The Lost Mr. Linthwaite/Chapter 24

Brixey walked out of the courtyard of the "Mitre" he caught sight of old Mr. Semmerby, who, on the opposite side of the way, was trotting along beneath the overhanging trees of the Cathedral close, evidently bound for his office, and he ran across the street and joined him.

"I've a message for you which I ought to have delivered half an hour ago," he said, with a glance at the clock on the Market Cross. "I'm afraid I'd forgotten all about it till I chanced to see you. From Mrs. Byfield. She asked me to let you know that she and her son have gone up to town and won't be back for a few days. That's all."

The old lawyer paused and stared hard at Brixey for a moment. That he was intensely surprised Brixey saw at once.

"Oh, and she said—at least, Fanshawe said—that to-morrow's business must stand over, and that you'd know what that means," he added. "I'd forgotten that bit."

Semmerby shook his head and stared at Brixey harder than ever.

"Mrs. Byfield and Fanshawe gone to London—for a few days?" he exclaimed. "When?"

"First train this morning," replied Brixey. "I saw them off."

"You saw them off?" said Semmerby, almost incredulously, "You!"

"The fact is," remarked Brixey, "after Fanshawe and I left you, he grew a bit confidential about his mother. Said she was ill, and wanted somebody to talk to. I took the liberty of suggesting his cousin, and  it ended by his taking Miss Byfield up there. I went with them.

"Miss Byfield had a long talk with Mrs. Byfield. I haven't the remotest notion of what it was all about; neither had Fanshawe. But it ended, anyway, as I say—they all three went off to town this morning."

"All three!" exclaimed Semmerby. "What, has the girl gone with them?"

"Just so," answered Brixey.

Semmerby gave him another odd look and turned away.

"I haven't the slightest notion of what it means," he said over his shoulder as he moved off. But he paused and looked back. "Have you heard any news about your own business?" he asked. "Your uncle?"

"Not a thing!" said Brixey.

The old lawyer nodded, shook his head, and went off, evidently bewildered, and Brixey, reflecting that this was, after all, not his own immediate job, went along the streets to find the men he wanted to see.

He knew both the places of which Brackett had spoken. Willett’s shop in Chantry Passage was one of those establishments peculiar to ancient English towns—a storehouse of old books, old pictures, old prints, and similar antiquities.

Brixey had already looked in at its queer old windows more than once, and had promised himself a closer examination of the contents of windows and shop when he had more time at his disposal. He walked in to find Willett, a quiet, reserved-looking, elderly man, opening his letters at a desk which stood in the corner of a dark old room filled from floor to ceiling with every conceivable size of volume, from great folios to duodecimos.

Brixey, who had an innate love of books, regretted at once that he had just then something else than books to think of.

The bookseller glanced knowingly at his caller, and took off his spectacles as he came forward with a smile.

"Mr. Brixey, I think?" he said.

"Mr. Willett, I believe," responded Brixey, And seeing they were alone, he added, "Mr. Brackett tells me you can perhaps give, me a bit of information?"

Willett smiled again and tapped Brixey on the shoulder.

"Strictly between ourselves," he said, in a half-whisper. "You know what things are in a little place like this. It doesn’t do to talk about anybody. But I suppose most of your investigations about this gentleman who’s missing are under the rose, eh?"

"Pretty much so," agreed Brixey. "It’s a first-class sort of mystery, anyhow, Mr. Willett."

"I believe you!" Said the bookseller. He opened a door, at the back of the shop, and remarking to some person within that he was going out for half an hour, put on his hat and motioned Brixey to follow him.

"We'll step round to Mr. Archington’s," he said, as they walked down the passage. "Talk there more quietly."

Arlington’s establishment, a wine and spirit vaults, stood at the corner of one of the four main streets of Selchester. It was one of those places divided into a good many rooms—private bars, public bars, a counting-house, and so on. One flank of it ran down a side alley, and into this the bookseller turned, to slip into a side door which opened, on a long narrow passage running to the rear of the building.

At a door at the end Willett knocked, and receiving a command to enter, ushered his companion into a little office, snugly and comfortably furnished, and evidently sacred to the proprietor, another quiet-looking, elderly man, who, at the sight of his visitors, nodded comprehendingly, and motioned the bookseller to shut the door behind him.

"This is Mr. Brixey," said Willett. "Come for a bit of quiet talk. I haven't told him anything yet. But he understands that whatever is said is between the three of us." "Aye!" responded Archington, with a nod to the stranger. "Just so. To be sure! Mr. Linthwaite's nephew, I understand, sir? Just so. Queer business, Mr. Brixey—uncommonly so. You haven't heard anything as to your uncle's whereabouts?"

"No!" replied Brixey. "I'd be only too glad to!"

Archington, who was warming his back at a cheery fire, stood for a moment thoughtfully rubbing his chin. Then he pointed his visitors to two chairs which flanked the hearthrug, and turning to a sideboard, produced a bottle of sherry and silently filled three glasses, after which he took down a box of cigars from the mantelpiece and handed it round. He lighted a cigar himself, sipped thoughtfully from his glass and looked at Willett.

"Better tell your tale first," said Willett.

"Whatever either of you tell me," remarked Brixey, "I shall take in strict confidence. At the same time, if it's anything that will lead to my finding Mr. Linthwaite, you wouldn't object to coming forward if necessary?"

Archington, who had dropped into an easy chair, glanced at the bookseller.

"I don't think there'll be any need for any coming forward," he said. "I think we can put you on to something that'll solve matters. That's my opinion, anyway, and I think it's Willett's."

"Mine, certainly!" said Willett. "We can tell you of a fact—two facts—on which you can work. Go on, Archington."

"Well," said the wine merchant, turning to Brixey. "It's this—Willett and myself, from certain facts, believe that your uncle's locked up! If you want to know where—somewhere in those ruins at the old Priory.

"If you want to know who his gaolers are—the actual ones—-Nat Lee and his daughter. But—there'll be somebody behind them. They're only turnkeys, as it were. And, in the case of the daughter, not very dependable." "You've grounds for this supposition?" suggested Brixey.

"Good ones!" answered Archington. "Now, as to mine. First, last Wednesday noon, I was in my order office alone—the man who's usually there had gone out to his dinner. In came that girl of Lee's—Debbie, as they call her. I hadn't seen much of her since she came home from London, but I knew her well enough, because for a while, before she went to that milliner's place in town, she was parlourmaid at my house; of course, she's smartened up a lot since then, though she was always a forward young minx.

"Well, she came up to the counter as large as life. 'Mr. Archington,' she says, 'I want to buy some claret, I've not been well, and the doctor says I'm anæmic and I ought to drink some good claret, so I want to try if it'll do any good.' Well, of course, I showed her a wine list, and pointed out a very good claret at three shillings a bottle. I also recommended some Burgundy that I have at the same price.

"But, no. Neither was good enough for my lady! 'While I'm at it,' she says, 'I'll have the best.' And before I could say more she put her finger on the price list against one of the best wines I have—some very fine Château Laffite"

Brixey started and whistled, and the other two men glanced at each other significantly.

"At six-and-six a bottle," continued Archington, "‘I'll have half a dozen of that,' she said. 'You'll send them up for me, Mr. Archington?' and she pulled out a purse and handed me a five-pound note.

"Well of course, it wasn't my affair if Debbie Lee liked to buy claret at six-and-six a bottle, and I gave her the change, and promised to send the wine up at once. But I never believed it was for her, for I never saw a young woman look less anæmic in my life. And, to cut matters, short, I put that fiver safely away."

Archington glanced at Willett as he came to an end of his story, and the bookseller nudged Brixey's elbow.

"I've got a five-pound note from the same quarter, too," he said, "And I got it about the same time—last Wednesday. This same young woman came into my shop just before one o'clock. I did just know her for it's not so long since that I bought some old prints from her father. "She'd a scrap of paper in her hand. 'Mr. Willett,' she says, as candidly as you please, 'there's a lady that I know in London who's interested in these old places like Selchester, an invalid lady that's nothing to do but read, and she's asked me if I can buy her any of the books on this list? Have you any of them?!' 'What are they?' I asked.

"She gave me the scrap of paper then. It was part of a page evidently torn out of some second-hand bookseller’s catalogue—some bookseller who specialises in topography and local history. There were several items relating to Selchester, and some of them were ticked off in pencil.

"‘Yes,' I said, 'I've some of these, but as you see, they're pretty expensive.' 'Oh, it doesn't matter!' she says. 'She's a wealthy lady—one of the customers where I worked in London—and she's sent me a five-pound note to lay out.' So I showed her what I had—Blenkinridge's 'History of Selchester' in two volumes, and Dean Dewberry’s 'Annals and Collections of Selchester Cathedral,' and Raycastle's 'Chartulary of Selchester Priory,' and one or two small things—they came to well over four pounds.

"She gave me a five-pound note. I have it in my pocket-book now. I offered to pack the books for her and to send them by parcel post, but she carried them off.

"Now," concluded Willett, "I believed the young woman's story at the time, but when I heard of Mr. Linthwaite’s disappearance; and that he was a well-known antiquary, and that he'd been seen about the Priory grounds last Tuesday morning, I—well, I began to think. And on Sunday Mr. Archington and I compared notes, and there you are!"

"What does Mr. Brixey think?" asked Archington, slyly.

Brixey, who seemed to have relaxed into a brown study suddenly woke up.

"Let me see those five-pound notes," he demanded. "That’s the first thing!"