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

finished the provisions which he and I had left. And I think the same thought occurred to Mr. Lindsey and myself at the same moment—how long had he stopped on board that yacht after his cruel abandoning of me? For forty-eight hours had elapsed since that episode, and in forty-eight hours a man may do a great deal in the way of making himself scarce—which now seemed to me to be precisely what Sir Gilbert Carstairs had done, though in what particular fashion, and exactly why, it was beyond either of us to surmise.

"I suppose no one has heard anything of this yacht having been seen drifting about yesterday, or during last night?" asked Mr. Lindsey, putting his question to both men. "No talk of it hereabouts?"

But neither the police nor Andrew Robertson had heard a murmur of that nature, and there was evidently nothing to be got out of them more than we had already got. Nor had the police heard of any stranger being seen about there—though, as the man who was with us observed, there was no great likelihood of anybody noticing a stranger, for Largo was nowadays a somewhat popular seaside resort, and down there on the beach there were many strangers, it being summer, and holiday time, so that a strange man more or less would pass unobserved.

"Supposing a man landed about the coast, here," asked Mr. Lindsey—"I'm just putting a case to you—and didn't go into the town, but walked along the beach—where would he strike a railway station, now?"

The police official replied that there were railway stations to the right and left of the bay—a man could easily make Edinburgh in one direction, and St. Andrews in the other; and then, not unnaturally, he was wanting to know if Mr. Lindsey was suggesting that Sir Gilbert Carstairs had sailed his yacht ashore, left it, and that it had drifted out to sea again?

"I'm not suggesting anything," answered Mr. Lindsey. "I'm only speculating on possibilities. And that's about as idle work as standing here talking. What will be practical will be to arrange about this yacht being locked up in some boat-house, and we'd best see to that at once."

We made arrangements with the owner of a boat-house to pull the yacht in there, and to keep her under lock and key, and, after settling matters with the police to have an eye on her, and see that her contents were untouched until further instructions reached them from Berwick, we went off to continue our journey. But we had stayed so long in Largo that when we got to Edinburgh the last train for Berwick had gone, and we were obliged to turn into an hotel for the night. Naturally, all our talk was of what had just transpired—the events of the last two days, said Mr. Lindsey, only made these mysteries deeper than they were before, and why Sir Gilbert Carstairs should have abandoned his yacht, as he doubtless had, was a still further addition to the growing problem.

"And I'm not certain, my lad, that I believe yon man Robertson's tale," he remarked, as we were discussing matters from every imaginable point of view just before going to bed. "He may have brought the yacht in, but we don't know that he didn't bring Carstairs aboard her. Why was that change of clothes made? Probably because he knew that he'd be described as wearing certain things, and he wanted to come ashore in other things. For aught we know, he came safely ashore, boarded a train somewhere in the neighbourhood, or at Largo itself—why not?—and went off, likely here, to Edinburgh—where he'd mingle with a few thousand of folk, unnoticed."

"Then—in that case, you think he's—what, Mr. Lindsey?" I asked. "Do you mean he's running away?"

"Between you and me, that's not far from what I do think," he replied. "And I think I know what he's running away from, too! But we'll hear a lot more before many hours are over, or I'm mistaken."

We were in Berwick at an early hour next morning, and we went straight to the police station and into the superintendent's office. Chisholm was with Mr. Murray when we walked in, and both men turned to us with eagerness.

"Here's more mystery about this affair, Mr. Lindsey!" exclaimed Murray.
"It's enough to make a man's wits go wool-gathering. There's no news of
Sir Gilbert, and Lady Carstairs has been missing since twelve o'clock
noon yesterday!"

CHAPTER XXV THE SECOND DISAPPEARANCE

Mr. Lindsey was always one of the coolest of hands at receiving news of a startling nature, and now, instead of breaking out into exclamations, he just nodded his head, and dropped into the nearest chair.

"Aye?" he remarked quietly. "So her ladyship's disappeared, too, has she?
And when did you get to hear that, now?"

"Half an hour ago," replied Murray. "The butler at Hathercleugh House has just been in—driven over in a hurry—to tell us. What do you make of it at all?"

"Before I answer that, I want to know what's been happening here while I've been away," replied Mr. Lindsey. "What's happened within your own province—officially, I mean?"

"Not much," answered Murray. "There began to be talk evening before last, amongst the fishermen, about Sir Gilbert's yacht. He'd been seen, of course, to go out with Moneylaws there, two days ago, at noon. And—there is Moneylaws! Doesn't he know anything? Where's Sir Gilbert, Moneylaws?"

"He'll tell all that—when I tell him to," said Mr. Lindsey, with a glance at me. "Go on with your story, first."

The superintendent shook his head, as if all these things were beyond his comprehension.

"Oh, well!" he continued. "I tell you there was talk—you know how they gossip down yonder on the beach. It was said the yacht had never come in, and, though many of them had been out, they'd never set eyes on her, and rumours of her soon began to spread. So I sent Chisholm there out to Hathercleugh to make some inquiry—tell Mr. Lindsey what you heard," he went on, turning to the sergeant. "Not much, I think."

"Next to nothing," replied Chisholm. "I saw Lady Carstairs. She laughed at me. She said Sir Gilbert was not likely to come to harm—he'd been sailing yachts, big and little, for many a year, and he'd no doubt gone further on this occasion than he'd first intended. I pointed out that he'd Mr. Moneylaws with him, and that he'd been due at his business early that morning. She laughed again at that, and said she'd no doubt Sir Gilbert and Mr. Moneylaws had settled that matter between them, and that, as she'd no anxieties, she was sure Berwick folk needn't have any. And so I came away."

"And we heard no more until we got your wire yesterday from Dundee, Mr. Lindsey," said Murray; "and that was followed not so very long after by one from the police at Largo, which I reported to you."

"Now, here's an important question," put in Mr. Lindsey, a bit hurriedly, as if something had just struck him. "Did you communicate the news from Largo to Hathercleugh?"

"We did, at once," answered Murray. "I telephoned immediately to Lady
Carstairs—I spoke to her over the wire myself, telling her what the
Largo police reported."

"What time would that be?" asked Mr. Lindsey, sharply.

"Half-past eleven," replied Murray.

"Then, according to what you tell me, she left Hathercleugh soon after you telephoned to her?" said Mr. Lindsey.

"According to what the butler told us this morning," answered Murray, "Lady Carstairs went out on her bicycle at exactly noon yesterday—and she's never been seen or heard of since."

"She left no message at the house?" asked Mr. Lindsey.

"None! And," added the superintendent, significantly, "she didn't mention to the butler that I'd just telephoned to her. It's a queer business, this, I'm thinking, Mr. Lindsey. But—what's your own news?—and what's Moneylaws got to tell about Sir Gilbert?"

Mr. Lindsey took no notice of the last question. He sat in silence for a while, evidently thinking. And in the end he pointed to some telegram forms that lay on the superintendent's desk.

"There's one thing must be done at once, Murray," he said; "and I'll take the responsibility of doing it myself. We must communicate with the Carstairs family solicitors."

"I'd have done it, as soon as the butler brought me the news about Lady
Carstairs," remarked Murray, "but I don't know who they are."

"I do!" answered Mr. Lindsey. "Holmshaw and Portlethorpe of Newcastle. Here," he went on, passing a telegram form to me. "Write out this message: 'Sir Gilbert and Lady Carstairs are both missing from Hathercleugh under strange circumstances please send some authorized person here at once.' Sign that with my name, Hugh—and take it to the post-office, and come back here."

When I got back, Mr. Lindsey had evidently told Murray and Chisholm all about my adventures with Sir Gilbert, and the two men regarded me with a new interest as if I had suddenly become a person of the first importance. And the superintendent at once fell upon me for my reticence.

"You made a bad mistake, young man, in keeping back what you ought to have told at the inquest on Phillips!" he said, reprovingly. "Indeed, you ought to have told it before that—you should have told us."

"Aye!—if I'd only known as much as that," began Chisholm, "I'd have—"

"You'd probably have done just what he did!" broke in Mr. Lindsey—"held your tongue till you knew more!—so let that pass—the lad did what he thought was for the best. You never suspected Sir Gilbert of any share in these affairs, either of you—so come, now!"

"Why, as to that, Mr. Lindsey," remarked Murray, who looked somewhat nettled by this last passage, "you didn't suspect him yourself—or, if you did, you kept it uncommonly quiet!"

"Does Mr. Lindsey suspect him now?" asked Chisholm, a bit maliciously.
"For if he does, maybe he'll give us a hand."

Mr. Lindsey looked at both of them in a way that he had of looking at people of whose abilities he had no very great idea—but there was some indulgence in the look on this occasion.

"Well, now that things have come to this pass," he said, "and after Sir Gilbert's deliberate attempt to get rid of Moneylaws—to murder him, in fact—I don't mind telling you the truth. I do suspect Sir Gilbert of the murder of Crone—and that's why I produced that ice-ax in court the other day. And—when he saw that ice-ax, he knew that I suspected him, and that's why he took Moneylaws out with him, intending to rid himself of a man that could give evidence against him. If I'd known that Moneylaws was going with him, I'd have likely charged Sir Gilbert there and then!—anyway, I wouldn't have let Moneylaws go."

"Aye!—you know something, then?" exclaimed Murray. "You're in possession of some evidence that we know nothing about?"

"I know this—and I'll make you a present of it, now," answered Mr. Lindsey. "As you're aware, I'm a bit of a mountaineer—you know that I've spent a good many of my holidays in Switzerland, climbing. Consequently, I know what alpenstocks and ice-axes are. And when I came to reflect on the circumstances of Crone's murder, I remember that not so long since, happening to be out along the riverside, I chanced across Sir Gilbert Carstairs using a very late type of ice-ax as a walking-stick—as he well could do, and might have picked up in his hall as some men'll pick up a golf-stick to go walking with, and I've done that myself, hundred of times. And I knew that I had an ice-ax of that very pattern at home—and so I just shoved it under the doctor's nose in court, and asked him if that hole in Crone's head couldn't have been made by the spike of it. Why? Because I knew that Carstairs would be present in court, and I wanted to see if he would catch what I was after!"

"And—you think he did?" asked the superintendent, eagerly.

"I kept the corner of an eye on him," answered Mr. Lindsey, knowingly. "He saw what I was after! He's a clever fellow, that—but he took the mask off his face for the thousandth part of a second. I saw!"

The two listeners were so amazed by this that they sat in silence for a while, staring at Mr. Lindsey with open-mouthed amazement.

"It's a dark, dark business!" sighed Murray at last. "What's the true meaning of it, do you think, Mr. Lindsey?"

"Some secret that's being gradually got at," replied Mr. Lindsey, promptly. "That's what it