The Talleyrand Maxim, J. S. Fletcher [books to read fiction TXT] 📗

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.

 

Halfway 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.