“Aye, well!” remarked Marrows. “I’m going to know what Sir John’s got to say to what we’ve just heard. Yon’s his house,” he continued, pointing to the lights of a large mansion which stood a little beyond Low Hall. “I’m going there at once. There’s going to be no trifling in this, Mr. Sindal.”
“Stop a bit!” said Sindal. “Look here! — we don’t want such a scandal as this’ll cause, if there’s any reasonable explanation of it. Now, let me go to him — quietly. Then—”
Marston suddenly came to the front.
“No, by George!” he exclaimed. “None of that, Sindal! After what I’ve heard, I agree with Marrows. Come on, Marrows!”
“Yes, I’m going, Sir Marston,” assented the superintendent. “What do you say, Mr. Weathershaw?”
“If you want to know what I say,” answered Weathershaw, who had listened in silence, “I say this — I don’t know what we’re waiting for! I haven’t the least doubt of this man’s guilt.”
“Come along, then,” said Marrows. “It’s only a stone’s throw.”
But Sindal hung back.
“Please yourselves, then!” he said, suddenly. “I’m not going! Sir John Arncliffe’s my client, and—”
He turned and walked away in the direction of the village, and Marrows glanced at his companions.
“Bread-and-butter!” he remarked significantly.
“Look here!” said Weathershaw, as they approached the gates of a big house built amidst groves of trees on a shelving edge of the moor. “A question before we go in: Is Sir John a member of the club?”
“Yes!” answered Marston. “In and out every day — spends half his time there.”
“That explains it, then,” observed Weathershaw. “He put Sir Cheville’s will in the locker. Deep!”
“Oh, he’s deep enough!” muttered Marrows. “Deep and sly. Well, now for it. See! — you gentlemen just stand back a bit while I ask at the door for him. If he’s in, I’ll make an excuse for all three of us to see him.”
Marston and Weathershaw drew back under the trees of the avenue while Marrows went up to the front door. It opened; a man in livery appeared; after a brief conversation with him Marrows came back, a curious smile on his face.
“Not in!” he said in a whisper. “And where on earth do you think he is? At Mr. Etherton’s, at Low Hall! Gad! — that’s the height of impudence, I’m thinking. To go and call in neighborly fashion on the man whose ideas he’s been thieving!”
“Come on!” growled Marston, with a certain grim determination.
Half-way up the path to Low Hall, Weathershaw called his companions to a halt.
“If Mr. Marrows has no objection,” he said, “I’d like to take this part of the game in hand.”
“No objection whatever,” replied Marrows. “But — give us an inkling.”
“Let Sir Marston take us in,” continued Weathershaw. “Let him — if we find Sir John there — just say, casually, to Mr. Etherton that we’ve been making an enquiry or two up this way, and that we thought we’d just drop in to give him the latest news. Then — leave it to me to talk. And, while I talk, you keep your eyes on Sir John and see how he takes it.”
“Aye, aye!” agreed Marrows. “I see — you’ll lead up to the climax, eh? Good notion! Well, Sir Marston, you’ll take us in then.”
Marston quietly opened the front door, and led his companions down the thickly carpeted passage to a door at the rear of the house. He opened this without ceremony and walked in. Marrows and Weathershaw, at a sign from him, followed close on his heels and were in the room, with the door closed behind them, before its occupants had realized their presence.
It was a peaceful, domestic scene on which they entered. In his own easy-chair Etherton was smoking his favorite briar pipe; near him Letty, in another, was busied with some fancy-work; on the opposite side of the hearth a short, stout, consequential-looking man, whose mutton-chop whiskers gave him something of an aggressive air and whose eyes were small and sly, lolled back in a big lounge, lingering a long, recently-lighted cigar. Weathershaw’s glance went to him at once; somewhat to his surprise, the man showed no sign whatever of either interest or astonishment at his sudden invasion.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Etherton, looking round as the three men advanced. “What brings you here?”
“Oh, nothing particular,” answered Marston, playing up to his part. “We’ve been making an enquiry or two round about, and we thought we’d just drop in and give you a bit of news.”
“News, eh!” said Etherton, handing glasses to his guests, and pushing the cigar-box near to them. “Aye — anything fresh?”
“Weathershaw’s made a few discoveries that he might tell about,” said Marston, nodding at the agent.
“We were just talking about it, Sir John and I,” remarked Etherton, resuming his seat. “Sir John’s not so very hopeful about a complete solution. He thinks there’s a good deal deep down.”
Marrows gave Weathershaw a quiet kick under the table.
“A long way beneath the surface, you think, Sir John?” he asked.
“Deeper than most of you fellows would fancy,” asserted Sir John, in a half-confidential, half-knowing voice. He looked round the half-circle of faces, from Marrows at the table to Marston in the corner, and winked his small right eye. “Deep business!” he said. “My impression — somebody wanted — badly — to know contents of that will? D’ye see? Somebody — clear away from the surface view of things — outsider! Eh! Will! — that’s it. Will at the bottom of the whole thing. My decided belief — that!”
“You think Sir Cheville Stanbury was attacked for the sake of the will, sir?” said Weathershaw.
Sir John favored the stranger with a lofty, supercilious glance, and nodded his head.
“I do!” he answered. “Just said so!”
Weathershaw reached for the cigars, selected one, quietly lighted it, and began to smoke. He let a minute pass — in silence.
“Well, I know he wasn’t!” he said suddenly, in sharp, staccato accents.
Etherton twisted round in his chair, and Letty looked up from her work. But Sir John, who, it was evident to Marrows and Weathershaw, had dined pretty freely, and was in a state of great confidence, smiled disdainfully.
“Ah, you do, do you?” he said. “Well — no offence — don’t know you at all, you know — you’re young! Young — and confident, eh?”
“Confident about what I know,” retorted Weathershaw.
“And what’s that?” asked Etherton. He was watching the detective keenly, and as he watched, he fancied that he saw a certain glance, which might have been a signal, exchanged between him and Marrows. “Sir Marston says you might tell us something?”
“Yes!” answered Weathershaw. “I can — now. But” — he paused and waved his cigar in Sir John Arncliffe’s direction — “as this gentleman thinks I’m young and — as he puts it — confident, perhaps you’d better tell him, Mr. Etherton, that I’ve been on this job — professionally!”
“Mr. Weathershaw is a private detective,” said Etherton, looking at his guest. “With a reputation!”
Sir John nodded — indulgently. Then he shook his head again.
“No good!” he said. “Too deep — deep down!”
Etherton smiled at Weathershaw.
“What do you know?” he asked.
“To start with, this,” responded Weathershaw. “I know — for a fact, now — why Sir Cheville Stanbury was attacked on the night of his death. It was not for any reason but one. What his assailants wanted was — your papers!”
Chapter XXV
Denounced
Weathershaw let his gaze wander round to the consequential little man on the lounge as he made this announcement. And he immediately realized something which at that moment was sorely puzzling Marrows and arousing astonishment in Marston. There was not the slightest sign of surprise in Sir John Arncliffe’s face, and Weathershaw suddenly knew why. Here before him was another of those men who, born schemers and plotters, cannot believe that their plans can miscarry. Sir John Arncliffe, said Weathershaw to himself, was at that moment assuring his own mind that the secret was safe between Madgwick, Stones, and himself, and would never, could never be revealed. From that point Weathershaw began to take an almost malicious pleasure in unfolding his story in the presence of the man who as yet had no suspicion that he was concerned in it.