“You’ve never seen the lady since?”
“No, sir.”
“Does anybody else know about this lady’s visit? Mr. Farnish, for instance?”
“I think not, sir. I believe Mr. Farnish was away from the Hall that afternoon, and even if Mr. Farnish knew—” Walter hesitated and said no more.
“Go on, Walter, tell me everything you know. Tell me even your suspicions. I feel sure there’s something wrong about all this business and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. You may rest assured that I shall employ the utmost discretion in making use of anything you may care to divulge.”
“Well, sir, Mr. Farnish always was a deep ’un. Not that I dislike him. We’ve always got on well together. But he was never what you call free in his conversation with any of us. Mighty big notion of his position, sir, he has. And of late—well, he’s been more silent than ever, and sometimes downright queer. On one occasion since his lordship’s disappearance he was a long while in the study by himself. Next morning he went off early to London without telling any of us his business. He left me in charge and just said, ‘I have to go up to London, Walter; I shall be back as soon as possible.’ After he’d gone, sir, I took the notion into my head to have a look in his lordship’s study. Naturally, I was curious as to what Mr. Farnish had been doing so long in his lordship’s study—it was a room, sir, into which none of us servants was ever allowed to go. His lordship used to say, ‘Dust might be troublesome, but dusting was a damned noosance.’ But when I tried the door I found it locked, and the key gone. Now the key was always in the door when his lordship was here or away, for I’m sure he had nothing to hide. He simply wouldn’t have his books and papers put where he couldn’t at once lay hands on them, and that was the only reason we were forbidden to enter his study.”
“Nothing more has happened since?”
“Nothing unusual, sir. This thing has been on my mind and worried me considerable, so I had made up my mind to tell you, sir.”
“Thanks, Walter; that’s all I want to know.”
“Very good, sir,” replied Walter, and left the room.
He had not gone many minutes before Inspector Heather entered. He found Vereker engrossed in that up-to-date novel by Mr. Titus Petronius.
“Well, Heather, I can see by your face you’ve made a discovery,” said Vereker, looking up.
“A small discovery and a few more facts.”
“You’ve been in the study,” remarked Vereker at random.
“H’m, yes—I’ve been all over the place. How did you know I’d been in the study?”
“You’ve got a document in your hand with the words Last Will and Testament engrossed almost life-size on the back, and easily legible from here. The rest was pure deduction.”
“You’re improving, Mr. Vereker. As for the discovery—I found one of the drawers of Lord Bygrave’s bureau had been forced with an ordinary screw-driver. I asked Farnish if he could furnish me with a screw-driver, and he did.”
“It was the identical one?”
“It was.”
“By Jove, Heather!” exclaimed Vereker, but with little show of excitement.
“There doesn’t seem much in it, though,” continued Heather thoughtfully, “because hardly had Farnish handed the tool over to me than he volunteered the information that his lordship had lost a key to one of his bureau drawers and had broken it open some days before he left—‘with the same screw-driver.’”
“You didn’t believe him, of course.”
“I won’t say that, but I noticed that of the several bundles of papers in the drawer all were tied with a proper reef-knot, and only one with a granny-knot.”
“And you deduced—?”
“Nothing as yet, Mr. Vereker, but I’ve taken the usual note. You know the contents of the will?”
“Yes—and I know you’ve taken a note that Farnish is left £500 under its terms.”
“Quite so. But from my interrogation of all the servants I find that Farnish neither drinks, smokes nor intends to get married. He’s a careful, honest, punctilious man and devoted to his lordship.”
“Now, now, Heather, you’re not going to tell me you’re impressed by that stuff. I can already see you getting the handcuffs ready for dear old Farnish.”
Inspector Heather laughed and continued:
“They’ve just rung me up from headquarters and told me that about six months ago Lord Bygrave got his bankers to dispose of about £10,000 worth of registered securities, and had them transferred into bearer bonds.”
“Six months ago?” queried Vereker listlessly.
“Yes; but why?”
“Well, that was last May. Anything could have happened to them since then. Now, if this transaction had taken place just before Lord Bygrave’s departure for Hartwood there might be some significance in it.”
“I can find no trace of them, anyhow. They’re not at his bankers and they’re not in his private safe here, and it is unlikely that he would carry £10,000 about with him on a holiday,” argued the inspector.
“Then I make another brilliant deduction, Heather—Lord Bygrave simply blewed them!” said Vereker.
“I’ve more news for you, Mr. Vereker,” continued the inspector. “Mr. Grierson rang up to say that he would like to see you. He is coming down from town and ought to be here in a few minutes. Meanwhile I think I’ll go and send off some telegrams.”
Chapter Six
After Inspector Heather’s departure Vereker sank back in a comfortable arm-chair, lit his pipe and gave himself up to a lengthy reverie. There was a look of uneasiness on his face; it could hardly be termed annoyance, for it took a great deal really to annoy Mr. Algernon Vereker. This uneasy look was the signal that he had been suddenly confronted with the unexpected, and it was all due to Walter’s story of the heavily-veiled lady’s visit to Bygrave Hall. This sudden irruption of a female figure into the chaotic tangle of events which constituted the mystery of Lord Bygrave’s disappearance was undeniably disconcerting.
“A woman in the case—the last damned thing I would have expected!” he exclaimed. “What earthly right has a woman to figure in this case at all? It discloses a facet of Bygrave’s life the existence of which I had never suspected. It’s enough to make me forswear the rôle of amateur detective for ever and to give up the quest here and now.”
He pondered over the incident, looking at it in many lights. There might be a romance, some romance of Bygrave’s early life, of which he knew nothing. It might be one of the most prosaic of occurrences. But why had Lord Bygrave been agitated? There was no explanation forthcoming at the moment. It might disclose itself later. In any case it was not to be disregarded without some explanation. Again there was Farnish’s strange behaviour—according to Walter’s account. Walter, perhaps an imaginative man in his own way, might be unduly suspicious. His kind, when they became suspicious, were nearly always recklessly so. They put the most damning constructions on the most innocent of occurrences. Then again, Heather’s discovery of the drawer of Bygrave’s bureau having been forced seemed to lend some vestige of importance to Walter’s story of Farnish’s visit to the study. Vereker felt that there was no reason to suspect the existence of a feud between the two men. Walter had spoken without any show of rancour or sense of injury at the hands of the butler.
He smoked quietly for the space of a few moments and then rose and went up to Lord Bygrave’s study.
It was a sparsely but beautifully furnished room. The thick, luxurious carpet deadened the sound of his footsteps; the dark oak wainscoting and one or two old portraits of the Bygraves, sombre with age, lent a gravity and severity to the general aspect of the study, which seemed remarkably in keeping with its owner’s serious and gentle turn of mind. The whole colouring of the furnishing was rich and low, for Lord Bygrave had often remarked to Vereker that nothing distracted him more roguishly from his studies than the sight of forceful or cheerful colour.
“Just sit down in a rose-and-whit
e drawing-room and try to understand some of the problems that Bergson or Einstein has offered for our mental digestion,” he had once said to his friend. “It’s impossible—you’d dismiss philosophy and mathematics and wind up by whistling airs from light opera.”
“You’re wrong, Henry,” Vereker had replied. “I should commence right away with the light opera. Bergson and Co. I should reserve for a scarlet room, where I could indulge in really loud laughter. I still think his essay on Laughter one of the humorous masterpieces of literature. Professor Sully’s was dull in comparison.”
Vereker’s entrance into his friend’s study had vividly recalled the moment of that conversation. Little had he dreamed that it would ever be recalled under the shadow of a tragedy or even a mystery. He glanced round the room; its sombre tones seemed suddenly to affect him—every aspect was an expression of the temperament and individuality of his friend. A disconcerting sense of helplessness all at once overcame him. So far, in his investigations, all sorts of diverse facts had thrust themselves forward in a wildly unintelligible sequence. At times, one feature of the case had seemed most important. No sooner had he decided this, and determined to follow up a line of inquiry based on that salient feature, than something new thrust itself irrepressibly forward and disjointed all his carefully-pieced construction. Facts and clues had the disturbing mobility of fragments of glass in a kaleidoscope. Up till now he had felt some confidence in himself, but Walter’s story of the woman and the possibility that Farnish might have broken open Lord Bygrave’s bureau came as devastating shocks to all his confirmed estimates of Lord Bygrave and of Farnish. He had always prided himself on his perspicacity with regard to human nature: the numbing thought assailed him now that human nature after all was too complex and elastic for such confidence in his own powers of vision and appraisement. Circumstances were very often more potent than principle, even though principle had armoured the soul through long habit. A human being never could be a fixed quantity. Chance might have at one stroke completely shattered that soul-stuff which went to the making of the individualities, Bygrave and Farnish, as he had known them up till now, and constructed and moulded it into two quite unrecognizable shapes.
Vereker crossed over to the bureau and opened the various drawers one after the other. A glance revealed the contents of each. He saw nothing of importance in any until he came to the drawer that had been broken open with the aid of a screwdriver. Here were various bundles of letters and papers all tied with white cord. He carefully examined the knots that bound the bundles. Heather was right—they were all reef-knots except the last, which was a granny. What could be deduced from this fact? Either that Lord Bygrave, who, Vereker knew, had once been a very keen yachtsman, had been in a great hurry when retying that particular bundle with the granny, or that the drawer had been broken open and that bundle opened and retied by some one else. Vereker took out all the bundles from the drawer, placed them on the writing-table and untied them all. He would glance through their contents rapidly and see if anything could be gleaned from the perusal. The task proved fruitless. He could find nothing in their contents that bore in any way upon the Bygrave case.
He rose and examined the marks made by the screw-driver in breaking open the drawer; it had been a thoroughly inexpert job—the clumsiest piece of work imaginable.
At this moment he was conscious of the presence of somebody behind him—a light footfall on the thick carpet had been detected by his extraordinarily quick ear. He glanced swiftly at a dark steel engraving above the bureau and in its glass saw Farnish standing near the door. Without turning round, or exhibiting any surprise in his voice, Vereker calmly said:
“I’ve been looking through his lordship’s papers, Farnish; but I’ve drawn blank. I shall be glad if you will tie up all these bundles for me again and leave them here on the table. I may have another run through them before turning in tonight.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve just come up to tell you that Mr. Grierson has arrived and would like to see you.”
“Show him into the library—I’ll be with him as soon as I have washed my hands.”
Farnish departed as silently as he had arrived, and as Vereker was washing his hands, some moments later, he thought to himself:
“I’m afraid I was too quick for you, Farnish, that time. Even then, I failed to surprise >you—your face was simply petrified unconcern. You’re a marvel, Farnish, a marvel!”
In the library, Mr. Grierson was awaiting Vereker’s arrival with unmistakable anxiety.
“Have you heard or found out anything about my Chief?” he asked as Vereker shook hands with him.
“About Lord Bygrave we’ve heard not a word, Mr. Grierson. A number of suspicious facts have gradually disclosed themselves, but none of them gives direction to a fruitful line of inquiry. We can only go on in the hope that when we have secured more information certain parts of it will cohere and shape themselves into a definite theory in our minds.”
“What does Inspector Heather think of it all?”
“I don’t know; he only discloses his discoveries to me very much as a lighthouse, with an intermittent flash, throws out a beam into the darkness for the passing ship. I have a vague idea where he is and I suppose he thinks that is quite sufficient for a mere amateur investigator to know.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve not made better progress. I expected to come down and find that the Scotland Yard people would be able to say that they might be able to discover Lord Bygrave at any moment.”
“They may for all I know,” replied Vereker. “I wish I could say the same of my own investigations.”
Mr. Grierson’s face grew grave and he was silent for some moments.
“There is one aspect of the case which has troubled me considerably of late, Mr. Vereker, and it was the chief factor in deciding me to come down here to-day. The more I thought of it the more I was convinced that it was necessary I should come and give you my ideas about the business. Of course you may have considered this aspect yourself. In any case, I couldn’t rest until I’d seen you.”
“Go ahead, Mr. Grierson. I’m hungry for ideas.”
Mr. Grierson smiled wanly.
“Have you considered the possibility that Lord Bygrave may have voluntarily disappeared?”
“I have; but dismissed it long since from my mind.”
“Well, well, you may be justified. I myself, not knowing as much as you, have been unable to disregard the contingency. Working on this basis, if you come to a point in your researches which might end in involving his lordship in a grave scandal, I trust you will be diplomatic—”
Vereker glanced sharply up at Mr. Grierson’s face; but Mr. Grierson was gazing earnestly at the pattern of the carpet. His brow was deeply furrowed.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” he continued. “I am not acting on any secret or private information. I am simply trying to obviate anything that would ruin Lord Bygrave’s career or dishonour his name. For ten years now I’ve been his trusted right-hand man officially. I should never forgive myself if Lord Bygrave by any chance could say to me at some future date: ‘What the devil were you doing, Grierson? I was relying on you as a man of tact and initiative. In my absence you were my deputy. Why didn’t you try and put a stop to this stupid public inquiry as to my whereabouts?’ Can you see the position in which I am placed, Mr. Vereker?”
Mr. Grierson looked up, his eyes were brimming with tears. His voice was broken. He was trembling under the stress of a great emotion.
“Mr. Grierson,” replied Vereker, impressed by the old civil servant’s loyalty to his Chief. “If at any point in my inquiries I discover that Lord Bygrave is alive and well, I shall promptly let the matter end there as far as I’m concerned. As for Heather—well, for him I cannot vouch. But I think you may safely leave it to me—I’ll see Heather himself about the matter. If it was a private personal matter of Lord Bygrave’s that he should choose to vanish from the world, I should not think that the police will conce
rn themselves as long as it touches no public interest.”
“Then I’m heart and soul with you, Mr. Vereker, and I hope you’ll prosecute your inquiry with the utmost vigour. Your assurance has taken a load off my mind.”
Mr. Grierson extended his hand and shook Vereker’s warmly. Glancing at his watch, he found that he had just time to catch a train back to town and promptly took his leave.
He had hardly gone before Inspector Heather returned.
“Well,” he asked, “what was troubling old Grierson, Mr. Vereker?”
“I’ll tell you all as soon as Farnish brings up that bottle of port. I have just rung for him. I know you won’t object to a bottle of ’81, Heather, after your day’s exertions.”
“You know I don’t like good port,” replied Heather, with a broad grin, as he settled himself opposite Vereker in a comfortable arm-chair.
“Before I tell you anything about Mr. Grierson’s errand, Heather,” said Vereker later, as he carefully filled two glasses with what he called Falernum Opimianum, “please confide in me the nature of all your telegrams of to-day. You’re up to some little game of your own behind my back.”
“Oh, nothing much,” smiled the inspector broadly. “I’ve only put another line of inquiry into motion. I ordered young Winslade to be carefully watched some days ago, and one of my men has just been keeping me acquainted with the result of his work and inquiries.”
“The devil you have! Well, that’s an unfair start. I’m going down to Hartwood to-morrow to see Winslade. As for Grierson—well, he is anxious that we should go cautiously in case Lord Bygrave has disappeared voluntarily. Should we discover that this is the case, he wants us to avoid pursuing a course that would only result in the publication of a scandal that might be diplomatically hushed. You see he’s a loyal servant to his Chief. He wants to put up a smoke barrage to hide his lordship from the high explosive shells of the idle mischief-maker.”
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