The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack. R. Austin Freeman
plain ones they looked to me without a-photographin’ of ’em. Well, it’s them footmarks as he’s a-takin’.”
“But what for?” demanded Pottermack.
“Ah,” said Mr. Gallett. “There you are. I don’t know, but I’ve got my ideas. I see the police inspector a-watchin’ of him—all on the broad grin he was too—and I suspect it’s got something to do with that bank manager that I was tellin’ you about.”
“Ah, Mr. Lewis?”
“Lewson is his name. There’s no news of him and he was seen coming this way on Wednesday night. Why, he must have passed this very gate.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Pottermack. “And as to his reasons for going away so suddenly. Is anything—er—?”
“Well, no,” replied Gallett. “Nothing is known for certain. Of course, the bank people don’t let on. But there’s some talk in the town about some cash that is missing. May be all bunkum, though it’s what you’d expect. Now, about that spade. Shall I call in my men or can we do it ourselves?”
Pottermack decided that they could do it themselves, and, having produced a couple of spades, he fell to work under Gallett’s direction, raising a low platform for the stone slabs to rest on. A few minutes’ work saw it finished to the mason’s satisfaction, and all was now ready for the fixing of the dial.
“I wonder if that photographer chap has finished,” said Mr. Gallett. “Shall we go and have a look?”
This was what Pottermack had been bursting to do, though he had heroically suppressed his curiosity; and even now he strolled indifferently to the gate and held it open for the mason to go out first.
“There he is,” said Gallett, “and blow me if he isn’t a-takin’ of ’em all the way along. What can he be doing that for? The cove had only got two feet.”
Mr. Pottermack looked out and was no less surprised than the worthy mason. But he did not share the latter’s purely impersonal interest. On the contrary, what he saw occasioned certain uncomfortable stirrings in the depths of his consciousness. Some little distance up the path a spectacled youth of sage and sober aspect had set up a tripod to which a rather large camera of the box type was attached by a goose-neck bracket. The lens was directed towards the ground, and when the young man had made his exposure by means of a wire release, he opened a portfolio and made a mark or entry of some kind on what looked like a folded map. Then he turned a key on the camera, and, lifting it with its tripod, walked away briskly for some twenty or thirty yards, when he halted, fixed the tripod and repeated the operation. It really was a most astonishing performance.
“Well,” said Mr. Gallett, “he’s finished here, at any rate, so we can get on with our business now. I’ll just run round and fetch the cart along.”
He sauntered away towards the road, and Pottermack, left alone, resumed his observation of the photographer. The proceedings of that mysterious individual puzzled him not a little. Apparently he was taking a sample footprint about every twenty yards, no doubt selecting specially distinct impressions. But to what purpose? One or two photographs would have been understandable as permanent records of marks that a heavy shower might wash away and that would, in any case, soon disappear. But a series, running to a hundred or more, could have no ordinary utility. And, yet it was not possible that that solemn young man could be taking all this trouble without some definite object. Now, what could that object be?
Pottermack was profoundly puzzled. Moreover, he was more than a little disturbed. Hitherto his chief anxiety had been lest the footprints should never be observed. Then he would have had all his trouble for nothing, and those invaluable tracks, leading suspicion far away from his own neighbourhood to an unascertainable destination, would have been lost. Well, there was no fear of that now. The footprints had not only been observed and identified, they were going to be submitted to minute scrutiny. He had not bargained for that. He had laid down his tracks expecting them to be scanned by the police or the members of a search party, to whom they would have been perfectly convincing. But how would they look in a photograph? Pottermack knew that photographs have an uncanny way of bringing out features that are invisible to the eye. Now could there be any such features in those counterfeit footprints? He could not imagine any. But then why was this young man taking all those photographs? With his secret knowledge of the real facts, Pottermack could not shake off an unreasoning fear that his ruse had been already discovered, or at least suspected.
His cogitations were interrupted by the arrival of the cart, which was halted and backed up against his gateway. Then there came the laying down of planks to enable the larger slab to be trundled on rollers to the edge of the platform. Pottermack stood by, anxious and restless, inwardly anathematizing the conscientious mason as he tried the surface of the platform again and again with his level. At last he was satisfied. Then the big base slab was brought on edge to the platform, adjusted with minute care and finally let down slowly into its place; and as it dropped the last inch with a gentle thud, Pottermack drew a deep breath and felt as if a weight, greater far than that of the slab, had been lifted from his heart.
In the remaining operations he had to feign an interest that he ought to have felt but did not. For him, the big base slab was what mattered. It shut that dreadful, yawning, black hole from his sight, as he hoped, for ever. The rest was mere accessory detail. But, as it would not do for him to let this appear, he assumed an earnest and critical attitude, particularly when it came to the setting up of the pillar on the centre of the upper slab.
“Now then,” said Mr. Gallett as he spread out a thin bed of mortar on the marked centre, “how will you have him? Will you have the plinth parallel to the base or diagonal?”
“Oh, parallel, I think,” replied Pottermack; “and I should like to have the word ‘spes’ on the eastern side, which will bring the word ‘pax’ to the western.”
Mr. Gallett looked slightly dubious. “If you was thinking of setting him to the right time,” said he, “you won’t do it that way. You’ll have to unscrew the dial-plate from the lead bed and have him fixed correct to time. But never mind about him now. We’re a-dealing with the stone pillar.”
“Yes,” said Pottermack, “but I was considering the inscription. That is the way in which it was meant to be placed, I think,” and here he explained the significance of the motto.
“There now,” said Mr. Gallett, “see what it is to be a scholar. And you’re quite right too, sir: you can see by the way the lichen grew on it that this here ‘sole orto’ was the north side. So we’ll put him round to the north again, and then I expect the dial will be about right, if you aren’t partickler to a quarter of an hour or so.”
Accordingly the pillar was set up in its place and centred with elaborate care. Then, when the level of the slabs had been tested and a few slight adjustments made, the pillar was tried on all sides with the plumb-line and corrected to a hair’s breadth.
“There you are, Mr. Pottermack,” said Mr. Gallett, as he put the last touch to the mortar joint and stepped back to view the general effect of his work; “see that he isn’t disturbed until the mortar has had time to set and he won’t want touching again for a century or two. And an uncommon nice finish he’ll give to the garden when you get a bit of smooth turf round him and a few flowers.”
“Yes,” said Pottermack, “you’ve made an extremely neat job of it, Mr. Gallett, and I’m very much obliged to you. When I get the turf laid and the flower borders set out, you must drop in and have a look at it.”
The gratified mason, having suitably acknowledged these commendations of his work, gathered up his tools and appliances and departed with his myrmidons. Pottermack followed them out into the lane and watched the cart as it retired, obliterating the footprints which had given him so much occupation. When it had gone, he strolled up the path in the direction in which the photographer had gone, unconsciously keeping to the edge and noting with a sort of odd self-complacency the striking distinctness of the impressions of his gutta-percha soles. The mysterious operator was now out of sight, but he, too, had left his traces