Doggedly little Bream returned to what he regarded as a hopeless task. He had not required Dr. Ladbroke’s comments to strengthen certain latent suspicions, but the crux of the matter remained as before. In only one respect had his opinions altered. He was beginning to wonder if, after all, the newspapers in Hull’s safe were not the rubbish he had first imagined.
It had come about through noticing that, oddly enough, the issues of earliest date were a trifle fresher-looking than the later ones. It might mean merely that these had not been exposed to sunlight and dust; but drawing a long bow he inquired at the news-stand closest to Floyd’s Square and made an interesting discovery. A woman answering Elsie’s description had, on the first of November, ordered back numbers of papers the dates of which, recorded in the news-seller’s book, ranged from early September to late October, and in each instance coincided with those of the fresher copies. So, while not furnishing proof that Elsie had been totally sane, it did suggest a method in her madness.
The question arose, why were these particular dates selected? The reply amazed him. The woman had asked for those issues which had contained most information on the Penge Scheme for Arterial Expansion! Her excuse had been that she owned a bit of land adjoining a Yorkshire town, and was anxious to learn if her locality was likely to benefit by one of the projected highways.
A blind? A few inquiries assured Bream that it was. Elsie came from Lincolnshire. If she owned land in Yorkshire or elsewhere, her sister, long estranged from her, knew nothing of it, nor did her fellow-workers. Bream went at the newspapers again, and saw how each edition featured the Penge Plan. It formed, indeed, the one common factor of any importance, and if he had discounted the fact before it was only because his eye, like all eyes, had grown so accustomed to Arterial Expansion blazoned over front pages that in a way he no longer saw it at all.
As he re-read every word a number of dissociated ideas began to rub elbows. Blundell was legal adviser to both Penge, author of the Plan, and Limpsfield, proprietor of most of these papers. Most? He ran through them swiftly. No, all of them. Was that accidental? Certainly, now he thought of it, the Limpsfield Press had of all others been most vociferous in advertising this scheme which, as he owned no property, had never interested him. But agreeing the Limpsfield papers had been deliberately chosen, where did Blundell come in? If the solicitor had wangled possession of Rose Somervell’s money in order to sink it in a remunerative investment, it would have been quite another pair of shoes. As it was—
Suddenly Bream recalled that Penge and Limpsfield had been the two clients who upheld Blundell’s alibi on the night Margaret Fairlamb was murdered. He had heard about it from Diana, and knew the Yard was fully satisfied that no collusion had prompted the separate statements. The incident served only to draw the three men together in another way. Not a damaging way, either. On the contrary, by making it certain the second crime could not be laid at Blundell’s door, it had furnished the strongest argument against his being guilty of the first. All the same, it would be well to learn of the interviews at first-hand. Considering the issues at stake, Inspector Headcorn would not, he felt sure, deny him detailed information.
What he did hear when, after some delay he got in touch with the Inspector, was a fuller version than had been given to Diana. The new items, however irrelevant, were oddly intriguing.
“Oh, yes, both those notables cheered up mightily the minute they knew it was their solicitor and not themselves I was inquiring about,” said Headcorn dryly. “It didn’t concern me to ask why, and I dare say I’d have got the same reaction with a number of other prominent people.”
“But you’re convinced, are you, they weren’t shielding Blundell? They were with him the whole of that evening?”
“I’ll take my oath on it.”
Bream then asked if—unofficially, of course—the Inspector could tell him anything about the Penge Plan.
“All above board, is it? No shady business, no profiteering?”
Headcorn replied confidently that under the present regulations there was small chance for profiteering. He had heard much discussion, some of it adverse, regarding the huge improvement scheme, but no suggestion of wangling for private gain.
“Nowadays every foot of commandeered land has its price properly fixed. You won’t see it rising to any fancy figures.”
Bream stifled a sigh. It was the wrong tack again. He took the opportunity to sound Headcorn on the almost-abandoned Fairlamb inquiry, which he perceived was a sore topic.
“You still think our dark-skinned friend had some connection with it?” he asked.
“Must have done,” grumbled the other. “Though in what capacity has got me beat.”
No more could be drawn from him, but his very silence showed Bream that the Yard, like himself, was ardently desirous of uncovering the hidden places in the dead Indian’s career. On the spot he resolved to let Elsie Dilworth go and risk one more throw on Haji’s former house-mates. His advertisement had been appearing for some days without evoking a single reply. He reworded it, offered a tempting reward, and held his breath to see what might happen.
The following evening he received two communications—not in answer to his Indian appeal, but prompted by the appeal for information touching Elsie’s migratory movements. One was from the manageress of a Trust House Hotel in Little Harben, Dorset, the other from an inn called The Haymakers, situated near a small village in Wiltshire. At each of these places a woman now believed to have been Elsie Dilworth had stayed for two nights, under different names. Expecting nothing worth while from the venture, Bream secured a car and set off to interview his two informants.
In each case the woman—once posing as Mrs. Edith Dixon, once as Mrs. Brown—had undoubtedly been Elsie. The handwriting in the two registers settled it; but at the Wiltshire inn he learned nothing of value, and at Little Harben he was turning away disappointed when a final remark made him pause. It seemed that the brother of the manageress had been talking at the desk when the new arrival broke into the conversation, and roused amusement by her excited manner.
“You could see she was queer,” the stout functionary continued. “Her, a perfect stranger, getting all worked up over—what do you think? Why, just a few acres of bad farming-land my brother practically gave away a couple of years back!”
“Farming-land?”
“Yes—and the questions she fired at him! Who bought it, what price he got, where the land was situated—oh, no end of things!”
“And where was it situated?” Bream wanted to know.
“Oh, to the north a bit, just where they’re cutting one of the new motor highways. That’s what my brother was grumbling about—his selling at such a low figure to some scatter-brained poultry-farmer that when he was about to go under sold again for—well, we don’t know what he got, but it must have been a good ten times what he gave.”
Highways again! Mad or sane, Elsie Dilworth had been genuinely concerned over the Penge Plan. With what object?
Bream drove round the town—unimpressive, not even a market-centre, yet now preening itself on the four beautiful “arteries” run straight as a ruler through straggling outskirts and carrying with them the promise of “ribbon-development.” He made the acquaintance of the disgruntled brother, learned that the lucky poultry-farmer had departed for places unknown, and from other sources collected an assortment of facts which sent him back to London deeply pondering, but no whit the wiser on points that mattered. He determined to locate, if possible, this A. J. Barstone, who from a failure in fowls had done an excellent land-deal and shaken the dust of Little Harben from his feet; but he feared that with this, as with all his inquiries, he would go far afield without striking one cross-line of evidence.
He had by now a vague working theory. The difficulty of it lay not only in the shortness of time at his disposal, but in the ultimate probability—he would have said certainty—that after all his efforts the vital aspects of his case would remain untouched. When the Appeal was heard and dismissed, only the fact that he was still being detained, kept him from admitting he was beaten. Like a distracted terrier he was running here and there on his divergent trails, unable to follow any single one for long, when a letter reached him from Northumberland. He read it, held sceptical debate with himself, and after five minutes’ moody wobbling, tossed a half-crown. It came down heads.
It was settled. He despatched a wire by telephone, and within the hour was in a third-class carriage, speeding towards the northern border.