The Opal Serpent Part 16

CHAPTER X

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE

Paul's reason for advertising the name of Lemuel Krill was a very natural one. He believed that in the past of the dead man was to be found his reason for changing his name and living in Gwynne Street. And in that past before he became a second-hand bookseller and a secret p.a.w.nbroker might be found the motive for the crime. Therefore, if a reward was offered for the discovery of the murderer of Lemuel Krill, _alias_ Aaron Norman, something might come to light relative to the man's early life. Once that was known, the clue might be obtained. Then the truth would surely be discovered. He explained this to Hurd.

"I think you're right, Mr. Beecot," said the detective, in his genial way, and looking as brown as a coffee bean. "I have made inquiries from the two servants, and from the neighbors, and from what customers I could find. Aaron Norman certainly lived a very quiet and respectable life here. But Lemuel Krill may have lived a very different one, and the mere fact that he changed his name shows that he had something to conceal. When we learn that something we may arrive at the motive for the murder, and, given that, the a.s.sa.s.sin may be caught."

"The a.s.sa.s.sin!" echoed Paul. "Then you think there was only one."

Hurd shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows?" he said. "I speak generally.

From the strange circ.u.mstances of the crime I am inclined to think that there is more than one person concerned in this matter. However, the best thing to be done is to have hand-bills printed offering the five hundred pounds reward. People will do a lot to earn so much money, and someone may come forward with details about Mr. Krill which will solve the mystery of Norman's death."

"I hope you will gain the reward yourself, Hurd."

The detective nodded. "I hope so too. I have lately married the sweetest little wife in the world, and I want to keep her in the way she has been accustomed to be kept. She married beneath her, as I'm only a thief-catcher, and no very famous one either."

"But if you solve this mystery it will do you a lot of good."

"That it will," agreed Billy, heartily, "and it will mean advancement and extra screw: besides the reward if I can get it. You may be very sure, Mr. Beecot, that I'll do my best. Oh, by the way," he added, "have you heard that Mr. Pash is being asked for many of those jewels?"

"No. Who are asking for them? Not that nautical man?"

Hurd shook his head. "He's not such a fool," said he. "No! But the people who pledged the jewels are getting them back--redeeming them, in fact. Pash is doing all the business thoroughly well, and will keep what jewels remain for the time allowed by law, so that all those who wish to redeem them can do so. If not, they can be sold, and that will mean more money to Miss Norman--by the way, I presume she intends to remain Miss Norman."

"Until I make her Mrs. Beecot," said Paul, smiling.

"Well," replied Hurd, very heartily, "I trust you will both be happy. I think Miss Norman will get a good husband in you, and you will gain the sweetest wife in the world bar one."

"Everyone thinks his own crow the whitest," laughed Beecot. "But now that business is ended and you know what you are to do, will you tell me plainly why you warned me against Grexon Hay?"

"Hum," said the detective, looking at Paul with keen eyes, "what do you know about him, sir?"

Beecot detailed his early friends.h.i.+p with Hay at Torrington, and then related the meeting in Oxford Street. "And so far as I have seen," added Paul, justly, "there's nothing about the man to make me think he is a bad lot."

"It is natural you should think well of him as you know no wrong, Mr.

Beecot. All the same, Grexon Hay is a man on the market."

"You made use of that expression before. What does it mean?"

"Ask Mr. Hay. He can explain best."

"I did ask him, and he said it meant a man who was on the marriage market."

Hurd laughed. "Very ingenious and untrue."

"Untrue!"

"Certainly. Mr. Hay knows better than that. If that were all he wouldn't think a working man would warn anyone against him."

"He guessed you were not a working man," said Paul, "and intimated that he had a _liaison_ with a married woman, and that the husband had set you to watch."

"Wrong again. My interest in Mr. Hay doesn't spring from divorce proceedings. He paints himself blacker than he is in that respect, Mr.

Beecot. My gentleman is too selfish to love, and too cautious to commit himself to a divorce case where there would be a chance of damages. No!

He's simply a man on the market, and what that is no one knows better than he does."

"Well, I am ignorant."

"You shall be enlightened, sir, and I hope what I tell you will lead you to drop this gentleman's acquaintance, especially now that you will be a rich man through your promised wife."

"Miss Norman's money is her own," said Paul, with a quick flush. "I don't propose to live on what she inherits."

"Of course not, because you are an honorable man. But I'll lay anything you like that Mr. Hay won't have your scruples, and as soon as he finds your wife is rich he'll try and get money from her through you."

"He'll fail then," rejoined Beecot, calmly. "I am not up to your London ways, perhaps, but I am not quite such a fool. Perhaps you will enlighten me as you say."

Hurd nodded and caught his smooth chin with his finger and thumb. "A man on the market," he explained slowly, "is a social highwayman."

"I am still in the dark, Hurd."

"Well, to be more particular, Hay is one of those well-dressed blackguards who live on mugs. He has no money--"

"I beg your pardon, he told me himself that his uncle had left him a thousand a year."

"Pooh, he might as well have doubled the sum and increased the value of the lie. He hasn't a penny. What he did have, he got through pretty quickly in order to buy his experience. Now that he is hard up he practises on others what was practised on himself. Hay is well-bred, good-looking, well-dressed and plausible. He has well-furnished rooms and keeps a valet. He goes into rather shady society, as decent people, having found him out, won't have anything to do with him. But he is a card-sharper and a fraudulent company-promoter. He'll borrow money from any juggins who is a.s.s enough to lend it to him. He haunts Piccadilly, Bond Street and the Burlington Arcade, and is always smart, and bland, and fascinating. If he sees a likely victim he makes his acquaintance in a hundred ways, and then proceeds to fleece him. In a word, Mr. Beecot, you may put it that Mr. Hay is Captain Hawk, and those he swindles are pigeons."

Paul was quite startled by this revelation, and it was painful to hear it of an old school friend. "He does not look like a man of that sort,"

he remonstrated.

"It's not his business to look like a man of that sort," rejoined the detective. "He masks his batteries. All the same he is one of the most dangerous men on the market at the present in town. A young peer whom he plucked two years ago lost everything to him, and got into trouble over some woman. It was a nasty case and Hay was mixed up in it. The relatives of the victim--I needn't give his t.i.tle--asked me to put things right. I got the young n.o.bleman away, and he is now travelling to acquire the sense he so sadly needed. I have given Mr. Hay a warning once or twice, and he knows that he is being watched by us. When he slips, as he is bound to do, sooner or later, then he'll have to deal with me. Oh I know how he hunts for clients in fas.h.i.+onable hotels, smart restaurants, theatres and such-like places. He is clever, and although he has fleeced several lambs since he plucked the pigeon I saved, he has, as yet, been too clever to be caught. When I saw you with him, Mr.

Beecot, I thought it just as well to put you on your guard."

"I fear he'll get little out of me," said Paul. "I am too poor."

"You are rich now through your promised wife, and Hay will find it out."

"I repeat that Miss Norman's money has nothing to do with me. And I may mention that as soon as the case is in your hands, Mr. Hurd--"

"Which it is now," interpolated the detective.

"I intend to marry Miss Norman and then we will travel for a time."

"That's very wise of you. Give Hay a wide berth. Of course, if you meet him, you needn't tell him what I have told you. But when he tries to come Captain Hawk over you, be on your guard."

"I shall, and thanks for the warning."