Loe raamatut: «The Stolen Statesman: Being the Story of a Hushed Up Mystery», lehekülg 8

Chapter Fifteen.
In which Smeaton Makes a Discovery

Wingate laid down the letter and looked at Sheila, who was regarding him expectantly.

“What do you make of it?” she repeated.

“It is evident that he had an enemy, and a very bitter one,” answered her lover. “The sentences are deliberate, but they appear to have been written by a man who was in a white heat of passion when he penned them.”

“Smeaton ought to see that letter, without loss of time, dear,” she said.

“I quite agree. His trained intelligence may get more out of it than we can. I will make an appointment with him for to-morrow morning, and I will be here when he comes.”

Smeaton arrived next morning, hoping that at last he might discover a substantial clue. He read the brief note carefully and deliberately.

“Is it important, do you think?” inquired Sheila eagerly.

“In my opinion it is of very considerable importance. Miss Monkton,” he replied. “I think it will help us.”

“It certainly proves that he had a secret enemy,” interjected Wingate, “and one who would hesitate at nothing that would secure him revenge.”

“I quite agree, sir. The letter breathes the most intense hatred in every line. The motive of that hatred we have got to discover.”

Then the detective, turning to Sheila, said: “Now, Miss Monkton, there is a little information that I am sure you will be able to give us. I am not so well posted in your father’s biography as I ought to be. But, before he became a prominent politician, I understand that he was a barrister with an extensive and lucrative practice.”

“That is so,” corroborated Sheila. “He did not often talk about those times, but I have always understood that he made quite a big income at the Bar.”

“And when did he retire from his profession?”

“About fifteen years ago.”

“And he resolved to say good-bye to the Bar and devote himself entirely to politics?”

Sheila nodded. “That is quite true. He had a very firm opinion that a man could not serve two masters.”

“Was he on the Chancery or the Common Law side?” was Smeaton’s next question.

“On the Common Law,” replied Sheila. “But why do you ask that question?”

“You shall know in good time. Miss Monkton. Well, we may take it, then, that this vindictive letter was written more than fifteen years ago.”

“While he was still at the Bar,” interrupted Wingate, who was beginning to realise the point of the detective’s reasoning. “You are assuming that this venomous epistle did not come from a political enemy.”

“It is an assumption for which I have reasonable grounds,” was Smeaton’s answer. “There has been no bitterness in party politics ever since Mr Monkton became a conspicuous figure in the House. And we know that, while he was most popular with his own side, he was respected and liked by his political opponents.”

“Is it too much to ask you to give us the benefit of any theory you have formed, Mr Smeaton?” suggested Sheila, in her pretty, gracious way.

“With all the pleasure in life, my dear young lady. This letter goes back, in my opinion, to your father’s barrister days, when he was one of the foremost counsel in England. I asked you just now whether he was on the Equity or the Common Law side, and you wondered why I asked the question.”

“I am still wondering,” said Sheila simply.

“On the Equity side they try all sorts of cases concerned with points of law, the majority of them of a very dry and uninteresting character. I should not look in an Equity case for a defeated litigant who would turn into a vindictive enemy of the type of the writer of this letter.”

The young people began to see, as yet very dimly, whither he was leading them.

“On the Common Law side, on the contrary, we are brought into the world of human passion and emotion; one in which the issues of life or death are at stake. We will suppose that your father, in the plenitude of his powers, is retained as counsel against some adroit rogue, some swindling company promoter, for example, who up to that moment had managed to keep himself well on the right side of the law.”

They began to see light, and listened with the closest attention.

“We will say this swindler, a more than usually clever rascal, is living in luxury with his ill-gotten gains, when he makes a slip that brings him within reach of the long arm of justice. One of his victims (or perhaps several in combination) brings an action against him for the return of the money he has inveigled out of him by his lying prospectuses. He employs big counsel to defend him, but your father wins his case. The wealthy rogue is forced to disgorge, finds his occupation gone, and is reduced to penury.”

Sheila nodded to show that she was following his argument.

“I am assuming for a moment that it is a civil action, and that it disclosed sufficient evidence to justify his arrest on a criminal charge later on. I deduce that from the fact that he was not a convicted felon at the time of writing that letter, otherwise he would not have been able to write and send it to your father. The meaning of the words ‘forced me to fly the country’ indicate, in my opinion, that he was in hourly fear of arrest.”

“It seems a very feasible theory,” remarked Wingate.

“The rest is easy to understand. He nourishes a morbid hatred for the man who has been the means of menacing his liberty, and driving him from the society he polluted. He regards him as a personal enemy, not merely the instrument of the justice he has defied. While smarting under this, to his distorted ideas, sense of wrong, he pens the letter and has it conveyed to your father by some trusted confederate. As there is no stamp or postmark on it, it was conveyed by hand.”

Wingate looked at Sheila, and she returned his glance. They were both greatly impressed by the detective’s clear reasoning.

Smeaton took up the half-sheet of notepaper, and submitted it to a close observation.

“The man who wrote it is, I should judge, a keen business man of methodical habits, inclined to neatness, of a strong but not impulsive character. An impulsive man would have torn the sheet across, leaving a rough and jagged edge. It has been pressed down with the finger and thumb, and then carefully cut.”

He held the small sheet up to the light, and made further observations.

“A peculiar paper, peculiar, I mean, as to the texture. The watermark, in its entirety, is, fortunately for us, on this half-sheet. That enables us to trace where it comes from. Come here for a moment and stand beside me.”

They did so, followed his pointing finger, and saw a shield bearing a coat-of-arms, and beneath, the words: “Westford Mill.”

“That will help you,” cried Sheila eagerly.

“I hope so. It is, as I said, a paper of peculiar texture, and doubtless many tons of it have been sold. If, as I guess, it is now off the market, I shall be compelled to fix a date. If I do that, it would considerably narrow the field of my inquiries.”

After a little further conversation, Smeaton took his leave with the letter in his possession. Sheila and Wingate, when they were alone, indulged in mutual admiration of his powers of analysis and deduction.

The detective, an hour later, looked in upon Mr Newsom-Perry, with whom he was slightly acquainted, and handed him the document.

“We found this amongst the papers you sent to Miss Monkton,” he explained. “I called on the chance of finding that your client had spoken to you, at one time or another, of some man who sent him a threatening letter. I may say that we have found no allusion to it amongst the other papers.”

“Which seems to show that Monkton did not attach any importance to it himself, I should say,” remarked the solicitor. “No, so far as I am concerned he never alluded to the matter. You attach some importance to it – eh?”

“Some,” replied Smeaton guardedly.

“Of course, you have a wider experience of these things than I, and you are wise to neglect no possible clue. Still, I should think that any big counsel in extensive practice has many letters of this kind from impulsive and angry litigants, who regard him as the author of their ruin.”

Smeaton rose. “It may be so,” he said quietly. “This man was angry, but he was not impulsive; the handwriting alone proves that. He wrote the letter at white heat, but he is of a resolute and determined character.”

Even though the writer of the anonymous threat had overlooked the fact that a watermark was on the paper, the latter point was not half so easy to clear up as Sheila and Wingate expected.

To the chief firms of paper makers and paper agents in the City Smeaton, through the following days, showed a tracing of the watermark, but without result.

Nobody could identify it.

The managing director of one firm of paper agents in Queen Victoria Street declared it to be a foreign paper, even though it was marked “Westford Mill.”

“The vogue for English notepaper on the Continent has led French and German mills to produce so-called ‘English writing paper’,” he added. “And if I am not mistaken this is a specimen.”

For nearly a week Smeaton prosecuted his inquiries of stationers, wholesale and retail, in all parts of the metropolis, taking with him always the tracing of the watermark. He did not carry the letter, for obvious reasons.

One day at a small retail stationer’s in the Tottenham Court Road, when he showed the tracing to the elderly shopkeeper, the man exclaimed:

“Oh, yes! I’ve seen that before. It’s foreign. When I was an assistant at Grimmel and Grice’s in Bond Street, Mr Grice bought a quantity of it from Paris because of its unusual colour and texture. It was quite in vogue for a time, and it could only be obtained from us.”

“Then all of this particular paper came from Grimmel and Grice’s?”

“Certainly, sir, I recollect the ‘Westford Mill’ well. We supplied it to half the aristocracy of London.”

Smeaton, much pleased with his discovery, took a taxi to Bond Street, and entering the fashionable stationers’ addressed himself to the first person he saw, a young man of about twenty-five.

“Do you make this paper nowadays?” he asked.

The shopman examined it, and shook his head. “No, sir, that paper has not been sold here since I’ve been in the business.”

“And how long would that be?”

“A matter of six years or so.”

“I am anxious to make some further inquiries,” said Smeaton, after a moment’s pause. “Who is the oldest assistant in the shop?”

“Mr Morgan, sir. He’s been with Grimmel and Grice a matter of nearly fifty years, man and boy. He’s on the other side. I will take you to him.”

Smeaton was introduced to the veteran Mr Morgan, an alert-looking man, in spite of his years. Smeaton explained his name and errand, adding that he was from Scotland Yard. Morgan at once became interested. He looked at the watermark.

“I remember that paper well,” he said at length. “It had a tremendous vogue for a little time; we couldn’t get it over from Paris fast enough. Then it went as suddenly out of fashion.”

“I suppose you can’t help me with any dates?”

“Oh, but indeed I can, Mr Smeaton. I have a wonderful memory for everything connected with the business. Old Mr Grice used to say that my memory was as good as the firm’s books. The paper started just twenty-five years ago, and it ran for five years. After that, no more was made.”

Smeaton expressed his gratitude. Mr Morgan’s excellent memory would shorten his labours considerably.

“Can you give me any clue to these letters on the envelope, I wonder?”

But here Mr Morgan was at fault. “We supplied hundreds upon hundreds of customers at the time. And all our old ledgers were burnt in our fire fifteen years ago. But I think I recognise the workmanship of the cipher. I should say that stamp was cut by Millingtons in Clerkenwell Road. They made a speciality of that kind of thing years ago. If you go there, they may have some record. They’re new people there now; old Mr Millington is my senior by ten years or more. He sold the business about fifteen years ago. But he is still alive, and lives somewhere in the Camberwell direction.”

Smeaton entered the address in his notebook, and shook Mr Morgan cordially by the hand. He would go to the Clerkenwell Road, and, if necessary, hunt up the ancient Mr Millington. If he possessed as good a memory as his friend some very useful information might be gathered.

Chapter Sixteen.
Who was Monkton’s Enemy?

At the dingy little shop in Clerkenwell Smeaton received a check. The proprietor was out, and a stupid-looking youth who was in charge could give no information. He turned the envelope listlessly in his fingers, handed it back to the detective, and suggested that he should call later in the day, when his master would be in.

The business bore the appearance of decay, Smeaton thought, and if the master should prove no more intelligent than his assistant, it would only be a waste of time to question him.

Subsequently he called and saw the head of the declining firm, and from him learnt that the last he had heard of old Mr Millington was that he was living in New Church Road, Camberwell.

He at once took a taxi there, but on arrival was sadly disappointed to see that the house was to let, and that inquiries were to be made of a firm of house-agents.

He was soon at their office, and here he found an intelligent clerk, to whom he explained that he wished to make a few inquiries.

“I seem to remember the name,” said the clerk at length. “I believe he was the tenant when I first came into this business; a nice, quiet old man, who paid his rent on the day. The house has been let to two people since then.”

“Do you know where Millington went when he left?”

But the clerk’s mind was a blank on the subject. A bright idea, however, struck him, which, in a moment, would have occurred to Smeaton.

“Look here, sir. Why don’t you go and see the landlord, Mr Clarke? His house is in the Camberwell Road, only five minutes’ walk from here.”

The detective thanked him, and armed with the address set forth on a fresh pilgrimage. In a few moments he was interviewing the landlord, a retired builder who had invested his savings in small property.

“Pleased to give you any help I can,” he said heartily, when the detective had explained the object of his visit. “I remember Millington well; very decent old chap he was too; paid his rent punctually. He moved away some years ago. I don’t know where he went. But I don’t think it matters much. I heard about twelve months ago that the old man was dead.”

Smeaton’s face clouded. So all his inquiries had been waste of time. Millington would never throw any light upon the anonymous and threatening letter.

He went back to Bond Street and saw Mr Morgan.

“I am told that Mr Millington is dead,” he said to him. “I suppose you had not heard of it?”

Morgan looked surprised. “When did he die, sir?”

“My informant told me he heard of it about a year ago.”

“A mistake, sir, a mistake, somebody of the same name,” cried Mr Morgan. “Two months ago I met him in the Strand, and we chatted for a few seconds. We didn’t say much to each other for I was in a hurry to get back to the shop.”

“He never mentioned to you that he had left Camberwell?”

“No; as he said nothing about it I took it for granted that he was still there. But I don’t suppose we exchanged a couple of dozen words altogether. I remember I told him he was looking as well as ever, and he laughed, and said he came of a long-lived family.”

Smeaton breathed again. An hour later he was back again at Camberwell, on the track of the retired engraver.

A man cannot move a houseful of furniture without leaving some traces. After visits to half-a-dozen moving establishments, he hit upon the right one in the Walworth Road. The proprietor referred to his books, and gave Smeaton the information he wanted. The goods had been taken down by road to Beech Cottage, Lower Halliford, a little village in the Thames Valley.

So far, so good. Unless he had been seized with another desire for change, Millington would be found at Beech Cottage, Lower Halliford.

It was too late to pursue the affair further that day. Smeaton would run down the next morning. Millington was an old man; his wits would probably be brighter in the early hours.

The morning found him knocking at the door of Beech Cottage, a pretty little cottage overhung with climbing roses, facing the river. The door was opened by a stout, pleasant-faced woman, whom he at once discovered to be Millington’s niece and housekeeper.

“My uncle is not very well this morning,” she told him; “he suffers a good deal from asthma. But if you’ll come into the parlour, I’ll take your card in. He likes to see people when he can, for it’s terribly dull down here.”

A moment later she reappeared. “My uncle will be glad to see you, sir. I was afraid he was a bit too poorly, but a visitor brightens him up at once. Please step this way.”

Mr Millington was seated in a small room overlooking a somewhat rough and uncultivated piece of garden at the back. He was a bright-looking old man, of small stature, with a wonderfully pink complexion, and small twinkling eyes. He was dressed in a nondescript sort of attire, a long frock-coat, a skullcap, and a pair of carpet slippers.

“Sit down, sir, please,” he said, in a voice that was cordial, if a trifle wheezy. “I see by your card you are from Scotland Yard – eh? What can I do for you?”

Smeaton went to the point at once.

“I heard of you from Morgan, of Grimmel and Grice. I went there to make a few inquiries, and he recommended me to you.”

Mr Millington nodded his head.

“A very good fellow, Morgan; he always put as much business in my way as he could.”

“He directed me to you,” Smeaton said, and he pulled out the envelope and handed it to Millington. “This kind of cipher Mr Morgan tells me was in great vogue between twenty and twenty-five years ago. He thinks that you cut it. Will you kindly examine it, and tell me if you recognise it as your handiwork?”

The answer came readily: “It’s mine, sure enough.”

“Good. The envelope itself is quite an ordinary one, as you see. Now, can you carry your mind back, and give me any particulars of the transaction? Can you tell for whom those letters were cut, and what they stand for?”

Mr Millington put his hand to his forehead. “Let me think a moment,” he said in the quavering voice of old age. “Let me think for a moment, and something will come back to me. At my time of life it’s a good way to go back.”

Smeaton waited in silence for some little time, and then it seemed the old man had struck some chord of memory.

Suddenly he sat upright in his easy-chair, and his eyes sparkled. “It is coming back by degrees,” he said in his thin, husky voice; “it is coming back.”

There was another pause, in which it seemed he was trying to arrange his ideas clearly. Then he spoke slowly but distinctly.

“I remember I had a lot of trouble over the job. The order was first given to some stationers in the City, but the gentleman was so fussy and confused in his instructions that they sent him down straight to me. I thought I understood what he wanted, but I had to engrave it three times before he was satisfied. That’s why I happen to remember it so well.”

“Now, do you remember, or did you ever know, the name of this fussy person who was so hard to please?”

“I ought to remember it,” said Millington plaintively. “It was not an uncommon name either; I should recall it in a moment if I heard it. But it has escaped me.”

Smeaton’s face clouded. “That’s unfortunate, but it may come back to you presently. Proper names are the hardest things to remember as we get on in life.”

Millington struggled for a little time longer with the ebbing tide of reminiscence, but to no purpose.

Smeaton went on another tack.

“Did you bring away from your business any documents or memoranda that would throw light upon this particular transaction?”

The old man reflected for a little while.

“I’m afraid I was a very poor man of business, sir,” he said at length. “I made rough notes from time to time as I received and executed orders, but that was all. I trusted to my memory, which in those days was a good one.”

“Have you any of those old note-books left?”

“Yes, I’ve got some of them upstairs in a couple of boxes which have never been opened since I left the Clerkenwell Road. Would you like me to run through them? It would only mean half-a-day’s work, or less.”

“I should be infinitely obliged if you would, Mr Millington. I will run down here about the same time to-morrow morning. Just one thing more before I go. Were you acquainted with your customer’s handwriting? Did you ever receive any letters from him?”

“He wrote me several times with regard to the work I did for him, but I shouldn’t be able to recognise his hand, even if I saw it.”

Smeaton left, very much chagrined at the result of his visit.

Next morning he, however, presented himself at Beech Cottage. Millington received him with an apologetic air. He explained that he had searched his note-books diligently, but he could find nothing that referred to the cipher letters, the two C’s entwined, or the man who had ordered them.

“I’ve a notion,” he said, when he had finished his rather rambling statement, “that the gentleman who gave the order came from Manchester or Liverpool. But there I may be mixing it up with something else.”

And Smeaton left, knowing that nothing more could be got out of him. The identity of the writer of the threatening letter had yet to be discovered.

Another point had suddenly occurred to him. Was the man who had had the cipher engraved the actual writer of the letter? And the greatest point of all was the whereabouts of the Stolen Statesman: was he dead, or was he still living?

Smeaton ascended in the lift to his room at Scotland Yard, where a surprise awaited him, in the shape of a telegram from Varney, handed in at a village five miles from Horsham, in Sussex, three hours before. It read:

“Come down here at once. Something unexpected. – Varney.”