Dead Men's Money

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 was another development in this affair. In the course of the morning Mr. Lindsey bade me go with him down to my mother's house, where Mrs. Hanson had been lodged for the night—we would go through Gilverthwaite's effects with her, he said, with a view to doing what we could to put her in possession. It might—probably would—be a lengthy and a difficult business that, he remarked, seeing that there was so much that was dark about her brother's recent movements; and as the woman was obviously poor, we had best be stirring on her behalf. So down we went, and in my mother's front parlour, the same that Gilverthwaite had taken as his sitting-room, Mr. Lindsey opened the heavy box for the second time, in Mrs. Hanson's presence, and I began to make a list of its contents. At the sight of the money it contained, the woman began to tremble.

"Eh, mister!" she exclaimed, almost tearfully, "but that's a sight of money to be lying there, doing naught! I hope there'll be some way of bringing it to me and mine—we could do with it, I promise you!"

"We'll do our best, ma'am," said Mr. Lindsey. "As you're next of kin there oughtn't to be much difficulty, and I'll hurry matters up for you as quickly as possible. What I want this morning is for you to see all there is in this chest; he seems to have had no other belongings than this and his clothes—here at Mrs. Moneylaws', at any rate. And as you see, beyond the money, there's little else in the chest but cigars, and box after box of curiosities that he's evidently picked up in his travels—coins, shells, ornaments, all sorts of queer things—some of 'em no doubt of value. But no papers—no letters—no documents of any sort."

A notion suddenly occurred to me.

"Mr. Lindsey," said I, "you never turned out the contents of any of these smaller boxes the other night. There might be papers in one or other of them."

"Good notion, Hugh, my lad!" he exclaimed. "True—there might. Here goes, then—we'll look through them systematically."

In addition to the half-dozen boxes full of prime Havana cigars, which lay at the top of the chest, there were quite a dozen of similar boxes, emptied of cigars and literally packed full of the curiosities of which Mr. Lindsey had just spoken. He had turned out, and carefully replaced, the contents of three or four of these, when, at the bottom of one, filled with old coins, which, he said, were Mexican and Peruvian, and probably of great interest to collectors, he came across a paper, folded and endorsed in bold letters. And he let out an exclamation as he took this paper out and pointed us to the endorsement.

"Do you see that?" said he. "It's the man's will!"

The endorsement was plain enough—My will: James Gilverthwaite. And beneath it was a date, 27-8-1904.

There was a dead silence amongst the four of us—my mother had been with us all the time—as Mr. Lindsey unfolded the paper—a thick, half-sheet of foolscap, and read what was written on it.

"This is the last will and testament of me, James Gilverthwaite, a British subject, born at Liverpool, and formerly of Garston, in Lancashire, England, now residing temporarily at Colon, in the Republic of Panama. I devise and bequeath all my estate and effects, real and personal, which I may be possessed of or entitled to, unto my sister, Sarah Ellen Hanson, the wife of Matthew Hanson, of 37 Preston Street, Garston, Lancashire, England, absolutely, and failing her to any children she may have had by her marriage with Matthew Hanson, in equal shares. And I appoint the said Sarah Ellen Hanson, or in the case of her death, her eldest child, the executor of this my will; and I revoke all former wills. Dated this twenty-seventh day of August, 1904. James Gilverthwaite. Signed by the testator in the presence of us—"

Mr. Lindsey suddenly broke off. And I, looking at him, saw his eyes screw themselves up with sheer wonder at something he saw. Without another word he folded up the paper, put it in his pocket, and turning to Mrs. Hanson, clapped her on the shoulder.

"That's all right, ma'am!" he said heartily. "That's a good will, duly signed and attested, and there'll be no difficulty about getting it admitted to probate; leave it to me, and I'll see to it, and get it through for you as soon as ever I can. And we must do what's possible to find out if this brother of yours has left any other property; and meanwhile we'll just lock everything up again that we've taken out of this chest."

It was close on my dinner hour when we had finished, but Mr. Lindsey, at his going, motioned me out into the street with him. In a quiet corner, he turned to me and pulled the will from his pocket.

"Hugh!" he said. "Do you know who's one of the witnesses to this will? Aye, who are the two witnesses? Man!—you could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw the names! Look for yourself!"

He handed me the paper and pointed to the attestation clause with which it ended. And I saw the two names at once—John Phillips, Michael Carstairs—and I let out a cry of astonishment.

"Aye, you may well exclaim!" said he, taking the will back. "John Phillips!—that's the man was murdered the other night! Michael Carstairs—that's the elder brother of Sir Gilbert yonder at Hathercleugh, the man that would have succeeded to the title and estates if he hadn't predeceased old Sir Alexander. What would he be doing now, a friend of Gilverthwaite's?"

"I've heard that this Mr. Michael Carstairs went abroad as a young man, Mr. Lindsey, and never came home again," I remarked. "Likely he foregathered with Gilverthwaite out yonder."

"Just that," he agreed. "That would be the way of it, no doubt. To be sure! He's set down in this attestation clause as Michael Carstairs, engineer, American Quarter, Colon; and John Phillips is described as sub-contractor, of the same address. The three of 'em'll have been working in connection with the Panama Canal. But—God bless us!—there's some queer facts coming out, my lad! Michael Carstairs knows Gilverthwaite and Phillips in yon corner of the world—Phillips and Gilverthwaite, when Michael Carstairs is dead, come home to the corner of the world that Michael Carstairs sprang from. And Phillips is murdered as soon as he gets here—and Gilverthwaite dies that suddenly that he can't tell us a word of what it's all about! What is it all about—and who's going to piece it all together? Man!—there's more than murder at the bottom of all this!"

It's a wonder that I didn't let out everything that I knew at that minute. And it may have been on the tip of my tongue, but just then he gave me a push towards our door.

"I heard your mother say your dinner was waiting you," he said. "Go in, now; we'll talk more this afternoon."

He strode off up the street, and I turned back and made haste with my dinner. I wanted to drop in at Crone's before I went again to the office: what had just happened, had made me resolved that Crone and I should speak out; and if he wouldn't, then I would. And presently I was hurrying away to his place, and as I turned into the back lane that led to it I ran up against Sergeant Chisholm.

"Here's another fine to-do, Mr. Moneylaws!" said he. "You'll know yon Abel Crone, the marine-store dealer? Aye, well, he's been found drowned, not an hour ago, and by this and that, there's queer marks, that looks like violence, on him!"

CHAPTER XII

THE SALMON GAFF

I gave such a jump on hearing this that Chisholm himself started, and he stared at me with a question in his eyes. But I was quick enough to let him know that he was giving me news that I hadn't heard until he opened his lips.

"You don't tell me that!" I exclaimed. "What!—more of it?"

"Aye!" he said. "You'll be thinking that this is all of a piece with the other affair. And to be sure, they found Crone's body close by where you found yon other man—Phillips."

"Where, then?" I asked. "And when?"

"I tell you, not an hour ago," he replied. "The news just came in. I was going down here to see if any of the neighbours at the shop saw Crone in any strange company last night."

I hesitated for a second or two, and then spoke out.

"I saw him myself last night," said I. "I went to his shop—maybe it was nine o'clock—to buy some bits of stuff to make Tom Dunlop a door to his rabbit-hutch, and I was there talking to him ten minutes or so. He was all right then—and I saw nobody else with him."

"Aye, well, he never went home to his house last night," observed Chisholm. "I called in there on my way down—he lived, you know, in a cottage by the police-station, and I dropped in and asked the woman that keeps house for him had she seen him this morning, and she said he never came home last night at all. And no wonder—as things are!"

"But you were saying where it happened," I said.

"Where he was found?" said he. "Well, and it was where Till runs into Tweed—leastways, a bit up the Till. Do you know John McIlwraith's lad—yon youngster that they've had such a bother with about the school—always running away to his play, and stopping out at nights, and the like—there was the question of sending him to a reformatory, you'll remember? Aye, well, it turns out the young waster was out last night in those woods below Twizel, and early this morning—though he didn't let on at it till some time after—he saw the body of a man lying in one of them deep pools in Till. And when he himself was caught by Turndale, who was on the look out for him, he told of what he'd seen, and Turndale and some other men went there, and they found—Crone!"

"You were saying there were marks of violence," said I.

"I haven't seen them myself," he answered. "But by Turndale's account—it was him brought in the news—there is queer marks on the body. Like as if—as near as Turndale could describe it—as if the man had been struck down before he was drowned. Bruises, you understand."

"Where is he?" I asked.

"He's where they took Phillips," replied Chisholm. "Dod!—that's two of 'em that's been taken there within—aye, nearly within the week!"

"What are you going to do, now?" I inquired.

"I was just going, as I said, to ask a question or two down here—did anybody hear Crone say anything last night about going out that way?" he answered. "But, there, I don't see the good of it. Between you and me, Crone was a bit of a night-bird—I've suspected him of poaching, time and again. Well, he'll do no more of that! You'll be on your way to the office, likely?"

"Straight there," said I. "I'll tell Mr. Lindsey of this."

But when I reached the office, Mr. Lindsey, who had been out to get his lunch, knew all about it. He was standing outside the door, talking to Mr. Murray, and as I went up the superintendent turned away to the police station, and Mr. Lindsey took a step or two towards me.

"Have you heard this about that man Crone?" he asked.

"I've heard just now," I answered. "Chisholm told me."

He looked at me, and I at him; there were questions in the eyes of both of us. But between parting from the police-sergeant and meeting Mr. Lindsey, I had made up my mind, by a bit of sharp thinking and reflection, on what my own plan of action was going to be about all this, once and for all, and I spoke before he could ask anything.

"Chisholm," said I, "was down that way, wondering could he hear word of Crone's being seen with anybody last night. I saw Crone last night. I went to his shop, buying some bits of old stuff. He was all right then—I saw nothing. Chisholm—he says Crone was a poacher. That would account, likely, for his being out there."

"Aye!" said Mr. Lindsey. "But—they say there's marks of violence on the body. And—the long and short of it is, my lad!" he went on, first interrupting himself, and then giving me an odd look; "the long and short of it is, it's a queer thing that Crone should have come by his death close to the spot where you found yon man Phillips! There may be nothing but coincidence in it—but there's no denying it's a queer thing. Go and order a conveyance, and we'll drive out yonder."

In pursuance of the determination I had come to, I said no more about Crone to Mr. Lindsey. I had made up my mind on a certain course, and until it was taken I could not let out a word of what was by that time nobody's secret but mine to him, nor to any one—not even to Maisie Dunlop, to whom, purposely, I had not as yet said anything about my seeing Sir Gilbert Carstairs on the night of Phillips's murder. And all the way out to the inn there was silence between Mr. Lindsey and me, and the event of the morning, about Gilverthwaite's will, and the odd circumstance of its attestation by Michael Carstairs, was not once mentioned. We kept silence, indeed, until we were in the place to which they had carried Crone's dead body. Mr. Murray and Sergeant Chisholm had got there before us, and with them was a doctor—the same that had been fetched to Phillips—and they were all talking together quietly when we went in. The superintendent came up to Mr. Lindsey.

"According to what the doctor here says," he whispered, jerking his head at the body, which lay on a table with a sheet thrown over it, "there's a question as to whether the man met his death by drowning. Look here!"

He led us up to the table, drew back the sheet from the head and face, and motioning the doctor to come up, pointed to a mark that was just between the left temple and the top of the ear, where the hair was wearing thin.

"D'ye see that, now?" he murmured. "You'll notice there's some sort of a weapon penetrated there—penetrated! But the doctor can say more than I can on that point."

"The man was struck—felled—by some sort of a weapon," said the doctor. "It's penetrated, I should say from mere superficial examination, to the brain. You'll observe there's a bruise outwardly—aye, but this has been a sharp weapon as well, something with a point, and there's the puncture—how far it may extend I can't tell yet. But on the surface of things, Mr. Lindsey, I should incline to the opinion that the poor fellow was dead, or dying, when he was thrown into yon pool. Anyway, after a blow like that, he'd be unconscious. But I'm thinking he was dead before the water closed on him."

Mr. Lindsey looked closer at the mark, and at the hole in the centre of it.