The buff-coloured blinds were down before Mr. Burtenshaw's windows in the Euston Road, shutting out the glare of the afternoon sun, and throwing an unwholesome kind of tint over the rooms. In one of them, the front room on the first floor, sat the detective himself. It was indeed a kind of office as well as a sitting-room: papers strewed the table; pigeon holes and shelves, all filled, were ranged along the walls.
Mr. Burtenshaw had a complicated case in hand at that period. Some fresh information had just come in by a private letter, and he was giving the best attention of his clear mind to it: his head bent over the table; his hands resting on the papers immediately before him. Apparently he arrived at some conclusion: for he nodded twice and then began to fold the papers together.
The servant-maid, with the flaunty cap tilted on her head, entered the room, and said to her master that a gentleman had called and was requesting to see him.
"Who is it?" asked Mr. Burtenshaw.
"He gave no name, sir. It's the same gentleman who called twice or thrice in one day about a fortnight ago: the last time late at night. He's very nice-looking, sir; might be known for a gentleman a mile off." The detective carried his thoughts back, and remembered. "You can show him up," he said. "Or----stay, Harriet," he suddenly added, as the girl was leaving the room. "Go down first of all and ask the gentleman his name."
She went as desired; and came up again fixing her absurd cap on its tottering pinnacle.
"The gentleman says, sir, that you don't know him by name, but his solicitors are Messrs. Plunkett and Plunkett."
"Ay. Show him up," said Mr. Burtenshaw. "He has a motive for withholding his name," mentally added the detective.
The reader need not be told that it was Karl Andinnian who entered. The object of his visit was to get, it possible, some more information respecting Philip Salter.
Day by day and week by week, as the days and weeks went on, had served to show Karl Andinnian that his brother's stay at the Maze was growing more full of risk. Karl and Mrs. Grey, conversing on the matter as opportunity occurred, had nearly set it down as a certainty that Smith was no other than Salter. She felt sure of it. Karl nearly so. And he was persuaded that, once Smith's influence could be removed, Adam might get safely away.
The question ever agitating Karl's brain, in the midnight watches, in the garish day, was--what could he do in the matter?--how proceed in it at all with perfect security? The first thing of course was to ascertain that the man was Salter; the next to make a bargain with him: "You leave my brother free, and I will leave you free." For it was by no means his intention to deliver Salter up to justice. Karl had realized too keenly the distress and horror that must be the portion of a poor fugitive, hiding from the law, to denounce the worst criminal living.
The difficulty lay entirely in the first step--the identification of Smith with Salter. How could he ascertain it? He did not know. He could not see any means by which it might be accomplished with safety. Grimley knew Salter--as in fact did several of Grimley's brotherhood--but, if he once brought Grimley within a bird's-eye view of Smith (Smith being Salter) Grimley would at once lay his grasping hands upon him. All would probably be over then: for the chances were that Salter in revenge would point his finger to the Maze, and say "There lives a greater criminal than I; your supposed dead convict, Adam Andinnian."
The reader must see the difficulty and the danger. Karl dared not bring Grimley or any other of the police in contact with Smith; he dared not give them a clue to where he might be found: and he had to fall back upon the uncertain and unsatisfactory step of endeavouring to track out the identity himself.
"If I could but get to know Burtenshaw's reason for thinking Salter was in England," he exclaimed to himself over and over again, "perhaps it might help me. Suppose I were to ask Burtenshaw again--and press it on him? Something might come of it. After all, he could but refuse to tell me."
Just as Karl, after much painful deliberation, had determined to do this, there arrived at Foxwood a summons for his wife. Colonel Cleeve was attacked with sudden illness. In the first shock of it, Mrs. Cleeve feared it might prove fatal, and she sent for Lucy. Karl took her to Winchester and left her, and at once took up his own abode for a few days in London. The Court had none too much attraction for him as matters stood, and he did not care to be left to entertain Miss Blake. So long as his wife stayed away, he meant to stay.
The following afternoon saw him at the detective's. Mr. Burtenshaw had thought his unknown visitor looking ill before: he looked worse now. "A delicate man with some great care upon him," summed up the officer to himself.
Karl, opening his business, led up to the question he had come to ask. Would Mr. Burtenshaw confide to him the reason for his supposing Philip Salter to be still in England? At first Mr. Burtenshaw said No; that it could not, he imagined, concern him or anyone else to hear it. Karl pleaded, and pleaded earnestly.
"Whatever you say shall be kept strictly sacred," he urged. "It cannot do harm to any one. I have a powerful motive for asking it."
"And a painful one, too," thought the detective. Karl was leaning forward in his chair, his pale face slightly flushed with inward emotion, his beautiful grey eyes full of eager entreaty, and a strange sadness in their depths.
"Will you impart to me, sir, your motive for wishing to know this?"
"No, I cannot," said Karl. "I wish I could, but I cannot."
"I fancy that you must know Salter's retreat, sir--or think you know it: and you want to be assured it is he before you denounce him," spoke the detective, hazarding a shrewd guess.
Karl raised his hand to enforce what he said, speaking solemnly. "Were I able to put my finger this moment upon Salter, I would not denounce him. Nothing would induce me. You may believe me when I say that, in asking for this information, I intend no harm to him."
The detective saw how true were the words. There was something in Karl Andinnian strangely attractive, and he began to waver.
"It is not of much consequence whether I give you the information or whether I withhold it," he acknowledged, giving way. "The fact is this: one of our men who knew Salter, thought he saw him some three or four months ago. He, our man, was on the Great Western line, going to Bath; in passing a station where they did not stop, he saw (or thought he saw) Salter standing there. He is a cool-judging, keen-sighted officer, and I do not myself think he could have been mistaken. We followed up the scent at once, but nothing has come of it."
Karl made no answer: he was considering. Three or four months ago? That was about the time, he fancied, that Smith took up his abode at Foxwood. Previous to that, he might have been all over England, for aught Karl could tell.
"Just before that," resumed the detective, "another of the men struck up a cock-and-bull story that Salter was living in Aberdeen. I forget the precise reason he had for asserting it. We instituted inquiries: but, like the later tale, they resulted in nothing. As yet, we have no sure clue to Salter."
"That is all you know!" asked Karl.
"Every word. Has the information helped you?"
"Not in the least degree."
There was nothing else for Karl to wait for. His visit had been a fruitless one. "I should have liked to see Grimley once again," he said as he rose. "Is he in town?"
"Grimley is in the house now. At least, he ought to be. He is engaged in a case under me, and was to be here at three o'clock for instructions. Will you see him?"
"If you please."
It had occurred to Karl more than once that he should like to describe Smith accurately to Grimley, and ask whether the description tallied with Salter's. He could do it without affording any clue to Smith or his locality.
Mr. Burtenshaw rang, and told the maid to send up Grimley, if he had come. In obedience to this, Grimley, in his official clothes, appeared, and another officer with him.
"Oh, I don't want you just yet, Watts," said Mr. Burtenshaw. "Wait down stairs."
"Very well, sir," replied the man. "I may as well give you this, though," he added, crossing the room and placing a small box the size of a five-shilling-piece on the table. Mr. Burtenshaw looked at it curiously, and then slipped it into the drawer at his left hand.
"From Jacob, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir."
The man left the room. Karl, after a few preliminary words with Grimley, gave an elaborate and close description of Smith's figure and features. "Is it like Salter?" he asked.
"If it isn't him, sir, it's his twin brother," was Grimley's emphatic answer. "As to his looking forty, it is only to be expected. Nothing ages a man like living a life of fear."
Karl remembered how Adam had aged and was ageing, and silently acquiesced. He began to think he saw his way somewhat more clearly; that the man at Foxwood was certainly Salter. Handing over a gratuity to Grimley, and taking leave of Mr. Burtenshaw, he departed, leaving the other two talking of him.
"He has dropped upon Salter," remarked Grimley.
"Yes," said Mr. Burtenshaw. "But he does not intend to deliver him up."
"No!" cried the other in amazement. "Why not, sir?"
"I don't know," said Mr. Burtenshaw. "He said he had no intention of the kind--and I am sure he has not. It seemed to me to be rather the contrary--that he wants to screen him."
"Then he told you, sir, that he had found Salter?"
"No, he did not. We were speaking on supposition."
"Who is this gentleman, sir?"
"I don't know who he is. He keeps his name from me."
Mr. Grimley felt anything but satisfied with the present aspect of the affair. What right had this stranger, who wanted to know all about Salter, to refuse to denounce him? Once more he asked Mr. Burtenshaw if he did not know who he was, but the latter repeated his denial. During the discussion, the man Watts entered the room again, and heard what passed. He looked at Mr. Burtenshaw.
"Are you speaking of the gentleman just gone out, sir? I know him."
"Why, who is he?" asked Mr. Burtenshaw, who had taken out the little box again, and was opening it.
"Sir Karl Andinnian."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed the detective, aroused to interest. For Sir Karl Andinnian, brother to the criminal who had made so much stir in the world, was a noted name amongst the force.
"It is," said Watts. "I knew him the minute I came in. I was present at the trial in Northampton, sir, when his brother was condemned to death; this gentleman sat all day at the solicitors' table. I had gone down there on that business of Patteson's."
"No wonder he has a sad look," thought the detective. "Adam Andinnian's was a mournful case, and his death was mournful. But what interest can Sir Karl have in Salter?"
There was one, at least, who determined to ascertain, if possible, what that interest was--and that was Mr. Policeman Grimley. A shrewd man by nature, a very shrewd one by experience, he drew his own deductions--and they were anything but favourable to the future security of some of the inhabitants of Foxwood. Could Karl Andinnian have seen what his morning's work had done for him, he would have been ready to sit in sackcloth and ashes, after the manner of the mourners of old.
"Sir Karl's living at Foxwood Court with his young wife," ran Mr. Grimley's thoughts: "I know that much. Wherever this Salter is, it's not far from him, I'll lay. Hid in Foxwood, and no mistake! I'll get him unearthed if it costs me my place. Let's see; how shall I set about it?"
As a preliminary step, he gently sounded Mr. Burtenshaw; but found he could get no help from him: it was not the detective's custom to stir in any matter without orders. Mr. Grimley then slept a night upon it, and in the morning had resolved to strike a bold stroke. Obtaining a private interview with one who was high in the force at Scotland Yard, he denounced Salter, telling of Sir Karl Andinnian's visits to Burtenshaw, and their purport.
"Salter is in hiding at Foxwood, or somewhere in its neighbourhood, sir, as sure as that my name's Dick Grimley," he said. "I want him took. I don't care about the reward--and perhaps it would not be given to me in any case, seeing it was me that let the fellow go--but I want him took. He's a crafty fox, sir, mark you, though; and it will have to be gone about cautiously."
"If Salter be retaken through this declaration of yours, Grimley, I daresay you'll get some of the reward," was the consoling answer. "Who knows the man? It will not do for you to go down."
"No, it wouldn't," acquiesced Grimley. "He knows me; and, once he caught sight of me, he'd make off like a rat sneaking out of a sinking ship. Besides, sir, I couldn't leave that other thing Mr. Burtenshaw has in hand."
"Well, Who knows Salter, I ask?"
"Tatton does, sir; knows him as well as I do; but Salter does not know Tatton. Tatton would be the best man for it, too. Burtenshaw himself can't manage a case as Tatton does when it comes to personal acting."
There was a little more conversation, and then Grimley withdrew, and Tatton was sent for. The grass could not be let grow under their feet in the attempt to retake that coveted prize, Philip Salter.
This Tatton had begun life as an ordinary policeman: but his talents raised him. He was smart in appearance and manner, had received a fairly good education, conversed well on the topics of the day, could adapt himself to any society he might happen to be in, from that of a gentleman to a shoeblack, and was found to possess the rare prudence, the certain tact, necessary to undertake the conduct of delicate cases, and bring them to a successful conclusion. Grimley was correct, in judging that Tatton would be the right man to put on the track of Philip Salter.