GERALD PUTS HIS NOSE TO THE TRAIL
The intelligence of Gerald Danvers has been remarked on.
He had a long interview with Tessie, and told her that her father had
engaged him to do certain work, in which, if successful, his reward was
her engagement to himself. Which was true.
What the work was he did not say. The farmer, after giving his promise,
was rather ashamed of having done so, and bound Danvers down to secrecy
on the subject of his mission.
He did not want his wife to laugh at him for throwing fifty pounds away.
A wife's mirth under such circumstances is irritating. It is not a thing
easy to get away from.
Gerald cashed his fifty pound check, and, arrived in New York, sat down
and thought.
It was clear to him that Josh Todd--if he were one of the murdered
men--could not have had about him any writing to lead to identification
with the man whose name he had assumed; because no shadow of an inquiry
had been made at the farm.
The latter was some way from Oakville, and Oakville was a long way from
New York. So although the papers after the time that the news reached
them were full of the name of Depew, taken from the passenger list, not
a copy of any journal had found its way to the farm.
That made Gerald ponder.
Was it wise in going to the New York police at all? He knew that a
murderer had escaped at Queenstown--it had been common talk on the
ship--and that the murder was done in English waters.
Why then wake up the American police by giving them identification clues
to Josh, and so possibly foul a trail in England?
It was just possible that the murderer was lulled to an idea of security
by the absence of discovery. That would make his own work easier.
The news in the American papers would be copied by the English press,
and Gerald's first work was to secure copies of the _New York Herald_
and _World_ daily editions dating from the day of the arrival of the
ship.
He perused these papers with all their sensational hydra headed columns,
from first to last.
Nothing had been discovered more than he knew. Not the faintest trace of
the identity of the man in the portmanteau could be found.
It was known that two berths had been booked in the name of Depew, but
who Depew was or where he had lived was still unascertained.
The man who had been found lying dead in his berth had been
photographed, and the picture was sent to England for the inspection of
the passenger agent where the berth had been booked.
He in no way recognized it--had never seen the face! That had deepened
the mystery.
It was plain that the New York police knew nothing.
Gerald felt that no good purpose would be served by enlightening them,
and that the sooner he got to England, the sooner he would be getting at
the root of the matter.
The newspapers gave portraits reproduced by the half tone process from
the photograph taken, and Gerald cut one of these out and pasted it on a
card.
It went with him to England. He went there himself by the next outgoing
steamer.
A photograph of only one of the dead men had been taken--for reasons
which will be readily understood. That photograph in no way resembled
Josh Todd.
Gerald knew that, because he had brought away from the farm a
daguerreotype of the missing man. Comparison showed its unlikeness to
the picture of the man with the cut throat.
By personating a man with a missing friend--thereby receiving
information and giving none--he obtained from the police a description
of the head of the man found in the portmanteau.
He told the police that it in no way resembled the person for whom he
was looking. All the same he was convinced it was Josh.
Josh packed dead in England and despatched to America, meant that the
packers were in Europe with the nineteen thousand pounds.
Danvers was keen on getting that money. The steamer on which the murder
had been committed bore him in the direction of it.
He was keen on it, because it meant the possession of Tessie. He wanted
her badly.
On board the boat he learned everything there was to be learned.
He checked the evidence of the boat people as it had appeared in the
papers by what they said now.
From Liverpool to London. There he rented a cheap room.
He did not communicate with his own friends in any way, but put his nose
to the trail.
His first visit was to Somerset House. He paid a fee, and read the will
of Aunt Depew.
From it he learned that the farmer was the sole legatee, and that Lawyer
Loide was sole executor. The property left was described--certain east
end houses.
Should he go straight to the lawyer? No, he would go down and see the
houses first.
He did. Knocked at the doors and asked who, before the sale of the
property, had managed it.
"Lawyer Loide," was the answer.
Managed the property, and was sole executor.
Danvers chewed that over. The end was juicy.
He wanted to see Loide--before Loide saw him. He believed in surprises,
and he liked to be the surprise party.
He went to Liverpool Street where the lawyer's offices were.
Interviewed, and subsequently had a drink with the janitor there. From
him obtained a description of Loide.
Loide was no believer in Christmas boxes or tips of any description--how
great events from little causes spring!
The janitor did not reverence the lawyer for this want of belief. He was
willing to say anything against him he could.
Told Danvers--over the third glass--that he had never been in arrears
with his rent before, that he had discharged his two clerks, and had
only a junior working for him now, and that even he was under notice to
leave.
They parted. Danvers went home and wrote a letter to Loide. It ran:
DEAR SIR:
I happened to hear that your clerk is leaving you. At the
end of the year I am going to Germany to join (as junior
partner) a commercial house, where a knowledge of the
rudiments of English commercial law may be of much use to
me. May I offer my services as your clerk?
You can see I write well, and am quick at figures, and
willing to make myself useful. Of course I shall not expect
any salary.
Yours truly,
G. DANVERS.
"If he is hard up," muttered the writer, "that last line may appeal to
him. It may come off: it may not. If it does, a week will enable me to
turn the place inside out for any clue there may be. Was the nineteen
thousand pounds ever handed Josh Todd?"
Therein lay the reason for the course Danvers was taking. It seemed to
him a reasonable solution of the matter.
Instead of handing Todd the money, the lawyer had killed him, bribed
another man to help him, and to divert suspicion, had sent that man
with Todd's body on the ship for America, telling him to return and
share the spoil.
But before the ship left English waters, Loide had managed to kill his
accomplice, and so, as he thought, destroy all trace of his crime.
But, thought the pursuer, he has Gerald Danvers to deal with!
Gerald said this to himself, with a note of exclamation at the end of
it. Most of us have a trace of melodrama in our natures. Gerald was not
without it.
He had a description of the perky, red haired, rough voiced, flashily
dressed man who had left the boat at Queenstown, and he quite reckoned
that when he saw Lawyer Loide he would--mentally--exclaim, "Thou art the
man!"
With that melodramatic trait aforesaid, he no doubt would.
If he found it so, he would not betray the faintest sign of his
knowledge. He must work quietly, and give his man no pretext for flight.
He must find where that nineteen thousand pounds was deposited, and draw
the meshes of his net so closely around that the bird could not
escape--anyway, with the money.
As a matter of fact, Gerald was more concerned about the money than the
murder. Because it concerned Tessie more closely.
Moreover, it was but human to expect that a nineteen thousand pound
father-in-law would be generous in the way of wedding presents.
He guessed that the housekeeper's story of Loide's poverty was a piece
of acting on Loide's part to divert suspicion.
Perhaps the discharge of the clerks meant only the gradual winding up of
his business, and that presently he would sail away to another land.
Danvers felt cold at the fear of this. If it were true, there was not
the faintest chance of a reply to his application for a situation. His
letter could only appeal to a poor man.
And while he was thinking this again the next morning, an answer came.