The Lost Mr. Linthwaite/Chapter 13

lay awake through half that night, thinking. He had endeavoured since his schoolboy days to foster and develop habits of clear thought, but he was bound to admit, as he lay tossing restlessly about, hearing the cathedral clock strike one hour after another, that his mental processes on this occasion were anything but clear. It was an unrefreshing and unquiet slumber, from which he was aroused by a gentle tap at his door.

"Just off," whispered Gaffkin, putting his head inside. "Anything more you wish to tell me?"

Brixey had the faculty of coming wide-awake at any time, with all his wits about him.

"Oh, well!" he answered. "Just this. If you find any letters at our rooms, send 'em on. I forgot to leave instructions about that. That’s all. Be thorough in your search, Gaffkin."

Gaffkin nodded, withdrew his head, and went quietly away. Brixey pulled his watch from under his pillow, and finding that half-past six had arrived, got out of bed and drew up his blinds. Opposite his window, at the corner of the street, was a newsagent’s shop. The newsagent himself, having evidently been down to the station to fetch the first editions of the London morning newspapers, was now busied in putting tip their contents-bills at his door.

Brixey, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his pyjama jacket, stood lazily and indifferently watching him. But that watching gave him an idea, and suddenly he dived into his suit-case, dragged out a notebook and a pencil, and standing at a chest of drawers, began to write.

When he had finished writing he propped the sheet of paper on which he had written against the mirror on his dressing-table, and, while he shaved and dressed, he read it over and over again, and every time he read he laughed.

The printer round the corner was behind his shop-counter when Brixey upon him at eight o’clock.

"Another job for you," said Brixey, laying down his sheet of paper. "See that? Read it."

The printer read and whistled.

"Whew!" he said. "There isn’t anything you think that could be taken as libel, sir? The law’s so queer about printing statements that"

"It’s all right—pure statement of undisputed fact," answered Brixey. "The person named there admitted that much to Inspector Crabbe, to me, and to a friend of mine last night. Pure fact! But I mean to go further.

"Now look here, I want you to make a dozen big, staring placards of that—great big letters, as bold as possible. Then paste the placards on boards, and let a dozen men parade the streets round the Cross there with them, from, say eleven to one o’clock. Can you get men?"

"I can get a dozen if you make it worth their while," said the printer.

"Give ’em five shillings apiece," commanded Brixey, pulling out his money. "Now listen. Let them start out from here at eleven, and walk up and down for two hours in the centre of the town. Isn’t it your market-day?"

"One of them—we’ve two here," assented the printer. This is the town market-day."

"It’s the townsfolk I want to startle," said Brixey. "All right. Go ahead. There’s a fiver—we’ll settle things later, in the morning. But, eleven sharp, mind!"

The printer picked up the copy and the bank-note and vanished into his composing room, and Brixey lounged back to the "Mitre" and ate a big breakfast.

When that was over he did more lounging in the private room, adjacent to his own sitting-room, in which Miss Georgina Byfield, under Mr. Brackett’s superintendence, kept the books and wrote the letters—and she and the old landlord were not a little surprised to find that, for the first time since his arrival, Brixey avoided reference to the cause of his coming to Selchester. He had evidently no wish to talk of Mr. Linthwaite that morning. Instead, he talked of any trifling matter that arose. But as eleven o’clock struck he motioned Brackett to follow him out of the house and to the entrance to the courtyard.

"Come and see something," he said laconically, as he glanced up the street towards the printer’s. "There, out to the minute! Now, then, what do you think of that for a demonstration in force?"

Twelve men emerged in silent and solemn procession from the court at the side of the printing office, and, with intervals of a few yards between each, marched erect and businesslike down the side of the pavement.

Each carried in front of him a large board, on which was pasted a placard, its lettering bold enough to be read from across the street.

Brixey, admiring his own design, chuckled, as he saw that the printer, generously entering into the spirit of the thing, had printed the announcement in two colours, using red and black ink with striking effect.

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the old landlord. "Your work, of course, sir!"

"Aye!" said Brixey. "Pretty notice, isn’t it?"

Brackett adjusted his glasses as the placard-bearers drew nearer, and audibly read over the wording which Brixey had concocted in the early hours.

"Bless my soul!" repeated Brackett. "What will Mesham say to that? He'll—gad, sir, if that doesn't force him to something! Here, I'll get a copy of that to hang up in the bar, Mr. Brixey. Publicity, eh, sir—you believe in it?"

Brixey laughed, and, without replying, strolled slowly down the street after the line of placard-bearers. The town was just then filling with the usual Saturday morning crowd, and within a few minutes every other person was thronging the edges of the sidewalks to read the staring red-and-black.

Brixey, secure in his incognito, enjoyed himself by hearing the comments and inquiries, and suddenly he saw Mesham emerge from a tobacconist's shop, face to face with the first of the twelve stolid-faced processionists.

Mesham caught his own name glaring at him in great red letters, and his start of annoyed surprise was visible. His face flamed as scarlet as the printer's ink, and before any of those standing near had noticed his sudden appearance, he lifted the heavy, steel-ended stick which he carried and rushed on the placard-bearer, to find Brixey's square shoulders in front of him.

"My employees, Mr. Mesham," said Brixey quietly. "No interference!"

Mesham glared and glanced and drew back. The procession in the gutter moved on.

"Damn you!" he growled beneath his tightened lips. "Your work! I'll make you pay for this. I'll go to the police. I'll"

"Mere statement of fact," remarked Brixey, pointing to the last placard. "You admitted it to Crabbe last night. Now, did you meet my uncle?"

"Go to hell!" hissed Mesham, moving off in the direction of the police station.

"You," said Brixey, quietly sidling up to Mesham's side, "are in a very fair way of going to jail. Listen—these men will parade the streets for two hours, unless their presence leads to a riot. But they'll have done their effective work long before that—in fact, they've done it now.

"Now then, if before one o'clock you haven't told me whether or not you met Mr. Linthwaite last Tuesday at two-thirty, and if you did, what happened, and where he is, this little dodge of mine is as nothing—nothing!—to my next manœuvre against you. Now go and see Crabbe."

He turned on his heel without as much as another glance at Mesham, and walked slowly back towards the "Mitre," careless of the wondering and inquisitive looks of certain folk who had witnessed the scene on the sidewalk.

But at the point where the four main streets of the town intersected he met Mr. Semmerby, who had evidently crossed from the "Mitre," and who shook his head half gravely, half whimsically, at sight of him.

"Brackett," remarked the old lawyer, "has just shown me your poster. Ah, there, I see," he added as the procession of placard-bearers came back along their first tracks, "there are your emissaries! A bold experiment, my dear young man! Your notion of course, is to force Mesham's hand?" "My notion, sir," answered Brixey, with a grim look, "is to force the truth out of him. I'll give him no peace until he tells if he did meet my uncle last Tuesday, and what he knows of his subsequent movements."

He paused, feeling a tap on his elbow, and turning, found Empidge standing there holding out a telegram.

"Just come for you, sir," said Empidge. "I saw you standing here, so I ran across with it."

Brixey excused himself to the old solicitor, and turning away, read the message. As he expected, it was from Gaffkin:

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