INSPECTOR TOKELY IS EMPHATIC
In one of the many rooms of that barrack-like building, which harbours
so many guilty secrets, and is so learned in many shady ways of life,
and is known to all and sundry as Scotland Yard, there worked—with
long intervals for mysterious disappearances into various parts of the
country—a small man, with a hard, expressionless face, ornamented with
a tuft of greyish hair on the chin.
This man had once had the extraordinary good fortune to pick up a vital
piece of evidence—literally, to trip over it; for it was right in his
way, and he could not well avoid it. But it brought him into prominent
notice; it got him talked about; and, as he was wise enough to appear
absolutely impassive, when complimented by his superior officers, and
even by a great and bewigged Judge on the Bench, he gained greater
credit still; was spoken of with bated breath, by criminals acquainted,
by experience, with some of the intricacies of the Yard; and sagely
nodded over by those in authority. Then, one lucky chance following
another, he rose up, by dint of that hard expressionless face, to
something greater still; and, steering clear of blunders, and getting
other men with brains to secure information for him, blossomed at last
into Inspector Tokely, of the Criminal Investigation Department.
Now, this same Inspector Tokely was a native of the small and
unimportant village of Bamberton; had come up from it, indeed, as a raw
youth, to enter the police force in London. So that, when news came of
the murder of poor Patience Miller, and a request that the matter might
be investigated, Inspector Tokely, instead of sending a subordinate,
determined to combine business with pleasure, and to see his native
place. Thus it came about that the great little man descended on the
village, early on the afternoon preceding Philip’s night adventure in
the garden, and stirred the already startled community of yokels to its
depths.
Reversing the copybook maxim, Inspector Tokely determined to take
pleasure before business, and to flutter with envy the bosoms of his
former acquaintances. Therefore he put up, with some ostentation, at
the Chater Arms; and took his expressionless face, with its dependent
tuft, into the bar of that hostelry, when some half-dozen village
celebrities were assembled in it. Old Betty Siggs, being busy at the
moment, and not having set eyes upon him since his boyhood, failed to
notice his entry, or to recognise him other than as a casual visitor.
The Inspector, looking down from his height of superior importance and
criminal experience on the mere hinds on whom Mrs. Siggs was attending,
coughed vigorously to attract her attention, and dropped his
portmanteau with a bang upon the floor. Mrs. Siggs, smiling and
pleasant, came across, and civilly enquired what she could do for him.
“I shall sleep here for a night—possibly two or three,” replied
Tokely, in a loud voice, and with a side glance to note the effect of
what he said upon the mere hinds before-mentioned. “I am here
upon—upon business.”
“Indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Siggs, briskly. “It ain’t many commercial
gents we gets down to Bamberton, sir—’cept by accident. Would you wish
to ’ave a meal prepared, sir? P’raps you’d be so good as step this way,
sir.”
“I should like something to eat, certainly,” replied the Inspector.
“And I am not here on commercial business; quite the contrary. My
business is connected with the—the Law.”
“Lor’!” exclaimed Mrs. Siggs, as she led the way into the little
parlour; this exclamation not being intended as an echo of the
Inspector’s last word, by any means. “I ’ope we shall be able to make
you comfortable, sir, w’atever your business may be. This way, sir.
P’raps you might like to take a little summink afore your meal, sir?”
Inspector Tokely gave the order for the “little summink,” as well as
for the meal, and then turned to Mrs. Siggs as she was leaving the
room. “One moment, my good woman,” he said.
Mrs. Siggs hesitated, with her hand on the doorknob, and looked at him
curiously—not at all prepossessed in his favour. The Inspector,
leaning against the table, and putting his head a little on one side,
conveyed into his hard features something as nearly approaching a smile
as he was capable of.
“You don’t know me, I suppose?” he said.
Mrs. Siggs shook her head slowly, after looking him up and down for a
few moments in some perplexity.
“I see you don’t,” said Tokely, grimly. “Do you remember a lad—a lad
of superior intelligence, I might say—who used to be a sort of
under-keeper up at the Hall—by name Tokely?” The Inspector smiled a
little more.
Mrs. Siggs, after a moment or two of frowning contemplation of the
floor, looked up at him with a brightening face. “To be sure I do,” she
said. “When I was a gel about ’ere—remember ’im well, I do. Let me see
now”—Betty Siggs, immersed in recollections of the past, lost sight of
her visitor for a moment completely—“chuckle-headed chap ’e was—with
a taste for spyin’ out things wot didn’t concern ’im——”
“He was nothing of the sort,” broke in Tokely, very red in the
face. “He was a lad considerably above the average of rustic
intelligence—and he made his way in the world, Ma’am, I should
like you to know—got his name in the papers, more than once——”
“Ah—lots o’ folks manages to do that, without meanin’ it,” said Betty
Siggs, with a little laugh. “I’ve knowed a man to do it by breakin’ a
winder.”
“Never mind about that,” said the Inspector, testily. “The young man
I’m talking about got on in the world, by sheer merit. _I_ am that
young man, Ma’am”—the Inspector tapped himself dramatically on the
breast—“now Inspector Tokely, of Scotland Yard!”
Betty Siggs went a little white about the region of her plump cheeks;
clasped her hands; and faltered out—“Of—of Scotland Yard.”
“Criminal Investigation Department, Ma’am,” went on the Inspector,
tapping himself on the breast again. “Have the goodness, Ma’am, to shut
that door.”
Mrs. Siggs put a hand out, to do as she was bidden, never taking her
eyes for a moment from the face before her. Indeed, after shutting the
door, she stood with her hand upon the knob, as though ready to pull it
open in an instant, and scream for assistance, if necessary.
“Now, Ma’am,” began Tokely, wagging his head and a forefinger at her,
by way of caution—“I want to ask you a question or two; and I’ll
trouble you to be very careful what you say, or what you don’t say. I
have been commissioned to enquire into a case, touching a certain
female of the name”—he pulled a pocketbook from his coat, and dived
into it for a moment—“of the name of Patience Miller. Now, this same
Patience Miller——”
Betty Siggs suddenly threw up her hands, and clapped them over her
ears. Performing a species of little dance, entirely on her own
account, with her two feet, she shut her eyes, and called
out—“Stop—stop—it ain’t no use! If you puts me on the rack, and
draws me out till I’m as thin as the four-ale over the way (and there
can’t be anythink much thinner than _that_)—you won’t get nothink out
of me. I know no more than anybody else—not so much, in fact—and what
I does know I ain’t agoin’ to tell.”
“So you defy the Law—do you?” roared Tokely—for, Betty Siggs still
keeping her hands tightly pressed upon her ears, there was no other way
to make himself heard. But Betty Siggs did not wait to hear an account
of whatever terrors might be in store for her; watching her
opportunity, she wrenched open the door, and darted through into the
bar, where—judging by a confused murmur, which presently sprang up, of
heavy rustic tongues, leavened pretty strongly by her own shrill
voice—she immediately began to stir up war against Inspector Tokely.
Nor did the Inspector see her again for some time. His meal was served
to him by a very pretty black-eyed girl, who—evidently secretly
instructed by Mrs. Siggs, returned evasive answers to his questions,
and remained in the room as little as possible. The Inspector, having
refreshed himself, at his country’s expense, to the very best of his
ability—sallied forth again into the bar, with a general view, as he
would have expressed it, of “keeping an eye on things.”
There was no one in the bar; but, glancing through a side door, Tokely
had a view of a very snug inner room, where three persons were seated,
in the glow of a small fire, very comfortably. One of these persons was
Mrs. Siggs herself; the second, the black-eyed damsel who had waited
upon him; and the third, a man of some sixty years of age, with a
round, jolly, innocent face, half hidden by an enormous grey beard and
moustache, and faintly illuminated by a pair of sleepy good-tempered
blue eyes.
This man was reading a newspaper, following the words and sentences in
a sort of low comfortable growl, like the purring of a huge cat by the
fire; Mrs. Siggs was stitching away busily, in a sharp energetic
fashion, which denoted that her temper had been ruffled; the girl was
sitting, with her eyes pensively fixed on the fire, and her hands
clasped in her lap.
The room appeared so very comfortable, and the Inspector had so clearly
made up his mind to devote the remainder of that day to pleasure,
leaving the more serious business of his visit until the morrow, that
he advanced his head a little into the room, and enquired whether he
might come in.
“You look so very cosy here, you know,” he said, “and I’m quite sure
you couldn’t be hard on a lonely man, who has nobody to talk to,” he
added, in an appealing tone.
“Depends a good bit on what you want to talk about,” said Mrs. Siggs
quickly, without glancing up from her work. “We don’t want no Law ’ere,
my friend.”
The man who was reading the paper glanced up mildly, and pushed his
chair back a little from the fire. “Them as comes in the way of trade,
my angel,” he said as slowly and heavily as though he were spelling the
words out of the newspaper in his hand—“’as a right to come where they
will, if so be——”
“Oh—I dessay,” interrupted Mrs. Siggs, wrathfully. “W’y don’t you ’ave
the ’ole Noah’s Ark in to tea, w’ile you’re about it, an’ ’am to cut
the bread and butter for ’em.”
Inspector Tokely, feeling that he had received as much encouragement as
he was likely to get, passed into the room, and sat down. After a few
moments, he ventured to suggest a little refreshment for himself and
his host—even delicately hinting that Mrs. Siggs might be tempted to
partake of a glass at his expense. Mrs. Siggs, relenting a little,
passed into the bar to get what was required; and the visitor, feeling
the necessity for ingratiating himself as much as possible with them
all, turned to the girl.
“Your mother, I suppose, Miss?” he asked, edging a little nearer to her.
The girl glanced at him for moment—nodded—and looked again at the
fire.
“And a fine looking mother, too,” went on Tokely, feeling that it was
more uphill work than he had anticipated. “You, sir”—he turned to the
man with the newspaper—“ought to be proud of such a wife and
daughter.” This at a venture, for he knew nothing of the relationship
they bore to each other.
“W’en I fust drawed near to Betty—t’ other side the earth—there was a
matter of nine men—one on ’em nigh on to eighty—a makin’ eyes at ’er,
an’ even goin’ so far as to sleep on ’er doorstep. I polished off as
many as I could get at, and spoke words of kind advice (as was throwed
away on ’im) to the old ’un—an’ drove ’er nigh a ’underd mile to see a
parson. An’ she were then as fine a woman—or finer—than any in them
parts.” He laid down his newspaper—picked it up again—and finished
his remarks. “W’ich so she are now.”
It was at this moment that Betty Siggs came in from the bar, with a
little tray, on which stood some glasses and a jug of water; but she no
sooner entered the room, than she stopped dead—uttered an
exclamation—and let fall the tray and its contents.
Inspector Tokely had had his eyes fixed upon Mr. Siggs, so that he
almost faced her as she came in; yet he could have sworn that, in the
half glance he had of her, she had been looking straight over his head.
Turning swiftly—so soon at least as he had got out of the way of the
flowing liquids—he saw that, at the spot to which her eyes had been
directed, was a window, partly shrouded by a curtain. Looking at Mrs.
Siggs again, however, he came reluctantly to the conclusion that he
must have been mistaken; for that excellent woman, with much laughter
at her own carelessness, was picking up the glasses, and rearranging
them on the tray.
“There’s a butter-fingers for you!” she exclaimed. “Never knowed myself
to do that before. It’s tryin’ to do too much at once; that’s wot it
is. Howsever, it ain’t no use cryin’ over spilt milk—or spilt spirits;
an’ I’m a keepin’ everybody waitin’ for their liquor.”
In a moment, she bustled out again, appearing to be in a much better
temper than before—indeed, quite desirous of making herself pleasant
to every one, and propitiating the guest as much as possible. On coming
back, she was careful to a nicety about mixing his drink, and even
suggested he should taste it, to be sure that it was to his liking,
before she proceeded to mix the others. Yet there was about all her
movements a certain fluttering anxiety which had not been there before.
“’Pon my word, Clara,” she exclaimed suddenly—“I never see sich a girl
in all my days! Fancy lightin’ up the gas, an’ never drawin’ the
curtain even; wot could you ’ave bin a thinkin’ about?”
She bustled across to the window, and pulled the curtain sharply across
it; yet seemed to look out of it for a moment, too, the Inspector
thought, before doing so. She came back to her seat—a seat which faced
that window—and gaily pledged the two men with her glass. But
immediately afterwards, she got up, and moved towards the door.
“Toby, old boy—I wish you’d come and see to this ’ere tap for a
minute,” she called out; and Toby Siggs got up heavily, and followed
her.
Immediately Inspector Tokely rose also, and strolled—quite
casually, as it seemed—across the room. Coming to the window, he
said—apparently for the benefit of Clara—“I wonder what sort of a
night it is”—and jerked back the curtain again.
Outside the window, however, was nothing but black darkness; after a
moment, the Inspector turned away, half making up his mind that he must
have been mistaken, and resumed his seat. At the same moment, Mr. and
Mrs. Siggs came in, evidently on the best possible terms with each
other, from the bar.
Now, it was a curious thing that Mrs. Siggs, after one glance at the
bared window, made no further remark about it; nor did Mr. Siggs.
Further than that, Toby Siggs suddenly developed an extraordinary
liking for the Inspector, and a mad desire to be convivial with him,
quite out of keeping with his general character. For he slapped that
respected man upon the back; forced his glass upon him; ran out into
the bar to fill it himself, the moment it was empty, insisting that it
should be at his expense; and altogether woke up wonderfully. More than
that, the Inspector, after sipping his renewed glass, pronounced it to
be mighty good stuff—but rather stronger, he thought, than the last;
however, he drank it, and it seemed to loosen his tongue in an
extraordinary fashion.
He mentioned—as between friends—that he had a warrant in his
pocket—to be used if necessary—against a certain person whom he would
not name; proclaimed himself a cautious man; but hinted at murder, and
darkly suggested that a certain person would find him a remarkably
tough fellow to get over.
The Inspector had had his glass replenished for the fourth time, and
was so well pleased with himself, that he had begun to wag his head,
and wink upon Mrs. Siggs, when another strange thing happened. Clara,
who had been sitting all this time, looking, for the most part, at the
fire, and occasionally at the Inspector, suddenly seemed to cry out;
checked the cry with a fit of hysterical laughter, which may have been
induced by some remark of Tokely’s; and ran—still laughing in that
strange fashion—from the room.
The Inspector, after recovering from the little shock occasioned by
Clara’s behaviour, appeared to be falling asleep. Betty Siggs, with a
watchful eye upon him, drew nearer to her husband.
“Toby,” she whispered breathlessly, stretching out a hand to draw him
towards her, and still keeping an eye upon Tokely—“’e’s come back
again. Clara must ’ave seed ’im.”
“Can’t think w’y ’e should be a ’angin’ about ’ere—a shovin’ ’is ’ead
into danger like this,” whispered Toby in reply. “’E’s ’ad a long
start—an’ might ’ave bin miles away afore this. W’ere’s Clara gone?”
Betty Siggs made a hasty movement with her hand to silence him; for
Tokely was waking up again. At the same moment, a noise was heard in
the rear of the house, and the next instant a small door in the further
corner of the room was thrust open, and Harry Routley burst in. He was
wild looking, and in a fearful state of excitement; without pause, he
bounded into the middle of the room, and faced the astonished Tokely,
who had risen hurriedly to his feet. Betty Siggs must have seen that in
his face which appalled her, for she cried out suddenly, and covered
her eyes with her hands.
“Is there a man here,” cried Harry, looking round upon them all, “who
wants to find the murderer of Patience Miller?”
Before any one could speak, and while the energy of the lad still held
them dumb, a figure darted in at the open doorway, and caught him in
its arms, and fell at his feet. It was Clara Siggs.
“Harry,” she cried, hiding her face against his leg, and still
clutching him desperately—“for the love of God, be silent! For the
love of all the good angels—don’t betray him!”
A sort of fierce struggle seemed to go on, for a moment, in the lad’s
breast; finally, looking down at her, he stooped, and caught her half
roughly by the arm, and released himself—stepping back a little, so
that she trailed over the floor after him.
“Harry! Harry!” was all she said, with a sort of sob in her voice.
“Is there a man here who wants the murderer of Patience Miller?” he
cried again. “I’ve seen him, not a moment since; I know which way he’s
gone. I found him talking with this—this girl. I’ll lead any man to
him; I’ll track him down anywhere. Who wants him?”
“I’m your man,” cried Tokely, advancing to him, sobered by the scene he
had witnessed. “Who’s the man?”
“Harry! Harry!” wailed the girl again, without rising, or looking up.
The lad seemed to choke down something in his throat, before he spoke.
“Dandy Chater,” he said, after a moment’s pause.
“That’s my man,” cried Tokely, bringing his fist down heavily on the
table. “And for a thousand pounds I’ll have Dandy Chater to-night,
before I sleep! Come on!”
Catching Harry by the arm, and snatching up his own hat, he hurried
with him out of the still open door, and vanished in the darkness.