CHAPTER VI
MR. JOHN PHILLIPS
He began to put back the various boxes and parcels into the chest as hespoke, and we all looked at each other as men might look who, taking away unknown to them, come up against a blank wall. But Chisholm, who wasa sharp fellow, with a good headpiece on him, suddenly spoke.
"There's the fact that the murdered man sent that letter from Peebles,"said he, "and that he himself appears to have travelled from Peebles butyesterday. We might be hearing something of him at Peebles, and from whatwe might hear, there or elsewhere, we might get some connection betweenthe two of them."
"You're right in all that, sergeant," said Mr. Lindsey, "and it's toPeebles some of you'll have to go. For the thing's plain--that man hasbeen murdered by somebody, and the first way to get at the somebody is tofind out who the murdered man is, and why he came into these parts. Asfor him," he continued, pointing significantly to the bed, "hissecret--whatever it is--has gone with him. And our question now is, Canwe get at it in any other way?"
We had more talk downstairs, and it was settled that Chisholm and Ishould go on to Peebles by the first train that morning, find out whatwe could there, and work back to the Cornhill station, where, accordingto the half-ticket which had been found on him, the murdered manappeared to have come on the evening of his death. Meanwhile, Murraywould have the scene of the murder thoroughly and strictly searched--thedaylight might reveal things which we had not been able to discover bythe light of the lamps.
"And there's another thing you can do," suggested Lindsey. "That scrap ofa bill-head with a name and address in Dundee on it, that you found onhim, you might wire there and see if anything is known of the man. Anybit of information you can get in that way--"
"You're forgetting, Mr. Lindsey, that we don't know any name by which wecan call the man," objected Chisholm. "We'll have to find a name for himbefore we can wire to Dundee or anywhere else. But if we can trace a nameto him in Peebles--"
"Aye, that'll be the way of it," said Murray. "Let's be getting all theinformation we can during the day, and I'll settle with the coroner'sofficer for the inquest at yon inn where you've taken him--it can't beheld before tomorrow morning. Mr. Lindsey," he went on, "what are yougoing to do as regards this man that's lying dead upstairs? Mrs.Moneylaws says the doctor had been twice with him, and'll be able to givea certificate, so there'll be no inquest about him; but what's to be doneabout his friends and relations? It's likely there'll be somebody,somewhere. And--all that money on him and in his chest?"
Mr. Lindsey shook his head and smiled.
"If you think all this'll be done in hole-and-corner fashion,superintendent," he said, "you're not the wise man I take you for. Lordbless you, man, the news'll be all over the country within forty-eighthours! If this Gilverthwaite has folk of his own, they'll be here fast ascrows hurry to a new-sown field! Let the news of it once out, and you'llwish that such men as newspaper reporters had never been born. You can'tkeep these things quiet; and if we're going to get to the bottom of allthis, then publicity's the very thing that's needed."
All this was said in the presence of my mother, who, being by nature asquiet a body as ever lived, was by no means pleased to know that herhouse was, as it were, to be made a centre of attraction. And when Mr.Lindsey and the police had gone away, and she began getting somebreakfast ready for me before my going to meet Chisholm at the station,she set on to bewail our misfortune in ever taking Gilverthwaite into thehouse, and so getting mixed up with such awful things as murder. Sheshould have had references with the man, she said, before taking him in,and so have known who she was dealing with. And nothing that either I orMaisie--who was still there, staying to be of help, Tom Dunlop havinggone home to tell his father the great news--could say would drive out ofher head the idea that Gilverthwaite, somehow or other, had something todo with the killing of the strange man. And, womanlike, and not beingover-amenable to reason, she saw no cause for a great fuss about theaffair in her own house, at any rate. The man was dead, she said, and letthem get him put decently away, and hold his money till somebody cameforward to claim it--all quietly and without the pieces in the paper thatMr. Lindsey talked about.
"And how are we to let people know anything about him if there isn't newsin the papers?" I asked. "It's only that way that we can let hisrelatives know he's dead, mother. You're forgetting that we don't evenknow where the man's from!"
"Maybe I've a better idea of where he was from, when he came here, thanany lawyer-folk or police-folk either, my man!" she retorted, giving meand Maisie a sharp look. "I've eyes in my head, anyway, and it doesn'ttake me long to see a thing that's put plain before them."
"Well?" said I, seeing quick enough that she'd some notion in her mind."You've found something out?"
Without answering the question in words she went out of the kitchen andup the stairs, and presently came back to us, carrying in one hand aman's collar and in the other Gilverthwaite's blue serge jacket. And sheturned the inside of the collar to us, pointing her finger to some wordsstamped in black on the linen.
"Take heed of that!" she said. "He'd a dozen of those collars,brand-new, when he came, and this, you see, is where he bought them; andwhere he bought them, there, too, he bought his ready-made suit ofclothes--that was brand-new as well,--here's the name on a tab inside thecoat: Brown Brothers, Gentlemen's Outfitters, Exchange Street, Liverpool.What does all that prove but that it was from Liverpool he came?"
"Aye!" I said. "And it proves, too, that he was wanting an outfit when hecame to Liverpool from--where? A long way further afield, I'm thinking!But it's something to know as much as that, and you've no doubt hit on aclue that might be useful, mother. And if we can find out that the otherman came from Liverpool, too, why then--"
But I stopped short there, having a sudden vision of a very wide world ofwhich Liverpool was but an outlet. Where had Gilverthwaite last come fromwhen he struck Liverpool, and set himself up with new clothes and linen?And had this mysterious man who had met such a terrible fate come alsofrom some far-off part, to join him in whatever it was that had broughtGilverthwaite to Berwick? And--a far more important thing,--mysterious asthese two men were, what about the equally mysterious man that wassomewhere in the background--the murderer?
Chisholm and I had no great difficulty--indeed, we had nothing that youmight call a difficulty--in finding out something about the murdered manat Peebles. We had the half-ticket with us, and we soon got hold of thebooking-clerk who had issued it on the previous afternoon. He rememberedthe looks of the man to whom he had sold it, and described him to us wellenough. Moreover, he found us a ticket-collector who remembered that sameman arriving in Peebles two days before, and giving up a ticket fromGlasgow. He had a reason for remembering him, for the man had asked himto recommend him to a good hotel, and had given him a two-shilling piecefor his trouble. So far, then, we had plain sailing, and it continuedplain and easy during the short time we stayed in Peebles. And it came tothis: the man we were asking about came to the town early in theafternoon of the day before the murder; he put himself up at the besthotel in the place; he was in and out of it all the afternoon andevening; he stayed there until the middle of the afternoon of the nextday, when he paid his bill and left. And there was the name he hadwritten in the register book--Mr. John Phillips, Glasgow.
Chisholm drew me out of the hotel where we had heard all this and pulledthe scrap of bill-head from his pocket-book.
"Now that we've got the name to go on," said he, "we'll send a wire tothis address in Dundee asking if anything's known there of Mr. JohnPhillips. And we'll have the reply sent to Berwick--it'll be waiting uswhen we get back this morning."
The name and address in Dundee was of one Gavin Smeaton, Agent, 131A BankStreet. And the question which Chisholm sent him over the wire was plainand direct enough: Could he give the Berwick police any information abouta man named John Phillips, found dead, on whose body Mr. Smeaton's nameand address had been discovered?
"We may
get something out of that," said Chisholm, as we left thepost-office, "and we may get nothing. And now that we do know that thisman left here for Coldstream, let's get back there, and go on with ourtracing of his movements last night."
But when we had got back to our own district we were quickly at a deadloss. The folk at Cornhill station remembered the man well enough. He hadarrived there about half-past eight the previous evening. He had beenseen to go down the road to the bridge which leads over the Tweed toColdstream. We could not find out that he had asked the way ofanybody--he appeared to have just walked that way as if he were wellacquainted with the place. But we got news of him at an inn just acrossthe bridge. Such a man--a gentleman, the inn folk called him--had walkedin there, asked for a glass of whisky, lingered for a few minutes whilehe drank it, and had gone out again. And from that point we lost alltrace of him. We were now, of course, within a few miles of the placewhere the man had been murdered, and the people on both sides of theriver were all in a high state of excitement about it; but we could learnnothing more. From the moment of the man's leaving the inn on theColdstream side of the bridge, nobody seemed to have seen him until Imyself found his body.
There was another back-set for us when we reached Berwick--in the replyfrom Dundee. It was brief and decisive enough. "Have no knowledgewhatever of any person named John Phillips--Gavin Smeaton." So, for themoment, there was nothing to be gained from that quarter.
Mr. Lindsey and I were at the inn where the body had been taken, andwhere the inquest was to be held, early next morning, in company withthe police, and amidst a crowd that had gathered from all parts ofthe country. As we hung about, waiting the coroner's arrival, agentleman rode up on a fine bay horse--a good-looking elderly man,whose coming attracted much attention. He dismounted and came towardsthe inn door, and as he drew the glove off his right hand I saw thatthe first and second fingers of that hand were missing. Here, withoutdoubt, was the man whom I had seen at the cross-roads just before mydiscovery of the murder!