Chapter XVI.
Furneaux Makes a Successful Bid
The lawn front of The Hollies was not visible from the upper story of the Hare and Hounds owing to a clump of pines which had found foothold on the cliff, but, through the gap formed by the end of the post office garden, the entrance to the house from the Knoleworth road was discernible.
Furneaux’s dramatic announcement brought the other two to the window. By this time Peters, gifted with a nose for news like a well-trained setter’s for partridges, had begun to associate the quiet-mannered, gentle-spoken chemist with the inner circle of the crime, so waited and watched with the detectives for Siddle’s reappearance.
At any rate the visitor must have been admitted, because a long quarter of an hour elapsed before he came in sight again. He walked out slowly into the roadway, thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, and glanced to right and left. Then, turning abruptly, he stared at the dwelling he had just quitted. What this slight but peculiar action signified was not hard to guess. Furneaux, indeed, put it into words.
“Having warned Grant off Miss Doris Martin, and been cursed for his pains, the foreman of the jury does not trouble to await further evidence, but arrives at a true and lawful verdict straight off,” announced the little man.
“We ought to hear things to-night,” said Peters.
“We?” inquired Winter.
“Yes. Didn’t I make it clear that I shared in the dinner invitation?”
“No, and I’m—”
“Don’t say it!” pleaded the journalist. “If I fell from grace to-day, remember my unswerving loyalty since the hour we met on the platform at Knoleworth! Haven’t I kept close as an oyster? And would any consideration on earth move me to publish an accurate and entertaining account of the roasting of Chief Inspector Winter by Wally Hart? Think what I’m sacrificing—a column of the best.”
Winter bent a weighing look on the speaker. There was treason in the thought, as King James remarked to the barber who tried to prove his loyalty by pointing out how easily he might cut his majesty’s throat any morning. But Peters maintained the expression of a sphinx, and the big man relaxed.
“The conditions are that not a word about this business appears in print, either now or in the future until we have a criminal in the dock,” he said.
“Accepted,” said Peters.
Furneaux laughed shrilly, even derisively, but him his colleague treated with majestic disdain. Then, the chemist having reentered the village, the group broke up, Peters to search his brains for “copy” which should be readable yet contain no hint of the new trail, Winter to take train to Knoleworth, and Furneaux to tackle Fred Elkin, who, he had ascertained earlier, would drive home from a neighboring hamlet about five o’clock.
Elkin had returned when the detective reached the house, a somewhat pretentious place, half farm, half villa, and altogether horsey. The entrance hall bristled with fox masks and brushes. A useful collection of burnished bits and snaffles hung on a side wall. A couple of stuffed badgers held two wicker stands for sticks and umbrellas, and whips and hunting-crops were ranged on hooks beneath a 12-bore and a rook rifle.
A pert maid-servant took Furneaux’s card, blanched when she read it, and forgot to close the door of the dining-room. Hence, the detective heard Elkin’s gruff comments:
“What? That chap? Wants to see me? Not more than I want to see him. Show him in.”
Furneaux, looking very meek and mild, entered an apartment of the carpet-bag upholstery period. A set of six exceedingly good and rare sporting prints caught his eye.
“Good day,” he said, finding Elkin drinking tea, and eating a boiled egg. “You’re feeling better, I’m glad to see.”
Now, no matter how ungracious a man may be, a courteous solicitude as to his health demands a certain note of civility in return.
“Yes,” he said. “Sit down. Will you join me?”
“I’ll have a cup of tea, with pleasure,” said Furneaux.
“Right-o! Just touch that bell, will you?”
The other obeyed, and took a closer look at one of the prints. Yes, the date was right, 1841, and the stippling admirable.
“Nice lot of pictures, those,” he said cheerfully, when the frightened maid, much to her relief, had been told to bring another cup and a fresh supply of toast.
“Are they?” Elkin had taken them and some kitchen furniture for a bad debt.
“Yes. Will you sell them?”
“Well, I haven’t thought about it. What’ll you give?”
Furneaux hesitated.
“I can’t resist anything in the art line that takes my fancy,” he said, after a pause of indecision. “What do you say to ten bob each?”
Elkin valued the lot at that figure, but Furneaux was a fool, and should be treated as such.
“Oh, come now!” he cried roguishly. “They’re worth more than that.”
Furneaux reflected again.
“Three pounds is a good deal for six prints,” he murmured, “but, to get it off my mind, I’ll spring to guineas.”
“Make it three-ten and they’re yours.”
“Three guineas is my absolute limit,” said Furneaux.
“Done!” cried Elkin. The original debt was under two pounds, so he had cleared more than fifty per cent. on the transaction, and was plus a number of chairs and a table.
Furneaux counted out the money, wrote a receipt on a leaf torn from his pocket-book, and stamped it.
“Sign that,” he said, “pocket the cash, send the set to the Hare and Hounds for me in a dog-cart now, and the deal is through.”
Leaving the table, he went and lifted down each picture carefully. Somewhat wonderingly, Elkin rang the bell once more, gave the necessary instructions, and the room was cleared of its art. He was quite sure now that Furneaux was, as he put it, “dotty.” The latter, however, sat and enjoyed his tea as though well pleased with his bargain.
“And how are things going in the murder at The Hollies?” inquired the horse-dealer, by way of a polite leading up to the visitor’s unexplained business.
“Fairly well,” said the detective. “My chief difficulty was to convince certain important people that you didn’t kill Miss Melhuish. Once I—”
“Me!” roared Elkin, his pale blue eyes assuming a fiery tint. “Me!”
“Once I established that fact,” went on the other severely, “a real stumbling-block was removed. You see, Elkin, you have behaved throughout like a perfect fool, and thus lent a sort of credibility to an otherwise absurd notion. Your furious hatred of Mr. Grant, for instance, born of an equally fatuous—or, shall I say? fat-headed—belief that Miss Martin would marry you for the mere asking, led you into deep waters. It was a mistake, too, when you lied to P. C. Robinson as to the time you came home on that Monday night. You told him you walked straight here from the Hare and Hounds at ten o’clock. You know you didn’t—that it was nearer half past eleven when you reached this house. Consider what that discrepancy alone might have meant if Scotland Yard failed to take your measure correctly. Then add the fact that the murderer wore the hat, wig, and whiskers in which you made a guy of yourself while filling the rôle of Svengali last winter. Now, I ask you, Elkin, where would you have stood with the average British jury when the prosecution established those three things: Motive, your jealousy of Grant; time, your unaccounted-for disappearance during the hour when the crime was committed; and disguise, a clumsy suggestion of Owd Ben’s ghost? Really, I have known men brought to the scaffold on circumstantial evidence little stronger than that. Instead of glaring at me like a cornered rat you ought to drop on your knees and thank providence, as manifested through the intelligence of the ‘Yard,’ that you are not now in a cell at Knoleworth, ruminating on your own stupidity, and in no small jeopardy of your life.”
Many emotions chased each other across Fred Elkin’s somewhat mean and cruel face while Furneaux rated him in this extraordinary manner. Surprise, wrath, even fear, had their phases. But, dominating all other sensations, was an overpowering indignation at the implied hopelessness of his pursuit of Doris Martin.
He literally howled an oath at his torturer. Furneaux was shocked.
“No, no,” he protested in a horrified tone. “Don’t swear at your best friend.”
“Friend! By—, I’ll make you pay for what you’ve said. There’s a law to stop that sort of thing.”
“But the law requires witnesses. A slander isn’t a slander unless it’s uttered to your detriment before a third party. How different would be Mr. Grant’s action against you! Your well-wishers simply couldn’t muzzle you. Whether before your pot-house cronies or mere strangers, you charged him openly with being a murderer. I’m sorry for you, Elkin, if ever you come before a judge. He’ll rattle more than my three guineas out of you. Even now, you don’t grasp the extent of your folly. Instead of telling me how you spent that hour and a half on the night of the crime you have the incredible audacity to threaten me, me, the man who has saved you from jail. One more word, you miserable swab, and I’ll let Robinson arrest you. You’ll be set free, of course, when I stage the actual villain, but a few remands of a week each in custody will thin your hot blood. You were with Peggy Smith after leaving the Hare and Hounds, making a fool of an honest girl who thinks you mean to wed her. Yet you blather about being ‘practically engaged’ to Doris Martin, a girl who wouldn’t let you tie her shoe-lace. You’re an impudent pup, Fred, and you know it. But you stock decent tea, so I’ll take another cup. If you’re wise, you’ll take a second one yourself. It’s better for you than whiskey.”
Elkin, despite all his faults, was endowed with the shrewdness inseparable from his business, because no man devoid of brains ever yet throve as a horse-dealer. He smothered his rage, thinking he might learn more from this strange-mannered detective by seeming complaisance.
“You’re a bit rough on a fellow,” he growled sulkily, pouring out the tea.
“For your good, my boy, solely for your good. Now, own up about Peggy.”
“Yes. That’s right. She’d prove an alibi, so your tom-fool case breaks down when the flag falls.”
“Does it? A girl may say anything to save her supposed lover. How will the twelve good men and true view Doris Martin’s evidence on Wednesday? What did you mean, for instance, by your question to the coroner at the first hearing?”
“I thought Grant was guilty, and I think so still,” came the savage retort.
“A nice juryman you are, I must say! May I trouble you to pass the sugar?”
“Look here! What are you gettin’ at? Damme if I can see through your game. What is it?”
“I didn’t want to worry poor Peggy. And her father might set about you if he knew the facts, so I’m probably saving you a hiding as well as a period in jail. The only reliable witness we had as to events in Tomlin’s place was a commercial traveler, and he is positive that the house closed at ten o’clock. However, that’s all right. How do you account for the marvelous improvement in your health? Dr. Foxton cannot understand your illness. He says you are wiry, and have a strong constitution.”
“Dr. Foxton jolly near knocked me up,” said Elkin. “I took his medicine till I was sick as a cat.”
“But you took spirits, too.”
“That’s nothing fresh. Anyhow, I’ve dropped both, and am picking up every hour.”
“Since when?”
“Since yesterday morning, if you want to know.”
“I do. I’m most interested. Dr. Foxton doesn’t compound his own prescriptions, does he?”
“No. I get ’em made up at Siddle’s.”
“Ah. These country chemists often keep drugs in stock till they deteriorate, or even set up chemical changes. Have you the bottles?”
“Yes. But what the—”
“Anything left in them?”
“The last two are half full. Still—”
“What a cross-grained chap you are? I buy your pictures, drink your tea, rescue you from a positively dangerous position, warn you against carrying any farther a most serious libel, yet you won’t let me help you in a matter affecting your health!”
“Help me? How?”
“Even you, I suppose, realize that Scotland Yard employs skilled analysts. Give me your bottles, in strict confidence, of course, and I’ll tell you what they really contain. Then you can compare the analyses with the doctor’s prescriptions. The knowledge should be useful, to say the least. Siddle’s reputation needn’t suffer, but, unless I am greatly mistaken, you will have the whip hand of him in future.”
The prospect was alluring. Elkin would enjoy showing up the chemist, who had treated him rather as a precocious infant of late.
“By jing!” he cried, “I’m on that. Bet you a quid—But, no. You’d hardly lay against your own opinion. Just wait a tick. I’ll bring ’em.”
Furneaux stared fixedly at the table while his host was absent. His conscience was not pricking him with regard to an unmerited slur on the country chemists of Great Britain. All is fair in love and the detection of crime, and he simply had to get hold of those bottles by some daring yet plausible ruse.
“Now—I wonder!” he muttered, as Elkin’s step sounded on the stairs.
“There you are!” grinned the horse-dealer. “Take a dose of the last one. It’ll stir your liver to some tune.”
Furneaux drew the corks out of both bottles, and sniffed the contents. Then he tasted, with much tongue-smacking.
“Um!” he said. “Stale laudanum, for a start. I expected as much. Bought by the gallon and sold by the drop. Is that the dogcart with my pictures?”
“Yes.”
“Hail your man. He can give me a lift.”
“But there’s lots of things I want to ask you—”
“Probably. I’m here to put questions, not to give information. I’ve gone a long way beyond the official tether already. If you’ve a grain of sense, and I think you’re not altogether lacking in that respect, you’ll keep a close tongue, and act on the tips thrown out. You’ll find pearls of price among the rubbish-heap of my remarks generally. Good-by. See you on Wednesday.”
And Furneaux climbed into the cart, holding the pictures so that they would not rattle, and perhaps loosen the old gilded frames.
“Drive me to the chemist’s” he said to the groom; within five minutes, he was explaining his purchase to Siddle, and requesting, as a favor, that the latter should wrap the set of prints in brown paper, making two parcels, and tying each securely, so that they might be dispatched by train.
Siddle examined one, the first of the series, which depicted the Aylesbury Steeplechase.
“Rather good,” he said. “Where did you pick them up?”
“At Elkin’s.”
“Indeed. What an unexpected place!”
“That’s the only way a poor man can get hold of a decent thing nowadays. The dealers grab everything, and sell them as collections.”
“Art is not in my line, though anyone can see that these are excellent.”
“Yes. But you’re looking at ‘The Start.’ Have a peep at this one, ‘The Finish.’ The artist would have his joke. You see that the dark horse wins.”
“How did you persuade Elkin to part with them?”
“By paying him a tempting price, of course. I’m a weak-minded ass in such matters.”
The chemist busied himself to oblige the detective, wrapping and tying the packages neatly. Furneaux insisted on paying sixpence for the paper, string, and labor. There was quite a friendly argument, but he carried his point.
The dog-cart then brought him to the station, where he tipped and dismissed the man; a little later, he caught a London-bound train.
At half past seven precisely, Winter turned in through the Knoleworth-side gate of The Hollies (there were two, the approach to the house being semi-circular) and pushed the door open, as it was standing ajar.
Grant was waiting in the hall, and greeted him pleasantly.
“Here’s a telegram which is meant for you, I fancy,” he said.
Winter read:
“Sorry to spoil your party. Compelled to travel to London. Returning early to-morrow. F.”
“That’s pretty Fanny’s way,” smiled the Chief Inspector. “But there’s something in the wind, or he would never have hurried off in this fashion. He tells me that the only pleasant evening he spent in Steynholme was under your roof, Mr. Grant.”
“Come along in, Don Jaime!” drawled Hart’s voice from the “den,” which had been cleared of its litter, the lawn being deemed somewhat unsuitable for the purposes of a drawing-room on that occasion. It was overlooked from too many quarters.
“Ah, we meet now under less uneven conditions, Mr. Hart,” said Winter. “Do you know that Enrico Suarez is in London?”
Hart, startled for once in his life, gazed at the detective fixedly.
“Since when?” he cried.
“He crossed from Lisbon last week.”
Hart took a revolver from his hip pocket, and opened it, apparently making sure that it was properly loaded.
“What’s the law in England?” he inquired. “Can I shoot first, or must I wait till the other fellow has had a pop?”
Winter laughed.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Suarez is in Holloway, awaiting extradition. But I owed you one for the rise you took out of me to-day.”
A bell sounded, and Peters came in. He glanced around.
“Where’s Furneaux?” he demanded.
“Gone to London. Why this keen interest?” said Winter.
“There’s something up. Elkin dropped in at the Hare and Hounds. He was simply bursting with curiosity, and had to talk to somebody. So he chose me.”
“He would,” was the dry comment.
“Fact, ’pon me honor. I didn’t lead him on an inch. It seems that Furneaux bought some prints which caught his eye in Elkin’s house, and Tomlin says that that hexplains hit.”
“Explains what?”
“Furneaux’s visit to Siddle, and certain bulky parcels brought in and brought out again.”
“Queer little duck, Furneaux,” said Hart. “Now that my mind is at ease about the immediate future of the biggest rascal in Venezuela I can take an active part in Steynholme affairs once more. When it’s all through I’ll make a novel of it, dashed if I don’t, with the postmaster’s daughter in the three-color process as a frontispiece.”
“But who will be the villain?” said Peters.
Hart waved the negro-head pipe at the other three.
“Draw lots. I am indifferent,” he said.