The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK ®. R. Austin Freeman
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sinks of iniquity to plead for common thieves and robbers like a Kennington Lane advocate.”
“You’ve been talking to Lawley, I see,” said Thorndyke.
“Yes, and he tells me that we haven’t a leg to stand upon.”
“No, we’ve got to stand on our heads, as men of intellect should. But Lawley knows nothing about the case.”
“He thinks he knows it all,” said Anstey.
“Most fools do,” retorted Thorndyke. “They arrive at their knowledge by intuition—a deuced easy road and cheap travelling too. We reserve our defence—I suppose you agree to that?”
“I suppose so. The magistrate is sure to commit unless you have an unquestionable alibi.”
“We shall put in an alibi, but we are not depending on it.”
“Then we had better reserve our defence,” said Anstey; “and it is time that we wended on our pilgrimage, for we are due at Lawley’s at half-past ten. Is Jervis coming with us?”
“Yes, you’d better come,” said Thorndyke. “It’s the adjourned hearing of poor Hornby’s case, you know. There won’t be anything done on our side, but we may be able to glean some hint from the prosecution.”
“I should like to hear what takes place, at any rate,” I said, and we accordingly sallied forth together in the direction of Lincoln’s Inn, on the north side of which Mr. Lawley’s office was situated.
“Ah!” said the solicitor, as we entered, “I am glad you’ve come; I was getting anxious—it doesn’t do to be late on these occasions, you know. Let me see, do you know Mr. Walter Hornby? I don’t think you do.” He presented Thorndyke and me to our client’s cousin, and as we shook hands, we viewed one another with a good deal of mutual interest.
“I have heard about you from my aunt,” said he, addressing himself more particularly to me. “She appears to regard you as a kind of legal Maskelyne and Cooke. I hope, for my cousin’s sake, that you will be able to work the wonders that she anticipates. Poor old fellow! He looks pretty bad, doesn’t he?”
I glanced at Reuben, who was at the moment talking to Thorndyke, and as he caught my eye he held out his hand with a warmth that I found very pathetic. He seemed to have aged since I had last seen him, and was pale and rather thinner, but he was composed in his manner and seemed to me to be taking his trouble very well on the whole.
“Cab’s at the door, sir,” a clerk announced.
“Cab,” repeated Mr. Lawley, looking dubiously at me; “we want an omnibus.”
“Dr. Jervis and I can walk,” Walter Hornby suggested. “We shall probably get there as soon as you, and it doesn’t matter if we don’t.”
“Yes, that will do,” said Mr. Lawley; “you two walk down together. Now let us go.”
We trooped out on to the pavement, beside which a four-wheeler was drawn up, and as the others were entering the cab, Thorndyke stood close beside me for a moment.
“Don’t let him pump you,” he said in a low voice, without looking at me; then he sprang into the cab and slammed the door.
“What an extraordinary affair this is,” Walter Hornby remarked, after we had been walking in silence for a minute or two; “a most ghastly business. I must confess that I can make neither head nor tail of it.”
“How is that?” I asked.
“Why, do you see, there are apparently only two possible theories of the crime, and each of them seems to be unthinkable. On the one hand there is Reuben, a man of the most scrupulous honour, as far as my experience of him goes, committing a mean and sordid theft for which no motive can be discovered—for he is not poor, nor pecuniarily embarrassed nor in the smallest degree avaricious. On the other hand, there is this thumb-print, which, in the opinion of the experts, is tantamount to the evidence of an eye-witness that he did commit the theft. It is positively bewildering. Don’t you think so?”
“As you put it,” I answered, “the case is extraordinarily puzzling.”
“But how else would you put it?” he demanded, with ill-concealed eagerness.
“I mean that, if Reuben is the man you believe him to be, the thing is incomprehensible.”
“Quite so,” he agreed, though he was evidently disappointed at my colourless answer.
He walked on silently for a few minutes and then said: “I suppose it would not be fair to ask if you see any way out of the difficulty? We are all, naturally anxious about the upshot of the affair, seeing what poor old Reuben’s position is.”
“Naturally. But the fact is that I know no more than you do, and as to Thorndyke, you might as well cross-examine a Whitstable native as put questions to him.”
“Yes, so I gathered from Juliet. But I thought you might have gleaned some notion of the line of defence from your work in the laboratory—the microscopical and photographic work I mean.”
“I was never in the laboratory until last night, when Thorndyke took me there with your aunt and Miss Gibson; the work there is done by the laboratory assistant, and his knowledge of the case, I should say, is about as great as a type-founder’s knowledge of the books that he is helping to produce. No; Thorndyke is a man who plays a single-handed game and no one knows what cards he holds until he lays them on the table.”
My companion considered this statement in silence while I congratulated myself on having parried, with great adroitness, a rather inconvenient question. But the time was not far distant when I should have occasion to reproach myself bitterly for having been so explicit and emphatic.
“My uncle’s condition,” Walter resumed after a pause, “is a pretty miserable one at present, with this horrible affair added to his own personal worries.”
“Has he any special trouble besides this, then?” I asked.
“Why, haven’t you heard? I thought you knew about it, or I shouldn’t have spoken—not that it is in any way a secret, seeing that it is public property in the city. The fact is that his financial affairs are a little entangled just now.”
“Indeed!” I exclaimed, considerably startled by this new development.
“Yes, things have taken a rather awkward turn, though I think he will pull through all right. It is the usual thing, you know—investments, or perhaps one should say speculations. He appears to have sunk a lot of capital in mines—thought he was ‘in the know,’ not unnaturally; but it seems he wasn’t after all, and the things have gone wrong, leaving him with a deal more money than he can afford locked up and the possibility of a dead loss if they don’t revive. Then there are these infernal diamonds. He is not morally responsible, we know; but it is a question if he is not legally responsible, though the lawyers think he is not. Anyhow, there is going to be a meeting of the creditors tomorrow.”
“And what do you think they will do?”
“Oh, they will, most probably, let him go on for the present; but, of course, if he is made accountable for the diamonds there will be nothing for it but to ‘go through the hoop,’ as the sporting financier expresses it.”
“The diamonds were of considerable value, then?”
“From twenty-five to thirty thousand pounds’ worth vanished with that parcel.”
I whistled. This was a much bigger affair than I had imagined, and I was wondering if Thorndyke had realised the magnitude of the robbery, when we arrived at the police court.
“I suppose our friends have gone inside,” said Walter. “They must have got here before us.”
This supposition was confirmed by a constable of whom we made inquiry, and who directed us to the entrance to the court. Passing down a passage and elbowing our way