I
Everard Myatt--or Catherton Hunt--was lost again. Martin Hewitt had been
wholly successful, for he had recovered Mr. Bell's missing bonds; but
the police caught neither of the conspirators. Investigation at
Henning's lodgings showed that careful preparations must have been made
for an immediate flight if it should become necessary, and the flight
had taken place. The man in the hospital, who had been knocked down in
carrying from one to the other the extraordinary message that Hewitt
deciphered, remained insensible for a few days, and could not be
questioned till some time later still. Then he professed to have
forgotten all about the message on which he was going when he met his
accident, and the medical men in attendance informed the police that it
was quite possible that the fellow's statement was true. He said that he
_did_ carry messages sometimes, when he could get a job, but he could
remember nothing of the message of the key, nor of who had sent him, nor
where he was to go. Nevertheless, the police, although they professed
to accept his statement, kept a wary eye on him after his discharge from
the hospital, for they had a very great suspicion that he knew more than
he chose to tell. But nothing more was heard of the accomplices till
another case of Martin Hewitt's brought the news, and that in a manner
strange enough.
The matter began, as so many matters of Hewitt's did, with the receipt
of a telegram, followed immediately by another. For the first having
been handed in at a country office not very long before eight the
previous evening, it was not delivered at Hewitt's office till the
morning, in accordance with the ancient manners and customs observed in
the telegraphic system of this country. It had been despatched from
Throckham, in Middlesex, and it was simply a very urgently worded
request to Hewitt to come at once, signed "Claire Peytral." The second
telegram, which came even as Hewitt was reading the first, on his
arrival at his office, ran thus:--
/#
"Did you receive telegram? See newspapers. Matter life or death.
Would come personally but cannot leave mother. Pray
answer.--<sc>Peytral</sc>."
#/
The answer went instantly that Hewitt would come by the next train, for
he had seen the morning paper and from that knew the urgency of the
case. But a consultation of the railway guide showed that trains to
Throckham were fewer than one might suppose, considering the proximity
of the village to London, and that the next would leave in about an hour
and a quarter; so that I saw Hewitt before he started. He came up to my
rooms, in fact, as I was beginning to breakfast.
"See here," he said, "I am sent for in the Throckham case. Have you seen
the report?"
As a leader writer, I had little business with the news side of my
paper, and indeed I had no more than a vague recollection of some such
heading as: "Tragedy in a barn," in one evening paper of the day before,
and "Murder at Throckham" in another. So I could claim no very exact
knowledge of the affair.
"Here you have a paper, I see," Hewitt said, reaching for it. "Perhaps
their report is fuller than that in mine." He gave me his own newspaper
and began searching in the other. "No," he said presently, "much the
same. News agency report to both papers, no doubt."