Part 32 (1/2)

”Whatever anybody may think, I told the entire truth about myself and this affair in that statement before the magistrate. Of course, you know they didn't want me to say a word--my legal advisers, I mean. They were dead against it. But you see, I was resolved on it--I wanted it to get in the papers. I told everything in that. I tried to put it as plainly as I could. No--I've told the main facts.”

”But aren't there any little facts, Barthorpe?” asked Peggie. ”Can't you think of any small thing--was there nothing that would give--I don't know how to put it.”

”Anything that you can think of that would give a clue?” suggested Selwood. ”Was there nothing you noticed--was there anything----”

Barthorpe appeared to be thinking; then to be hesitating--finally, he looked at Selwood a little shamefacedly.

”Well, there were one or two things that I didn't tell,” he said.

”I--the fact is, I didn't think they were of importance. One of them was about that key to the Safe Deposit. You know you and I couldn't find it when we searched the office that morning. Well, I had found it. Or rather, I took it off the bunch of keys. I wanted to search the safe at the Safe Deposit myself. But I never did. I don't know whether the detectives have found it or not--I threw it into a drawer at my office in which there are a lot of other keys. But, you know, there's nothing in that--nothing at all.”

”You said one or two other things just now,” remarked Selwood. ”That's one--what's the other?”

Barthorpe hesitated. The three were not the only occupants of that gloomy room, and though the official ears might have been graven out of stone, he felt their presence.

”Don't keep anything back, Barthorpe,” pleaded Peggie.

”Oh, well!” responded Barthorpe. ”I'll tell you, though I don't know what good it will do. I didn't tell this, because--well, of course, it's not exactly a thing a man likes to tell. When I looked over Uncle Jacob's desk, just after I found him dead, you know, I found a hundred-pound note lying there. I put it in my pocket. Hundred-pound notes weren't plentiful, you know,” he went on with a grim smile. ”Of course, it was a shabby thing to do, sort of robbing the dead, you know, but----”

”Do you see any way in which that can help?” asked Selwood, whose mind was not disposed to dwell on nice questions of morality or conduct.

”Does anything suggest itself?”

”Why, this,” answered Barthorpe, rubbing his chin. ”It was a brand-new note. That's puzzled me--that it should be lying there amongst papers.

You might go to Uncle Jacob's bank and find out when he drew it--or rather, if he'd been drawing money that day. He used, as you and I know, to draw considerable amounts in notes. And--it's only a notion--if he'd drawn anything big that day, and he had it on him that night, why, there's a motive there. Somebody may have known he'd a considerable amount on him and have followed him in there. Don't forget that I found both doors open when I went there! That's a point that mustn't be overlooked.”

”There's absolutely nothing else you can think of?” asked Selwood.

Barthorpe shook his head. No--there was nothing--he was sure of that.

And then he turned eagerly to the question of finding Burchill.

Burchill, he was certain, knew more than he had given him credit for, knew something, perhaps, about the actual murder. He was a deep, crafty dog, Burchill--only let the police find him!----

Time was up, then, and Peggie and Selwood had to go--their last impression that of Barthorpe thrusting his hands in his pockets and lounging away to his enforced idleness. It made the girl sick at heart, and it showed Selwood what deprivation of liberty means to a man who has. .h.i.therto been active and vigorous.

”Have we done any good?” asked Peggie, drawing a deep breath of free air as soon as they were outside the gates. ”Any bit of good?”

”There's the affair of the bank-note,” answered Selwood. ”That may be of some moment. I'll go and report progress on that, anyway.”

He put Peggie into her car to go home, and himself hailed a taxi-cab and drove straight to Mr. Halfpenny's office, where Professor c.o.x-Raythwaite and Mr. Tertius had arranged to meet him.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE LAST CHEQUE

The three elderly gentlemen, seated in Mr. Halfpenny's private room, listened with intense, if silent, interest to Selwood's account of the interview with Barthorpe. It was a small bundle of news that he had brought back and two of his hearers showed by their faces that they attached little importance to it. But Professor c.o.x-Raythwaite caught eagerly at the mere sc.r.a.p of suggestion.

”Tertius!--Halfpenny!” he exclaimed. ”That must be followed up--we must follow it up at once. That bank-note may be a most valuable and effective clue.”

Mr. Halfpenny showed a decided incredulity and dissent.

”I don't see it,” he answered. ”Don't see it at all, c.o.x-Raythwaite. What is there in it? What clue can there be in the fact that Barthorpe picked up a hundred pound bank-note from his uncle's writing-desk? Lord bless me!--why, every one of us four men knows very well that hundred pound notes were as common to Jacob Herapath as half-crowns are to any of us! He was a man who carried money in large amounts on him always--I've expostulated with him about it. Don't you know--no, I dare say you don't though, because you never had business dealings with him, and perhaps Tertius doesn't, either, because he, like you, only knew him as a friend--you don't know that Jacob had a peculiarity. Perhaps Mr. Selwood knows of it, though, as he was his secretary.”