When Mason, Detective-Sergeant, C.I.D., with crestfallen air narrated
the history of his adventures with the elusive Mrs Saxton, he had
expected his chief to indulge in a few sarcastic comments. But Smeaton
only shrugged his shoulders expressively. After all, he had come off
only second best in his encounter with her himself.
"A very clever woman, Mason," he said, after some hesitation. "I found
that out at the start. It means she has made a bolt of it. It will be
some time before Hyde Park Mansions sees her again."
He was right. Three days elapsed, and the fugitive did not return. On
the fourth, Mason, acting in accordance with instructions, went boldly
up to the flat and rang the bell.
The neat-looking maid told him that her mistress had gone abroad.
Mason affected to be very much put out. "Dear me, it's very annoying.
I wanted to see her on most urgent business. Can you oblige me with her
address?"
"She didn't leave one, sir. She said she would be back in a month or
six weeks, and would be travelling about from place to place all the
time. She told us that any letters could wait till her return."
Mason observed her sharply while she gave this information in quite a
natural manner. She seemed a simple, innocent kind of girl. Of course,
she might be in league with the escaped woman, but he was rather
inclined to believe she was telling the truth.
Mrs Saxton had begun to find the atmosphere a trifle uncomfortable, and
had duped her servants with this story of going abroad, he reasoned with
himself. She might give London itself a wide berth, but she was
somewhere near where she could be in pretty close touch with her
friends. Of that he was certain.
Things, therefore, were at a deadlock as concerned Stent and this woman.
Meanwhile, young Varney, confident that Farloe was a mysterious and
important connecting link, kept a steady watch upon the chambers in
Ryder Street.
For the first three days his exertions went unrewarded. But on the
fourth he followed Farloe in a taxi to the Great Eastern Hotel, in
Liverpool Street, where he was joined by a man whom, by his strongly
marked aquiline features and piercing eyes, he suspected to be the
elusive Stent.
When the pair left the hotel, he followed them. It was the luncheon
hour, and the city streets were crowded. For full five minutes he kept
them in sight, and then he became separated and lost them.
On the second occasion he was more fortunate. About three o'clock one
afternoon the pair came forth from Farloe's chambers, and together
walked leisurely, talking earnestly the while.
As far as Victoria Station they went together to the Brighton line.
There they parted. The elder man entered the booking-hall of the London
and Brighton line, and asked for a ticket to Horsham. Varney did the
same.
It was a slow train, and half-empty. When Horsham was reached, only
three passengers alighted: himself, the man he was watching, and a young
woman.
He inquired of the ticket-collector if at any place near he could hire a
cycle, as he thought of coming down for a week's holiday, and would like
to explore the country for an hour or so.
The man directed him to a shop close by. He seemed a very civil young
fellow, and Varney chatted with him for a few seconds.
"By the way," he said, as he moved away. "That gentleman who went out
just now--isn't he Mr Emerson, the well-known barrister?"
The young man shook his head. "No, sir. Mr Strange has recently come
to live here, about five months ago. He's taken Forest View, an
old-fashioned house a mile and a half away."
"Curious," remarked the amateur detective, in a voice of well-feigned
surprise. "Really, how very easily one may be mistaken. I see Mr
Emerson three or four times each week, and I could have sworn it was
he."
The ticket-collector smiled civilly, but made no reply. He was not
interested in this sudden creation of Varney's lively imagination.
The journalist crossed to the cycle shop and there hired a machine,
paying down the usual deposit. He wheeled it until he met a small boy,
from whom he inquired the whereabouts of Forest View.
He was on the right road, the boy informed him. The house with green
iron gates lay on the left-hand side. His machine would take him there
in a few minutes.
However, he did not mount it, as in that case he would quickly overtake
Mr Strange, who was proceeding there on foot. He preferred that this
gentleman should get there first, so as to give him an opportunity of
having a good look round.
Twenty minutes' easy walking brought him to the big iron gates of Forest
View. He had seen the man disappear within, about a couple of hundred
yards in front of him. There was not a soul in sight; he could
reconnoitre at his leisure.
The house, old-fashioned, low and rather rambling, lay well back from
the white high road, at right angles to it. A thick hedge led up to
within a few feet of the entrance. It seemed to boast a fair piece of
ground, at least three acres. The entrance to some rather dilapidated
stabling was lower down the road.
He felt a sense of triumph. Smeaton, he knew, was still searching for
Stent, and he, the amateur, had forestalled him. Was he right, after
all, in his surmise that by some curious lapse the man of wider
experience had left Farloe out of his calculations, and the man Stent
was identical with the man Strange?
His survey finished, he mounted his machine, and rode along, thinking
out his plans.
"Find a nice comfortable inn somewhere near, but not too close, pose as
an artist out for a brief holiday, and find out all there is to be found
about the mysterious Mr Strange," was the result of his meditations.
A mile lower down the road he came upon a small, old-fashioned inn, with
a swinging sign, and trailing roses over the porch and walls. There he
entered, and called for some refreshment.
"Thirsty with your ride--eh, sir?" asked the landlord pleasantly.
"A bit, although I haven't ridden very far yet. I hired a machine in
the town in order to have a look round. I want a week's holiday badly,
and I should like to hit upon some quiet quarters about here. It seems
a nice piece of country."
The landlord pricked up his ears. "Perhaps it's the George in Horsham
you might prefer."
"Oh dear no! I want an old-fashioned inn, like this. But I suppose you
don't take guests?"
The fat landlord glanced at him hesitatingly. Varney was attired in a
well-cut Norfolk suit, and his plush Homburg hat must have hailed from
Bond Street. He looked the sort of man for a fashionable hotel, not an
obscure bacon-and-egg inn.
"Well, sir, we do now and again. We don't pretend to do you like the
big places with French dishes and that sort of thing. But my wife is a
good plain cook, and you won't get better meat and chickens than we
have."
Terms were soon arranged. Varney--or Mr Franks as he announced himself
to the landlord--would come down to-morrow, bringing with him a few
sketching materials.
Next day Varney returned with a portable easel, and other paraphernalia
appertaining to his supposed art. He had not been in the house
half-an-hour before he engaged the landlord in a conversation about the
local gentry. And it was soon deftly focussed upon the owner of Forest
View.
Mr Peter Chawley was by nature a gregarious and communicative soul. He
was only reticent when policy or prudence counselled such a course of
action.
"Mr Strange has been here about five months," he informed young Varney,
in his fat, somewhat wheezy voice, "but we don't know very much about
him. When he first came, he used to go up to London pretty often, but
for some time he has hardly stirred out of the house."
"Has he any acquaintances in the place?"
Mr Chawley shook his head. "Doesn't want any, so he told the Vicar
when he called upon him. Said he had come here for a quiet life, and
wanted to get away from his business in London and the friends he had
already. Of course, that was a pretty broad hint--so nobody called. He
doesn't deal with anybody here for a pennyworth of matches. Gets
everything from London."
"What household has he? And is he a widower, or bachelor, or married?"
"Told the Vicar he was a widower. He has three maids: the cook, a
middle-aged woman, housemaid, and parlourmaid--all three he brought with
him. The gardener's a local man, a young chap, and comes in here once
in a while; but he knows no more than the rest of us. He hardly ever
enters the house, and the maids don't chatter."
Forest View was a household that evidently kept its own secrets. The
maids did not chatter, even to the young local gardener. Mystery here,
thought Varney, without a doubt. It was his business to fathom it. Was
he really Stent? That was the point.
"He got the house pretty cheap," went on Mr Chawley, who was not easily
stopped when he indulged in reminiscence, "because it had been unlet for
five years. It's a funny old place, all nooks and corners, without any
modern convenience. Some people say it's haunted, and I've heard that
there is a secret room in it, like what they used to hide the priests in
in the old days."
A mysterious house, with a mysterious owner, truly, thought Varney, as
the landlord rambled on.
"Does he have anybody to see him?"
"He never seems to have had but one visitor, a gentleman rather older
than himself. He used to run down for two or three days at a time. For
some time now he's been staying with him altogether."
Varney pricked up his ears. Was he going to discover anything useful?
"Do you know his friend's name?" he asked eagerly.
"No, sir. The gardener has never heard it, but then, as I say, he
hardly ever goes inside the house."
The next day, and the day after, Varney watched Forest View closely.
From the roadway he had a fairly clear view of the sloping lawn. But
neither its occupier nor his visitor were tempted out by the beautiful
weather. They were certainly an extraordinary pair to shut themselves
up in a gloomy house on these bright sunshiny days.
On the third day, however, both emerged from their seclusion, and
sauntered on to the lawn. The visitor seemed to stoop slightly, and
walk with the languid air of a man who had recently recovered from an
illness.
They walked about only for a little while, and, as they went back into
the house, Varney, from his hiding-place behind the hedge, heard Mr
Strange say:
"Well, if you think you feel fit enough, we will walk into Horsham after
lunch. We can drive back. It may do you good."
An idea had formed itself in Varney's brain, fitting in with one of the
theories he had formed about this remarkable case.
A little after one o'clock the supposed artist stole through the door of
the inn, a basket in one hand, a good-sized bag in the other.
A few yards down the road he disappeared up a side road, crossed a
field, and advanced towards an old disused barn which he had noted on
the previous day, and slipped inside.
A few moments later there issued a strange and shabbily dressed figure,
with a slouching walk. On his left arm hung a basket, full of roses,
which had been bought a short time ago from Mrs Chawley. They were so
beautiful, Varney told her, that he must paint them.
In the guise of a decrepit flower-seller he limped along to the narrow
main street of Horsham, and hung about till the pair from Forest View
arrived, when he faced them and advancing towards them with his basket
before him, he whined when he had got up to them:
"Buy a bunch of roses, sir. Threepence a bunch. All fresh picked,
sir."
"No," said Strange gruffly, "we don't want any, got lots of them," and
the pair turned away in ignorance that within that basket, concealed by
the flowers, was a small detective camera by which a snapshot of both of
them had already been cleverly secured in secret.
Varney made his way back at once to the old barn, where he discarded his
shabby jacket and cap.
Early next morning he was on his way to Smeaton. He had a hope that his
investigations had been fruitful, but he could not be sure. Certainly
the face and figure of the man Strange answered to the description of
the person named Stent whom Scotland Yard had been unable to trace.
Having developed and printed the photograph at his own rooms, he was
shown into Smeaton's bare official sanctum which overlooked Westminster
Bridge, when the celebrated official rose and gripped his hand.
"Well, Varney?" he asked, "have you done anything in the Monkton
mystery--eh?"
"Yes. A bit. Look here. Is this Stent--or not? If it is. I've found
him."
The detective took the damp print and examined it curiously in the light
by the window.
"Well--the only man who can really identify it is our friend at the
Savoy Hotel. Let's take a taxi and go and see him."