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Chestermarke Instinct, The

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<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> <h2>THE OLD DOVE-COT</h2> On the previous evening, Wallington Neale, who had spent most of the day with Betty Fosdyke, endeavouring to gain some further light on the disappearance of her uncle, had left her at eight o'clock in order to keep a business appointment. He was honourary treasurer of the Scarnham Cricket Club: the weekly meeting of the committee of which important institution was due that night at the Hope and Anchor Inn, an old tavern in the Cornmarket. Thither Neale repaired, promising to rejoin Betty at nine o'clock. There was little business to be done at the meeting: by a quarter to nine it was all over and Neale was going away. And as he walked down the long sanded passage which led from the committee-room to the front entrance of the inn, old Rob Walford, the landlord, came out of the bow-windowed bar-parlour, beckoned him, with a mystery-suggesting air, to follow, and led him into a private room, the door of which he carefully closed. Walford, a shrewd-eyed, astute old fellow, well known in Scarnham for his business abilities and his penetration, chiefly into other people's affairs, looked at Neale with a mingled expression of meaning and inquiry. "Mr. Neale!" he whispered, glancing round at the panelling of the old parlour in which they stood, as if he feared that its ancient boards might conceal eavesdroppers, "I wanted a word with you—in private. How's this here affair going? Is aught being done? Is aught being found out? Is that detective chap any good?—him from London, I mean. Is there aught new—since this morning?" "Not to my knowledge, Mr. Walford," answered Neale, who knew well that the old innkeeper was hand-in-glove with the Scarnham police, and invariably kept himself well primed with information about their doings. "I should think you know nearly everything—just as much as I do—more, perhaps." The landlord poked a stout forefinger into Neale's waistcoat. "Aye!" he said. "Aye, so I do!—as to what you might call surface matter, Mr. Neale. But—about the main thing, which, in my opinion, is the whereabouts of John Horbury? Does yon young lady at the Scarnham Arms know aught more about her uncle? Do you? Does anybody? Is there aught behind, like; aught that hasn't come out on the top?" "I don't know of anything," replied Neale. "I wish I did! Miss Fosdyke's very anxious indeed about her uncle: she'd give anything or do anything to get news of him. It's all rot, you know, to say he's run away—it's my impression he's never gone out of Scarnham or the neighbourhood. But where he is, and whether dead or alive, is beyond my comprehension," he concluded, shaking his head. "If he's alive, why don't we hear something, or find out something?" Walford gave his companion a quick glance out of his shrewd old eyes. "He might be under such circumstances as wouldn't admit of that there, Mr. Neale," he said. "But come!—I've got something to tell you—something that I found out not half an hour ago. I was going on to tell Polke about it at once, but I remembered that you were in the house at this cricket club meeting, so I thought you'd do instead—you can tell Polke. I'm in a bit of a hurry myself—you know it's Wymington Races tomorrow, and I'm off there tonight, at once, to meet a man that I do a bit of business with in these matters—we make a book together, d'ye see—so I can't stop. But come this way." He led Neale out into the long sanded passage, and down through the rear of the old house into a big stable-yard, enclosed by variously shaped buildings, more or less in an almost worn-out and dilapidated condition, whose roofs and gables showed picturesquely against the sky, faintly lighted by the waning moon. To one of these, a tower-like erection, considerably higher than the rest, the old landlord pointed. "I suppose you know that these back premises of mine partly overlook Joseph Chestermarke's garden?" he whispered. "They do, anyway—you can see right over his garden and the back of his house—that is, in bits, for he's a fine lot of tall trees round his lawns. But there's a very fair view of that workshop he's built from the top storey of this old dove-cot of mine—we use it as a store-house. Come up—and mind these here broken steps—there's no rail, you see, and you could easy fall over." He led his companion up a flight of much-worn stone stairs which were built against the wall of the old dove-cot; through an open doorway twenty feet above; across a rickety floor; and up another stairway of wood, into a chamber in which was a latticed window, from which most of the glass and the woodwork had disappeared. "Now, then," he said, taking Neale to this outlook, and pointing downwards. "There you are!—you see what I mean?" Neale looked out. Joseph Chestermarke's big garden lay beneath him. As Walford had said, much of it was obscured by trees, but there was a good prospect of one side of the laboratory from where Neale was standing. That side was furnished with a door—and on the level of that door at the extreme end of the building was a window fitted with a light-coloured blind. All the other windows, as in the case of the side which Neale had seen previously from the tree on the river-bank, were high up in the walls and fitted with red material. And from the curiously shaped smoke stack in the flat roof, the same differently tinted vapours which he had noticed on the same occasion were curling up above the elms and beeches. "Now look here!" whispered the landlord. "D'ye see that one window with the whitish blind and the light behind it? I came up here, maybe half an hour ago, to see if we were out of something that's kept here, and I chanced to look out on to Joseph Chestermarke's garden. Mr. Neale!—there's a man in that room with the light-coloured blind—I saw his shadow on the blind, pass and repass, you understand, twice, while I looked. And—it's not Joseph Chestermarke!" "Could you tell?—had you any idea?—whose shadow it was?" demanded Neale eagerly. "No!—he passed in a sort of slanting direction—back and forward—just once," answered Walford. "But—his build was, I should say, about the like of John Horbury's. Mr. Neale—Horbury might be locked up there! He's a bad 'un, is Joe Chestermarke—oh, he's a rank bad 'un, my lad!—though most folk don't know it. You don't know what mayn't be happening, or what mayn't have happened in yon place! But look here—I can't stop. Me and Sam Barraclough's going off to Wymington now, in his motor—he'll be waiting at this minute. You do what I say—stop here and watch a bit. And if you see aught, go to Polke and insist on the police searching that place. That's my advice!" "I shall do that, in any case, after what you've said," muttered Neale, who was staring at the lighted window. "But I'll watch here a bit. You've said nothing of this to anybody else?" "No," replied the landlord. "As I said, I knew you were in the house. Well, I'm off, then. Shan't be back till late tomorrow night—and I hope you'll have some news by then, Mr. Neale." Walford went off across the creaking floor and down the stairs, and Neale leaned out of the dismantled window and stared into the garden beneath. Was it possible, he wondered, that there was anything in the old fellow's suggestion?—possible that the missing bank manager was really concealed in that mysterious laboratory, or workshop, or whatever the place was, into which Joseph Chestermarke never allowed any person to enter? And if he was there at all, was it with his consent, or against his will, or—what? Was he being kept a prisoner—or was he—hiding? In spite of his own knowledge of Horbury, and of Betty Fosdyke's assertions of her uncle's absolute innocence, Neale had all along been conscious of a vague, uneasy feeling that, after all, there might be something of an unexplained nature in which the manager had been, or was concerned. It might have something to do with the missing jewels; it might be mixed up with Frederick Hollis's death; it might be that Horbury and Joseph Chestermarke were jointly concerned in—but there he was at a loss, not knowing or being able to speculate on what they could be concerned in. Strange beyond belief it was, nevertheless, that old Rob Walford should think the shadow he had seen to be the missing man's! Supposing—— The door of Joseph Chestermarke's laboratory suddenly opened, letting out a glare of light across the lawn in front. And Joseph came out, carrying a sort of sieve-like arrangement, full of glowing ashes. He went away to some distant part of the garden with his burden; came back, disappeared; re-appeared with more ashes; went again down the garden. And each time he left the door wide open. A sudden notion—which he neglected to think over—flashed into Neale's mind. He left the upper chamber of the old dove-cot, made his way down the stairs to the yard beneath, turned the corner of the buildings, and by the aid of some loose timber which lay piled against it, climbed to the top of Joseph Chestermarke's wall. A moment of hesitation, and then he quietly dropped to the other side, noiselessly, on the soft mould of the border. From behind a screen of laurel bushes he looked out on the laboratory, at close quarters. Joseph was still coming and going with his sieve—now that Neale saw him at a few yards distance he saw that the junior partner and amateur experimenter was evidently cleaning out his furnace. The place into which he threw the ashes was at the far end of the garden; at least three minutes was occupied in each journey. And—yielding to a sudden impulse—when Joseph made his next excursion and had his back fairly turned, Neale crossed the lawn in half a dozen agile and stealthy strides, and within a few seconds had slipped within the open door and behind it. A moment later, and he knew he was trapped. Joseph came back—and did not enter. Neale heard him fling the sieve on the gravel. Then the door was pulled to with a metallic bang, from without, and the same action which closed it also cut off the electric light. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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