Part 4

“No doubt I could easily procure one. Let me tell you the circumstances, Mr Carrados. I only want to convince you that I have nothing to conceal.” With this laudable intention Mr Powis’s attitude became more and more amiable and his manner much less Welsh. He had, in fact, used up all the indignation that he had generated in anticipation of a wordy conflict--a species of protective mimicry common to mild-tempered men. “I bought this book from the Rev. Mr Winch, the vicar of Fordridge, in Leicestershire. A few weeks ago I received a registered parcel from Fordridge containing a fine copy of the _Virginiola_. The same post brought me a letter from Mr Winch. I dare say I have it here.... No, never mind; it was to the effect that the book had been in the writer’s family for many generations. Being something of a collector, he had never wished to sell it, but an unexpected misfortune now obliged him to raise a sum of money. He had contracted blood-poisoning in his hand and he had to come up to London for an operation. After that he would have to take a long sea voyage. He went on to say that he had heard of me as a likely buyer and would call on me in a day or two. In the meantime he sent the book to give me full opportunity of examining it.

“Nothing could be more straightforward, Mr Carrados. Two days later Mr Winch walked into my place. We discussed the price, and finally we agreed upon--well, a certain figure.”

“You can rely upon my discretion, Mr Powis.”

“I paid him £260.”

“That would be a fair price in the circumstances?”

“I thought so, Mr Carrados. I don’t say that it wasn’t a bargain, but it wasn’t an outrageous bargain.”

“You have occasionally done better?” smiled Carrados.

“Frequently. If I buy a book for threepence and sell it again for a shilling I do better, although it doesn’t sound so well. Of course I am a dealer and I have to live on my profits and to pay for my bad bargains with my good bargains. Now if I had had an immediate customer in view the book might have been worth a good deal more to me. I may say that Wednesday’s price at Gurnard’s surprised me. Prices have certainly been going up, but only five years ago it would have required a practically perfect copy to make that.”

“At all events, Mr Winch accepted?”

“I think I may say that he was perfectly satisfied,” amended Mr Powis. “You see, Mr Carrados, he wanted the money at once, and, apart from the uncertainty and expense, he could not have waited for an auction. I was making out a cheque when he reminded me that his right hand was useless and asked me to initial it to ‘bearer.’ That is why I come to have no receipt.”

“Yes,” assented Carrados. “Yes, that is it. How was the letter signed?”

“It was typewritten, like the rest of it. You remember that his hand was bad when he wrote.”

“True. Did you notice the postmark--was it Fordridge?”

“Yes; you should understand that Mr Winch posted on the book before he left Fordridge for London.” It seemed to the visitor that Mr Carrados was rather slow even for a blind man.

“I think I am beginning to grasp the position,” said Carrados mildly. “Of course you had no occasion to write to him at Fordridge?”

“Nothing whatever. Besides, he was coming to London almost immediately. If I wrote it was to be to the Fitzalan Hotel, off the Strand. Now here is the book, Mr Carrados. You saw--you examined, that is, the auction _Virginiola_?”

“No, unfortunately I did not.”

“I am sorry. You would now have recognised how immeasurably superior my copy is, even apart from the missing pages.”

“I can quite believe it.” He was turning over the leaves of the book, which Mr Powis had passed to him. “But this writing on the dedication page?”

“Oh, that,” said the dealer carelessly. “Some former owner has written his name there.”

“I suppose it constitutes a blot?”

“Why, yes, in a small way it does,” admitted Mr Powis. “Had it been ‘Wm. Shakespeare,’ it would have added a thousand guineas; as it’s only ‘Wm. Shoelack,’ it knocks two or three off.”

“Possibly,” suggested Carrados, “it was this blemish that decided Sir Roland Chargrave against the book?”

“No, no,” insisted Mr Powis. “Someone has hinted something to him. I don’t say that you are to blame, Mr Carrados, but a suspicion has been created; it has got about.”

“But Sir Roland is the one man whom it could not affect,” pointed out Carrados. “He, at any rate, would know that this copy is unimpeachable, because when the other was being stolen this was actually in his hands and had been for--for how long?”

“Five or six days; he kept it for about a week. And that no doubt is true as a specific case; but a malicious rumour is wide, Mr Carrados. So-and-so is unreliable; he deals in questionable property; better be careful. It is enough. No, no; Mr Chatton said nothing about any objection to the book, merely that Sir Roland had decided not to retain it.”

“Mr Chatton?”

“He is the secretary or the librarian there. I have frequently done business with him in the old baronet’s time. This man is a nephew who succeeded only a few months ago. Well, Mr Carrados, I hope I have convinced you that I came by this _Virginiola_ in a legitimate manner?”

“Scarcely that.”

“I haven’t!” exclaimed Mr Powis in blank astonishment.

“I never doubted it. At the sale I happened to hear you remark to a friend that you had recently bought a copy. My suggestion to Mr Ing was merely to hint that, with your exceptional knowledge, your unique experience, you would probably be able to put them on the right line as to the disposal of the stolen copy and so on. An unfortunate misunderstanding.”

Mr Powis stared and then nodded several times with an expression of acute resignation.

“That old man is past work,” he remarked feelingly. “I might have saved myself a journey. Well, I’ll go now, Mr Carrados.”

“Not yet,” declared Carrados hospitably; “I am going to persuade you to stay and lunch with me, Mr Powis. I want”--he was still fingering the early pages of the _Virginiola_ with curious persistence--“I want you to explain to me the way in which these interesting old books were bound.”

With the departure of Mr Powis a few hours later Carrados might reasonably conclude that he had heard the last of the _Virginiola_ theft, for he was now satisfied that it would never reach publicity as a police court case. But, willy-nilly, the thing pursued him. Mr Carlyle was to have dined with him one evening in the following week. It was a definite engagement, but during the day the inquiry agent telephoned his friend to know what he should do. A young gentleman who had been giving him some assistance in a case was thrown on his hands for the evening.

“You are the most amiable of men, Max,” chirruped Mr Carlyle; “but, really, I don’t like to ask----”

“Bring him by all means,” assented the most amiable of men. “I expect two or three others to turn up to-night.” So Mr Carlyle brought him.

“Mr Chatton, Max.”

An unobtrusive young man, whose face wore a perpetual expression of docile willingness, shook hands with Carrados. Anything less like the sleek, competent self-assurance of the conventional private secretary it would be difficult to imagine. Mr Chatton’s manner was that of a well-meaning man who habitually blundered from a too conscientious sense of duty, knew it all along, and was pained at the inevitableness of the recurring catastrophe.

“I have just taken up a case that might interest you, Max,” said Mr Carlyle, as the three of them stood together. “Simple enough, but it involves a valuable old book that has been stolen. Gurnard’s called me in”--and he proceeded to outline the particulars of the missing _Virginiola_.

“And you went down yourself to Gurnard’s to look into it, Mr Chatton?” said Carrados, masking the species of admiration that he felt for his new acquaintance.

“Well, I don’t know about looking into it,” confessed Mr Chatton. “You see, it doesn’t really concern Sir Roland at all now. But I thought that I ought to offer them any information--a description or something of that sort might be wanted--when I heard of their loss. Of course,” he added, with a deepening of his habitual look of rueful perturbation, “we can’t help it, but it’s very distressing to think of them losing so much money over our affair.”

“Not a bit of it, not a bit of it,” cried Mr Carlyle heartily. “It’s all in the way of business and Gurnard’s won’t feel a touch like that. Very good of you to take all the trouble you have, I say.” He turned his beaming, self-confident eye towards his host to explain. “I happened to meet Mr Chatton there this morning and ever since he has been helping me to put about inquiries in likely quarters and so on. I haven’t any doubt of pulling our man up in a week or two, unless it’s the work of a secret bibliomaniac, and Gurnard’s don’t entertain that.”

“Wednesday last, you say,” pondered Carrados. “Aren’t they rather late in turning it over to you?”

“Just what I complained of. Then it came out that they had been pinning their faith to the advice of some officious idiot who happened to be present at the sale. Nothing came of it, of course.”

“They did not happen to mention the idiot’s name?” inquired Max tentatively.

“No. The old gentleman--Mr Ing--said that he had already got into hot water once through doing that.” Mr Carlyle began to laugh in his hearty way over a recollection of the incident. “Do you know what this genius’s brilliant idea was? He put them on the track of a copy of this book that had been recently sold to a dealer, assuming that it must necessarily be the stolen copy. And so it had been recently sold, Max, but it happened to be _before_ the other was stolen!”

“Very amusing,” agreed Carrados.

“Do you know, I can’t help thinking that I was somehow to blame for that,” confessed Mr Chatton in a troubled voice. “You remember, I told you----”

“No, no,” protested Mr Carlyle encouragingly. “How could it be your fault?”

“Well, it’s very good of you to reassure me,” continued the young man, relieved but not convinced. “But I really think I may have introduced a confusing element. I should like Mr Carrados to judge.... When I learned from Sir Roland that he intended sending this _Virginiola_ to Gurnard’s, knowing that it was a valuable book, I saw the necessity of going over it carefully with another copy--‘collating’ it is called--to find out whether anything was missing. The British Museum doesn’t possess an example, and in any case I could not well spare a day just then to come to London for the purpose. So I wrote to a few dealers, rather, I am afraid, giving them the impression that we wished to buy a copy. In this way I got what I wanted sent up on approval and I was able to go through the two thoroughly. At the moment I argued that my duty to my employer justified the subterfuge, but I don’t know, I don’t know; I really question whether it was quite legitimate.”

“Oh, nonsense,” remonstrated Mr Carlyle, to whom the subtleties did not appeal. “Rather a smart way of getting what you wanted in the circumstances, don’t you think, Max?”

Carrados paid a willing if equivocal tribute to the wider problem of Mr Chatton’s brooding conscientiousness.

“Very ingenious altogether,” he admitted.

* * * * *

Mr Carlyle did not pull his man up in a few weeks; in fact he never reached him at all. For the key to the disappearance of the _Virginiola_ he had to wait two years. He was at The Turrets one day when his host was called away for a short time to see a man who had come on business.

Carlyle had picked up a newspaper, when Carrados came back from the door and opening one of the inner drawers of his desk threw out a long envelope.

“There,” he remarked as he went on again, “is something that may interest you more.”

He was quite right. The inquiry agent cut open the envelope that was addressed to himself and read the following narrative:--

In the year 1609 a seafaring gentleman called Somers--Sir George Somers--was wrecked on an island in the Atlantic. This island--one of a group--although destitute of human inhabitants, was overrun by pigs. During the first part of their enforced residence there the shipwrecked mariners were much concerned by unearthly shrieks and wailings that filled the night. With the simple piety of the time these were attributed to the activity of witches, imps and demons. In fact, in addition to the varied appellations of Virginiola, Bermoothes, Somers Islands, etc., the place was enticingly called “The Ile of Divels.”

In due course the castaways were rescued and returned to England. In due course, also, there appeared a variety of printed accounts of their adventures. (We are prone to think that the tendency is modern, Louis, but it is not.) One of these coming into the hands of a cynical, middle-aged playwright on the look-out for a new plot to annex, was at once pressed into his scheme. Doubtless he saw behind the shadowy “divels” the substantial outlines of the noisy “hogges.” However, the idea was good enough for a background. He wrote his play and called it _The Tempest_.

This is the explanation offered to me of the high and increasing value of rare early works on Bermuda. They can be classed among the Shakespeariana. There is also another reason: they can be classed among the Americana.

About three hundred years later a certain young gentleman who combined fairly expensive tastes with good commercial ability succeeded to a title and its appendages. Among the latter were a mansion in Rutlandshire, which he determined was too expensive, a library in which he was not vastly interested, and a private secretary whose services he continued to retain.

One day about six months after his succession Sir Roland Chargrave called in his secretary to receive instructions.

“Look here, Chatton,” he said, “I have decided to let this place furnished for a time. See Turvey about the value and then advertise it for something more than he advises. It ought to bring in a decent rental. Then there are some valuable things here that are no earthly good to me. I’ll start with the library.”

“You intend to dispose of the library, Sir Roland?” faltered the secretary.

“No. The library gives a certain distinction to a fellow and the Chargraves have always had one. I’ll keep the library, but I’ll weed out all the old stuff that will make high prices. Uncle Vernon left a valuation list which appears to have been made out about ten years ago. One book alone--_An Account of Virginiola_--he puts down at £300. Then there are a dozen others that ought to bring another £200 among them. I require £500 just now. Here is a list of the books I have picked out. Send them off to Gurnard’s to be sold as soon as possible. Don’t have my name catalogued. I don’t want it to be known that I’m selling anything. That’s all.”

The secretary withdrew with an accentuation of his unhappy manner. It was very distressing to him, this dispersal of the family heirlooms. It was also extremely inconvenient personally, because he had already sold the _Virginiola_ himself only a week before. For he also had expenses. Perhaps he had fallen into the hands of the Jews; perhaps it was the Jewesses. At all events, like Sir Roland, he required money, and again like Sir Roland, the _Virginiola_ had seemed the most suitable method. He had quietly withdrawn the book about the time of his former master’s death, and thus saved the new baronet quite an item in duty. He had secured Sir Vernon’s valuation list and after six months had concluded that he was safe. He had taken extraordinary pains to cover his identity in selling the book and the old dotard appeared to have made two lists and to have deposited one elsewhere!

Like a wise man Mr Chatton set about discovering how he could retrieve himself. He had had charge of the library and he knew that it was too late to report the book as lost. In any case he would be dismissed; if inquiry was made at that stage he would be prosecuted. From the depths of his brooding melancholy Mr Chatton evolved a scheme.

The first thing was to get back the _Virginiola_ a little before the sale. By that time he had sent in the list, but not the books. Doubtless he still had some of the illicit funds in hand. Now the _Virginiola_ had been valued at £300 by old Sir Vernon, but if at the sale it was discovered to be imperfect in an important detail then it might realise only a fraction of that sum. There was also another consideration. A name had been indelibly written on one of the early pages, and if Mr Powis was not to recognise his property that page must be temporarily removed.

I think it was Chatton’s undoubted intention to buy back the book if possible and run no further risk with it. What he had not taken into account was the enormous rise in the value of this class of work. What had been reasonably worth £300 ten years before, the market now apprised at nearly double. Even the imperfect copy reached nearly the original estimate and thereby Chatton’s first string failed.

But this painstakingly conscientious young man had not been content to risk all on a single chance. What form his second venture took it will be unnecessary to recall to you. He calculated on the chances of the saleroom, and he succeeded. The _Virginiola_ was recovered; the abstracted sheet was cunningly replaced, probably certain erasable marks that had been put in for fuller disguise were removed, and Mr Powis received back his property with formal regrets.

I anticipate an indignant question rising to your lips. I did not tell you this before, Louis, because of one curious fact. The story is entirely speculative on my part so far as demonstrable proof is concerned. Chatton, who is rather a remarkable young man, did not leave behind him one solitary shred of evidence that would stand before a jury. Time and Mr Chatton’s future career can alone bring my justification, but some day if we have the opportunity (I am committing this to paper in case we should not) we will go over the evidence together. In the meanwhile Gurnard’s can, as you said, stand the loss.

Here the typewritten account ended, but at the foot of the last page Carrados had pasted a newspaper cutting. From it Mr Carlyle learned that “Vernon Howard, alias Digby Skeffington, etc., etc., whose real name was said to be Chatton, well connected,” had, the week before, been convicted, chiefly on the King’s evidence of a female accomplice, of obtaining valuable jewellery under false pretences. Sentence had been deferred, pending further inquiries.

II

The Disappearance of Marie Severe

“I wonder if you might happen to be interested in this case of Marie Severe, Mr Carrados?”

If Carrados’s eyes had been in the habit of expressing emotion they would doubtless have twinkled as Inspector Beedel thus casually introduced the subject of the Swanstead on Thames schoolgirl whose inexplicable disappearance two weeks earlier had filled column upon column of every newspaper with excited speculation until the sheer impossibility of keeping the sensation going without a shred of actual fact had relegated Marie Severe to the obscurity of an occasional paragraph.

“If you are concerned with it, I am sure that I shall be interested, Inspector,” said the blind man encouragingly. “It is still being followed, then?”

“Why, yes, sir, I have it in hand, but as for following it--well, ‘following’ is perhaps scarcely the word now.”

“Ah,” commented Carrados. “There was very little to follow, I remember.”

“I don’t think that I’ve ever known a case of the kind with less, sir. For all the trace she left, the girl might have melted out of existence, and from that day to this, with the exception of that printed communication received by the mother--you remember that, Mr Carrados?--there hasn’t been a clue worth wasting so much as shoe leather on.”

“You have had plenty of hints all the same, I suppose?”

Inspector Beedel threw out a gesture of mild despair. It conveyed the patient exasperation of the conscientious and long-suffering man.

“I should say that the case ‘took on’ remarkably, Mr Carrados. I doubt if there has been a more popular sensation of its kind for years. Mind you, I’m all in favour of publicity in the circumstances; the photographs and description _may_ bring important facts to light, but sometimes it’s a bit trying for those who have to do the work at our end. ‘Seen in Northampton,’ ‘seen in Ealing,’ ‘heard of in West Croydon,’ ‘girl answering to the description observed in the waiting-room at Charing Cross,’ ‘suspicious-looking man with likely girl noticed about the Victoria Dock, Hull,’ ‘seen and spoken to near Chorley, Lancs,’ ‘caught sight of apparently struggling in a luxurious motor car on the Portsmouth Road,’ ‘believed to have visited a Watford picture palace’--they’ve all been gone into as carefully as though we believed that each one was the real thing at last.”

“And you haven’t, eh?”

The Inspector looked round. He knew well enough that they were alone in the study at The Turrets, but the action had become something of a mannerism with him.

“I don’t mind admitting to _you_, sir, that I’ve never had any other opinion than that the father of the little girl went down that day and got her away. Where she is now, and whether dead or alive, I can’t pretend to say, but that he’s at the bottom of it I’m firmly convinced. And what’s more,” he added with slow significance, “I _hope_ so.”

“Why in particular?” inquired the other.

Beedel felt in his breast-pocket, took out a formidable wallet, and from among its multitudinous contents selected a cabinet photograph sheathed in its protecting envelope of glazed transparent paper.

“If you could make out anything of what this portrait shows, you’d understand better what I mean, Mr Carrados,” he replied delicately.

Carrados shook his head but nevertheless held out his hand for the photograph.

“No good, I’m afraid,” he confessed before he took it. “A print of this sort is one of the few things that afford no graduation to the sense of touch. No, no”--as he passed his finger-tips over the paper--“a gelatino-chloride surface of mathematical uniformity, Inspector, and nothing more. Now had it been the negative----”

“I am sure that that could be procured if you wished to have it, Mr Carrados. Anyway, I dare say that you’ve seen in some of the papers what this young girl is like. She is ten years old and big--or at least tall--for her age. This picture is the last taken--some time this year--and I am told that it is just like her.”

“How should you describe it, Inspector?”

“I am not much good at that sort of thing,” said the large man with a shy awkwardness, “but it makes as sweet a picture as ever I’ve seen. She is very straight-set, and yet with a sort of gracefulness such as a young wild animal might have. It’s a full-faced position, and she is looking straight out at you with an expression that is partly serious and partly amused, and as noble and gracious with it all as a young princess might be. I have children of my own, Mr Carrados, and of course I think they’re very nice and pretty, but this--this is quite a different thing. Her hair is curly without being in separate curls, and the description calls it black. Eyes dark brown with straight eyebrows, complexion a sort of glowing brown, small regular teeth. Of course we have a full description of what she was wearing and so forth.”

“Yes, yes,” assented Carrados idly. “The Van Brown Studio, Photographers, eh? These people are quite well off, then?”