‘And he took that answer?’
‘I won’t say he took it. But he went away. What about the others?’
‘There are two more. One is a young man, the heir to a considerable estate, who was last seen by his friends in Oxford on the 17th day of February, just before dinner. He was an under-graduate of Christ Church, and was living out of college in rooms in the High. He had tea at the Gridiron and went to his rooms to dress, for he was dining that night with the Halcyon Club.’ A servant passed him on the stairs of his lodgings, going up to his bedroom. He apparently did not come down, and since that day has not been seen. You may have heard his name Lord Mercot.’
I started. I had indeed heard the name, and knew the boy a little, having met him occasionally at our local steeplechases. He was the grandson and heir of the old Duke of Alcester, the most respected of the older statesmen of England.
‘They have picked their bag carefully,’ I said. ‘what is the third case?’
‘The cruellest of all. You know Sir Arthur Warcliff. He is a widower lost his wife just before the War and he has an only child, a little boy about ten years old. The child—David is his name—was the apple of his eye, and was at a preparatory school near Rye. The father took a house in the neighbourhood to be near him, and the boy used to be allowed to come home for luncheon every Sunday. One Sunday he came to luncheon as usual, and started back in the pony-trap. The boy was very keen about birds, and used to leave the trap and walk the last half-mile by a short cut across the marshes. Well, he left the groom at the usual gate, and like Miss Victor and Lord Mercot, walked into black mystery.’
This story really did horrify me. I remembered Sir Arthur Warcliff—the kind, worn face of the great soldier and administrator, and I could imagine his grief and anxiety. I knew what I should have felt if it had been Peter John. A much-travelled young woman and an athletic young man were defenceful creatures compared to a poor little round-headed boy of ten. But I still felt the whole affair too fantastic for real tragedy.
‘But what right have you to connect the three cases?’ I asked. ‘Three people disappear within a few weeks of each other in widely separated parts of England. Miss Victor may have been kidnapped for ransom, Lord Mercot may have lost his memory, and David Warcliff may have been stolen by tramps. Why should they be all part of one scheme? Why, for that matter, should any one of them have been the work of your criminal combine? Have you any evidence for the hostage theory?’
‘Yes.’ Macgillivray took a moment or two to answer. ‘There is first the general probability. If a band of rascals wanted three hostages they could hardly find three better—the daughter of the richest man in the world, the heir of our greatest dukedom, the only child of a national hero. There is also direct evidence.’ Again he hesitated.
‘Do you mean to say that Scotland Yard has not a single clue to any one of these cases?’
‘We have followed up a hundred clues, but they have all ended in dead walls. Every detail, I assure you, has been gone through with a fine comb. No, my dear Dick, the trouble is not that we’re specially stupid on this side; but that there is some superlative cunning on the other. That is why I want you. You have a kind of knack of stumbling on truths which no amount of ordinary reasoning can get at. I have fifty men working day and night, and we have mercifully kept all the cases out of the papers, so that we are not hampered by the amateur. But so far it’s a blank. Are you going to help?’
‘No, I’m not. But, supposing I were, I don’t see that you’ve a scrap of proof that the three cases are connected, or that any one of them is due to the criminal gang that you say you’ve got your hand on. You’ve only given me presumptions, and precious thin at that. Where’s your direct evidence?’
Macgillivray looked a little embarrassed. ‘I’ve started you at the wrong end,’ he said. ‘I should have made you understand how big and desperate the thing is that we’re out against, and then you’d have been in a more receptive mood for the rest of the story. You know as well as I do that cold blood is not always the most useful accompaniment in assessing evidence. I said I had direct evidence of connexion, and sol have, and the proof to my mind is certain.’
‘Well, let’s see it.’
‘It’s a poem. On Wednesday of last week, two days after David Warcliff disappeared, Mr Julius Victor, the Duke of Alcester, and Sir Arthur Warcliff received copies of it by the first post. They were typed on bits of flimsy paper, the envelopes had the addresses typed, and they had been posted in the West Central district of London the afternoon before.’
He handed me a copy, and this was what I read:
Seek where under midnight’s sun
Laggard crops are hardly won;—
Where the sower casts his seed in
Furrows of the fields of Eden;—
Where beside the sacred tree
Spins the seer who cannot see.
I burst out laughing, for I could not help it—the whole thing was too preposterous. These six lines of indifferent doggerel seemed to me to put the coping-stone of nonsense on the business. But I checked myself when I saw Macgillivray’s face. There was a slight flush of annoyance on his cheek, but for the rest it was grave, composed, and in deadly earnest. Now Macgillivray was not a fool, and I was bound to respect his beliefs. So I pulled myself together and tried to take things seriously.
‘That’s proof that the three cases are linked together,’ I said. ‘So much I grant you. But where’s the proof that they are the work of the great criminal combine that you say you have got your hand on?’
Macgillivray rose and walked restlessly about the room. ‘The evidence is mainly presumptive, but to my mind it is certain presumption. You know as well as I do, Dick, that a case may be final and yet very difficult to set out as a series of facts. My view on the matter is made up of a large number of tiny indications and cross-bearings, and I am prepared to bet that if you put your mind honestly to the business you will take the same view. But I’ll give you this much by way of direct proof— in hunting the big show we had several communications of the same nature as this doggerel, and utterly unlike anything else I ever struck in criminology. There’s one of the miscreants who amuses himself with sending useless clues to his adversaries. It shows how secure the gang thinks itself.’
‘Well, you’ve got that gang anyhow. I don’t quite see why the hostages should trouble you. You’ll gather them in when you gather in the malefactors.’
‘I wonder. Remember we are dealing with moral imbeciles. When they find themselves cornered they won’t play for safety. They’ll use their hostages, and when we refuse to bargain they’ll take their last revenge on them.’
I suppose I stared unbelievingly, for he went on: ‘Yes. They’ll murder them in cold blood—three innocent people—and then swing themselves with a lighter mind I know the type. They’ve done it before.’ He mentioned one or two recent instances.
‘Good God I’ I cried. ‘It’s a horrible thought! The only thing for you is to go canny, and not strike till you have got the victims out of their clutches.’
‘We can’t,’ he said solemnly. That is precisely the tragedy of the business. We must strike early in June. I won’t trouble you with the reasons, but believe me, they are final. There is just a chance of a settlement in Ireland, and there are certain events of the first importance impending in Italy and America, and all depend upon the activities of the gang being at an end by midsummer. Do you grasp that? By midsummer we must stretch out our hand. By midsummer, unless they are released, the three’ hostages will be doomed. It is, a ghastly dilemma, but in the public interest there is only one way out. I ought to say that Victor and the Duke and Warcliff are aware of this fact, and accept the situation. They are big men, and will do their duty even if it breaks their hearts.’
There was silence for a minute or two, for I did not know what to say. The whole story seemed to me incredible, and yet I could not doubt a syllable of it