Part 12 (2/2)
”Sit you down, Middlebrook,” he said. ”We've some time yet before dinner, and I'm wanting to talk to you--in private, you'll bear in mind. There's things I know that I'm not willing--as yet--to tell to everybody. But I'll tell them to you, Middlebrook--for you're a sensible young fellow, and we'll take a bit of counsel together.
Aye--there was that in my pocket-book that might be--I'll not say positively that it was, but that it might be--a clue to the ident.i.ty of the man that murdered yon Salter Quick, and I'm sorry now that I've lost it and didn't take more care of it. But man! who'd ha' thought that I'd have my pocket-book stolen from under my very nose! And that's a convincing proof that there's uncommonly sharp and clever criminals around us in these parts, Middlebrook.”
”You lost your pocket-book while you were bathing, Mr. Cazalette?” I asked, wishful to know all his details.
He turned on his bed, pointing to a venerable Norfork jacket which hung on a peg in a recess by the washstand. I knew it well enough: I had often seen him in it first thing of a morning.
”It's my custom,” said he, ”to array myself in that old coatie when I go for my bit dip, you see--it's thick and it's warm, and I've had it twenty years or more--good tweed it is, and homespun. And whenever I've gone out here of a morning, I've put my pocket-book in the inside pocket, and laid the coat itself and the rest o' my scanty attire on the bank there down at Kernwick Cove while I went in the water. And I did that very same thing this morning--and when I came to my clothes again, the pocket-book was gone!”
”You saw n.o.body about?” I suggested.
”n.o.body,” said he. ”But Lord, man, I know how easy it was to do the thing! You'll bear in mind that on the right hand side of that cove the plantation comes right down to the edge of the bit of cliff--well, a man lurking amongst the shrubs and undergrowth 'ud have nothing to do but reach his arm to the bank, draw my coatie to his nefarious self, and abstract my property. And by the time I was on dry land again, and wanting my garments, he'd be a quarter of a mile away!”
”And--the clue?” I asked.
He edged a little nearer to me, and dropped his voice still lower.
”I'm telling you,” he said. ”Now you'll let your mind go back to the morning whereon you found yon man Quick lying dead and murdered on the sand? And you'll remember that before ever you were down at the place, I'd been there before you. You'll wonder how it comes about that I didn't find what you found, but then, there's a many big rocks and boulders standing well up on that beach, and its very evident that the corpse was obscured from my view by one or other and maybe more of 'em. Anyway, I didn't find Salter Quick--but I did find something that maybe--mind, I'm saying maybe, Middlebrook--had to do with his murder.”
”What, Mr. Cazalette?” I asked, though I knew well enough what it was.
I wanted him to say, and have done with it; his circ.u.mlocution was getting wearisome. But he was one of those old men who won't allow their cattle to be hurried, and he went on in his long-winded way.
”You'll be aware,” he continued, ”that there's a deal of gorse and bramble growing right down to the very edge of the coast thereabouts, Middlebrook. Scrub--that sort o' thing. The stuff that if it catches anything loose, anything protruding from say, the pocket of a garment, 'll lay hold and stick to it. Aye, well, on one of those bushes, gorse or bramble I cannot rightly say which, just within the entrance to the plantation, I saw, fluttering in the morning breeze that came sharp and refres.h.i.+ng off the face of the water, a handkerchief. And there was two sorts o' stains on it--caused in the one case by mud--the soft mud of the adjacent beach--and in the other by blood. A smear of blood--as if somebody had wiped blood off his fingers, you'll understand. But it was not that, not the blood, made me give my particular attention to the thing, which I'd picked off with my thumb and finger. It was that I saw at once that this was no common man's property, for there was a crest woven into one corner, and a monogram of initials underneath it, and the stuff itself was a sort that I'm unfamiliar with--it wasn't linen, though it looked like it, and it wasn't silk, for I'm well acquainted with that fabric--maybe it was a mixture of the two, but it had not been woven or made in any British factory: the thing, Middlebrook, was of foreign origin.”
”What were the markings you speak of?” I asked.
”Well, I tell you there was a crest; anyhow it was a coronet, or that make of a thing,” he answered. ”Woven in one corner--I mean worked in by hand. And the letters beneath it were a V and a de--small, that last--and a C. Man! that handkerchief was the property of some man of quality! And the stains being wet--the mud-stains, at any rate, though the smear of blood was dry--I gathered that it had been but recently deposited, by accident, where I found it. I reckoned it up this way, d'ye see, Middlebrook--the man who'd left it there had used it on the beach--maybe he'd cut his toe, bathing, or something o' that sort, or likely a cut finger, gathering a sh.e.l.l or a fossil--and had thrust it carelessly into a side-pocket, for a thorn to catch hold of as he pa.s.sed. But there it was, and there I found it.”
”And what did you do with it, Mr. Cazalette?” I inquired with seeming innocence.
”I'm telling you,” he replied. ”I had no knowledge, you're aware, of what lay behind me on the sands: I just thought it a queer thing that a man of quality's handkerchief should be there. And I slipped it among my towels, to bring along wi' me to the house here. But I'm whiles given to absent-mindedness, and not liking that I should put the blood-stained thing down on my dressing-table there and cause the maids to wonder, I thrust it into a hedge as I was pa.s.sing along, till I could go back and examine it at my leisure. And when I'd got myself dressed, I went back and took it, and put it in a stout envelope into my pocket--and then you came along, Middlebrook, with your story of the murder, and I saw then that before saying a word to anybody, I'd keep my own counsel and examine that thing more carefully. And man alive! I've no doubt whatever that the man who left the handkerchief behind him was the man who knifed Salter Quick.”
”I gather, from all you've said, that the handkerchief was in the pocket-book you had stolen this morning?” I suggested.
”You're right in that,” said he. ”Oh, it was! Wrapped up in a bit of oiled paper, and in an envelope, sealed down and attested in my handwriting, Middlebrook--date and particulars of my discovery of it, all in order. Aye, and there was more. Letters and papers of my own, to be sure, and a trifle money--bank-notes. But there was yet another thing that, in view of all we know, may be a serious thing to have fall into the hands of ill-doers. A print, Middlebrook, of the enlarged photograph I got of the inside of the lid of yon dead man's tobacco-box!”
He regarded me with intense seriousness as he made this announcement, and not knowing exactly what to say, I remained silent.
”Aye!” he continued. ”And it's my distinct and solemn belief that it's that the thief was after! Ye see, Middlebrook, it's been spoken of--not widely noised abroad, as you might say, but still spoken of, and things spread, that I was keenly interested in those marks, scratches, whatever they were, on the inside of that lid, and got the police to let me make a photograph, and it's my impression that there's somebody about who's been keenly anxious to know what results I obtained.”
”You really think so?” said I. ”Why--who could there be?”
”Aye, man, and who could there be, wi' a crest and monogram on his kerchief, that 'ud murder yon man the secret way he has?” he retorted, answering my incredulous look with one of triumph. ”Tell me that, my laddie! I'm telling you, Middlebrook, that this was no common murder any more than the murder of the man's own brother down yonder at Saltash, which is a Cornish riverside place, and a good four or five hundred miles away, was a common, ordinary crime! Man! we're living in the very midst of a mystery--and that there's b.l.o.o.d.y-minded, aye, and b.l.o.o.d.y-handed men, maybe within our gates, but surely close by us, is as certain to me as that I'm looking at you!”
”I thought you believed that Salter Quick's murderer was miles away before ever Salter Quick was cold?” I observed.
”I did--and I've changed my mind,” he answered. ”I'm not thinking it any more, and all the less since I was robbed of my venerable pocket-book, with those two exhibits o' the crime in its wame. The murderer is about! and though he mayn't have thought to get his handkerchief, he may have hoped that he'd secure some result o' my labours in the photographic line.”
<script>