‘But it would be all right to give me away, I suppose, and let him understand that I had violated professional confidence?’
‘Only with a member of the firm. That is no violation.’
‘But then I should have told him that you were a member of the firm.’
‘I’m afraid you should.’
‘Logan, you have the ideas of a schoolboy. I had to be certain as to how you would take it, though, of course, I had a very good guess. And as to what you say about the chances of his dying and leaving everything where he would not have left it if he had been sure you would act against his wishes—I believe you are wrong. What he really cares about is “the name.” His ghost will put up with your disobedience if the name keeps its old place. Do you see?’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Logan.
‘Anyhow, there is no such pressing hurry. One may bring him round with time. A curious old survival! I did not understand all that he said. There was something about having been thrice at kirk and market since he made his will; and something about not having smelled appleringie for forty years. What is appleringie?’
Logan laughed.
‘It is a sacred Presbyterian herb. The people keep it in their Bibles and it perfumes the churches. But look here—’
He was interrupted by the entrance of a page, who handed to him a letter. Logan read it and laughed. ‘I knew it; they are sharp!’ he said, and handed the letter to Merton. It was from a famous, or infamous, money-lender, offering princely accommodation on terms which Mr. Logan would find easy and reasonable.
‘They have nosed the appleringie, you see,’ he said.
‘But I don’t see,’ said Merton.
‘Why the hounds have heard that the old nobleman has been thrice to kirk lately. And as he had not been there for forty years, they have guessed that he has been making his will. Scots law has, or used to have, something in it about going thrice to kirk and market after making a will—disponing they call it—as a proof of bodily and mental soundness. So they have spotted the marquis’s pious motives for kirk-going, and guessed that I am his heir. I say—’ Logan began to laugh wildly.
‘What do you say?’ asked Merton, but Logan went on hooting.
‘I say,’ he repeated, ‘it must never be known that the old lord came to consult us,’ and here he was again convulsed.
‘Of course not,’ said Merton. ‘But where is the joke?’
‘Why, don’t you see—oh, it is too good—he has taken every kind of precaution to establish his sanity when he made his will.’
‘He told me that he had got expert evidence,’ said Merton.
‘And then he comes and consults US!’ said Logan, with a crow of laughter. ‘If any fellow wants to break the will on the score of insanity, and knows, knows he came to us, a jury, when they find he consulted us, will jolly well upset the cart.’ Merton was hurt.
‘Logan,’ he said, ‘it is you who ought to be in an asylum, an Asylum for Incurable Children. Don’t you see that he made the will long before he took the very natural and proper step of consulting Messrs. Gray and Graham?’
‘Let us pray that, if there is a suit, it won’t come before a Scotch jury,’ said Logan. ‘Anyhow, nobody knows that he came except you and me.’
‘And the office boy,’ said Merton.
‘Oh, we’ll square the office boy,’ said Logan. ‘Let’s lunch!’
They lunched, and Logan, as was natural, though Merton urged him to abstain, hung about the doors of Madame Claudine’s emporium at the hour when the young ladies returned to their homes. He walked home with Miss Markham. He told her about his chances, and his views, and no doubt she did not think him a person of schoolboy ideas, but a Bayard.
Two days passed, and in the afternoon of the third a telegram arrived for Logan from Kirkburn.
‘Come at once, Marquis very ill. Dr. Douglas, Kirkburn.’
There was no express train North till 8.45 in the evening. Merton dined with Logan at King’s Cross, and saw him off. He would reach his cousin’s house at about six in the morning if the train kept time.
About nine o’clock on the morning following Logan’s arrival at Kirkburn Merton was awakened: the servant handed to him a telegram.
‘Come instantly. Highly important. Logan, Kirkburn.’
Merton dressed himself more rapidly than he had ever done, and caught the train leaving King’s Cross at 10 a.m.
II. The Emu’s Feathers
The landscape through which Merton passed on his northward way to Kirkburn, whither Logan had summoned him, was blank with snow. The snow was not more than a couple of inches deep where it had not drifted, and, as frost had set in, it was not likely to deepen. There was no fear of being snowed up.
Merton naturally passed a good deal of his time in wondering what had occurred at Kirkburn, and why Logan needed his presence. ‘The poor old gentleman has passed away suddenly, I suppose,’ he reflected, ‘and Logan may think that I know where he has deposited his will. It is in some place that the marquis called “the hidie hole,” and that, from his vagrant remarks, appears to be a secret chamber, as his ancestor meant to keep James VI. there. I wish he had cut the throat of that prince, a bad fellow. But, of course, I don’t know where the chamber is: probably some of the people about the place know, or the lawyer who made the will.’
However freely Merton’s consciousness might play round the problem, he could get no nearer to its solution. At Berwick he had to leave the express, and take a local train. In the station, not a nice station, he was accosted by a stranger, who asked if he was Mr. Merton? The stranger, a wholesome, red-faced, black-haired man, on being answered in the affirmative, introduced himself as Dr. Douglas, of Kirkburn. ‘You telegraphed to my friend Logan the news of the marquis’s illness,’ said Merton. ‘I fear you have no better news to give me.’
Dr. Douglas shook his head.
A curious little crowd was watching the pair from a short distance. There was an air of solemnity about the people, which was not wholly due to the chill grey late afternoon, and the melancholy sea.
‘We have an hour to wait, Mr. Merton, before the local train starts, and afterwards there is a bit of a drive. It is cold, we would be as well in the inn as here.’
The doctor beat his gloved hands together to restore the circulation.
Merton saw that the doctor wished to be with him in private, and the two walked down into the town, where they got a comfortable room, the doctor ordering boiling water and the other elements of what he called ‘a cheerer.’ When the cups which cheer had been brought, and the men were alone, the doctor said:
‘It is as you suppose, Mr. Merton, but worse.’
‘Great heaven, no accident has happened to Logan?’ asked Merton.
‘No, sir, and he would have met you himself at Berwick, but he is engaged in making inquiries and taking precautions at Kirkburn.’
‘You do not mean that there is any reason to suspect foul play? The marquis, I know, was in bad health. You do not suspect—murder?’
‘No, sir, but—the marquis is gone.’
‘I know he is gone, your telegram and what I observed of his health led me to fear the worst.’
‘But his body is gone—vanished.’
‘You suppose that it has been stolen (you know the American and other cases of the same kind) for the purpose of extracting money from the heir?’
‘That is the obvious view, whoever the heir may be. So far, no will has been found,’ the doctor added some sugar to his cheerer, and some whisky to correct the sugar. ‘The neighbourhood is very much excited. Mr. Logan has telegraphed to London for detectives.’
Merton reflected in silence.
‘The obvious view is not always the correct one,’ he said. ‘The marquis was, at least I thought that he was, a very eccentric person.’
‘No doubt about that,’ said the doctor.
‘Very well. He had reasons, such reasons as might occur to a mind like his, for wanting to test the character and conduct of Mr. Logan, his only living kinsman. What I am going to say will seem absurd to you, but—the marquis spoke to me of his malady as a kind of “dwawming,” I did not know what he meant, at the time, but yesterday I consulted the glossary of a Scotch novel: to dwawm, I think, is to lose consciousness?’
The doctor nodded.
‘Now you have read,’ said Merton, ‘the case published by Dr. Cheyne, of a gentleman, Colonel Townsend, who could voluntarily produce a state of “dwawm” which was not then to be distinguished from death?’
‘I have read it in the notes to Aytoun’s Scottish Cavaliers,’ said the doctor.
‘Now, then, suppose that the marquis, waking out of such a state, whether voluntarily induced (which is very improbable) or not, thought fit to withdraw himself, for the purpose of secretly watching, from some retreat, the behaviour of his heir, if he has made Mr. Logan his heir? Is that hypothesis absolutely out of keeping with his curious character?’
‘No. It’s crazy enough, if you will excuse me, but, for these last few weeks, at any rate, I would have swithered about signing a fresh certificate to the marquis’s sanity.’
‘You did, perhaps, sign one when he made his will, as he told me?’
‘I, and Dr. Gourlay, and Professor Grant,’ the doctor named two celebrated Edinburgh specialists. ‘But just of late I would not be so certain.’
‘Then my theory need not necessarily be wrong?’
‘It can’t but be wrong. First, I saw the man dead.’
‘Absolute tests of death are hardly to be procured, of course you know that better than I do,’ said Merton.
‘Yes, but I am positive, or as positive as one can be, in the circumstances. However, that is not what I stand on. There was a witness who saw the marquis go.’
‘Go—how did he go?’
‘He disappeared.’
‘The body disappeared?’
‘It did, but you had better hear the witness’s own account; I don’t think a second-hand story will convince you, especially as you have a theory.’
‘Was the witness a man or a woman?’
‘A woman,’ said the doctor.
‘Oh!’ said Merton.
‘I know what you mean,’ said the doctor. ‘You think, it suits your theory, that the marquis came to himself and—’
‘And squared the female watcher,’ interrupted Merton; ‘she would assist him in his crazy stratagem.’
‘Mr. Merton, you’ve read ower many novels,’ said the doctor, lapsing into the vernacular. ‘Well, your notion is not unthinkable, nor pheesically impossible. She’s a queer one, Jean Bower, that waked the corpse, sure enough. However, you’ll soon be on the spot, and can examine the case for yourself. Mr. Logan has no idea but that the body was stolen for purposes of blackmail.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We must be going to catch the train, if she’s anything like punctual.’
The pair walked in silence to the station, were again watched curiously by the public (who appeared to treat the station as a club), and after three-quarters of an hour of slow motion and stoppages, arrived at their destination, Drem.
The doctor’s own man with a dog-cart was in waiting.
‘The marquis had neither machine nor horse,’ the doctor explained.
Through the bleak late twilight they were driven, past two or three squalid mining villages, along a road where the ruts showed black as coal through the freezing snow. Out of one village, the lights twinkling in the windows, they turned up a steep road, which, after a couple of hundred yards, brought them to the old stone gate posts, surmounted by heraldic animals.
‘The late marquis sold the worked-iron gates to a dealer,’ said the doctor.
At the avenue gates, so steep was the ascent, both men got out and walked.
‘You see the pits come up close to the house,’ said the doctor, as they reached the crest. He pointed to some tall chimneys on the eastern slope, which sank quite gradually to the neighbouring German Ocean, but ended in an abrupt rocky cliff.
‘Is that a fishing village in the cleft of the cliffs? I think I see a red roof,’ said Merton.
‘Ay, that’s Strutherwick, a fishing village,’ replied the doctor.
‘A very easy place, on your theory, for an escape with the body by boat,’ said Merton.
‘Ay, that is just it,’ acquiesced the doctor.
‘But,’ asked Merton, as they reached the level, and saw the old keep black in front of them, ‘what is that rope stretched about the lawn for? It seems to go all round the house, and there are watchers.’ Dark figures with lanterns were visible at intervals, as Merton peered into the gathering gloom. The watchers paced to and fro like sentinels.
The door of the house opened, and a man’s figure stood out against the lamp light within.
‘Is that you, Merton?’ came Logan’s voice from the doorway.
Merton answered; and the doctor remarked, ‘Mr. Logan will tell you what the rope’s for.’
The friends shook hands; the doctor, having deposited Merton’s baggage, pleaded an engagement, and said ‘Good-bye,’ among the thanks of Logan. An old man, a kind of silent Caleb Balderstone, carried Merton’s light luggage up a black turnpike stair.
‘I’ve put you in the turret; it is the least dilapidated room,’ said Logan. ‘Now, come in here.’
He led the way into a hall on the ground-floor. A great fire in the ancient hearth, with its heavy heraldically carved stone chimney-piece, lit up the desolation of the chamber.
‘Sit down and warm yourself,’ said Logan, pushing forward a ponderous oaken chair, with a high back and short arms.
‘I know a good deal,’ said Merton, his curiosity hurrying him to the point; ‘but first, Logan, what is the rope on the stakes driven in round the house for?’
‘That was my first precaution,’ said Logan. ‘I heard of the—of what has happened—about four in the morning, and I instantly knocked in the stakes—hard work with the frozen ground—and drew the rope along, to isolate the snow about the house. When I had done that, I searched the snow for footmarks.’
‘When had the snow begun to fall?’
‘About midnight. I turned out then to look at the night before going to bed.’
‘And there was nothing wrong then?’
‘He lay on his bed in the laird’s chamber. I had just left it. I left him with the watcher of the dead. There was a plate of salt on his breast. The housekeeper, Mrs. Bower, keeps up the old ways. Candles were burning all round the bed. A fearful waste he would have thought it, poor old man. The devils! If I could get on their track!’ said Logan, clenching his fist.
‘You have found no tracks, then?’
‘None. When I examined the snow there was not a footmark on the roads to the back door or the front—not a footmark on the whole area.’
‘Then the removal of the body from the bedroom was done from within. Probably the body is still in the house.’
‘Certainly it has been taken out by no known exit, if it has been taken out, as I believe. I at once arranged relays of sentinels—men from the coal-pits. But the body is gone; I am certain of it. A fishing-boat went out from the village, Strutherwick, before the dawn. It came into the little harbour after midnight—some night-wandering lover saw it enter—and it must have sailed again before dawn.’
‘Did you examine the snow near the harbour?’
‘I could not be everywhere at once, and I was single-handed; but I sent down the old serving-man, John Bower. He is stupid enough, but I gave him a note to any fisherman he might meet. Of course these people are not detectives.’
‘And was there any result?’
‘Yes; an odd one. But it confirms the obvious theory of body-snatching. Of course, fishers are early risers, and they went trampling about confusedly. But they did find curious tracks. We have isolated some of them, and even managed to carry off a couple. We dug round them, and lifted them. A neighbouring laird, Mr. Maitland, lent his ice-house for storing these, and I had one laid down on the north side of this house to show you, if the frost held. No ice-house or refrigerator here, of course.’
‘Let me see it now.’
Logan took a lighted candle—the night was frosty, without a wind—and led Merton out under the black, ivy-clad walls. Merton threw his greatcoat on the snow and knelt on it, peering at the object. He saw a large flat clod of snow and earth. On its surface was the faint impress of a long oval, longer than the human foot; feathery marks running in both directions from the centre could be descried. Looking closer, Merton detected here and there a tiny feather and a flock or two of down adhering to the frozen mass.
‘May I remove some of these feathery things?’ Merton asked.
‘Certainly. But why?’
‘We can’t carry the clod indoors, it would melt; and it may melt if the weather changes; and by bad luck there may be no feathers or down adhering to the other clods—those in the laird’s ice-house.’
‘You think you have a clue?’
‘I think,’ said Merton, ‘that these are emu’s feathers; but, whether they are or not, they look like a clue. Still, I think they are emu’s feathers.’
‘Why? The emu is not an indigenous bird.’
As he spoke, an idea—several ideas—flashed on Merton. He wished that he had held his peace. He put the little shreds into his pocket-book, rose, and donned his greatcoat. ‘How cold it is!’ he said. ‘Logan, would you mind very much if I said no more just now about the feathers? I really have a notion—which may be a good one, or may be a silly one—and, absurd as it appears, you will seriously oblige me by letting me keep my own counsel.’
‘It is damned awkward,’ said Logan testily.
‘Ah, old boy, but remember that “damned awkward” is a damned awkward expression.’
‘You are right,’ said Logan heartily; ‘but I rose very early, I’m very tired, I’m rather savage. Let’s go in and dine.’
‘All right,’ said Merton.
‘I don’t think,’ said Logan, as they were entering the house, ‘that I need keep these miners on sentry go any longer. The bird—the body, I mean—has flown. Whoever the fellows were that made these tracks, and however they got into and out of the house, they have carried the body away. I’ll pay the watchers and dismiss them.’
‘All right,’ said Merton. ‘I won’t dress. I must return to town by the night train. No time to be lost.’
‘No train to be caught,’ said Logan, ‘unless you drive or walk to Berwick from here—which you can’t. You can’t walk to Dunbar, to catch the 10.20, and I have nothing that you can drive.’
‘Can I send a telegram to town?’
‘It is four miles to the nearest telegraph station, but I dare say one of the sentinels would walk there for a consideration.’
‘No use,’ said Merton. ‘I should need to wire in a cipher, when I come to think of it, and cipher I have none. I must go as early as I can to-morrow. Let us consult Bradshaw.’
They entered the house. Merton had a Bradshaw in his dressing-bag. They found that he could catch a train at 10.49 A.M., and be in London about 9 P.M.
‘How are you to get to the station?’ asked Logan. ‘I’ll tell you how,’ he went on. ‘I’ll send a note to the inn at the place, and order a trap to be here at ten. That will give you lots of time. It is about four miles.’
‘Thank you,’ said Merton; ‘I see no better way.’ And while Logan went to pay and dismiss the sentries and send a messenger, a grandson of the old butler with the note to the innkeeper, Merton toiled up the narrow turnpike stair to the turret chamber. A fire had been burning all day, and in firelight almost any room looks tolerable. There was a small four-poster bed, with slender columns, a black old wardrobe, and a couple of chairs, one of the queer antiquated little dressing-tables, with many drawers, and boxes, and a tiny basin, and there was a perfectly new tub, which Logan had probably managed to obtain in the course of the day. Merton’s evening clothes were neatly laid out, the shutters were closed, curtains there were none; in fact, he had been in much worse quarters.
As he dressed he mused. ‘Cursed spite,’ thought he, ‘that ever I was born to be an amateur detective! And cursed be my confounded thirst for general information! Why did I ever know what Kurdaitcha and Interlinia mean? If I turn out to be right, oh, shade of Sherlock Holmes, what a pretty kettle of fish there will be! Suppose I drop the whole affair! But I’ve been ass enough to let Logan know that I have an idea. Well, we shall see how matters shape themselves. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’
Merton descended the turnpike stair, holding on to the rope provided for that purpose in old Scotch houses. He found Logan standing by the fire in the hall. They were waited on by the old man, Bower. By tacit consent they spoke, while he was present, of anything but the subject that occupied their minds. They had quite an edible dinner—cock-a-leekie, brandered haddocks, and a pair of roasted fowls, with a mysterious sweet which was called a ‘Hattit Kit.’
‘It is an historical dish in this house,’ said Logan. ‘A favourite with our ancestor, the conspirator.’
The wine was old and good, having been laid down before the time of the late marquis.
‘In the circumstances, Logan,’ said Merton, when the old serving man was gone, ‘you have done me very well.’
‘Thanks to Mrs. Bower, our butler’s wife,’ said Logan. ‘She is a truly remarkable woman. She and her husband, they are cousins, are members of an ancient family, our hereditary retainers. One of them, Laird Bower, was our old conspirator’s go-between in the plot to kidnap the king, of which you have heard so much. Though he was an aged and ignorant man, he kept the secret so well that our ancestor was never even suspected, till his letters came to light after his death, and after Laird Bower’s death too, luckily for both of them. So you see we can depend on it that this pair of domestics, and their family, were not concerned in this new abomination; so far, the robbery was not from within.’
‘I am glad to hear that,’ said Merton. ‘I had invented a theory, too stupid to repeat, and entirely demolished by the footmarks in the snow, a theory which hypothetically implicated your old housekeeper. To be sure it did not throw any doubt on her loyalty to the house, quite the reverse.’
‘What was your theory?’
‘Oh, too silly for words; that the marquis had been only in a trance, had come to himself when alone with the old lady, who, the doctor said, was watching in the room, and had stolen away, to see how you would conduct yourself. Childish hypothesis! The obvious one, body-snatching, is correct. This is very good port.’
‘If things had been as you thought possible, Jean Bower was not the woman to balk the marquis,’ said Logan. ‘But you must see her and hear her tell her own story.’
‘Gladly,’ said Merton, ‘but first tell me yours.’
‘When I arrived I found the poor old gentleman unconscious. Dr. Douglas was in attendance. About noon he pronounced life extinct. Mrs. Bower watched, or “waked” the corpse. I left her with it about midnight, as I told you; about four in the morning she aroused me with the news that the body had vanished. What I did after that you know. Now you had better hear the story from herself.’
Logan rang a handbell, there were no other bells in the keep, and asked the old serving-man, when he came, to send in Mrs. Bower.
She entered, a very aged woman, dressed in deep mourning. She was tall, her hair of an absolutely pure white, her aquiline face was drawn, her cheeks hollow, her mouth almost toothless. She made a deep courtesy, repeating it when Logan introduced ‘my friend, Mr. Merton.’
‘Mrs. Bower,’ Logan said, ‘Mr. Merton is my oldest friend, and the marquis saw him in London, and consulted him on private business a few days ago. He wishes to hear you tell what you saw the night before last.’
‘Maybe, as the gentleman is English, he’ll hardly understand me, my lord. I have a landward tongue,’ said Mrs. Bower.
‘I can interpret if Mr. Merton is puzzled, Mrs. Bower, but I think he will understand better if we go to the laird’s chamber.’
Logan took two lighted candles, handing two to Merton, and the old woman led them upstairs to a room which occupied the whole front of the ancient ‘peel,’ or square tower, round which the rest of the house was built. The room was nearly bare of furniture, except for an old chair or two, a bureau, and a great old bed of state, facing the narrow deep window, and standing on a kind of daïs, or platform of three steps. The heavy old green curtains were drawn all round it. Mrs. Bower opened them at the front and sides. At the back against the wall the curtains, embroidered with the arms of Restalrig, remained closed.
‘I sat here all the night,’ said Mrs. Bower, ‘watching the corp that my hands had streikit. The candles were burning a’ about him, the saut lay on his breast, only aefold o’ linen covered him. My back was to the window, my face to his feet. I was crooning the auld dirgie; if it does nae guid, it does nae harm.’ She recited in a monotone:
‘When thou frae here away art past—
Every nicht and all—
To Whinny-muir thou comest at last,
And Christ receive thy saul.‘If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon—
Every nicht and all—
Sit thee down and put them on,
And Christ receive thy saul
‘Alas, he never gave nane, puir man,’ said the woman with a sob.
At this moment the door of the chamber slowly opened. The woman turned and gazed at it, frowning, her lips wide apart.
Logan went to the door, looked into the passage, closed the door and locked it; the key had to be turned twice, in the old fashion, and worked with a creaking jar.
‘I had crooned thae last words,
And Christ receive thy saul,
when the door opened, as ye saw it did the now. It is weel kenned that a corp canna lie still in a room with the door hafflins open. I rose to lock it, the catch is crazy. I was backing to the door, with my face to the feet o’ the corp. I saw them move backwards, slow they moved, and my heart stood still in my breist. Then I saw’—here she stepped to the head of the bed and drew apart the curtains, which opened in the middle—‘I saw the curtain was open, and naething but blackness ahint it. Ye see, my Lord, ahint the bed-heid is the entrance o’ the auld secret passage. The stanes hae lang syne fallen in, and closed it, but my Lord never would have the hole wa’ed up. “There’s nae draught, Jean, or nane to mention, and I never was wastefu’ in needless repairs,” he aye said. Weel, when I looked that way, his face, down to the chafts, was within the blackness, and aye draw, drawing further ben. Then, I shame to say it, a sair dwawm cam ower me, I gae a bit chokit cry, and I kenned nae mair till I cam to mysel, a’ the candles were out, and the chamber was mirk and lown. I heard the skirl o’ a passing train, and I crap to the bed, and the skirl kind o’ reminded me o’ living folk, and I felt a’ ower the bed wi’ my hands. There was nae corp. Ye ken that the Enemy has power, when a corp lies in a room, and the door is hafflins closed. Whiles they sit up, and grin and yammer. I hae kenned that. Weel, how long I had lain in the dwawm I canna say. The train that skirled maun hae been a coal train that rins by about half-past three in the morning. There was a styme o’ licht that streeled in at the open door, frae a candle your lordship set on a table in the lobby; the auld lord would hae nae lichts in the house after the ten hours. Sae I got to the door, and grippit to the candle, and flew off to your lordship’s room, and the rest ye ken.’
‘Thank you, very much, Mrs. Bower,’ said Logan. ‘You quite understand, Merton, don’t you?’
‘I thoroughly understand your story, Mrs. Bower,’ said Merton.
‘We need not keep you any longer, Mrs. Bower,’ said Logan. ‘Nobody need sit up for us; you must be terribly fatigued.’
‘You wunna forget to rake out the ha’ fire, my lord?’ said the old lady, ‘I wush your Lordship a sound sleep, and you, sir,’ so she curtsied and went, Logan unlocking the door.
‘And I was in London this morning!’ said Merton, drawing a long breath.
‘You’re over Tweed, now, old man,’ answered Logan, with patriotic satisfaction.
‘Don’t go yet,’ said Merton. ‘You examined the carpet of the room; no traces there of these odd muffled foot-coverings you found in the snow?’
‘Not a trace of any kind. The salt was spilt, some of it lay on the floor. The plate was not broken.’
‘If they came in, it would be barefoot,’ said Merton.
‘Of course the police left traces of official boots,’ said Logan. ‘Where are they now—the policemen, I mean?’
‘Two are to sleep in the kitchen.’
‘They found out nothing?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Let me look at the hole in the wall.’ Merton climbed on to the bed and entered the hole. It was about six feet long by four wide. Stones had fallen in, at the back, and had closed the passage in a rough way, indeed what extent of the floor of the passage existed was huddled with stones. Merton examined the sides of the passage, which were mere rubble.
‘Have you looked at the floor beneath those fallen stones?’ Merton asked.
‘No, by Jove, I never thought of that,’ said Logan.
‘How could they have been stirred without the old woman hearing the noise?’
‘How do you know they were there before the marquis’s death?’ asked Merton, adding, ‘this hole was not swept and dusted regularly. Either the entrance is beneath me, or—“the Enemy had power”—as Mrs. Bower says.’
‘You must be right,’ said Logan. ‘I’ll have the stones removed to-morrow. The thing is clear. The passage leads to somewhere outside of the house. There’s an abandoned coal mine hard by, on the east. Nothing can be simpler.’
‘When once you see it,’ said Merton.
‘Come and have a whisky and soda,’ said Logan.
III. A Romance of Bradshaw
Merton slept very well in the turret room. He was aroused early by noises which he interpreted as caused by the arrival of the London detectives. But he only turned round, like the sluggard, and slumbered till Logan aroused him at eight o’clock. He descended about a quarter to nine, breakfast was at nine, and he found Logan looking much disturbed.
‘They don’t waste time,’ said Logan, handing to Merton a letter in an opened envelope. Logan’s hand trembled.
‘Typewritten address, London postmark,’ said Merton. ‘To Robert Logan, Esq., at Kirkburn Keep, Drem, Scotland.’
Merton read the letter aloud; there was no date of place, but there were the words:
‘March 6, 2.45 p.m.
‘Sir,—Perhaps I ought to say my Lord—’
‘What a fool the fellow is,’ said Merton.
‘Why?’
‘Shows he is an educated man.’
‘You may obtain news as to the mortal remains of your kinsman, the late Marquis of Restalrig, and as to his Will, by walking in the Burlington Arcade on March 11, between the hours of three and half-past three p.m. You must be attired in full mourning costume, carrying a glove in your left hand, and a black cane, with a silver top, in your right. A lady will drop her purse beside you. You will accost her.’
Here the letter, which was typewritten, ended.
‘You won’t?’ said Merton. ‘Never meet a black-mailer halfway.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Logan. ‘But look here!’
He gave Merton another letter, in outward respect exactly similar to the first, except that the figure 2 was typewritten in the left corner. The letter ran thus:
‘March 6, 4.25 p.m.
‘Sir,—I regret to have to trouble you with a second communication, but my former letter was posted before a change occurred in the circumstances. You will be pleased to hear that I have no longer the affliction of speaking of your noble kinsman as “the late Marquis of Restalrig.”’
‘Oh my prophetic soul!’ said Merton, ‘I guessed at first that he was not dead after all! Only catalepsy.’ He went on reading: ‘His Lordship recovered consciousness in circumstances which I shall not pain you by describing. He is now doing as well as can be expected, and may have several years of useful life before him. I need not point out to you that the conditions of the negotiation are now greatly altered. On the one hand, my partners and myself may seem to occupy the position of players who work a double ruff at whist. We are open to the marquis’s offers for release, and to yours for his eternal absence from the scene of life and enjoyment. But it is by no means impossible that you may have scruples about outbidding your kinsman, especially as, if you did, you would, by the very fact, become subject to perpetual “black-mailing” at our hands. I speak plainly, as one man of the world to another. It is also a drawback to our position that you could attain your ends without blame or scandal (your ends being, of course, if the law so determines, immediate succession to the property of the marquis), by merely pushing us, with the aid of the police, to a fatal extreme. We are, therefore reluctantly obliged to conclude that we cannot put the marquis’s life up to auction between you and him, as my partners, in the first flush of triumph, had conceived. But any movement on your side against us will be met in such a way that the consequences, both to yourself and your kinsman, will prove to the last degree prejudicial. For the rest, the arrangements specified in my earlier note of this instant (dated 2.45 P. M.) remain in force.’
Merton returned the letter to Logan. Their faces were almost equally blank.
‘Let me think!’ said Merton. He turned, and walked to the window. Logan re-read the letters and waited. Presently Merton came back to the fireside. ‘You see, after all, this resolves itself into the ordinary dilemma of brigandage. We do not want to pay ransom, enormous ransom probably, if we can rescue the marquis, and destroy the gang. But the marquis himself—’
‘Oh, he would never offer terms that they would accept,’ said Logan, with conviction. ‘But I would stick at no ransom, of course.’
‘But suppose that I see a way of defeating the scoundrels, would you let me risk it?’
‘If you neither imperil yourself nor him too much.’
‘Never mind me, I like it. And, as for him, they will be very loth to destroy their winning card.’
‘You’ll be cautious?’
‘Naturally, but, as this place and the stations are sure to be watched, as the trains are slow, local, and inconvenient, and as, thanks to the economy of the marquis, you have no horses, it will be horribly difficult for me to leave the house and get to London and to work without their spotting me. It is absolutely essential to my scheme that I should not be known to be in town, and that I should be supposed to be here. I’ll think it out. In the meantime we must do what we can to throw dust in the eyes of the enemy. Wire an identical advertisement to all the London papers; I’ll write it.’
Merton went to a table on which lay some writing materials, and wrote:—
‘BURLINGTON ARCADE. SILVER-TOPPED EBONY STICK. Any offer made by the other party will be doubled on receipt of that consignment uninjured. Will meet the lady. Traps shall be kept here till after the date you mention. CHURCH BROOK.’
‘Now,’ said Merton, ‘he will see that Church Brook is Kirkburn, and that you will be liberal. And he will understand that the detectives are not to return to London. You did not show them the letters?’
‘Of course not till you saw them, and I won’t.’
‘And, if nothing can be done before the eleventh, why you must promenade in the Burlington Arcade.’
‘You see one weak point in your offers, don’t you?’
‘Which?’
‘Why, suppose they do release the marquis, how am I to get the money to pay double his offer? He won’t stump up and recoup me.’
Merton laughed. ‘We must risk it,’ he said. ‘And, in the changed circumstances, the tin might be raised on a post-obit. But he won’t bid high; you may double safely enough.’
On considering these ideas Logan looked relieved. ‘Now,’ he asked, ‘about your plan; is it following the emu’s feather?’
Merton nodded. ‘But I must do it alone. The detectives must stay here. Now if I leave, dressed as I am, by the 10.49, I’ll be tracked all the way. Is there anybody in the country whom you can absolutely trust?’
‘Yes, there’s Bower, the gardener, the son of these two feudal survivals, and there is his son.’
‘What is young Bower?’
‘A miner in the collieries; the mine is near the house.’
‘Is he about my size? Have you seen him?’
‘I saw him last night; he was one of the watchers.’
‘Is he near my size?’
‘A trifle broader, otherwise near enough.’
‘What luck!’ said Merton, adding, ‘well, I can’t start by the 10.49. I’m ill. I’m in bed. Order my breakfast in bed, send Mrs. Bower, and come up with her yourself.’
Merton rushed up the turnpike stair; in two minutes he was undressed, and between the sheets. There he lay, reading Bradshaw, pages 670, 671.
Presently there was a knock at the door, and Logan entered, followed by Mrs. Bower with the breakfast tray.
Merton addressed her at once.
‘Mrs. Bower, we know that we can trust you absolutely.’
‘To the death, sir—me and mine.’
‘Well, I am not ill, but people must think I am ill. Is your grandson on the night shift or the day shift?’
‘Laird is on the day shift, sir.’
‘When does he leave his work?’
‘About six, sir.’
‘That is good. As soon as he appears—’
‘I’ll wait for him at the pit’s mouth, sir.’
‘Thank you. You will take him to his house; he lives with your son?’
‘Yes, sir, with his father.’
‘Make him change his working clothes—but he need not wash his face much—and bring him here. Mr. Logan, I mean Lord Fastcastle, will want him. Now, Mrs. Bower—you see I trust you absolutely—what he is wanted for is this. I shall dress in your grandson’s clothes, I shall blacken my hands and face slightly, and I must get to Drem. Have I time to reach the station by ten minutes past seven?’
‘By fast walking, sir.’
‘Mr. Logan and your grandson—your grandson in my clothes—will walk later to your son’s house, as they find a chance, unobserved, say about eleven at night. They will stay there for some time. Then they will be joined by some of the police, who will accompany Mr. Logan home again. Your grandson will go to his work as usual in the morning. That is all. You quite understand? You have nothing to do but to bring your grandson here, dressed as I said, as soon as he leaves his work. Oh, wait a moment! Is your grandson a teetotaller?’
‘He’s like the other lads, sir.’
‘All the better. Does he smoke?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then pray bring me a pipe of his and some of his tobacco. And, ah yes, does he possess such a thing as an old greatcoat?’
‘His auld ane’s sair worn, sir.’
‘Never mind, he had better walk up in it. He has a better one?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I think that is all,’ said Merton. ‘You understand, Mrs. Bower, that I am going away dressed as your grandson, while your grandson, dressed as myself, returns to his house to-night, and to work to-morrow. But it is not to be known that I have gone away. I am to be supposed ill in bed here for a day or two. You will bring my meals into the room at the usual hours, and Logan—of course you can trust Dr. Douglas?’
‘I do.’
‘Then he had better be summoned to my sick bed here to-morrow. I may be so ill that he will have to call twice. That will keep up the belief that I am here.’
‘Good idea,’ said Logan, as the old woman left the room. ‘What had I better do now?’
‘Oh, send your telegrams—the advertisements—to the London papers. They can go by the trap you ordered for me, that I am too ill to go in. Then you will have to interview the detectives, take them into the laird’s chamber, and, if they start my theory about the secret entrance being under the fallen stones, let them work away at removing them. If they don’t start it, put them up to it; anything to keep them employed and prevent them from asking questions in the villages.’
‘But, Merton, I understand your leaving in disguise; still, why go first to Edinburgh?’
‘The trains from your station to town do not fit. You can look.’ And Merton threw Bradshaw to Logan, who caught it neatly.
When he had satisfied himself, Logan said, ‘The shops will be closed in Edinburgh, it will be after eight when you arrive. How will you manage about getting into decent clothes?’
‘I have my idea; but, as soon as you can get rid of the detectives, come back here; I want you to coach me in broad Scots words and pronunciation. I shall concoct imaginary dialogues. I say, this is great fun.’
‘Dod, man, aw ’m the lad that’ll lairn ye the pronoonciation,’ said Logan, and he was going.
‘Wait,’ said Merton, ‘sign me a paper giving me leave to treat about the ransom. And promise that, if I don’t reappear by the eleventh, you won’t negotiate at all.’
‘Not likely I will,’ said Logan.
Merton lay in bed inventing imaginary dialogues to be rendered into Scots as occasion served. Presently Logan brought him a little book named Mansie Waugh.
‘That is our lingo here,’ he said; and Merton studied the work carefully, marking some phrases with a pencil.
In about an hour Logan reported that the detectives were at work in the secret passage. The lesson in the Scots of the Lothians began, accompanied by sounds of muffled laughter. Not for two or three centuries can the turret chamber at Kirkburn have heard so much merriment.
The afternoon passed in this course of instruction. Merton was a fairly good mimic, and Logan felt at last that he could not readily be detected for an Englishman. Six o’clock had scarcely struck when Mrs. Bower’s grandson was ushered into the bedroom. The exchange of clothes took place, Merton dressing as the young Bower undressed. The detectives, who had found nothing, were being entertained by Mrs. Bower at dinner.
‘I know how the trap in the secret passage is worked,’ said Merton, ‘but you keep them hunting for it.’
Had the worthy detectives been within earshot the yells of laughter echoing in the turret as the men dressed must have suggested strange theories to their imaginations.
‘Larks!’ said Merton, as he blackened his face with coal dust.
Dismissing young Bower, who was told to wait in the hall, Merton made his final arrangements. ‘You will communicate with me under cover to Trevor,’ he said. He took a curious mediæval ring that he always wore from his ringer, and tied it to a piece of string, which he hung round his neck, tucking all under his shirt. Then he arranged his thick comforter so as to hide the back of his head and neck (he had bitten his nails and blackened them with coal).
‘Logan, I only want a bottle of whisky, the cork drawn and loose in the bottle, and a few dirty Scotch one pound notes; and, oh! has Mrs. Bower a pack of cards?’
Having been supplied with these properties, and said farewell to Logan, Merton stole downstairs, walked round the house, entered the kitchen by the back door, and said to Mrs. Bower, ‘Grannie, I maun be ganging.’
‘My grandson, gentlemen,’ said Mrs. Bower to the detectives. Then to her grandson, she remarked, ‘Hae, there’s a jeely piece for you’; and Merton, munching a round of bread covered with jam, walked down the steep avenue. He knew the house he was to enter, the gardener’s lodge, and also that he was to approach it by the back way, and go in at the back door. The inmates expected him and understood the scheme; presently he went out by the door into the village street, still munching at his round of bread.
To such lads and lassies as hailed him in the waning light he replied gruffly, explaining that he had ‘a sair hoast,’ that is, a bad cough, from which he had observed that young Bower was suffering. He was soon outside of the village, and walking at top speed towards the station. Several times he paused, in shadowy corners of the hedges, and listened. There was no sound of pursuing feet. He was not being followed, but, of course, he might be dogged at the station. The enemy would have their spies there: if they had them in the village his disguise had deceived them. He ran, whenever no passer-by was in sight; through the villages he walked, whistling ‘Wull ye no come back again!’ He reached the station with three minutes to spare, took a third-class ticket, and went on to the platform. Several people were waiting, among them four or five rough-looking miners, probably spies. He strolled towards the end of the platform, and when the train entered, leaped into a third-class carriage which was nearly full. Turning at the door, he saw the rough customers making for the same carriage. ‘Come on,’ cried Merton, with a slight touch of intoxication in his voice; ‘come on billies, a’ freens here!’ and he cast a glance of affection behind him at the other occupants of the carriage. The roughs pressed in.
‘I won’t have it,’ cried a testy old gentleman, who was economically travelling by third-class, ‘there are only three seats vacant. The rest of the train is nearly empty. Hi, guard! station-master, hi!’
‘A’ freens here,’ repeated Merton stolidly, taking his whisky bottle from his greatcoat pocket. Two of the roughs had entered, but the guard persuaded the other two that they must bestow themselves elsewhere. The old gentleman glared at Merton, who was standing up, the cork of the bottle between his teeth, as the train began to move. He staggered and fell back into his seat.
‘We are na fou, we’re no that fou,’
Merton chanted, directing his speech to the old gentleman,
‘But just a wee drap in oor ’ee!’
‘The curse of Scotland,’ muttered the old gentleman, whether with reference to alcohol or to Robert Burns, is uncertain.
‘The Curse o’ Scotland,’ said Merton, ‘that’s the nine o’ diamonds. I hae the cairts on me, maybe ye’d take a hand, sir, at Beggar ma Neebour, or Catch the Ten? Ye needna be feared, a can pay gin I lose.’ He dragged out his cards, and a handful of silver.
The rough customers between whom Merton was sitting began to laugh hoarsely. The old gentleman frowned.
‘I shall change my carriage at the next station,’ he said, ‘and I shall report you for gambling.’
‘A’ freens!’ said Merton, as if horrified by the austere reception of his cordial advances. ‘Wha’s gaumlin’? We mauna play, billies, till he’s gane. An unco pernicketty auld carl, thon ane,’ he remarked, sotto voce. ‘But there’s naething in the Company’s by-laws again refraishments,’ Merton added. He uncorked his bottle, made a pretence of sucking at it, and passed it to his neighbours, the rough customers. They imbibed with freedom.
The carriage was very dark, the lamp ‘moved like a moon in a wane,’ as Merton might have quoted in happier circumstances. The rough customers glared at him, but his cap had a peak, and he wore his comforter high.
‘Man, ye’re the kind o’ lad I like,’ said one of the rough customers.
‘A’ freens!’ said Merton, again applying himself to the bottle, and passing it. ‘Ony ither gentleman tak’ a sook?’ asked Merton, including all the passengers in his hospitable glance. ‘Nane o’ ye dry?
‘Oh! fill yer ain glass,
And let the jug pass,
Hoo d’ye ken but yer neighbour’s dry?’
Merton carolled.
‘Thon’s no a Scotch lilt,’ remarked one of the roughs.
‘A ken it’s Irish,’ said Merton. ‘But, billie, the whusky’s Scotch!’
The train slowed and the old gentleman got out. From the platform he stormed at Merton.
‘Ye’re no an awakened character, ma freend,’ answered Merton. ‘Gude nicht to ye! Gie ma love to the gude wife and the weans!’
The train pursued her course.
‘Aw ’m saying, billie, aw ’m saying,’ remarked one of the roughs, thrusting his dirty beard into Merton’s face.
‘Weel, be saying,’ said Merton.
‘You’re no Lairdie Bower, ye ken, ye haena the neb o’ him.’
‘And wha the deil said a was Lairdie Bower? Aw ’m a Lanerick man. Lairdie’s at hame wi’ a sair hoast,’ answered Merton.
‘But ye’re wearing Lairdie Bower’s auld big coat.’
‘And what for no? Lairdie has anither coat, a brawer yin, and he lent me the auld yin because the nichts is cauld, and I hae a hoast ma’sel! Div ye ken Lairdie Bower? I’ve been wi’ his auld faither and the lasses half the day, but speakin’s awfu’ dry work.’
Here Merton repeated the bottle trick, and showed symptoms of going to sleep, his head rolling on to the shoulder of the rough.
‘Haud up, man!’ said the rough, withdrawing the support.
‘A’ freens here,’ remarked Merton, drawing a dirty clay pipe from his pocket. ‘Hae ye a spunk?’
The rough provided him with a match, and he killed some time, while Preston Pans was passed, in filling and lighting his pipe.
‘Ye’re a Lanerick man?’ asked the inquiring rough.
‘Ay, a Hamilton frae Moss End. But I’m taking the play. Ma auld tittie has dee’d and left me some siller,’ Merton dragged a handful of dirty notes out of his trousers pocket. ‘I’ve been to see the auld Bowers, but Lairdie was on the shift.’
‘And ye’re ganging to Embro?’
‘When we cam’ into Embro Toon
We were a seemly sicht to see;
Ma luve was in the—
I dinna mind what ma luve was in—
‘And I ma’sel in cramoisie,’
sang Merton, who had the greatest fear of being asked local questions about Moss End and Motherwell. ‘I dinna ken what cramoisie is, ma’sel’,’ he added. ‘Hae a drink!’
‘Man, ye’re a bonny singer,’ said the rough, who, hitherto, had taken no hand in the conversation.
‘Ma faither was a precentor,’ said Merton, and so, in fact, Mr. Merton père had, for a short time, been—of Salisbury Cathedral.
They were approaching Portobello, where Merton rushed to the window, thrust half of his body out and indulged in the raucous and meaningless yells of the festive artisan. Thus he tided over a rather prolonged wait, but, when the train moved on, the inquiring rough returned to the charge. He was suspicious, and also was drunk, and obstinate with all the brainless obstinacy of intoxication.
‘Aw ’m sayin’,’ he remarked to Merton, ‘you’re no Lairdie Bower.’
‘Hear till the man! Aw ’m Tammy Hamilton, o’ Moss End in Lanerick. Aw ’m ganging to see ma Jean.
‘For day or night
Ma fancy’s flight
Is ever wi’ ma Jean—
Ma bonny, bonny, flat-footed Jean,’
sang Merton, gliding from the strains of Robert Burns into those of Mr. Boothby. ‘Jean’s a Lanerick wumman,’ he added, ‘she’s in service in the Pleasance. Aw ’m ganging to my Jo. Ye’ll a’ hae Jos, billies?’
‘Aw ’m sayin’,’ the intoxicated rough persisted, ‘ye’re no a Lanerick man. Ye’re the English gentleman birkie that cam’ to Kirkburn yestreen. Or else ye’re ane o’ the polis’ (police).
‘Me ane o’ the polis! Aw ’m askin’ the company, div a look like a polisman? Div a look like an English birkie, or ane o’ the gentry?’
The other passengers, decent people, thus appealed to, murmured negatives, and shook their heads. Merton certainly did not resemble a policeman, an Englishman, or a gentleman.
‘Ye see naebody lippens to ye,’ Merton went on. ‘Man, if we were na a’ freens, a wad gie ye a jaud atween yer twa een! But ye’ve been drinking. Tak anither sook!’
The rough did not reject the conciliatory offer.
‘The whiskey’s low,’ said Merton, holding up the bottle to the light, ‘but there’s mair at Embro’ station.’
They were now drawing up at the station. Merton floundered out, threw his arms round the necks of each of the roughs, yelled to their companions in the next carriage to follow, and staggered into the third-class refreshment room. Here he leaned against the counter and feebly ogled the attendant nymph.
‘Ma lonny bassie, a mean ma bonny lassie,’ he said, ‘gie’s five gills, five o’ the Auld Kirk’ (whisky).
‘Hoots man!’ he heard one of the roughs remark to another. ‘This falla’s no the English birkie. English he canna be.’
‘But aiblins he’s ane o’ oor ain polis,’ said the man of suspicions.
‘Nane o’ oor polis has the gumption; and him as fou as a fiddler.’
Merton, waving his glass, swallowed its contents at three gulps. He then fell on the floor, scrambled to his feet, tumbled out, and dashed his own whisky bottle through the window of the refreshment room.
‘Me ane o’ the polis!’ he yelled, and was staggering towards the exit, when he was collared by two policemen, attracted by the noise. He embraced one of them, murmuring ‘ma bonny Jean!’ and then doubled up, his head lolling on his shoulder. His legs and arms jerked convulsively, and he had at last to be carried off, in the manner known as ‘The Frog’s March,’ by four members of the force. The roughs followed, like chief mourners, Merton thought, at the head of the attendant crowd.
‘There’s an end o’ your clash about the English gentleman,’ Merton heard the quieter of his late companions observe to the obstinate inquirer. ‘But he’s a bonny singer. And noo, wull ye tell me hoo we’re to win back to Drem the nicht?’
‘Dod, we’ll make a nicht o’t,’ said the other, as Merton was carried into the police-station.
He permitted himself to be lifted into one of the cells, and then remarked, in the most silvery tones:
‘Very many thanks, my good men. I need not give you any more trouble, except by asking you, if possible, to get me some hot water and soap, and to invite the inspector to favour me with his company.’
The men nearly dropped Merton, but, finding his feet, he stood up and smiled blandly.
‘Pray make no apologies,’ he said. ‘It is rather I who ought to apologise.’
‘He’s no drucken, and he’s no Scotch,’ remarked one of the policemen.
‘But he’ll pass the nicht here, and maybe apologise to the Baillie in the morning,’ said another.
‘Oh, pardon me, you mistake me,’ said Merton. ‘This is not a stupid practical joke.’
‘It’s no a very gude ane,’ said the policeman.
Merton took out a handful of gold. ‘I wish to pay for the broken window at once,’ he said. ‘It was a necessary part of the mise en scène, of the stage effect, you know. To call your attention.’
‘Ye’ll settle wi’ the Baillie in the morning,’ said the policeman.
Things were looking untoward.
‘Look here,’ said Merton, ‘I quite understand your point of view, it does credit to your intelligence. You take me for an English tourist, behaving as I have done by way of a joke, or for a bet?’
‘That’s it, sir,’ said the spokesman.
‘Well, it does look like that. But which of you is the senior officer here?’
‘Me, sir,’ said the last speaker.
‘Very well, if you can be so kind as to call the officer in charge of the station, or even one of senior standing—the higher the better—I can satisfy him as to my identity, and as to my reasons for behaving as I have done. I assure you that it is a matter of the very gravest importance. If the inspector, when he has seen me, permits, I have no objections to you, or to all of you hearing what I have to say. But you will understand that this is a matter for his own discretion. If I were merely playing the fool, you must see that I have nothing to gain by giving additional annoyance and offence.’
‘Very well, sir, I will bring the officer in charge,’ said the policeman.
‘Just tell him about my arrest and so on,’ said Merton.
In a few minutes he returned with his superior.
‘Well, my man, what’s a’ this aboot?’ said that officer sternly.
‘If you can give me an interview, alone, for five minutes, I shall enlighten you,’ said Merton.
The officer was a huge and stalwart man. He threw his eye over Merton. ‘Wait in the yaird,’ he said to his minions, who retreated rather reluctantly. ‘Weel, speak up,’ said the officer.
‘It is the body snatching case at Kirkburn,’ said Merton.
‘Do ye mean that ye’re an English detective?’
‘No, merely a friend of Mr. Logan’s who left Kirkburn this evening. I have business to do for him in London in connection with the case—business that nobody can do but myself—and the house was watched. I escaped in the disguise which you see me wearing, and had to throw off a gang of ruffians that accompanied me in the train by pretending to be drunk. I could only shake them off and destroy the suspicions which they expressed by getting arrested.’
‘It’s a queer story,’ said the policeman.
‘It is a queer story, but, speaking without knowledge, I think your best plan is to summon the chief of your detective department, I need his assistance. And I can prove my identity to him—to you, if you like, but you know best what is official etiquette.’
‘I’ll telephone for him, sir.’
‘You are very obliging. All this is confidential, you know. Expense is no object to Mr. Logan, and he will not be ungrateful if strict secrecy is preserved. But, of all things, I want a wash.’
‘All right, sir,’ said the policeman, and in a few minutes Merton’s head, hands, and neck, were restored to their pristine propriety.
‘No more kailyard talk for me,’ he thought, with satisfaction.
The head of the detective department arrived in no long time. He was in evening dress. Merton rose and bowed.
‘What’s your story, sir?’ the chief asked; ‘it has brought me from a dinner party at my own house.’
‘I deeply regret it,’ said Merton, ‘though, for my purpose, it is the merest providence.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘Your subordinate has doubtless told you all that I told him?’
The chief nodded.
‘Do you—I mean as an official—believe me?’
‘I would be glad of proof of your personal identity.’
‘That is easily given. You may know Mr. Lumley, the Professor of Toxicology in the University here?’
‘I have met him often on matters of our business.’
‘He is an old college friend of mine, and can remove any doubts you may entertain. His wife is a tall woman luckily,’ added Merton to himself, much to the chief’s bewilderment.
‘Mr. Lumley’s word would quite satisfy me,’ said the chief.
‘Very well, pray lend me your attention. This affair—’
‘The body snatching at Kirkburn?’ asked the chief.
‘Exactly,’ said Merton. ‘This affair is very well organised. Your house is probably being observed. Now what I propose is this. I can go nowhere dressed as I am. You will, if you please, first send a constable, in uniform, to your house with orders to wait till you return. Next, I shall dress, by your permission, in any spare uniform you may have here and in that costume I shall leave this office and accompany you to your house in a closed cab. You will enter it, bring out a hat and cloak, come into the cab, and I shall put them on, leaving my policeman’s helmet in the cab, which will wait. Then, minutes later, the constable will come out, take the cab, and drive to any police office you please. Once within your house, I shall exchange my uniform for any old evening suit you may be able to lend me, and, when your guests have departed, you and I will drive together to Professor Lumley’s, where he will identify me. After that, my course is perfectly clear, and I need give you no further trouble.’
‘It is too complicated, sir,’ said the chief, smiling. ‘I don’t know your name?’