The Middle Temple Murder Part 43

"If what?" said Breton. "If--what?"

But Spargo shook his head. This was one of the great moments he had lately been working for, and the issues were tremendous.

"Now for it!" said the _Watchman's_ solicitor in an undertone. "Come, Mr. Spargo, now we shall see."

They all gathered round the coffin, set on low trestles at the graveside, as the workmen silently went to work on the screws. The screws were rusted in their sockets; they grated as the men slowly worked them out. It seemed to Spargo that each man grew slower and slower in his movements; he felt that he himself was getting fidgety.

Then he heard a voice of authority.

"Lift the lid off!"

A man at the head of the coffin, a man at the foot suddenly and swiftly raised the lid: the men gathered round craned their necks with a quick movement.

Sawdust!

The coffin was packed to the brim with sawdust, tightly pressed down.

The surface lay smooth, undisturbed, levelled as some hand had levelled it long years before. They were not in the presence of death, but of deceit.

Somebody laughed faintly. The sound of the laughter broke the spell.

The chief official present looked round him with a smile.

"It is evident that there were good grounds for suspicion," he remarked. "Here is no dead body, gentlemen. See if anything lies beneath the sawdust," he added, turning to the workmen. "Turn it out!"

The workmen began to scoop out the sawdust with their hands; one of them, evidently desirous of making sure that no body was in the coffin, thrust down his fingers at various places along its length. He, too, laughed.

"The coffin's weighted with lead!" he remarked. "See!"

And tearing the sawdust aside, he showed those around him that at three intervals bars of lead had been tightly wedged into the coffin where the head, the middle, and the feet of a corpse would have rested.

"Done it cleverly," he remarked, looking round. "You see how these weights have been adjusted. When a body's laid out in a coffin, you know, all the weight's in the end where the head and trunk rest. Here you see the heaviest bar of lead is in the middle; the lightest at the feet. Clever!"

"Clear out all the sawdust," said some one. "Let's see if there's anything else."

There was something else. At the bottom of the coffin two bundles of papers, tied up with pink tape. The legal gentlemen present immediately manifested great interest in these. So did Spargo, who, pulling Breton along with him, forced his way to where the officials from the Home Office and the solicitor sent by the _Watchman_ were hastily examining their discoveries.

The first bundle of papers opened evidently related to transactions at Market Milcaster: Spargo caught glimpses of names that were familiar to him, Mr. Quarterpage's amongst them. He was not at all astonished to see these things. But he was something more than astonished when, on the second parcel being opened, a quant.i.ty of papers relating to Cloudhampton and the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society were revealed. He gave a hasty glance at these and drew Breton aside.

"It strikes me we've found a good deal more than we ever bargained for!" he exclaimed. "Didn't Aylmore say that the real culprit at Cloudhampton was another man--his clerk or something of that sort?"

"He did," agreed Breton. "He insists on it."

"Then this fellow Chamberlayne must have been the man," said Spargo.

"He came to Market Milcaster from the north. What'll be done with those papers?" he asked, turning to the officials.

"We are going to seal them up at once, and take them to London,"

replied the princ.i.p.al person in authority. "They will be quite safe, Mr. Spargo; have no fear. We don't know what they may reveal."

"You don't, indeed!" said Spargo. "But I may as well tell you that I have a strong belief that they'll reveal a good deal that n.o.body dreams of, so take the greatest care of them."

Then, without waiting for further talk with any one, Spargo hurried Breton out of the cemetery. At the gate, he seized him by the arm.

"Now, then, Breton!" he commanded. "Out with it!"

"With what?"

"You promised to tell me something--a great deal, you said--if we found that coffin empty. It is empty. Come on--quick!"

"All right. I believe I know where Elphick and Cardlestone can be found. That's all."

"All! It's enough. Where, then, in heaven's name?"

"Elphick has a queer little place where he and Cardlestone sometimes go fis.h.i.+ng--right away up in one of the wildest parts of the Yorks.h.i.+re moors. I expect they've gone there. n.o.body knows even their names there--they could go and lie quiet there for--ages."

"Do you know the way to it?"

"I do--I've been there."

Spargo motioned him to hurry.

"Come on, then," he said. "We're going there by the very first train out of this. I know the train, too--we've just time to s.n.a.t.c.h a mouthful of breakfast and to send a wire to the _Watchman_, and then we'll be off. Yorks.h.i.+re!--Gad, Breton, that's over three hundred miles away!"

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

FORESTALLED

Travelling all that long summer day, first from the south-west of England to the Midlands, then from the Midlands to the north, Spargo and Breton came late at night to Hawes' Junction, on the border of Yorks.h.i.+re and Westmoreland, and saw rising all around them in the half-darkness the mighty bulks of the great fells which rise amongst that wild and lonely stretch of land. At that hour of the night and amidst that weird silence, broken only by the murmur of some adjacent waterfall the scene was impressive and suggestive; it seemed to Spargo as if London were a million miles away, and the rush and bustle of human life a thing of another planet. Here and there in the valleys he saw a light, but such lights were few and far between; even as he looked some of them twinkled and went out. It was evident that he and Breton were presently to be alone with the night.

"How far?" he asked Breton as they walked away from the station.

"We'd better discuss matters," answered Breton. "The place is in a narrow valley called Fossdale, some six or seven miles away across these fells, and as wild a walk as any lover of such things could wish for. It's half-past nine now, Spargo: I reckon it will take us a good two and a half hours, if not more, to do it. Now, the question is--Do we go straight there, or do we put up for the night? There's an inn here at this junction: there's the Moor c.o.c.k Inn a mile or so along the road which we must take before we turn off to the moorland and the fells. It's going to be a black night--look at those ma.s.ses of black cloud gathering there!--and possibly a wet one, and we've no waterproofs. But it's for you to say--I'm game for whatever you like."

"Do you know the way?" asked Spargo.

"I've been the way. In the daytime I could go straight ahead. I remember all the landmarks. Even in the darkness I believe I can find my way. But it's rough walking."

"We'll go straight there," said Spargo. "Every minute's precious.

But--can we get a mouthful of bread and cheese and a gla.s.s of ale first?"

"Good idea! We'll call in at the 'Moor c.o.c.k.' Now then, while we're on this firm road, step it out lively."

The "Moor c.o.c.k" was almost deserted at that hour: there was scarcely a soul in it when the two travellers turned in to its dimly-lighted parlour. The landlord, bringing the desired refreshment, looked hard at Breton.

"Come our way again then, sir?" he remarked with a sudden grin of recognition.

"Ah, you remember me?" said Breton.