THE SHADOW
Mr. Halfpenny, conducting Mr. Tertius to the coupe brougham, installed
him in its further corner, got in himself and bade his coachman drive
slowly to 331, Upper Seymour Street.
"I said slowly," he remarked as they moved gently away, "because I
wanted a word with you before we see this young man. Tertius--what's the
meaning of all this?"
Mr. Tertius groaned dolefully and shook his head.
"There is so much, Halfpenny," he answered, "that I don't quite know
what you specifically mean by this. Do you mean----"
"I mean, first of all, Herapath's murder," said Mr. Halfpenny. "You
think it is a case of murder?"
"I'm sure it's a case of murder--cold, calculated murder," replied Mr.
Tertius, with energy. "Vile murder, Halfpenny."
"And, as far as you know, is there no clue?" asked the old lawyer.
"There's nothing said or suggested in the newspapers. Haven't you any
notion--hasn't Barthorpe any notion?"
Mr. Tertius remained silent for a while. The coupe brougham turned into
Upper Seymour Street.
"I think," he said at last, "yes, I think that when we've made this
call, I shall ask you to accompany me to my friend Cox-Raythwaite's, in
Endsleigh Gardens--you know him, I believe. I've already seen him this
morning and told him--something. When we get there, I'll tell it to you,
and he shall show you--something. After that, we'll hear what your legal
instinct suggests. It is my opinion, Halfpenny--I offer it with all
deference, as a layman--that great, excessive caution is necessary. This
case is extraordinary--very extraordinary. That is--in my opinion."
"It's an extraordinary thing that Jacob Herapath should have made that
will," murmured Mr. Halfpenny reflectively. "Why Barthorpe should be
entirely ignored is--to me--marvellous. And--it may be--significant. You
never heard of any difference, quarrel, anything of that sort, between
him and his uncle?"
"I have not the remotest notion as to what the relations were that
existed between the uncle and the nephew," replied Mr. Tertius. "And
though, as I have said, I knew that the will was in existence, I hadn't
the remotest idea, the faintest notion, of its contents until we took it
out of the sealed envelope an hour or so ago. But----" he paused and
shook his head meaningly.
"Well?" said Mr. Halfpenny.
"I'm very sure, knowing Jacob as I did, that he had a purpose in making
that will," answered Mr. Tertius. "He was not the man to do anything
without good reasons. I think we are here."
The landlady of No. 331 opened its door herself to these two visitors.
Her look of speculative interest on seeing two highly respectable
elderly gentlemen changed to one of inquisitiveness when she heard what
they wanted.
"No, sir," she answered. "Mr. Frank Burchill doesn't live here now. And
it's a queer thing that during the time he did live here and gave me
more trouble than any lodger I ever had, him keeping such strange hours
of a night and early morning, he never had nobody to call on him, as I
recollect of! And now here's been three gentlemen asking for him within
this last hour--you two and another gentleman. And I don't know where
Mr. Burchill lives, and don't want, neither!"
"My dear lady!" said Mr. Halfpenny, mildly and suavely. "I am sure we are
deeply sorry to disturb you--no doubt we have called you away from your
dinner. Perhaps, er, this"--here there was a slight chink of silver in
Mr. Halfpenny's hand, presently repeated in one of the landlady's--"will,
er, compensate you a little? But we are really anxious to see Mr.
Burchill--haven't you any idea where he's gone to live? Didn't he
leave an address for any letters that might come here?"
"He didn't, sir--not that he ever had many letters," answered the
landlady. "And I haven't the remotest notion. Of course, if I had I'd
give the address. But, as I said to the gentleman what was here not so
long ago, I've neither seen nor heard of Mr. Burchill since he left--and
that's six months since."
Mr. Halfpenny contrived to give his companion a nudge of the elbow.
"Is it, indeed, ma'am?" he said. "Ah! That gentleman who called, now?--I
think he must be a friend of ours, who didn't know we were coming. What
was he like, now, ma'am?"
"He was a tallish, fine-built gentleman," answered the landlady.
"Fresh-coloured, clean-shaved gentleman. And for that matter, he can't
be so far away--it isn't more than a quarter of an hour since he was
here. I'll ask my girl if she saw which way he went."
"Don't trouble, pray, ma'am, on my account," entreated Mr. Halfpenny.
"It's of no consequence. We're deeply obliged to you." He swept off his
hat in an old-fashioned obeisance and drew Mr. Tertius away to the coupe
brougham. "That was Barthorpe, of course," he said. "He lost no time,
you see, Tertius, in trying to see Burchill."
"Why should he want to see Burchill?" asked Mr. Tertius.
"Wanted to know what Burchill had to say about signing the will, of
course," replied Mr. Halfpenny. "Well--what next? Do you want me to see
Cox-Raythwaite with you?"
Mr. Tertius, who had seemed to be relapsing into a brown study on the
edge of the pavement, woke up into some show of eagerness. "Yes, yes!"
he said. "Yes, by all means let us go to Cox-Raythwaite. I'm sure that's
the thing to do. And there's another man--the chauffeur. But--yes, we'll
go to Cox-Raythwaite first. Tell your man to drive to the corner of
Endsleigh Gardens--the corner by St. Pancras Church."
Professor Cox-Raythwaite was exactly where Mr. Tertius had left him in
the morning, when the two visitors were ushered into his laboratory. And
for the second time that day he listened in silence to Mr. Tertius's
story. When it was finished, he looked at Mr. Halfpenny, whose solemn
countenance had grown more solemn than ever.
"Queer story, isn't it, Halfpenny?" he said laconically. "How does it
strike you?"
Mr. Halfpenny slowly opened his pursed-up lips.
"Queer?" he exclaimed. "God bless me!--I'm astounded! I--but let me see
these--these things."
"Sealed 'em up not so long ago--just after lunch," remarked the
Professor, lifting his heavy bulk out of his chair. "But you can see 'em
all right through the glass. There you are!" He led the way to a
side-table and pointed to the hermetically-sealed receptacles in which
he had safely bestowed the tumbler and the sandwich brought so gingerly
from Portman Square by Mr. Tertius. "The tumbler," he continued, jerking
a big thumb at it, "will have, of course, to be carefully examined by an
expert in finger-prints; the sandwich, so to speak, affords primary
evidence. You see--what there is to see, Halfpenny?"
Mr. Halfpenny adjusted his spectacles, bent down, and examined the
exhibits with scrupulous, absorbed interest. Again he pursed up his
lips, firmly, tightly, as if he would never open them again; when he did
open them it was to emit a veritable whistle which indicated almost as
much delight as astonishment. Then he clapped Mr. Tertius on the back.
"A veritable stroke of genius!" he exclaimed. "Tertius, my boy, you
should have been a Vidocq or a Hawkshaw! How did you come to think of
it? For I confess that with all my forty years' experience of Law,
I--well, I don't think I should ever have thought of it!"
"Oh, I don't know," said Mr. Tertius, modestly. "I--well, I looked--and
then, of course, I saw. That's all!"
Mr. Halfpenny sat down and put his hands on his knees.
"It's a good job you did see, anyway," he said, ruminatively; "an
uncommonly good job. Well--you're certain of what we may call the
co-relative factor to what is most obvious in that sandwich?"
"Absolutely certain," replied Mr. Tertius.
"And you're equally certain about the diamond ring?"
"Equally and positively certain!"
"Then," said Mr. Halfpenny, rising with great decision, "there is only
one thing to be done. You and I, Tertius, must go at once--at once!--to
New Scotland Yard. In fact, we will drive straight there. I happen
to know a man who is highly placed in the Criminal Investigation
Department--we will put our information before him. He will know
what ought to be done. In my opinion, it is one of those cases which
will require infinite care, precaution, and, for the time being,
secrecy--mole's work. Let us go, my dear friend."
"Want me--and these things?" asked the Professor.
"For the time being, no," answered Mr. Halfpenny. "Nor, at present, the
taxi-cab driver that Tertius has told us of. We'll merely tell what we
know. But take care of these--these exhibits, as if they were the apples
of your eyes, Cox-Raythwaite. They--yes, they may hang somebody!"
Half an hour later saw Mr. Halfpenny and Mr. Tertius closeted with a
gentleman who, in appearance, resembled the popular conception of a
country squire and was in reality as keen a tracker-down of wrong-doers
as ever trod the pavement of Parliament Street. And before Mr. Halfpenny
had said many words he stopped him.
"Wait a moment," he said, touching a bell at his side, "we're already
acquainted, of course, with the primary facts of this case, and I've
told off one of our sharpest men to give special attention to it. We'll
have him in."
The individual who presently entered and who was introduced to the two
callers as Detective-Inspector Davidge looked neither preternaturally
wise nor abnormally acute. What he really did remind Mr. Tertius of was
a gentleman of the better-class commercial traveller persuasion--he was
comfortable, solid, genial, and smartly if quietly dressed. And he and
the highly placed gentleman listened to all that the two visitors had
to tell with quiet and concentrated attention and did not even exchange
looks with each other. In the end the superior nodded as if something
satisfied him.
"Very well," he said. "Now the first thing is--silence. You two
gentlemen will not breathe a word of all this to any one. As you said
just now, Mr. Halfpenny, the present policy is--secrecy. There will be a
great deal of publicity during the next few days--the inquest, and so
on. We shall not be much concerned with it--the public will say that as
usual we are doing nothing. You may think so, too. But you may count on
this--we shall be doing a great deal, and within a very short time from
now we shall never let Mr. Barthorpe Herapath out of our sight until--we
want him."
"Just so," assented Mr. Halfpenny. He took Mr. Tertius away, and when he
had once more bestowed him in the coupe brougham, dug him in the ribs.
"Tertius!" he said, with something like a dry chuckle. "What an
extraordinary thing it is that people can go about the world unconscious
that other folks are taking a very close and warm interest in them! Now,
I'll lay a pound to a penny that Barthorpe hasn't a ghost of a notion
that he's already under suspicion. My idea of the affair, sir, is that
he has not the mere phantasm of such a thing. And yet, from now, as our
friend there observed, Master Barthorpe, sir, will be watched. Shadowed,
Tertius, shadowed!"
Barthorpe Herapath certainly had none of the notions of which Mr.
Halfpenny spoke. He spent his afternoon, once having quitted Burchill's
flat, in a businesslike fashion. He visited the estate office in
Kensington; he went to see the undertaker who had been charged with the
funeral arrangements; he called in at the local police-office and saw
the inspector and the detective who had first been brought into
connection with the case; he made some arrangements with the Coroner's
officer about the necessary inevitable inquest. He did all these things
in the fashion of a man who has nothing to fear, who is unconscious that
other men are already eyeing him with suspicion. And he was quite
unaware that when he left his office in Craven Street that evening he
was followed by a man who quietly attended him to his bachelor rooms in
the Adelphi, who waited patiently until he emerged from them to dine at
a neighbouring restaurant, who himself dined at the same place, and who
eventually tracked him to Maida Vale and watched him enter Calengrove
Mansions.