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The police had roped a portion of the coppice off from the rest, and two or three constables in uniform were acting as guards over this enclosed space, while a couple of men in plain clothes, whom Brereton by that time knew to be detectives from Norcaster, were inside it, evidently searching the ground with great care.
There was now nothing to do but to wait until the case came on at Norcaster Assizes. Christopher Pett, as legal adviser to the murdered man, had felt it his duty to remain in Highmarket until the police proceedings and the coroner's inquest were over.
Supposing Harborough killed him at nine o'clock precisely, Harborough would even then be able to arrive in Norcaster by ten.
Amongst the little group of actors and actresses who had come over from Norcaster to hear all that was to be told concerning their late manager, sat an old gentleman who, hands folded on the head of his walking cane, and chin settled on his hands, watched the proceedings with silent and concentrated attention.
But even as he thought this he saw, far away across the rising and falling of the heather-clad undulations, the moving lights of a train that was speeding southward along the coast-line from Norcaster, and presently the long scream of a whistle from its engine came on the light breeze that blew inland from the hidden sea, and the sight and sound recalled him to the stern realities of life.
He went round the corner with his companion and recognized in the chauffeur who waited there a man who had once or twice driven him from Norcaster of late. "Ah!" he said, "I daresay you know where Mrs. Northrop lives in this town up near the foot of the Shawl? You do? run us up there, then. Are you one of Mr. Carfax's clerks?" he asked when he and the messenger had got into the car.
"There ain't no doubt that that gold was carried off early this morning must ha' been between the time I left Jim and sun-up, 'cause they'd want to do the job in darkness. Ain't no reasonable doubt, neither, that the motor-car what they used came here into Norcaster. Now, guv'nor, I ask you where is it possible they'd make for?
Elkin, the bank-manager from Norcaster. He had come over in a motor-car, to see me privately. He wanted to tell me in relation to all these things that within the last few days, the Squire and Peter Chatfield had withdrawn from the bank the very large balances of two separate accounts. One was the Squire's own account, in his name the other was an estate account, on which Chatfield could draw.
I have already arranged with Mr. Strawson, furniture remover, to send up a couple of vans tomorrow morning, very early. Into those vans the furniture will be placed, and the vans will convey it to Norcaster, whence they will be transshipped bodily to London, by sea. Mr. Mallalieu you'll leave here, sir, in one of those vans!" Mallalieu listened, considered, began to see possibilities.
Within half an hour the car stopped at the old-fashioned gateway of the Duke's Head in Norcaster market-place, and the clerk immediately led his two companions into the hotel and upstairs to a private sitting-room, at the door of which he knocked. A voice bade him enter; he threw the door open and announced the visitors. "Miss Harborough Mr. Brereton, Mr. Carfax," he said.
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