The Markenmore Mystery/Chapter 23

The Chief Constable looked at Blick when Chilford walked out: his eyes assumed a somewhat blank and doubtful expression.

"What on earth does he mean by all that?" he exclaimed.

"That something to do with money is at the bottom of it," said Blick. "And after all, there's the three thousand pounds' worth of bank-notes to account for! There doesn't seem any doubt that Guy Markenmore had these notes on him when he left the Sceptre, and he certainly hadn't them when we examined his clothing. Where are they? Obviously, the murderer helped himself to them."

The Chief Constable reflected awhile.

"The queer thing, to my way of thinking," he observed at last, "is this: if the murder was committed for the sake of robbery, how comes it that the murderer didn't possess himself of all the rest of the stuff Guy Markenmore had on him? Money, a fair lot, I think; valuables, gold watch and chain; and so on. There was a very valuable diamond ring, wasn't there?"

"The odd thing is that another ring—the duplicate of that which Mrs. Tretheroe wears—was gone," said Blick. "Gone!—a comparatively valueless thing, merely a curiosity, while a diamond ring, worth a great deal, was left on the very same finger! But what's the use of theorizing? The facts are as they are! If there's nothing whatever in what we'll call the Mrs. Braxfield line—well, I'm still without any real clue!"

"Chilford says—money!—money!—money!" remarked the Chief Constable. "I wish we knew more of Guy Markenmore's money affairs! But talking of money, I shouldn't wonder if that dodge of Mother Braxfield's mayn't have something in it. I know village people pretty well by now! What she said is quite true—there's scarce a soul amongst 'em that wouldn't sell his own mother for a five-pound note! Bit exaggerated, of course, that!—but it's sound in principle."

Blick looked doubtful and surprised.

"Do you mean to say that, supposing there are people in Markenmore who really do know something about this affair, they've kept silence up to now?" he asked. "I don't mean people who might be incriminated by confession or revelation, but people who are in possession of information and simply won't give it?"

"Nothing more likely!" affirmed the Chief Constable, with the emphatic assurance of experience. "Village folk are the biggest gossips and scandal mongers under the sun! There isn't a village in England that isn't a perfect hot-bed of slander—born of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness! But—don't you make any mistake, my lad!—village folk, in spite of that tendency, can be as close as ever they make 'em! You might as well try to get butter out of a dog's mouth as try to extract a secret from them if they don't want to tell it. Why, I would give you piles of proof of that out of my own experience! I remember one case that happened near here, not so long ago. A certain land-agent was shot at and badly wounded one night as he went home, and we've never yet found out who his assailant and would-be murderer was. But I haven't the slightest doubt that nearly every man and woman in that place knows who he was—only they won 't say, because their chief regret is that the victim wasn't finished off. There you are!"

"But according to Mrs. Braxfield—and you seem to agree with her—these folks would tell for a five-pound note," said Blick with a cynical laugh. "Why didn't you try that in the case you mention?"

"We may do yet," replied the Chief Constable. "The victim himself seems inclined to hush the matter up, fearing worse things—but we may try a reward. In this Markenmore affair, however, Mrs. Braxfield is going to try a monetary offer—out of pure pique, I fancy!—and it won't surprise me if something results. If I were you, Blick, I should keep my ears on the stretch during the next twenty-four hours. I don't know what she'll offer, but if it's something substantial, there'll be a vast amount of cupidity aroused amongst these rustics—I know 'em!"

Blick got up from the elbow-chair in which, since Chilford's abrupt departure, he had been sitting with his legs stretched out and his hands in his pockets, looking perplexed and somewhat disconsolate.

"I may as well be going back then," he muttered. "Hanged if I know even now, if we didn't part with Mrs. Braxfield a bit too easily!"

"She'll not run away," retorted the Chief Constable, with a significant nod of his head. "And if it's all a piece of bluff"

He paused as a policeman entered the room and laid a card before him.

"The gentleman's waiting outside, sir," said the policeman.

The Chief Constable glanced at the card, started, and turned to Blick.

"Sir Thomas Hodges-Wilkins!" he murmured surprisedly. "That big scientific chap!—Professor, from Cambridge, that that fellow Spindler told us about. What on earth can he want? Bring him in, Jarvis," he went on. "Set a chair there." He looked wonderingly at the detective. "Another development!" he muttered. "What now?"

Blick made no reply. He was watching the door, through which suddenly appeared a man who was not at all the sort of person that Blick expected to see. Instead of being old, and grave, and bald, and bearded, and spectacled, and dressed anyhow, the famous professor of chemistry was a smart, alert, rather military-looking man, fastidiously attired, wearing a monocle instead of spectacles, and endowed with a breezy air and cheery smile, which he bestowed freely on the two occupants of the room as he marched in and seated himself by the Chief Constable's desk, on the edge of which he laid down two or three newspapers, heavily marked here and there with blue pencil.

"Good morning—good morning!" he exclaimed. "I don't know whether you'll guess my business from my name—or, indeed, if you know anything about it? But I've been reading the newspaper accounts of this Markenmore affair, and it seemed to me, last night, that it was my duty to come here and tell you something. And first of all, to make things clear, have you had here a young man named Spindler, a chemist's assistant, from Farsham?"

"We have!" replied the Chief Constable.

"Did he tell you anything in which my name came up? And if so, what?"

"He told us—this is Detective-Sergeant Blick, who was with me when this man Spindler called—that a certain secret of his, respecting the preparation of some dye which he had offered to sell to Guy Markenmore, was submitted to you by Markenmore, for your expert opinion."

"Just so! It was. Markenmore got my opinion. Now—how much further had that gone?"

"Gone to this," answered the Chief Constable. "When Markenmore was murdered he had on him three thousand pounds in bank-notes, which, we believe, he was to hand over to Spindler that very morning in payment for his secret."

"Spindler was going to sell for three thousand pounds?"

"He was—so he told us."

The Professor of Chemistry screwed his monocle still further into the cavity of his eye, and took a queer, keenly-inspecting glance at the two men.

"Do you two believe—are you theorizing that Markenmore was murdered for the three thousand pounds?" he asked quizzically. "It, to be sure, looks rather obvious!"

"There is such a theory afloat," answered the Chief Constable. "He had that sum on him at three o'clock on Tuesday morning, and it was gone when his dead body was found a very few hours later!"

"Aye!" said the Professor with a short laugh. "And something else gone with it, too! Now, look here!—I'm not a policeman, but I have some intelligence. I'll tell you what Guy Markenmore was murdered for, and I'll lay all the money I've got to a China orange that I'm right, all the time. Guy Markenmore was murdered for the Spindler formula! Dead certain!"

The Professor laughed again, and slapped his elegantly-gloved hand on the desk at his side. The two listeners stared at him, and then at each other. And this time it was Blick who spoke.

"Are we to understand, Sir Thomas," he asked, "that that formula was of great value?—of greater value than the three thousand pounds?"

"Call me Professor," said the famous scientist. "Saves time Yes. You are to understand that! Three thousand pounds! Had it been my secret, I wouldn't have sold it for thirty thousand pounds! That chap Spindler is an ass—or awfully ignorant of market values; had he stuck to it himself he'd have made a huge fortune out of it, one way and another. I don't know if you two are at all up in this question of aniline dyes? You'll know, at any rate, if you read your newspapers, that it's a most serious question—one of rescuing a trade originally ours from its German usurpers. You know that? Very well, this young man at Farsham—clever chap, indeed!—has discovered a peculiar formula! I needn't go into details, but I know enough to be absolutely certain, in my own mind, that Markenmore was murdered by somebody who knew that he had the formula on him, and who meant to have it for himself by hook or crook. He was probably followed down here, watched, and attacked at the lonely spot I read of in the papers."

"That presupposes that somebody in London knew what he had on him," said Blick.

"Somebody—in London or elsewhere—certainly must have known," assented the Professor. "My own theory is that Markenmore told other people—financial speculators, perhaps, about this—and he may have shown them my opinion as an expert. But I'll tell you my own share in the transaction. I have, as you may know, a European reputation as a chemist. Well, Markenmore wrote to me, enclosing Spindler's formula and a handsome fee, asking me to tell him what I thought of it. I recognized the immense value of the thing at once, and I wrote out my opinion, and returned the formula with it to Markenmore. I was so anxious that the secret of the formula should be kept that I adopted unusual precautions in sending the papers (which no living soul but myself had seen while they were in my possession) to him; instead of posting them I gave them, heavily sealed, to a trusted assistant of mine—an assistant in my laboratory—who was just then going to London for a holiday, so that they might be delivered to Markenmore himself, by hand, at his office in Folgrave Court. That they were so delivered, I know. The assistant to whom I have referred, though he did not know what precisely the packet contained, knew that its contents were of supreme consequence, and, indeed, of monetary value, and he was most careful to hand the packet to Markenmore in person. And when Markenmore came down here that night, he would have these papers on him—the formula itself, and my opinion on it. I tell you again, my belief is that he let somebody else into the secret, that that somebody followed him, watched him, and murdered him! The Spindler formula is at the bottom of the whole thing!"

A period of silence followed, during which the three men looked at each other. The Professor broke it as last, with a direct question.

"You've no clue so far?"

"None!" answered Blick.

"You'll have to hark back," said the Professor. "London! Get at some of Markenmore's recent doings there. Now, as I came through London from Cambridge yesterday, I made it in my way to call at Markenmore's office in Folgrave Court to make a few enquiries. Markenmore's head clerk gave me some information. He remembered my assistant, Mr. Carter, calling. He himself saw Carter deliver to Markenmore my sealed letter; he saw Markenmore give Carter a receipt for it, which Carter sent on to me by post. I have it in my pocket now. The head clerk says that as soon as Carter had gone, he saw Markenmore break the seals of my letter, draw two papers from it and read them. Markenmore, the moment he had finished them, went into the telephone-box in the hall of their building and presumably rang somebody up. Within half an hour a man came who was an absolute stranger to the head clerk; he is positive that this man had never been there before, but he remembers him well—a foreigner, by appearance—and can give you an accurate description of him. Now, the clerk saw Markenmore produce my sealed letter—unsealed, of course, I mean—and show this strange man the two papers which it contained. A few minutes later they went out together. Now, who is that man? You'll have to find him."

The Chief Constable looked at Blick.

"This"' he said, "seems like shifting the scene of your operations."

But Blick looked at the Professor.

"What description—of this stranger—did Markenmore's clerk give you?" he asked.

"Dark, swarthy, middle-sized, middle-aged man—very well dressed," responded the Professor promptly. "The sort of man, he said, you see much of in financial circles. Some sort of a foreign Jew—in the clerk's opinion."

"Had such a man come into these parts, he must have been seen," said Blick. "I've made minute enquiries about the recent presence of strangers at all the railway stations"

"There are other ways of transport than railways," observed the Professor. "But, anyway, here's one thing certain—Markenmore showed the formula and my opinion on it to this man!"

Blick walked about the room awhile, in his favourite attitude—head down and hands in pockets. He turned at last to the Chief Constable.

"Well, I'm going back to Markenmore," he said. "There are certain things to see to, there. Afterwards"

"We must have more talk," responded the Chief Constable. "As you say—afterwards."

The Professor rose and picked up his hat and walking-stick.

"I am going to stay at the Mitre here for a day or two," he said. "So, if you want me, you'll know where to find me. But while I am here, I should like to see the scene of all this mystery, and if you're going out there, Sergeant, I'll go with you, if I may."

"Great pleasure, sir," replied Blick.

He took the Professor out and through the streets of Selcaster to the long straight road that led towards Markenmore. As they walked along he detailed to him the whole of his own proceedings, from the finding of the dead man to the affairs of that morning with Mrs. Braxfield.

"Whether the offering of a reward will do any good, I don't know," he said in conclusion. "If anybody had seen such a stranger as you indicate it might, but I'm sure I should have heard of that before now."

"Ah, you'll have to go back on your trail—you'll have to go back on your trail!" said the Professor. "The secret lies away back, I'm convinced. All the theories are wrong, so far!—it's not money—at least not ready money. It's the Spindler formula—with its vast potentialities. Now, what does this Mrs. Braxfield propose to offer for information?"

"Don't know—she didn't say," answered Blick. "But we soon shall know. Look there!"

A bill-poster's cart, driven by a man in white linen overalls, passed them, going rapidly in the direction of the village.

"Her solicitor spoke of having these things out at once," continued Blick. "He's evidently lost no time—that chap's going out to post them."

"Small result, I fear!" said the Professor. "My own opinion is that the whole thing was too carefully engineered. Nothing would come out here."

"You never know," replied Blick. "All sorts of things help."

They walked on to the entrance to the village. There, at the first blank wall he had come across, the bill-poster was already busy—a group of open-mouthed women and children around him.

The two men stopped, as the bill, a big square sheet, in heavy black lettering, was pasted, wet and shining, on the wall.

The Professor, adjusting his monocle, read it aloud:

"Um!" remarked the Professor, turning away with something of a sardonic smile. "Your Mrs.—What's-her-name?—Braxfield doesn't err on the side of generosity! Now, if she'd said five hundred!—eh?"

"Mrs. Braxfield," said Blick, with a glance at the folk who were eagerly spelling out the contents of the poster, "observed cynically to the Chief Constable and me that there wasn't a man or woman in Markenmore who wouldn't give his or her own mother away for a five-pound note! Now there are twenty fives in a hundred, so"

"Twenty times the inducement!" laughed the Professor. "Good arithmetic, anyway! Aye, well, my friend, I don't think this will do much good. But, as a curiosity, I should like a copy of that bill. Do you think our worthy of the paste-pot and brush would give us one?"

"Nothing would please him better, I should think," said Blick. "Especially if you give him the price of a pint of ale—bill-posting, I believe, is considered to be thirsty work."

The Professor laughed again, and approaching the bill-poster, appropriated a couple of his bills, and handed him half a crown.

"Going to stick these things up all over the country-side I suppose?" he asked, as he handed one bill to Blick, and folded up the other for his pocket. "Mean to create a widespread interest, eh?"

"Something of that sort, sir," answered the bill poster. "Such was my instructions. Two hundred copies of that poster I have in my cart, and up they go before dinner-time, all round this here village. And," he added with a wink, "a fat lot of good they'll do!—in my opinion."

"No good, you think?" suggested the Professor. "Why not?"

"'Cause that there affair's a darned sight too deep down in mystery!" said the bill-poster. "Deep, deep, deep—gentlemen! A deed o' darkness!—and ain't going to be found out in a hurry. But business is business, and I must go on with mine, which at present is to excite everybody and arouse cupidity and avaricious feelings!"

"A humorist!" observed the Professor, as the bill poster hurried away. He walked on into the village at Blick's side, looking about him with inquisitive eyes. Suddenly he caught sight of the Sceptre. "Ah!" he said. "So that's the Inn where the midnight meeting took place? I should like to look in there—I wonder if they could give us some lunch?"

"I'm staying there," replied Blick. "My headquarters. And I've a private sitting-room. If you'll honour me, sir, I'll order lunch whenever you like—they're well provided."

The Professor professed himself delighted, and for the next hour or two he and Blick, over the luncheon-table and round the fire, discussed the Markenmore problem in all its ramifications. At three o'clock in the afternoon they went out to examine the scene of the drama, with Markenmore Hollow as a final objective. But as they strolled along the road, Blick suddenly caught sight of Daffy Halliwell, just within the wicket gate of the Dower House—and he saw, too, that Daffy quietly signalled her desire to speak with him.