The Middle Temple Murder - J. S. Fletcher (reading women .TXT) 📗

there at once, and I suppose you’re coming. And remember, if that grave’s empty⁠—”

“If that grave’s empty,” said Breton, “I’ll tell you⁠—a good deal.”

XXXII The Contents of the Coffin

There travelled down together to Market Milcaster late that afternoon, Spargo, Breton, the officials from the Home Office, entrusted with the order for the opening of the Chamberlayne grave, and a solicitor acting on behalf of the proprietor of the Watchman. It was late in the evening when they reached the little town, but Spargo, having looked in at the parlour of the “Yellow Dragon” and ascertained that Mr. Quarterpage had only just gone home, took Breton across the street to the old gentleman’s house. Mr. Quarterpage himself came to the door, and recognized Spargo immediately. Nothing would satisfy him but that the two should go in; his family, he said, had just retired, but he himself was going to take a final nightcap and a cigar, and they must share it.

“For a few minutes only then, Mr. Quarterpage,” said Spargo as they followed the old man into his dining-room. “We have to be up at daybreak. And⁠—possibly⁠—you, too, would like to be up just as early.”

Mr. Quarterpage looked an enquiry over the top of a decanter which he was handling.

“At daybreak?” he exclaimed.

“The fact is,” said Spargo, “that grave of Chamberlayne’s is going to be opened at daybreak. We have managed to get an order from the Home Secretary for the exhumation of Chamberlayne’s body: the officials in charge of it have come down in the same train with us; we’re all staying across there at the ‘Dragon.’ The officials have gone to make the proper arrangements with your authorities. It will be at daybreak, or as near it as can conveniently be managed. And I suppose, now that you know of it, you’ll be there?”

“God bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Quarterpage. “You’ve really done that! Well, well, so we shall know the truth at last, after all these years. You’re a very wonderful young man, Mr. Spargo, upon my word. And this other young gentleman?”

Spargo looked at Breton, who had already given him permission to speak. “Mr. Quarterpage,” he said, “this young gentleman is, without doubt, John Maitland’s son. He’s the young barrister, Mr. Ronald Breton, that I told you of, but there’s no doubt about his parentage. And I’m sure you’ll shake hands with him and wish him well.”

Mr. Quarterpage set down decanter and glass and hastened to give Breton his hand.

“My dear young sir!” he exclaimed. “That I will indeed! And as to wishing you well⁠—ah, I never wished anything but well to your poor father. He was led away, sir, led away by Chamberlayne. God bless me, what a night of surprises! Why, Mr. Spargo, supposing that coffin is found empty⁠—what then?”

“Then,” answered Spargo, “then I think we shall be able to put our hands on the man who is supposed to be in it.”

“You think my father was worked upon by this man Chamberlayne, sir?” observed Breton a few minutes later when they had all sat down round Mr. Quarterpage’s hospitable hearth. “You think he was unduly influenced by him?”

Mr. Quarterpage shook his head sadly.

“Chamberlayne, my dear young sir,” he answered. “Chamberlayne was a plausible and a clever fellow. Nobody knew anything about him until he came to this town, and yet before he had been here very long he had contrived to ingratiate himself with everybody⁠—of course, to his own advantage. I firmly believe that he twisted your father round his little finger. As I told Mr. Spargo there when he was making his enquiries of me a short while back, it would never have been any surprise to me to hear⁠—definitely, I mean, young gentlemen⁠—that all this money that was in question went into Chamberlayne’s pockets. Dear me⁠—dear me!⁠—and you really believe that Chamberlayne is actually alive, Mr. Spargo?”

Spargo pulled out his watch. “We shall all know whether he was buried in that grave before another six hours are over, Mr. Quarterpage,” he said.

He might well have spoken of four hours instead of six, for it was then nearly midnight, and before three o’clock Spargo and Breton, with the other men who had accompanied them from London were out of the “Yellow Dragon” and on their way to the cemetery just outside the little town. Over the hills to the eastward the grey dawn was slowly breaking: the long stretch of marshland which lies between Market Milcaster and the sea was white with fog: on the cypresses and acacias of the cemetery hung veils and webs of gossamer: everything around them was quiet as the dead folk who lay beneath their feet. And the people actively concerned went quietly to work, and those who could do nothing but watch stood around in silence.

“In all my long life of over ninety years,” whispered old Quarterpage, who had met them at the cemetery gates, looking fresh and brisk in spite of his shortened rest, “I have never seen this done before. It seems a strange, strange thing to interfere with a dead man’s last resting-place⁠—a dreadful thing.”

“If there is a dead man there,” said Spargo.

He himself was mainly curious about the details of this exhumation; he had no scruples, sentimental or otherwise, about the breaking in upon the dead. He watched all that was done. The men employed by the local authorities, instructed overnight, had fenced in the grave with canvas; the proceedings were accordingly conducted in strict privacy; a man was posted to keep away any very early passersby, who might be attracted by the unusual proceedings. At first there was nothing to do but wait, and Spargo occupied himself by reflecting that every spadeful of earth thrown out of that grave was bringing him nearer to the truth; he had an unconquerable intuition that the truth of at any rate one phase of the Marbury case was going to be revealed to them. If the coffin to which they were digging down contained a body, and that the body of the stockbroker, Chamberlayne,