SMOOTH FACE AND ANXIOUS BRAIN
Byner watched Eldrick and Collingwood inquisitively as they bent over
Halstead's telegram. He was not surprised when Collingwood merely nodded
in silence--nor when Eldrick turned excitedly in his own direction.
"There!--what did I tell you?" he exclaimed. "There's been no murder!
The man left the town. Probably, Pratt helped him off. Couldn't have
better proof than that wire!"
"What do you take that wire to prove, then, Mr. Eldrick?" asked Byner.
"Take it to prove!" answered Eldrick. "Why, that Parrawhite booked a
passage to America with this man Murgatroyd, last November. Clear
enough, that!"
"What do you take it to prove, Mr. Collingwood?" continued the inquiry
agent, as he turned to the barrister with a smile.
"Before I take it for anything," replied Collingwood, "I want to know
who Murgatroyd is."
Byner looked at Eldrick and laughed.
"Precisely!" he said. "Who is Murgatroyd? Perhaps Mr. Eldrick knows."
"I do just know that he's a man who carries on a small watch and clock
business in a poorish part of the town, and that he has some sort of a
shipping agency," answered Eldrick. "But--do you mean to imply that
whatever message it is that he's sent to your partner in London this
morning has not been sent in good faith?"
"I don't imply anything," answered Byner. "All I say is--before I attach
any value to his message I, like Collingwood, want to know something
about the sender. He may have been put up to sending it. He may be in
collusion with somebody. Now, Mr. Eldrick, you can come in
here--strongly! I don't want to be seen in this affair--yet. Will you go
and see Murgatroyd? Tell him his wire to Halstead & Byner in London has
been communicated to you here. Ask him for further particulars--and then
drop in on me at my hotel and tell me what you've learnt. I'll be found
in the smoking-room there any time after two-thirty onward."
Eldrick's intense curiosity in what was rapidly becoming a fascinating
mystery to him, led him to accept this embassy. And a little before
three o'clock he walked into the smoking-room at the _Central Hotel_ and
discovered Byner in a comfortable corner.
"I've seen Murgatroyd," he whispered, as he took an adjacent chair.
"Decent honest enough man--very poor, I should say. He tells a plain
enough story. Parrawhite, whom he knew as one of our clerks, told him,
last November 23rd----"
"He was exact about dates, then, was he?" interrupted Byner.
"He mentioned them readily enough," replied the solicitor. "But to go
on--Parrawhite mentioned to him, November 23rd last, that he wanted to
go to America at once, Murgatroyd told him about bookings. Parrawhite
called very early next morning, paid for his passage under the name of
Parsons, and went off--en route for Liverpool, of course. So--there you
are!"
"That's all Murgatroyd could tell?" inquired Byner.
"That's all he knows," answered Eldrick.
"You say Murgatroyd knew Parrawhite as one of your clerks?" asked Byner
after a moment's thought.
"We had some process in hand against this man last autumn," replied
Eldrick. "I dare say Parrawhite served him with papers."
"Would he--Murgatroyd--be likely to know Pratt?" continued Byner.
"He might--in the same connection," admitted Eldrick.
Byner smoked in silence for a while.
"Do you know what I think, Mr. Eldrick?" he said at last. "I think Pratt
put up Murgatroyd to sending that telegram to us in London this
morning."
"You do!" exclaimed Eldrick.
"Surely! And now," continued the inquiry agent, "if you will, you can do
more--much more--without appearing to do anything. Pratt's office is
only a few minutes away. Can you drop in there, making some excuse, and
while there, mention, more or less casually, that Parrawhite, or
information about him, is wanted; that you and a certain Halstead &
Byner are advertising for him; that you've just seen Murgatroyd in
respect of a communication which he wired to Halstead's this morning,
and that--most important of all--a fortune of twenty thousand pounds is
awaiting Parrawhite! Don't forget the last bit of news."
"Why that particularly?" asked Eldrick.
"Because," answered Byner solemnly, "I want Pratt to know that the
search for Parrawhite is going to be a thorough one!"
Eldrick went off on his second mission, promising to return in due
course. Within a few minutes he was in Pratt's office, talking over some
unimportant matter of business which he had invented as he went along.
It was not until he was on the point of departure that he referred to
the real reason of his visit.
"Did you notice that Parrawhite is being advertised for?" he asked,
suddenly turning on his old clerk.
Pratt was ready for this--had been ready ever since Eldrick walked in.
He affected a fine surprise.
"Parrawhite!" he exclaimed. "Why--who's advertising for him?"
"Don't you see the newspapers?" asked Eldrick, pointing to some which
lay about the room. "It's in there--there's an advertisement of mine,
and one of Halstead & Byner's, of London."
Pratt picked up a Barford paper and looked at the advertisements with a
clever affectation of having never seen them before.
"I haven't had much time for newspaper reading this last day or two," he
remarked. "Advertisements for him--from two quarters!"
"Acting together--acting together, you know!" replied Eldrick. "It's
those people who really want him--Halstead & Byner, inquiry agents,
working for a firm of City solicitors. I'm only local agent--as it
were."
"Had any response, Mr. Eldrick?" asked Pratt, throwing aside the paper.
"Any one come forward?"
"Yes," answered Eldrick, watching Pratt narrowly without seeming to do
so. "This morning, a man named Murgatroyd, in Peel Row, who does a bit
of shipping agency, wired to Halstead & Byner to say that he booked
Parrawhite to New York last November. Of course, they at once
communicated with me, and I've just been to see Murgatroyd. He's that
man--watchmaker--we had some proceedings against last year."
"Oh, that man!" said Pratt. "Thought the name was familiar. I remember
him. And what does he say?"
"Just about as much as--and little more than--he said in his wire to
London," replied Eldrick. "Booked Parrawhite to America November 24th
last, and believes he left for Liverpool there and then."
"Ah!" remarked Pratt, "That explains it, then?"
"Explains--what?" asked Eldrick.
Pratt gave his old employer a look--confidential and significant.
"Explains why he took that money out of your desk," he said. "You
remember--forty odd pounds. He'd use some of that for his passage-money.
America eh? Now--I suppose he's vanished for good, then--it's not very
likely he'll ever be heard of from across there."
Eldrick laughed--meaningly, of set purpose.
"We don't know that he's gone there," he observed. "He mightn't get
beyond Liverpool, you know. Anyhow, we're going to make a very good
search for him here in Barford, first. We've nothing but Murgatroyd's
word for his having set out for Liverpool."
"What's he wanted for?" asked Pratt as unconcernedly as possible. "Been
up to something?"
"No," answered Eldrick, as he turned on his heel. "A relation has left
him twenty thousand pounds. That's what he's wanted for--and why he must
be found--or his death proved."
He gave Pratt another quick glance and went off--to return to the hotel
and Byner, to whom he at once gave a faithful account of what had just
taken place.
"And he didn't turn a hair," he remarked. "Cool as a cucumber, all
through! If your theory is correct, Pratt's a cleverer hand than I ever
took him for--and I've always said he was clever."
"Didn't show anything when you mentioned Murgatroyd?" asked Byner.
"Not a shred of a thing!" replied Eldrick.
"Nor when you spoke of the twenty thousand pounds?"
"No more than what you might call polite and interested surprise!"
Byner laughed, threw away the end of a cigar, and rose out of his
lounging posture.
"Now, Mr. Eldrick," he said, leaning close to the solicitor, "between
ourselves, do you know what I'm going to do--next--which means at once?"
"No," replied Eldrick.
"The police!" whispered Byner. "That's my next move. Just now! Within a
few minutes. So--will you give me a couple of notes--one to the
principal man here--chief constable, or police superintendent, or
whatever he is; and another to the best detective there is here--in your
opinion. They'll save me a lot of trouble."
"Of course--if you wish it," answered Eldrick. "But you don't mean to
say you're going to have Pratt arrested--on what you know up to now?"
"Not at all!" replied Byner. "Much too soon! All I want is--detective
help of the strictly professional kind. No--we'll give Mr. Pratt a
little more rope yet--for another four-and-twenty-hours, say. But--it'll
come! Now, who is the best local detective--a quiet, steady fellow who
knows how to do his work unobtrusively?"
"Prydale's the man!" said Eldrick "Detective-Sergeant Prydale--I've had
reason to employ him, more than once. I'll give you a note to him, and
one to Superintendent Waterson."
He went over to a writing-table and scribbled a few lines on half-sheets
of notepaper which he enclosed in envelopes and handed to Byner.
"I don't know what line you're taking," he said, "nor where it's going
to end--exactly. But I do know this--Pratt never turned a hair when I
let out all that to him."
But if Eldrick went away from his old clerk's fine new offices thinking
that Pratt was quite unperturbed and unmoved by the news he had just
acquired, he was utterly mistaken. Pratt was very much perturbed, deeply
moved, not a little frightened. He had so schooled himself to keep a
straight and ever blank expression of countenance in any sudden change
of events that he had shown nothing to Eldrick--but he was none the less
upset by the solicitor's last announcement. Twenty thousand pounds was
lying to be picked up by Parrawhite--or by Parrawhite's next-of-kin!
What an unhappy turn of fortune! For the next-of-kin would never rest
until either Parrawhite came to light, or it was satisfactorily
established that he was dead--and if search begun to be made in Barford,
where might not that search end? Unmoved?--cool?--if Eldrick had turned
back, he would have found that Pratt had suddenly given way to a fit of
nerves.
But that soon passed, and Pratt began to think. He left his office
early, and betook himself to his favourite gymnasium. Exercise did him
good--he thought a lot while he was exercising. And once more, instead
of going home to dinner, he dined in town, and he sat late over his
dinner in a snug corner of the restaurant, and he thought and planned
and schemed--and after twilight had fallen on Barford, he went out and
made his way to Peel Row. He must see Murgatroyd again--at once.
Half-way along Peel Row, Pratt stopped, suddenly--and with sudden fear.
Out of a side street emerged a man, a quiet ordinary-looking man whom he
knew very well indeed--Detective-Sergeant Prydale. He was accompanied by
a smart-looking, much younger man, whom Pratt remembered to have seen in
Beck Street that afternoon--a stranger to him and to Barford. And as he
watched, these two covered the narrow roadway, and walked into
Murgatroyd's shop.