Chapter II: Part 2

“They send me back my cheque pending the book’s recovery, but did you ever hear of such a thing? I was going down to Bristol by an early train to-morrow. Now I don’t know what the deuce to do.”

“Why not go back and find out what has really happened?” suggested Carrados. “They will tell you more than they would tell your man. If the book is stolen you may as well put off your journey. If it is mislaid--taken off by someone else in mistake, I expect they mean--it may be on its way back by now.”

“Yes; I suppose I’d better go. You’ve had enough of it, I suppose?”

“On the contrary I was going to ask you to let me accompany you. It may be getting interesting.”

“I hope not,” retorted Marrable. “Come if you can spare the time, but the very tamest ending will suit me the best.”

Felix had called up another cab by the time they reached the door, and for the second time that afternoon they spun through the West End streets with the auction rooms for their destination.

“Your turn to pay again, I think,” proposed Carrados when they arrived. “You take the odd numbers and I’ll take the even!”

Inside, most of the staff were obviously distracted by the strain of the untoward event and it was very evident that barbed words had been on the wing. In the private office to which Mr Marrable’s card gained them immediate admittance they found all those actually concerned in the loss engaged in saying the same things over to each other for the hundredth time.

“The book isn’t on the shelves now and there’s the number in the delivery note; that’s all I know about it,” a saleroom porter was reiterating with the air of an extremely reasonable martyr.

“Yes, yes,” admitted the auctioneer who had conducted the sale, “no one----Oh, I’m glad you are here, Mr Marrable. You’ve heard of our--er--eh----”

“My man came back with something about the book--the _Virginiola_--being mislaid,” replied Mr Marrable. “That is all I know so far.”

“Well, it’s very regrettable, of course, and we must ask your indulgence; but what has happened is simple enough and I hope it isn’t serious.”

“What concerns me,” interposed Mr Marrable, “is merely this: Am I to have the book, and when?”

“We hope to deliver it into your hands--well, in a very short time. As I was saying, what has happened is this: Another purchaser bought certain lots. Among them was Lot 91. My sale clerk, in the stress of his duties, inadvertently filled in the delivery note as Lot 191.” A gesture of despairing protest from the unfortunate young man referred to passed unheeded. “Consequently, as this gentleman took away his purchases at the end of the sale, he carried off the _Virginiola_ among them. When he comes to look into the parcel he will at once discover the substitution and--er--of course return the volume.”

“I see,” assented Mr Marrable. “That seems straightforward enough, but the delay is unfortunate for me. Have you sent after the purchaser, by the way?”

“We haven’t sent after the purchaser because he happens to live in Derbyshire,” was the reply. “Here is his card. We are writing at once, but the probability is that he is staying in London overnight at least.”

“You might wire.”

“We will, of course, wire if you ask us to do so, Mr Marrable, but it seems to indicate an attitude of distrust towards Mr--er--Mr Dillworthy of Cullington Grange that I see no reason to entertain.”

“Assuming the whole incident to be accidental, I think you are doing quite right. But in order to save time mayn’t it perhaps be worth while anticipating that something else may have been at work?”

They all looked at Mr Carrados, who advanced this suggestion diffidently. The young man in the background breathed an involuntary “Ah!” of agreement and came a little more to the front.

“Do you suggest that Mr Dillworthy of Cullington Grange would actually deny possession of the book?” inquired the auctioneer a little cuttingly.

“Pardon me,” replied Carrados blandly, “but do you know Mr Dillworthy of Cullington Grange?”

“No, certainly, I----”

“Nor, of course, the purchaser of Lot 91? That naturally follows. Then for the purpose of our hypothesis I would suggest that we eliminate Mr Dillworthy, who quite reasonably may not have been within a hundred miles of Charing Cross to-day. What remains? His visiting-card, that would cost about a crown at the outside to reproduce, or might much more cheaply be picked up from a hundred halls or office tables.”

The auctioneer smiled.

“An elaborate plant, eh? Have you any practical knowledge, sir, of the difficulty, the impossibility, that would attend the disposal of this imperfect copy the moment our loss is notified?”

“But suppose it should become a perfect copy in the meantime? That might throw dust in their eyes. Eh, Marrable?”

“I say!” exclaimed the virtuoso, with his ideas forcibly directed into a new channel. “Yes, there is that, you know, Mr Trenchard.”

“Even in that very unlikely event the _Virginiola_ remains a white elephant. It cannot be got off to-day nor yet to-morrow. Any bookseller would require time in which to collate the volume; it dare not be offered by auction. It is like a Gainsborough or a Leonardo illegally come by--so much unprofitable lumber after it is stolen.”

“Then,” hazarded Carrados, “there is the alternative, which might suggest itself to a really intelligent artist, of selling it before it is stolen.”

The conditions were getting a little beyond Mr Trenchard’s easy access. “Sell it before it is stolen?” he repeated. “Why?”

“Because of the extreme difficulty, as you have proved, of selling it after.”

“But how, I mean?”

“I think,” interposed a quiet voice from the doorway, “that we had better accept Mr Carrados’s advice, if he does us the great service of offering it, without discussion, Leonard. I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr Max Carrados, have I not?” continued a white-haired old gentleman, advancing into the room. “My young friend Trenchard, in his jealousy for the firm’s reputation, starts with the conviction that it is impossible for us to be victimised. You and I know better, Mr Carrados. Now will you tell me--I am Mr Ing, by the way--will you tell me what has really happened?”

“I wish I could,” admitted Carrados frankly. “Unfortunately I know less of the circumstances than you do, and although I was certainly present during a part of the sale, I never even ‘saw’ the book”--he spread out the fingers of a hand to illustrate--“and probably I was not within several yards of it or its present holder.”

“But you have some idea of the method adopted--some theory,” persisted Mr Ing. “You can tell us what to do.”

“Even there I can only put two and two together and suggest investigation on common-sense lines.”

“It is necessary to go to an expert even for that sometimes,” submitted the old gentleman with a very comical look. “Now, Mr Carrados, pray enlighten us.”

“May I put a few questions then?”

“By all means.”

“Do you require me, sir?” inquired Mr Trenchard distantly.

“Not if you will kindly leave the sale-book and papers, I think, thank you,” replied Carrados. “This young gentleman, though.” The sale clerk came forward eagerly. “You have the delivery note there? No, I don’t want it. This gentleman, whom we will refer to as Mr Dillworthy--91 is the first thing he bought?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The price?”

“Three pounds fifteen.”

“Is that a good price or a bargain?”

The clerk looked towards Mr Ing.

“It’s Coulthorp’s _Marvellous Recoveries_, sir; the edition of 1674,” he explained.

“A fair price,” commented the old gentleman. “Yes, quite a good auction figure.”

“The _Virginiola_ is folio, I believe. What size is _Marvellous Recoveries_?”

“It is folio also.”

“What was the next lot that Mr Dillworthy bought?”

“Lot 198.”

“Any others?”

“Yes, sir. Lots 211, 217 and 234.”

“And the prices of these four lots?”

“Lot 198, a guinea; 211, twelve-and-six; 217, fifteen shillings; 234, twenty-three shillings.”

“Those must be very low prices?”

“They are books in no great demand. At every sale from mixed sources there are a certain number of make-weight lots.”

“We find, then, that Mr Dillworthy bought 91 at a good price. After that he did nothing until 191 had passed. Then he at once secured four lots of cheap books. This gives a certain colour to suspicion, but it may be pure coincidence. Now,” he continued, addressing himself to the clerk again, “after the delivery slip had been made out, did Mr Dillworthy borrow a pen from you?”

The youth’s ingenuous face suddenly flashed to a recollection.

“Suffering Moses!” he exclaimed irrepressibly. “Well----”

“Then he did?” demanded Mr Ing, too keenly interested to stop to reprove the manner.

“Not exactly, sir. He didn’t borrow a pen, but I lent him one.”

“Ah!” remarked Carrados, “that sounds even better. How did it come about?”

“His bill was six pounds twelve and six. He gave me seven pounds and I made out the delivery form and gave it to him with the change. Then he said: ‘Could you do with a fiver instead of five ones, by the way? I may run short of change,’ and he held out a bank-note. ‘Certainly, if you will kindly write your name and address on the back,’ I replied, and I gave him a pen.”

“The one you had been using?”

“Yes, it was in my hand. He turned away and I thought that he was doing what I asked, but before he would have had time to do that he handed me the pen back and said: ‘Thanks; after all, I’ll leave it as it is.’”

“Who sent in the book for sale?”

“Described as ‘the property of a gentleman,’” contributed Mr Marrable. “I wondered.”

“If you will excuse me for a moment,” said Mr Ing, “I will find out.”

He returned from another office smiling amiably but shaking his head.

“‘The property of a gentleman,’” he repeated with senile deliberateness. “I find that the owner expressed a definite wish for the transaction to be treated confidentially. It is no unusual thing for a client to desire that. On certain points of etiquette, Mr Carrados, I am just as jealous for the firm as Trenchard could be, so that until we can obtain consent I am afraid that the gentleman must remain anonymous.”

“The question is,” volunteered Mr Marrable, “where has the volume got to, rather than where has it come from?”

“Sometimes,” remarked the blind man, “after looking in many unlikely places one finds the key in the lock itself. At all events we seem to have come to the end of our usefulness here. Unless one of your people happens to come forward with a real clue, Mr Ing, I venture to predict that you will find more profit in investigating farther afield.”

“But what are we to do?” exclaimed the old gentleman rather blankly, when he saw that Carrados was preparing to go. “We are absolute babes at this sort of thing--at least I know that I am.”

“The remedy for that is quite simple. Put the case into the hands of the police.”

“True, true; but it is not so absolutely simple to us. We have various interests and, yes, let us say, old-fashioned prejudices to consider. I suppose”--he became quite touchingly wistful--“I suppose that you could not be persuaded, Mr Carrados----?”

“I’m afraid not,” replied Carrados. “I have other irons in the fire just now. But before you do call in the police, by the way, there is Mr Trenchard’s view to be considered.”

“You mean?”

“I mean that it would be as well to make sure that the _Virginiola_ has been stolen.”

“By wiring to Cullington Grange?”

“Assuming that there is a Cullington Grange. Then there is a harmless experiment in collateral proof that you might like to make in the meantime if the reply is delayed, as it reasonably may be through a dozen causes.”

“And what is that, Mr Carrados?”

“Send up Charing Cross Road and find out among the second-hand shops whether the other books Mr Dillworthy took away with him were sold there immediately after the sale. They were only bought to round off the operation. They would be a dangerous incubus to keep, but if our man is a cool hand he may contrive to realise a pound or so for them before anything is known. You might even learn something else in the process.”

“Aye, aye, to be sure,” acquiesced Mr Ing. “We’ll do that at once. And then, Mr Carrados, just a parting hint. If you were taking up the case what would _you_ do then?”

The temptation to be oracular was irresistible. Carrados smiled inwardly.

“I should try to find a tall, short-sighted, Welsh book-dealer who smokes perique tobacco, suffers from a weak chest, wears thick-soled boots and always carries an umbrella,” he replied with impressive gravity.

Mr Ing, the saleroom porter, the young clerk and Mr Marrable all looked at each other and then began to repeat the varied attributes of the required individual.

“There’s that--what’s his name?--old chap with a red waistcoat who’s always here,” hopefully suggested the porter in an aside. “He wears specs, and I’ve never seen him without an umbrella.”

“He’s a Scotchman and stands about five feet three, fathead!” whispered the clerk. “Isn’t Mr Powis Welsh, sir?”

“To be sure. Powis of Redmayne Street is the man,” assented Mr Ing. “Isn’t that correct, Mr Carrados?”

“I don’t know,” replied Carrados, “but if he answers to the description it probably is.”

“And then?”

“Then I think I should call and encourage him to talk to me--about Shakespeare.”

“Why, dash it, Carrados,” cried Mr Marrable, “you said that you knew nothing of book-collecting and yet you seem to be aware that Powis specialises Shakespeariana and to know that the _Virginiola_ would interest him. I wonder how much you have been getting at me!”

“Oh, I suppose that I’m beginning to pick up a thing or two,” admitted the blind man diffidently.

In the course of his experience of crime, fragments of many mysteries had been brought to Carrados’s notice--detached chapters of chequered human lives to which the opening and the finis had never been supplied. Some had fascinated him and yet remained impenetrable to the end, yet the theft of the _Virginiola_, a mere coup of cool effrontery in which he felt no great interest after he had pierced the method, was destined to unfold itself before his mind without an effort on his part.

The sale at Gurnard’s had taken place on a Wednesday. Friday brought Carrados a reminder of the stone that he had set rolling in the appearance of a visiting-card bearing the name and address of Mr Powis of Redmayne Street. Mr Powis was shown in and proved to be a tall, mild-looking man with a chronic cough. He carried a moderate parcel in one hand and, despite the bright, settled condition of the weather, an umbrella in the other.

“I’m an antiquarian bookseller, Mr Carrados,” he remarked by way of introduction. “I haven’t the honour of your custom that I know of, but I dare say you can guess what brings me here.”

“You might tell me,” replied Carrados.

“Oh yes, Mr Carrados, I will tell you. Certainly I will tell you,” retorted Mr Powis, in a rather louder voice than was absolutely necessary. “Mr Ing looked in at my place of pizzness yesterday. He said that he was ‘just passing’--‘just passing,’ you understand.” Mr Powis emphasised the futility of the subterfuge by laughing sardonically.

“A charming old gentleman,” remarked Carrados pleasantly. “I don’t suppose that he would deceive a rabbit.”

“I don’t suppose that he could,” asserted Mr Powis. “‘By the way,’ he said, ‘did you see the _Virginiola_ we sold yesterday?’ ‘By the way!’ Yes, that was it.”

Carrados nodded his smiling appreciation.

“‘Oh-ho,’ I thought, ‘the _Virginiola_!’ ‘Yes, Mr Ing,’ I said, ‘it was a nice copy parring the defect, but a week ago I could have shown you a nicer and a perfect one to poot.’

“‘You’ve got one too, have you?’ he asked.

“‘Certainly I have,’ I replied, ‘or I should not say so. At least I had, but it may be sold now. It has gone to a gentleman in Rutland.’

“‘Rutland; that’s a little place,’ he remarked thoughtfully. ‘Have you any objection to mentioning your customer’s name?’

“‘Not in the least, Mr Ing,’ I told him. ‘Why should I have? It has taken me five and twenty years to make my connection, but let all the trade have it. Sir Roland Chargrave of Densmore Hall is the gentleman.’

“Now, look you, Mr Carrados, I could see by the way Mr Ing gasped when I told him that things are not all right. It seems to be your doing that I am brought into it and I want to know where I stand.”

“Have you any misgivings as to where you stand?” inquired Carrados.

“No, Mr Carrados, I have not,” exclaimed the visitor indignantly. “I pought my _Virginiola_ three or four weeks ago and I paid a goot price for it.”

“Then you certainly have nothing to trouble about.”

“Put I have a goot deal to trouble about,” vociferated Mr Powis. “I have a copy of the _Virginiola_ to dispose of----”

“Oh, you still have it, then?”

“Yes, Mr Carrados, I have. Thanks to what is peing said pehind my pack, the pook was returned to me this morning. My name has been connected with a stolen copy and puyers are very shy, look you, when they hear that. And word, it travels; oh yes. You may not know how, but to-day they will be saying in Wales: ‘Have you heard what is peing said of Mr Powis of London?’ And to-morrow in Scotland it will be: ‘That old tamn rascal Powis has been caught at last!’”

In spite of Mr Powis’s desperate seriousness Carrados could not restrain a laugh at the forcefulness of the recital. “Come, come, Mr Powis,” he said soothingly, “it isn’t as bad as that, you know. In any case you have only to display your receipt.”

“Oh, very goot, very goot indeed!” retorted the Welshman in an extremity of satire. “Show a buyer my receipt! Excellent! That would be a capital way to carry on the antiquarian pook pizzness! Besides,” he added, rather lamely, “in this case it happens that I do not possess a receipt.”

“Isn’t that--rather an oversight?” suggested Carrados.

“No doubt I could easily procure one. Let me tell you the circumstances, Mr Carrados. I only want to convince you that I have nothing to conceal.” With this laudable intention Mr Powis’s attitude became more and more amiable and his manner much less Welsh. He had, in fact, used up all the indignation that he had generated in anticipation of a wordy conflict--a species of protective mimicry common to mild-tempered men. “I bought this book from the Rev. Mr Winch, the vicar of Fordridge, in Leicestershire. A few weeks ago I received a registered parcel from Fordridge containing a fine copy of the _Virginiola_. The same post brought me a letter from Mr Winch. I dare say I have it here.... No, never mind; it was to the effect that the book had been in the writer’s family for many generations. Being something of a collector, he had never wished to sell it, but an unexpected misfortune now obliged him to raise a sum of money. He had contracted blood-poisoning in his hand and he had to come up to London for an operation. After that he would have to take a long sea voyage. He went on to say that he had heard of me as a likely buyer and would call on me in a day or two. In the meantime he sent the book to give me full opportunity of examining it.

“Nothing could be more straightforward, Mr Carrados. Two days later Mr Winch walked into my place. We discussed the price, and finally we agreed upon--well, a certain figure.”

“You can rely upon my discretion, Mr Powis.”

“I paid him £260.”

“That would be a fair price in the circumstances?”

“I thought so, Mr Carrados. I don’t say that it wasn’t a bargain, but it wasn’t an outrageous bargain.”

“You have occasionally done better?” smiled Carrados.

“Frequently. If I buy a book for threepence and sell it again for a shilling I do better, although it doesn’t sound so well. Of course I am a dealer and I have to live on my profits and to pay for my bad bargains with my good bargains. Now if I had had an immediate customer in view the book might have been worth a good deal more to me. I may say that Wednesday’s price at Gurnard’s surprised me. Prices have certainly been going up, but only five years ago it would have required a practically perfect copy to make that.”

“At all events, Mr Winch accepted?”

“I think I may say that he was perfectly satisfied,” amended Mr Powis. “You see, Mr Carrados, he wanted the money at once, and, apart from the uncertainty and expense, he could not have waited for an auction. I was making out a cheque when he reminded me that his right hand was useless and asked me to initial it to ‘bearer.’ That is why I come to have no receipt.”

“Yes,” assented Carrados. “Yes, that is it. How was the letter signed?”

“It was typewritten, like the rest of it. You remember that his hand was bad when he wrote.”

“True. Did you notice the postmark--was it Fordridge?”

“Yes; you should understand that Mr Winch posted on the book before he left Fordridge for London.” It seemed to the visitor that Mr Carrados was rather slow even for a blind man.

“I think I am beginning to grasp the position,” said Carrados mildly. “Of course you had no occasion to write to him at Fordridge?”

“Nothing whatever. Besides, he was coming to London almost immediately. If I wrote it was to be to the Fitzalan Hotel, off the Strand. Now here is the book, Mr Carrados. You saw--you examined, that is, the auction _Virginiola_?”

“No, unfortunately I did not.”

“I am sorry. You would now have recognised how immeasurably superior my copy is, even apart from the missing pages.”

“I can quite believe it.” He was turning over the leaves of the book, which Mr Powis had passed to him. “But this writing on the dedication page?”

“Oh, that,” said the dealer carelessly. “Some former owner has written his name there.”

“I suppose it constitutes a blot?”

“Why, yes, in a small way it does,” admitted Mr Powis. “Had it been ‘Wm. Shakespeare,’ it would have added a thousand guineas; as it’s only ‘Wm. Shoelack,’ it knocks two or three off.”

“Possibly,” suggested Carrados, “it was this blemish that decided Sir Roland Chargrave against the book?”

“No, no,” insisted Mr Powis. “Someone has hinted something to him. I don’t say that you are to blame, Mr Carrados, but a suspicion has been created; it has got about.”

“But Sir Roland is the one man whom it could not affect,” pointed out Carrados. “He, at any rate, would know that this copy is unimpeachable, because when the other was being stolen this was actually in his hands and had been for--for how long?”

“Five or six days; he kept it for about a week. And that no doubt is true as a specific case; but a malicious rumour is wide, Mr Carrados. So-and-so is unreliable; he deals in questionable property; better be careful. It is enough. No, no; Mr Chatton said nothing about any objection to the book, merely that Sir Roland had decided not to retain it.”

“Mr Chatton?”

“He is the secretary or the librarian there. I have frequently done business with him in the old baronet’s time. This man is a nephew who succeeded only a few months ago. Well, Mr Carrados, I hope I have convinced you that I came by this _Virginiola_ in a legitimate manner?”

“Scarcely that.”

“I haven’t!” exclaimed Mr Powis in blank astonishment.

“I never doubted it. At the sale I happened to hear you remark to a friend that you had recently bought a copy. My suggestion to Mr Ing was merely to hint that, with your exceptional knowledge, your unique experience, you would probably be able to put them on the right line as to the disposal of the stolen copy and so on. An unfortunate misunderstanding.”

Mr Powis stared and then nodded several times with an expression of acute resignation.

“That old man is past work,” he remarked feelingly. “I might have saved myself a journey. Well, I’ll go now, Mr Carrados.”

“Not yet,” declared Carrados hospitably; “I am going to persuade you to stay and lunch with me, Mr Powis. I want”--he was still fingering the early pages of the _Virginiola_ with curious persistence--“I want you to explain to me the way in which these interesting old books were bound.”

With the departure of Mr Powis a few hours later Carrados might reasonably conclude that he had heard the last of the _Virginiola_ theft, for he was now satisfied that it would never reach publicity as a police court case. But, willy-nilly, the thing pursued him. Mr Carlyle was to have dined with him one evening in the following week. It was a definite engagement, but during the day the inquiry agent telephoned his friend to know what he should do. A young gentleman who had been giving him some assistance in a case was thrown on his hands for the evening.

“You are the most amiable of men, Max,” chirruped Mr Carlyle; “but, really, I don’t like to ask----”

“Bring him by all means,” assented the most amiable of men. “I expect two or three others to turn up to-night.” So Mr Carlyle brought him.

“Mr Chatton, Max.”

An unobtrusive young man, whose face wore a perpetual expression of docile willingness, shook hands with Carrados. Anything less like the sleek, competent self-assurance of the conventional private secretary it would be difficult to imagine. Mr Chatton’s manner was that of a well-meaning man who habitually blundered from a too conscientious sense of duty, knew it all along, and was pained at the inevitableness of the recurring catastrophe.

“I have just taken up a case that might interest you, Max,” said Mr Carlyle, as the three of them stood together. “Simple enough, but it involves a valuable old book that has been stolen. Gurnard’s called me in”--and he proceeded to outline the particulars of the missing _Virginiola_.

“And you went down yourself to Gurnard’s to look into it, Mr Chatton?” said Carrados, masking the species of admiration that he felt for his new acquaintance.

“Well, I don’t know about looking into it,” confessed Mr Chatton. “You see, it doesn’t really concern Sir Roland at all now. But I thought that I ought to offer them any information--a description or something of that sort might be wanted--when I heard of their loss. Of course,” he added, with a deepening of his habitual look of rueful perturbation, “we can’t help it, but it’s very distressing to think of them losing so much money over our affair.”

“Not a bit of it, not a bit of it,” cried Mr Carlyle heartily. “It’s all in the way of business and Gurnard’s won’t feel a touch like that. Very good of you to take all the trouble you have, I say.” He turned his beaming, self-confident eye towards his host to explain. “I happened to meet Mr Chatton there this morning and ever since he has been helping me to put about inquiries in likely quarters and so on. I haven’t any doubt of pulling our man up in a week or two, unless it’s the work of a secret bibliomaniac, and Gurnard’s don’t entertain that.”

“Wednesday last, you say,” pondered Carrados. “Aren’t they rather late in turning it over to you?”

“Just what I complained of. Then it came out that they had been pinning their faith to the advice of some officious idiot who happened to be present at the sale. Nothing came of it, of course.”

“They did not happen to mention the idiot’s name?” inquired Max tentatively.

“No. The old gentleman--Mr Ing--said that he had already got into hot water once through doing that.” Mr Carlyle began to laugh in his hearty way over a recollection of the incident. “Do you know what this genius’s brilliant idea was? He put them on the track of a copy of this book that had been recently sold to a dealer, assuming that it must necessarily be the stolen copy. And so it had been recently sold, Max, but it happened to be _before_ the other was stolen!”

“Very amusing,” agreed Carrados.

“Do you know, I can’t help thinking that I was somehow to blame for that,” confessed Mr Chatton in a troubled voice. “You remember, I told you----”

“No, no,” protested Mr Carlyle encouragingly. “How could it be your fault?”

“Well, it’s very good of you to reassure me,” continued the young man, relieved but not convinced. “But I really think I may have introduced a confusing element. I should like Mr Carrados to judge.... When I learned from Sir Roland that he intended sending this _Virginiola_ to Gurnard’s, knowing that it was a valuable book, I saw the necessity of going over it carefully with another copy--‘collating’ it is called--to find out whether anything was missing. The British Museum doesn’t possess an example, and in any case I could not well spare a day just then to come to London for the purpose. So I wrote to a few dealers, rather, I am afraid, giving them the impression that we wished to buy a copy. In this way I got what I wanted sent up on approval and I was able to go through the two thoroughly. At the moment I argued that my duty to my employer justified the subterfuge, but I don’t know, I don’t know; I really question whether it was quite legitimate.”

“Oh, nonsense,” remonstrated Mr Carlyle, to whom the subtleties did not appeal. “Rather a smart way of getting what you wanted in the circumstances, don’t you think, Max?”

Carrados paid a willing if equivocal tribute to the wider problem of Mr Chatton’s brooding conscientiousness.

“Very ingenious altogether,” he admitted.

* * * * *

Mr Carlyle did not pull his man up in a few weeks; in fact he never reached him at all. For the key to the disappearance of the _Virginiola_ he had to wait two years. He was at The Turrets one day when his host was called away for a short time to see a man who had come on business.

Carlyle had picked up a newspaper, when Carrados came back from the door and opening one of the inner drawers of his desk threw out a long envelope.

“There,” he remarked as he went on again, “is something that may interest you more.”

He was quite right. The inquiry agent cut open the envelope that was addressed to himself and read the following narrative:--

In the year 1609 a seafaring gentleman called Somers--Sir George
Somers--was wrecked on an island in the Atlantic. This island--one of
a group--although destitute of human inhabitants, was overrun by pigs.
During the first part of their enforced residence there the
shipwrecked mariners were much concerned by unearthly shrieks and
wailings that filled the night. With the simple piety of the time
these were attributed to the activity of witches, imps and demons. In
fact, in addition to the varied appellations of Virginiola,
Bermoothes, Somers Islands, etc., the place was enticingly called “The
Ile of Divels.”

In due course the castaways were rescued and returned to England. In
due course, also, there appeared a variety of printed accounts of
their adventures. (We are prone to think that the tendency is modern,
Louis, but it is not.) One of these coming into the hands of a
cynical, middle-aged playwright on the look-out for a new plot to
annex, was at once pressed into his scheme. Doubtless he saw behind
the shadowy “divels” the substantial outlines of the noisy “hogges.”
However, the idea was good enough for a background. He wrote his play
and called it _The Tempest_.

This is the explanation offered to me of the high and increasing value
of rare early works on Bermuda. They can be classed among the
Shakespeariana. There is also another reason: they can be classed
among the Americana.

About three hundred years later a certain young gentleman who combined
fairly expensive tastes with good commercial ability succeeded to a
title and its appendages. Among the latter were a mansion in
Rutlandshire, which he determined was too expensive, a library in
which he was not vastly interested, and a private secretary whose
services he continued to retain.

One day about six months after his succession Sir Roland Chargrave
called in his secretary to receive instructions.

“Look here, Chatton,” he said, “I have decided to let this place
furnished for a time. See Turvey about the value and then advertise it
for something more than he advises. It ought to bring in a decent
rental. Then there are some valuable things here that are no earthly
good to me. I’ll start with the library.”

“You intend to dispose of the library, Sir Roland?” faltered the
secretary.

“No. The library gives a certain distinction to a fellow and the
Chargraves have always had one. I’ll keep the library, but I’ll weed
out all the old stuff that will make high prices. Uncle Vernon left a
valuation list which appears to have been made out about ten years
ago. One book alone--_An Account of Virginiola_--he puts down at £300.
Then there are a dozen others that ought to bring another £200 among
them. I require £500 just now. Here is a list of the books I have
picked out. Send them off to Gurnard’s to be sold as soon as possible.
Don’t have my name catalogued. I don’t want it to be known that I’m
selling anything. That’s all.”

The secretary withdrew with an accentuation of his unhappy manner. It
was very distressing to him, this dispersal of the family heirlooms.
It was also extremely inconvenient personally, because he had already
sold the _Virginiola_ himself only a week before. For he also had
expenses. Perhaps he had fallen into the hands of the Jews; perhaps it
was the Jewesses. At all events, like Sir Roland, he required money,
and again like Sir Roland, the _Virginiola_ had seemed the most
suitable method. He had quietly withdrawn the book about the time of
his former master’s death, and thus saved the new baronet quite an
item in duty. He had secured Sir Vernon’s valuation list and after six
months had concluded that he was safe. He had taken extraordinary
pains to cover his identity in selling the book and the old dotard
appeared to have made two lists and to have deposited one elsewhere!

Like a wise man Mr Chatton set about discovering how he could retrieve
himself. He had had charge of the library and he knew that it was too
late to report the book as lost. In any case he would be dismissed; if
inquiry was made at that stage he would be prosecuted. From the depths
of his brooding melancholy Mr Chatton evolved a scheme.

The first thing was to get back the _Virginiola_ a little before the
sale. By that time he had sent in the list, but not the books.
Doubtless he still had some of the illicit funds in hand. Now the
_Virginiola_ had been valued at £300 by old Sir Vernon, but if at the
sale it was discovered to be imperfect in an important detail then it
might realise only a fraction of that sum. There was also another
consideration. A name had been indelibly written on one of the early
pages, and if Mr Powis was not to recognise his property that page
must be temporarily removed.

I think it was Chatton’s undoubted intention to buy back the book if
possible and run no further risk with it. What he had not taken into
account was the enormous rise in the value of this class of work. What
had been reasonably worth £300 ten years before, the market now
apprised at nearly double. Even the imperfect copy reached nearly the
original estimate and thereby Chatton’s first string failed.

But this painstakingly conscientious young man had not been content to
risk all on a single chance. What form his second venture took it will
be unnecessary to recall to you. He calculated on the chances of the
saleroom, and he succeeded. The _Virginiola_ was recovered; the
abstracted sheet was cunningly replaced, probably certain erasable
marks that had been put in for fuller disguise were removed, and Mr
Powis received back his property with formal regrets.

I anticipate an indignant question rising to your lips. I did not tell
you this before, Louis, because of one curious fact. The story is
entirely speculative on my part so far as demonstrable proof is
concerned. Chatton, who is rather a remarkable young man, did not
leave behind him one solitary shred of evidence that would stand
before a jury. Time and Mr Chatton’s future career can alone bring my
justification, but some day if we have the opportunity (I am
committing this to paper in case we should not) we will go over the
evidence together. In the meanwhile Gurnard’s can, as you said, stand
the loss.

Here the typewritten account ended, but at the foot of the last page Carrados had pasted a newspaper cutting. From it Mr Carlyle learned that “Vernon Howard, alias Digby Skeffington, etc., etc., whose real name was said to be Chatton, well connected,” had, the week before, been convicted, chiefly on the King’s evidence of a female accomplice, of obtaining valuable jewellery under false pretences. Sentence had been deferred, pending further inquiries.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

II

The Disappearance of Marie Severe

“I wonder if you might happen to be interested in this case of Marie Severe, Mr Carrados?”

If Carrados’s eyes had been in the habit of expressing emotion they would doubtless have twinkled as Inspector Beedel thus casually introduced the subject of the Swanstead on Thames schoolgirl whose inexplicable disappearance two weeks earlier had filled column upon column of every newspaper with excited speculation until the sheer impossibility of keeping the sensation going without a shred of actual fact had relegated Marie Severe to the obscurity of an occasional paragraph.

“If you are concerned with it, I am sure that I shall be interested, Inspector,” said the blind man encouragingly. “It is still being followed, then?”

“Why, yes, sir, I have it in hand, but as for following it--well, ‘following’ is perhaps scarcely the word now.”

“Ah,” commented Carrados. “There was very little to follow, I remember.”

“I don’t think that I’ve ever known a case of the kind with less, sir. For all the trace she left, the girl might have melted out of existence, and from that day to this, with the exception of that printed communication received by the mother--you remember that, Mr Carrados?--there hasn’t been a clue worth wasting so much as shoe leather on.”

“You have had plenty of hints all the same, I suppose?”

Inspector Beedel threw out a gesture of mild despair. It conveyed the patient exasperation of the conscientious and long-suffering man.

“I should say that the case ‘took on’ remarkably, Mr Carrados. I doubt if there has been a more popular sensation of its kind for years. Mind you, I’m all in favour of publicity in the circumstances; the photographs and description _may_ bring important facts to light, but sometimes it’s a bit trying for those who have to do the work at our end. ‘Seen in Northampton,’ ‘seen in Ealing,’ ‘heard of in West Croydon,’ ‘girl answering to the description observed in the waiting-room at Charing Cross,’ ‘suspicious-looking man with likely girl noticed about the Victoria Dock, Hull,’ ‘seen and spoken to near Chorley, Lancs,’ ‘caught sight of apparently struggling in a luxurious motor car on the Portsmouth Road,’ ‘believed to have visited a Watford picture palace’--they’ve all been gone into as carefully as though we believed that each one was the real thing at last.”

“And you haven’t, eh?”

The Inspector looked round. He knew well enough that they were alone in the study at The Turrets, but the action had become something of a mannerism with him.

“I don’t mind admitting to _you_, sir, that I’ve never had any other opinion than that the father of the little girl went down that day and got her away. Where she is now, and whether dead or alive, I can’t pretend to say, but that he’s at the bottom of it I’m firmly convinced. And what’s more,” he added with slow significance, “I _hope_ so.”

“Why in particular?” inquired the other.

Beedel felt in his breast-pocket, took out a formidable wallet, and from among its multitudinous contents selected a cabinet photograph sheathed in its protecting envelope of glazed transparent paper.

“If you could make out anything of what this portrait shows, you’d understand better what I mean, Mr Carrados,” he replied delicately.

Carrados shook his head but nevertheless held out his hand for the photograph.

“No good, I’m afraid,” he confessed before he took it. “A print of this sort is one of the few things that afford no graduation to the sense of touch. No, no”--as he passed his finger-tips over the paper--“a gelatino-chloride surface of mathematical uniformity, Inspector, and nothing more. Now had it been the negative----”

“I am sure that that could be procured if you wished to have it, Mr Carrados. Anyway, I dare say that you’ve seen in some of the papers what this young girl is like. She is ten years old and big--or at least tall--for her age. This picture is the last taken--some time this year--and I am told that it is just like her.”

“How should you describe it, Inspector?”

“I am not much good at that sort of thing,” said the large man with a shy awkwardness, “but it makes as sweet a picture as ever I’ve seen. She is very straight-set, and yet with a sort of gracefulness such as a young wild animal might have. It’s a full-faced position, and she is looking straight out at you with an expression that is partly serious and partly amused, and as noble and gracious with it all as a young princess might be. I have children of my own, Mr Carrados, and of course I think they’re very nice and pretty, but this--this is quite a different thing. Her hair is curly without being in separate curls, and the description calls it black. Eyes dark brown with straight eyebrows, complexion a sort of glowing brown, small regular teeth. Of course we have a full description of what she was wearing and so forth.”

“Yes, yes,” assented Carrados idly. “The Van Brown Studio, Photographers, eh? These people are quite well off, then?”

“Oh yes; very nice house and good position--Mrs Severe, that is to say. You will remember that she obtained a divorce from her husband four or five years ago. I’ve turned up the particulars and it wasn’t what you’d call a bad case as things go, but the lady seemed determined, and in the end Severe didn’t defend. She had five or six hundred a year of her own, but he had nothing beyond his salary, and he threw his position up then, and ever since he has been going steadily down. He’s almost on the last rung now and picks up his living casual.”

“What’s the case against him?”

“Well, it scarcely amounts to a case as yet because there is no evidence of his being seen with the child, nor is there anything to connect him with her after the disappearance. Still, it is a working hypothesis. If it was the act of a tramp or a maniac, experience goes to show that we should have found her, dead or alive, by now. Mrs Severe is all for it being her husband. Of course the decree gave her the custody of Marie. Severe asked to be allowed to see her occasionally, and at first a servant took the child to have tea with him once a month. That was at his rooms. Then he asked to be met in one of the parks or at a gallery. He hadn’t got so much as a room then, you see, sir. At last the servant reported that he had grown so shabby as to shame her that the child should be seen with him, though she did say that he was always sober and very kind to Marie, bringing her a little toy or something even when he didn’t seem to have sixpence for himself. After that the visits were stopped altogether. Then about a month ago these two, husband and wife, met accidentally in the street. Severe said that he hoped to be doing a bit better soon, and asked for the visits to be continued. How it would have gone I cannot say, but Mrs Severe happened to have a friend with her, an American lady called Miss Julp, who seems to be living with her now, and the middle-aged female--she’s a hard sister, that Cornelia Julp, I should say--pushed her way into the conversation and gave her views on his conduct until Severe must have had some trouble with his hands. Finally Mrs Severe had an unfortunate impulse to end the discussion by giving her husband a bank-note. She says she got the most awful look she ever saw on any face. Then Severe very deliberately tore up the note, dropped the pieces down a gutter grid that they were standing near, dusted his fingers on his handkerchief, raised his hat and walked away without another word. That was the last she saw of him, but she professes to have been afraid of something happening ever since.”

“Then something happens, and so, of course, it must be Severe?” suggested Carrados.

“It does look a bit like that so far, I must admit, sir,” assented the Inspector. “Still, Mrs Severe’s opinions aren’t quite all. Severe’s account of his movements on the afternoon in question--say between twelve-thirty and four in particular--are not satisfactory. Latterly he has been occupying a miserable room off Red Lion Street. He went out at twelve and returned about five--that he doesn’t deny. Says he spent the time walking about the streets and in the Holborn news-room, but can mention no one who saw him during those five hours. On the other hand, a porter at Swanstead station identifies him as a passenger who alighted there from the 1.17 that afternoon.”

“From a newspaper likeness?”

“In the first instance, Mr Carrados. Afterwards in person.”

“Did they speak, or is it merely visual?”

“Only from what he saw of him.”

“Struck, I suppose, by the remarkable fact that the passenger wore a hat and a tie--as shown in the picture; or inspired to notice him closely by something indescribably suggestive in the passenger’s way of giving up his ticket? It may be all right, Beedel, I admit, but I heartily distrust the weight of importance that these casual identifications are being given on vital points nowadays. Are you satisfied with this yourself?”

“Only as corroborative, sir. Until we find the girl or some trace of her we’re bound to make casts in the hope of picking up a line. Well, then there’s the letter Mrs Severe received.”

“Have you that with you?”

The Inspector took up the wallet that he had not yet returned to his pocket and selected another enclosure.

“It’s a very unusual form,” he commented as he handed the envelope to Mr Carrados and waited for his opinion.

The blind man passed his finger-tips across the paper and at once understood the point of singularity. The lines were printed, but not in consecutive form, every letter being on a little separate square of paper. It was evident that they had been cut out from some other sheet and then pasted on the envelope to form the address.

“London, E.C., 5.30 P.M., 15th May,” read Carrados from the postmark.

“The day of the kidnapping. There is a train from Swanstead arriving at Lambeth Bridge at 4.47,” remarked Beedel.

“What was your porter doing when that left?”

“He was off duty, sir.”

Carrados took out the enclosure and read it off as he had already done the envelope, but with a more deliberative touch, for the print was smaller. The type and the paper were suggestive of a newspaper origin. In most cases whole words had been found available.

“Do not be alarmed,” ran the patchwork message. “The girl is in good hands. Only risk lies in pressing search. Wait and she will return uninjured.”

“You have identified the newspaper?”

“Yes; it is all cut from _The Times_ of May the 13th. The printing on the back of the words fixes it absolutely. Premeditated, Mr Carrados.”

“The whole incident points to that. The date of the newspaper means little, but the deliberate selection of words, the careful way they have been cut out and aligned, taken in conjunction with the time the child disappeared and the time that this was posted--yes, I think you may assume premeditation, Inspector.”

“Stationery of the commonest description; immediate return to London, and the method of a man who used this print because he feared that under any disguise his handwriting might be recognised.”

Carrados nodded.

“Severe cannot hope to retain the child, of course,” he remarked casually. “What motive do you infer?”

“Mrs Severe is convinced that it is to distress her, out of revenge.”

“And this letter is to reassure her?”

The Inspector bit his lip as he smiled at the quiet thrust.

“It might also be to influence her towards suspending search,” he suggested.

“At all events I dare say that it has reassured her?”

“In a certain way, yes, it has. It has enabled us to establish that the act is not one of casual lust or vagabondage. There is an alternative that we naturally did not suggest to her.”

“And that is?”

“Another Thelby Wood case, Mr Carrados. The maniacal infatuation of someone who would be the last to be suspected. Some man of good position, a friend and neighbour possibly, who sees this beautiful young creature--the school friend of his own daughters or sitting before him in church it may be--and becomes the slave of his diseased imagination until he is prepared to risk everything for that one overpowering object. A primitive man for the time, one may say, or, even worse, a satyr or a gorilla.”

“I wonder,” observed Carrados thoughtfully, “if you also have ever felt that you would like to drop it and become a monk, Inspector. Or a stylite on a pole.”

Beedel laughed softly and then rubbed his chin in the same contemplative spirit.

“I think I know what you mean, sir,” he admitted. “It’s a black page. But,” he added with wholesome philosophy, “after all, it _is_ only a page in a longish book. And if I was in a monastery there’d be one or two more things done that I’ve helped to keep undone.”

“Including the cracking of my head, Inspector? Very true. We must take the world as we find it and ourselves as we are. And I wish that I could agree with you about Severe. It would be a more endurable outlook: spite and revenge are at least decent human motives. Unfortunately, the only hint I can offer is a negative one.” He indicated the printed cuttings on the sheet that Beedel had submitted to him. “This photo-mountant costs about sixpence a pot, but you can buy a bottle of gum for a penny.”

“Well, sir,” said Beedel, “I did think of having that examined, but I waited for you to see the letter as it stood. After all, it didn’t strike me as a point one could put much reliance on.”

“Quite right,” assented Mr Carrados, “there is nothing personal or definite in it. It may suggest a photographer, amateur or professional, but it would be preposterous to assume so much from this alone. Severe, even, may have----There are hundreds of chances. I should disregard it for the moment.”

“There is nothing more to be got from the letter?”

“There may be, but it is rather elusive at present. What has been done with it?”

“I received it from Mrs Severe and it has been in my possession ever since.”

“You haven’t submitted it to a chemist for any purpose?”

“No, sir. I gave a copy of the wording to some newspaper gentlemen, but no one but myself has handled it.”

“Very good. Now if you care to leave it with me for a few days----”

Inspector Beedel expressed his immediate willingness and would have added his tribute of obligation for Mr Carrados’s service, but the blind man cut him short.