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Updated: June 21, 2025
And last, but certainly not least Lord Ellersdeane must offer a substantial reward for the recovery of, or news of, his missing property. Let the Chestermarkes adopt their own method if they had any of finding the alleged absconding manager; he, Starmidge, preferred to solve these mysteries by ways of his own.
And Creasy presently went on, speaking in a low voice: "If he met with foul play if, for instance, he was thrown over here in a struggle or if, taking a look from the top there, he got too near the edge and something gave way," he said, "there's about as good means of getting rid of a dead man in this Ellersdeane Hollow as in any place in England! That's a fact!"
The Ellersdeane constable who had followed Polke suddenly raised a finger and pointed across the heather. "Here's a gentleman coming as might know, Mr. Polke," he said. "Mr. Chestermarke!" Neale and Starmidge turned sharply to see the banker advancing quickly from the adjacent road. A cab, drawn up a little distance off, showed that he had driven out to hear the latest news.
But before he reached the bank he ran across Lord Ellersdeane, who, hanging about the town to hear some result of the search, had been lunching at the Scarnham Club, and now came out of its door. "Any news so far?" asked the Earl. Polke glanced round to see that nobody was within hearing. He and Lord Ellersdeane stepped within the doorway of the club-house.
Save where the streets, and the road leading out to the open country and Ellersdeane cut into it, it was completely enclosed by old houses of the sort which Starmidge had already admired in the Market-Place: many of them half-timbered, all of them very ancient. One or two of them were inns; some were evidently workmen's cottages; others were better-class dwelling-houses.
As Lord Ellersdeane there knows being, as his lordship is, a member of our society the bank-house is so old that underneath it there may be such matters as old wells, old drains. Now, supposing Horbury had discovered some way under the present house, some secret passage or something, and that he went down into it on Sunday eh?
A sudden turn in the path brought them to the edge of the wood, and they emerged on a broad plateau of rough grass, from beneath which a wide expanse of landscape stretched away, bathed just then in floods of moonlight. Neale paused and waved his stick towards the shadowy distances and over the low levels which lay between. "Ellersdeane Hollow!" he said. Betty paused too, looking silently around.
"Of course, you know it's been put in our hands." "Not by us!" snapped Gabriel. "Quite so, sir, by Lord Ellersdeane, and by Mr. Horbury's niece, Miss Fosdyke," assented Polke. "The young lady, of course, is naturally anxious about her uncle's safety, and Lord Ellersdeane is anxious about the Countess's jewels. And we hear that securities of yours are missing."
"I'm thinking this," continued the tinker: "Supposing a man was following this track from Ellersdeane to Scarnham, or t'other way about, as it might be supposing he was curious to look down one of these old shafts supposing he looked down this one, which stands, as you see, not two yards off the very track he was following supposing he leaned his weight on this rotten bit of fencing supposing it gave way?
He may have fallen into one of these places and be lying there dead or helpless. It's possible, Mr. Polke, it's quite possible. I make the suggestion to you for what it's worth, you know." The old man bowed himself out and went away, and Polke turned to Lord Ellersdeane and Betty. "I'm glad your lordship's come in," he said. "Quite apart from what Mr.
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