"You needn’t," said Mr. Woodburn. "It puts the matter into a nutshell. I saw the dilemma myself. But what do you suggest?"
"In the first place," said Thorndyke, "may I ask if it is impossible to get into touch with Mr. Toke?"
"Ah," said Mr. Woodburn, "there you have raised another point, Apparently, it is impossible for me to get into touch with my client; and that is a matter that I am not entirely happy about. Mr. Toke is by no means a good correspondent. But, when he is travelling, as a rule, he sends me a short note now and again, just to give me the chance of communicating with him if the occasion should arise. And he has been in the habit of sending me parcels—purchases that he has made—to put in my strong room or to deposit at his bank. But this time, I have had not a single line from him since he went away. It is really rather strange, for Mr. Toke is a methodical, business-like man, and he must realize that it is most undesirable that his solicitor and man of business should have no means of communicating with him. It might be extremely awkward; even disastrous. It is extremely awkward now. If I could get into touch with him, he would pretty certainly authorize me to break the seals and see if his collection is all as it should be. As he can’t, the question arises as to what I ought to do. Should I, for instance, take it that these exceptional circumstances absolve me from the obligation to abide literally by his instructions? Brodribb thought not. What is your view of the case?"
"I am disposed to agree with Brodribb. The difficulty seems to be that you have not established the exceptional circumstances. There is only a suspicion; and Mr. Toke might think, as Brodribb does, that the suspicion was not a reasonable one. You have said that Mr. Toke’s instructions were very explicit and even emphatic. He was clearly most anxious that those rooms should not be entered or the seals broken. He has said so, and he has given quite definite instructions on the subject. This being so, we must assume that he had good and sufficient reasons for giving those instructions. We cannot judge what those reasons were, or how strong they were. But it is always safe to assume that a man means what he says, especially when he says it quite clearly and unmistakably. "Suppose you ‘interpret’ his instructions and proceed to break the seals and enter the rooms. Suppose you find everything normal, and, at the same time, find something that shows you that the rooms ought not to have been entered by anyone except Mr. Toke himself. That might create a very awkward situation."
Mr. Woodburn laughed. "You think it possible that Mr. Toke may have something hidden in those rooms that he wouldn’t like anyone else to see? Well, of course, it may be so. But I may mention that Mr. Didbury Toke is a most respectable gentleman."
"I am not suggesting the slightest reflection on Mr. Toke’s moral character," said Thorndyke, laughing in his turn. "Probably, his motive was nothing more than extreme solicitude for his collection. Still, he may have things locked up in his gallery the existence of which, in that place, he might well wish to keep secret; things, for instance, of great intrinsic value which might invite the attentions of burglars."
"Yes," said Woodburn, "I suppose you are right. He always swore that there was nothing there that a burglar would look at. But that may have been a mere precaution. Which brings us back to the question, What is to be done?"
"I think the answer to that is fairly simple," said Thorndyke. "These statements certainly call for investigation. Two points require to be cleared up. First, is it certain that there is really no possibility of access to these rooms other than the door that you mentioned? And, second, assuming the first to be true, is it certain that access has not been obtained by means of that door?"
"But how could it have been?" Mr. Woodburn exclaimed. "The door is sealed. I examined it most carefully, and I can assure you that the seals are undoubtedly intact."
"That is not absolutely conclusive," Thorndyke replied with a faint smile. "Seals are not difficult to counterfeit. For instance, if, for any legitimate purpose you asked me to enter those rooms and replace the seals when I came out, I should find no difficulty in doing so."
"Really!" exclaimed Mr. Woodburn. Then, subsiding into a grin, he added: "You are a rather dangerous sort of person, but I am not surprised that Brodribb has so much confidence in you. Perhaps you can suggest some way in which I might set about testing the correctness of these statements; or, better still, perhaps you would be willing to undertake the investigation yourself? I do feel that something ought to be done."
"So do I," said Thorndyke. "Incredible as the statements sound, what is stated is by no means impossible. And, if we should find that some persons either could have effected an entrance or had actually done so, the position would be entirely changed. You would then certainly be justified in breaking the seals and entering the rooms."
"And asking you to replace the seals after, eh?" suggested Woodburn, with a broad grin. Apparently, Thorndyke’s accomplishments had made a profound impression on him.
Thorndyke smilingly dismissed the suggestion and enquired: "Is there no way, so far as you know, of getting a glimpse into the room from the outside?"
"No way at all," was the reply. "I tried peering in at the windows, but it was impossible to see anything through the curtains. I even tried the keyhole. There is a monstrous great keyhole in the door. I myself should think the key must be quite a formidable weapon, though I have never seen it. The door is secured by a Chubb lock, of which I have the key. Well, I peered through that keyhole, but all I could see was a patch of wall on the side of the room opposite. Naturally; because the door opens into the room at the extreme end of one side."
"Could you give me a description of the room, or, preferably, a sketch?" Thorndyke asked.
"I have an architect’s plan of the house in my bag," Woodburn replied. "I brought it up to show Brodribb, but he was not interested, as he did not believe the story. However, you are not so sceptical. I’ll get it out."
He rummaged in his bag and presently produced a small roll of tracing-cloth, on which was a clearly drawn plan of the house and its immediate surroundings.
"The scale of the particular room," he remarked, "is not as large as we should like. But you can see the main features. This crooked corridor leads to the gallery wing, and you see that it ends in a turn at right angles. So, when the door is open, you look in across the end of the room. The door opens inwards, and there are three steps down to the floor level. You can see for yourself that a keyhole in that door is of no use for the purpose of inspection."
"Can you tell us anything about the furniture, or how the floor space is occupied?" Thorndyke asked.
"With the exception of a few chairs and a large table across the farther end of the room, there is practically no furniture excepting the wall-cases. There is a range of them along each side wall between the windows, and the two doors that open into the four small rooms at the side of the gallery."
"There seems to be no access to those rooms excepting through the doors from the gallery."
"No, there is not. Those rooms seem to have been originally a corridor, which has been divided up by partitions. They all open into one another—at least each opens into the next. Two of them have cabinets full of pottery and porcelain, and the other two are work-rooms in which Mr. Toke does jobs such as mending and cleaning the pieces."
"What is there above and below the gallery?" asked Thorndyke.
"Above, I suppose, are lofts. I don’t know how you get to them, but I don’t think they would help us. You couldn’t see through the floor, and you couldn’t bore holes in it, as the gallery has a fine seventeenth-century plaster ceiling. Under the gallery is a range of cellars, but they are not accessible, as they are all secured with good padlocks, and both the padlocks and the doors are sealed."
"Mr. Toke was certainly pretty thorough in his methods," Thorndyke remarked. "It would be a serious responsibility to break into his Bluebeard chambers."
"Yes, confound him," Woodburn agreed. "I wish to goodness it was possible to communicate with him and let him take the responsibili
ty. I wonder why the deuce he has never sent me a line. I hope nothing has happened to him abroad. You can never be sure in these days of motors and sudden death."
"When did you say he went away?" Thorndyke asked.
"On the ninth of August," replied Woodburn, "at least that is the date he gave me. He came to my office on the eighth to give me the keys and his final instructions, and he then said that he intended to start for Paris on the following night."
"Do you know if he did actually start then?"
"Well, yes—indirectly. I happen to use the same garage to put up my car, when I come to town, as Mr. Toke uses. He recommended it to me, as a matter of fact. There I ascertained that he deposited his car on the morning of the ninth of August. But, oddly enough, he took it out again in the evening, and it was not returned until some time in the small hours of the following morning."
"Then," I said, "he couldn’t have caught his train."
"I think he did. He did not return the car himself. It was brought in by a stranger, whom the night watchman described, picturesquely, as a ‘ginger Lushington,’ and this person reported that Mr Toke had caught his train, and that the lateness of the delivery of the car was due to some fault of his own."
"I wonder what the watchman meant by a ‘ginger Lushington’?" said I.
"Yes," said Woodburn, "it is a quaint expression. I asked him what it meant in common English. Apparently, it was a term of inference. The word ‘ginger’ referred to the colour of the man’s hair, and, as his nose was tinted to match, the watchman inferred the habitual use of stimulants. But apparently Toke caught his train all right."
As Mr. Woodburn interpreted the watchman’s description, I caught Thorndyke’s eyes for a single instant, and I saw that he had noted the significance of that description. It was probably the merest coincidence, but I knew that it would not pass without close scrutiny. And I could not but perceive that thereafter his interest in Mr. Woodburn’s affairs became appreciably more acute.
"Do I understand," he asked, "that you feel an actual uneasiness about your client?"
"Well," was the reply, "I must admit that I am by no means happy about him. You see, this prolonged silence is a complete departure from his usual habit. And time is running on. This is the eleventh of October, and he has made no sign. All sorts of things may happen to a man who is in a strange country and out of all touch with his friends. I don’t like it at all However, it was not about Mr. Toke that I came to consult you, though I may have to ask for your assistance later. It is about these queer happenings at the Manor House. Now, what do you suggest? I should like you, as an expert, to take up the inquiry yourself. Do you care to do that?"
"I am quite willing to make a preliminary investigation," Thorndyke replied. "That would involve personally interrogating the servants and making a careful survey of the premises. If it seems to be a mare’s nest, we can let it drop. But if we discover some hitherto unsuspected means of access to the, gallery, or find evidence that some persons have, in fact, entered the premises, we can consider what action is to be taken. Would that meet your views?"
"Perfectly," replied Woodburn. "When could you come down and take a look at the place?"
"I suggest the day after to-morrow, early in the afternoon, if that will suit you."
"It will do quite well," said Woodburn. "There is a good train from Charing Cross at two-thirty. If you can catch that, I will meet you at the station with my car and take you straight on to the house."
Thorndyke made a note of this arrangement, and Mr. Woodburn then took his leave, evidently very well pleased at having transferred some of his anxieties to more capable shoulders.
When he returned from the landing, having seen his visitor safely launched down the stairs, Thorndyke picked up the plan, which Mr. Woodburn had left on the table, and, glancing at it, turned to me with a smile.
"A queer affair, Jervis," said he. "I wonder if there is anything in it?"
"Personally," I replied, "I should be disposed to suspect a mare’s nest. There is something a little creepy about a big, old house, especially if a part of it is shut up and sealed. Those servants may easily have got a trifle jumpy and imagined that they heard sounds in the dead of the night."
"That is quite possible," he agreed. "But then we must not overlook the fact that the thing alleged is also quite possible. And it is not so very improbable. Precautions of the kind that Mr. Toke has taken may have a certain boomerang quality. The place is locked, bolted, barred, and sealed. That is all well enough so long as the precautions take their expected effect. But if they fail, they fail with a most horrid completeness. Here, for instance, is a collection of really valuable things. It is all nonsense to say that they are of no interest to burglars. It depends on the burglar. Fine pieces of porcelain and high-class bronzes are easily negotiable in the right markets. The burglar’s real difficulty is in getting them away. Silver and gold can be carried away regardless of injury, as they are to be melted down; but these things are fragile, and their value depends on their being uninjured. Now, if it is only possible for a burglar to obtain access to Mr. Toke’s gallery, everything else made easy for him. He can work at his leisure and take these things away one or two at a time in the most suitable manner. I think the affair is worth looking into, even on its own merits.
"But you notice that there is another aspect of the case that deserves attention. Woodburn is obviously anxious about Mr. Toke. And not without some reason. In a legal sense, Mr. Toke has disappeared. His whereabouts are unknown to the very man to who they should be known. Now, suppose that some mishap has befallen him, and suppose that circumstance to be known to some person—some unscrupulous person—who also knows about the collection. That is a bare possibility that has to be considered. And then we have to note the fact that the only evidence that Toke did really catch his train is the statement of an unknown stranger."
"Who happens to have had red hair and a red nose," I remarked.
Thorndyke chuckled. "True, "he admitted. "But we mustn’t allow ourselves, like Miller, to be obsessed by a mere matter of complexion. Still, we will bear even that fact in mind. And there is one other fact, with a possible inference. Toke’s instructions to Woodburn suggest something more than mere caution. They have a suggestion of secrecy. So much so that one asks oneself if it is possible that he may have some property concealed in the gallery of a different kind from the ostensible collection. I find it quite an attractive case, though, as you say, it may easily turn out to be a mare’s nest."
"What do you propose to do when you go down to Hartsden?" I asked.
"I have no definite programme," he replied, "beyond making the best possible use of my eyes and ears. The obviously desirable thing would be to get a look at the interior of the gallery, and see if there are any signs of disturbance—whether, for instance, the cases have or have not been emptied."
"Yes," I agreed, "I realize that; but I don’t see how you are going to manage it, as, apparently, it is impossible to see in either by the windows or the door."
"It doesn’t sound promising, I must admit," said he. "But we shall see when we get there. Perhaps Polton may be able to help us."
"Polton!" I exclaimed. "How do you suppose that he may be able to help?"
"Don’t be so scornful," he protested. "Is an inventor and mechanical genius nothing worth? I shall certainly put the problem to him as soon as I am clear about it myself."
In spite of the rather ambiguous phraseology, I suspected that Thorndyke had something quite definite in his mind. But I asked for no particulars—long experience had taught me that he preferred to present his ideas in a mature and complete form rather than in that of a preliminary sketch. And, to tell the bald truth, my curiosity was not painfully acute. So I could wait patiently for enlightenment to come in due course.
XI. HARTSDEN MANOR HOUSE
As the train moved out of the station, Thorndyke lifted his invaluable green canvas research case from the seat to the rack, and then
, with the tenderest care, disposed similarly of a walking-stick of the most surpassing hideousness.
"That," I remarked, eyeing it with profound disfavour, "looks like one of Polton’s contraptions."
"It is," he replied, "if the word ‘contraption’ can be accepted as the proper designation of an extremely efficient and ingenious optical instrument. He made it many years ago; but an instrument of virtually identical construction was produced during the war under the name of ‘trench periscope.’ It is really a modern version of the ancient device of parallel inclined mirrors, which you may see in any old book on physics; only the mirrors are replaced by total-reflection prisms."
"Have you ever used it before?" I asked.
"Yes, on one or two occasions, and found it to answer its purpose perfectly. I have brought it to-day on the chance that we may find some chink or hole through which we can poke it to get a view of the inside of the gallery."
"You won’t get it through that keyhole that Woodburn spoke of, large as it is," said I.
"No," he agreed. "But, as to that, we are not at the end of our resources—or rather Polton’s. He has devised an instrument for the express purpose of looking through awkwardly placed keyholes. I have it in my case."
He lifted the case down, and, having opened it, produced from it a small cylindrical wooden case with a screw cap. The latter being removed, he was able to draw out what looked like a brass pencil holder.
"This," he explained, "is a little Galilean telescope magnifying about one and a half diameters. In front of the object glass is fixed a small, oblong mirror, which is pivoted so that it can be set at any angle by turning this milled ring at the eyepiece end. Of course, it has to be parallel to the tube when the instrument is passed into the keyhole." He handed it to me, and I put it to my eye, after setting the mirror at a suitable angle.
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