The Lost Mr. Linthwaite/Chapter 7

momentary excitement died out as quickly as it had arisen. He turned unconcernedly away from looking at Mrs. Byfield, who stood a little way off, greeting a young woman who had just alighted from the train, and glanced at Gaffkin’s small and neat portmanteau.

"Got any more luggage?" he asked laconically.

"All that I shall require is in here, Mr. Brixey," replied Gaffkin.

Like the portmanteau, he, too, was neat and small—a quiet, self-contained man, who looked more like a highly respectable valet than a solicitor's clerk.

"Any news of Mr. Linthwaite, sir?" he inquired, as they walked out of the station. "Of course, I’m all in the dark." Brixey wheeled his companion into the street and pulled him up before the first shop they came to.

"Everything's in the dark," he said, pointing to a bill which hung prominently displayed. "There’s the first effort I’ve made to dispel the darkness, Gaffkin. I want your help; you’re the only man I could think of. As far as I can see, there’s some extraordinary mystery about my uncle’s disappearance."

Gaffkin read the contents of the reward bill.

"Since Tuesday!" he exclaimed. "And now it’s Friday afternoon. Nothing been heard, Mr. Brixey—nothing at all?" "Come along to the 'Mitre'," answered Brixey. "I’ve booked a room there for you. We’ll have a nip of tea, and I’ll tell you all I know. And then we’ve got to do a lot of thinking."

In the private sitting-room, behind a carefully closed door, Brixey told his uncle’s old clerk everything that had transpired since his own arrival the previous night, and Gaffkin, who since he had left John Linthwaite’s employment had been carrying on the business of a private inquiry agent, listened silently and carefully, weighing the evidence with due appreciation.

"And that was Mrs. Byfield you pointed out just now, sir?" he said when Brixey had finished. "Just so, and you thought she might have been one of Mr. Linthwaite’s old clients? May have been, Mr. Brixey, but, if so, it was before my time.

"I was with your uncle in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for the last ten years of his practice, and I’m certain she never came there during that time. I never forget faces, sir. I’ve trained myself that way. That’s a noticeable woman. Still, Mr. Linthwaite may have known her before I went to him. The landlady, Mrs. Crosse, had no doubt that he recognised her?"

"No more than I have that he went after her," said Brixey.

"Then the thing to do," replied Gaffkin, "is to try back, and to find out all her antecedents—a stiff job. But it's a most extraordinary thing that no one has come forward to say they saw Mr. Linthwaite in those grounds. Somebody must have seen him."

"Somebody may come forward yet," remarked Brixey. "A hundred pounds reward may loosen a tongue or two. But now, Gaffkin, these police chaps—they're already on the theory that my uncle was murdered by tramps, or vanners, or gipsies, or something of that sort. You know what they are when they start a line of their own. Well, let ’em take it. We’ve got to go deeper.

"My uncle may have been murdered, but if he has, it’s not been because of the money in his pocket and the diamond in his necktie. The reason's been a deeper one than that. And it seems to me that the thing to find out is: Is there any person here in this town who had reasons—weighty reasons—for silencing him?"

"A big order, Mr. Brixey," said Gaffkin. "It means, as I say, going back. You want me to stop here?"

"Till he’s found—alive or dead—or accounted for," answered Brixey. "I shall stop. I’m on my holidays, and expense, of course, is neither here nor there. He’s got to be found!"

"Very good, sir," said Gaffkin. "Then the only thing you’ve mentioned to me up to now that I can work on is the fact that there’s a man in this town who was with the late Martin Byfield when he was married at Monaco—-Wetherby.

"I must get hold of him, and use a bit of caution in getting what information I can out of him. Get to know from the landlord here where this man can be found, and I’ll manage to get in touch with him, quietly."

"I'll do that now," agreed Brixey, "And I'll order dinner for six o’clock," he added, as he went off to find Brackett. "I’ve found out where this man Wetherby’s to be seen," said Brixey, returning in a few minutes. "He’s head waiter at the Cavalier Hotel, a few doors away. I'll leave that business to you, Gaffkin. When we’ve had a bit of dinner, try your hand on him. I needn’t tell you how to go about it. You’re a past-master at that sort of thing, I fancy."

"Leave it to me, sir," said Gaffkin. "You won’t mind a ten-pound note, I dare say, Mr. Brixey?"

"Nor a twenty," replied Brixey. "Don’t let that stand in the way."

Left alone after dinner, when Gaffkin had gone out on his mission to the Cavalier Hotel, Brixey set to work on a job which he had been meditating since early morning. Full of concern as he was for his uncle, the newsman’s instinct was strong in him, and he was going to make a big feature of Linthwaite’s strange disappearance for the Sentinel.

Linthwaite was a well-known man, of repute in legal circles, a member of one or two London companies, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries—many people would be deeply interested in news of him. Brixey intended the Sentinel to have exclusive news, to begin with.

He had been meditating a first message all day—a message that would work up intense interest without going into too much detail, and would exclude personal details such as those relating to Mrs. Byfield.

To-morrow, he said, he would follow it up with more. And he had a double object—he would not only be sending good copy to his paper, but drawing public attention to the affair. Brixey believed in public attention to anything, and now, left alone, he pulled out a sheaf of Press telegram forms and began to write.

Brixey finished his message and walked down to the post office with it. The lamplighters were going about their work as he returned towards the "Mitre," and underneath a lamp, just lit up, he encountered Gaffkin, who drew him aside from the passers-by.

"I’ve hit on something straight off, Mr. Brixey," said Gaffkin. "There's a man here in Selchester who used to come regularly to Mr. Linthwaite’s office some years ago. I know him as well by sight as I know you. He’s in the bar at the 'Cavalier' just now. Come in here, sir, and I'll tell you what I know of him."