Colonel Thorndyke's Secret by G. A. Henty (acx book reading TXT) 📖

shot you; I owed you one for having killed as good a comrade as man ever had, and for that bullet you put in my shoulder before. If I had not been so out of breath that I could not feel sure of my aim I should have stopped for you, but I rode straight to town.”

“A likely story,” Mark said shortly. “What, you will pretend that there were two murderers hanging round the house that night?—a likely tale indeed.”

“I tell you that if your father was killed by a knife or dagger, I had nothing to do with it,” the man said. “I am obliged to the man, whoever he was. I had intended to go down again to Reigate to finish the job myself; I should scarcely have missed a second time. So it is for that you hunted me down? Well, I don't blame you; I never forgive an injury, and I see your sentiments are mine. Whether I killed your father or not makes no difference; he was killed, that is the principal point; if I was going to be put on my trial for that I could prove that at eight o'clock I was in a coffee house in Covent Garden. I purposely kicked up a row there, and was turned out, so that if I were charged with that shooting affair I could prove that I was in London that evening.”

“I can't quite believe that,” Mark said; “a fast horse would have brought you up to town in an hour and a half, and another fast horse would have taken you back again as quickly; so you might have been in London at eight and back again at Crowswood by half past twelve or one, even if you stopped a couple of hours at a coffee house. However, you won't be tried for that. Those things on the table and the contents of that corn bin are enough to hang you a dozen times.”

“Curse you! have you found that out?” Bastow exclaimed furiously.

“We have,” Mark replied. “It would have been wiser if you had got rid of your things sooner. It was a clever hiding place, but it is always dangerous to keep such things by you, Bastow.”

The man said no more, but sat quietly in his chair until they heard the vehicle stop outside the gate. Then the two constables came in, and lifting Bastow, carried him out and placed him in the bottom of the cart.

“You can loose the old woman now, Malcolm,” Mark said as he took his seat and gathered the reins in his hand. “By eleven o'clock, no doubt, one of the others will be down with the gig again, and you can empty out the contents of that hole, and bring them up with you. I don't think that it will be of any use searching further. You might have a good look all round before you come away. There may be some notes stowed away, though it is likely enough that they have been sent away by post to some receiver abroad.”

For some time after starting they could hear the prisoner moving about uneasily in the straw.

“I suppose there is no fear of his slipping out of those handcuffs, Chester?”

“Not a bit; they are full tight for him. I expect that that is what is making him uncomfortable.”

Presently the movement ceased.

“He is still enough now, Mr. Thorndyke. I should not be at all surprised if he has dropped off to sleep. He is hardened enough to sleep while the gibbet was waiting for him.”

It was four o'clock in the morning when they drove up at Bow Street. Two constables on duty came out to the cart.

“We have got a prisoner, Inspector,” Chester said. “He is the man we have been looking for so long. I fancy we have got all the swag that has been stolen for the last eighteen months—bags of jewels and watches, and sacks of silver. He is handcuffed, and his legs are tied, so we must carry him in.”

The officer fetched out a lantern. The other constable helped him to let down the backboard of the cart.

“Now, Bastow, wake up,” Chester said. “Here we are.”

But there was no movement!

“He is mighty sound asleep,” the constable said.

“Well, haul him out;” and, taking the man by the shoulders, they pulled him out from the cart.

“There is something rum about him,” the constable said; and as they lowered his feet to the pavement his head fell forward, and he would have sunk down if they had not supported him.

The Inspector raised the lantern to his face.

“Why, the man is dead,” he said.

“Dead!” Chester repeated incredulously.

“Aye, that he is. Look here;” and he pointed to a slim steel handle some three inches long, projecting over the region of the heart. “You must have searched him very carelessly, Chester. Well, bring him in now.”

They carried him into the room, where two candles were burning. Mark followed them. The inspector pulled out the dagger. It was but four inches long, with a very thin blade. The handle was little thicker than the blade itself. Mark took it and examined it.

“I have not a shadow of doubt that this is the dagger with which he murdered my father. The wound was very narrow, about this width, and the doctor said that the weapon that had been used was certainly a foreign dagger.”

“I don't think this is a foreign dagger,” the Inspector said on examining it, “although it may be the one that was used, as you say, Mr. Thorndyke. It has evidently been made to carry about without being observed.”

He threw back the dead man's coat.

“Ah, here is where it was kept. You see, the lining has been sewn to the cloth, so as to make a sheath down by the seam under the arm. I expect that, knowing what would happen if he were caught, he had made up his mind to do it all along. Well, I don't know that you are to be so much blamed, Chester, for, passing your hand over his clothes, you might very well miss this, which is no thicker than a piece of whalebone. Well, well, he has saved us a good deal of trouble. You say you have got most of the booty he has collected?”

“I don't know that we have got all of it, sir, but we have made a very big haul, anyhow; it was a cunningly contrived place. There was a big corn bin in the stable, and when we had emptied out the corn it seemed empty. However, Mr. Thorndyke discovered that the bin was fixed. Then we found that the bottom was really a trap door, and under it was a sort of well in which were sacks and bags. One of the sacks was full of unbroken silver, two others contained silver ingots, things that he had melted down, and there was a large bag full of watches and jewels. In his pocket we found a hundred pounds in bank notes, about fifty guineas, and a couple of gold watches.”

“That he