“It’s all lies, you know,” muttered Murgatroyd.
“Nobody can find ’em out, anyway,” replied Pratt. “That’s the one important thing to consider. You’re safe! And if you’re cursed with a conscience and it’s tender—well, that’ll make a good plaister for it!”
He pointed to the little wad of banknotes—and the man sitting at his side followed the pointing finger with hungry eyes. Murgatroyd wanted money badly. His business, always poor, was becoming worse: his shipping agency rarely produced any result: his rent was in arrears: he owed money to his neighbour-tradesmen: he had a wife and young children. To such a man, a hundred pounds meant relief, comfort, the lifting of pressure.
“You’re sure there’s naught wrong in it, Mr. Pratt,” he asked abruptly and assiduously. “It ’ud be a bad job for my family if anything happened to me, you know.”
“There’s naught that will happen,” answered Pratt confidently. “Who on earth can contradict you? Who knows what people you sell passages to—but yourself?”
“There’s the folks themselves,” replied Murgatroyd. “Suppose Parrawhite turns up?”
“He won’t!” exclaimed Pratt.
“You know where he is?” suggested Murgatroyd.
“Not exactly,” said Pratt, “But—he’s left this country for another—further off than America. That’s certain! And—the folks I referred to don’t want any inquiry about him here.”
“If I am asked questions—later—am I to say he booked in his own name?” inquired Murgatroyd.
“No—name of Parsons,” responded Pratt. “Here, I’ll write down for you exactly what I want you to say in the telegram to Halstead & Byner, and I’ll make a few memoranda for you—to post you up in case they write for further information.”
“I haven’t said that I’ll do it,” remarked Murgatroyd. “I don’t like the looks of it. It’s all a pack of lies.”
Pratt paid no heed to this moral reflection. He found some loose paper in his pocket and scribbled on it for a while. Then, as if accidentally, he moved the ashtray, and the banknotes beneath it, all new, gave forth a crisp, rustling sound.
“Here you are!” said Pratt, pushing notes and memoranda towards his companion. “Take the brass, man!—you don’t get a job like that every day.”
And Murgatroyd put the money in his pocket, and presently went home, persuading himself that everything would be all right.
XXIII
Smooth Face and Anxious Brain
Byner watched Eldrick and Collingwood inquisitively as they bent over Halstead’s telegram. He was not surprised when Collingwood merely nodded in silence—nor when Eldrick turned excitedly in his own direction.
“There!—what did I tell you?” he exclaimed. “There’s been no murder! The man left the town. Probably, Pratt helped him off. Couldn’t have better proof than that wire!”
“What do you take that wire to prove, then, Mr. Eldrick?” asked Byner.
“Take it to prove!” answered Eldrick. “Why, that Parrawhite booked a passage to America with this man Murgatroyd, last November. Clear enough, that!”
“What do you take it to prove, Mr. Collingwood?” continued the inquiry agent, as he turned to the barrister with a smile.
“Before I take it for anything,” replied Collingwood, “I want to know who Murgatroyd is.”
Byner looked at Eldrick and laughed.
“Precisely!” he said. “Who is Murgatroyd? Perhaps Mr. Eldrick knows.”
“I do just know that he’s a man who carries on a small watch and clock business in a poorish part of the town, and that he has some sort of a shipping agency,” answered Eldrick. “But—do you mean to imply that whatever message it is that he’s sent to your partner in London this morning has not been sent in good faith?”
“I don’t imply anything,” answered Byner. “All I say is—before I attach any value to his message I, like Collingwood, want to know something about the sender. He may have been put up to sending it. He may be in collusion with somebody. Now, Mr. Eldrick, you can come in here—strongly! I don’t want to be seen in this affair—yet. Will you go and see Murgatroyd? Tell him his wire to Halstead & Byner in London has been communicated to you here. Ask him for further particulars—and then drop in on me at my hotel and tell me what you’ve learnt. I’ll be found in the smoking-room there any time after two-thirty onward.”
Eldrick’s intense curiosity in what was rapidly becoming a fascinating mystery to him, led him to accept this embassy. And a little before three o’clock he walked into the smoking-room at the Central Hotel and discovered Byner in a comfortable corner.
“I’ve seen Murgatroyd,” he whispered, as he took an adjacent chair. “Decent honest enough man—very poor, I should say. He tells a plain enough story. Parrawhite, whom he knew as one of our clerks, told him, last November 23rd—”
“He was exact about dates, then, was he?” interrupted Byner.
“He mentioned them readily enough,” replied the solicitor. “But to go on—Parrawhite mentioned to him, November 23rd last, that he wanted to go to America at once, Murgatroyd told him about bookings. Parrawhite called very early next morning, paid for his passage under the name of Parsons, and went off—en route for Liverpool, of course. So—there you are!”
“That’s all Murgatroyd could tell?” inquired Byner.
“That’s all he knows,” answered Eldrick.
“You say Murgatroyd knew Parrawhite as one of your clerks?” asked Byner after a moment’s thought.
“We had some process in hand against this man last autumn,” replied Eldrick. “I dare say Parrawhite served him with papers.”
“Would he—Murgatroyd—be likely to know Pratt?” continued Byner.
“He might—in the same connection,” admitted Eldrick.
Byner smoked in silence for a while.
“Do you know what I think, Mr. Eldrick?” he said at last. “I think Pratt put up Murgatroyd to sending that telegram to us in London this morning.”
“You do!” exclaimed Eldrick.
“Surely! And now,” continued the inquiry agent, “if you will, you can do more—much more—without appearing to do anything. Pratt’s office is only a few minutes away. Can you drop in there, making some excuse, and while there, mention, more
