The Chestermarke Instinct

Further silence was followed by another moan, and at the sound of that, Neale, whose teeth had been clenched firmly for the last minute or two, slipped his hand round to the pocket in which the revolver lay.

"Don't be a damned fool!" said Joseph. "Sign and have done with it! There's the pen-sign! You could have signed any time the last week and been free. Get it done-damn you, I tell you, get it done! It's your last chance. I'm off tonight. If I leave you here, it's in your grave. Nobody'll ever come near this place for weeks-you'll be dead-starved to death, mind!-long before that. Do you hear me? Come on, now!-sign!"

Neale half drew the revolver from his pocket. But, as he was about to step from behind the screen, a sudden step sounded on the gravel outside the outer door, and he shrank back, watching. The door opened-was thrown back with some violence-and at the same instant Joseph darted from the inner room, livid with anger, to confront Gabriel Chestermarke.

That the younger man had not expected to encounter the elder was instantly evident to Neale. Joseph drew back, step by step, watching his uncle, until his back was against the door through which he had just rushed. His hand went out behind him and pulled the door to, heavily. And as it closed he spoke-and Neale knew that there was fear in his voice.

"What-what-is it?" he got out. "When did you come in here? Why-" Gabriel Chestermarke had come to a halt in the middle of the floor, and he was standing very still. His face was paler than ever, and his eyes burned in their deep-set sockets like live coals. And suddenly he lifted a forefinger and pointed it straight at his nephew.

"Thief!" he said, with a quietness which was startlingly impressive to the excited spectator. "Thief! Thief and liar-and murderer, for aught I know! But you are found out. Scoundrel!-you stole those securities! You stole those jewels! Don't trifle-don't attempt to dispute! I know! You got the jewels last Saturday night-you took those securities at the same time. You may have murdered that man Hollis for anything I know to the contrary-probably you did. But-no fencing with me! Now speak! Where are the jewels? Where are those securities? And-where is Horbury! Answer!-without lying. You devil!-I tell you I know- know ! I have seen Mrs. Carswell!"

Gabriel had moved a little as he went on speaking-moved nearer to his nephew, still pointing the incriminating and accusing finger at him. And Joseph had moved, too-backward. He was watching his uncle with a queer expression. Neale saw the tip of his tongue emerge from his lips, as if the lips had become dry, and he wanted to moisten them. And suddenly his face changed, and Neale, closely watching him, saw his hand go quickly to his breast pocket, and caught the gleam of a revolver….

Neale was a cricketer-of reputation and experience. On a felt-covered stand close by him lay a couple of heavy spherical objects, fashioned of some shining-surfaced metal and about the size of a cricket ball, which he had previously noticed and handled in looking round. He snatched one of them up now, and flung it hard and straight at Joseph Chestermarke, intending to stun him. But for once in a way he missed his mark; the missile crashed against the wall behind. And then came a great flash, and the roar of all the world going to pieces, and a mighty lifting and upheaving-and he saw and felt and knew no more. CHAPTER XXX

The four people standing beneath the portico of the police-station remained as if spell-bound for a full moment after the sudden flash and the sudden roar. Betty Fosdyke unconsciously clutched at Lord Ellersdeane's arm: Lord Ellersdeane spoke, wonderingly.

"Thunder?" he exclaimed. "Strange!"

Easleby turned sharply from Starmidge, who, holding by one of the pillars, was staring towards the quarter of the Market-Place, from whence the scream of dire fear had come.

"That's no thunder, my lord!" he said. "That's an explosion!-and a terrible one, too! Are there any gasworks close at hand? It was like-"

Polke came rushing out of the lobby behind them, followed by some of his men. And at the same instant people began running along the pavements, calling to each other.

"Did you hear that?" cried the superintendent excitedly. "An explosion! Which direction?"

Starmidge suddenly started, as if from a reverie. He put up his hand and wiped something from his cheek, and held the hand out to a shaft of light which came from the open door behind them. A smear of blood lay across his open palm.

"A splinter of falling glass," he said quietly. "Come on, all of you! That was an explosion-and I guess where! Get help, Polke-come on to the Cornmarket! Get the firemen out."

He set off running towards the end of the Market-Place, followed by Easleby, and at a slower pace by Lord Ellersdeane and Betty. Crowds were beginning to run in the same direction: very soon the two detectives found it difficult to thread a way through them. But within a few minutes they were in the Cornmarket, and Starmidge, seizing his companion's arm, dragged him round the corner of Joseph Chestermarke's house to the high garden wall which ran down the slope to the river bank. And as they turned the corner, he pointed.

"As I thought!" he muttered. "It's Joseph Chestermarke's workshop! Something's happened. Look there!"

The wall, a good ten feet high on that side, was blown to pieces, and lay, a mass of fallen masonry, on the green sward by the roadside. Through the gap thus made, Starmidge plunged into the garden-to be brought up at once by the twisted and interlaced boughs of the trees which had been lopped off as though by some giant ax, and then instantaneously transformed into a cunningly interwoven fence. The air was still thick with fine dust, and the atmosphere was charged with a curious, acid odour, which made eyes and nostrils smart.

"No ordinary burst up, this!" muttered Starmidge, as he and Easleby forced their way through branches and obstacles to the open lawn. "My God!-look at it! Blown to pieces!"

The two men stood for a moment staring at the scene before them, as it was revealed in the faint light of a waning moon. Neither had ever seen the effect of high explosives before, and they remained transfixed with utter astonishment at what they saw. Never, until then, had either believed it possible that such ruin could be wrought by such means.

The laboratory was a mass of shapeless wreckage. It seemed as if the roof had been blown into the sky-only to collapse again on the shattered walls. The masonry and woodwork lay all over lawns and gardens, and amidst the surrounding bushes and trees. In the middle of it yawned a black, deep cavity, from the heart of which curled a wisp of yellowish smoke. Between these ruins and the house a beech tree of considerable size had been completely uprooted, and had crashed down on the lower windows of the house, part of the wall and roof of which had been wrecked. And on the opposite side of the garden a great gap had been made in the smaller trees, and the shrubberies beneath them by the falling in of Rob Walford's old dove-cot, the ancient walls and timber roof of which had completely collapsed under the force of the explosion.

Over the actual area of the wreckage everything was still as death, save for a faint crackling where some loose wood was just catching fire. Starmidge began to make his way towards it.

"The thing is," he said mechanically, "the thing is, the thing is-yes, is-was-there anybody here-anybody here! We must have lights."

And just then as he came to where the burst of flame was growing bigger, and Polke with a body of firemen and constables came hurrying through a gap in the lower wall, he caught sight of a man's face, turned up to the half-light. Easleby saw it at the same time-together they went nearer. And Starmidge bent down and found himself looking at Gabriel Chestermarke.