The Kang-He Vase/Chapter 10

I had time to voice my surprise at seeing the familiar post-mark, Cherry had turned back the torn flap of the envelope and we both saw that it was empty. He thrust it into my hand with an exclamation of disappointment.

“Blank!” he muttered. “Nothing there! But still—the postmark! That’s Middlebourne, right enough. And the handwriting—do you recognise it, Ben?”

“No!” I answered promptly. “I don’t know it. But Nellie Apps and her mother, who keep the post office, might. Though there are two or three hundred people in Middlebourne, you know!”

“Aye!—and this mayn’t have been written by any one of ’em, but by a stranger, there for the time being,” he said. “All the same, here’s the cover of a letter posted from Middlebourne to Mr. Joseph Krevin on a precise date—and that date, Ben, as you’ll observe, was three days before Joseph Krevin turned up at your house! Very good—we must find out who sent that letter. It’s not a common-place style of writing, either.”

He put the envelope in his pocket, and began to look round. But there was little to see—so I thought. Uncle Joseph appeared to have few belongings. There was a goodly stock of clothes, linen, and the like in the drawers which Cherry opened and glanced into; there were a few books on a shelf, some old pipes and a cigar box or two on the mantelpiece, and a pile of papers and magazines on a side-table. But no private papers or letter lay about, and though there was a rickety writing-desk in one corner of the room there was nothing in or on it that gave us any indication of Uncle Joseph’s doings or pursuits, other than a few more business cards of Mr. Crippe and a price-list bearing the name of Zetterquist & Vanderpant. On a shelf above it, however, stood some carved figures and ornaments, and Cherry pointed to them with a significant glance.

“I don’t think there’s much doubt that your mysterious relative has been in the East during those years in which his family never heard of him, Ben,” he remarked. “Look at those things!—mementoes of his travels, I imagine. Indian ware, I believe—oh, yes, I think Uncle Joseph has smelled the East. And no doubt picked up some Eastern notions as to how things should be done!”

The pile of papers and magazines lay just by his hand, and he began to turn it over, apparently without aim. But suddenly he pulled out an illustrated journal with a coloured cover and held it towards me with a laugh.

“This is like the children’s game where you get hot or get cold in searching for something, Ben!” he said. “We’re getting hot! See this—the Lady’s Circle! And the very same issue as that in which the interview with Miss Ellingham appears! And—ho-ho!—look here, my boy!—what do you think of that?”

He spread the paper out before me, pointing triumphantly, and I saw at once what he meant. The page on which the photographs of Miss Ellingham’s drawing-room and of the Kang-he vase appeared had been torn out!

We looked at each other with a common instinct. And Cherry began to fold up the mutilated journal, preparatory to putting it in his pocket.

“Yes, that’s it, Ben, my boy!” he said, as if assenting to some proposition which I had just put into words, though as a matter of fact, I hadn’t spoken. “You’re right! Your Uncle Joseph has had some share in the theft of that Kang-he vase! We’re on the track, Ben! And we’ve done a very good afternoon’s work, and now we’ll knock off and go to my little flat, which isn’t very far away, and when we’ve had a wash and a tidy-up we’ll get a bit of dinner and go to a theatre or a music-hall—whichever and wherever you like! Oh, yes!—I think I’m beginning to see through the brick wall, Ben!”

I fancied that I was beginning to see through it myself, but I said nothing: if there was any thought in my head at all, it was of Keziah, and of what she, with all her notions about family honour and the like, would say if it were proved that Uncle Joseph Krevin was a thief. We went downstairs again; Cherry had a word or two with the dismal landlady; then he took me off to his flat, which, as he had said, was not far away, being, as a matter of fact, on the other side of Grays Inn Road, in Doughty Street, and in a house close by one in which, he assured me with great pride, Charles Dickens used to live. It was a very nice little bachelor flat, cosy and comfortable, and quite big enough, he said with a laugh, for a single man who could get his own breakfast ready and had all his other meals out. It was well fitted up, too, and there was a telephone there, and while we were washing and tidying ourselves preparatory to going out pleasuring, the telephone bell rang sharply. Cherry was at it some little time; when he returned to me in the bath-room he nodded at me as if to signify that he had some news.

“We’re getting on fine, Ben!” he said, cheerfully. “That was a ring-up from one of the men we met at London Bridge this morning. Didn’t I tell you that the work of the Press was a very valuable adjunct to the work of the police? Just so!—and the result of the announcement in this morning’s papers about Miss Ellingham’s loss has had a result already. A Mr. Spelwyn of Bedford Square—no great distance away—has been telephoning our headquarters this afternoon about it. He’s evidently an authority, an expert, and a collector, in the matter of that Chinese stuff, so of course he’d be attracted by the news. And he’s informed our department that if whoever has the affair in hand will call on him to-morrow morning, he’ll give the caller some information. I’ve got the affair in hand!—so to-morrow morning, my boy, 321 Bedford Square, at eleven o’clock sharp! And I wonder what Mr. Spelwyn’s got to tell!”

However, I think neither of us speculated much on that during the rest of that Saturday evening. Cherry took me to dinner at a Soho restaurant where there were all sorts of strange people to be seen, and then to a theatre—a rare treat for me, who had never seen anything but a pantomime or two at Kingshaven—and the novelty and excitement of these things drove the Middlebourne mysteries, Cousins, Uncle Joseph, the Kang-he vase, and all the rest of it clean out of my mind. But they revived next morning when Cherry and I, presenting ourselves at Bedford Square, were shown by a stolid-faced manservant into a library or study, wherein, ranged on shelves, or exhibited in cases, were quantities of pots and plates, as Keziah would have called them, which were doubtless as rare and valuable as they seemed to me odd and ugly.

Mr. Spelwyn, joining us presently, was a little, middle-aged, pleasant-mannered gentleman, with a twinkling eye. He seemed much interested in Cherry, whom he evidently considered very young for his job, and before he told us anything himself, he examined us very thoroughly as to Miss Ellingham, her vase, its history, its location in her drawing-room, and so on. He had not heard of the illustrated article in the Lady’s Circle, and he sniffed, almost contemptuously, when Cherry, who carried Miss Ellingham’s copy in his pocket, showed it to him.

“The woman was asking to be robbed!” he exclaimed. “There are a dozen men in London who would go for that vase after seeing these photographs and learning how insecurely it was kept, and how easily it could be got at! I wonder at Miss Ellingham, with her experience of the East! Preposterous!—to keep a treasure like that in an open cupboard in a drawing-room which the veriest tyro in house-breaking could so easily enter!”

“Do you know any one of the dozen men in London you refer to, sir?” inquired Cherry.

Mr. Spelwyn affected not to hear this direct question—anyway, he didn’t answer it. Instead, he pointed to the interview with Miss Ellingham.

“The name of this ware is wrongly spelled there,” he said. “It should be K’ang-hsi—instead of what it is.”

“I’m afraid I’m not much concerned with the spelling, sir,” remarked Cherry, laughing. “Chinese orthography”

“Just so, just so!” said Mr. Spelwyn. “Well, I’d better tell you what I promised your people I would tell—I think, more than probably, it has something to do with this affair at Middlebourne Grange. You know, of course, that I am a collector of this sort of thing, and an expert in Chinese porcelain? Well, about, I think, three weeks ago I was waited on by a man who came to inquire if I cared to buy a genuine K’ang-hsi vase, and, if I did, what I would give for it? I asked him at once what he would ask for such a vase, and I knew by his answer that he knew what he was talking about—he wanted seven thousand pounds. So I made short work of him—I told him that if he had such a vase to offer, I should be glad to see it, and we could discuss the price and everything else when he placed it before me. He went off—and I never heard more of him.”

“Will you describe that man, sir?” suggested Cherry.

“To be sure!—I took particular stock of him,” replied Mr. Spelwyn. “A big, round-faced, clean-shaven man, very smooth-tongued, plausible, and polite in an old-fashioned way; well-dressed and prosperous-looking. I formed the opinion that he had at some time of his life seen something of the East. As I say, he never returned—and I have thought since that he may have called on me, knowing me to be an expert, just to hear what I had to say when he named seven thousand pounds as the price of the vase he spoke of.”

“And you said nothing?” remarked Cherry.

“Nothing beyond what I have told you,” replied Mr. Spelwyn. We went away soon after that, and outside the house Cherry turned to me with a shake of his head.

“Ben, my friend!” he said. “That big, round-faced, clean-shaven man with the smooth tongue and polite manners is your Uncle Joseph! Seems so to me, anyhow, from your description of him. I wonder if he got hold of Miss Ellingham’s vase that night he was away from your house—and if that man Cousins had anything to do with the actual theft? But—who strangled Cousins and tied him up to that old gibbet post? Nice tangle!—well, let’s get some lunch, and then we’ll take the afternoon train to Middlebourne and go on with our work there.”

“The envelope?” I suggested.

“Exactly, Ben!” he assented. “We’ve got to find out whose handwriting it is that figures on that envelope. Uncle Joseph had some correspondent at Middlebourne—who was, or is, he? That’s my next job, and the sooner I get to it the better.”

But when we reached Middlebourne towards the end of that Sunday afternoon, we found a new development awaiting us. Veller saw us walking down the street and called us into his cottage. With his usual slowness of speech, he did no more than invite us to be seated when we entered and himself sat down, too, spreading his big hands over his waistcoat, twiddling his thumbs, and grinning at us; his wife, in her Sunday best, was just making ready to go to her chapel down the street, and until she had departed and closed the door behind her, Veller continued to twiddle and to grin. But there was that in his grin which suggested things.

“Well?—you’ve got something to tell, Veller!” remarked Cherry. “The missis is off now—out with it!”

Veller grinned more widely than ever, glanced at the door, glanced at me, leaned forward, and sank his voice to a tone which indicated his sense of mystery.

“That there Tom Scripture!” he whispered. “’Tis along of him!”

He nodded, once, twice, thrice after delivering himself of this, and Cherry stared from him to me, and back again.

“Who’s Tom Scripture?” he asked. “And what’s along of him?”

“He means Tom Scripture, the fisherman,” said I. “He lives down our lane. What about Tom, Veller?”

Veller summoned his wits.

“Tom Scripture,” he answered. “He come along home from the fishing banks yesterday—been out there, in the Channel, a matter of nights and days. And was in the Spotted Cow last night and heard the news o’ this affair at Gallowstree Point. And when he’d had a pint or two, or maybe three, said—so I’m informed—that he could say something about that there, and would when the right time and the right man came along! And no more—not then, anyhow.”

“Well?—haven’t you been at him?” asked Cherry.

“Went round this morning,” replied Veller. “I see him after his breakfast. He allowed he’d said what he was reported to have said. And would stand to it, too! But wouldn’t say nothing to me. ‘London police is my mark!’ he said. ‘I ain’t going to tell nothing to nobody but London police! Bring me a London police!’ he says, ‘and I’ll give him vallyble information. But no less!’ So I left him—till you came back. Him having heard there was a Scotland Yard man, though a young ’un, on the job, though far away for the time being, so to speak. And what it is that Tom Scripture can tell, I don’t know. But judging from his manner, I should say—something!”

Cherry jumped out of his chair.

“Come on!” he said. “Where’s this chap live?”

We found Tom Scripture leaning over the fence of his garden, in his Sunday garments, smoking his pipe. He was a tough-faced seafaring person, more given to silence than to speech, and he looked Cherry well over from top to toe before he condescended to say anything—indeed, I think he was only moved to open his lips by the production of Cherry’s official card, which, being presented to him, he turned over and over in his great fingers as if it were a charm or a talisman. But he spoke, looking from one to the other of us, his three visitors. “This here it is, young man,” he said, waving his short pipe as if about to beat time with it. “You being a Scotland Yarder, though uncommon juvenile, but still one, and armed, as they say, with what they call credentials, and me not going to tell nothing to nobody but what is such, and no other, London police being, as you might say, more fitted to deal with these matters o’ life and death than country bobbies—and no disrespeck to you, Veller, what’s a friendly neighbour. But last Wednesday morning, before sunrise, I was a-going out with my boat, to the banks, for two or three days’ fishing, when, as I sails down the creek there towards the bar, I sees something what was unusual—uncommon so! The which was a man, a-standing as still as a graven image on them rocks at Fliman’s End!”

“How far were you away from him?” asked Cherry.

“A mile and a bit, maybe,” replied Scripture. “But I carries a good glass—a ship’s glass what I bought, a bargain, years ago, on the Hard, at Kingshaven. And I claps it to my eye and takes an observation. And I sees him plain—a big, fine-built man, in dark-coloured shore-clothes. He stands on them rocks, as if looking round; then he comes down and walks about a bit. And then I see something else—there was a boat drawed up on the beach, maybe fifty yards away, in front o’ the rocks. Now, I never heard of no stranger and no boat being there, at Fliman’s End, at that time of a morning! Take my solemn ’davy that there feller weren’t up to no good! And was summun as hasn’t nothing to do with these parts, neither.”

“You didn’t do anything—hail him, or anything of that sort?” suggested Cherry.

“Nothin’, master. Me and my son, young Tom, we see him and the boat, and takes a good look at ’em, and wonders, and goes about our own business,” answered Scripture. “But—that there man weren’t up to no good, I repeats! What call had he there, I asks you?”

Cherry said gravely that he’d think that very important question well over, and presently he and I went away to our house, so that he might redeem his promise to Keziah and deliver me up to her safe and sound. He appeared to be much more impressed by Scripture’s story than I was.

“Ben!” he said suddenly as we neared our garden-gate. “That sounds like your precious Uncle Joseph! A big, fine-built man in dark-coloured shore-clothes—eh? And this was not long after Uncle Joseph had quietly slipped out of your house. But Ben!—there’s a devil of a mystery in something that Scripture told us. Ben!—what about the boat?”