The Lost Mr. Linthwaite/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
THE VEILED WOMAN
Had Brixey invited the waitress to lead a white elephant in chains through the streets of Newhaven she could scarcely have looked more astonished than she did on hearing this question. Seeing her astonishment, he hastened to make matters more plain to her.
"Nothing much!" he said reassuringly. "I just want you to tell me something, if you can. This is Saturday. Now, the day before yesterday, Thursday—do you remember any strangers coming in here in the afternoon, between, say, two o’clock and four, or something of that sort?"
The girl’s face cleared, and she nodded her head with an emphatic gesture.
"There was a gentleman in, about three o’clock’ she said. "He had a cup of tea. But he came in to use our telephone."
"Ah!" said Brixey. "To use your telephone. Where’s that, now?"
"At the end of the hall, by the bar," answered the waitress. "He wanted to telephone a message to the post office—he paid the landlord for it."
"Oh!" remarked Brixey. "Now, what sort of gentleman—old or young?"
"Well," replied the waitress, after thoughtful reflection, "I should say he’d be thirty or so."
"Quite a stranger, I suppose?" suggested Brixey.
"I never saw him before," said the girl. "But I’ve only been here a year. Perhaps," she added, "the landlord, Mr. Marrows, could tell you more about him. Has he—has he been doing something?"
"Ah!" said Brixey, with a warning look. "It’s a very mysterious case. However, here’s the little present I promised you. Now, then," he added, as he slipped a sovereign into the girl’s hand, "where is Mr. Marrows?"
The waitress, evidently as delighted with the mystery as with its results to herself, conducted Brixey to the bar parlour at the rear of the hall, where an elderly man sat reading the newspaper to the accompaniment of a cigar. He looked over the top of his spectacles as the girl ushered Brixey in.
"Gentleman wants to speak to you, Mr. Marrows," she said, and turned away with obvious reluctance.
Brixey nodded confidentially to the landlord and sat down by him.
"A little private .business, between you and me, of the detective sort," said Brixey, assuming a still more mysterious air than he had manifested to the damsel. "I’ve just heard from your waitress what I wanted—and expected—to find. On Thursday afternoon you'd a man in here who used your telephone to send a wire to the post office. He paid you for it?"
"Left half a crown for it—they collect from the post office," assented the, landlord. "Told me to give the change to the girl, which I did."
"Just so" said Brixey. "You didn't know the, man?"
"Not from Adam" answered Mr. Marrows. "Not any more than I know you."
Brixey pulled out a card and laid it on the table.
"That's who I am," he said. "Now, that message which the man sent off from here was to me—I have the copy of it in my pocket. And I want to find out who he was. There's a great deal depends on it, Mr. Marrows. I gather from what your waitress says that he was a stranger here?"
"Absolute, mister! Never saw the man in my life before," declared the landlord. "And I've been in this house five-and-twenty years. I've a good memory for faces, too."
"Then you can remember, since it’s only forty-eight hours since he was here, what this chap was like?" suggested Brixey.
"Very ordinary," said the landlord. "I should ha’ set him down as a commercial, or a clerk, or something of that sort, mister. Dark clothes, billycock hat, bit of a black moustache:—very ordinary, such as you might meet by the dozen, you know.
"However, I did notice one thing about him that's not so very usual, when all’s said and done."
"What was that?" asked Brixey.
"Had a queer cast in one eye—the left one," answered the landlord. Gave him a—a—what's that word, now?"
"A sinister look?" suggested Brixey.
"You're right," agreed Mr. Marrows. "A sinister look! Seemed to be looking at you sort of fixed-like with one optic while the other roved round. I never trust that sort. Not as it can be helped, I suppose—born so, no doubt."
"And that’s all you know of him? " asked Brixey.
"All!" said the landlord. "Excepting that he came in here, had a cup of tea and a bit of toast or the like, used our telephone, and treated me to a drop of whisky and a cigar before he went out. Left to catch the four-eleven train."
Brixey followed the mysterious stranger's example by inviting Mr. Marrows to the refreshment specified. But he got no further information.
When he, too, presently caught the four-eleven, all he knew was that a very ordinary-looking individual, only distinguished from the ruck by an optical infirmity, had somehow become possessed of Mr. Linthwaite's real message to himself, and had, at his own pleasure, or at the dictation of some other person, altered it as to endeavour to make him, Brixey, believe that Mr. Linthwaite was on his way, via Newhaven and Dieppe, to Paris.
"A concocted job!" mused Brixey, as he set off on his return journey to Selchester. "How many of them are in at it? And is this squinting person a principal or an agent—a cat's-paw? And how am I to find him?
This was a question not to be answered by speculation, and Brixey occupied, himself for the remainder of his two hours' journey by considering larger issues. By this time he had come to a supplementary conclusion—the thing at the bottom of all this mystery was money. But whose money? What money?
He began to reflect upon all he had heard of money in connection with it. Martin Byfield had left Georgina, his niece, no money. He had not made any will about his own money; at any rate, if he had, no will had ever been brought to light. Had Mr. Linthwaite's disappearance anything to do with these two matters?
Again, as regards money, Mr. Linthwaite had been in the habit of paying Mesham, as Mr. X., so much money every six months. Had that fact any relation to his disappearance? And yet again, Mr. Semmerby had casually mentioned the fact that within a few days young Fanshawe Byfield would come of age and into a fortune—a big one. Had that any relation to the Linthwaite mystery?
After all, Mr. Linthwaite was a solicitor, if a retired one. It might be—nay, must be—that he had professional secrets of which he, Brixey, knew and could know nothing whatever.
Supposing that his evidently accidental meeting with Mrs. Byfield and Mesham brought up one of those secrets and led to these apparently mysterious events, might not the explanation, when it came, be a remarkably simple one? He was bound to confess that it might.
But, in spite of that, he was going on—the intuitive feeling that something was wrong was too powerful to be resisted. He had set out to find his uncle, and he was going to find him. His zeal might be misplaced, but Brixey’s way was to go through with things.
He was back at the "Mitre" before seven, and at once sought out Brackett, eager for news. Nothing had happened. The placard men had patrolled the streets until noon, when, in accordance with Brixey's orders, the printer had withdrawn them. But the one hour's publicity had been amply sufficient, said Brackett. The whole town was talking about the affair.
And, whether it had anything to do with it or not, a young fellow who drove a motor-car from Stillwick's garage had told Empidge that he would like to see Mr. Brixey that evening, but wouldn't say why. Empidge had told him to call later on.
"Bring him in—any time," said Brixey. "Any telegrams for me?"
He had hoped to hear something more from Gaffkin. But there was nothing, and nothing had come by the time he had eaten his dinner. He sat down then to write more copy for the Sentinel. This time he was going further; Monday's Sentinel should have a column, a whole column, with rousing cross-headings, of startling news. He was busied in this way when nine o’clock came, and the old landlord entered with a significant air which suggested mystery.
"There’s a woman, heavily veiled, outside in the yard," he whispered, "Wants to see you on the placard business. But she’s evidently frightened to death of being seen, and doesn't wish to come into the house.
"Look here, there's a quiet little room up the yard, in one of the old wings. I'll take her there, and assure her of privacy, and you can go and talk to her. Wait a minute, and I'll fetch you."
Five minutes later, Brixey was ushered into a queer little room at the top of a flight of stairs in an ancient part of the house which he had not seen before. There was no furniture in it but a rickety table and a couple of decayed chairs.
In the light of a small lamp which Brackett had set on the table he saw a tall, slightly-built woman, dressed in old-fashioned rusty black garments, whose head and face were so thoroughly obscured by thick swathings of veil that it was impossible to see any features beyond a prominent nose.
Brixey stared hard at this apparition. His visitor was so still, so statuesque, that for the moment he was taken aback, and it was not until a low, interrogative cough had sounded from behind the heavy veil that he regained his wits.
"You wish to speak to me, ma’am?" he asked awkwardly, "Won't you take a chair?"
The veiled lady glanced at the door.
"Mr. Brixey, I suppose?" she said. "The Mr. Brixey whose name is on the posters? Yes, but is it—shall we be absolutely private?"
"I can assure you of that, ma'am," answered Brixey, "There's nobody at all in this part of the house; that door's closed; nobody will come, and we can talk in whispers. As for me, if you've come to tell me anything relating to my uncle. I'm as silent as—as a man can be! So"
The mysterious visitor sat down in a chair on one side of the rickety table, and Brixey, taking the other, leaned towards her.
"Don't be afraid of anything!" he said reassuringly, "This is real privacy."
Without further delay the visitor pushed up the heavy swathings of veil, and Brixey found himself looking at an elderly woman, of a strongly marked countenance, who, now that she was unveiled, leaned nearer to him and regarded him with an attention equal to his own.
"I can tell you something that I know," she said in a low, tense whisper which did no more than reach his ear. "It may have something to do with what you're after, and if it is, you'll see that I'm paid—I'm poor!"
"That's all right," answered Brixey hurriedly. "Make yourself easy on that point."
The woman nodded and drew her chair still nearer to the intervening table.
"You mentioned one name on the placard they carried about this morning," she said, in the same low but clear tones. "It's about that I've come—about him—Mesham!"