CHAPTER XXX
THE GREENGROCER'S CART
Spurge led Copplestone a little way up the narrow alley from the mouth ofwhich they had observed the recent proceedings, suddenly turned off intoa still narrower passage, and emerged at the rear of an ancient buildingof wood and stones which looked as if a stout shove or a strong windwould bring it down in dust and ruin.
"Back o' that old sail-loft what looks out on this cut," he whispered,glancing over his shoulder at Copplestone. "Now, guv'nor, we're going inhere. As I said before, I've worked in this place--did a spell here whenI was once lying low for a month or two. I know every inch of it, and ifthat lot are under this roof I know where they'll be."
"They'll show fight, you know," remarked Copplestone.
"Well, but ain't we got something to show fight with, too?" answeredSpurge, with a knowing wink. "I've got my revolver handy, what Mr.Vickers give me, and I reckon you can handle yours. However, it ain'tcome to no revolver yet. What I want is to see and hear,guv'nor--follow me."
He had opened a ramshackle door in the rear of the premises as he spokeand he now beckoned his companion to follow him down a passage whichevidently led to the front. There was no more than a dim light within,but Copplestone could see that the whole place was falling to pieces. Andit was all wrapped in a dead silence. Away out on the quay was the rattleof chains, the creaking of a windlass, the voices of men and shrilllaughter of women, but in there no sound existed. And Spurge suddenlystopped his stealthy creeping forward and looked at Copplestonesuspiciously.
"Queer, ain't it?" he whispered. "I don't hear a voice, nor yet the ghostof one! You'd think that if they was in here they'd be talking. But we'llsoon see."
Clambering up a pile of fallen timber which lay in the passage andbeckoning Copplestone to follow his example, Spurge looked through abroken slat in the wooden partition into an open shed which fronted theCut. The shed was empty. Folk were passing to and fro in front of it; theNorth Sea tug still lay at the wharf beyond; a man who was evidently itsskipper sat on a tub on its deck placidly smoking his short pipe--but ofAddie Chatfield or of Andrius there was no sign. And the silence in thatcrumbling, rat-haunted house was deeper than ever.
"Guv'nor!" muttered Spurge, "How long is it since you see--her?"
"Almost as soon as you'd gone," answered Copplestone.
"Ten minutes ago!" sighed Spurge. "Guv'nor--they've done us! They're off!I see it--she must ha' caught sight o' me, nosing round, and she camehere and gave the others the office, and they bucked out at the back.The back, Guv'nor! and Lord bless you, at the back o' this shanty there'sa perfect rabbit-warren o' places--more by token, they call it theWarren. If they've got in there, why, all the police in Norcaster'llnever find 'em--leastways, I mean, to speak truthful, not without a dealo' trouble."
"What about upstairs?" asked Copplestone.
"Upstairs, now?" said Spurge with a doubtful glance at the ramshacklestairway. "Lord, mister!--I don't believe nobody could get up themstairs! No--they've hooked it through the back here, into the Warren. Andonce in there--"
He ended with an eloquent gesture, and dismounting from his perch madehis way along the passage to a door which opened into the shed. Thence helooked out on the quay, and along the crowded maze of Scarvell's Cut.
"Here's some of 'em, anyway, guv'nor," he announced. "I see Mr. Vickersand t'other London gentleman, and the old Admiral, at all events. Therethey are--getting out of a motor at the end. But go to meet 'em, Mr.Copplestone, while I keep my eye on this here tug and its skipper."
Copplestone elbowed his way through the crowd until he met Sir Cresswelland his two companions. All three were eager and excited: Copplestonecould only respond to their inquiries with a gloomy shake of the head.
"We seem to have the devil's own luck!" he growled dismally. "Spurge andI spotted Andrius by sheer accident. He was on a North Sea tug, ortrawler, along the quay here. Then Spurge ran off to summon you. Whilehe was away Miss Chatfield appeared--"
"Addie Chatfield!" exclaimed Vickers.
"Exactly. And that of course," continued Copplestone, glancing atGilling, "that without doubt--in my opinion, anyway--explains thoseelegant footprints up at the tower. Addie Chatfield, I tell you! Shepassed me as I was hiding at the entrance to an alley down the Cut here,and she went into an old sail-loft, outside which the tug I spoke of ismoored, and into which Andrius had strolled a minute or two previously.But--neither she nor Andrius are there now. They've gone! And Spurge saysthat at the back of this quay there's a perfect rabbit-warren of courtsand alleys, and if--or, rather as they've escaped into that--eh?"
The detectives who had accompanied Sir Cresswell on the interruptedexpedition to the old tower and who had now followed him and hiscompanions in a second car and arrived in time to hear Copplestone'sstory, looked at each other.
"That's right enough--comparatively speaking," said one. "But if they'rein the Warren we shall get 'em out. The first thing to do, gentlemen, isto take a look at that tug."
"Exactly!" exclaimed Sir Cresswell. "Just what I was thinking. Let usfind out what its people have to say."
The man who smoked his pipe in placid contentment on the deck of the tuglooked up in astonishment as the posse of eight crossed the plank whichconnected him with the quay. Nevertheless he preserved an undauntedfront, kept his pipe in his tightly closed lips, and cocked a defiant eyeat everybody.
"Skipper o' this craft?" asked the principal detective laconically."Right? Where are you from, then, and when did you come in here?"
The skipper removed his pipe and spat over the rail. He put the pipeback, folded his arms and glared.
"And what the dickens may that be to do with you?" he inquired. "And whomay you be to walk aboard my vessel without leave?"
"None of that, now!" said the detective. "Come on--we're police officers.There's something wrong round here. We've got warrants for two men thatwe believe to have been on your tug--one of 'em was seen here not so manyminutes ago. You'd far better tell us what you know. If you don't tellnow, you'll have to tell later. And--I expect you've been paid already.Come on--out with it!"
The skipper, whose gnarled countenance had undergone several changesduring this address, smote one red fist on top of the other.
"Darned if I don't know as there was something on the crook in this hereaffair!" he said, almost cheerily. "Well, well--but I ain't got nothingto do with it. Warrants?--you say? Ah! And what might be the partiklar'natur' o' them warrants?"
"Murder!" answered the detective. "That's one charge, anyhow--for one of'em, at any rate. There's others."
"Murder's enough," responded the skipper. "Well, of course, nobody cantell a man to be a murderer by merely looking at his mug. Not atall!--nobody! However, this here is how it is. Last night itwere--evening, to be c'rect--dark. I was on the edge o' the fleet, outthere off the Dogger. A yacht comes up--smart 'un--very fast sailer--andhails me. Was I going into Norcaster or anywheres about? Being aNorthborough tug, this, I wasn't. Would I go for a consideration--thenand there? Whereupon I asked what consideration? Then we bargains.Eventual, we struck it at thirty pounds--cash down, which was paid,prompt. I was to take two men straight and slick into Norcaster, to thishere very slip, Scarvell's Cut, to wait while they put a bit of a cargoon board, and then to run 'em back to the same spot where I took 'em up.Done! they come aboard--the yacht goes off east--I come careenin' west.That's all! That part of it anyway."
"And the men?" suggested the detective. "What sort were they, and whereare they?"
"The men, now!" said the skipper. "Ah! Two on 'em--both done up in whatyou might call deep-sea-style. But hadn't never done no deep-sea nor yetany other sort o' sea work in their mortial days--hands as white and softas a lady's. One, an old chap with a dial like a full moon on him--slyold chap, him! T'other a younger man, looked as if he'd something abouthim--dangerous chap to cross. Where are they? Darned if I know. What Iknows, certain, is this--we gets in here about eight o'clock thismorning, and makes fast her
e, and ever since then them two's been as itwere on the fret and the fidge, allers lookin' out, so to speak, forsummun as ain't come yet. The old chap, he went across into that theresail-maker's loft an hour ago, and t'other, he followed of him, recent. Iain't seen 'em since. Try there. And I say?"
"Well?" asked the detective.
"Shall I be wanted?" asked the skipper. "'Cause if not, I'm off and awayas soon as the tide serves. Ain't no good me waitin' here for them chapsif you're goin' to take and hang 'em!"
"Got to catch 'em first," said the detective, with a glance at his twoprofessional companions. "And while we're not doubting your word at all,we'll just take a look round your vessel--they might have slipped onboard again, you see, while your back was turned."
But there was no sign of Peter Chatfield, nor of his daughter, nor of thecaptain of the _Pike_ on that tug, nor anywhere in the sailmaker's loftand its purlieus. And presently the detectives looked at one another andtheir leader turned to Sir Cresswell.
"If these people--as seems certain--have escaped into this quarter of thetown," he said, "there'll have to be a regular hunt for them! I've knowna man who was badly wanted stow himself away here for weeks. If Chatfieldhas accomplices down here in the Warren, he can hide himself andwhoever's with him for a long time--successfully. We'll have to get a lotof men to work."
"But I say!" exclaimed Gilling. "You don't mean to tell me that threepeople--one a woman--could get away through these courts and alleys,packed as they are, without being seen? Come now!"
The detectives smiled indulgently.
"You don't know these folks," said one of them, inclining his headtowards a squalid street at the end of which they had all gathered. "Butthey know _us_. It's a point of honour with them never to tell the truthto a policeman or a detective. If they saw those three, they'd neveradmit it to us--until it's made worth their while."
"Get it made worth their while, then!" exclaimed Gilling, impatiently.
"All in due course, sir," said the official voice. "Leave it to us."
The amateur searchers after the iniquitous recognized the futility oftheir own endeavours in that moment, and went away to discuss mattersamongst themselves, while the detectives proceeded leisurely, after theirfashion, into the Warren as if they were out for a quiet constitutionalin its salubrious byways. And Sir Cresswell Oliver remarked on thedifficulty of knowing exactly what to do once you had red-tape on oneside and unusual craftiness on the other.
"You think there's no doubt that gold was removed this morning byChatfield's daughter?" he said to Copplestone as they went back to thecentre of the town together, Gilling and Vickers having turned asideelsewhere and Spurge gone to the hospital to ask for news of his cousin."You think she was the woman whose footprints you saw up there at theBeaver's Glen?"
"Seeing that she's here in Norcaster and in touch with those two, whatelse can I think?" replied Copplestone. "It seems to me that they got intouch with her by wireless and that she removed the gold in readiness forher father and Andrius coming in here by that North Sea tug. If we couldonly find out where she's put those boxes, or where she got the car fromin which she brought it down from the tower--"
"Vickers has already started some inquiries about cars," said SirCresswell. "She must have hired a car somewhere in the town. Certainly,if we could hear of that gold we should be in the way of getting ontheir track."
But they heard nothing of gold or of fugitives or of what the police anddetectives were doing until the middle of the afternoon. And then Mr.Elkin, the manager of the bank from which Chatfield had withdrawn theestate and the private balance, came hurrying to the "Angel" and to Mrs.Greyle, his usually rubicund face pale with emotion, his hand waving ascrap of crumpled paper. Mrs. Greyle and Audrey were at that moment inconsultation with Sir Cresswell Oliver and Copplestone--the bank managerburst in on them without ceremony.
"I say, I say!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Will you believe it!--thegold's come back! It's all safe--every penny. Bless me!--I scarcely knowwhether I'm dreaming or not. But--we've got it!"
"What's all this?" demanded Sir Cresswell. "You've got--that gold?"
"Less than an hour ago," replied the bank manager, dropping into a chairand slapping his hand on his knees in his excitement, "a man who turnedout to be a greengrocer came with his cart to the bank and said he'd beensent with nine boxes for delivery to us. Asked who had sent him hereplied that early this morning a lady whom he didn't know had asked himto put the boxes in his shed until she called for them--she brought themin a motor-car. This afternoon she called again at two o'clock, paid himfor the storage and for what he was to do, and instructed him to put theboxes on his cart and bring them to us. Which," continued Mr. Elkin,gleefully rubbing his hands together, "he did! With--this! And that, mydear ladies and good gentlemen, is the most extraordinary document which,in all my forty years' experience of banking matters, I have ever seen!"
He laid a dirty, crumpled half-sheet of cheap note-paper on the table atwhich they were all sitting, and Copplestone, bending over it, read aloudwhat was there written.
"MR. ELKIN--Please place the contents of the nine cases sent herewith tothe credit of the Greyle Estate.
"PETER CHATFIELD, Agent."
Amidst a chorus of exclamations Sir Cresswell asked a sharp question.
"Is that really Chatfield's signature?"
"Oh, undoubtedly!" replied Mr. Elkin. "Not a doubt of it. Of course, assoon as I saw it, I closely questioned the greengrocer. But he knewnothing. He said the lady was what he called wrapped up about herface--veiled, of course--on both her visits, and that as soon as she'dseen him set off with his load of boxes she disappeared. He lives, thisgreengrocer, on the edge of the town--I've got his address. But I'm surehe knows no more."
"And the cases have been examined?" asked Copplestone.
"Every one, my dear sir," answered the bank manager with a satisfiedsmirk. "Every penny is there! Glorious!"
"This is most extraordinary!" said Sir Cresswell. "What on earth does itall mean? If we could only trace that woman from the greengrocer'splace--"
But nothing came of an attempt to carry out this proposal, and no newsarrived from the police, and the evening had grown far advanced, and Mrs.Greyle and Audrey, with Sir Cresswell, Mr. Petherton and Vickers,Copplestone, and Gilling, were all in a private parlour together at alate hour, when the door suddenly opened and a woman entered, who threwback a heavy veil and revealed herself as Addie Chatfield.