As the Scarnham clocks were striking twelve that morning, Gabriel and Joseph Chestermarke looked 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 princ.i.p.al'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 Fosd.y.k.e. 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 Fosd.y.k.e, 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 doc.u.ment 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.

"d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.sages 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 Sat.u.r.day evening. To put matters briefly--I want some light on that man who came to the Station Hotel on Sat.u.r.day, 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 Fosd.y.k.e, you get to work on that."

For over an hour the four curiously a.s.sorted 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 Mitch.e.l.l, 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!"

CHAPTER XII

THE FIRST FIND

Polke took a step or two on the pavement outside the bank, meditating on this latest development of a matter that was hourly growing in mystery.

Why had this woman suddenly disappeared? Had she merely gone to Ecclesborough for the day?--or had she made it her first stage in a further journey? Why had she taken a taxi-cab for an eighteen-miles'

ride, at considerable expense, when, at twelve o'clock, she could have got a train which would have carried her to Ecclesborough for fifteen pence? It seemed as if she had fled. And if she had fled, she had got, as the constable said, two hours' good start. And in Ecclesborough, too!--a place with a population of half a million, where there were three big railway stations, from any one of which a fugitive could set off east, west, north, south, at pleasure, and with no risk of attracting attention. Two hours!--Polke knew from long experience what can be done in two hours by a criminal escaping from justice.

He turned back to speak to his man--and as he turned, Joseph Chestermarke came out of the bank. Joseph gave him an insolent stare, and was about to pa.s.s him without recognition. But Polke stopped him.

"Mr. Chestermarke, you heard that the housekeeper here has disappeared?"