THE ENLARGED PHOTOGRAPH
I was dimly conscious, in a vague, uncertain fashion, that Mr.
Cazalette was going to tell me secrets; that I was about to hear
something which would explain his own somewhat mysterious doings on
the morning of the murder; a half-excited, anticipating curiosity rose
in me. I think he saw it, for he signed to me to sit down in an easy
chair close by his bed; he himself, a queer, odd figure in his quaint,
old-fashioned clothes, perched himself on the edge of the bed.
"Sit you down, Middlebrook," he said. "We've some time yet before
dinner, and I'm wanting to talk to you--in private, you'll bear in
mind. There's things I know that I'm not willing--as yet--to tell to
everybody. But I'll tell them to you, Middlebrook--for you're a
sensible young fellow, and we'll take a bit of counsel together.
Aye--there was that in my pocket-book that might be--I'll not say
positively that it was, but that it might be--a clue to the identity
of the man that murdered yon Salter Quick, and I'm sorry now that I've
lost it and didn't take more care of it. But man! who'd ha' thought
that I'd have my pocket-book stolen from under my very nose! And
that's a convincing proof that there's uncommonly sharp and clever
criminals around us in these parts, Middlebrook."
"You lost your pocket-book while you were bathing, Mr. Cazalette?" I
asked, wishful to know all his details.
He turned on his bed, pointing to a venerable Norfork jacket which
hung on a peg in a recess by the washstand. I knew it well enough: I
had often seen him in it first thing of a morning.
"It's my custom," said he, "to array myself in that old coatie when I
go for my bit dip, you see--it's thick and it's warm, and I've had it
twenty years or more--good tweed it is, and homespun. And whenever
I've gone out here of a morning, I've put my pocket-book in the inside
pocket, and laid the coat itself and the rest o' my scanty attire on
the bank there down at Kernwick Cove while I went in the water. And I
did that very same thing this morning--and when I came to my clothes
again, the pocket-book was gone!"
"You saw nobody about?" I suggested.
"Nobody," said he. "But Lord, man, I know how easy it was to do the
thing! You'll bear in mind that on the right hand side of that cove
the plantation comes right down to the edge of the bit of cliff--well,
a man lurking amongst the shrubs and undergrowth 'ud have nothing to
do but reach his arm to the bank, draw my coatie to his nefarious
self, and abstract my property. And by the time I was on dry land
again, and wanting my garments, he'd be a quarter of a mile away!"
"And--the clue?" I asked.
He edged a little nearer to me, and dropped his voice still lower.
"I'm telling you," he said. "Now you'll let your mind go back to the
morning whereon you found yon man Quick lying dead and murdered on the
sand? And you'll remember that before ever you were down at the place,
I'd been there before you. You'll wonder how it comes about that I
didn't find what you found, but then, there's a many big rocks and
boulders standing well up on that beach, and its very evident that the
corpse was obscured from my view by one or other and maybe more of
'em. Anyway, I didn't find Salter Quick--but I did find something that
maybe--mind, I'm saying maybe, Middlebrook--had to do with his
murder."
"What, Mr. Cazalette?" I asked, though I knew well enough what it was.
I wanted him to say, and have done with it; his circumlocution was
getting wearisome. But he was one of those old men who won't allow
their cattle to be hurried, and he went on in his long-winded way.
"You'll be aware," he continued, "that there's a deal of gorse and
bramble growing right down to the very edge of the coast thereabouts,
Middlebrook. Scrub--that sort o' thing. The stuff that if it catches
anything loose, anything protruding from say, the pocket of a garment,
'll lay hold and stick to it. Aye, well, on one of those bushes, gorse
or bramble I cannot rightly say which, just within the entrance to the
plantation, I saw, fluttering in the morning breeze that came sharp
and refreshing off the face of the water, a handkerchief. And there
was two sorts o' stains on it--caused in the one case by mud--the
soft mud of the adjacent beach--and in the other by blood. A smear of
blood--as if somebody had wiped blood off his fingers, you'll
understand. But it was not that, not the blood, made me give my
particular attention to the thing, which I'd picked off with my thumb
and finger. It was that I saw at once that this was no common man's
property, for there was a crest woven into one corner, and a monogram
of initials underneath it, and the stuff itself was a sort that I'm
unfamiliar with--it wasn't linen, though it looked like it, and it
wasn't silk, for I'm well acquainted with that fabric--maybe it was a
mixture of the two, but it had not been woven or made in any British
factory: the thing, Middlebrook, was of foreign origin."
"What were the markings you speak of?" I asked.
"Well, I tell you there was a crest; anyhow it was a coronet, or that
make of a thing," he answered. "Woven in one corner--I mean worked in
by hand. And the letters beneath it were a V and a de--small, that
last--and a C. Man! that handkerchief was the property of some man of
quality! And the stains being wet--the mud-stains, at any rate, though
the smear of blood was dry--I gathered that it had been but recently
deposited, by accident, where I found it. I reckoned it up this way,
d'ye see, Middlebrook--the man who'd left it there had used it on the
beach--maybe he'd cut his toe, bathing, or something o' that sort, or
likely a cut finger, gathering a shell or a fossil--and had thrust it
carelessly into a side-pocket, for a thorn to catch hold of as he
passed. But there it was, and there I found it."
"And what did you do with it, Mr. Cazalette?" I inquired with seeming
innocence.
"I'm telling you," he replied. "I had no knowledge, you're aware, of
what lay behind me on the sands: I just thought it a queer thing that
a man of quality's handkerchief should be there. And I slipped it
among my towels, to bring along wi' me to the house here. But I'm
whiles given to absent-mindedness, and not liking that I should put
the blood-stained thing down on my dressing-table there and cause the
maids to wonder, I thrust it into a hedge as I was passing along, till
I could go back and examine it at my leisure. And when I'd got myself
dressed, I went back and took it, and put it in a stout envelope into
my pocket--and then you came along, Middlebrook, with your story of
the murder, and I saw then that before saying a word to anybody, I'd
keep my own counsel and examine that thing more carefully. And man
alive! I've no doubt whatever that the man who left the handkerchief
behind him was the man who knifed Salter Quick."
"I gather, from all you've said, that the handkerchief was in the
pocket-book you had stolen this morning?" I suggested.
"You're right in that," said he. "Oh, it was! Wrapped up in a bit of
oiled paper, and in an envelope, sealed down and attested in my
handwriting, Middlebrook--date and particulars of my discovery of it,
all in order. Aye, and there was more. Letters and papers of my own,
to be sure, and a trifle money--bank-notes. But there was yet another
thing that, in view of all we know, may be a serious thing to have
fall into the hands of ill-doers. A print, Middlebrook, of the
enlarged photograph I got of the inside of the lid of yon dead man's
tobacco-box!"
He regarded me with intense seriousness as he made this announcement,
and not knowing exactly what to say, I remained silent.
"Aye!" he continued. "And it's my distinct and solemn belief that it's
that the thief was after! Ye see, Middlebrook, it's been spoken
of--not widely noised abroad, as you might say, but still spoken of,
and things spread, that I was keenly interested in those marks,
scratches, whatever they were, on the inside of that lid, and got the
police to let me make a photograph, and it's my impression that
there's somebody about who's been keenly anxious to know what results
I obtained."
"You really think so?" said I. "Why--who could there be?"
"Aye, man, and who could there be, wi' a crest and monogram on his
kerchief, that 'ud murder yon man the secret way he has?" he retorted,
answering my incredulous look with one of triumph. "Tell me that, my
laddie! I'm telling you, Middlebrook, that this was no common murder
any more than the murder of the man's own brother down yonder at
Saltash, which is a Cornish riverside place, and a good four or five
hundred miles away, was a common, ordinary crime! Man! we're living in
the very midst of a mystery--and that there's bloody-minded, aye, and
bloody-handed men, maybe within our gates, but surely close by us, is
as certain to me as that I'm looking at you!"
"I thought you believed that Salter Quick's murderer was miles away
before ever Salter Quick was cold?" I observed.
"I did--and I've changed my mind," he answered. "I'm not thinking it
any more, and all the less since I was robbed of my venerable
pocket-book, with those two exhibits o' the crime in its wame. The
murderer is about! and though he mayn't have thought to get his
handkerchief, he may have hoped that he'd secure some result o' my
labours in the photographic line."
"Mr. Cazalette!" said I, "what were the results of your labours? I
don't suppose that the print which was in your pocket-book was the
only one you possess?"
"You're right there," he replied. "It wasn't. If the thief thought he
was securing something unique, he was mistaken. But--I didn't want
him, or anybody, to get hold of even one print, for as sure as we're
living men, Middlebrook, what was on the inside of that lid was--a key
to something!"
"You forget that the tobacco-box itself has been stolen from the
police's keeping," I reminded him.
"And I don't forget anything of the sort," he retorted. "And the fact
you've mentioned makes me all the more assured, my man, that what I
say is correct! There's him, or there's them--in all likelihood it's
the plural--that's uncommonly anxious, feverishly anxious, to get hold
of that key that I suspicion. What were Salter Quick's pockets turned
out for? What were the man's clothes slashed and hacked for? Why did
whoever slew Noah Quick at Saltash treat the man in similar fashion?
It wasn't money the two men were murdered for!--no, it was for
information, a secret! Or, as I put it before, the key to something."
"And you believe, really and truly, that this key is in the marks or
scratches or whatever they are on the lid of the tobacco-box?" I
asked.
"Aye, I do!" he exclaimed. "And what's more, Middlebrook, I believe
I'm a doited old fool! If I'd contrived to get a good, careful,
penetrating look at that box, without saying anything to the police, I
should ha' shown some common-sense. But like the blithering old idiot
that I am, I spoke my thoughts aloud before a company, and I made a
present of an idea to these miscreants. Until I said what I did, the
murderous gang that knifed yon two men hadn't a notion that Salter
Quick carried a key in his tobacco-box! Now--they know."
"You don't mean to suggest that any of the murderers were present when
you asked permission to photograph the box!" I exclaimed.
"Impossible!"
"There's very few impossibilities in this world, Middlebrook," he
answered. "I'm not saying that any of the gang were present in Raven's
outhouse yonder, where they carried the poor fellow's body, but there
were a dozen or more men heard what I said to the police-inspector,
like the old fool I was, and saw me taking my photograph. And men
talk--no matter of what degree they are."
"Mr. Cazalette," said I, "I'd just like to see your results."
He got off his bed at that, and going over to a chest of drawers,
unlocked one, and took out a writing-case, from which he presently
extracted a sheet of cardboard, whereon he had mounted a photograph,
beneath which, on the cardboard, were some lines of explanatory
writing in its fine, angular style of caligraphy. This he placed in my
hand without a word, watching me silently as I looked at it.
I could make nothing of the thing. It looked to me like a series--a
very small one--of meaningless scratches, evidently made with the
point of a knife, or even by a strong pin on the surface of the metal.
Certainly, the marks were there, and, equally certainly, they looked
to have been made with some intent--but what did they mean?
"What d'ye make of it, lad?" he inquired after awhile. "Anything?"
"Nothing, Mr. Cazalette!" I replied. "Nothing whatever."
"Aye, well, and to be candid, neither do I," he confessed. "And yet,
I'm certain there's something in it. Take another look--and consider
it carefully."
I looked again--this is what there was to look at: mere lines, and at
the foot of the photograph, Mr. Cazalette's explanatory notes and
suggestions: I sat studying this for a few moments. "I make nothing of
it. It seems to be a plan. But of what?"
"It is a plan, Middlebrook," he answered. "A plan of some place. But
there I'm done! What place? Somebody that's in the secret, to a
certain point, might know--but who else could? I've speculated a deal
on the meaning and significance of those lines and marks, but without
success. Yet--they're the key to something."
"Probably to some place that Salter Quick knew of," I suggested.
"Aye, and that somebody else wants to know of!" he exclaimed. "But
what place, and where?"
"He was asking after a churchyard," said I, suddenly remembering
Quick's questions to me and his evident eagerness to acquire
knowledge. "This may be a rude drawing of a corner of it."
"Aye, and he wanted the graves of the Netherfields," remarked Mr.
Cazalette, dryly. "And I've made myself assured of the fact that there
isn't a Netherfield buried anywhere about this region! No, it's my
belief that this is a key to some spot in foreign parts, and that
there's those who are anxious to get hold of it that they'll not
stop--and haven't stopped--at murder. And now--they've got it!"
"They've got--or somebody's got--your pocket-book," I answered. "But
really, you know, Mr. Cazalette, this, and the handkerchief, mayn't
have been the thief's object. You see, it must be pretty well known
that you go down there to bathe every morning, and are in the habit of
leaving your clothes about--and, well there may be those who're not
particularly honest even in these Arcadian solitudes."
"No--I'm not with you, Middlebrook!" he said. "Somewhere around us
there's what I say--crafty and bloody murderers! But ye'll keep all
this to yourself for awhile, and----"
Just then the dinner-bell rang, and he put the photographic print
away, and we went downstairs together. That was the evening on which
Dr. Lorrimore was to dine with us--we found him in the hall, talking
to Mr. Raven and his niece. Joining them, we found that their subject
of conversation was the same that had just engaged Mr. Cazalette and
myself--the tobacco-box. It turned out that the police-inspector had
been round to Lorrimore's house, inquiring if Lorrimore, who, with the
police-surgeon, had occupied a seat at the table whereon the Quick
relics were laid out at the inquest, had noticed that now missing and
consequently all-important object.
"Of course I saw it!" remarked Lorrimore, narrating this. "I told him
I not only saw it, but handled it--so, too, did several other
people--Mr. Cazalette there had drawn attention to the thing when we
were examining the dead man, and there was some curiosity about it."
(Here Mr. Cazalette, standing close by me, nudged my elbow, to remind
me of what he had just said upstairs.) "And I told the inspector
something else, or, rather, put him in mind of something he'd
evidently forgotten," continued Lorrimore. "That inquest, or, to be
precise, the adjourned inquest, was attended by a good many strangers,
who had evidently been attracted by mere curiosity. There were a lot
of people there who certainly did not belong to this neighbourhood.
And when the proceedings were over, they came crowding round that
table, morbidly inquisitive about the dead man's belongings. What
easier, as I said to the inspector, than for some one of them--perhaps
a curio-hunter--to quietly pick up that box and make off with it?
There are people who'd give a good deal to lay hold of a souvenir of
that sort."
Mr. Raven muttered something about no accounting for tastes, and we
went in to dinner, and began to talk of less gruesome things.
Lorrimore was a brilliant and accomplished conversationalist, and the
time passed pleasantly until, as we men were lingering a little over
our wine, and Miss Raven was softly playing the piano in the adjoining
drawing-room, the butler came in and whispered to his master. Raven
turned an astonished face to the rest of us.
"There's the police-inspector here now," he said, "and with him a
detective--from Devonport. They are anxious to see me--and you,
Middlebrook. The detective has something to tell."