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Between Scarnham Bridge, at the foot of Cornmarket and the corner of Joseph Chestermarke's big garden, and the end of Cordmaker's Alley, a narrow street which ran down from the further end of the Market-Place to the river-side, there were no features of any note or interest.
I came up here, maybe half an hour ago, to see if we were out of something that's kept here, and I chanced to look out on to Joseph Chestermarke's garden. Mr. Neale! there's a man in that room with the light-coloured blind I saw his shadow on the blind, pass and repass, you understand, twice, while I looked. And it's not Joseph Chestermarke!"
Never, in all his experience, had Neale seen any of Chestermarke's clerks lounging on the steps at nine o'clock in the morning, and he quickened his pace. Shirley, turning from a prolonged stare towards Finkleway, caught sight of him. "Can't get in," he observed laconically, in answer to Neale's inquiring look. "Mr. Horbury isn't there, and he's got the keys."
"Fosdyke's Entire represents a lot of pennies. We'll just have a word or two with her." Betty, looking out of her window on the Market-Place, had seen the two men leave Chestermarke's Bank, and was waiting eagerly for their coming. She listened intently to Polke's account of the interview with the partners, and her cheeks glowed indignantly as he brought it to an end. "Shameful!" she exclaimed.
"Worked it out," answered Neale. "This way! Hollis comes down to Scarnham to see Chestermarke's Bank which means one of the partners. He rings up the bank. He speaks to somebody there. How do we know that somebody was Horbury? We don't! It may have been Mrs. Carswell. Now supposing the real person Hollis wanted to see was either Gabriel or Joseph Chestermarke?
There's the problem. If one could only find out that!" "I wish you and I could do something apart from the police," suggested Betty. "Isn't there anything we could do?" Neale pointed ahead to the high roof of Joseph Chestermarke's house across the river. "There's one thing I'd like to do if I could," he answered. "I'd just like to know all the secrets of that place!
"There you are! you see what I mean?" Neale looked out. Joseph Chestermarke's big garden lay beneath him. As Walford had said, much of it was obscured by trees, but there was a good prospect of one side of the laboratory from where Neale was standing.
An intense desire to see the inside of Joseph Chestermarke's garden seized the detective. Near the door, partly overhanging the garden wall, partly overshadowing the path and the river-bank, was a tree: Starmidge, after listening carefully and deciding that no one was coming along the path, made shift to climb that tree, just then bursting into full leaf.
The clanging of his bell, and the strident notes of his cracked voice, sounded in the distance as Betty said good-night to Neale and turned sadly into the Scarnham Arms. Chestermarke's clerks found no difficulty in obtaining access to the bank when they presented themselves at its doors at nine o'clock next morning. Both partners were already there, and appeared to have been there for some time.
But within a few minutes they were in the Cornmarket, and Starmidge, seizing his companion's arm, dragged him round the corner of Joseph Chestermarke's house to the high garden wall which ran down the slope to the river bank. And as they turned the corner, he pointed. "As I thought!" he muttered. "It's Joseph Chestermarke's workshop! Something's happened. Look there!"
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