Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

Men were gabbling like geese over these questions, and particularly over the last, as they crossed the cobblestones of Market Square.

Two men, leaving the court together, drew aside from the throng and turned into a quiet street. One of them, a big, burly, bearded man, was obviously excited; the other, an odd-looking little individual, dressed in an antique frock coat and trousers much too short to reach the tops of his shoes, wore a rusty, old-fashioned hat far back on his head, and carried a Gamplike umbrella on his arm. You would have thought him an oddly-attired, respectable old party who had retired on some pension.

None of the people in the court that day had known him for Archer Dawe, the famous amateur detective, expert criminologist, a human ferret — none, at least, hut the man at whose side he now walked.

This man led Archer Dawe down a side street to the door of an office which formed part of the buildings of a big factory. He unlocked the door. They entered. He locked the door behind them. Then, without a word, but pointing Archer Dawe to a seat, he went over to a cupboard, brought out whisky, soda, glasses, and a box of cigars, and motioned the little man to help himself. They had both lighted cigars, both taken a hearty pull at their glasses before the big, bearded man spoke — spoke vehemently:

“Dawe, it’s a damned plant!”

Archer Dawe took another pull at his whisky-and-soda.

“What’s your notion, Mr. Holland?” he inquired.

Mr. Holland stamped up and down his office for a few minutes. Then he fell to swinging his arms.

“It’s a damned plant, Dawe!” he repeated. “And that chap Stephen Barr is in it as well as John. John’s going to take the grueling — being the younger and stronger. He’ll be a model prisoner — he’ll get out in some seven and a half years. Lord! What’s that? And then—”

He fell to stamping the floor, to waving his arms again.

“You mean,” said Archer Dawe, “you mean—”

“I mean that they’ve got the money. It hasn’t gone on the Stock Exchange. It’s not gone on the turf. It’s not gone over the card table. They’ve got it. It’s planted somewhere as safe as — as safe as I am standing here, Dawe! Did you see John give Stephen that look before he left the dock? Eh?”

“I did,” replied Archer Dawe.

“Now, I wonder what that meant? But — or, hang it,” exclaimed Mr. Holland, “don’t let’s theorize — I want you to keep an eye on Stephen Barr. It’s lucky that nobody knew you here in Normancaster — they would think this morning that you were some old fogy who’d just dropped into the court for an hour or so — you know, eh?”

“The matter stands thus,” said Archer Dawe slowly. “John Barr, who for ten years has been manager of the Yorkshire Bank here in Normancaster, has been to-day convicted of the crime of embezzlement and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. You, as a director of that bank, know that he has secured close upon two million dollars. You, personalty, believe that — eh?”

“I believe, as a private individual, that both of them have been in at this, that John’s going to do his seven and a half years, and that in the meantime Stephen’s going off to some other clime, there to prepare a comfortable place for his brother,” said Mr. Holland. “Why, bless me, John Barr will only be forty-three when he comes out, even if he serves the whole ten years — which he won’t. And Stephen isn’t anything like fifty yet. I’ve known them both since they were boys.”

“Your plan of campaign, Mr. Holland?” said Archer Dawe.

“Well, I have one, I’ll confess, Dawe,” answered Mr. Holland. “I’m going to have it communicated to Stephen Barr by a secret channel this afternoon that application for a warrant for his arrest is to be made to the borough magistrates first thing tomorrow morning. I want to see if that won’t stir him.

“Now, I happen to live exactly opposite his house, and I shall have a watch kept on his movements. I want you to stay here in my private office — there, you see, is a bedroom attached to it, with all conveniences, so that you’ll be comfortable if you have to stay the night, and, of course, I’ll see that you have everything in the shape of food and so on. If I telephone you that Stephen Barr makes a sudden move from his house you’ll be ready to follow him — you’ve plenty of disguises, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Archer Dawe, with a glance at his old suitcase. “But, Mr. Holland, do you think that Stephen Barr would set off from here like that? Wouldn’t it look like — giving himself away?”

“No,” replied Mr. Holland. “And for this reason — Stephen Barr always goes up to town once a week — has done so for the last two years — why, nobody knows. He has no particular day; sometimes it’s Monday, sometimes Thursday, sometimes Friday. My notion is that if he’s startled by the rumor about the warrant he’ll go to-night. If he does I want you to go with him, and to keep an eye on him.”

“Then in that case I shall hold myself in readiness an hour before the night train starts,” said Archer Dawe.