Christopher Quarles Part 38

Quarles nodded.

"I cannot explain what my adopted father was to me," Oglethorpe went on, "nor how keenly I feel his death. The question of his wealth never troubled me. I was too happy and contented with him to give a thought to what my future would be without him. You can understand how hateful this business, this quarreling about his money, is to me."

"I can, I can," said Quarles, with ready sympathy, and with a few dexterous questions he set Oglethorpe talking about the dead man.

Never surely has a man had his virtues treated more lovingly or his faults so little remembered. To ill.u.s.trate some reminiscence of his adopted father, Oglethorpe led us from room to room to show us some cabinet or picture. It seemed to me, as I looked round, that there were a thousand places where a will might be securely hidden, and my sympathy went out to this young fellow who stood to lose what there could be no doubt he was intended to possess.

We came presently to the old man's sanctum. Quarles had not asked to see it. He had followed Oglethorpe, content to listen to him, and only asking a short question at intervals. He seemed to grow keener in this room.

"Was he here a great deal?" the professor asked, looking round.

"He did all his business here, and if he wanted to talk to me seriously we came in here. He always put down the check for my college expenses on this table with, 'There, my dear boy, don't spend it foolishly and don't get into debt'--always the same words. I can hear them now. It is a comfort to me to remember that I gave him no anxiety on that score."

"Of course this room has been searched very thoroughly?"

"The whole house has been searched from garret to cellar, but you are at liberty to look where you please."

"It would be superfluous labor, no doubt," Quarles answered. "Tell me, Mr. Oglethorpe, during this search were there any surprises? It seems certain that if a will exists it must be in an altogether unexpected place. Now were things generally found in unexpected places? For example, there is a safe in that corner, I see; did you by any chance find a pair of old slippers securely locked up in it?"

"There was nothing so eccentric as that," said Oglethorpe, "but certainly we did come across unexpected things. Some old pipes were locked in a cabinet in the drawing-room. We found a ma.s.s of worthless papers in that safe, while some valuable doc.u.ments were under some old clothes at the bottom of a drawer in his bedroom. In that chest by the window, which a burglar would find difficult to pick, he had locked some fragments of a worthless china vase, and in this table drawer, which has no lock at all, he kept the few letters he had received from my mother. He looked upon them as one of the greatest treasures he possessed, yet anyone might have opened the drawer and read the letters. Yes, the dear old man was a little eccentric in that way."

"Kept his old clothes, useless papers, broken fragments. He did not like throwing things away."

"That is true."

"I suppose this room is much as he left it," said Quarles, picking up the waste-paper basket and turning over the papers in it.

"Yes; practically nothing has been moved or altered in the whole house. I had everything put back exactly where it was found. You notice that even the paper basket has not been emptied."

"May I open one or two drawers?" asked Quarles.

"You may search wherever you like," said Oglethorpe.

For a few minutes Quarles wandered round the room, opening a drawer here, a cabinet there, and apparently looking at the contents in a casual manner.

"I should like to see the room where Mr. Frisby died, if I may," he said presently.

We went upstairs, and with a slow glance round it, Quarles seemed to take in every item it contained and every corner that was in it. Here, too, he opened several drawers.

"He died in the evening, I understand," said the professor.

"Just before midnight," Oglethorpe returned.

"He was unconscious, wasn't he?"

"He could not speak, but I do not think he was altogether unconscious.

I believe he knew me."

"It has been suggested that he appeared to have something on his mind," said Quarles.

"I think it was the light that troubled him, but whether he wanted more or less in the room we could not determine. We tried both without being able to satisfy him."

"Reviewing the circ.u.mstances of those last few hours, was there anything which might point to the cause of this trouble?"

"I do not think so," Oglethorpe answered. "He moved his hands continuously, but not in the least as if he were anxious to write.

Such an idea did not occur to any of us. It was only afterward that we wondered whether he was troubled about his will."

"Who first started that idea?"

"I think it was Morton, but I am not sure."

"How did Mr. Frisby move his hands?"

"Like this, very slowly and feebly."

Oglethorpe held his hands before him an inch or two apart, the knuckles uppermost. The left hand he tilted slowly forward and downward; the right upward and backward.

"You are quite sure that those were the exact movements?" said Quarles after watching him closely.

"Quite sure."

"They were the same the whole time? He did not vary them?"

"Not once."

Quarles turned and walked out of the room, and we followed him. He paused to examine a bronze figure standing on a pedestal on the landing.

"Do you intend to begin your search at once?" Oglethorpe asked.

The professor did not answer.

"You can do so when you like," Oglethorpe went on.

"No," said Quarles with a start. He was not really examining the bronze, he was lost in thought. "No, not at once. I must think it out first. To-morrow, perhaps. I cannot say for certain."

It was by no means a hopeful answer, and I wondered if Quarles had already made some discovery which entirely destroyed his theory. His questions and his insistency on certain points told me that he had some theory.

We had kept our carriage waiting.

"I'm going to walk, Wigan," said the professor. "I must be alone. That road looks pretty flat and uninteresting; I shall go that way. It's impossible to think in that room at the Heron. I may be some hours. By the way, you might try and find out if Frisby Morton is in Boston. I might want to see him."

I drove back to the Heron, and in the afternoon I made inquiries about Morton. I found that a rumor had already been circulated in the town that a great detective had come to the Towers, and there was some excitement as to the reason of his visit. Mr. Giles must surely have mentioned our call, I thought. I also heard that Frisby Morton had left for London by the mid-day train, and I wondered if there was any significance in the fact of his departure coinciding with Quarles's arrival.

The professor did not return to the Heron until late. He was tired and hungry, and would neither talk nor listen to me until he had made a square meal.

"I found a splendid spot to think in, Wigan," he said, when the three of us were in our sitting-room. "A disused gravel-pit. I shared it with a frog for a time, but he worried me so I took him by the leg and threw him out. I looked for him afterward with the intention of throwing him in again. I could not find him, but as I was turning away, would you believe it, he hopped in again of his own accord."

I was not in the mood for an aesop fable, and with some impatience I told him the results of my inquiries that afternoon.

"Gone, has he? Business called him to town, I presume?"