room one evening some weeks ago," he said. "That's certain! So I naturally expect to find it—here."

"And it is not here—that is equally certain," observed Gabriel. "What is also certain is that our manager—trusted in more than he should have been!—is missing, and many of our valuable securities with him. Therefore——"

He spread his hands again with an expressive gesture and once more bent over his papers. Once more there was silence. Then the Earl started—as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him.

"I say!" he exclaimed, "don't you think Horbury may have put those jewels away in his own house?"

Joseph Chestermarke smiled a little derisively.

"A hundred thousand pounds' worth!" he said softly. "Not very likely!"

"But he may have a safe there," urged the Earl. "Most people have a safe in their houses nowadays—they're so handy, you know, and so cheap. Don't you think that may be it?"

"I am not familiar with Horbury's domestic arrangements," said Gabriel. "I have not been in his house for some years. But as we are desirous of giving your lordship what assistance we can, we will go into the house and see if there is anything of the sort. Just tell the housekeeper we are coming in, Neale."

The Earl nodded to Mrs. Carswell as she received him and the two partners in the adjacent hall.

"This lady will remember my calling on Mr. Horbury one evening a few weeks ago," he said. "She saw me with him in that room."

"Certainly!" assented Mrs. Carswell, readily enough. "I remember your lordship calling on Mr. Horbury very well. One night after dinner—your lordship was here an hour or so."

Gabriel Chestermarke opened the door of the dining-room—an old-fashioned apartment which looked out on a garden and orchard at the rear of the house.

"Mrs. Carswell," he said, as they all went in, "has Mr. Horbury a safe in this room, or in any other room? You know what I mean."

But the housekeeper shook her head. There was no safe in the house. There was a plate-chest—there it was, standing in a recess by the sideboard; she had the key of it.

"Open that, at any rate," commanded Gabriel. "It's about as unlikely as anything could be, but we'll leave nothing undone."

There was nothing in the plate-chest but what Gabriel expected to find there. He turned again to the housekeeper.

"Is there anything in this house—cupboard, chest, trunk, anything—in which Mr. Horbury kept valuables?" he asked. "Any place in which he was in the habit of locking up papers, for instance?"

Mrs. Carswell again shook her head. No, she knew of no such place or receptacle. There was Mr. Horbury's desk, but she believed all its drawers were open. Her belief proved to be correct: Gabriel himself opened drawer after drawer, and revealed nothing of consequence. He turned to the Earl with another expressive spreading out of his hands.

"I don't see what more we can do to assist your lordship," he said. "I don't know what more can be done."

"The question is—so it seems to me—what is to be done," replied the Earl, whose face had been gradually growing graver. "What, for instance, are you going to do, Mr. Chestermarke? Let us be plain with each other. You disclaim all liability in connection with my affair?"

"Most certainly!" exclaimed Gabriel. "We know nothing of that transaction. As I have already said, if Horbury took charge of your lordship's property, he did so as a private individual, not on our behalf, not in his capacity as our manager. If your lordship had been a customer of ours——"

"That would have been a very different matter," said Joseph. "But as we have never had any dealings with your lordship——"

"We have, of course, no liability to you," concluded Gabriel. "The true position of the case is that your lordship handed your property to Horbury as a friend, not as manager of Chestermarke's Bank."

"Then let me ask you, what are you going to do?" said the Earl. "I mean, not about my affair, but about finding your manager?"

Gabriel looked at his nephew: Joseph shook his head.

"So far," said Joseph, "we have not quite considered that. We are not yet fully aware of how things stand. We have a pretty good idea, but it will take another day."

"You don't mean to tell me that you're going to let another day elapse before doing something?" exclaimed the Earl. "Bless my soul!—I'd have had the hue and cry out before noon today, if I'd been you!"

"If you'd been Chestermarke's Bank, my lord," remarked Joseph, in his softest manner, "that's precisely what you would not have done. We don't want it noised all over the town and neighbourhood that our trusted manager has suddenly run away with our money—and your jewels—in his pocket."

There was a curious note—half-sneering, half-sinister—in the junior partner's quiet voice which made the Earl turn and look at him with a sudden new interest. Before either could speak, Neale ventured to say what he had been wanting to say for half an hour.

"May I suggest something, sir?" he said, turning to Gabriel.

"Speak—speak!" assented Gabriel hastily. "Anything you like!"

"Mr. Horbury may have met with an accident," said Neale. "He was fond of taking his walks in lonely places—there are plenty outside the town. He may be lying somewhere even now—helpless."

"Capital suggestion!—much obliged to you," exclaimed the Earl. "Gad! I wonder we never thought of that before! Much the most likely thing. I can't believe that Horbury——"

Before he could say more, the door of the dining-room was thrown open, a clear, strong voice was heard speaking to some one without, and in walked a handsome young woman, who pulled herself up on the threshold to stare out of a pair of frank grey eyes at the four startled men.

CHAPTER IV

THE MODERN YOUNG WOMAN

Mrs. Carswell, who had left the gentlemen to themselves after opening the plate-chest, followed the new-comer into the room and looked appealingly at the senior partner.

"This is Miss Fosdyke, sir," she said, as if accounting for the unceremonious entrance. "Mr. Horbury's——"

But Miss Fosdyke, having looked round her, entered the arena of discussion as abruptly as she had entered the room.

"You're Mr. Chestermarke!" she said, turning to Gabriel. "I remember you. What's all this, Mr. Chestermarke? I come down from London to meet my uncle, and to go on with him to Scotland for a holiday, and I learn that he's disappeared! What is it? What has happened? Why are you all looking so mysterious? Is something wrong? Where is my uncle?"

Gabriel, who had assumed his stereotyped expression of calm attention under this tornado of questions, motioned Joseph to place a chair for the young lady. But Miss Fosdyke shook her head and returned to the attack.

"Please don't keep anything back!" she said. "I am not of the fainting-to-order type of young woman. Just say what is the matter, if you please. Mrs. Carswell knows no more——"

"Than we do," interrupted Joseph, with one of his peculiar smiles. "Hadn't you better sit down?"

"Not until I know what has happened," retorted the visitor. "Because if anything has happened there will be something for me to do, and it's foolish to sit down when one's got to get up again immediately. Mr. Chestermarke, are you going to answer my questions?"

Gabriel bowed stiffly.

"I have the honour of addressing——" he began.

"You have the honour—if you like to put it so—of addressing Miss Betty Fosdyke, who is Mr. John Horbury's niece," replied the young lady impatiently. "Mrs. Carswell has told you that already. Besides—you saw me, more than once, when I was a little girl. And that's not so very long ago. Now, Mr. Chestermarke, where is my uncle?"

"I do not know where your uncle is," replied Gabriel suddenly, and losing his starchiness. "I wish to Heaven I did!"

"None of us know where Mr. John Horbury is," repeated Joseph, in his suavest tones. "We all wish to Heaven we did!"

The girl turned and gave the junior partner a look which took in every inch of him. It was a look which began with a swift speculation and ended in something very like distaste. But Joseph Chestermarke met it with his usual quiet smile.

"It would make such a lot of difference—if we knew!" he murmured. "As it is—things are unpleasant."

Miss Fosdyke finished her reflection and turned away.

"I remember you now," she said calmly. "You're Joseph Chestermarke. Now I will sit down. And I insist on being told—everything!"

"My dear young lady!" exclaimed Gabriel, "there is next to nothing to tell. If you will have the unpleasant truth, here it is. Your uncle, whom we have trusted for more years than I care to mention, disappeared on Saturday evening, and nobody knows where he is, nor whither he went. All we know is that we find some of our property missing—valuable securities. And this gentleman—Lord Ellersdeane—tells us that six weeks ago he entrusted jewels worth a hundred thousand pounds to your uncle's keeping—they, too, are missing. What can we think?"

The girl's face had flushed, and her brows had drawn together in an angry frown by the time Gabriel had finished, and Neale, silently watching her from the background, saw her fingers clench themselves. She gave a swift glance at the Earl, and then fixed her eyes steadily on Gabriel.

"Are you telling me that my uncle is a—thief?" she demanded. "Are you, Mr. Chestermarke?"

"I'm not, anyhow!" exclaimed the Earl. "I—I—so far as I'm concerned, I say there's some mistake."

"Thank you!" she answered quietly. "But—you, Mr. Chestermarke? Come—I'm entitled to an answer."

Gabriel showed signs of deep annoyance. He had the reputation of being a confirmed woman-hater, and it was plain that he was ill at ease in presence of this plain-spoken young person.

"You appear to be a lady of much common sense!" he said. "Therefore——"

"I have some common sense," interrupted Miss Fosdyke coolly. "And what amount I possess tells me that I never heard anything more ridiculous in my life than the suggestion that my uncle should steal anything from anybody! Why, he was, and is, I hope, a fairly well-to-do man! And if he wanted money, he'd only to come to me. It so happens that I'm one of the wealthiest young women in England. If my uncle had wanted a few thousands or tens of thousands to play ducks and drakes with, he'd only to ring me up on the telephone, and he'd have had whatever he asked for in a few hours. That's not boasting, Mr. Chestermarke—that's just plain truth. My uncle a thief! Mr. Chestermarke!—there's only one word for your suggestion. Don't think me rude if I tell you what it is. It's—bosh!"

Gabriel's colourless face twitched a little, and he drew himself up.

"I have no acquaintance with modern young ladies," he remarked icily. "I daresay they have their own way of looking at things—and of expressing themselves. I, too, have mine. Also I have my own conclusions, and——"

"I say, Mr. Chestermarke!" said the Earl, hastening to intervene in what seemed likely to develop into a passage-at-arms. "We're forgetting the suggestion made just before this lady—Miss Fosdyke, I think?—entered. Don't let's forget it—it's a good one."

Miss Fosdyke turned eagerly to the Earl.

"What suggestion was it?" she asked. "Do tell me? I'm sure you agree with me—I can see you do. Thank you, again!"

"This gentleman," said the Earl, pointing to Neale, who had retreated into a corner and was staring out of the window, "suggests that Horbury may have met with an accident, you know, and be lying helpless somewhere. I sincerely hope he isn't but——"

Miss Fosdyke jumped from her chair. She turned an indignant look on Gabriel and let it go on to Joseph.

"You don't mean to tell me that you have not done anything to find my uncle?" she exclaimed with fiery emphasis. "You've surely had some search made?—surely!"

"We knew nothing of his disappearance until ten o'clock this morning," replied Gabriel, half-angrily.

"But—since then? Why, you've had five hours!" she said. "Has nothing been done? Haven't you even told the police?"

"Certainly not!" answered Gabriel. "It is not our policy."

Miss Fosdyke made one step to the door and flung it open.

"Then I shall!" she exclaimed. "Policy, indeed! High time I came down here, I think! Thank you, Lord Ellersdeane—and the other gentleman—for the suggestion. Now I'll go and act on it. And when I act, Mr. Chestermarke, I do it thoroughly!"

The next moment she had slammed the door, and Gabriel Chestermarke glanced at his partner.

"Annoying!" he said. "A most unpleasant young woman! I should have preferred not to tell the police until—well, at any rate, tomorrow. We really do not know to what extent we are—but then, what's the use of talking of that now? We can't prevent her going to the police-station."

"Why, really, Mr. Chestermarke," observed the Earl, "don't you think it's the best thing to do? To tell you the truth, considering that I'm concerned, I was going to do the very same thing myself."

Gabriel bowed stiffly.

"We could not have prevented your lordship either," he said, with another wave of the white hands which seemed to go so well with the habitual pallor of his face. "All that is within your lordship's jurisdiction—not in ours. But—especially since this young lady seems determined to do things in her way—I will tell your lordship why we are slow to move. It is purely a business reason. It was, as I said, ten o'clock when we heard that Horbury was missing. That in itself was such a very strange and unusual thing that my partner and I at once began to examine the contents of our strong room. We had been so occupied five hours when your lordship called. Do you think we could examine everything in five hours? No—nor in ten, nor in twenty! Our task is not one quarter complete! And why we don't wish publicity at once in here—we hold a vast number of securities and valuables belonging to customers. Title-deeds, mortgages—all sorts of things. We have valuables deposited with us. Up to now we don't know what is safe and what isn't. We do know this—certain securities of our own, easily convertible on the market, are gone! Now if we had allowed it to be known before, say, noon today, that our manager had disappeared, and these securities with him, what would have been the result? The bank would have been besieged! Before we let the public know, we ourselves want to know exactly where we are. We want to be in a position to say to Smith, 'Your property is safe!'; to Jones, 'Your deeds are here!' Does your lordship see that? But now, of course," concluded Gabriel, "as this Miss Fosdyke can and will spread the news all over the town—why, we must face things."

The Earl, who had listened to all this with an evident desire to comprehend and to sympathize, nodded his head.

"I see—I see, Mr. Chestermarke," he said. "But I say!—I've got another notion—I'm not a very quick thinker, and I daresay my idea came out of Mr. Neale's suggestion. Anyway, it's this—for whatever it's worth. I told you that we only got home night before last—early on Saturday evening, as a matter of fact. Now, it was known in the town here that we'd returned—we drove through the Market-Place. Mayn't it be that Horbury saw us, or heard of our return, and that when he went out that evening he had the casket in his pocket and was on his way to Ellersdeane, to return it to me? And that—on his way—he met with some mishap? Worth considering, you know."

"I daresay a great many theories might—and will—be raised, my lord," replied Gabriel. "But——"

"Does your lordship also think—or suggest—that Horbury also carried our missing securities in his pocket?" asked Joseph quietly. "Because we, at any rate, know they're gone!"

"Oh, well!" said the Earl, "I—I merely suggest it, you know. The country between here and Ellersdeane is a bit rough and wild—there's Ellersdeane Hollow, you know—a queer place on a dark night. And if a man took a short cut—as many people do—through the Hollow, there are places he could fall into. But, as I say, I merely suggest that as a reasonable theory."

"What does your lordship propose to do?" asked Gabriel.

"I certainly think inquiry should be set going," answered the Earl.

"Already done," remarked Joseph drily. "Miss Fosdyke has been with the police five minutes."

"I mean—it should be done by us," said the Earl.

"Very well," said Gabriel suddenly, "it shall be done, then. No doubt your lordship would like to give the police your own story. Mr. Neale, will you go with Lord Ellersdeane to Superintendent Polke? Your duty will be to give him the mere information that Mr. Horbury left his house at a quarter to eight on Saturday evening and has not been heard of since. No more, Neale. And now," he concluded, with a bow to the Earl, "your lordship will excuse my partner and myself if we return to a singularly unpleasant task."

Lord Ellersdeane and Neale left the bank-house and walked towards the police-station. They crossed the Market-Place in silence, but as they turned the corner of the Moot Hall, the elder man spoke, touching his companion's shoulder with a confidential gesture.

"I don't believe a word of all that, Mr. Neale!" he said. "Not one word!"

Neale started and glanced at the Earl's moody face.

"Your lordship doesn't believe—?" he began, and checked himself.

"I don't believe that Horbury's done what those two accuse him of," affirmed the Earl. "Not for one moment! I can't account for those missing securities they talk about, but I'll stake my honour that Horbury hasn't got 'em! Nor my wife's jewels either. You heard and saw how astounded that girl was. By the by—who is she!"

"Mr. Horbury's niece—Miss Fosdyke—from London," replied Neale.

"She spoke of her wealth," remarked the Earl.

"Yes," said Neale. "She must be wealthy, too. She's the sole proprietor of Fosdyke's Brewery."

"Ho-ho!" laughed the Earl. "That's it, eh? Fosdyke's Entire! Of course—I've seen the name on no end of public-houses in London. Sole proprietor? Dear me!—why, I have some recollection that Fosdyke, of that brewery, was at one time a member of Parliament."

"Yes," assented Neale. "He married Mr. Horbury's sister. Miss Fosdyke is their only child. Mr. Fosdyke died a few years ago, and she came into the property last year when she was twenty-one."

"Lucky young woman!" muttered the Earl. "Fine thing to own a big brewery. Um! A very modern and up-to-date young lady, too: I liked the way she stood up to your principals. Of course, she'll have told Polke all the story by this time. As for ourselves—what had we better do?"

Neale had considered that question as he came along.

"There's only one thing to do, my lord," he answered. "We want the solution of a problem: what became of Mr. Horbury last Saturday night?"

CHAPTER V

THE SEARCH BEGINS

Polke, superintendent of the Scarnham police force, a little, round, cheery-faced man, whose mutton-chop whiskers suggested much business-like capacity and an equal amount of common sense, rose from his desk and bowed as the Earl of Ellersdeane entered his office.

"I know what your lordship's come for!" he said, with a twinkle of the eye which betokened infinite comprehension. "The young lady's been here."

"And has no doubt told you everything?" remarked the Earl, as he dropped into the chair which the superintendent drew forward. "Has she?"

"Pretty well, my lord," replied Polke, with a chuckle. "She's not one to let much grass grow under her feet, I think."

"Given you the facts, I suppose?" asked the Earl.

Polke motioned to Neale to seat himself, and resumed his own seat. He put his fingers together over his desk and looked from one to the other of his visitors.

"I'll give the young lady this much credit," he said. "She can tell one what she wants in about as few words as could possibly be used! Yes, my lord—she told me the facts in a couple of sentences. Her uncle disappeared—nobody knows where he is—suspected already of running away with your lordship's jewels and Chestermarke's securities. A very nice business indeed!"

"What do you think of it?" asked the Earl.

"As a policeman, nothing—so far," answered Polke, with another twinkle. "As a man, that I don't believe it!"

"Nor do I!" said the Earl. "That is, I don't believe that Horbury's appropriated anything. There's some mistake—and some mystery."

"We can't get away from the fact that Mr. Horbury has disappeared," remarked Neale, looking at the superintendent. "That's all I'm sent here to tell you, Mr. Polke."

"That's an accepted fact," agreed Polke. "But he's not the first man who's disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Some men, as your lordship knows, disappear—and reappear with good reasons for their absence. Some never reappear. Some men aren't wanted to reappear. When a man disappears and he's wanted—why, the job is to find him."

"What does Miss Fosdyke wish?" asked the Earl, nodding assent to these philosophies. "She would say, of course."

"Miss Fosdyke's way, my lord—so far as I could gather from ten minutes' talk with her—is to tell people what to do," answered Polke drily. "She doesn't ask—she commands! We're to find her uncle—quick. At once. No pains to be spared. Money no object. A hundred pounds, spot cash, to the first man, woman, child, who brings her the least fragment of news of him. That's Miss Fosdyke's method. It's not a bad one—it's only rich young ladies who can follow it. So I've already put things in train. Handbills and posters, of course—and the town-crier. I suggested to her that by tonight, or tomorrow morning, there might be news of Mr. Horbury without doing all that. No good! Miss Fosdyke—she can tell you a lot inside a minute—informed me that since she was seventeen she had only had one motto in life. It's—do it now!"

"Good!" laughed the Earl. "But—where are you going to begin?"

"That's the difficulty," agreed Polke. "A gentleman walks out of his back garden into the dusk—and he's never seen again. I don't know. We must wait and see if anybody comes forward to say that he, she, or it saw Mr. Horbury after he left his house on Saturday night. That's all."

"Somebody must have seen him," said the Earl.

"Well, you'd think so, my lord," replied Polke, "but he could get away from the back of his orchard into the open country without being seen. The geographical position of our town's a bit curious, so your lordship knows. Here we are on a ridge. Horbury's garden and orchard run down to the foot of that ridge. At that foot is the river. There's a foot-bridge over the river, immediately opposite his orchard gate. He could cross that foot-bridge, and be in the wood on the other side in two minutes from leaving his house. That wood extends for a good mile into the country. Oh, yes! he could get away without being seen, and once in that country, why, he could make his way to one or other of half a dozen small railway stations. We shall telephone to all of them. That's all in the routine. But then, that's all supposing that he left the town. Perhaps he didn't leave the town."

The Earl started, and Neale looked quickly up from a brown study.

"Eh?" said the Earl. "Didn't leave the town?"

"Speaking as a policeman," answered Polke, with a knowing smile, "I don't know that he even left his house. I only know that his housekeeper says he did. That's a very different matter. For anything we know—absolutely know!—Mr. Horbury may have been murdered in his own house, and buried in his own cellar."

"You're not joking?" said Neale. "Or—you are!"

"Far from it, Mr. Neale," answered Polke. "That may seem a very, very outrageous thing to say, but, I assure you, one never knows what may not have happened in these cases. However, Mrs. Carswell says he did leave the house, so we must take her word to begin with, and see if we can find out where he went. And as your lordship is here, there's just a question or two I should like to have answered. How many people know that your lordship handed over these valuables to Mr. Horbury?"

"So far as I know, no one but the Countess and myself," replied the Earl. "I never mentioned the matter to any one, and I don't think my wife would either. There was no need to mention it."

"Well, I don't know," remarked Polke. "One's got to consider all sorts of little things in these affairs, or else I wouldn't ask another question. Does your lordship think it possible the Countess mentioned it to her maid?"

The Earl started in his chair.

"Ah!" he said. "That may be! She may have done that, of course. I hadn't thought of it."

"Is the maid a trustworthy woman?" inquired Polke.

"She's been in our service twelve or fourteen years," replied the Earl. "We've always found her quite trustworthy. So much so that I've more than once sent her to my bankers with those very jewels."

"You took her with you to the Continent, of course, my lord?" asked Polke.

"No, we didn't," replied the Earl. "The fact is—we wanted to have, for once in our lives, a thoroughly unconventional holiday. You know that the Countess and I are both very fond of walking—well, we had always had a great desire to have a walking tour, alone, in the Ardennes district, in early spring. We decided some time ago to have it this year. So when we set off, six weeks ago, we took no servants—and precious little luggage—and we enjoyed it all the more. Therefore, of course, my wife's maid was not with us. She remained at Ellersdeane—with the rest of the servants."

Polke seemed to ponder over this last statement. Then he rose from his chair.

"Um!" he said. "Well—I'm doing what I can. There's something your lordship might do."

"Yes?" asked the Earl. "What, now! It shall be done."

"Let some of your men take a look round your neighbourhood," answered the superintendent. "Gamekeepers, now—they're the fellows! Just now we're having some grand moonlight nights. If your men would look about the country between here and Ellersdeane, now? And tell the farmers, and the cottagers, and so forth, and take a particular look round Ellersdeane Hollow. It would be a help."

"Excellent idea, Polke," said the Earl. "I'll ride home and set things going at once. And you'll let me know if anything turns up here during the evening or the night."

He strode off to the door and Neale followed. But on the threshold Neale was pulled up by the superintendent.

"Mr. Neale!" said Polke.

Neale turned to see his questioner looking at him with a rather quizzical expression.

"What precise message had you for me?" asked Polke.

"Just what I said," replied Neale. "I was merely to tell you that Mr. Horbury disappeared from his house on Saturday evening, and has not been seen since."

"No further message—from your principals?" suggested Polke.

"Nothing," said Neale.

Polke nodded, and with a bow to the Earl sat down again to his desk. He took up a pen when the door had closed on his visitors, and for a while busied himself in writing. He was thus occupied when the telephone bell rang in the farthest corner of his room. He crossed over and laid hold of the receiver.

"Yes?" he said quietly. "Yes—this is Polke, superintendent, Scarnham—I rang you up twenty minutes since. I want you to send me, at once, the smartest man you have available. Case is disappearance, under mysterious circumstances, of a bank manager. Securities to a large amount are missing; valuables also. No expense will be spared here—money no object. You understand—a first-class man? Tonight? Yes. Good train from town five-twenty—gets here nine-fifteen. He will catch that? Good. Tell him report here on arrival. All right. Good-bye."

Polke rang off and went back to his desk.

"What New Scotland Yard calls a first-class is very often what I should call a third-class," he muttered as he picked up his pen. "However, we'll live in hope that something out of the usual will arrive. Now what are those two Chestermarkes after? Why didn't one of them come here? What are they doing? And what's the mystery? James Polke, my boy, here's a handful for you!"

If Polke had been able to look into Chestermarke's Bank just then, he would have failed to notice any particular evidences of mystery. It was nearly the usual hour for closing when Wallington Neale went back, and Gabriel Chestermarke immediately told him to follow out the ordinary routine. The clerks were to finish their work and go their ways, as if nothing had happened, and, as far as they could, they were to keep their tongues quiet. As for the partners, food was being sent over for them from the hotel: they would be obliged to remain at the bank for some time yet. But there was no need for Neale to stay; he could go when the day's balancing was done.

"You heard what instructions this Miss Fosdyke had given the police, I suppose?" asked Gabriel, as Neale was leaving the parlour. "Raising the whole town, no doubt?"

Neale briefly narrated all he knew; the partners listened with the expression characteristic of each, and made no comment. And in half an hour Neale handed over the keys to Joseph Chestermarke and went out into the hall, his labours over. That had been the most exciting day he had ever known in his life—was what was left of it going to yield anything still more exciting?

He stood in the outer hall trying to make up his mind about something. He wanted to speak to Betty Fosdyke—to talk to her. She had evidently not recognized him when she came so suddenly into the dining-room of the bank-house. But why should she, he asked himself?—they had only met once, when both were children, and she had no doubt forgotten his very existence. Still—

He rang the house bell at last and asked for Mrs. Carswell. The housekeeper came hurrying to him, a look of expectancy on her face.

"Has anything been heard, Mr. Neale?" she asked. "Or found out? Have the police been told yet?"

"The police know," answered Neale. "And nothing has been heard. Where is Miss Fosdyke, Mrs. Carswell? I should like to speak to her."

"Gone to the Scarnham Arms, Mr. Neale," replied the housekeeper. "She wouldn't stay here, though her room was all ready for her. Said she wouldn't stop two seconds in a house that belonged to men who suspected her uncle! So she's gone across there to take rooms. Do—do the partners suspect Mr. Horbury of something, Mr. Neale?"

Neale shook his head and turned away.

"I can't tell you anything, Mrs. Carswell," he answered. "If either Mr. Chestermarke or Mr. Joseph wish to give you any information, they'll give it themselves. But I can say this on my own responsibility—if you know of anything—anything, however small!—that would account for Mr. Horbury's absence, out with it!"

"But I don't—I know nothing but what I've told," said Mrs. Carswell. "Literally nothing!"

"Nobody knows anything," remarked Neale. "That's the worst of it. Well—we shall see."

He went away from the house and crossed the Market-Place to the Scarnham Arms, an old-world inn which had suffered few alterations during the last two centuries. And there inside its wide hall, superintending the removal of various articles of luggage which had just arrived from the station and in conversation with a much interested landlady, he found Betty Fosdyke.

"I may be here for weeks, and I shall certainly be here for days," that young lady was saying. "Put all these things in the bedroom, and I'll have what I want taken into the sitting-room later. Now, Mrs. Depledge, about my dinner. I'll have it in my sitting-room, and I'll have it early. I——"

At this moment Miss Fosdyke became aware of Neale's presence, and that this eminently good-looking young man was not only smiling at her, but was holding out a hand which he evidently expected to be taken.

"You've forgotten me!" said Neale.

Miss Fosdyke's cheeks flushed a little and she held out her hand.

"Is it—is it Wallie Neale?" she asked. "But—I saw you in the bank-house—and you didn't speak to me!"

"You didn't speak to me," retorted Neale, smiling.

"Didn't know you," she answered. "Heavens!—how you've grown! But—come upstairs. Mrs. Depledge—dinner for two, mind. Mr. Neale will dine with me."

Neale suffered his hostess to lead him upstairs to a private parlour. And when they were once within it, Miss Fosdyke shut the door and turned on him.

"Now, Wallie Neale!" she said, "out with it! What is the meaning of all this infernal mystery? And where's my uncle?"

CHAPTER VI

ELLERSDEANE HOLLOW

Neale dropped into a chair and lifted a despairing countenance to his downright questioner.

"I don't know!" he said. "I know—nothing!"

"That is—beyond what I've already been told?" suggested the girl.

"Beyond what you've been told—exactly," replied Neale. "I'm literally bewildered. I've been going about all day as if—as if I were dreaming, or having a nightmare, or—something. I don't understand it at all. I saw Mr. Horbury, of course, on Saturday—he was all right when I left him at the bank. He said nothing that suggested anything unusual. The whole thing is—a real facer! To me—anyhow."

Betty Fosdyke devoted a whole minute to taking a good look at her companion: Neale, on his part, made a somewhat shyer examination of her. He remembered her as a long-legged little girl who had no great promise of good looks: he was not quite sure that she had grown into good looks now. But she was an eminently bright and vivacious young woman, strong, healthy, vigorous, with fine eyes and teeth and hair, and a colour that betokened an intimate acquaintance with outdoor life. And already, in the conversation at the bank, and in Polke's report of his interview with him, he had learnt that she had developed certain characteristics which he faintly remembered in her as a child, when she had insisted on having her own way amongst other children.

"You've grown into quite a handsome young man, Wallie!" she observed suddenly, with a frank laugh. "I shouldn't have thought you would, somehow. Am I changed?"

"I should say—not in character," answered Neale shyly. "I remember you always wanted to be top dog!"

"It's my fate!" she said, with a sigh. "I've such a lot of people and things to look after—one has to be top dog, whether one wants to or not. But this affair—what's to be done?"

"I understand from Polke that you've already done everything," replied Neale.

"I've given him orders to spare neither trouble nor expense," she asserted. "He's to send for the very best detective they can give him from headquarters in London, and search is to be made. Because—now, Wallie, tell me truthfully—you don't believe for one moment that my uncle has run away with things?"

"Not for one second!" asserted Neale stoutly. "Never did!"

"Then—there's foul play!" exclaimed Betty. "And I'll spend my last penny to get at the bottom of it! Here I am, and here I stick, until I've found my uncle, or discovered what's happened to him. And listen—do you think those two men across there are to be trusted?"

Neale shook his head as if in appeal to her.

"I'm their clerk, you know," he replied. "I hate being there at all, but I am there. I believe they're men of absolute probity as regards business matters—personally, I'm not very fond of either."

"Fond!" she exclaimed. "My dear boy!—Joseph is a slimy sneak, and Gabriel is a bloodless sphinx—I hate both of them!"

Neale laughed and gave her a look of comprehension.

"You haven't changed, Betty," he said. "I'm to call you Betty, though you are grown up?"

"Since it's the only name I possess, I suppose you are," she answered. "But now—what can we do—you and I? After all, we're the nearest people my uncle has in this town. Do let's do something! I'm not the sort to sit talking—I want action! Can't you suggest something we can do?"

"There's one thing," replied Neale, after a moment's thought. "Lord Ellersdeane suggested that possibly Mr. Horbury, hearing that the Ellersdeanes had got home on Saturday, put the jewels in his pocket and started out to Ellersdeane with them. I know the exact path he'd have taken in that case, and I thought of following it this evening—one might come across something, or hear something, you know."

"Take me with you, as soon as we've had dinner," she said. "It'll be a beginning. I mean to turn this neighbourhood upside down for news—you'll see. Some person or persons must have seen my uncle on Saturday night!—a man can't disappear like that. It's impossible!"

"Um!—but men do disappear," remarked Neale. "What I'm hoping is that there'll eventually—and quickly—be some explanation of this disappearance, and that Mr. Horbury hasn't met with—shall I put it plainly?"

"You'd better put anything plainly to me," she answered. "I don't understand other methods."

"It's possible he may have been murdered, you know," said Neale quietly.

Betty got up from her chair and went over to the window to look out on the Market-Place. She stood there some time in silence.

"It shall be a bad job for any man who murdered him if that is so," she said at last. "I was very fond of my uncle."

"So was I," said Neale. "But I say—no past tenses yet! Aren't we a bit previous? He may be all right."

"Ring the bell and let's hurry up that dinner," she commanded. "I didn't make it clear that we want it as early as possible. I want to get out, and to see where he went—I want to do something active!"

But Miss Betty Fosdyke was obliged to adapt herself to the somewhat leisurely procedure of highly respectable country-town hotels, whose cooks will not be hurried, and it was already dusk, and the moonlight was beginning to throw shadows of gable and spire over the old Market-Place, when she and Neale set out on their walk.

"All the better," said Neale. "This is just about the time that he went out on Saturday night, and under very similar conditions. Now we'll take the precise path that he'd have taken if he was on his way to Ellersdeane."

He led his companion to a corner of the Market-Place, and down a narrow alley which terminated on an expanse of open ground at the side of the river. There he made her pause and look round.

"Now if we're going to do the thing properly," he said, "just attend, and take notice of what I point out. The town, as you see, stands on this ridge above us. Here we are at the foot of the gardens and orchards which slope down from the backs of the houses on this side of the Market-Place. There is the gate of the bank-house orchard. According to Mrs. Carswell, Mr. Horbury came out of that gate on Saturday night. What did he do then? He could have turned to the left, along this river bank, or to the right, also along the river bank. But, if he meant to walk out to Ellersdeane—which he would reach in well under an hour—he would cross this foot-bridge and enter those woods. That's what we've got to do."

He led his companion across a narrow bridge, over a strip of sward at the other side of the river, and into a grove of fir which presently deepened and thickened as it spread up a gently shelving hillside. The lights of the town behind them disappeared; the gloom increased; presently they were alternately crossing patches of moonlight and plunging into expanses of blackness. And Betty, after stumbling over one or two of the half-exposed roots which lay across the rough path, slipped a hand into Neale's arm.

"You'll have to play guide, Wallie, unless you wish me to break my neck," she laughed. "My town eyes aren't accustomed to these depths of gloom and solitude. And now," she went on, as Neale led her confidently forward through the wood, "let's talk some business. I want to know about those two—the Chestermarkes. For I've an uneasy feeling that there's more in this affair than's on the surface, and I want to know all about the people I'm dealing with. Just remember—beyond the mere fact of their existence and having seen them once or twice, years ago, I don't know anything about them. What sort of men are they—as individuals?"

"Queer!" replied Neale. "They're both queer. I don't know much about them. Nobody does. They're all right as business men, much respected and all that, you know. But as private individuals they're decidedly odd. They're both old bachelors, at least Gabriel's an old one, and Joseph is a youngish one. They live sort of hermit lives, as far as one can make out. Gabriel lives at the old house which I'll show you when we get out of this wood—you'll see the roofs, anyhow, in this moonlight. Joseph lives in another old house, but in the town, at the end of Cornmarket. What they do with themselves at home, Heaven knows! They don't go into such society as there is; they take no part in the town's affairs. There's a very good club here for men of their class—they don't belong to it. You can't get either of 'em to attend a meeting—they keep aloof from everything. But they both go up to London a great deal—they're always going. But they never go together—when Gabriel's away, Joseph's at home; when Joseph's off, Gabriel's on show. There's always one Mr. Chestermarke to be found at the bank. All the same, Mr. Horbury was the man who did all the business with customers in the ordinary way. So far as I know banking," concluded Neale, "I should say he was trusted and confided in more than most bank managers are."

"Did they seem very much astonished when they found he'd gone?" asked Betty. "Did it seem a great shock, a real surprise?"

"The cleverest man living couldn't tell what either Gabriel or Joseph Chestermarke thinks about anything," answered Neale. "You know what Gabriel's face is like—a stone image! And Joseph always looks as if he was sneering at you, a sort of soft, smiling sneer. No, I couldn't say they showed surprise, and I don't know what they've found out—they're the closest, most reserved men about their own affairs that you could imagine!"

"But—they say some of their securities are missing," remarked Betty. "They'll have to let the exact details be known, won't they?"

"Depends—on them," replied Neale. "They'll only do what they like. And they don't love you for coming on the scene, I assure you!"

"But I'm here, nevertheless!" said Betty. "And here I stop! Wallie, haven't you got even a bit of a theory about all this!"

"Can't say that I have!" confessed Neale woefully. "I'm not a very brilliant hand at thinking. The only thing I can think of is that Mr. Horbury, knowing Lord Ellersdeane had got home on Saturday, thought he'd hand back those jewels as soon as possible, and set off in the evening with that intention—possibly to be robbed and murdered on the way. Sounds horrible—but honestly I can't think of any other theory."

Betty involuntarily shivered and glanced about her at the dark cavernous spaces of the wood, which had now thickened into dense masses of oak and beech. She took a firmer grip of Neale's arm.

"And he'd come through here!" she exclaimed. "How dangerous!—with those things in his pocket!"

"Oh, but he'd think nothing of it!" answered Neale. "He was used to walking at night—he knew every yard of this neighbourhood. Besides, he'd know very well that nobody would know what he had on him. What I'd like to know is—supposing my theory's right, and that he was taking these jewels to Ellersdeane, how did anybody get to know that he had them? For the Chestermarkes didn't know they'd been given to him, and I didn't—nobody at the bank knew."

A sudden turn in the path brought them to the edge of the wood, and they emerged on a broad plateau of rough grass, from beneath which a wide expanse of landscape stretched away, bathed just then in floods of moonlight. Neale paused and waved his stick towards the shadowy distances and over the low levels which lay between.

"Ellersdeane Hollow!" he said.

Betty paused too, looking silently around. She saw an undulating, broken stretch of country, half-heath, half-covert, covering a square mile or so of land, houseless, solitary. In its midst rose a curiously shaped eminence or promontory, at the highest point of which some ruin or other lifted gaunt, shapeless walls against the moonlit sky. Far down beneath it, in a depression amongst the heath-clad undulations, a fire glowed red in the gloom. And on the further side of this solitude, amidst groves and plantations, the moonlight shone on the roofs and gables of half-hidden houses. Over everything hung a deep silence.

"A wild and lonely scene!" she said.

Neale raised his stick again and began to point.

"All this in front of us is called Ellersdeane Hollow," he remarked. "It's not just one depression, you see—it's a tract of unenclosed land. It's dangerous to cross, except by the paths—it's honeycombed all over with disused lead-mines—some of the old shafts are a tremendous depth. All the same, you see, there's some tinker chap, or some gipsies, camped out down there and got a fire. That old ruin, up on the crag there, is called Ellersdeane Tower—one of Lord Ellersdeane's ancestors built it for an observatory—this path'll lead us right beneath it."

"Is this the path he would have taken if he'd gone to Ellersdeane on Saturday night?" asked Betty.

"Precisely—straight ahead, past the Tower," answered Neale. "And there is Ellersdeane itself, right away in the distance, amongst its trees. There!—where the moonlight catches it. Now let your eye follow that far line of wood, over the tops of the trees about Ellersdeane village—do you see where the moonlight shines on another high roof? That's Gabriel Chestermarke's place—the Warren."

"So—he and Lord Ellersdeane are neighbours!" remarked Betty.

"Neighbours at a distance of a mile—and who do no more than nod to each other," answered Neale. "Lord Ellersdeane and Mr. Horbury were what you might call friends, but I don't believe his lordship ever spoke ten words with either of the Chestermarkes until this morning. I tell you the Chestermarkes are regular hermits!—when they're at home or about Scarnham, anyhow. Now let's go as far as the Tower—you can see all over the country from that point."

Betty followed her guide down a narrow path which led in and out through the undulations of the Hollow until it reached the foot of the promontory on which stood the old ruin that made such a prominent landmark. Seen at close quarters Ellersdeane Tower was a place of much greater size and proportion than it had appeared from the edge of the wood, and the path to its base was steep and rocky. And here the loneliness in which she and Neale had so far walked came to an end—on the edge of the promontory, outlined against the moonlit sky, two men stood, talking in low tones.

CHAPTER VII

THE TRAVELLING TINKER

Neale's eye caught the gleam of silver braid on the clothing of one of the two men, and he hastened his steps a little as he and Betty emerged on the level ground at the top of the steep path.

"That's a policeman," he said. "It'll be the constable from Ellersdeane. The other man looks like a gamekeeper. Let's see if they've heard anything."

The two figures turned at the sound of footsteps, and came slowly in Neale's direction. Both recognized him and touched their hats.

"I suppose you're looking round in search of anything about Mr. Horbury?" suggested Neale. "Heard any news or found any trace?"

"Well, we're what you might call taking a preliminary observation, Mr. Neale," answered the policeman. "His lordship's sent men out all over the neighbourhood. No, we've heard nothing, nor seen anything, either. But, then, there's not much chance of hearing anything hereabouts. The others have gone round asking at houses, and such-like—to find out if he was seen to pass anywhere. Of course, his lordship was figuring on the chance that Mr. Horbury might have had a fit, or something of that sort, and fallen somewhere along this path, between the town and Ellersdeane House—it's not much followed, this path. But we've seen nothing—up to now."

Neale turned to the keeper.

"Were none of your people about here on Saturday night?" he asked. "You've a good many watchers on the estate, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir—a dozen or more," answered the keeper. "But we don't come this way—this isn't our land. Our beats lie the other way—t'other side of the village. We never come on to this part at all."

"This, you know, Mr. Neale," remarked the policeman, jerking his thumb over the Hollow, "this, in a manner of speaking, belongs to nobody. Some say it belongs to the Crown—I don't know. All I know is that nobody has any rights over it—it's been what you might term common land ever since anybody can remember. This here Mr. Horbury that's missing—your governor, sir—I once met him out here, and had a bit of talk with him, and he told me that it isn't even known who worked them old lead-mines down there, nor who has any rights over all this waste. That, of course," concluded the policeman, pointing to the glowing fire which Neale and Betty had seen from the edge of the wood, "that's why chaps like yonder man come and camp here just as they like—there's nobody to stop 'em."

"Who is the man?" asked Neale, glancing at the fire, whose flames made a red spot amongst the bushes.

"Most likely a travelling tinker chap, sir, that comes this way now and again," answered the policeman. "Name of Creasy—Tinner Creasy, the folks call him. He's come here for many a year, at odd times. Camps out with his pony and cart, and goes round the villages and farmsteads, seeing if there's aught to mend, and selling 'em pots and pans and such-like. Stops a week or two—sometimes longer."

"And poaches all he can lay hands on," added the gamekeeper. "Only he takes good care never to go off this Hollow to do it."

"Have you made any inquiry of him?" asked Neale.

"We were just thinking of doing that, sir," replied the policeman. "He roams up and down about here at nights, when he is here. But I don't know how long he's been camping this time—it's very seldom I ever come round this way myself—there's naught to come for."

"Let's go across there and speak to him," said Neale.

He and Betty followed the two men down the side of the promontory and across the ups and downs of the Hollow, until they came to a deeper depression fringed about by a natural palisading of hawthorn. And as they drew near and could see into the dingle-like recess which the tinker had selected for his camping-ground they became aware of a savoury and appetizing odour, and the gamekeeper laughed.

"Cooking his supper, is Tinner Creasy!" he remarked. "And good stuff he has in his pot, too!"

The tinker, now in full view, sat on a log near a tripod, beneath which crackled a bright fire, burning under a black pot. The leaping flames revealed a shrewd, weather-beaten face which turned sharply towards the bushes as the visitors appeared; they also lighted up the tinker's cart in the background, the browsing pony close by, the implements of the tinner's trade strewn around on the grass. It was an alluring picture of vagabond life, and Neale suddenly compared it with the dull existence of folk who, like himself, were chained to a desk. He would have liked to sit down by Tinner Creasy and ask him about his doings—but the policeman had less poetical ideas.

"Hullo, Tinner!" said he, with easy familiarity. "Here again, what? I thought we should be seeing your fire some night this spring. Been here long?"

The tinker, who had remained seated on his log until he saw that a lady was of the party, rose and touched the edge of his fur cap to Betty in a way which indicated that his politeness was entirely for her.

"Since yesterday," he answered laconically.

"Only since yesterday!" exclaimed the policeman. "Ah! that's a pity, now. You wasn't here Saturday night, then?"

The tinker turned a quizzical eye on the four inquiring faces.

"How would I be here Saturday night when I only came yesterday?" he retorted. "You're the sort of chap that wants two answers to one question! What about Saturday night?"

The policeman took off his helmet and rubbed the top of his head as if to encourage his faculties.

"Nay!" he said. "There's a gentleman missing from Scarnham yonder, and it's thought he came out this way after dark, Saturday night, and something happened. But, of course, if you wasn't in these parts then——"

"I wasn't, nor within ten miles of 'em," said Creasy. "Who is the gentleman?"

"Mr. Horbury, the bank manager," answered the policeman.

"I know Mr. Horbury," remarked Creasy, with a glance at Neale and Betty. "I've talked to him a hundred-and-one times on this waste. So it's him, is it? Well, there's one thing you can be certain about."

"What?" asked Betty eagerly.

"Mr. Horbury wouldn't happen aught by accident, hereabouts," answered the tinker significantly. "He knew every inch of this Hollow. Some folks, now, might take a header into one o' them old lead-mines. He wouldn't. He could ha' gone blind-fold over this spot."

"Well—he's disappeared," observed the policeman. "There's a search being made, all round. You heard naught last night, I suppose?"

Creasy gave Neale and Betty a look.

"Heard plenty of owls, and night-jars, and such-like," he answered, "and foxes, and weasels, and stoats, and beetles creeping in the grass. Naught human!"

The policeman resumed his helmet and sniffed audibly. He and the keeper moved away and talked together. Then the policeman turned to Neale.

"Well, we'll be getting back to the village, sir," he said. "If so be as you see our super, Mr. Neale, you might mention that we're out and about."

He and his companion went off by a different path; at the top of a rise in the ground the policeman turned again.

"Tinner!" he called.

"Hullo?" answered Creasy.

"If you should hear or find aught," said the policeman, "come to me, you know."

"All right!" assented Creasy. He picked up some wood and replenished his fire. And glancing at Neale and Betty, who still lingered, he let fall a muttered whisper under his breath. "Bide a bit—till those chaps have gone," he said. "I've a word or two."

He walked away to his cart after this mysterious communication, dived under its tilt, evidently felt for and found something, and came back, glancing over his shoulder to see that keeper and policeman had gone their ways.

"I never tell chaps of that sort anything, mister," he said, giving Neale a sly wink. "Them of my turn of life look on all gamekeepers and policemen as their natural enemies. They'd both of 'em turn me out o' this if they could!—only they know they can't. For some reason or other Ellersdeane Hollow is No Man's Land—and therefore mine. And so—I wasn't going to say anything to them—not me!"

"Then there is something you can say?" said Neale.

"You were here on Saturday!" exclaimed Betty. "You know something!"

"No, miss, I wasn't here Saturday," answered the tinker, "and I don't know anything—about what yon man asked, anyway—I told him the truth about all that. But—you say Mr. Horbury's missing, and that he's considered to have come this way on Saturday night. So—do either of you know that?"

He drew his right hand from behind him, and in the glare of the firelight showed them, lying across its palm, a briar tobacco-pipe, silver-mounted.

"I found that, last night, gathering dry sticks," he said. "It's letters engraved on the silver band—'J. H. from B. F.' 'J. H.' now?—does that mean John Horbury?—you see, I know his Christian name."

Betty uttered a sharp exclamation and took the pipe in her hand. She turned to Neale with a look of sudden fear.

"It's the pipe I gave my uncle last Christmas!" she said. "Of course I know it! Where did you find it?" she went on, turning on Creasy. "Do tell us—do show us!"

"Foot of the crag there, miss—right beneath the old tower," answered Creasy. "And it's just as I found it. I'll give it to you, sir, to take to Superintendent Polke in Scarnham—he knows me. But just let me point something out. I ain't a detective, but in my eight-and-forty years I've had to keep my wits sharpened and my eyes open. Point out to Polke, and notice yourself—that whenever that pipe was dropped it was being smoked! The tobacco's caked at the surface—just as it would be if the pipe had been laid down at the very time the tobacco was burning well—if you're a smoker you'll know what I mean. That's one thing. The other is—just observe that the silver band is quite bright and fresh, and that there are no stains on the briar-wood. What's that indicate, young lady and young gentleman? Why, that that pipe hadn't been lying so very long when I found it! Not above a day, I'll warrant."

"That's very clever of you, very observant!" exclaimed Betty. "But—won't you show us the exact place where you picked it up?"

Creasy cast a glance at his cooking pot, stepped to it, and slightly tilted the lid. Then he signed to them to go back towards the tower by the path by which they had come.

"Don't want my supper to boil over, or to burn," he remarked. "It's the only decent meal I get in the day, you see, miss. But it won't take a minute to show you where I found the pipe. Now—what's the idea, sir," he went on, turning to Neale, "about Mr. Horbury's disappearance? Is it known that he came out here Saturday night?"

"Not definitely," replied Neale. "But it's believed he did. He was seen to set off in this direction, and there's a probability that he crossed over here on his way to Ellersdeane. But he's never been seen since he left Scarnham."

"Well," observed Creasy, "as I said just now, he wouldn't happen anything by accident in an ordinary way. Was there any reason why anybody should set on him?"

"There may have been," replied Neal.

"He wouldn't be likely to have aught valuable on him, surely—that time o' night?" said the tinker.

"He may have had," admitted Neale. "I can't tell you more."

Creasy asked no farther question. He led the way to the foot of the promontory, at a point where a mass of rock rose sheer out of the hollow to the plateau crowned by the ruinous tower.

"Here's where I picked up the pipe," he said. "Lying amongst this rubbish—stones and dry wood, you see—I just caught the gleam of the silver band. Now what should Mr. Horbury be doing down here? The path, you see, is a good thirty yards off. But—he may have fallen over—or been thrown over—and it's a sixty-feet drop from top to bottom."

Neale and Betty looked up the face of the rocks and said nothing. And Creasy presently went on, speaking in a low voice:—

"If he met with foul play—if, for instance, he was thrown over here in a struggle—or if, taking a look from the top there, he got too near the edge and something gave way," he said, "there's about as good means of getting rid of a dead man in this Ellersdeane Hollow as in any place in England! That's a fact!"

"You mean the lead-mines?" murmured Neale.

"Right, sir! Do you know how many of these old workings there is?" asked Creasy. "There's between fifty and sixty within a square mile of this tower. Some's fenced in—most isn't. Some of their mouths are grown over with bramble and bracken. And all of 'em are of tremendous depth. A man could be thrown down one of those mines, sir, and it 'ud be a long job finding his body! But all that's very frightening to the lady, and we'll hope nothing of it happened. Still——"

"It has to be faced," said Betty. "Listen—I am Mr. Horbury's niece, and I'm offering a reward for news of him. Will you keep your eyes and ears open while you're in this neighbourhood?"

The tinker promised that he would do his best, and presently he went back to his fire, while Neale and Betty turned away towards the town. Neither spoke until they were half-way through the wood; then Betty uttered her fears in a question.

"Do you think the finding of that pipe shows he was—there?" she asked.

"I'm sure of it," replied Neale. "I wish I wasn't. But—I saw him with this pipe in his lips at two o'clock on Saturday! I recognized it at once."

"Let's hurry on and see the police," said Betty. "We know something now, at any rate."

Polke, they were told at the police-station, was in his private house close by: a polite constable conducted them thither. And presently they were shown into the superintendent's dining-room, where Polke, hospitably intent, was mixing a drink for a stranger. The stranger, evidently just in from a journey, rose and bowed, and Polke waved his hand at him with a smile, as he looked at the two young people.

"Here's your man, miss!" said Polke cheerily. "Allow me—Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, of the Criminal Investigation Department."

CHAPTER VIII

THE SATURDAY NIGHT STRANGER

Neale, who had never seen a real, live detective in the flesh, but who cherished something of a passion for reading sensational fiction and the reports of criminal cases in the weekly newspapers, looked at the man from New Scotland Yard with a feeling of surprise. He knew Detective-Sergeant Starmidge well enough by name and reputation. He was the man who had unravelled the mysteries of the Primrose Hill murder—a particularly exciting and underground affair. It was he who had been intimately associated with the bringing to justice of the Camden Town Gang—a group of daring and successful criminals which had baffled the London police for two years. Neale had read all about Starmidge's activities in both cases, and of the hairbreadth escape he had gone through in connection with the second. And he had formed an idea of him—which he now saw to be a totally erroneous one. For Starmidge did not look at all like a detective—in Neale's opinion. Instead of being elderly, and sinister, and close of eye and mouth, he was a somewhat shy-looking, open-faced, fresh-coloured young man, still under thirty, modest of demeanour, given to smiling, who might from his general appearance have been, say, a professional cricketer, or a young commercial traveller, or anything but an expert criminal catcher.

"Only just got here, and a bit tired, miss," continued Polke, waving his hand again at the detective. "So I'm just giving him a refresher to liven his brains up. He'll want 'em—before we've done."

Betty took the chair which Polke offered her, and looked at the stranger with interest. She knew nothing about Starmidge, and she thought him quite different to any preconceived notion which she had ever had of men of his calling.

"I hope you'll be able to help us," she said politely, as Starmidge, murmuring something about his best respects to his host, took a whisky-and-soda from Polke's hand. "Do you think you will—and has Mr. Polke told you all about it?"

"Given him a mere outline, miss," remarked Polke. "I'll prime him before he goes to bed. Yes—he knows the main facts."

"And what do you propose to do—first?" demanded Betty.

Starmidge smiled and set down his glass.

"Why, first," he answered, "first, I think I should like to see a photograph of Mr. Horbury."

Polke moved to a bureau in the corner of his dining-room.

"I can fit you up," he said. "I've a portrait here that Mr. Horbury gave me not so long ago. There you are!"

He produced a cabinet photograph and handed it to Starmidge, who looked at it and laid it down on the table without comment.

"I suppose that conveys nothing to you?" asked Betty.

"Well," replied Starmidge, with another smile, "if a man's missing, one naturally wants to know what he's like. And if there's any advertising of him to be done—by poster, I mean—it ought to have a recent portrait of him."

"To be sure," agreed Polke.

"So far as I understand matters," continued Starmidge, "this gentleman left his house on Saturday evening, hasn't been seen since, and there's an idea that he probably walked across country to a place called Ellersdeane. But up to now there's no proof that he did. I think that's all, Mr. Polke?"

"All!" assented Polke.

"No!" said Neale. "Miss Fosdyke and I have brought you some news. Mr. Horbury must have crossed Ellersdeane Hollow on Saturday night. Look at this!—and I'll tell you all about it."

The superintendent and the detective listened silently to Neale's account of the meeting with Creasy, and Betty, watching Starmidge's face, saw that he was quietly taking in all the points of importance.

"Is this tin-man to be depended upon?" he asked, when Neale had finished. "Is he known?"

"I know him," answered Polke. "He's come to this neighbourhood for many years. Yes—an honest chap enough—bit given to poaching, no doubt, but straight enough in all other ways—no complaint of him that I ever heard of. I should believe all he says about this."

"Then, as that's undoubtedly Mr. Horbury's pipe, and as this gentleman saw him smoking it at two o'clock on Saturday, and as Creasy picked it up underneath Ellersdeane Tower on Sunday evening," said Starmidge, "there seems no doubt that Mr. Horbury went that way, and dropped it where it was found. But—I can't think he was carrying Lord Ellersdeane's jewels home!"

"Why?" asked Neale.

"Is it likely?" suggested Starmidge. "One's got—always—to consider probability. Is it probable that a bank manager would put a hundred thousand pounds' worth of jewels in his pocket, and walk across a lonely stretch of land at that time of night, just to hand them over to their owner? I think not—especially as he hadn't been asked to do so. I think that if Mr. Horbury had been in a hurry to deliver up these jewels, he'd have driven out to Lord Ellersdeane's place."

"Good!" muttered Polke. "That's the more probable thing."

"Where are the jewels, then?" asked Neale.

Starmidge glanced at Polke with one expression, at Betty and Neale with another.

"They haven't been searched for yet, have they?" he asked quietly. "They may be—somewhere about, you know."

"You mean to search for them?" exclaimed Betty.

"I don't know what I intend to do," replied Starmidge, smiling. "I haven't even thought. I shall have thought a lot by morning. But—the country's being searched, isn't it, for news of Mr. Horbury?—perhaps we'll hear something. It's a difficult thing for a well-known man to get clear away from a little place like this. No!—what I'd like to know—what I want to satisfy myself about is—did Mr. Horbury go away at all? Is there really anything missing from the bank? Are those jewels really missing? You see," concluded Starmidge, looking round his circle of listeners, "there's an awful lot to take into account."

At that moment Polke's domestic servant tapped at the door and put her head inside the room.

"If you please, Mr. Polke, there's Mrs. Pratt, from the Station Hotel, would like a word with you," she said.

The superintendent hurried from the room—to return at once with a stout, middle-aged woman, who, as she entered, raised her veil and glanced half-suspiciously at Polke's other visitors.

"All friends here, Mrs. Pratt," said the superintendent reassuringly. "You know young Mr. Neale well enough. This lady is Mr. Horbury's niece—anxious to find him. That gentleman's a friend of mine—you can say aught you like before him. Well, ma'am!—you think you can tell me something about this affair? What might it be, now?"

Mrs. Pratt, taking the chair which Starmidge placed for her at the end of the table, nodded a general greeting to the company, and lifting her veil and untying her bonnet-strings, revealed a good-natured countenance.

"Well, Mr. Polke," she said, turning to the superintendent, "taking your word for it that we're all friends—me being pretty sure, all the same, that this gentleman's one of your own profession, which I don't object to—I'll tell you what it is I've come up for, special, as it were, and me not waiting until after closing-time to do it. But that town-crier's been down our way, and hearing him making his call between our house and the station, and learning what it was all about, thinks I to myself, 'I'd best go up and see the super and tell him what I know.' And," concluded Mrs. Pratt, beaming around her, "here I am!"

"Ay—and what do you know, ma'am?" asked Polke. "Something, of course."

"Or I shouldn't be here," agreed Mrs. Pratt, smoothing out a fold of her gown. "Well—Saturday afternoon, the time being not so many minutes after the 5.30 got in, and therefore you might say at the outside twenty minutes to six, a strange gentleman walked across from the station to our hotel, which is, as you're all well aware, exactly opposite. I happened to be in the bar-parlour window at the time, and I saw him crossing—saw, likewise, from the way he looked about him, and up at the town above us, that he'd never been in Scarnham before. And happen I'd best tell you what like he was, while the recollection's fresh in my mind—a little gentleman he was, very well dressed in what you might call the professional style; dark clothes and so forth, and a silk top-hat; I should say about fifty years of age, with a fresh complexion and a biggish grey moustache and a nicely rolled umbrella—quite the little swell he was. He made for our door, and I went to the bar-window to attend to him. He wanted to know if he could get some food, and I said of course he could—we'd some uncommon nice chops in the house. So he ordered three chops and setterers—and then he asked if we'd a telephone in the house, and could he use it. And, of course, I told him we had, and showed him where it was—after which he wanted a local directory, and I gave him Scammond's Guide. He turned that over a bit, and then, when he'd found what he wanted, he went to our telephone box—which, as you're well aware, Mr. Polke, is in our front hall. And into it he popped."

Mrs. Pratt paused a moment, and gave her listeners a knowing look, as if she was now about to narrate the most important part of her story.

"But what you mayn't be aware of, Mr. Polke," she continued, "is that our telephone box, which has glass panels in its upper parts, has at this present time one of these panels broken—our pot-man did it, carrying a plank through the hall. So that any one passing to and fro, as it were, when anybody's using the telephone, can't help hearing a word or two of what's being said inside. Now, of course, I was passing in and out, giving orders for this gentleman's chops, when he was in the box. And I heard a bit of what he said, though I didn't, naturally, hear aught of what was said to him, nor who by. But it's in consequence of what I did hear, and of what Tolson, the town-crier, has been shouting down our way tonight, that I come up here to see you."

"Much obliged to you, Mrs. Pratt," said Polke. "Very glad to hear anything that may have to do with Mr. Horbury's disappearance. Now, what did you hear?"

"What I heard," replied the landlady, "was this here—disjointed, as you would term it. First of all I hear the gentleman ask for 'Town 23.' Now, of course, you know whose number that there is, Mr. Polke."

"Chestermarke's Bank," said Neale, turning to Betty.

"Chestermarke's Bank it is, sir," assented Mrs. Pratt. "Which you know very well, as also do I, having oft called it up. Very well—I didn't hear no more just then, me going into the dining-room to see that our maid laid the table proper. But when I was going back to the bar, I heard more. 'Along the river-side?' says the gentleman, 'Straight on from where I am—all right.' Then after a minute, 'At seven-thirty, then?' he says. 'All right—I'll meet you.' And after that he rings off—and he went into the dining-room, and in due course he had his chops, and some tart and cheese, and a pint of our bitter ale, and took his time, and perhaps about a quarter past seven he came to the bar and paid, and he took a drop of Scotch whisky. After which he says, 'It's very possible, landlady, that I may have to stop in the town all night—have you a nice room that you can let me?' 'Certainly, sir,' says I. 'We've very good rooms, and bathrooms, and every convenience—shall I show you one?' 'No,' says he, 'this seems a good house, and I'll take your word for it—keep your best room for me, then.' And after that he lighted a cigar and went out, saying he'd be back later, and he crossed the road and went down on the river-bank, and walked slowly along towards the bottom of the town. And Mr. Polke and company," concluded Mrs. Pratt, solemnly turning from one listener to another, "that was the last I saw of him. For—he never came back!"

"Never came back!" echoed Polke.

"Not even the ghost of him!" said Mrs. Pratt. "I waited up myself till twelve, and then I decided that he'd changed his mind and was stopping with somebody he knew, which person, Mr. Polke, I took to be Mr. Horbury. Why? 'Cause he'd rung up Chestermarke's Bank—and who should he want at Chestermarke's Bank at six o'clock of a Saturday evening but Mr. Horbury? There wouldn't be nobody else there—as Mr. Neale'll agree."

"You never heard of this gentleman being in the town on Sunday or today?" asked Polke.

"Not a word!" replied Mrs. Pratt. "And never saw him go to the station, neither, to leave the town. Now, as you know, Mr. Polke, we've only two trains go away from here on Sundays, and there's only four on any week-day, us being naught but a branch line, and as our bar-parlour window is exactly opposite the station, I see everybody that goes and comes—I always was one for looking out of window! And I'm sure that little gentleman didn't go away neither yesterday nor today. And that's all I know," concluded Mrs. Pratt, rising, "and if it's any use to you, you're welcome, and hopeful I am that your poor uncle'll be found, Miss, for a nicer gentleman I could never wish to meet!"

Mrs. Pratt departed amidst expressions of gratitude and police admonitions to keep her news to herself for awhile, and Betty and Neale turned eagerly to the famous detective. But Starmidge appeared to have entered upon a period of silence, and made no further observation than that he would wait upon Miss Fosdyke in the morning, and presently the two young people followed Mrs. Pratt into the street and turned into the Market-Place. The last of the evening revellers were just coming out of the closing taverns, and to a group of them, Tolson, the town-crier, was dismally calling forth his announcement that one hundred pounds reward would be paid to any person who first gave news of having seen Mr. John Horbury on the previous Saturday evening or since. The clanging of his bell, and the strident notes of his cracked voice, sounded in the distance as Betty said good-night to Neale and turned sadly into the Scarnham Arms.

CHAPTER IX

NO FURTHER INFORMATION

Chestermarke's clerks found no difficulty in obtaining access to the bank when they presented themselves at its doors at nine o'clock next morning. Both partners were already there, and appeared to have been there for some time. And Joseph at once called Neale into the private parlour, and drew his attention to a large poster which lay on a side-table, its ink still wet from the printing press.

"Let Patten put that up in one of the front windows, Neale," he said. "It's just come in—I gave the copy for it last night. Read it over—I think it's satisfactory, eh?"

Neale bent over the big, bold letters, and silently read the announcement:—

"Messrs. Chestermarke, in view of certain unauthorized rumours, now circulating in the town and neighbourhood, respecting the disappearance of their late manager, Mr. John Horbury, take the earliest opportunity of announcing that all Customers' Securities and Deposits in their hands are safe, and that business will be conducted in the usual way."

"That make things clear?" asked Joseph, closely watching his clerk. "To our clients, I mean?"

"Quite clear, I should say," replied Neale.

"Then get it up at once, before opening hours, and save all the bother of questions," commanded Joseph. "And if people do come asking questions—as some of them will!—tell them not to bother themselves—nor us. We don't want to waste our time interviewing fools all the morning."

Neale took the poster and went out, with no further remark. And presently the junior clerk, with the aid of a few wafers, fixed the announcement in the window which looked out on the Market-Place, and people began to gather round and to read it, and, after the usual fashion of country-born folk, then went away to talk about it. In half an hour it was known in every shop and tavern parlour in Scarnham Market-Place that despite the town-crier's announcement, and the wild rumours of the night before, Chestermarke's Bank was all right, and Chestermarkes were already speaking of Horbury in the past tense—he was (wherever he might be) no longer the manager of that ancient concern; he was the late manager.

At ten o'clock Superintendent Polke, bluff and cheery as usual, and Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, eyeing his new surroundings with appreciative curiosity, strolled round the corner from the police-station and approached the bank. Half a dozen loungers were gathered before the window, reading the poster; the two police officials joined them and also read—in silence. Then, with a look at each other, they turned into the door which Patten had just opened. Neale hurried to the counter to meet them.

"Well, Mr. Neale," said Polke, as if he had called on the most ordinary business, "we'll just have a word with your principals, if they please. A mere interchange of views, you know: we shan't keep 'em."

"They don't want bothering," whispered Neale, bending over the counter. "Shan't I do instead?"

"No, sir!" answered Polke. "Nothing but principals will do! Here, Starmidge, give Mr. Neale one of your official cards."

Neale took the card and disappeared into the parlour, where he laid it before Gabriel.

"Mr. Polke is with him, sir," he said. "They say they won't detain you."

Gabriel tossed the card over to his nephew with a look of inquiry: Joseph sneered at it, and threw it into a waste-paper basket.

"Tell them we don't wish to see them," he answered. "We——"

"Stop a bit!" interrupted Gabriel. "I think perhaps we'd better see them. We may as well see them, and have done with it. Bring them in, Neale."

Polke and Starmidge, presently entering, found themselves coldly greeted. Gabriel made the slightest inclination of his head, in response to Polke's salutation and the detective's bow: Joseph pointedly gave no heed to either.

"Well?" demanded the senior partner.

"We've just called, Mr. Chestermarke, to hear if you've anything to say to us about this matter of Mr. Horbury's," said Polke. "Of course, you know it's been put in our hands."

"Not by us!" snapped Gabriel.

"Quite so, sir, by Lord Ellersdeane, and by Mr. Horbury's niece, Miss Fosdyke," assented Polke. "The young lady, of course, is naturally anxious about her uncle's safety, and Lord Ellersdeane is anxious about the Countess's jewels. And we hear that securities of yours are missing."

"We haven't told you so," retorted Gabriel.

"We haven't even approached you," remarked Joseph.

"Just so!" agreed Polke. "But, under the circumstances——"

"We have nothing to say to you, superintendent," interrupted Gabriel. "We can't help anything that Lord Ellersdeane has done, nor anything that Miss Fosdyke likes to do. Lord Ellersdeane is not, and never has been, a customer of ours. Miss Fosdyke acts independently. If they call you in—as they seem to have done very thoroughly—it's their look out. We haven't! When we want your assistance, we'll let you know. At present—we don't."

He waved one of the white hands towards the door as he spoke, as if to command withdrawal. But Polke lingered.

"You don't propose to give the police any information, then, Mr. Chestermarke?" he asked quietly.

"At present we don't propose to give any information to anybody whom it doesn't concern," replied Gabriel. "As regards the mere surface facts of Mr. John Horbury's disappearance, you know as much as we do."

"You don't propose to join in any search for him or any attempt to discover his whereabouts, sir?" inquired Starmidge, speaking for the first time.

Gabriel looked up from his paper, and slowly eyed his questioner.

"What we propose to do is a matter for ourselves," he answered coldly. "For no one else."

Starmidge bowed and turned away, and Polke, after hesitating a moment, said good-morning and followed him from the room. The two men nodded to Neale and went out into the Market-Place.

"Well?" said Polke.

"Queer couple!" remarked Starmidge.

Polke jerked his thumb at the poster in the bank window.

"Of course!" he said, "so long as they can satisfy their customers that all's right so far as they're concerned, we can't get at what is missing that belongs to the Chestermarkes."

"There are ways of finding that out," replied Starmidge quietly.

"What ways, now?" asked Polke. "We can't make 'em tell us their private affairs. Supposing Horbury has robbed them, they aren't forced to tell us how much or how little he's robbed 'em of!"

"All in good time," remarked the detective. "We're only beginning. Let's go and talk to this Miss Fosdyke a bit. She doesn't mind what money she spends on this business, you say?"

"Not if it costs her her last penny!" answered Polke.

"All right," said Starmidge. "Fosdyke's Entire represents a lot of pennies. We'll just have a word or two with her."

Betty, looking out of her window on the Market-Place, had seen the two men leave Chestermarke's Bank, and was waiting eagerly for their coming. She listened intently to Polke's account of the interview with the partners, and her cheeks glowed indignantly as he brought it to an end.

"Shameful!" she exclaimed. "To make accusations against my uncle, and then to refuse to say what they are! But—can't you make them say?"

"We'll try, in good time," answered Starmidge. "Slow and steady's the game here. For, whatever it is, it's a deep game."

"Nothing has been heard since I saw you last night?" asked Betty anxiously. "No one has brought you any news?"

"No news of any sort, miss," replied Polke.

"What's to be done, then, next?" she inquired, looking from one to the other. "Do let us do something!"

"Oh, we'll do a lot, Miss Fosdyke, before the day's out," said Starmidge reassuringly. "I'm going to work just now. Now, the first thing is, publicity! We must have all this in the newspapers at once." He turned to the superintendent. "I suppose there's some journalist here in the town who sends news to the London press, isn't there?" he asked.

"Parkinson, editor of the 'Scarnham Advertiser,' he does," replied Polke, with promptitude. "He's a sort of reporter-editor, you understand, and jolly glad of a bit of extra stuff."

"That's the first thing," said Starmidge. "The next, we must have a reward bill printed immediately, and circulated broadcast. It must have a portrait on it—I'll take that photograph you showed me last night. And—we'll have to offer a specific reward in each. How much is it to be, Miss Fosdyke? For you'll have to pay it, you know."

"Anything you like!" said Betty eagerly. "A thousand pounds?—would that do, to begin with."

"We'll say half of it," answered Starmidge. "Very good. Now, Mr. Polke, if you'll tell me where this Mr. Parkinson's to be found, and where the best printing office in the place is, I'll go to work."

"Scammonds are the best printers—and they're quick," said Polke. "But I'll come with you."

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Betty. "If I could only be doing something!"

Starmidge nodded his comprehension and mused a while.

"Just so!" he said. "You don't want to sit and wait. Well, there is something you might do, Miss Fosdyke, as you're Mr. Horbury's niece. Mr. Polke's been telling me about Mr. Horbury's household arrangements. Now, as you are a relation, suppose you call on his housekeeper, who was the last person to see him, and get all the information you can out of her? Draw her on to talk—you never know what interesting point you mayn't get in that way. And—are you Mr. Horbury's nearest relation?"

"Yes—the very nearest—next-of-kin," answered Betty.

"Then ask to see his papers—his desk—his private belongings," said Starmidge. "Demand to see them! You've the legal right. And let us know—you'll always find me somewhere about Mr. Polke's—how you get on. Now, superintendent, we'll get to work."

Outside the Scarnham Arms, Starmidge looked at his companion with a sly smile.

"Are you anything of a betting man?" he asked.

"Naught much—odd half-crown now and then," replied Polke. "Why?"

"Lay you a fiver to a shilling Miss Fosdyke won't see anything of Horbury's—nor get any information!" answered Starmidge, more slyly than ever. "She won't be allowed!"

Polke gave the detective a shrewd look.

"I dare say!" he said. "Whew!—it's a queer game, this, Starmidge. First moves of it, anyway."

"Let's get on to the next," counselled Starmidge. "Where's this journalist?"

Mr. Parkinson, a high-browed, shock-headed young man, who combined the duties of editor and reporter with those of advertisement canvasser and business manager of the one four-page sheet which Scarnham boasted, received the two police officials in a small office in which there was just room for himself and his visitors to squeeze themselves.

"I was about coming round to you, Mr. Polke," he said. "Can you let me have the facts of this Horbury affair?"

"We've come to save you the trouble," answered Polke. "This gentleman—Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, of the C.I.D., Mr. Parkinson—wants to have a bit of a transaction with you."

Parkinson eyed the famous detective with as much wonder as Neale had felt on the previous evening.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Pleased to meet you, sir—I've heard of you. What can I do for you, Mr. Starmidge?"

"Can you wire—at our expense—a full account of all that I shall tell you, to a London Press agency that'll distribute it amongst all the London papers at once?" asked Starmidge. "You know what I mean?"

"I can," answered Parkinson. "And principal provincials, too. It'll be in all the evening papers this very night, sir."

"Then come on," said Starmidge, dropping into a chair by the editorial desk. "I'll tell you all about it."

Polke listened admiringly while the detective carefully narrated the facts of what was henceforth to be known as the Scarnham Mystery. Nothing appeared to have escaped Starmidge's observation and attention. And he was surprised to find that the detective's presentation of the case was not that which he himself would have made. Starmidge did no more than refer to the fact that Lady Ellersdeane's jewels were missing: he said nothing whatever about the rumours that some of Chestermarke's securities were said to have disappeared. But on one point he laid great stress—the visit of the little gentleman with the large grey moustache to the Station Hotel at Scarnham on the evening whereon John Horbury disappeared, and to the fragments of conversation overheard by Mrs. Pratt. He described the stranger as Mrs. Pratt had described him, and appealed to him, if he read this news, to come forward at once. Finally, he supplemented his account with a full description of John Horbury, carefully furnished by the united efforts of Polke and Parkinson, and wound up by announcing the five hundred pounds reward.

"All over England, tonight, and tomorrow morning, sir," said Parkinson, gathering up his copy. "Now I'm off to wire this at once. Great engine the Press, Mr. Starmidge!—I dare say you find it very useful in your walk of life."

Starmidge followed Polke into the Market-Place again.

"Now for that reward bill," he said. "I don't set so much store by it, but it's got to be done. It all helps. There's Miss Fosdyke—going to have a try at her bit."

He pointed down the broad pavement with an amused smile. Miss Betty Fosdyke, attired in her smartest, was just entering the portals of Chestermarke's Bank.

CHAPTER X

THE CHESTERMARKE WAY

Mrs. Carswell herself opened the door of the bank-house in response to Miss Fosdyke's ring. She started a little at sight of the visitor, and her eyes glanced involuntarily and, as it seemed to Betty, with something of uneasiness, at the side-door which led into the Chestermarkes' private parlour. And Betty immediately interpreted the meaning of that glance.

"No, Mrs. Carswell," she said, before the housekeeper could speak, "I haven't come to call on either Mr. Gabriel or Mr. Joseph Chestermarke—I came to see you. Mayn't I come in?"

Mrs. Carswell stepped back into the hall, and Betty followed. For a moment the two looked at each other. And in the elder woman's eyes there was still the same expression, and it was with obvious uncertainty, if not with positive suspicion, that she waited.

"You have not heard anything of Mr. Horbury?" asked Betty, who was not slow to notice the housekeeper's demeanour.

"Nothing!" replied Mrs. Carswell, with a shake of the head. "Nothing at all! No one has told me anything."

Betty turned to the door of the dining-room.

"Very well," she said. "I dare say you know, Mrs. Carswell, that I am my uncle's nearest relation. Now I want to go through his papers and things. I want to see his desk—his last letters—anything—and everything there is."

She laid a hand on the door—and Mrs. Carswell suddenly found her tongue.

"Oh, miss!" she said, in a low, frightened voice, "you can't! That room's locked up. So is the study—where all Mr. Horbury's papers are. So is his bedroom. Mr. Joseph Chestermarke locked them all up last night—he has the keys. Nobody's to go into them—nor into any other room—without his permission."

Betty's cheeks began to glow, and an obstinate look to settle about her lips.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "But I think I shall have something to say to that, Mrs. Carswell. Ask Mr. Joseph Chestermarke to come here a minute."

The housekeeper shrunk back.

"I daren't, Miss Fosdyke!" she answered. "It would be as much as my place was worth!"

"I thought you were my uncle's housekeeper," suggested Betty. "Aren't you? Or are you employed by Mr. Joseph Chestermarke? Come, now?"

Mrs. Carswell hesitated. It was very evident that she was afraid. But of what?

"So far as I know," continued Betty, "this is my uncle's house, and you're his servant. Am I right or wrong, Mrs. Carswell?"

"Right as regards my being engaged by Mr. Horbury," replied the housekeeper. "But the house belongs to—them! Mr. Horbury—so I understand—had the use of it—it was reckoned as part of his salary. It's their house, miss."

"But, anyway, my uncle's effects are his—and I mean to see them," insisted Betty. "If you won't call Mr. Joseph—or Mr. Gabriel—out, I shall walk into the bank at the front door, and demand to see them. You'd better let one of them know I'm here, Mrs. Carswell—I'm not going to stand any nonsense."

Mrs. Carswell hesitated a little, but in the end she knocked timidly at the private door. And presently Joseph Chestermarke opened it, looked out, saw Betty, and came into the hall. He offered his visitor no polite greeting, and for once he forgot his accustomed sneering smile. Instead, he gave the housekeeper a swift look which sent her away in haste, and he turned to Betty with an air of annoyance.

"Yes?" he asked abruptly. "What do you want?"

"I want to go into my uncle's house—into his rooms," said Betty. "I am his next-of-kin—I wish to examine his papers."

"You can't!" answered Joseph. "We haven't examined them ourselves yet."

"What right have you to examine them?" demanded Betty.

"Every right!" retorted Joseph.

"Not his private belongings!" she said firmly.

"This is our house—you're not going into it," declared Joseph. "Nobody's going into it—without our permission."

"We'll see about that, Mr. Joseph Chestermarke!" replied Betty. "If—supposing—my uncle is dead, I've the right to examine anything he's left. I insist upon it! I insist on seeing his papers, looking through his desk. And at once!"

"No!" said Joseph. "Nothing of the sort. We don't know that you've any right. We don't know that you're his next-of-kin. We're not—legally—aware that you're his niece. You say you are—but we don't know it—as a matter of real fact. You'd better go away."

Betty's cheeks flamed hotly and her eyes flashed.

"So that's your attitude—to me!" she exclaimed. "Very well! But you shall soon see whether I am what I say I am. What are you and your uncle implying, suggesting, hinting at?" she went on, suddenly letting her naturally hot temper get the better of her. "Do you realize what an utterly unworthy part you are playing? You accuse my uncle of being a thief—and you dare not make any specified accusation against him! You charge him with stealing your securities—and you daren't tell the police what securities! I don't believe you've a security missing! Nobody believes it! The police don't believe it. Lord Ellersdeane doesn't believe it. Why, your own clerk, Mr. Neale, who ought to know, if anybody does, doesn't believe it! You're telling lies, Mr. Joseph Chestermarke—there! Lies! I'll denounce you to the whole town—I'll expose you! I believe my uncle has met with some foul play—and as sure as I am his niece I'll probe the whole thing to the bottom. Are you going to admit me to those rooms?"

The door of the private room, which Joseph had left slightly ajar behind him, was pushed open a little, and Gabriel's colourless face looked out.

"Tell the young woman to go and see a solicitor," he said, and vanished again.

Joseph glanced at Betty, who was still staring indignantly at him.

"You hear?" he said quietly. "Now you'd better go away. You are not going in there."

Betty suddenly turned and walked out. She was across the Market-Place and at the door of the Scarnham Arms before her self-possession had come back to her. And she was aware then that a gentleman, who had just alighted from a horse which a groom was leading away to the stable yard, was looking and smiling at her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Is it you, Lord Ellersdeane?—I beg your pardon—I was preoccupied."

"So I saw," said the Earl. "I'd watched you come across from the Bank. Is there any news this morning?"

"Come up to my sitting-room and let us talk," said Betty. She led the way upstairs and closed her door on herself and her visitor. "No news of my uncle," she continued, turning to the Earl. "Have you any?"

The Earl shook his head disappointedly.

"No!" he replied. "I wish I had! I myself and a lot of my men have been searching all round Ellersdeane—practically all night. We've made inquiries at each of the neighbouring villages—without result. Have the police heard anything?—I've only just come into town."

"You haven't seen Polke, then?" said Betty. "Oh, well, he heard something last night." She went on to tell the Earl of the meeting with the tinker, and of Mrs. Pratt's account of the mysterious stranger, and of what Starmidge was now doing. "It all seems such slow work," she concluded, "but I suppose the police can't move any faster."

"You heard nothing at the bank itself—from the Chestermarkes?" asked the Earl.

"I heard sufficient to make me as—as absent-minded as I was when you met me just now! I went there, as my uncle's nearest relation, with a simple request to see his papers and things—a very natural desire, surely. The Chestermarkes have locked up his rooms—and they ordered me out—showed me the door!"

"How very extraordinary!" exclaimed the Earl. "Really!—in so many words?"

"I think Joseph had the grace to say I had better go away," said Betty. "And Gabriel—who called me a young woman—told me to go and see a solicitor, which, of course," she added reflectively, "is precisely what I shall do—as they will very soon find!"

The Earl stepped over to one of the windows, and stood for a moment or two silently looking out on the Market-Place.

"I don't understand this at all," he said at last. "What is the meaning of all this reserve on the Chestermarkes' part? Why didn't they tell the police what securities are missing? Why don't they let you, his niece, examine Horbury's effects? What right have they to fasten up his house?"

"Their house—so Mrs. Carswell says," remarked Betty.

"Oh, well—it may be their house, strictly speaking," agreed the Earl, "but Horbury was its tenant, anyway, and the furniture and things in it are his—I'm sure of that, for he and I shared a similar taste in collecting old oak, and I know where he bought most of his possessions. I can't make the behaviour of these people out at all—and I'm getting more and more uneasy about the whole thing, Miss Fosdyke—as I'm sure you are. I wonder if the police will find the man who came to the Station Hotel on Saturday? Now, if they could lay hands on him, and get to know who he was, and what he wanted, and if he really met your uncle——"

The Earl suddenly paused and turned from the window with a glance at Betty.

"There's young Mr. Neale coming across from the bank," he observed. "I think he's coming here. By the by, isn't he a relation of Horbury's?"

"No," said Betty. "But my uncle was his guardian. Is he coming here, Lord Ellersdeane?"

"Straight here," replied the Earl. "Perhaps he's got some news."

Betty had the door open before Neale could knock at it. He came in with a smile, and glanced half-whimsically, half as if he had queer news to give, at the two people who looked so inquiringly at him.

"Well?" demanded Betty. "What is it, Wallie? Have these two precious principals sent you with news?"

"They're not my principals any longer," answered Neale. He laid down some books and an old jacket on the table. "That's my old working coat," he went on, with a laugh. "I've worn it for the last time—at Chestermarke's. They've dismissed me."

Lord Ellersdeane turned sharply from the window, and Betty indulged in a cry of indignation.

"Dismissed—you?" she exclaimed. "Dismissed!"

"With a quarter's salary in lieu of notice," laughed Neale, slapping his pocket. "I've got it here—in gold."

"But—why?" asked Betty.

Neale shook his head at her.

"Because you told Joseph that I didn't believe them when they said that some of their securities were missing," he answered. "You did it! As soon as you'd gone, they had me in, told me that it was contrary to their principles to retain servants who took sides with other people against them, handed me a cheque, and told me to cash it forthwith and depart. And—here I am!"

"You don't seem to mind this very much, Mr. Neale," observed the Earl, looking keenly at this victim of summary treatment. "Do you?"

"If your lordship really wants to know," answered Neale, "I don't! I'm truly thankful. It's only what would have happened—in another way. I meant to leave Chestermarke's. If it hadn't been for Mr. Horbury, I should have left ages ago. I hate banking! I hated the life. And—I dislike Chestermarke's! Immensely! Now, I'll go and have a free life somewhere in Canada or some equally spacious clime—where I can breathe."

"Not at all!" said Betty decidedly. "You shall come and be my manager in London. The brewery wants one, badly. You shall have a handsome salary, Wallie—much more than you had at that beastly bank!"

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," laughed Neale. "But I think I'm inclined to put breweries in the same line with banks. Don't you be too rash, Betty—I'm not exactly cut out for commercialism. Not," he added reflectively, "not that I haven't been a very good servant to Chestermarke's. I have! But Chestermarkes are—what they are!"

The Earl, who had been watching the two young people with something of amused interest, suddenly came forward from the window.

"Mr. Neale!" he said.

"My lord!" responded Neale.

"What's your honest opinion about your late principals?" asked the Earl.

Neale shook his head slowly and significantly.

"I don't know," he answered.

"Do you know that they've—just now—refused Miss Fosdyke permission to examine her uncle's belongings?" continued the Earl. "That they wouldn't even let her enter the house?"

"No, I didn't know," replied Neale. "But I'm not surprised. Nothing that those two could do would ever surprise me."

"Feeling that, what do you advise in this case?" asked the Earl. "Come!—you're no longer in their employ—you can speak freely now. What do you think?"

"Well," said Neale, after a pause, and speaking with unusual gravity, "I think the police ought to make a thorough examination of the bank-house—I'm surprised it hasn't been thought of before."

The Earl picked up his hat.

"I've been thinking of it all the morning!" he said. "Come—let us all go round to Polke."

CHAPTER XI

THE SEARCH-WARRANT

As they turned out of the Market-Place into the street leading to the police-station, Lord Ellersdeane and his companions became aware of a curious figure which was slowly preceding them—that of a very old man whose massive head and long white hair, falling in thick shocks about his neck, was innocent of covering, whose tall, erect form was closely wrapped about in a great, many-caped horseman's cloak which looked as if it had descended to him from some early Georgian ancestor. In one hand he carried a long staff; the other clutched an ancient folio; altogether he was something very much out of the common, and Neale, catching sight of him, nudged Betty Fosdyke's elbow and pointed ahead.

"One of the sights of Scarnham!" he whispered. "Old Batterley, the antiquary. Never seen with a hat, and never without that cloak, his staff, and a book under his arm. You needn't be astonished if he suddenly stops and begins reading his book in the open street—it's a habit of his."

But the antiquary apparently had other business. He turned into the police-station, and when the three visitors followed him a moment later, he was already in Polke's private office, and Polke and Starmidge were gazing speculatively at him. Polke turned to the newcomers, as the old man, having fitted on a pair of large spectacles, recognized the Earl and executed a deep bow.

"Mr. Batterley's just called with a suggestion, my lord," observed Polke, good-humouredly. "He's heard of Mr. Horbury's disappearance, and of the loss of your lordship's jewels, and he says that an explanation of the whole thing may be got if we search the bank-house."

"Thoroughly!" said Batterley, with a warning shake of his big head. "Thoroughly—thoroughly, Mr. Polke! No use just walking through the rooms, and seeing what any housemaid would see—the thing must be done properly. Your lordship," he continued, turning to the Earl, "knows that many houses in our Market-Place possess secret passages, double-staircases, and the like—Horbury's house is certainly one of those that do. It has, of course, been modernized. My memory is not quite as good as it was, but I have a recollection that when I was a boy, well over seventy years ago—I am, as your lordship is aware, nearer ninety than eighty—there were hiding-places discovered in the bank-house at the time Matthew Chestermarke, grandfather of the present Gabriel, had it altered: in fact, I am quite sure I was taken by my father to see them. Now, of course, many of these places were bricked up, and so on, but I think—it is my impression—that a double staircase was left untouched, and some recesses in the panelling of the garden-room. That garden-room, Mr. Polke—if you know what I mean?"

"Mr. Batterley," remarked the Earl, "means the panelled room which looks out on the garden. Mr. Horbury has used it as a study."

"The garden-room," continued the old antiquary, "should be particularly examined. It is into that room that the double staircase opens—by a door concealed in the recess at the side of the fire-place. There were, I am sure, recesses behind the panelling in that room. Now, Horbury may have known of them—he had tastes of an antiquarian disposition—in an amateur way, you know. At any rate, Mr. Polke, you should examine the house—and especially that room, for Horbury may have hidden Lord Ellersdeane's property there. A deeply interesting room that!" added the old man musingly. "I haven't been in it for some sixty years or so, but I remember it quite well. It was in that room that Jasper Chestermarke murdered Sir Gervase Rudd."

Starmidge, who, like the rest of them, had been listening eagerly to Batterley's talk, turned sharply to him.

"Did you say murdered, sir?" he said.

"A well-known story!" answered the old man half-impatiently, as he rose from his chair. "An ancestor of these Chestermarkes—he killed a man in that very room. Well—that's what I suggest, Mr. Polke. And—for another reason. As Lord Ellersdeane there knows—being, as his lordship is, a member of our society—the bank-house is so old that underneath it there may be such matters as old wells, old drains. Now, supposing Horbury had discovered some way under the present house, some secret passage or something, and that he went down into it on Sunday—eh? He may have fallen into one of these places—and be lying there dead or helpless. It's possible, Mr. Polke, it's quite possible. I make the suggestion to you for what it's worth, you know."

The old man bowed himself out and went away, and Polke turned to Lord Ellersdeane and Betty.

"I'm glad your lordship's come in," he said. "Quite apart from what Mr. Batterley suggests, we'll have to examine that bank-house. It's all nonsense—allowing the Chestermarkes to have their own way about everything! It's time we examined Horbury's effects."

Starmidge turned to Betty.

"Did you succeed in getting in there, Miss Fosdyke?" he asked.

"No!" replied Betty. "Mr. Joseph Chestermarke absolutely refused me admittance, and his uncle told me to go to a solicitor."

"Good advice, certainly," remarked Polke drily. "You'd better take it, miss. But what's Mr. Neale doing here?"

"Mr. Neale," said the Earl, "has just been summarily dismissed for—to put it plainly—taking sides with Miss Fosdyke and myself."

"Ho, ho!" exclaimed Polke. "Ah! Well, my lord, there's only one thing to be done, and as your lordship's in town, let us do it at once."

"What?" asked the Earl.

"You must come with me before the borough magistrates—they're sitting now," said Polke, "and make application for a search-warrant. Your lordship will have to swear that you have lost your jewels, and that you have good cause to believe that they may be on the premises occupied lately by Mr. Horbury, to whose care you entrusted them. It's a mere matter of form—we shall get the warrant at once. Then Starmidge and I will go and execute it. Miss Fosdyke—just do what I suggest, if you please. Mr. Neale will take you to Mr. Pellworthy, the solicitor—he was your uncle's solicitor, and a friend of his. Tell him all about your visit to the bank this morning. Say that you insist, as next-of-kin, on having access to your uncle's belongings. Get Mr. Pellworthy to go with you to the bank. Meet Detective-Sergeant Starmidge and me outside there, in, say, half an hour. Then—we'll see what happens. Now, my lord, if you'll come with me, we'll apply for that search-warrant."

As the Scarnham clocks were striking twelve that morning, Gabriel and Joseph Chestermarke looked up from their desks to see Shirley's eyes, large with excitement, gazing at them from the threshold of their private parlour.

"Well?" demanded the senior partner.

The clerk moved nearer to his principal's desk.

"Mr. Polke's outside, sir, with the gentleman who came in with him before," announced Shirley. "He says he must see you at once. And—there's Mr. Pellworthy, sir, with Miss Fosdyke. Mr. Pellworthy says, sir, that he must see you at once, too."

Gabriel glanced at his nephew. And Joseph spoke without looking up from his writing-pad, and as if he knew that his partner was regarding him.

"Bring them all in," he said.

He himself criticized his writing as the four callers were ushered in; he did not even look round at them. Gabriel, more sphinx-like than ever, regarded each in order with an air of distinct disapproval. And he took care to speak first.

"Now, Mr. Pellworthy?" he said sharply. "What do you want?"

Pellworthy, an elderly man, looked at Gabriel with as much disapproval as Gabriel had bestowed on him.

"Mr. Chestermarke," he said quietly, "Miss Fosdyke, as next-of-kin to Mr. John Horbury—my client—desires to see and examine her uncle's effects. As you know very well, she is quite within her rights. I must ask you to give her access to Mr. Horbury's belongings."

"And what do you want, Mr. Polke?" demanded Gabriel.

Polke produced a formal-looking document and held it before the banker's eyes.

"Merely to show you that, Mr. Chestermarke," he answered. "That's a search-warrant, sir! It empowers me and Mr. Starmidge here to search—but I needn't read it to you, Mr. Chestermarke, I think. I suppose we can go into the house now?"

Faint spots of colour showed themselves on Gabriel's cheeks. And again he turned to his nephew. Joseph, however, did not speak. Instead, he turned to the wall at his side and pressed a bell. A moment later a maid-servant opened the private door which communicated with the house, and looked inquiringly and a little nervously inside. Joseph frowned at her.

"I rang twice!" he said. "That meant Mrs. Carswell. Send her here."

The girl hesitated.

"If you please, sir," she said at last, "Mrs. Carswell isn't in, sir, she's out."

Joseph turned sharply—up to this he had remained staring at the papers on his desk; now he twisted completely round in his chair.

"Where is she?" he demanded. "Fetch her!"

"If you please, sir, Mrs. Carswell hasn't been in for quite an hour, sir," said the girl. "She put on her things and went out, sir, just—just after that young lady called this morning. She—she's never come back, sir."

Polke, who was standing close to Starmidge, quietly nudged the detective's elbow. Both men watched the junior partner. And both saw the first signs of something that was very like doubt and anxiety show in his face.

"That'll do!" he said to the servant. He rose slowly from his desk, put a hand in his pocket, and drew out some keys. Without a word, he slightly motioned the visitors to follow him.

Out in the hall stood two men, who in spite of their plain clothes, were obviously policemen. Joseph started and turned to Polke.

"Damn you!" he snarled under his breath. "Are you going to pester us with your whole crew? Send those fellows off at once!"

"Nothing of the sort, Mr. Chestermarke!" replied Polke, in a similar whisper, "I shall bring as many of my men here as I please. It's your own fault—you should have been reasonable this morning. Now, sir, you'll open any door in this house that's locked."

Joseph suddenly paused and handed over the keys he was dangling.

"Open them yourself!" he said.

He turned on his heel, and without another word or look went back into the private parlour. And Polke, opening the door of the dining-room, ushered his party inside, and then stepped back to the two men who were waiting in the hall.

"Smithson," he said to one of them, "you'll stop at the house-door here—inside, mind, so as not to attract attention from any customers coming up this hall to the bank. Jones—come out here with me a minute," he continued, taking the second man outside. "Look here—I've a quiet job for you. You know the housekeeper here—Mrs. Carswell? She's disappeared. May be all right—and it mayn't. Now, you go out and take a look round for her. And go to the cab-stand at the corner of the Moot Hall, and just find out if she's taken a taxi from them, and if so, where she wanted to be driven to. And then come back and tell me—and when you come back, stay inside the house with Smithson."

The policeman nodded his comprehension of these instructions and went out, and Polke turned back to the dining-room and closed the door. He looked at Starmidge.

"Now I'm in your hands," he said quietly. "You take charge of this. What do you wish to do?"

"One thing particularly at first," answered Starmidge. "And we can all work at it. Never mind these secret passages and dark corners and holes in the panels!—at present: we may have a look at these later on. What I do want to find out is—if there's any letter amongst Mr. Horbury's papers making an appointment with him last Saturday evening. To put matters briefly—I want some light on that man who came to the Station Hotel on Saturday, and who presumably came to meet Mr. Horbury."

"I see," said Polke. "Good! Then—first?"

"Here's his desk—and its drawers," suggested Starmidge. "Now, let us all four take a drawer each and see if we can find any such letter. I'm going on the presumption that this stranger came down to see Mr. Horbury, and that on his arrival he telephoned up to let him know he'd got here. If that presumption is correct, then, in all probability, there'd been previous correspondence between them as to the man's visit."

"If that man came to see Mr. Horbury," remarked the solicitor, "why didn't he come straight here to the bank-house?"

"That's just where the mystery lies, sir," replied Starmidge. "All the mystery of the affair lies in that man's coming at all! Let me find out who that man was, and what he came for, and if he and Mr. Horbury met, and where they went when they did meet—and I'll soon tell you—what would probably make your hair stand on end!" he muttered to himself, as he pulled a drawer out of the desk and placed it on a centre table before Betty. "Now, Miss Fosdyke, you get to work on that."

For over an hour the four curiously assorted searchers examined the contents of the missing man's desk, of another desk in the study, of certain letter-racks which hung above the mantelpieces in both rooms, of drawers in these rooms, of drawers and small cabinets in his bedroom. Starmidge turned out the pockets of all the clothing he could find: opened suit-cases, trunks, dressing-cases. They found nothing of the nature desired. And just as half-past one came, and Polke was wondering what Starmidge would do next, Jones came back and called him into the inner hall.

"I've got some news of her," he whispered. "She's off—from Scarnham, anyway, sir! I couldn't get any word of her in the town, nor at the cab-places: in fact, it's only within this last five minutes that I've got it."

"Well?" demanded Polke eagerly. "And what is it?"

"Young Mitchell, who has a taxi-cab of his own, you know," said Jones. "He told me—heard I was inquiring. He says that at half-past ten, just as he was coming out of his shed in River Street, Mrs. Carswell came up and asked him to drive her into Ecclesborough. He did—they got there at half-past eleven: he set her down at the Exchange Station. Then he came back—alone. So—she's got two hours' good start, sir—if she really is off!"

CHAPTER XII

THE FIRST FIND

Polke took a step or two on the pavement outside the bank, meditating on this latest development of a matter that was hourly growing in mystery. Why had this woman suddenly disappeared? Had she merely gone to Ecclesborough for the day?—or had she made it her first stage in a further journey? Why had she taken a taxi-cab for an eighteen-miles' ride, at considerable expense, when, at twelve o'clock, she could have got a train which would have carried her to Ecclesborough for fifteen pence? It seemed as if she had fled. And if she had fled, she had got, as the constable said, two hours' good start. And in Ecclesborough, too!—a place with a population of half a million, where there were three big railway stations, from any one of which a fugitive could set off east, west, north, south, at pleasure, and with no risk of attracting attention. Two hours!—Polke knew from long experience what can be done in two hours by a criminal escaping from justice.

He turned back to speak to his man—and as he turned, Joseph Chestermarke came out of the bank. Joseph gave him an insolent stare, and was about to pass him without recognition. But Polke stopped him.

"Mr. Chestermarke, you heard that the housekeeper here has disappeared?" he asked sharply. "Can you tell anything about it?"

"What have I to do with Horbury's housekeeper?" retorted Joseph. "Do your own work!"

He passed on, crossing the Market-Place to the Scarnham Arms, and Polke, after gazing at him in silence for a moment, beckoned to his policeman.

"Come inside, Jones," he said. He led the way into the house and through the hall to the kitchens at the back, where two women servants stood whispering together. Polke held up a finger to the one who had answered Joseph Chestermarke's summons to the parlour that morning. "Here!" he said, "a word with you. Now, exactly when did Mrs. Carswell go out? You needn't be afraid of speaking, my girl—it'll go no further, and you know who I am."

"Not so very long after that young lady was here, Mr. Polke," answered the girl, readily enough. "Within—oh, a quarter of an hour at the most."

"Did she say where she was going—to either of you?" asked Polke.

"No, sir—not a word!"

"To neither of us," said the other—an older—woman, drawing nearer. "She—just went, Mr. Polke."

"Had any message—telegram, or aught of that sort—come for her?" asked Polke. "Had anybody been to see her?"

"There was no message that I know of," said the housemaid. "But Mr. Joseph came to speak to her."

"When?" demanded Polke.

"Just after the young lady had gone. He called her out of the kitchen, and they stood talking in the passage there a bit," answered the elder woman. "Of course, Mr. Polke, we didn't hear naught—but we saw 'em."

"What happened after that?" asked Polke.

"Naught!—but that Mr. Joseph went away, and she came back in here for a minute or two and then went upstairs. And next thing she came down dressed up and went out. She said nothing to us," replied the woman.

"You saw her go out?" said Polke.

Both women pointed to the passage which communicated with the hall.

"When this door's open—as it was," said one, "you can see right through. Yes—we saw her go through the hall door. Of course we thought she'd just slipped out into the town for something."

Polke hesitated—and meditated. What use was it, at that juncture, to ask for more particular details of this evident flight? Mrs. Carswell was probably well away from Ecclesborough by that time. He turned back to the hall—and then looked at the women again.

"I suppose neither of you ever saw or heard aught of Mr. Horbury on Saturday night—after he'd gone out?" he inquired.

The two women glanced at each other in silence.

"Did you?" repeated Polke. "Come, now!"

"Well, Mr. Polke," said the elder woman, "we didn't. But, of course, we know what's going on—couldn't very well not know, now could we, Mr. Polke? And we can tell you something that may have to do with things."

"Out with it, then!" commanded Polke. "Keep nothing back."

"Well," said the woman, "there was somebody stirring about this house in the middle of Saturday night—between, say, one and two o'clock in the morning—Sunday morning, of course. Both me and Jane here heard 'em—quite plain. And we thought naught of it, then—leastways, what we did think was that it was Mr. Horbury. He often came in very late. But when we found out next morning that he'd never come home—why, then, we did think it was queer that we'd heard noises."

"Did you mention that to Mrs. Carswell?" asked Polke.

"Of course!—but she said she'd heard nothing, and it must have been rats," replied the elder woman.

"But I've been here three years and I've never seen a rat in the place."

"Nor me!" agreed the housemaid. "And it wasn't rats. I heard a door shut—twice. Plain as I'm speaking to you, Mr. Polke."

Polke reflected a minute and then turned away.

"All right, my lasses!" he said. "Well, keep all this to yourselves. Here—I'll tell you what you can do. Send Miss Fosdyke a nice cup of tea into the study—send us all one!—we can't leave what we're doing just yet. And a mouthful of bread and butter with it. Come along, Jones," he continued, leading the constable away. "Here, you step round to old Mr. Batterley's—you know where he lives—near the Castle. Mr. Polke's compliments, and would he be so good as to come to the bank-house and help us a bit?—he'll know what I mean. Bring him back with you."

The constable went away, and Polke, after rubbing one of his mutton-chop whiskers for awhile with an air of great abstraction, returned to the study. There Mr. Pellworthy and Betty Fosdyke were talking earnestly in one of the window recesses; Starmidge, at the furthest end of the room, was examining the old oak panelling.

"I've sent for Mr. Batterley to give us a hand," said Polke. "I suppose we'd best examine this room in the way he suggested?"

Starmidge betrayed no enthusiasm.

"If he can do any good," he answered. "But I don't attach much importance to that. However—if there are any secret places around——"

"There's a nice cup of tea coming in for you and Mr. Pellworthy in a minute, Miss Fosdyke," said Polke. "We'll all have to put our dinner off a bit, I reckon." He motioned to the detective to follow him out of the room. "Here's a nice go!" he whispered. "The housekeeper's off! Bolted—without a doubt! And—she's got a clear start, too."

Starmidge turned sharply on the superintendent.

"Got any clue to where she's gone?" he demanded.

"She's gone amongst five hundred thousand other men and women," replied Polke ruefully. "I've found out that much. Drove off in a taxi-cab to Ecclesborough, as soon as Miss Fosdyke had been here this morning. And—mark you!—after a few minutes' conversation with Joseph Chestermarke. Ecclesborough, indeed! Might as well look for a drop of water in the ocean as for one woman in Ecclesborough! She was set down at the Exchange Station—why, she may be half-way to London or Liverpool, or Hull, by now!"

Starmidge was listening intently. And passing over the superintendent's opinions and regrets, he fastened on his facts.

"After a few minutes' conversation with Joseph Chestermarke, you say?" he observed. "How do you know that?"

"The servants told me, just now," replied Polke.

Starmidge glanced at the door of the private parlour.

"He's gone out," said Polke.

Just then the door opened and Gabriel emerged, closing and locking it after him. He paid no attention to the two men, and was passing on towards the outer hall when Polke hailed him.

"Mr. Chestermarke," he said, "sorry to trouble you—do you know that the housekeeper, Mrs. Carswell, has disappeared? You heard what that girl said this morning? Well, she hasn't come back, and——"

"No concern of mine, Mr. Police-Superintendent!" interrupted Gabriel. "Nothing of this is any concern of mine. I shall be obliged to you if you'll confine your very unnecessary operations to the interior of the house, and not stand about this outer hall, or keep this door open between outer and inner halls—I don't want my customers interfered with as they come and go."

With that the senior partner passed on, and Starmidge smiled at his companion.

"I'm glad he interrupted you, all the same, Mr. Polke," he said. "I was afraid you were going to say that you knew this woman had gone, in a hurry, to Ecclesborough."

"No, I wasn't," replied Polke. "I told him what I did—because I wanted to know what he'd say."

"Well—you heard!" said Starmidge. "And what's to be done, now? That woman's conduct is very suspicious. I think, if I were you, Mr. Polke, I should get in touch with the Ecclesborough police. Why not? No harm done. Why not call them up, give them a description of her, and ask them to keep their eyes open. She mayn't have left Ecclesborough—mayn't intend leaving. For—look here—!" he drew Polke further away from the two doors between which they were standing, and lowered his voice to a whisper—"Supposing," he went on, "supposing there is any secret understanding between this Mrs. Carswell and Joseph Chestermarke (and it looks like it, if she went off immediately after a conversation with him), she may have gone to Ecclesborough simply so that they could meet there, safely, later on. Eh?"

"Good notion!" agreed Polke. "Well—we can watch him."

"I'm beginning to think we must watch him—thought so for the last two hours," said Starmidge. "But in the meantime, why not put the Ecclesborough police on to keeping their eyes open for her? Can you give them a good description?"

"Know her as well as I know my own wife—by sight," answered Polke. "And her style of dressing, too. All right—I'll go and do it, now. Well, there'll be Mr. Batterley coming along in a few minutes—Jones has gone for him. If he can show you any of their secret places he talked about——"

"He's here," said Starmidge, as the old antiquary and the constable entered the hall. "All right—I'll attend to him."

But when Polke had gone, and Batterley had been conducted into the study, or garden-room as he insisted on calling it, Starmidge left the old man with Mr. Pellworthy and Betty and made an excuse to go out of the room after the housemaid, who had just brought in the tea for which Polke had asked. He caught her at the foot of the staircase, and treated her to one of his most ingratiating smiles.

"I say!" he said, "Mr. Polke's just been telling me about what you and the cook told him about Mrs. Carswell—you know. Now, I say—you needn't say anything—except to cook—but I just want to take a look round Mrs. Carswell's room. Which is it?"

The cook, who kept the kitchen door open so as not to lose anything of these delightful proceedings, came forward. Both accompanied Starmidge upstairs to show him the room he wanted. And Starmidge thanked them profusely and in his best manner—after which he turned them politely out and locked the door.

Meanwhile Polke went to the police-station and rang up the Ecclesborough police on the telephone. He gave them a full, accurate, and precise description of Mrs. Carswell, and a detailed account of her doings that morning, and begged them to make inquiry at the three great stations in their town. The man with whom he held conversation calmly remarked that as each station at Ecclesborough dealt with a few thousands of separate individuals every day, it was not very likely that booking-clerks or platform officials would remember any particular persons, and Polke sorrowfully agreed with him. Nevertheless, he begged him to do his best—the far-off partner in this interchange of remarks answered that they would do a lot better if Mr. Polke would tell them something rather more definite. Polke gave it up at that, and went off into the Market-Place again, to return to the bank. But before he reached the bank he ran across Lord Ellersdeane, who, hanging about the town to hear some result of the search, had been lunching at the Scarnham Club, and now came out of its door.

"Any news so far?" asked the Earl.

Polke glanced round to see that nobody was within hearing. He and Lord Ellersdeane stepped within the doorway of the club-house. Polke narrated the story of the various happenings since the granting of the search-warrant, and the Earl's face grew graver and graver.

"Mr. Polke," he said at last, "I do not like what I am hearing about all this. It's a most suspicious thing that the housekeeper should disappear immediately after Miss Fosdyke's first call this morning, and that she should have had some conversation with Mr. Joseph Chestermarke before she went. Really, one dislikes to have to say it of one's neighbours, and of persons of the standing of the Chestermarkes, but their behaviour is—is——"

"Suspicious, my lord, suspicious!" said Polke. "There's no denying it. And yet, they're what you might call so defiant, so brazen-faced and insolent, that——"

"Here's your London man," interrupted the Earl. "What is he after now?"

Starmidge came out of the door of the bank-house alone. He caught sight of Polke and Lord Ellersdeane, smiled, and hurried towards them. He carried something loosely wrapped in brown paper in his hand; as he stepped into the doorway of the club-house, he took the wrapping off, and showed a small morocco-covered box on which was a coronet in gold.

"Does your lordship recognize that?" he asked.

"My wife's jewel-casket, of course!" exclaimed the Earl. "Of course it is! Bless me!—where did you find it?"

"In the chimney, in Mrs. Carswell's bedroom," answered Starmidge, with a grimace at Polke. "It's empty!"

Chapter XIII

THE PARTNERS UNBEND

The Earl took the empty casket from the detective's hand and looked at it, inside and outside, with doubt and wonder.

"Now what do you take this to mean?" he asked.

"That we've got three people to find, instead of two, my lord," answered Starmidge promptly. "We must be after the housekeeper."

"You found this in her room?" asked Polke. "So—you went up there?"

"As soon as you'd left me," replied the detective, with a shrewd smile. "Of course! I wanted to have a look round. I didn't forget the chimney. She'd put that behind the back of the grate—a favourite hiding-place. I say she—but, of course, some one else may have put it there. Still—we must find her. You telephoned to the police at Ecclesborough, superintendent?"

"Ay, and got small comfort!" answered Polke. "It's a stiff job looking for one woman amongst half a million people."

"She wouldn't stop in Ecclesborough," said Starmidge. "She'll be on her way further afield, now. You can get anywhere from Ecclesborough, of course."

"Of course!" assented Polke. "She would be in any one of half a dozen big towns within a couple of hours—in some of 'em within an hour—in London itself within three. This'll be another case of printing a description. I wish we'd thought of keeping an eye on her before!"

"We haven't got to the stage where we can think of everything," observed Starmidge. "We've got to take things as they come. Well—there's one thing can be done now," he went on, looking at the Earl, "if your lordship'll be kind enough to do it."

"I'll do anything that I can," replied Lord Ellersdeane. "What is it?"

"If your lordship would just make a call on the two Mr. Chestermarkes," suggested Starmidge. "To tell them, of course, of—that," he added, pointing to the empty casket. "Your lordship will get some attention—I suppose. They won't give any attention to Polke or myself. If your lordship would just tell them that your casket—emptied of its valuable contents—had been found hidden in Mrs. Carswell's room, perhaps they'll listen, and—what is much more important—give you their views on the matter. I," concluded Starmidge, drily, "should very much like to hear them!"

The Earl made a wry face.

"Oh, all right!" he answered. "If I must, I must. It's not a job that appeals to me, but—very well. I'll go now."

"And we," said Starmidge, turning to Polke, "had better join the others and see if the old antiquary gentleman has found any of these secret places he talked of."

Lord Ellersdeane found no difficulty in obtaining access to the partners: he was shown into their room with all due ceremony as soon as Shirley announced him. He found them evidently relaxing a little after their lunch, from which they had just returned. They were standing in characteristic attitudes; Gabriel, smoking a cigar, bolt upright on the hearth-rug beneath the portrait of his ancestor; Joseph, toying with a scented cigarette, leaning against the window which looked out on the garden. For once in a way both seemed more amenable and cordial.

The Earl held out the empty casket.

"This," he said, "is the casket in which I handed my wife's jewels to Mr. Horbury. It is, as you see, empty. It has just been found by the Scotland Yard man, Starmidge."

Gabriel glanced at the casket with some interest; Joseph, with none: neither spoke.

"In the housekeeper's room—hidden in her fire-place," continued the Earl, looking from one partner to the other. "That shows, gentlemen, that the jewels were, after all, in this house—on these premises."

"There has never been any question of that," said Gabriel quickly. "We, of course, never doubted what your lordship was good enough to tell us—naturally!"

"Not for a moment!" said Joseph. "We felt at once that you had given the jewels to Horbury."

The Earl set the casket down on Gabriel's desk and looked a little uncertain—and uncomfortable. Gabriel indicated the chair which he had politely moved forward on his visitor's entrance.

"Won't your lordship sit down?" he said.

The Earl accepted the invitation and looked from one man to the other. A sudden impression crossed his mind—never, he thought, were there two men from whom it was so difficult to get a word as these Chestermarkes—who had such a queer habit of staring in silence at one!

"The—the housekeeper appears to have run away," he said haltingly. "That's—somewhat queer, isn't it?"

"We understand Mrs. Carswell has left the house—and the town," replied Gabriel. "As to it's being queer—well, all this is queer!"

"And—all of a piece!" remarked Joseph.

The Earl was glad that the junior partner made that remark, and he turned to him.

"I understand you saw her—and spoke to her—just before she left, this morning?" he said hesitatingly. "Did she—er—give you the impression of being—shall we say, uneasy?"

"I certainly saw her—and spoke to her," asserted Joseph. "I went to scold her. I had given her orders that no one was to be allowed access to certain rooms in the house, and that we were not to be bothered by callers. She fetched me out to see Miss Fosdyke—I went to scold her for that. We had our reasons for not permitting access to those rooms. They have, of course, been frustrated."

"But at any rate some good's come of it," observed the Earl, pointing to his casket. "This has been found. And—in the housekeeper's bedroom. Hidden! And—she's gone. What do you think of it, gentlemen?"

Gabriel spread his hands and shook his head. But Joseph answered readily.

"I should think," he replied, "that's she's gone to meet Horbury."

The Earl started, glancing keenly from one partner to the other.

"Then—you still think that Horbury is guilty of—of dishonesty!" he exclaimed. "Really, I—dear me, such an absolutely upright, honourable man——"

"Surface!" said Joseph quietly. "Surface! On the surface, my lord."

The Earl's face flushed a little with palpable displeasure, and he turned from the junior to the senior partner.

"Very good of your lordship," said Gabriel, with the faintest suggestion of a smile. "But—a man's honesty is bounded by his necessity. We, of course, are better acquainted with our late manager's qualities—now."

"You have discovered—something?" asked the Earl anxiously.

"Up to now," replied Gabriel, "we have kept things to ourselves. But we don't mind giving your lordship a little—just a little—information. There is no doubt that Horbury had, for some time past, engaged in speculation in stocks and shares—none whatever!"

"To a considerable extent," added Joseph.

"And—unsuccessfully?" inquired the Earl.

"We are not yet quite sure of the details," answered Gabriel. "The mere fact is enough. Of course, no man in his position has any right to speculate. Had we known that he speculated——"

"He would have been discharged from our service," said Joseph. "No banker can retain the services of a manager who—gambles."

The Earl began to feel almost as uncomfortable as if these two men were charging him with improper transactions. He was a man of simple mind and ideas, and he supposed the Chestermarkes knew what they were talking about.

"Then you think that this sudden disappearance——" he said.

"In the history of banking—unwritten, possibly," remarked Joseph, "there are many similar instances. No end of them, most likely. Bank managers enjoy vast opportunities of stealing, my lord! And the man who is best trusted has more opportunities than the man who's watched. We never suspected—and so we never watched."

"You have heard of the stranger who came to the town on Saturday night, and is believed to have telephoned from the Station Hotel to Horbury?" asked the Earl. "What of him?"

"We have heard," answered Gabriel. "We don't know any more. We don't know any such person—from the description. But we have no doubt he did meet Horbury—and that his visit had something—probably everything—to do with Horbury's disappearance."

"But how could he disappear?" asked the Earl. "I mean to say—how could such a well-known man disappear so completely, without anybody knowing of it? It seems impossible!"

"If your lordship will think for a moment," said Joseph, "you will see that it is not merely not impossible, but very easy. Horbury was a great pedestrian—he used to boast of his thirty and forty mile walks. Now we are well within twenty miles of Ecclesborough. Ecclesborough is a very big town. What was there to prevent Horbury, during Saturday night, from walking across country to Ecclesborough? Nothing! If, after interviewing that strange man, he decided to clear out at once, he'd nothing to do but set off—over a very lonely stretch of country, every inch of which he knew—to Ecclesborough: he would be in Ecclesborough by an early hour in the morning. Now in Ecclesborough there are three stations—big stations. He could get away from any one of them—what booking-clerk or railway official would pay any particular attention to him? The thing is—ridiculously easy!"

"What of the other man?" asked the Earl. "If there were two men—together—at an early hour—eh?"

"They need not have caught a train at a very early hour," replied Joseph. "They need not have been together when they caught any train. I don't say they went together—I don't say they went to Ecclesborough—I don't say they caught a train: I only say what, it must be obvious, they easily could do without attracting attention."

"The fact of Horbury's disappearance is—unchallengeable," remarked Gabriel quietly. "We—know why he disappeared."

"I should think," said Joseph, still more quietly, "that Lord Ellersdeane also knows—by now."

"No, I don't!" exclaimed the Earl, a little sharply. "I wish I did!"

Joseph pointed to the casket.

"Why have the police been officially—and officiously—searching the house, then?" he asked.

"To see if they could get any clue to his disappearance," replied the Earl.

"And they found—that!" retorted Joseph.

"In the housekeeper's room," said the Earl. "She may have appropriated the jewels."

"I think your lordship must see that that is very unlikely—without collusion between Horbury and herself," remarked Gabriel.

"Mrs. Carswell," said Joseph, "has always been more or less of a mysterious person. We know nothing about her. I don't even know where Horbury got her from. But—the probability is that they were in collusion, and that when he went, she stayed behind, to ascertain how things turned out on his disappearance; and that she fled when it began to appear that searching inquiries were to be made into which she might be drawn."

The Earl made no reply. He recognized that the Chestermarke observations and suggestions were rather more than plausible, and much as he fought against the idea of the missing manager's dishonesty, he could not deny that the circumstances as set forth by the bankers were suspicious.

"Your lordship will, of course, follow up this woman?" said Gabriel, after a brief silence.

"I suppose the police will," replied the Earl. "But—aren't you going to do anything yourselves, Mr. Chestermarke? You told me, you know, that certain securities of yours were missing."

Gabriel glanced at his nephew—and Joseph nodded.

"Oh, well!" answered Gabriel. "We don't mind telling your lordship—and if your lordship pleases, you may tell the police—we are doing something. We have, in fact, been doing something from an early hour. We have a very clever man at work just now—he has been at work since he heard from us twenty-four hours ago. But—our ideas are not those of Polke. Polke begins his inquiries here. Our inquiries—based on our knowledge—begin ... elsewhere."

"You think Horbury will be heard of—elsewhere?" suggested the Earl.

"Much more likely to be heard of elsewhere than here, my lord!" asserted Gabriel.

"But, of course, what we do need not interfere with anything that your lordship does, or that Miss Fosdyke does, or that the police do."

"All that any of us want, I suppose, is to find Horbury," said the Earl, as he rose. "If he's found, then, I conclude, some explanation will result. You don't believe in searching about here, then?"

"Let Polke and his men have their way, my lord," replied Gabriel, with a wave of his hand. "My impression of police methods is that those who follow them can only follow that particular path. We are not looking for Horbury—here. He's—elsewhere."

"So, by this time, are your lordship's jewels," added Joseph significantly. "They, one may be sure, are not going to be found in or about Scarnham."

The Earl said good-day and went out, troubled and wondering. In the hall he met the search-party. Mr. Batterley had failed to find anything in the way of secret stairs or passages or openings beyond those already known to the occupants, and though he was still confident that they existed, the police had wound up their present investigations to turn to more palpable things. Polke and the detective listened to the Earl's account of his interview, and the superintendent sniffed at the mention of the inquiries instituted by the partners.

"Ah!" he said incredulously. "Just so! Private inquiry agent, no doubt. All right—let 'em do what they like. But we're going to do what we like, my lord, and what we do will be on very different lines. First thing now—we want that woman!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE MIDNIGHT SUMMONS

The search-party separated outside the bank, not too well satisfied with the result of its labours. The old antiquary walked away obviously nettled that he was not allowed to pursue his investigations further; Betty Fosdyke and the solicitor went across to the hotel in deep conference; the Earl accompanied Starmidge and Polke to the police-station. And there the detective laid down a firm outline of the next immediate procedure. It was of no use to half-do things, he said—they must rouse wholesale attention. Once more the press must be made use of—the sudden disappearance of Mrs. Carswell must be noised abroad in the next morning's papers. A police notice describing her must be got out and sent all over the kingdom. And—last, but certainly not least—Lord Ellersdeane must offer a substantial reward for the recovery of, or news of, his missing property. Let the Chestermarkes adopt their own method—if they had any—of finding the alleged absconding manager; he, Starmidge, preferred to solve these mysteries by ways of his own.

It was growing near to dusk when all their necessary arrangements had been made, and Starmidge was free to seek his long-delayed dinner. He had put himself up, of his own choice, at a quiet and old-fashioned inn near the police-station, where he had engaged a couple of rooms and found a landlady to his liking. He repaired to this retreat now, and ate and drank in quiet, and smoked a peaceful pipe afterwards, and was glad of a period of rest. But as he took his ease, he thought and pondered, and by the time that evening had fairly settled over the little town, he went out into the streets and sought the ancient corner of Scarnham which was called Cornmarket.

Starmidge wanted to take a look at the house in which Joseph Chestermarke spent his bachelor existence. Since his own arrival in the town, he had been learning all he could about the two Chestermarkes, and he was puzzled about them. For a man who was still young, Starmidge had seen a good deal of the queer side of life, and had known a good many strange people, but so far he had never come across two such apparently curious characters as the uncle and nephew who ran the old-fashioned bank. Their evident indifference to public opinion puzzled him. He could not understand their ice-cold defiance of what he himself called law. He never remembered being treated as they had treated him. For Starmidge, when on duty, considered himself as much the representative of Justice as any ermined and coifed judge could be, and he had been accustomed—so far—to attentive and respectful consideration. But neither Gabriel nor Joseph Chestermarke appeared to have any proper appreciation of the dignity of a detective-sergeant of the Criminal Investigation Department, and their eyes had regarded him as if he were something very inferior indeed. Starmidge, though by no means a vain man, felt nettled by such treatment, and he accordingly formed something very like a prejudice against the two partners. That prejudice was quickly followed by suspicion—especially in the case of Joseph Chestermarke. According to Starmidge's ideas, the bankers, if they really believed Horbury to have absconded, if certain securities of theirs really were missing, if they really thought that Horbury had carried them off, and the Countess of Ellersdeane's jewels with him, ought to have placed every information in their power at the disposal of the police: it was suspicious, and strange, and not at all proper, that they didn't. And it was suspicious, too, that the housekeeper, Mrs. Carswell, should take herself off after a brief exchange of words with Joseph. It looked very much as if the junior partner had either warned her to go, or had told her to go. Why had she gone then?—when she might have gone before. And why in such haste? Clearly, considering everything, there were grounds for believing that there was some secret between Mrs. Carswell and Joseph Chestermarke.

Anyway, rightly or wrongly, Starmidge was suspicious of the junior partner in Chestermarke's Bank, and he wanted to know everything that he could find out about him. He had already learnt that Joseph, like his uncle, was a confirmed bachelor, and lived in an old house at the corner of Cornmarket, somewhat—so far as the town-folk could judge—after the fashion of a hermit. Starmidge would have given a good deal for a really good excuse to call on Joseph Chestermarke at that house, so that he might see the inside of it: indeed, if he had only met with a better reception at the bank, he would have invented such an excuse. But if Gabriel was icily stand-offish, Joseph was openly sneering and contemptuous, and the detective knew that no excuse would give him admittance. Still, there was the outside: he would take a look at that. Starmidge was a young man of ideas as well as of ability, and without exactly shaping his thought in so many words, he felt—vaguely perhaps, but none the less strongly—that just as you can size up some men by the clothes they wear, so you can get an idea of others by the outer look of the houses which shelter them.

Cornmarket in Scarnham lay at the further end of the street called Finkleway. It was a queer, open space which sloped downhill from the centre of the ridge on which the middle of the town was built to the valley through which the little river meandered. Save where the streets, and the road leading out to the open country and Ellersdeane cut into it, it was completely enclosed by old houses of the sort which Starmidge had already admired in the Market-Place: many of them half-timbered, all of them very ancient. One or two of them were inns; some were evidently workmen's cottages; others were better-class dwelling-houses. From the description already furnished to him by Polke, Starmidge at once recognized Joseph Chestermarke's abode. It was a corner house, abutting on the road which ran out at the lower angle of this irregular space and led down to the river and Scarnham Bridge. It was by far the biggest house thereabouts—a tall, slender, stone-built house of many stories, towering high above any of the surrounding gables. And save for a very faint, dull glow which shone through the transom window of the front door, there was not a vestige of light in a single window of the seven stories. Cornmarket was a gloomy commonplace, thought Starmidge, but the little oil lamps in the cottages were riotously cheery in comparison with the darkness of the tall, gaunt Chestermarke mansion. It looked like the abode of dead men.

Starmidge longed to knock at that door—if only to get a peep inside the hall. But he curbed his desires and went quietly round the corner of the house. There was a high black wall there which led down to the grassy bank of the river. From its corner another wall ran along the river-side, separated from the stream by a path. There was a door set in this wall, and Starmidge, after carefully looking round in the gloom, quietly tried it and found it securely locked.

An intense desire to see the inside of Joseph Chestermarke's garden seized the detective. Near the door, partly overhanging the garden wall, partly overshadowing the path and the river-bank, was a tree: Starmidge, after listening carefully and deciding that no one was coming along the path, made shift to climb that tree, just then bursting into full leaf. In another minute he was amongst its middle branches, and peering inquisitively into the garden which lay between him and the gaunt outline of the gloom-stricken house.

The moon was just then rising above the roofs and gables of the town, and by its rapidly increasing light Starmidge saw that the garden was of considerable size, running back quite sixty yards from the rear of the house, and having a corresponding breadth. Like all the gardens which stretched from the backs of the Market-Place houses to the river-bank, it was rich in trees—high elms and beeches rose from its lawns, and made deep shadows across them. But Starmidge was not so much interested in those trees, fine as they were, as in a building; obviously modern, which was set in their midst, completely isolated. That it was a comparatively new building he could see; the moonbeams falling full on it showed that the stone of which it was built was fresh and unstained by time or smoke. But what was it? Of what nature, for what purpose? It was neither stable, nor coach-house, nor summer-house, nor a grouping of domestic offices. No drive or path led to it: it was built in the middle of a grass-plot: round it ran a stone-lined trench. Its architecture was plain but handsome; it possessed two distinctive features which the detective was quick to notice. One, was that—at any rate on the two sides which he could see—its windows were set at a height of quite twelve feet from the ground: the other, that from its flat parapeted roof rose a conical structure something like the rounded stacks of glass foundries and potteries. This was obviously a chimney, and from its mouth at that moment was emerging a slight column of smoke which threw back curiously coloured reflections, blue, and yellow, and red, to the moonlight which fell on its thickening spirals.

Starmidge felt just as much desire to get inside this queer structure as into the house behind it, and if he could have seen any prospect of taking a peep through its windows he would have risked detection and dropped from his perch into the garden. But he judged that if the windows were twelve feet from the ground on the two sides of the building which he could see, they would be the same height on the sides which he couldn't see; moreover, he observed that they were obscured by either dull red glass or red curtains. Clearly no outsider was intended to get a peep into this temple of mystery. What was it? What went on within it? He was about to climb down from the tree when he got some sort of an answer to these questions. From within the building, muffled by the evidently thick walls, came the faintest sound of metal beating on metal—a mere rippling, tinkling sound, light and musical, such as might have been made by fairy blacksmiths beating on a fairy anvil. But far away as it sounded, it was clear and unmistakable.

Starmidge regained the path between the wall and the river and went slowly forward. The place, he decided, was evidently some sort of a workshop, in which was a forge: probably Joseph Chestermarke amused himself with a little amateur work in metals. He thought no more of the matter just then; he wanted to explore the river-bank along which he now walked. For according to the story of the landlady of the Station Hotel, it was on that river-bank that the mysterious stranger was to meet whoever it was that he spoke to over the telephone, and so far Starmidge had not had an opportunity of examining its geography.

There was not much to examine. The river, a mere ditch, eight or ten yards in breadth, wandered through a level mead at the base of the valley, separated from the gardens by a wide path. Between Scarnham Bridge, at the foot of Cornmarket and the corner of Joseph Chestermarke's big garden, and the end of Cordmaker's Alley, a narrow street which ran down from the further end of the Market-Place to the river-side, there were no features of any note or interest. On the other side of the river lay the deep woods through which Neale and Betty Fosdyke had passed on their way to Ellersdeane Hollow: Starmidge had heard all about that expedition, and he glanced curiously at the black depths of the trees, wondering if John Horbury and the mysterious stranger, supposing they had met, had turned into these woods to hold their conference. He presently came to the foot-bridge by which access to the woods and the other bank of the river was gained, and by it he lingered for a moment or two, looking at it in its bearings to the bank-house garden and orchard on his left hand, and to the Station Hotel, the lights of which he could plainly see down the valley. Certainly, if John Horbury and the stranger desired to meet in secret, here was the place. The stranger had nothing to do but stroll along the river-bank from the hotel; Horbury had only to step out of his orchard and meet him. Once together, they had only to cross that foot-bridge into the woods to be immediately in surroundings of great privacy.

Starmidge turned up Cordmaker's Alley, regained the Market-Place, and strolled on to Polke's private house. The superintendent was taking his ease after his day's labours and reading the Ecclesborough evening newspapers: he tossed one of them over to his visitor.

"All there!" he said, pointing to some big headlines. "Got it all in, just as you told it to Parkinson. Full justice to the descriptions of both Horbury and the Station Hotel stranger. Smart work, eh?"

"Power of the Press—as Parkinson said," answered Starmidge, with a laugh. "It's very useful, the Press: I don't know how they managed without it in the old days of criminal catching, Mr. Polke. Press and telegraph, eh?—they're valuable adjuncts."

"You think all that would be in the London papers this evening?" asked Polke.

"Sure to be," replied Starmidge. "I'm hoping we'll hear something from London tomorrow. I say—I've been taking a bit of a look round one or two places tonight, quietly, you know. What's that curious building in Joseph Chestermarke's garden?"

Polke put down his paper and looked unusually interested.

"I don't know!" he answered. "How did you see it? I've never seen inside his garden."

"Climbed a tree on the river-bank and looked over the wall," replied Starmidge.

"Well," said Polke, "I did hear, some few years ago, that he was building something in that garden, but the work was done by Ecclesborough contractors, and nobody ever knew much about it here. I believe Joseph's a bit of an amateur experimenter—but I don't know what he experiments in. Nobody ever goes inside his house—he's a hermit."

"He's got some sort of a forge there, anyhow," said Starmidge. "Or a furnace, or something of that sort."

Then they talked of other things until half-past ten, when the detective retired to his inn and went to bed. He was sleeping soundly when a steady knocking at his door roused him, to hear the voice of his landlady outside. And at the same time he heard the big clock of the parish church striking midnight.

"Mr. Starmidge!" said the voice, "there's a policeman wanting you. Will you go round at once to Mr. Polke's? There's a man come from London about that piece in the newspapers."

CHAPTER XV

MR. FREDERICK HOLLIS

Starmidge hastily pulled some garments about him, and flinging a travelling-coat over his shoulders, hurried downstairs, to find a sleepy-looking policeman in the hall.

"How did this man get here—at this time of night?" he asked, as they set off towards the police-station.

"Came in a taxi-cab from Ecclesborough," answered the policeman. "I haven't heard any particulars, Mr. Starmidge, except that he'd read the news in the London paper this evening and set off here in consequence. He's in Mr. Polke's house, sir."

Starmidge walked into the superintendent's parlour, to find him in company with a young man, whom the detective at once sized up as a typical London clerk—a second glance assured him that his clerkship was of the legal variety.

"Here's Detective-Sergeant Starmidge," said Polke. "Starmidge, this gentleman's Mr. Simmons, from London. Mr. Simmons says he's clerk to a Mr. Hollis, a London solicitor. And, having read that description in the papers this last evening, he's certain that the man who came to the Station Hotel here on Saturday is his governor."

Starmidge sat down and looked again at the visitor—a tall, sandy-haired, freckled young man, who was obviously a good deal puzzled.

"Is Mr. Hollis missing, then?" asked Starmidge.

Simmons looked as if he found it somewhat difficult to explain matters.

"Well," he answered. "It's this way. I've never seen him since Saturday. And he hasn't been at his rooms—his private rooms—since Saturday. In the ordinary course he ought to have been at business first thing yesterday—we'd some very important business on yesterday morning, which wasn't done because of his absence. He never turned up yesterday at all—nor today either—we never heard from or of him. And so, when I read that description in the papers this evening, I caught the first express I could get down here—at least to Ecclesborough—I had to motor from there."

"That description describes Mr. Hollis, then?" asked Starmidge.

"Exactly! I'm sure it's Mr. Hollis—it's him to a T!" answered the clerk. "I recognized it at once."

"Let's get everything in order," said Starmidge, with a glance at Polke. "To begin with, who is Mr. Hollis?"

"Mr. Frederick Hollis, solicitor, 59b South Square, Gray's Inn," replied Simmons promptly. "Andwell & Hollis is the name of the firm—but there isn't any Andwell—hasn't been for many a year—he's dead, long since, is Andwell. Mr. Hollis is the only proprietor."

"Don't know him at all," remarked Starmidge. "What's his particular line of practice?"

"Conveyancing," said Simmons.

"Then, naturally, I shouldn't," observed Starmidge. "My acquaintance is chiefly with police-court solicitors. And you say he'd private rooms some where? Where, now?"

"Paper Buildings, Temple," replied the clerk. "He'd a suite of rooms there—he's had 'em for years."

"Bachelor, then?" inquired the detective.

"Yes—he's a bachelor," agreed Simmons.

"You know he hasn't been at his rooms since Saturday—you've ascertained that?" continued Starmidge.

"He's never been at his rooms since he left them after breakfast on Saturday morning," replied Simmons. "I went there at eleven o'clock Monday—that was yesterday—again at four: twice on Tuesday. I was coming away from the Temple when I got the paper and read about this affair."

"When did you see him last?" asked Starmidge.

"Half-past-twelve Saturday. He went out—dressed just as it says in your description. And," concluded the clerk, with a shake of his head which suggested his own inability to understand matters, "he never said a word to me about coming down here."

"Did he say anything to anybody at his rooms about going away?—for the week-end, for instance?" asked the detective. "There'd be somebody there, of course."

"Only a woman who tidied up for him and got his breakfast ready of a morning," said Simmons. "He took all his other meals out. No—he said nothing to her. But he wasn't a week-ender: he very rarely left his rooms except for the office."

"Any of his relations been after him?" inquired Starmidge.

"I don't know anything about his relations—nor friends, either," answered the clerk. "Don't even know the address of one of them, or I'd have gone to seek him on Monday—everything's at a standstill. He was a lonely sort of man—I never heard of his relations or friends."

"How long have you been with him, then?" asked the detective. "Some time?"

"Six years," replied Simmons.

"And you've no doubt, from the description in the papers, that the gentleman who came here on Saturday last is Mr. Hollis?" asked Starmidge.

The clerk shook his head with an air of conviction.

"None!" he answered. "None whatever!"

Starmidge helped himself to a cigar out of an open box which lay on Polke's table. He lighted it carefully, and smoked for a minute or two in silence. Then he looked at Polke.

"Well, there's a very obvious question to put to Mr. Simmons after all that," he remarked. "Have you any idea," he continued, turning to the clerk, "of any reason that would bring Mr. Hollis to Scarnham?"

Simmons shook his head more vigorously than before.

"Not the ghost of an idea!" he exclaimed.

"There was no business being done with anybody at Scarnham?" asked Starmidge.

"Not in our office!" asserted Simmons. "I'm sure of that. I know all the business that we have in hand. To tell you the truth, gentlemen, though you may think me very ignorant, I never even heard of Scarnham myself until I read the paper this evening."

"Quite excusable," said Starmidge. "I never heard of it myself until Monday. Well—this is all very queer, Mr. Simmons. What does Mr. Polke think? And what's Mr. Polke got to suggest!"

Polke, who had been listening silently, turned to the clerk.

"Did you chance to look at Mr. Hollis's letters—recent letters, I mean—" he asked, "to see if you would find anything inviting him down here?"

"I did," replied Simmons promptly. "I looked through all the letters on his desk and in his drawers yesterday afternoon. I didn't find anything that explained his absence. And when I was at his rooms this evening I looked at some letters on his mantelpiece—nothing there. I tell you, I haven't the least notion as to what could bring him to Scarnham."

"And I suppose none of your fellow-clerks have, either?" asked Polke.

Simmons smiled and glanced at Starmidge.

"We've only myself and another—a junior clerk—and a boy," he said. "It's not a big practice—only a bit of good conveyancing now and then, and some family business. Mr. Hollis isn't dependent on it—he's private means of his own."

"Aye, just so!" observed Polke. "And I should say, Starmidge, that it was private business brought him down here—if he's the man, as he certainly seems to be. But—whose?"

Starmidge turned again to the clerk.

"You've a good memory, I can see," he said. "Now, did you ever hear Mr. Hollis mention the name of Horbury?"

"Never!" replied Simmons.

"Did you ever hear him speak of Chestermarke's Bank?" asked Starmidge.

"No—never! Never heard either name in my life until I saw them in the papers," asserted Simmons.

"Who looks after the banking account at Hollis's?" asked the detective. "I mean, the business account—you know. Not his private one."

"I do," said Simmons. "Always have done since I went there."

"You never saw any cheques paid to those names—or any cheques from them?" inquired Starmidge. "Think, now!"

"No—I'm absolutely sure of it," said the clerk. "Horbury, perhaps, I might not remember, but I should have remembered Chestermarke—it's an uncommon name, that—to me, anyway."