THE PROFESSORIAL THEORY
The Chief Constable looked at Blick when Chilford walked out: his
eyes assumed a somewhat blank and doubtful expression.
“What on earth does he mean by all that?” he exclaimed.
“That something to do with money is at the bottom of it,” said Blick.
“And after all, there’s the three thousand pounds’ worth of
bank-notes to account for! There doesn’t seem any doubt that Guy
Markenmore had these notes on him when he left the Sceptre, and he
certainly hadn’t them when we examined his clothing. Where are they?
Obviously, the murderer helped himself to them.”
The Chief Constable reflected awhile.
“The queer thing, to my way of thinking,” he observed at last, “is
this: if the murder was committed for the sake of robbery, how comes
it that the murderer didn’t possess himself of all the rest of the
stuff Guy Markenmore had on him? Money, a fair lot, I think;
valuables, gold watch and chain; and so on. There was a very valuable
diamond ring, wasn’t there?”
“The odd thing is that another ring—the duplicate of that which Mrs.
Tretheroe wears—was gone,” said Blick. “Gone!—a comparatively
valueless thing, merely a curiosity, while a diamond ring, worth a
great deal, was left on the very same finger! But what’s the use of
theorizing? The facts are as they are! If there’s nothing whatever in
what we’ll call the Mrs. Braxfield line—well, I’m still without any
real clue!”
“Chilford says—money!—money!—money!” remarked the Chief Constable.
“I wish we knew more of Guy Markenmore’s money affairs! But talking
of money, I shouldn’t wonder if that dodge of Mother Braxfield’s
mayn’t have something in it. I know village people pretty well by
now! What she said is quite true—there’s scarce a soul amongst ’em
that wouldn’t sell his own mother for a five-pound note! Bit
exaggerated, of course, that!—but it’s sound in principle.”
Blick looked doubtful and surprised.
“Do you mean to say that, supposing there are people in Markenmore
who really do know something about this affair, they’ve kept silence
up to now?” he asked. “I don’t mean people who might be incriminated
by confession or revelation, but people who are in possession of
information and simply won’t give it?”
“Nothing more likely!” affirmed the Chief Constable, with the
emphatic assurance of experience. “Village folk are the biggest
gossips and scandalmongers under the sun! There isn’t a village in
England that isn’t a perfect hot-bed of slander—born of envy,
hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness! But—don’t you make any
mistake, my lad!—village folk, in spite of that tendency, can be as
close as ever they make ’em! You might as well try to get butter out
of a dog’s mouth as try to extract a secret from them if they don’t
want to tell it. Why, I would give you piles of proof of that out of
my own experience! I remember one case that happened near here, not
so long ago. A certain land-agent was shot at and badly wounded one
night as he went home, and we’ve never yet found out who his
assailant and would-be murderer was. But I haven’t the slightest
doubt that nearly every man and woman in that place knows who he
was—only they won’t say, because their chief regret is that the
victim wasn’t finished off. There you are!”
“But according to Mrs. Braxfield—and you seem to agree with
her—these folks would tell for a five-pound note,” said Blick with a
cynical laugh. “Why didn’t you try that in the case you mention?”
“We may do yet,” replied the Chief Constable. “The victim himself
seems inclined to hush the matter up, fearing worse things—but we
may try a reward. In this Markenmore affair, however, Mrs. Braxfield
is going to try a monetary offer—out of pure pique, I fancy!—and it
won’t surprise me if something results. If I were you, Blick, I
should keep my ears on the stretch during the next twenty-four hours.
I don’t know what she’ll offer, but if it’s something substantial,
there’ll be a vast amount of cupidity aroused amongst these
rustics—I know ’em!”
Blick got up from the elbow-chair in which, since Chilford’s abrupt
departure, he had been sitting with his legs stretched out and his
hands in his pockets, looking perplexed and somewhat disconsolate.
“I may as well be going back then,” he muttered. “Hanged if I know
even now, if we didn’t part with Mrs. Braxfield a bit too easily!”
“She’ll not run away,” retorted the Chief Constable, with a
significant nod of his head. “And if it’s all a piece of bluff——”
He paused as a policeman entered the room and laid a card before him.
“The gentleman’s waiting outside, sir,” said the policeman.
The Chief Constable glanced at the card, started, and turned to Blick.
“Sir Thomas Hodges-Wilkins!” he murmured surprisedly. “That big
scientific chap!—Professor, from Cambridge, that that fellow
Spindler told us about. What on earth can he want? Bring him in,
Jarvis,” he went on. “Set a chair there.” He looked wonderingly at
the detective. “Another development!” he muttered. “What now?”
Blick made no reply. He was watching the door, through which suddenly
appeared a man who was not at all the sort of person that Blick
expected to see. Instead of being old, and grave, and bald, and
bearded, and spectacled, and dressed anyhow, the famous professor of
chemistry was a smart, alert, rather military-looking man,
fastidiously attired, wearing a monocle instead of spectacles, and
endowed with a breezy air and cheery smile, which he bestowed freely
on the two occupants of the room as he marched in and seated himself
by the Chief Constable’s desk, on the edge of which he laid down two
or three newspapers, heavily marked here and there with blue pencil.
“Good morning—good morning!” he exclaimed. “I don’t know whether
you’ll guess my business from my name—or, indeed, if you know
anything about it? But I’ve been reading the newspaper accounts of
this Markenmore affair, and it seemed to me, last night, that it was
my duty to come here and tell you something. And first of all, to
make things clear, have you had here a young man named Spindler, a
chemist’s assistant, from Farsham?”
“We have!” replied the Chief Constable.
“Did he tell you anything in which my name came up? And if so, what?”
“He told us—this is Detective-Sergeant Blick, who was with me when
this man Spindler called—that a certain secret of his, respecting
the preparation of some dye which he had offered to sell to Guy
Markenmore, was submitted to you by Markenmore, for your expert
opinion.”
“Just so! It was. Markenmore got my opinion. Now—how much further
had that gone?”
“Gone to this,” answered the Chief Constable. “When Markenmore was
murdered he had on him three thousand pounds in bank-notes, which, we
believe, he was to hand over to Spindler that very morning in payment
for his secret.”
“Spindler was going to sell for three thousand pounds?”
“He was—so he told us.”
The Professor of Chemistry screwed his monocle still further into the
cavity of his eye, and took a queer, keenly-inspecting glance at the
two men.
“Do you two believe—are you theorizing that Markenmore was murdered
for the three thousand pounds?” he asked quizzically. “It, to be
sure, looks rather obvious!”
“There is such a theory afloat,” answered the Chief Constable. “He
had that sum on him at three o’clock on Tuesday morning, and it was
gone when his dead body was found a very few hours later!”
“Aye!” said the Professor with a short laugh. “And something else
gone with it, too! Now, look here!—I’m not a policeman, but I have
some intelligence. I’ll tell you what Guy Markenmore was murdered
for, and I’ll lay all the money I’ve got to a China orange that I’m
right, all the time. Guy Markenmore was murdered for the Spindler
formula! Dead certain!”
The Professor laughed again, and slapped his elegantly-gloved hand on
the desk at his side. The two listeners stared at him, and then at
each other. And this time it was Blick who spoke.
“Are we to understand, Sir Thomas,” he asked, “that that formula was
of great value?—of greater value than the three thousand pounds?”
“Call me Professor,” said the famous scientist. “Saves time—— Yes.
You are to understand that! Three thousand pounds! Had it been my
secret, I wouldn’t have sold it for thirty thousand pounds! That chap
Spindler is an ass—or awfully ignorant of market values; had he
stuck to it himself he’d have made a huge fortune out of it, one way
and another. I don’t know if you two are at all up in this question
of aniline dyes? You’ll know, at any rate, if you read your
newspapers, that it’s a most serious question—one of rescuing a
trade originally ours from its German usurpers. You know that? Very
well, this young man at Farsham—clever chap, indeed!—has discovered
a peculiar formula! I needn’t go into details, but I know enough to
be absolutely certain, in my own mind, that Markenmore was murdered
by somebody who knew that he had the formula on him, and who meant to
have it for himself by hook or crook. He was probably followed down
here, watched, and attacked at the lonely spot I read of in the
papers.”
“That presupposes that somebody in London knew what he had on him,”
said Blick.
“Somebody—in London or elsewhere—certainly must have known,”
assented the Professor. “My own theory is that Markenmore told other
people—financial speculators, perhaps, about this—and he may have
shown them my opinion as an expert. But I’ll tell you my own share in
the transaction. I have, as you may know, a European reputation as a
chemist. Well, Markenmore wrote to me, enclosing Spindler’s formula
and a handsome fee, asking me to tell him what I thought of it. I
recognized the immense value of the thing at once, and I wrote out my
opinion, and returned the formula with it to Markenmore. I was so
anxious that the secret of the formula should be kept that I adopted
unusual precautions in sending the papers (which no living soul but
myself had seen while they were in my possession) to him; instead of
posting them I gave them, heavily sealed, to a trusted assistant of
mine—an assistant in my laboratory—who was just then going to
London for a holiday, so that they might be delivered to Markenmore
himself, by hand, at his office in Folgrave Court. That they were so
delivered, I know. The assistant to whom I have referred, though he
did not know what precisely the packet contained, knew that its
contents were of supreme consequence, and, indeed, of monetary value,
and he was most careful to hand the packet to Markenmore in person.
And when Markenmore came down here that night, he would have these
papers on him—the formula itself, and my opinion on it. I tell you
again, my belief is that he let somebody else into the secret, that
that somebody followed him, watched him, and murdered him! The
Spindler formula is at the bottom of the whole thing!”
A period of silence followed, during which the three men looked at
each other. The Professor broke it as last, with a direct question.
“You’ve no clue so far?”
“None!” answered Blick.
“You’ll have to hark back,” said the Professor. “London! Get at some
of Markenmore’s recent doings there. Now, as I came through London
from Cambridge yesterday, I made it in my way to call at Markenmore’s
office in Folgrave Court to make a few enquiries. Markenmore’s head
clerk gave me some information. He remembered my assistant, Mr.
Carter, calling. He himself saw Carter deliver to Markenmore my
sealed letter; he saw Markenmore give Carter a receipt for it, which
Carter sent on to me by post. I have it in my pocket now. The head
clerk says that as soon as Carter had gone, he saw Markenmore break
the seals of my letter, draw two papers from it and read them.
Markenmore, the moment he had finished them, went into the
telephone-box in the hall of their building and presumably rang
somebody up. Within half an hour a man came who was an absolute
stranger to the head clerk; he is positive that this man had never
been there before, but he remembers him well—a foreigner, by
appearance—and can give you an accurate description of him. Now, the
clerk saw Markenmore produce my sealed letter—unsealed, of course, I
mean—and show this strange man the two papers which it contained. A
few minutes later they went out together. Now, who is that man?
You’ll have to find him.”
The Chief Constable looked at Blick.
“This,” he said, “seems like shifting the scene of your operations.”
But Blick looked at the Professor.
“What description—of this stranger—did Markenmore’s clerk give
you?” he asked.
“Dark, swarthy, middle-sized, middle-aged man—very well dressed,”
responded the Professor promptly. “The sort of man, he said, you see
much of in financial circles. Some sort of a foreign Jew—in the
clerk’s opinion.”
“Had such a man come into these parts, he must have been seen,” said
Blick. “I’ve made minute enquiries about the recent presence of
strangers at all the railway stations——”
“There are other ways of transport than railways,” observed the
Professor. “But, anyway, here’s one thing certain—Markenmore showed
the formula and my opinion on it to this man!”
Blick walked about the room awhile, in his favourite attitude—head
down and hands in pockets. He turned at last to the Chief Constable.
“Well, I’m going back to Markenmore,” he said. “There are certain
things to see to, there. Afterwards——”
“We must have more talk,” responded the Chief Constable. “As you
say—afterwards.”
The Professor rose and picked up his hat and walking-stick.
“I am going to stay at the Mitre here for a day or two,” he said.
“So, if you want me, you’ll know where to find me. But while I am
here, I should like to see the scene of all this mystery, and if
you’re going out there, Sergeant, I’ll go with you, if I may.”
“Great pleasure, sir,” replied Blick.
He took the Professor out and through the streets of Selcaster to the
long straight road that led towards Markenmore. As they walked along
he detailed to him the whole of his own proceedings, from the finding
of the dead man to the affairs of that morning with Mrs. Braxfield.
“Whether the offering of a reward will do any good, I don’t know,” he
said in conclusion. “If anybody had seen such a stranger as you
indicate it might, but I’m sure I should have heard of that before
now.”
“Ah, you’ll have to go back on your trail—you’ll have to go back on
your trail!” said the Professor. “The secret lies away back, I’m
convinced. All the theories are wrong, so far!—it’s not money—at
least not ready money. It’s the Spindler formula—with its vast
potentialities. Now, what does this Mrs. Braxfield propose to offer
for information?”
“Don’t know—she didn’t say,” answered Blick. “But we soon shall
know. Look there!”
A bill-poster’s cart, driven by a man in white linen overalls, passed
them, going rapidly in the direction of the village.
“Her solicitor spoke of having these things out at once,” continued
Blick. “He’s evidently lost no time—that chap’s going out to post
them.”
“Small result, I fear!” said the Professor. “My own opinion is that
the whole thing was too carefully engineered. Nothing would come out
here.”
“You never know,” replied Blick. “All sorts of things help.”
They walked on to the entrance to the village. There, at the first
blank wall he had come across, the bill-poster was already busy—a
group of open-mouthed women and children around him.
The two men stopped, as the bill, a big square sheet, in heavy black
lettering, was pasted, wet and shining, on the wall. The Professor,
adjusting his monocle, read it aloud:
ONE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD
Whereas Guy Markenmore, Esquire, late of Markenmore Court, near
Selcaster, was found shot dead on the Downs near Markenmore Hollow on
the morning of Tuesday, April 24th last, and is believed to have been
murdered: Take notice that the above-mentioned sum, one hundred
pounds sterling, will be paid to any person giving information which
will lead to the arrest and conviction of the murderer. Such
information may be given to the police, or direct to
GILBERT CREWE,
Solicitor, Selcaster.
“Um!” remarked the Professor, turning away with something of a
sardonic smile. “Your Mrs.—What’s-her-name?—Braxfield doesn’t err
on the side of generosity! Now, if she’d said five hundred!—eh?”
“Mrs. Braxfield,” said Blick, with a glance at the folk who were
eagerly spelling out the contents of the poster, “observed cynically
to the Chief Constable and me that there wasn’t a man or woman in
Markenmore who wouldn’t give his or her own mother away for a
five-pound note! Now there are twenty fives in a hundred, so——”
“Twenty times the inducement!” laughed the Professor. “Good
arithmetic, anyway! Aye, well, my friend, I don’t think this will do
much good. But, as a curiosity, I should like a copy of that bill. Do
you think our worthy of the paste-pot and brush would give us one?”
“Nothing would please him better, I should think,” said Blick.
“Especially if you give him the price of a pint of ale—bill-posting,
I believe, is considered to be thirsty work.”
The Professor laughed again, and approaching the bill-poster,
appropriated a couple of his bills, and handed him half a crown.
“Going to stick these things up all over the countryside I suppose?”
he asked, as he handed one bill to Blick, and folded up the other for
his pocket. “Mean to create a widespread interest, eh?”
“Something of that sort, sir,” answered the bill-poster. “Such was my
instructions. Two hundred copies of that poster I have in my cart,
and up they go before dinner-time, all round this here village. And,”
he added with a wink, “a fat lot of good they’ll do!—in my opinion.”
“No good, you think?” suggested the Professor. “Why not?”
“’Cause that there affair’s a darned sight too deep down in mystery!”
said the bill-poster. “Deep, deep, deep—gentlemen! A deed o’
darkness!—and ain’t going to be found out in a hurry. But business
is business, and I must go on with mine, which at present is to
excite everybody and arouse cupidity and avaricious feelings!”
“A humorist!” observed the Professor, as the bill-poster hurried
away. He walked on into the village at Blick’s side, looking about
him with inquisitive eyes. Suddenly he caught sight of the Sceptre.
“Ah!” he said. “So that’s the Inn where the midnight meeting took
place? I should like to look in there—I wonder if they could give us
some lunch?”
“I’m staying there,” replied Blick. “My headquarters. And I’ve a
private sitting-room. If you’ll honour me, sir, I’ll order lunch
whenever you like—they’re well provided.”
The Professor professed himself delighted, and for the next hour or
two he and Blick, over the luncheon-table and round the fire,
discussed the Markenmore problem in all its ramifications. At three
o’clock in the afternoon they went out to examine the scene of the
drama, with Markenmore Hollow as a final objective. But as they
strolled along the road, Blick suddenly caught sight of Daffy
Halliwell, just within the wicket gate of the Dower House—and he
saw, too, that Daffy quietly signalled her desire to speak with him.