Part 15 (1/2)
”Singular time to choose for such a proceeding, wasn't it, Major?
After half-past nine o'clock at night.”
”It would be if it were any other man and under any other circ.u.mstances. But remember! It is but three weeks to Derby Day and every hour of daylight is worth so much gold to us. Farrow knew that he could not spare a moment of it for any purpose; and he is most particular over the shoeing. Will see it done himself and direct the operation personally. Sort of mania with him. Wouldn't let the best man that ever lived take one of the horses over for him. Go himself, no matter what inconvenience it put him to. Farrier at Shepperton Old Cross knows his little 'fads and fancies' and humours them at all times. Would open the forge and fire up for him if it were two o'clock in the morning.”
”I see. And did he take Chocolate Maid over there on that night, after all?”
”Yes. Lady Mary and I attended a whist drive at Farmingdale Priory that evening; but her ladys.h.i.+p was taken with a violent headache and we had to excuse ourselves and leave early. It would be about a quarter to eleven o'clock when we returned to the Abbey and met Farrow riding out through the gates on Chocolate Maid. We stopped and spoke to him. He was then going over to the sh.o.e.r's with the mare.”
”How long would it take him to make the journey?”
”Oh, about five-and-twenty minutes--maybe half an hour: certainly not more.”
”So then it would be about quarter-past eleven when he arrived at the farrier's? I see. Any idea at what time he got back?”
”Not the ghost of one. In fact, we should never have known that he ever did get back--for n.o.body heard a sound of his return the whole night long--were it not that when Captain MacTavish crossed the stable-yard at five o'clock in the morning and, seeing the door ajar, looked in, he found Chocolate Maid standing in her stall, the dog dead, and Highland La.s.sie gone. Of course, Chocolate Maid being there after we had pa.s.sed Farrow on the road with her was proof that he did return at some hour of the night, you know: though when it was, or why he should have gone out again, heaven alone knows.
Personally, you know, I am of the opinion that Highland La.s.sie was stolen while he was absent; that, on returning he discovered the robbery and, following the trail, went out after the robbers, and, coming up with them, got his terrible injuries that way.”
”H'm! Yes! I don't think! What 'trail' was he to find, please, when you just now told me that there wasn't so much as a hoofprint to tell the tale? Or was that an error?”
”No, it wasn't. The entire stable-yard is paved with red tiles, and we've had such an uncommon spell of dry weather lately that the earth of the surrounding country is baked as hard as a brickbat.
An elephant couldn't make a footmark upon it, much less a horse.
But, gravy, man! instead of making the thing clearer, I'm blest if you're not adding gloom to darkness, and rendering it more mysterious than ever. What under the four corners of heaven could Farrow have followed, then, if the 'trail' is to be eliminated entirely?”
”Maybe his own inclination, Major--maybe nothing at all,” said Cleek, enigmatically. ”If your little theory of his returning and finding Highland La.s.sie stolen were a thing that would hold water I am inclined to think that Mr. Tom Farrow would have raised an alarm that you could hear for half a mile, and that if he had started out after the robbers he would have done so with a goodly force of followers at his heels and with all the lanterns and torches that could be raked and sc.r.a.ped together.”
”Good lud, yes! of course he would. I never thought of that. Did you, Mary? His whole heart and soul were bound up in the animal. If he had thought that anything had happened to her, if he had known that she was gone, a pitful of raging devils would have been spirits of meekness beside him. Man alive, you make my head whiz. For him to go off over the moor without word or cry at such a time----I say, Mr. Cleek! For G.o.d's sake, what do you make of such a thing as that at such a time, eh?”
”Well, Major,” replied Cleek, ”I hate to destroy any man's illusions and to besmirch any man's reputation, but--_que voulez vous_? If Mr.
Tom Farrow went out upon that moor after the mare was stolen, and went without giving an alarm or saying a word to anybody, then in my private opinion your precious trainer is nothing in the world but a precious double-faced, double-dealing, dishonourable blackguard, who treacherously sold you to the enemy and got just what he deserved by way of payment.”
Major Norcross made no reply. He simply screwed up his lips until they were a mere pucker of little creases, and looked round at his wife with something of the pain and hopeless bewilderment of an unjustly scolded child.
”You know, Seton, it was what Captain MacTavish suggested,” ventured she, gently and regretfully. ”And when two men of intellect----” Then she sighed and let the rest go by default.
”Demmit, Mary, you don't mean to suggest that I haven't any, do you?”
”No, dear; but----”
”Buts be blowed! Don't you think I know a man when I run foul of him? And if ever there was a square-dealing, honest chap on this earth----Look here, Mr. Cleek. Gad! you may be a bright chap and all that, but you'll have to give me something a blessed sight stronger than mere suspicion before you can make me believe a thing like that about Tom Farrow.”
”I am not endeavouring to make you believe it, Major. I am merely showing you what would certainly be the absolute truth of the matter _if_ Tom Farrow had done what you suggested, and gone out on that moor alone and without a word or a cry when he discovered that the animal was stolen. But, my dear sir, I incline to the belief that he never did go out there after any person or any living thing whatsoever.”
”Then, dash it, sir, how in thunder are you going to explain his being there at all?”
”By the simple process, Major, of suggesting that he was on his way back to the Abbey at the time he encountered his unknown a.s.sailant.
In other words, that he had not only never returned to the place after you and her ladys.h.i.+p saw him leaving it at a quarter to eleven, but was never permitted to do so.”
”Oh, come, I say! That's laying it on too thick. How the d.i.c.kens can you be sure of such a thing as that?”