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Updated: June 19, 2025
"Then there is something you can say?" said Neale. "You were here on Saturday!" exclaimed Betty. "You know something!" "No, miss, I wasn't here Saturday," answered the tinker, "and I don't know anything about what yon man asked, anyway I told him the truth about all that. But you say Mr. Horbury's missing, and that he's considered to have come this way on Saturday night.
The geographical position of our town's a bit curious, so your lordship knows. Here we are on a ridge. Horbury's garden and orchard run down to the foot of that ridge. At that foot is the river. There's a foot-bridge over the river, immediately opposite his orchard gate. He could cross that foot-bridge, and be in the wood on the other side in two minutes from leaving his house.
Horbury's movements on Saturday afternoon and evening, Mrs. Carswell," he said. "This is a most extraordinary business altogether, and I want to account for it. You say he went out just about dusk." Mrs. Carswell repeated the story which she had told to Neale. The two partners listened; Gabriel keenly attentive; Joseph as if he were no more than mildly interested.
Horbury's pipe, and as this gentleman saw him smoking it at two o'clock on Saturday, and as Creasy picked it up underneath Ellersdeane Tower on Sunday evening," said Starmidge, "there seems no doubt that Mr. Horbury went that way, and dropped it where it was found. But I can't think he was carrying Lord Ellersdeane's jewels home!" "Why?" asked Neale. "Is it likely?" suggested Starmidge.
"Yes," assented Neale. "He married Mr. Horbury's sister. Miss Fosdyke is their only child. Mr. Fosdyke died a few years ago, and she came into the property last year when she was twenty-one." "Lucky young woman!" muttered the Earl. "Fine thing to own a big brewery. Um! A very modern and up-to-date young lady, too: I liked the way she stood up to your principals.
Neale never heard him mention Mr. Frederick Hollis by name at any time. And there's now staying in the town Mr. Horbury's niece, Miss Fosdyke; she, too, never heard her uncle speak of any Mr. Hollis. Then, as to business the partners at Chestermarke's Bank declare that they know nothing whatever of your brother Mr. Gabriel, the senior partner, has seen the poor gentleman, and didn't recognize him.
Now, as you are a relation, suppose you call on his housekeeper, who was the last person to see him, and get all the information you can out of her? Draw her on to talk you never know what interesting point you mayn't get in that way. And are you Mr. Horbury's nearest relation?" "Yes the very nearest next-of-kin," answered Betty.
"All right!" he muttered at length. "Bit knocked out, that's all! But Horbury! Horbury's somewhere! Get at him!" They got at the missing bank manager at last he, too, had been saved by the thick wall which stood between him and the explosion.
"There's no doubt he came down here to see one or other of them Horbury, most likely." "And who's to tell us anything?" asked Polke. "Miss Fosdyke's a relation of Horbury's," replied Starmidge. "She may know Hollis by name. Mr. Neale's always been in touch with Horbury he may have heard of Hollis. And so may the bankers." "The difficulty is to make them say anything," said Polke.
"I've lost stronger cases than this before a Norfolk jury. Norfolk men are clannish, and Horbury's evidence carried weight. He is a Norfolk man, though he has been in London. One never knows, of course. If the jury remain out over an hour I think we will pull it off." But the jury returned into court after an absence of forty minutes.
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