Brereton read this extraordinary communication through three times; then he replaced letter and banknotes in the envelope, put the envelope in an inner pocket, left the house, and walking across to the Northrop villa, asked to see Avice Harborough.
Avice came to him in Mrs. Northrop’s drawing-room, and Brereton glancing keenly at her as she entered saw that she was looking worn and pale. He put the letter into her hands with a mere word.
“Your father has a powerful friend—somewhere,” he said.
To his astonishment the girl showed no very great surprise. She started a little at the sight of the money; she flushed at one or two expressions in the letter. But she read the letter through without comment and handed it back to him with a look of inquiry.
“You don’t seem surprised!” said Brereton.
“There has always been so much mystery to me about my father that I’m not surprised,” she replied. “No!—I’m just thankful! For this man—whoever he is—says that my father’s innocence is known to him. And that’s—just think what it means—to me!”
“Why doesn’t he come forward and prove it, then?” demanded Brereton.
Avice shook her head.
“He—they—want it to be proved without that,” she answered. “But—don’t you think that if all else fails the man who wrote this would come forward? Oh, surely!”
Brereton stood silently looking at her for a full minute. From the first time of meeting with her he had felt strangely and strongly attracted to his client’s daughter, and as he looked at her now he began to realize that he was perhaps more deeply interested in her than he knew.
“It’s all the most extraordinary mystery—this about your father—that ever I came across!” he exclaimed suddenly. Then he looked still more closely at her. “You’ve been worrying!” he said impetuously. “Don’t! I beg you not to. I’ll move heaven and earth—because I, personally, am absolutely convinced of your father’s innocence. And—here’s powerful help.”
“You’ll do what’s suggested here?” she asked.
“Certainly! It’s a capital idea,” he answered. “I’d have done it myself if I’d been a rich man—but I’m not. Cheer up, now!—we’re getting on splendidly. Look here—ask Mrs. Northrop to let you come out with me. We’ll go to the solicitor—together—and see about that reward at once.”
As they presently walked down to the town Brereton gave Avice another of his critical looks of inspection.
“You’re feeling better,” he said in his somewhat brusque fashion. “Is it this bit of good news?”
“That—and the sense of doing something,” she answered. “If I wasn’t looking well when you came in just now, it was because this inaction is bad for me. I want to do something!—something to help. If I could only be stirring—moving about. You understand?”
“Quite!” responded Brereton. “And there is something you can do. I saw you on a bicycle the other day. Why not give up your teaching for a while, and scour the country round about, trying to get hold of some news about your father’s movements that night? That he won’t tell us anything himself is no reason why we shouldn’t find out something for ourselves. He must have been somewhere—someone must have seen him! Why not begin some investigation?—you know the district. How does that strike you?”
“I should be only too thankful,” she said. “And I’ll do it. The Northrops are very kind—they’ll understand, and they’ll let me off. I’ll begin at once—tomorrow. I’ll hunt every village between the sea and the hills!”
“Good!” said Brereton. “Some work of that sort, and this reward—ah, we shall come out all right, you’ll see.”
“I don’t know what we should have done if it hadn’t been for you!” said Avice. “But—we shan’t forget. My father is a strange man, Mr. Brereton, but he’s not the sort of man he’s believed to be by these Highmarket people—and he’s grateful to you—as you’ll see.”
“But I must do something to merit his gratitude first, you know,” replied Brereton. “Come!—I’ve done next to nothing as yet. But we’ll make a fresh start with this reward—if your father’s solicitor approves.”
The solicitor did approve—strongly. And he opened his eyes to their widest extent when he read the anonymous letter and saw the banknotes.
“Your father,” he observed to Avice, “is the most mysterious man I ever heard of! The Kitely mystery, in my opinion, is nothing to the Harborough mystery. Do you really mean to tell me that you haven’t an idea of what all this means?”
“Not an idea!” replied Avice. “Not the ghost of one.”
“Well—we’ll get these posters and handbills out, anyway, Mr. Brereton,” said the solicitor. “Five hundred pounds is a good figure. Lord bless you!—some of these Highmarket folk would sell their mothers for half that! The whole population will be turned into amateur detectives. Now let’s draft the exact wording, and then we’ll see the printer.”
Next day the bill-poster placarded Highmarket with the reward bills, and distributed them broadcast in shops and offices, and one of the first persons to lay hands on one was Mallalieu & Cotherstone’s clerk, Herbert Stoner.
XIV
The Sheet of Figures
At that time Stoner had been in the employment of Mallalieu and Cotherstone for some five or six years. He was then twenty-seven years of age. He was a young man of some ability—sharp, alert, quick at figures, good at correspondence, punctual, willing: he could run the business in the absence of its owners. The two partners appreciated Stoner, and they had gradually increased his salary until it reached the sum of two pounds twelve
