“At that point,” continued Weathershaw, “my man Hartley arrived, dressed like a respectable artisan. I gave him certain information and instructions, and sent him on to Lithersdale, where, in the role of a man seeking lodgings, he was to go to Marriner’s Fold and see if he could find out anything at all about Madgwick’s movements. In company with Mr. Sindal, I followed Hartley to the village, later. He came to me at the Stanbury Arms, and told me that he’d had the best of luck already. He’d gone to Mrs. Beckett’s, professing that he’d heard she might have lodgings to let — she’d told him at once that she would have in a day or two, for two of her lodgers were leaving, and were at that moment packing up. She showed him the room he could have — Madgwick was even then putting his luggage together in it. Hartley had a bit of talk with him, pretending to ask how he’d liked the place; he gathered that Madgwick might be leaving next day — he’d got a much better job, he said, elsewhere. So Hartley returned to me — and I determined to act at once. Mr. Sindal had heard that Superintendent Marrows and Inspector Calvert were in the village; he fetched them to the inn; we were joined there by two detectives, and in company with Sir Marston Stanbury, for whom I’d telephoned, we all went up to Marriner’s Fold.”
Etherton was getting excited. He had risen from his chair and was following Weathershaw’s story with approving nods of the head. And from time to time he turned to Sir John with a smile as if to invite him to join in his own approval; but Sir John by that time was watching the narrator as if something in Weathershaw’s speech and manner fascinated him.
“We went straight into Mrs. Beckett’s,” continued Weathershaw, becoming more terse and emphatic. “Two men were there at supper: one, Madgwick; the other, a younger man, Stones. Madgwick was defiant, insolent, even certain of himself. But the other man suddenly gave way — nerves! Then Madgwick — as cool a scoundrel as ever I saw! — made a full confession. All,” added Weathershaw, with a meaning look, “all but one thing!”
“What — what?” exclaimed Etherton excitedly.
“The name of the man who had been behind him!” replied Weathershaw. “I knew well enough that Madgwick had not started this affair himself. He’d been bribed. He admitted he’d been bribed. He admitted the truth of all that I’d suspected. He and Stones had waylaid Sir Cheville, not at Black Scar, but on the moor; had taken the papers from him; had handed them over to the man who wanted them; had received their pay! They were, in a sense, cats-paws. But there was a hand behind — a man, Mr. Etherton, who was willing to do anything, pay anything, to get at your valuable secret!”
“In God’s name, who?” demanded Etherton.
Sir John looked across at Weathershaw. And Weathershaw, in that glance, learned another lesson in psychology. Even now, the rich man was trusting in his riches to deliver him! — Weathershaw realized that the chief culprit was still so confident of the power of his money that he believed that the price he had paid, the price he might pay in the future, had kept and would keep his name out of the matter. And suddenly he spoke and those who knew the secret felt a sense of disgust to hear a note of sneering self-satisfaction in his voice.
“He’s just told you that they wouldn’t give any name!” said Sir John. “Naturally Madgwick wouldn’t! Likely thing is, Etherton, my lad, that there’s no name to give.”
Weathershaw found Marrows’s outstretched foot under the table, and gave it a quiet kick with one of his own. He rose slowly to his feet, and Marrows rose, too. So, also, did Marston.
“No!” said Weathershaw, looking across, past Etherton, to his guest. “I said Madgwick wouldn’t give the name in his confession. But he gave it when his confession was finished! And — full proof! Do you want to hear it? Your name, then! — Sir John Arncliffe! Mr. Etherton, that’s the man who has your papers! That’s the man who put Sir Cheville Stanbury’s will back in the locker at the club! That’s the man who’s responsible — how far, God only knows! — for the old man’s death! Now — let him speak!”
Etherton, as soon as Sir John’s name had fallen from Weathershaw’s lips, had drawn away from him; Letty had stolen up to her father’s side and slipped her hands through his arm; their eyes were fixed on the accused man; so were the eyes of the other three.
“Now then?” said Etherton, at last. “You hear?”
Sir John got to his feet. There was no natural dignity in his short and stout figure, but he endeavored to look stern and magisterial.
“I’d best be going,” he said. “It seems as if there was likely to be naught but insults and accusations under this roof! However, there’s some of you’ll hear something from my lawyer tomorrow, and — but I’ll bid you good night.”
“Not just yet, Sir John!” said Marrows quietly. “I know my duty! You’d far better answer a few questions, Sir John — you had, indeed! Now, about those papers?”
Weathershaw suddenly laughed; something in the sound made the accused man start and look at him with the first signs of real fear.
“I shouldn’t wonder if he has the papers on him!” said Weathershaw. “Pity you can’t search him here and now, Marrows!”
He had forgotten that there was young and impulsive blood at his elbow. Before any of them could move, Marston, whose fingers had been itching for the last few minutes, had thrust a hand into the inner pocket of Sir John’s coat. Drawing out a quantity of papers, he flung them on the table, and Etherton, a second later, held up three folded documents.
“Here they are!” he said quietly.
A few minutes later, when Marrows and Weathershaw had taken Sir John Arncliffe away, and Marston and Letty had slipped off into the adjacent drawing-room, Etherton, with a look round the scene of recent action, drew back the curtains of his window, opened the casement, and leaned out to look over the moonlit valley beneath his house. His heart was full of loathing and bitterness — until he suddenly remembered that close behind him was youth and love, and that it was better to think of both than of the treachery and greed which had just been led away from his door.
The Failure
by Harold Ward
Amos Duncan paused for a second beside the time clock in the hallway just outside the offices of Carney & Kirk. Then, his heart beating like a trip hammer, he mustered up courage enough to push open the swinging doors and peep into the gloomy interior.
He was frightened — scared to the point of hysteria. Yet for thirty years he had stopped in that selfsame place in the hallway morning and noon on his way to work. For thirty years, fifty-two weeks in the year, six days a week and twice each day had he sought his number on the time clock and pushed the button which registered his comings and his departures. Instinctively — for figures were one of his hobbies — he made the calculation in his head: Eighteen thousand, seven hundred and twenty times had he pushed his way through those doors.
And never before — except possibly the first time when he had applied for a place with the firm — had he been as frightened as he was now.
For this was the first time he had ever come to rob!
Getting a grip on himself, he entered the big office on tiptoe — an office covering nearly one-fourth of a city block — yet he knew that old Bill Judkins, the watchman, would be making his rounds out in the factory at that particular hour. It was a part of his daily work to check up the dial on the night watchman’s clock; he knew that the old man traveled as true to schedule as a mail train.