CHAPTER TEN
THE LOST MANUSCRIPT
Within a moment of its reception Wedgwood had read the contents of the telegram and was hastening upstairs to pack his bag; in less than ten minutes he had paid his bill and was hurrying away from the hotel to the station. For the telegraphic message which, as he had expected before opening it, was from the inspector at Hunter Street, was peremptory—Return at once highly important news.
Wedgwood was lucky in catching a local train that was just starting for Derby, and in getting at Derby an immediate connection for London: by two o'clock of the afternoon he walked into the police-station, wondering what tidings awaited him. He was not kept in suspense; the inspector, taking him aside, uttered four words without preface.
"That manuscript's turned up!"
Wedgwood set down his belongings and gaped his astonishment. This was the last news he had expected to hear. That anybody should deliberately murder a man in order to gain possession of a manuscript and should then lose that manuscript seemed absurd.
"Good lord!" he exclaimed, feebly. "You don't say so!"
The inspector unlocked a drawer and produced a crumpled and mud-stained roll of crown paper. Flattening it out and spreading it on his desk he pointed significantly to a label on the front.
"There you are," he said. "See that? Mortover!"
Wedgwood drew near and peered nervously at the unexpected find. It looked to him as if the manuscript had undergone rough treatment: it appeared, indeed, to have been not only dropped in the mud of the street but to have been run over by the wheel of some vehicle.
"How did it come into your hands?" he asked. "And when?"
"This morning—not ten minutes before I wired to you," answered the inspector. "A man came in here—I've got his name and address and he lives close by—and told me that he picked this up one night at the corner of Handel Street and Wakefield Street. He was a bit uncertain about the night, but after questioning him awhile I came to the conclusion that it was the evening of the murder. He was certain, however, about the time—just after seven—and gave me proof of his certainty. Seems to me that Wraypoole's assailant, after knocking him down in Miss Tandy's flat and seizing the manuscript, scuttled off in the Gray's Inn Road direction and dropped his loot! That's about it. For there's no doubt this is the manuscript Miss Tandy described to us.
"Have you examined it?" asked Wedgwood.
"Read it clean through! It's a sort of family history of recent generations of the Mortovers, tracing a descent down—in the eldest son line—to that girl who came to see you, Avice Mortover. A pretty straightforward narrative, I should say—but there are blanks left here and there. And there's a pedigree—sort of family tree business."
"Let's look," said Wedgwood. He opened the mud-stained cover and began to glance over the written contents. With much of what John Wraypoole had written the detective was already familiar, either through his own investigations or because of his conversation with Mr. Umpeltye. But when he came to the pedigree of which the inspector had spoken he let out a sudden exclamation.
"By George!" he said. "Look at that! Now that is something I didn't know and that'll come in uncommonly useful! See?"
He pointed to the last few lines of the Mortover pedigree:
| Gilson Mortover | Hannah Dowthwaite | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Matthew | Louisa Patello. | Stephen | Jane Sefton. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Avice | Philip | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"That is worth something—to me!" he repeated. "Splendid link in the chain!"
"I don't follow," said the inspector. "You know more, of course. What is it?"
"That entry about Matthew! Married one Louisa Patello! Now, there's a girl of that name, Patello—uncommon name, too, that—now staying at Mortover Grange. But of course you don't know what I've done, seen, heard down there. We'd better go into that at once."
He spent the next hour in detailing his discoveries and experiences to the inspector, from his arrival at Netherwell to his departure from it, and at the end put a direct question to him.
"What do you make of it?"
"I make this of it, Wedgwood," replied his companion promptly. "Wraypoole found out that the real owner of that Mortover property is this girl Avice, Matthew's daughter. Somebody found out that he knew, and that he'd put his grounds in this manuscript, which, in all probability, he was going to hand to some solicitors on behalf of the girl. That somebody also knew, or believed, that nobody but Wraypoole was aware of the secret, and accordingly followed him that evening when he went to Miss Tandy's and seized the opportunity of her absence to knock him over and seize this thing. I make no doubt that's the true theory! The only question is—who's the somebody?"
"Stiff proposition!" muttered Wedgwood. "Seen that all along—see it more than ever now that I know all I do!"
"Well, who'd suffer if this girl's claim to the property was established?" said the inspector. "This present holder of it—her cousin Philip!"
"I think we can rule him out of any list of likely murderers!" replied Wedgwood. "I can't see him in that light—no!"
"Well, there are other folks concerned," continued the inspector. "People mixed up with him in this colliery business. There's Levigne—you wanted to know something about him. I've made some enquiries. He's a man whose name is not unknown to us. Never been in actual trouble, but he was mixed up some little time ago in some very doubtful company—promoting transactions which brought under notice at headquarters. Now, if Levigne's got a big stake in this colliery project, he'd not welcome any claim being laid to the Mortover Estate. Levigne'll have to be watched, and his connection with the whole affair investigated. You say that when you left Netherwell this morning he was closeted with young Mortover's housekeeper, who seems to be a queer sort of person, according to your account—do you make anything of that?"
Wedgwood made a gesture which signified that he made a good deal but that he was also up against a barrier.
"That woman licks me!" he exclaimed. "I feel certain she's the motive power behind this business, but"—he shook his head and remained silent awhile—"the fact is," he went on, after evidently thinking things over. "I've a strong suspicion that if Wraypoole did let out the result of his enquiries about Avice Mortover to anybody it was to this woman—Janet Clagne! Why did he talk, evidently in confidence, with her for a good hour in Mrs. Chipchase's tea-room the last afternoon he was at Netherwell? And what was the meaning of the words Mrs. Chipchase overheard—'Russell Square Tube, then, six o'clock'? It strikes me the solution of the whole mystery may be in that! The Tube station for Russell Square is in Bernard Street and Bernard Street and Handel Street are not far apart!"
"It looks like an appointment for a meeting," remarked the inspector. "Of course, it was that! But—when, and with whom? Was it with this Janet Clagne? Or was it between Janet Clagne and somebody else?"
"Wraypoole left Netherwell within an hour or two of his talk with Janet Clagne at the tea-room," said Wedgwood. "Janet Clagne went up to London first thing next morning."
"Then in all probability what he was referring to was a meeting between them," remarked the inspector. "If you could only trace her movements after she arrived in London?"
"I might do something in that way," assented Wedgwood. "The girl I've mentioned to you as now being at Mortover Grange, Mattie Patello, told me that she had come there with her aunt, Mrs. Clagne, who had been visiting her people at Tooting. I can find out where the family lives at Tooting—the father's a sugar-broker in business in the City, in Mincing Lane."
"Good deal to work on, with all these details to begin with," said the inspector. "By the by, didn't you say that this girl, Mattie Patello, told you that her people wanted her to marry Philip Mortover?"
"She did! At least, that her aunt did. What of it?"
"What her aunt wished in that way, the girl's mother probably wished, too!" suggested the inspector with a sly laugh. "This young Mortover's a highly eligible party, of course. I should say the two women had been putting their heads together during Mrs. Clagne's visit. Anyway, I think you'd better have a look at that Patello family."
"I'll have a look at them!" said Wedgwood. He sat alertly considering things for awhile. "I wish," he suddenly exlaimed, "I wish I could get more evidence about Thomas Wraypoole's doings on the evening of John's murder! I've always felt that he wasn't telling the truth. I believe he did see his brother—did meet him!"
"Why?" asked the inspector.
"Can't say! Intuition, if you like—or, if you like, mere fancy. But I do believe it—I believe they met. I believe Thomas Wraypoole knows a lot more than he's let out! I've never got over the fact that he went straight to John's lodgings in Porteous Road first thing next morning, and there burned a quantity of John's papers. Now, supposing those papers related to this Avice Mortover?"
"Ah!" exclaimed the inspector. "That would certainly look fishy!"
"Well, he did burn papers! I myself saw a grate full of the ashes. Now suppose—it's not beyond the bounds of probability—that Thomas had reasons, financial reasons, against this girl's claim to the Mortover property being set up and substantiated? Eh?"
The inspector regarded his companion with a long, steady look.
"Um!" he said at last. "Getting to the idea that Thomas may be in the same box with some more of them—Mrs. Clagne and the rest? That it?"
"As I say—not beyond the bounds of probability! Why did Thomas Wraypoole make such indecent haste to Porteous Road? Why did he proceed to burn papers and documents as soon as he got there? He could have carried them away. He could have sealed them up. But—he burned them! What were they?"
"Do you know whether that girl, Avice Mortover, ever confided any documents to John Wraypoole?" asked the inspector. "Did she mention such a thing?"
"She did not!" replied Wedgwood. "But I'm going off to see her—now. I know where to find her—refreshment room, British Museum. She may be able to tell me a bit more. And after that I shall turn my attention to this Patello family and try to trace Janet Clagne's movements while she was in town."
"Not have much difficulty in finding that family, I should say, with a name like that!" remarked the inspector. "But I reckon you'll have to walk warily in approaching them! If this woman at Mortover Grange is Mrs. Patello's sister, and the two of 'em want to marry that girl you saw to young Mortover, they'll be pretty cute, you know!"
"Leave it to me," said Wedgwood. "I've a good excuse for making a call on them."
He went off to another part of the office to consult the Directory, and, as he had anticipated, found no difficulty in locating the Patello address in Tooting—Number 59 Acacia Terrace. Making a note of it in his book he set off for the British Museum. But as he stepped out of the police-station Miss Tandy came along the street, going in the direction of her flat, and Wedgwood went up to and stopped her.
"Come inside a minute or two, Miss Tandy, he said. "We've something here that I'd like you to see."
Miss Tandy, staring wonderingly at her surroundings, followed the detective to the room in which Wedgwood had left the inspector; the inspector seeing her was quick to realize Wedgwood's reason for bringing her there, and without a word unlocked his drawer and produced the manuscript.
"There!" said Wedgwood, drawing Miss. Tandy's attention to it. "Look at that, ma'am. Is that the manuscript Wraypoole brought you to copy?"
Miss Tandy uttered a gentle shriek of astonishment.
"Gracious me!" she exclaimed. "That's it, of course! But it was clean as a new pin when he laid it on my desk! Whatever's happened to it? And where did you get it?"
"Picked up in the street, Miss Tandy, and not so far from your door," said the inspector. "But you're to keep that to yourself, you know! Strict silence!"
"You can swear to it if need be?" suggested Wedgwood. "No doubt about it?"
"No doubt whatever!" declared Miss Tandy. "I'll swear to it!"
Wedgwood escorted Miss Tandy forth again, and after assuring her that he was making some progress went on to the British Museum. The afternoon was wearing to an end, and he supposed that Avice Mortover's duties in the refreshment room would be nearly over. He had already made his plans—he would take her off to some quiet place where, over a cup of tea, he could cautiously tell her what he had discovered, and discuss with her what could be done. But when he walked into the room in which he expected to find her, he looked for her in vain, and eventually failing to locate her he approached the manageress.
"I can't say where Avice Mortover is," said that lady, somewhat sharply. "She has not been here for the last few days, and she's sent no explanation of her absence."