The Stolen Statesman Part 15

The house, old-fas.h.i.+oned, low and rather rambling, lay well back from the white high road, at right angles to it. A thick hedge led up to within a few feet of the entrance. It seemed to boast a fair piece of ground, at least three acres. The entrance to some rather dilapidated stabling was lower down the road.

He felt a sense of triumph. Smeaton, he knew, was still searching for Stent, and he, the amateur, had forestalled him. Was he right, after all, in his surmise that by some curious lapse the man of wider experience had left Farloe out of his calculations, and the man Stent was identical with the man Strange?

His survey finished, he mounted his machine, and rode along, thinking out his plans.

"Find a nice comfortable inn somewhere near, but not too close, pose as an artist out for a brief holiday, and find out all there is to be found about the mysterious Mr Strange," was the result of his meditations.

A mile lower down the road he came upon a small, old-fas.h.i.+oned inn, with a swinging sign, and trailing roses over the porch and walls. There he entered, and called for some refreshment.

"Thirsty with your ride--eh, sir?" asked the landlord pleasantly.

"A bit, although I haven't ridden very far yet. I hired a machine in the town in order to have a look round. I want a week's holiday badly, and I should like to hit upon some quiet quarters about here. It seems a nice piece of country."

The landlord p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "Perhaps it's the George in Horsham you might prefer."

"Oh dear no! I want an old-fas.h.i.+oned inn, like this. But I suppose you don't take guests?"

The fat landlord glanced at him hesitatingly. Varney was attired in a well-cut Norfolk suit, and his plush Homburg hat must have hailed from Bond Street. He looked the sort of man for a fas.h.i.+onable hotel, not an obscure bacon-and-egg inn.

"Well, sir, we do now and again. We don't pretend to do you like the big places with French dishes and that sort of thing. But my wife is a good plain cook, and you won't get better meat and chickens than we have."

Terms were soon arranged. Varney--or Mr Franks as he announced himself to the landlord--would come down to-morrow, bringing with him a few sketching materials.

Next day Varney returned with a portable easel, and other paraphernalia appertaining to his supposed art. He had not been in the house half-an-hour before he engaged the landlord in a conversation about the local gentry. And it was soon deftly focussed upon the owner of Forest View.

Mr Peter Chawley was by nature a gregarious and communicative soul. He was only reticent when policy or prudence counselled such a course of action.

"Mr Strange has been here about five months," he informed young Varney, in his fat, somewhat wheezy voice, "but we don't know very much about him. When he first came, he used to go up to London pretty often, but for some time he has hardly stirred out of the house."

"Has he any acquaintances in the place?"

Mr Chawley shook his head. "Doesn't want any, so he told the Vicar when he called upon him. Said he had come here for a quiet life, and wanted to get away from his business in London and the friends he had already. Of course, that was a pretty broad hint--so n.o.body called. He doesn't deal with anybody here for a pennyworth of matches. Gets everything from London."

"What household has he? And is he a widower, or bachelor, or married?"

"Told the Vicar he was a widower. He has three maids: the cook, a middle-aged woman, housemaid, and parlourmaid--all three he brought with him. The gardener's a local man, a young chap, and comes in here once in a while; but he knows no more than the rest of us. He hardly ever enters the house, and the maids don't chatter."

Forest View was a household that evidently kept its own secrets. The maids did not chatter, even to the young local gardener. Mystery here, thought Varney, without a doubt. It was his business to fathom it. Was he really Stent? That was the point.

"He got the house pretty cheap," went on Mr Chawley, who was not easily stopped when he indulged in reminiscence, "because it had been unlet for five years. It's a funny old place, all nooks and corners, without any modern convenience. Some people say it's haunted, and I've heard that there is a secret room in it, like what they used to hide the priests in in the old days."

A mysterious house, with a mysterious owner, truly, thought Varney, as the landlord rambled on.

"Does he have anybody to see him?"

"He never seems to have had but one visitor, a gentleman rather older than himself. He used to run down for two or three days at a time. For some time now he's been staying with him altogether."

Varney p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. Was he going to discover anything useful?

"Do you know his friend's name?" he asked eagerly.

"No, sir. The gardener has never heard it, but then, as I say, he hardly ever goes inside the house."

The next day, and the day after, Varney watched Forest View closely.

From the roadway he had a fairly clear view of the sloping lawn. But neither its occupier nor his visitor were tempted out by the beautiful weather. They were certainly an extraordinary pair to shut themselves up in a gloomy house on these bright suns.h.i.+ny days.

On the third day, however, both emerged from their seclusion, and sauntered on to the lawn. The visitor seemed to stoop slightly, and walk with the languid air of a man who had recently recovered from an illness.

They walked about only for a little while, and, as they went back into the house, Varney, from his hiding-place behind the hedge, heard Mr Strange say:

"Well, if you think you feel fit enough, we will walk into Horsham after lunch. We can drive back. It may do you good."

An idea had formed itself in Varney's brain, fitting in with one of the theories he had formed about this remarkable case.

A little after one o'clock the supposed artist stole through the door of the inn, a basket in one hand, a good-sized bag in the other.

A few yards down the road he disappeared up a side road, crossed a field, and advanced towards an old disused barn which he had noted on the previous day, and slipped inside.

A few moments later there issued a strange and shabbily dressed figure, with a slouching walk. On his left arm hung a basket, full of roses, which had been bought a short time ago from Mrs Chawley. They were so beautiful, Varney told her, that he must paint them.

In the guise of a decrepit flower-seller he limped along to the narrow main street of Horsham, and hung about till the pair from Forest View arrived, when he faced them and advancing towards them with his basket before him, he whined when he had got up to them:

"Buy a bunch of roses, sir. Threepence a bunch. All fresh picked, sir."

"No," said Strange gruffly, "we don't want any, got lots of them," and the pair turned away in ignorance that within that basket, concealed by the flowers, was a small detective camera by which a snapshot of both of them had already been cleverly secured in secret.

Varney made his way back at once to the old barn, where he discarded his shabby jacket and cap.

Early next morning he was on his way to Smeaton. He had a hope that his investigations had been fruitful, but he could not be sure. Certainly the face and figure of the man Strange answered to the description of the person named Stent whom Scotland Yard had been unable to trace.

Having developed and printed the photograph at his own rooms, he was shown into Smeaton's bare official sanctum which overlooked Westminster Bridge, when the celebrated official rose and gripped his hand.

"Well, Varney?" he asked, "have you done anything in the Monkton mystery--eh?"

"Yes. A bit. Look here. Is this Stent--or not? If it is. I've found him."

The detective took the damp print and examined it curiously in the light by the window.

"Well--the only man who can really identify it is our friend at the Savoy Hotel. Let's take a taxi and go and see him."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

CONTAINS FURTHER DISCOVERIES.

They found the hall-porter at the Savoy hotel, and showed him the print.

It was not a very wonderful specimen of the photographer's art, but it was enough for Smeaton's old friend.

"That's him--right enough!" the man in uniform exclaimed. "And you say that you were told his name was Stent by the lady we spoke about, and this gentleman has discovered him under another name. Well, I always thought there was something mysterious about him."