The Chestermarke Instinct/Chapter 5
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?"