bad when he wrote.”
“True. Did you notice the postmark--was it Fordridge?”
“Yes; you should understand that Mr Winch posted on the book before he
left Fordridge for London.” It seemed to the visitor that Mr Carrados
was rather slow even for a blind man.
“I think I am beginning to grasp the position,” said Carrados mildly.
“Of course you had no occasion to write to him at Fordridge?”
“Nothing whatever. Besides, he was coming to London almost immediately.
If I wrote it was to be to the Fitzalan Hotel, off the Strand. Now here
is the book, Mr Carrados. You saw--you examined, that is, the auction
_Virginiola_?”
“No, unfortunately I did not.”
“I am sorry. You would now have recognised how immeasurably superior my
copy is, even apart from the missing pages.”
“I can quite believe it.” He was turning over the leaves of the book,
which Mr Powis had passed to him. “But this writing on the dedication
page?”
“Oh, that,” said the dealer carelessly. “Some former owner has written
his name there.”
“I suppose it constitutes a blot?”
“Why, yes, in a small way it does,” admitted Mr Powis. “Had it been ‘Wm.
Shakespeare,’ it would have added a thousand guineas; as it’s only ‘Wm.
Shoelack,’ it knocks two or three off.”
“Possibly,” suggested Carrados, “it was this blemish that decided Sir
Roland Chargrave against the book?”
“No, no,” insisted Mr Powis. “Someone has hinted something to him. I
don’t say that you are to blame, Mr Carrados, but a suspicion has been
created; it has got about.”
“But Sir Roland is the one man whom it could not affect,” pointed out
Carrados. “He, at any rate, would know that this copy is unimpeachable,
because when the other was being stolen this was actually in his hands
and had been for--for how long?”
“Five or six days; he kept it for about a week. And that no doubt is
true as a specific case; but a malicious rumour is wide, Mr Carrados.
So-and-so is unreliable; he deals in questionable property; better be
careful. It is enough. No, no; Mr Chatton said nothing about any
objection to the book, merely that Sir Roland had decided not to retain
it.”
“Mr Chatton?”
“He is the secretary or the librarian there. I have frequently done
business with him in the old baronet’s time. This man is a nephew who
succeeded only a few months ago. Well, Mr Carrados, I hope I have
convinced you that I came by this _Virginiola_ in a legitimate manner?”
“Scarcely that.”
“I haven’t!” exclaimed Mr Powis in blank astonishment.
“I never doubted it. At the sale I happened to hear you remark to a
friend that you had recently bought a copy. My suggestion to Mr Ing was
merely to hint that, with your exceptional knowledge, your unique
experience, you would probably be able to put them on the right line as
to the disposal of the stolen copy and so on. An unfortunate
misunderstanding.”
Mr Powis stared and then nodded several times with an expression of
acute resignation.
“That old man is past work,” he remarked feelingly. “I might have saved
myself a journey. Well, I’ll go now, Mr Carrados.”
“Not yet,” declared Carrados hospitably; “I am going to persuade you to
stay and lunch with me, Mr Powis. I want”--he was still fingering the
early pages of the _Virginiola_ with curious persistence--“I want you to
explain to me the way in which these interesting old books were bound.”
With the departure of Mr Powis a few hours later Carrados might
reasonably conclude that he had heard the last of the _Virginiola_
theft, for he was now satisfied that it would never reach publicity as a
police court case. But, willy-nilly, the thing pursued him. Mr Carlyle
was to have dined with him one evening in the following week. It was a
definite engagement, but during the day the inquiry agent telephoned his
friend to know what he should do. A young gentleman who had been giving
him some assistance in a case was thrown on his hands for the evening.
“You are the most amiable of men, Max,” chirruped Mr Carlyle; “but,
really, I don’t like to ask----”
“Bring him by all means,” assented the most amiable of men. “I expect
two or three others to turn up to-night.” So Mr Carlyle brought him.
“Mr Chatton, Max.”
An unobtrusive young man, whose face wore a perpetual expression of
docile willingness, shook hands with Carrados. Anything less like the
sleek, competent self-assurance of the conventional private secretary it
would be difficult to imagine. Mr Chatton’s manner was that of a
well-meaning man who habitually blundered from a too conscientious sense
of duty, knew it all along, and was pained at the inevitableness of the
recurring catastrophe.
“I have just taken up a case that might interest you, Max,” said Mr
Carlyle, as the three of them stood together. “Simple enough, but it
involves a valuable old book that has been stolen. Gurnard’s called me
in”--and he proceeded to outline the particulars of the missing
_Virginiola_.
“And you went down yourself to Gurnard’s to look into it, Mr Chatton?”
said Carrados, masking the species of admiration that he felt for his
new acquaintance.
“Well, I don’t know about looking into it,” confessed Mr Chatton. “You
see, it doesn’t really concern Sir Roland at all now. But I thought that
I ought to offer them any information--a description or something of
that sort might be wanted--when I heard of their loss. Of course,” he
added, with a deepening of his habitual look of rueful perturbation, “we
can’t help it, but it’s very distressing to think of them losing so much
money over our affair.”
“Not a bit of it, not a bit of it,” cried Mr Carlyle heartily. “It’s all
in the way of business and Gurnard’s won’t feel a touch like that. Very
good of you to take all the trouble you have, I say.” He turned his
beaming, self-confident eye towards his host to explain. “I happened to
meet Mr Chatton there this morning and ever since he has been helping me
to put about inquiries in likely quarters and so on. I haven’t any doubt
of pulling our man up in a week or two, unless it’s the work of a secret
bibliomaniac, and Gurnard’s don’t entertain that.”
“Wednesday last, you say,” pondered Carrados. “Aren’t they rather late
in turning it over to you?”
“Just what I complained of. Then it came out that they had been pinning
their faith to the advice of some officious idiot who happened to be
present at the sale. Nothing came of it, of course.”
“They did not happen to mention the idiot’s name?” inquired Max
tentatively.
“No. The old gentleman--Mr Ing--said that he had already got into hot
water once through doing that.” Mr Carlyle began to laugh in his hearty
way over a recollection of the incident. “Do you know what this genius’s
brilliant idea was? He put them on the track of a copy of this book that
had been recently sold to a dealer, assuming that it must necessarily be
the stolen copy. And so it had been recently sold, Max, but it happened
to be _before_ the other was stolen!”
“Very amusing,” agreed Carrados.
“Do you know, I can’t help thinking that I was somehow to blame for
that,” confessed Mr Chatton in a troubled voice. “You remember, I told
you----”
“No, no,” protested Mr Carlyle encouragingly. “How could it be your
fault?”
“Well, it’s very good of you to reassure me,” continued the young man,
relieved but not convinced. “But I really think I may have introduced a
confusing element. I should like Mr Carrados to judge.... When I learned
from Sir Roland that he intended sending this _Virginiola_ to Gurnard’s,
knowing that it was a valuable book, I saw the necessity of going over
it carefully with another copy--‘collating’ it is called--to find out
whether anything was missing. The British Museum doesn’t possess an
example, and in any case I could not well spare a day just then to come
to London for the purpose. So I wrote to a few dealers, rather, I am
afraid, giving them the impression that we wished to buy a copy. In this
way I got what I wanted sent up on approval and I was able to go through
the two thoroughly. At the moment I argued that my duty to my employer
justified the subterfuge, but I don’t know, I don’t know; I really
question whether it was quite legitimate.”
“Oh, nonsense,” remonstrated Mr Carlyle, to whom the subtleties did not
appeal. “Rather a smart way of getting what you wanted in the
circumstances, don’t you think, Max?”
Carrados paid a willing if equivocal tribute to the wider problem of Mr
Chatton’s brooding conscientiousness.
“Very ingenious altogether,” he admitted.
* * * * *
Mr Carlyle did not pull his man up in a few weeks; in fact he never
reached him at all. For the key to the disappearance of the _Virginiola_
he had to wait two years. He was at The Turrets one day when his host
was called away for a short time to see a man who had come on business.
Carlyle had picked up a newspaper, when Carrados came back from the door
and opening one of the inner drawers of his desk threw out a long
envelope.
“There,” he remarked as he went on again, “is something that may
interest you more.”
He was quite right. The inquiry agent cut open the envelope that was
addressed to himself and read the following narrative:--
In the year 1609 a seafaring gentleman called Somers--Sir George
Somers--was wrecked on an island in the Atlantic. This island--one of
a group--although destitute of human inhabitants, was overrun by pigs.
During the first part of their enforced residence there the
shipwrecked mariners were much concerned by unearthly shrieks and
wailings that filled the night. With the simple piety of the time
these were attributed to the activity of witches, imps and demons. In
fact, in addition to the varied appellations of Virginiola,
Bermoothes, Somers Islands, etc., the place was enticingly called “The
Ile of Divels.”
In due course the castaways were rescued and returned to England. In
due course, also, there appeared a variety of printed accounts of
their adventures. (We are prone to think that the tendency is modern,
Louis, but it is not.) One of these coming into the hands of a
cynical, middle-aged playwright on the look-out for a new plot to
annex, was at once pressed into his scheme. Doubtless he saw behind
the shadowy “divels” the substantial outlines of the noisy “hogges.”
However, the idea was good enough for a background. He wrote his play
and called it _The Tempest_.
This is the explanation offered to me of the high and increasing value
of rare early works on Bermuda. They can be classed among the
Shakespeariana. There is also another reason: they can be classed
among the Americana.
About three hundred years later a certain young gentleman who combined
fairly expensive tastes with good commercial ability succeeded to a
title and its appendages. Among the latter were a mansion in
Rutlandshire, which he determined was too expensive, a library in
which he was not vastly interested, and a private secretary whose
services he continued to retain.
One day about six months after his succession Sir Roland Chargrave
called in his secretary to receive instructions.
“Look here, Chatton,” he said, “I have decided to let this place
furnished for a time. See Turvey about the value and then advertise it
for something more than he advises. It ought to bring in a decent
rental. Then there are some valuable things here that are no earthly
good to me. I’ll start with the library.”
“You intend to dispose of the library, Sir Roland?” faltered the
secretary.
“No. The library gives a certain distinction to a fellow and the
Chargraves have always had one. I’ll keep the library, but I’ll weed
out all the old stuff that will make high prices. Uncle Vernon left a
valuation list which appears to have been made out about ten years
ago. One book alone--_An Account of Virginiola_--he puts down at £300.
Then there are a dozen others that ought to bring another £200 among
them. I require £500 just now. Here is a list of the books I have
picked out. Send them off to Gurnard’s to be sold as soon as possible.
Don’t have my name catalogued. I don’t want it to be known that I’m
selling anything. That’s all.”
The secretary withdrew with an accentuation of his unhappy manner. It
was very distressing to him, this dispersal of the family heirlooms.
It was also extremely inconvenient personally, because he had already
sold the _Virginiola_ himself only a week before. For he also had
expenses. Perhaps he had fallen into the hands of the Jews; perhaps it
was the Jewesses. At all events, like Sir Roland, he required money,
and again like Sir Roland, the _Virginiola_ had seemed the most
suitable method. He had quietly withdrawn the book about the time of
his former master’s death, and thus saved the new baronet quite an
item in duty. He had secured Sir Vernon’s valuation list and after six
months had concluded that he was safe. He had taken extraordinary
pains to cover his identity in selling the book and the old dotard
appeared to have made two lists and to have deposited one elsewhere!
Like a wise man Mr Chatton set about discovering how he could retrieve
himself. He had had charge of the library and he knew that it was too
late to report the book as lost. In any case he would be dismissed; if
inquiry was made at that stage he would be prosecuted. From the depths
of his brooding melancholy Mr Chatton evolved a scheme.
The first thing was to get back the _Virginiola_ a little before the
sale. By that time he had sent in the list, but not the books.
Doubtless he still had some of the illicit funds in hand. Now the
_Virginiola_ had been valued at £300 by old Sir Vernon, but if at the
sale it was discovered to be imperfect in an important detail then it
might realise only a fraction of that sum. There was also another
consideration. A name had been indelibly written on one of the early
pages, and if Mr Powis was not to recognise his property that page
must be temporarily removed.
I think it was Chatton’s undoubted intention to buy back the book if
possible and run no further risk with it. What he had not taken into
account was the enormous rise in the value of this class of work. What
had been reasonably worth £300 ten years before, the market now
apprised at nearly double. Even the imperfect copy reached nearly the
original estimate and thereby Chatton’s first string failed.
But this painstakingly conscientious young man had not been content to
risk all on a single chance. What form his second venture took it will
be unnecessary to recall to you. He calculated on the chances of the
saleroom, and he succeeded. The _Virginiola_ was recovered; the
abstracted sheet was cunningly replaced, probably certain erasable
marks that had been put in for fuller disguise were removed, and Mr
Powis received back his property with formal regrets.
I anticipate an indignant question rising to your lips. I did not tell
you this before, Louis, because of one curious fact. The story is
entirely speculative on my part so far as demonstrable proof is
concerned. Chatton, who is rather a remarkable young man, did not
leave behind him one solitary shred of evidence that would stand
before a jury. Time and Mr Chatton’s future career can alone bring my
justification, but some day if we have the opportunity (I am
committing this to paper in case we should not) we will go over the
evidence together. In the meanwhile Gurnard’s can, as you said, stand
the loss.
Here the typewritten account ended, but at the foot of the last page
Carrados had pasted a newspaper cutting. From it Mr Carlyle learned that
“Vernon Howard, alias Digby Skeffington, etc., etc., whose real name was
said to be Chatton, well connected,” had, the week before, been
convicted, chiefly on the King’s evidence of a female accomplice, of
obtaining valuable jewellery under false pretences. Sentence had been
deferred, pending further inquiries.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
II
The Disappearance of Marie Severe
“I wonder if you might happen to be interested in this case of Marie
Severe, Mr Carrados?”
If Carrados’s eyes had been in the habit of expressing emotion they
would doubtless have twinkled as Inspector Beedel thus casually
introduced the subject of the Swanstead on Thames schoolgirl whose
inexplicable disappearance two weeks earlier had filled column upon
column of every newspaper with excited speculation until the sheer
impossibility of keeping the sensation going without a shred of actual
fact had relegated Marie Severe to the obscurity of an occasional
paragraph.
“If you are concerned with it, I am sure that I shall be interested,
Inspector,” said the blind man encouragingly. “It is still being
followed, then?”
“Why, yes, sir, I have it in hand, but as for following it--well,
‘following’ is perhaps scarcely the word now.”
“Ah,” commented Carrados. “There was very little to follow, I remember.”
“I don’t think that I’ve ever known a case of the kind with less, sir.
For all the trace she left, the girl might have melted out of existence,
and from that day to this, with the exception of that printed
communication received by the mother--you remember that, Mr
Carrados?--there hasn’t been a clue worth wasting so much as shoe
leather on.”
“You have had plenty of hints all the same, I suppose?”
Inspector Beedel threw out a gesture of mild despair. It conveyed the
patient exasperation of the conscientious and long-suffering man.
“I should say that the case ‘took on’ remarkably, Mr Carrados. I doubt
if there has been a more popular sensation of its kind for years. Mind
you, I’m all in favour of publicity in the circumstances; the
photographs and description _may_ bring important facts to light, but
sometimes it’s a bit trying for those who have to do the work at our
end. ‘Seen in Northampton,’ ‘seen in Ealing,’ ‘heard of in West
Croydon,’ ‘girl answering to the description observed in the
waiting-room at Charing Cross,’ ‘suspicious-looking man with likely girl
noticed about the Victoria Dock, Hull,’ ‘seen and spoken to near
Chorley, Lancs,’ ‘caught sight of apparently struggling in a luxurious
motor car on the Portsmouth Road,’ ‘believed to have visited a Watford
picture palace’--they’ve all been gone into as carefully as though we
believed that each one was the real thing at last.”
“And you haven’t, eh?”
The Inspector looked round. He knew well enough that they were alone in
the study at The Turrets, but the action had become something of a
mannerism with him.
“I don’t mind admitting to _you_, sir, that I’ve never had any other
opinion than that the father of the little girl went down that day and
got her away. Where she is now, and whether dead or alive, I can’t
pretend to say, but that he’s at the bottom of it I’m firmly convinced.
And what’s more,” he added with slow significance, “I _hope_ so.”
“Why in particular?” inquired the other.
Beedel felt in his breast-pocket, took out a formidable wallet, and from
among its multitudinous contents selected a cabinet photograph sheathed
in its protecting envelope of glazed transparent paper.
“If you could make out anything of what this portrait shows, you’d
understand better what I mean, Mr Carrados,” he replied delicately.
Carrados shook his head but nevertheless held out his hand for the
photograph.
“No good, I’m afraid,” he confessed before he took it. “A print of this
sort is one of the few things that afford no graduation to the sense of
touch. No, no”--as he passed his finger-tips over the paper--“a
gelatino-chloride surface of mathematical uniformity, Inspector, and
nothing more. Now had it been the negative----”
“I am sure that that could be procured if you wished to have it, Mr
Carrados. Anyway, I dare say that you’ve seen in some of the papers what
this young girl is like. She is ten years old and big--or at least
tall--for her age. This picture is the last taken--some time this
year--and I am told that it is just like her.”
“How should you describe it, Inspector?”
“I am not much good at that sort of thing,” said the large man with a
shy awkwardness, “but it makes as sweet a picture as ever I’ve seen. She
is very straight-set, and yet with a sort of gracefulness such as a
young wild animal might have. It’s a full-faced position, and she is
looking straight out at you with an expression that is partly serious
and partly amused, and as noble and gracious with it all as a young
princess might be. I have children of my own, Mr Carrados, and of course
I think they’re very nice and pretty, but this--this is quite a
different thing. Her hair is curly without being in separate curls, and
the description calls it black. Eyes dark brown with straight eyebrows,
complexion a sort of glowing brown, small regular teeth. Of course we
have a full description of what she was wearing and so forth.”
“Yes, yes,” assented Carrados idly. “The Van Brown Studio,
Photographers, eh? These people are quite well off, then?”
“Oh yes; very nice house and good position--Mrs Severe, that is to say.
You will remember that she obtained a divorce from her husband four or
five years ago. I’ve turned up the particulars and it wasn’t what you’d
call a bad case as things go, but the lady seemed determined, and in the
end Severe didn’t defend. She had five or six hundred a year of her own,
but he had nothing beyond his salary, and he threw his position up then,
and ever since he has been going steadily down. He’s almost on the last
rung now and picks up his living casual.”
“What’s the case against him?”
“Well, it scarcely amounts to a case as yet because there is no evidence
of his being seen with the child, nor is there anything to connect him
with her after the disappearance. Still, it is a working hypothesis. If
it was the act of a tramp or a maniac, experience goes to show that we
should have found her, dead or alive, by now. Mrs Severe is all for it
being her husband. Of course the decree gave her the custody of Marie.
Severe asked to be allowed to see her occasionally, and at first a
servant took the child to have tea with him once a month. That was at
his rooms. Then he asked to be met in one of the parks or at a gallery.
He hadn’t got so much as a room then, you see, sir. At last the servant
reported that he had grown so shabby as to shame her that the child
should be seen with him, though she did say that he was always sober and
very kind to Marie, bringing her a little toy or something even when he
didn’t seem to have sixpence for himself. After that the visits were
stopped altogether. Then about a month ago these two, husband and wife,
met accidentally in the street. Severe said that he hoped to be doing a
bit better soon, and asked for the visits to be continued. How it would
have gone I cannot say, but Mrs Severe happened to have a friend with
her, an American lady called Miss Julp, who seems to be living with her
now, and the middle-aged female--she’s a hard sister, that Cornelia
Julp, I should say--pushed her way into the conversation and gave her
views on his conduct until Severe must have had some trouble with his
hands. Finally Mrs Severe had an unfortunate impulse to end the
discussion by giving her husband a bank-note. She says she got the most
awful look she ever saw on any face. Then Severe very deliberately tore
up the note, dropped the pieces down a gutter grid that they were
standing near, dusted his fingers on his handkerchief, raised his hat
and walked away without another word. That was the last she saw of him,
but she professes to have been afraid of something happening ever
since.”
“Then something happens, and so, of course, it must be Severe?”
suggested Carrados.
“It does look a bit like that so far, I must admit, sir,” assented the
Inspector. “Still, Mrs Severe’s opinions aren’t quite all. Severe’s
account of his movements on the afternoon in question--say between
twelve-thirty and four in particular--are not satisfactory. Latterly he
has been occupying a miserable room off Red Lion Street. He went out at
twelve and returned about five--that he doesn’t deny. Says he spent the
time walking about the streets and in the Holborn news-room, but can
mention no one who saw him during those five hours. On the other hand, a
porter at Swanstead station identifies him as a passenger who alighted
there from the 1.17 that afternoon.”
“From a newspaper likeness?”
“In the first instance, Mr Carrados. Afterwards in person.”