Part 6

“The firm of which Sir Charles Sperrigoe is senior partner,” he said, “has for many years acted as legal advisers to a very ancient family in the Midlands, the Palkeneys of Palkeney Manor, whose coat-of-arms you see on the now famous copper box on that sideboard, complete with its curious legend, or motto. The Palkeneys have been there at Palkeney ever since Tudor times--in fact, since the earliest Tudor times. A wealthy race, I understand, but one of those which have gradually dwindled. And to come down to quite recent times, a few years ago, an old gentleman who was believed to be the very last of the Palkeneys, Mr. Matthew Palkeney, was living at Palkeney Manor. He was a very old man, nearly ninety. Once, in his early days, he had had a younger brother, John Palkeney, but he, as a young man, had taken his portion, a younger son’s portion, gone away from the ancestral home, and never been heard of again--the last that was heard of him was from South America, sixty or seventy years ago, when he was starting into hitherto unexplored country, where, it was believed, he lost his life. And so, in his old age, Matthew Palkeney, as last of his race, was very lonely. And one day he was stricken down in his last illness, and for some hours Sperrigoe, the doctor, the housekeeper, the nurse, all gathered about his death-bed, were considerably disturbed and puzzled by the old man’s repetition of certain words. They were the only words he murmured after being struck down, and he said them over and over again before he died. I will tell you what they were. These--_The copper box--a Palkeney--a Palkeney--the copper box!_”

He paused, with due appreciation of the dramatic effect, and looked at us. Madrasia gave a little shudder.

“Creepy!” she murmured.

“Very!” agreed Murthwaite. “Well, nobody knew what the old man meant, and it was useless to try to get him to give any explanation. But when he was dead, the old housekeeper, after much cudgelling of her brains, remembered that in a certain cabinet in a certain corner of the library there was a small box of beaten copper which she had seen Matthew Palkeney polish with his own hands in past years. She and Sperrigoe went to look for it; it was gone! Sperrigoe had the house searched from top to bottom for it; it was not in the house! That copper box had been stolen--and there it is, on Parslewe’s sideboard, here in Northumberland. That is--fact. Fact!”

He paused again, and we kept silence until it pleased him to go on.

“How did it get here?--or, rather, since nobody but Parslewe knows that, we can only deal with this--how did Sperrigoe find out that it was here? Mr. Craye has just told me one side of that, I can tell another. When Sperrigoe found that the copper box had been undoubtedly stolen, he had a thorough examination made of the contents of the library and checked by a printed catalogue kept there--for the library is famous. Then he found that several rare and valuable old books had disappeared with the copper box. Then he advertised. You know the rest. Parslewe had taken the copper box to Bickerdale; Bickerdale saw Sperrigoe’s advertisement--and so on. And now, when Pawley, as Sperrigoe’s advance agent, and then Sperrigoe himself, turn up to ask a direct question as to how he became possessed of the copper box, why does he run off?”

“Happening to know him,” said Madrasia quickly, “I can answer that. For good and honest reasons of his own!”

“As his friend and solicitor,” remarked Murthwaite, “I say Amen to that! But--why not have given some explanation?”

But it was time for me to step in there.

“Mr. Murthwaite!” I said. “Neither Pawley nor Sir Charles Sperrigoe asked for any explanation! Sperrigoe, of course, never saw Mr. Parslewe; Pawley came here as a mere spy----”

“Yes, yes!” he interrupted. “But what I really mean is, why didn’t he give some explanation to you?”

“To me!” I exclaimed. “Why to me?”

“Because you were the only person who knew the--shall we say immediate facts of the case?” he replied. “Evidently, although you have only known each other a few days, he trusts you, Mr. Craye. Why didn’t he give you a brief explanation of this seeming mystery instead of stealing away in the night? Why?”

“As I said!” exclaimed Madrasia. “For good reasons--of his own.”

Murthwaite drummed his fingers on the table, regarding us intently.

“Don’t you see?” he said suddenly. “Don’t you realise the suspicion he has brought on himself? Sir Charles Sperrigoe doesn’t know him.”

“I’m not so sure of that!” said I, with equal suddenness. “Anyway, I’m quite sure he knows Sperrigoe--or knew him once. Sure of it from a remark he made when I was telling him about Sperrigoe.”

“Eh!” exclaimed Murthwaite. “What remark?”

I told him. He rose suddenly from his chair, as if an idea had struck him, and for a minute or two paced the room, evidently thinking. Then he came back to the table, resumed his seat, and turned from one to the other, pointing to the two telegrams which still lay where he had put them down.

“Let us get to business,” he said. “Now I suppose you two young people are going to meet Parslewe at Newcastle to-morrow morning in response to those wires?”

“Certainly,” answered Madrasia. “And we shall take the copper box with us.”

“Very well,” he continued. “Then I want you to do three things. First, tell Parslewe all that I have told you as regards the Palkeney affair. Second, tell him that on my own responsibility, and as his friend and solicitor, I have given Sir Charles Sperrigoe an assurance--a pledge, in fact--that he will, as quickly as possible, give Sir Charles a full account of how box and books came into his possession, so that their progress from Palkeney Manor to Kelpieshaw may be traced--it’s inconceivable, of course, that Mr. Parslewe came by them in any other than an honest way. Third, I have persuaded Sir Charles to go home--where he awaits Mr. Parslewe’s communication.”

“Oh!” said Madrasia. “But has he gone?”

“He went south after seeing me--by the next train,” replied Murthwaite.

“Leaving the police inspector at Wooler under the impression that my guardian is a possible thief, eh?” suggested Madrasia.

“Nothing of the sort!” retorted Murthwaite. “Come, come, my dear young lady!--things aren’t done in that way. All that Sperrigoe did in that quarter was to make certain guarded inquiries as to Parslewe’s status in the neighbourhood. The police know nothing, of course.”

There was a brief silence, broken at last by Madrasia.

“Of course, we will give my guardian your message,” she said. “Every word! But, Mr. Murthwaite, haven’t you any idea of what all this is about? All this fuss, mystery, running up and down country about a copper box--that box?”

Murthwaite laughed, and turning to the sideboard took the copper box from it.

“I’ve no more idea of the solution of the mystery than you have,” he answered. “This article is certainly a curiosity in itself. Fine old beaten copper, beautifully made, and beautifully engraved. But why all this fuss about it--as you say--I can’t think. Still, when a dying man mutters what old Matthew Palkeney did, over and over again, eh? Naturally his man-of-law wants to get at some sort of clearing up. My own notion is that it’s not the copper box, but what may have been in the copper box! Not the case, but the contents--don’t you see?”

“You think something was kept in it at Palkeney Manor?” I suggested.

“Probably,” he assented. “That’s just about what I do think.”

“And that the original thief has stolen whatever it was?”

“Just so! The box may have passed through several hands before it came into Parslewe’s. Parslewe no doubt picked up this thing in some curio shop--the books, too.”

“Have the people of Palkeney Manor any idea as to how the theft occurred?” I asked.

“None!--according to Sperrigoe. But I understand that Palkeney Manor is a sort of show-place. That is, there are certain rooms which are shown to the public, including the library. A shilling fee is charged on certain mornings of the week--the proceeds are given to the local charities. And, of course, Sperrigoe thinks that this box and the books were stolen by some visitor only just before old Mr. Matthew Palkeney’s death. So--there we are! All that’s wanted now is--a few words from Parslewe.”

He then said he must go, and presently we went down the stair and out into the courtyard with him. Old Edie brought out the cob; with his hand on its bridle Murthwaite turned to Madrasia.

“Now just get Parslewe to come straight back and tell me all about it so that I can write to Sperrigoe and clear up the mystery,” he said. “Tell him all I have said, and that he must come at once.”

But Madrasia was beginning to show signs of a certain mutinous spirit.

“We’ll tell him every word you’ve said, and all about Sperrigoe coming here, and Weech coming, too,” she answered. “But, you know, Mr. Murthwaite, you’re completely ignoring something, lawyer though you are!”

“What?” he asked, with an amused laugh.

“That my guardian would never have gone away, never have wired for Mr. Craye and myself, never asked that the copper box should be brought to him, unless he had very good and strong reasons,” she answered. “Do you think he’s playing at something? Rot! The whole thing’s much more serious than you think!”

Murthwaite looked from her to me.

“That your opinion, too, Mr. Craye?” he asked.

“It is!” said I. “My absolute opinion.”

He shook hands with us, and got into his saddle. He bent down for a last word.

“Never been so curious about a matter in my life!” he said. “But it must end!”

Then he rode off across the moor and disappeared. And next morning Madrasia and I journeyed to Newcastle, she carrying the copper box, neatly tied up and sealed. Our train ran in at the very time at which we were to meet Parslewe. But we saw no Parslewe. We stood staring around us until a man in the livery of a hall-porter came along, eyeing us closely, and stopped at my side.

“Beg pardon, sir--Mr. Craye, sir? Just so, sir--Mr. Parslewe’s compliments, and will you and the young lady join him at lunch in the hotel? This way, sir.”

VIII

_One Minute Past Midnight_

We followed Parslewe’s messenger across the platform to the hotel in a state of mute obedience, being, as Madrasia remarked afterwards, resigned by that time to anything that Parslewe did or commanded. But I think hunger had something to do with our meekness; we had breakfasted early, and had had nothing since, and as far as I was concerned the thought of this hotel and its excellent fare--already known to me--was by no means unwelcome. I turned instinctively towards the coffee-room as we entered, already anticipating its pleasures more than my meeting with Parslewe. But our guide steered us away from it; he took us upstairs, along corridors, down passages, finally opened a door. And there was a private sitting-room, and a table laid for lunch, and on the hearth, warming his coat-tails at a blazing fire, his saturnine countenance wearing a more cynical grin than ever, Parslewe.

He greeted us as coolly and unconcernedly as if we were in his own parlour at Kelpieshaw and had just come down to breakfast; indeed, he scarcely did more than give us a careless good morning, his chief concern just then seemed to be to catch the porter’s attention before he closed the door on us.

“Hi, you!” he called. “Just tell that waiter to bring up lunch, will you?--there’s a good fellow! Well,” he went on, regarding us speculatively as the man went off. “I suppose you’re hungry, eh?”

“Very!” said I.

“Famishing!” declared Madrasia.

He inspected her critically, rubbed his chin, and pointed to a side table.

“Take your things off and throw ’em on there, my dear,” he said. “You can take ’em to your own room afterwards.”

Madrasia, in the act of divesting herself, turned on him.

“Room?” she exclaimed.

“Number 186, yours,” he answered, calmly. “Yours, Craye, is 95--next mine. Don’t forget the numbers--however, if you do, they’ll tell you at the office. They’re booked in your respective names.”

“Do you mean that we’ve got to stay the night here?” demanded Madrasia.

“Precisely,” replied Parslewe, in his most laconic manner. “Two, maybe.”

“I haven’t come prepared to stay any nights,” said Madrasia. “I haven’t brought even a toothbrush!”

“Buy one!” he retorted. “Excellent shops in the place, my dear.”

Madrasia stared at him harder than ever.

“You’re developing a very extraordinary habit of ordering people about, Jimmie!” she exclaimed at last. “Why all this insistence?”

“Needs must where the devil drives!” he answered with a cynical laugh.

“Are you the devil?” she asked.

“I don’t know exactly what I am, my dear, since night before last,” he replied, with a relapse into mildness. “But I’m hoping to know before long. And in the meantime, let’s be comfortable--here’s food and drink.”

Two waiters came in with hot dishes; we sat down. I don’t know if Parslewe had expected us to be unusually hungry, but he had certainly taken pains to order a delightful lunch and to prove to us that he had a very nice and critical taste in champagne. And all the time we were lunching he kept the waiters in the room, artfully, I thought, lest Madrasia should open out on the subject uppermost in our thoughts; true, he talked freely himself, but it was all about a play that he had seen at the Theatre Royal on the previous evening, and of which he was enthusiastically full.

“But you shall see it yourself to-night,” he wound up. “I’ve booked two seats--Craye shall take you.”

“And--you?” asked Madrasia. “Won’t it bear seeing twice in succession?”

“I’ve some business,” he answered. “I shall be out when you return; we’ll compare notes in the morning.”

I saw that Madrasia was dying to ask him what his business was, but the waiters were still in the room. It was not until they had served us with coffee and gone away for good that Parslewe came to what we certainly regarded as business. Giving me a cigar and lighting one himself, he turned his chair towards the hearth, settled in an easy position with one elbow on the table, and flung us a glance over his shoulder.

“Now, then!” he said. “What’s gone on up yonder since I left? And as you can’t both speak at once, settle between yourselves which is going to be spokesman. But first--where is that box?”

Madrasia, the morning being cold, had come in furs; amongst them a big muff, in the pocket of which she had carried the copper box. She rose, extracted it from its hiding-place, and laid it on the table at Parslewe’s side; then she pointed a finger at me.

“Let him tell,” she said. “I’ll correct him where he’s wrong.”

“Go ahead, Craye,” commanded Parslewe. “Detail!”

I told him of everything that had happened at Kelpieshaw since his own mysterious disappearance, watching him carefully and even narrowly as I talked. He listened silently and impassively; only once did he interrupt me, and that was to ask for a more particular description of Mr. Augustus Weech. He seemed to reflect a good deal when he got that, but he let me go on to the end without further questioning, and received the message from Murthwaite just as phlegmatically as he had taken in everything else. In point of absolute inscrutability and imperviousness Parslewe in that particular mood of his could have given points to the Sphinx.

“And that’s all,” I concluded. “All!”

“All!” repeated Madrasia. “Except that I reiterate precisely what Murthwaite said--you’ve got to go back to Wooler and see him and tell him all about it and enable him to keep his word to Sir Charles Sperrigoe. And that’s that!”

Parslewe’s thin lips resolved themselves into that straight, rigid line which I had already come to know as well as I knew my own reflection in a mirror. When he relaxed them it was to indulge in one of his sardonic laughs, which died away into a cynical chuckle and ended in one of his angelic smiles, cast, of course, in his ward’s direction.

“Oh, that’s that, is it, my dear?” he said, sweetly. “Well, then, it isn’t! I’m not going to traipse back to Wooler--till I please! I’m not going to suit the convenience of either Charlie Sperrigoe or Jackie Murthwaite--till I please! I reckon I know my own business as well as the next man, and I shall just carry it out--as I please! And if you want me to indulge in modern slang--that’s that!”

“And it all means that you know a great deal more than you’ve let out!” exclaimed Madrasia.

He treated us to another of his sardonic bursts of laughter at that.

“I’m not aware that I’ve let out anything at all, my dear, so far!” he retorted. “And I’ve no intention of doing so until----”

“Until you please!” said Madrasia. “Precisely! More mystery! Really, Jimmie, for a respectable elderly gentleman----”

He laughed again, throwing up his head as if he enjoyed being scolded, rose from his chair, and, standing on the hearth with his hands in his pockets, looked from one to the other of us as if he enjoyed seeing us wonder. Suddenly he drew one hand out, full of money. There was gold in those days!--plenty of it--and Parslewe had a fist full. He held it out to Madrasia.

“Go and buy a toothbrush!” he said. “You know the town--go and do a bit of shopping. Better get all you want--didn’t I say we might be two nights? Go and amuse yourself, my dear, and leave mysteries alone. There are no mysteries--to me, anyway.” He thrust the money into her hands, stood smilingly by while she put on her furs, and when she had gone, turned to me with a laugh.

“Trust a woman for making the most of a mystery, Craye!” he said. “If there isn’t one she’ll invent one.”

“Is there no mystery in this matter, then?” I asked. “It seems to me that there’s a pretty handsome one. But evidently not to you--you’re in the inside of things, you see, Mr. Parslewe.”

“Aye, well,” he answered. “I dare say I see the game from another angle. However, I’m not quite so thickheaded as not to realise that what’s pretty plain to me mayn’t be at all plain to other folk, and I’m going to let you into a bit of my confidence. Come downstairs to the smoking-room, and we’ll have these windows opened--this room’s got a bit stuffy.”

He rang the bell and gave some orders about ventilating the room and about having some light supper laid there for eleven o’clock that evening (in readiness, he said in an aside to me, for our return from the play), and then led me down to a quiet corner of the smoking-room. And there, having first lighted another cigar, he proceeded to divest the copper box of the neat wrappings in which Madrasia had carried it from Kelpieshaw. He set it on the little table before us, and we both stared at it. He, in particular, stared at it so hard that I began to think the mere sight of the thing was hypnotising him. Suddenly he started, and began to fumble in his waistcoat pocket.

“Aye,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. “I shouldn’t wonder if it is so!”

With that he pulled out of his waistcoat pocket a tiny foot-rule, ivory, in folding sections, and, opening the copper box, measured its interior depth. Then he measured the exterior depth, and turned to me with one of his dangerously sweet smiles.

“The devil!” he exclaimed. “Craye!--there’s a false bottom to this box! I’ve been suspecting that for the last half-hour, and by all that is, it’s true!”

I was beginning to get excited, and I stared at the box as hard as he had done.

“You make that out by measurement?” I asked.

“Precisely! There’s a difference of a quarter of an inch between the interior and exterior depths,” he replied. “That means there’s the very slightest of cavities, but ample to conceal--what?”

“Nothing much, I should think,” said I.

“No; but I’ve heard of very important and fateful things going into small compass,” he remarked. “Anyway, there it is! You can’t get away from the measurements. There’s a space--there! And there’ll be some trick of opening the thing from the bottom--probably connected with these feet.”

He pointed to the four circular knobs on which the copper box rested, but made no attempt to touch them; his thoughts seemed to be otherwhere. And after thinking a little, he suddenly turned to me confidentially.

“I told you I’d tell you something,” he said. “You’re a dependable chap, Craye--I showed that by leaving the girl in your charge. She likes you, too, and I suppose you two young people will fall in love with each other if you haven’t done so already, and if you have, my lad--all right! You’ll make a big name in your art--but never mind that; I’ll tell you a bit about this box. Not how it came into my possession; the time for that is not yet. But when I did get it it was locked, and I had no key to it, and never bothered to get one found or made. When it got a wee bit damaged, I took it to Bickerdale, here in this town, and asked him to put it right. He was a bit wary of dealing with it, but said he knew a man who would, so I left it with him, and, incidentally, asked him, while they were about it, to have it unlocked. And now, Craye, now I think that while it was in Bickerdale’s hands, or in the other man’s hands, something was abstracted from that box--something that I never knew was in it. Abstracted then--unless----”

He paused, making a queer, speculating grimace.

“Unless--what?” I asked.

He leaned nearer to my shoulder, dropping his voice, though there was no one at all near us.

“Unless it was abstracted at Kelpieshaw yesterday, by that chap Weech!” he replied. “Weech? Augustus? What a name!”

“Weech!” I exclaimed. “By him! Impossible!”

“And why impossible, my lad?” he asked. “No impossibility about it! Didn’t you tell me just now, upstairs, while you were giving your account of all that had transpired, that you and Madrasia went up to my library to compare the titles of the books in _The Times_ advertisement with certain volumes on my shelves, leaving Master Augustus Weech alone--with the copper box in front of him? Of course!”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “I certainly never thought of that!”