"And what do you propose to do--first?" demanded Betty.

Starmidge smiled and set down his gla.s.s.

"Why, first," he answered, "first, I think I should like to see a photograph of Mr. Horbury."

Polke moved to a bureau in the corner of his dining-room.

"I can fit you up," he said. "I've a portrait here that Mr. Horbury gave me not so long ago. There you are!"

He produced a cabinet photograph and handed it to Starmidge, who looked at it and laid it down on the table without comment.

"I suppose that conveys nothing to you?" asked Betty.

"Well," replied Starmidge, with another smile, "if a man's missing, one naturally wants to know what he's like. And if there's any advertising of him to be done--by poster, I mean--it ought to have a recent portrait of him."

"To be sure," agreed Polke.

"So far as I understand matters," continued Starmidge, "this gentleman left his house on Sat.u.r.day evening, hasn't been seen since, and there's an idea that he probably walked across country to a place called Ellersdeane. But up to now there's no proof that he did. I think that's all, Mr. Polke?"

"All!" a.s.sented Polke.

"No!" said Neale. "Miss Fosd.y.k.e and I have brought you some news. Mr.

Horbury must have crossed Ellersdeane Hollow on Sat.u.r.day night. Look at this!--and I'll tell you all about it."

The superintendent and the detective listened silently to Neale's account of the meeting with Creasy, and Betty, watching Starmidge's face, saw that he was quietly taking in all the points of importance.

"Is this tin-man to be depended upon?" he asked, when Neale had finished. "Is he known?"

"I know him," answered Polke. "He's come to this neighbourhood for many years. Yes--an honest chap enough--bit given to poaching, no doubt, but straight enough in all other ways--no complaint of him that I ever heard of. I should believe all he says about this."

"Then, as that's undoubtedly Mr. Horbury's pipe, and as this gentleman saw him smoking it at two o'clock on Sat.u.r.day, and as Creasy picked it up underneath Ellersdeane Tower on Sunday evening," said Starmidge, "there seems no doubt that Mr. Horbury went that way, and dropped it where it was found. But--I can't think he was carrying Lord Ellersdeane's jewels home!"

"Why?" asked Neale.

"Is it likely?" suggested Starmidge. "One's got--always--to consider probability. Is it probable that a bank manager would put a hundred thousand pounds' worth of jewels in his pocket, and walk across a lonely stretch of land at that time of night, just to hand them over to their owner? I think not--especially as he hadn't been asked to do so. I think that if Mr. Horbury had been in a hurry to deliver up these jewels, he'd have driven out to Lord Ellersdeane's place."

"Good!" muttered Polke. "That's the more probable thing."

"Where are the jewels, then?" asked Neale.

Starmidge glanced at Polke with one expression, at Betty and Neale with another.

"They haven't been searched for yet, have they?" he asked quietly. "They may be--somewhere about, you know."

"You mean to search for them?" exclaimed Betty.

"I don't know what I intend to do," replied Starmidge, smiling. "I haven't even thought. I shall have thought a lot by morning. But--the country's being searched, isn't it, for news of Mr. Horbury?--perhaps we'll hear something. It's a difficult thing for a well-known man to get clear away from a little place like this. No!--what I'd like to know--what I want to satisfy myself about is--did Mr. Horbury go away at all? Is there really anything missing from the bank? Are those jewels really missing? You see," concluded Starmidge, looking round his circle of listeners, "there's an awful lot to take into account."

At that moment Polke's domestic servant tapped at the door and put her head inside the room.

"If you please, Mr. Polke, there's Mrs. Pratt, from the Station Hotel, would like a word with you," she said.

The superintendent hurried from the room--to return at once with a stout, middle-aged woman, who, as she entered, raised her veil and glanced half-suspiciously at Polke's other visitors.

"All friends here, Mrs. Pratt," said the superintendent rea.s.suringly.

"You know young Mr. Neale well enough. This lady is Mr. Horbury's niece--anxious to find him. That gentleman's a friend of mine--you can say aught you like before him. Well, ma'am!--you think you can tell me something about this affair? What might it be, now?"

Mrs. Pratt, taking the chair which Starmidge placed for her at the end of the table, nodded a general greeting to the company, and lifting her veil and untying her bonnet-strings, revealed a good-natured countenance.

"Well, Mr. Polke," she said, turning to the superintendent, "taking your word for it that we're all friends--me being pretty sure, all the same, that this gentleman's one of your own profession, which I don't object to--I'll tell you what it is I've come up for, special, as it were, and me not waiting until after closing-time to do it. But that town-crier's been down our way, and hearing him making his call between our house and the station, and learning what it was all about, thinks I to myself, 'I'd best go up and see the super and tell him what I know.' And,"

concluded Mrs. Pratt, beaming around her, "here I am!"

"Ay--and what do you know, ma'am?" asked Polke. "Something, of course."

"Or I shouldn't be here," agreed Mrs. Pratt, smoothing out a fold of her gown. "Well--Sat.u.r.day afternoon, the time being not so many minutes after the 5.30 got in, and therefore you might say at the outside twenty minutes to six, a strange gentleman walked across from the station to our hotel, which is, as you're all well aware, exactly opposite. I happened to be in the bar-parlour window at the time, and I saw him crossing--saw, likewise, from the way he looked about him, and up at the town above us, that he'd never been in Scarnham before. And happen I'd best tell you what like he was, while the recollection's fresh in my mind--a little gentleman he was, very well dressed in what you might call the professional style; dark clothes and so forth, and a silk top-hat; I should say about fifty years of age, with a fresh complexion and a biggish grey moustache and a nicely rolled umbrella--quite the little swell he was. He made for our door, and I went to the bar-window to attend to him. He wanted to know if he could get some food, and I said of course he could--we'd some uncommon nice chops in the house. So he ordered three chops and setterers--and then he asked if we'd a telephone in the house, and could he use it. And, of course, I told him we had, and showed him where it was--after which he wanted a local directory, and I gave him Scammond's Guide. He turned that over a bit, and then, when he'd found what he wanted, he went to our telephone box--which, as you're well aware, Mr. Polke, is in our front hall. And into it he popped."

Mrs. Pratt paused a moment, and gave her listeners a knowing look, as if she was now about to narrate the most important part of her story.

"But what you mayn't be aware of, Mr. Polke," she continued, "is that our telephone box, which has gla.s.s panels in its upper parts, has at this present time one of these panels broken--our pot-man did it, carrying a plank through the hall. So that any one pa.s.sing to and fro, as it were, when anybody's using the telephone, can't help hearing a word or two of what's being said inside. Now, of course, I was pa.s.sing in and out, giving orders for this gentleman's chops, when he was in the box. And I heard a bit of what he said, though I didn't, naturally, hear aught of what was said to him, nor who by. But it's in consequence of what I did hear, and of what Tolson, the town-crier, has been shouting down our way tonight, that I come up here to see you."

"Much obliged to you, Mrs. Pratt," said Polke. "Very glad to hear anything that may have to do with Mr. Horbury's disappearance. Now, what did you hear?"

"What I heard," replied the landlady, "was this here--disjointed, as you would term it. First of all I hear the gentleman ask for 'Town 23.' Now, of course, you know whose number that there is, Mr. Polke."

"Chestermarke's Bank," said Neale, turning to Betty.

"Chestermarke's Bank it is, sir," a.s.sented Mrs. Pratt. "Which you know very well, as also do I, having oft called it up. Very well--I didn't hear no more just then, me going into the dining-room to see that our maid laid the table proper. But when I was going back to the bar, I heard more. 'Along the river-side?' says the gentleman, 'Straight on from where I am--all right.' Then after a minute, 'At seven-thirty, then?' he says. 'All right--I'll meet you.' And after that he rings off--and he went into the dining-room, and in due course he had his chops, and some tart and cheese, and a pint of our bitter ale, and took his time, and perhaps about a quarter past seven he came to the bar and paid, and he took a drop of Scotch whisky. After which he says, 'It's very possible, landlady, that I may have to stop in the town all night--have you a nice room that you can let me?' 'Certainly, sir,' says I. 'We've very good rooms, and bathrooms, and every convenience--shall I show you one?' 'No,' says he, 'this seems a good house, and I'll take your word for it--keep your best room for me, then.' And after that he lighted a cigar and went out, saying he'd be back later, and he crossed the road and went down on the river-bank, and walked slowly along towards the bottom of the town. And Mr. Polke and company," concluded Mrs. Pratt, solemnly turning from one listener to another, "that was the last I saw of him. For--he never came back!"

"Never came back!" echoed Polke.

"Not even the ghost of him!" said Mrs. Pratt. "I waited up myself till twelve, and then I decided that he'd changed his mind and was stopping with somebody he knew, which person, Mr. Polke, I took to be Mr.

Horbury. Why? 'Cause he'd rung up Chestermarke's Bank--and who should he want at Chestermarke's Bank at six o'clock of a Sat.u.r.day evening but Mr.

Horbury? There wouldn't be n.o.body else there--as Mr. Neale'll agree."

"You never heard of this gentleman being in the town on Sunday or today?" asked Polke.

"Not a word!" replied Mrs. Pratt. "And never saw him go to the station, neither, to leave the town. Now, as you know, Mr. Polke, we've only two trains go away from here on Sundays, and there's only four on any week-day, us being naught but a branch line, and as our bar-parlour window is exactly opposite the station, I see everybody that goes and comes--I always was one for looking out of window! And I'm sure that little gentleman didn't go away neither yesterday nor today. And that's all I know," concluded Mrs. Pratt, rising, "and if it's any use to you, you're welcome, and hopeful I am that your poor uncle'll be found, Miss, for a nicer gentleman I could never wish to meet!"

Mrs. Pratt departed amidst expressions of grat.i.tude and police admonitions to keep her news to herself for awhile, and Betty and Neale turned eagerly to the famous detective. But Starmidge appeared to have entered upon a period of silence, and made no further observation than that he would wait upon Miss Fosd.y.k.e in the morning, and presently the two young people followed Mrs. Pratt into the street and turned into the Market-Place. The last of the evening revellers were just coming out of the closing taverns, and to a group of them, Tolson, the town-crier, was dismally calling forth his announcement that one hundred pounds reward would be paid to any person who first gave news of having seen Mr. John Horbury on the previous Sat.u.r.day evening or since. The clanging of his bell, and the strident notes of his cracked voice, sounded in the distance as Betty said good-night to Neale and turned sadly into the Scarnham Arms.

CHAPTER IX

NO FURTHER INFORMATION