CHAPTER TEN.
DETECTIVE DOINGS.
For a considerable time the boy prowled about the house of Mr Spivin inthe hope of seeing David Laidlaw go out or in; but our Scot did notappear. At last a servant-girl came to the open door with a broom inher hand to survey the aspect of things in general. Tommy walkedsmartly up to her, despite the stern gaze of a suspicious policeman onthe opposite side of the street.
"My sweet gal," he said affably touching his cap, "is Capting Laidlawwithin?"
"There's no _Captain_ Laidlaw here," answered the girl sharply; "there_was_ a Daivid Laidlaw, but--"
"Da-a-a-vid, my dear, not Daivid. The gen'l'm'n hisself told me, andsurely 'e knows 'ow to prenounce 'is own name best."
"You've a deal of cheek, boy--anyway, Laidlaw 'as bin took up, an' 'e'snow in prison."
The sudden look of consternation on the boy's face caused the girl tolaugh.
"D'ee know w'ere they've took 'im to?"
"No, I don't."
"But surely you don't b'lieve 'e's guilty?" said the boy, forgettingeven his humorous tendencies in his anxiety about his friend.
"No, I don't" said the girl, becoming suddenly earnest, "for Mary an' mesaw--"
"Martha-a-a!" shouted a female voice from the interior of the house atthat moment.
The girl ran in. At the same time the suspicious policeman came upwith, "Now then, youngster, move on."
"Move off you mean, bobby. Hain't you been to school yet, stoopid?"cried the boy, applying his thumb to his nose and moving his fingers inwhat he styled a thumbetrical manner as he ran away.
But poor Tommy Splint was in no jesting mood. He had been impressedwith the idea from infancy--rightly or wrongly--that once in theclutches of the law it was no easy matter to escape from them; and hewas now utterly incapable of deciding what his next step should be. Inthis difficulty he was about to return disconsolate to Cherub Court whenit occurred to him that it might be worth while to pay a visit to thegood ship _Seacow_, and obtain the opinion of Sam Blake.
Although it was broad day and the sun was glowing gloriously in anunclouded sky, he found Sam down in a dark hole, which he styled hisbunk, fast asleep.
Sam did not move when Tommy shook and woke him. He merely opened hiseyes quietly and said, "All right, my lad; what's up?" After hearingthe boy's story to the end he merely said, "Mind your helm--clear out!"flung off his blankets, and bounded to the floor like an acrobat.
Being already in his shirt, short drawers, and stockings, it did nottake quite a minute to don trousers, vest and coat. Another minutesufficed for the drawing on of boots, fastening a necktie, running abroken comb through his front locks, and throwing on a glazed hat. Twominutes all told! Men whose lives often depend on speed acquire awonderful power of calmly-rapid action.
"What d'ee say to it, Sam?" asked Tommy as they hurried along thestreets.
"Hold on! avast! belay! I'm thinkin'!" said Sam. The boy accordinglyheld on, avasted, and belayed until his companion had thought it out.
"Yes, that's it," said the sailor at last. "I'll go an' see Colonel--Colonel--what's 'is name? old Liz's friend--Burntwood, is it, or--"
"Brentwood," said Tommy.
"That's it--Brentwood. You don't know his address, do you? No? Nevermind; we'll go to Cherub Court an' get it, and then make sail for theColonel's. I've no more notion which way to steer, lad, than the man inthe moon; but the Colonel will be sure to know how to lay our course,an' he'll be willin', I've no doubt first for his own sake, seein' thatthis Lockhart is his own lawyer; second, for old Liz's sake, seein' thather affairs are involved in it; and third, for the sake of his country,if he's a good and true man."
The sailor was not disappointed. Colonel Brentwood did not indeedhimself know exactly how to act but he knew that the best thing to do inthe circumstances was to seek aid from those who did know. He thereforewent straight to Scotland Yard--that celebrated centre of the LondonPolice Force--and put the matter before the authorities there. Adetective, named Dean, was appointed to take the job in hand.
"John," observed Mrs Brentwood to her husband, prophetically, after aninterview with the detective at their own house, "you may depend upon itthat Mr Dean will discover that more things are amiss than this affairof the Scotsman and dear old nurse."
"Possibly--indeed probably," returned the Colonel; "but what makes youthink so?"
"The fact that no thorough scoundrel ever yet confined himself to one ortwo pieces of villainy."
"But Lockhart is not yet proved to be a thorough scoundrel. You havecondemned the poor man, my dear, without trial, and on insufficientevidence."
"Insufficient evidence!" echoed Dora indignantly. "What more do youwant? Has he not systematically robbed dear old Liz? Are not theRailway Share Lists and Reports open to inspection?"
"True, Dora, true. Be not indignant. I have admitted that you may beright. Our detective will soon find out. He has the calm,self-confident, penetrating look of a man who could, if possible, screwsomething out of nothing."
Whether or not Mr Dean possessed the power ascribed to him is yet to beseen. We have not space to follow him through the whole of theserpentine sinuosities of his investigations, but we will watch him atone or two salient points of his course.
First of all he visited Tommy Splint, who, in the privacy of his"boodwar" revealed to him, as he thought, every scrap of informationabout the affair that he possessed. To all of this Mr Dean listened inperfect silence, patiently, and with a smile of universal benevolence.He not only appreciated all the boy's commentaries and jests andprophecies on the situation, but encouraged the full development of hiscommunicative disposition. Tommy was charmed. Never before had he metwith such an audience--except, perhaps, in Susy.
When the boy had fairly run himself out Mr Dean proceeded to pump andsqueeze, and the amount of relevant matter that he pumped and squeezedout of him, in cross-questioning, was so great, that Tommy was lost in amixture of admiration and humility. You see, up to that time he hadthought himself rather a knowing fellow; but Mr Dean managed to removethe scales from his eyes.
"Now, my boy," said the detective, after having squeezed him quite flat,and screwed the very last drop out of him, "you are quite sure, Isuppose, as to Mr Trumps's words--namely, that he knew Mrs Morley--chimney-pot Liz, as you call her--"
"Parding. I never called her that--chimley-pot is her name."
"Well, chimley-pot be it--and that he had formerly known Mr Lockhartbut did not say when or where he had first become acquainted witheither; yet Trumps's peculiar look and manner when speaking of thelawyer led you to think he knew more about him than he chose to tell?"
"Right you air, sir. That's 'ow it stands."
"Good; and in reference to the servant-girl--you are sure that shebecame suddenly very earnest when she said she believed Laidlaw was notguilty, and that she and some one named Mary had `seen something,' butyou don't know what, owing to a sudden interruption?"
"Right again, sir."
"Now, then," said Mr Dean, rising, "we will go up and see Mrs Morley."
They found the old woman alone, knitting in her rustic chair in herfloral bower on the roof. Mr Dean sat down to have a chat and Tommyseated himself on a stool to gaze and listen, for he was fascinated,somehow, by the detective.
It was really interesting to observe the tact with which the manapproached his subject and the extreme patience with which he listenedto the somewhat garrulous old woman.
Being a Briton he began, of course, with the weather, but slid quicklyand naturally from that prolific subject to the garden, in connectionwith which he displayed a considerable knowledge of horticulture--butthis rather in the way of question than of comment. To slide from thegarden to the gardener was very easy as well as natural; and here MrDean quite won the old woman's heart by his indirect praise of Susy'smanipulation of plants and soils. To speak of Susy, without referringto Susy's early history, would have been to show want of interest in avery
interesting subject. Mr Dean did not err in this respect. FromSusy's mother he naturally referred to the family in which she and oldLiz had been in service, and to the return of the only surviving memberof it to England.
All this was very interesting, no doubt, but it did not throw much lightinto the mind of Mr Dean, until old Liz mentioned the fact that MrLockhart, besides being solicitor to the Brentwoods, was also solicitorto old Mr Weston, who had left his property to Colonel Brentwood. Shealso said that she feared, from what Mrs Brentwood had recently said toher, there was some difficulty about the will, which was a pity, as theonly people she knew besides Mr Lockhart who knew anything about itwere a footman named Rogers and a butler named Sutherland, both of whomhad been witnesses to the will; but the footman had gone to the bad, andthe butler had gone she knew not where.
Then Mr Dean began to smell another rat, besides that which he was justthen in pursuit of, for the Colonel had incidentally mentioned to himthe circumstance of the estate passing away from him, owing to a newwill having been recently discovered. Although the matter was not thedetective's present business, he made a mental note of it.
After quitting the garden, and promising soon to return, the detectivehad an interview with Mr Trumps in the parlour of the thieves'missionary. Many a fallen and apparently lost man and woman had beenbrought to the Saviour in that parlour by that missionary--the same whomwe have introduced to the reader in the thieves' den. Through themedium of Tommy Splint the interview was brought about, and no soonerdid Trumps ascertain the object that Dean had in view than he becamesuddenly confidential.
"Now, look here," he said, when he found himself alone with Mr Dean, "Iknows more about them Brentwoods and Westons than you think for."
"No doubt you do; and I suppose you wish to sell your knowledge at thehighest possible figure," said Dean, with a very slight smile.
"You're wrong for once," returned Trumps. "If you'd said that to me twodays ago, I'd 'ave said `yes;' but I've 'eard things in this blessedroom w'ich 'as made me change my mind. You're welcome to all I knowsfor nothing."
Mr Dean did not believe in sudden conversion, nevertheless he expressedgratification. Being what the Yankees call 'cute, he avoided anythinglike eagerness in gaining information.
"My business here, however," he said, "is to get information about thatScotsman, you know, and the charge of theft by Mr Lockhart. We believeLaidlaw to be innocent and, understanding that you think as we do, andthat you know something about him, we hope you may be able to help us."
From this point Mr Dean began to pump and squeeze, and Trumps provedworthy of his name in the way he submitted to both processes. At last,when nothing more was to be got Mr Dean said, in a somewhat carelessway, "You are acquainted, I believe, with old Mrs Morley--chimney-potLiz, they call her--are you not?"
"Yes, I am. I've known her long. Knew her when I was footman in afamily connected with the Brentwoods."
"Oho!" thought Mr Dean with sudden surprise, for he began to smell moreof his second rat, but he looked stolid; said nothing; did not move amuscle; merely nodded his head gently as if to say, go on.
"Now I know what you're driving at," continued Trumps, with a veryknowing wink, "an' I'll help you. First place, my name ain't Trumps."
"I know that--it's Rodgers," said the detective.
"Whew! how d'ee know _that_?" exclaimed the thief in extreme surprise.
"We detectives know everything," said Dean.
"Oh! then there's no need for me to tell you anything more," returnedTrumps, _alias_ Rodgers, with a grin.
"Well, I don't know exactly everything," returned Dean; "but I do know--at least I guess--that you were a footman in the service of RichardWeston, Esquire, of Weston Hall, in Kent; that the butler's name wasSutherland, and that you and he were witnesses to Mr Weston's will."
"Just so. You're right."
"Now, are you aware," said Mr Dean, "that Colonel Brentwood has lost,or is going to lose, his estate because a new will by Richard Weston hasbeen found, leaving it to another man?"
"No, I did not know that, but that clears up to me the mystery of thewill that I witnessed. You must know that when we were witnessing thewill, Sutherland and me both noticed that it was eight pages of bigpaper, and that it seemed to have two beginnings--one bein' in themiddle. Master couldn't see well, an' was very weak at the time--soweak that when he came to the last page the pen fell out of his hand andonly half of the last name was signed. Mr Lockhart said that would do,however, an' we witnessed it. Master never completed the signature, forhe took to his bed that very day, and no one ever saw him put pen topaper again. Sutherland often spoke to me about that, and wondered if awill with an imperfect signature would pass. Hows'ever, it was none ofour business, so we forgot about it, and soon after Sutherland went tostay with a family in Pimlico as butler, where I think he is now. Asfor me--"
"Yes, I know," said Dean significantly; "you need not recall that justnow. Can you give me the name and address of the family in Pimlico?"
"Good; now then," said Mr Dean after booking his information, "I'llwant to see you again, so don't get yourself into scrapes, and keep yourtongue quiet. Your missionary will help you, I have no doubt.Meanwhile, I will go and pay a visit to a certain Martha who lives onthe other side of the river."