“Samuel Horsingforth passenger to Lisbon by the _Atlantic_ starting
from Southampton seventeenth instant.”
Inspector Furnival read the telegram over again aloud and then handed
it to Steadman.
“Better get there before the boat train, I think, sir.”
Steadman nodded. “I'll guarantee my touring car to do it in less time
than anything else you can get.”
“Y—es. Perhaps it may, but——” the inspector said uncertainly.
“But what?” Steadman questioned in surprise.
The inspector cleared his throat apparently in some embarrassment.
“I should like nothing better than the car, but that I am afraid the
fact that we are going down to Southampton in her might leak out—and
then the journey might be in vain.”
John Steadman drew in his lips.
“Trust me for that. My chauffeur can keep a still tongue in his head;
and you ought to know me by now, Furnival.”
“I ought, sir, that's a fact,” the inspector acquiesced. “It is the
chauffeur I am doubtful of. Never was there a case in which servants'
gossip has been more concerned and done more harm than this one of
Luke Bechcombe's death.”
“I will take care that he knows nothing of our destination until after
we have started,” Steadman promised, “but these cold winds of late
have given me a stiff arm, and I am afraid rheumatism is setting in.
It is the right arm too, confound it! Of course it might last the
journey to Southampton all right, but it might not; and it wouldn't do
to risk a failure.”
“No, we can't afford a failure,” the inspector said briskly. “The car
then, sir, and you will take all precautions. Have you heard anything
of Mrs. Carnthwacke?”
“Lying at death's door. Mrs. Bechcombe has inquired,” Steadman said
laconically.
The inspector smiled warily.
“We shall have all our time to keep Cyril B. quiet till we want him to
speak. Their American detective is here too, butting in, as they
phrase it. Ten o'clock then.”
“Ten o'clock,” Steadman assented.
He was at Scotland Yard in his luxurious touring car punctually at the
appointed hour. Punctual as he was, though, the inspector was waiting
on the step for him.
“Got off all right, inspector,” the barrister remarked as the
detective took his seat and the car started. “Only filled up with
petrol at a garage after we left my flat, and I told Mrs. Bechcombe
that I might be back to lunch. Chauffeur doesn't know where we are
going yet. You direct him to the Southampton Road and then I will tell
him to put all speed on.”
The day was perfect, no head wind, just a touch of frost in the air.
Both men would have enjoyed the long smooth spin if their minds had
been free, if their thoughts had not been busy all the time with their
journey's end. To the inspector, if all went well, it would spell
success, when success had at first seemed hopeless and a long step
forward in the great campaign on which he had embarked.
To Steadman it would mean that a certain theory he had held all along
was justified.
As they reached Southampton the inspector looked at his watch. “Plenty
of time—half an hour to spare!”
They drove straight to the docks and went alongside. The inspector had
good reason to expect his prey by the boat train. They had left the
car higher up. Steadman waited out of sight. The inspector went on
board and ascertained that Mr. Samuel Horsingforth had not so far
arrived.
As the boat train drew up, keeping himself well out of sight, Steadman
peered forth eagerly. The train was not as crowded as usual, but so
far as Steadman could see no Mr. Horsingforth was visible. Then just
at the last moment a man of middle height strolled to the gangway—a
man, who, though his face and figure were absolutely unknown to the
barrister, seemed to have something vaguely, intangibly familiar about
him. Steadman was looking out for a slight, spare-looking man, shorter
than this one, with the rounded shoulders of a student, pale too, with
a short straggling beard and big horn-rimmed glasses. The man at whom
he was looking must be at least a couple of inches taller than the one
they were in search of, and he was distinctly stout, and his shoulders
were square, and he carried himself well. He was clean-shaven too. He
had the ruddy complexion of one leading an outdoor life. He smiled as
he spoke to a porter about his luggage and Steadman could see his
white even teeth and his twinkling grey eyes. Yet, after a momentary
pause, the barrister came out into the open and followed up the
gangway. Suddenly Steadman saw Inspector Furnival moving forward. The
man in front saw too, and came to a sudden stop; stopped and faced
round just as he was about to put his foot on deck, and then seeing
Steadman stopped again and looked first one way and then the other and
finally stepped on deck with an air of jaunty determination.
Inspector Furnival came up to him.
“Samuel Horsingforth, _alias_ John Frederick Hoyle, _alias_ Amos
Thompson, I hold a warrant for your arrest on a charge of fraud and
embezzlement. It is my duty to warn you that anything you may say will
be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence against you.”
For a minute Steadman thought that the man whose arm the inspector was
now holding firmly was about to collapse. His ruddy colour had faded
and he seemed to shrink visibly. But he rallied with a marvellous
effort of self-control.
“You are making some strange mistake,” he said coolly. “Samuel
Horsingforth is my name. Of the others you mention I know nothing. I
have been backwards and forwards several times on this line and more
than one of the officers and stewards know me, and can vouch for my
good faith.”
The inspector's grip did not relax.
“No use, Thompson, the game is up,” he said confidently. “You have
made yourself a clever _alias_, I admit; but it is no use trying to go
on with it now. You don't want any disturbance here.”
Horsingforth, _alias_ Thompson, made no further resistance. He allowed
the inspector to lead him down the gangway and down to the quay to
Steadman's car. Only when the inspector opened the door did he hold
back.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Town,” the inspector answered laconically. “You will be able to
consult a solicitor when you get there—if you want to,” he added.
Thompson said no more. He seated himself by Steadman, the inspector
opposite.
As they started, another car, which had quietly followed the first
from Scotland Yard, at a sign from the inspector fell in behind.
Until they had left Southampton and its environs far behind none of
the three men spoke, then Thompson, who had been sitting apparently in
a species of stupor, roused himself.
“How did you find out?” he asked. “What made you suspect?”
“A photograph of your daughter, that you had overlooked,” the
inspector answered. “You had provided yourself with a second identity
very cleverly, Mr. Thompson. If it had not been for Mr. Bechcombe's
murder you would probably have succeeded.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Thompson interrupted with sudden
fire. “I swear I had not! Mr. Bechcombe was alive and well when I left
the offices. I was never more shocked in my life. You might have
knocked me down with a feather when I saw in the paper that he had
been murdered, and that I was wanted on suspicion as having murdered
him.”
“Umph!” The inspector looked at him. “You are a solicitor, or next
door to one, Mr. Thompson, I believe. You ought not to need a bit of
advice I am going to give you now. As I told you, you will be at
liberty to see a solicitor as soon as we reach London. Send for the
best you know and tell him the whole truth about this unhappy affair
and tell nobody else anything at all.”
Thus advised, Thompson wisely became dumb. He sat back in his corner
of the car in a hunched-up, crouching condition. He looked strangely
unlike the jaunty, self-satisfied man who had stepped upon the gangway
of the _Atlantic_ so short a time before. To the inspector, watching
him, he seemed almost visibly to shrink, and as the detective's keen
eyes wandered over him he began to understand some of the apparently
glaring discrepancies between the descriptions of Thompson circulated
by the police and the appearance of the man before him. Thompson's
teeth had been noticeably defective. Samuel Horsingforth, otherwise
Hoyle, had had all the deficiencies made good and was, when he smiled,
evidently in possession of a very good set of teeth, real or
artificial. This, besides entirely altering his appearance, made his
face fuller and quite unlike the hollow cheeks of Mr. Bechcombe's
missing clerk. That Thompson had worn a thin, straggly beard, while
this man was clean-shaven, went for nothing, but Thompson had been
bald, with hair wearing off the forehead. Horsingforth's stubbly, grey
hair grew thickly and rather low, and though the inspector now
detected the wig he inwardly acknowledged it to be the best he had
ever seen. Then, too, Thompson had been thin and spare, and though
looking now at the man hunched up in the car one might see the padding
on the shoulders, and under the protuberant waistcoat over which the
gold watch chain was gracefully suspended, altogether it was not to be
wondered at that Thompson had been so long at large. Inspector
Furnival knew that his present capture would add largely to a
reputation that was growing every day. At the same time he realized
that he was still a long way from the achievement of the object to
which all his energies had been directed—the capture of the Yellow Dog
and the dispersal of the Yellow Gang.
Thompson took the inspector's advice for the rest of the drive and
said no more. There were moments when the other two almost doubted
whether he were not really incapable of speech.
They drove direct to Scotland Yard. From there, later in the day,
Thompson would be taken to Bow Street to be formally charged, and from
thence to his temporary home at Pentonville.
After the remand Steadman and the inspector walked away together.
“So that's that. A clever piece of work, inspector,” the barrister
remarked.
The inspector blew his nose.
“All very well as far as Thompson is concerned. But Thompson is not
the Yellow Dog.”
John Steadman shrugged his shoulders.
“Sometimes I have doubted whether he were not.”
The inspector looked at him with a curious smile.
“I don't think you have, sir. I think your suspicions went the same
way as mine from the first.”
Steadman nodded. “But suspicion is one thing and proof another.”
“And that is a good deal nearer than it was,” the inspector finished.
“The Yellow Dog's arrest is not going to be as easy a matter as
Thompson's, though, Mr. Steadman. By Jove! those fellows have got it
already.”
They were passing a little news-shop where the man was putting out the
placards: “Crow's Inn Tragedy—arrest of Thompson.” Further on—“Crow's
Inn Mystery—Arrest of absconding clerk at Southampton—Thompson at Bow
Street—Story of his Career—Astounding Revelations!”
“Pure invention!” said the inspector, flicking this last with his
stick. “I should like to put an end to half these evening rags.”
“I wonder what his history has been!” Steadman said speculatively. “I
am sorry for his daughter—and Tony Collyer too. This will put an end
to that affair, I fancy.”
“I don't know,” said the inspector as they walked on, “Mr. Tony seems
to have made up his mind and I should fancy he could be pretty
pig-headed when he likes. I sent the girl a letter from Scotland Yard
covering one of Thompson's, so that she should not hear of this arrest
first from the papers.”
“Poor girl! But I think she has been dreading this for some time.
Probably anything, even this certainty, will be better than the state
of fear in which she has been living of late.”
“Probably,” the inspector assented. Then he went on after a minute's
pause, “Thompson's is the most ingenious case I have ever come across
of a deliberately planned course of dishonesty, with a second identity
so that Thompson of Bechcombes' could disappear utterly and Mr. Hoyle
of Rose Cottage, Burford, could just take up his simple country life,
paint his pictures and potter about the village where he was already
known.”
“Yes. His fatal mistake was made in putting in his daughter as Mr.
Bechcombe's secretary,” John Steadman said thoughtfully. “It trebled
his chances of discovery and I can't really see his motive. I suppose
he thought she could assist his schemes in some way.”
“Yes, I fancy he did get some information from her,” the inspector
assented. “Though I am certain the girl herself did not know that
Thompson and Hoyle were one and the same until after Mr. Bechcombe's
death. Then I imagine he disclosed his identity to her and that
accounts for the state of tension in which she has been living. His
second mistake was leaving her photograph in his room. That gave the
clue to his identity.”
“Yes. Well, as you know, inspector, it is the mistakes that criminals
make that provide you and me with our living,” Steadman said with a
chuckle. “And now Mr. Thompson—Hoyle, will disappear for some
considerable time from society. And the intelligent public will
probably clamour for his trial for Mr. Bechcombe's murder. For a large
section of it has already believed him guilty.”
“And not without reason,” the inspector said gravely. “Appearances
have been, and are, terribly against Thompson. Mrs. Carnthwacke's
evidence may save him if——”
“Yes. If,” Steadman prompted.
“If she is able to give it,” the inspector concluded. “But Mrs.
Carnthwacke is not recovering from the injuries she received in that
terrible assault upon her so quickly as was expected. In fact, the
latest editions of the evening papers, after having devoted all their
available space to Thompson's career and arrest, will have a paragraph
in the stop press news recording Mrs. Carnthwacke's death.”
“What!” Steadman glanced sharply at the inspector's impassive face.
Then a faint smile dawned upon his own. “So that, with that of
Thompson's arrest, the Yellow Dog will feel pretty safe.”
“I hope so,” returned the inspector imperturbably.