The Best Crime Stories Ever Told (16 page)

“Bad business this, Mr. Etherington,” he said as the manager sat down. “First murder case we’ve had in my thirty years’ experience of this district.”

“Are you sure it’s murder?” asked Etherington quietly.

“What else?” demanded the superintendent. “If it had been suicide the revolver that killed him would have been lying close by. No, sir—it’s murder! And we haven’t the shadow of a clue.”

“I’ve heard the main facts from our clerk, Lever,” remarked Etherington. “Is there anything you haven’t told him?”

“There’s precious little to tell, Mr. Etherington,” answered the superintendent. “I’ve got at everything connected with his doings yesterday. He was at the bank all day, as usual. Nothing happened out of the common, according to your staff. He left the bank at 5 o’clock and went home to his lodgings. All was as usual there. His landlady says he had his dinner at 6 o’clock—just as usual. He went out at 7—didn’t say anything. He called on Matthew Marshall at Low Flatts Farm at a quarter past 8. Marshall paid him half a year’s rent. He was at James Thomson’s, at Quarry Hill, just before 9; Thomson paid him a half year’s rent, too. He stopped talking a bit with Thomson, and left there about 9.20.

“Thomson walked out to his gate with him, and saw him strike across the moor; it was getting darkish by that time, of course, but he saw him going towards that old cairn, near which he was found this morning. There was naught on him—he’d been robbed as well as murdered, sir.”

“How far,” asked Etherington, “is this place where he was found from these two farms?”

“A good mile from Quarry Hill—mile and a half from Low Flatts,” replied the superintendent.

“Everything is very quiet on those moors at night,” observed Etherington. “Did no one hear the sound of a shot?”

“I thought of that and inquired into it,” answered the superintendent. “Nobody heard any shot. If somebody had heard a shot, you know, they’d only have thought it was one of Lord Selwater’s keepers shooting at something. But so far I’ve heard of nobody who noticed aught of that sort. You see, except those two farms, there isn’t a house on that part of the moors.”

“There’s Mr. Charlesworth’s place—up above that cairn,” suggested Etherington.

“Ay, but it’s over the brow of the hill,” said the superintendent. “That ‘ud prevent the sound being heard there. I called at C harlesworth’s; they’d heard nothing.”

“Any suspicious characters about?” asked Etherington.

“My men haven’t heard of any,” answered the superintendent. “There were some gypsies in the neighbourhood a fortnight ago, but they cleared out.”

“Poachers, now??” suggested the manager. “There are men in this town who poach on those moors.”

“Just so. But we’ve no reason to suspect any particular one of ‘em,” said the superintendent. “I know of two men who do go up there after what they can get, but I’ve found out they were both safe in the town all yesterday evening and last night. No, sir, I think the whole thing’ll go deeper than that.”

“How?” asked Etherington.

“Somebody must have known Mr. Swale was going to collect those rents last night,” said the superintendent meaningly. “He was laid in wait for. And yet, so far as I can make out, there wasn’t a soul knew he collected them except Marshall and Thompson.”

“I didn’t know,” remarked Etherington.

“Just so. According to the two farmers he’s collected them ever since old Mr. Sellers died,” continued the superintendent. “Those farms belong to Mrs. Hodgson, a London lady. Now, if somebody had got to know that Mr. Swale would have £100 in cash after he’d been to these farms last night—eh?”

“You don’t suspect either of the two farmers?” asked the manager.

The superintendent shook his head firmly.

“No, sir; both decent, honest, straightforward fellows,” he replied. “Oh, no! No, it’s a deeper job than that, Mr. Etherington.”

Etherington rose to go. After all, in this particular matter he could do nothing.

“Of course, there’ll be an inquest?” he asked.

“To-morrow, at lo,” answered the superintendent. “But, beyond what I’ve told you we’ve no evidence. It’ll be a case of ‘Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown,’ you know, unless something comes out, and where it is to come from I don’t know.”

Nor did Etherington know, and he said so and went away. And after he had dined with his mother and sister, and discussed with them the tragic affair which had interrupted his holiday, he took his walking-stick and set off out of town to the scene of the murder. And there, in the gathering dusk, he met Charlesworth, the man who lived at an old house called Hill Rise, on the edge of the moor, well above the cairn near which Swale’s body had been found. Etherington knew Charlesworth well; he was an old customer of the bank, a man who did a big trade in timber. He was evidently on his way home at that moment, and was glancing inquisitively at the cairn when Etherington came up.

“Nothing to see,” he remarked, as the manager advanced. “They were looking for footmarks all day, but they found none. The grass is too close and wiry for that.”

“I didn’t expect to see anything,” said Etherington. “It’s some years since I was up this way. I came now to look around, to try to make out how it was nobody heard that shot last night. I understand nothing was heard at your place?”

Charlesworth, a big, athletic man, turned and pointed to the top of the moor above him.

“My place is just three-quarters of a mile over there,” he answered. “There’s all this rise between it and us, and a thickish belt of wood between, too. We couldn’t hear a pistol shot from here. We heard nothing.”

“What about those farms?” asked the manager. Charlesworth pointed in another direction.

“You can’t see Low Flatts,” he said. “It’s down in that hollow yonder. And you can only see a chimney of Quarry Hill—that’s it, peeping up behind that line in the moor. They’d hear nothing. It’s an easy thing to try, as I told the police. Whoever killed Swale selected a good place. It isn’t once in a month there’s anybody about here o’ nights—at this time of the year.”

Etherington made no answer for the moment. He stood staring about him in the fast-gathering dusk. A wild and lonely place, indeed! Miles upon miles of ling and heather, and, beyond the chimney of Quarry Hill Farm, not a sign of human habitation.

“I wonder who did kill him?” he muttered absent-mindedly at last.

Charlesworth turned towards the hill-top with a nod of farewell.

“There’s only one man living who knows that,” he said; and went away.

No evidence was brought forward at the inquest on this unfortunate sub-manager’s body which threw any light on the mystery of his murder or incriminating any person. Yet one small, possible clue was produced. A booking clerk from an obscure wayside station in a neighbouring dale came forward, and said that, at 5:30 o’clock on the morning of the discovery of the body, he, on going to his station to issue tickets for the first train, then about due, found walking up and down the platform a rough, sailorlike man, a perfect stranger, who presently took a ticket for Northport.

As he could give no very particular description of him, and as Northport was a town of some 250,000 inhabitants, the chances of finding this man were small. Nevertheless, there was the fact that such an individual, a stranger to the district, was within five miles of the cairn on Blind Gap Moor within a few hours of the time at which Swale was probably murdered.

Nothing came of this. Nothing came of anything that was brought forward in evidence. Only one matter seemed strange. The Leytonsdale Old Bank was one of the very few country banks which issued notes of their own; both the farmers had paid their rents to Swale in these local bank-notes. At the end of a month none of these notes had reached the bank, where a careful lookout had been kept for them, each man having been able to furnish Etherington with particulars of their numbers.

And the manager came to the conclusion that the thief-murderer was a man sharp enough to know that there would be danger in dealing with those notes, and was making himself content with the small amount of gold, and the watch, chain and ring, which he had secured, or was so much more sharp as to change notes at some far off place, whence they would reach the bank slowly and at long intervals.

Six weeks passed, and one day Etherington, entering the bank after his luncheon hour, asked Lever, now promoted to the sub-managership, if anything had happened during his absence.

“Nothing,” replied Lever, “except that Mr. Charlesworth retired the first of those bills drawn on Folkingham & Greensedge. It was due next week. He said he’d take it up now, as he had cash of theirs in hand.”

“That’s the second time he’s done that, isn’t it?” asked Etherington, glancing at a memorandum which Lever put before him.

“Third,” answered Lever. “He retired one in April and one in January. We hold three more yet. One August, October, December.”

The manager made no further remark. He went into his own room and sat down to his desk. But he began to think, and his thoughts centred on a question. Why had Charlesworth got into a practice of taking up the bills of his drawn on Folkingham & Greensedge a few days before they were due for presentation? Why, as in the case of the last three, did he come to the bank and retire them by paying cash, instead of following the usual course of having them presented on maturity to their acceptors? Once in a way this might have been done without remark, but it was becoming a practice. Charlesworth was a timber merchant in a biggish way of business. He did a lot of business with a firm in Northport—Folkingham & Greensedge, agents and exporters. For twelve or fifteen years, to Etherington’s knowledge, Charlesworth had been in the habit of drawing upon this firm for large amounts against consignments of timber. Up to about six months before this the bills so drawn had always been allowed to mature and to be presented in due course for payment, which had always been prompt. But, as Lever just said, Charlesworth had himself retired the last three before they could be presented. Why?

That question began to bother Etherington. Why should a man bother himself to retire a bill which would fully mature in a week, and would be promptly met? It was a strange course—and since the New Year it had been repeated three times. Again—why?

Etherington waited until Lever had gone to his lunch, then he possessed himself of certain books and documents. He carried them into his own room, and jotted some dates and figures down on a slip of paper. In October of the previous year Charlesworth had brought in six acceptances of Folkingham & Greensedge’s. They were of various terms as regards length; each one was for a considerable amount—the one, for instance, which Charlesworth had taken up that very day was for over £1,500. And the whole lot—representing a sum of about £7,000 to £8,000—had, of course, been discounted by Etherington as soon as they were paid in by their drawer. There was nothing unusual in that—Etherington had been discounting similar acceptances, drawn by Charlesworth, accepted by Folkingham & Greensedge, for many years. What was unusual—and in the manager’s opinion, odd—was that, mostly, Charlesworth had taken up these bills before they became due. And for the third time Etherington asked himself the one pertinent question—why?

He took the books and papers back to their places presently, and got out a lot of bills which were waiting to mature. It was easy work to pick out the three of Charlesworth’s to which Lever had referred as being still in their hands. He took them to his room and laid them on his desk, and examined each carefully. The first, due in August, was for £950; the second, due in October, for £800; the third, due in December, for £1,175
.
But Etherington was not concerned, he was not even faintly interested, in the amounts. What he was looking at was the signatures in each case. And presently, remembering that he had letters of Folkingham & Greensedge’s in his possession, he looked for and found them, and began to make a minute comparison, letter by letter, stroke by stroke, between the signatures on that firm’s correspondence paper and those written across the face of the bills. It was a close, meticulously close, examination that he made—first with the naked eye, secondly with the aid of a magnifying glass. And, though he was no expert in caligraphy, he came to the conclusion, at the end of ten minutes’ careful inspection, that the signature of Folkingham & Greensedge had in each case been carefully forged.

Etherington remained looking at those oblong slips of blue stamped paper for a long time. Then he put them, folded, into an envelope, in his pocket-book. And when Lever came back he went out to him.

“I must leave earlier than usual,” he remarked. “There’s nothing that needs my attention, I think. See that all’s right. And be here at 9 sharp in the morning. Lever; I want to see you then.”

He walked quickly away to his own house, made ready for a short journey, and set off. It was only a two hours’ run to Northport, and he must go there at once. Such a doubt as that which had arisen in his mind could not be allowed to await solution—he must settle it. If he was right in his belief that he had discovered a forgery, what might not arise out of it?

The Greensedge, who had given part of its name to the firm with which Charlesworth did such extensive business, had been dead some years; so had the original Folkingham. There was no Greensedge now—the entire business belonged to one, Stephen Folkingham, a middle-aged man, who kept up the old style of the firm in spite of the fact that he was its sole proprietor. When Etherington arrived at his office in the famous shipping town, Stephen Folkingham had gone home. The bank manager followed him to his house outside the town, and was presently closeted with him in private.

“You are surprised to see me?” said Etherington.

“Frankly, yes!” replied Folkingham. “Something important of course.”

“And as private as it is important—for the moment at any rate,” said Etherington. He drew out his pocket-book, produced the three bills, and spread them on his host’s desk. He pointed to the accepting signatures across the fronts. “Are these signatures yours?”