The Whispering Lane/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
THE LOST TRAIL
Hard-earned experience had taught Hustings the needfulness of at least four things, requisite to keep his body well-tuned and alert, if thoughts were to be clearly conceived and perfectly translated into useful actions. Regular meals, judicious exercise, ample sleep, and what the poet calls “well-judged idleness” were the apples which he had so far gathered off the Tree of Knowledge. On reading Jimmy’s astonishing telegram, an earlier impulse urged post-haste travelling to Wessbury, for immediate verification of its contents, but a later one advised delay, amusement, and rest, before dealing with further vexatious matters. “The more haste, the less speed!” murmured Dick, recalling Bender’s proverbial philosophy with a wry smile.
In this reasonable frame of mind, the harassed young man went to his club, where he always retained a room, changed into evening kit, enjoyed a belated dinner, and spent a lazy hour at the nearest music-hall, where no thinking was required to follow the light some entertainment. Such wise philanderings with pleasure brought him a next-morning reward, for he stepped into the ten-thirty train to Chelmsford with a brain well swept of theoretical cobwebs. Cool-headed, clear-minded, and self-mastered in every way, he was thus ready to consider further problems. The first of these was propounded to him by Inspector Trant, almost before he descended from the bus at Wessbury. “I got your wire and came to meet you, Mr. Hustings,” burst out the officer immediately, “the boy's gone.”
Dick looked, as he felt, puzzled, “I thought Mrs. Jerr and her servant had gone,” he remarked, drawing Trant aside. “Jimmy sent me a wire last night.”
“Hang that youngster. He will go and do things on his own.”
“You gave him a free hand, remember,” Dick reminded him.
“Within limitations, Mr. Hustings; within limitations.” Trant was fuming, “But here he sends you a wire without consulting me, and now goes off on his own.”
“Is he chasing the fugitives?”
“I don't know: he said nothing, but just disappeared.”
“When did Wu Ti and his mistress go?”
“Yesterday afternoon or early last evening,” growled the inspector, gloomily, “it is impossible to fix the time. All I can learn is that they did not get away from here by any bus; nor did they board any train at Chelmsford. I arrived in this place at seven o’clock last night and made the boy guide me immediately to the lane, afterwards to the bungalow. I heard nothing in the lane, and found no one in the house. This morning it was the same, for although I have searched everywhere, there is no sign of that infernal old dame or her Chink. Oh, they’ve gone, sure enough.”
“Where?”
Dick was asking himself this question, but Trant, overhearing, thought that it was addressed to him and fired up. “How do I know, Mr. Hustings? Would I be here, wasting time with you, if I did know? Come along to the inn. I have sent for that confounded brat’s father, who may be able to explain things.”
While the two walked up the cobblestone street to The Pink Cow, Dick very wisely held his tongue, easily conjecturing the reason for Trant’s unusual heat. The man was mortified that he had neglected Jimmy’s warning, and his pride was wounded by the lad’s percipience. However, being a just man, he swallowed that pride and blurted out an apology at the inn door. “It’s my own fault, Mr. Hustings, for I should not have been above taking a hint. The boy is clever and well-worth listening to. But I suppose old dogs don’t like being taught new tricks by young puppies.”
“I sympathise,” Dick nodded, comprehendingly, “it’s a case of the younger generation knocking at the door. Eh?”
“Something of that sort. Unless”—Trant spoke deliberately—“unless, I say, sir, this youngster is double-crossing us.”
“Nonsense! He told me, and he told you, that he suspects the couple. That alone should assure you of his honesty.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Hustings. After all, the boy knows much he won’t let out.”
“Whatever he does know is not being kept back to shield this woman,” retorted Dick, heatedly, “I’ll take my oath that Jimmy’s a white boy.”
“If he is, why hasn’t he shown up this morning?”
“Perhaps his father can explain. Oh, good morning, Webb.”
“Good morning, sir,” replied the landlord, who had approached quietly during the conversation, “Mr. Took is waiting for you two gentlemen in the parlour,” a piece of news which sent Trant hurriedly into the house. Hustings was about to follow when Webb detained him: “You’ve heard the news, sir?”
“About that couple skipping? Yes!”
“Don’t see why there should be any skipping about it, sir,” argued Webb, referring the matter to Dick’s common sense. “The old lady always said that she was going to clear out, because of being worried by this ghost-business. And there wasn’t no harm about her, so far as I know. But that blinking Chink, sir! I never did trust him, and now he’s gone and stolen my dog.”
“Your dog?”
“An Airedale, I kept in the yard. Pedigree pup I wouldn’t have taken twenty quids for. Chained him up and fed him last night, and now he’s gone.”
“Why do you suspect Wu Ti?”
“’Cause he offered three times to buy him, saying as the old lady was afeared of burglars. ’Course I told him to go where he’ll go in the long run, and now he’s been and stole him. If ever I lay hands on that blasted heathen I’ll” here followed a lurid threat, interspersed with adjectives, ending with an apology for going off the deep end.
“Have you told the police?” questioned Dick, ignoring this wordy emotion.
“Police!” Webb looked disgusted, “why yes, sir. Leastways the only cove of the breed hereabouts. And a fat lot of good he is. Says he’s busy with more important matters than hunting for my tyke. And what are they, sir?” the man’s face lighted up with curiosity, “what’s that Inspector bloke nosing round here for along o’ Jinks?”
“It’s The Whispering Lane business,” explained Hustings, reservedly.
“Waste o’ time, sir. Heaps and heaps of them spirit-merchants have been poll-prying themselves sick without getting a sniff.”
“The police may be more fortunate,” was Dick’s reply, and he passed along the passage into the parlour.
Here he found the Inspector conversing with a tall, thin, sallow-skinned man, who looked very much the schoolmaster he had been, and very little the sexton he now was. He had the face and stoop, and refined accent of the pundit caste; but there were traces of the Romany blood in him as in his son. Iron-grey hair, moustache and imperial, and melancholy dark eyes, gave him a kind of Charles the First appearance. “I can tell you no more, Mr. Inspector,” he was saying when the lawyer entered.
Taking no notice of the new-comer, Trant proceeded to examine his man. “You say that your son went to bed at eleven last night, after I dismissed him?”
“Yes!”
“And this morning you found him gone when you went at six o’clock to waken him!” then in response to a nod from Mr. Took, the Inspector continued, “Did the boy say if he was going anywhere?”
“No. He was excited about this case and told me that you were good enough to let him work under you.”
“He won’t work under me long if he goes on behaving so independently,” said Trant, grimly. “Do you approve of his being a detective?”
“Why not, Mr. Inspector? Where the treasure is, there will the heart be. James is born to your trade. As a schoolmaster I hold that a boy should follow his bent, provided it is honest.”
“You are not a schoolmaster now, Mr. Took?” inquired Dick, sympathetically.
“Younger men have ousted me from the pedagogue’s throne,” replied the other, smiling sadly, “and in these bleak days I must earn my bread as I best can.”
Trant got impatiently on his feet, irritated by this side-tracking. “Can you swear, Mr. Took, that you don’t know where your son is?”
“I can most certainly. But, if I may venture an opinion”
“Yes! Yes! Goon.”
“I think James is following up this matter in his own peculiar way.”
Dick assented. “More than that, I rather think that he is following up our runaways with a dog,” and he repeated Webb’s tale of his missing Airedale.
Here again Jimmy was proving himself more far-seeing than the Inspector. “Why couldn’t he ask Webb if he could borrow the animal?” asked Trant, half angry, half pleased with the boy’s alert doings.
Took smiled faintly. “That is like James: he never tells anyone of his plans until he sees the result of his plans.”
“But surely you don’t approve of his stealing another man’s dog.”
“Not stealing, Mr. Inspector. James has only borrowed the animal in an emergency. I shall explain matters to Mr. Webb.”
“No! No! Say nothing,” cried the officer, sharply, “I don’t want my business here known at present.”
“It isn’t,” said Dick, “Webb thinks it is just The Whispering Lane affair.”
“Let him and everyone else think so. Mr. Took, what do you know of this woman?”
“Nothing, or next to nothing, Mr. Inspector,” the ex-schoolmaster halted at the door, “she lived quietly and troubled no one. Nor did the Chinaman. James is likely to know more than I. He worked in Mrs. Jerr’s garden for a time.”
Trant nodded a dismissal, and when alone with Hustings, turned to him frowningly, “What did I tell you? That youngster does know something.”
“Probably! But you may be sure that the something will be used in our favour. If I were you I should allow Jimmy to follow his own fancies. He’ll come back with important news: you’ll see.”
“He certainly has his wits about him,” admitted the Inspector, with reluctant admiration. “I’ll let him use them as you suggest. Meanwhile I am going immediately to Chelmsford for a warrant to search that bungalow.”
“Wisely said. And later on you might get one to hunt through Old Wung’s dug-out. Yes! Remember what I told you of Jenny Walton’s statements. Wu Ti goes there to smoke opium. Wu Ti is the man we want, since he will be able to supply all information about Mrs. Jerr. And,” concluded the young lawyer, impressively, “Jenny said that Wu Ti had a grudge against Slanton.”
Trant approved of this suggestion, and accepted it willingly. “One thing at a time, Mr. Hustings. I’ll look over this bungalow first,” and he went off to catch the bus to Chelmsford.
Dick remained where he was to smoke and cogitate. It was obvious that, in some inexplicable way, Mrs. Jerr was concerned in the crime. Wu Ti was the enemy of Slanton, and Wu Ti was the servant of Mrs. Jerr: thus linking the London opium den with Wessbury. Also Wessbury was connected with Fryfeld, by the man’s scarf-pin, picked up in the former place—the man who had been found dead in the latter. But how Slanton had got to Fryfeld from the eighteen miles distant Wessbury, it was impossible to say. The return half-ticket suggested that he had travelled by train from Liverpool Street, intending to go back. But in that case how came he to be mutilated and drugged? Also Jimmy had stated that he had seen no sign of Slanton leaving the village by any one bus. This being so, Dick concluded—and it was the sole conclusion at which he could arrive—that the man had been drugged and branded in Wessbury: afterwards being taken to Fryfeld, that Miss Danby might be implicated. “But how?” Dick asked himself.
Ten minutes after it flashed across his mind that Mrs. Jerr and her servant had likewise dispensed with bus and train, which implied that they had other means of transport at their disposal. Of course they might have walked; but the old woman, by reason of her weight and age, was ill-fitted for pedestrianism. Moreover, although she had rented a furnished bungalow, it was probable that she and Wu Ti possessed a fair quantity of personal baggage, which could not be left behind, yet which could not be carried away by hand. Dick, fumbling thus at his problem, decided to apply to Mr. Took for its solution. Since Jimmy had worked in the bungalow garden, Jimmy’s sharp eyes had undoubtedly seen all that could be seen, and he might have dropped his father a hint.
So Hustings asked the way to the man’s cottage; learned from an elderly housekeeper that he was professionally engaged, and forthwith betook himself to the churchyard. Here he found Took digging a grave in the shadow of the square Norman tower and lost no time in satisfying his curiosity. “When your son was working for Mrs. Jerr, did he see about the place any motor-car, horse and trap, push-bike, motor-cycle, or even an aeroplane?”
Took paused to rest his hands on the spade and think, by no means surprised by the abrupt question, with its mention of all possible means of transport.
“James saw a motor-cycle!” he remembered after reflection.
“Ha! With a side-car?”
“Yes! That Chinese servant was accustomed to take out the old lady in it, for occasional airings. Never through the village though: always across the common at the back of the bungalow.”
“Good egg!” Dick nodded hasty thanks for useful information, and walked away, satisfied that he had learned how Slanton had been transported to Fryfeld, how Wu Ti and his mistress had left Wessbury.
After a hurried luncheon, Dick spent the greater part of the afternoon in exploring the locality which had to do with the business in hand. The tunnel of the sunken lane could scarcely be called one now, so stripped were the overhanging boughs of leaves. He glanced upward at the bare oaks, sideways at the tangled banks, wondering how the marvel of the crying voice had been brought into being. It was certainly a trick. He thought so, Jimmy thought so; but how that trick was managed no one knew, no one could even imagine. However no tormented ghost was terrorizing now, so the young man tramped stolidly down the descent, scrambled up the ascent to pause beside the bungalow. There it stood, ringed by its white fence: peaceful and silent amidst barren flower-beds, tiny lawns of brilliant green, and clustering shrubs, neatly trimmed. Innocent enough in out ward seeming, yet to Dick, suggesting sinister possibilities. Slanton had not been murdered there; but Slanton had been drugged and branded there. He was sure of this, insufficient as was the evidence to think thus positively.
Walking on, Hustings inspected the spot which Jimmy had described as that where he had picked up the turquoise swastika. This was a stone’s throw from the bungalow, immediately behind it, at the curve of an unmade-up road, which straggled crookedly across the common. Probably, when the unconscious Slanton had been packed into the side-car, clumsy, maybe hurried movements had shaken the pin from his neck tie. And then—what then? Dick stared far away into the vast distance, where dim patches of woodland were scattered along the horizon. In his mind’s eye he saw shudderingly, the motor-cycle with its dreadful freight, swaying and bumping over the clayey rutted road, on its eighteen miles journey to implicate an innocent woman. But was she really innocent? He thought so, he had stated so, more because he wished for Aileen’s sake to think so, than because he was absolutely certain. One moment he believed, only to disbelieve the next. What linked Slanton to Edith Danby? What connected Mrs. Jerr with Slanton? How did the Chinaman come into the matter and with what news would Jimmy Took return? One question after another presented itself for answer, but to none could he find any reply. Hustings thought of those marine plants floating apparently disconnectedly on the watery surface, yet solidly connected in the depths. He would have to go down and down and down to get at the one cause creating these many scattered effects. But how he was to dive; how to bring up the treasure of knowledge he coveted, was not clear.
Walking and thinking, searching and watching, Dick covered an immense track of country that afternoon, in quest of Jimmy and the dog. Undoubtedly, the fugitives had escaped on the motor-cycle—Mrs. Jerr in the side-car, Wu Ti racing the machine. And the Airedale in leash, Jimmy at his heels, was following a trail which Dick, being dogless, could not pick up. For hours he wandered fruitlessly, and retraced his steps, shortly after sun-down, to find signs of occupancy in the bungalow. Trant, brandishing an official looking paper was expostulating at the door with a short, slim, neatly-built man, who was refusing him admission. “It is monstrous,” he was saying in a light, rather weak voice, “you have no reason to suspect my tenant: no right to search my house.”
“I have the right of this warrant,” retorted the Inspector with a flourish of the document, “and that right I intend to exercise. Ah, Mr. Hustings, you arrive in the nick of time. As a solicitor you may be able to convince Mr. Chane that the law is with me. Mr. Hustings, Mr. Chane!” he waved his hand by way of introduction.
Dick surveyed the owner of the bungalow, this grey-tweed-clothed, light-voiced, dapper little fellow, elderly and frail. His voice somehow explained his looks. Light hair, light complexion, light eyes of shallow blue, Mr. Simon Chane suggested an airy elfin changeling, too trifling to be taken seriously. Still, he was definitely serious at the moment, his fair skin flushed, his pale eyes brilliant with anger, as he blocked the doorway. “My house is my castle,” piped this butterfly person, wrathfully. “Dora is a dead letter now that the war is over. You can’t and you shan’t enter.”
“I take it that you are a law-abiding citizen, Mr. Chane,” said Dick, quietly.
“Of course; and for that reason I stand on my rights.”
“If we discuss matters I think you will exercise them in the cause of justice.”
“I am willing to do that if you and this officer can show cause. But until you do, I stand here!” and the crabbed little fellow spread his arms from jamb to jamb to prevent entrance.
The Inspector smiled dryly, “I can walk in on the authority of this warrant, and any court will uphold my action. But, as I never create unnecessary trouble, I will state my reasons: the more so, Mr. Chane, as I wish you to give me certain information,” and he then related succinctly, so much of the case as had to do with Mrs. Jerr’s possible entanglement therein.
Chane listened intently, his shallow eyes fixed throughout on the speaker’s face. “I gather then,” said he when Trant ended, “that you suspect Mrs. Jerr of having seen this man, Slanton, when he came to investigate this ghost business.”
“Yes! She must have seen him. A scarf-pin, worn by Dr. Slanton, was found on the road behind this bungalow.”
“That doesn’t prove Slanton’s presence in the house,” retorted Chane, contemptuously. “Mrs. Jerr denied all knowledge of him, I understand.”
“She did, and to me,” put in Hustings, quickly.
“Then you may take it that she spoke truly. Mrs. Jerr is an honest woman.”
“And her servant—what about him?”
“I know nothing so far as Wu Ti is concerned,” rejoined Chane, coldly.
“Why did he and his mistress run away?” demanded the Inspector.
“I see no running away about their departure, Mrs. Jerr told me several times that she might leave at any time, since these ghost-hunters so worried her. She wrote me yesterday of her intention to give up the house. I received the letter by the mid-day post in London, and therefore came down to look after my property,” the little man produced a letter from the pocket of his grey tweed sports-coat. “There it is. You don’t want to see the notes she enclosed: her rent, gentleman, honestly paid at the last moment, to the last farthing.”
Trant, with Dick looking over his shoulder, skimmed the short epistle, which simply stated that the writer was worried into leaving Wessbury sooner than had been her intention. The last straw was the intrusion of a man called Hustings, who bothered her with foolish questions, and she refused to submit further to such persecution, “Herewith I enclose my quarter’s rent,” ended the letter abruptly, “with thanks for your courtesy. Truly yours, Selina Jerr.”
“May I keep this letter?” asked the Inspector, folding it up.
“Certainly, and now that you have explained, you can search the house!” Chane stood aside as he spoke, “you will find nothing incriminating, I’ll swear.”
“What do you know of Mrs. Jerr?”
“Nothing, or next to nothing. I advertised my bungalow to let furnished. She answered my advertisement, saying that she was in search of a restful home.”
“But her references?”
“I asked for none, as she paid the first quarter’s rent in advance. Good enough for me, as I didn’t wish to be bothered with business details. Come in.”
The Inspector promptly obeyed, but Dick refused to join in the search as he was both hungry and tired. There was no need for him to be the inconvenient third, as the officer was quite capable of managing this strictly official business, solus and alone. He therefore returned down the lane and up the lane to bring up at The Pink Cow. There he found Mrs. Webb, pleasantly fluttered, watching for him at the door. “A young lady is waiting for you, sir.”
Dick, on the point of entering, stopped, and stared, wholly taken aback by this very unexpected intelligence. “A young lady!” he repeated, mechanically.
“Miss Aileen More, sir. She says that you are expecting her.”