The Dark Mill Stream

CHAPTER I.—THE TRADER FROM HOICHOW.-4

They chatted for a couple of minutes and then the first man came out of the telephone cabinet. From his expression it was plain his telephoning had not brought much result.

“No good,” he said disgustedly to his companion, and not troubling to lower his voice, “the doctor’s gone off to Scotland and his damned nurse has got two days’ holiday and cleared out. They don’t know where to get in touch with her.” He swore angrily. “Come on, it’s no good stopping here any longer,” and to Hardacre’s intense thankfulness, they went out and got into a waiting car.

An hour and a half later the trader, having recovered his trunks from the cloakroom of St. Pancras Station, was taking a ticket at Liverpool Street for Burnham, a quiet little town on the banks of the River Crouch.

Two days later, upon his return from Scotland, Dr. Monk rang up the chief medical officer of the Port of London again to inquire how things had gone with his patient and was most astonished to learn what had happened.

“As I told you,” he said, “I was half expecting he would try to get away, but I can’t understand why you didn’t find him at that coffee palace. I am almost certain he was stopping there, because the first time I saw him, when he took off his clothes for me to make an examination, a card fell out of his jacket pocket and, as I picked it up to hand back to him, I saw it was one showing the tariff charged at Benson’s Hall. It may be, of course, that he was there under a different name, and I should say now that that is very likely, as he was a proud sort of man and seemed rather bitter at having to put up at a cheap place like a coffee palace.”

“It was a mistake I didn’t ask you for a full description of him,” said the medical officer. “It was very careless of me. Let’s have it now.”

“Well, he was tall and well-built,” said the doctor, “and not at all a bad-looking fellow. Clean-shaven and bronzed, though not as sun-burnt as most people would be who had lived in the tropics, as he stated, for ten years. Still, you could tell he’d been living abroad. By the by, a nephew of mine happened to run into him as he was leaving my house and at first was very positive he was a man he had known on Hainan Island just off the mainland of China. He says the chap had been arrested some six months ago for killing a fellow-member of their club in Hoichow, but had bribed his way out of prison and escaped.”

“What—wanted for murder?” exclaimed the medical officer.

“Something like it. The other man was killed in a brawl over a dispute at cards.”

“And did he know your nephew had recognized him?” asked the medical officer sharply.

“My nephew isn’t certain,” replied the doctor. “At any rate the man didn’t show it and that makes my nephew not so positive now.” He laughed. “Or at any rate he says he’s not so positive, though I’m half inclined to think his uncertainty is because, if this fellow is the wanted man, the white community in Hoichow would not like the scandal of his being brought back. In fact, I believe my nephew is sorry now he mentioned anything about him to me.”

“Hum,” remarked the medical officer. “Well, it’s nothing to do with us, but I’ll send my men again to the coffee palace, although I think it’s quite hopeless now.”

The two men duly arrived at Benson Hall and asked to see the proprietor.

“Want to see Mr. Benson,” demanded the elder, planting himself in front of the desk, where the girl clerk had smiled as she recognized them.

“Mr. Benson?” she queried, looking rather puzzled. “There’s no Mr. Benson staying here.”

“I mean the boss,” said the man sharply, “the proprietor of the Hall.”

“But there’s no proprietor,” explained the girl. “It belongs to a company. Mrs. Williams is the manageress. Shall I fetch her?”

The man frowned heavily. He indicated his colleague. “But this gentleman spoke to Mr. Benson when he came here the other day. He gave him two of his tariff cards.” He spoke angrily. “Where is Mr. Benson? What’s the mystery about him?”

The girl looked rather frightened. “There’s no mystery, sir,” she replied, “but the Mr. Benson who once owned the place has been dead more than twenty years.”

The other man stepped forward. “Look here, Miss,” he said persuasively, “we want that gentleman I was talking to the other day, the one who came over to you and got those tariff cards to give me. He was a Mr. Benson, wasn’t he? He told me he was.”

The girl smiled all over her face now. “No, no,” she said quickly, “he was just one of the gentlemen staying here. His name was George Hunter.”

“Hell,” exclaimed the first man, “then where is he now?”

“Oh, he left us a few minutes after he’d given your friend our cards,” said the girl. “He went up and got his suitcase at once, and was gone almost immediately.” She wanted to smile but was afraid to, because, the truth beginning to dawn upon them, the two men were both looking so angry.

A short hard silence followed and then the girl added timidly: “Yes, and he may have been the very gentleman you came to inquire about, although he had given his name here as Hunter. We believe he must have come from abroad quite recently, because the chambermaid who did his room tells us now that his pyjamas had a tag on them with the name of some firm in a foreign country.”

For many moments the two men were so dumbfounded in their anger at the way they realized now they had been tricked, that they did not speak. Then the elder said hoarsely: “Thank you, Miss. We are much obliged. That’s all we wanted to know,” and without another word they turned away and walked out into the street.

“We’ll never catch him now,” said one of them as they were driving off in their car. “He’s too damned clever for us.” He laughed mirthlessly. “The blasted impudence of him! But why the hell didn’t the doctor think of giving us his description in the first instance?” and his colleague shrugged his shoulders disgustedly.