Chapter XX

Mr. Strake, in spite of his swollen and bandaged face, was not unwilling to talk. In fact, he was very anxious, as soon as the Chief Constable appeared at his bedside, to have a very long conversation on the wickedness of the neighbourhood and on his own grievances in particular. A prosecution of Mackenzie for assault and battery was obviously the least that would satisfy him.

“That will do,” Wilson cut into the tirade. “We know exactly what’s happened to you. Now may I remind you that there’s such a thing as provocation? What did you say that caused Mr. Mackenzie to attack you?”

“Nothing,” growled the injured one. “At least,” he amended, “I only ’inted Mrs. Meston was no better than she should be, as everybody knows she ain’t, when he went for me like a wild beast.”

“Did you specify any particular way in which Mrs. Meston’s conduct was--open to suspicion?” Wilson asked smoothly.

“Only corresponding with other men on the quiet while her husband was alive.”

“Just so. Did you perhaps take a note----?”

“I didn’t!” said the man indignantly. “I never took any note. It was that Potts took the note.”--“David Potts, footman at the Grange,” the Colonel replied to Wilson’s glance of inquiry.

“Oh! And what note did Potts take?--and how do you come to know about it? Suppose you tell me the whole thing straight?”

Strake was not unwilling to oblige, and explained that late in the afternoon preceding Meston’s death, he had been lounging about the cross-roads on the way to the Grange, when a man came along in a two-seater Chrysler. Just after passing Strake, the man slowed down, and seemed to hesitate. Then he saw Potts, who was walking along the road, and hailed him in a loud, commanding voice. Strake, for no reason at all except natural inquisitiveness, crept along the hedge so that he could witness the interview, and heard the man inquire of Potts whether Mrs. Meston was at the Grange. Hearing that she was, he gave Potts a note, with instructions to deliver it immediately to Mrs. Meston, and to no one else. He then turned and drove away at a great pace inland, while Strake, his curiosity thoroughly whetted, caught up Potts on the road to the Grange, and soon discovered--though Potts did not appear to have been communicative--that the strange man was the Squire’s brother, John Loring.

“And to whom did you pass on this interesting piece of news?” Wilson asked.

“Nobody.”

“Come, I can’t believe that. Think again.” Mr. Strake thought, but his thoughts did not appear to make him happy. Eventually, after some wriggling, it transpired that he had, as a matter of fact, kept the news of Mr. John Loring’s return to himself for some time. He had intended originally to hand it over to Meston, for a consideration; but had failed to catch the latter before his disappearance. Then he had waited for him to return, rather wondering that nobody but himself appeared to have seen John Loring; and when Meston reappeared from the river under distinctly dubious circumstances, it immediately occurred to him that his exclusive information might be turned to profit. After the inquest he had approached Sylvia Meston, with a request for a subvention as a price for holding his tongue. At first she had abused him, but had eventually agreed to pay him twenty-five pounds the following day; and he had let her go. But late the same evening, while taking a quiet drink at the King’s Arms, he had received the news of her departure, alone, with luggage, in a great hurry, going Londonwards; and in his wrath at her apparent deception, had made certain incautious reflections upon her morals. Then from the corner of the room a tornado had fallen upon him, and he literally knew nothing more until he found himself in bed at the hospital.

This was Strake’s story, and all Wilson’s questioning could get no more out of him. It seemed certain that he had told all he knew. “We shall have to confirm the note incident with Potts,” he said; “but it seems pretty clear that Strake has told the truth, and that Mr. John Loring was in the neighbourhood on the Friday afternoon, and sent a note to Mrs. Meston by hand, which may almost be assumed to be an appointment, or request for an appointment, for that evening by the old ferry. I’m afraid, Colonel, that your next duty is clearly to get hold of both those parties. They may know at the Grange where Mrs. Meston was going--if she was not going to John Loring--and you might be able to confirm the note incident at the same time. What sort of fellow is this Potts, do you know?”

“A sulky, hangdog sort of man,” the Colonel said, “though quite a good servant, I believe. He’s been at the Grange some time and is devoted to the Lorings; in fact, I think he was one of the men that threw Meston out, the time when he went up in search of his wife.”

“I see. Well, good luck to you.”

“Did you think it might have been Strake who sent word to Meston of his wife’s rendezvous?” Michael asked.

“I did, but after questioning him I don’t. I’m pretty certain he told us all he knew.”

“Little swine!” said Michael.

“Certainly. Not that his swinishness appears to have availed him much, in the present case.”

“But who was it then? Potts?”

“Possibly. But I think not very likely. There seems no reason, if he is as devoted to the Lorings as they say, why he should want to give away the tryst. Nobody loved Meston at the Grange.”

“But if Meston was summoned as part of a plot?”

“You’ve an ingenious mind,” Wilson said. “Even so, Potts doesn’t appear to have had much opportunity of hatching it, does he? But whether or no, there’s one bit of investigation that I think might be useful, at any rate. You remember Billings, the cowman, who saw Meston’s light on till one o’clock or thereabouts? Well, I called on him this morning to get his statement confirmed, and I found out one rather interesting fact. Do you know how it happened that he was awake at that time? His wife had a baby that night, and they couldn’t get hold of the doctor--Dr. Kershaw--till after two o’clock.”

“Why, where was he?”

“Nominally, at the Grange. At least, when Billings first sent round to his house, soon after midnight, he wasn’t there. He made a great row, and Kershaw’s housekeeper, who doesn’t live actually on the premises, but next door, heard him, and poked out her head to tell him that the doctor was up at the Grange. Billings waited about an hour; then, as his wife was obviously nearing her time, he sent one of his boys again to the doctor’s house to hurry him up. The boy could get no answer of any kind, and eventually cycled up to the Grange, and found that Kershaw had left there between midnight and half-past. He returned to the doctor’s house, expecting to find that he was there before him, but all was silent. He then hammered loudly, and roused the old housekeeper, who said she’d heard the doctor come back and go out again, ‘nigh an hour ago.’ As Kershaw had left the Grange on his bicycle, and as it takes about five minutes to get on a bicycle from his house to the cottage, the Billingses were considerably puzzled--particularly as Kershaw did not finally turn up till after two, when the child was already born.”

“And turned up very cross,” Michael supplemented.

“So I gather. How did you know?”

“I heard some chatter about it, in the pub, the afternoon Meston’s body was found,” Michael said. “I hadn’t given it another thought till this moment. It was apropos of Kershaw’s behaviour to me. They were all exchanging reminiscences about his manners, and this story was mentioned.”

“I see. Well, it appears to be true enough. Billings said the doctor looked very queer when he came, didn’t say a word about his lateness, snapped all their heads off, and marched away the moment he’d finished his job. And it was all they could do to get him to come and see the patient again. Now, that leaves a good hour and a half of Kershaw’s time unaccounted for on that Friday night--just about the same time as is also unaccounted for of John Loring’s.”

“I don’t quite see where we’re getting to, all the same,” Michael remarked. “Do you mean Kershaw called up Meston, or murdered him, or what?”

“I’m not quite sure. But I think I’d like a little more information, all the same. Would you like to be a burglar, Michael?”

“I don’t mind. Whose house shall we burgle?”

“Kershaw’s.” Wilson’s eyes had something of a schoolboy twinkle. “The owner, I find on inquiry, is away for the week-end, and the charwoman who does for him has also taken the time off. After I’d finished with Billings I took a little turn through the village, and inspected Kershaw’s house. I find it’s in the oldest part of the town, backing on to a little alley-way, which appears to be almost unused. The back wall of the house is old and quite climbable, and there are back gates of which a piece of wire ought to make fairly short work. What do you say?”

“That’s why you were so late coming in to lunch!” Michael chuckled. “And you never said a word. All right, I’m on.”

Together they went up the streets of the little town, and explored the alley-way. They found the wall even more easy to scale than they had expected, and a very few moments saw them in Kershaw’s garden, which was fortunately screened by higher walls and thick bushes from observation by the neighbours. A French window at the back afforded ridiculously easy access. “It’s very simple to be a burglar,” Michael commented. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know, quite. Evidence of character--past life--present occupation--anything,” said Wilson, producing a pick-lock, and beginning in a workmanlike way to rifle Kershaw’s desk.

Whatever Kershaw’s past life might have been, he was not particularly anxious to keep relics of it. Save for discharge papers and some other no-account stuff relating to Army life, there was at first glance nothing which threw light on his life prior to his arrival in Steeple Tollesbury.

“The man keeps nothing but his bills,” Michael said. “And he keeps a good many of them,” turning out a drawer full of nothing else.

“For a very good reason,” Wilson said. “They aren’t paid. And some of the creditors are getting quite cross about it. Our friend seems rather in financial difficulties. Hullo! this is interesting.”

“What?”

“Receipts, for a change. Quite a lot of them.”

“Well, even the impecunious must pay _some_ bills occasionally.”

“Yes, but not all at once. These are all dated last week, and they would add up to quite a tidy sum.”

“Looks as though he’d come into money.”

“That seems to be indicated--though there isn’t any trace of the money’s arrival. Let’s see if we can guess how much it was.” Wilson made a rapid calculation on the back of an envelope.

“Four hundred and twenty pounds’ worth of bills he paid in one week. So whatever he received was more than that, anyway. Any more financial information? His pass-book’s not here--presumably it’s at the bank. And presumably his cheque-book’s on his person. But what does he do with his butt-ends?” A long search eventually disclosed a solitary butt-end reposing at the back of a drawer.

“This is rather an old one,” Wilson said. “But it may be of some help.”

Michael ran his finger quickly through the items. “Edward Gordon, whoever he is, had a lot.”

“Jermyn Street,” said Wilson. “Moneylender. What date?”

“1922.”

“Umph. He’s been in financial difficulties for some time, then.”

“The rest are all ordinary tradesmen, and cheques to self. There are rather a lot of those, by the way. Looks as if he spent a lot on his personal enjoyment--though you wouldn’t think it, to look at him.”

“No bookies?”

“Not visibly. There are some notes on the back of the self cheques, though--five pounds to X and so on. Not a very great deal.”

“Note them down, will you? and we’ll see.” Michael went through the cheque-book, extracting all payments made to X. They were for miscellaneous sums, mostly small, occurring at irregular intervals, and totalling something over seventy pounds for the period covered by the cheque-book.

“What is it?” Michael asked. “Blackmail?”

“It’s very odd blackmail, if it is,” Wilson said. “Paid at such odd moments and in such odd amounts. The blackmailer must have had to work hard for his living--it almost looks as though he came to the door with a collecting card. Let’s go to his bedroom. There’s one possible explanation of these payments that occurs to me, and it will be in his bedroom, if anywhere.”

Accordingly they made their way to Kershaw’s bedroom, which, though a magnificent fourteenth-century-panelled apartment, had nothing particular to tell them. After a few minutes’ search, however, Wilson drew out a small box rather like a snuff-box, which he handed to Michael.

“Humph,” said the latter, having sampled the white powder inside. “Is that what you guessed?”

“Something like it,” Wilson replied. “When I saw him at the inquest, I thought there was more than shell-shock in his eye. I fancy investigation would show Mr. X to be a vendor of cocaine. Well, it’s an expensive habit, and likely to sap the moral sense. Let’s try the surgery.”

They were on their way to the surgery when they were suddenly checked by a prolonged peal of Kershaw’s front-door bell, followed by a loud clamour on the knocker.

“The caller’s in a hurry,” Wilson said. “Don’t make a noise.”

He tiptoed back to the front room, followed by Michael, and peered out cautiously from behind the curtain. A man with a letter in his hand was standing at the street door, and as the burglars reached the window he raised his hand and beat another violent tattoo on the door.

From the area of the next house an unkempt head looked out. “Bain’t no use yammering there, Mr. Potts,” it said. “Doctor’s away to London.”

“Ain’t Mrs. Craggs here?” said Potts crossly.

“Noa; she’s gone to ’er married darter at Southend.”

“Damnation!” said Potts. “Squire wants an answer to this. Suppose I’d best leave it in the letter-box. When’s doctor coming back?”

“To-night, for sure,” said the woman. “Mrs. Craggs she told me.”

With another growl Potts pushed the letter into the letter-box, and turned away. Wilson led the way downstairs.

“This is mildly annoying,” he said. “I presume that this Potts is the footman who acted as go-between for John Loring and his lady. I wanted to have a word with him, but I could hardly spring out unannounced from Kershaw’s front door. Shall we complete the good work, and find out what the Squire has to say?”

Michael’s expectations rose as Wilson opened the letter, but fell heavily on seeing the contents. They consisted of a single square sheet of paper with the Loring crest, on which was written, “Go to hell!” There was nothing else, not even a signature.

“It doesn’t appear, on the face of it, what answer the Squire expected,” Michael said. “Nor does it tell us anything.”

“Not much,” Wilson agreed. “This may, however, interest you more. I found it with one or two old papers in his bedroom.”

“This” was a letter to Kershaw from Mr. William Meston. Part of the letter was missing, but enough remained to show its general tenor, which was, to put it bluntly, that Mr. Meston did not at all approve of Dr. Kershaw’s mode of life, and that if Dr. Kershaw could not learn to keep his hands off certain unspecified persons, Mr. Meston personally undertook to see that he was adequately punished. It was not a letter which could have caused the recipient any pleasure; and screwed up with it was what appeared to be the first draft of a violent reply, from which, however, subsequent erasure had removed most of the violence.

“Second thoughts,” said Michael.

“And very tame second thoughts,” Wilson added. “It’s pretty clear that if he did answer Meston’s letter at all, it was in very mild terms. Well, I think we’d better search the surgery and get out. We can’t discuss the bearing of our new evidence here. Will you bear witness that I found this in Kershaw’s house?” He pocketed the incriminating letter.

They examined the surgery with care but without result, and then retraced their steps to the alley-way, relocking the French window, and being careful to remove all traces of their entry. As they turned out of the alley-way a cheerful voice hailed them.

“Hullo!” it said; “inspecting our ancient architectural beauties? I’d just been to call on Kershaw. That’s his place, just round there. But he seems to be out. You didn’t find much down Hanging-Sword Alley, did you?”

“The old places seem to have been pulled down,” said Wilson, wondering how much suspicion of their real errand this inconvenient lawyer could have.

“Yes--it’s a pity, in a way. They were picturesque if insanitary. But we are a Borough, and we have an enlightened and unsentimental Borough Council. Kershaw’s its mainstay: he believes in progress. And, talking of progress, how’s the case? Hanged anybody yet?”

“I am not aware that any crime has yet been proved,” Wilson said stiffly.

“Oh, come, my dear sir. You won’t give us our sensation at the inquest. Why deprive us of it in private?”

“If I may say so,” Wilson said, “you seem perfectly capable of providing your own sensations, without any assistance from me.”

“Nature,” said the lawyer, “abhors a vacuum--though I’m told no scientific person now believes that. Progress is a most upsetting thing. If you won’t tell us what did happen, though, you must be prepared for intelligent surmise. Well, I mustn’t keep you. Particularly as I think Miss Loring is looking for you around the Old Malting House. I fancy she wants Dr. Prendergast. I told her I’d try and see if I could locate you. But another time you ought really to see the inside of Kershaw’s house. It’s a fine old place--fourteenth century. I suppose you’ve not seen it, by any chance?” Was there, or was there not, a twinkle in Brandreth’s eye?

“Some time I hope you will take us there,” was all Wilson said.

“I shall be delighted. You really mustn’t miss it. It’s as interesting as its owner. Well, good-bye.”