The policeman resumed his helmet and sniffed audibly. He and the keeper moved away and talked together. Then the policeman turned to Neale.

"Well, we'll be getting back to the village, sir," he said. "If so be as you see our super, Mr. Neale, you might mention that we're out and about."

He and his companion went off by a different path; at the top of a rise in the ground the policeman turned again.

"Tinner!" he called.

"Hullo?" answered Creasy.

"If you should hear or find aught," said the policeman, "come to me, you know."

"All right!" a.s.sented Creasy. He picked up some wood and replenished his fire. And glancing at Neale and Betty, who still lingered, he let fall a muttered whisper under his breath. "Bide a bit--till those chaps have gone," he said. "I've a word or two."

He walked away to his cart after this mysterious communication, dived under its tilt, evidently felt for and found something, and came back, glancing over his shoulder to see that keeper and policeman had gone their ways.

"I never tell chaps of that sort anything, mister," he said, giving Neale a sly wink. "Them of my turn of life look on all gamekeepers and policemen as their natural enemies. They'd both of 'em turn me out o'

this if they could!--only they know they can't. For some reason or other Ellersdeane Hollow is No Man's Land--and therefore mine. And so--I wasn't going to say anything to them--not me!"

"Then there is something you can say?" said Neale.

"You were here on Sat.u.r.day!" exclaimed Betty. "You know something!"

"No, miss, I wasn't here Sat.u.r.day," answered the tinker, "and I don't know anything--about what yon man asked, anyway--I told him the truth about all that. But--you say Mr. Horbury's missing, and that he's considered to have come this way on Sat.u.r.day night. So--do either of you know that?"

He drew his right hand from behind him, and in the glare of the firelight showed them, lying across its palm, a briar tobacco-pipe, silver-mounted.

"I found that, last night, gathering dry sticks," he said. "It's letters engraved on the silver band--'J. H. from B. F.' 'J. H.' now?--does that mean John Horbury?--you see, I know his Christian name."

Betty uttered a sharp exclamation and took the pipe in her hand. She turned to Neale with a look of sudden fear.

"It's the pipe I gave my uncle last Christmas!" she said. "Of course I know it! Where did you find it?" she went on, turning on Creasy. "Do tell us--do show us!"

"Foot of the crag there, miss--right beneath the old tower," answered Creasy. "And it's just as I found it. I'll give it to you, sir, to take to Superintendent Polke in Scarnham--he knows me. But just let me point something out. I ain't a detective, but in my eight-and-forty years I've had to keep my wits sharpened and my eyes open. Point out to Polke, and notice yourself--that whenever that pipe was dropped it was being smoked! The tobacco's caked at the surface--just as it would be if the pipe had been laid down at the very time the tobacco was burning well--if you're a smoker you'll know what I mean. That's one thing. The other is--just observe that the silver band is quite bright and fresh, and that there are no stains on the briar-wood. What's that indicate, young lady and young gentleman? Why, that that pipe hadn't been lying so very long when I found it! Not above a day, I'll warrant."

"That's very clever of you, very observant!" exclaimed Betty.

"But--won't you show us the exact place where you picked it up?"

Creasy cast a glance at his cooking pot, stepped to it, and slightly tilted the lid. Then he signed to them to go back towards the tower by the path by which they had come.

"Don't want my supper to boil over, or to burn," he remarked. "It's the only decent meal I get in the day, you see, miss. But it won't take a minute to show you where I found the pipe. Now--what's the idea, sir,"

he went on, turning to Neale, "about Mr. Horbury's disappearance? Is it known that he came out here Sat.u.r.day night?"

"Not definitely," replied Neale. "But it's believed he did. He was seen to set off in this direction, and there's a probability that he crossed over here on his way to Ellersdeane. But he's never been seen since he left Scarnham."

"Well," observed Creasy, "as I said just now, he wouldn't happen anything by accident in an ordinary way. Was there any reason why anybody should set on him?"

"There may have been," replied Neal.

"He wouldn't be likely to have aught valuable on him, surely--that time o' night?" said the tinker.

"He may have had," admitted Neale. "I can't tell you more."

Creasy asked no farther question. He led the way to the foot of the promontory, at a point where a ma.s.s of rock rose sheer out of the hollow to the plateau crowned by the ruinous tower.

"Here's where I picked up the pipe," he said. "Lying amongst this rubbish--stones and dry wood, you see--I just caught the gleam of the silver band. Now what should Mr. Horbury be doing down here? The path, you see, is a good thirty yards off. But--he may have fallen over--or been thrown over--and it's a sixty-feet drop from top to bottom."

Neale and Betty looked up the face of the rocks and said nothing. And Creasy presently went on, speaking in a low voice:--

"If he met with foul play--if, for instance, he was thrown over here in a struggle--or if, taking a look from the top there, he got too near the edge and something gave way," he said, "there's about as good means of getting rid of a dead man in this Ellersdeane Hollow as in any place in England! That's a fact!"

"You mean the lead-mines?" murmured Neale.

"Right, sir! Do you know how many of these old workings there is?"

asked Creasy. "There's between fifty and sixty within a square mile of this tower. Some's fenced in--most isn't. Some of their mouths are grown over with bramble and bracken. And all of 'em are of tremendous depth. A man could be thrown down one of those mines, sir, and it 'ud be a long job finding his body! But all that's very frightening to the lady, and we'll hope nothing of it happened. Still----"

"It has to be faced," said Betty. "Listen--I am Mr. Horbury's niece, and I'm offering a reward for news of him. Will you keep your eyes and ears open while you're in this neighbourhood?"

The tinker promised that he would do his best, and presently he went back to his fire, while Neale and Betty turned away towards the town.

Neither spoke until they were half-way through the wood; then Betty uttered her fears in a question.

"Do you think the finding of that pipe shows he was--there?" she asked.

"I'm sure of it," replied Neale. "I wish I wasn't. But--I saw him with this pipe in his lips at two o'clock on Sat.u.r.day! I recognized it at once."

"Let's hurry on and see the police," said Betty. "We know something now, at any rate."

Polke, they were told at the police-station, was in his private house close by: a polite constable conducted them thither. And presently they were shown into the superintendent's dining-room, where Polke, hospitably intent, was mixing a drink for a stranger. The stranger, evidently just in from a journey, rose and bowed, and Polke waved his hand at him with a smile, as he looked at the two young people.

"Here's your man, miss!" said Polke cheerily. "Allow me--Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, of the Criminal Investigation Department."

CHAPTER VIII

THE SAt.u.r.dAY NIGHT STRANGER

Neale, who had never seen a real, live detective in the flesh, but who cherished something of a pa.s.sion for reading sensational fiction and the reports of criminal cases in the weekly newspapers, looked at the man from New Scotland Yard with a feeling of surprise. He knew Detective-Sergeant Starmidge well enough by name and reputation. He was the man who had unravelled the mysteries of the Primrose Hill murder--a particularly exciting and underground affair. It was he who had been intimately a.s.sociated with the bringing to justice of the Camden Town Gang--a group of daring and successful criminals which had baffled the London police for two years. Neale had read all about Starmidge's activities in both cases, and of the hairbreadth escape he had gone through in connection with the second. And he had formed an idea of him--which he now saw to be a totally erroneous one. For Starmidge did not look at all like a detective--in Neale's opinion. Instead of being elderly, and sinister, and close of eye and mouth, he was a somewhat shy-looking, open-faced, fresh-coloured young man, still under thirty, modest of demeanour, given to smiling, who might from his general appearance have been, say, a professional cricketer, or a young commercial traveller, or anything but an expert criminal catcher.

"Only just got here, and a bit tired, miss," continued Polke, waving his hand again at the detective. "So I'm just giving him a refresher to liven his brains up. He'll want 'em--before we've done."

Betty took the chair which Polke offered her, and looked at the stranger with interest. She knew nothing about Starmidge, and she thought him quite different to any preconceived notion which she had ever had of men of his calling.

"I hope you'll be able to help us," she said politely, as Starmidge, murmuring something about his best respects to his host, took a whisky-and-soda from Polke's hand. "Do you think you will--and has Mr.

Polke told you all about it?"

"Given him a mere outline, miss," remarked Polke. "I'll prime him before he goes to bed. Yes--he knows the main facts."