The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack

by R. Austin Freeman

  It is therefore no matter for surprise that the sight of that ominous straw hat sent a sudden chill down his spine. But Mr. Pottermack was no coward. Unforeseen as the danger was, he kept his nerve and made no outward sign of the terror that was clutching at his heart. Calmly he continued to worm his way through the crowd, glancing back now and again to note his distance from that relentless hat, and ever looking for a chance to get rid of those fatal notes. For, if once he could get clear of those, he would be ready to face with courage and composure the lesser risk. But no chance ever came. Openly to jettison the notes in the midst of the crowd would have been fatal. He would have been instantly written down a detected and pursued pickpocket.

  While his mind was busy with these considerations his body was being skilfully piloted along the line of least resistance in the crowd. Now and again he made excursions into the less dense regions on the outskirts, thereby securing a gain in distance, only to plunge once more into the thick of the throng in the faint hope of being lost sight of. But this hope was never realized. On the whole, he maintained his distance from his pursuer and even slightly increased it. Sometimes for the space of a minute or more the absurd sleuth was lost to his view; but just as his hopes were beginning to revive, that accursed hat would make its reappearance and reduce him, if not to despair, at least to the most acute anxiety.

  In the course of one of his excursions into the thinner part of the crowd, he noticed that, some distance ahead, a bold curve of the course brought it comparatively near to the entrance to the enclosure. He could see a steady stream of people still pouring in through the entrance turnstile, but that which gave exit from the ground was practically free. No one seemed to be leaving the enclosure at present, so the way out was quite unobstructed. Noting this fact with a new hope, he plunged once more into the dense crowd and set a course through it nearly parallel to the railings. When he had worked his way to a point nearly opposite to the entrance, he looked back to ascertain the whereabouts of his follower. The straw-hatted man was plainly visible, tightly jammed in the thickest part of the crowd and apparently not on amicable terms with his immediate neighbours. Pottermack decided that this was his chance and proceeded to take it. Skilfully extricating himself from the throng, he walked briskly towards the gates and made for the exit turnstile. As there was no one else leaving the ground, he passed out unhindered, pausing only for a moment to take a quick glance back. But what he saw in that glance was by no means reassuring. The straw-hatted man was, indeed, still tightly jammed in the thick of the crowd; but at his side was a policeman to whom he appeared to be making a statement as he pointed excitedly towards the turnstile. And both informer and constable seemed to be watching his departure.

  Pottermack waited to see no more. Striding away from the entrance, he came to a road on which was a signpost pointing to the station. The railway being the obvious means of escape, he turned in the opposite direction, which apparently led into the country. A short distance along the road, he encountered an aged man, engaged in trimming the hedge, who officiously wished him good-afternoon and whom he secretly anathematized for being there. A little farther on, round a sharp turn in the road, he came to a stile which gave access to a little-used footpath which crossed a small meadow. Vaulting over the stile, he set out along the footpath at a sharp walk. His impulse was to run, but he restrained it, realizing that a running man would attract attention where a mere walker might pass unobserved, or at least unnoticed. However, he quickly came to the farther side of the meadow, where another stile gave on a narrow by-lane. Here Pottermack paused for a moment, doubtful which way to turn; but the fugitive’s instinct to get as far as possible from the pursuers decided the question. He turned in the direction that led away from the race-course.

  Walking quickly along the lane for a minute or two, he came to a sudden turn and saw that, a short distance ahead, the lane opened into a road. At the same moment there rose among a group of elms on his right the tower of a church; and here the hedgerow gave place to a brick wall, broken by a wicket-gate, through which he looked into a green and pleasant churchyard. The road before him he surmised to be the one that he had left by the stile, and his surmise received most alarming confirmation. For, even at the very moment when he was entering the wicket, two figures walked rapidly across the end of the lane. One of them was a tall, military-looking man who swung along with easy but enormous strides; the other, who kept up with him with difficulty, was a small man in a battered straw hat.

  With a gasp of horror, Pottermack darted in through the wicket and looked round wildly for possible cover. Then he saw that the church door was open, and, impelled, possibly, by some vague idea of sanctuary, bolted in. For a moment he stood at the threshold looking into the peaceful, silent interior, forgetting in his agitation even to take off his hat. There was no one in the church; but immediately confronting the intruder, securely bolted to a stone column, was a small iron-bound chest. On its front were painted the words “Poor Box,” and above it, an inscription on a board informed Mr. Pottermack that “The Lord loveth a Cheerful Giver.”

  Well, He had one that time. No sooner had Mr. Pottermack’s eyes lighted on that box than he had whipped out his wallet and extracted the notes. With trembling fingers he folded them up in twos and threes and poked them through the slit; and when the final pair—as if protesting against his extravagant munificence—stuck in the opening and refused to go in, he adroitly persuaded them with a penny, which he pushed through and dropped in by way of an additional thank-offering. As that penny dropped down with a faint, papery rustle, he put away his wallet and drew a deep breath. Mr. Pottermack was his own man again.

  Of course, there was the straw-hatted man. But now that those incriminating notes were gone, so great was the revulsion that he could truly say, in the words of the late S. Pepys—or at least in a polite paraphrase of them—that he “valued him not a straw.” The entire conditions were changed. But as he turned with a new buoyancy of spirit to leave the church, there came to him a sudden recollection of the red-faced man’s skill and ingenuity which caused him to thrust his hands into his pockets. And it was just as well that he did, for he brought up from his left-hand coat pocket a battered silver pencil-holder that was certainly not his and that advertised the identity of its legitimate owner by three initial letters legibly engraved on its flat end.

  On this—having flung the pencil-holder out through the porch doorway into the high grass of the churchyard—he turned back into the building and made a systematic survey of his pockets, emptying each one in turn on to the cushioned seat of a pew. When he had ascertained beyond all doubt that none of them contained any article of property other than his own, he went forth with a light heart and retraced his steps through the wicket out into the lane, and, turning to the right, walked on towards the road. It had been his intention to return along it to the station, but when he came out of the lane, he found himself at the entrance to a village street and quite near to a comfortable-looking inn which hung out the sign of “The Farmer’s Boy.” The sight of the homely hostelry reminded him that it was now well past his usual luncheon hour and made him aware of a fine, healthy appetite.

  It appeared, on enquiry, that there was a cold sirloin in cut and a nice, quiet parlour in which to consume it. Pottermack smiled with anticipatory gusto at the report and gave his orders; and within a few minutes found himself in the parlour aforesaid, seated at a table covered with a clean white cloth on which was an abundant sample of the sirloin, a hunk of bread, a slab of cheese, a plate of biscuits and a jovial, pot-bellied brown jug crowned with a cap of foam.

  Mr. Pottermack enjoyed his lunch amazingly. The beef was excellent, the beer was of the best, and their combined effect was further to raise his spirits and lower his estimate of the straw-hatted man. He realized now that his initial panic had been due to those ill-omened notes; to the fact that a false charge might reveal the material for a real one of infinitely greater gravity. Now that he was clear of them,
the fact that he was a man of substance and known position would be a sufficient answer to any mere casual suspicion. His confidence was completely restored, and he even speculated with detached interest on the possible chance of encountering his pursuers on his way back to the station.

  He had finished the beef to the last morsel and was regarding with tepid interest the slab of high-complexioned cheese when the door opened and revealed two figures at the threshold, both of whom halted with their eyes fixed on him intently. After a moment’s inspection, the shorter—who wore a battered straw hat—pointed to him and affirmed in impressive tones:

  “That’s the man.”

  On this, the taller stranger took a couple of steps forward and said, as if repeating a formula: “I am a police officer” (it was a perfectly unnecessary statement. No one could have supposed that he was anything else). “This—er—gentleman informs me that you picked his pocket.”

  “Does he really?” said Pottermack, regarding him with mild surprise and pouring himself out another glass of beer.

  “Yes, he does; and the question is, what have you got to say about it? It is my duty to caution you—”

  “Not at all,” said Pottermack. “The question is, what has he got to say about it? Has he given you any particulars?”

  “No. He says you picked his pocket. That’s all.”

  “Did he see me pick his pocket?”

  The officer turned to the accuser. “Did you?” he asked.

  “No, of course I didn’t,” snapped the other. “Pickpockets don’t usually let you see what they are up to.”

  “Did he feel me pick his pocket?” Pottermack asked, with the air of a cross-examining counsel.

  “Did you?” the officer asked, looking dubiously at the accuser.

  “How could I,” protested the latter, “when I was being pulled and shoved and hustled in the crowd?”

  “Ha,” said Pottermack, taking a sip of beer. “He didn’t see me pick his pocket, he didn’t feel me pick his pocket. Now, how did he arrive at the conclusion that I did pick his pocket?”

  The officer turned almost threateningly on the accuser.

  “How did you?” he demanded.

  “Well,” stammered the straw-hatted man, “there was a gang of pickpockets and he was among them.”

  “But so were you,” retorted Pottermack. “How do I know that you didn’t pick my pocket? Somebody did.”

  “Oh!” said the officer. “Had your pocket picked too? What did they take of yours?”

  “Mighty little—just a few oddments of small change. I kept my coat buttoned.”

  There was a slightly embarrassed silence, during which the officer, not for the first time, ran an appraising eye over the accused. His experience of pickpockets was extensive and peculiar, but it did not include any persons of Pottermack’s type. He turned and directed a dubious and enquiring look at the accuser.

  “Well,” said the latter, “here he is. Aren’t you going to take him into custody?”

  “Not unless you can give me something to go on,” replied the officer. “The station inspector wouldn’t accept a charge of this sort.”

  “At any rate,” said the accuser, “I suppose you will take his name and address?”

  The officer grinned sardonically at the artless suggestion but agreed that it might be as well, and produced a large, funereal notebook.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Marcus Pottermack,” the owner of that name replied, adding “my address is ‘The Chestnuts’ Borley, Buckinghamshire.”

  The officer wrote down these particulars, and then closing the notebook, put it away with a very definite air of finality, remarking: “That’s about all that we can do at present.” But this did not at all meet the views of the straw-hatted man, who protested plaintively:

  “And you mean to say that you are going to let him walk off with my gold watch and my note-case with five pounds in it? You are not even going to search him?”

  “You can’t search people who haven’t been charged,” the officer growled; but here Pottermack interposed.

  “There is no need,” he said suavely, “for you to be hampered by mere technical difficulties. I know it is quite irregular, but if it would give you any satisfaction just to run through my pockets, I haven’t the slightest objection.”

  The officer was obviously relieved. “Of course, sir, if you volunteer that is a different matter, and it would clear things up.”

  Accordingly, Pottermack rose and presented himself for the operation, while the straw-hatted man approached and watched with devouring eyes. The officer began with the wallet, noted the initials, M. P., on the cover, opened and considered the orderly arrangement of the stamps, cards and other contents; took out a visiting-card, read it and put it back, and finally laid the wallet on the table. Then he explored all the other pockets systematically and thoroughly, depositing the treasure trove from each on the table beside the wallet. When he had finished, he thanked Mr. Pottermack for his help, and turning to the accuser, demanded gruffly: “Well, are you satisfied now?”

  “I should be better satisfied,” the other man answered, “if I had got back my watch and my note-case. But I suppose he passed them on to one of his confederates.”

  Then the officer lost patience. “Look here,” said he, “you are behaving like a fool. You come to a race-meeting, like a blooming mug, with a gold watch sticking out, asking for trouble, and when you get what you asked for, you let the crooks hop off with the goods while you go dandering about after a perfectly respectable gentleman. You bring me trapesing out here on a wild goose chase, and when it turns out that there isn’t any wild goose, you make silly, insulting remarks. You ought to have more sense at your age. Now, I’ll just take your name and address and then you’d better clear off.”

  Once more he produced the Black Maria notebook, and when he had entered the particulars he dismissed the straw-hatted man, who slunk off, dejected but still muttering.

  Left alone with the late accused, the officer became genially and politely apologetic. But Pottermack would have none of his apologies. The affair had gone off to his complete satisfaction, and, in spite of some rather half-hearted protests, he insisted on celebrating the happy conclusion by the replenishment of the brown jug. Finally, the accused and the minion of the law emerged from the inn together and took their way back along the road to the station, beguiling the time by amicable converse on the subject of crooks and their ways and the peculiar mentality of the straw-hatted man.

  It was a triumphant end to what had threatened to be a most disastrous incident. But yet, when he came to consider it at leisure, Pottermack was by no means satisfied. The expedition had been a failure, and he now wished, heartily, that he had left well alone and simply burnt the notes. His intention had been to distribute them in small parcels among various pickpockets, whereby they would have been thrown into circulation with the certainty that it would have been impossible to trace them. That scheme had failed utterly. There they were, fifteen stolen notes, in the poor-box of Illingham church. When the reverend incumbent found them, he would certainly be surprised, and, no doubt, gratified. Of course, he would pay them into his bank; and then the murder would be out. The munificent gift would resolve itself into the dump of a hunted and hard-pressed pickpocket; and Mr. Pottermack’s name and address was in the notebook of the plain-clothes constable.

  Of course, there was no means of connecting him directly with the dump. But there was the unfortunate coincidence that both he and the stolen notes were connected with Borley, Buckinghamshire. That coincidence could hardly fail to be noticed; and, added to his known proximity to the church, it might create a very awkward situation. In short, Mr. Pottermack had brought his pigs to the wrong market. He had planned to remove the area of investigation from his own neighbourhood to one at a safe and comfortable distance; instead of which, he had laid down a clue leading straight to his own door.

  It was a lamentable affair. As h
e sat in the homeward train with an unread evening paper on his knee, he found himself recalling the refrain of the old revivalist hymn and asking himself “Oh, what shall the harvest be?”

  CHAPTER IX

  PROVIDENCE INTERVENES

  In his capacity of medico-legal adviser to the “Griffin” Life Assurance Company, Thorndyke saw a good deal of Mr. Stalker, who, in addition to his connection with Perkins’s Bank, held the post of Managing Director of the “Griffin.” For if the Bank had but rarely any occasion to seek Thorndyke’s advice, the Assurance Office was almost daily confronted with problems which called for expert guidance. It thus happened that, about three weeks after the date of the Illingham Races, Thorndyke looked in at Mr. Stalker’s office in response to a telephone message to discuss the discrepancies between a proposal form and the medical evidence given at an inquest on the late proposer. The matter of this discussion does not concern us and need not be detailed here. It occupied some considerable time, and when Thorndyke had stated his conclusions, he rose to take his departure. As he turned towards the door, Mr. Stalker held up a detaining hand.

  “By the way, doctor,” said he, “I think you were rather interested in that curious case of disappearance that I told you about—one of our branch managers, you may remember.”

  “I remember,” said Thorndyke; “James Lewson of your Borley branch.”

  “That’s the man,” Stalker assented, adding: “I believe you keep a card index in your head.”

  “And the best place to keep it,” retorted Thorndyke. “But what about Lewson? Has he been run to earth?”

  “No; but the notes that he took with him have. You remember that he went off with a hundred pounds—twenty five-pound notes, of all of which we were able to ascertain the numbers. Now, the numbers of those notes were at once given to the police, who circulated the information in all the likely quarters and kept a sharp lookout for their appearance. Yet in all this time, up to a week or two ago, there was not a sign of one of them. Then a most odd thing happened. The whole lot of them made their appearance almost simultaneously.”