Henty George Alfred
Colonel Thorndyke's Secret
“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 must have got tonight from the Portsmouth coach; we heard half an hour ago that it had been stopped near Kingston, the coachman shot, and the passengers robbed. It will be good news to some of them that we have got hold of their valuables. Well, Mr. Thorndyke, I have to congratulate you most heartily on the skill with which you have ferreted out a man who had baffled us for so long, and had become a perfect terror to the south of London. No doubt we shall be able to trace a great portion of the property in that sack. The capture has been splendidly effected.”
“You will understand,” Mark said, “that I do not wish my name to appear in the matter at all. I have, as you know, been actuated by private reasons only in my search, and I see no occasion why my name should be mentioned; the evidence of Chester and Malcolm will be ample. From information received, they went down to this place, searched it in his absence, discovered the stolen goods, and captured them. Having handcuffed and bound him, one drove him up to town, the other remaining to guard the treasure. On his way he got at this hidden dagger and stabbed himself. My evidence would not strengthen the case at all.”
“No, I don’t see that it will be necessary to call you, Mr. Thorndyke. The discovery of this hidden booty and the proceeds of the coach robbery would be quite sufficient. Beyond the coroner’s inquest there will be no inquiry. Had it been otherwise it might probably have been necessary to call you at the trial. However, as it is, it will save a lot of trouble; now we shall only need to find the owners of these bank notes. I will send off a cart for the things as early as I can get one, and will send a couple of constables round to the houses where burglaries have been committed to request the owners to come over and see if they can identify any of their property; and those who do so can attend the inquest tomorrow, though I don’t suppose they will be called. The chief will be mightily pleased when he hears what has taken place, for he has been sadly worried by these constant complaints, and I fancy that the authorities have been rather down upon him on the subject. The announcement that the career of this famous robber has been brought to an end will cause quite a sensation, and people round the commons on the south side will sleep more quietly than they have done lately. I expect that if he had not put an end to himself we should have had to send him across to Newington today, for of course it is a Surrey business, though we have had the luck to take him. I suppose we shall not see much of you in the future, Mr. Thorndyke?”
“No indeed,” Mark said. “My business is done, and I shall send in my resignation this morning. I don’t regret the time that I have spent over it; I have learned a great deal, and have seen a lot of the shady side of life, and have picked up experience in a good many ways.”
Mark, after requesting the Inspector to find a man to go over to Streatham and bring back his horse, and writing an order to the ostler to deliver it, walked across to his lodgings. Upon the whole, he was not sorry that Bastow had taken the matter into his own hands; he had, certainly, while engaged in the search, looked forward to seeing him in the dock and witnessing his execution, but he now felt that enough had been done for vengeance, and that it was as well that the matter had ended as it had. He was wearied out with the excitement of the last forty-eight hours. It was one o’clock when he awoke, and after dressing and going into Covent Garden to lunch at one of the coffee houses, he made his way up to Islington.
“Taking a day’s holiday?” Millicent asked as he came in.
“Well, not exactly, Millicent; I have left school altogether.”
“Left school, Mark? Do you mean that you have decided that it is of no use going on any longer?”
“I have given it up because I have finished it. Arthur Bastow was captured last night, and committed suicide as he was being taken to the station.”
An exclamation of surprise broke from Mrs. Cunningham and Millicent.
“It seems horrid to be glad that anyone has taken his own life,” the latter said; “but I cannot help feeling so, for as long as he lived I should never have considered that you were safe, and besides, I suppose there is no doubt that if he had not killed himself he would have been hung.”
“There is not a shadow of doubt about that,” Mark replied. “We found the proceeds of a vast number of robberies at his place, and also in his pockets the money he had taken from the passengers of the Portsmouth coach an hour before we captured him. So that putting aside that Australian business altogether, his doom was sealed.”
“Now, please, tell us all about it,” Mrs. Cunningham said. “But first let us congratulate you most warmly not only on the success of your search, but that the work is at an end.”
“Yes, I am glad it is over. At first I was very much interested; in fact, I was intensely interested all along, and should have been for however long it had continued. But, at the same time, I could do nothing else, and one does not want to spend one’s whole life as a detective. At last it came about almost by chance, and the only thing I have to congratulate myself upon is that my idea of the sort of place he would have taken was exactly borne out by fact.”
And Mark then gave them a full account of the manner in which the discovery had been made and the capture effected.
“You see, Millicent, I followed your injunction, and was very careful. Taking him by surprise as I did, I might have managed it single handed, but with the aid of two good men it made a certainty of it, and the whole thing was comfortably arranged.”
“I think you have done splendidly, Mark,” Mrs. Cunningham said. “It was certainly wonderful that you should have found him doing exactly what you had guessed, even down to the deaf servant. Well, now that is done and over, what do you think of doing next?”
“I have hardly thought about that,” he replied; “but, at any rate, I shall take a few weeks’ holiday, and I suppose after that I shall settle down to the search for my uncle’s treasure. I am afraid that will be a much longer and a vastly more difficult business than this has been. Here there were all sorts of clews to work upon. Bastow ought to have been captured months ago, but in this other affair, so far, there is next to nothing to follow up. We don’t even know whether the things are in India or in England. I believe they will be found, but that it will be by an accident. Besides, I fancy that we shall hear about them when you come of age, Millicent. There was to have been no change till that time, and I cannot help thinking that Uncle George must have made some provisions by which we should get to know about them in the event of his death without his having an opportunity of telling anyone where they are.
“He might have been killed in battle; he might have been drowned on his way home. He had thought the whole matter over so thoroughly, I do think the possibilities of this could not have escaped him. As I told you, Mr. Prendergast made inquiries of all the principal bankers and Indian agents here, and altogether without success. After he had done that, I got a list of all the leading firms in Calcutta and Madras, and wrote to them, and all the replies were in the negative. It is true that does not prove anything absolutely. Eighteen years is a long time, and the chances are that during those years almost every head of a firm would have retired and come home. Such a matter would only be likely to be known to the heads; and if, as we thought likely, the box or chest was merely forwarded by a firm there to England, the transaction would not have attracted any special attention. If, upon the other hand, it remained out there it might have been put down in a cellar or store, and have been lying there ever since, altogether forgotten.”
“I don’t see myself why you should bother any more about it; perhaps, as you say, it will turn up of itself when I come of age. At any rate, I should say it is certainly as well to wait till then and see if it does, especially as you acknowledge that you have no clew whatever to work on. It is only three more years, for I am eighteen next week, and it certainly seems to me that it will be very foolish to spend the next three years in searching about for a thing that may come to you without any searching at all.”
“Well, I will think it over.”
“You see, you really don’t want the money, Mark,” she went on.
“No, I don’t want it particularly, Millicent; but when one knows that there is something like 50,000 pounds waiting for one somewhere, one would like to get it. Your father worked for twenty years of his life accumulating it for us, and it seems to me a sort of sacred duty to see that his labor has not all been thrown away.”
Millicent was silent.
“It is very tiresome,” she said presently. “Of course my father intended, as you say, that his savings should come to us, but I am sure he never meant that they should be a bother and a trouble to us.”
“I don’t see why they should ever be that, Millicent. As it is we have both sufficient for anything any man or woman could reasonably want, and neither of us need fret over it if the treasure is never found. Still, he wished us to have it, and it is properly ours, and I don’t want it to go to enrich someone who has not a shadow of a right to it.”
On the following morning Mark went to attend the inquest on Bastow. He did not go into the court, however, but remained close at hand in the event of the coroner insisting upon his being called. However, the two men only spoke casually in their evidence of their comrade Roberts, who had been also engaged in the capture. One of the jurymen suggested that he should also be called, but the coroner said:
“I really cannot see any occasion for it; we are here to consider how the deceased came by his death, and I think it must be perfectly clear that he came by it by his own act. You have heard how he was captured, that the spoils of the coach that he had just rifled were found upon him, and that the booty he had been acquiring from his deeds for months past also was seized; therefore, as the man was desperate, and knew well enough that his life was forfeited, there was ample motive for his putting an end to his wretched existence. I really do not think, gentlemen, that it is worth while to waste your time and mine by going into further evidence.”
Finally, a verdict of felo de se was returned, with a strong expression of the jury’s admiration of the conduct of constables Malcolm, Chester, and Roberts, who had so cleverly effected the capture of the man who had so long set the law at defiance.
CHAPTER XVII
Four days later Mark, on his return from dinner, found Philip Cotter sitting in his room waiting for him. They had met on the previous evening, and Cotter had expressed his intention of calling upon him the next day.
“I am here on a matter of business, Thorndyke,” the latter said as they shook hands.
“Of business!” Mark repeated.
“Yes. You might guess for a year, and I don’t suppose that you would hit it. It is rather a curious thing. Nearly twenty years ago—”
“I can guess it before you go any further,” Mark exclaimed, leaping up from the seat that he had just taken. “Your people received a box from India.”
“That is so Mark; although how you guessed it I don’t know.”
“We have been searching for it for years,” Mark replied. “Our lawyer, Prendergast, wrote to you about that box; at least, he wrote to you asking if you had any property belonging to Colonel Thorndyke, and your people wrote to say they hadn’t.”
“Yes, I remember I wrote to him myself. Of course that was before you did me that great service, and I did not know your name, and we had not the name on our books. What is in the box?”
“Jewels worth something like fifty thousand pounds.”
“By Jove, I congratulate you, old fellow; that is to say, if you have the handling of it. Well, this is what happened. The box was sent to us by a firm in Calcutta, together with bills for 50,000 pounds. The instructions were that the money was to be invested in stock, and that we were to manage it and to take 100 pounds a year for so doing. The rest of the interest of the money was to be invested. The box was a very massive one, and was marked with the letters XYZ. It was very carefully sealed. Our instructions were that the owner of the box and the money might present himself at any time.”
“And that the proof of his ownership was to be that he was to use the word ‘Masulipatam,’” Mark broke in, “and produce a gold coin that would, probably—though of this I am not certain—correspond with the seals.”
He got up and went to the cabinet which he had brought up with him from Crowswood, unlocked it, and produced the piece of paper and the coin.
“Yes, that looks like the seal, Thorndyke. At any rate, it is the same sort of thing. Why on earth didn’t you come with it before, and take the things away?”
“Simply because I did not know where to go to. My uncle was dying when he came home, and told my father about the treasure, but he died suddenly, and my father did not know whether it was sent to England or committed to someone’s charge in India, or buried there. We did the only thing we could, namely, inquired at all the banks and agents here and at all the principal firms in Madras and Calcutta to ask if they had in their possession any property belonging to the late Colonel Thorndyke.”
“You see, we did not know,” Cotter went on, “any more than Adam, to whom the box belonged. Fortunately, the agent sent in his communication a sealed letter, on the outside of which was written, ‘This is to remain unopened, but if no one before that date presents himself with the token and password, it is to be read on the 18th of August, 1789.’ That was yesterday, you know.”
“Yes, that was my cousin’s eighteenth birthday. We thought if my uncle had left the box in anyone’s charge he would probably have given him some such instructions, for at that time there was hard fighting in India, and he might have been killed any day, and would therefore naturally have made some provisions for preventing the secret dying with him.”
“We did not think of it until this morning early, though we have been rather curious over it ourselves. When we opened it, inside was another letter addressed ‘To be delivered to John Thorndyke, Esquire, at Crawley, near Hastings, or at Crowswood, Reigate, or in the event of his death to his executors.’”
“I am one of his executors,” Mark said; “Mr. Prendergast, the lawyer, is the other. I think I had better go round to him tomorrow and open the letter there.”
“Oh, I should think you might open it at once, Thorndyke. It will probably only contain instructions, and, at any rate, as you have the coin and the word, you could come round tomorrow morning and get the chest out if you want it.”
“I won’t do that,” Mark said; “the coffer contains gems worth over 50,000 pounds, and I would very much rather it remained in your keeping until I decide what to do with it. How large is it?”
“It is a square box, about a foot each way; and it is pretty heavy, probably from the setting of the jewels. Well, anyhow, I am heartily glad, Thorndyke. I know, of course, that you are well off, still 100,000 pounds—for the money has doubled itself since we had it—to say nothing of the jewels, is a nice plum to drop into anyone’s mouth.”
“Very nice indeed, although only half of it comes to me under my uncle’s will. To tell you the truth, I am more glad that the mystery has been solved than at getting the money; the affair was a great worry to my father, and has been so to me. I felt that I ought to search for the treasure, and yet the probability of finding it seemed so small that I felt the thing was hopeless, and that really the only chance was that my uncle would have taken just the course he did, and have fixed some date when the treasure should be handed over, if not asked for. I rather fancied that it would not have been for another three years, for that is when my cousin comes of age.”
“What cousin do you mean?” Philip Cotter asked. “I did not know you had one.”
“Well, that is at present a secret, Cotter—one of the mysteries connected with my uncle’s will. For myself, I would tell it in the market place tomorrow, but she wishes it to be preserved at present; you shall certainly know as soon as anyone. By the way, I have not seen you at Mrs. Cunningham’s for the last week, and you used to be a pretty regular visitor.”
“No,” the young man said gloomily; “I don’t mind telling you that Miss Conyers refused me a fortnight ago. I never thought that I had much chance, but I had just a shadow of hope, and that is at an end now.”
“Perhaps in the future—” Mark suggested for the sake of saying something.
“No; I said as much as that to her, and she replied that it would always be the same, and I gathered from her manner, although she did not exactly say so, that there was someone else in the case, and yet I have never met anyone often there.”
“Perhaps you are mistaken,” Mark said.
“Well, whether or not, there is clearly no hope for me. I am very sorry, but it is no use moping over it. My father and mother like her so much, and they are anxious for me to marry and settle down; altogether, it would have been just the thing. I do not know whether she has any money, and did not care, for of course I shall have plenty. I shall be a junior partner in another six months; my father told me so the other day. He said that at one time he was afraid that I should never come into the house, for that it would not have been fair to the others to take such a reckless fellow in, but that I seemed to have reformed so thoroughly since that affair that if I continued so for another six months they should have no hesitation in giving me a share.”
It was too late to go up to Islington that evening. In the morning Mark went with the still unopened letter to the solicitor’s. The old lawyer congratulated him most heartily when he told him of the discovery that he had made.
“I am glad indeed, Mark; not so much for the sake of the money, but because I was afraid that that confounded treasure was going to unsettle your life. When a man once begins treasure hunting it becomes a sort of craze, and he can no more give it up than an opium smoker can the use of the drug. Thank goodness, that is over; so the capital amount is doubled, and you are accordingly worth 70,000 pounds more than you were this time yesterday—a fine windfall! Now let us see what your uncle says.”
He broke the seal. The letter was a short one, and began:
“My DEAR JOHN:
“If you have not, before you receive this, got my treasure, you will get it on the 18th or 19th of August, 17??89. I have made a will which will give you full instructions what to do with it. I may say, though, that I have left it between a little daughter who was born six months ago, and your son Mark. My own intentions are to stop out here until I get the rank of general, and I have taken the measures that I have done in case a bullet or a sharp attack of fever carries me off suddenly. I hope that you will have carried out the provisions of my will, and I hope also that I shall have come home and talked the whole matter over with you before I go under.
“Your affectionate brother.”
“A singular man,” Mr. Prendergast said, as he laid the letter down on the table beside him. “What trouble these crotchety people do give! I suppose you have altogether put aside that folly of his about the jewels?”
“Well, no, I can’t say that I have, Mr. Prendergast. Do you know that I have a fancy—it may only be a fancy, but if so, I cannot shake it off—that I am watched by Lascars. There was one standing at the corner of the street as I came up this morning, and again and again I have run across one. It is not always the same man, nor have I any absolute reasons for believing that they are watching me; still, somehow or other, I do come across them more frequently than seems natural.”
“Pooh, nonsense, Mark! I should have thought that you were too sensible a fellow to have such ridiculous fancies in your head.”
“Of course, I should never have thought of such a thing, Mr. Prendergast, if it had not been for what my father told me, that my uncle was desperately in earnest about it, and had an intense conviction that someone watched his every movement.”
“Don’t let us talk of such folly any longer,” the lawyer said irritably. “Now that you have got the money, the best thing you can do is to go at once and carry out what was the wish both of your father and your uncle, and ask your cousin to marry you; that will put an end to the whole business, and I can tell you that I am positively convinced that the day she gets twenty-one she will renounce the property, and that if you refuse to take it she will pass it over to some hospital or other. You cannot do better than prevent her from carrying out such an act of folly as that, and the only way that I can see is by your marrying her. I gathered from what you said when I gave you the same advice at Reigate that you liked her and should have done it had it not been for her coming into the estate instead of you. Well, you are now in a position to ask her to marry you without the possibility of its being supposed that you are a fortune hunter.”
“I will think about it, Mr. Prendergast. Of course this money does make a considerable difference in my position; however, I shall do nothing until I have got the jewels off my hands.”
“Well, a couple of days will manage that,” the lawyer said; “you have only got to take the box to a first class jeweler, and get him to value the things and make you an offer for the whole of them.”
Mark did not care to press the subject, and on leaving went to Cotter’s Bank. He was at once shown into his friend’s room, and the latter took him to his father.
“It is curious, Mr. Thorndyke,” the latter said heartily, “that we should have been keeping your money all this time without having the slightest idea that it belonged to you. We are ready at once to pay it over to your order, for if you pronounce the word you know of, and I find that the coin you have corresponds with the seal on the box, the necessary proof will be given us that you have authority to take it away. I have had the box brought up this morning, so that we can compare the seal.”
The box was taken out of the strong safe, and it was at once seen that the coin corresponded with the seals.
“I will leave it with you for the present, Mr. Cotter; it contains a large amount of jewels, and until I have decided what to do with them I would rather leave them; it would be madness to have 50,000 pounds worth of gems in a London lodging, even for a single night. As to the money, that also had better remain as it is at present invested. As I told your son—that and the jewels are the joint property of myself and another. I dare say that in a few days half of the money will be transferred to the name of the other legatee; that can be easily done. I shall get my lawyer, Mr. Prendergast, to call upon you, Mr. Cotter. I suppose it would be better that some legal proof that we are entitled to the money should be given.”
“I shall be glad to see him and to take his instructions,” the banker said; “but in point of fact I regard the property as yours; I have nothing to do with wills or other arrangements. I simply received the box and the cash with an order that they should be delivered to whomsoever should come with the word ‘Masulipatam’ and a coin to match the seals. That you have done, and with subsequent dispositions I have no concern. I shall be happy to keep this box for you as long as you should think proper; and I have also written out an acknowledgement that I hold securities of the value, at the closing prices yesterday, of 103,000 pounds 16 shillings,” and he handed the paper to Mark.
As the latter left the bank he looked up and down the street, and muttered an angry exclamation as he caught sight of a rough looking fellow just turning a corner into a side street. The glance was so momentary a one that he could not say whether the man was a colored seaman; but he certainly thought that he was a Lascar.
“I am going to have trouble about that bracelet,” he said to himself, as he hailed a hackney coach and told him to drive to Islington. “I am convinced that the Colonel was right, and that there are some men over in this country with the fixed purpose of seeing what is done with those jewels, and obtaining them if possible. How they could tell that they were deposited at Cotter’s beats me altogether. It may be indeed that they really knew nothing about it, and have simply been watching me. They can hardly have been watching me for the last nine months, and yet, curiously enough, though I have never given the matter a thought since, Charley Gibbons said that it was a dark colored man who brought the news that took them to my rescue and saved my life. I have often run against Lascars, and if they have taken this trouble all along, now that they have seen me come out of the bank, I shall be watched night and day.
“It is a creepy sort of idea. I should not be afraid of any number of them if they attacked me openly; but there is no saying what they might do. I wish Ramoo had been here. I would have consulted him about it; but as I got a letter from him only last week saying that he had, on the day of writing it, arrived in Calcutta, it is of no use wishing that. At any rate, I cannot do better than stick to the plan that my uncle sketched out, and take them across to Amsterdam. It would be very unfair to take them to any jeweler here. He might have them in his possession for a week or ten days before he made me any definite offer for them, and during that time I would not give a fig for his life. If I distribute the stones at Amsterdam they would hardly set about attacking twelve diamond merchants one after another. Well, at any rate, I must say nothing about the affair to Millicent and Mrs. Cunningham. It was bad enough my running risks in the pursuit of Bastow; but this would be ten times worse, and I know Millicent would be for letting the things remain for good at the banker’s. But I have no idea of allowing myself to be frightened by two or three black scoundrels into throwing away 50,000 pounds.”
