J. S. Fletcher

Chestermarke's clerks found no difficulty in obtaining access to the bank when they presented themselves at its doors at nine o'clock next morning. Both partners were already there, and appeared to have been there for some time. And Joseph at once called Neale into the private parlour, and drew his attention to a large poster which lay on a side-table, its ink still wet from the printing press.

"Let Patten put that up in one of the front windows, Neale," he said. "It's just come in—I gave the copy for it last night. Read it over—I think it's satisfactory, eh?"

Neale bent over the big, bold letters, and silently read the announcement:—

"Messrs. Chestermarke, in view of certain unauthorized rumours, now circulating in the town and neighbourhood, respecting the disappearance of their late manager, Mr. John Horbury, take the earliest opportunity of announcing that all Customers' Securities and Deposits in their hands are safe, and that business will be conducted in the usual way."

"That make things clear?" asked Joseph, closely watching his clerk. "To our clients, I mean?"

"Quite clear, I should say," replied Neale.

"Then get it up at once, before opening hours, and save all the bother of questions," commanded Joseph. "And if people do come asking questions—as some of them will!—tell them not to bother themselves—nor us. We don't want to waste our time interviewing fools all the morning."

Neale took the poster and went out, with no further remark. And presently the junior clerk, with the aid of a few wafers, fixed the announcement in the window which looked out on the Market-Place, and people began to gather round and to read it, and, after the usual fashion of country-born folk, then went away to talk about it. In half an hour it was known in every shop and tavern parlour in Scarnham Market-Place that despite the town-crier's announcement, and the wild rumours of the night before, Chestermarke's Bank was all right, and Chestermarkes were already speaking of Horbury in the past tense—he was (wherever he might be) no longer the manager of that ancient concern; he was the late manager.

At ten o'clock Superintendent Polke, bluff and cheery as usual, and Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, eyeing his new surroundings with appreciative curiosity, strolled round the corner from the police-station and approached the bank. Half a dozen loungers were gathered before the window, reading the poster; the two police officials joined them and also read—in silence. Then, with a look at each other, they turned into the door which Patten had just opened. Neale hurried to the counter to meet them.

"Well, Mr. Neale," said Polke, as if he had called on the most ordinary business, "we'll just have a word with your principals, if they please. A mere interchange of views, you know: we shan't keep 'em."

"They don't want bothering," whispered Neale, bending over the counter. "Shan't I do instead?"

"No, sir!" answered Polke. "Nothing but principals will do! Here, Starmidge, give Mr. Neale one of your official cards."

Neale took the card and disappeared into the parlour, where he laid it before Gabriel.

"Mr. Polke is with him, sir," he said. "They say they won't detain you."

Gabriel tossed the card over to his nephew with a look of inquiry: Joseph sneered at it, and threw it into a waste-paper basket.

"Tell them we don't wish to see them," he answered. "We——"

"Stop a bit!" interrupted Gabriel. "I think perhaps we'd better see them. We may as well see them, and have done with it. Bring them in, Neale."

Polke and Starmidge, presently entering, found themselves coldly greeted. Gabriel made the slightest inclination of his head, in response to Polke's salutation and the detective's bow: Joseph pointedly gave no heed to either.

"Well?" demanded the senior partner.

"We've just called, Mr. Chestermarke, to hear if you've anything to say to us about this matter of Mr. Horbury's," said Polke. "Of course, you know it's been put in our hands."

"Not by us!" snapped Gabriel.

"Quite so, sir, by Lord Ellersdeane, and by Mr. Horbury's niece, Miss Fosdyke," assented Polke. "The young lady, of course, is naturally anxious about her uncle's safety, and Lord Ellersdeane is anxious about the Countess's jewels. And we hear that securities of yours are missing."

"We haven't told you so," retorted Gabriel.

"We haven't even approached you," remarked Joseph.

"Just so!" agreed Polke. "But, under the circumstances——"

"We have nothing to say to you, superintendent," interrupted Gabriel. "We can't help anything that Lord Ellersdeane has done, nor anything that Miss Fosdyke likes to do. Lord Ellersdeane is not, and never has been, a customer of ours. Miss Fosdyke acts independently. If they call you in—as they seem to have done very thoroughly—it's their look out. We haven't! When we want your assistance, we'll let you know. At present—we don't."

He waved one of the white hands towards the door as he spoke, as if to command withdrawal. But Polke lingered.

"You don't propose to give the police any information, then, Mr. Chestermarke?" he asked quietly.

"At present we don't propose to give any information to anybody whom it doesn't concern," replied Gabriel. "As regards the mere surface facts of Mr. John Horbury's disappearance, you know as much as we do."

"You don't propose to join in any search for him or any attempt to discover his whereabouts, sir?" inquired Starmidge, speaking for the first time.

Gabriel looked up from his paper, and slowly eyed his questioner.

"What we propose to do is a matter for ourselves," he answered coldly. "For no one else."

Starmidge bowed and turned away, and Polke, after hesitating a moment, said good-morning and followed him from the room. The two men nodded to Neale and went out into the Market-Place.

"Well?" said Polke.

"Queer couple!" remarked Starmidge.

Polke jerked his thumb at the poster in the bank window.

"Of course!" he said, "so long as they can satisfy their customers that all's right so far as they're concerned, we can't get at what is missing that belongs to the Chestermarkes."

"There are ways of finding that out," replied Starmidge quietly.

"What ways, now?" asked Polke. "We can't make 'em tell us their private affairs. Supposing Horbury has robbed them, they aren't forced to tell us how much or how little he's robbed 'em of!"

"All in good time," remarked the detective. "We're only beginning. Let's go and talk to this Miss Fosdyke a bit. She doesn't mind what money she spends on this business, you say?"

"Not if it costs her her last penny!" answered Polke.

"All right," said Starmidge. "Fosdyke's Entire represents a lot of pennies. We'll just have a word or two with her."

Betty, looking out of her window on the Market-Place, had seen the two men leave Chestermarke's Bank, and was waiting eagerly for their coming. She listened intently to Polke's account of the interview with the partners, and her cheeks glowed indignantly as he brought it to an end.

"Shameful!" she exclaimed. "To make accusations against my uncle, and then to refuse to say what they are! But—can't you make them say?"

"We'll try, in good time," answered Starmidge. "Slow and steady's the game here. For, whatever it is, it's a deep game."

"Nothing has been heard since I saw you last night?" asked Betty anxiously. "No one has brought you any news?"

"No news of any sort, miss," replied Polke.

"What's to be done, then, next?" she inquired, looking from one to the other. "Do let us do something!"

"Oh, we'll do a lot, Miss Fosdyke, before the day's out," said Starmidge reassuringly. "I'm going to work just now. Now, the first thing is, publicity! We must have all this in the newspapers at once." He turned to the superintendent. "I suppose there's some journalist here in the town who sends news to the London press, isn't there?" he asked.

"Parkinson, editor of the 'Scarnham Advertiser,' he does," replied Polke, with promptitude. "He's a sort of reporter-editor, you understand, and jolly glad of a bit of extra stuff."

"That's the first thing," said Starmidge. "The next, we must have a reward bill printed immediately, and circulated broadcast. It must have a portrait on it—I'll take that photograph you showed me last night. And—we'll have to offer a specific reward in each. How much is it to be, Miss Fosdyke? For you'll have to pay it, you know."

"Anything you like!" said Betty eagerly. "A thousand pounds?—would that do, to begin with."

"We'll say half of it," answered Starmidge. "Very good. Now, Mr. Polke, if you'll tell me where this Mr. Parkinson's to be found, and where the best printing office in the place is, I'll go to work."

"Scammonds are the best printers—and they're quick," said Polke. "But I'll come with you."

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Betty. "If I could only be doing something!"

Starmidge nodded his comprehension and mused a while.

"Just so!" he said. "You don't want to sit and wait. Well, there is something you might do, Miss Fosdyke, as you're Mr. Horbury's niece. Mr. Polke's been telling me about Mr. Horbury's household arrangements. Now, as you are a relation, suppose you call on his housekeeper, who was the last person to see him, and get all the information you can out of her? Draw her on to talk—you never know what interesting point you mayn't get in that way. And—are you Mr. Horbury's nearest relation?"

"Yes—the very nearest—next-of-kin," answered Betty.

"Then ask to see his papers—his desk—his private belongings," said Starmidge. "Demand to see them! You've the legal right. And let us know—you'll always find me somewhere about Mr. Polke's—how you get on. Now, superintendent, we'll get to work."

Outside the Scarnham Arms, Starmidge looked at his companion with a sly smile.

"Are you anything of a betting man?" he asked.

"Naught much—odd half-crown now and then," replied Polke. "Why?"

"Lay you a fiver to a shilling Miss Fosdyke won't see anything of Horbury's—nor get any information!" answered Starmidge, more slyly than ever. "She won't be allowed!"

Polke gave the detective a shrewd look.

"I dare say!" he said. "Whew!—it's a queer game, this, Starmidge. First moves of it, anyway."

"Let's get on to the next," counselled Starmidge. "Where's this journalist?"

Mr. Parkinson, a high-browed, shock-headed young man, who combined the duties of editor and reporter with those of advertisement canvasser and business manager of the one four-page sheet which Scarnham boasted, received the two police officials in a small office in which there was just room for himself and his visitors to squeeze themselves.

"I was about coming round to you, Mr. Polke," he said. "Can you let me have the facts of this Horbury affair?"

"We've come to save you the trouble," answered Polke. "This gentleman—Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, of the C.I.D., Mr. Parkinson—wants to have a bit of a transaction with you."

Parkinson eyed the famous detective with as much wonder as Neale had felt on the previous evening.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Pleased to meet you, sir—I've heard of you. What can I do for you, Mr. Starmidge?"

"Can you wire—at our expense—a full account of all that I shall tell you, to a London Press agency that'll distribute it amongst all the London papers at once?" asked Starmidge. "You know what I mean?"

"I can," answered Parkinson. "And principal provincials, too. It'll be in all the evening papers this very night, sir."

"Then come on," said Starmidge, dropping into a chair by the editorial desk. "I'll tell you all about it."

Polke listened admiringly while the detective carefully narrated the facts of what was henceforth to be known as the Scarnham Mystery. Nothing appeared to have escaped Starmidge's observation and attention. And he was surprised to find that the detective's presentation of the case was not that which he himself would have made. Starmidge did no more than refer to the fact that Lady Ellersdeane's jewels were missing: he said nothing whatever about the rumours that some of Chestermarke's securities were said to have disappeared. But on one point he laid great stress—the visit of the little gentleman with the large grey moustache to the Station Hotel at Scarnham on the evening whereon John Horbury disappeared, and to the fragments of conversation overheard by Mrs. Pratt. He described the stranger as Mrs. Pratt had described him, and appealed to him, if he read this news, to come forward at once. Finally, he supplemented his account with a full description of John Horbury, carefully furnished by the united efforts of Polke and Parkinson, and wound up by announcing the five hundred pounds reward.

"All over England, tonight, and tomorrow morning, sir," said Parkinson, gathering up his copy. "Now I'm off to wire this at once. Great engine the Press, Mr. Starmidge!—I dare say you find it very useful in your walk of life."

Starmidge followed Polke into the Market-Place again.

"Now for that reward bill," he said. "I don't set so much store by it, but it's got to be done. It all helps. There's Miss Fosdyke—going to have a try at her bit."

He pointed down the broad pavement with an amused smile. Miss Betty Fosdyke, attired in her smartest, was just entering the portals of Chestermarke's Bank.