Constable Wiseman raised his eyes in thought.
“At ten o’clock, Sergeant, I shall be opposite the gates of the cemetery.”
The sergeant looked round left and right.
“I am going to see Mr. Minute on a matter of business,” he said, “and you needn’t mention the fact.”
“I keep myself to myself,” began Constable Wiseman. “What I see with one eye goes out of the other, in the manner of speaking—”
The sergeant nodded, stepped on to his bicycle again, turned it about, and went at full speed down the gentle incline toward Weald Lodge. He made no secret of his visit, but rode through the wide gates up the gravel drive to the front of the house, rang the bell, and to the servant who answered demanded peremptorily to see Mr. Minute.
John Minute received him in the library, where the previous interviews had taken place. Minute waited until the servant had gone and the door was closed, and then he said:
“Now, Crawley, there’s no sense in coming to me; I can do nothing for you.”
The sergeant put his helmet on the table, walked to a sideboard where a tray and decanter stood, and poured himself out a stiff dose of whisky without invitation. John Minute watched him without any great resentment. This was not civilized Eastbourne they were in. They were back in the old free-and-easy days of Gwelo, where men did not expect invitations to drink.
Smith—or Crawley, to give him his real name—tossed down half a tumbler of neat whisky and turned, wiping his heavy mustache with the back of his hand.
“So you can’t do anything, can’t you?” he mimicked. “Well, I’m going to show you that you can, and that you will!”
He put up his hand to check the words on John Minute’s lips.
“There’s no sense in your putting that rough stuff over me about your being able to send me to jail, because you wouldn’t do it. It doesn’t suit your book, John Minute, to go into the court and testify against me. Too many things would come out in the witness box, and you well know it—besides, Rhodesia is a long way off!”
“I know a place which isn’t so far distant,” said the other, looking up from his chair—“a place called Felixstowe, for example. There’s another place called Cromer. I’ve been in consultation with a gentleman you may have heard of, a Mr. Saul Arthur Mann.”
“Saul Arthur Mann,” repeated the other slowly. “I’ve never heard of him.”
“You would not, but he has heard of you,” said John Minute calmly. “The fact is, Crawley, there’s a big bad record against you, between your serious crimes in Rhodesia and your blackmail of today. I’ve a few facts about you which will interest you. I know the date you came to this country, which I didn’t know before, and I know how you earned your living until you found me. I know of some shares in a nonexistent Rhodesian mine which you sold to a feebleminded gentleman at Cromer, and to a lady, equally feebleminded, at Felixstowe. I’ve not only got the shares you sold, with your signature as a director, but I have letters and receipts signed by you. It has cost me a lot of money to get them, but it was well worth it.”
Crawley’s face was livid. He took a step toward the other, but recoiled, for at the first hint of danger John Minute had pulled the revolver he invariably carried.
“Keep just where you are, Crawley!” he said. “You are close enough now to be unpleasant.”
“So you’ve got my record, have you?” said the other, with an oath. “Tucked away with your marriage lines, I’ll bet, and the certificate of birth of the kids you left to starve with their mother.”
“Get out of here!” said Minute, with dangerous quiet. “Get away while you’re safe!”
There was something in his eye which cowed the half-drunken man who, turning with a laugh, picked up his helmet and walked from the room.
The hour was seven-thirty-five by Constable Wiseman’s watch; for, slowly patrolling back, he saw the sergeant come flying out of the gateway on his bicycle and turn down toward the town. Constable Wiseman subsequently explained that he looked at his watch because he had a regular point at which he should meet Sergeant Smith at seven-forty-five and he was wondering whether his superior would return.
The chronology of the next three hours has been so often given in various accounts of the events which marked that evening that I may be excused if I give them in detail.
A car, white with dust, turned into the stable yard of the Star Hotel, Maidstone. The driver, in a dust coat and a chauffeur’s cap, descended and handed over the car to a garage keeper with instructions to clean it up and have it filled ready for him the following morning. He gave explicit instructions as to the number of tins of petrol he required to carry always and tipped the garage keeper handsomely in advance.
He was described as a young man with a slight black mustache, and he was wearing his motor goggles when he went into the office of the hotel and ordered a bed and a sitting room. Therefore his face was not seen. When his dinner was served, it was remarked by the waiter that his goggles were still on his face. He gave instructions that the whole of the dinner was to be served at once and put upon the sideboard, and that he did not wish to be disturbed until he rang the bell.
When the bell rang the waiter came to find the room empty. But from the adjoining room he received orders to have breakfast by seven o’clock the following morning.
At seven o’clock the driver of the car paid his bill, his big motor goggles still upon his face, again tipped the garage keeper handsomely, and drove his car from the yard. He turned to the right and appeared to be taking the London Road,
