“When I was called into this case,” continued Weathershaw, “I began my work on it by reading every available account of the inquest held on Sir Cheville Stanbury. And I very quickly came to the conclusion that the true object of whoever it was that assailed Sir Cheville on his homeward way that night was, as I have just said, the papers relating to your invention. I had heard, more than once, of the efforts made by men who wished to steal the secret of a really important invention, and I was sure that in this case there was somebody, behind the scenes, who wanted, ardently, to rob you of yours!”
Weathershaw paused for a moment and looked round. He had already got the attention of his audience. But he was chiefly interested in two of its members. Etherton had twisted round in his chair and was watching him with a puzzled frown on his face; Sir John Arncliffe was lying comfortably back against the padded lounge on which he lolled, placidly complacent, and evidently sure of his own safety.
“Now that,” resumed Weathershaw, “that pre-supposed that somebody — one person, or two persons, or even more — knew that you were busy with an invention. It seemed to me that such persons must be in close touch with you; persons, probably, who were employed by you. Well, there was your clerk, Pike — from what one could gather of the evidence at the inquest, Pike seemed a likely person to suspect. And I was suspecting Pike when I called on you, heard your story, and got you to show me your strong-room, and to lend me the key of it. But at that stage, two things happened in quick succession. The fact was this — my first proceeding on getting into that strong-room was to closely examine the key you had given me, and the lock into which it fitted. If you have that key on you, Mr. Etherton, please hand it to me for a minute.”
Etherton drew a key from his pocket and passed it across in silence. Weathershaw held it up.
“Now, you’ll all notice,” he continued, “that this key is of very intricate workmanship. As you see, it is cut out of the steel in a fashion which left what we will call niches and crevices. And I’m sure you’d never noticed it, Mr. Etherton, but in one of those crevices I, immediately on making a close inspection of the key, discovered a tiny, almost minute, fragment of wax — green, soft wax. I knew, then, that the key had been out of your possession, and that whoever had had it possessed it long enough to take an impression of it, in wax. A fragment — the merest fragment — of wax had adhered in one of the crevices — there it was!”
Once more Weathershaw paused. And now he noticed that the man in whom he was particularly concerned had removed the big cigar from his lips and was listening more attentively.
“The next thing to do,” he went on, “was to find out who had taken that impression. Clearly, it was somebody who very much wanted to get into your strong-room — to see the machine. That somebody was a person about your premises. I recognized that it would probably be a very difficult matter to fasten on the right person. But here again chance favored me. You’ll remember that when you took me to the floor where that strong-room is situated, you called one of your overlookers, a man named Madgwick, to you, and told him I was seeing about some alterations and was to look round where I liked. Well, after coming out, I saw a man’s coat hanging on a peg. I slipped a hand into the inside pocket, found some odd scraps of paper, and some letters addressed to Madgwick, at Mrs. Beckett’s, Marriner’s Fold. And on at least three of the odd scraps of paper there were rough pencil sketches of the wards of a key — the very key which I held in my possession!”
“God bless my soul!” muttered Etherton. “A fellow that I’d have trusted—”
“I saw through the whole thing, then,” continued Weathershaw, holding up a finger to bespeak silence and attention. “This man had got your key at some time, and had taken a wax impression of it. But he didn’t dare to take that wax impression to any locksmith! — that would have been too dangerous. So what he’d done was to make a drawing of the wax model, practising it over and over again until he’d got something sufficiently accurate to work upon. And just as the cleverest and most careful criminals invariably forget some slight detail in their schemes, so he, whose first crooked job this probably was, had forgotten to destroy the results of his practice!”
“The unexpected!” muttered Marrows. “Will come in! — many an instance of it!”
“I was certain I was on the right track then,” Weathershaw went on. “And the next thing to do was to find out all I could about Madgwick. It would never have done to do this myself — I couldn’t go openly, or, indeed, in any way, about Lithersdale. So I telephoned to my office in Manchester for an assistant of mine, Mr. Hartley, who’s very clever at making himself up as a working man. I told Hartley to join me in Hallithwaite at once. And in the meantime, while I waited for him in the town, I went round the locksmiths there — working locksmiths, you know, some nine or ten of them — to try to find out if Madgwick had had a key made by one of their number. I hit on the man at the end of my round, a man named Nicholson, in Back Lane. I had to tell him who I was and what I was after before I could get any information from him, but he gave it freely in the end.”
Weathershaw held up the key which Etherton had handed over, and professing to look at it, glanced at the man on the lounge. Sir John’s cigar had gone out, but as yet Weathershaw saw no sign of fear or of anxiety in his face.
“Nicholson,” continued Weathershaw, “made a duplicate of this key for Madgwick not so very long ago. Madgwick went to him with a pencil sketch of a key and asked him if he could make a key from it. He said it was for Mr. Etherton. Nicholson made a key from the drawing. Madgwick took that key back twice, to be filed at one or two points. He called again, said the key was then all right, and paid for it.”
“Bless me!” said Etherton. “Couldn’t have believed it!”
“But now,” Weathershaw went on, “I had to think out the probable course of events. I’d no doubt that Madgwick had looked over your machine carefully. But I know that a man can’t get at the secret of a machine by seeing a model. And Madwick wanted more — he wanted the papers! — the drawings, the specifications. Now, I had a theory. It occurred to me that possibly Madgwick was in collusion with Pike. Now Pike, as I had learned, had been present, hidden behind a curtain, at the interview between you, Mr. Etherton, and Sir Cheville Stanbury, and had probably heard your talk about the machine and, further, had heard you say that you would give your papers to Sir Cheville to look through. I figured that Pike had told Madgwick of this, and that the two, knowing Sir Cheville’s habits very intimately, had agreed to waylay him on his way home, and to take the papers from him. That was my theory, up to a certain time this evening.”
Weathershaw paused for a moment — to take a mouthful from the glass which Etherton had placed before him on his first entrance. His movement seemed to remind Sir John Arncliffe that he, too, had a glass near him; as if mechanically, he took it up, drained its contents, and then sat, empty glass in hand, staring at Weathershaw as the agent resumed his story.