lansbury smiled at the note of eagerness in the detective’s voice. he leaned forward in his chair, looking from one to the other of his listeners as if to indicate that he was now coming to the really important part of his story.
“go back a bit, you mean,” he said with a laugh “to my meeting with von eckhardstein. well, as i said, i explained the proposition to him. we walked along the road, leading outward from markenmore, for some time, discussing matters. we——”
“meet anybody—see anybody?” interrupted blick.
“i don’t remember that we encountered a soul!” answered lansbury. “pretty lonely parts, those. we walked up that road, perhaps a mile; then turned and came back to about where we’d met. by that time we’d got on to other topics than that which i’d first mentioned. von eckhardstein was not greatly taken with the matter i put before him. he saw its value as a commercial proposition, but while he felt that it would materialize well in this country and in mine, he was not so sure if he could make it a big thing in the mid-european countries, because of certain german opposition. however, he neither said yes nor no: and when we were about to part he asked me where i was staying, and what time i’d be likely to go to bed. i told him i had put up at the sceptre inn, close by, and that i expected markenmore there about ten-thirty to eleven, to supper, and that he and i would be sure to sit up late as we’d a good deal to talk about. von eckhardstein then told me a thing which may be of some significance to you police people, now that things have turned out as they have. he said that he was suffering badly from insomnia; couldn’t sleep at night—at any rate as he ought to—and that since coming to this place where he was visiting, he’d frequently gone out long walks in the middle of the night to see if he could induce sleep. he said that if he so went out that night, and if, in the meantime, he’d changed his mind about the proposition i’d put before him, he’d likely drop in on markenmore and myself if he saw a light in my sitting-room window. so——”
“from his last remark you gathered that he knew the sceptre?” enquired blick. “enough to know where your sitting-room was, eh?”
“well, that’s what he said, anyhow,” replied lansbury. “as for my sitting-room, it was one which the landlord showed me into when i stepped into his house—a biggish room on the left-hand side of the hall, with a french window that opened on the front garden.”
“precisely,” said blick. “i’m occupying that room, now. well——?”
“well, we parted on that,” continued lansbury. “von eckhardstein turned into a little gate that led, i suppose, to the house where he was staying, and i strolled back to the sceptre. i sat down and waited for markenmore. he was very late in coming; in fact, he didn’t come until close on twelve o’clock. he was in very high spirits—he told me, as we sat at supper, that he’d met his old sweetheart (handsomest woman in england, he called her!), and that they were both so pleased to meet again that they’d fixed it up to be married right off, and i’d have to be his best man. then we got on to business, and i mentioned von eckhardstein. of course he knew all about von eckhardstein, and he said that von eckhardstein was staying with this lady, he, markenmore, was going to marry, though he hadn’t met him then, being more pleasantly engaged. we went on discussing our business until close on two o’clock in the morning. just about that time i heard the latch of the garden gate snap, and guessing that was von eckhardstein out on one of his nocturnal rambles, i opened the french window and stepped into the garden. there he was, coming across the bit of lawn, and i took him in and introduced him to markenmore, and we began to re-discuss the business proposition. that——”
“a moment, if you please!” interrupted blick. “before you tell us about that, will you answer a question which has just occurred to me? during the time you three were together, did markenmore ever mention his approaching marriage to von eckhardstein? i want to know—particularly.”
“no, i am sure he did not,” replied lansbury promptly. “while the three of us were together, nothing but the immediate business proposition was discussed. what markenmore may have said on that subject—if he said anything—to von eckhardstein later, when i parted from them and left them together, i can’t presume to speculate on, but during the hour or so in which we were all in company, nothing was talked of but business. now, without telling you the exact details of the secret, i’ll tell what that business was. a young fellow who lived in a small country town between this city and london, getting in touch with markenmore as a financial man, offered him a trade secret which he was anxious to sell outright, for strict cash, for a certain amount of money that he required to set himself up in business. the amount asked was three thousand pounds. it was a good bargain—a very good bargain. the advantage was on the side of the purchaser—but the young fellow had fixed his own price and would evidently be well content if he got it. after von eckhardstein came to the sceptre we all three talked the matter out—markenmore had the papers and showed them—and we decided to buy: that is, von eckhardstein decided to come in, for markenmore and myself had already made up our minds. we then settled matters: von eckhardstein and myself each giving markenmore a thousand pounds in notes as our shares——”
“do i understand that you each gave markenmore one thousand pounds, in notes, there and then?” asked blick abruptly. “notes?”
“why, certainly!” answered lansbury. “that’s just what i said. bank of england notes. to which, of course, he added a similar sum of his own—to make up the three thousand. what’s surprising you?”
“do you mean to say that all three of you were carrying large sums of money on you—like those?” asked blick. “walking about with as much as a thousand pounds on you?”
“that’s no great sum to carry,” replied lansbury. “men in our line have to carry a good deal of ready money about them. a thousand pounds doesn’t take up much room in a wallet.”
“there would be notes of big denominations, i suppose?” suggested the chief constable.
“exactly!” assented lansbury. “mostly so, at any rate. notes of five hundred or two hundred each. i remember that von eckhardstein handed over two notes of five hundred. mine were smaller—four two hundreds, one one hundred, and two fifties, i don’t know anything of markenmore’s—he simply put our money to his in an envelope with the rest of the papers.”
“why notes at all?” asked blick, in whom an absolutely new train of thought was now developing. “why could not this transaction have been settled by a cheque?”
“because the young fellow of whom i have told you—the seller—particularly wanted his money in notes,” replied lansbury. “i said he lives in a small town between this city of yours and london. well, markenmore was going to call on him on his way back, hand him the cash, and the thing was settled. do you get that?”
blick was beginning to manifest a certain restlessness. he got out of his chair, put his hands in his pockets, and began to pace the room with bent head. suddenly he twisted round on lansbury.
“then, when guy markenmore went out of that inn, the sceptre, at three o’clock on tuesday morning, he’d three thousand pounds, in bank of england notes, on him?” he said. “is that a fact?”
“sure!” replied lansbury. “he had!”
blick gave the chief constable a significant look and snapped out a significant word.
“robbery!”
the chief constable nodded. he, too, was beginning to see developments.
“looks like it,” he said. “murdered for what he had on him. and yet——” he paused, looking at the detective with professional appeal. “odd,” he went on, “that everything else was untouched.”
“that makes things all the more significant,” observed blick. he turned to lansbury. “did you see where markenmore put the money—the banknotes—and the papers you referred to just now?” he asked.
“i did! in the inner breast pocket of his coat.”
“just put them in—as one puts letters, or anything of that sort, into one’s pocket?”
“sure!”
“did he ever leave that room in which you were all three sitting until you all left it for good?”
“he did not! none of us did.”
“well,” said blick, after a pause, during which he appeared to be deep in reflection. “what happened after you’d finished this business?”
“nothing unusual. we talked a bit, had a whisky and soda, lighted a fresh cigar, perhaps——”
“ah!” remarked blick. “that reminds me of another question. were you all smoking cigars?”
“no,” replied lansbury. “von eckhardstein was smoking a pipe. he said cigars made his insomnia worse.”
“well—you left at about three o’clock, i think?” suggested blick.
“about that. markenmore was going across country to a station called mitbourne: we said we would walk a little way with him. we left by the french window: it was then beginning to get grey in the sky—you could see things. we walked up the road, past the village cross and the old church. a little further on, i remembered that i had bought a local railway time-table at selcaster on arriving there the previous evening. i pulled it out, and on consulting it, found that i could get a train at selcaster soon after four o’clock which would get me to southampton and salisbury, and thence on to falmouth. i decided to catch it, and said i shouldn’t bother about returning to the inn. markenmore then pointed out a footpath which, he said, led across the meadows to selcaster, and advised me to take it; he himself, he remarked, was going by another, exactly opposite, on the other side of the road, which made a short cut over the downs to mitbourne station. we then bade each other farewell, and parted. i took the footpath to selcaster; markenmore took the other, up the hillside; von eckhardstein went with him, observing that he would walk a little more before turning in. the last i saw of them they were rounding the corner of a high hedge, together, in close conversation.”
“and that’s all you know?” said blick.
“that is all i know,” answered lansbury. “all!”
a pause in the conversation ensued: blick began to pace the room again, thinking. the chief constable, who, during the whole of lansbury’s narrative, had occupied himself in drawing apparently aimless lines on his blotting-pad, laid down his pen, sat back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling; he, too, was apparently in deep thought. but it was he who first broke the silence.
“i suppose von eckhardstein is a wealthy man?” he said, turning to lansbury.
“he enjoys that reputation in financial circles,” replied lansbury. “you may safely say he is!”
“not likely to murder another man for a couple of thousand pounds?”
“i should say not!”
“well,” remarked the chief constable, with a glance at blick, “it now looks as if guy markenmore was murdered for—not two, but three thousand pounds! anyway, according to you, mr. lansbury, he’d that sum on him when you left him at, say, half-past three, and it wasn’t on him when his clothing was examined by blick there, a very few hours later! who got it? where is it?”
blick turned in his walk and came back to the hearth by which they were talking.
“have you got the numbers of the notes you gave to markenmore?” he asked. “i suppose you have, of course!”
“i have not,” replied lansbury. “careless, perhaps, but that’s so—i haven’t. but i reckon my bankers may have them—they enter numbers when paying them out, don’t they?”
“who are your bankers?” asked blick.
“international banking corporation—london office in bishopsgate,” replied lansbury promptly. “but i can’t be certain that i got those particular notes there. i may have—in which case, they will have. but i mayn’t—in which case they won’t have. those notes—or some of them—may have been paid to me by other people. and—once or twice, recently—i have cashed cheques for large amounts in other places than london. my financial operations are considerable, and i handle notes in large numbers.”
“all the same,” said blick, “we’ll have to do what we can in tracing those notes. but now we’re faced with another matter. von eckhardstein is missing. his hostess thinks he’s had an accident while out on one of his night walks. i don’t!—i think he’s run away.”
“why, now, blick?” asked the chief constable.
“why didn’t he come forward at the inquest and tell us what mr. lansbury has just told us?” answered blick. “he’d the chance!—and he sat there and said nothing. von eckhardstein knows something—and he must be found. i wish i’d laid hands on him last night. now, we must get to work on tracking him. you’d better come out with me to markenmore, and let’s see into things.”
“i hope you don’t want me?” said lansbury. “i am particularly anxious to get back to falmouth. but i shall return from falmouth in two days, and shall then be for several days at southampton—close by you.”
“leave us an address—or addresses—that will find you at short notice,” said blick. “there’s no need to keep you from your business, mr. lansbury. and we’d better be getting to work on our own!”
he presently hurried the chief constable off to markenmore and mrs. tretheroe. the events and revelations of the morning had given him an entirely new conception of the case in hand, and he was now blaming himself bitterly for not having asked von eckhardstein to account for his possession of the pipe as soon as he had discovered that it was in the financier’s overcoat pocket.
“but i was saving that up for this morning,” he said grumblingly, as he and the chief constable drove along to markenmore. “i meant to stop him as he was entering the station to catch that ten-eight express; tell him that you and i wanted some information from him, to get him to your office, and have things out with him. now—it’s too late!”
“you don’t know that yet, blick,” remarked the chief constable. “if this man was accustomed to strolling about at night he may easily have had an accident, and be lying in some lonely part of those downs or woods waiting for help. anyhow, so far, i don’t see anything to incriminate him—in my opinion.”
“he was the last man known to be with guy markenmore,” said blick.
“maybe! but it isn’t likely that he’d murder him for the sake of those bank notes!” retorted the chief constable. “von eckhardstein’s name is known to me—he’s a man who’s dealt in millions in his time, and been in at some of the biggest flotations of late years. my opinion is that he walked some distance up that path with guy markenmore, left him, returned to the dower house, and knew nothing of markenmore’s murder until he heard of it later. markenmore met the actual murderer after he parted with von eckhardstein, and i should say that the murderer is a man who was thoroughly conversant with markenmore’s movements and doings, knew that he was to take that path to mitbourne station, and lay in wait for him at markenmore hollow. that’s how i work it out.”
blick made no reply to this for a few minutes. the chief constable’s dogcart had covered another half-mile of road before he spoke.
“there’s no doubt that the briar-wood pipe of which we’ve heard a good deal was von eckhardstein’s,” he said, at last. “nor that he left it at the sceptre, nor that grimsdale produced it at the inquest, nor that von eckhardstein picked it up from the solicitor’s table as he went out. now, if he’s an absolutely innocent man, why didn’t he get up at that inquest, explain his presence at the sceptre, admit that he did leave his pipe there, and behave candidly and openly, instead of keeping everything back and purloining that pipe as cleverly as any pickpocket? come!”
“can’t say,” answered the chief constable. “i should imagine that he’d reasons of his own for keeping silence—especially after he’d heard grimsdale say that he couldn’t identify the third man of the party.”
“well, there’s another queer thing,” remarked blick. “von eckhardstein must have known that, eventually, this man lansbury would come forward! he’d known that lansbury would let the truth out—as he has. we’ve got at that, anyhow!”
“have we got at the truth of anything?” asked the chief constable a little cynically. “if we’re going in for mere theorizing, i can suggest a dozen theories. here’s one to cogitate over, blick—supposing there’s some big financial operation at the bottom of all this, and that the removal of guy markenmore was a necessity to those chiefly responsible? i’ve known of men getting a bullet through their brains simply because they were in the way! and as to truth—well, give me proof! truth’s not so easy to come at in these matters—and i doubt if we shall get any substantial contribution to it here,” he added significantly, as they drove up to the dower house.
“haven’t the least idea what we shall get!” responded blick, equally cynical. “but we may find something.”
what they did find was mrs. tretheroe in a state of high excitement. she was convinced that her guest, unable to sleep, had gone out for one of his midnight strolls, and had fallen into some old pit or disused quarry. her own men-servants, several villagers, and the local policeman had been searching for him since breakfast-time, with no result. she scouted the idea that he had taken it into his head to go away, and it was with scorn and indignation that she gave blick his private and business addresses in london. blick cared nothing for either indignation or scorn; he went off to the village telegraph office and wired for news; he also sent private messages of his own to headquarters in london in furtherance of his object—one way or another, he meant to have news of von eckhardstein.
“after all,” he said to the chief constable, as they lunched together at the sceptre, “there’s no getting away from the fact that, according to our information, von eckhardstein was the last person who saw guy markenmore alive!”
“no!” answered the chief constable. “you’re wrong, blick. the last person who saw guy markenmore alive was the man who murdered him.”
blick regarded this as a verbal quibble and changed the subject. late in the afternoon he got replies to his various telegrams. nothing had been seen or heard of von eckhardstein at his usual london haunts. nor, when night fell again, had any news of him come to hand in markenmore.
