The Lost Mr. Linthwaite/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI
WHO WAS HE?
Once more the name of the man in whom, as Brixey had long been convinced, much of the mystery which he was attempting to fathom centred! He was prepared for it, but he unconsciously started, and drew his own chair closer to the rickety table. His own eager face was very near to the woman's somewhat haggard and watchful one.
"Mesham!" he said, "Yes. And—what?"
"I'd better tell you who I am," answered the woman. "I'm enough known in the town, but I came here like this because—well, in a place of this sort, it doesn't do to let it be known that you're interfering with your neighbour's business. And I'm neighbour to Mrs. Byfield. You'll know, I suppose, where she lives—in the Minories?"
"I know," assented Brixey. "Been there."
"Perhaps you didn't notice at the side of her house, back of the garden, there's a little street—Friargate—that runs into the town?" said the visitor. "Well, there is, and her garden wall makes one side of it for some distance. There's a door in that wall—I live in a house right opposite that door.
"My name’s Mrs. Iddison—I'm a dressmaker. And I do a good deal for Mrs. Byfield, plain things, for her, and gowns for her servants, and I shouldn't like it to get to her ears that I've told anything that has to do with her affairs, you understand?"
"I see!" said Brixey, "Be reassured, Mrs. Iddison. All that you tell me's between ourselves."
"I don't know that it has anything to do with her," continued Mrs. Iddison. "But it certainly has to do with Mr. Mesham, and perhaps with this gentleman you're looking for.
"Well—it's this, sir. My windows look out on Mrs. Byfield's garden door, as I've said. Close by that garden door there's a lamp. It's the only lamp there is in Friargate, which is a short street. Now, last Tuesday night I was going to bed, about twenty minutes to ten, and I was just about drawing the blind down in my front upstairs window when I heard voices in the street below.
"I looked out and saw two gentlemen coming along. The lamp I mentioned was just in front of them, so, of course, the light fell full on them. One of them was Mr. Mesham. The other was a stranger—a tallish"
"Be very careful about describing him, if you please," interrupted Brixey.
"As tall as Mr. Mesham," said Mrs. Iddison. "An elderly man, fresh-coloured, clean-shaved. He'd a grey suit and a Trilby hat. I couldn't say more about him. They were talking—well, loud enough for me to hear, though I didn't catch any words.
"It was just as if they were—you know—just strolling along, chatting. Mr. Mesham was smoking a cigar. And when they came to Mrs. Byfield's garden door, they turned in. So, of course, I didn't see them again that night."
"I judge from your last words that you saw them on some other occasion," observed Brixey.
"Yes, the next night," assented Mrs. Iddison. "But under different circumstances. It was about the same time. I was upstairs, in the same room. There was a taxicab came down Friargate—one of Stillwick's. It stopped at Mrs. Byfield's garden door.
"In a minute or two the door opened, and Mr. Mesham and another gentleman came out. As far as I could see, it was the stranger that I'd seen the night before—his build, anyway, but he'd an overcoat on, and a big white muffler, and a soft cap. I only got the merest glimpse of his face. But I feel sure it was the same, from his height and general appearance."
"They entered the taxicab?" asked Brixey. "Both?"
"Both," replied Mrs. Iddison. "And, of course, off it went, round the corner and through the Minories. And that’s all I know. Do you think, sir," she continued, with an anxious, interrogative look at Brixey, "do you think, from what I say, that this would be the gentleman who’s missing?"
"I should say it’s extremely likely," answered Brixey.
"Do you think I shall have any chance of getting anything out of that reward, sir?" she asked nervously. "I could do with it, I assure you."
"You know what the terms of my offer are," answered Brixey, "I’m offering the reward for information which will lead to the finding of Mr. Linthwaite, alive or dead. If what you’ve told me is of help—as I have no doubt it will be—you’ll benefit. I shall have to follow it up, and find out more. You haven’t told all this to anyone else?"
"Oh, dear no, sir!" replied Mrs. Iddison. "Not a soul! I’m not one for talking to neighbours, and, to tell you the truth, I’ve never thought anything of this until I saw, that placard that was carried about this morning. No—I’ve told no one."
"Don’t!" said Brixey. "And, talking of neighbours, do you think any of yours would be likely to see what you saw?"
"I have none close at hand," she answered, "Mine’s the only dwelling house in Friargate. On one side of the street, coming from the main street, there’s first St. Fridolin’s church, and then the long wall of Mrs. Byfield’s garden.
"On the other side there’s a brewery—its walls and outbuildings run right up to my house, which is at the far corner. Then Friargate runs into the Minories. So there was nobody but me could have seen."
"Very well, Mrs. Iddison," said Brixey. "For the present, then, this is secret. I’ll see that you are properly rewarded."
He waited until his visitor had resumed her heavy veil and had slipped quietly away up the courtyard of the "Mitre"; then he went back to his private sitting-room and sat down to think.
Was that his uncle whom Mrs. Iddison had seen with Mesham? It seemed extremely likely. But, if so, why this extraordinary secrecy of movement? And, beyond that, why the throwing away of hat and umbrella in Foxglove Lane? Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Linthwaite himself was mixed up, of his own free will, in the mysterious doings of these people, and that he, Brixey, was alarming himself unduly, and being foolishly officious?
Mrs. Iddison’s information had certainly done something to shake him, and he was becoming almost angrily puzzled when word was brought to him that the young man from Stillwick’s was outside.
Brixey grew more puzzled before he had been closeted with this visitor for many minutes. Stillwick’s employee, like Mrs. Iddison, was out for what he could get. But, unlike her story, his appeared to have no mystery in it! It was a very plain ordinary story of a cab transaction.
As a rule, said this young man, he was with his taxicab on a rank near the station. He was there early in the evening of the previous Wednesday when Mr. Mesham came up to him and gave him an order. He was to be at Mrs. Byfield’s—the garden-door entrance—at twenty minutes to ten that evening, and would be wanted for an hour or a little more.
There was no secrecy about it. Mr. Mesham was alone when he gave the order. And he, the driver, had fulfilled it at the time specified; he had driven up to the minute, and Mr. Mesham and another gentleman had at once come out and entered the cab.
"Well, where did you drive them?" asked Brixey.
"Ledfield Junction, sir," answered the man promptly.
"Where’s that?" demanded Brixey.
"About five miles out, sir—going east," said the driver.
"Did they catch a train there, then?" asked Brixey.
"The strange gentleman did, sir—not Mr. Mesham," replied the man. "Mr. Mesham he came back with me, after seeing his friend off."
"Do you know where the friend went?" inquired Brixey.
"Yes," said the driver. "I followed them into the booking hall to set my watch right, and I was standing near when the strange gentleman took his ticket. He booked to Brighton."
Brixey revolved this answer in his mind for a minute or two. "Why should he have gone to Ledfield Junction when he could have gone from Selchester?" he asked.
"No train from here after eight o’clock, sir," answered the driver. "The ten-seventeen at Ledbury starts from Bayington, on the coast—branch line, sir, that doesn’t touch Selchester, That, I reckon, was why they went to Ledfield."
"Did you happen to hear Mr. Mesham address the other man by name?" asked Brixey.
But the driver shook his head. No, he hadn’t heard any name mentioned. Mr. Mesham and the stranger seemed very friendly—very friendly indeed. Mr. Mesham went with him on to the platform, saw him off, then came back to the taxicab and was driven to his own rooms in Selchester. He paid for the cab then.
"I suppose you'd know the stranger if you saw him?" suggested Brixey.
But the driver was doubtful. He had only a vague, general idea of an elderly gentleman—as tall as Mr. Mesham, and a good deal wrapped up.
After he had gone, Brixey felt that all he had heard that evening only seemed to lead to the conclusion that Mr. Linthwaite might, after all, have gone to Paris on the previous Thursday, having spent Wednesday night in Brighton, and that the message from Newhaven might have originated from him, and the variation in it been dictated by him.
He was climbing the stairs to his room that night when he encountered Georgina Byfield in one of the big, gloomy corridors. A sudden notion seized upon him. He badly wanted somebody to talk to, to confide in.
"Look here!" he said, stopping her, "I’m an impulsive chap! If I haven’t some soul to talk to to-morrow, I shall explode! It’s Sunday. Come out with me. I want to tell you a whole budget of stuff. Coming?"
Georgina gave him an intelligent glance and moved off.
"See me after breakfast in the morning," she answered.