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Updated: June 26, 2025
He lighted it carefully, and smoked for a minute or two in silence. Then he looked at Polke. "Well, there's a very obvious question to put to Mr. Simmons after all that," he remarked. "Have you any idea," he continued, turning to the clerk, "of any reason that would bring Mr. Hollis to Scarnham?" Simmons shook his head more vigorously than before. "Not the ghost of an idea!" he exclaimed.
"Miss Fosdyke's way, my lord so far as I could gather from ten minutes' talk with her is to tell people what to do," answered Polke drily. "She doesn't ask she commands! We're to find her uncle quick. At once. No pains to be spared. Money no object. A hundred pounds, spot cash, to the first man, woman, child, who brings her the least fragment of news of him. That's Miss Fosdyke's method.
"I thought you might possibly recollect him as somebody who'd called at the bank during your time." "No!" said Neale. "Certainly not! I've never set eyes on him until now. Of course, he's Hollis, I suppose?" "Oh, without doubt!" answered Polke, who caught Neale's question as he came up. "He's Hollis, right enough. Mr. Neale here's a difficulty.
"Does your lordship recognize that?" he asked. "My wife's jewel-casket, of course!" exclaimed the Earl. "Of course it is! Bless me! where did you find it?" "In the chimney, in Mrs. Carswell's bedroom," answered Starmidge, with a grimace at Polke. "It's empty!" The Earl took the empty casket from the detective's hand and looked at it, inside and outside, with doubt and wonder.
"Nothing of the sort, Mr. Chestermarke!" replied Polke, in a similar whisper, "I shall bring as many of my men here as I please. It's your own fault you should have been reasonable this morning. Now, sir, you'll open any door in this house that's locked." Joseph suddenly paused and handed over the keys he was dangling. "Open them yourself!" he said.
The landlady described her customer even more fully than before: Simmons had no doubt whatever that she described his employer: he wouldn't have been more certain, he said, that Mrs. Pratt was talking about Mr. Hollis, if she'd shown him a photograph of that gentleman. "So we can take that for settled," remarked Polke, as the three left the hotel and went back to the town.
"The man who came here last Saturday night was Mr. Frederick Hollis, solicitor, of South Square, Gray's Inn, London. That's established, I take it, Starmidge?" "Seems so," agreed the detective. "Then the next question is Where's he got to?" said Polke. "I think the next question is Has anybody ever heard of him in connection with Mr. Horbury, or the Chestermarkes?" observed Starmidge.
But on the threshold Neale was pulled up by the superintendent. "Mr. Neale!" said Polke. Neale turned to see his questioner looking at him with a rather quizzical expression. "What precise message had you for me?" asked Polke. "Just what I said," replied Neale. "I was merely to tell you that Mr. Horbury disappeared from his house on Saturday evening, and has not been seen since."
"I looked through all the letters on his desk and in his drawers yesterday afternoon. I didn't find anything that explained his absence. And when I was at his rooms this evening I looked at some letters on his mantelpiece nothing there. I tell you, I haven't the least notion as to what could bring him to Scarnham." "And I suppose none of your fellow-clerks have, either?" asked Polke.
And, of course, I told him we had, and showed him where it was after which he wanted a local directory, and I gave him Scammond's Guide. He turned that over a bit, and then, when he'd found what he wanted, he went to our telephone box which, as you're well aware, Mr. Polke, is in our front hall. And into it he popped." Mrs.
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