The Kang-He Vase/Chapter 7

left Mrs. Tappen and the Crab and Lobster soon after that, and went out to our car. But instead of getting into it, Cherry motioned me to walk along the road with him, and bade the driver follow us.

“Well?” he said, as we moved away. “And what do you make of all that, young fellow?—I saw you keeping your ears open!”

“I make of it that Uncle Joseph Krevin was here a fortnight ago with Sol Cousins, and that he came again, by himself, last Monday, expecting to meet Sol Cousins, and didn’t meet him,” I answered. “What else is there to make of it?”

“Just so—on the surface of things!” he remarked. “But Monday is the important matter! It was Monday night when Krevin came to your house, wasn’t it?”

“Monday midnight,” I said.

“Well, we’ll have to find out where he was on Monday evening,” he continued. “Between being here and turning up at your porch. It’s an odd thing, putting everything together, that Cousins, being somewhere about—he was certainly at Kingshaven, at the Collingwood Hotel, on Monday night—didn’t turn up here at the Crab and Lobster on Monday afternoon. And—where were those two to meet on Tuesday?—in accordance with this card?”

He had the card in his hand and kept glancing at the pencilled line on the back. I, too, glanced at it.

“Uncle Joseph was out twice on Tuesday,” I remarked. “Once in the afternoon; once in the evening. Perhaps they did meet.”

“If they did, it must have been at some place nearer to your house than this is,” he observed. “This is a good seven miles from Middlebourne, and your Uncle Joseph couldn’t have come—we won’t say here to Mrs. Tappen’s, for we know he didn’t, but anywhere about here, within the time. There’s communication by train and by motor-bus, is there?—yes, but we know that he was never seen on either—we should have heard of him in that respect by now. No!—if he met this man Sol Cousins, on Tuesday, it must have been at some quiet place near your house. Did they meet?”

“Is that very important?” I asked.

He gave me a half-whimsical look, and, pulling out pipe and pouch, began to smoke, keeping silence until the tobacco was in full blast. “In jobs like this, my lad, there isn’t a detail that isn’t important,” he said, drily. “It’s very often the apparently insignificant things that are of prime importance. I’d give a lot to know if Cousins and Krevin met on Tuesday!—in accordance with the suggestion on this card.”

“Well,” said I, “if even small things are of importance, what do you make of one that seems very small. On that card is written ''To-morrow, afternoon or evening. S.S.'' What does S.S. signify?”

He glanced at the card again, almost with indifference.

“Oh!” he answered. “I take it that those are the initials of some name that Cousins knew Krevin by!—they’ve always some fancy names, sobriquets, aliases, these chaps! No doubt from what your sister says of him, Krevin had half-a-dozen: Cousins knew him as Sam Smith, or Silas Saunders, or Seth Simpson, or Simon Scott. See?”

“No, I don’t!” I retorted. “I think that S.S. are the initials of the name of some place, well known to both, where they were to meet. That’s what I think! Why should Krevin have signed any initials, assumed or otherwise, to his message?—Cousins would know well enough from whom the message came.”

He gave a start of surprise, laughed, almost gleefully, and clapped me on the shoulder.

“Good lad!—good lad!” he exclaimed. “It may be!—I’m an ass, Ben, not to have thought of it! And what places are there, hereabouts, now, whose names begin with S?”

“Two or three,” I answered. “There’s Summerstead, and Sheldrake, and Settlecroft—all in the neighbourhood.—And there’s another place, close by, South Stilbeach. There you are!—there’s S.S. for you!”

“Is that anywhere on our way back?” he asked.

“It could be made so,” I replied. “It’s between here and Middlebourne, but off the road—a quiet little place between the road and the sea.”

He turned and beckoned to the driver of our car, and we got in and went to South Stilbeach. It was a queer, out-of-the-way fishing village; a mere collection of huts and cottages, with a shabby beer-house fronting the beach. And we drew it blank—nobody there had seen or heard of any two such men as those we described.

We went homewards after that. And we were driving down the one street of our village, towards the garage from which Cherry had hired the car, when, as we passed Veller’s house, we heard ourselves hailed by more voices than one, and, turning, saw Veller hurrying out of his door, followed by Pepita Marigold and Bryce Ellingham, and all three in an evident state of high excitement. We stopped the car, got out, and met them in Veller’s garden. Pepita and Bryce were too full of something to be able to speak; Veller waved a big hand towards them as he strode in front.

“These two,” he said, with one of his widest grins, “has made what they call a discovery. May ha’ something to do with this here job, and mayn’t However, they come straight to me about it—just now.”

Bryce Ellingham shoved himself forward.

“Of course, it’s a discovery, and a most important one!” he exclaimed in his cock-sure fashion. “We came to find you about it, Mr. Cherry, but as you weren’t about we told Veller, because in these things time’s important, isn’t it? Look at this, now!—if that isn’t what you detectives call a clue, then I’d like to know what is!”

He suddenly held out his left hand, palm upwards, and there lying on its somewhat grubby expanse we saw a gold coin, in which a hole had been drilled, and to which, by the hole, a bit of broken chain was attached. And as soon as I set eyes on it, I let out an exclamation which I couldn’t repress.

“Uncle Joseph’s!” said I, close to Cherry’s elbow. “His!” Neither Bryce Ellingham nor Pepita seemed to know exactly what I meant, but Cherry was quick to grasp the significance of my exclamation, and for the moment to divert attention from it. He took the coin out of Bryce’s fingers and examined it, turning it over with special attention to the bit of broken chain.

“An American ten-dollar piece, eh?” he said. “Um!—very handsome coin, too! And where did you find this, young gentleman?”

“It was like this,” replied Bryce, loftily. “Miss Marigold and I were walking along the bottom of the rocks there at Fliman’s End. There’s a sort of recess, something like a cave, there. I picked up the coin in that cave, lying amongst some sea-weed”

“Look as if it had been there long?” interrupted Cherry. “Any sand on it?”

“No—it was just as it is now,” replied Bryce. “Looked as if somebody dropped it recently and it had fallen or rolled amongst the sea-weed. But that’s not all,” he continued, growing more and more important. “There are foot-marks in that recess that I’m sure you ought to see. A man’s—a big man’s, too! And they lead straight across the sand: firm white sand it is there, and they’re the only marks on it. We didn’t stop to see where they went”

“No, we hurried back to see you!” interrupted Pepita, obviously anxious to join in the game, “and as you weren’t about we were persuading Veller to go back with us”

“We’ll all go,” said Cherry. He looked at Veller and winked. “How near can we take the car to this point they’re talking about?” he asked.

“Down to the end of the lane that runs past our house,” said I. “Get in—I’ll show the driver where to go.”

The other four got into the car—I seated myself in front by the driver. As we moved off Cherry put his head over the low screen, close to my ear.

“Certain that coin is your uncle’s?” he asked, in a whisper.

“Dead certain!” said I. “I noticed it particularly the other day. It hung from his watch chain.”

He nodded and sank his voice still lower.

“All right!—but say no more about that when we get out,” he whispered. “Those two youngsters were too excited to understand what you said just now, and they’ll forget. And keep your eyes open when we see this place.”

The car took us to within a quarter of a mile of Fliman’s End—on leaving it we crossed a narrow field, and, coming out on the beach, followed the line of the cliffs till we came to the rocks. Those rocks made a great black pile, noticeable along the coast for a long way in both directions. There were several caves and recesses in them; that to which Bryce led us faced westward, away from our creek; there was a view from its mouth of all the long curving coast as far as Kingshaven in the hazy distance. And within it were ledges of worn rock, and at the foot of them masses of weed and of drift wood, blown in there by the high winds that often swept up Channel from the Atlantic.

“That’s where I picked it up!” exclaimed Bryce, pointing to a heap of sea-weed at the bottom of the cave. “Just there! And now you look at those big foot-marks! Lots of ’em here in the cave, and see, they go in a straight line down there!”

Cherry glanced round and seemed to get some idea.

“Stay where you are, all of you,” he said. “Just let me have a look round.”

He turned back by the way we had come, retracing his steps for some little distance, and I saw that he was looking for the counterparts of the marks Bryce Ellingham had pointed out in the cave. Presently he came back, and up to me and Veller.

“Those footprints are plain enough along there,” he said. “They’re those of a big, heavy-footed man who’s come along here by pretty much the same way that we did—from the end of that lane and across the field. But I’m not concerned with that so much—what I want to know is where does this track lead to?”

He pointed to the marks which led away from the cave, westward, and adjuring all of us to walk well on either side of them, began to trace them towards the sea. The sands thereabouts were white, dry, and firm, and the big foot-prints were plain enough. The man who made them had evidently walked straight down to the beach, turning to neither left nor right, as if to a definite point, with an equally definite object.

“Whereabouts is high-water mark?” inquired Cherry, suddenly.

Veller pointed a little ahead.

“You’ll see where that is as soon as we come to where the sand changes colour,” he answered. “At this time o’ year, somewhere about half-way up beach.”

“Just so!—and we shall find that these marks come to a sudden stop there!” said Cherry. “The man who made them has been taken off in a boat which came to this point to meet him, by previous arrangement. Here you are!—there they end!”

He nodded confidently at a definite line in the beach, marked by a thin tangle of weed and rubbish; the line to which the tide flowed is at high water. The foot-marks came right up to that in the dry white sand; beyond it, on the wet beach there were none.

“Yes, that’s it!” remarked Cherry, musingly, as we stood staring at the high-water-mark line and the wet sands beyond. “I see how it’s been—here he came, and here he waited for the boat—now! well, let’s have another glance at that cave.”

We went back to the cave, and had a more careful look round it. And suddenly it was my privilege to make a discovery; fortunately, I made it when Bryce, Pepita, and Veller were at one end of the cave, and Cherry and myself at the other. In addition to the sea-weed and drift wood that lay heaped in the recesses, there was a lot of rubbish about, in there—folk from Kingshaven sometimes came along that coast, picnicing, and they left stuff about, newspapers, bottles, and the like. And I saw a bottle that had certainly not come from Kingshaven, a bottle that I recognised, and I picked it out from a corner into which it had been carelessly tossed, and held it up before Cherry.

“Another link!” I exclaimed triumphantly. “This, too, was Uncle Joseph Krevin’s property!”

Cherry looked incredulous.

“One bottle’s pretty much like another, Ben,” he remarked. “I see a plain dark glass spirit bottle”

“And I see the label on it!” said I, turning the bottle round so that he, too, could see what I meant. “This is the bottle Uncle Joseph had in his old bag—I told you I got it out at his bidding, when he turned faint on hearing about the murder? Look at the queer names on the label!—that’s why I remember it.”

He followed my pointing finger and nodded his acquiescence.

“I see!” he said. “Odd names, to be sure! Zetterquist & Vanderpant, Wine and Spirit Merchants, St. George Street, E. Oh, yes!—I think that’s no local product. Come!—we’re beginning to get a bit of knowledge about your Uncle Joseph’s haunts. He has something to do with Crippe, who keeps a marine stores place in Old Gravel Lane, and he buys his liquor, or has bought it, in St. George Street, which is fairly close by. We shall have to inquire about Uncle Joseph in those parts, Ben. But in the meantime”

He gave me a warning wink, put the bottle in a deep pocket of his overcoat, and then, going across to the others, said that we’d be going back. On the way to the car he admonished Bryce Ellingham and Pepita to keep the news of this discovery to themselves, promising them at the same time that when the precise moment arrived for making it public, they should have the full and entire credit. When we reached the car he sent them and Veller forward in it: he and I walked up the lane towards our house.

“Ben!” he said, when we were alone. “I begin to see into some of your Uncle Joseph’s little ways! There’s no doubt that when he left your house in the night he came along to that cave we’ve just seen. There he finished his brandy, there he dropped this American ten-dollar gold piece, and there he waited till a boat came to take him off. Now all that—the waiting at that particular spot, anyway—presupposes cut and dried arrangement between Uncle Joseph and somebody hereabouts. Who is that somebody? That somebody was to be off Fliman’s End at a certain time—high-water time, I think—on Wednesday morning, to take Uncle Joseph off—and, probably, Sol Cousins, too. He took off Uncle Joseph, but not Cousins, for Cousins had met his fate, and been murdered. Queer business, isn’t it, Ben?—don’t you wish you knew who murdered Cousins, and why? However, I want to have a look at the bedroom in your house in which Uncle Joseph slept—or didn’t sleep, for I think he watched. By-the-bye, are you and your sister sound sleepers? For neither of you seem to have heard Uncle Joseph’s movements!”

“I’ve thought of that,” said I. “Yes, I think we are, both, good sleepers. And you see, neither of us were very near Uncle Joseph’s room. Our house, as you know, is a big, rambling old house—he was in the best bedroom; we were in another wing. And there are two staircases: he could slip downstairs by either. I think he went in the very middle of the night—when Keziah and I were both fast asleep.”

“Aye, well, I want to look round his room,” he repeated. “While I’m doing that, don’t tell your sister anything of what’s transpired. Let it wait a bit—in all these cases, there’s no need to hurry. We’ll do the hurry business when we’ve got fairly on the scent—let’s pick that up first.”

Keziah made no opposition to his going upstairs, and I showed him to the best bedroom and left him. But I had scarcely got downstairs again when, greatly to our surprise, Miss Ellingham came to our door. She looked very grave, very serious, and she said without preface that she understood the Scotland Yard man was there, and she asked to see him at once. Cherry heard her, and came down—direct, business-like.

“Yes?” he said. “You want me?”

“I want you!” replied Miss Ellingham, equally direct. “The fact is, I’ve just discovered that at some time since Monday afternoon, I’ve been robbed!—and of an article of immense value!”