"Then the police can ask that person if Hollis did meet him!" exclaimed Neale. "And they can ask, too, what that person did with Hollis. Solve that, and we'll see daylight!"

But Betty shook her head with clear indications of doubt as to the validity of this theory.

"No!" she said. "It won't come off, Wallie. If there's been foul play, the guilty people will have had too much cleverness to leave any evidences on their victim. I don't believe they'll find anything on Hollis that'll clear things up. Daylight isn't coming from that quarter!"

"Where are we to look for it, then?" asked Neale dismally.

"It's somewhere far back," declared Betty. "I've felt that all along.

The secret of all this affair isn't in anything that's been done here and lately--it's in something deep down. And how to get at it, and to find out about my uncle, I don't know."

Neale felt it worse than idle to offer more theories--speculation was becoming useless. He left Betty at the Scarnham Arms, and went round to the police-station to meet Starmidge: together they went over to the mortuary. And before noon they knew all that medical examination and careful searching could tell them about the dead man.

Hollis, said the police-surgeon and another medical man who had been called in to a.s.sist him, bore no marks of violence other than those which were inevitable in the case of a man who had fallen seventy feet.

His neck was broken; he must have died instantaneously. There was nothing to show that there had been any struggle previous to his fall.

Had such a struggle taken place, the doctors would have expected to find certain signs and traces of it on the body: there were none. Everything seemed to point to the theory that he had leaned over the insecure fencing of the old shaft to look into its depths; probably to drop stones into them; that the loose, unmortared parapet had given way with his weight, and that he had plunged headlong to the bottom. He might have been pushed in--from behind--of course, but that was conjecture.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, agreed both doctors, everything would have seemed to point to accident. And one of them suggested that it was very probable that what really had happened was this--Hollis, on his way to call on some person in the neighbourhood, or on his return from such a call, had crossed the moor, been attracted by inquisitiveness to the old mine, had leaned over its parapet, and fallen in. Accident!--it all looked like sheer accident.

In one of the rooms at the police-station, Neale anxiously watched Polke and Starmidge examine the dead man's clothing and personal effects. The detective rapidly laid aside certain articles of the sort which he evidently expected to find--a purse, a cigar-case; the usual small things found in a well-to-do man's pockets; a watch and chain; a ring or two. He gave no particular attention to any of these beyond ascertaining that there was a good deal of loose money in the purse--some twelve or fifteen pounds in gold--and pointing out that the watch had stopped at ten minutes to eight.

"That shows the time of the accident," he remarked.

"Are you sure?" suggested Polke doubtfully. "It may merely mean that the watch ran itself out then."

Starmidge picked up the watch--a stem winder--and examined it.

"No," he said, "it's broken--by the fall. See there!--the spring's snapped. Ten minutes to eight, Sat.u.r.day night, Mr. Polke--that's when this affair happened. Now then, this is what I want!"

From an inner pocket of the dead man's smart morning-coat, he drew a morocco-leather letter-case, and carefully extracted the papers from it.

With Neale looking on at one side, and Polke at the other, Starmidge examined every separate paper. Nothing that he found bore any reference to Scarnham. There were one or two bills--from booksellers--made out to Frederick Hollis, Esquire. There was a folded playbill which showed that Mr. Hollis had recently been to a theatre, and--because of some pencilled notes on its margins--had taken an unusual interest in what he saw there. There were two or three letters from correspondents who evidently shared with Mr. Hollis a taste for collecting old books and engravings. There were some cuttings from newspapers: they, too, related to collecting. And Neale suddenly got an idea.

"I say!" he exclaimed. "Mr. Horbury was a bit of a collector of that sort of thing, as you probably saw from his house. This man may have run down to see him about some affair of that sort."

But at that moment Starmidge unfolded a slip of paper which he had drawn from an inner pocket of the letter-case. He gave one glance at it, and laid it flat on the table before his companions.

"No!" he said. "That's probably what brought Hollis down to Scarnham! A cheque for ten thousand pounds! And--incomplete!"

The three men bent wonderingly over the bit of pink paper. Neale's quick eyes took in its contents at a glance.

LONDON: _May 12th, 1912_.

VANDERKISTE, MULLINEAU & COMPANY, 563 LOMBARD STREET, E.C.

Pay .............................. or Order the sum of Ten Thousand Pounds 10,000.00.

"That's extraordinary!" exclaimed Neale. "Date and amount filled in--and the names of payee and drawer omitted! What does it mean?"

"Ah!" said Starmidge, "when we know that, Mr. Neale, we shall know a lot! But I'm pretty sure of one thing. Mr. Hollis came down here intending to pay somebody ten thousand pounds. And--he wasn't exactly certain who that somebody was!"

"Good!" muttered Polke. "Good! That looks like it."

"So," said Starmidge, "he didn't fill in either the name of the payee or his own name until he was--sure! See, Mr. Neale!"

"Why did he fill in the amount?" remarked Neale, sceptically.

Starmidge winked at Polke.

"Very likely to dangle before somebody's eyes," he answered slyly.

"Can't you reconstruct the scene, Mr. Neale? 'Here you are!' says Hollis, showing this cheque. 'Ten thousand of the very best, lying to be picked up at my bankers. Say the word, and I'll fill in your name and mine!' Lay you a pound to a penny that's been it, gentlemen!"

"Good!" repeated Polke. "Good, sergeant! I believe you're right. Now, what'll you do about it?"

The detective carefully folded up the cheque and replaced it in the slit from which he had taken it. He also replaced all the other papers, put the letter-case in a stout envelope and handed it to the superintendent.

"Seal it up and put it away in your safe till the inquest tomorrow," he said. "What shall I do? Oh, well--you needn't mention it, either of you, except to Miss Fosd.y.k.e, of course--but as soon as the inquest is adjourned--as it'll have to be--I shall slip back to town and see those bankers. I don't know, but I don't think it's likely that Mr. Hollis would have ten thousand pounds always lying at his bank. I should say this ten thousand has been lodged there for a special purpose. And what I shall want to find out from them, in that case, is--what special purpose? And--what had it to do with Scarnham, or anybody at Scarnham?

See? And I'll tell you what, Mr. Polke--I don't know whether we'll produce that cheque at the inquest on Hollis--at first, anyhow. The coroner's bound to adjourn--all he'll want tomorrow will be formal identification of the body--all other evidence can be left till later.

I've wired for Simmons--he'll be able to identify. No--we'll keep this cheque business back till I've been to London. I shall find out something from Vanderkistes--they're highly respectable private bankers, and they'll tell me----"

At that moment a policeman entered the room and presented Polke with a card.

"Gentleman's just come in, sir," he said. "Wants to see you particular."

Polke glanced at the card, and read the name aloud, with a start of surprise: "Mr. Leonard Hollis!"

CHAPTER XIX

THE DEAD MAN'S BROTHER

Polke hastily followed the policeman from the room--to return immediately with a quiet-looking elderly gentleman in whom Neale and Starmidge saw a distinct likeness to the dead man.

"His brother!" whispered Polke, as he handed a chair to the visitor. "So you've seen about this in the newspapers, sir?" he went on, turning to Mr. Leonard Hollis. "And you thought you'd better come over, I suppose?"

"I have not only read about it in the newspapers," answered the visitor, "but I last night--very late--received a telegram from my brother's clerk--Mr. Simmons--who evidently found my address at my brother's rooms. So I left Birmingham--where I now live--at once, to see you. Now, have you heard anything of my brother?"

Polke shook his head solemnly and warningly.

"I'm sorry to say we have, sir," he replied. "You'd better prepare for the worst news, Mr. Hollis. We found the body this morning--not two hours ago. And--we don't know, as yet, how he came by his death. The doctors say it may have been pure accident. Let's hope it was! But there are strange circ.u.mstances, sir--very strange!"

Hollis quietly rose from his chair.

"I suppose I can see him?" he asked.

Polke led him out of the room, and Starmidge turned to Neale.

"We're gradually getting at something, Mr. Neale," he said. "All this leads somewhere, you know. Now, since we found that incomplete cheque, there's a question I wanted to ask you. You've left Chestermarke's Bank now, and under the circ.u.mstances we're working in you needn't have any delicacy about answering questions about them. Do you know of any recent transaction of theirs which involved ten thousand pounds?"