He glanced quickly about him. Close to his right hand lay a bronze paperweight which he found himself regarding in an altogether new light, and in the hearth was a poker, but that was some distance off and only to be reached by turning his back on his client. Though by no means of a nervous nature, he could not fail to see that Mr Harris's advice to stick to the Tietter-cla.s.s work' had a great deal to recommend it, but it was rather late to think of that with the man only a couple of yards off, one hand reaching into the flap pocket of his coat with a gesture like that of a conjurer about to produce some surprising object.

In fact it was an envelope.

Justin gazed at it, feeling more foolish than he had ever felt in his life before. He realised that only a blessed inability to act had prevented him from shouting for his clerk or bombarding a client with a paperweight. Visions of headlines in the Mercury flashed before his eyes, each more horrific than the last. What an a.s.s he had been. There on the desk in front of him lay the envelope, fat, dog-eared and dirty with thumbmarks like so many other papers brought to him by clients of this kind; and there was Longford watching him with a puzzled expression, as well he might.

"My good man, what's this?" he managed to stammer out. "I mean, why bring it me?"

151.

THE Ma.s.sIXGHAM AFFAIR.

Once he had spoken he felt better. After all, he had not actually done anything scandalous, only imagined it, and the habits of professional life were quick to rea.s.sert themselves and very comforting. What did the fellow want? That he should keep the envelope, ap-parentiy, and put it in a safe place, which seemed reasonable. But on the heels of this there followed a suggestion that Longford should return to the office that night to tell him something . . . something of mysterious importance.

"Is it about Ma.s.singham?" he asked, all his doubts returning with a rush.

A nod of the head.

"What could you have to tell me that you can't tell me now?"

No answer.

"I shall certainly not be here. The office will be shut."

Silence again.

"Do you understand? I shan't be here. Devil take it, man, haven't you a tongue in your head? And come to think of it, what would I be doing trusting you after the way you took a pot shot at me the other night?"

"That I niwer," he heard Longford say.

"Of course it was you. Someone saw you go haring off just after the shot was fired. You must be quite handy with a gun. Weren't you at Hannington the night poor Luke was killed?"

This time there was no doubt that the blow had gone home. 'He was there!' he thought with a thrill of triumph and expectancy, recognising at last the land of man he had to deal with-either the murderer of Luke or one of those who had stood by and seen the deed done. It was strange how the crime at Hannington kept cropping up as though related to his problem in some way.

"Where's Miss Kelly?" he demanded suddenly, as he put the envelope in the safe.

"Be 'ere t'night, sir. She said nine, sir, if that suits. Might be bringin' someone else, sir."

"You're wasting your time. I don't make appointments out of hours." He had not the slightest intention of walking into a trap at the call of such devious customers.

He let eight o'clock go by that night. But by half-past, in the silence of the drawing-room broken only by the rhythmic click of Flo's needles, he had become anxious about the safety of his files. The office faced the market-place where people might always be pa.s.sing, but there was a back way up an alley rejoicing in the name of Slipper's Lane, from which it would not be difficult for an enterprising man to break in. Admittedly it was hard to see why Longford should have advertised such an intention, if indeed he had one, but the idea of that night rendezvous was so challenging that he knew he would never rest till he had found out what lay behind it.

"Where are you going, dearest?" he heard Flo call as he was putting on his overcoat in the pa.s.sage.

"Just off to see Lumley," he shouted back.

"At this hour? How thoughtless men are. Have you got your goloshes on?"

But he heard no more, for he had closed the door behind him and was out in the snow whose glistening whiteness he could see by the gaslight at the corner of the street. He felt his spirits rising. The fall was over; there was a bite in the air and the flakes were crisp under his feet, reminders of the magic world of childhood that had been often in his thoughts these last days. Ahead of him a light went out, then another, as the lamplighter came down towards him with his long pole in his hand, and in the market-place all was dark under a sky in which a few stars appeared beyond the wastes of cloud.

He drew into the doorway of the chemist's shop that faced his office across the square, and from this vantage point he could just make out the line of buildings on the other side, with one light high up in the attic of the newsagent's shop at Number 24. The silence was uncanny, as though the town were m.u.f.fled in crepe, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when a whirring sound came out of the air and a clock began to strike nine.

As the last reverberations died away he slipped from his hiding-place and hurried across the square. He saw no one, heard nothing but the crunch of his footsteps in the snow. In his own doorway he turned and took out his key. The chemist's shop seemed closer than he had expected, as if it had followed him a few paces on the way, and looking up he saw the moon almost free of the cloudbank with a retinue of stars glowing frostily in a pool of ice-blue sky.

Inside, all was as black as pitch, and he felt in his pocket for a match. The stairs seemed strangely unfamiliar in the flickering light; and his room, which he was used to seeing in a mellow glow, was filled with shadows that flitted along the walls like fugitives. He was about to light the gas when the thought struck him that he could play the watchdog-if watchdog were needed-better from the 153.

clerk's office beyond the green baize door, where it was warmer too, and the embers of a fire still glowed.

Time pa.s.sed as he sat half dozing in Harris's chair. Ten o'clock struck from across the square. It was getting colder, and with the chill came a growing sense of the absurdity of his vigil. He would give it another half-hour at the outside. He had just decided this and had risen, matches in hand, to light the gas, when there came out of the darkness below a small sharp sound.

He stood quite still, hstening. An occasional mouse had been known to disturb the office calm; indeed one morning he had come upon an invader actually browsing off the papers on his desk; but Harris, in a campaign of traps and poison, had won a fairly well accredited victory over the tribe. Besides, it was too loud a noise; unless one postulated rats.

Just then he heard it again, and this time identified it for what it was. Someone was coming up the stairs, moving with infinite caution. Now it was almost abreast of him in the pa.s.sage, close against the private door that led from the landing directly into his office. He heard that door open and close; and he stood there, uncertain what to do, while around him he could sense the stillness and loneliness of the night under its blanket of snow.

From his office a small flurry of activity broke out: faint and exploratory at first, like the tapping of fingers against some hard surface, and then much louder. As he crossed on tiptoe to the green baize door he began to identify each sound: the tap of an instrument against metal, the grating of a key in a lock-till at last, with a very queer sensation, he heard the door of his office safe grind open and the rustle of parchment under someone's hand.

Then there was only silence. It was the eeriest thing that had happened to him that night: the sudden stillness and feeling of void that seemed to spread until he might almost have doubted there really was a man crouching there by the open safe, not a dozen yards from him, but for the acrid, tell-tale smell of a blown-out candle from the room beyond.

I'll count up to twenty,' he told himself, striking a balance between elation and downright funk. But he had got no further than eleven when there came a scurrying sound from inside the room and he was through the door, colliding with a body that seemed to fall towards him as a badly loaded sack might do, except that he could feel the embrace of arms twisting themselves around him.

He went down, submerged under that weight like a drowning man. There was a humming sound in his ears and he thought he saw a light start up on the threshold by the private door, outlining the shape of a head pressed close to his own; then the picture was reversed and there was someone under him, thrashing this way and that with legs and arms. The scene steadied and he saw everything clearly: the open safe, the papers strewn over the floor, the guttering candle in Longford's hand. Beneath him, blood gushing from a cut above the eye, lay his ex-witness, the gamekeeper Henderson, and on the boards beside him a lady's gold watch with deep incisions where something, probably initials, had been erased.

XVIII.

"My dear fellow," the Vicar said, "my dear, dear fellow, let me try and understand what it is you are telling me. Forgive me, are you quite well?"

"Perfectly."

"But you are saying that it was this man Henderson who was Sugden's companion in the burglary at Verney's."

"Exactly. His accomplice. And our Other Man."

"You seem very sure of it. You're not jumping to conclusions out of a natural sense of outrage at having found the fellow trying to burgle you?"

"I'm not jumping at anything. Henderson has made me a very full confession admitting that he was at Ma.s.singham that night; that it was he who scuffled with Verney and carried off the seal and this watch, which he was in the act of taking from my safe. Longford had put it there."

The Vicar had been awoken from his slumbers in the small hours and his understanding was so ill attuned to news of this kind that he put his head in his hands and groaned quite loudly.

"Why, whatever's the matter?" said Justin, somewhat light-headed himself from his exertions. "Haven't I been making myself clear?"

"My dear fellow, I won't deceive you, you have not. Say it all over very slowly. There was a watch . . ."

"Certainly-which Henderson took from Verney's that night and never disposed of. Longford and Miss Kelly found out about it, so 155.

they managed to steal it from Henderson's house, put it in an envelope and lodged it with me in my safe, allowing Henderson to know what they had done."

"You mean they had laid a trap for him?" the Vicar cried, clutching with a good deal of desperation at this idea.

"Exactly."

"Hoping that Henderson would dash straight off to get the watch as soon as everything was quiet and that you'd be there to catch him? Yes, I know you told me that's how it happened, and in my opinion it was most providential. Now let me get it clear in my mind why Henderson should have thought it necessary to recover the watch at such risk to himself."

"Because it was valuable, to begin with. Besides, he may have feared it would be dangerous evidence against him in our hands."

"But how was Longford to know that you'd arrive to catch the burglar so conveniently in the act? And why should Henderson have obliged you with a confession?"

"I don't see how it matters, seeing that he has confessed and I have the result in my pocket. I suppose he felt trapped. He may have thought we had more against him than we had. Or perhaps his conscience over shooting at me the other night had something to do wdth it."

"Shooting at you!" cried the Vicar, discovering with horror a new obscurity in the story.

"Didn't I tell you? I thought it best at the time to keep it dark, but someone took a pot shot at me near George's house about a fortnight back. I thought Longford had done it, since he was thereabouts at the time. But it was Henderson; he makes no bones about it; says he just fired 'a bit close like' to frighten me off Wee Geordie and the case in general. Seems to have frightened Longford the worse of the pair of us as it turned out. Poor chap. Suppose he'd been hit by accident?"

"At least the outrage would have been reported to the Police," returned the Vicar with some asperity. "You are becoming altogether careless of your owti safety and of ordinary rules and regulations, or so it seems to me. This burglary of your office, now-have you reported that?"

"Well, no, as it happens."

"You haven't had Henderson arrested or charged?"

"For burgling me! Good heavens no."

THE QUEST: 1899.

At these shameless words the Vicar's severity, which never set very hard, melted completely and he began to shake all over with one of his most awesome effects of laughter. "For a legal man you have the most w . . . wonderfully anarchic notions," he managed to blurt out. "Aren't you compounding a felony by failing to report this crime?"

"I may be misprising one, if you want to be technical about it."

"Then suppose it was a trap laid to catch you? Suppose this burglary was arranged in the hope that you'd cover up and compromise yourself?"

The possibility in fact had already occurred to Justin. He remembered how he had just handed Longford back his envelope-without the watch of course-and was sitting down at his desk to begin the questioning which was to lead to the confession, with Henderson to his right on a chair between him and the window, and Longford standing on guard near the rifled safe, when, looking up, he had caught a glance pa.s.s between them. From all he had seen he felt sure that the interests of these two men were widely, even desperately conflicting. Yet something had pa.s.sed: some threat, or warning, or perhaps a promise. It was only a small mystery to set against the reality of the confession that lay in his pocket, yet it troubled him, like a piece of a jig-saw that obstinately refused to fit. There was no point in bothering the Vicar with it, though. It would fall into place in time, no doubt, and meanwhile there were more important things to do.

Soon after half-past eight he let himself into the deserted office. A smell of candle grease and none too clean bodies met him, so he opened the windows and lit the fire, which was soon spluttering its evil-smelling coal dust over everything. He heard Spinks arrive, the brisker step of Harris moving on his rounds and then a sudden exclamation, followed by a knock at the door, around which the clerk's face appeared with the expression of one whose most cherished images have been profaned.

"I know: don't tell me: we've been burgled," Justin greeted him irritably. "What have you found? The broken window catch downstairs?"

"The mud, sir-mud everywhere."

"Has Spinks noticed it? He's not a very noticing lad, but better get rid of him on some errand just in case. Then get Billings to mend the catch and we'll sponge off the worst."

"But the Police, sir!" Harris objected, aghast at this. "Surely the footprints, sir ... ? Won't they want . . . ?"

"Bother the Police. Just do as I say and I'll explain later."

Now that he had burnt his boats he felt much calmer, for though he was in no doubt of the seriousness of what he was doing in shielding Henderson, he knew he simply dared not trust the man to Blair's custody until some independent person had interviewed him and taken a more official statement; otherwise there might be a recantation and everything would be lost. 'Must pacify Harris, though,' he thought. 'Mustn't breathe a word about Misprision-too awful! Suppose I merely tell him there were burglars here but nothing was taken and there's no case for the Police?' The rattle of a bucket and the smell of soap and carbolic from the landing apprised him of the fact that by his orders proofs of a crime were in the very act of being removed; and still wondering how on earth he could explain it away, he opened the private door almost on top of his reproachful clerk (who was down on his knees on the landing carpet) to see rising into view behind him on the stairs die top half of the Mercury's Mr Hicks looking more gnome-like than ever in an ulster about three sizes too large for him.

It was a bad moment.

"Cleaning up, sir?" their visitor remarked, taking in Harris and his bucket with polite surprise. "What's become of young Spinks? Too arthritic for this job? Or have you sent him out s...o...b..lling?" He had approached nearer, where the trail of half-dried mud was plainly visible in the sunlight flooding through the office window and the open door. "Disgustingly careless people are," he lamented. "Quite beastly habits, some of 'em. If you'd had a squad of burglars, sir, at work all night they could hardly have made a nastier mess of it, now could they?"

He seemed much spryer than usual, his eyes darting here and there, from the safe to the footmarks and Harris's anguished face. Once inside the office proper, however, all this playfulness seemed to fall from him and he gazed at Justin with the rather constipated stare so familiar to his colleagues.

"Now then, sir . . ." There was reproach in the voice. This man had been hurt and disenchanted beyond even the common experience of the Press. "You know why I'm here, I expect?"

Justin replied guardedly that he thought he had some notion.

"I think you have, sir. You had visitors last night."

"Indeed?"

"No need to deny it, for I saw 'em. I saw you. Anything you'd care to say, sir?"

"Only that you must have had a devilish cold and miserable time out there and I hope it was worth it."

"Oh, don't worry, it will be worth it," Hicks said, turning up the corners of his mouth in a little mirthless grin. "There's a story here, sir. Make some nice copy, as I seem to remember saying once before at the time of that little contretemps of yours in Bewley. Not that we want to print anything about ilxat, though."

"I'm sure you don't."

"Seeing that what we're after is another story, the biggest that's. .h.i.t Smedwick since the Scots came down and ma.s.sacred half the population in 1308. Now there's a story worth having."

"You shall have it too."

And he tossed Henderson's confession across the desk.

The effect of this manoeuvre was immediate. Mr Hicks, as a good journalist, was prepared for most things-catastrophe for choice-but even his professional aplomb was not quite equal to the occasion. He stared at the thing wide-eyed; then, as he began to read, broke into a prolonged whistle of astonishment.

I, Joseph Henderson, declare as follows: I remember the night of the Ma.s.singham burglary. I was out poaching over the moor with George Sugden. I had my gun with me. We got no game, so Sugden said: "Let's try the priest's." We went through Hirsley Wood to Mr Verney's house. We had with us a bag made of old poke, and this we tore up and tied round our boots. In an outhouse we found a chisel, and with it we forced a window and climbed into a room. We lit a candle and searched around for what we could get. There was a lady's gold watch on the mantelpiece: it is the same as the one now shown me. There was a kind of seal too in the shape of a bird which I sold some years ago.

We then went into the dining-room next door. We heard footsteps and voices above and we saw a light on the stairs. We blew out our candle. I saw Mr Verney coming down towards us with a candle in his hand and I believe his daughter was with him. I had the gun in my hand. Sugden pushed against me to get to the door, and this accidentally set off the gun. Mr Verney's candle went out. Sugden had run out. The old man came into the dining-room and went after me in the darkness. I was dodging about. I then ran into the pa.s.sage, through the other room, and dived into the flower-beds. I did not see Sugden any- 159.

where. I ran across the garden, over the wall into the fields, and followed die burn uphill. At the quarry near Mellow's Ford I pulled the old poke sacking off my feet and threw it away. I had dropped the chisel somewhere in the house. I got home about three and burnt my boots, stockings and breeches which were soaking wet. The Police came about two hours later.

"My G.o.d, but this is dynamite!" Hicks cried as he laid it down. "Beautiful! Beautiful! How the devil did you get it? Have you been after Henderson all this time?" "Longford has. I owe everything to Longford." "Including the confession?" "In a way. Henderson just folded up."

"And told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" Justin thought for a while and then said slowly: "No one tells that. There are discrepancies between the two confessions; for I must tell you I have Sugden's too. But I think this is the truth all right, or as near as makes no matter. You see he mentions one particular piece of evidence that explains what was never explained before: something quite striking and new. . . ."

"You mean the bit about the sacking, the 'old poke'?" "You've spotted it. This means the end of Blair." "Fortunately it's just the beginning of the Story," said Mr Hicks with reverence in his voice.

XIX.

Few of our readers (declared the Mercury in a leader which Justin preserved among the papers young Mr Jobling found) can have forgotten the sense of shock and outrage that followed the infamous attack upon the Reverend Mr Verney and his daughter at Ma.s.singham in February 1891 or the subsequent trial at which two Smedwick men, Milligan and Kelly, were adjudged guilty and sentenced to Penal Servitude for Life. When the convicts were committed to durance vile it was our belief, and that of most of our fellow citizens, that crime had been punished and the district rid of two worthless scoundrels.

Is it permissible to believe this any longer? The Mercury, which conceived it its public duty to record all the details of an odious crime and the condign punishment that followed it, now feels impelled to ask whether justice was done or injustice; whether it was not the innocent who were punished rather than the guilty. The Mercury, fully aware of the gravity of its questions, but aware also of its duty as an organ of public conscience, asks now whether the jury that found Milligan and Kelly guilty was not misled; whether the judge who sentenced them was not an unwitting agent of oppression; whether the police officers who brought the case against the accused men performed their duty?

That suspicions such as we voice of infamies more to be expected in barbarous lands, among Turks and heathen, could even arise in our own enlightened state and time, under a Government (whatever its political complexion) owing allegiance to our most gracious Queen, is a matter for wonder and dismay. Fortunately the force of evil does not go unchallenged. Where the voice of the appointed guardians of peace and public welfare have been mute, two ordinary citizens (whom we are proud to claim as fellow citizens), obeying only their sense of Christian duty, have raised the questions that we ask in the most cogent form in Whitehall and Westminster itself, adducing evidence which may be of an unparalleled and startling kind.

And even Government must hearken when the people speaks. The need for a ministerial enquiry is quite plain. The Mercury urges it. The common weal requires it. Let the Government act now.

Unknown to the author of this heartfelt call, a Commissioner from the Treasury, charged to investigate the whole affair, had reached Smedwick before the paper was in the press. Respect for its wishes could hardly have been prompter-and much credit was claimed afterwards in the editorial offices. Justin, busy at his desk with a spate of conveyances, was the first to be alerted by the sudden appearance of the Commissioner, a razor-sharp, intent gentleman in a frock-coat who would have served for the model of what Harris never ceased to hope his employer would become. "Mr Wilc.o.x-from the Treasury, sir," he had intoned with deep satisfaction.

No one had announced the Commissioner's presence or purpose in Smedwick; he had simply descended from Olympus with his black gloves and his black bag; but local intelligence was omniscient, and long before the day was out news of his activities had begun to filter back to the office in the market-place. Apparently not a moment had been wasted. Miss Kelly had been the first witness to be seen; then Longford; then the men who claimed to have seen Kelly and Milligan at dawn near the Duke's Wall, six miles across the moor from Ma.s.singham. It was a formidable beginning.