The Chief Constable had followed close upon Blick’s heels when the detective walked into the gunsmith’s shop, and he caught the whispered information. Not as accustomed as Blick was to reserve of speech and stolidity of expression he let out a word of surprise, scarcely checked. But Blick said nothing, and his only sign was one of assent to the gunsmith’s proposition: together the three men went to the back of the shop, where a sharp looking young man was busy with account books. “My manager, Mr. Waters,” said the gunsmith. “Waters—just show these gentlemen that entry we looked up a while ago.”
Waters produced a day-book, turned over its pages, ran his fingers over the lines, and silently pointed to an entry and some figures. Blick glanced at them.
“You remember selling a Webley-Fosbery automatic pistol to Mr. Harry Markenmore?” he asked, turning to the manager. “I mean—you sold it, personally?”
“I sold it,” assented Waters. “I remember it well enough. He wanted a revolver—I recommended that.”
“Would you know it again?” asked Blick.
Waters pointed to some figures and letters in the entry.
“That’s the number,” he said.
Blick produced the weapon he had picked up from beneath the Airedale terrier’s busy feet.
“That it?” he enquired.
Waters turned the automatic pistol over in his hand, and looked carefully at the figures and letters stamped into the mount.
“That’s it!” he answered. “Oh, yes—but I should have known it again without that.”
“There’s no doubt about it?” said Blick. “No possibility of any mistake? You’re sure that is the pistol you sold, on that date, to Mr. Harry Markenmore?”
“There’s not the slightest doubt,” replied Waters confidently. “Take my oath of it!”
Blick put the automatic pistol back in his pocket and turned away.
“I hope that won’t be necessary, Mr. Waters,” he said. “However——” here he looked at the gunsmith, who, with the Chief Constable, had stood by, watching and listening—“in the meantime keep all this to yourself—don’t mention it to anybody. I may as well tell you, in confidence, that I found this thing—and it may have been lost by its owner—dropped, quite innocently. So—for the present—silence!”
The gunsmith and his manager nodded comprehendingly, and Blick and the Chief Constable went out into the street and walked some little distance in silence.
“Another complication!” muttered Blick at last. “And I suppose it’s within bounds of possibility that Harry Markenmore shot his brother and threw this thing away in Deep Lane! Possible! but, I think, not at all probable. However, I’ll soon make sure about that.”
“How?” asked the Chief Constable.
“According to the medical evidence,” answered Blick, “Guy Markenmore was shot dead at Markenmore Hollow about four o’clock in the morning. Now it was just about that hour that Sir Anthony Markenmore died at Markenmore Court, and I imagine that his younger son would be at his bedside. Harry Markenmore couldn’t be in two places at once. Still, how came this automatic pistol in that badger-hole? That’s got to be answered—somehow! For without a doubt, it was dropped in there by somebody who wanted to get rid of it.”
The Chief Constable suddenly laid one hand on the detective’s arm, and with the other pointed across the street.
“There’s the very man who will know what Harry Markenmore was doing, and exactly where he was on the night of his father’s death!” he exclaimed. “Come across!”
Blick looked in the direction indicated, and saw Braxfield. The old butler, very solemn and precise in his mourning raiment, was just emerging from a chemist’s shop, sundry small parcels in his hands. He lifted startled eyes as the Chief Constable accosted him.
“Good evening, Braxfield,” said the Constable, affably. “How are you in these trying times?”
Braxfield shook his head.
“Trying indeed they are, sir!” he replied. “I have felt this week, sir, as if the world was being turned upside down—my world at any rate! I never knew such times, sir, nor expected to know such!”
“You’ve certainly had a good deal of trouble at Markenmore, Braxfield,” said the Chief Constable, sympathetically. “Must have been a time of great anxiety to everybody who’d lived a quiet life hitherto, as I think you’ve done.”
Braxfield shook his head again, and looked as mournful as his garments.
“It’s not been so much the trouble, sir, nor yet the anxiety, though both have been bad enough, as the continual surprises!” he answered. “One after the other they’ve come, till my poor head has fairly ached under them! Mr. Guy’s coming—his father’s death—that dreadful murder—hearing that my stepdaughter was married, secret-like, to Sir Harry, as we then thought him—this little boy being brought and presented as the real heir—and all the rest of it; dear me, sir, it’s as if you didn’t know whatever to expect next!”
“Ah, well, you’ll get settled down in time, Braxfield,” remarked the Chief Constable. “The little boy is, of course, a great surprise. How does Mr. Harry take the sudden change in his fortunes?”
“Mr. Harry, sir, and Miss Valencia,” replied Braxfield, “have taken the matter in the best way possible. The little gentleman—Sir Guy, of course—has been welcomed in the warmest fashion; he is already made as much of by his uncle and aunt as if they’d known him from his cradle. Family feeling, sir, is strong in such houses as ours!”
“I suppose Mr. Harry was fond of his father, Sir Anthony?” asked the Chief Constable, with an almost imperceptible side-glance at Blick. “Very constant in attendance upon him, I believe?”
“Mr. Harry, sir,” answered Braxfield, “was a very good son to his father, especially as Sir Anthony drew near his latter end. He was for ever at his bedside—never left him, except when Miss Valencia took his place.”
“Was he with him when he died?” enquired the Chief Constable, coming at last to the question which Blick desired to have answered.
“He was, sir! Mr. Harry,” said Braxfield, “was with my late master all that night, from the time Mr. Guy went away until Sir Anthony died—which he did in a light sleep. Yes, sir, Mr. Harry has nothing to reproach himself for in respect of his behaviour to his father—and I would have wished, sir, that he had come into the title and estates. But the law, I believe, is the law, sir, as you know better than I do—and all Markenmore, and the old title belongs to the little boy! Strange changes, sir, indeed, but you’ll excuse me, gentlemen—I see our groom waiting for me in our trap, and I’ve still a little shopping to do.”
The old butler hurried away after a polite bow, and the Chief Constable turned to Blick.
“That disposes of any question of Harry Markenmore’s possible guilt,” he murmured. “He spent that night by his father’s bedside. So he couldn’t have been at Markenmore Hollow.”
“Never thought he had,” said Blick. “But I think his automatic pistol was there. And now I’m going back to the Sceptre, to get my much-needed supper, and think a bit.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” observed the Chief Constable.
“I’m aware of it,” replied Blick. “And as I have reason to believe that Sunday, amongst rustic communities, is a great day for gossip, I intend to hear what these Markenmore villagers are saying. I fancy they’re saying a good deal amongst themselves.”
“And how will you get to hear?—a stranger!” asked the Chief Constable with a laugh.
“Easily,” replied Blick. “All village gossip either begins or ends at the village ale-house. I shall hear no end at the Sceptre, I think.”
“One way of getting information, to be sure,” assented the Chief Constable. “Well, Sunday or no Sunday, keep me posted up, Blick, if you hear of anything really pertinent.”
Blick promised, and went off to Markenmore, and that night, of set purpose, he put his business clean out of his mind, and spent a quiet evening in reading the local histories and guide-books which he had procured from Selcaster when he first took up his quarters at the Sceptre. There was a great deal of interesting information in those books, and before he went to bed he had learned much about the Markenmore neighbourhood and the Markenmore family, whose pedigree, long and intricate, was given in full in one of the volumes. And next morning he stayed late in bed, and lounged mentally as well as physically, and it was not until after his mid-day dinner that he thought of his professional problem at all. It was recalled to him first when he strolled along the quiet street in the middle of the peaceful Sunday afternoon and came across Benny Cripps, the sexton, who sat on a stone bench outside the lych-gate of the churchyard, smoking his pipe. There was a look of invitation in Benny’s eye, and Blick sat down by him.
“Taking a bit of rest from your Sunday labours, eh?” he said. “Nice spot to smoke your pipe in, this.”
“Custom o’ mine,” answered Benny. “I do allays smoke a pipe or two o’ bacca here of a Sunday arternoon, year in, year out—wet or fine. I do keep that up. If ’tis fine weather, along o’ this ancient stone bench; if so be as ’tis wet, under that there lych-gate. And while I smokes, I meditates.”
“On what?” asked Blick.
“Different subjects at different times,” answered the sexton. “If so be as you wants to know the precise nature of my speckylations on this here occasion, I may tell ’ee as how when you come along, I was a-thinking of you!”
“Of me, eh?” said Blick. “And what about me?”
“Thinking as how if you&............