CHAPTER XI
THE SEARCH-WARRANT
As they turned out of the Market-Place into the street leading to the police-station, Lord Ellersdeane and his companions became aware of a curious figure which was slowly preceding them-that of a very old man whose massive head and long white hair, falling in thick shocks about his neck, was innocent of covering, whose tall, erect form was closely wrapped about in a great, many-caped horseman's cloak which looked as if it had descended to him from some early Georgian ancestor. In one hand he carried a long staff; the other clutched an ancient folio; altogether he was something very much out of the common, and Neale, catching sight of him, nudged Betty Fosdyke's elbow and pointed ahead.
"One of the sights of Scarnham!" he whispered. "Old Batterley, the antiquary. Never seen with a hat, and never without that cloak, his staff, and a book under his arm. You needn't be astonished if he suddenly stops and begins reading his book in the open street—it's a habit of his."
But the antiquary apparently had other business. He turned into the police-station, and when the three visitors followed him a moment later, he was already in Polke's private office, and Polke and Starmidge were gazing speculatively at him. Polke turned to the newcomers, as the old man, having fitted on a pair of large spectacles, recognized the Earl and executed a deep bow.
"Mr. Batterley's just called with a suggestion, my lord," observed Polke, good-humouredly. "He's heard of Mr. Horbury's disappearance, and of the loss of your lordship's jewels, and he says that an explanation of the whole thing may be got if we search the bank-house."
"Thoroughly!" said Batterley, with a warning shake of his big head. "Thoroughly—thoroughly, Mr. Polke! No use just walking through the rooms, and seeing what any housemaid would see—the thing must be done properly. Your lordship," he continued, turning to the Earl, "knows that many houses in our Market-Place possess secret passages, double-staircases, and the like—Horbury's house is certainly one of those that do. It has, of course, been modernized. My memory is not quite as good as it was, but I have a recollection that when I was a boy, well over seventy years ago—I am, as your lordship is aware, nearer ninety than eighty—there were hiding-places discovered in the bank-house at the time Matthew Chestermarke, grandfather of the present Gabriel, had it altered: in fact, I am quite sure I was taken by my father to see them. Now, of course, many of these places were bricked up, and so on, but I think—it is my impression—that a double staircase was left untouched, and some recesses in the panelling of the garden-room. That garden-room, Mr. Polke—if you know what I mean?"
"Mr. Batterley," remarked the Earl, "means the panelled room which looks out on the garden. Mr. Horbury has used it as a study."
"The garden-room," continued the old antiquary, "should be particularly examined. It is into that room that the double staircase opens—by a door concealed in the recess at the side of the fire-place. There were, I am sure, recesses behind the panelling in that room. Now, Horbury may have known of them—he had tastes of an antiquarian disposition—in an amateur way, you know. At any rate, Mr. Polke, you should examine the house—and especially that room, for Horbury may have hidden Lord Ellersdeane's property there. A deeply interesting room that!" added the old man musingly. "I haven't been in it for some sixty years or so, but I remember it quite well. It was in that room that Jasper Chestermarke murdered Sir Gervase Rudd."
Starmidge, who, like the rest of them, had been listening eagerly to Batterley's talk, turned sharply to him.
"Did you say murdered, sir?" he said.
"A well-known story!" answered the old man half-impatiently, as he rose from his chair. "An ancestor of these Chestermarkes—he killed a man in that very room. Well—that's what I suggest, Mr. Polke. And—for another reason. As Lord Ellersdeane there knows—being, as his lordship is, a member of our society—the bank-house is so old that underneath it there may be such matters as old wells, old drains. Now, supposing Horbury had discovered some way under the present house, some secret passage or something, and that he went down into it on Sunday—eh? He may have fallen into one of these places—and be lying there dead or helpless. It's possible, Mr. Polke, it's quite possible. I make the suggestion to you for what it's worth, you know."
The old man bowed himself out and went away, and Polke turned to Lord Ellersdeane and Betty.
"I'm glad your lordship's come in," he said. "Quite apart from what Mr. Batterley suggests, we'll have to examine that bank-house. It's all nonsense—allowing the Chestermarkes to have their own way about everything! It's time we examined Horbury's effects."
Starmidge turned to Betty.
"Did you succeed in getting in there, Miss Fosdyke?" he asked.
"No!" replied Betty. "Mr. Joseph Chestermarke absolutely refused me admittance, and his uncle told me to go to a solicitor."
"Good advice, certainly," remarked Polke drily. "You'd better take it, miss. But what's Mr. Neale doing here?"
"Mr. Neale," said the Earl, "has just been summarily dismissed for—to put it plainly—taking sides with Miss Fosdyke and myself."
"Ho, ho!" exclaimed Polke. "Ah! Well, my lord, there's only one thing to be done, and as your lordship's in town, let us do it at once."
"What?" asked the Earl.
"You must come with me before the borough magistrates—they're sitting now," said Polke, "and make application for a search-warrant. Your lordship will have to swear that you have lost your jewels, and that you have good cause to believe that they may be on the premises occupied lately by Mr. Horbury, to whose care you entrusted them. It's a mere matter of form—we shall get the warrant at once. Then Starmidge and I will go and execute it. Miss Fosdyke just do what I suggest, if you please. Mr. Neale will take you to Mr. Pellworthy, the solicitor—he was your uncle's solicitor, and a friend of his. Tell him all about your visit to the bank this morning. Say that you insist, as next-of-kin, on having access to your uncle's belongings. Get Mr. Pellworthy to go with you to the bank. Meet Detective-Sergeant Starmidge and me outside there, in, say, half an hour. Then—we'll see what happens. Now, my lord, if you'll come with me, we'll apply for that search-warrant.
As the Scarnham clocks were striking twelve that morning, Gabriel and Joseph Chestermarke locked up from their desks to see Shirley's eyes, large with excitement, gazing at them from the threshold of their private parlour.
"Well?" demanded the senior partner.
The clerk moved nearer to his principal's desk.
"Mr. Polke's outside, sir, with the gentleman who came in with him before," announced Shirley. "He says he must see you at once. And—there's Mr. Pellworthy, sir, with Miss Fosdyke. Mr. Pellworthy says, sir, that he must see you at once, too."
Gabriel glanced at his nephew. And Joseph spoke without looking up from his writing-pad, and as if he knew that his partner was regarding him.
"Bring them all in," he said.
He himself criticized his writing as the four callers were ushered in; he did not even look round at them. Gabriel, more sphinx-like than ever, regarded each in order with an air of distinct disapproval. And he took care to speak first.
"Now, Mr. Pellworthy?" he said sharply. "What do you want?"
Pellworthy, an elderly man, looked at Gabriel with as much disapproval as Gabriel had bestowed on him.
"Mr. Chestermarke," he said quietly, "Miss Fosdyke, as next-of-kin to Mr. John Horbury—my client—desires to see and examine her uncle's effects. As you know very well, she is quite within her rights. I must ask you to give her access to Mr. Horbury's belongings."
"And what do you want, Mr. Polke?" demanded Gabriel.
Polke produced a formal-looking document and held it before the banker's eyes.
"Merely to show you that, Mr. Chestermarke," he answered. "That's a search-warrant, sir! It empowers me and Mr. Starmidge here to search—but I needn't read it to you, Mr. Chestermarke, I think. I suppose we can go into the house now?"
Faint spots of colour showed themselves on Gabriel's cheeks. And again he turned to his nephew. Joseph, however, did not speak. Instead, he turned to the wall at his side and pressed a bell. A moment later a maid-servant opened the private door which communicated with the house, and looked inquiringly and a little nervously inside. Joseph frowned at her.
"I rang twice!" he said. "That meant Mrs. Carswell. Send her here."
The girl hesitated.
"If you please, sir," she said at last, "Mrs. Carswell isn't in, sir, she's out."
Joseph turned sharply—up to this he had remained staring at the papers on his desk; now he twisted completely round in his chair.
"Where is she?" he demanded. "Fetch her!"
"If you please, sir, Mrs. Carswell hasn't been in for quite an hour, sir," said the girl. "She put on her things and went out, sir, just—just after that young lady called this morning. She—she's never come back, sir."
Polke, who was standing close to Starmidge, quietly nudged the detective's elbow. Both men watched the junior partner. And both saw the first signs of something that was very like doubt and anxiety show in his face.
"That'll do!" he said to the servant. He rose slowly from his desk, put a hand in his pocket, and drew out some keys. Without a word, he slightly motioned the visitors to follow him.
Out in the hall stood two men, who in spite of their plain clothes, were obviously policemen. Joseph started and turned to Polke.
"Damn you!" he snarled under his breath. "Are you going to pester us with your whole crew? Send those fellows off at once!"
"Nothing of the sort, Mr. Chestermarke!" replied Polke, in a similar whisper, "I shall bring as many of my men here as I please. It's your own fault—you should have been reasonable this morning. Now, sir, you'll open any door in this house that's locked."
Joseph suddenly paused and handed over the keys he was dangling.
"Open them yourself!" he said.
He turned on his heel, and without another word or look went back into the private parlour. And Polke, opening the door of the dining-room, ushered his party inside, and then stepped back to the two men who were waiting in the hall.
"Smithson," he said to one of them, "you'll stop at the house-door here—inside, mind, so as not to attract attention from any customers coming up this hall to the bank. Jones—come out here with me a minute," he continued, taking the second man outside. "Look here—I've a quiet job for you. You know the housekeeper here—Mrs. Carswell? She's disappeared. May be all right—and it mayn't. Now, you go out and take a look round for her. And go to the cab-stand at the corner of the Moot Hall, and just find out if she's taken a taxi from them, and if so, where she wanted to be driven to. And then come back and tell me—and when you come back, stay inside the house with Smithson."
The policeman nodded his comprehension of these instructions and went out, and Polke turned back to the dining-room and closed the door. He looked at Starmidge.
"Now I'm in your hands," he said quietly. "You take charge of this. What do you wish to do?"
"One thing particularly at first," answered Starmidge. "And we can all work at it. Never mind these secret passages and dark corners and holes in the panels!—at present: we may have a look at these later on. What I do want to find out is—if there's any letter amongst Mr. Horbury's papers making an appointment with him last Saturday evening. To put matters briefly—I want some light on that man who came to the Station Hotel on Saturday, and who presumably came to meet Mr. Horbury."
"I see," said Polke. "Good! Then—first?"
"Here's his desk—and its drawers," suggested Starmidge. "Now, let us all four take a drawer each and see if we can find any such letter. I'm going on the presumption that this stranger came down to see Mr. Horbury, and that on his arrival he telephoned up to let him know he'd got here. If that presumption is correct, then, in all probability, there'd been previous correspondence between them as to the man's visit."
"If that man came to see Mr. Horbury," remarked the solicitor, "why didn't he come straight here to the bank-house?"
"That's just where the mystery lies, sir," replied Starmidge. "All the mystery of the affair lies in that man's coming at all! Let me find out who that man was, and what he came for, and if he and Mr. Horbury met, and where they went when they did meet and I'll soon tell you—what would probably make your hair stand on end!" he muttered to himself, as he pulled a drawer out of the desk and placed it on a centre table before Betty. "Now, Miss Fosdyke, you get to work on that."
For over an hour the four curiously assorted searchers examined the contents of the missing man's desk, of another desk in the study, of certain letter-racks which hung above the mantelpieces in both rooms, of drawers in these rooms, of drawers and small cabinets in his bedroom. Starmidge turned out the pockets of all the clothing he could find: opened suit-cases, trunks, dressing-cases. They found nothing of the nature desired. And just as half-past one came, and Polke was wondering what Starmidge would do next, Jones came back and called him into the inner hall.
"I've got some news of her," he whispered. "She's off—from Scarnham, anyway, sir! I couldn't get any word of her in the town, nor at the cab-places: in fact, it's only within this last five minutes that I've got it."
"Well?" demanded Polke eagerly. "And what is it?"
"Young Mitchell, who has a taxi-cab of his own, you know," said Jones. "He told me—heard I was inquiring. He says that at half-past ten, just as he was coming out of his shed in River Street, Mrs. Carswell came up and asked him to drive her into Ecclesborough. He did—they got there at half-past eleven: he set her down at the Exchange Station. Then he came back—alone. So—she's got two hours' good start, sir—if she really is off!"