The Lost Mr. Linthwaite/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
A SIDE-TRACK SUGGESTION
As Brixey and Gaffkin turned into the police station, the constable who had acted as intermediary between them and his inspector once or twice, by carrying messages to the "Mitre" came hurrying out and pulled himself up at sight of them.
"Just going to fetch you, sir," he said, looking at Brixey. "Mr Crabbe would like a word with you. There’s a man come in from Normanstead with some news."
He led them down a passage to Crabbe’s office, and opening the door, revealed the inspector in conversation with a queer-looking person who sat by the fire, warming a pair of remarkably dirty hands. The callers, inspecting him closely, noted a face tanned by the sun and wind to the colour of mahogany a pair of sharp, ferrety eyes, and a watchful, half-suspicious expression. They noted too, the man’s curious fur cap, evidently of home manufacture, out of the skins of animals, his red plush waistcoat, worn under a soil-stained blue pilot coat, and the gaily-coloured Belcher handkerchief knotted about his sinewy throat. Something about him suggested much outdoor life and the possible excitements of poaching, and Brixey was prepared for Crabbe’s introduction.
"One of the people who were camping out on Mardene Moor the other day," said Crabbe, nodding sideways at his queer guest. "Eli Clarke, by trade a tinker. He heard of this business a few hours ago, when he was in Normanstead, and he’s come in here to tell something he knows—hoping, of course," he added, with a wink at Brixey, "to get paid for his trouble."
"What do you know?" asked Brixey.
Clarke looked his questioner up and down, and, before replying, pulled a crumpled and dirty copy of the reward bill out of his waistcoat pocket.
"Yourn, guv’nor?" he inquired, pointing to Brixey's name at the foot. "Just so. Then in that case, if anything as I tells you"
"If anything that you tell me leads to the finding of Mr. Linthwaite," said Brixey, "you'll be well paid for your trouble. So what is it?"
"Not so much, guv'nor," answered Clarke, with a certain amount of ruefulness. "I wish it had been more—I could do with that reward as you offers! All the same, accordin' to him—" here he indicated Inspector Crabbe—"it's more than what's been told by anybody else.
"But it's this—I had my van on Mardene Moor, outside the town there, from last Saturday afternoon to Tuesday night, when I moved off Normanstead way. I was going home’ards, gradual, d'ye see, up Leatherhead direction. Well, now, Tuesday morning, about a quarter to twelve, as near as I can remember, maybe a bit earlier, I was in Foxglove Lane, among the gorse bushes—never mind what for, 'cause it's nothing to do with this.
"I sees two gentlemen coming along from the direction of them Priory grounds, which, as Mr. Crabbe there can tell you, if you don't know yourselves, is at the top o' the lane. Now, in course, I don't know who these gentlemen were—by name, you understand—though I've seen one of 'em, time and again, in Selchester streets. He's a biggish, sporty-looking sort, getting on a bit in years, like, with a moustache what he wears brushed up—fierce, as it were.
"T'other, he was a clean-shaven, oldish gentleman, as wore a suit o' grey clothes and swung a gold-mounted umbrella. I took particular note o' that, and of his gold chain. That, I reckon, guv'nor, is the party as is missing?"
"Well?" said Brixey. "Go on with your story."
"Ain't a deal left in it," continued Clarke. "These here two comes right past where I was in the bushes. They didn't see me, 'cause I took good care they shouldn't. They was talkin' confidential and serious—I could see that. But they was a good twenty yards away, and I couldn't catch a word o' what they was sayin'.
However, when they'd passed me a bit, they parted. Him with the umbrella went off across the moor in the direction of that old mill at Mardene, and him with the moustache turned back towards the town by the way they’d come. But when he'd walked past me again a yard or two, he twisted sharp round and called out to the other gent. And that's all I can tell as to what you might call exact words of what I actually heard."
"What did you hear?" demanded Brixey. "Don't make any mistake about it."
"No mistake, guv'nor. It was only a word or two," said the tinker. "Him with the moustache called out: 'I say!' he says. 'You’d better make it two-thirty. That'll give me more time,' he says. T’other gent nodded. 'Very well,' he calls. 'I'll be there—two-thirty.' Then they both went their ways, and, of course, I went mine. And that's all, gentlemen, whatever it's worth."
Brixey turned from his informant to Crabbe, who motioned him and Gaffkin to step aside.
"Before this man came in," he said, in a whisper, "I had some news which seems to confirm his statement—from Mardene. A gentleman who I haven't the slightest doubt was Mr. Linthwaite got a bit of cold lunch at the village inn there at one o'clock on Tuesday and, set off, three-quarters of an hour later, in the direction of Selchester."
"Now that appears to be the very last bit of information. The thing now is; where did Mr. Linthwaite go at half-past two? And was the other man whom he was to meet Mr. Mesham."
"Of course!" answered Brixey. "We know it was Mesham. Here, let me give this man something for his trouble, and arrange with about further reward if his information leads to anything, and then Gaffkin and I will tell you all we've learnt this evening."
Crabbe's eyes grew larger and his face graver as he heard Brixey’s account of the evening's proceedings, and in the end he shook, his head and fell into a deep silence, which the other two did not interrupt.
"I don't like this, gentlemen," he said at last. "Mesham's a stranger in this town. He’s only been here two years, and nobody knows anything about him, nor where his means come from, nor anything!
"And he’s deep; why, he was chatting to me in the street about this affair early this evening and he never breathed a syllable about having met Mr. Linthwaite. Instead, he suggested that he’d disappeared, because he wanted to. I don't like it at all!"
"The situation is this," observed Brixey. "We now know, on the evidence of Mr. Felgrave, and by the admission of Mrs. Byfield, through her son, that Mesham met my uncle in the Priory grounds on Tuesday morning and walked down Foxglove Lane with him.
"We also know, from what this tinker chap has just told us, that my uncle made an appointment with Mesham for half-past two, and that he set out from Mardene at a quarter to two to keep it. There the trail ends. Now, then, it seems to me that there's only one thing to do, inspector. How does it strike you?"
"You're right, sir," said Crabbe. "There is only one thing to do. We must go at once, and insist on Mesham telling us where he was to meet Mr. Linthwaite, and if he did meet him. Come round to his rooms, gentlemen—they’re close by."
He took Brixey and Gaffkin down the street until they came to a point where a narrow alley turned off in the direction of the cathedral close—there, at the corner of the main street and the alley, stood a saddler's shop with the name Strike over it in gilt letters, on a powder-blue ground. Crabbe pointed to some lighted windows on the first floor.
"Those are Mesham's rooms," he said. "He has the whole floor—very comfortable, too, I can assure you! He knows how to look after himself. I've been, in here more than once."
"Mr. Mesham in?" he asked, as a smart young woman answered his ring at the door bell. "Just ask him to see me, if you please—important business. I wish," he added in a whisper, as the three men waited in the passage, "that we could have caught him unawares. He'll be prepared now."
Mesham, prepared or not, certainly revealed a brilliant unconcern. They found him in a comfortably furnished sitting-room, lounging in a deep easy chair in a smoking jacket and crimson morocco slippers; a bright fire at his toes, a spirit-case and mineral waters at his elbow; a cigar of fine aroma between his teeth.
He took it out unconcernedly as the three entered, and while he nodded half-condescendingly to Crabbe, gave no more than a supercilious glance of recognition to the others.
"Didn't know you'd got a bodyguard, Crabbe," he drawled, "But as you have, what the devil is it all about?"
Crabbe advanced to a table which filled the centre of the room, and, resting the tips of his fingers on it, leaned forward with a keen look.
"Mr. Mesham," he said, "this Linthwaite affair. We’ve had information to-night which proves that you know something about it. I'll just tell you what it is, and then—well, then, I should like to know what you've got to say.
"Now," he concluded, after summarising what Mr. Felgrave and the tinker had told, "what do you say to that, Mr. Mesham? You see how serious it is!"
Mesham, who had shown no sign of either surprise or uneasiness while Crabbe was speaking, and had watched him steadily throughout, sneered visibly as he glanced from him to his companions.
"I'll tell you what I say, Crabbe," he answered. "And in a few words, too! I can mind my own business as well as any man. And I’m going to!"
"You don’t deny what Mr. Felgrave says, nor what Clarke says?" asked Crabbe uneasily.
"Not for a minute. Quite right, both of ’em," replied Mesham.
"Did you meet Mr. Linthwaite somewhere at two-thirty that day?" inquired Crabbe.
Mesham’s lip curled in a more pronounced sneer.
"Now that is my business!" he said with emphasis.
"You won’t tell?" asked Crabbe.
"Certainly not!" retorted Mesham.
Crabbe glanced at Brixey, and Brixey moved nearer the defiant figure in the arm-chair.
"You don’t care anything about my personal anxiety?" he asked.
Mesham let his eyes turn in Brixey’s direction for a second.
"Not a damn!" he answered. "Why should I?"
Brixey drew back again, and Mesham, after another sneering look at him, turned to Crabbe.
"Look here, Crabbe," he said. "How do you know what business Linthwaite had with me, or if we’re to mention names, with Mrs. Byfield? Go away and think over that. You’re building up a mare’s-nest and Linthwaite'll be dropping right on top of it! See?"
Brixey touched Crabbe’s elbow.
"Come away!" he said: "We’re wasting time here."