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Updated: July 26, 2025
At ten o'clock Superintendent Polke, bluff and cheery as usual, and Detective-Sergeant Starmidge, eyeing his new surroundings with appreciative curiosity, strolled round the corner from the police-station and approached the bank. Half a dozen loungers were gathered before the window, reading the poster; the two police officials joined them and also read in silence.
Then he came back alone. So she's got two hours' good start, sir if she really is off!" Polke took a step or two on the pavement outside the bank, meditating on this latest development of a matter that was hourly growing in mystery. Why had this woman suddenly disappeared? Had she merely gone to Ecclesborough for the day? or had she made it her first stage in a further journey?
"I never mentioned the matter to any one, and I don't think my wife would either. There was no need to mention it." "Well, I don't know," remarked Polke. "One's got to consider all sorts of little things in these affairs, or else I wouldn't ask another question. Does your lordship think it possible the Countess mentioned it to her maid?" The Earl started in his chair. "Ah!" he said. "That may be!
"That is, I don't believe that Horbury's appropriated anything. There's some mistake and some mystery." "We can't get away from the fact that Mr. Horbury has disappeared," remarked Neale, looking at the superintendent. "That's all I'm sent here to tell you, Mr. Polke." "That's an accepted fact," agreed Polke. "But he's not the first man who's disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
But it's in consequence of what I did hear, and of what Tolson, the town-crier, has been shouting down our way tonight, that I come up here to see you." "Much obliged to you, Mrs. Pratt," said Polke. "Very glad to hear anything that may have to do with Mr. Horbury's disappearance. Now, what did you hear?" "What I heard," replied the landlady, "was this here disjointed, as you would term it.
Just then the door opened and Gabriel emerged, closing and locking it after him. He paid no attention to the two men, and was passing on towards the outer hall when Polke hailed him. "Mr. Chestermarke," he said, "sorry to trouble you do you know that the housekeeper, Mrs. Carswell, has disappeared? You heard what that girl said this morning? Well, she hasn't come back, and "
"I have not only read about it in the newspapers," answered the visitor, "but I last night very late received a telegram from my brother's clerk Mr. Simmons who evidently found my address at my brother's rooms. So I left Birmingham where I now live at once, to see you. Now, have you heard anything of my brother?" Polke shook his head solemnly and warningly.
We have a very clever man at work just now he has been at work since he heard from us twenty-four hours ago. But our ideas are not those of Polke. Polke begins his inquiries here. Our inquiries based on our knowledge begin ... elsewhere." "You think Horbury will be heard of elsewhere?" suggested the Earl. "Much more likely to be heard of elsewhere than here, my lord!" asserted Gabriel.
Starmidge and Polke presently left to walk down to the railway station with the bewildered clerk; when they had gone, Betty turned to Neale, who was hanging about her sitting-room with no obvious intention of leaving it. "While these people are doing what they can in their way, is there nothing we can do in ours?" she asked. "I hate sitting here doing nothing at all!
Horbury had been in a hurry to deliver up these jewels, he'd have driven out to Lord Ellersdeane's place." "Good!" muttered Polke. "That's the more probable thing." "Where are the jewels, then?" asked Neale. Starmidge glanced at Polke with one expression, at Betty and Neale with another. "They haven't been searched for yet, have they?" he asked quietly. "They may be somewhere about, you know."
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