Smeaton at once hunted up the time-table. There was a fast train to
Horsham in twenty minutes and he could just catch it.
He ordered a telegram to be despatched to Varney at the inn which he had
given as a rendezvous, stating the time at which he would arrive, and
later found the young man at the door, awaiting him.
"Thought I had better stop here till you arrived," he said as they shook
hands, "otherwise I would have come to Horsham Station. But the Forest
View people know me now, and I didn't want one of them to see me talking
to a stranger. They might put two and two together."
The two men ordered some refreshment, and adjourned to the snug little
parlour, which was empty.
"No fear of being disturbed here, Smeaton, at this time of day; I know
the place well. There will be nobody near for hours, except a passing
carter for a glass of beer, and he won't disturb us."
"I was glad to have your wire," said the detective, "for I was beginning
to get a bit anxious. For several hours now I have been on the track of
what I thought was a warm scent, only to find it a cold one. I'll tell
you about it when you have had your say."
Varney plunged at once into his narrative. And certainly the story he
had to tell was a very thrilling one. The main points were these.
Having been in the neighbourhood for some time, and being of a
gregarious disposition, he had picked up a few acquaintances, with whom
he indulged in an occasional chat when the opportunity offered.
All these people, he was sure, accepted his own explanation of his
presence there, and did not for a moment suspect in the _soi-disant_
artist who rambled about with his sketching materials the young
journalist so well-known in Fleet Street.
He had become acquainted with a local doctor, Mr Janson, a man a few
years older than himself, who had bought a practice in the neighbourhood
quite recently. They had met, in the first instance, at the inn where
Varney was staying, the doctor having been called in by the landlady to
prescribe for some trifling ailment from which she was suffering.
The two men had exchanged a few commonplace remarks, and bidden each
other good-bye. Next day Varney overtook him on the road, and they
walked into Horsham together. In the course of their journey a little
personal history was exchanged, of course utterly fictitious on the side
of the pretended artist.
From the casual conversation there emerged certain facts. Mr Janson
was a man of considerable culture, and of strong artistic leanings.
More especially was he an ardent worshipper of the Old Masters. For
several years his annual holiday had been spent in Italy, for which
country, its galleries, and its associations he expressed the most
fervent admiration.
Varney, little knowing what was to come out of this chance acquaintance,
soon established common grounds of interest. His mother had been an
Italian, and he had spent ten years of his boyhood in that delightful
land. He could speak the language like a native. Janson, who was a
poor linguist, expressed his envy of the other's accomplishment.
"I can read any Italian book you put before me, and I can make them
understand what I want," he had told Varney. "But when they talk to me,
I am lost. I can't catch the words, because the accent baffles me. If
an Englishman were to talk Italian, I daresay I could follow him."
They met several times afterwards, and the acquaintance ripened to such
an extent that the doctor asked the young stranger to come round to his
house, after the day's round was over, for a chat and a smoke. Janson
was a bachelor; he had only been a few months in the neighbourhood, and
had not as yet made many friends.
A man who knew a good deal about the subject which interested him most,
and could talk fairly well on art--for Varney was a connoisseur of no
mean order--was a godsend to the man of medicine, sitting by himself in
his lonely house.
All this was the prelude to the startling facts which were the cause of
Varney's urgent telegram.
The previous morning just before his dinner hour, the gardener had
looked in at the inn for his morning glass of beer, and informed the
landlord that a visitor was expected at Forest View.
"Mr Strange comes to me after breakfast, and tells me to take in a
picking of some special peas we planted, for lunch. He ain't much of a
one to talk at the best of times, but he was quite affable and chatty
this morning. He tells me he is expecting a foreign gentleman who's
very particular about his food, and he wants to show him what we can
do."
This piece of news was retailed to Varney, who was, of course,
immediately interested. According to local report, this was only the
second occasion on which Forest View had received a visitor.
He kept a hidden watch on the house. A few minutes past twelve.
Strange, to give him the name he was known by down there, drove his
motor-car in the direction of Horsham. Evidently he was going to meet
the visitor at the station.
In due course the car came back with its two occupants. The stranger
was a man of small stature, with grey moustache and beard, of a dark
complexion, and unmistakably a foreigner.
They dismounted at the gate, the garage being approached by an entrance
a little lower down. Varney noticed that the foreigner got out very
slowly, leaning heavily on his host's arm as he did so. It was plain
that this visitor, like the other, was in indifferent health.
Varney hung about during the greater part of the day, but he saw nobody.
All the inmates of this singular establishment seemed to prefer the
seclusion of the house.
After the inn had closed, he smoked a last pipe, and then went to bed.
He was rather wakeful that night, and did not go to sleep for an hour or
so.
Suddenly he was awakened by a loud knocking. Jumping up, he looked at
his watch--it was two o'clock. He was evidently the first to hear it,
for he could distinguish no sounds from the room at the other end of the
passage, where the landlord and his wife slept.