Detective and mystery stories; French, Joseph (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Police -- Great Britain -- Fiction
Cheyne gasped. Here was the explanation of one mystery at all events.
He saw now where the gang’s knowledge of himself and his surroundings
had been obtained. He remembered that he had discussed his visit to
Plymouth during dinner, a day or two before the event. Susan had been
waiting at table, and Susan had been the channel through which the
information had been passed on. And the burglary! He could see Susan’s
hand in this also. In all probability she had taken full advantage of
her opportunities to make a thorough search of the house for Price’s
letter, and it was doubtless only when it became necessary to deal
with the safe that her friends had been called in. Probably also she
had been waiting for them, and had admitted them and shown them over
the house before submitting to be tied up as a blind to mislead the
detectives who would presumably be called in. Cheyne suspected also
that Price’s visit was timed at a propitious moment, when he himself
was available and with a free afternoon to be filled up. No doubt
Susan’s part in the affair had been vital to its success.
But her participation also showed the extraordinary importance which
the conspirators attached to the letter. Susan’s makeup for the part
she was to play, the forging of her references, her installation in
the Cheyne household and her undertaking nearly two months of domestic
service in order to gain the document, showed a tenacity of purpose
which could only have been evoked to attain some urgent end. Evidently
the gang believed that Price’s claim on the barony was good, and
evidently the others intended to share the spoils.
Cheyne watched breathlessly what was going on in the room, and to his
delight he presently found that through the open upper sash he could
also hear a good deal of what was said.
The camera had been set up to face the cupboard, and Cheyne now saw
that a document of some kind was fastened with drawing pins to its
door. Price put his head under the cloth and moved the camera back and
forwards, evidently focusing it on the document. Lewisham lifted and
examined the flashlight apparatus, then stood waiting. Parkes stooped
and said something in a low tone to Susan, at which she laughed
sarcastically.
“Do you think two will be enough or should we take four?” said Price
when he had arranged the camera to his satisfaction.
“Two, I should say,” Parkes answered. “Even if we lost the tracing,
two negatives should be an ample record.”
“I should take four,” Lewisham declared. “After all we’ve done what is
the extra trouble of developing a couple of negatives? One or two
might be failures.”
“Sime is right,” Price decided. “I shall take four.”
Sime? Cheyne thought perplexedly that the man who had run the motor on
the _Enid_ had been introduced to him as Lewisham. Sime, was it? Then
it occurred to him that probably each one of the four had met him
under an assumed name, and he listened even more intently in the hope
of finding this out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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