A NEW PHASE
There was not the slightest doubt that Gurdon had hit the mark. As far as
they could see at present, the man most likely to benefit by the death or
disappearance of the cripple was Mark Fenwick. Still, it was impossible
to dismiss the thing in this casual way, nor could it be forgotten that
the cripple had actually been present at the Grand Empire Hotel on the
night when the alleged millionaire received his message by means of the
mummified finger. Therefore, logically speaking, it was only fair to
infer that on the night in question Fenwick had not been acquainted with
the personality of the cripple. Otherwise, the latter would have scarcely
ventured to show himself in a place where his experiment had been brought
to a conclusion.
On the other hand, it was just possible that Fenwick had been looking for
the cripple for some time past. But all this was more or less in the air,
though there was a great deal to be said for the conclusion at which the
two friends had arrived.
"I work it out like this," Venner said, after a long, thoughtful pause.
"You know all about the Four Finger Mine; you know exactly what happened
to the Dutchman Van Fort after the murder of Le Fenu. It will be fresh in
your recollection how, by some mysterious agency, the fingers of the
Dutchman were conveyed to his wife, though he himself was never seen
again. It is quite fair to infer that Fenwick has contrived to get hold
of the same mine, though that dangerous property does not seem to have
harmed him as much as it did the other thief. Still, we know that he has
lost all the fingers of his left hand, and we have evidence of the fact
that the vengeance has been worked out in the same mysterious fashion as
it was worked out on the Dutchman. We know, too, who is at the bottom of
the plot, we know that the cripple could tell us all about it if he
liked. Obviously, this same cripple is a deadly enemy of Fenwick's. And,
no doubt, Fenwick has found out where to lay his hands upon his man quite
recently. Fenwick is a clever man, he is bold and unscrupulous, and
without question he set to work at once to get the better of the cripple.
Of course, this may be nothing but a wrong theory of mine, and it may
lead us astray, but it is all I can see to work upon at present."
"I don't think you are very far wrong," Gurdon said, "but I am still
puzzled about the house in Portsmouth Square."
"Which house do you mean?" Venner asked.
"The one in which my adventure took place. The house from which the
furniture vanished so mysteriously."
"That seems to me capable of an easy explanation," Venner replied. "There
is no doubt that the man called Bates and the cripple are one and the
same person. You must admit that."
"Yes, I admit that freely enough. Go on."
"Well, this Bates, as we will call him, has a large establishment at 75,
Portsmouth Square. The house next door was empty, possibly it belonged to
Mr. Bates. He had a whim for furnishing a room or two in an empty house,
or perhaps there was some more sinister purpose behind it. Anyway, after
you had blundered on the place and had taken your life in your hands, it
became necessary for the man to disappear from No. 74. Therefore, he had
that furniture removed at once. I daresay if we investigated the house
carefully we should find that there was some means of communication
between the two; at least, that is the only explanation I can think of."
"You've got it," Gurdon cried. "I'll wager any money, you are right. But
I am sorry the man has vanished in this mysterious way, because it checks
our investigations at the very outset. The last thing you wanted in this
matter was police interference. Now the whole thing has got into the
papers, and the public are sure to take the matter up. It is the very
class of mystery that the cheap press loves to dwell upon. It has all
the attributes of the _cause celebre_. Here is a handsome man,
picturesque looking, a cripple into the bargain, a man leading an
absolutely secluded life, and the very last person in the world one would
expect to have enemies. He is very rich, too, and lives in one of the
finest houses in the West End of London. He disappears in the most
mysterious manner. Unless I am greatly mistaken, within the next two or
three days London will be disclosing this matter and the newspapers will
be full of it."
"I am afraid you are right," Venner admitted; "but I don't see how we are
going to gain any thing by telling the police what we have found out. As
you know, I investigated this matter solely in the interests of the woman
I love, and with the one intention of freeing her life from the cloud
that hangs over it. In any other circumstances I would go direct to
Scotland Yard and tell them everything we know. But not now. I think you
will agree with me that we should go our own way and say nothing to
anybody about our discovery."
The events of the next day or so fully verified the fears of the two
friends. The Bates case appealed powerfully to the large section of the
public who delight in crimes of the mysterious order. Within a couple of
days most of the papers were devoting much space to the problem. It so
happened, too, that the week was an exceedingly barren one from a news
point of view; therefore, the Bates case had the place of honor. There
was absolutely no fresh information, not a single line that pointed to a
definite solution of the problem. Indeed, the ingenious way in which most
of the papers contrived to fill some three columns a day was beyond all
praise. But both Gurdon and Venner searched in vain for a scrap of
information that threw any light on the identity of the missing man. His
habits were described at some length, a tolerably accurate description of
his household appeared in several quarters; but nothing very much beyond
that. The missing man's servants were exceedingly reticent, and if they
knew anything whatever about their master they had preferred to confide
it to the police in preference to the inquisitive reporter. Not a single
relative turned up, though it was generally understood that the missing
man was possessed of considerable property.
It was on the third day that Venner began to see daylight. One of the
evening papers had come out with a startling letter which seemed to point
to a clue, though it conveyed nothing to the police. Venner came round to
Gurdon's rooms with a copy of the evening paper in his hand. He laid it
before his friend and asked him to read the letter, which, though it
contained but a few lines, was of absorbing interest to both of them.
"You see what this man says?" Venner remarked. "He appears to be a
workingman who got himself into trouble over a drinking bout. Two days
ago he was charged before the magistrate with being drunk and disorderly,
and was sentenced to a fine of forty shillings or fourteen days'
imprisonment. According to his story, the money was not forthcoming,
therefore he was taken to gaol. At the end of two days his friends
contrived to obtain the necessary cash and he was released. He writes all
this to show how it was that he was entirely ignorant of the startling
events which had taken place in the Bates case. This man goes on to say
that on the night when Mr. Bates disappeared he was passing Portsmouth
Square on his way home from some public-house festivities. He was none
too sober, and has a hazy recollection of what he saw. He recollects
quite clearly, now that he has time to think the matter over, seeing a
cab standing at the corner of the Square within three doors of No. 75. At
the same time, a telegraph boy called at No. 75 with a message. It was at
this point that the narrator of the story stopped to light his pipe. It
was rather a windy evening, so that he used several matches in the
process. Anyway, he stood there long enough to see the telegraph boy
deliver his message to a gentleman who appeared to have great difficulty
in getting to the door. No sooner had the telegraph boy gone than the
gentleman crept slowly and painfully down the steps and walked in the
direction of the cab. Then somebody stepped from the cab and accosted the
cripple, who, beyond all question, was the mysterious Bates. The writer
of the letter says that he heard a sort of cry, then someone called out
something in a language that he was unable to understand. He rather
thinks it was Portuguese, because among his fellow workmen is a
Portuguese artisan, and the language sounded something like his."
"We are getting on," Gurdon said. "That little touch about the Portuguese
language clearly points to Fenwick."
"Of course, it does," Venner went on. "But that is not quite all. The
letter goes on to say that something like a struggle took place, after
which the cripple was bundled into the cab, which was driven away. It was
a four-wheeled cab, and the peculiarity about it was that it had india
rubber tires, which is a most unusual thing for the typical growler. The
author of all this information says that the struggle appeared to be of
no very desperate nature, for it was followed by nothing in the way of a
call for help. Indeed, the workman who is telling all this seemed to
think that it was more or less in the way of what he calls a spree. He
said nothing whatever to the police about it, fearing perhaps that he
himself was in no fit state to tell a story; and, besides, there was just
the possibility that he might find himself figuring before a magistrate
the next morning. That is the whole of the letter, Gurdon, which though
it conveys very little to the authorities, is full of pregnant
information for ourselves. At any rate, it tells us quite clearly that
Fenwick was at the bottom of this outrage."
"Quite right," Gurdon said. "The little touch about the Portuguese
language proves that. Is there anything else in the letter likely to be
useful to us?"
"No, I have given you the whole of it. Personally, the best thing we can
do is to go and interview the writer, who has given his name and address.
A small, but judicious, outlay in the matter of beer will cause him to
tell us all we want to know."
It was somewhere in the neighborhood of the Docks where the man who had
given his name as James Taylor was discovered later on in the day. He was
a fairly intelligent type of laborer, who obtained a more or less
precarious livelihood as a docker. As a rule, he worked hard enough four
or five hours a day when things were brisk, and, in slack periods when
money was scarce, he spent the best part of his day in bed. He had one
room in a large tenement house, where the friends found him partially
dressed and reading a sporting paper. He was not disposed to be
communicative at first, but the suggestion of something in the way of
liquid refreshment stimulated his good-nature.
"Right you are," he said. "I've had nothing today besides a mouthful of
breakfast, and when I've paid my rent I shall have a solitary tanner
left; but I 'ope you gents are not down here with a view of getting a
poor chap into trouble?"
Gurdon hastened to reassure him on that head. He was balancing a
half-sovereign thoughtfully on his forefinger.
"We are not going to hurt you at all," he said. "We want you to give us a
little information. In proof of what I say you can take this
half-sovereign and obtain what liquid refreshment you require. Also, you
can keep the change. If you don't like my proposal, there is an end of
the matter."
"Don't be short, guv'nor," Taylor responded. "I like that there
proposition of yours so well that I'm going to take it; 'alf-sovereigns
ain't so plentiful as all that comes to. If you just wait a moment, I'll
be back in 'alf a tick. Then I'll tell you all you want to know."
The man was back again presently, and professed himself ready to answer
any questions that might be put to him. His manner grew just a little
suspicious as Venner mentioned the name of Bates.
"You don't look like police," he said. "Speaking personally, I ain't fond
of 'em, and I don't want to get into trouble."
"We have no connection whatever with the police," Venner said. "In fact,
we would rather not have anything to do with them. It so happens that we
are both interested in the gentleman that you saw getting into the cab
the other night. I have read your letter in the paper, and I am quite
prepared to believe every word of it. The only thing we want to know is
whether you saw the man in the cab--"
"Which one?" Taylor asked. "There were two blokes in the cab."
"This is very interesting," Venner murmured. "I shall be greatly obliged
to you if you will describe both of them."
"I couldn't describe the one, guv'nor," Taylor replied. "His back was to
me all the time, and when you come to think of it, I wasn't quite so
clear in the head as I might have been. But I caught a glimpse of the
other man's face; as he looked out of the cab the light of the lamp shone
on his face. He'd a big cloak on, as far as I could judge, with the
collar turned up about his throat, and a soft hat on his head. He knocks
the hat off looking out of the cab window, then I see as 'is head was
bald like a bloomin' egg, and yellow, same as if he had been painted. I
can't tell you any more than that, not if you was to give me another
'alf-sovereign on the top of the first one."
"Just another question," Gurdon said. "Then we won't bother you any more.
About what age do you suppose the man was?"
Taylor paused thoughtfully for a moment before he replied.
"Well, I should think he was about fifty-five or sixty," he said. "Looked
like some sort of a foreigner."
"That will do, thank you," Venner said. "We will not detain you any
longer. At the same time I should be obliged if you would keep this
information to yourself; but, of course, if the police question you, you
will have to speak. But a discreet silence on the subject of this visit
of ours would be esteemed."
Taylor winked and nodded, and the friends departed, not displeased to get
away from the stuffy and vitiated atmosphere of Taylor's room. On the
whole, they were not dissatisfied with the result of their expedition. At
any rate, they had now proof positive of the fact that Fenwick was at the
bottom of the mysterious disappearance of the man called Bates.
"I don't quite see what we are going to do next," Venner said. "So
far, we have been exceedingly fortunate to find ourselves in
possession of a set of clues which would be exceedingly valuable to
the police. But how are we going to use these clues is quite another
matter. What do you suggest?"
"Keeping a close eye upon Fenwick at any rate. For that purpose it would
not be a bad idea to employ a private inquiry agent. He need know
nothing of what we are after."
Thereupon it was decided that Gurdon was to dine with Venner that night
and go fully into the matter.