The Talleyrand Maxim

CHAPTER XXIII

SMOOTH FACE AND ANXIOUS BRAIN

Byner watched Eldrick and Collingwood inquisitively as they bent over Halstead's telegram. He was not surprised when Collingwood merely nodded in silence—nor when Eldrick turned excitedly in his own direction.

"There!—what did I tell you?" he exclaimed. "There's been no murder! The man left the town. Probably, Pratt helped him off. Couldn't have better proof than that wire!"

"What do you take that wire to prove, then, Mr. Eldrick?" asked Byner.

"Take it to prove!" answered Eldrick. "Why, that Parrawhite booked a passage to America with this man Murgatroyd, last November. Clear enough, that!"

"What do you take it to prove, Mr. Collingwood?" continued the inquiry agent, as he turned to the barrister with a smile.

"Before I take it for anything," replied Collingwood, "I want to know who Murgatroyd is."

Byner looked at Eldrick and laughed.

"Precisely!" he said. "Who is Murgatroyd? Perhaps Mr. Eldrick knows."

"I do just know that he's a man who carries on a small watch and clock business in a poorish part of the town, and that he has some sort of a shipping agency," answered Eldrick. "But—do you mean to imply that whatever message it is that he's sent to your partner in London this morning has not been sent in good faith?"

"I don't imply anything," answered Byner. "All I say is—before I attach any value to his message I, like Collingwood, want to know something about the sender. He may have been put up to sending it. He may be in collusion with somebody. Now, Mr. Eldrick, you can come in here—strongly! I don't want to be seen in this affair—yet. Will you go and see Murgatroyd? Tell him his wire to Halstead & Byner in London has been communicated to you here. Ask him for further particulars—and then drop in on me at my hotel and tell me what you've learnt. I'll be found in the smoking-room there any time after two-thirty onward."

Eldrick's intense curiosity in what was rapidly becoming a fascinating mystery to him, led him to accept this embassy. And a little before three o'clock he walked into the smoking-room at the Central Hotel and discovered Byner in a comfortable corner.

"I've seen Murgatroyd," he whispered, as he took an adjacent chair. "Decent honest enough man—very poor, I should say. He tells a plain enough story. Parrawhite, whom he knew as one of our clerks, told him, last November 23rd–"

"He was exact about dates, then, was he?" interrupted Byner.

"He mentioned them readily enough," replied the solicitor. "But to go on—Parrawhite mentioned to him, November 23rd last, that he wanted to go to America at once, Murgatroyd told him about bookings. Parrawhite called very early next morning, paid for his passage under the name of Parsons, and went off—en route for Liverpool, of course. So—there you are!"

"That's all Murgatroyd could tell?" inquired Byner.

"That's all he knows," answered Eldrick.

"You say Murgatroyd knew Parrawhite as one of your clerks?" asked Byner after a moment's thought.

"We had some process in hand against this man last autumn," replied Eldrick. "I dare say Parrawhite served him with papers."

"Would he—Murgatroyd—be likely to know Pratt?" continued Byner.

"He might—in the same connection," admitted Eldrick.

Byner smoked in silence for a while.

"Do you know what I think, Mr. Eldrick?" he said at last. "I think Pratt put up Murgatroyd to sending that telegram to us in London this morning."

"You do!" exclaimed Eldrick.

"Surely! And now," continued the inquiry agent, "if you will, you can do more—much more—without appearing to do anything. Pratt's office is only a few minutes away. Can you drop in there, making some excuse, and while there, mention, more or less casually, that Parrawhite, or information about him, is wanted; that you and a certain Halstead & Byner are advertising for him; that you've just seen Murgatroyd in respect of a communication which he wired to Halstead's this morning, and that—most important of all—a fortune of twenty thousand pounds is awaiting Parrawhite! Don't forget the last bit of news."

"Why that particularly?" asked Eldrick.

"Because," answered Byner solemnly, "I want Pratt to know that the search for Parrawhite is going to be a thorough one!"

Eldrick went off on his second mission, promising to return in due course. Within a few minutes he was in Pratt's office, talking over some unimportant matter of business which he had invented as he went along. It was not until he was on the point of departure that he referred to the real reason of his visit.

"Did you notice that Parrawhite is being advertised for?" he asked, suddenly turning on his old clerk.

Pratt was ready for this—had been ready ever since Eldrick walked in.

He affected a fine surprise.

"Parrawhite!" he exclaimed. "Why—who's advertising for him?"

"Don't you see the newspapers?" asked Eldrick, pointing to some which lay about the room. "It's in there—there's an advertisement of mine, and one of Halstead & Byner's, of London."

Pratt picked up a Barford paper and looked at the advertisements with a clever affectation of having never seen them before.

"I haven't had much time for newspaper reading this last day or two," he remarked. "Advertisements for him—from two quarters!"

"Acting together—acting together, you know!" replied Eldrick. "It's those people who really want him—Halstead & Byner, inquiry agents, working for a firm of City solicitors. I'm only local agent—as it were."

"Had any response, Mr. Eldrick?" asked Pratt, throwing aside the paper. "Any one come forward?"

"Yes," answered Eldrick, watching Pratt narrowly without seeming to do so. "This morning, a man named Murgatroyd, in Peel Row, who does a bit of shipping agency, wired to Halstead & Byner to say that he booked Parrawhite to New York last November. Of course, they at once communicated with me, and I've just been to see Murgatroyd. He's that man—watchmaker—we had some proceedings against last year."

"Oh, that man!" said Pratt. "Thought the name was familiar. I remember him. And what does he say?"

"Just about as much as—and little more than—he said in his wire to London," replied Eldrick. "Booked Parrawhite to America November 24th last, and believes he left for Liverpool there and then."

"Ah!" remarked Pratt, "That explains it, then?"

"Explains—what?" asked Eldrick.

Pratt gave his old employer a look—confidential and significant.

"Explains why he took that money out of your desk," he said. "You remember—forty odd pounds. He'd use some of that for his passage-money. America eh? Now—I suppose he's vanished for good, then—it's not very likely he'll ever be heard of from across there."

Eldrick laughed—meaningly, of set purpose.

"We don't know that he's gone there," he observed. "He mightn't get beyond Liverpool, you know. Anyhow, we're going to make a very good search for him here in Barford, first. We've nothing but Murgatroyd's word for his having set out for Liverpool."

"What's he wanted for?" asked Pratt as unconcernedly as possible. "Been up to something?"

"No," answered Eldrick, as he turned on his heel. "A relation has left him twenty thousand pounds. That's what he's wanted for—and why he must be found—or his death proved."

He gave Pratt another quick glance and went off—to return to the hotel and Byner, to whom he at once gave a faithful account of what had just taken place.

"And he didn't turn a hair," he remarked. "Cool as a cucumber, all through! If your theory is correct, Pratt's a cleverer hand than I ever took him for—and I've always said he was clever."

"Didn't show anything when you mentioned Murgatroyd?" asked Byner.

"Not a shred of a thing!" replied Eldrick.

"Nor when you spoke of the twenty thousand pounds?"

"No more than what you might call polite and interested surprise!"

Byner laughed, threw away the end of a cigar, and rose out of his lounging posture.

"Now, Mr. Eldrick," he said, leaning close to the solicitor, "between ourselves, do you know what I'm going to do—next—which means at once?"

"No," replied Eldrick.

"The police!" whispered Byner. "That's my next move. Just now! Within a few minutes. So—will you give me a couple of notes—one to the principal man here—chief constable, or police superintendent, or whatever he is; and another to the best detective there is here—in your opinion. They'll save me a lot of trouble."

"Of course—if you wish it," answered Eldrick. "But you don't mean to say you're going to have Pratt arrested—on what you know up to now?"

"Not at all!" replied Byner. "Much too soon! All I want is—detective help of the strictly professional kind. No—we'll give Mr. Pratt a little more rope yet—for another four-and-twenty-hours, say. But—it'll come! Now, who is the best local detective—a quiet, steady fellow who knows how to do his work unobtrusively?"

"Prydale's the man!" said Eldrick "Detective-Sergeant Prydale—I've had reason to employ him, more than once. I'll give you a note to him, and one to Superintendent Waterson."

He went over to a writing-table and scribbled a few lines on half-sheets of notepaper which he enclosed in envelopes and handed to Byner.

"I don't know what line you're taking," he said, "nor where it's going to end—exactly. But I do know this—Pratt never turned a hair when I let out all that to him."

But if Eldrick went away from his old clerk's fine new offices thinking that Pratt was quite unperturbed and unmoved by the news he had just acquired, he was utterly mistaken. Pratt was very much perturbed, deeply moved, not a little frightened. He had so schooled himself to keep a straight and ever blank expression of countenance in any sudden change of events that he had shown nothing to Eldrick—but he was none the less upset by the solicitor's last announcement. Twenty thousand pounds was lying to be picked up by Parrawhite—or by Parrawhite's next-of-kin! What an unhappy turn of fortune! For the next-of-kin would never rest until either Parrawhite came to light, or it was satisfactorily established that he was dead—and if search begun to be made in Barford, where might not that search end? Unmoved?—cool?—if Eldrick had turned back, he would have found that Pratt had suddenly given way to a fit of nerves.

But that soon passed, and Pratt began to think. He left his office early, and betook himself to his favourite gymnasium. Exercise did him good—he thought a lot while he was exercising. And once more, instead of going home to dinner, he dined in town, and he sat late over his dinner in a snug corner of the restaurant, and he thought and planned and schemed—and after twilight had fallen on Barford, he went out and made his way to Peel Row. He must see Murgatroyd again—at once.

Half-way along Peel Row, Pratt stopped, suddenly—and with sudden fear. Out of a side street emerged a man, a quiet ordinary-looking man whom he knew very well indeed—Detective-Sergeant Prydale. He was accompanied by a smart-looking, much younger man, whom Pratt remembered to have seen in Beck Street that afternoon—a stranger to him and to Barford. And as he watched, these two covered the narrow roadway, and walked into Murgatroyd's shop.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE BETTER HALF

Under the warming influence of two glasses of rum and water, and lulled by Pratt's assurance that all would be well, Murgatroyd had carried home his hundred pounds with pretty much the same feeling which permeates a man who, having been within measurable distance of drowning, suddenly finds a substantial piece of timber drifting his way, and takes a firm grip on it. After all, a hundred pounds was a hundred pounds. He would be able to pay his rent, and his rates, and give something to the grocer and the butcher and the baker and the milkman; the children should have some much-needed new clothes and boots—when all this was done, there would be a nice balance left over. And it was Pratt's affair, when all was said and done, and if any trouble arose, why, Pratt would have to settle it. So he ate his supper with the better appetite which Pratt had prophesied, and he slept more satisfactorily than usual, and next morning he went to the nearest telegraph office and sent off the stipulated telegram to Halstead & Byner in London, and hoped that there was the end of the matter as far as he was concerned. And then, shortly after noon, in walked Mr. Eldrick, one of the tribe which Murgatroyd dreaded, having had various dealings with solicitors, in the way of writs and summonses, and began to ask questions.

Murgatroyd emerged from that ordeal very satisfactorily. Eldrick's questions were few, elementary, and easily answered. There were no signs of suspicion about him, and Murgatroyd breathed more freely when he was gone. It seemed to him that the solicitor's visit would certainly wind things up—for him. Eldrick asked all that could be asked, as far as he could see, and he had replied: now, he would probably be bothered no more. His spirits had assumed quite a cheerful tone by evening—but they received a rude shock when, summoned from his little workshop to the front premises, he found himself confronting one man whom he certainly knew to be a detective, and another who might be one. Do what he would he could not conceal some agitation, and Detective-Sergeant Prydale, a shrewdly observant man, noticed it—and affected not to.

"Evening, Mr. Murgatroyd," he said cheerily. "We've come to see if you can give us a bit of information. You've had Mr. Eldrick, the lawyer, here today on the same business. You know—this affair of an old clerk of his—Parrawhite?"

"I told Mr. Eldrick all I know," muttered Murgatroyd.

"Very likely," replied Prydale, "but there's a few questions this gentleman and myself would like to ask. Can we come in?"

Murgatroyd fetched his wife to mind the shop, and took the callers into the parlour which she had unwillingly vacated. He knew Prydale by sight and reputation; about Byner he wondered. Finally he set him down as a detective from London—and was all the more afraid of him.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, when the three men were alone. "I don't think there's anything that I didn't tell Mr. Eldrick."

"Oh, there's a great deal that Mr. Eldrick didn't ask," said Prydale. "Mr. Eldrick sort of just skirted round things, like. We want to know a bit more. This Parrawhite's got to be found, d'ye see, Mr. Murgatroyd, and as you seem to be the last man who had aught to do with him in Barford, why, naturally, we come to you. Now, to start with, you say he came to you about getting a passage to America? Just so—now, when would that be?"

"Day before he did get it," answered Murgatroyd, rapidly thinking over the memoranda which Pratt had jotted down for his benefit.

"That," said Prydale, "would be on the 23rd?"

"Yes," replied Murgatroyd, "23rd November, of course."

"What time, now, on the 23rd?" asked the detective.

"Time?" said Murgatroyd. "Oh—in the evening."

"Bit vague," remarked Prydale. "What time in the evening?"

"As near as I can recollect," replied Murgatroyd, "it 'ud be just about half-past eight. I was thinking of closing."

"Ah!" said Prydale, with a glance at Byner, who had already told him of Parrawhite's presence at the Green Man on the other side of the town, a good two miles away, at the hour which Murgatroyd mentioned. "Ah!—he was here in your shop at half-past eight on the evening of November 23rd last? Asking about a ticket to America?"

"New York," muttered Murgatroyd.

"And he came next morning and bought one?" asked the detective.

"I told Mr. Eldrick that," said Murgatroyd, a little sullenly.

"How much did it cost?" inquired Byner.

"Eight pound ten," replied Murgatroyd. "Usual price."

"What did he pay for it in?" continued Prydale.

"He gave me a ten-pound note and I gave him thirty shillings change," answered Murgatroyd.

"Just so," assented Prydale. "Now what line might that be by?"

Murgatroyd was becoming uneasy under all these questions, and his uneasiness was deepened by the way in which both his visitors watched him. He was a man who would have been a bad witness in any case—nervous, ill at ease, suspicious, inclined to boggle—and in this instance he was being forced to invent answers.

"It was—oh, the Royal Atlantic!" he answered at last. "I've an agency for them."

"So I noticed from the bills and placards in your window," observed the detective. "And of course you issue these tickets on their paper—I've seen 'em before. You fill up particulars on a form and a counterfoil, don't you? And you send a copy of those particulars to the Royal Atlantic offices at Liverpool?"

Murgatroyd nodded silently—this was much more than he bargained for, and he did not know how much further it was going. And Prydale gave him a sudden searching look.

"Can you show us the counterfoil in this instance?" he asked.

Murgatroyd flushed. But he managed to get out a fairly quick reply. "No, I can't," he answered, "I sent that book back at the end of the year."

"Oh, well—they'll have it at Liverpool," observed Prydale. "We can get at it there. Of course, they'll have your record of the entire transaction. He'd be down on their passenger list—under the name of Parsons, I think, Mr. Murgatroyd?"

"He gave me that name," said Murgatroyd.

Prydale gave Byner a look and both rose.

"I think that's about all," said the detective. "Of course, our next inquiry will be at Liverpool–at the Royal Atlantic. Thank you, Mr. Murgatroyd—much obliged."

Before the watchmaker could collect himself sufficiently to say or ask more, Prydale and his companion had walked out of the shop and gone away. And then Murgatroyd realized that he was in for—but he did not know what he was in for. What he did know was that if Prydale went or sent over to Liverpool the whole thing would burst like a bubble. For the Royal Atlantic people would tell the detectives at once that no passenger named Parsons had sailed under their auspices on November 24th last, and that he, Murgatroyd, had been telling a pack of lies.

Mrs. Murgatroyd, a sharp-featured woman whose wits had been sharpened by a ten years' daily acquaintance with poverty, came out of the shop into the parlour and looked searchingly at her husband.

"What did them fellows want?" she demanded. "I knew one of 'em—Prydale, the detective. Now what's up, Reuben? More trouble?"

Murgatroyd hesitated a moment. Then he told his wife the whole story concealing nothing.

"If they go to the Royal Atlantic, it'll all come out," he groaned. "I couldn't make any excuse or explanation—anyhow! What's to be done?"

"You should ha' had naught to do wi' that Pratt!" exclaimed Mrs. Murgatroyd. "A scoundrelly fellow, to come and tempt poor folk to do his dirty work! Where's the money?"

"Locked up!" answered Murgatroyd. "I haven't touched a penny of it. I thought I'd wait a bit and see if aught happened. But he assured me it was all right, and you know as well as I do that a hundred pound doesn't come our way every day. We want money!"

"Not at that price!" said his wife. "You can pay too much for money, my lad! I wish you'd told me what that Pratt was after—he should have heard a bit o' my tongue! If I'd only known–"

Just then the shop door opened, and Pratt walked in. He at once saw Murgatroyd and his wife standing between shop and parlour, and realized at a glance that his secret in this instance was his no longer.

"Well?" he said, walking up to the watchmaker. "You've had Prydale here—and you'd Eldrick this morning. Of course, you knew what to say to both?"

"I wish we'd never had you here last night, young man!" exclaimed Mrs. Murgatroyd fiercely. "What right have you to come here, making trouble for folk that's got plenty already? But at any rate, ours was honest trouble. Yours is like to land my husband in dishonesty—if it hasn't done so already! And if my husband had only spoken to me–"

"Just let your husband speak a bit now," interrupted Pratt, almost insolently. "It's you that's making all the trouble or noise, anyhow! There's naught to fuss about, missis. What's upset you, Murgatroyd?"

"They're going to the Royal Atlantic people," muttered the watchmaker. "Of course, it'll all come out, then. They know that I never booked any Parsons—nor anybody else for that matter—last November. You should ha' thought o' that!"

Pratt realized that the man was right. He had never thought of that—never anticipated that inquiry would go beyond Murgatroyd. But his keen wits at once set to work.

"What's the system?" he asked quickly. "Tell me—what's done when you book anybody like that? Come on!—explain, quick!"

Murgatroyd turned to a drawer and pulled out a book and some papers. "It's simple enough," he said. "I've this book of forms, d'ye see? I fill up this form—sort of ticket or pass for the passenger, and hand it to him—it's a receipt as well, to him. Then I enter the same particulars on that counterfoil. Then I fill up one of these papers, giving just the same particulars, and post it at once to the Company with the passage money, less my commission. When one of these books is finished, I return the counterfoils to Liverpool—they check 'em. Prydale's up to all that. He asked to see the counterfoil in this case. I had to say I hadn't got it—I'd sent it to the Company. Of course, he'll find out that I didn't."

"Lies!" said Mrs. Murgatroyd, vindictively. "And they didn't start wi' us neither!"

"Who was that other man with Prydale?" asked Pratt.

"London detective, I should say," answered the watchmaker. "And judging by the way he watched me, a sharp 'un, too!"

"What impression did you get—altogether?" demanded Pratt.

"Why!—that they're going to sift this affair—whatever it is—right down to the bottom!" exclaimed Murgatroyd. "They're either going to find Parrawhite or get to know what became of him. That's my impression. And what am I going to do, now! This'll lose me what bit of business I've done with yon shipping firm."

"Nothing of the sort!" answered Pratt scornfully. "Don't be a fool! You're all right. You listen to me. You write—straight off—to the Royal Atlantic. Tell 'em you had some inquiry made about a man named Parsons, who booked a passage with you for New York last November. Say that on looking up your books you found that you unaccountably forgot to send them the forms for him and his passage money. Make out a form for that date, and crumple it up—as if it had been left lying in a drawer. Enclose the money in it—here, I'll give you ten pounds to cover it," he went on, drawing a bank-note from his purse. "Get it off at once—you've time now—plenty—to catch the night-mail at the General. And then, d'ye see, you're all right. It's only a case then—as far as you're concerned—of forgetfulness. What's that?—we all forget something in business, now and then. They'll overlook that—when they get the money."