said Pottermack, taking a sip of beer. “He didn’t see me pick his pocket, he didn’t feel me pick his pocket. Now, how did he arrive at the conclusion that I did pick his pocket?”
The officer turned almost threateningly on the accuser.
“How did you?” he demanded.
“Well,” stammered the straw-hatted man, “there was a gang of pickpockets and he was among them.”
“But so were you,” retorted Pottermack. “How do I know that you didn’t pick my pocket? Somebody did.”
“Oh!” said the officer. “Had your pocket picked too? What did they take of yours?”
“Mighty little—just a few oddments of small change. I kept my coat buttoned.”
There was a slightly embarrassed silence, during which the officer, not for the first time, ran an appraising eye over the accused. His experience of pickpockets was extensive and peculiar, but it did not include any persons of Pottermack’s type. He turned and directed a dubious and enquiring look at the accuser.
“Well,” said the latter, “here he is. Aren’t you going to take him into custody?”
“Not unless you can give me something to go on,” replied the officer. “The station inspector wouldn’t accept a charge of this sort.”
“At any rate,” said the accuser, “I suppose you will take his name and address?”
The officer grinned sardonically at the artless suggestion but agreed that it might be as well, and produced a large, funereal notebook.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Marcus Pottermack,” the owner of that name replied, adding “my address is ‘The Chestnuts’ Borley, Buckinghamshire.”
The officer wrote down these particulars, and then closing the notebook, put it away with a very definite air of finality, remarking: “That’s about all that we can do at present.” But this did not at all meet the views of the straw-hatted man, who protested plaintively:
“And you mean to say that you are going to let him walk off with my gold watch and my note-case with five pounds in it? You are not even going to search him?”
“You can’t search people who haven’t been charged,” the officer growled; but here Pottermack interposed.
“There is no need,” he said suavely, “for you to be hampered by mere technical difficulties. I know it is quite irregular, but if it would give you any satisfaction just to run through my pockets, I haven’t the slightest objection.”
The officer was obviously relieved. “Of course, sir, if you volunteer that is a different matter, and it would clear things up.”
Accordingly, Pottermack rose and presented himself for the operation, while the straw-hatted man approached and watched with devouring eyes. The officer began with the wallet, noted the initials, M. P., on the cover, opened and considered the orderly arrangement of the stamps, cards and other contents; took out a visiting-card, read it and put it back, and finally laid the wallet on the table. Then he explored all the other pockets systematically and thoroughly, depositing the treasure trove from each on the table beside the wallet. When he had finished, he thanked Mr. Pottermack for his help, and turning to the accuser, demanded gruffly: “Well, are you satisfied now?”
“I should be better satisfied,” the other man answered, “if I had got back my watch and my note-case. But I suppose he passed them on to one of his confederates.”
Then the officer lost patience. “Look here,” said he, “you are behaving like a fool. You come to a race-meeting, like a blooming mug, with a gold watch sticking out, asking for trouble, and when you get what you asked for, you let the crooks hop off with the goods while you go dandering about after a perfectly respectable gentleman. You bring me trapesing out here on a wild goose chase, and when it turns out that there isn’t any wild goose, you make silly, insulting remarks. You ought to have more sense at your age. Now, I’ll just take your name and address and then you’d better clear off.”
Once more he produced the Black Maria notebook, and when he had entered the particulars he dismissed the straw-hatted man, who slunk off, dejected but still muttering.
Left alone with the late accused, the officer became genially and politely apologetic. But Pottermack would have none of his apologies. The affair had gone off to his complete satisfaction, and, in spite of some rather half-hearted protests, he insisted on celebrating the happy conclusion by the replenishment of the brown jug. Finally, the accused and the minion of the law emerged from the inn together and took their way back along the road to the station, beguiling the time by amicable converse on the subject of crooks and their ways and the peculiar mentality of the straw-hatted man.
It was a triumphant end to what had threatened to be a most disastrous incident. But yet, when he came to consider it at leisure, Pottermack was by no means satisfied. The expedition had been a failure, and he now wished, heartily, that he had left well alone and simply burnt the notes. His intention had been to distribute them in small parcels among various pickpockets, whereby they would have been thrown into circulation with the certainty that it would have been impossible to trace them. That scheme had failed utterly. There they were, fifteen stolen notes, in the poor-box of Illingham church. When the reverend incumbent found them, he would certainly be surprised, and, no doubt, gratified. Of course, he would pay them into his bank; and then the murder would be out. The munificent gift would resolve itself into the dump of a hunted and hard-pressed pickpocket; and Mr. Pottermack’s name and address was in the notebook of the plain-clothes constable.
Of course, there was no means of connecting him directly with the dump. But there was the unfortunate coincidence that both he and the stolen notes were connected with Borley, Buckinghamshire. That coincidence could hardly fail to be noticed; and, added to his known proximity to the church, it might create a very awkward situation. In short, Mr. Pottermack had brought his pigs to the wrong market. He had planned to remove the area of investigation from his own neighbourhood to one at a safe and comfortable distance; instead of which, he had laid down a clue leading straight to his own door.
It was a lamentable affair. As he sat in the homeward train with an unread evening paper on his knee, he found himself recalling the refrain of the old revivalist hymn and asking himself “Oh, what shall the harvest be?”
CHAPTER IX
PROVIDENCE INTERVENES
In his capacity of medico-legal adviser to the “Griffin” Life Assurance Company, Thorndyke saw a good deal of Mr. Stalker, who, in addition to his connection with Perkins’s Bank, held the post of Managing Director of the “Griffin.” For if the Bank had but rarely any occasion to seek Thorndyke’s advice, the Assurance Office was almost daily confronted with problems which called for expert guidance. It thus happened that, about three weeks after the date of the Illingham Races, Thorndyke looked in at Mr. Stalker’s office in response to a telephone message to discuss the discrepancies between a proposal form and the medical evidence given at an inquest on the late proposer. The matter of this discussion does not concern us and need not be detailed here. It occupied some considerable time, and when Thorndyke had stated his conclusions, he rose to take his departure. As he turned towards the door, Mr. Stalker held up a detaining hand.
“By the way, doctor,” said he, “I think you were rather interested in that curious case of disappearance
