Читать книгу A Front of Brass - Fred M. White - Страница 7

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Grant stood there looking down long and anxiously. The whole thing had happened with such dramatic suddenness that he felt almost inclined to doubt the evidence of his senses. And yet he had clearly hard the voice of his partner, he had seen Spencer's familiar figure picked out with vivid distinctness in the moonlight. He had heard the quick crack of the revolver shot, he had seen Spencer roll and disappear over the edge of the cliff.

Paul Spencer was dead beyond all doubt. Probably the bullet from the revolver had been sufficient to account for the victim, but the fall from the cliff had removed all uncertainty. There was not a ledge or a spur on the face of the rocks to break the force of the descent. A hundred yards or more to the right was a winding path leading to the beach, and Grant risked it. But his search was all in vain. The tide was fairly high, and it still washed the foot of the cliff. There was nothing for it now but to hurry back to the house and give the alarm.

As Hubert reached the garden. May flashed into his mind again. He was anxious and worried about her. Had she gone home? Had she got tired of waiting for him? Or was she still hiding close by? There was no satisfactory way of answering these questions as far as Hubert could see. He would have to wait. The amazing complexity of the tangle bewildered him. A few hours before and there was no suspicion of trouble at all. A few hours ago he had been the proud and happy owner of Ledge Point, with the prospect of fair years before him. And now he doubted whether or not he could call the house his own. Certainly he had no right to do so if half of the mysterious 'Mr. Smith's' story was true.

Clearly May had gone home. It was no use wasting further time looking for her. The thing to do now was to find the cold-blooded author of the murder. Grant dismissed the idea that Mr. Smith himself might be the author of the crime. If that extraordinary individual had intended anything of the kind he could never have been so rash as to make himself known to anybody at Ledge Point. Clearly Paul Spencer had had more enemies than one.

But something must be done. Hubert made his way back to the quiet house where the lights were still burning, and called up the Fairford police on the telephone. It seemed to him to be much more prudent not to disturb the house-hold. At the end of a long weary hour Inspector Manley put in an appearance.

"This seems to be a very extraordinary affair, sir," he said. "Will you please to give me the details all over again?"

Hubert explained at length. He said nothing as to the presence of Mr. Smith. Clearly Smith had had no hand in the tragedy, and to drag in his name would merely precipitate the financial scandal that Hubert was anxious to avoid. It was not a very prudent decision, but there was not much time to think.

"Mr. Spencer had enemies?" Manley asked.

"So it would seem," Grant said, guardedly. "I never suspected it till this afternoon. My partner struck me as a very respectable man. He had no vices or extravagances, and he was very particular as to the company he kept."

"Did he say anything after that telegram came?"

"I fancy not. Oh, yes, he did—he said something as to old indiscretions, and the way they came back to people years afterwards. He was evidently alluding to something that happened in his early manhood. The telegram seemed to agitate him very much."

"I suppose you did not happen to see the telegram, sir?" Manley asked.

"Indeed, I did," Grant explained. "As a matter of fact, I have it in my pocket at the present moment. Mr. Spencer dropped it, and I packed it up meaning to return it to him when he got back here. Would you like to have a look at it?"

Inspector Manley expressed a keen desire to do so. He puzzled over the flimsy pink paper for some little time. It was plain that he made nothing out of it.

"I'll keep this, sir, if you don't mind," he said. "I see the telegram was despatched from London. That makes the sender very difficult to trace. There is a distinct threat in the message, and it is quite clear from what you say that Mr. Spencer was afraid of the person who sent the curt summons to him. Was he of a nervous disposition?"

"Quite the contrary," Grant explained. "I have seldom met a man with more moral and physical courage. Keep the telegram, by all means, Inspector. And when you have examined it carefully, tell me if you find anything peculiar about it."

The inspector rose and made his way to the door.

"You may depend upon it that we shall leave nothing undone to get at the bottom of the affair," he said. "I will come round and see you in the morning."

"I should prefer to wait till night so far as I am concerned," Hubert said. "I must be at the office all day to-morrow. I shall have my unfortunate partner's business to see to as well as my own."

The inspector had no objection to make. By breakfast-time the whole countryside seemed to have heard of the tragedy. Idle groups began to collect in the roads. One or two journalists had already arrived athirst for information. Grant turned the keys in the door of the living rooms and handed them to Jenner.

"I don't suppose you will ever see your master again," he said. "They tell me that bodies lost off the cliffs here are never recovered. But that won't prevent you being pestered by a lot of vulgar sightseers who will ask you questions. They will want to photograph the house both inside and out. Don't let them do anything of the kind, Jenner. And don't part with those keys unless the police ask for them."

Grant caught a fairly early train to town, and 11 o'clock saw him in the city. It seemed to him that one or two business acquaintances eyed him curiously as he walked along. There was a significant whispering and a raising of eyebrows. Was the story public property already, Grant wondered? He did not know that there had been whispers as to the status of his firm for days past. It is one of the things the party most intimately connected never hears of until too late. But there was no mistaking the significance of these glances now. The full force of the mysterious Mr. Smith's warning came home to Hubert at that moment.

He strode into his private office and rang the bell. A flurried-looking clerk answered the summons.

"Send Mr. Raybold to me at once," Hubert said curtly. Mr. Spencer's confidential clerk appeared presently. There was nothing about the business of the firm that this man did not know. He was a tall, stout man, bald, pompous, slow of speech, the very essence of subordinate respectability.

"You have heard the news Raybold?" Grant asked.

Raybold bowed. His florid face was ghastly pale, a fine bead of perspiration gathered on his head. He put out a trembling hand imploringly.

"You must not blame me, sir," he whined. "It was no fault of mine. I implored Mr. Spencer to take you into his confidence over and over again, but he would not hear of it. For the last two years I have seen matters going from bad to worse. Of course, I know that Mr. Spencer had been speculating wildly. But he always said that it would come right—he had one big thing that was going to make a million. Lord, what a time it has been!"

Raybold wiped his heated face with a palsied hand.

"Then I suppose that everything has gone?" Grant asked.

"It's worse than that, sir," Raybold explained. "It isn't only our money. There is some fifty thousand pounds the other side belonging to clients. Some of them have been lately making a fine to-do about their money. And there were nasty letters from solicitors who threatened proceedings."

"And not one word was said to me about it!"

"That was Mr. Spencer's orders, sir. You were not to be told anything. He hoped to get the money back over those East Quogga mining concessions."

"That is the concession that Mr. Cardella was so anxious to get from us?"

"Quite so, sir. And he'll get the concession now unless we can find the money. It's only a matter of another week. Mr. Cardella's man, Robert Morton, has been working against us. People say he is a fool, but I know better."

Hubert frowned thoughtfully. He was of Raybold's opinion. Despite his silly manner, Robert Morton was no fool. And Hubert had the mysterious Mr. Smith's assurance that Morton was somewhat at the bottom of this conspiracy. Cardella was a government official, a prominent member of the House of Commons with none too sweet a reputation. There were those who declared that he used his official knowledge to put money into his pocket. Morton was a member of the House, too, with a reputation as an organiser. Grant began to see how the pit had been prepared.

"Do you suggest that we are likely to be prosecuted?" he asked.

"It might come to that, sir." Raybold said hoarsely. "We might be able to prove that Mr. Spencer had been queer for some time. But then people will say that you ought to have looked into matters more closely. Cardella and Morton know pretty well how matters stand, and they will try to pull you down this week if possible. If they do, the Quogga concession falls into their hands quite naturally. It might not be difficult to get one of Mr. Spencer's clients to apply for a warrant against you. You'd probably get bail after a day or two, but that would be too late. In the meantime we should break up altogether."

Hubert flashed round on the stumbling, hesitating Raybold.

"Speak out," he commanded, "tell me the whole truth. It is quite evident that you are concealing something from me. Criminal proceedings have been threatened?"

"Yes, sir; that is so, sir," Raybold stammered. "A client named Jenkins. We owe him some seven thousand pounds. Personally, I believe that Cardella and Morton sent him here on purpose to lose his money. They knew full well that Mr. Spencer would appropriate it. That is the quarter where the danger lies."

Grant listened moodily enough. A feeling of hopeless, impotent rage possessed him. He was like a child who was kept in the dark. All this mystery and intrigue was going on all around him, and he was entirely ignorant of the thing. He had known something, of course, of the Quogga concession out of which the firm was going to make a fortune. And they had been duped and fooled in this way by Cardella and Morton.

"Well, it's useless to cry over spilt milk," Hubert said. "I shall gain nothing by telling you that you are as great a knave as my late partner. Had you been an honest man you would have come to me and told me all this. Leave me, please. Before you go send a telegram to Mr. Scarsdale, and say his presence is urgently needed here at once. This disgrace is hard upon me; it is still harder on Mr. Scarsdale."

Raybold vanished eagerly. On the whole the dreaded interview had not been so bad as he had expected. Grant sat there moodily stubbing a pen into his blotting pad. The whole thing was terribly hard on Philip Scarsdale, who was a sleeping partner in the business, with no knowledge whatever of what was going on. Hubert was still thinking the matter over when Inspector Manley was announced. The officer had the fateful telegram in his hand.

"I ran up to London with this, sir," he said. "You asked me if I noticed anything peculiar about the telegram, and I have. It's the mistake in the date you mean. That's why I came up to town to make inquiries. And now I have found something stranger still."

"What is that?" Grant asked.

"Why, it is not a genuine message, sir. The form is correct and so is the envelope and the stamp. But the message itself has never been through the post office at all!"