The Chestermarke Instinct Part 17

With that the senior partner pa.s.sed on, and Starmidge smiled at his companion.

"I'm glad he interrupted you, all the same, Mr. Polke," he said. "I was afraid you were going to say that you knew this woman had gone, in a hurry, to Ecclesborough."

"No, I wasn't," replied Polke. "I told him what I did--because I wanted to know what he'd say."

"Well--you heard!" said Starmidge. "And what's to be done, now? That woman's conduct is very suspicious. I think, if I were you, Mr. Polke, I should get in touch with the Ecclesborough police. Why not? No harm done. Why not call them up, give them a description of her, and ask them to keep their eyes open. She mayn't have left Ecclesborough--mayn't intend leaving. For--look here--!" he drew Polke further away from the two doors between which they were standing, and lowered his voice to a whisper--"Supposing," he went on, "supposing there is any secret understanding between this Mrs. Carswell and Joseph Chestermarke (and it looks like it, if she went off immediately after a conversation with him), she may have gone to Ecclesborough simply so that they could meet there, safely, later on. Eh?"

"Good notion!" agreed Polke. "Well--we can watch him."

"I'm beginning to think we must watch him--thought so for the last two hours," said Starmidge. "But in the meantime, why not put the Ecclesborough police on to keeping their eyes open for her? Can you give them a good description?"

"Know her as well as I know my own wife--by sight," answered Polke. "And her style of dressing, too. All right--I'll go and do it, now. Well, there'll be Mr. Batterley coming along in a few minutes--Jones has gone for him. If he can show you any of their secret places he talked about----"

"He's here," said Starmidge, as the old antiquary and the constable entered the hall. "All right--I'll attend to him."

But when Polke had gone, and Batterley had been conducted into the study, or garden-room as he insisted on calling it, Starmidge left the old man with Mr. Pellworthy and Betty and made an excuse to go out of the room after the housemaid, who had just brought in the tea for which Polke had asked. He caught her at the foot of the staircase, and treated her to one of his most ingratiating smiles.

"I say!" he said, "Mr. Polke's just been telling me about what you and the cook told him about Mrs. Carswell--you know. Now, I say--you needn't say anything--except to cook--but I just want to take a look round Mrs.

Carswell's room. Which is it?"

The cook, who kept the kitchen door open so as not to lose anything of these delightful proceedings, came forward. Both accompanied Starmidge upstairs to show him the room he wanted. And Starmidge thanked them profusely and in his best manner--after which he turned them politely out and locked the door.

Meanwhile Polke went to the police-station and rang up the Ecclesborough police on the telephone. He gave them a full, accurate, and precise description of Mrs. Carswell, and a detailed account of her doings that morning, and begged them to make inquiry at the three great stations in their town. The man with whom he held conversation calmly remarked that as each station at Ecclesborough dealt with a few thousands of separate individuals every day, it was not very likely that booking-clerks or platform officials would remember any particular persons, and Polke sorrowfully agreed with him. Nevertheless, he begged him to do his best--the far-off partner in this interchange of remarks answered that they would do a lot better if Mr. Polke would tell them something rather more definite. Polke gave it up at that, and went off into the Market-Place again, to return to the bank. But before he reached the bank he ran across Lord Ellersdeane, who, hanging about the town to hear some result of the search, had been lunching at the Scarnham Club, and now came out of its door.

"Any news so far?" asked the Earl.

Polke glanced round to see that n.o.body was within hearing. He and Lord Ellersdeane stepped within the doorway of the club-house. Polke narrated the story of the various happenings since the granting of the search-warrant, and the Earl's face grew graver and graver.

"Mr. Polke," he said at last, "I do not like what I am hearing about all this. It's a most suspicious thing that the housekeeper should disappear immediately after Miss Fosd.y.k.e's first call this morning, and that she should have had some conversation with Mr. Joseph Chestermarke before she went. Really, one dislikes to have to say it of one's neighbours, and of persons of the standing of the Chestermarkes, but their behaviour is--is----"

"Suspicious, my lord, suspicious!" said Polke. "There's no denying it.

And yet, they're what you might call so defiant, so brazen-faced and insolent, that----"

"Here's your London man," interrupted the Earl. "What is he after now?"

Starmidge came out of the door of the bank-house alone. He caught sight of Polke and Lord Ellersdeane, smiled, and hurried towards them. He carried something loosely wrapped in brown paper in his hand; as he stepped into the doorway of the club-house, he took the wrapping off, and showed a small morocco-covered box on which was a coronet in gold.

"Does your lordship recognize that?" he asked.

"My wife's jewel-casket, of course!" exclaimed the Earl. "Of course it is! Bless me!--where did you find it?"

"In the chimney, in Mrs. Carswell's bedroom," answered Starmidge, with a grimace at Polke. "It's empty!"

Chapter XIII

THE PARTNERS UNBEND

The Earl took the empty casket from the detective's hand and looked at it, inside and outside, with doubt and wonder.

"Now what do you take this to mean?" he asked.

"That we've got three people to find, instead of two, my lord," answered Starmidge promptly. "We must be after the housekeeper."

"You found this in her room?" asked Polke. "So--you went up there?"

"As soon as you'd left me," replied the detective, with a shrewd smile.

"Of course! I wanted to have a look round. I didn't forget the chimney.

She'd put that behind the back of the grate--a favourite hiding-place. I say she--but, of course, some one else may have put it there. Still--we must find her. You telephoned to the police at Ecclesborough, superintendent?"

"Ay, and got small comfort!" answered Polke. "It's a stiff job looking for one woman amongst half a million people."

"She wouldn't stop in Ecclesborough," said Starmidge. "She'll be on her way further afield, now. You can get anywhere from Ecclesborough, of course."

"Of course!" a.s.sented Polke. "She would be in any one of half a dozen big towns within a couple of hours--in some of 'em within an hour--in London itself within three. This'll be another case of printing a description. I wish we'd thought of keeping an eye on her before!"

"We haven't got to the stage where we can think of everything," observed Starmidge. "We've got to take things as they come. Well--there's one thing can be done now," he went on, looking at the Earl, "if your lordship'll be kind enough to do it."

"I'll do anything that I can," replied Lord Ellersdeane. "What is it?"

"If your lordship would just make a call on the two Mr. Chestermarkes,"

suggested Starmidge. "To tell them, of course, of--that," he added, pointing to the empty casket. "Your lordship will get some attention--I suppose. They won't give any attention to Polke or myself. If your lordship would just tell them that your casket--emptied of its valuable contents--had been found hidden in Mrs. Carswell's room, perhaps they'll listen, and--what is much more important--give you their views on the matter. I," concluded Starmidge, drily, "should very much like to hear them!"

The Earl made a wry face.

"Oh, all right!" he answered. "If I must, I must. It's not a job that appeals to me, but--very well. I'll go now."

"And we," said Starmidge, turning to Polke, "had better join the others and see if the old antiquary gentleman has found any of these secret places he talked of."

Lord Ellersdeane found no difficulty in obtaining access to the partners: he was shown into their room with all due ceremony as soon as Shirley announced him. He found them evidently relaxing a little after their lunch, from which they had just returned. They were standing in characteristic att.i.tudes; Gabriel, smoking a cigar, bolt upright on the hearth-rug beneath the portrait of his ancestor; Joseph, toying with a scented cigarette, leaning against the window which looked out on the garden. For once in a way both seemed more amenable and cordial.

The Earl held out the empty casket.

"This," he said, "is the casket in which I handed my wife's jewels to Mr. Horbury. It is, as you see, empty. It has just been found by the Scotland Yard man, Starmidge."

Gabriel glanced at the casket with some interest; Joseph, with none: neither spoke.

"In the housekeeper's room--hidden in her fire-place," continued the Earl, looking from one partner to the other. "That shows, gentlemen, that the jewels were, after all, in this house--on these premises."

"There has never been any question of that," said Gabriel quickly. "We, of course, never doubted what your lordship was good enough to tell us--naturally!"

"Not for a moment!" said Joseph. "We felt at once that you had given the jewels to Horbury."

The Earl set the casket down on Gabriel's desk and looked a little uncertain--and uncomfortable. Gabriel indicated the chair which he had politely moved forward on his visitor's entrance.