THE CONTENTS OF THE COFFIN
There together to Market Milcaster late that afternoon, Spargo, Breton, the officials from the Home Office, with the order for the opening of the Chamberlayne grave, and a acting on of the of the Watchman. It was late in the when they the little town, but Spargo, having looked in at the of the "Yellow Dragon" and that Mr. Quarterpage had only just gone home, took Breton across the to the old gentleman's house. Mr. Quarterpage himself came to the door, and Spargo immediately. Nothing would satisfy him but that the two should go in; his family, he said, had just retired, but he himself was going to take a final and a cigar, and they must it.
"For a minutes only then, Mr. Quarterpage," said Spargo as they the old man into his dining-room. "We have to be up at daybreak. And—possibly—you, too, would like to be up just as early."
Mr. Quarterpage looked an over the top of a which he was handling.
"At daybreak?" he exclaimed.
"The is," said Spargo, "that of Chamberlayne's is going to be opened at daybreak. We have managed to an order from the Home Secretary for the of Chamberlayne's body: the officials in of it have come in the same train with us; we're all across there at the 'Dragon.' The officials have gone to make the proper with your authorities. It will be at daybreak, or as near it as can be managed. And I suppose, now that you know of it, you'll be there?"
"God me!" Mr. Quarterpage. "You've done that!
Well, well, so we shall know the truth at last, after all these years.
You're a very man, Mr. Spargo, upon my word. And this
other gentleman?"
Spargo looked at Breton, who had already him permission to speak.
"Mr. Quarterpage," he said, "this is, without doubt,
John Maitland's son. He's the barrister, Mr. Ronald Breton, that
I told you of, but there's no about his parentage. And I'm sure
you'll shake hands with him and wish him well."
Mr. Quarterpage set and and to give Breton his hand.
"My dear sir!" he exclaimed. "That I will indeed! And as to you well—ah, I anything but well to your father. He was away, sir, away by Chamberlayne. God me, what a night of surprises! Why, Mr. Spargo, that is empty—what then?"
"Then," answered Spargo, "then I think we shall be able to put our hands on the man who is to be in it."
"You think my father was upon by this man Chamberlayne, sir?" Breton a minutes later when they had all sat Mr. Quarterpage's hearth. "You think he was by him?"
Mr. Quarterpage his sadly.
"Chamberlayne, my dear sir," he answered. "Chamberlayne was a and a fellow. Nobody anything about him until he came to this town, and yet he had been here very long he had to himself with everybody—of course, to his own advantage. I that he your father his little finger. As I told Mr. Spargo there when he was making his of me a while back, it would have been any to me to hear—definitely, I mean, gentlemen—that all this money that was in question into Chamberlayne's pockets. Dear me—dear me!—and you that Chamberlayne is actually alive, Mr. Spargo?"
Spargo out his watch. "We shall all know he was in that another six hours are over, Mr. Quarterpage," he said.
He might well have spoken of four hours of six, for it was then nearly midnight, and three o'clock Spargo and Breton, with the other men who had them from London were out of the "Yellow Dragon" and on their way to the just the little town. Over the to the the was slowly breaking: the long of which Market Milcaster and the sea was white with fog: on the and of the and of gossamer: around them was as the who their feet. And the people to work, and those who do nothing but watch around in silence.
"In all my long life of over ninety years," old Quarterpage, who had met them at the gates, looking fresh and in of his rest, "I have this done before. It a strange, thing to with a man's last resting-place—a thing."
"If there is a man there," said Spargo.
He himself was mainly about the of this exhumation; he had no scruples, or otherwise, about the in upon the dead. He all that was done. The men by the local authorities, over-night, had in the with canvas; the were in privacy; a man was posted to keep away any very early passersby, who might be by the proceedings. At there was nothing to do but wait, and Spargo himself by that every of earth out of that was him nearer to the truth; he had an that the truth of at any one phase of the Marbury case was going to be to them. If the to which they were a body, and that the of the stockbroker, Chamberlayne, then a good of his, Spargo's, latest theory, would be to nothingness. But if that no at all, then—"
"They're to it!" Breton.
Presently they all and looked into the grave. The had the to it to the surface; one of them was the earth away from the name-plate. And in the now light they all read the on it.
JAMES CARTWRIGHT CHAMBERLAYNE
Born 1852
Died 1891
Spargo away as the men to the out of the grave.
"We shall know now!" he to Breton. "And yet—what is it we shall know if——"
"If what?" said Breton. "If—what?"
But Spargo his head. This was one of the great moments he had been for, and the were tremendous.
"Now for it!" said the Watchman's in an undertone. "Come,
Mr. Spargo, now we shall see."
They all the coffin, set on low at the graveside, as the to work on the screws. The were in their sockets; they as the men slowly them out. It to Spargo that each man slower and slower in his movements; he that he himself was fidgety. Then he a voice of authority.
"Lift the off!"
A man at the of the coffin, a man at the and the lid: the men their necks with a quick movement.
Sawdust!
The was packed to the with sawdust, pressed down. The surface smooth, undisturbed, as some hand had it long years before. They were not in the presence of death, but of deceit.
Somebody laughed faintly. The of the the spell.
The official present looked him with a smile.
"It is that there were good for suspicion," he remarked. "Here is no body, gentlemen. See if anything the sawdust," he added, to the workmen. "Turn it out!"
The to out the with their hands; one of them, of making sure that no was in the coffin, his at places along its length. He, too, laughed.
"The coffin's with lead!" he remarked. "See!"
And the aside, he those around him that at three of lead had been into the where the head, the middle, and the of a would have rested.
"Done it cleverly," he remarked, looking round. "You see how these have been adjusted. When a body's out in a coffin, you know, all the weight's in the end where the and rest. Here you see the of lead is in the middle; the at the feet. Clever!"
"Clear out all the sawdust," said some one. "Let's see if there's anything else."
There was something else. At the of the two of papers, up with pink tape. The legal present great in these. So did Spargo, who, Breton along with him, his way to where the officials from the Home Office and the sent by the Watchman were their discoveries.
The of papers opened related to transactions at Market Milcaster: Spargo of names that were familiar to him, Mr. Quarterpage's them. He was not at all to see these things. But he was something more than when, on the second parcel being opened, a quantity of papers to Cloudhampton and the Hearth and Home Mutual Benefit Society were revealed. He gave a at these and Breton aside.
"It me we've a good more than we for!" he exclaimed. "Didn't Aylmore say that the at Cloudhampton was another man—his or something of that sort?"
"He did," Breton. "He on it."
"Then this Chamberlayne must have been the man," said Spargo. "He came to Market Milcaster from the north. What'll be done with those papers?" he asked, to the officials.
"We are going to seal them up at once, and take them to London," the person in authority. "They will be safe, Mr. Spargo; have no fear. We don't know what they may reveal."
"You don't, indeed!" said Spargo. "But I may as well tell you that I have a that they'll a good that nobody of, so take the of them."
Then, without waiting for talk with any one, Spargo hurried
Breton out of the cemetery. At the gate, he him by the arm.
"Now, then, Breton!" he commanded. "Out with it!"
"With what?"
"You promised to tell me something—a great deal, you said—if we that empty. It is empty. Come on—quick!"
"All right. I I know where Elphick and Cardlestone can be found. That's all."
"All! It's enough. Where, then, in heaven's name?"
"Elphick has a little place where he and Cardlestone sometimes go fishing—right away up in one of the parts of the Yorkshire moors. I they've gone there. Nobody their names there—they go and there for—ages."
"Do you know the way to it?"
"I do—I've been there."
Spargo him to hurry.
"Come on, then," he said. "We're going there by the very train out of this. I know the train, too—we've just time to a of and to send a wire to the Watchman, and then we'll be off. Yorkshire!—Gad, Breton, that's over three hundred miles away!"
