"That haven't I, sur," answered the man.

"Well, get the pint to-morrow instead of to-night," said Mervyn, and something changed hands. "Still, I believe she must have overheard some one chattering; yet I've rubbed the fear of the Lord into old Joe about it."

"Thank'ee sur. No, I don't know as how anything of the sort could have been nabbled around. Folks have been mighty careful since the strange gent's affair, sur. They won't talk--not they. Think maybe they'll be 'pulled' over that."

"Do they. Well, long may they go on thinking so at that rate. But, do you know, I'm rather getting fed up with that business myself, and am always wishing to Heaven the poor chap had picked out some one else's hospitable roof to go and end up under, or that I hadn't heard, and had left him where he was in the first instance. It would have come to the same thing in the long run--or rather the very short run--and would have saved me no end of bother."

"Why, yes, sur, it would have done that sure-ly. Thank'ee again, sur, and good-night."

Mervyn had judged it time to go in. And as he walked back over the fateful stone again he found himself wondering whether the keeper's presence there was really accidental after all. Was Nashby privily employing the whole countryside--or such of it as was trustworthy--to keep watch on him--tireless watch by night as well as by day? Further, had Pierce actually seen him stop and bend over the stone? That would finish things. Mervyn's head and forehead were not quite dry as he noiselessly re-entered his front door, and that in spite of the now chilly atmosphere of the night.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE COMING OF HELSTON VARNE.

"I'm thinking we can about decide to give up the Heath Hover business as a bad job," said Inspector Nashby to his auxiliary, one night as they sat over whisky and water and pipes, in the inspector's snug private quarters in Clancehurst.

"Are you?" said the other, in a matter of fact way.

"Why, yes. There's nothing in it, absolutely no clue whatever. So far, no one has come forward to make even so much as an enquiry as to the ident.i.ty of the dead man, and, if you remember, he looked foreign.

Mervyn, too, said he talked with a slightly foreign accent. Now all that goes to show the thing couldn't well have concerned Mervyn.

Where's the motive? That's what I want to locate. I'm all for motive.

Show motive, and it won't be long before you get your case right home.

That's what I say--always have said."

"Motive--eh?"

"Yes. Motive. Now what the deuce motive could Mervyn have had for doing away with this chap? First he fishes him out of the ice, in the middle of a dead cold snow-stormy night, at some risk to himself; then he takes him in and does for him in the most hospitable manner."

"'Does for him'--Is that a joke, Nashby?"

"Well, no. But what I'm getting at is--supposing Mervyn had a motive for wanting this fellow in Kingdom Come, all he had to do was to leave him in the water. See? He needn't have gone to the bother of hauling him out at all."

"So Stewart seemed to think," was the answer. Stewart had been the speaker's predecessor in the private investigation of the case, but had come pretty much to the same conclusion that the local police official had, that it was hardly worth while going on with. This man had then appeared on the scene to take it up, rather to Nashby's astonishment.

To the latter he was an "outside" man, but he had come properly accredited. To tell the truth, he had come as rather a nuisance.

Nashby wanted the discovery of whatever there was to discover to his own credit. He did not relish any one from outside coming in to benefit by his gleanings.

"I don't want to say anything against Stewart," went on the last speaker. "I expect he's an excellent man, in his line. In fact, from what I hear, I'm sure he is--in his line."

"Well, but--what the devil good are any one of us if it isn't in his line?" said the inspector, feeling rather nettled, but pushing the cut gla.s.s decanter--an ingredient of an appreciative public testimonial Tantalus--towards the other as though to cover it. The said other might have smiled pityingly--he felt like it--but did not.

"That sounds conclusive," he answered. "But--it's just when you get off your 'line' that you make discoveries. Now you know I'm not talking through my hat. I've had experiences--not in this country--that most of you here never get. I don't say it to brag, mind, but as a bald statement of fact."

"I know that, Mr Varne," said Nashby, deferentially. "Well, we don't get 'em, and it's not our fault if we don't."

"Of course it isn't. It's all a question of opportunity. There are at least ten men in the world who would stretch a point to get me put out of the way, and at least four more who are vowed to do it. Out of these at least one will succeed sooner or later. But in that case it will puzzle you, and all the Yard, to find the motive."

"You don't say so!" said the inspector, gazing at the speaker, with a new access of veneration. "As we're alone I don't mind admitting I'm only a plain man who's worked his way up, but--sink me if I wouldn't rather be out of the force than have so many desperate scoundrels sworn to do me down some time or other. Here, you see, we run some one to earth--he does his stretch and there's an end of it. No malice borne-- and all that."

The man who had been named as Varne could not repress the smile this time, at what to him was the simple grooviness of this country policeman, as he defined him in his own mind. But he managed to make the smile a good-natured one.

"Ah, well, there are s.h.a.ggier parts of the world than this, Nashby," he said, mixing his gla.s.s again. "Here's to the Heath Hover mystery."

"And its unravelling," answered Nashby, raising his own gla.s.s.

"I've been here--let's see, how long have I been here? Three days--and a half, to be strictly accurate, and I've made one discovery, but only one."

"What's that?" said the inspector, brisking up.

"Well, it's what I came in to tell you about. But--don't let it go to the rest of the Force."

"Not me," was the emphatic reply.

"Well then, Mervyn is hiding something."

"Hiding something? Not the thing that did the job? Why there was no trace of any injury about the man."

"No doubt. But Mervyn is hiding something. When I find that something we shall have the key to the whole mystery."

"Well, we didn't search the whole house," said Nashby. "It would take about a week to do that, and only three or four rooms were used at all.

We searched that weird old family vault of a cellar though. There's nothing loose there. It's firm everywhere. He showed us over it himself."

"Of course he did. He'd have been a fool if he hadn't. But what he's hiding isn't in the house at all. It's outside."

"Outside?"

Helston Varne nodded.

"Has a smack of that Moat Farm affair," said Nashby, "only there they had something definite to find--a body. Here we've nothing. But how did you get at that for a clue?"

"I've been down here three days--and a half, to be strictly accurate; there's nothing like accuracy. Yet I've hit upon that much. The other day I thought I'd hit upon everything, but I hadn't quite. It was just one of those exciting moments when you miss a thing just by a hairsbreadth, as it were. But it's getting very warm--very warm indeed."

Nashby filled a fresh pipe and said nothing. He was looking at the other enviously. Helston Varne's reputation, among the secret few, was prodigious. If the scent was really getting very warm from his point of view, why then the mystery was as good as solved. But then, Nashby wanted the credit of solving it to be his own.

He wondered if Varne would manage things so that it might be. There was a good deal of the amateur about Helston Varne he had been given to understand, clever, marvellously clever as he had proved himself. At any rate, he was independent of material emolument, or at any rate seemed so. He seemed good-natured too. Perhaps whatever discovery he made he would contrive to let him--Nashby--get the benefit of some appreciable share in it.

The other smoked on in silence, the lamplight full on his strong, sun-browned, clear-cut face--a sun-brown that showed he had won his reputation in tougher climates than this--as he had hinted to the inspector. Moreover, there was a marked difference between the two men which defined cla.s.s distinction at a glance.

"Anything more known about this young lady who's stopping at Heath Hover, Nashby, beyond what you told me?" said Varne suddenly.

"Why, yes. I got at something fresh to-day, only to-day." And the inspector began to bristle up with a sense, as it were, of renewed importance. "Yes, only to-day, and I was going to tell you, but I was waiting to hear what you had to say first, Mr Varne," he added deferentially. "She's Mervyn's niece right enough, on her mother's side. Her father suicided. Jumped off a train, after taking a couple of thousand pound accident insurance tickets, which he handed to her, with a joking remark, overheard unfortunately for him--for them--by a station inspector on the platform. Railway company repudiated liability, and there you are."

"Clumsy--very," p.r.o.nounced the other, musingly. "Lord, what fools there are in the world, Nashby. Why, there were half-a-dozen ways of working that trick, perfectly successfully and carrying far more money with them too."

"Then she went as a music teacher in a suburban villa, and got cleared out; I suppose she was too pretty, and the old woman got jealous."

"I don't know about that part of it, but she certainly is pretty," said Varne. "She's more. She's lovely; and so absolutely uncommon looking.

Well?"