Part 5

“I don’t know what he’ll do,” I answered, “but I think he and Pawley are pretty much of a muchness! If he’s master and Pawley’s man, then there’s not much to choose between man and master! Did you notice that he wouldn’t allow that he knew Pawley, whereas he knew well enough that he and Pawley met at Newcastle only day before yesterday? But I’ll tell you what happened downstairs.”

I gave her a full account of the brief interchange of remarks between Sir Charles and myself in the courtyard. She listened eagerly, and her eyes lit up.

“Ah!” she said. “I see what he meant! He meant that on your telling Jimmie of the doings at Newcastle, and that Sir Charles might be expected, Jimmie cleared out quick!”

“Well, didn’t he clear out?” said I.

She looked at me a moment in silence; then she nodded her head, as much as to assent to an undeniable proposition.

“I suppose he did!” she answered.

“Suppose? He did clear out!” I exclaimed. “Before morning! Why?”

“Didn’t want to meet this pompous old person,” she said. “That seems to be about it. Yes, I think Jimmie decidedly cleared out!”

“Leaving us to face this sort of thing,” I said. “If one only knew what it’s all about, what it means, why there’s this hue-and-cry after that box----”

“I think the copper box is only a small part of it,” she interrupted. “It’s--a sort of handle, a clue, a--something!”

“Decidedly a something,” I assented. “Doubtless you observed that old White Whiskers very soon spotted it. That was all rot about the sideboard! He wasn’t looking at the sideboard at all; his eyes were glued on the copper box.”

“He’ll come back!” she exclaimed, suddenly. “I’m sure he’ll come back! And I’m wondering if, when he comes back, he’ll bring the police.”

“The police! What on earth makes you think that?” I asked. “Police? Come!”

“Didn’t you see Sir Charles Sperrigoe--whoever he may be--in conversation with our local police inspector last night?” she answered. “Obvious! The old person is in consultation with the police. Perhaps--don’t you see?--the box has been stolen.”

“You don’t imply that Mr. Parslewe stole it?” I suggested.

“Well, I have heard that antiquaries are not above appropriating things!” she answered with a laugh. “Their sense of mine and thine, I believe, is somewhat indefinite. But we’ll acquit Jimmie. Only, he may have bought it from somebody who stole it.”

“That’s more like it,” said I. “But in that case, why all this mystery? Why didn’t Pawley--who without doubt came after the box--say what he wanted? Why didn’t Sperrigoe?”

“Oh, Pawley came to see if the box was really here!” she declared. “Sperrigoe came to ask how it got here! That’s plain, to me. But what I want to know is, why such a fuss about it?”

“And what I want to know is, what made Parslewe vanish?” I said. “That’s much more of a mystery.”

“Didn’t you tell me that he seemed to know whom you meant when you described Sperrigoe as Sir Charles?” she asked. “Very well! Sir Charles is somebody whom Jimmie knew years ago. And Jimmie doesn’t want to meet him. Jimmie, as I have told you, is a queer man--an eccentric person. And I don’t think he’ll come home until Sir Charles Sperrigoe has gone away.”

“And I don’t think Sir Charles Sperrigoe will go away until he’s seen Parslewe,” said I. “So there we are!”

“Oh, well! does it matter very much?” she asked. “Aren’t we going out this fine morning? We’re doing no good here, staring at that wretched thing and speculating about it. Let’s be off!”

But before we could make any move, Tibbie Muir came into the room, looking very disapproving and sour of face, and presented Madrasia with another card. She became voluble.

“I’ve told him, and I’ve better told him, that the master’s not at home,” she declared, “but he’ll not take my word nor go away, and you must just deal with him yourself, Miss Madrasia. And if there’s going to be this coming and going at the door all day long----”

Madrasia glanced at the card and passed it over to me. It was a printed card, and the lettering was meant to be impressive.

MR. AUGUSTUS WEECH. _Newcastle Evening Planet._

“Well?” demanded Madrasia.

“I think I should see this gentleman,” said I.

“Bring him up, Tibbie,” commanded Madrasia. “Perhaps he’ll be the last. What can he want?” she went on, turning to me as Tibbie grumblingly departed. “A reporter?”

“Newspaper chap of some sort, evidently,” I said. “And wanting news! But how does he come to know where to apply for news? And what news?”

“We’re only getting more and more fog-bound,” she remarked. “Wait till we hear what he’s got to say; perhaps he has some news for us. He’s here!”

A sharp-eyed, alert, knowing-looking young person entered the room and made his bow. He was smartly dressed, evidently quite at his ease, and full of vitality. And his first proceeding was remarkable. As he straightened himself after doing obeisance to Madrasia his eyes fell on the copper box, and without preface he pointed a long, slender forefinger at it.

“That’s the identical article!” he exclaimed. “Sure!”

Then he looked round, saw me, grinned as if reassured by the sight of a fellow man, and turned again to Madrasia.

“Mr. Parslewe’s not at home, I understand, Miss,” he said, affably. “But you’re Miss Durham, ain’t you? I’ve heard of you. Now if I might sit down----”

He had dropped into a chair at the side of the table before Madrasia had had time to invite him thereto; laying his hat by his side he ran his right hand through a rather abundant crop of fair hair--his action seemed to signify a preliminary to business.

“I recognized that as soon as I walked in!” he said, with another frank and almost child-like smile. “Queer business, ain’t it, about that old box?”

“I gather that you know something about it,” observed Madrasia.

“I do, Miss, that’s why I’m here,” he answered candidly. “Yes, I know something--so, too, I guess, does that young gentleman. I saw him t’other day--yesterday, to be exact--coming out of Bickerdale’s shop.”

“You did?” I exclaimed.

“I did! You came out as I was crossing over to it,” he answered. “You made old Bickerdale jolly waxy, too, some way or other. You see Bickerdale, he’s my father-in-law.”

Madrasia and I looked at each other. I think we both had the same thought--that our visitor looked very juvenile to be married.

“Oh!” I said. “Indeed?”

“Yes,” he continued. “Been that for the last three years--a man of a queer and dour temper is Bickerdale. You set his back up yesterday, Mr.--I don’t know your name?”

“My name is Craye,” I replied.

“Mr. Craye--all right. Well, Mr. Craye and Miss Durham--or _vice versa_, if I’m to be polite--it’s like this,” he proceeded gaily. “There’s a mystery about that copper box, isn’t there? I guess Mr. Parslewe knows there is--but your old woman says he’s away--queer old party, that old woman, isn’t she?--a character, I should think. But if Mr. Parslewe’s away, you ain’t! And I want to get at something--and to get at it, I don’t mind telling what I know. Between ourselves, of course.”

Madrasia and I exchanged another glance; then we both sat down, one on either side of our loquacious visitor.

“What do you know, Mr. Weech?” I asked, in my friendliest tone.

“Yes,” said Madrasia. “It would be so kind of you to tell us that!”

Mr. Weech smiled, drumming his fingers on the crown of his hat.

“Well!” he said, graciously, “I’ll tell you! Of course, I came to tell Mr. Parslewe--but you’ll do. And no doubt you’ll be able to tell me something. Well, me first, then. As I said, I’m Bickerdale’s son-in-law. I married his third daughter, Melissa--she’s all right. Naturally, being in the relation I am to Bickerdale, I’m a good deal in and out of his place--go there Sundays, with the wife and kid. Now, not so very long ago, I was there one Sunday, and happening to go into his workshop for a smoke--my mother-in-law having a decided objection to tobacco in the parlour--I set eyes on that article--that very copper box! I was a bit taken with the engraved coat-of-arms and the queer motto underneath, and I asked Bickerdale where he’d got it. He told me that Mr. Parslewe of Kelpieshaw had brought it to him to be repaired--it had got slightly damaged by a fall, and needed a coppersmith’s attention. We talked a bit about it. Bickerdale said it had been made--beaten copper, you know--at least a hundred years, and was a very pretty bit of work. It had got a bulge in one side, and Bickerdale had to straighten it out--very delicate and gentle business. But he did it, and either Mr. Parslewe fetched it away, or it was sent to him. Anyhow, there it is!--that’s the box!”

Mr. Weech gave the copper box a tap with his finger-nail as if to evoke a confirmation of his words, and proceeded.

“Now, a bit--can’t say now how long exactly--after the box had come back here, I was up at Bickerdale’s one Sunday, and after dinner Bickerdale took me into his office. ‘I say!’ he says, when we were alone. ‘You remember that copper box that I was repairing, that you admired?--of course you do! Well, look here, there was some goods came the other day in an old copy of _The Times_,’ he says, ‘and my eye just happened to fall on this, on the front page,’ and he pulled out an old _Times_ and pointed to an advertisement that he’d marked, in the personal column. I read it, and I gaped at it! This,” continued Mr. Weech, suddenly producing a folded newspaper from an inner pocket, “this is not the identical copy of _The Times_ that Bickerdale had; this is another copy of the same issue--I got it, as a back number, for myself. Now, Miss Durham and Mr. Craye, you read that! and you’ll be getting at a very good notion of what it is that I want to get out of Mr. Parslewe! There, marked with red ink.”

He laid the newspaper on the table before us, and we bent over it, reading with feelings which--so far as I was concerned--rapidly became mixed.

“£250 REWARD. To Auctioneers, Antiquarian and Second-hand Booksellers, Buyers of Rare Books, etc.: Missing, and Probably Stolen, from a well-known Private Library, the following Scarce Works. 1. Hubbard’s Present State of New England, 1677; 2. Brandt’s Ship of Fooles, 1570; 3. Burton’s Anatomy, 1621; 4. Whole Works of Samuel Daniel, Esquire, in Poetrie, 1623; 5. Drayton’s Polyolbion, 1622; 6. Higden’s Polycronicon, 1527; 7. Florio’s Montaigne, 1603. Each of these copies, all extremely scarce, contains a book-plate of which the following is a full description. [Here followed a technical account, heraldic in detail.] Also Missing, and probably stolen at the same time, an Antique Box, of Beaten Copper, on the front of which is engraved the coat-of-arms and legend particularised in the foregoing description. It is probable that these properties will be offered to well-known collectors, here or abroad. The book-plates may have been removed. The above mentioned reward of £250 will be paid to any person giving information which will lead to their recovery. Such information should be given to the undersigned.

“SPERRIGOE, CHILLINGLEY, AND WATSON, “_Solicitors_.

“3, FRIARS’ PAVEMENT, MEDMINSTER.”

I took matters into my own hands on reading this. First nudging Madrasia’s elbow to give her warning that I was about to do something requiring delicacy and diplomacy, I turned to Mr. Weech.

“That’s very interesting,” said I. “And--curious! Er--perhaps you’d like a little refreshment, Mr. Weech, after your journey? A whisky-and-soda, now?”

“Well, thank you,” he answered, readily, with a glance at the sideboard. “It wouldn’t come amiss, Mr. Craye; I hired a push-bicycle at Wooler, but, my word! it wasn’t half a job shoving the old thing over your roads--some part of the way, at any rate! Cruel!”

I gave him a good stiff mixture and put a box of biscuits at the side of his glass. Then I got Madrasia’s attention once more, and, holding _The Times_ in my hand, turned to the door.

“Just excuse Miss Durham and myself for a few minutes, Mr. Weech,” I said. “We’ll not keep you long.”

Outside the parlour, and with its door safely shut on our visitor, I looked at Madrasia, who, in her turn, looked inquiringly at me.

“Come up to the library!” I whispered. “Those books!”

“Yes!” she answered. “I thought of that!”

We stole up the stair, for all the world as if we were going to commit some nefarious deed, and into the room wherein Parslewe kept his various and many treasures. Within five minutes we had satisfied ourselves, and stood looking questioningly at each other. We had reason; the books specified in the advertisement were all there! Every one of them!--book-plates and all.

“What next?” muttered Madrasia at last. “Of course, we mustn’t tell him!”

She nodded at the floor, indicating the spot beneath which Mr. Weech was sipping his drink and nibbling biscuits.

“Tell him nothing!” said I. “But, let him tell us! Come down!”

We went down again; Mr. Weech looked very comfortable.

“We should like to hear more of your very interesting story, Mr. Weech,” I said. “You got to the point where Bickerdale showed you this advertisement. What happened after that?”

“Why, this,” he answered, evidently more ready to talk than ever. “Bickerdale and I consulted. He was all for writing to these lawyers at once, denouncing Mr. Parslewe as the thief. I said, metaphorically, you know--that he was an ass; it was much more likely that Mr. Parslewe had been taken in by the real and actual thief. I advised seeing Mr. Parslewe. But Bickerdale, he wrote, unbeknown to me, to these lawyers, saying that he was sure he’d had this copper box in his hands, and that where it was, probably the books would be. And those lawyers sent a man--a private detective--down to investigate----”

“Name of Pawley, eh?” I suggested.

“Never heard it, but I shouldn’t wonder if it was,” he answered. “I only heard of him. Anyway, he came--and his principal followed him--a big, pompous man, who was at Bickerdale’s yesterday. And that’s where Bickerdale and I quarrelled, see?”

“Not quite,” I replied. “How, and why, did you quarrel?”

“Because Bickerdale, for some queer reason or other, suddenly shut his mouth after that fat old party had been, and wouldn’t give me one scrap of information,” answered Mr. Weech, with a highly injured air. “Dead silence on his part, eh? Flat refusal! That was after I saw you leaving him. Ab-so-lute-ly refused to tell me one word about what was going on! Me! his son-in-law, and more than, for that’s where the shoe pinches, a pressman!”

“Ah!” I exclaimed, seeing light at last. “I see! You want to make what they call a story of it?”

“What else?” he answered, with a knowing wink. “What d’ye suppose I’m here for? I don’t believe Mr. Parslewe--I’ve heard of him, many a time--stole that blessed box--not I! But there’s romance, and mystery, and what not about the whole thing, and I want to work it up and make a live column, or a couple of ’em, out of it, and so I came to the fountainhead, and Mr. Parslewe’s away, worse luck. Now, _can_ you tell me anything?”

We got rid of Mr. Weech by promising him faithfully that on Mr. Parslewe’s return we would tell him all that had transpired, and would entreat him to favour our visitor with his exclusive confidence, and after another whisky-and-soda, during his consumption of which he told us confidentially that he meant to Ride High, he went away, leaving us more mystified than ever.

And we were still more mystified when, during the course of that afternoon, a telegraph boy came all the way over the moors from Wooler, bringing me a message. It was, of course, from Parslewe, and, as Madrasia at once remarked, just like him.

_Both of you meet me Newcastle Central Station noon to-morrow._

VII

_What the Dying Man Said_

We discussed that telegram during the greater part of the next few hours, arguing out its meanings and significances; we became no wiser in the process, but it seemed hopeless to endeavour to settle down to anything else. Madrasia, I think, got some relief in making the necessary arrangements for our departure in the morning; I think, too, that she was further relieved at the prospect of meeting her eccentric guardian and getting--or attempting to get--some explanation of these curious proceedings. For that they were curious, to the last degree, was beyond question. My own rapid review of them, taking in everything from the first coming of Pawley to the visit of Mr. Augustus Weech, only served to convince me that we were becoming hopelessly entangled in a series of problems and theories about which it was as useless as it was impossible to speculate.

But there was more to come before the afternoon closed. First of all came another wire from Parslewe. It was short and peremptory, like the first, but it was more illuminating, and, in some queer way, it cheered us up.

_Bring the box with you._

Madrasia clapped her hands.

“That’s better!” she exclaimed. “That’s lots better! It means that he’s clearing things up, or he’s going to. For heaven’s sake, don’t let’s forget the copper box! Which of us is most to be depended upon for remembering?”

“I, of course,” said I, “being a man.”

“We’ll debate that on some other occasion,” she retorted. “As a woman--Lord! what’s that?”

Old Tibbie was just entering with the tea-tray; as she opened the door, a loud, insistent knocking came on the iron-studded panels at the foot of the stair. Tibbie groaned and almost dropped her tray, and Madrasia turned appealingly to me.

“We’re all getting nervous,” she said. “Will you run down?”

I went down the stair, opened the great door, and found myself confronting a fresh-coloured, pleasant-faced man who had just dismounted from a serviceable but handsome cob and stood in the courtyard with its bridle over his arm. He smiled at sight of me.

“Mr. Craye, I’m sure?” he said. “I’ve heard of you. Staying here with Mr. Parslewe. Now, is Mr. Parslewe in? I mean, has he returned?”

“No!” I answered, bluntly enough.

He looked at me with a glance that was at once understanding and confidential; there was, I thought, something very like the suspicion of a wink in his eye.

“The fact of the case is, I’m his solicitor,” he remarked. “And----”

But just then Madrasia came flying down the stairs, and greeted the visitor so warmly that for the fraction of a second I really felt jealous.

“Mr. Murthwaite!” she cried, catching his readily extended hand and shaking it almost fervently. “Oh!--this is awfully good of you. We’re in an absolute muddle here--mentally, I mean--and now you’ll clear everything up for us! The sight of you is as good as sunshine after storm. Come in!--old Edie shall take your horse. This gentleman is Mr. Alvery Craye, a famous artist, and he’s nearly as much out of his wits as I am!”

“Then I find myself in queer and possibly dangerous company!” remarked Mr. Murthwaite, with another half wink at me. “However, I hope you’re sane enough to give me some tea, Miss Durham? Good!--then I’ll come in.” He handed his horse over to old Muir and followed Madrasia up the stair, I coming behind. His tone had been light and bantering up to then, but as soon as the three of us had reached the parlour and I had closed the door he turned to both with a quick, searching, earnest glance, and, unconsciously, I think, lowered his voice. “Now look here,” he said, in the tone of a man who wants a direct answer. “Do you young people, either of you, know where Parslewe is? What I really mean, though, is--is he in this house?”

“In this house!” exclaimed Madrasia. “Good heavens! Do you mean--hidden?”

“Why not?” answered Murthwaite. “I dare say one who knows it could hide in this old place for a month. But is he? Or anywhere about?”

Madrasia looked at me; I looked at the two telegrams which were lying on the table beyond the tea-tray.

“As Mr. Murthwaite is Mr. Parslewe’s solicitor,” said I, “I should show him those wires. They are the best answer to his question.”

“Yes!” agreed Madrasia. She snatched up the telegrams, and put them in Murthwaite’s hand; we both watched him intently while he read. “There!” she said, as he folded them again. “What do you think?”

“I think that Parslewe is a very strange man!” replied Murthwaite. “I think, too, that I must have a talk to you--both--about him. Now, as the tea is there, and you are so hospitable----”

We gathered round the table, and Madrasia began to busy herself with the teapot and the cups. It was useless to attempt the talking of nothings; we were all full of the occasion of Murthwaite’s visit, and he was acute enough not to keep Madrasia and myself waiting for his news.

“I’ll tell you, briefly, what brought me here,” he said, after his first cup. “To-day, about noon, I had a visit from a Sir Charles Sperrigoe, who, after introducing himself as a fellow solicitor from a distant part of the country, told me that he had just ascertained in the town that I was solicitor to Mr. James Parslewe of Kelpieshaw; that he had been out to Kelpieshaw to find Mr. Parslewe, had failed to find him, and so had come to me. He then told me a very wonderful tale, which I am quite at liberty to tell you, and will tell to you presently. But first, I want to hear from Mr. Craye a story which I think he can tell about Newcastle. Sir Charles is under the impression that Mr. Craye told something to Mr. Parslewe last night which sent him off on his travels. I should like to hear that story, and then I’ll tell you what Sir Charles Sperrigoe told me, under persuasion.”

“I’d better tell you the plain facts about the whole affair, from the coming here of a man named Pawley until your own arrival just now,” said I. “You’ll then have the entire history of the matter before you, as far as I know it. It’s this----”

He listened carefully, sipping his tea and munching his toast, while I told him everything. Now and then Madrasia corrected or prompted me a little; between us we gave him all the salient facts and details, down to the visit of Weech and the receipt of the last telegram; Madrasia had the last word.

“And then you came, Mr. Murthwaite! And if you can tell us what it all means, we’ll bless you!” she said. “Can you?”

But Murthwaite shook his head, decidedly.

“I can’t!” he answered. “Even now it’s as much a mystery to me as ever, though I think I see a little gleam of light--a very, very little one. No, I can only tell you what Sperrigoe told me this morning. If I may have another cup of your very excellent tea, and a cigarette with it----”

He waited during a moment’s silent reflection, then, leaning back in his chair, and using his cigarette occasionally to point his remarks, he began to address us pretty much as if we constituted a jury.