Hot words rose to Field's lips, but he managed to swallow them just in
time. He could have wished that the girl had not been quite so
businesslike in her methods.
"I suppose that can't be helped," he muttered. "Though it certainly
gives the enemy a better start. I hope you have not destroyed the
address of that lawyer?"
"Oh, no," Violet cried. "It is in my old memorandum book. Perhaps you
had better take a copy of it for your own use. I have no doubt that my
letter has been delivered at Wandsworth by this time, but as Mr.
Sartoris is a cripple----"
Field was not quite so sure on that point. Sartoris, it was true, was a
cripple, but then Field had not forgotten the black hansom and the
expedition by night to the _Royal Palace Hotel_. He felt that Sartoris
would not let the grass grow under his feet. From the memorandum book he
copied the address--which proved to be a street in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
"Evidently a pretty good firm," Field muttered. "I'll go round there at
once and see Mr. George Fleming. But there is one thing, you will be
silent as to all I have told you. We are on the verge of very important
discoveries, and a word at random might ruin everything."
Violet Decie said that she perfectly well understood what she had to do.
"Sartoris may try to see you again," Field continued. "If he does, do
not answer him. Pretend that you are still ignorant; do nothing to
arouse his suspicions. Perhaps it would have been better if I had told
you nothing of this, but I fancy that I can trust you."
"You can trust me implicitly," the girl said eagerly. "If it is to harm
that man----"
She said no more, and Field perfectly understood what her feelings were.
By no means displeased with his morning's work he started off in the
direction of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He was pleased to find that the firm
of George Fleming & Co. occupied good offices, and that the clerks
looked as if they had been there a long time. It was just as well not to
have a pettifogging lawyer to deal with. Mr. Fleming was in, but he was
engaged for a little time. Perhaps the gentleman would state his
business; but on the whole Field preferred to wait.
He interested himself for some little time behind the broad page of the
"Daily Telegraph," until at length an inner door marked "private" opened
and a tall man with grey hair emerged, with a crooked figure dragging on
his arm. Field looked over the paper for a moment, and then ducked down
again as he saw Carl Sartoris. Evidently the cripple had lost no time.
He was saying something now in a low and rasping voice to the lawyer.
"My dear sir, there shall be no delay at all," the latter replied. "I am
bound to confess that that deed has made all the difference. I always
told Sir Charles that that property was valuable. But he would never
see it, and if he had, where was the capital to work it? But why he
never told me that he had made the thing over to you----"
"Did he ever tell anybody anything that facilitated business?" Sartoris
laughed. "I daresay he forgot all about it, poor fellow."
Sartoris shuffled painfully out of the office with the help of the
lawyer, and got into a cab. A moment later and Field was in the inner
office with Mr. Fleming. He produced his card and laid it on the table
by the way of introduction.
"This is the first time I have been honoured by a detective in all my
long experience," the lawyer said as he raised his eyebrows. "I hope
there is nothing wrong, sir?"
"Not so far as any of your clients are concerned, sir," Field replied.
"As a matter of fact, I am the officer who has charge of the
investigation into the strange case of Sir Charles Darryll. And I am
pretty sure that the lame gentleman who has just gone out could tell you
all about it if he chose. I mean Mr. Carl Sartoris."
The lawyer again raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
"I see you have no disposition to help me," Field proceeded. "But just
now Mr. Sartoris made a remark that gives me an opening. He came to you
to-day with a deed which, unless I am greatly mistaken, purports to be
an assignment of property from Sir Charles to Mr. Sartoris. And that
property is probably a ruby mine in Burmah."
"So far you are quite correct," the lawyer said drily. "Pray proceed."
"I must ask you to help me a little," Field cried. "Let me tell you that
Carl Sartoris was in the scheme to obtain possession of the body of Sir
Charles Darryll. He was the lame man who was in the black hansom. I have
been in that fellow's house, and I have seen the body of Sir Charles,
unless I am greatly mistaken."
"Then, why don't you arrest that man?" the lawyer asked.
"Because I want the whole covey at one bag," Field said coolly. "Now,
sir, will you let me see the deed that Carl Sartoris brought here
to-day? Yesterday he did not know of your existence."
"He has been going to write to me for a long time," Fleming said.
"I am prepared to stake my reputation that Carl Sartoris never heard
your name till this morning," Field said coolly. "I can produce a
witness to prove it if you like. My witness is Miss Violet Decie, only
daughter of Lord Edward Decie of that ilk."
The lawyer's dry, cautious manner seemed to be melting. He took up a
sheet of parchment and read it. It was a deed of some kind, in which the
names of Charles Darryll and Carl Sartoris figured very frequently.
Field asked to be told the gist of it.
"An assignment of mining rights," Fleming explained. "A place in Burmah.
It was a dangerous place to get at some time ago, but things have
changed recently. At one time certain Burmese followed Sir Charles about
and threatened his life unless he promised to let the thing drop. But
Sir Charles had assigned all his interest for the sum of five hundred
pounds paid to him by Mr. Carl Sartoris. Here is the signature."
The deed looked regular enough. Field looked closely at the signature of
Sir Charles.
"Of course it would be easy to get the body of the deed written by a
clerk," he said with a thoughtful air. "If there was anything wrong
about the thing, the false note would ring out in the signature. Are you
sure that it is genuine?"
"Quite," the lawyer said with conviction. "I'll show you some old
letters of poor Sir Charles if you like. The signature is a little
peculiar in the respect that it has a long loop to the first l, and a
short loop to the second. That appears in every signature. Besides there
is that little flourish over the C. The flourish really forms the
initials 'C. D.' Can't you see that for yourself? Leave out ever so
little of the flourish, and the 'C. D.' disappears."
Field was fain to be satisfied, though he was a little disappointed too.
The pretty little theory that he had been building up in his mind had
been shattered.
"I suppose I shall have to give way on that point," he said. "Only it
strikes me as strange that a man should have allowed this matter to lie
for three years without making use of it. Unless, of course, Sir
Charles's death made all the difference. Allow me."
Field's eyes began to gleam as they dwelt on the parchment. There was a
red seal in the top left-hand corner, a red seal with silver paper let
into it and some small figures on the edge.
"What do those figures represent?" he asked. "The figures 4. 4. '93, I
mean."
"The date," Fleming explained. "Those stamped skins are forwarded from
Somerset House to the various sub-offices, and they are dated on the
day they go out. The date-figures are very small, and only the legal eye
gives them any value at all."
Field jumped up in a great state of excitement. He had made an important
discovery.
"Then this is a forgery, after all," he cried. "4. 4. '93 means the
fourth of April 1893, and the deed is dated three years ago. How are you
going to get over that, sir? I take it, there are no mistakes in the
date?"
Even the lawyer was forced out of his calm manner for the moment. He
looked very closely at the red stamp through his glasses. It was some
time before he spoke.
"You are quite right," he said. "And as to there being a mistake in the
date, that is absolutely out of the question. You may be quite certain
that Somerset House makes no mistakes like that. It is most
extraordinary."
"I don't see anything extraordinary about it," Field said coolly. "That
rascal, clever as he is, has made a mistake. Not knowing anything of
legal matters in these minor points, it has never occurred to him to see
whether these parchment stamps are dated or not. He simply bought a skin
and got some engrossing clerk to make out the deed. Then he put in the
date, and there you are."
"Stop a minute, Mr. Field," Mr. Fleming put in. "There is one little
point that you have overlooked. I am quite prepared to take my oath to
the fact that the signature is genuine."
Field stared at the speaker. He could find no words for the moment. He
could see that Fleming was in deadly earnest. The silence continued for
some time.
"Well, I thought that I had got to the bottom of this business, but it
seems to me that I am mistaken," Field admitted. "In the face of the
evidence of forgery that I have just produced, your statement that the
signature is genuine fairly staggers me."
"The deed purporting to have been executed three years ago has only been
executed a few days, or a few months at the outside," Fleming said.
"What I think is this--there must have been some reason why the deed was
dated back. Perhaps the old one was destroyed and this one copied from
the other, and executed say a month or two ago. Would that not meet the
case? You see I am taking a legal view of it."
"You are still sure of the signature?" Field asked.
"Absolutely. On that head I do not hesitate for a moment. Whatever else
may happen, I am positive that Sir Charles wrote that signature."
Field scratched his head in a puzzled kind of way. It was some time
before he began to see his way clear again. Then a happy thought came to
him.
"If they are so particular at Somerset House, the fact may help us. When
those deed stamps are sold to the public, are the numbers taken, and all
that?"
"So I understand. But what do you want to get at? Yes, I think you are
right."
"Anyway, I'm on the right track," Field cried. "If what I ask is a fact,
then the people at the sub-office will be able to tell me the date that
parchment was sold. I see there is a number on the stamp. If I take that
to Somerset House----"
Field spent half an hour at Somerset House, and then he took a cab to
Wandsworth. He stopped at the Inland Revenue Office there and sent in
his card. Giving a brief outline of what he wanted to the clerk, he
laid down his slip of paper with the number of the stamp on it and the
date, and merely asked to know when that was sold and to whom.
He watched the clerk vaguely as he turned over his book. It seemed a
long time before any definite result was arrived at. Then the clerk
looked over his glasses.
"I fancy I've got what you want," he said. "What is the number on your
paper?"
"44791," Field said, "and the date."
"Never mind dates, that is quite immaterial, Mr. Field. You have us now.
That stamped parchment was sold early this morning, just after the
office was open--why, I must have sold it myself. Yes; there is no
mistake."
With a grim smile on his face, Field drove back to London. He began to
see his way clearer to the end of the mystery now.