Бретт Холлидей - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 33, No. 2, July 1973

There was no doubt as to the identity of the footprints for Silas Ford affected a broad, square-toed boot easily recognizable from its unusual impression.

They tracked him to within twenty feet of the wall, but there the footprints ended. The snow around them lay smooth and unbroken.

Apparently he had stepped into space!

A stable lad galloped to Camdon with the news while another went in search of the Meudon policeman. And there the message, which had been telegraphed to the London paper at 1:18 in the morning, came to its termination.

Paper in hand, I set off up the stairs to Inspector Hartley’s room. I should never be able to put brush to canvas all day with so disturbing a mystery running in my head. Perhaps the little detective had later news from Scotland Yard to give me.

I found him standing with his back to the fire and his hands behind him. A bag, neatly strapped, lay on the rug at his feet. He gave me a quick look and a nod like the peck of a bird.

“I expected you, Mr. Phillips,” he said, “and what do you think of it?”

“That the Camdon reporter has more imagination than accuracy.”

“Not at all. This morning’s details only confirm the statement he telegraphed last night.”

“But you don’t mean to tell me that—”

“I do. Twenty feet from the wall of the park the footsteps come to an abrupt end. And of Mr. Ford we have no further news.”

“In the name of sanity, how was it done?” I asked Inspector Hartley incredulously.

“It is rather ‘why’ than ‘how’ Mr. Phillips. Why did he go out alone last night? If he has run away — why? If he has been kidnapped — why? There is much that is instructive in that line of argument. However, as I am leaving for Paddington Station in fifteen minutes, I shall hope to have fuller information before night.”

“Hartley,” I asked him eagerly, “may I come with you?”

He glanced up at me with that odd smile of his that I knew so well.

“If you can be ready in time,” he said.

It was past two o’clock when we arrived at the old town of Camdon. A carriage met us at the station. Five minutes more and we were clear of the narrow streets and climbing the first bare ridge of the downs. It was a desolate prospect enough, a bare expanse of windswept land that rose and fell with the sweeping regularity of the Pacific swell. Here and there a clump of ragged firs showed black against the snow. Under that soft carpet the crisp turf of the crests and the broad plow of the lower ground alike lay hidden. I shivered, drawing my coat more closely about me.

It was half an hour later that we topped a hillock and saw the gray towers of the ancient mansion beneath us. In the shelter of the valley, by the quiet river that now lay frozen into silence, the trees had grown into splendid woodlands, circling the hall on the farther side. From the broad front the white lawns crept down to the road on which we were driving. Dark masses of shrubberies and the tracery of scattered trees broke their silent curves. The park wall that fenced them from the road stood out like an ink-line ruled upon paper.

“It must have been there that he disappeared,” I cried, with a speculative finger.

“So I imagine,” said Hartley, “and if he spent the night on the Hampshire downs, he will be looking for a fire this morning. You have rather more than your fair share of the rug, Mr. Phillips, if you will excuse my mentioning it.”

A man was standing on the steps of the entrance porch as we drove up. As we unrolled ourselves he stepped forward to help us. He was a thin, pale-faced fellow with fair hair and indeterminate eyes.

“My name is Harbord,” he said. “You are Inspector Hartley, I believe.”

His hand shook as he stretched it out in a tremulous greeting. Plainly the secretary was afraid, visibly and anxiously afraid.

“Mr. Ransome, the manager of Mr. Ford’s London office is here,” he continued. “He caught the newspaper train from Paddington station at four this morning. He is waiting to see you in the library.”

We followed Harbord through a great hall, into a room lined with books from floor to ceiling. A stout, dark man who was pacing it stopped at the sight of us. His face as he turned it toward us looked pinched and gray in the morning light.

“Inspector Hartley, eh?” he said. “Well, Inspector, if you want a reward, name it. If you want to pull the house down, only say the word. But find him for us, or, by heaven, we’re done!”

“Is it as bad as that?”

“You can keep a secret, I suppose? Yes — it couldn’t well be worse. It was a tricky time; he hid half his schemes in his own head; he never trusted even me altogether. If he were dead I could plan something, but now—”

He thumped his hand on the table and turned away to the window.

“When you last saw Mr. Ford was he in good health? Did he stand the strain?”

“Ford had no nerves. He was never better in his life.”

“In these great transactions he would have his enemies. If his plans succeeded there would be many hard hit, perhaps ruined. Have you any suspicion of a man who, to save himself, might kidnap Mr. Ford?”

“No,” said the manager after a moment’s thought. “No, I cannot give you a single name. The players are all big men, Inspector. I don’t say that their consciences would stop them from trying such a trick: but it wouldn’t be worth their while. They hold off when the jail is the certain punishment.”

“Was this financial crisis in his own affairs generally known?”

“Certainly not.”

“Who would know of it?”

“There would be a dozen men on both sides of the Atlantic who might suspect the truth. But I don’t suppose that more than four people were actually in possession of the facts.”

“And who on earth would they be?”

“His two partners in America, myself and Mr. Harbord there.”

Hartley turned to the young man with a smile and a polite bow.

“Can you add any names to the list?” he asked.

“No,” said Harbord, staring at the detective with a puzzled look as if trying to catch the drift of his questions.

“Thank you,” said Hartley. “And now will you show me the place where this curious thing occurred.”

We crossed the drive, where the snow lay tom and trampled by the carriages, and so to the white, even surface of the lawn. We soon struck the trail, a confused path beaten by many footprints.

Hartley stooped for a moment and then turned on the secretary with an angry glance. “Were you with them?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Then why, in the name of common sense, didn’t you keep them off his tracks? You have simply trampled them out of existence between you!”

“We were in a hurry, Inspector,” said the secretary; “we didn’t think about it.”

We walked forward, following the broad trail of the searchers until we came to a circular patch of trodden snow. Evidently they had stopped and stood talking together. On the farther side I saw the footprints of a man clearly defined. There were some five or six clear impressions.

“I am glad you and your friends left me something, Mr. Harbord,” snapped Hartley.

“When we saw that Mr. Ford’s footprints went no farther we stopped. I suggested that we should do so. It had evidently become a matter for the police.”

“I take it that those boot-nails to the right and left mark the subsequent investigations of the village constable.”

“Yes, that is so.”

About twenty feet before us was the high wall that separated the lawns from the road. An old oak rose on the farther side of it. One huge limb was thrust across the coping, spreading the extremities of its leafless twigs over our heads. Hartley stood glaring up at it in profound contemplation.