Collingwood left these gruesome details—highly pleasing to their narrator—and went up to look at his dead grandfather. He had never seen much of him, but they had kept up a regular correspondence, and always been on terms of affection, and he was sorry that he had not been with the old man at the last. He remained looking at the queer, quiet, old face for a while; when he went down again, Mrs. Clough was talking to a sharp-looking lad, of apparently sixteen or seventeen years, who stood at the door leading into the shop, and who glanced at Collingwood with keen interest and speculation.
“Here’s Jabey Naylor wants to know if he’s to do aught, Mestur,” said the housekeeper. “Of course, I’ve telled him ’at we can’t have the shop open till the burying’s over—so I don’t know what theer is that he can do.”
“Oh, well, let him come into the shop with me,” answered Collingwood. He motioned the lad to follow him out of the parlour. “So you were Mr. Bartle’s assistant, eh?” he asked. “Had he anybody else?”
“Nobody but me, sir,” replied the lad. “I’ve been with him a year.”
“And your name’s what?” inquired Collingwood.
“Jabez Naylor, sir, but everybody call me Jabey.”
“I see—Jabey for short, eh?” said Collingwood good-humouredly. He walked into the shop, followed by the boy, and closed the door. The outer door into Quagg Alley was locked: a light blind was drawn over the one window; the books and engravings on the shelves and in the presses were veiled in a half-gloom. “Well, as Mrs. Clough says, we can’t do any business for a few days, Jabey—after that we must see what can be done. You shall have your wages just the same, of course, and you may look in every day to see if there’s anything you can do. You were here yesterday, of course? Were you in the shop when Mr. Bartle went out?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the lad. “I’d been in with him all the afternoon. I was here when he went out—and here when they came to say he’d died at Mr. Eldrick’s.”
Collingwood sat down in his grandfather’s chair, at a big table, piled high with books and papers, which stood in the middle of the floor.
“Did my grandfather seem at all unwell when he went out?” he asked.
“No, sir. He had been coughing a bit more than usual—that was all. There was a fog came on about five o’clock, and he said it bothered him.”
“What had he been doing during the afternoon? Anything particular?”
“Nothing at all particular before half-past four or so, sir.”
Collingwood took a closer look at Jabez Naylor. He saw that he was an observant lad, evidently of superior intelligence—a good specimen of the sharp town lad, well trained in a modern elementary school.
“Oh?” he said. “Nothing particular before half-past four, eh? Did he do something particular after half-past four?”
“There was a post came in just about then, sir,” answered Jabey. “There was an American letter—that’s it, sir—just in front of you. Mr. Bartle read it, and asked me if we’d got a good clear copy of Hopkinson’s History of Barford. I reminded him that there was a copy amongst the books that had been bought from Mallathorpe’s Mill some time ago.”
“Books that had belonged to Mr. John Mallathorpe, who was killed?” asked Collingwood, who was fully acquainted with the chimney accident.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Bartle bought a lot of books that Mr. Mallathorpe had at the Mill—local books. They’re there in that corner: they were put there when I fetched them, and he’d never looked over them since, particularly.”
“Well—and this History of Barford? You reminded him of it?”
“I got it out for him, sir. He sat down—where you’re sitting—and began to examine it. He said something about it being a nice copy, and he’d get it off that night—that’s it, sir: I didn’t read it, of course. And then he took some papers out of a pocket that’s inside it, and I heard him say ‘Bless my soul—who’d have thought it!’ ”
Collingwood picked up the book which the boy indicated—a thick, substantially bound volume, inside one cover of which was a linen pocket, wherein were some loose maps and plans of Barford.
“These what he took out?” he asked, holding them up.
“Yes, sir, but there was another paper, with writing on it—a biggish sheet of paper—written all over.”
“Did you see what the writing was? Did you see any of it?”
“No, sir—only that it was writing, I was dusting those shelves out, over there; when I heard Mr. Bartle say what he did. I just looked round, over my shoulder—that was all.”
“Was he reading this paper that you speak of?”
“Yes, sir—he was holding it up to the gas, reading it.”
“Do you know what he did with it?”
“Yes, sir—he folded it up and put it in his pocket.”
“Did he say any more—make any remark?”
“No, sir. He wrote a letter then.”
“At once?”
“Yes, sir—straight off. But he wasn’t more than a minute writing it. Then he sent me to post it at the pillar-box, at the end of the Alley.”
“Did you read the address?”
The lad turned to a book which stood with others in a rack over the chimneypiece, and tapped it with his finger.
“Yes, sir—because Mr. Bartle gave orders when I first came here that a register of every letter sent out was to be kept—I’ve always entered them in this book.”
“And this letter you’re talking about—to whom was it addressed?”
“Miss Mallathorpe, Normandale Grange, sir.”
“You went and posted it at once?”
“That very minute, sir.”
“Was it soon afterwards that Mr. Bartle went out?”
“He went out as soon as I came back, sir.”
“And you never saw him again?”
Jabey shook his head.
“Not alive, sir,” he answered. “I saw him when they brought him back.”
“How long had he been out when you heard he was dead?”
“About an hour, sir—just after six it was when they told Mrs. Clough and me. He went out at ten minutes past five.”
Collingwood got up.
