IV
We learned late on the following day that Henning had not appeared atthe office. From that we assumed that he must have met his confederatein the evening, and, finding that he had not received the message sent,conceived that something was wrong, and made himself safe. Theconfederate, Hunt, however, made his appearance early next morning, butescaped.
What happened is best told in Plummer's words when he called on Hewittin the afternoon.
"I went round this morning," he said, "as I said I would last night. Itook a good man with me, and we got the dummy bonds that had been put inBell's box and popped 'em in the ventilator, where the real ones hadbeen hidden. You see, we'd got nothing _legal_ against Catherton Hunt asyet, but if we could only grab him with those dummy bonds on him itmight help, with the other evidence we could scrape up (and especiallyif we could take Henning), to sustain a charge of conspiracy to steal.Well, he came so quick he was on us before we were quite ready. We'd gotthe dummies in their place, and I was in front of the door telling myman the likeliest corner to wait in, when suddenly up pops the liftright in front of me, with a gentleman in it--clean-shaven. I looked athim and he looked at me. I had a sort of distant notion that I mighthave seen him before, and it's pretty certain he had something more thana distant notion about me. 'Down again,' he says to the lift man, beforethe gate was swung, 'I've forgotten something!' And down the lift went.You'll understand I had no idea he was the man we wanted; but as thelift went down and my eyes were on the man's face, I saw who he was!When he stood straight before me I had no more than a vague notion thatI'd seen him somewhere before. But down the lift went, and in the flashof time when he'd nearly disappeared, and the bottom part of his facewas hidden by the sill of the lift opening--the part of his face wherehis beard had been when we met him last--I saw it was Myatt!"
"Myatt? Good heavens!"
"Everard Myatt, Mr. Hewitt, the man that murdered Mr. Jacob Mason!Everard Myatt, for a thousand, with his beard shaved! And we've lost himagain! What could we do? We shouted and ran downstairs, and that wasall. He'd gone, of course. And when we asked the hall porter he told usthat Mr. Catherton Hunt had just come down the lift and hurried out!"
THE CASE OF THE BURNT BARN