UNDER PRESSURE
The bodies of Sir Anthony Markenmore and his elder son were duly laid
to rest in the family burial ground in Markenmore churchyard next day
at noon, in the presence of a crowd whose members had flocked into
the old village from all parts of the surrounding country. Folk of
all sorts and conditions assembled in the church itself and under the
ancient elms and yews that fenced in its grey walls; the last
ceremonies over they split up into groups, discussing the latest news
appertaining to the fortunes of the Markenmore family. By that time
everybody in the place knew that Guy Markenmore had left a son, and
that he had come into the title and estates: many of the onlookers
had hurried to the churchyard in hopes of seeing the new baronet. But
all they saw was Harry Markenmore and two or three kinsmen; no women
of the family were present, and there was nothing remarkable nor
spectacular: the curtain went down on this act of the drama quietly
and uneventfully, and when those present had seen the last of Guy
Markenmore, laid side by side with his father, and in close proximity
to his many dead and gone ancestors, they fell back on the
oft-repeated question—who was responsible for his tragic end?
Blick saw nothing of these obsequies. He was not concerned with the
dead. His one object was to lay hands on a living person—the
murderer of Guy Markenmore. That person was somewhere; possibly far
off by that time; possibly closer at hand than he knew. It was a
difficult chase, and the quarry was clear out of sight and the scent
poor, but Blick was casting round, and by perseverance, aided by
luck, he hoped to get on the trail. And certainly he had got
something to go on in the strange revelation of yesterday, and in the
fortunate discovery of the automatic pistol. Full of thoughts and
speculations about one, and with the other in his pocket, he set out
for Selcaster as soon as his early breakfast was over, and by ten
o’clock was closeted with the Chief Constable. To him he detailed all
the news gained since the previous morning.
The Chief Constable listened and wondered. Like Blick, his thoughts
turned to the question: Had these revelations about Guy Markenmore’s
secret marriage of seven years ago anything to do with his murder? He
discussed the likelihood and probabilities of this for some time, but
suddenly turned off to a more pertinent subject.
“That, however, is all mere speculation; though, as you say, Blick,
there may be a good deal in it,” he remarked. “But the finding of
that automatic pistol, so near the scene of the murder, is quite a
different matter. Now, how on earth did it come to be in that burrow,
or hole, or whatever it is?”
“You mean—how did it come to be there unless it was put there!” said
Blick. “Of course, it was dropped in there by somebody who wanted to
get rid of it!—how else could it have come there? Let’s suppose that
that somebody was the actual murderer. He came away from the scene of
his crime, crossed the hill-side in front of Woodland Cottage——”
“More likely, followed the line of the coppice behind it,” suggested
the Chief Constable, with a glance at a big map hung on the wall by
his desk. “He’d be hidden from view, that way.”
“Well, that way, then,” agreed Blick. “Anyhow, he comes to Deep Lane.
Going down there, he resolves to get rid of his weapon. There are any
amount of holes in the banks there, behind the banks and the
undergrowth at the foot of the high hedgerows. He pushes aside the
bushes and drops his weapon into one of the deepest holes. And there
it might have lain for ages—if it hadn’t been for Fransemmery’s dog.”
“Well, you’ve found it, anyway, and the next thing to do is to find
out to whom it belongs,” said the Chief Constable. “Stiff business,
but it can be done.” He picked up the automatic pistol, which Blick
had laid before him, and looked at it with speculative eyes. “Seems
to be brand-new,” he remarked. “I wonder if it was bought from
anybody about here?”
“I’m going to enquire into that at once,” answered Blick. “Such
things can be bought in Selcaster, I suppose?”
“You can buy sporting guns and revolvers in plenty,” replied the
Chief Constable. “And no doubt things of this sort. There are two or
three gunsmiths in the city, and of course there are ironmongers and
hardware dealers who sell fire-arms.” He picked up a small volume
from amongst a row of reference books on his desk. “Local directory,”
he explained. “You’ll find names and addresses there.”
Blick made a list of names, and went out on a voyage of discovery. He
called on half a dozen tradesmen, who, once they were aware of his
identity and business, and had been pledged to secrecy, were only too
ready to chat confidentially with a famous London detective. But they
could give him no information—not one had seen the automatic pistol
before. It was not until he made his last call that he got any help
or signs of it. Then, however, the shopkeeper was somewhat doubtful
as to whether he hadn’t seen that particular article before, some
time or other.
“I’ve an idea that we may have supplied that,” he remarked. “But I’ll
tell you what—you look in here about six o’clock this evening, or
any time between that and seven. For this reason: I have a branch
shop at Chilhampton, and my manager is there today, and won’t be back
till late this afternoon. Now, if we ever sold that pistol—as I
fancy we did—he’ll know all about it, and who the purchaser was;
he’s more up in that department than I am. Come again at six or
thereabouts; if I’m not in, ask for Mr. Waters, and tell him what
you’ve told me. You can trust him.”
Blick thanked him and went out. A policeman who stood staring around
him on the opposite side of the street, caught sight of and came
across to him.
“The Chief sent me out to look for you, Mr. Blick,” he announced as
he came up. “He says will you go back to his office?—there’s a young
man called that he wants you to see. This Markenmore affair, he said.”
Blick hurried back to the police-station, and to the Chief
Constable’s room. In a chair by the fireside sat the young man to
whom the policeman had referred, watching the Chief Constable, who
was reading and signing documents. He was a very meek and mild young
man, thought Blick, as far as appearance went; an intellectual of
some sort, evidently. He had a very high, broad forehead; a mass of
long and untidy hair brushed back from it; a pair of large, somewhat
brilliant eyes; a wide, sensitive mouth, and a generally high-strung
aspect. Blick’s sharp eyes took all this in at a glance; he also
observed that the young man’s black coat was very much stained in
front, as though he was in the bad habit of spilling things on it,
and that his long, delicately-fashioned fingers were also
stained—his hands, in fact, from wrists to finger-tips were
disfigured with odd patches of green, purples, and scarlets. A
queer-looking chap, thought the detective, and yet, no ordinary one.
The Chief Constable signed a big blue paper, pushed it away from him,
laid down his pen, and swung round in his chair. He waved a hand
towards the figure on the hearth.
“This young gentleman has looked in to say that he’s been reading
about the Markenmore problem in the papers, and that he thinks he can
throw some light on it,” he announced, glancing at Blick. “I waited
till you came before hearing what he’s got to say. Now,” he
continued, nodding at the visitor, “you can go ahead! This is
Detective-Sergeant Blick, of the Criminal Investigation Department,
who has this case in hand. You can tell him and me anything you
like—in privacy and confidence. And first of all—to whom are we
talking?”
The visitor looked from one man to the other and spoke in quiet, even
tones.
“My name is Spindler,” he answered, “Eustace Spindler—I’m an
assistant in Moore and Smith’s chemist and druggists, Farsham.”
“I know it—very good, high-class business,” said the Chief
Constable. “Old established.” He turned and threw an aside to Blick,
who had sat down near him. “This is the chap Lansbury told us of,” he
whispered. “The chap who had the secret to sell.” He looked round
again at the caller. “Well, Mr. Spindler,” he continued, “glad to
hear anything you can tell.”
“It is in strict confidence, of course?” enquired Spindler. “Strictly
between ourselves—at present, at any rate?”
“You put it in the precise fashion,” assented the Chief Constable.
“At present—at any rate.”
“Well,” continued Spindler, with a nod of agreement, “what I wanted
to tell you was, and is, this—and I may say that I came here as much
for my own satisfaction as to give information. I am, as I said, an
assistant chemist—a qualified assistant, that is to say, I’ve passed
all my exams. Now, for the last year or two, I’ve spent my spare time
in experimenting in the preparation of synthetic dyes. I daresay you
gentlemen are aware that up to now our dyers in this country have
been almost entirely dependent on Germany for their aniline dyes——”
“We are!” said the Chief Constable solemnly. “Pretty well known, I
believe, Mr. Spindler, that we’ve been shamefully behind-hand in that
matter!”
“Just so—we have,” assented Spindler. “Well, to put the matter
briefly, I have discovered a certain secret as regards the
preparation of a valuable synthetic dye: a most important secret. And
when I’d got it fully perfected, I naturally wanted to make some
money out of it. So I advertised in _The Times_, indicating what I’d
got to sell. My advertisement was answered by Mr. Guy Markenmore. In
consequence of his letter, I went to see him at his office in
Folgrave Court, in London—near Cornhill. I told him all about my
discovery, and he asked me how much I would take for my secret. Now,
I am a poor man, but I have good ideas, and I want to do certain
things, and one is to buy the business—a small, undeveloped
business, yet, but capable in my hands of great development—of a
manufacturing chemist, which I can get for a very reasonable price. I
thought things over and told Mr. Markenmore I would take three
thousand pounds cash. He then asked me if I would entrust him with my
papers—the formula, you understand, of my secret—so that he might
submit them to an expert. I consented, on condition that the expert
was somebody I could trust. We fixed on Professor Sir Thomas
Hodges-Wilkins, of Cambridge—the famous chemist. I then gave Mr.
Markenmore the papers. A week later he wrote to me, saying he would
buy at my price if he could get a couple of other financiers to join
him in the venture. I wrote back to him and asked him, if he bought,
to let me have the money in cash. I made this request, because I
intended to pay cash for the business I’ve referred to, and didn’t
want anybody to know how much money I had—no bankers, no nobody, you
understand. He replied that that was all right, and that he’d
probably call on me, at Farshams, in a few days, and hand me the
money. And after that,” concluded Spindler, spreading out his thin
hands, “I never heard anything till I read of this murder!—and what
I want to know is—where are my papers, my valuable secret?”
“And your three thousand pounds!” muttered the Chief Constable, aside
to Blick. “Well, Mr. Spindler,” he said aloud, “I can assure you that
no scientific papers of the sort you refer to were found on Mr. Guy
Markenmore’s dead body—we have everything that was found. But just
tell me—that formula of yours? Supposing it fell into the hands of
anybody who knew what it was—what it was all about, I mean—would it
be of use?”
“Of use?” vociferated Spindler. “I should just think it would! Why,
of course, it tells exactly how to manufacture this particular dye!”
“Then—it would be worth anybody’s while to steal it?” asked the
Chief Constable.
“Worth anybody’s while?” exclaimed Spindler. “Goodness gracious
me!—don’t I tell you Markenmore was giving three thousand pounds for
it?”
“Just for the papers?”
“The secret is on the paper—a paper—an ordinary sheet of
note-paper! There were, of course, some other papers—memoranda. But
if _the_ paper falls into the hands of—of anybody—why, of course,
my secret’s lost! Are you sure it wasn’t on Markenmore’s body?—just
a sheet?—it would look like a prescription.”
They saw by that time why Mr. Eustace Spindler had called. It was not
to give information, but to get news. And they had none to give him.
“There were no papers of that sort on Markenmore,” said Blick.
“But—they may be at his office in London, or at his private
residence. We’ll do what we can for you, Mr. Spindler, and as soon as
possible.”
But when Spindler had gone, highly concerned, and dissatisfied, Blick
turned to the Chief Constable and shook his head.
“We know from what Lansbury told us that Guy Markenmore had the
papers this chap speaks of on him that night at the Sceptre!” he
observed. “He must have had, because it was about them and the secret
and the price that the discussion was. Probably he had the formula
and Professor What’s-his-name’s opinion on it. In that case he’d have
them when he left the Sceptre—put them all together with the three
thousand pounds’ worth of bank-notes. And whoever murdered him got
’em—with the notes!”
“There’s another alternative,” remarked the Chief Constable. “He no
doubt had the notes on him. But he may have handed over the formula
and opinion to one of his fellow-purchasers.”
“Not to Lansbury,” declared Blick. “He’d have told us.”
“There was a third man,” said the Chief Constable, meaningly. “Von
Eckhardstein.”
Blick took two or three paces about the room, thinking.
“I wish we could follow that up!” he exclaimed suddenly. “That
fellow’s disappeared, and we’ve done nothing whatever to trace him.
How do we know, after all, in spite of his being the wealthy man he’s
reputed to be, that for purposes of his own he didn’t shoot Guy
Markenmore and appropriate the money and the formula?”
“Possible!” agreed the Chief Constable. “But as to tracing him, we’ve
done all we can here, and we’ve ascertained that he hasn’t turned up
at any of his usual haunts in London, or in the City. Yet—he’s
vanished! Suddenly, too! Now—why?”
Blick paced the room again, thinking still more intently.
“I wonder if Mrs. Tretheroe knows more than she’s told!” he said
suddenly. “I’ve a conviction—a sort of intuition—that she does.”
“I’ve had a suspicion of that sort all along,” answered the Chief
Constable. “My own personal belief is that I don’t believe her a bit!”
“Well,” said Blick, after more thought, “there’s one thing we can do.”
“What?”
“Go out there, both of us, this afternoon,” replied Blick. “Put
pressure on her! Bluff her! Make her think we know something. Come
with me, and leave the talking to me. I’ll force something out of
her.”
“Very good—after lunch,” agreed the Chief Constable. “It’s a chance!”
Mrs. Tretheroe, alone in her boudoir late that afternoon, was neither
surprised nor displeased when Daffy Halliwell announced the Chief
Constable and Mr. Blick. The Chief Constable, as an ex-Army officer
of rank, was likely to be quite agreeable as a visitor, and Blick was
a young man of good looks and interesting personality. She welcomed
both with some show of pleasure.
“I hope you’ve brought me some news of Baron von Eckhardstein,” she
said as she pointed them to chairs near her own. “It’s really most
distressing that I’ve heard nothing yet, though I’m sure I’ve done
everything that I could to find him in this neighbourhood—organized
search parties and I don’t know what. Have you heard anything through
your police people?”
“A great deal, Mrs. Tretheroe!” replied Blick.
Mrs. Tretheroe started and glanced sharply at the detective. These
were not the tones in which he had addressed her on his previous
visit—his voice now was official, firm, almost menacing; he spoke
like a man who has got the whip-hand of the person he is addressing.
And after her sharp glance at him Mrs. Tretheroe paled a little; she
was conscious that two pairs of masculine eyes were fixed on her, not
in admiration, but in something very like stern scrutiny.
“What—what do you mean?” she faltered. “What is it—what’s happened?”
“What has happened is this, Mrs. Tretheroe,” replied Blick. “We know
a great deal more, now, than you seemed to think we know, about the
recent doings of von Eckhardstein. Von Eckhardstein was the third man
of the three who met at the Sceptre last Monday night—oh, it’s no
use your protesting, Mrs. Tretheroe!—he was! It was he who went
there at two o’clock in the morning, and—mind this!—he was the last
man in whose company Guy Markenmore was seen alive!”
Mrs. Tretheroe uttered a faint cry—evidently one of genuine
astonishment.
“No—no!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe——”
“Quite immaterial what you believe,” said Blick, with well-assumed
indifference. “We know it! Now, Mrs. Tretheroe, all this pretended
concern of yours about von Eckhardstein’s being lost through some
accident is all pretence! I tell you we know things. Now, you haven’t
been candid with us up to now, and you’re running into serious
danger. Out with it, Mrs. Tretheroe! You know very well that von
Eckhardstein left your house at a late hour the other
night—intentionally? Where is he now?”
He waited with secret impatience, doubting even then if his fish
would rise. But Mrs. Tretheroe, after an almost terrified glance at
the Chief Constable’s stern face, spoke, faintly.
“I believe—in Paris!”
“How did he get away from here?” demanded Blick.
“He waited till all was quiet, then walked across to Carfant, and got
a motor-car to run him along the coast-road to Newhaven, to catch the
early morning boat for Dieppe.”
“Why did he go away like that?”
“He said,” answered Mrs. Tretheroe, in a very low voice, “because he
didn’t want to be mixed up in the sordid details of a vulgar murder,
and he’d go across to the Continent until you’d got the real man and
the thing was settled.”
Blick got up, and silently motioned his companion to follow. Mrs.
Tretheroe rose, too, white and trembling.
“You—you don’t think he killed Guy?” she whispered. “You surely
don’t say he did?”
“At present—we say nothing,” answered Blick, and went away. But once
outside the Dower House he turned to the Chief Constable.
“Worked like a charm!” he muttered. “Well—what next?”
Then he remembered the gunsmith at Selcaster and hurried back there
in the Chief Constable’s dogcart.
The gunsmith met him as he turned in at his shop-door, and drew him
aside.
“I’ve found out about that automatic pistol for you,” he whispered.
“We did sell it! About three months ago. We sold it to Mr. Harry
Markenmore, of Markenmore Court. Like to see the entry?”