“Then, out of the blue, came the shooting of Cargill. That wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the business. Cargill wasn’t a pawn like Staveley and Billingford. He was watching one end of the business for them—keeping an eye on us for one thing; and, besides, I was becoming more and more sure that he was a brother of the faceless fellow, and possibly the brains of the gang. They had a use for him; they wouldn’t shoot him. But, then, who did?
“And at that point I took a long cast back and raked up again a possibility I’d dismissed at an earlier stage. Suppose that both the claimant and Paul Fordingbridge were wrong ’uns, what then? Suppose friend Paul had been at some hanky-panky with the funds he held in trust for his nephew. Then, whether the claimant was an impostor or not, it would be very convenient for friend Paul if the claimant left this vale of tears. And the claimant and Cargill were much alike in build; and Cargill was shot after leaving the cottage. There might be something in it. And when I found that friend Paul carried a pistol in his pocket, and didn’t care who knew it, by the look of his jacket, I began to think furiously.
“I didn’t blame Paul for carrying arms. In his position, with that gang at the cottage in the offing, I think it was a wise precaution; for he must have known that he was the main stumbling-block in the claimant’s road. But I don’t think that he kept within the limits of precaution. I think he decided to get ahead of them by knocking out the claimant—and after that he would be able to live in peace as heretofore.
“However, I never had time to probe that matter any further, for the next business was the disappearance of friend Paul. I think I have a fair notion how that was managed.
“They approached him and asked for an interview. He sent the claimant a scrap of paper:
‘Meet me at the Blowhole tonight at 11 p.m. Come alone.’
The last two words give you the key to friend Paul’s feelings about them. One man he could keep an eye on, and he didn’t propose to have any more present. Of course, they filed that note and used it again later, as you’ll remember.
“Probably the claimant met him at the Blowhole and suggested a walk over the open sands as a good way of avoiding eavesdroppers. Paul would feel safer in the open. By the time they reached the old wreck the claimant would have got him interested, or else his natural fears would be dissipated. At the hulk the claimant obviously turned, as though to go back across the sands, and Paul turned with him. Then, from behind the hull, Aird stole out and did le coup du Père François.”
“What’s that?” Wendover demanded. “You talked a lot about Père François and Sam Lloyd’s ‘Get off the Earth’ puzzle, I remember.”
“If you happen to be in Paris late at night, squire, and a rough-looking customer asks you the time or begs for a match, you’d better look out for his friend—le Père François, they call him—who may be coming up behind you with a long strip of flannel in his hand. While the first man holds you in talk, the Père François lassoes you with his flannel rope and pulls the two ends so that it catches your throat. Then he sinks down suddenly and turns his back to you, slipping the rope over his shoulder as he turns. This pulls you down back to back with him; and when he rises to his normal height again, there you are on his back like a sack on a coal-heaver’s back, with your feet off the ground. The first man then goes through your pockets at his leisure, and if you choke to death before he’s done, so much the worse for you. You can’t struggle with any effect.
“That I suspect, was how they caught friend Paul; and Aird just carried him on his back to the quicksand and dumped him in. From Aird’s footmarks it was clear he’d been carrying a heavy weight; the prints were deep and the feet almost parallel after he’d done his Père François trick. See now what I meant by ‘Get off the Earth’? Naturally there were no signs of a struggle, since all the struggle was off the ground. And, of course, they’d take care to wear shoes that left no clue—common type and largest size. And they got away either in a boat or by wading along in the water, so as to leave no tracks. I could see no way to bring the affair home to them. The only sure method depended on our wringing evidence out of one of them somehow; and I didn’t see how it could be managed just then. Also, I hadn’t much of a case against Cargill beyond suspicion; and I wanted him too, if it could be managed.
“The next thing was the arrival of the Fordingbridge lawyer; and from him I learned that we might get on the track of any malversations by Friend Paul if I went up to London. I wanted to know definitely where I stood in that matter, because, if I was wrong there, then the whole latter part of my notions would collapse. So I made up my mind to go to town.
“But I was very uneasy. Now that Paul Fordingbridge was out of the road for good, Mrs. Fleetwood was the only person between the claimant and the cash. If she disappeared in her turn, then Miss Fordingbridge would have welcomed her long-lost nephew with pure joy and gratitude for his preservation, and there would have been no one left alive to object to his coming into Foxhills and the rest. Therefore, I was inclined to take some steps to see that she came
