CHAPTER

IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THE PUBLIC does not always appreciate the fact that a paper has scored over its rivals in the matter of news so keenly as newspaperland itself. A "scoop" is often rather a moral than a material triumph; but nevertheless it is an ambition keen as a razor edge with every editorial man on a daily paper, Yet for purposes of his own Silverdale had committed the deadly newspaper sin. He had deliberately and with his eyes open sacrificed the scoop he held regarding the disappearance of Hilary Sloane. It was a lapse which, if known to the mandarins of the Daily Wire, would have caused an epidemic of apoplexy.

      For the time, however, Jimmie's professional ethics had been swamped. If publicity was to be used in finding Hilary Sloane he was determined to use it to the nth degree if necessary. So it was that four papers chronicled what some of them were pleased to call the new and startling development of the Saxon murder story. It was the ancient hue and cry applied by modern methods. Tens of thousands of people suddenly found themselves discussing with intimate interest the search for the two girls and Eston. The public, as the news editor of the Daily Wire prophesied, simply ate it.

      Certain details, of course, were never published at all. Jimmie was discreet. It was easy to show Hilary simply as an innocent victim of circumstance. Nor did he absolutely let his own paper down. His personal narrative of Garfield's encounter with Eston was some salve to the Daily Wire for the escape of the main story into the columns of its rivals.

      No longer was it merely the organization of Scotland Yard against Eston—the whole population of the country was, so to speak, called in to aid in the search. Yet this wholesale method of investigation had its disadvantages. While the newspapermen and the detectives concentrated on the district round about Twyford in an effort to pick up the scent, there began an avalanche of false trails.

      Some had seen Hilary at Forest Hill, Newcastle, Glasgow, Bristol, and Cornwall. Here she was alone, there she was accompanied by Eston and Miss Dring. There was scarce a district in the country where she had not been seen. Some of the inf ormants were hazy and general; others were definite and circumstantial. All were seeking to aid justice, though a few hinted that some more substantial recognition should be theirs. A little sifting reduced the majority of the stories that passed into Scotland Yard and the newspaper offices to their true proportions, but the rest caused more trouble. It is never safe in such cases to ignore anything nor to assume offhand that the unlikely is unnecessarily untrue.

      On the other hand, much was learnt about Eston and the two girls that would have taken weeks to gather in the ordinary way. In consequence, both Garfield and Silverdale were much engaged in office work during the day, leaving the hunt at Twyford, to others for the time being. It was late in the afternoon that the two met at Paddington. The chief inspector was rubbing his hands gleefully.

      "We're beginning to move, Silver," he said. "I'd hate to brag but we're likely to get to the bottom of this show much quicker than I expected."

      "Can you lay your hands on Eston?" asked Jimmie.

      Garfield shook his bead and held open the door of a compartment for his companion. "All that in good time, " he said as he took his own seat. "That's the thing we'll. deal with next. I've been more concerned to disentangle the evidence. It's been office work All day for me. Have you got anything fresh?"

      "Several odds and ends— I've sent everything that seemed important up to the Yard."

      "Ah," Garfield leaned back and stretched his arms above his head as the train started. "That's what I've been doing— juggling with odds and ends. Would it surprise you, Jimmie, to learn that by no reasonable possibility could Miss Sloane have committed this murder?"

      "Is that your idea of humor?" queried Silverdale icily. "I could have told you that."

      "In fact you did," agreed the inspector amiably. "Don't fly off the handle, Jimmie. I want to talk to you. I feel like Sherlock Holmes and I need a Watson."

      "Fire ahead."

      Garfield rammed his pipe full with tobacco, applied a light and took one or two tentative puffs. "Sir Harold Saxon," he said, "was married in the year before the war. He was just plain Harold Saxon then and was employed as a kind of foreman carpenter at some works in Columbus, Ohio, U. S. A. He was married to an English girl."

      "That stuff came from our New York men this morning."

      "Precisely. It also came to us from Pinkerton's, from the Mulberry Street detective bureau, and from other sources. I judge your map didn't tell you the name of the lady?"

      "No." Silverdale detected something curious in the other's tone.

      "The girl he married," went on the other, "gave her name as Hilary Sloane."

      "That's a lie." Silverdale spoke quietly, without emphasis, as though he had no personal feeling at all. Garfield regarded him impassively with a twinkle in his eye. Jimmie noted that twinkle and it killed the dread that was arising in his mind.

      "It is not a lie. It's the bald truth. What's more, it's plausible. The only thing against it is that Miss Sloane has never been in America. We've carried her record back to her school days and we know for a certainty. Can you begin to put two and two together, Jimmie?"

      The journalist leaned forward. It was easy to see that his mind was working fast. "If Hilary was not in America and Saxon married a Hilary Sloane, she may have had a namesake—"

      "I thought of that. It's straining coincidence pretty far," commented the other dryly.

      "It's so wild that it must be out of the question. Therefore someone must have assumed Hilary Sloane's name—someone who knew her and who wished to be married in an assumed name. Probably the girl had no definite reason for taking that name, rather than any other. Suppose it's—by Heaven, Garfield!"

      Garfield's eyes were still twinkling. "I'm supposing nothing off-hand because I hope to know as soon as the mail can carry a photograph. No use in drawing inferences when one can establish facts. We'll keep our guesses on the identity of the lady out of it. Now I'm going to switch to another interesting point. Saxon was being blackmailed."

      "That doesn't altogether surprise me. In fact, some of the information we've received about him at the office would show that he'd given opportunities before the war.

      "He wasn't worth powder and shot from a blackmailer's point of view before held got money," agreed Garfield. "Now we're getting close up to it. His bank account shows gaps that no reasonable explanation but blackmail will cover."

      "Surely he never paid by check?"

      "Not on your life. I never knew a blackmailer who liked checks. No, Saxon was in some ways a very methodical man. He kept a private account book in which he indicated his own expenditure. Now, over the last six or eight months he drew no less than £3,700—quite apart from his own personal expenditure which he showed clearly—in sums ranging from £1,000 to £400. Contrary to his usual habits, he, presented a check himself and drew it in small notes. Now that is quite a sum and small notes are hard to trace. The last payment was made six months ago.

      "That," went on Garfield, "narrows things down. It may have been his wife; it may have been someone else. I suspect that Eston has had a hand in it. It is quite likely that he had come to know that Saxon had married someone who called herself Hilary Sloane. Whether he knew or not that she was Saxon's real wife is a point one cannot be certain of. If he believed she was actually Lady Saxon, it would explain much of his methods at the moment— for the real Lady Saxon will hold a large interest in the fortune that the dead man has left. Eston always plays for big stakes.

      "Now here is a hypothesis which may be right or wrong, but which gives us a working assumption for the moment. Suppose Eston was the blackmailer and suppose Saxon had at last got tired of being bled and made a stand. Eston might very well decide to play the big game—even though it meant murder. He might see his way to get the girl he believed to be Saxon's wife under his control—and with Saxon's fortune. Do you follow?"

      Jimmie made a gesture of assent. "I can see holes in your reasoning, but I believe you're on the line. That would explain why Eston was so anxious to enlist me—if he thought I had influence with Hilary Sloane. But all this, as you say, is assumption."

      "Yes— but it's assumption, old lad, that fits a very complicated set of facts. I don't pretena that I could go straightaway and prove it. If it's right, however, we'll be able to bring it home all right. Eston has associates in a game of this kind and that will be the weak spot in his armor. I never did believe that there was anything in the proverb in there being honor among thieves. If crooks could trust one another the world would be hopelessly at their mercy and Scotland Yard worse than useless."

      Silverdale flung the butt of his cigarette through the window and rolled a new one. The situation revealed was, as Garfield said, a working hypothesis and might very well shatter to pieces when brought face to face with practical facts. Still it gave a reason, a motive for many happenings which had hitherto seemed purposeless.

      There was only one point on which Garfield had not touched. If Eston thought Hilary was Saxon's wife—or rather widow—there was one obvious way certain to occur to him by which he could make sure of Saxon's fortune. It might be part of his plan to marry her—or attempt to marry her. Jimmie thought it highly unlikely that she would ever agree, whatever pressure was brought to bear upon her. That pressure could be brought to bear, there was no doubt. He set his shoulders squarely and his lips pressed to a thin, straight line as he contemplated the possibilities of the methods that a man such as Eston might bring to bear on a girl like Hilary.

      "What do you think?" asked Garfield.

      "I think," said Jimmie decisively, "that the sooner we lay hands on Hilary, the better it will be for all of us. I hate to think of what may be happening to her at this very moment. We've got to find her—quick."

      "I am rather inclined to agree with you," observed Garfield.