Guy Markenmore

“ Guy Markenmore, he say it—‘I shall be coming along here about four o’clock in the morning to catch the four something from Mitbourne for Farsham,’ he say, and then he laughs. ‘You’ll be safe and snoring in your bed,’ he say, ‘at that time, no doubt.’ ‘Don’t you be too sure!’ say the little fellow. ‘I’m as early a bird as there is when I’m in the country!’ Then they go on, Markenmore way, and I see ’em disappears round the corner of a spinney that stands about there. And then—”
“A moment, Roper,” interrupted Blick. “The second man—the littlish chap you describe. Did he talk like a countryman? ”

“ Don’t ’ee forget as how I’d been keeping my feelings warm for Guy Markenmore for seven years! A man what’s been wronged as I had, he don’t forget easy. And when I gets to my cottage, all alone, that night, after I come in from Mitbourne, I sat a-thinking. And I did remember—’cause I hadn’t forgotten!—what Guy say to that chap he was with, about being on that footpath to Mitbourne at four o’clock next morning. So I gets up at three o’clock and sets off to meet him, intending, if I did find him up there, to have it out wi’ he—once for all!”
“Did you find him?” asked Blick quietly. ”

“ Grimsdale was looking from the stranger to Blick, and Blick hastened to speak. "Are you the man with whom Guy Markenmore had supper at the Sceptre last Monday midnight?" he asked abruptly. "The man who booked a room there and never occupied it?"
"I am that man," replied the stranger, with a ready nod and smile. "No other!"
"Do you mind telling me who you are?" asked Blick. "And what you are?"
"I do not! My name is Edward Lansbury, and I'm a financier, with businesses in New York and in London. Who are you and what's your business?" ”

“ Braxfield, who had been butler to Sir Anthony Markenmore, Baronet, of Markenmore Court, for thirty years, was a man of method. All his life he had cultivated the habit of doing certain things at certain times: the older he grew (and he was now a little over sixty) the more this habit grew upon him. Virtually, he was master of the house; Sir Anthony was an invalid who kept his room; Mr. Guy Markenmore, the elder son, had never crossed his father’s threshold for some years; Mr. Harry Markenmore, the younger son, preferred anybody but himself to exercise merely domestic authority ”

“ He was a man whom Guy Markenmore had taken into his confidence about this dye affair. He had come down with him, fully acquainted with what Guy was doing. He knew that the money business was likely to be settled that night. And he waited until morning so that he could possess himself of the cash as well as the formula you have told us of—with your opinion attached to it. Probably he is the man of whom Markenmore’s clerk at Folgrave Court told you, and we’ll have to try and find him. ”

“ Guy Markenmore's property and money were left untouched. No—I mean that money is at the bottom of the mystery of his murder—that he was murdered by some evil person who will benefit by his death—in a pecuniary sense, Mr. Blick, a pecuniary sense. I may be wrong," concluded Mr. Crawley; "I may be wholly and entirely wrong—but, on the evidence, sir, such is my opinion. And I have served on a jury—more than once."
"I shouldn't wonder if there's a good deal in what you say," admitted Blick. "There's generally some question of money at the bottom of all these things. ”

“ I'm quite certain—in my own mind—that John Harborough is as innocent as I am, and I'm not much less certain that the two men who were with Guy at the Sceptre are also innocent. The probability is that those men will be heard of—they'll come forward. You'll find that the meeting at the Sceptre—an odd one, if you like!—was nothing but a business meeting. No—we've got nowhere yet! As I say, if Blick there wants to do some ferret-work, he's got to go back and start in London. How do we know what Guy Markenmore's affairs were? ”

“ It is, I believe, within my recollection that, when you were giving evidence before myself and my fellow-jurymen the other morning, you said, clearly, plainly distinctly, without any apparent mental reserve that your one-time feeling of anger and resentment against the late Guy Markenmore had completely died out years ago, and that, had you met him again, you would have offered him your hand. ”

“ Braxfield. "Sit down again—as you're concerned in Guy Markenmore's affairs, you're concerned in his brother's, my son-in-law. I said I didn't mind your knowing the facts of this marriage—I don't mind anybody knowing; it's not my fault that it hasn't been open. It was like this, Mr. Fransemmery. You know that my daughter is a very pretty, very graceful, highly accomplished girl. She gets her good looks from my family—all our women have been distinguished for their good looks, though I say it myself." ”

“ The Coroner drew back in his chair: clearly, he had got at what he particularly wanted to know: the glance that he gave the jurymen was obviously intended to remind them that they now knew that from half-past ten to a quarter to twelve o'clock of the night before his death Guy Markenmore had been with Mrs. Tretheroe, alone in her boudoir, unknown to any one. Prom the jury he turned to the men of law, sitting at the table beneath his raised desk.
The barrister who had been instructed by the police authorities slowly rose to his feet, and turned himself to the witness. ”

“ I don’t believe Guy Markenmore ever married that girl—not I! He may have taken her away with him, and they may have lived together in London, and there may be a child—but all that doesn’t prove any marriage, Mr. Fransemmery!”
“What about the inscription on the tombstone, Mrs. Braxfield?” suggested Mr. Fransemmery. “My informant saw it!—and I take Margaret Hilson to be a truthful woman.”
“I’m not saying anything against Margaret Hilson,” retorted Mrs. Braxfield. “A decent enough woman! And I don’t deny that she may have seen such an inscription. But that proves nothing. ”

“ There's a Sir Guy Markenmore in Markenmore Court tonight!—and he's six years old!"
"Then Guy Markenmore did marry Myra Halliwell?" said Mr. Fransemmery.
"He did!—when they both left here," answered Chilford. "And they lived very quietly, Clapham or Tooting or Wandsworth way, at first. Later, she lived there alone—he was a good deal away from her, and had a West End flat. She died—but there's the boy. Quillamane knows the whole thing—has all the papers, marriage certificates, birth certificates, everything: he has been in Guy's confidence all along. ”

“ All I can tell you is as to what took place at the Sceptre Inn.”
“And why you, Markenmore, and von Eckhardstein met there,” said Blick quietly.
“Sure! Well, as to why we met there,” continued Lansbury. “As I told you at the railway station just now, I am a financier. I have business interests in this country as well as in my own. I have an office in London, just as I have an office in New York. Naturally I know a great many financial operators in both countries. I knew Guy Markenmore well enough—a smart man who had done well. I know von Eckhardstein, not so well, but sufficiently. ”

“ One man either turned back to the village (unlikely, thought Blick) or took the right-hand footpath to Selcaster (very probable, Blick considered) ; the other two men, of whom Guy Markenmore was certainly one, took the left-hand path, and climbed the hill-side to Markenmore Hollow. There Guy Markenmore was suddenly murdered, and whichever man it was who was with him, whether the presumed American who had come to the Sceptre at nine o’clock on Monday night, or the man who had been given admittance at two o’clock on Tuesday morning, was the murderer. ”

“ Fransemmery. “I hope I am a common-sense person.”
“Well, you know what I mean,” observed Harborough. “You’re not likely to let local prejudices and gossip affect you. Now, I want to ask your advice—as I said just now. Tomorrow, Sir Anthony and his elder son are to be buried in Markenmore churchyard. I, of course, have known the Markenmore family ever since I knew anything. Guy Markenmore and I were close friends as boys and young men, until the estrangement happened, of which you heard the other day. ”

“ Mrs. Tretheroe had not been content with her denunciation of John Harborough before the brother and sister and the men assembled in the morning-room. She had denounced him again—to the Vicar; to the village folk; to other people; it was already well and widely known that she firmly believed that Harborough had killed Guy Markenmore. ”

“ Braxfield, who, from his retired position in the background was watching Guy Markenmore with inquisitive eyes, saw him start a little at Valencia's direct intimation. The start was followed by a laugh which was not exactly spontaneous.
"Well?" said Guy. "What about the ring? It's—simply a ring."
"Just so—a ring," remarked Valencia. "But—a peculiar one. And I know somebody who has one that's a precise duplicate of it."
"Who?" asked Guy.
"Mrs. Tretheroe," replied Valencia. "She always wears it. I thought it was some ring she'd picked up in India. But—yours is just the same. ”

“ Blick saw nothing of these obsequies. He was not concerned with the dead. His one object was to lay hands on a living person—the murderer of Guy Markenmore. That person was somewhere; possibly far off by that time; possibly closer at hand than he knew. It was a difficult chase, and the quarry was clear out of sight and the scent poor, but Blick was casting round, and by perseverance, aided by luck, he hoped to get on the trail. And certainly he had got something to go on in the strange revelation of yesterday, and in the fortunate discovery of the automatic pistol. ”

“ It runs as follows:
"'Guy Markenmore,
The next time I meet you, wherever it is, and whenever it is, whether tomorrow, or a year hence, or five years hence, or ten years hence, I shall shoot you dead like the dog you are.
John Harborough.'"
The Coroner laid the letter on his desk, took off his spectacles, leaned back in his chair, and looked round him with the air of a man whom something has suddenly wearied. ”

“ I’m certain Jim Roper didn’t kill Guy Markenmore, because if he had he’s just the man to have let it be known that he’d had his revenge! He wouldn’t have cared twopence if they’d hanged him next day!”
Blick exchanged another word or two with Daffy as to Roper’s exact location, and he and his companion went off. The Professor marched along in silence for awhile.
“That woman possesses a power of keen insight into character,” he remarked at last. “She’d make a useful member of your force, Blick! I’m sure she’s quite right in what she said just now. ”

“ The Coroner took this witness in hand, eliciting from him a few formal facts. Charles Grimsdale, formerly groom in the service of Sir James Marchant; now landlord and licensee of the Sceptre Inn, Markenmore. Had lived in the neighbourhood of Markenmore all his life—born in the village. Knew every member of Sir Anthony Markenmore’s family. Knew the late Mr. Guy Markenmore particularly well from the time he was a mere child until he left home seven years ago. ”

“ Braxfield looked at him doubtfully.
"Gone to their rooms, Mr. Guy," he answered. "Or—they may be in your father's. Sir Anthony's about—at his end, sir."
Again Guy Markenmore looked along the passage. While he looked, Braxfield looked at him. He had altered little, thought Braxfield. He had always been noted since boyhood, for his good looks: he was still good-looking at thirty-five; tall, slim, dark, intense of gaze; the sort of man to attract and interest women. But he looked like a man who had lived hard ”

“ Only, if you begin questioning him, for God's sake don't let him know I told you!"
"I can get over that, easily, if you'll just tell me this," said Blick reassuringly. "Did Roper make threats against Guy Markenmore in anybody's presence beside your own?—in the old days, I mean?"
"Oh, he certainly did in the old days!—before I went to India," asserted Daffy. "I've heard of him saying dreadful things at the Sceptre. I should think there's many a man in the village who's heard him." ”

“ Braxfield," said Mr. Fransemmery quietly. "Allow me—now, Margaret Hilson, who, in my opinion, is just the woman to keep close thoughts—promised young Mrs. Guy that she would keep the secret, and she did. But, a year ago, Margaret Hilson went to visit her sister again—at the same place. Again, she took her walks on Wandsworth Common. And, one morning, she met, not Mrs. Guy Markenmore, but the same nurse, with the same child, then grown into a sturdy boy of five. She spoke to the nurse, who told her that the mother was dead—had died a year previously, of pneumonia ”

“ They were now walking up the drive to the front of the house; as they came within a hundred yards of the terrace they saw a tall man emerge from the shrubberies, approach the front door and enter.
“I shouldn’t wonder if that’s Mr. John Harborough, of Greycloister, the big house on the other side of the village,” said Mr. Fransemmery. “I heard from my housekeeper last night that he’s come home at last. Like Guy Markenmore, he’s been away a long time—the same time, indeed. Seven years—hunting, shooting big game, in all parts of the world. ”

“ Guy Markenmore's acquaintances on the Stock Exchange, and in financial circles, sir," replied the barrister. "There seems no doubt that the deceased was in exceedingly prosperous circumstances—a very well-to-do man. All this can be put in evidence later; it seems probable, sir, that you will not be able to conclude this enquiry today, and——"
"Just so—just so," said the Coroner. "Let me hear the rest of the detective's evidence."
Blick resumed his catalogue as if there had been no interruption. ”