Dead Men's Money - J. S. Fletcher (top books to read .TXT) 📗

leaned forward in his chair I sat back in mine, keeping as far from him as I could, and just staring at him—perhaps as if I had been some trapped animal that couldn't get itself away from the eyes of another that meant presently to kill it. Once again I asked him what he wanted.

"You didn't answer my question," he said. "I'll put it again, and you needn't be afraid that anybody'll overhear us in this place, it's safe! I say once more, what for did you not tell in your evidence at that inquest that you saw Sir Gilbert Carstairs at the cross-roads on the night of the murder! Um?"

"That's my business!" said I

"Just so," said he. "And I'll agree with you in that. It is your business. But if by that you mean that it's yours alone, and nobody else's, then I don't agree. Neither would the police."

We stared at each other across the table for a minute of silence, and then I put the question directly to him that I had been wanting to put ever since he had first spoken. And I put it crudely enough.

"How did you know?" I asked.

He laughed at that—sneeringly, of course.

"Aye, that's plain enough," said he. "No fencing about that! How did I know? Because when you saw Sir Gilbert I wasn't five feet away from you, and what you saw, I saw. I saw you both!"

"You were there?" I exclaimed.

"Snug behind the hedge in front of which you planted yourself," he answered. "And if you want to know what I was doing there, I'll tell you. I was doing—or had been doing—a bit of poaching. And, as I say, what you saw, I saw!"

"Then I'll ask you a question, Mr. Crone," I said. "Why haven't you told, yourself?"

"Aye!" he said. "You may well ask me that. But I wasn't called as a witness at yon inquest."

"You could have come forward," I suggested.

"I didn't choose," he retorted.

We both looked at each other again, and while we looked he swigged off his drink and helped himself, just as generously, to more. And, as I was getting bolder by that time, I set to work at questioning him.

"You'll be attaching some importance to what you saw?" said I.

"Well," he replied slowly, "it's not a pleasant thing—for a man's safety—to be as near as what he was to a place where another man's just been done to his death."

"You and I were near enough, anyway," I remarked.

"We know what we were there for," he flung back at me. "We don't know what he was there for."

"Put your tongue to it, Mr. Crone," I said boldly. "The fact is, you suspicion him?"

"I suspicion a good deal, maybe," he admitted. "After all, even a man of that degree's only a man, when all's said and done, and there might be reasons that you and me knows nothing about. Let me ask you a question," he went on, edging nearer at me across the table. "Have you mentioned it to a soul?"

I made a mistake at that, but he was on me so sharp, and his manner was so insistent, that I had the word out of my lips before I thought.

"No!" I replied. "I haven't."

"Nor me," he said. "Nor me. So—you and me are the only two folk that know."

"Well?" I asked.

He took another pull at his liquor and for a moment or two sat silent, tapping his finger-nails against the rim of the glass.

"It's a queer business, Moneylaws," he said at last. "Look at it anyway you like, it's a queer business! Here's one man, yon lodger of your mother's, comes into the town and goes round the neighbourhood reading the old parish registers and asking questions at the parson's—aye, and he was at it both sides of the Tweed—I've found that much out for myself! For what purpose? Is there money at the back of it—property—something of that sort, dependent on this Gilverthwaite unearthing some facts or other out of those old books? And then comes another man, a stranger, that's as mysterious in his movements as Gilverthwaite was, and he's to meet Gilverthwaite at a certain lonely spot, and at a very strange hour, and Gilverthwaite can't go, and he gets you to go, and you find the man—murdered! And—close by—you've seen this other man, who, between you and me—though it's no secret—is as much a stranger to the neighbourhood as ever Gilverthwaite was or Phillips was!"

"I don't follow you at that," I said.

"No?" said he. "Then I'll make it plainer to you. Do you know that until yon Sir Gilbert Carstairs came here, not so long since, to take up his title and his house and the estate, he'd never set foot in the place, never been near the place, this thirty year? Man! his own father, old Sir Alec, and his own sister, Mrs. Ralston of Craig, had never clapped eyes on him since he went away from Hathercleugh a youngster of one-and-twenty!"

"Do you tell me that, Mr. Crone?" I exclaimed, much surprised at his words. "I didn't know so much. Where had he been, then?"

"God knows!" said he. "And himself. It was said he was a doctor in London, and in foreign parts. Him and his brother—elder brother, you're aware, Mr. Michael—they both quarrelled with the old baronet when they were little more than lads, and out they cleared, going their own ways. And news of Michael's death, and the proofs of it, came home not so long before old Sir Alec died, and as Michael had never married, of course the younger brother succeeded when his father came to his end last winter. And, as I say, who knows anything about his past doings when he was away more than thirty years, nor what company he kept, nor what secrets he has? Do you follow me?"

"Aye, I'm following you, Mr. Crone," I answered. "It comes to this—you suspect Sir Gilbert?"

"What I say," he answered, "is this: he may have had something to do with the affair. You cannot tell. But you and me knows he was near the place—coming from its direction—at the time the murder would be in the doing. And—there is nobody knows but you—and me!"

"What are you going to do about it?" I asked.

He had another period of reflection before he replied, and when he spoke it was to the accompaniment of a warning look.

"It's an ill-advised thing to talk about rich men," said he. "Yon man not only has money of his own, in what you might call considerable quantity, but his wife he brought with him is a woman of vast wealth, they tell me. It would be no very wise action on your part to set rumours going, Moneylaws, unless you could substantiate them."

"What about yourself?" I asked. "You know as much as I do."

"Aye, and there's one word that sums all up," said he. "And it's a short one. Wait! There'll be more coming out. Keep your counsel a bit. And when the moment comes, and if the moment comes—why, you know there's me behind you to corroborate. And—that's all!"

He got up then, with a nod, as if to show that the interview was over, and I was that glad to get away from him that I walked off without another word.

CHAPTER XI SIGNATURES TO THE WILL

I was so knocked out of the usual run of things by this conversation with Crone that I went away forgetting the bits of stuff I had bought for Tom Dunlop's rabbit-hutches and Tom himself, and, for that matter, Maisie as well; and, instead of going back to Dunlop's, I turned down the riverside, thinking. It was beyond me at that moment to get a clear understanding of the new situation. I could not make out what Crone was at. Clearly, he had strong suspicions that Sir Gilbert Carstairs had something to do with, or some knowledge of, the murder of Phillips, and he knew now that there were two of us to bear out each other's testimony that Sir Gilbert was near the scene of the murder at the time it was committed. Why, then, should he counsel waiting? Why should not the two of us go to the police and tell what we knew? What was it that Crone advised we should wait for? Was something going on, some inquiry being made in the background of things, of which he knew and would not tell me? And—this, I think, was what was chiefly in my thoughts—was Crone playing some game of his own and designing to use me as a puppet in it? For there was a general atmosphere of subtlety and slyness about the man that forced itself upon me, young as I was; and the way he kept eyeing me as we talked made me feel that I had to do with one that would be hard to circumvent if it came to a matter of craftiness. And at last, after a lot of thinking, as I walked about in the dusk, it struck me that Crone might be for taking a hand in the game of which I had heard, but had never seen played—blackmail.

The more I thought over that idea, the more I felt certain of it. His hints about Sir Gilbert's money and his wealthy wife, his advice to wait until we knew more, all seemed to point to this—that evidence might come out which would but require our joint testimony, Crone's and mine, to make it complete. If that were so, then, of course, Crone or I, or—as he probably designed—the two of us, would be in a position to go to Sir Gilbert Carstairs and tell him what we knew, and ask him how much he would give us to hold our tongues. I saw all the theory of it at last, clear enough, and it was just what I would have expected of Abel Crone, knowing him even as little as I did. Wait until we were sure—and then strike! That was his game. And I was not going to have anything to do with it.

I went home to my bed resolved on that. I had heard of blackmailing, and had a good notion of its wickedness—and of its danger—and I was not taking shares with Crone in any venture of that sort. But there Crone was, an actual, concrete fact that I had got to deal with, and to come to some terms with, simply because he knew that I was in possession of knowledge which, to be sure, I ought to have communicated to the police at once. And I was awake much during the night, thinking matters over, and by the time I rose in the morning I had come to a decision. I would see Crone at once, and give him a sort of an ultimatum. Let him come, there and then, with me to Mr. Murray, and let the two of us tell what we knew and be done with it: if not, then I myself would go straight to Mr. Lindsey and tell him.

I set out for the office earlier than usual that morning, and went round by way of the back street at the bottom of which Crone's store stood facing the river. I sometimes walked round that way of a morning, and I knew that Crone was as a rule at his place very early, amongst his old rubbish, or at his favourite game of gossiping with the fishermen that had their boats drawn up there. But when I reached it, the shop was still shut, and though I waited as long as I could, Crone did not come. I knew where he lived, at the top end of the town, and I thought to meet him as I walked up to Mr. Lindsey's; but I had seen nothing of him by the time I reached our office door, so I laid the matter aside until noon, meaning to get a word with him when I went home to my dinner. And though I could have done so there and then, I determined not to say anything to Mr. Lindsey until I had given Crone the chance of saying it with me—to him, or to the police. I expected, of course, that Crone would fly into a rage at my suggestion—if so, then I would tell him, straight out, that I would just take my own way, and take it at once.

But before noon there