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Title: The Midnight Mail
Date of first publication: 1931
Author: Henry Holt (1881-1955)
Date first posted: July 6, 2025
Date last updated: July 6, 2025
Faded Page eBook #20250706
This eBook was produced by: Al Haines & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net
HENRY HOLT
Henry Holt, one of England's
leading mystery writers, joins
the Crime Club with his newest
and greatest thriller—the
story of a strangler who
stalked London for his prey.
GARDEN CITY, N. Y. PUBLISHED FOR
THE CRIME CLUB, INC.
BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED AT THE Country Life Press, GARDEN CITY, N.Y., U.S.A.
COPYRIGHT, 1931
BY HENRY HOLT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FIRST EDITION
To
JOHN FARQUHARSON
Whose sincere friendship
and sound judgment have meant much
to me for many years
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1. Seventeen Minutes to Go
2. Scotland Yard at Work
3. Complications
4. Danger
5. Fragmentary Clues
6. Wanted!
7. Mrs. Elm's Fears
8. Silver Makes a Journey
9. A Mysterious Visitor
10. Another Enigma
11. The Man with Red Hair
12. Missing!
13. The Hunt for Sally
14. A Cable
15. The Spider's Web
16. The Diamond Raid
17. "Nothing Doing"
18. Tim's Revelation
19. In the Underworld
20. Deeper Mystery
21. A Secret
22. Sniffy's Story
23. A Rendezvous
24. The Raid
25. The Sea Chest
26. "On Suspicion"
27. Edwin Clissold
28. Shadowed
29. Silas Ismay's Record
30. The Bait
31. The Girl Who Waited
32. The Chase
33. The Boat Train
34. The Mystery Cab
35. The Tables Turned
36. A Message from Sydney
37. At the Sign of the Three Balls
38. By the Rose Mary
39. The House of Secrets
40. The Chief Takes Charge
41. The Riddle in a Smile
42. The Last Trick
THE MIDNIGHT MAIL
In his van next to the engine the railway guard put down his newspaper as a fresh note crept into the roar of the train—a high, clattering note which told him she was passing over Pennystone Bridge.
He looked at his watch. They were dead on time. It was seventeen minutes' run from that bridge to London. Since the last stop, at Peterborough, the driver had recovered lost ground.
The great train thundered on, with mails that were due at King's Cross by the stroke of midnight. The guard tapped the ashes out of his pipe, stowed it away in a waistcoat pocket, got up, stretched and yawned. Then he walked into the corridor of the next swaying coach and slid back the door of the nearest compartment.
"We're nearly there now, miss," he said, putting his head into the carriage, which was dimly lighted, the shade having been pulled over the lamp.
But there was no answer. The guard stepped into the compartment.
Three or four minutes later he emerged into the corridor once more, his face unnaturally white and pitted with drops of sweat.
He peered along the corridor. At the far end of that coach a man was standing looking out of the window, apparently immersed in his own thoughts and gazing at the rushing night cinema of northern London through which the train was now travelling. The passenger started as the guard's hand touched his shoulder. A powerfully built fellow with a nervous manner and gold-rimmed spectacles behind which dark melancholy eyes shone.
"How long have you been standing there?" asked the guard, raising his voice above the noise of the train.
"Why, I don't know. Ten minutes, maybe," the man answered, staring apprehensively beyond the guard up the empty corridor. "What's wrong?"
"Did you see anybody pass this way?" demanded the guard, whose hands were shaking.
"See anybody?" the man repeated. "No, not since I've been here."
"Are you sure?"
"I think so. What—what's the matter?"
The hiss of brakes could now be heard. The train was slowing down perceptibly as the end of the journey drew near.
"You'd better wait there when we get to King's Cross," said the guard. "Something—something serious has happened, and I expect the police will want to hear what you've got to say."
Then he hastily turned his attention to the other compartments of that coach. Only two of them were occupied.
As the huge panting engine drew up at the terminus the guard descended on to the platform and seized a porter by the arm.
"Fetch the station master and the police quick—quick," he ordered.
The porter gave one puzzled glance at the guard but reacted almost immediately to the urgency in the man's voice and hurried away.
There were two or three hundred passengers getting out of the train and some of them were already streaming forward past the engine toward the exit. With an imperative gesture the guard beckoned another porter.
"Stand by the door of that compartment," he said. "There's been a——" The rest of his sentence was lost as he darted forward. The man in gold-rimmed spectacles to whom he had spoken in the corridor was mingling with the rest of the homeward-bound crowd.
"No you don't!" declared the guard, barring his way.
"What do you mean?" the other retorted.
"Didn't I tell you to stop here?" demanded the guard sternly. "If you try to move away now I'll have you arrested."
"What's all this about?" asked the passenger, visibly agitated.
But the station master and a railway policeman were approaching.
"What's the matter, Wilson?" There was a sharp note of authority in the station master's voice as he addressed the guard.
"In that front compartment, sir," replied the guard. "There's a girl ... I don't know whether she's been murdered ... and keep your eye on this man. He's already been trying to sneak away."
"Murder!" exclaimed the bespectacled passenger. "I don't know anything about——"
"If there's any doubt, my friend, you'd better stop just where you are," said the station master with a significant signal to the policeman near; and with a slight twitching of the mouth he entered the compartment about which an element of mystery was beginning to gather.
A girl lay stretched on the seat. The station master stooped over her, and held his hand near her heart.
"She isn't dead—yet," he announced. There was something about her appearance, however, which disturbed him. "What's happened, Wilson?"
"I don't know, sir," replied the guard. "I found her lying there about a quarter of an hour ago." He drew a thin blue cord from his pocket and held it out. "This was fastened around her throat. And the outer door leading down on to the track was open too!"
"Good Lord!" exclaimed the station master. "This is a case for Scotland Yard, but first we must get a doctor."
Hurrying away to give necessary instructions, he pushed past a little cluster of passengers who had gathered near the door scenting some unusual incident.
At the edge of that cluster stood a man with red hair whose eyes had been roving the platform restlessly, but of a sudden he turned away and became lost in the disappearing crowd.
The girl in the railway carriage still breathed but was unconscious when Dr. Guthrie, a police surgeon, examined her.
"She's in a pretty bad state," he announced presently as a lean and rather casual-looking man from Scotland Yard arrived. "Hello, Silver! You handling this job?"
Detective Inspector Silver nodded as his glance took in the picture of the carriage and its inert occupant.
"What's wrong, Doctor?"
"Somebody seems to have failed in an attempt to commit murder," replied Guthrie.
"She's not dying, then?" the detective queried.
"Not at the moment. See!" He pointed to the girl's right temple. "She's had a nasty knock there, and she's been half strangled! The quicker we get her to hospital the better!"
Again Silver nodded as he stared down at the unknown passenger, a smartly dressed girl of about twenty-three, whose silk-clad legs stretched there looked pathetically awkward and lifeless.
"Who took that off?" he asked, glancing at a small hat which lay on the seat. A pair of gloves had fallen to the floor.
"I did," explained Dr. Guthrie, "to examine the bruise."
"Anything else been moved?" the detective added, glancing at an attaché case which rested on the rack above.
"Nothing," replied the station master. "Is it all right to take her along to the ambulance now?"
"I don't want her any more," said Inspector Silver, taking down the attaché case and opening the lid with a click. The thing contained a notebook full of shorthand, two pencils, a novel, a penknife, and a few bananas.
Standing out of the way as the girl was being lifted on to a stretcher, Silver glanced around the carriage again.
"If nobody's been monkeying with things, where's her handbag?" he asked. "They all carry something like that nowadays—for their money, and powder puff, and so on."
"There was no handbag in the compartment when I found her lying there," put in the guard. "I'll swear to that. The carriage door was open though. There's the string that was fastened round her neck. I wonder who she is."
The detective took the cord into his hand and examined it. The stretcher bearers were carrying the girl along the platform now.
"Her name's probably Enid Mulholland," said Silver.
From the attaché case he had taken the novel issued by a well-known circulating library. Attached to it was a "tab" or book marker on which the name of the subscriber had been written.
"If you don't want me," came a petulant voice from the platform, "I should like to be going home."
Silver turned a pair of interested eyes toward the man in gold-rimmed spectacles to whom the railway police officer was still sticking closer than a brother.
"What's your trouble?" asked the detective, throwing the book back into the attaché case and stepping down to the platform.
"That man was in the corridor when I found the body—or the girl, rather," explained the guard. "He's tried to get away once, but I thought we ought to have his statement."
Silver's fingers strayed to his waistcoat pocket from which he took a packet of cigarette papers. He didn't look very efficient or dangerous to criminals, this youngish Scotland Yard man on whom Dr. Guthrie's gaze was resting. The detective had such an easy-going air. Questions did not invariably leave his lips with a snap, and his eyes were not piercing. It seemed almost impossible to visualize Silver as the man who had just sent "Larry the Rat" to the gallows, at the same time breaking up the most dangerous gang of coiners the Yard had known for years. Guthrie, however, had worked with this detective before and knew all the power that lay behind that casual manner. The two men were on very friendly terms.
"And what's your name?" asked the C.I.D. officer.
"Victor Braintree. There's my card. I'm a commercial traveller, as you see. I know nothing whatever about this beastly affair, and I want to get to bed."
"So do I, sir," said Silver, "and I've been on duty since eight o'clock this morning, but somebody's got to do something about it when one finds a pretty girl's been half murdered on a train."
"Of course, but I——"
"Wait a minute. Guard, at what time did you discover this had happened?"
"About fourteen minutes to twelve."
"What was this man doing in the corridor?"
"Looking out of the window a dozen yards or so away from the compartment where the girl was."
Silver's eyes were taking the measure of the bespectacled Mr. Braintree.
"And what can you tell me about this affair?" the detective asked him.
"Nothing. You must remember it was difficult for me to hear owing to the noise of the train."
Silver was feeling in a pocket.
"And how long do you think you were standing there in the corridor, Mr. Braintree?"
"About ten minutes or thereabouts."
"I see. And while you were there did anyone walk along the corridor?"
The detective had a tobacco pouch in his hand now and was beginning to roll a cigarette.
"I've got a hazy idea," said Braintree, "that as I came out of my compartment someone was just going down the corridor."
"You distinctly told me nobody passed that way," put in Wilson.
"You'll be accusing me next of having tried to murder the lady," said Braintree heatedly, glaring at the guard. "It's like this, Inspector, I had been dozing in my seat and somewhere about half-past eleven I got up to stretch. I walked out into the corridor. After a while the guard came along and asked if I'd seen anybody pass. I told him I hadn't, but since then I have been trying to force my memory back. I'm not sure, mind you, but I've got a vague recollection that I saw someone moving along the corridor. I shouldn't know him from Adam though."
"Then it wasn't a woman anyway?" suggested Silver.
Braintree made a doubting gesture with one hand.
"To tell you the honest truth," he said, "I didn't notice. I wouldn't even like to swear in court that I actually did see anybody, but you asked me and as I've told you it seems a hazy impression."
"All right," said Silver. "If there's anything else I want to know we can easily get into touch with you at this address?" He fingered the traveller's card.
"Of course."
"By the way, I see you're a smoker."
"Yes, but what's that got to do with it?" demanded Braintree.
"I was just wondering whether you'd be kind enough to lend me that cigarette case you have sticking out of your pocket. Till to-morrow, anyway."
"What on earth for?"
"I'm only asking you if you'd mind."
"Why, naturally, if you insist," the man said, taking the metal case from his pocket. "But I assure you solemnly that if you suspect me of having——"
"I don't know who did it—yet," said Silver, carefully accepting the case from the man's fingers and placing it on the seat of the railway carriage.
"Now can I go?" asked Braintree.
"That's all right. Good-night!" Silver, however, was already convinced that no man who knew he had left incriminating fingerprints in that railway carriage would have held the cigarette case quite so ingenuously while handing it over to the police.
"Excuse me, Inspector," said the station master, "I don't want to hinder you at all, but this train is blocking up the main arrival platform. If you've finished examining that compartment——"
"I haven't begun yet," replied Silver. "Can't you detach the whole coach and put it into a siding?"
"Yes, easily."
"And see the doors are locked too, please. Our photographers will get busy there, but meanwhile if anyone starts poking about and interfering there'll be no traces left of anything we want."
"Well, Silver," said Dr. Guthrie, as the station master turned away, "I don't think I'll wait any longer, but give me a ring, will you, if you find any interesting development?"
"There'll be developments all right, Doctor," said Silver. "It's my unlucky day. I just chanced to look in at the Yard late to-night and this happened—the sort of thing I would get landed for when I'm due to go on my holidays. Good-night, Doctor. Now, Mr. Wilson," he added, turning to the guard, "we don't seem to have got much forrader so far. I'd like you to tell me the whole story."
The two men walked into the station master's office where Silver perched his long form on the edge of a table.
"Well," Wilson began, "it was about a quarter to twelve——"
"Wait a bit, you'll have to start at the beginning," the detective interrupted. "Where did that train come from?"
"Edinburgh," said the guard. "She brings mails from the North. But I didn't join her till she reached York."
"What time does she leave there?"
"At 7:20 P.M."
Silver began to make a few notes in a pocket book.
"And the next stop?"
"She only pulls up once between York and King's Cross. That's at Peterborough, where she's due at ten-fifteen."
"Very well," said Silver. "Now tell me how long have you known this Enid Mulholland or whatever her name is?"
"I didn't even know that was her name."
"That isn't what I'm asking you." Nobody was exempt from suspicion at this stage. "How long have you known her?"
"I never saw her in my life before."
Silver was rolling another cigarette.
"All right. Go on."
"She got in at York and asked me if the train was likely to be crowded. I told her it wouldn't be. Never is on a Monday night. I don't know whether the lady had any heavy baggage in the van, but she only took that little attaché case you have there when she got into the carriage."
"What about her handbag? Girls never go across the street without that sort of thing."
"I didn't take particular notice whether she had one or not."
"Was that all the conversation you had with her?"
"Why no, I was talking to her for three or four minutes."
"Did you observe any signs of nervousness about her?"
"Not a bit. She was quite cheerful. A real pretty girl, I call her. Very ladylike, but sort of friendly. Told me she was tired, I remember."
"You didn't get the impression that there was anyone about whom she might know?"
The guard rubbed his chin.
"After what has happened I'm not so sure of that. I didn't think anything special of it at the time, but while I was talking to her at York she had her head out of the carriage window, and I was standing on the platform. I seem to remember now that she kept watching the people as they boarded the train. Running her eyes down the crowd on the platform, I mean, as if she might have half expected to see somebody she knew."
"But she didn't speak or nod to any other passenger?"
"Not that I'm aware of, though I can't say what happened during the last minute or so because I was busy then giving the signal to start."
Silver blew out a cloud of smoke.
"Can you tell me if she had that compartment to herself all the way from York to London?"
"Yes, she had. There was an unusually small number of passengers on the train. A little while after we left York I had a word with her as I passed along the corridor. She asked me what time dinner would be served and I told her she'd just be right if she walked back to the dining car then."
"How far from her compartment was the dining car?"
"Some distance. The dining car was the sixth coach from the engine."
"When did you next see her?"
"Not until the train was standing at the Peterborough platform. She popped her head out of the window there and asked me if we should reach King's Cross on time. I told her I expected we should though we'd lost several minutes south of Grantham where the permanent way was under repair owing to some coal trucks having been derailed."
"Are you certain there was nobody else in that compartment when you were talking to her at Peterborough?"
"Quite. She told me she was going to sleep and asked me to be sure and rouse her a few minutes before we reached King's Cross. That's how I came to find her lying there unconscious."
"At a quarter to twelve, as you entered the corridor on the way to her compartment, was that man Braintree standing there looking out of the window?"
"Yes. Besides, he admits he'd been there for some time."
"Well, from the corridor could you see into the compartment where the girl was?"
"No. That door was closed and the blinds were all pulled down. Also, the shade had been drawn over the lamp. She'd fixed things as most people do when they want to go to sleep on a night train."
"I see. You opened the door leading from the corridor?"
"Yes. And I spoke to her, but before the words were out of my mouth I had a feeling that something was wrong. She was lying on the seat but it didn't look natural. One arm was hanging down and her legs were sort of hunched up. The first thing I did was to pull the light shade back and when I caught sight of her face—well, you saw it yourself—I thought she was dead."
"What did you do?"
"I lifted her head up a bit and then I saw this piece of cord tied around her throat. The knot was in front, under her chin. I tried to unfasten it, but my fingers were shaky so I whipped out a penknife and cut it."
"And then?"
"I looked round, and that was when I noticed the outer door was unfastened—the one down on to the track."
"It wasn't unfastened while you were talking to her at Peterborough?"
"No, I should have noticed that if it had been, as a matter of habit."
"Well, go on."
"I shut the door and spoke to that man Braintree in the corridor. By then there were only a few moments left before we were due at King's Cross. I looked into the other compartments along the coach. In one there was an old clergyman with a white beard, fast asleep, and in the other a man and his wife were gathering their things together."
Silver sniffed.
"White beard—fast asleep, eh?"
"He appeared to be."
"He would be if he's the man we're looking for." The detective was regarding the severed bit of blue silken cord in his hands.
"This can't have been tight or she'd have been dead."
"No it wasn't. Not very tight, I mean. It was almost as if she'd tied it herself."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, it just occurred to me, but I suppose she didn't do it really."
"Attempted suicide?" Silver sniffed again. "You mean she opened the door, pitched her purse or whatever she kept her powder puff in on to the line, tied this string round her throat, bumped her head hard on the woodwork, and then lay down on the seat to die! Ask yourself, how could she?"
"A bit of a puzzle, isn't it, Inspector? What do you make of it?"
"We haven't got much to work on yet," replied Silver. "It all depends on that open door. Who unfastened it? And why? Is it just a blind? At present it looks to me as though someone had tried to murder the girl, thought he'd finished the job, and then committed suicide by jumping out of the train. We shall know more anyway if a body is found on the line. Or at least," he paused reflectively, "we might know. Though why the murderer should take the girl's powder puff and things with him when he committed suicide beats me." He paused again. "Hold on, maybe I've got it! Did the train slow down anywhere between Peterborough and King's Cross? I mean slow down so much that a man might try to jump off without breaking his darned neck?"
"The train must have been doing seventy miles an hour most of the way," was the guard's answer. "There are a couple of curves where she might have slowed down to sixty, but that would be the minimum. As a matter of fact we came along faster than usual, because we were four minutes late on leaving Peterborough and we reached London on scheduled time."
Silver regarded the red end of his cigarette.
"Then let's get this straight. You were due at Peterborough at ten-fifteen?"
"Yes, but we didn't reach there till ten-twenty."
"And what time did you actually leave Peterborough?"
"At ten twenty-four."
"Good! Now we're getting at it. This attempted murder took place, then, between 10:24 P.M. and fourteen minutes before midnight. That gives a margin of one hour and twenty minutes. And during that time the train was making a non-stop run of at least a mile a minute."
"Yes, that's bound to be right."
"Glad you think so. It shows you haven't had beautiful simple faith crushed out of you. When I first took on this job at the Yard I used to believe what they'd taught me at school that two and two always make four. But at school they didn't warn one that there might be a catch in it sometimes. Well, Mr. Wilson, there's a nice comfortable bed waiting for me at Streatham, and there's no more we can do to-night."
The station master entered the room with an anxious look on his face.
"A message has just come through, Inspector, from the signal box at Harley Crossing. The body of a dead man has been found on the line."
Silver blinked. Just what he had been expecting!
"Harley Crossing, eh? That's on the main route from Peterborough."
"Yes, nearly thirty miles away from King's Cross."
Silver turned to the guard.
"What time do you figure the midnight mail passed that spot?"
"At eleven thirty-two or eleven thirty-three. She'd be doing close on seventy miles an hour there."
"What have they done with the body?" Silver asked the station master.
"They rang up just now for instructions. I told them not to move it, thinking perhaps, as it appears to have some connection with the attempted murder, you'd prefer to——"
There was a suspicion of a sniff from Silver.
"It looks that way!" he said. "I'll just have a word on the telephone with the Yard first."
Fifteen minutes later a fast Scotland Yard motor car was rushing through the streets of London heading north to the open country.
"It's a wonderful night for a run, sir," said the driver, who looked like a naval man, yet wasn't.
"Rats!" replied Detective Inspector Silver, rolling a cigarette. But the cigarette remained unlighted between his lips. In his waistcoat pocket was a button which he had picked up from the floor of the compartment where someone had tried to murder a girl apparently called Enid Mulholland. He fully expected to find it was missing from the clothing of the man now lying dead on the track near Harley Crossing. But incidentally he was still wondering where he would find Enid Mulholland's powder puff and purse.
A girl of perhaps twenty-four emerged from the Piccadilly Tube station and walked up Shaftesbury Avenue. It was the hour when all London was hurrying to work, but that did not prevent more than one pair of eyes from turning admiringly in her direction. She was smartly dressed, had a trim figure, and moved briskly on as shapely a pair of legs as one was likely to see all day.
Turning into a doorway, she climbed a flight of stairs and entered the offices of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate, nodded to an office boy who had intelligent eyes, a bright cheeky face, and a mouth full of toffee, and pulled off her hat.
Putting down the ink well which he was cleaning, and shifting the toffee to starboard, the boy sidled up to her.
"I've got a cert. for this afternoon, miss."
"You gave me a cert. every day last week, Tim," she said, looking reproachfully at him, "and they all went down."
"But this is special, miss. Cherry Ripe, in the three-thirty race. I heard Mr. Ismay telling someone over the telephone that it could do it on three legs."
"Mr. Ismay!" Her fine eyebrows rose a trifle. There was something almost indecent about associating Ismay with the sport of kings. You would as soon think of an archbishop eating peanuts on the top of a bus. "All right, Tim," she added, opening her purse and handing the youth a coin. "Put it on for me, but I suppose this is where another shilling goes west."
Tim slid off as the door opened and the girl's employer came in. Lawrence Bruce was a wonderfully keen, efficient business man, and she was his highly capable secretary.
"Good-morning, Miss Marsh." Bruce was dark, with crisp curly hair and steel-gray eyes that could dance with humour but could harden until the pupils seemed like pin pricks in those moments of stress when a business man needed all his courage to keep the flag flying. And such moments occurred. Nobody had a better chance of knowing that than Sally Marsh, for Lawrence Bruce was interested in several successful concerns, but he had had to fight hard for some of his victories. He was young for the position he had won—about midway in his thirties—and his brain flashed like lightning to a solution of minor problems; but where bigger issues were at stake his judgment was deliberate and sound.
Already he was running through a pile of correspondence on his desk, picking out with unerring instinct those letters which especially interested him; and for a while Sally's pencil flew over her notebook as Bruce dictated.
Suddenly he pressed a button, lifted a house telephone receiver to his ear and listened. Then, glancing at the little gold clock at his elbow, pressed the button once more, his eyes meanwhile racing through another letter.
"What's the matter with the thing? Miss Marsh, will you please see if Mr. Ismay is in his room? If not, ask Miss Mulholland to come here for a moment and take a message for him."
His long artistic fingers were tapping the desk impatiently by the time Sally returned.
"Neither Mr. Ismay nor Miss Mulholland has come yet, their boy says."
Again Bruce's glance shot to the clock.
"Neither of them! Queer!" It was nearly half-past nine. "Never mind, let's get on." There was something dynamic about Lawrence Bruce, and this sort of thing was not just an early-morning fit of energy. He was always equally full of punch.
A quarter of an hour later as an athletic-looking individual entered the room he again pressed that electric button.
"Pardon me, Bruce," said the intruder, "but I'm sort of anxious. Enid Mulholland telegraphed me from York yesterday evening saying she was coming back last night on the express which arrived at King's Cross at midnight. But she didn't come. I'm sure of that because I went to meet the train."
"Naturally." There was a good-humoured twinkle in Bruce's eyes. All the staff knew that this young American who charmed everyone into liking him was head over ears in love with Enid Mulholland. "Don't worry, Peter. I think they must have changed their plans at the last moment and spent the night at York. That was rather a difficult job they had there."
Peter Irwin made a dissatisfied little gesture of assent. It was almost unbelievable that Enid would not have telegraphed again or at least written when she knew her return had been delayed. She and he were in that happy stage wherein it was difficult to think of anything but one another.
And that was the moment when Tim, eyes still fixed in a fascinated fashion on the card in his hand, approached Bruce. Ordinary policemen were as common as blackberries, but to meet a real detective inspector from Scotland Yard in the flesh was an experience.
Taking the card from the boy, Bruce glanced at the letters which still had to be dealt with, almost said "Ask him to wait," and then changed his mind.
"Fetch him in," he ordered resignedly.
A moment later Silver was standing there. A quick smile of recognition came to his face as his glance fell on Sally Marsh. He had met her before, when she was working in another office. The cashier of the concern had absconded and was now making mail bags in Maidstone Gaol. Silver had never seen Sally since, but her personality had trailed across his memory many times.
"Which of us would you like to arrest, Inspector?" Bruce asked cheerfully, indicating a chair.
Silver bent in the middle, sat down, and put his hat on the desk.
"I've come to see you about a rather unpleasant business," he said.
"My God! It's Enid!" broke from Peter Irwin. "Something's happened to her!" And his face went white as he saw confirmation in the detective's eyes.
"You mean Enid Mulholland?" asked Silver with sudden interest.
"Quick, man!" urged Irwin, his hands tightly clenched. "Is she all right?"
"I didn't know the lady had anything to do with this office," replied the Inspector, "but that simplifies matters. No," he hesitated, sensing Irwin's real interest in the girl, "I'm afraid she's in hospital. The doctors don't know yet whether she will recover or not, but the fact is a deliberate attempt to murder her was made last night."
There was a peculiar silence in the room for several long seconds. Lawrence Bruce looked at the C.I.D. man almost unbelievingly. Sally Marsh had sprung to her feet, hands pressed to her breast, for she and Enid Mulholland were the closest of friends. Peter Irwin's face was grey and drawn. It was he who spoke first.
"Where—where is she?" he asked.
"King's Cross Hospital," said the detective.
Irwin lurched straight out of the room without another word.
"This is terrible news, Inspector," said Lawrence Bruce quietly. "Who attacked her?"
"I can't answer that question," replied Silver. "As a matter of fact, it wasn't concerning Miss Mulholland that I came here. It was about Mr. Silas Ismay that I wanted to speak to you."
Bruce's face was troubled.
"Good Lord! Don't say anything happened to him! He hasn't turned up here this morning."
"Mr. Ismay never will turn up," said the detective. "He is dead."
Again there was a weighted pause.
"I—I'm greatly shocked, Inspector," said Bruce, with a visible effort at control. "Ismay—dead!" He stared straight in front of him, endeavouring to grasp this second dreadful truth. "How did it happen?"
"The attempt on the girl's life was made on the mail train due at King's Cross at midnight," the detective explained. "The man was found on the line over which that train had passed."
A voice cut cleanly across the silence.
"Did Ismay try to murder Enid Mulholland, Inspector?"
Both men swung around to Sally Marsh, who was standing unsteadily, one hand holding on to the back of a chair for support.
"You have a reason for saying that," came from the Scotland Yard official. "Will you please explain?"
After a second's reflection Sally spoke but her answer was a disappointment.
"I only mean"—was there just the least touch of hesitation in the way she said it?—"that if he committed suicide by jumping out of the train it looks as though he had also tried to kill Enid."
"But," Lawrence Bruce put in quickly, "why should Ismay have wanted to murder Enid Mulholland?"
Sally shook her head.
"I don't know," she said.
"Had there ever been any sort of love affair between those two?" Silver addressed his question directly to the girl.
Bruce was watching her face keenly in anticipation of the answer. As far as he knew the dead man had very little interest in women. Enid had been with the Syndicate for nearly twelve months, and almost from the first she had been drawn toward Peter Irwin. But human beings were complicated creatures: you never could tell what they might do.
"You can definitely cut out any such idea as that," was Sally's reply. Which was an interesting piece of advice, but one that Silver was not yet prepared to act upon.
"I understand that Miss Mulholland boarded the mail train at York," he said. "Where was Mr. Ismay travelling from?"
"From York also," said Bruce. "They left London on Sunday, to attend to important business in York for the firm. Mr. Ismay went there, as a matter of fact, to come to an understanding with—with a gentleman in regard to certain payments, and it was Miss Mulholland's job to take a shorthand note of the interview."
"Might I ask the name of that gentleman in York?" asked Silver.
"Certainly. He is Oliver Foss, of 11a Melton Lane, in that city, a young Australian who came to England this year and has engaged in various financial enterprises."
"Has there been any unpleasantness, any ill-feeling between your firm and this Oliver Foss? I mean, from what you say I gather that the trouble was to get money out of him."
Bruce picked up a paper knife and bent it to and fro.
"I see your drift, Inspector," he said. "We're getting on to dangerous ground, aren't we?"
"There's no danger in my knowing the truth, Mr. Bruce," said the C.I.D. man.
"Exactly," replied Bruce, "but though our relations with Foss certainly became strained, I hesitate to tell you anything which might give a false impression."
The detective was going to say something else, but checked himself, and made a note of the York man's address.
"But surely," said Bruce, "Miss Mulholland will make a statement, and her information should be of the utmost service."
"Enid Mulholland is still unconscious, and shows no signs of recovering," the detective replied.
Bruce's brows became crinkled.
"I can't for the life of me imagine what made Ismay jump out of that train," he said. "His affairs were always in order, and his health was perfect. But of course the brain plays curious tricks, though he seemed sane enough."
"There is no evidence that he wasn't sane," said Silver.
"Excepting, of course," suggested Bruce, "that a man is generally unbalanced in some way when he commits suicide."
It was no use holding the real facts back any longer, Silver decided.
"Silas Ismay," he said, "did not commit suicide. The appearance of his body shows that it must have fallen on to the track while the train was travelling very fast, but there is no doubt that he was murdered. The doctor who first saw the deceased, and also our own pathologist who made an examination this morning, both say there is no question about it. On Ismay's throat there are the marks of fingers which choked the life out of him. Quite clearly he was strangled and then thrown out of the train."
With a swift movement the C.I.D. detective rose and caught the swaying figure of Sally Marsh.
"Fetch a glass of water," he said, lowering the girl to the floor with surprising gentleness. "What on earth made her go off pop like that?"
A few moments later Sally Marsh was sitting on a chair facing the C.I.D. man. With a gesture Silver had induced Lawrence Bruce to retire into the next room.
"Wasn't that stupid of me?" said Sally, taking another sip of water with a hand that shook slightly.
"Not—stupid," replied Silver quietly, one half of his mind concerned with the grim subject of murder, while the other half was centred on the girl herself. "What I said naturally gave you a bit of a shock."
"Yes, I suppose that was it." The faintest of tremors passed through her slender frame.
"And yet——" Silver broke off, regarding her with a slightly puzzled expression.
"And yet what?" Sally's hazel eyes were fixed directly on his.
"I don't know," replied the detective in a kindly voice. "If this had been just a case of attempted murder and suicide the thing would finish there. As it is—well, the situation is different. This is not the end, but the beginning, I am afraid. Miss Marsh, I want to ask you a straight question."
She paused for a second. Then:
"What is it?"
"Have you at the back of your mind any suspicion against anyone in connection with this tragedy?"
"If you mean do I know who killed Mr. Ismay, no."
She had intelligence, this curiously attractive girl. For a reason which was not to dawn on him yet awhile, the man stuck to his task with some reluctance.
"My question was, have you any suspicion?" And instinctively he knew that she would not lie to him.
Of a sudden she got up and shook her head as if casting aside any lingering doubt.
"No," she said. "I have no reason to suspect anyone." And Silver, reading a little way into her thoughts, gathered that her mind was made up, at least for the present.
"Very well," he said easily. "But I am bound to remind you that the murderer is still at large. Someone who had not the slightest scruple about taking human life is not far away. I don't wish to alarm you unduly, but until that murderer is caught," he bit his lip, "there may be danger for others."
"You mean?"
"I mean this. Robbery apparently was not the motive. Ismay's wallet was in his pocket, untouched. Enid Mulholland's handbag, which contained more than fifty pounds, was found on the track, a mile nearer London than the body of Ismay. That means it was not accidentally knocked out of the compartment during a struggle. The murderer threw it a full ten yards from the train at least a minute after Ismay was pitched out. Why? Probably to lend colour to the idea of robbery, though if the murderer had been calmer he would have realized it would be found. What the real motive for the crime was I cannot guess yet, but I don't think I am far wrong when I say that there may be danger for others."
There was the faintest of smiles on Sally's face. She believed this Scotland Yard detective was really concerned about her welfare. The thought was not displeasing. She had always liked him.
"Then please do hurry up and catch the man," she said.
"I am afraid it isn't going to be a very simple matter," he told her. And then he said a queer thing. "Miss Marsh, can I count on your help?"
Her eyes widened a shade.
"My help! Why, yes, but I don't see what I can do."
"Nor do I—at this stage. To be honest, I haven't even formed a vague theory as to who committed this crime nor why it was done. It may have been the work of some homicidal maniac who happened to be on the train and did not know either Enid Mulholland or Mr. Ismay, but attacked them with no object except the sheer insane joy of killing. That might be the case, but somehow I doubt it. Such things do happen, but a homicidal maniac would have finished the job properly instead of leaving the girl alive."
"Then where do I come in?" asked Sally.
"I don't know that you come in at all," he answered, regarding her thoughtfully. "Miss Marsh, will you make me another promise?"
"If I can. What is it?"
"You definitely stated that you have no suspicion who killed Mr. Ismay. If you change your views on that subject in the slightest degree I want you to let me know immediately."
"By all means," said Sally. "But how could I possibly learn anything in connection with this business?"
"You may not. On the other hand, if that murder was not the work of a lunatic the chances are that the culprit was personally acquainted with one of his victims—or both. In which case a vital clue might exist here in the office of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate."
"I—I understand," said Sally, in whose eyes an odd expression flickered for a second.
"Right," said the detective, who observed that fact, but rose to his feet. "Please don't think that I want you to lose any sleep over this affair. It's our job down at the Yard to do all the worrying. And now I must tackle Mr. Bruce. He's the man who may be able to help most."
Sally nodded. Her faith in the managing director's acumen was complete.
"If he can help you he will," she said. "Because the death of Mr. Ismay is a very serious thing for him."
"They were warm friends?"
"They got on well together, especially in business. Mr. Bruce is a brilliant man, but Ismay was a genius. As partners in business they made a wonderfully good pair. To tell you the truth, I don't quite see how this syndicate will be able to carry on without Silas Ismay. He had a perfect flair for theatrical things. We always banked on his judgment of a show or a man. I once heard Mr. Bruce say that if Ismay left the syndicate it would buckle up. The murder of Silas Ismay will be a terrible blow to him."
"I gather that Ismay was a man of considerable means?"
"Oh, yes. The Syndicate is very successful. Both the partners have made heaps of money out of it, but apart from this business Mr. Ismay was wealthy."
"Yet the scene of the tragedy was a third-class compartment," put in the detective. "Did he usually travel third?"
"Never. Always first. I remember discussing that with Enid a few weeks ago. Sometimes, though not very often, she had to go away with Mr. Ismay on business journeys such as that last trip to York. I think in the circumstances the office would have allowed her first-class expenses, simply so that she could travel with Mr. Ismay, but Enid was not anxious to be with him in that way."
Silver looked at Sally Marsh quickly.
"Indeed!" he remarked. "Do you mind telling me why?"
The girl did not answer immediately.
"In view of what has happened, Mr. Silver, you won't jump to a wrong conclusion if I tell you?"
"I will try not to. I think you may safely answer my question."
"Very well. Enid worked loyally for Mr. Ismay, because it was her job. She was well paid and needed the money, otherwise I think she might have found another situation. But personally she was not—was not attracted by Mr. Ismay."
"You mean she disliked him?"
"If you put it that way, yes, I suppose she did."
"I am sorry to press you on a subject that you evidently don't want to discuss, but I wish you would tell me why Enid Mulholland disliked Silas Ismay."
"He was always very considerate, both to her and to me," said Sally reflectively, "but have you never had to rub shoulders with anyone who was inclined to give you the creeps for no apparent reason?"
"I've arrested lots of 'em," agreed the detective, "though to be truthful that was generally after I had found out why they gave me the creeps. What I can't understand, Miss Marsh, especially after your explanation, is what Mr. Ismay was doing in Enid Mulholland's third-class compartment. And it is only logical to conclude that he was there."
"He might have walked along the corridor to ask her some question—perhaps about the interview of which she had taken notes."
"If so," said Silver, "that cost him his life. Was Ismay given to sudden or violent impulses?"
"On the contrary. I have only seen him angry once or twice and in my opinion he was quite justified on those occasions. No, he was much calmer than most people. Didn't show his feelings. It—it was almost uncanny. I remember Enid once told me that he didn't seem to be real flesh and blood. I believe it was that which made him give Enid the creeps."
Silver sat staring at the inkwell in silence for a space. Then:
"I'm much obliged to you for your frankness, Miss Marsh. Now would you mind asking Mr. Bruce if I can have a few minutes with him?"
As Jimmy Silver, Inspector of the C.I.D., watched Miss Marsh cross the room, the emotions within him were curious and contradictory. There was a whole lot that he admired about the girl. He was no mean expert at reading human character, and the detective knew she was straight as a razor edge. But somehow he was not altogether satisfied.
That sudden question of hers as to whether Ismay had tried to kill Enid Mulholland, and more particularly the note in her voice at the time, still lingered in his memory. It was obvious to Silver also that she had had to think twice before declaring that she had no suspicion. Moreover, though she was greatly distressed by the news about her girl friend, it was not until he actually mentioned the fact that Ismay had been murdered that she was bowled over. The last straw, perhaps. That might be a reasonable explanation, Silver told himself dubiously.
"Now Mr. Bruce, I want you to give me half an hour or so," the detective began.
"I am entirely at your service for as long as you like," said Bruce. He was grave, alert, and purposeful as ever. "Nothing is as important as the terrible news you have brought."
"Well, to be frank," Silver declared, "I badly need your help as I'm more or less up against a blank wall at the moment." He drew from his pocket the button which he had picked up in the railway compartment. "That, so far, constitutes the only tangible clue we have, and perhaps it was lying on the floor even before the train reached York, in which case it has nothing to do with the tragedy."
Bruce took the thing in his hand and examined it with interest.
"Off a man's coat, isn't it?" he suggested. "Interesting, but I'm afraid not very helpful."
"And yet more insignificant trifles than that have led to an execution," observed Silver. "As a matter of fact, until I knew Mr. Ismay had been murdered I quite expected to find it had come off his coat. But no button is missing from his clothing."
"There must be countless thousands of buttons like that in the country," observed Bruce. "How can it help you?"
"One can never tell. Things have a way of fitting in which seems extraordinary, but which, as a matter of fact, is really quite natural. The peculiar thing would be if they didn't fit in, once you come to the heart of a problem. For instance, you might have a similar button missing from your coat now. There would be nothing really incriminating about that. But if eventually we found other clear evidence against you, that little button might turn the scales. It is the kind of button used by the best class of tailor, which is as far as I have got yet, but extensive inquiries are being made, though actually I haven't much hope in that direction."
"Any clues in the railway compartment?" Bruce asked thoughtfully.
"I'm afraid not. Until something crops up I fancy this very office is as good a starting point as any for my investigation. Forgive me, Mr. Bruce, because I know it is all rather painful for you, but apart from this Oliver Foss in York, can you think of anyone who might be regarded as an enemy either of Silas Ismay or of Enid Mulholland, or both? I want you to think carefully."
Lawrence Bruce was entirely calm now, and characteristically efficient.
"As far as Miss Mulholland is concerned," he answered after a moment's reflection, "I can answer definitely. I know of nobody who has the slightest grudge against her. She is a very likeable girl, good at her work and on the best of terms with everyone. She is the last person in the world to have enemies."
"What about the American gentleman I saw here? The one who dashed off to the hospital. Exactly how does he stand with her?"
"Irwin? You can dismiss him from your mind in connection with this unfortunate affair. He is genuinely fond of Enid. Besides, he couldn't possibly have been on that train, because he and I dined together in London last night."
"Very well. Now what about the possibility of Silas Ismay having enemies?"
Bruce's fingers drummed on the arm of his chair.
"Ismay's position," he explained, "was rather different from that of the girl. He has fought some very hard battles in the world of business, and though many of those tussles were settled in a more or less friendly spirit he naturally made some enemies, as we all do in the scramble for a large bank balance."
"Did you ever hear Mr. Ismay express the fear of being murdered?"
"Never. I don't think the idea ever entered his head."
Silver stroked his chin.
"He was never threatened by this Mr. Oliver Foss of York?"
"Not exactly threatened," Bruce answered carefully. "They certainly had words. Some bitter things were said, I understand, the last time they met in London."
"Exactly what was this disagreement about?" asked the detective.
"Foss undertook certain financial responsibilities and when he was called upon to sign a check for about two thousand pounds a week ago, here in London, he tried to wriggle out of it. Ismay rarely lost his temper except when he was up against a crook. There is the whole thing in a nutshell."
"This man Foss, then, is crooked?"
"He is what I should call very tricky. Turned yellow when it became necessary to face the music."
"Did anybody hear what was said at that interview between him and Mr. Ismay a week ago in London?"
"No, but Ismay told me afterwards that he had got hot under the collar. Whether they had another row or not in York yesterday I do not know."
"Fortunately there will be no doubt on that point in another few hours," observed the detective.
Lawrence Bruce looked puzzled.
"I don't quite understand."
"Enid Mulholland's shorthand is very clear," said Silver. "Our expert is at this moment transcribing the girl's notes of the interview."
"Ah! I'd forgotten about that possibility," said Bruce.
"Of course the most valuable evidence will be obtained when the injured girl recovers consciousness—if she ever does," Silver went on. "The doctors are a bit doubtful about her. That blow on her head was serious. She might remain insensible for days, and every hour gives the murderer a better chance to make his getaway."
"Yes," agreed Bruce, "but even if he evades you now you'll get him as soon as Enid Mulholland can tell you who he is."
Silver was thinking of the hazel-eyed girl whom he had caught as she was fainting—a girl whose position in regard to this midnight mail mystery puzzled him curiously. He remembered a look in those eyes of hers which did not fit in with all that she had said; which did not tally with the detective's reading of her character. It was as if some form of fear lurked within her. Was it fear for her own safety? With that new thought Silver's brow furrowed. He sharply resented the idea.
"Is Miss Marsh's work entirely confined to your department?"
"Not entirely," Bruce explained. "Sometimes she would help Ismay if he was extra busy and if I didn't need her. Similarly Enid Mulholland would occasionally take a batch of letters for me if Ismay was away. It was an elastic arrangement."
The detective's face was blank. Here, it seemed, was the explanation of how Sally Marsh might have come into possession of information which was now causing her vague uneasiness. That she was uneasy—he could not think of a better word—Silver was convinced. When pressed for a frank statement she had declared that there were no grounds for suspecting anybody. Unless his estimate of her character was all wrong that merely meant she was uncertain and hesitated to express an opinion.
"But you think she couldn't know any more than you or me about this murder?" said Silver.
"Oh, no, no," Lawrence Bruce declared emphatically. "I'm afraid you're tackling this problem at the wrong end, Inspector. Remember, she has been my right hand in the office for eighteen months. That sort of thing gives one an excellent insight into a girl's mentality. She could not possibly be mixed up in anything of that sort, even indirectly."
"And yet," observed Silver quietly and deliberately, "you can take it from me that when the murderer of Silas Ismay stands in the dock Sally Marsh will probably be an important witness for the prosecution."
"For the prosecution!" Bruce repeated the three words and stared at the C.I.D. man. It was Silver's job to understand this kind of thing, and though the detective might be wrong he was not likely to make a statement of that kind unless he was tolerably sure he knew what he was talking about. "You astound me, Inspector. May I ask why you say that?"
"Because if she doesn't exactly know who strangled Ismay she knows something which will probably help to send the murderer to the scaffold."
"But what gives you that impression?"
"It isn't always easy to put these things into words," said the detective. "I shouldn't like to try in this case, but I think I'm right. You'll remember I told you this office was as good a starting point as any. That's why I have taken you into my confidence."
"I am glad you have. This is a nasty business, Inspector, apart from the complications which Ismay's death will create."
"Now I want you to put your wits at work, Mr. Bruce," said the detective. "And I want you to speak quite freely, without fear of incriminating an innocent person. We must have something to start on. Can you think of anyone in any way acquainted with Ismay who might also have been travelling from the north on that train yesterday?"
Bruce shook his head slowly.
"That question has been worrying me already," he said, "because we can safely assume that the murderer was not in London yesterday. At least not in the afternoon."
"I won't go quite as far as that," the detective corrected, "though you're probably right. He might even have joined the midnight mail at Peterborough."
Bruce opened a drawer and took out a railway timetable.
"That point we can settle immediately," he said, turning over the leaves. "Here we are. The midnight mail, I see, leaves Peterborough for London at 10:24 P.M. To pick that up one would have to leave King's Cross at six thirty-seven."
"That's a fair argument," agreed Silver, "though I'm inclined for the present to think the murderer may have travelled down from York."
"Why?" Lawrence Bruce was beginning to take a peculiar interest in that part of a detective's work which involved clear reasoning.
"Well, in the first place the number of people in London who could possibly have known that Ismay and the Mulholland girl were on the midnight mail, or would probably be on it, is extremely small."
"Wait a moment," Bruce put in. "Ismay might have sent a telegram to someone in London announcing his return."
"A bright thought!" declared Silver, taking out his pocket book and making a note. "We'll get the York police to deal with that question at once. And by the way, I must not forget to ask the American, Mr. Irwin, if he informed anyone that Enid Mulholland was returning on that train."
"Meanwhile," said Bruce, "what about Sally Marsh? I mean, in view of what you think, her position is rather serious, is it not? I feel a certain moral responsibility, as you can easily understand. I should hate anything to go wrong so that she stood the slightest risk of being accused as an accessory. You see my point?"
"I see your point all right, Mr. Bruce. But leave her to me. That girl will speak when she thinks the moment has come, and if necessary I believe I could persuade her to talk sooner. I have one or two cards up my sleeve."
He had reached for his hat and was ready to go, but paused, dallying with a question which he was reluctant to put, though it was important to know the answer.
"Sally Marsh never had an 'affair' with any man in this office, did she?" he asked.
"Certainly not," replied Bruce with assurance. "There is no question of it."
"You're dead sure?"
"Such a thing could hardly escape one's notice. Yes, I'll swear to it."
"All right. I shall have to trouble you again on this job, Mr. Bruce, I expect, but I must go now. By the way," he paused on his way to the door, "who do you know called 'Nobby'?"
Bruce's expression was blank.
"Never heard the name, Inspector, but it sounds intriguing in the circumstances. Please tell me, is this one of the cards you have up your sleeve?"
"Well, yes. Though I don't know yet whether it is a card which will win a trick so I'd better leave it where it is for the present."
"You almost make me wish I were a detective," said Lawrence Bruce with undisguised interest. "Look me up again soon, will you? Meanwhile I'm going to make a few inquiries myself, though I don't promise any spectacular results."
"Anything you find out—anything, however trifling—may help us tremendously. Good-morning."
Sitting on the top of a bus returning to Scotland Yard, Jimmy Silver hummed as he rolled a cigarette. It was an unconscious trick of his to hum that way when his spirits needed jacking up. This case was developing into the kind of mystery which fascinated him, yet it was unsatisfying to know that the murderer had twelve hours' start and could already be on his way to some such place as Honolulu.
Then Silver stopped humming. He was coldly reviewing the fragmentary suggestions of clues that had accumulated in twelve hours, clues which led off in many different directions.
The detective's first thought on entering Scotland Yard was to read through the typescript which had been prepared from the shorthand notes taken at that interview with Oliver Foss at York.
It covered a dozen pages of foolscap. Silver settled in a chair in his office prepared as a matter of duty to wade through the record of a dull business talk. But within two minutes his interest was aroused.
At an early stage the interview had degenerated into a row. There had been no mincing of words by either of the men.
Three times Silver read through the last two paragraphs faithfully taken down by the girl who was now lying unconscious in King's Cross Hospital:
Ismay: I shall not let you get away with this. You are nothing better than a common little twister.
Foss: Get out of here or I'll swing for you, and by God I mean that!
On this pleasing note the interview had evidently ended, for there the shorthand notes abruptly broke off, leaving the reader to imagine an entire lack of tenderness in the farewell that followed.
Ten minutes later Silver was speaking direct to the headquarters of the York police.
"Now understand," he said in conclusion, "if this Oliver Foss cannot account for his movements between seven o'clock last night and early this morning, we want him. Take him inside, hold him on suspicion, and put a hurry call through to Scotland Yard."
Hanging up the receiver, Jimmy Silver rolled and lighted a cigarette as an aid to thought. He was more perplexed than ever.
That hectic interview, with its climax which definitely consisted of a threat of murder, would at least have indicated a promising line of inquiry had it stood alone. But there were one or two other loose ends in connection with the midnight mail mystery which would have to be explained before Silver could begin to see daylight.
In a couple of hours or so the York end of the problem would either be cleared up or there would be what the newspapers call "sensational developments." Meanwhile that did not explain the poignant anguish which Silver had heard in Sally Marsh's voice when the cry rose involuntarily from her lips: "Did Ismay try to murder Enid Mulholland?"
After all, did he? For the twentieth time Inspector Silver asked himself that question. Since Sally Marsh seemed to have some inscrutable reason for propounding the problem one should give it due consideration.
There was nothing hysterical about Sally. On the contrary he had always thought of her as an essentially level-headed girl. She would not leap to such a conclusion without a definite reason. In one vital second he had sensed that hidden truths lay behind her eager query—truths which she believed concerned Silas Ismay and which she had kept bottled up in her soul.
The C.I.D. man smoked hard for ten minutes. Already he had set a smart officer on the task of digging up the real history of Silas Ismay. It might take Sergeant Gorringe days to unveil the dead man's past, and the facts that he unearthed might be of no consequence, but it was one of those cases in which surprises might crop up anywhere.
Then Silver drew from his wallet a single sheet of paper. The letters which he had found in Enid Mulholland's attaché case were without significance, but this one, of which you could not say the same, she had kept in her handbag, that peculiar portable safe of modern woman, which had been picked up on the railway track.
He unfolded the sheet of paper, smoothed it out, and propped it up in front of him. No wonder she had not left it lying about in the attaché case. The letter ran:
Wednesday.
DEAR ENID,
If you don't want me to go to prison send me fifty pounds. Borrow or beg or steal it, because the police are after me and if they catch me I shall get ten years' penal servitude.
I want to clear out of the country and go straight. I mean it this time.
NOBBY.
On first reading this Silver had chuckled. It was easy. Obviously a gentleman known as Nobby had indiscreetly done something that had a ten years' stretch attached to it and the police were aware of the fact. There is a department of Scotland Yard which, from the criminal point of view, has a much too efficient way of handing out information in emergencies such as this.
But for once the department's system hadn't worked. There were "Nobbies" by the score in the underworld, some of whom were at present behind prison bars and some of whom would no doubt in due course again earn that respite from the struggle for a livelihood. But at the moment the Yard was not offering hospitality for a lengthy period to any particular crook known in their records by that name.
The door of the office opened and Dr. Guthrie came in. Silver, whose feet were comfortably planted on the desk, nodded. The room was thick with tobacco smoke.
"They don't supply you with enough cushions here," commented Guthrie dryly. "You can't be expected to sleep properly like that."
"So you got my message, Doctor," the C.I.D. man replied. "You'd asked me to let you know——"
"What's the news?" It was not in a professional capacity that the doctor had come here to the Yard, but because of his interest in this branch of police work. Also he particularly liked to be behind the scenes when Silver was on such a case. The reality of it appealed to him infinitely more than did, for example, the flickering of shadows on a movie screen. He liked to share with this capable detective the piecing together of these human jigsaw puzzles.
Silver yawned. He had spent exactly one hour in bed since yesterday.
"The police have obtained an important clue," he said with mock solemnity, "and are expecting to make an arrest immediately—or sooner—I don't think!"
"So it's as bad as that!"
"The machinery of Scotland Yard, Doctor, cannot—er—cannot be hurried. It moves slowly but relentlessly. When it has once set itself a task the remorseless wheels——"
"I gather from your airy prattle that you don't yet know who attacked the girl."
"No, nor, as our American friends would put it, who bumped off Silas Ismay."
"I never heard of him."
"Your education has been neglected, Doctor. You don't read the evening papers." He threw a midday sporting edition across. "Improve your mind. They've got the facts fairly correct there."
The doctor scanned the two columns of murder sensation under splash headlines, then whistled softly.
"What," the C.I.D. man asked, "are the chances that Enid Mulholland will die?"
"Can't tell a bit," replied Guthrie, seating himself on the table as the only other chair looked rickety. "I had a word this morning with Warburton, the house surgeon, who is an old pal of mine. He says it's a miracle she was still alive when they took her in. But as she's hung on till now there's a sporting chance."
"Well, it will make quite a difference in my young life if they fix her up so that she can talk for thirty seconds. By the way," he handed over the letter that had been propped up in front of him, "what do you make of that?"
"Who is Nobby?" Guthrie asked, after reading it.
"I'll buy the best dinner in London for anyone who can tell me," said Silver, and explained how the records at Scotland Yard had failed.
"Perhaps Nobby is a plain liar," Guthrie suggested, "who does not mind belittling his reputation in the glorious and blessed hope of getting fifty pounds. Many a man would do the same for ten shillings—or less."
"He came darned near to getting the fifty, too," said the detective. "She had borrowed it or got it somehow for Mr. Nobby, you may be sure, but she was hanging on to it, chewing the matter over, probably. Wasn't quite decided about the chap. Fifty pounds is a whole lot of money to a girl working in an office. Observe that phrase of his: 'I mean it this time.' She'd had some of that stuff before, evidently."
"Do you believe Nobby committed the murder?" asked Guthrie.
"Why not? He'll have to go through it once I get my hands on him. If he can't prove he wasn't on that train, and if that button is off his coat, he'll be a poor insurance prospect."
"Wait a moment," said the doctor. "That handbag containing the money Nobby was so anxious to obtain was thrown out of the train a full minute after the murderer had pitched Ismay out. Wouldn't Nobby have——"
"Yes, I agree he'd have pinched the money first if he didn't lose his head in the excitement. And unless the case for the prosecution was otherwise clear, that's where he might get off. Anyway I'm not sure our friend Nobby did it, but," he tapped the letter with his fingers, "one can't help thinking that a link exists between this piece of paper and the things which happened on the train."
A telephone at his elbow rang.
"Oh, York! Good!" Guthrie heard him say; and having plenty of his own affairs to attend to, the doctor walked out.
A while later Silver's feet were on the desk again and the cigarette ends around him were growing more numerous. Was Nobby going to the gallows after all?
The detective picked up the telephone receiver, and presently was speaking to the office of the Daily Budget in Fleet Street.
"I want to speak to Mr. Collinson. He's one of your reporters—the crime expert.... Hello, Collinson. This is Silver. Jump into a taxi and shoot down here, will you? I want your advice about a little swift publicity.... What's that? Oh, yes, there's a 'story' in it all right."
Then he settled back into his comfortable position, rolled another cigarette, and was still there when Andy Collinson was ushered in. Silver shook hands. For several reasons he was not sorry to see this journalist who, off his own bat, some months ago, had hunted down the famous Ace of Spades, and had long been recognized in the newspaper world as a shining light at the crime game.
"What is it, Silver? The midnight mail case?"
Silver grunted assent.
"What do you make of it?" he asked.
"Bit of a teaser, isn't it? I was just thinking of going down to Tiverton where there's been a gorgeous bank robbery that looks like the work of the Spider's gang, but this midnight mail thing seems more promising."
"It's a queer affair. Got any brain waves about it?" the detective asked.
Andy Collinson was filling his faithful companion, a briar pipe.
"I haven't seriously tackled the case yet. Hadn't been at the office long when you rang me up. All I know is what the Evening News says. A snappy account rushed into print for the first edition."
"Well, who did the train job?"
"What about the man who was standing in the corridor all the time?" asked Collinson.
"Suspect number one. Guess again. We're trailing him, and if we can discover that there's one single thing that has previously connected him with either of the victims, in he comes for a quiet chat and he won't get out again quite so easily."
"Right. Well, there's Wilson, the guard," the journalist suggested. "He could have done it; only railway guards, in England at least, don't strangle their passengers and heave them out on the line. They may in Mexico, but not here, unless they've suddenly gone nutty with answering too many fool questions. There's an idea for you, Silver. Personally, if I had their job I'm sure I should do a few passengers in just to relieve my feelings."
"Suspect number two," said Silver, sticking to the point. "The guard is as sane as I am though that may not be saying much. Cross him right out. Next?"
"Well, incidentally, there's no evidence, is there, that the attempt to kill Enid Mulholland and the actual murder of Ismay were the work of the same person?"
The C.I.D. man screwed up his eyes.
"That's getting a bit complicated, isn't it?" he said. "But still, go ahead."
"It could easily have been a two-man job," explained Collinson. "For instance the girl had fifty pounds on her. Ismay was aware of that and——"
"Hold on. Fifty pounds would have been a drop in the ocean to a man like Silas Ismay."
"If that's so he's a lucky bloke—or at least he was. But are you sure?"
"Lord, yes! At that game he and his partner handled thousands as we look at shillings. No, Ismay was a rich man. Your theory won't hold water."
"We'll agree, then," said Andy Collinson, "that it wasn't her money he was after. Maybe his affection was not appreciated."
"She's in love with a very decent young American."
"Fine! We're going ahead now. Ismay was crazy for her——"
"I'm told he never showed any interest in women."
"We don't all wear our hearts on our sleeves, Silver. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that he was secretly longing to possess the lady, church wedding included if you like, but she turned him down flat there on the train. He couldn't stand the idea of anyone else getting her, so resolved to make sure of it. He hit her on the head and was in the act of tightening up that cord round her throat when some stranger butted in, as any right-minded stranger would if he saw a girl being murdered. How's that?"
"Quite fair. Go on."
"Well, the valiant Mr. Smith—let's give our right-minded stranger a name—in a fit of virtuous indignation enthusiastically strangled Ismay. Then, finding he had gone rather further than was his original intention, to the point of being a murderer himself, he was very properly embarrassed, as I myself should have been in the circumstances. You agree it was rather an awkward predicament for him, don't you?"
The detective was listening intently, but said nothing.
"A snappy idea came to Mr. Smith's rescue," Andy went on. "Why not bundle the corpse out of the door while the train was rushing through the night and give the verisimilitude of suicide? Right! Away goes the late Silas Ismay, but Mr. Smith still has a touch of cold feet. He sees the handbag, and having no idea that it contains fifty perfectly good jimmy o' goblins, which would barely have been adequate recompense for all his trouble anyway, he slings this away on to the line also, to suggest the robbery idea. Then he cleared out. I see one or two weak points, but how about it?"
Silver thoughtfully straightened the blotting pad on his desk.
"Maybe you're right, up to a point," he agreed. "Your idea's ingenious but it doesn't quite measure up. Would your Mr. Smith have clutched on to Ismay's throat long enough to cause death when all he really wanted was to save the girl?"
"It's debatable," said Andy Collinson. "He wasn't used to strangling folk, so he didn't quite know when to stop."
"But," the detective went on, "as Mr. Smith was actuated by the highest of motives, would he, after all, have walked away leaving the girl with a cord tied round her throat? It would at least have been considerate to have unfastened it."
"That's true, but he didn't notice the cord. One is never at one's best just after committing a murder."
"Your Mr. Smith certainly wasn't or he would have realized that throwing the bag out on to the track wouldn't even deceive a newspaper crime expert."
Andy grinned.
"Well, Sherlock, perhaps you'll give me some of the real dope. One makes rotten bricks without straw."
Silver was still pensive.
"I'm not so sure that you haven't got somewhere near the truth," he commented. "I'm not going to turn your idea down entirely. However, read that letter."
It was the communication from Nobby. Andy glanced through it.
"That makes a difference," said the newspaper man quickly. "I don't quite see how, at the moment, but there might easily be some sort of connection. Was this what you rang me up about?"
"No. And by the way, I don't want a hint about that letter of Nobby's to appear in print yet. Understand? Now, where you can help me is this. We've just had a surprising statement from the York police and I want to obtain the widest possible publicity for it without delay."
Silver continued speaking for a while and Collinson puffed away at his pipe.
Half an hour later tape machines were clicking out the following message in every newspaper office:
A dramatic development has occurred regarding the murder and attempted murder, already reported, on the mail train due at King's Cross at midnight.
Silas Ismay, who was found strangled on the line, was returning to London from York where he had been having a business interview with an Australian named Oliver Foss. Ismay left Foss's house at 4 P.M. and caught the seven-twenty London express.
To-day when a detective called at Foss's rooms in York he was informed that the Australian had not been seen since 5 P.M., that is to say, an hour after he and Ismay parted. Foss was in a state of considerable agitation when his landlady last spoke to him, and she is anxious about his welfare.
In view of the tragedy which occurred on the mail train the police desire to make sure that Foss has not also been the victim of foul play.
His description is as follows: Height about five feet ten, age 32, blue eyes, dark hair, and closely clipped moustache. Wearing a brown suit and soft felt hat.
Any information concerning this man should be given to the police without delay.
Sliding the tape through his fingers at the office of the Daily Budget, Andy Collinson smiled oddly. That delicate reference to the solicitude of the police on behalf of Oliver Foss was his artistic effort.
Detective Inspector Silver jumped off a bus in King's Road, Chelsea, near Cheyne Terrace. Turning into Welland Street, he knocked at the door of No. 17 and make a swift inspection of the woman who appeared before him. A tired-looking faded, middle-aged body who had obviously been crying.
"Mrs. Elm?"
"That's my name, sir," she said in a low voice.
"I believe Miss Mulholland has rooms here. You got a message from the police saying what has happened?"
The woman winced visibly.
"That's right, sir."
"I'd like to ask you a few questions. I'm from Scotland Yard."
"You'd better come in." She opened a door. "This is, or rather was, her sitting room," the woman added, leading the way.
"I shouldn't distress myself too much if I were you, Mrs. Elm," said the detective. "The girl may recover."
"But that doesn't alter the fact that the poor soul's been half murdered, does it?" the woman answered with a touch of motherly fierceness.
"She'd been with you a long time?"
"Over two years." Mrs. Elm dabbed her eyes. "As nice a girl as I ever met in my life, too."
"So I understand. Had she many friends?"
"Miss Mulholland wasn't a girl to go about a lot," replied the woman.
"But people used to come and see her here sometimes, I suppose?"
"Young ladies she played tennis with occasionally. Then," her eyes hardened a shade, which fact Silver quietly observed, "there was her young man. He called now and then during the last few months."
"You know his name?"
"Irwin. I say," she went on eagerly, "you don't think he did it, do you?"
"Do you know anything against him?"
"No, I can't exactly say that I do. In fact I've hardly spoken to the man. But I understand he's a foreigner."
"Well, anyway, he's American," said Silver with a reassuring smile.
"I don't trust foreigners, sir. That's why I asked if you thought he'd done it."
"As a matter of fact I don't," the detective declared. "I have every reason to believe that Irwin dined here in London with Mr. Lawrence Bruce on the night of the tragedy."
Mrs. Elm looked relieved.
"I hope whoever did it will get caught, sir," she said, bristling with loyalty.
"Now, Mrs. Elm, I want you to cast your mind back. Is there any other man who has come here occasionally?"
"No, I'm sure of that."
"You and Miss Mulholland often used to chat, I suppose?"
"Many a time."
"Has she ever said anything which has now been brought back to your memory by this outrage?"
Mrs. Elm regarded the detective oddly.
"Well, nothing that she said, exactly."
"No, but there was something, wasn't there?" Inspector Silver's tone was peculiarly smooth.
"I've noticed she's had a good cry sometimes."
"You mean, perhaps, after she had received a letter?"
"It's funny you saying that, sir. It's just what I do mean."
"And when did you last notice this?"
"Let me see—yes, on Friday, I took her a cup of tea and a letter before she got out of bed. And her eyes were all red when she came down to breakfast."
"Did you happen to observe the postmark of that letter?"
"I didn't think of looking, sir."
"Have you any idea who the letter was from?"
"No, sir."
Silver could have relieved his feelings by swearing.
"It is a pity, Mrs. Elm, because that might have been very useful."
The woman leaned forward a little, and lowered her voice.
"There was somebody Miss Mulholland knew who was no good. She sort of admitted that to me about six weeks ago."
"Can you remember what her words were?"
"Well, I was telling her that I've had a hard life, my husband having died in prison. I recollect exactly what she said then. 'I can sympathize with you, Mrs. Elm, because I also have——' Then she broke off just like that."
"As if she'd gone a bit too far?" Silver suggested.
"Yes, but I knew pretty well what she meant, as you can see for yourself. There's somebody she's connected with who's done time. At first I thought maybe she'd got a husband who'd been locked up, though of course she's taken on with this Mr. Irwin. Not that a thing like that nowadays means that she hasn't got a husband somewhere, 'specially if he's doing a long stretch."
Silver was barely listening now. If Enid Mulholland had a gaol bird for a husband, and if she declined to live with him, it might well be his fingers which had tightened about the throat of that man and girl on the midnight mail.
"Did Miss Mulholland ever say anything which led you to believe she was afraid of this man you are speaking of?" asked Silver.
"She never mentioned him, sir, excepting that once, and I've told you all she said."
"Who," he asked in his most casual way, "was Nobby?"
"Nobby? I never heard the name," she answered, and Silver thought it reasonable to suppose that the woman was telling the truth.
He walked away from the house slowly. If Nobby had committed the murder, why had Oliver Foss disappeared off the face of the earth in such a strange fashion? Were Nobby and Oliver Foss one and the same? If so a strong chain of circumstantial evidence against the man was forming.
That certainly was an interesting thought. Silver's step quickened. He knew, however, the danger of allowing imagination to run away with him. Letters from Foss would be filed away at the office of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate. Nobby's writing was loose and rather sprawling. If, on being compared, they were identical, several pieces of the puzzle on which he was engaged would automatically drop into place.
It was not entirely by chance that presently he was sitting next to Sally Marsh in a popular restaurant near her office. That, actually, was the third place which he had explored before he happened to find her. Here Jimmy Silver confirmed a previous impression that Sally Marsh was an extremely nice girl. Also that she had brains. There was some attractive quality, too, about her voice. He wondered what her hair was like before she had allowed them to cut it off. Not that a shingle didn't look smart in her case, but...
Silver checked that train of thought reluctantly. Peculiarly interesting though he personally found them, such reflections had no bearing upon his business of the moment.
By the time Inspector Silver again reached his own quarters in Scotland Yard he was in a mood to shut himself up and do a little mental stock taking. That bright idea of his about Nobby and Oliver Foss being one and the same person was apparently all wrong. The letters from Foss which had been shown to him at the office of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate were in small precise writing, utterly different from that of Nobby.
Silver smoked cigarettes for a while, gazing at the ceiling, with his feet in their usual place on the desk, and reviewed the situation generally. One after another he ticked off the people who had come under his notice since the midnight mail case had been put into his hands. Then, reaching for a scribbling pad, he began to reduce his thoughts to black and white. That proceeding sometimes had a clarifying effect. Jerkily, his pencil moved over the paper as he wrote:
Motive. Apparently not robbery. When found, Ismay still had a considerable sum of money and a valuable watch in his possession. The girl's handbag had not been looted either. Revenge or jealousy might have been the motive if Ismay and Enid Mulholland had been conducting a love affair, but there is no evidence that they were.
Peter Irwin. If jealousy was the motive he would have been a suspect except for the fact that he dined in London on the evening the murder was committed. And that seems to let him out.
Lawrence Bruce automatically ruled out, because he dined with Irwin. Besides, Bruce has everything to lose through the murder, Ismay being a vital factor in their very successful business.
The Guard. Not worth considering, unless he is a homicidal maniac. Must look into his family history.
Victor Braintree, the man in the corridor, had every opportunity of committing the crime. Will pull him in if I can trace any previous association between him and the girl or the dead man. Didn't act like a murderer, but that might mean nothing. Might have been wearing gloves when he committed the crime, which would explain his indifference about leaving fingerprints on the cigarette case.
Nobby. Definitely a suspect. If he himself did not commit the murder he probably was an accessory. Must find him anyhow. This man was certainly after the money that Enid Mulholland had in her bag. He might have got cold feet after thinking he had killed them both, and threw the handbag away in a panic. Probably he didn't know Ismay had a wad of money in his wallet. If he sets up an alibi it will have to be perfect. Any suspicion that he might have been on that train may mean a hanging.
Oliver Foss. Most likely the culprit as far as one can see now. The shorthand notes show that he threatened violence. He was not seen after 5 P.M., and the mail train left York for London at seven-twenty. His disappearance strongly suggests guilt.
Sally Marsh. What is she hiding? And why is she hiding it? What is the idea lurking in the girl's mind?
There Inspector Silver's pencil faltered. He bit on the end of it contemplatively, hummed softly, and carefully read through the whole of his analysis of the situation. Then he pitched the scribbling pad on to his desk with disgust.
It all looked very nice on paper but was, he knew, full of flaws, teeming with contradictions. For instance, if Oliver Foss committed the murder as a sequel to that heated interview in York, why had that eminently sane young person Sally Marsh leaped to the conclusion that it was the work of Silas Ismay? Obviously it was not, for no man could strangle himself with his own hands.
Again, if the mysterious Nobby was the murderer, it was difficult to see where Oliver Foss came into the picture. Nobby could have had one of two motives—robbery or jealousy. And the emotions of a crook like Nobby in London were no concern of the business man in York.
Silver's eyes strayed to the scribbling pad on his desk. There was no earthly reason, of course, to decide that the murderer was necessarily one of those six men in that list.
Who, for example, was the supposed old clergyman with a white beard, said to have been fast asleep in an adjoining compartment just after the crime was discovered?
And if the murder was committed before Victor Braintree walked out into the corridor and stood there, what of a hundred or more men who were also on the train that night? Braintree had, in fact, spoken of vaguely remembering seeing somebody pass down the corridor. The odds were at least six to four that that "somebody" was the individual who a moment before had hurled Ismay to his doom and sent Enid Mulholland to the threshold of death.
And always entwined in his thoughts was the problem of Sally Marsh's secret and the belief that something else not yet hinted at lay behind the tragedy. Some outside influence of a much more sinister nature, for on the face of things there was no rational explanation of that which had happened. Moreover he could never get far away from the conviction that in Sally's mind was hidden the key which could be used to get at the heart of the mystery. Perhaps even she did not realize the truth of that.
Quite clearly she was not conscious of personal danger. Silver, however, was less assured on that point so far as Sally was concerned. Some man, determined, utterly ruthless, and probably desperate, was at large, and an intangible link seemed to exist between him and Sally Marsh.
The inspector was unconsciously tapping the end of his pencil on the blotting pad now. Sally didn't know—she couldn't know—the abysmal depths of humanity as he had learned to know them. Common sense would steer her clear of the hundred and one ordinary dangers of living in a civilized community like London, consisting of seven million souls, but it was not one of those ordinary dangers which now threatened her. She, like most of those seven million, was lulled into a sense of security in the knowledge that a big kindly policeman was to be found at most street corners. Crime to her was a thing one only read about: it was slightly interesting, even intriguing at times when it occurred in an unusual form, but so far as her world was concerned it was a thing apart.
The tapping of that pencil and the soft humming went on. He would have to make Sally talk. In that restaurant at noon he had come to understand her a shade better, and had even gathered one or two facts which might eventually prove helpful, but—he brought his fist down on the desk with a crash—if she was rubbing shoulders with death Sally Marsh must be made vividly aware of the fact, and at once. Why anyone should want to kill her was in itself a mystery, but it was a mystery why Ismay was strangled and why Enid Mulholland was half murdered.
Of a sudden the restless hand of the detective became still. A moment later he fished in a drawer for a timetable, turned over the leaves, then glanced at his watch.
"What a priceless idiot I was not to think of that before!" he said, putting on his hat.
With only a minute to spare he caught a fast train from King's Cross to Peterborough.
"Sit down, Crump." Lawrence Bruce indicated a chair to his old head clerk. "You've been with us ever since Mr. Ismay and I began working together. There isn't much about our affairs that you don't know. This murder is a rotten business."
"Rotten!" agreed Crump. He looked like a third-rate actor who had run to fat, and he was. But in a way he was shrewd. Crump had become an essential cog in the machinery of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate. What he did not know about the profession was hardly worth knowing.
"Scotland Yard will get to the bottom of the affair in time," said Bruce, "even if Enid Mulholland doesn't live to explain what happened, but they can't work miracles. We've all got to pull our weight on this job, Crump, and any suggestions now will be valuable. What do you make of it?"
Crump gently scratched the back of his neck.
"Well, sir, I'm the father of a family so I have to be extra careful, but I don't mind telling you there have been times when I could cheerfully have murdered Mr. Ismay myself," he said.
"You mean he was somewhat trying?"
"I mean he made money, but he also made enemies, and I don't wonder at it."
"Yes, I suppose he did," agreed Bruce reflectively. "Perhaps more than most men in business. Don't be afraid to speak out, man. A dreadful thing has happened, and we must face it. Have you reason to suspect anyone?"
Crump pulled down his ample waistcoat.
"Well, sir, I've taken this firm's money for a long time, and I've had to put up with Mr. Ismay's ways, but you want me to talk plainly. And at a rough guess I'd say that about half the heads of the theatrical profession in London and several in New York would consider they were doing a kind action to the world by outing him."
Bruce nodded slightly. It was remarkable, he reflected, how a crisis brought queer things to the surface! For years Crump had preserved an almost benign mien and had seemed to regard Ismay as a tin god, worshipping him accordingly. But that was only the actor in Crump. It made one think. The surviving partner of the syndicate could not help wondering for an instant what that astute clerk in his inmost soul, incidentally thought of one Lawrence Bruce.
"Have you ever known anyone threaten to take Silas Ismay's life?" He was watching the clerk closely.
"Why, no, I've not heard anyone exactly put it into words."
"What we say now in this office is between ourselves, Crump. We want to thresh this thing out as far as we can. Maybe we're not likely to get anywhere near the truth but we've got to try. Can you think of anyone who might have committed the murder?"
"What about Oliver Foss?" the clerk suggested.
"There was ill feeling between them," Bruce agreed, "but I should hardly have thought Foss would go to that extreme. He is a twister and cunning—too cunning, I imagine, to risk his own neck."
"Do you know that Detective Inspector Silver came back here to-day while you were out, sir?"
"No. What did he want?"
"Asked to see any specimens of Foss's handwriting that were in our possession."
"Well?"
"I found his signature on several typed letters, and there were one or two letters which Foss had written with a pen. Silver examined them carefully, but he didn't say anything."
"Do you honestly believe Foss might have been guilty of this crime, Crump?"
The clerk smoothed his hair.
"That's a difficult question to answer, sir. Who's going to say what a man will do if he's driven hard? Murder is rather a hobby of mine—studying other people's murders, I mean. Very interesting. If you can get a good seat at the Old Bailey it's better than all your novels and plays. I've seen sentence of death passed on two men and one woman. And in two of those cases I'd have let the prisoner go on their face value alone. You can't tell a bit, sir, who'd do a thing like that and who wouldn't. Killing depends on your point of view at the moment."
"But, Crump, murder is—just murder," Bruce interrupted.
"Quite, sir," said Crump. "I remember a padre we had with us during the war. I'm not what you might call red hot on religion, but I reckon he was the finest all-round Christian I've ever struck. The sort of man who'll have a special thick carpet laid for him at the pearly gates when he goes up aloft. Well, there was one afternoon in '17 when his point of view changed."
Crump paused for a space and stared blankly, seeing backward through the years.
"There was a raid," he went on presently, "and it was a six-foot German who landed in our trench that turned the padre into a killer. On the top of everything else, the way that German was laughing while he used a bayonet did it, I believe. Killing wasn't the padre's job. We all saw and did a lot of things in those days that are better forgotten, but I can never forget the few minutes when the padre became a plain murderer. That six-foot Jerry wasn't good to look at after it was over. No, sir, you can't tell who'll do these things—when the pinch comes."
Bruce had listened with attention.
"I understand what you mean," he said sanely, "but after all responsible business men do not murder one another, and you know that is true. Foss," he raised his eyebrows reflectively, "may have been the exception. We shall see. Meanwhile, Crump, I want you to put your wits to the test. Can you think of anything that has ever happened which now has special significance? If the murderer knew Ismay before the crime was committed it is more than likely that we know him now. You see what I mean?"
Crump smoothed his hair again.
"It's got me beaten, sir." He paused, lips pursed, eyes mere slits. "As we're talking just between ourselves, and because business men, as you say, don't strangle one another," he lowered his voice a shade, "has it occurred to you that there is such a thing as jealousy?"
"It has occurred to me, naturally, Crump," said Lawrence Bruce. "Just what is in your mind?"
"Well, anyone who didn't want to be blind has been able to see for a long time that Mr. Irwin had no use for Silas Ismay."
"Frankly, I wasn't aware of it," said Bruce. "Perhaps my mind has been too occupied with other things, but I thought those two were rather friendly."
"Yes—on the surface. But Mr. Irwin is like most people. He couldn't hide his real feelings all the time when it came to the question of a woman. He hated the idea of Enid Mulholland working for Mr. Ismay. Hated her having anything to do with him."
"But why? Mr. Ismay was always very considerate toward the girl," Bruce pointed out. "And as for—well, as for his making love to her, I should say it was entirely out of the question."
Crump opened his mouth, ejaculated "Ah!" after a brief pause, then shut it again.
"You seem to doubt that," observed Lawrence Bruce with some surprise.
"I'll put making love in the same category as murder," said Crump. "You never know who's going to do it next. And Mr. Ismay was a man, though sometimes one wouldn't have thought he had blood in his veins."
"But just a moment," said Bruce. "You spoke of jealousy. If by that you mean Peter Irwin might have committed the murder you're altogether wrong. As I have explained to Inspector Silver, Irwin and I had dinner together here in London last night."
"Did he spend the rest of the evening with you, sir?" asked Crump, peering oddly at his employer.
"As a matter of fact he did not. We dined at a restaurant near Piccadilly, and though I did not notice exactly what the time was when we parted, it was so late that he could not have been on the midnight mail."
"As near as you can say, what time would it be that you left him, sir?"
"It must have been getting on for nine o'clock. When we parted he jumped into a taxi outside the restaurant and told the driver to go to the Coliseum."
"Did he know Mr. Ismay was coming down on the midnight mail?"
"He knew the girl was. I suppose he inferred that Ismay was also returning to London by the same train. But you see the murder took place about thirty miles away from King's Cross, and the train never slowed down after it left Peterborough. No, Crump, your idea is all wrong. It wouldn't have been physically possibly for Irwin to do it."
The old clerk grunted.
"Well, I suppose you're right," he said with some reluctance at having a promising solution of the mystery shattered.
"And there's nobody else you have reason to suspect, Crump?"
"I've been racking my brain about it all day, sir. No, I can't say there is."
"You'll swear that?"
"Yes, on a stack of Bibles if necessary," replied Crump.
"Very well," said Bruce, with evident disappointment, turning his attention to the correspondence on his desk. "Send Miss Marsh in, please," he added abruptly.
As Sally took her usual seat near him Lawrence Bruce was forcing his attention upon that correspondence, but the strain of the day's events had left its mark. The letters he dictated lacked their usual punch.
"Mr. Bruce," Sally put in tentatively during a pause, "if there is nothing urgent wouldn't it be better in the circumstances to leave some of this work until to-morrow?"
"It might be easier, but," he replied with a faint smile, "if you and I don't carry on now somehow what's going to become of the Syndicate?"
Later that evening Josiah Crump was sitting back in his office chair with an expression of settled gloom. The others had all gone home. He had stayed on alone to catch up with certain arrears of work, but it was as if someone had thrown a spanner into the cogs. He could not concentrate. Vastly interesting though murders were as a hobby, they had a quality that was altogether too gripping when they happened on your own doorstep, so to speak. It seemed almost impossible to realize that Silas Ismay had utterly ceased to exist for ever.
And then footsteps coming along the corridor reached Josiah Crump's ears. Perhaps it was because he was nervy, but those steps sounded uncertain, furtive. He sat up, eyes fixed on the empty door frame.
"Who's there?" he called out, an odd metallic ring in his voice.
The figure of a man appeared. A fellow in his early twenties, with a soft felt hat and a blue serge suit that was beginning to look shiny and worn. But it was not so much the dress of the man as his eyes which caught at Josiah Crump's imagination. Big brown eyes in the depths of which lurked smouldering fires. And there was a certain ruthlessness in them as they burned there before Crump. One of the man's hands hung limply by his side, the other resting in his coat pocket.
"What do you want?" the clerk demanded.
The man stood for a few seconds, his gaze darting beyond Crump before it came back and settled on that bolt-upright figure in the chair.
"Maybe I've made a mistake," the visitor said, moistening his lips with his tongue.
"Yes," agreed Crump readily, cloaking the horrible uneasiness which this stranger for some reason had caused in him, "I expect you have."
"I wanted to see somebody at the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate's office," the man explained.
"Ah!" exclaimed Crump. "Well, they've all gone home." Then, as an afterthought, "Who do you want particularly?"
Those strange eyes! The smouldering fires there were almost extinct now, but something sinister about the man's expression remained. One might have fancied that he was a degenerate—perhaps a cocaine addict. He had very even white teeth, Crump noticed, and the mark of an old curved cut near the left cheek bone.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "I'll—I'll come back to-morrow." Something was fanning that latent flame within him. "Yes," he added with a swift touch of assurance which puzzled Crump, "to-morrow!" And he turned back along the corridor.
A moment afterwards, urged by some instinct which he could not have defined, Crump was at the door calling after the fellow:
"What's your name?"
The man paused only long enough to glance back over his shoulder. He did not answer, but there was an ugly smile upon his lips. Then he was gone.
Crump, resuming his seat, took out a large pocket handkerchief and dabbed his forehead with it. Some strange people called at the offices of the Syndicate during a twelvemonth, and Josiah Crump was not of the nervous order, but that creature with the burning eyes seemed to have left an atmosphere behind him. An unpleasant atmosphere which caused Crump to put away his work, don his coat, go out, bang the main door after him noisily, and mingle with the comparatively cheerful multitude on the footpath of Shaftesbury Avenue.
As Inspector Silver swung into the entrance of Scotland Yard that night he was weary but dogged. Every step he took in this midnight mail affair increased his curiosity.
The sight of Enid Mulholland lying injured in that railway carriage had not stirred him unduly, because such things often enough cropped up in Scotland Yard life, and the later news that a man had been found dead on the railway at Harley Crossing had for the moment seemed the point where his enthusiasm for the job would die altogether. But the startling discovery that the body of Silas Ismay was thrown from the train had stung to life that passion for probing mysteries which was this C.I.D. man's ruling instinct.
From there onward Silver's interest in the case had steadily and rapidly quickened. With a button, a bit of silk cord, a typed record of an interview in York, and a hastily scrawled letter signed "Nobby" as clues, he had found a new zest in life. That day had set hidden pulses tingling within him. As yet he only appeared to be on the outer fringe of the problem, but already he had one or two more cards tucked up his sleeve.
And apart from the intriguing character of the case, there was the factor of Sally Marsh. Sally of the trim figure, the steady hazel eyes which he couldn't forget. Silver knew now that he had been thinking about her all day as much as about the train mystery. Funny how things happened, he reflected. At this time yesterday the name Sally Marsh would not have had quite so much significance for him.
By sheer blind luck he had seen her again this evening. Returning from that quick trip to Peterborough, he had called at the offices of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate and found her pounding out the last of a pile of letters. And it seemed to Silver that a subtle difference had crept into her attitude towards him. For one thing, she had grasped at last that some danger was in the air: danger which might affect her personally. And Jimmy Silver was aware that Sally was beginning to look to him for protection.
To-morrow he meant to have luncheon with her again at the same restaurant, for two reasons, only one of which was business. He intended that Sally should then talk, even if it was only suspicion that she was keeping bottled up within her.
"Mr. Briant wants to see you—at once, sir." It was a Yard messenger who had buttonholed Silver before he reached his own room.
The Inspector doubled back, traversed a long passage, and entered one of the countless doors all of which seemed alike.
"Oh, there you are, Silver!" Chief Inspector Briant looked rather like a schoolmaster with a prominent forehead until you spoke with him, and then inevitably you became aware of something else. Black eyes which held you with a sort of fascination just so long as the keen intelligence behind them willed. And then if it suited his purpose, while he had you at that disadvantage, Briant's voice, harsh, unmusical, cut the truth out of your heart in chunks. "Slip along to 23 Dudney Row, Battersea," he said. "There's someone there you'll be glad to see."
And then, as though Silver no longer existed, the Chief Inspector continued a conversation over the telephone which he had momentarily suspended.
Dudney Row had the air of having struggled to preserve its virtue as long as possible and then given way under the strain. Once geraniums and kindred splashes of colour had been flaunted from window boxes at its upper stories, but Dudney Row was growing lethargic where the beauties of Nature were concerned. In recent years if ever a decaying window box fell into the street it remained there until it was removed in due course by some passing dustman, and that was that.
But there had been an awakening of sorts in Dudney Row before Detective Inspector Silver arrived. The spirit of drama was abroad. Men no longer slouched along there in quite the same way. Women with hands folded under slatternly aprons were perched at doorways, tongues wagging. A crowd hung about the portals of No. 23, the younger, eager element pressing for a front view while older folk stood a little way back, some talking and staring, some just staring.
"Come back 'ere, 'Erbert," a stout lady was admonishing her offspring as Silver arrived on the scene. "You don't want to get your froat cut, do you?"
A stolid policeman guarding the entrance saluted as Silver went in. The door of the nearest room to the street was open. Within were a uniformed constable and a plain-clothes man, who looked up quickly as the Inspector entered. The place was a shabbily furnished bed-sitting room. On the bed lay the still form of a human being.
Silver's first glance went toward that which lay on the bed.
"What have you got here?" he asked the officer in plain clothes.
"Murder," replied Inspector Pearson. "Young man been strangled. About an hour ago, according to the doctor."
"Any idea who did it?"
"Not a hope, yet," said Pearson.
"Who is he?" Silver was looking closely at the swollen face, and still wondering why Briant had sent him here.
"Gave the name of Carter, according to the woman who runs this place," Pearson explained. "But she knows precious little about him. He's been living here for nearly three weeks. She's gone in to her next door neighbour's house for a little drop of gin as a cure for hysterics."
"Briant sent me down," said Silver. "He seemed to think—" the Inspector's eyes brightened—"here, I know this chap! But the name isn't Carter. At least, it wasn't last time we had him through our hands. Why yes, of course, that's Foxy Hackett. He's only been out about six weeks."
"Well, that's something to begin on," observed Pearson with relief. "I've been over every inch of this room and there isn't a sign of a clue. What's his line?"
"Clever crook in a way, but he'd never have been a high flier. Didn't have the right kind of head piece to make a really good criminal. I've always believed that's why the Spider kicked him out."
"Oh yes, now I come to think of it Foxy was one of that gang, wasn't he?"
"The last job we sent him inside for had all the hall marks of the Spider's organization," said Silver.
"But Foxy didn't squeak."
"He knew better," commented Silver.
"More than likely he'd have got off entirely if only he'd given information that would have helped us to land the Spider."
"A fat lot of good that would have been to Foxy if it also led to his being found in a dark passage with a knife in his back. No, my son," Silver was no older than his colleague, "there was only one good card in Foxy's hand, and he played it. Did his twelve months and tried to look pleasant. Besides, from what I know about the Spider—and nobody knows much—it's doubtful whether Foxy was even in a position to give the Spider away. The Spider's a pretty dark horse. He's pulled off some tremendous jobs since the Yard first began to identify his artistic touch, and according to Briant he'll be hanged in the long run as there is evidence that he has murdered at least two people, including a watchman in Bond Street some time ago, but he's no fool. I dare say Foxy knew the Spider by sight as well as I know you, but I doubt if he knew where the Spider lives or what his real name is."
"By the way," asked Pearson, picking a folded sheet of paper from a little collection of articles which had been taken from the dead man's pocket, "are you sure this man was known as Foxy?"
"I'm certain," replied Inspector Silver, turning over the oddments—a penknife, a strong piece of bent wire, ninepence in coppers, a booklet on the advantages of emigration to Australia, and a shipping company's list of sailings for Sydney. He took the sheet of paper from Pearson, and the first two words that he read seemed to send an electric shock through Silver's frame.
DEAR NOBBY,
I'll do my best, but what you tell me is terrible. I did so hope that you were going straight at last. It is enough to break my heart.
E.
Nobby! Inspector Silver's eyes narrowed. So this was the next black chapter in the mystery which had begun on that midnight mail when Silas Ismay went to his doom. Hardly the sort of development the C.I.D. man had anticipated, but all day the conviction had been growing within him that there were bigger issues at stake.
Silver's mind flashed across London for a moment to a hazel-eyed girl who was only dimly conscious of danger but was inclined to pin her faith on him to see that nothing unpleasant happened. Unpleasant! He glanced at the discoloured face of the man lying on the bed, and repressed a shudder.
"Foxy" was evidently a nickname which had been applied to Hackett, or Carter, or whatever his name was, by his associates in the underworld. Probably only his intimate friends, more or less law-abiding folk, knew him as "Nobby." That explained why the record department of Scotland Yard had been unable to find any trace of him.
Here was another subject upon which Enid Mulholland's explanation would be vastly illuminating. That "E" at the foot of the letter was obviously her initial.
Silver stood there frowning as he weighed up the complicated possibilities. His first reaction had been to think that this cleared Nobby of the murder of Ismay. But on second thoughts, did it? Was this a case of an eye for an eye? Somehow that didn't quite ring right, yet there was always a chance that that might be the explanation.
"Is anything missing from this room, Pearson?" he asked suddenly. "Anything valuable, I mean."
Pearson stared.
"Oh, I see," he replied, understanding dawning. "I hadn't thought of that. Stolen property, eh? Nobody seems to know a darned thing about the man. Hello, here's the woman back again. See what you can get out of her."
Mrs. Wiggins, slightly refreshed, but still far from being her placid self after the unnerving events of that evening, was standing in the passage wiping her mouth with her apron.
"I'm not coming in there again!" she declared. "I'm not, even if you was to give me a five-pound note."
"That's all right, Mrs. Wiggins," said Silver reassuringly, leading her to the quarters known as the back parlour where she had been usefully engaged with a mangle up to the time of her disconcerting discovery. "Now listen. There are one or two important questions I want to ask you."
"My Gawd!" she replied. "Haven't I told that other flattie all I know about it?"
"Just the same I'm afraid you'll have to answer my questions," said Silver with the ring of authority in his voice. "How long have you known this man?"
"Three weeks come to-morrow," the woman replied, a little impressed. "Paid me the first week in advance but I ain't seen the colour of his money since. Who'd ever have thought——"
"Was that suitcase in the bedroom all the luggage he ever had here?" Silver interrupted.
"It's all I've seen belonging to him."
"When did you first go through his suitcase?"
"What d'you take me for? Respectable woman, I am. Think I'd interfere with——"
"Mrs. Wiggins," said Silver sternly, "this is a case of murder. You'd better tell me the truth. We're trying to get at the motive. At present I'm wondering if he had anything valuable in his possession."
"Oh, yes. 'E used to keep the Crown Jewels under the bed, mister!" she retorted scornfully, and tossed her head. "Borrowed a shilling off me last night, he did. He could tell the tale, I'll say that. Anything valuable, indeed!"
"You looked through his belongings the first day he came here, didn't you?"
"Well," she admitted, "you've got to be careful who you have under your roof in a house like this. Besides, 'e didn't keep his suitcase locked. There was never anything in it except two old shirts and a spare pair of boots."
Then robbery apparently wasn't the motive. Silver had felt reasonably sure of that from the first.
"I understand you discovered the body," he went on.
"That's right, sir," she replied. "I 'aven't got over the shock yet. You see 'e'd promised to pay up to-day and I went in to ask him for the money."
"What time was that?"
"About ten o'clock or a bit after."
"And when had you last seen him alive?"
"A couple of hours or so before that."
"Do you know if anyone came here to see him between eight and ten o'clock to-night?"
"Indeed I don't. I was doing the washing in this very room, with the door shut. I never 'eard a sound."
"Do you know whether anyone ever called to see him during the time he has been staying here?"
"Not as far as I know. Very quiet young man 'e was. Borrowed my shilling, too, but when I saw him dead it fair give me a turn."
Silver went back to the bed-sitting room.
"I suppose nobody was seen leaving this house after the murder was committed, Pearson?"
"Not a hope," replied Pearson. "Two women were standing at the door of No. 22, right opposite, but they don't remember anyone entering this place nor leaving. It was dark, though, and the nearest street lamp is fifty yards away. Apparently there weren't many people about at the time."
Silver gazed down at all that was left of Nobby. Crook though he was, one couldn't help being sorry for him. If only the poor devil could speak, what a difference that would make! And not merely in regard to his own bad luck at the finish! For Nobby dead was only another part of the enigma. But Nobby alive would surely have been able to supply some sort of explanation of the whole mystery.
"What about that Mulholland girl? Is she still unconscious?" Andy Collinson of the Daily Budget was with Inspector Silver in his office at Scotland Yard next day.
"She hasn't opened her eyes yet and she's been there getting on for thirty-six hours," replied the detective. "Officially we're told that her condition remains unchanged. You know what dumb birds these hospital folk are. But I happen to know that she's in a pretty groggy state this morning. Pulse feeble. Signs of collapse, and so forth."
"Any chance of her pulling through?"
Silver's shoulders moved.
"About one in ten, I understand," said the C.I.D. man. "And that makes all the difference to us. If only we could depend on getting a statement from her!"
Andy Collinson picked up a bit of blue silk cord which lay on the desk and examined it abstractedly—the string that had been found fastened around Enid Mulholland's neck.
"This cord doesn't tell us much," he said.
"We've traced the makers: that wasn't difficult," replied Silver. "They say their factory turns out about a quarter of a million yards of that particular article each year."
Collinson was puffing away at his pipe thoughtfully.
"That man who was bumped off at Battersea," he observed slowly. "He'd been hit on the head and strangled, you say."
"Yes, a nice hefty clip, probably with a life preserver," agreed the detective.
"Exactly the same thing that Enid Mulholland got," commented Andy, "except that Nobby was finished off with fingers around his throat and a cord was used in the case of the girl. And there are other links between the two cases. I agree with you that it looks as though the same artist had done both jobs."
"I don't believe there's any question about it," put in the C.I.D. man. "And Briant thinks the same."
"What's your guess about the relationship between the late lamented Nobby and Enid Mulholland?" asked Andy.
"I've thought all along that they were man and wife," replied Silver. "My guess is that he turned out crooked and she threw him overboard, but even so she had a weak spot in her heart for him. Women are like that sometimes. He knew he could get money out of her."
"You haven't read the Morning Flash to-day, have you?" asked Andy. "They've produced a brainy thought. It goes this way. Nobby was the culprit on the train. Somebody else, who was desperately in love with the girl, has now given Nobby a taste of his own medicine. Not a bad shot, eh? I only see one objection to it."
"I see two or three. What's yours?"
"Why," said Andy, "the diabolical cleverness with which both murders were committed without a clue being left. I can't believe they were not both planned by the same brain. Apart from the fact that the girl wasn't killed outright—and the murderer may have been interrupted—you've got to admit they were both neat jobs. No bungling in making his getaway. I don't fancy I should have done it half so well."
The C.I.D. man took out his cigarette papers and tobacco, but suddenly his hands clutched tightly upon them. For once that easy-going surface of Silver vanished.
"Collinson," he said, turning to the newspaper man with eyes that had changed strangely, "what is there—what can there be behind this darned mystery? I couldn't go to sleep last night for thinking there was something bigger involved, something of which we haven't got the faintest inkling yet. When I woke up this morning I was more convinced of it than ever. There's a cold-bloodedness about the whole show that—that I don't like."
"There certainly is a callous adherence to a set purpose," said Andy, "with plenty of gray matter at the back of it."
"Yes, and cool brains." The detective paused for a moment. "Collinson, just between you and me I don't like the look of things. I told Briant so this morning. Maybe the way I put it didn't sound very convincing, and I thought he was going to hoot at me. He's so logical, you know, and so right as a rule. But he didn't utter a bleat. Just stared in that funny way of his, and grunted a bit. I've an idea he's not too comfortable about things himself."
Andy was sitting in a chair tilted back. Gently it came down to all four feet.
"What are you afraid of?" he asked.
"It's so infernally vague, but I shouldn't be surprised to see someone else associated with that office go the same way," Silver declared. "For example, we might even find the other partner, Bruce, murdered—most likely strangled, after having been knocked out with a life preserver—as the others were. But," he added abruptly, "keep that to yourself."
As Andy Collinson was walking back to Fleet Street pondering over Silver's odd suggestion, a youngish man, obviously on strange ground, who did not seem to know what to do with his hat, was shown into the Inspector's room.
"Want to see me?" Silver asked easily. "Sit down."
"Why yes, I want to see someone, sir," said the man, subsiding awkwardly to the edge of a chair. "It's about that murder on the train. They told me you were in charge of the case."
Silver's pulse was quickening but one would never have guessed the fact.
"That's quite true. What do you know about it? What's your name?"
"John Massey, sir. You see, I was on that train."
"Indeed! Go ahead, please," said the C.I.D. man quietly.
"Yes, sir. I'm a waiter by profession. I've been third-class dining-coach attendant on that train for six months. I was having my breakfast at home this morning and looking at the paper when I saw the photograph of Miss Mulholland in the front page." The man paused as if to see how much impression his statement had made. Silver was aching to shake him, but curbed his impatience.
"Did you see her on the train?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. And that's why I've come to see you. I don't know anything about the murder exactly, because I was busy clearing up until the train ran into King's Cross, but I saw a man talking to Miss Mulholland. And it wasn't Mr. Ismay neither, sir, judging by his picture."
"You mean you saw her in the dining coach?" the detective suggested.
Massey nodded.
"Miss Mulholland came along to dinner soon after we left York, and I was talking to her there for a minute or two. A nice young lady she was, sir. Very pretty and not at all stand-offish. I'd know her again anywhere. That's why I spotted her photograph in the paper. Well, there was a man took a seat behind her, and I saw him turning round to look at her. After a bit he got up and planked himself right opposite her."
"Can you describe him?"
"What I remember best is that he had red hair."
"Red hair, eh! That's something. Go on."
"He started talking to her. People sometimes do get chatty in the dining car, and I thought to myself he'd got off all right, especially as they sat there for a while after dinner was finished and the other passengers had gone. But it was no business of mine. I shouldn't have paid any attention to it except for—for what has happened. As soon as I saw her photo this morning it struck me I ought to come and tell someone about that feller."
"I'm very glad you did, Massey. Did you happen to overhear anything of their conversation?"
"No, sir. Not a word."
"How long were they sitting together in the dining coach?"
"About an hour, or maybe a bit longer."
"Did you see them leave there?"
"I did, sir. That was some time before the train reached Peterborough. She got up and walked away, and as she went he sat there, his eyes following her, with a curious sort of expression on his face. Maybe I shouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't had a chat with her myself, you see."
"And then what happened?"
"The man got up about three or four minutes afterwards and passed along the corridor in the direction of the engine."
"Followed her, in other words?"
"Yes, but I don't know where he went. That's the last I saw of either of them."
"And there were a number of coaches between the dining car and the engine. As far as you know he might have gone straight back to his own compartment and remained there?"
"That's right, sir."
"He might," commented Silver. "Then again he might not. And nobody but him knows which is true. About how old would you say this man was?"
"Between thirty and forty, maybe. I'm not much of a judge."
"Was he a powerful sort of person?"
"Fair. A bit on the thin side. But Mr. Ismay wasn't a big chap, was he, sir?"
Silver stroked the arm of his chair reflectively for a few seconds. Was this a red herring? Or was it where an entirely new avenue of investigation must be opened up?
"No, not very big," agreed the detective, visualizing the scene which this young waiter had indicated. "Nothing else you can tell me? Any trivial detail that has come back to you since then? The girl seemed quite calm when she walked away?"
"I didn't see her face, sir. But the man wasn't what I'd call quite calm. If you ask me, he looked like a chap who'd thought he'd clicked and then found he hadn't."
Silver picked up a pencil.
"If you'll describe that passenger as minutely as you can," he said, "we'll see what we can do about it."
It was just half-past ten that morning when John Massey left Scotland Yard and Silver put through a call to the offices of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate. He had every reason, afterwards, to remember the time.
"Is that Miss Marsh?" he was asking over the wire a few moments later. "This is——"
"I know," the girl answered in a cheerful way that gladdened the heart of the man.
"You all right?" he asked. "It sounds like it anyway. No news?"
"No, nothing has happened."
"I'm glad," replied Silver, "there's something important I want to talk to you about." He was thinking of the youth now lying dead in a Battersea mortuary. The whole story of the murder of Carter alias Hackett had been printed in that morning's newspapers, excepting only the fact that the dead man had been known in some quarters as Nobby. "I'm having rather a busy morning," Silver went on, "but if I don't get round there before you go out to luncheon can I count on finding you at the usual restaurant? ... Splendid! ... Right, I'll be there."
He was just about to hang up the receiver when he changed his mind.
"By the way," he said, "do you happen to have run across anyone—a man—with red hair lately?"
To Silver it seemed that Sally was silent for quite a long time.
"That's very strange!" she said at last. "What makes you ask?"
"I—I can't explain very well over the telephone, but I really have a particular reason for wanting to know."
"Well, it is odd," came from the girl. "As a matter of fact I know one—yes, two men with red hair, but I haven't seen either of them for some time. But only last night as I was leaving here there was a man standing on the footpath staring at the entrance to the office. There was something extraordinary about him. He looked at me very pointedly and it struck me at the time that there was a furtiveness about him, because as soon as I caught his eye he turned around and slunk away. And he had rather vivid red hair."
"You have no idea what he was up to?"
"Not the slightest. But after your question that incident naturally occurred to me."
"Can you describe him at all?"
"I only had one quick glance at him before he turned away. Somewhat tall, and slender. Clean shaven and fairly well dressed as far as I remember."
"Would you know him again?"
"I think so. Yes, I'm sure I should."
"All right," said Silver. "I'll talk to you about him later. If I can possibly manage it I'll be at that restaurant as agreed."
"But what's this about the man with red hair?" Sally asked. "I'm dying to know. Can't you tell me now?"
"Not very well. I'm sorry. Good-bye."
And then he hung up the receiver.
But luck was against Silver that day—against him in more ways than one. The Battersea strangling case and other things conspired to keep him up to the neck with work. Instead of a tête-à-tête luncheon with Sally Marsh, he had ham sandwiches miles away from the West End, and it was three o'clock before the detective returned to Scotland Yard. Ten minutes after he got there the telephone at his elbow rang.
"I want to speak to Detective Inspector Silver," came in a man's tones.
"Speaking," replied Silver. "Who is that?"
"This is Lawrence Bruce." And even over the wire the detective was conscious of a different note in the voice. "I say, Silver, can you come round here at once? I'm—I'm getting rather uneasy."
Silver pressed the receiver hard to his ear.
"Yes, I'll come now. What's wrong?" For the second time that day his eyes had changed in an instant. The pupils had become like pinpricks.
"I don't quite know," said Lawrence Bruce, "but I'm afraid something has happened to Sally Marsh!"
Even before Silver's fingers had relinquished their hold on the receiver his whole attitude toward Sally Marsh had swiftly crystallized. Bruce's terse message had come to him like a crashing blow, but for the first time he realized exactly how much Sally meant to him. And now "something" had happened to her.
Within three minutes a fast Scotland Yard car was tearing through the traffic to Shaftesbury Avenue. In it Silver sat dazed, aware only of some nameless fear. A sword had been hanging menacingly over everyone connected with the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate, and "something had happened" to the hazel-eyed girl whom he had admired more than a year ago and whom he loved now.
Unceremoniously he rushed into the surviving partner's private office. Lawrence Bruce swung around in his chair and rose. Emotion was beginning to leave its stamp on him.
"Thank goodness you've come, Silver," he greeted. "This suspense was beginning to get on my nerves."
When the detective spoke his voice was unsteady.
"What's wrong?"
"That—that's the devil of it!" replied Bruce. "I don't know. Sally Marsh has disappeared!"
Ominous though the words were, Silver was conscious of immense relief. The faces of the victims of that unknown strangler had floated before him all the way from the Yard. At least the fear to which they had given birth was momentarily eased.
"How?" he asked quickly.
Bruce, immaculately clad as ever, passed a finger uneasily along the inside of his collar.
"She may be all right," he said. "Let us hope so, anyway, but—you understand—I'm getting jumpy."
"When did you last see Sally Marsh?" Silver's words came ice cold and clear. If anything was wrong—and evidently something was very wrong—every moment was precious.
"At about twenty minutes to eleven this morning," said Bruce. "She arrived here at the usual hour and I dictated several letters. She was perfectly normal: a little more cheerful even than usual, perhaps. And then she was called to the telephone. It was you, she told me later, who had rung her up. Is that so?"
"It was," replied Silver.
"Immediately afterwards," Bruce went on, "the second delivery of letters arrived. The office boy put them in front of me on the desk and handed one to Sally Marsh. I had been in the middle of dictating a particularly important letter, and was ready to carry on. I glanced across at Sally and then saw that she was hardly aware of my presence. She was looking at the letter in her hand, evidently rather bewildered."
"Did she speak about it, or say anything?"
"All that happened," replied Bruce, "was that she folded it up again, put it back in the envelope, and thrust the letter into her handbag. Then she got up.
"'I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Bruce,' she said, 'but there is something very important that I must do at once.'
"It was disconcerting for me," Bruce went on, "as there was nobody to take her place and I had an appointment at twelve.
"'All right,' I said. 'But how long will you be?'
"'Not very long,' she replied; and it was the last I saw of her. She put on her hat and walked out. I'm sure that was before a quarter to eleven. I kept my appointment at noon and returned here before one. Then I was astonished to learn that Sally Marsh had not come back. You see, she is a most conscientious worker, and nobody could have known better how urgent it was for her to be here, especially just now.
"I was growing a little anxious even when I went out to lunch, though to be frank that was more on account of the inconvenience to me than her welfare, and it never entered my head that she would not be back by two o'clock as usual.
"By half-past two, however, I began to be distinctly worried on her account, more particularly because it has come so soon after that damnable thing which happened on the train and cost Ismay his life. We have all tried to carry on as usual during the last two days, but that tragedy is like some dreadful evil thing in the background. It is there continuously. One can't get away from it, can't forget it for a moment. And now—Silver, perhaps I am a bit overwrought, but I begin to feel as if this office is under some terrible influence."
With a handkerchief Lawrence Bruce rubbed his palms which had grown moist.
"Where can that girl be?" he went on more rapidly. "It is now nearly half-past three. There was no mistaking her words. 'Not very long.' That was five hours ago. As you know, a girl holding a responsible position such as hers, and especially a girl of her type, does not deliberately walk out and leave her employer hung up for five hours at a critical time without at least getting on to the telephone and letting one have some sort of explanation."
Silver had stood very still, drinking in every word.
"Has she ever gone out in this way before?" he asked.
"I don't think so. I am not always in, of course, but I have never known anything like this to happen."
"That letter—did you catch sight of the writing?"
"I'm sorry. No."
"Who handed it to her?"
"The office boy, who came in here with the mail."
"Please call him."
Bruce pressed a button, and the bright cheeky face of Tim appeared, his mouth as usual not innocent of toffee. But his gaze, drawn to the tall form of the Scotland Yard detective, was filled with reverence.
"When the second delivery of letters came this morning you brought them into this room?" asked Silver crisply.
Tim, a shade awed, silently signified assent.
"There was one for Miss Marsh," the detective added.
"That's right, sir. I gave it to her."
"Now, my lad, just see if you can remember anything about that envelope. The writing on it, for instance."
His head raised toward the tall C.I.D. man, Tim was now making a terribly hard effort to concentrate on the problem.
"It was for her, all right, sir," he declared after reflection. "Sprawly sort of writing," he added.
"From a man or a woman, do you think?"
Tim's lips had opened. This was trying him about to the limit of his capacity, but he was game.
"Why, I should think it was a woman's," he said.
"Can you remember anything else about the letter?"
"I b'lieve it was in a pink envelope."
"Did Miss Marsh seem at all surprised or agitated when you handed it to her?"
"I didn't notice, sir."
"Who gives Miss Marsh her private correspondence as a rule?"
"Me, sir."
"Does she often receive letters at this office?"
"Not very often."
"Do you think you have ever before seen a letter for her addressed in the same writing?"
"I think so, sir, but I couldn't be sure."
Silver lost interest in the boy.
"By the way, Mr. Bruce, can you tell me anything whatever about a tall thin red-headed man who may be associated with this affair in some way?"
Bruce, who had sunk into his chair, sat there with a slight frown for a few moments.
"I can't place him. Not the remotest idea who you mean. Tell me, Silver, do you really think some harm has come to this girl?"
The detective blinked. Not even to himself would he admit the worst of his fears.
"It looks queer—distinctly queer," he said. "What was she wearing?"
"Something dark," replied Bruce. "She generally wears a black frock in the office."
"But when she went out—her hat and things?"
"I'm afraid I didn't notice that."
Silver turned abruptly to that intelligent young office boy who was obviously aching to butt in again.
"She had her black coat on, sir," he said. "It was a bit parky out of doors this morning. The coat's got a sort of furry gray collar."
"And her hat?"
"It was a little one—red."
Silver made a note of these details.
"You've got her home address?" he asked Bruce.
"Luton Square, South Kensington. I can give you the number in one moment," replied Lawrence Bruce, reaching forward briskly for a book. "Here it is—thirty-one."
"That's where I'm going next," said the detective with decision. "Meanwhile you will remain here, won't you?"
"I certainly shall."
"Good. Then if Miss Marsh comes back or if you get any news of her, I count on you to telephone to Scotland Yard immediately and leave a message there for me."
"You can depend upon that. And if you find any trace of her——"
"I'll let you know," said Silver, already on his way to the door. In the corridor he encountered Josiah Crump. Considering that he made a hobby of murders, Mr. Crump felt he was decidedly out of the limelight.
"Excuse me, Inspector," he said. "I think I ought to tell you about a most peculiar visitor who came here last night."
Silver pulled up abruptly.
"Eh, eh, what's that?" he jerked out.
"I was working here by myself after the others had gone," Mr. Crump explained, "and a man against whom I entertain distinct suspicion called. He would neither give his name nor state his business clearly but he seemed to want something here."
"What sort of person was this?" demanded Silver.
"A man of medium height, about twenty-five, with a slight stoop, big brown eyes, even white teeth, and I noticed that he had the scar of an old curved cut near the left cheek bone."
The detective looked at Josiah Crump intently.
"Here?" he said. "Last night?"
The portly Mr. Crump nodded and neatly tucked a thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat. He was distinctly pleased with himself. It was something for an amateur to be able to give tips to a regular detective from Scotland Yard.
"You're quite sure about that mark on his cheek?" Silver asked.
"Yes, I noticed it particularly," said Crump, "thinking that would be a useful means of identifying him if necessary. I didn't at all like the look of the man, and though I don't wish to implicate myself in any way I must say, in view of what has happened to-day, that in my opinion he might in some way be responsible for Miss Marsh's disappearance."
"The only thing against that, Mr. Crump," said the detective, turning away, "is that your man was found strangled shortly after he left you."
It was with no illusions that Detective Inspector Silver rang the bell at Sally Marsh's home in South Kensington, nor was there any doubt in his mind that it was Sally's mother who answered the door—a kindly woman with graying hair and steady eyes like those of her daughter.
"Is Miss Marsh at home?" he began, facing a delicate task that was none to his liking.
"My daughter is at business."
If the detective had had any lingering hope here it crashed.
"My name is Silver. I don't know whether Miss Marsh has happened to—"
"Oh, oh, of course. Sally was telling us about you only last night. In fact she has often spoken of you. Won't you please come in?"
It was a long time since the C.I.D. man had felt so uncomfortable. There was an air of calmness about Mrs. Marsh which he dreaded to shatter. But also there was something of courage etched on the woman's face.
"I particularly wanted to speak to her," Silver said, "but when I called at the office she had gone out. In fact she had been out for some hours."
Only by observing the tensing of her clasped fingers did he see that the woman had vaguely sensed something of his errand. He could read her thoughts easily. What had happened to bring a Scotland Yard official here?
"Sally doesn't go out like that from the office very often," said Mrs. Marsh.
"So I understand," he replied, but looking into those steady eyes he was wondering whether her courage would be equal to the coming strain. In any case beating about the bush could serve no purpose. "That is one reason why I came straight here, thinking you might have some notion where she has gone."
The colour was draining from Mrs. Marsh's cheeks and her lips twitched. The knowledge of that which had befallen Enid Mulholland and, worse still, Silas Ismay, flashed into her mind, but she sat very still.
"I am afraid I have no idea where Sally can be." She paused. "Mr. Silver, please don't keep anything from me."
"I expect your daughter will return here safely this evening." Was that true? Silver wondered, even as he said it. "But just now, naturally, one is a little more anxious than usual. I am told she went out in the middle of the morning immediately after receiving a letter. She said there was something important she had to do. Does that suggest any possible explanation to you?"
"None whatever," replied Mrs. Marsh.
"She has not mentioned anything to you lately about her friends or her private affairs which could have some bearing on this?"
"Nothing. What is more, Sally is not secretive."
"She has spoken to you about people in the office, of course?"
"Sometimes, naturally."
"Can you recall any comment she may have made concerning Silas Ismay?"
"I don't think she liked him very much, but that's about all."
"Your daughter has said nothing that now suggests Ismay might have made some attack on Enid Mulholland?"
"Dear me, no. Nothing of that sort."
The man gazed down at the carpet, his imagination at work. One unnerving picture after another leaped into his brain.
"Has she some friend who might be ill and sent for her?" he asked.
"Such a thing could be," Mrs. Marsh agreed, yet intuition told her that the detective's fears were rooted more deeply. "Mr. Silver," she went on suddenly, "what is it that you think may have happened to my Sally?"
His eyes left the carpet and met those of the woman.
"I wish I knew what to think," he told her. "However, she may return at any moment and this uneasiness would all be wiped out."
Again Mrs. Marsh's lips twitched.
"But you think there is the danger that she—she may not return to-night." It was more a statement than a question.
Silver got up.
"I won't go as far as that," he said, jotting a telephone number down on a card and giving it to her. "But will you promise to let me know as soon as she comes back?"
"Without fail," she told him.
There was no trace of the old easy-going Silver in the detective who returned to the waiting car at the curb.
"Any news?" he demanded of the man at the wheel.
"I got through to Mr. Bruce three minutes ago, sir. He says the girl hasn't come back yet."
"All right," replied Silver brusquely. "Push off. Straight to the Yard. And hurry."
At one minute to six o'clock that evening the eyes of Josiah Crump strayed, for the fiftieth time, to the clock. The atmosphere in the office had hourly been growing more tense. Six o'clock, in the ordinary way, was the hour when they all went home; and still there was no sign of Sally Marsh. Another stenographer had been temporarily engaged and the surviving partner of the firm was in his private office dictating belated correspondence to her.
To Crump there would have been something agreeably dramatic in watching that clock hand register the last minute—but for the fact that he also was one of the staff at that office. This was only Wednesday evening, and since eleven o'clock on Monday night one of those who earned their daily bread there had been lying in a mortuary, one was in hospital, and one had been spirited away. Besides them the mysterious individual with burning eyes and a scar on his cheek who had called at the office the previous evening had also been murdered.
As the clock hands touched the hour of six Crump glanced at the two junior clerks and at Tim, the office boy, all of whom were nonchalantly putting on their hats. Would they, he wondered, be putting on their hats to-morrow evening at this time? Would they? Crump shivered slightly. He generally took his wife to the local movies on Thursday nights. Inevitably a question now flickered in his mind. If someone else connected with that ill-fated office were wiped out, would Josiah Crump still go to the movies?
He gave a start as the door of Mr. Bruce's office suddenly opened.
"If you get any news of Sally Marsh ring me up at home, Crump," said Lawrence Bruce, slipping on his overcoat. "If I'm out leave a message."
"Right, sir," said the head clerk.
"That new girl will take a couple of hours to finish typing those letters," Bruce added, making for the exit. "You'll stop and look through them before they're posted, won't you?"
Crump felt unhappy as he heard the steps of the surviving partner die along the corridor. Excepting for the new girl in the private office whose fingers were making a typewriter click, he was alone. He heard the outer door clang comfortingly. Just beyond it was the busy footpath of Shaftesbury Avenue, where a multitude thronged past incessantly. But this office had become a hub of death, and to make matters worse he had dreamed last night about being slowly squeezed to death by a snake. Was that an omen?
He stood there now thoughtfully for a few moments, then turned to a ledger with which he had been busy. But his mind wavered from that task. Interesting though he had found the study of crime in the past, and especially the crime of murder, the thing was vastly different when you were mixed up in it.......
For once the newspapers of London next morning agreed on what was the most interesting "story" of the day. There was a rare piquancy about it from their point of view: an air of suspense which was just the thing to whip the jaded interest of readers.
When you could leave the public hanging over a figurative precipice they liked it better. It gave them something to discuss in trains, in offices, saloon bars, and suburban homes. If this missing Sally Marsh had worked in any office but that of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate nobody would have made a fuss about it, but a terrifying shadow had fallen on that organization. Some hidden hand was stretching out of the unknown and clutching human victims.
It was now admitted, even by Scotland Yard, that Foxy Carter, or Hackett, who was strangled at Battersea, had been seen in the Theatrical Syndicate's offices within an hour or so of his death. A hue and cry had begun for the mysterious individual with red hair who had talked to Enid Mulholland on the midnight mail and had since been seen lurking in front of those offices in Shaftesbury Avenue.
But—and this was the thrilling touch that Fleet Street played on with all its skill—what was the mysterious fate that had overtaken Sally Marsh?
That evening Andy Collinson found himself in the house at York from which Oliver Foss had disappeared. Mrs. Piggott, the landlady, was a tall, angular woman with an immobile face from which two dark eyes shone piercingly.
"I've got nothing more to say than what I've told the police already," she declared.
"But," suggested Andy, "if some enemy of his is responsible for what has happened you would do anything you could to help him, wouldn't you?"
"I don't know that he had any enemies, but I'm sure of what the detectives are trying to make out."
"Mrs. Piggott, I'm not a detective," said Andy. "I'm only trying to get at the truth, whatever it may be. I don't want to alarm you, but you must know there is a theory that Oliver Foss may have been the victim of foul play. If so he must have had enemies."
"He never talked about his private affairs," replied Mrs. Piggott.
"How long has he been in England?"
"A couple of years or so."
"Has he stayed in your house all that time?"
"No. He came to me about ten months ago."
"And before that?"
"I think he was in London for some time."
Andy regarded that odd waxen face wonderingly. How much was hidden behind her expressionless exterior?
"Did Mr. Foss often go away?"
"I never inquired into his ways, but he did leave here frequently, sometimes for two or three days at a time."
"Where did he go?"
"I never asked him and he never told me."
"He did not even mention whether he had been to London?"
"Not to my recollection."
"Can you tell me anything about his career during the two years or so that he has lived in England?"
"You know as much as I do about it."
"Well, at least you know something about his business?"
"I don't. How should I? He always seemed to have plenty of money and paid me promptly. That's all I was concerned with."
"I understand that Mr. Foss had no motor car?"
"No. He hated the things. Unless he needed a cab he wouldn't ride in one."
"Had he friends who called here occasionally?"
"A gentleman came once, about six weeks ago, and stayed an hour or so. I could hear them talking, but I don't know what it was about."
"They parted on good terms?"
"Quite. Shook hands when the gentleman left."
Andy Collinson was accustomed to interviews which seemed hopeless, but experience had taught him that the most surprising jewels of information lay hidden where one would least expect to find them. One question which had simmered in his mind all the way from London remained unasked until he stood up and was on the point of leaving.
"Well, I hope you'll have good news about him soon, Mrs. Piggott. His disappearance must naturally be very trying for you. I wonder why he stayed all this time in York."
For a second a different expression flickered on the woman's face. Romance had perhaps long been crushed out of her, but some degree of human interest remained.
"He was born in Australia," she said, "but I remember he told me once that his father originally came from York. I expect that accounts for his wanting to see the place. I don't suppose he'd have stayed here so long though, only according to what I hear he met a girl."
"Fell in love, eh?" put in Andy encouragingly. "Well, that would make a difference. Some lady here in York?"
The woman shook her head slightly.
"As a matter of fact," she explained, "I'm not supposed to know anything about it, and I only heard by chance. Nor have I mentioned it to anybody, seeing that it's none of their business. I come from Easingwold, a little town not many miles from here, and my sister still lives there. I understand from her that Mr. Foss has been seeing a good deal lately of an Easingwold girl there called Marian Blakeley, daughter of a successful dairy farmer."
Within ten minutes Andy Collinson was at York station inquiring for the next train to Easingwold, and in due course he stood face to face with a girl of about twenty-seven who eyed him suspiciously.
"I am trying to help to find Mr. Foss," he said.
"Are you a detective?"
"No, I write for a newspaper."
"Have you any idea what has happened to him?" she asked.
"That is what I came to ask you."
The girl looked at him in sullen fashion.
"How should I know?"
"When did you last see him?"
"Not since last Saturday. He dined here and spent the evening with me, leaving for York by the last train."
"Did you notice anything peculiar about him then?"
"Nothing," she replied coldly.
"He didn't give you the impression of being afraid in any way?"
"Not at all."
"Forgive me for asking, but were you two engaged?"
"We were not exactly engaged, but we probably should have been by now—if this hadn't happened."
"And now?"
Her mouth quivered.
"I hope that when he returns he will give a satisfactory explanation," she said.
"He has talked to you about his life in Australia, I suppose?"
"Sometimes. I think he'd have wanted me to go back there with him as soon as we were married."
"Then he would have given up his business interests here, whatever they were?"
"He never talked much about business to me though I believe he went in for a certain amount of speculation."
"What part of Australia was he from?"
"He seems to know Sydney best, but he has knocked about the world a great deal and done all sorts of things. I fancy he made most of his money out of pearl fisheries. He has a quick temper but it's all over and done with a minute later. Anyone who suggests that he would have followed Ismay to murder him on the train must be crazy."
"May I ask what reason you have for expressing that opinion?"
"Well, for one thing he is much too cautious."
"Would you describe Mr. Foss as a particularly courageous man?"
The girl regarded Andy oddly before replying.
"What makes you ask that?" she asked.
"I was thinking that a fellow who had gone in for pearling and wandered everywhere was probably extremely capable of taking care of himself."
There was the barest hint of hesitation about Marian Blakeley's reply.
"Yes, but I do not think he would attack anyone."
"He never spoke of anyone having uttered a threat of physical violence against him?"
"Never."
"He hasn't many friends in this country, has he?"
"Very few. Oliver has always been such a rolling stone. Besides, he's not the kind of man who makes friends easily. It's as if he doesn't trust people: the result of encountering so many shady types in various places, I suppose."
"Did he go up to London frequently?"
"Sometimes, like other people. I believe he very often bought and sold shares on the Stock Exchange. He often used to send telegrams about that even when he was here."
"Did he ever tell you why he made those trips to London?"
"No, but I suppose it was business. Oh, and he must have gone to see his mother occasionally."
This was indeed news to Andy.
"She lives in London, then?"
"So he told me once, and I have no reason to doubt it."
"Do you happen to know her address?"
"He never mentioned it."
"Isn't that rather strange?"
"I don't think so. Not when you know Oliver Foss. I fancy I understand him, though a good many people may not. He isn't exactly communicative."
"He certainly isn't. Mrs. Piggott, the landlady in whose house he has been living during the last ten months, has definitely stated to the police that so far as she knows he has no relatives living on this side of the Indian Ocean."
There was a touch of scorn in Marian Blakeley's face.
"Why should he have confided in his landlady?"
"Perhaps you're right. There does seem to be rather an air of mystery about him, though, doesn't there?"
The girl rose as a signal that so far as she was concerned the interview was ended, and the crime expert of the Daily Budget walked back to Easingwold railway station with a vague sense of irritation. He was not making progress. This was all frills. There seemed to be no getting down to bed rock on the story. He had dug Marian Blakeley out and in his professional capacity had her entirely to himself, and yet when you boiled it down there was hardly a headline in all she had told him. Now if only she had known where...
He stopped on the footpath, smiled in the darkness, and then walked on again with more spring in his step. Perhaps after all he had made a little progress. If she would talk, the one person who could give an excellent story about Oliver Foss was his own mother. There were millions of people dotted all about London, and amongst them somewhere that woman might be found.
Andy whistled to himself as he walked on considering a fruity scheme. As the slow train conveyed him from Easingwold to York he drew a pad from his pocket and drafted out a cable. The Sydney correspondent of the Daily Budget was a particular friend of Andy's, and moreover a brilliant journalist who could be relied upon in a situation such as this. If Oliver Foss had made bags of money he must be rather well known in Sydney. It was to this correspondent, then, that Andy addressed his cable.
Cartwright, Daily Times, Sydney. Oliver Foss, of Sydney, interested in pearl fishing, age 32, blue eyes, dark hair, has disappeared here after a murder. His mother is in London. Can you find anyone who knows her address? ANDY COLLINSON, Royal Hotel, York.
"It seems a long way to go round," reflected the Budget man as he read the message over, "but what does that matter if it does the trick?"
Down by the river in Wapping, Ikey Glockstein shuffled along in a frock coat and bowler hat, both of which had been intimate friends of his for many years.
At the corner of Old Ship Steps he paused, ostensibly to light his pipe. But his dark, mournful eyes surveyed the street in both directions before he was satisfied and, thrusting the empty pipe back in his pocket, turned down the narrow passage.
At a doorway, after another glance to right and left, he inserted two fingers in a hole which answered the purpose of a letter box. Hidden there from an inquisitive world, was a bell push which he pressed—two short rings and one long. Presently the door swung inward and Mr. Glockstein entered.
"Hello, Queenie!" was his greeting as he slid into the gloomy entrance of a rambling old place. "Anybody here yet?"
"There's several gents in the drawring room," replied Queenie, pointing over her shoulder with a thumb. She was about fifty, with jet-black hair that owed little to Nature, and bright beady eyes.
Glockstein shuffled on, walking over bare boards into a room where there were a table, a large map of London pinned to the wall, and a few chairs on which four men were obviously waiting for something to happen. Though their mothers had never called them by those names, they were known respectively in this stratum of society as Dale, the Duke, Joe Quirk, and the Bishop. Four pairs of quick eyes shot to those of the elderly Jew as he entered.
"Well, well," said Ikey Glockstein, rubbing his hands together, "quite a family party, eh? Thought you'd gone over to Paris, Duke."
"I was just off when I got this call," replied a thin aristocratic-looking individual, taking a cigarette from a gold case.
"The only one who won't join our merry throng, then," remarked Ikey, "is the Major. The Spider has sent him up to Liverpool. He went this morning, directly he arrived back from Amsterdam."
"What are we here for now?" queried Dale, a youngish man of athletic build, who was perched on the edge of the table. One could have sworn that there was nothing of the criminal in his make-up. And yet without the aid of a blow pipe those well-kept hands of his could do marvellous things with any ordinary safe. Given adequate tools, the job at which he specialized was childishly easy, besides being more lucrative and less monotonous than the career in medicine which a doting father had mapped out for him.
"Lord above knows!" commented the owner of the gold cigarette case.
"Ikey," observed Dale in his amiable pleasant way, "could you attend one of these gatherings disguised as a rat catcher some day by way of a change, or even as a gentleman? It would be less trying to the human eye if you removed that appalling hat."
Looking puzzled, the Jew took off the bowler and appraised it.
"I like that hat, don't you?"
"For the richest old fence in London, dearie," said Dale, "your appearance is obscene. Tell me, straight, how many rows of houses do you own in London?"
The Jew's face crinkled merrily.
"I look an honest man like this, don't I?" he asked. "Business is business, and——"
"Hst!" This sharply from a man who was now standing with his head on one side, listening intently.
"I wish you wouldn't do that, Joe," croaked Ikey with a nervous start. "Enough to give one the jimjams. What's the matter, anyway?"
"Just fancied I heard a board creaking somewhere," said Joe Quirk in the accents of America. "Thought it might be the Spider. Gee! How do you guys figure he gets in and out of this place when he doesn't use the door?"
"Personally," replied Dale, "I have always believed that he crawls up the brick walls outside, like Dracula, clinging on with his eyebrows."
"It sure has got me buffaloed," commented the American. "We watched once, didn't we, Duke? And he certainly didn't arrive through either door that time. What do you think about it, Bish?"
The gentleman referred to removed his pipe from between his teeth. He had a priestly, even saintly expression, hence the abbreviated nickname.
"I asked Queenie once," he observed, "and she made it quite clear, as you'd naturally expect from that lady. It seems he slides down into one of the windows on a sunbeam."
The Duke chuckled.
"You wouldn't get any change out of Queenie so far as the Spider was concerned," he observed. "She'd cut the throats of the lot of us, I suspect, if she thought it suited his purpose. Hero worship, I s'pose. She's as tough as they make 'em and he's obviously had a university education. People are like that with the Spider, though. Nobody ever bows down in front of me and offers to become my slave."
Until that moment the door had been closed, but it opened now and the Spider stood there shaking his head disapprovingly.
"Well, my children," he said, "when you grow up and exhibit signs of having brains enough not to talk indiscreetly I'll show the brightest of you our private bolt hole from these premises." The quick-witted Ikey cast his mournful eyes upon the walls and ceiling but did not see how their conversation could have been overheard. "If that secret ever leaks out," the Spider added, "we may be caught some day like rats in a trap."
"Righteo!" murmured Dale. "Little ones, consider yourselves spanked by Papa. But don't forget, Spider, if a bunch of flatties come hammering at the door I shall expect you to take my hand and lead me to it."
The Spider came nearer and swiftly took the measure of each one in turn. He was oddly magnetic: a born leader, whose judgment men instinctively trusted. All there were hand-picked experts. The game they played with this ringleader was dangerous, but under his guidance they played it well.
"You will remember, my friends," he said, "it is less than ten days since that rabbit, Foxy Hackett, was with us in this room. That it wasn't a particularly pleasant scene I grant you."
A subtle change came into the expression of each face before him. At last they had an inkling why they had been summoned thither.
There was a peculiar stillness, which remained unbroken until the Spider spoke again.
"As a team we have done pretty well, yet only because every cog in the machinery worked properly. At one time Hackett was useful, but, as you all know, he took to dope. I meant to finish with him early last summer, but he got pinched just then through his own stupidity while we were on that Park Lane job.
"When he came out of prison," the Spider continued, "Hackett had enough money to set him on his legs. I saw to that. But he blew the lot in and followed you, Ikey, to this new meeting place of ours. We have no use for failures. You will recollect that when he last came here I put the thing up to him very clearly and I should probably have seen that he didn't get on the rocks, but the young fool showed his teeth. Threatened us! I can see him now, pointing to you, Joe, and recalling a few things that you must have mentioned to him in confidence."
"Darned little skunk!" commented the American.
"He had you taped also, Bish, and as for Ikey, you would have refrained from sin for many a long year had he put half his facts before the flatties at Scotland Yard."
The Jew's lips moved, and not in prayer. What he muttered was inaudible.
"Dale," the Spider went on relentlessly, "would probably have broken Hackett's neck there and then if he had had his way. Also the little dope fiend had your record pat, Duke. Nor did Hackett spare me."
"Well?" It was Dale who put the question.
"As you must know quite well," said the Spider, "Hackett is dead. Unless I am mistaken he was murdered by someone who is now in this room."
As was his habit in moments of distress, Ikey Glockstein stroked his scant beard, shrewd eyes darting rapidly from face to face. Bish smoked his pipe steadily and stared at the ceiling after one quick glance at Dale. The others hardly moved.
"Go easy, Spider," said Joe Quirk. "Say, ain't you handing out rather a raw deal?"
"I don't need to be one of Scotland Yard's 'Big Five,' Joe," observed the Spider, "to realize that Hackett was looking for trouble when he lost his head in this room. My only concern is for the general welfare of our organization."
"Hackett was killed last night," said Dale. "At that time I was——" he broke off.
"You were saying, Dale?" came from the Spider encouragingly.
"Well, one doesn't drag a decent woman's name into a tea party of this sort. Never mind where I was."
"Exactly. I don't say you did it, Dale. There's no direct evidence on the point. But you see the difficulty."
"Myself I was in bed," observed Ikey.
"And at your time of life," said the Spider, "you ought not to be out so late as that strangling people. But I doubt whether you can prove to our satisfaction that you were in bed. As for the rest of us, we know very little about each other's private life."
"I always suspected the Duke of being a head waiter in his spare time," commented Dale. "He wears evening dress with such a beautiful air."
"What are we going to do about this Hackett business, Spider?" asked the man known as the Bishop. "I see your point. All the same, you may be off the rails. According to the evening papers, the blighter seems to have been mixed up in that Theatrical Syndicate mystery."
"He seems to, Bish," agreed the Spider. "I only hope it is so. But do you believe that is how he came to be murdered?"
Bish looked round at the five faces near, all touched with grimness now excepting that of Dale.
"I'm asking you, Bish, do you?" persisted the Spider.
"My dear Watson," observed Dale in a tone which cracked the growing tension, "can't you see he thinks we're all as guilty as blazes but he's too polite to say so? Personally I was not anywhere near London last night, but I don't expect everyone to believe that."
There was a stilted pause.
"Very well," came from the Spider. "Perhaps, as you say, Bish, I may be mistaken. Let it go at that for the moment. Now!" His whole manner changed as he turned to the real business of the evening. "The Major reports that a very large parcel of diamonds will be brought over from Amsterdam to-day by a dealer named Steinburg. In all probability they will be locked in the safe in his Hatton Garden office for the night. The caretaker is an incorruptible ex-sergeant major. Our best chance will be at half-past two to-morrow morning and it will have to be swift work. Here is a rough plan of the place."
The Spider spread it on the table, pointing out one detail after another in rapid incisive sentences, to an absorbed audience of four. Only Ikey Glockstein sat still in his chair near the empty fireplace. These preliminary proceedings did not concern him. His share in the affair would be after the main event, in those secret corners of the diamond market which are conducted behind a veil with a maximum of discretion and a minimum of advertisement.
Later that morning two well-dressed men emerged from the Piccadilly tube station. Each had taken off and was carrying an overcoat which had seen better days, but which had been inconspicuous in Wapping.
"Where shall we have luncheon, Bish?" asked the taller one.
"Better come in and have a nibble with me at the flat," said his companion. "We can talk more safely there, and my man has a genius for grilling soles."
But coffee had been served by that paragon Parker before either of them referred to the subject which was uppermost in their minds, and then only two sentences were exchanged.
"I wonder who really did murder Hackett," said Dale.
There was a smile on the lips of the Bishop as he replied.
"If I were the one person who knew the answer, I suppose I naturally should not enlighten you."
Since midnight a thin fog had drifted over the streets of London. The light filtered through it eerily from the lamps in Hatton Garden. The swirling mist seemed to take on grotesque shapes that lingered only for a moment.
Near the brass plate of Messrs. Steinburg & Co. a man paused to light a cigarette and at the same time glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes after half-past two.
A helmeted figure loomed silently out of the gloom.
"Good-night, officer," said the man. "Foggy eh?"
"And it's getting worse," replied the policeman. "Good-night, sir."
They both passed on.
The policeman tucked the collar of his cape closer under his chin. There was a nip in that damp driving mist. He flashed the ray of his lantern on to the next door, and the next, working his way methodically along that side of the street. He moved with the leisurely tread of the night-duty police, but his mind was on his job. Remarkable things could happen in a place like Hatton Garden, especially in thick weather at this time of a morning.
"All correct, Shaw?"
The constable heard a familiar voice just as he saw the form of its owner.
"All correct, Sergeant. Everything's very quiet."
In less than half an hour P.C. Shaw's lamp again illuminated the door of the Steinburg premises. Then flickered from one window to another. The wavering finger of light touched one particular pane of glass and shifted on but, prompted by some automatic process in the policeman's brain, was switched back.
Trifles such as that, which would be ignored in the day, caught one's eye at night. A scrap of paper six or eight inches across was fastened to the glass, and what was infinitely more important, P.C. Shaw did not seem to remember having seen it there before. Moreover that bit of paper was just beneath the window fastener.
Between the constable and the window there was a narrow area protected by railings. He listened intently for a few seconds and then, throwing his cape on the top of the spikes, climbed over. Hanging on to one bar, and leaning over, he could just touch that paper with the end of his truncheon. As he had half expected, it gave to the pressure. A hole had been cut clean through the glass.
A minute later he was back on the footpath and the tranquillity of Hatton Garden was shattered. The officer had a whistle between his lips and three sharp blasts rang out, followed by three more.
Two constables who hurried to answer the signal found Shaw with his thumb jammed on the door bell.
"What's up, mate?" one of them called out.
Not removing his thumb, Shaw pointed to the window.
"Looks as if someone's broken into this place," he said, noting with satisfaction that more police were arriving.
But there was no answer to the pressing of that bell. Which was all wrong, for Shaw was well aware that a caretaker and his wife usually slept on the premises.
At that stage a sergeant arrived and took a grip on the situation.
"Seen anybody hanging about?" he asked sharply.
"Nothing to arouse suspicion," replied Shaw.
"Slip around to the back of these premises, some of you, and keep your eyes skinned," the sergeant ordered. "Bannister, you're tallest. Get down into that area. If we step on your shoulder we can just—that's right, Bannister. Hold steady. Come on, my lads."
The window was not fastened. Thrusting it up, the sergeant climbed into the room, others scrambling hastily after him. He found the electric switch and flooded the room with light. It was a plainly furnished office. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed there, but the door was open. Putting his hand on one man's shoulder, he pushed him toward a telephone.
"Ring through to the Yard for the Squad," he barked.
With a swift glance at the edge of the door, he saw that it had been forced from the inside. That door led into a passage communicating with four other rooms, in one of which the sergeant found an open safe that had obviously been ransacked. The floor near was littered with books and papers that had been pitched out in a rapid search.
"We're too late," growled the sergeant sourly. "They've bolted."
"But where's the caretaker and his wife?" asked P.C. Shaw.
"Fast asleep in the basement, I expect," said the sergeant, making for a flight of stairs at the back of the premises. But he descended warily, truncheon in hand. And then at the threshold of a bedroom he uttered a curious sound and hurried forward.
Two eyes were staring at him and faint sounds indicating a world of emotion reached his ears.
A man in his pajamas was sitting in a chair but refrained from rising because he was tied down securely with sheets that had been torn into strips. Also he was gagged.
Whipping out his knife, the sergeant set the man free.
"You all right?"
During twenty-five years spent in the army, chiefly as a non-commissioned officer, Dick Hawkins, the caretaker, had acquired a certain fluency in expressing his feelings. It came in handy now.
"Yes, yes," the sergeant interrupted, "but what happened?"
"Blime, haven't you caught 'em?" demanded Hawkins, his eyes bulging.
"There was nobody in the place but you when we got here. What time did this occur?"
"About half an hour ago; maybe less. You don't suppose I clocked 'em in, do you? Can't understand it! This place is wired all over with burglar alarms, too. I was by myself fast asleep, the missus being away for the night. The first thing I knew was a lamp shining right in my eyes and a voice says: 'Sorry to disturb you, but don't move or I shall shoot!' It was said so polite you'd have thought butter wouldn't melt in his mouth."
Hawkins ran his fingers through his hair, living through that moment again.
"He had a revolver pointing straight at me," the man went on, "and there was no chance to get at mine, which was under the pillow.
"'Be quiet and obey orders, please,' says he, just as polite, but you could tell he meant business. 'Now get up.'
"He kept that light right in my eyes, but I could see there were three of them in the room.
"'Truss him up,' he says to his pals. 'And hurry.'
"I had to stand there like a stuffed dummy—me who'd been middle-weight champion in the Sussex Artillery for years! Then they sat me down in that chair and made a monkey of me with a rope. Polite as a bunch of parsons with it all the time. Will you b'lieve me that bloke apologized, when they'd finished, for causing any inconvenience.
"'It is too bad to have spoilt your night's rest,' he says, 'but you'll be able to get a nap later in the day perhaps.'
"Think of it! The nerve! I expected they'd give me a crack on the head before they pushed off, just to make sure, but they didn't."
Scotland Yard had set to work the whole of its complex machinery in the task of finding some trace of Sally Marsh. Her description had been circulated throughout the British Isles, and the news of her disappearance, splashed across the top columns of every morning paper, had turned millions of the public into amateur detectives.
In its leading article the Daily Courier said:
In London alone many people disappear every year, but there is no doubt that in the vast majority of such cases this vanishing trick is performed voluntarily, often with some romance at its root, but more often still for the purpose of evading the law.
In this case, however, the circumstances are as sinister as they are mysterious. It is almost incredible that here, with a police force which is reputed to be the finest in the world, a girl can be whisked away under the very eyes of her employer and not be traced.
We know that Sally Marsh walked out of that office of her own free will. Whether she has stayed away willingly remains to be proved, but that does not seem at all probable, and the public will watch with the keenest interest this peculiar sequel to the inexplicable tragedy that occurred just before the midnight mail reached King's Cross on Monday.
When Detective Inspector Silver returned to his task at the Yard after trying and failing to snatch a little sleep following the discovery that Sally had vanished, his face was drawn and stamped with a new sternness. The avenues for investigation seemed to open out in many widely diverging directions and each one for the moment seemed blocked.
The York police were at a complete loss to explain the whereabouts of Oliver Foss. Silver had anticipated the possibility of that man having committed suicide to escape arrest for murder, but now a doubt inevitably arose—a doubt which gave occasion to terrible speculation. Had Foss caused Sally's disappearance? For the memory that she knew something, or fancied she knew something, about that tragedy on the train gnawed ceaselessly at Silver.
The murder of Nobby, otherwise Foxy Hackett, had cut off for ever all hope of getting from him a hint which might have led, if only as the finest thread, to the root of things. That some such thread had existed Silver was convinced.
The man with red hair who had been seen on the train with Enid Mulholland was a vague and puzzling factor in the situation. There were so many men in the world with red hair, and if, as appeared obvious, these recent events were all the results of careful planning, the man might have been wearing a wig. Moreover at present there was not one tittle of evidence which could be used in a charge of murder against him.
At the Yard Silver found that interest was focussed on the Hatton Garden raid which had taken place in the early hours of that morning. The Flying Squad had gone out long ago, and reports were trickling back that there was "nothing doing." One phrase only from Inspector Warren, who was in charge of that case, stirred Silver.
"Steinburg says there were twenty thousand pounds' worth of diamonds in the safe, and it looks to me as if the job had been done by the Spider's gang."
The Spider! A baffling human problem! That elusive mortal had caused much heartburning in Scotland Yard during the last year or two. He was like some will-o'-the-wisp. Very little was known about his personality, nor had any member of his extraordinarily clever gang ever been captured except Foxy Hackett. No doubt was entertained at the Yard that the Spider was responsible for the affair in Park Lane when Foxy fell into their net—Foxy who now lay dead.
Apart from other signs by which one could identify the Spider's work, he and his men invariably preserved a cynical politeness to their victims. His crimes always had about them the air of having been rehearsed until everything, down to the smallest detail, worked like clock work. Nor were his activities confined to England. The police of three continents were aching to put bracelets on the Spider, without the least notion where to look for him.
That statement by Inspector Warren echoed in Silver's brain—this big diamond robbery seemed to have been the Spider's work. At the moment Silver was in the mood to let the Spider or any other criminal put half Europe in his pocket and get away with it so long as Sally Marsh was returned safely to her home.
Silver paced his office restlessly. Nobby was not known to have associated with any crook or combination of crooks except those honey-tongued gentlemen. The C.I.D. Inspector was almost prepared to give his ears for the chance of a ten-minute heart-to-heart chat with one of the Spider's crowd. Strange news filters through the underworld. How that heart-to-heart talk could help was problematical, but since Nobby's death not a soul had come forward claiming him as a relative, nor had anyone even admitted friendship with him. In fact there was no known link between him and anyone except the Spider's gang and Enid Mulholland.
The caretaker at the Steinburg premises in Hatton Garden shook his head sadly when Silver pressed him that morning to give as full a description as he could of the three men who had entered his bedroom.
"To tell you the blinkin' truth," Dick Hawkins said, "I shouldn't know any one of 'em again. They kept that flash lamp shining in my eyes all the time, and as far as I could make out they had masks on."
"But the man who did most of the talking—you would know his voice again?" asked the detective.
"If ever I hear it," said Hawkins, "he'll get a thick ear just to start with. Then I'll wring his neck round seven times."
Silver nodded sympathetically.
"Would you say definitely that it was the voice of an educated man?"
"He talked like a toff, if that's what you mean," replied the caretaker.
"Not at all gruffly?"
"If he hadn't been pointing a gun at my stomach you might have thought he was at a mothers' meeting."
"And the others?"
"They didn't say much, but from what I did hear I should say they were out of the same stable."
"Could you give me any idea how tall the leader was?"
"Maybe a bit above the average height, but not much. Not so long as you, anyway."
Silver's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
"And that is absolutely all you can tell me about him personally?"
"I never thought to ask 'em for their portraits as a keepsake," Hawkins answered tartly. It seemed to him that since three o'clock in the morning, he had been asked more fool questions than any one man ought to have to answer in the whole of his life.
And all the time he was fully aware that the sum total of it was nothing to what he must expect from the lady who shared his name and job when she returned to the wreckage of her peaceful home.
Silver questioned the constable who had discovered the hole in the window. P.C. Shaw gave the Inspector the gist of his official report.
"You have not noticed any motor car loitering about?" Silver asked.
"Not loitering," Shaw explained. "There were a few taxis passed, and maybe a private car or two, but I didn't take special notice of them." He paused reflectively. "By the way, now I come to think of it, a gentleman did stop near Steinburg's offices while I was on my beat. Just lit a cigarette and said 'Good-night.' I'd forgotten him, but I've no reason to suppose he was one of the gang."
Silver's interest quickened.
"How long was that before you raised the alarm?"
"About twenty minutes."
"Not longer?"
"Twenty-five at the outside. Why?"
"Ah, they're wide awake, that crowd," commented Silver. "Delicate work at the correct moment. You probably don't remember whether you flashed your light up at the window when you passed that time?"
"I expect I did," said Shaw.
"Of course you expect you did. But he timed his remark just right to turn your attention off. It looks to me as though they'd begun operations by then. What sort of a man was he?"
"Well, I took him for a gentleman, sir," said the constable. "He spoke like one, anyway."
"Would you recognize him again?"
"I didn't actually see his face clearly. He was wearing a soft felt hat. Maybe the brim was turned down. The light was bad, anyway. Don't forget there was a thick fog."
"And you didn't notice anything about him at all?"
"He was a bit over the average height, and I believe he was clean shaven, but I wouldn't swear to that. Never thought of the man again until I was talking to you just now," Shaw went on. "I'd better mention him in my report."
"Eh? Yes, yes, I should," observed Silver, with knitted brows. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm open to bet that your gentlemen friend nipped in through the window to join his pals as soon as your back was turned. As likely as not it was the Spider himself."
The cares of office sat very lightly on the head of Tim Bateman. So long as he continued to lift the sum of one pound each week for evading as much work as possible at the premises of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate, the rest of the world could go and stand on its head so far as he was concerned. All of which was a highly deplorable point of view, but one which he shared with nearly every other healthy young animal who has yet to assimilate great truths. That one, for instance, about the abiding dignity and beauty of labour.
For the moment, en route from Balham to Shaftesbury Avenue at half-past eight in the morning, he was engaged in the absorbing if illusory task of endeavouring to pick winners. His particular fancy in the way of literature was the Morning Flash because of its racing tips.
Tim's eyes were glued now on the sporting page of that journal while the tram-car slid on toward the Thames with its mixed assortment of workers. He hadn't backed a winner for nearly two weeks, but hope springs eternal in the heart of the punter. Having decided that his masterly stroke for the day was to have a shilling on Fairy Queen in the four o'clock race at Lingfield, he placed a sticky piece of toffy in his mouth, turned the pages of the Flash over, and concentrated his attention on the chief news of the morning because he happened to have a finger in that pie.
It all looked very thrilling, this about the midnight mail mystery, with the big headlines in black type. Tim's eyes drifted automatically to the pictures in the centre of the page. One of them stood out familiarly. Sally Marsh! The photograph was just like her, too! Tim wondered what had happened to her. The papers seemed to be making a lot of fuss about it considering that she might only have—only have—well, he didn't quite know what to think. Anyway she was in the office yesterday morning and couldn't have got far.
Near the portrait of Sally were two other pictures of a man, one taken full face and the other profile, as is the prevailing fashion when they are needed for the rogues' gallery.
And those two pictures arrested the interest of Tim Bateman. Even his attention to that large hunk of toffee momentarily waned. He screwed up his eyes, puzzled; then they darted through the printed matter underneath:
The police are anxiously searching for information about this man who was found murdered in his lodgings at Battersea on Monday night.
His landlady knew him only by the name of Carter, but that was probably an alias. According to the records of Scotland Yard, he was convicted last year on a charge of breaking into a house in Park Lane, and at that time he was known as Foxy Hackett. But he is believed also to have been known in certain circles by the nickname of "Nobby."
Anyone who can help to throw light on the mystery of this man's identity or can assist the police in tracing his associates is earnestly requested to communicate with Scotland Yard without delay.
And then those eyes of Tim's shot back to the picture. He was conscious of a curiously heady emotion and the people round about him on the tram-car became shadowy things. He was miles away, in Shaftesbury Avenue, on the stairs leading up to the offices of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate.... And the police were now anxiously searching for information.... Tim nearly swallowed the toffee but adroitly saved it at the last desperate second.
Then, the fate of Fairy Queen in the four o'clock race entirely forgotten, he straightened the front page of the Morning Flash and absorbed every line printed under those heavy headlines.
By the time he arrived at the office Tim was hot under the collar. That he alone should know the truth was extraordinary, but when you came to think of it, he reflected, when you remembered some of the things that had happened, it wasn't quite so surprising.
First to the head clerk, Josiah Crump, and then to Lawrence Bruce he told his story. Bruce cross-examined him closely, but the boy seemed sure of his facts.
Just then the telephone rang. Crump answered it.
"Oh, Inspector Silver!" he said.... "What's that? ... No, we've had no news about her yet. But—er—half a minute." He passed the receiver over to his employer.
"Hello, Silver," said Bruce sharply, "can you come straight here? ... Yes, we've heard something that is surprising and I think you ought to be informed of it at once.... Right!"
Without even glancing at the morning pile of letters, he paced thoughtfully to and fro in his office until the Inspector arrived.
"What's the news, Mr. Bruce?" Silver demanded with no attempt to hide his eagerness.
"Good-morning, Silver." Bruce pressed a bell on his desk. "The boy had better tell you in his own way."
Tim quivered as he entered Mr. Bruce's sanctum. He needed no invitation to begin.
"Please, sir, it's about that feller whose picture was in the paper this morning," he blurted out. "Miss Marsh gave me a push, but——"
"Just a moment, my boy," said Silver, in a calm voice, sitting down. "The picture of which man?"
"Why, the one that was strangled at Battersea."
"Oh, yes. Hackett. Go on."
"No, sir, his name can't be Hackett. Nor Carter either. At least I don't think it is. Because if what he said was——"
Silver's hand touched Tim's shoulder steadyingly.
"Begin at the beginning and tell me all you know about that man, whatever his name is."
Tim drew a deep breath.
"It was last Saturday morning, sir. I was just coming into the office at nine o'clock when I saw three people at the foot of the stairs. There was Miss Marsh, Miss Mulholland, and the man who was murdered."
"Had you ever seen him before?" Silver asked smoothly.
"No, sir, never."
"Are you sure it was the same man?"
"I'm positive of it, sir. He was having a bit of a row with Miss Mulholland. At least I think so. When I turned in at the doorway downstairs he was saying something to her, raising his voice. Swearing a bit, but I didn't catch on to what it was about. And Miss Mulholland held her finger up to stop him. Just then Miss Marsh gave me a push in the back, sending me up the steps as much as to say I wasn't wanted, see?"
The detective nodded.
"But I stopped halfway up the steps and listened," Tim went on. "Then I heard Miss Mulholland say: 'I'll try to, Nobby, just because you're my brother, but——'"
Tim paused on the last word.
"Well, go on," Silver prompted.
"I didn't hear any more, sir. Exactly those words and nothing else, because Miss Marsh was running up the steps and I thought she was going to give me a clip on the ear, so I hopped it."
"But did Miss Marsh say anything to you on the subject afterwards?"
"No, sir. She went straight to her desk."
"And Miss Mulholland?"
"No, neither of them said a word, sir, and I forgot all about it until I saw that picture in the paper while I was on my way here this morning."
"I see," observed Silver. "Now when you first came into the doorway downstairs you heard Miss Mulholland's brother saying something and swearing. Are you sure you don't remember in the least what he was talking about? It might be very important."
Tim looked disappointed.
"I particularly asked him that," put in Lawrence Bruce. "But the boy really doesn't seem to have caught anything except the word 'damned'."
"Pity!" commented the detective, his memory flashing back to another scene in that room, when Sally Marsh had stood before him and he had read in her face that she was hiding from him something which she believed was connected with the tragedy on the midnight mail. Was that just loyalty on her part—loyalty to Enid Mulholland on account of her brother? At that encounter near the foot of the stairs had she heard some threat which later made her wonder whether that rotter Nobby had attacked his sister and murdered Ismay?
Silver rolled a cigarette contemplatively. But why, why, why that sudden question of hers as to whether Ismay had tried to kill Enid Mulholland? And why had she been spirited away? What they had done to her was a problem that he had not yet dared to set before himself honestly. At the back of his mind there constantly lived the hope that she had not only gone out of the office voluntarily but had deliberately refrained from returning owing to some kind of fear. And yet, he knew all the time, had that been so she would at least have let her parents know she was safe.
"Now that one knows they are brother and sister," said Bruce, looking at the picture of Nobby in a morning paper, "the resemblance is obvious, isn't it? All right, Tim," he added to the boy, "trot along."
"And now that one knows some of the facts," commented Silver, "it is obvious why Enid Mulholland kept her precious brother in the dark. He was a thorough wrong 'un."
"Is there any truth in his statement that the police were after him again?"
"Not a word. Even when we ascertained that he was known to us as Foxy Hackett the record department couldn't put their finger on any fresh crime that he was supposed to have committed."
"Then he was bluffing the girl!"
"Just that. Didn't care how he got money so long as he got it. His sort don't."
For a few moments Silver sat still and thoughtful. His long legs were crossed, one knee resting on his clasped hands. A neglected cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were half closed as he sat striving to piece the tangled story together. Suddenly he came out of his brown study.
"This case is a teaser, Mr. Bruce," he said, "because the more one tries to think it out logically the more one sees a jumble of nonsense. You know as much about it as I do now. Who, in your opinion, killed Silas Ismay?"
"Frankly, it looks to me as though Miss Mulholland's brother did it?"
"Certainly some of the circumstances point to that," Silver agreed.
"And yet you seem to doubt it," said Bruce. "There must be something wrong with my logic when I apply it to the detection of crime, Silver."
The C.I.D. man held up a finger.
"But for one thing," he said, "I could have swallowed whole that explanation of the train murder. There the case would virtually have ended so far as Scotland Yard was concerned."
"But for one thing! And what is that?" Bruce was eagerly interested.
"Foxy Hackett, as we call him, got very drunk on Monday night and had to be escorted to his lodgings by some pot-house Samaritan who dumped him on his bed at ten o'clock. A little thing like that doesn't cut any ice when you live in Dudney Row, Battersea. In fact it's rather expected of you. But on this occasion it seems Nobby created a bit of a scene. Not only his landlady, but several neighbours are prepared to swear to that. And a man who was dead drunk in Battersea at 10 P.M. could not by any conceivable means have been on the mail train due at King's Cross by midnight."
Bruce sat back in his chair.
"That," he said gravely, "puts a different complexion on matters."
Within a stone's throw of Tower Bridge Police Court there is a labyrinth of lanes, in the heart of which nestles an establishment widely known as "Sam's." Nominally it is a coffee shop, and meals, of a kind, are indeed served there until early morning, but queer fish drift under that roof, and if those old walls could speak they would tell strange tales.
And there was nothing queerer there than the owner of the place. Sam Galleon—or for all ordinary purposes just Sam. He was six feet high and heavily built. He had a tawny beard and moustache flecked with gray, a voice in which lurked the deep growl of thunder, and a wooden peg in place of one leg, the loss of which had long ago ended his career as mate of a windjammer.
As he sat in his comfortable wooden armchair close on midnight, smoking a long pipe, and talking to three men, he recognized in one glance the figure of an individual wearing a cap who came in at the door.
"Clear out, quick," Sam's voice rumbled, interrupting the conversation; and in ten seconds the other three men had slipped away like rats into the shadows outside.
"Sorry to disturb your friends, Sam," said the visitor.
The proprietor of the coffee shop waved a fat hand to a chair.
"Oh, that's all right, Mr. Silver," he said. "Sit you down."
The Inspector, producing tobacco and papers began to roll a cigarette, Sam's eyes fixed on him, and for a space neither spoke. A singular understanding existed between them, even a certain friendliness, which was the more remarkable because no nimbus was ever likely to sit on Sam Galleon's head.
His position in the underworld, was perhaps without parallel. For thirty-three years he had sinned and sold coffee in that little place, but chiefly he had sinned. His assets in the crooked business were threefold. He could sum men up unerringly, he had a phenomenal memory, and you could trust him as far as you liked.
He knew no more than a stuffed duck how to open a safe, but for a consideration he could put you in touch with the finest experts. He was far too astute to handle stolen property or counterfeit money though he saw plenty of both, but if you wanted help he knew exactly who could attend to such details for you.
In those thirty-three years a veritable river of crooks had sought Sam's useful advice, and paid for it; and because of his memory the man's accumulated knowledge of the criminal world was extraordinary.
Three years ago, however, he had come within a hair's breadth of becoming one of the Government's guests for a lengthy period although he swore that the police had made a blunder. By a fluke Silver discovered that Sam was as innocent as an unborn baby on that particular charge. As a result Sam was liberated, and he was never likely to forget it was to Silver that he owed his freedom.
Sitting there now, the ex-mariner tapped the ashes from his pipe.
"Been doin'—er—a little business down in these parts?" he asked sociably, stroking a great cat that had jumped on to his lap.
"Why, no," said Silver, with a dry smile. "I just came out for some fresh air."
By Sam's side there was a cuspidor. Into this he spat with precision, born of thirty-three years' practice.
"I was readin' in the papers that crime's on the decrease," he remarked. "You fellers will be out of a job soon if many more burglars take to singin' hymns. 'Course you'll always have a few murders to attend to. That's only to be expected, isn't it, human nature being what it is?"
"Er—I guess so," said Silver. He was burning with impatience, but knew that if any good was to come out of this interview it would have to be handled with the utmost care.
"Yet killin' isn't always exactly murder," Sam added after a space. "I remember once in Pernambuco——" he broke off. "But that's a very long time ago, and he'd have got me anyway if I hadn't been quick."
"A long time since I saw you," said Silver.
"A matter of twelve months, isn't it?" observed the old sailor, still stroking the cat with one massive hand.
The C.I.D. man continued to smoke for a while, then, suddenly:
"I'm up against it, Sam."
Sam tickled the cat's ear with a forefinger. It purred loudly. The man did not speak, however. There was a great dividing line between the two sections of society which he and Silver represented, and the war between those sections was eternal. Still, the old sailor was prepared to help this detective as far as he could.
"What's your trouble, Son?"
"I want to get in touch with the man known as the Spider."
"Oh!" Something in Sam's expression relaxed the barest shade. All sorts of unpleasant possibilities had been racing through his brain during the last few minutes, but there seemed to be no rocks ahead. "Is there a copper in London who wouldn't go on his knees to get the chance?"
Silver pitched his cigarette into the fire.
"I expect that's true enough," he said, "but they haven't all got as big a personal reason as I have for wanting a word with him. And," he looked straight at the old pirate, "they haven't all got the right to come to you once in a lifetime to help them."
Sam's fingers strayed to his beard. He toyed with it reflectively for a moment.
"What you say is true enough, my lad," he agreed presently. "I owe you something, don't I? And just between you and me Sam Galleon may be no church-warden, but he pays his debts. Still, it's gospel truth that if the Spider walked in here now I shouldn't know him from Adam."
"What can you tell me about him?"
Sam pursed his lips.
"The Spider doesn't have any truck with the regular crowd. Just works with a special bunch of his own kidney."
"You know, of course, that Foxy Hackett was one of his gang?" said Silver.
"The man who got bumped off last Tuesday? Yes, so I've heard." Sam Galleon glanced around him and then lowered his voice. "Hackett was in here less than a week ago."
"Alone?" asked Silver.
"Yes, and damn near starving if you ask me."
"What was he doing here?"
"Sat in that corner over yonder by himself all afternoon. Seemed to be waitin' for somebody who didn't turn up."
"How did you know it was Hackett?" asked Silver quickly.
"A pal of mine who'd just done six months in the same prison pointed him out."
The detective's fingers tightened.
"Sam, if I could only find one single person who knows anything about Hackett it might begin to help me out of my troubles."
Sam Galleon gently pressed his hand on the black cat's head for a moment before replying.
"It might," he agreed at last. "And then again it mightn't. No man's goin' to talk if there's a chance of getting his neck stretched. Say, let me think this over, Mr. Silver. I'm not makin' any promises, mind, because I'm not sure I shall be able to help you much, but if this is where I can get square with you—" He broke off and gave the detective a significant look.
Silver's imagination began to leap. There were a thousand channels of information open to this one-legged old villain, channels which no emissary of Scotland Yard could ever tap. By all the rules of the game Sam Galleon, who had never yet been convicted, would end up in prison, but although he was a crook, there was a contradictory streak of straightness in him.
"If you find anything out how will you let me know?" asked the detective. "I'd better not be seen around here too much."
"Keep away," said Sam, "until you get word from me." He paused, scratching his chin thoughtfully. Then, glancing at the great animal on his lap he added: "I know! If you get a phone message at the Yard saying you're wanted at the Black Cat, guess you won't need tellin' what that means."
A minute afterwards a tall man with a cap pulled well over his eyes, both hands rammed in his pockets, and the slightly rolling gait of a mariner walked away from Sam's as inconspicuously as possible, but even so there were prying eyes which slanted at that unfamiliar figure in the darkness of Chicken Lane, where a hated "flattie" might so easily find a knife in his back. Someone barged into him.
"Sorry, mate!" the detective muttered, and slouched on. But it was not personal danger that Silver was concerned with. If anyone in this underworld jungle, where news travels fast, knew what was afoot, that thin thread of hope which had just come into existence would instantly be snapped, and even Sam Galleon might be found still and silent for ever.
After leaving Sam Galleon, Silver went straight back to Scotland Yard with one thought hammering in his brain all the time. Possibly they had heard something of Sally Marsh! Possibly—but in his heart the C.I.D. man dreaded the kind of news which might have come.
It was thirty-six hours now since she had vanished. The hope to which he had clung persistently yesterday had given place to terrible fear. A dozen things might have arisen to keep her away until the evening, but since then a night had passed, and another day.
The country was ringing from end to end with the story of Sally's disappearance, because of the drama in which it was enveloped. The hoardings of every newspaper echoed the same thing. By now, unless Sally had changed that little red hat and black coat trimmed with fur, it would be impossible for her to walk down the street of any remote village in the British Isles and not draw attention. Also, that miracle, the modern press, had scattered her picture over the country in tens of millions. There could hardly be a house in the land where Sally Marsh had not been discussed.
But the Yard had no news. Silver heard that fact with a stony expression.
"You'd better push off to bed, my lad," said the Chief Inspector on night duty. "We may have something to get hold of by morning, though. Had a report from the sergeant at King's Cross Hospital five minutes ago. That Mulholland girl shows signs of recovering consciousness. Once we know her version of what happened, the rest ought to be easy."
As fast as a taxicab could take him Silver rushed to the hospital.
"Yes, you may see her," said the Sister in charge, "but even if she speaks I dare not let you talk to her. The doctor thinks for the first time that there really is a chance the patient may recover. It is only a chance, however. The slightest shock would almost certainly be fatal."
Silver bit back his impatience.
"All right, Sister. What you say goes. But if she speaks—if you speak to her—remember we only want some idea, some hint as to who attacked her. That will make all the difference to us."
"I can promise you nothing," the Sister said, and then after the briefest pause added, "but I will not forget."
In accordance with police regulations there had always been an officer on duty near the bed since Enid Mulholland had been admitted to the hospital. Silver conversed in whispers with the C.I.D. sergeant who was there now.
"She's got more colour at present, sir," the man said. "Looked as white as a sheet last night. The nurse once thought for a minute that she'd popped off."
The strain was beginning to tell on Silver. He was sitting on a hard wooden chair, glancing at the time occasionally. The hands of the big clock in the ward almost seemed to stand still. Then, as his head jerked, the clock hands appeared to have shot on ten minutes, and he saw the Sister bending over Enid Mulholland's bed. She nodded slightly to Silver, but raised a warning finger to him just as the patient opened her eyes.
Enid looked straight before her for a little while, in a perplexed fashion, then turning her head, met the eyes of the Sister.
"Where am I?"
"You are quite safe," replied the Sister softly. "You have been ill and must remain in bed for a while."
"Ill! I don't understand!" The girl spoke more clearly now, so that in the still ward every syllable reached Silver's ears.
"You must not talk," said the Sister. "I want you to lie quietly and try to sleep."
"Yes," said Enid. "But isn't that funny? I don't seem to remember being ill at all."
For a fleeting second the Sister's glance met that of Inspector Silver. He had seemed so terribly anxious and there was something about the man that she instinctively liked; yet although the patient was calm and astonishingly alert, the Sister dared not deviate more than a hair's breadth from cast-iron rules.
"You became ill quite suddenly," she said.
"Did I?" exclaimed Enid. "Isn't that extraordinary! The last thing I remember is dropping off to sleep on a train. That does seem rather a long time ago, though. I expect the guard looked after me. He was very kind. Oh, dear! Where is my handbag? I had quite a lot of money in it—all my savings, which I had drawn out of the bank."
"We are taking care of that," said the Sister. "Now you really must not talk any more."
But Enid's face had become troubled, and Silver, watching intently, guessed in which direction her thoughts had leaped when she recollected the fifty pounds in her handbag.
"How long have I been here?" she asked. "There's something I—I want to do. I must." She raised a hand to her brow. "My head aches, Nurse, and my throat feels peculiar. It must have been a very sudden illness! I remember quite clearly reading for some time in the train. Then I made myself comfortable but lay awake for a while listening to the sound of the train. Afterwards I suppose I fell asleep, and I don't remember anything more."
The injured girl closed her eyes with a sigh. Again the Sister flashed a lightning glance at the detective and caught his look of thanks.
As Silver made his way home—it was three o'clock in the morning—he realized that Enid Mulholland's statement, instead of helping to solve the problem, had only thrown further mystery upon the midnight mail affair.
The injured girl's mind had seemed clear enough, though the Sister had warned him it might be tricky after that blow on the head. However, according to her version of what happened the attack must have been made on her while she was asleep. That in itself could easily have been understood but for the knowledge of what happened to Silas Ismay, and here Silver found conjecture bewildering. She could hardly have been asleep while Ismay was struggling for his life.
There could be no question that Ismay was actually murdered in that third-class compartment next to the guard's van. As Enid was evidently alone when she fell asleep, Ismay must have come from his first-class section of the train and crept into Enid's compartment while she slept. And for some reason which had not yet been explained he must have delivered a murderous blow on her forehead while she lay helpless. Then, to make doubly sure of her death, he had begun to fasten that piece of blue silk cord around her neck.
Yes, Silver assured himself, so far it was possible to reconstruct the events of last Monday night. This, indeed, fitted in with the theory which Andy Collinson, the newspaper man, had advanced, and which had seemed reasonably plausible at the time.
But then there was a snag, and it was a bad snag.
Collinson's suggestion was that some stranger, seeing what was happening, entered the compartment with the idea of protecting the girl, strangled Ismay and pitched him out on to the track, afterwards disappearing to save his own neck.
All of which appeared possible, but unfortunately Collinson's suggestion then crashed. For since Monday the complication of Nobby's death had arisen, and also the disappearance of Sally Marsh. Whatever other conjectures proved fallacious, there could not be the slightest doubt now that a link existed between all those events. And it did not make sense to suggest that anyone who had merely acted on the spur of the moment to save Enid Mulholland would subsequently have strangled Nobby and spirited Sally away. Take the man with red hair, for instance. Suppose it was he who had caught Ismay trying to finish Enid Mulholland off. What earthly motive could he have had for murdering an ex-convict in Battersea? Or what power would he have had to draw Sally Marsh away into utter obscurity? And why should he have done so?
These questions were going round and round in Silver's brain as he lay in bed at last, and he was no nearer a solution of the enigma when sleep came.
"Colonel Venables, do you know a really nice burglar? A clean one by preference."
Lady Lenchester and a few others were having drinks while the rest of her guests finished their bridge. Venables, who had been friendly with his hostess since she was a little girl wearing pigtails, regarded her with a twinkle in his eyes.
"My department of Scotland Yard is the political branch, Betty," he replied, "but of course that gives me some pull. May I ask what you want of the nice clean burglar?"
"I want to go a-burgling with him, of course," she explained. "I lost seventeen hundred pounds on the Stock Exchange to-day, and if Rand Mines don't go up to-morrow I really shall have to break into a bank or something."
In the most casual manner in the world the eyes of two men met with a guarded touch of amusement which went a very long way beneath the surface. One was Jerry Kinlock, referred to in a certain select circle as Dale; and the other was his bosom companion Monty Bancroft, whose appearance was so suggestive of a church dignitary that he was called the Bishop by some of his acquaintances.
"I know a Billingsgate fish porter who goes to prison occasionally," Jerry Kinlock suggested helpfully. "He might be useful."
A girl with gray-green eyes, smoking a cigarette in a long holder, came out of her dreams.
"But, Betty darling," she said, "what you really want is an introduction to the Spider. Everybody says he is perfectly charming—and so capable."
"He sounds most engaging," agreed Betty Lenchester. "Much sweeter than Jerry's fish porter. Can you fix that up for me, Colonel?"
"I don't want to seem a wet blanket, my dear, while serious thought is afoot," he observed, "but I am led to believe that as a profession crime has its disadvantages."
"I hope your people will be kind to me when I go to prison," said Betty.
"One has quite a good time there nowadays, I believe," replied the Colonel. "I think, however, you would be rather unfortunate in your choice of the Spider as a partner. Especially just now. But," he ended abruptly, "perhaps I ought not to talk shop."
"Please do, if it's about the Spider," said gray-green eyes, whose name was Eve Crain. "Everyone is interested in him. Especially those whose jewellery he has taken."
"Well," observed the Colonel with a slight air of mystery, "I expect that bright bird will be caged before long."
"Oh!" exclaimed Betty Lenchester encouragingly. "Secrets of the police! Do tell us, please!"
"He can't because of professional etiquette and so forth," said the irrepressible Jerry Kinlock. "But I will. After sleuthing everywhere they have discovered that the dear old Chief Commissioner of Scotland Yard, a man who was universally beloved, leads a double life. Cop by day and Spider at night. Most embarrassing position for everybody concerned. He'll have to give up either one job or the other."
"Silence, Jerry," Betty ordered severely. "Colonel, why must I not go into partnership with the Spider, please? Now, of course, I'm dying to know."
The old warrior stroked his magnificent moustache.
"Well, I don't know that there is any reason why I should not at least tell you," he said, "excepting that the Yard does not exactly advertise. I can go as far as this, anyway: the authorities are planning a big campaign against that fellow and his gang. He will be roped in presently. These spectacular criminals only have their fun for a while. Sooner or later they are run to earth."
"But what fun while it lasts!" commented the smooth voice of Monty Bancroft from the depths of an armchair.
"I wonder," pondered Eve Crain, fitting another cigarette to her holder, "who enjoys the game most: the rather weary police official or the thief who is becoming rich and famous."
"Possibly the crook, given the real criminal mentality," said the Colonel.
"Or a sense of humour," put in Eve.
"Crime is no joke," commented the Colonel. "And to the Spider it is a deadly serious business. He's quite brilliant at it, too, in a way, and up to now the man has one great advantage. If he walked straight into Scotland Yard to-morrow not a single person there would recognize him."
"But they'll get him!" It was more a subtle question than a statement that came from Jerry Kinlock.
Colonel Venables watched the smoke rise from his cigar for a moment as the players from another bridge table walked over.
"Yes," he said with one quick, confident nod. "Not only the Spider, but his whole gang too. If only they knew what a net was being spread to catch them they wouldn't feel happy."
It was a curiously silent couple who walked from the bridge party to that well-appointed flat which was the home of Jerry Kinlock. As Jerry entered it, the paragon of a batman who had a genius for grilling soles surveyed that elegant with pride, even a touch of reverence. His gentleman was a gentleman.
"I said there was no need for you to wait up to-night, Parker."
"Thank you, sir, but I got reading an exciting detective novel. All about a murder, sir, and I didn't notice how late it was. You're sure there's nothing you want, sir?"
"No. Push off to bed, Parker. Good-night."
The door closed. In silence Jerry poured whisky into two tumblers, and added soda. Crossing the thick carpet, he turned the knob, abruptly opened the door and looked along the empty landing. Then closed the door again.
"'All about a murder,'" he quoted softly, returning to his companion. "Crime seems to be in the air to-night." He sipped from the glass reflectively for a space. "Monty, I have done some insane things in my time, and you've done a few, but there are limits which neither of us would pass. I didn't ask you last night, but I'm going to now. Can you give me your word that you didn't kill that poor little swine Hackett?"
Monty Bancroft, alias the Bishop, drained his tumbler. Then:
"I did not," he said.
"If it was one of our crowd," Jerry went on, "I hope he rots. You heard what that man Venables said to-night! You see what it means!" He walked to the window and stared down into the street, then came back. "It was the craziest thing to do. We shall have a regular nest of hornets buzzing about us now. Acquiring other people's superfluous property is one thing so long as you get away with it, but murder is quite a different proposition. Those Yard flatties know as well as we do that Hackett has been thrown out of the Spider's gang, which is enough to make the most thick-headed yob in uniform wonder if we had any hand in the murder. But if Hackett ever blatted to anyone about the way he threatened us all the last time we saw him in Wapping it's going to be damned uncomfortable."
The face of Monty Bancroft was calm and intellectual as he sat looking into the fire. If some elusive flaw marred that face at times, there was no sign of weakness there now.
"Wait a minute, old son," he said slowly. "Aren't you assuming a little too much?"
"In what way?"
"Are you—are you so sure it was one of our crowd who strangled Hackett?"
Jerry Kinlock came to rest on the arm of a chair.
"Nobody," he answered, "can be dead sure on that point until some judge puts on a black cap and sentences the murderer to be hanged. But just between you and me I have very grave fears. So had the Spider when he tackled us about it last night. And he's nobody's fool."
"Unfortunately," pointed out Monty, "if the Yard have got it into their heads that we are responsible for Hackett's death, it makes no material difference whether they're right or whether they're wrong. What I mean is they won't give us a minute's peace. Unless we all clear out of the country there's a good sporting chance that those bloodhounds will get their teeth into some of us. I'm not afraid of being hanged for a crime I did not commit, but in any case I have a prejudice against doing penal servitude. Still, my dear lad, I doubt whether Hackett was bumped off by one of the Spider's gang."
"Ah!" exclaimed Jerry. "I wish I knew."
"Well," suggested Monty, putting the tips of his fingers together, "run through the list. Check 'em up. You and I are eliminated, eh?"
"Agreed," said Jerry. "I was down in Dorking with friends on Tuesday night. They could prove that, but for obvious reasons I couldn't ask them to do so unless the situation was desperate. Where were you?"
"I," said Monty, "was with Betty Lenchester, tête-à-tête."
Jerry Bancroft's expression was blank. Everyone knew Sir Peter Lenchester could see a red light so far as Monty was concerned, but this was no moment to ponder over such trifles.
"The Major didn't arrive back from Amsterdam until the day after Hackett died."
"Cross him off, then," agreed Monty. "What about Ikey Glockstein?"
"He's too doddering—and too clever to make such an ass of himself."
"Very well. That leaves the Duke, Joe Quirk, and the Spider himself. The Spider wouldn't do it. Take your pick of the other two."
"Exactly," replied Jerry. "I've gone all through this a dozen times. And it invariably boils down to the Duke and Joe Quirk. There I stick."
Monty Bancroft watched the flickering of the flames for a space.
"You and I have rubbed shoulders with Joe Quirk in some tight corners, Jerry," he said at length. "We know what he's made of. But for the fact that he's one of us, which might prejudice some people, I'd say he was a white man all through. Do you remember how he hung on at Park Lane, almost certain to be caught, just to give us warning when the flatties were after us? Whatever some judge may say about him when his time comes to stand in the dock, old son, he's brave, and I'd gamble a lot that he'd take a chance on going to Dartmoor for a few years rather than commit murder."
"I admit," said Jerry Kinlock, "that it would amaze me to hear that he killed Hackett. It doesn't tally with anything I know of his character. But there you are! Cross him out and you only have the Duke left. Now I ask you in all seriousness, can you see our delicate-minded Duke strangling Foxy Hackett in a Battersea slum?"
"I cannot," agreed Monty, pouring out another whisky. "And as there aren't any more little nigger boys to account for, perhaps you'll begin to agree with me that whoever is hanged for that crime it won't be one of our crowd. Pass me that soda siphon and let's talk about something more cheerful."
A wizened, elderly man, with a face that was strongly suggestive of a ferret, made his way along Chicken Lane. Almost unconsciously he shot a glance over his shoulder occasionally, but this was sheer habit. He turned into Sam Galleon's coffee shop, which happened to be almost empty, and sank into a chair at a table near the one-legged proprietor who as usual was smoking a long pipe with a cat on his knee.
"Hello, Sniffy!" There was an unwonted touch of geniality about Sam's greeting. "What's the news?"
The elderly man sniffed.
"I ain't got no news, Sam," he said.
"Not been reading the newspapers, maybe?"
"Me? No, can't say that I have. It's all lies, anyway, what you read there."
Sam Galleon puffed away at his pipe in silence for a few moments.
"D'you remember last time you were here, about a week ago?"
The elderly man nodded and sniffed.
"You pointed out a feller who was sitting over in the corner, there."
"That's right," Sniffy agreed. "Foxy Hackett."
"Maybe you haven't heard about Foxy?" said Sam, stroking the cat's head.
"Coppers got him?" asked Sniffy, his professional interest gently stirred.
"No," said Sam, his eyes fixed on the man with apparent unconcern. "He's been murdered."
Sniffy put down his cup and turned his head toward Sam Galleon with an expression that conveyed no more than dull surprise.
"You don't say!" he exclaimed. "When was this?"
Sam repeated all he knew about the tragedy in Dudney Row, Battersea.
"'Strewth!" commented the man with a sniff. "I did 'ear that a feller had been croaked there, but I'd no idea it was Foxy Hackett. I wonder who—" Sniffy broke off oddly.
Sam Galleon knocked the ashes out of his pipe and began to thumb tobacco into the bowl.
"Didn't you tell me last time you were here, Sniffy, that you'd seen Hackett somewhere down by the river?"
Sniffy glanced over his shoulder with an added touch of nervousness.
"Go easy, Sam! I don't want to get pinched for a job like that when I ain't done it."
"Don't worry. Nobody's saying you did. Only I remember you telling me something about seeing him. You needn't be frightened of talking to me. Ever since I heard he'd been murdered I've been hoping my old friend Sniffy would drop in so's we could have a chat. It's dull sitting here all day same as I have to with a wooden peg. There's always something interesting about a murder."
"I never spoke to the feller in my life," replied Sniffy guardedly.
"Ah, that's a pity!" commented the ex-mariner. "Because you've got a rare head piece on you, Sniffy. Everybody knows that." Nothing could have been further from the truth than the implication, but it was elementary knowledge to Sam Galleon that in dealing with criminals of that order your safest card is to play on their amazing vanity. Sniffy's little eyes glistened with pleasure now. To be patted on the back in such fashion by one so astute as Sam was indeed agreeable. "Where was it you saw him, Sniffy?"
The man leaned forward confidentially.
"Down Wapping way," he said in a husky voice.
Sam Galleon elevated his thick eyebrows.
"Was it though! Clever of you to spot him, anyway."
"I don't miss much," agreed Sniffy. "He was getting off a bus in High Street when I reckernized him, but 'e didn't see me. Maybe I shouldn't 'ave took any special notice but just then Hackett dodged into a doorway like as if 'e was hiding from a flattie. There was a lot of people about an' I didn't see no flattie so I watched Hackett to see what 'is game was. I was clean broke, understand Sam, and I thought there might be a chance to pick up a shilling."
"Who was he hiding from, Sniffy?"
"I couldn't tell at first, but 'e came out of the doorway and started walking along, me after 'im like a shadder. After a bit 'e turned down a side street, an' there I could see 'e was trailing. It was an old Sheeny. Regler persession, we made. The Sheeny 'ad no idea Hackett was followin' 'im, an' Hackett 'adn't a smell of an idea I was behind the pair of 'em."
Sniffy paused for a touch of appreciation.
"You'd make a high-class flattie," observed Sam. "Well, go on. What happened?"
"D'you know the riverside, Sam?"
"Not like I used to when I was about on two legs."
"D'you know Old Ship Steps?"
"I've not been that way for donkey's years, but I've a fair notion where you mean."
Sniffy glanced over his shoulder and then continued in a still lower and huskier voice.
"That's where the Sheeny was makin' for. An' that's where something happened, but I don't know what it was all about. The Sheeny turned down the passage, and Hackett stood with 'is nose round the corner for a minute or two, watching. Then 'e followed. By the time I peeped round the same corner the two of 'em was arguin' at a doorway. It seemed as if the Sheeny didn't want Hackett with 'im, but Hackett wouldn't be shook off. Then the pair of 'em went indoors."
Sam Galleon was stroking the cat and nodding occasionally, but apparently not too deeply engrossed in the story.
"And then what happened?" his voice rumbled.
"That's all I saw," said Sniffy. "There was nothin' doin' for me."
"What sort of a cove was the Sheeny?"
"Man about my age, as near as I could tell, with a black beard. Wore a bowler hat and a frock coat. Walked shaky as if 'e wasn't sure on his pins. Stooped a bit."
"And when d'you say all this happened, Sniffy?"
"About a couple of weeks ago, as near as I remember."
"You say they went in a doorway down Old Ship Steps. Did you notice which door?"
"Course I did. It was on the left. There's only one on that side. I looked after they'd gone in."
Sam Galleon's black eyes were half closed. He was churning this story over while the ferret-faced old man babbled on about other things. When at last Sniffy got up and walked out Sam nodded absent-mindedly.
A few minutes later he pushed the cat off his lap, got out of his chair, put on a hat and overcoat, and made his way along Chicken Lane.
At the corner the one-legged mariner turned right and barged on like a ship in full sail until he struck the fairway of traffic. There with his stick he hailed a taxi.
"Charing Cross," he growled, then sank back.
When the taxi dropped him he made for a telephone booth and presently was speaking to someone at Scotland Yard.
"Is Detective Inspector Silver about? What, my name? This is the King of Siam speakin'.... Yes, you heard me the first time.... Hello, is that Mr. Silver? If you see that swab who works the switch there tell him to wash his neck first, then I'll cut his throat for him. Good as called me a liar over the wire, he did. Mr. Silver, you're wanted at the Black Cat, see? Yes, but hold hard a minute. There's a pub just down Villiers Street called the Cap and Bells. I'll be waiting for you there in the saloon bar.... News? Well, I dunno what to make of it, but if you come along you can judge for yourself."
Half an hour later Sam Galleon emptied his glass and wiped his lips with the back of a huge hand.
"And that's all I can tell you," he concluded gruffly. "Sniffy wouldn't admit even that much to a flattie. He turned green at the very idea of bein' pinched on a murder charge."
"An elderly Jew who stooped, had a black beard, and was a bit shaky on his pins," repeated Silver thoughtfully. "This is the first definite news I have had of any person who has lately been associating with Hackett."
The shrewd eyes of the ex-mariner flashed to those of the detective.
"Don't forget, Mr. Silver, I never sat here in this pub with you, and never breathed a word to you about Hackett."
"It's a promise, Sam."
With astonishing activity Sam raised his bulk out of the chair, set a course for the door, and was gone. Silver watched the man's form disappear and then, extracting a tobacco pouch from his pocket, slowly rolled a cigarette. He was reflecting that Sam Galleon's information might lead nowhere, but at least it provided a new field for investigation.
A couple of minutes later Silver also rose and his long legs bore him back to Scotland Yard.
As he swung into the entrance of the Yard, Silver was handed a letter which had just been delivered by post. Mechanically he ripped open the envelope, the address on which had been typed.
A moment later he stood still in the corridor, his attention riveted. The message within the envelope also was typed. He read:
Dear Sir,
I believe I know something about the murder on the train last Monday night, but don't want my name brought into the matter in any way. I have no desire to be murdered myself. That might happen if I were seen at Scotland Yard.
So please meet me at the Grand Hotel, Wentworth Street, at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon. I don't want to be seen with you even there, so go straight to room 137 which I have reserved for this purpose.
I will try to be there promptly at three, but if I am late please wait.
Yours faithfully,
Either inadvertently or by design the writer had omitted to sign the letter. It was more likely by design on the part of this cautious soul, Silver decided, glancing at his watch. Anyhow that was a detail of no consequence since the instructions were perfectly clear.
As usual when a case of special interest came before the public, many people had written to the Yard offering opinions and suggestions concerning the midnight mail mystery, but most of these had been the footling efforts of amateurs who had let their imaginations run loose. The letter in Silver's hand had a different ring about it, however. If those fears which this wary correspondent expressed had the slightest foundation in fact, such information unquestionably would be of the utmost importance.
At exactly five minutes to three the C.I.D. man entered the imposing hotel. A bland clerk at the bureau eyed him sagaciously.
"I have an appointment in room 137," said Silver.
"Second floor, sir," replied the clerk, pressing a button and so causing a page boy to appear magically.
"This way, sir," said the boy. On the second floor he opened a door and the detective was ushered into a private sitting room. His watch then informed him that the time was precisely one minute past three.
He glanced round the room automatically, then subsided into a chair, vaguely sensing that he was approaching the border line of a vital discovery. It cost money to engage a private sitting room at a hotel like this for an interview. The mysterious individual who had summoned him was evidently in an extremely nervous condition, but the probability was that he would not have taken such precautions to insure secrecy unless he had a sound reason for so doing.
But as Silver sat there still and thoughtful his mind inevitably slid to the real crux of the case so far as he was concerned. The apprehension of the murderer of Silas Ismay had become a secondary consideration to him. That was a matter of duty. The machinery of Scotland Yard would grind and continue to grind with one particular object in view. But the problem of tracing Sally Marsh was now an obsession with Jim Silver. There remained no shadow of doubt in his mind that the puzzle of the midnight mail and the question of Sally's whereabouts were inextricably enmeshed.
He looked at the time again. Six minutes after three. "If I am late," the letter had said, "please wait." Well, there was nothing else to do but wait, apparently. Silver crossed and uncrossed his legs with growing impatience. He was in a big arm chair in a corner by the fireplace.
Ten minutes past three. Once the thought darted into his brain, was he here on some fool's errand? If so the object of it all was still obscure. Or again, if the writer of that letter never arrived, what new chapter in this maze of mysteries would have been written?
How long, after all, would he wait? Other things were pressing: phases of the same case which needed attention without delay.
It was nearly a quarter-past three. Silver decided that at any rate he would remain there until three-thirty, but he rose from the chair and walked to and fro, pausing occasionally, both hands rammed deeply into his trouser pockets.
Was it all a hoax, this unusual sort of rendezvous at an exclusive hotel? If so—he was standing in front of the window now—what object could there be in it? Perhaps to get him out of the way while——
Silver was in the act of moving impatiently aside when a sound which could only be caused by one thing, and a sharp sting like that of a wasp on his arm, swept all other thought away.
Abruptly, like a man mortally wounded, he collapsed to the floor, only to raise his head a moment later when his eyes became fixed almost incredulously on a clean-cut hole bored by a bullet through the window. Then his left hand went to the place where the pain had stabbed, just below the right shoulder.
Silver could have laughed at the simplicity of the trap into which he had walked. By now he would probably have been dead had he not happened to move aside while somebody out there was actually pressing a trigger.
The bullet had done no serious injury to him, and had buried itself somewhere in the far side of the room. Keeping well out of sight, he crept round and searched until he found the place where the thing had lodged, six inches above the floor.
There was another hotel across the road and the course taken by the bullet showed that it must have come from a window there, probably on the fourth floor.
Leaping to his feet, Silver rushed from the door, nearly bowled over a porter who was labouring with a trunk up the stairs, and hurried into the road. A policeman ambling along the edge of the pavement caught his swift signal.
"Somebody has just fired a shot at me from this hotel," the detective explained. "I'm from the Yard. Stand by the door and don't let anybody go out. I'll take the responsibility for that."
Going inside, he made straight for the girl in the bureau.
"Who has gone out of this hotel within the last minute or so?" he demanded.
"I've been talking on the telephone, and I didn't particularly notice," she answered.
"But someone did go out just now," Silver urged at random. "Think! Who was it?"
"Why, now you mention it, that's right. But what do you want to know for?"
"There's been an attempted murder. In all probability the man who bolted is the one who has just fired a shot from one of the front rooms."
The girl looked skeptical.
"I think there must be some mistake," she said. "I could almost swear that only one person has gone out of here during the last ten minutes or so. And that was—er—No. 43, an elderly gentleman."
"Is 43 a front room?"
"Yes. On the fourth floor."
"Quick, give me a key that will open his door. I'm from the Yard."
Within four minutes Silver was regarding the window of 43 from the inside. It was open two inches at the bottom. On a chair stood a handbag the contents of which consisted only of old magazines.
Returning to the bureau, he again questioned the girl.
"What makes you say the man in room 43 was elderly?"
"Well, he looked it. He had rather long gray hair and a large moustache that was nearly white."
"Did you notice the colour of his eyes?" Silver asked sharply.
"No, because he had on coloured spectacles."
"When did he take the room?"
"He came in yesterday and asked me to reserve it for to-night."
"He went up to the room before he booked it yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Who went with him?"
"I did. The porter happened to be busy."
"Did he seem at all interested in the view from the window?"
The girl hesitated thoughtfully.
"He didn't say so, but now I remember he went over to the window and looked out. Then he said: 'This will do nicely.'"
"He walked in a leisurely sort of way, I suppose, then, as an elderly man would."
"Y-yes, rather."
"Now cast your mind back, please, to the time when you saw him go out of the hotel while you were telephoning just now."
The girl nodded.
"Was he walking slowly like an elderly man as he approached the door?"
"It seems to me," she admitted, "that he was walking much more quickly than I had seen him move before."
Two or three people were by now standing at the entrance, barred by the policeman there. Silver strode over.
"Our bird's flown," he said to the officer. "Let these folks pass."
Then he went back to the bureau.
"Did this man, No. 43, sign the registration book?"
"No. He arrived about half an hour ago and said he would attend to that presently. He did mention his name though. Professor Stevens."
"Indeed!" observed Silver dryly. "How tall was he?"
"Well, a little above the average, I should say. Not very tall, though."
And then the girl uttered a low cry, her eyes fixed on Silver's hand, down which a thin crimson stream was beginning to trickle.
"You—you've been hurt!"
"Oh, that's nothing," replied the detective abruptly, whipping out a handkerchief.
"Come in here," the girl urged, opening a door. "You ought to have it bandaged, anyway. Take off that coat."
Silver obeyed and with deft fingers she fastened the handkerchief over the injury.
"Did—did he do that?" she asked anxiously.
"That, my dear young lady," replied Silver, rolling his shirt sleeve down again, "isn't at all a fair sample of what your elderly professor really can do when he gets going properly. But don't judge a man's age by the colour of his hair. I expect his is quite different by now. However, don't be afraid of him. If there is one hotel in all London where he will never be seen again this is it. Thanks for the bandage. Now I must be off." He paused. "No, on second thoughts I particularly want to use the telephone. May I?"
Having rung up a number and replaced the receiver, he went across to the Grand Hotel and handed his card to the bland young man in the bureau there.
"Was it you who reserved the private sitting room, No. 137, for someone this afternoon?" he asked.
"Yes."
"I want the fullest possible description you can give me of the man."
The bland young clerk adjusted his tie.
"I'm afraid I can't help you there," he said. "A man who gave his name as Charles Winthrop telephoned yesterday and asked if we could reserve that particular room for an important business conference this afternoon. He seemed to know exactly where it was, so I presume he had seen it before. He agreed to take it and this morning the agreed price—a guinea—arrived by post."
"How was the money sent?"
"A pound note and one shilling in stamps."
"May I see the letter, please?"
The clerk ran through a file of correspondence and produced a typed sheet. As Silver expected, the name at the foot of the letter had been typed. He folded it up and slipped it into his pocket.
"You had better bear these facts in mind," said the detective, "as they will be required in evidence."
"Evidence?" the bland young man repeated with eyebrows raised, scenting unpleasantness of a kind not courted by the management of such hotels as that.
"In a charge of attempted murder," Silver replied. "Meantime give instructions that nobody must touch the bullet embedded in one of the walls of room 137 nor the window through which the shot was fired."
Crossing the gray Thames, a boatman drew in his oars beside a disused wharf at the foot of the alley known as Old Ship Steps.
Hitching his mooring rope to a rusty iron ring, he climbed ashore in leisurely fashion, as though he had all to-day in which to do it, and to-morrow also if necessary. Then, leaning against the nearest support, he drew out a plug of tobacco, sliced away at it with a clasp knife, packed the bowl of his pipe, and lighted it.
The water gently lapped the sides of the boat and the man smoked placidly, waiting. Occasionally, as is the way of rivermen, he turned an expressionless face to that ceaseless panorama of the Thames at Wapping. A labouring tug, with a string of heavily laden barges trailing astern, fretted her way up against the tide. A big French steamer, her sheer gaunt sides red as sunset, slid past jauntily. A disreputable-looking coal boat, weighted down to the last inch of the law, came upstream with her offering from the Tyne.
These and a hundred others were surveyed by the boatman who smoked his pipe, thought his thoughts, and waited, but from where he leaned against that comfortable post it was easy to keep one eye on the narrow approach to the river at the foot of which he stood. His instructions were to wait there, and waiting was easy on a pleasant evening with good tobacco.
As evening came there drifted over the face of the river thin wisps of mist, but the boatman stolidly continued to earn his bread and butter by leaning against the post and smoking.
A figure appeared at the far end of Old Ship Steps, came halfway down the alley, then paused at a doorway on the left. If he noticed that fact the boatman gave no obvious sign, but as the figure disappeared through the doorway the man on the wharf lounged away from the post, strode six paces along the wharf, and then returned to his original position.
There he replenished his pipe, stared for a few moments at a Norwegian timber boat nearing the end of her journey, and permitted his glance to trail up the length of Old Ship Steps once more just as two men, following the procedure of that first figure, also came halfway down the passage and after a brief pause vanished through that same doorway on the left.
The boatman moved away as if to stretch his legs, taking precisely six steps along the wharf, but this time he made the little promenade not once, but twice, before returning to his beloved post. And this manœuvre on his part followed automatically each time a shadow stole down the passage after the manner of those who had gone the same way.
* * * * * * *
In a room with bare boards which was furnished only with a table, a few chairs and a large map of London pinned to the wall, seven men were assembled.
"You're sure nobody was hanging about outside, Major?" Dale asked the one who had arrived last, a man of some dignity whose personality was calculated to inspire confidence. That as a matter of fact constituted his chief stock in trade.
The Major looked at the others with some surprise. There seemed to be an air of uneasiness in the party.
"I don't think so," he replied. "There was a boatman down on the wharf, that's all. Well, Spider, how are you? Sorry I couldn't fix up that job at Liverpool, but the odds would have been too heavy against us."
Their leader, sitting on the edge of the table, was nonchalantly swinging one leg.
"Never mind, Major," he said. "As a matter of fact we seem to have other things to think about just now."
"The question is," put in Dale, "do we bust up the organization, or do we carry on?"
"I thought everybody seemed rather on edge," observed the Major. "What's it all about?"
"For one thing," said the Spider, "we are growing altogether too popular with the sensational press. In other words, my dear Major, we are becoming famous, which is the last honour any of us desired. Anything about the Spider and his gang has become 'news.'"
"I've noticed the papers have been very chatty on the subject lately," the Major agreed.
"'Photograph of Joe Quirk and the Bishop playing golf at Sunningdale. They eat sun-dried oats and coke for breakfast,'" put in Dale. "That's what we may expect next in the society weeklies. Ikey, that hat of yours will yet be the talk of two continents."
The Spider tapped his fingers on the table and all eyes were instantly turned to him.
"Let us talk hard sense for a while," he said in that low vibrant voice of his which so effectually carried weight. "We've had a long run: considerably longer than one could have expected. Twice it has been a close thing, yet up to now we've played the game successfully. I couldn't have asked for a finer team. But luck can't run our way for ever, and I don't want to court disaster for the whole lot of us at the finish. I'd rather we broke up the gang now and made sure."
The Major was pensively cutting off the end of a cigar.
"I quite agree with you, Spider," he said, striking a match, "but, I'm sorry, I don't altogether understand. What's wrong exactly?"
"When a wise man sees a red light, Major, he pays due attention to it," replied the Spider quietly. "And there are several of 'em. There is no doubt whatever that the police really are out to get us at last. We've had the laugh all along, but we know well enough that when they wake up they're pretty effective. And now they're awake. There is nothing that would make Scotland Yard so cheerful as the knowledge that every one of us here was safely under lock and key. A week ago I heard that a serious campaign against us was afoot. Now Dale and the Bishop have definitely confirmed that. A Scotland Yard official made the flat statement in their presence. It might be that they are setting a trap for us in connection with any one of several jobs I have been planning. If we cut everything out from now we're safe."
"Business is business," murmured Ikey Glockstein, blinking like a rather sad old owl.
"And skilly is skilly," observed the Duke.
"I don't think the situation would have been quite so serious for us," the Spider went on, "but for the unfortunate fact that Foxy Hackett was murdered last Tuesday night. I like to believe nobody here was indiscreet enough to have done that."
"I told you I was in bed at the time, Spider," observed Ikey, permitting his fingers to stray to the inside of his collar.
"Anyway," the Spider continued, "that has probably been the last straw. Foxy is known to have worked with us, so naturally we're in the limelight now. I want you to decide for yourselves whether we are to carry on or whether this is where we finish. I don't want to influence you unduly either way."
There was a brief silence.
"What about the Maharajah's jewels to-morrow night?" asked Dale. "That's a big thing. The biggest we've ever tackled."
"And one of the easiest," agreed the Spider.
"Say, do you think they're fixing up that police trap for to-morrow night?" asked Joe Quirk pertinently.
The Spider smoked on for a few moments before replying.
"I don't see how that could be," he answered at last. "We can't tell what the Yard men have up their sleeves, but as far as I know they've no reason to suppose we contemplate making a haul there. I've done all the preliminary work for that case myself and I don't see how anyone could have the least ground for suspicion."
The Major inserted his monocle, which always went with a brain wave on his part.
"Listen to me, you fellows. The danger signal is up. Prisons are nasty draughty places where the beds are hard and the cooking is indifferent. I don't want to be a wet blanket, but I suggest that we have one last shot, to-morrow, at the gay old Maharajah, and then leave well alone for a while."
"All right," agreed the Bishop.
The Duke and Dale nodded. With a movement of his shoulders the American indicated that whichever way the cat jumped he was willing to stand by the others. The only really doleful face was that of Ikey.
"Of course I shouldn't like to see any of you young gentlemen arrested," he observed, "but——"
With a solemn expression the American extended one large hand, placed it on top of the Jew's hat, and pressed downward until only Ikey's nose and the back of his neck remained visible.
"Very well," said the Spider. "I think in the circumstances it is a wise decision. It would be a pity to miss to-morrow's fun with the Maharajah. A man who carts over a quarter of a million pounds' worth of jewellery around with him is asking for it, anyhow."
"I suppose it isn't fake stuff?" put in the Bishop.
"The Maharajah of Mydarah," the Spider explained, "is one of the wealthiest of all those Indian potentates. They call him the spiritual head of the people in his part of India, and that gives him just the sort of pull that we in this room have hankered after all our lives but are never likely to get. When he wants more money he formally indicates that the taxes have gone up, and what he says goes."
A sound that was almost a sob broke from Ikey Glockstein.
"Don't talk any more about that, Spider, or I shall dream of it," he said. "I should die of shock to wake up and find I wasn't this Majara—this Indian gentleman."
"Well," the Spider went on, "he came over here for a special Court function and brought with him the famous Mydarah jewels. But that isn't all. A little while ago the Duchess of Brentshire, who had one of the finest collections of pearls in the world, decided to put them on the market. They are worth an enormous sum, and there was some difficulty in disposing of them at the figure she wanted. They are now the property of the Maharajah of Mydarah, and they will go back with him to India to-morrow when he sails from Southampton. He has a suite reserved in the Garthania which is due to sail at 10 P.M. He has arranged to have dinner on board at eight o'clock, and he will travel down by car. One cannot be quite sure what time he will leave London, but I imagine it will be between three and five. The one thing however that is certain is that all the jewellery will travel with the Maharajah. He likes to feel it is safe under his own nose.
"Now, this is a big thing, and I have made more elaborate plans than usual so that if one scheme falls through we shall have other chances. At present it looks as though our finest opportunity will be while he is on the road to Southampton. We shall have three cars ready, all fixed with false registration plates in case some bright soul takes the numbers.
"After dark one of these cars will get behind him while he's running. The second car will pass ahead and then slow down in front. The third will draw level and we shall all stop with the Maharajah and his jewels closed in."
Ikey Glockstein sighed.
"It sounds too easy, Spider," he pointed out. "Don't forget there's a lot of traffic on that road."
"I am well aware of it, Ikey, but if each man plays his part properly, obeying orders when the right moment comes, we shall be a good quarter of a million sterling the richer when it's over. You may be quite sure that I shan't take any foolish chances.
"Moreover, it won't be too late even if the jewels get as far as Southampton. There will be another good opportunity there.
"Now don't make any mistake," he went on clearly. "We all meet at the Clandon Street garage at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning. When we get there I shall not be able to stay with you many minutes, and I don't yet know what changes may have to be made in our programme. I am depending on everybody to act instantly when it becomes necessary. I know I can count on you.
"And so," the Spider added with a note of reluctance in his voice, "this will be our last little affair for some time. Well, we can't grumble. Some men look for their plunder in the stock market and we've taken our thrills another way. I don't know what Scotland Yard will think when we retire from the field, but——"
The Spider's sentence was never finished, for at that moment there came a loud knocking on the door in Old Ship Steps.
Simultaneously all seven men arose. There was something about that noise which had startling significance. It was firm and insistent.
"S-sh!" Instantly the personality of the Spider dominated everyone in that room. He crept towards a chink at the window. Then returned quickly, as the knocking came again, more loudly this time.
"It's the police!" he said calmly. "I can see a number of them just outside. They've probably got the house surrounded." A faint smile flickered about his lips. "Now, my lads, follow me and be as quiet as possible."
By now the knocking on the door had become a furious hammering.
When the door finally gave way several plain-clothes officers, led by Chief Inspector Briant, with Inspector Silver at his heels, rushed into the house, while others remained on guard outside.
The rooms on the lower floors were searched first and then the upper stories, the harsh voice of Briant breaking out occasionally in brusque orders.
Five minutes later Briant was fuming in the basement. Six men were reported to have entered by the Old Ship Steps door. (The police had no means of knowing that the party had consisted of seven.) Now the building was apparently empty. But the doors and windows were all fastened from the inside. Briant's sharp black eyes roved the floor boards near him which bore no sign of having been disturbed.
"This is a new one on me!" he grumbled. "We'll go over the whole place again, room by room. Either they're still here or—or there's a way out," he added rather obviously.
But another search revealed nothing fresh. The dust on all the window ledges was in itself sufficient evidence that nobody had escaped that way. It was a rambling house, fast falling into a state of disrepair, but it contained almost no furniture. There were a few things in the kitchen, a room on the ground floor had several chairs and a table, and in one of the bedrooms there was a heavy wooden sea chest, the lid of which was locked.
Declining to believe in miracles, Briant finally stood near that sea chest trying to fit some possible solution to the puzzle of the vanished six men. It looked as though someone had blundered, and yet that explanation was unsatisfactory. A detective, disguised as a waterman, had kept the premises under observation, and a river police boat, acting on prearranged signals, had reported by wireless to the Yard that people were arriving at the suspected premises.
From then onward the police had moved swiftly and the disguised man on the wharf swore that nobody had gone out of the house up to the time the door was forced.
And yet six men could not creep through a keyhole. There was one fanlight in an attic which gave on to the roof. A minute inspection of that, however, showed it had not been used for a long time. Briant himself had pushed it open, but had to break the rusted hinge in so doing. A few of the flooring boards were somewhat loose, but a careful examination had shown that no possible hiding place was concealed there.
"This doesn't make sense," Briant declared irritably at last, "because if ever I saw an empty house this is it. We're up against something unusual in the way of crooks. There are brains at work here. When you said you thought this might be the Spider's bunch, Silver, I wasn't very sympathetic. It seemed too much to hope for. But this is just the sort of thing one might expect of that crowd. It looks as though they've cleared out. And yet——" He broke off, looking down into the curving street at the back of the premises. Half a dozen of his men were waiting there. The building was virtually surrounded. "Damn it, they haven't gone up into the air, and there's no place where they could have burrowed underground. I don't understand. If this is the Spider's work I want him if it's only to learn how this vanishing trick is worked."
Silver was feeling the weight of the old sea chest, but he was unable to raise it.
"What d'you suppose they've got in there, sir?" he asked.
"I've given up guessing for to-day," declared Briant. He turned to one of his men. "Get a hammer or a bar of iron or something. We'll soon find out. Look!" he added in that alert way of his.
As everywhere, there was dust on the chest, but finger marks showed that it had been opened recently. Briant's eyes began to sparkle. "Silver, I believe we're getting somewhere. Where in blazes is that man with a hammer!"
Heavy footsteps came racing up the bare stairs and Briant shot a quick glance of triumph at Inspector Silver as he took into his hand a heavy spanner and a cold chisel commandeered from the police boat now moored at the wharf.
It took only a couple of minutes to force the lock of the chest, and when the lid was lifted half a dozen pairs of eyes peered within. There was curious silence for a moment.
The chest was empty!
Briant let the spanner and chisel fall to the floor but stood there still staring into the empty thing as though he expected it to speak and reveal its own secret. Then his glance slid across to Silver.
"See, it's screwed down to the floor," he said. "But what have they had in it?"
"Plant for counterfeiting, maybe," Silver suggested.
"You think so, eh!" muttered Briant, examining the bottom of the chest with the aid of an electric torch. "Will you kindly tell me how six men not only managed to get out of this house, from which not even a rat could escape apparently, and managed to carry a printing press with them? Perhaps they swallowed it as soon as we appeared on the scene."
"I say there is a trap door somewhere in the place," replied Silver.
"That's a dead certainty," agreed Briant, "and we've got to find it too. But it's not under that trunk or somebody would have had to stop behind to fasten the trunk down again. If those darned newspapers get hold of this they'll roast us alive. Go and get a screwdriver anyway," he ordered one of his men. Then he stood frowning over the chest. This was the one object in the house that seemed to have any special significance. He picked up the cold chisel and began to examine the interior of the thing again.
Suddenly Briant gave a shout.
"The cunning devils!" he exclaimed.
The chest stood flush against the wall. Manipulation of a spring caused the back panel to fall inwards. revealing a gaping hole leading into the adjoining premises.
There was also a spring lock on the chest's lid, which could be opened either from the outside or from within.
Already Briant was scrambling through the cavity. It led into an old disused warehouse.
There the Chief Inspector stood ruefully gazing down into the empty street at the back. The side of that warehouse cut it off from the place where his cordon of men ended. The fugitives were well away by now.
Nestling comfortably between a church and a public house in Foyle Street, Marylebone, there was a little antique shop where you might buy anything from an old brass frying pan to a grandfather clock that had pegged away at its work for two hundred years.
As you pushed the door open a bell jangled and an elderly man whose walk was slightly unsteady emerged from a little back room. He wore a frock coat which was far from being a perfect fit, and on his head there rested eternally a hard felt hat which an earlier generation had known as a "derby." His faith you judged immediately and infallibly. Moreover unless you were one of those doubting Thomases who believe so little, you soon came to the conclusion that he was a kindly honest soul who dealt in antiques because he just naturally loved them and gave you a square deal because that was the way of him.
On this November evening two men jumped out of a motor car, hurried across the sidewalk, and entered the obscure little shop, but not with the air of those who buy brass frying pans as curios. When the bell jangled the kindly old man emerged from his nook, rubbed his hands together, and gave these people an automatic crinkled smile.
"You are Ikey Glockstein?" asked the taller of the visitors.
"My name is Glockstein," said the vendor of antiques, the extent of his smile diminished by not more than ten per cent.
"I'm from Scotland Yard—Detective Inspector Silver."
"Well, well!" exclaimed the old man. "And what can I do for you, sir?"
"Of course you've never left this place all day, have you?"
The Jew looked faintly surprised and a little puzzled.
"I've been out most of the afternoon," he answered. "The shop has been shut up."
"All right," said Silver. "You're wanted at the Yard, anyway."
"Me!" Ikey's head was a little on one side and he was blinking with a sort of pathetic bewilderment. "But what for?"
"You say you were out most of the afternoon. Where have you been?"
"This is ridic'lous," protested Ikey. "Can a man not go where he pleases?"
"Not always, and it depends what he does when he gets there."
"I've done nothing wrong," said Ikey.
"You did six months before the war, anyway, according to the records, so you can cut out the angel stuff."
"That's a long time ago, Mr. Inspector," commented Ikey reproachfully, lowering his voice. "I should never be so foolish again."
"Where do you say you were this afternoon?"
"I went to see my brother Abe. There is no harm in that."
"Where did you meet him?"
"Richmond, where he has a business. He's in the fur trade. Doing very well, too, I believe."
"How long were you there?"
"About two hours. I left Richmond at six o'clock."
"Well," put in Silver's companion, "how do you account for the fact that I saw you miles away from Richmond at ten minutes to six?"
Ikey regarded the man in perplexity.
"Mr. Inspector, who is this?"
"Sergeant Riley, of Scotland Yard," Silver explained.
"Then there's some mistake," said Glockstein, pushing back his hat. "You must be crazy, Sergeant. Where do you say you saw me?"
"Going down Old Ship Steps, in Wapping."
And then Ikey smiled broadly.
"I haven't even seen Wapping for thirty years or more," he said, "and I don't even know where this place is that you're speaking about."
"Is your brother Abe on the telephone?" asked Silver.
"Yes. You can speak to him, if you like. Richmond 4x00."
"Wait here, Riley," said Silver, and a few minutes later he was listening to a voice that came over a wire from Richmond.
"... and Ikey left here at about six," concluded the voice. "What's the matter? Is he all right?"
Silver's eyes were narrowed as he hung up the receiver. He walked slowly and thoughtfully back to the curio shop.
"That was smart of you, Ikey!" he said. "Got in first, didn't you, to make sure of an alibi? Where did you and your brother spend those two hours while you were at Richmond?"
"In a little office at the back of his shop," said the Jew glibly.
"Did anybody see you with him?"
Ikey considered the point for a moment.
"No, I don't remember anyone in particular," he replied.
"And where was your brother when he said good-bye to you?"
"In his shop," explained Ikey.
Again Silver sought a telephone.
"Now listen," he said to Mr. Glockstein of Richmond, "have you any witnesses to prove that your brother Ikey was there this evening?"
"What is this all about?" came the voice. "Witnesses? Yes, weren't there two of my friends there all the time! I can get plenty of witnesses."
"How did Ikey come back to London?"
"By train."
"How do you know?"
There was a doubtful pause.
"Well, I walked as far as the railway station with him, anyway."
Facing Ikey again the Inspector was grim and more confident.
"When you telephoned to Abe this evening," he said, "you didn't think of everything. You're coming with me now, detained on suspicion."
"Suspicion!" Ikey echoed. "Of what?"
"Just suspicion," replied Silver. "That will do for the moment." He put his hand firmly on the man's shoulder. "There's one question I'd like to ask you, Ikey. And a good deal might depend on the way you answer. Who murdered Foxy Hackett?"
For the first time the old Jew was unable to control that fear which had been clutching at his heart ever since these two detectives had walked into his shop. It burned in his eyes now, but only for a second.
"You're talking nonsense to me, Mr. Inspector. You shouldn't try to frighten an old man like me. I don't know nothing about any murder."
"But you knew a man called Hackett."
Ikey's face became more crinkled.
"Now I don't even know what you're talking about, Mr. Inspector. I don't, reely. And as for murder, you give me the shivers when you ask such questions. I'm a respectable citizen. It's true I had a bit of trouble once, but I made a mistake that time. I don't have no truck with crooks now. It doesn't pay."
Silver surveyed the Jew coldly. What secrets were locked in that old man's brain? For what purpose had Foxy Hackett dogged Ikey's footsteps as far as that house in Old Ship Steps? That it was the meeting place of a gang of astute criminals had been made clear by the abortive raid there less than two hours ago. Chief Inspector Briant was now more than half convinced that they had at last got on to the track of the Spider.
The Inspector caught his companion's eye and made a quick movement sideways with his head. Sergeant Riley strolled away and filled the doorway with his broad form.
"Glockstein," said Silver incisively, "it's true, as you say, that you're an old man. You haven't got so many years left now. A long stretch would finish you and I'm giving you a solemn warning that is precisely what is staring you in the face now. As likely as not you'll never live to see this shop again. Think of it, every minute from now on until you die spent behind prison bars! But I'll stand by you as far as possible if you'll tell me one thing."
Ikey's hands, clasped behind his back, were writhing within one another.
"I'll tell you anything I can, Mr. Inspector," he said. "But you won't believe me. You're making a mistake."
"Where," asked Silver, "is Sally Marsh?"
The pathos in the Jew's melancholy eyes was enough to move even an executioner.
"You mean the girl—the girl the newspapers are talking about, Mr. Inspector. I never saw her in my life. I don't know any more than you do where she is, so how can I tell you?"
Silver shook his head slowly.
"Bluff won't carry you far, Glockstein. You're for it now, but if you want a friend at court my offer still holds good. I believe you're one of the Spider's bunch. And I've got reasons of my own for suspecting that crowd was mixed up in some way with Sally Marsh's disappearance. If you don't know where she is you can probably tell me who does know."
The old man sank into a chair.
"You're all wrong, Mr. Inspector," he said. "You're all wrong."
Silver's hand tightened about Ikey Glockstein's arm.
"You've got to go through it, Glockstein. Chief Inspector Briant wants a word with you. I'm giving you a friendly tip. Come across with this information and you may live to visit brother Abe again. Be obstinate and you'll get a belly full."
Then Mr. Glockstein discovered that he was being gently but firmly ushered toward the door and a waiting motor car.
A door banged hard and Mr. Edwin Clissold nearly leaped out of his chair in the office.
"Why the devil can't people close doors silently!" he exclaimed, with irritation which seemed a little excessive.
"You had left it open and there's a draught," commented Clissold's partner, glancing over the top of his spectacles. Anthony Fellowes and Edwin Clissold carried on business in Aldersgate Street as carpet importers. Fellowes was an ascetic-looking individual, slow of speech.
"Well, don't glare at me like that. It gets on my nerves," complained Clissold. He was a rather tall, clean-shaven, slenderly built man whose hair was of a pronounced red. Even the movement of his hands showed that he was in a highly strung state.
"I wish you'd see a doctor, Clissold."
"What do I want to see a doctor for?" the other demanded truculently. "You've been nagging about that all the week."
Anthony Fellowes dipped his pen in the ink and again regarded the papers on the desk before him. There certainly was something radically wrong with Clissold, and without question it dated from the previous week-end. In the ordinary way Edwin Clissold was an amiable, level-headed business man, a little inclined to be irritable perhaps, but not unduly so. People with that colour hair often were touchy.
These two had been in partnership for a dozen years and Fellowes reflected that he had nothing to complain of. They had done well, and things were more promising than ever. Clissold wasn't a bad sort. It was known that if there was a fly in the ointment it was due to the fact that his wife was an intensely jealous woman. And to do her justice that was largely Clissold's fault. A pretty face or a neatly turned ankle was fatally attractive to him.
Fellowes' eyes were fixed on the papers before him, but for the moment he was unable to concentrate. According to the newspapers the police seemed inclined to think that the person who had committed murder on the mail train which reached King's Cross at midnight last Monday was a somewhat tall, slenderly built man with red hair. It was an undeniable fact that Edwin Clissold answered that description and that he had travelled from York by the train in question.
There might have been a dozen red-headed men on that train, but it was significant that Clissold's nerves had all gone to pieces during the week, and such a thing had never happened before. According to his story he had never been near the dining car on the train, having taken some sandwiches with him. Also he said he had read a book during the whole of the journey.
And there were two odd facts that made one think. Firstly Edwin Clissold had volunteered these statements though nobody had questioned him on the subject, and secondly Clissold loved his stomach so well that he was one of the last men on earth to make a scratch meal of sandwiches when he could get a good dinner.
Of a sudden Fellowes threw down his pen.
"Look here, Clissold," he said, "you've got to listen to reason."
"If you tell me again that I ought to see a doctor I shall heave something out of the window!"
But Fellowes was not easily perturbed.
"Go ahead and do so if it relieves your feelings," he remarked, "but I'm not the only person who thinks you ought to take medical advice."
"What's that! What's that!" Clissold had a scared expression now. "Do you mean to say that someone else has had the confounded impudence to make personal remarks about me?"
"Yes," drawled Fellowes. "While you were out to-day your wife rang me up. She's quite concerned about you."
Clissold stared across at his partner.
"Did she—say anything special?" he demanded presently.
"Only that you seemed to have been strange all the week."
Clissold fiddled with a stump of pencil. Then he cleared his throat.
"That's funny!" he said solemnly. "Both of you, I mean, imagining the same thing. And yet, perhaps I have been a little restless. I'm sorry, Fellowes. Not been sleeping very well lately."
Which sounded rational enough, but Fellowes had not worked with him cheek by jowl all these years for nothing. All it actually amounted to was that Edwin Clissold was struggling to appear normal while his nerves, in reality, were more on edge than ever. There was a peculiar tension in the office and it was a relief to Fellowes when his partner, much earlier than usual, put on his hat and announced his intention of going home.
Some hours later the telephone rang at Anthony Fellowes' flat. It was the voice of Mrs. Clissold that reached his ears.
"I feel uneasy about Edwin," she said. "What time did he leave the office?"
"Just after half-past three."
The woman did not answer for a few moments. Then:
"Mr. Fellowes, it is nearly nine o'clock, and he has not come home yet."
"Maybe he's called on some friends," Fellowes said airily, though he knew the suggestion carried no conviction.
"No, there's something wrong, Mr. Fellowes," said Mrs. Clissold. "And I'm beginning to be frightened."
"Rubbish!" he answered. "Husbands don't always go straight home. He'll all right. I'll ring you up later, if I may."
But there was no reply. Mrs. Clissold had hung up the receiver. Fellowes sat with his lower lip protruding. There certainly was something wrong. That had been obvious all the week.
While his partner was still sitting there ruminating, Clissold was pacing restlessly to and fro along the Thames Embankment, with an occasional glance in the direction of Scotland Yard.
It was ten o'clock at night when finally he crossed the road with sudden determination. A while later he was shown into Inspector Silver's office.
The detective looked at the slip of paper before him on his desk.
"Mr. Edwin Clissold?" he read aloud, and met the visitor's uneasy eyes.
"Yes—yes," agreed Mr. Clissold.
"Sit down, won't you," said the C.I.D. man, controlling the growing excitement which the appearance of this stranger had created within him.
Mr. Clissold sank heavily into a chair, fumbled with his walking stick, and finally allowed it to fall with a clatter to the floor.
"I feel myself in a terrible position, Mr. Silver," he began awkwardly.
"What's your trouble?"
"It is the most embarrassing situation in which I have ever been. At last I have decided that the best thing I could do would be to come straight to the Yard."
"It often is." The red hair of this man had a curious fascination for Silver's eyes.
"May I ask if my name has been mentioned to you by—by anyone?" the visitor went on, studying the detective's face anxiously.
"Not that I remember."
This seemed to occasion considerable relief to Mr. Clissold.
"Then I am not too late!" he said thankfully.
"What for?"
"I suppose you don't know what it feels like, Inspector, to imagine day and night that you may be arrested on—on the charge of murder?"
"I have no experience of it," said the detective. "Won't you tell me just why you came here?"
The man moistened his lips. His hands were trembling and either he was acting in a masterly fashion or else he was in an appalling funk.
"According to the press," he began, "you are very anxious to find a man who has red hair and arrived at King's Cross by the midnight mail last Monday."
Silver nodded and began to roll a cigarette.
"I was on that train, Inspector," Mr. Clissold added.
"And," put in the C.I.D. man, "it was you who talked to Enid Mulholland in the dining car?"
"How did you know that?" asked the man jumpily.
"I didn't. I'm asking you."
"It's true, Inspector."
The detective eyed him keenly.
"And why have you come now—this is Friday, four days after Ismay was murdered—to tell me that?"
Edwin Clissold swallowed and ran his fingers through his hair.
"Because I couldn't stand it any longer," he said. "It has been terrible. I believe my partner, Mr. Fellowes, thinks I committed that crime. I'm not at all sure that my wife isn't a bit suspicious about it, too. But I didn't. I swear I didn't. I've no more idea than you who killed Ismay. I've never even set eyes on the man. I'd have come to you earlier in the week, but the statement by the dining-car attendant was printed in the papers. It made me out to be a regular sheik. I could see there would be no end of trouble—domestic trouble, you understand—if it were known that I was the person referred to. And yet that wasn't the only reason why I finally hesitated about coming here. I was afraid of—of being arrested—on that terrible charge."
"And now I suppose you've come to get your story in first before your partner or someone else gives information?"
Edwin Clissold plucked at his lip with uneasy fingers.
"Well, yes, I suppose in a way that's true. Maybe you understand."
"Tell me," put in the detective, "were you wearing that overcoat and the same suit last Monday when you were on the train?"
Clissold seemed perplexed: looked at his clothing, then at the detective again.
"Yes, as a matter of fact I think I was. Why?"
Silver got up and scrutinized the buttons carefully, but made no comment.
"Did you know Sally Marsh?" he asked abruptly.
"I never met the lady in my life," Clissold answered. "In fact I never heard of her before, nor of anybody else connected with this affair."
Silver resumed his seat.
"I see," he observed. "Did you ever hear of a Jew called Ikey Glockstein?"
"Glockstein? Glockstein?" the man repeated vaguely. "No, I'm positive I never did."
"Very well," said the detective. "Now tell me all you know about what happened on the train last Monday."
Edwin Clissold drew a deep breath.
"I was coming south from Newcastle, where I had been doing business for my firm," he began. "The first time I ever set eyes on Enid Mulholland was when she entered the dining car after the train had left York. She struck me as an extremely attractive girl, and—well, you know how one gets into conversation at these meals on a train. Perhaps I'm a little too impulsive in such matters. I would give anything now, though, to feel that I had never looked at her a second time. It has been very trying for me, Inspector."
"Yes, yes," said the C.I.D. man bluntly. "But tell me what happened."
"Well, we just talked."
"For over an hour?"
"Possibly. Yes, I suppose it was as long as that."
"What was the conversation about?"
"I don't really remember. We were laughing and chatting."
"You mean to tell me that though you talked to her all that time you have no recollection of anything that was said?"
Edwin Clissold was growing more hot and bothered.
"We talked about books—and London, I remember."
"Then you do remember some of the conversation! Now I'm going to ask you a straight question, Mr. Clissold, and remember Enid Mulholland is on the road to recovery, so we shall have a statement from her soon, I hope. Before you parted in the dining saloon did you ask her to meet you again?"
Fresh alarm swept across Clissold's face.
"Why, yes," he admitted. "Now you speak of it, I did. But nothing came of that."
"Exactly what was said on the subject?"
"Just as she got up from her seat in the dining car I suggested that it would be a pleasure to renew the acquaintance by taking her to the theatre some evening, but she turned the idea down flat."
Silver's fingers tapped the desk before him.
"There is evidence," he said, "that you stayed in the dining car for three or four minutes after she left."
"Yes, that's perfectly true. I don't quite know how long I remained there, though. One is just killing time on a train."
"You are the last person, so far as is known, to have spoken to Enid Mulholland before the attempt to murder her was made."
"I—I suppose so. It's a rotten position to be in, Inspector, isn't it?"
"There is also evidence," Silver pursued, "that when you finally left the dining car you followed in the direction which she had taken."
"Yes, but that was only natural. All my things were in a compartment there. My seat was in the third coach from the engine."
"Did you try to find her?"
"Not exactly. You see I'm being perfectly frank, and I do hope you'll believe that my only object is to help you."
"According to your own statement," said Silver sternly, "you came here to protect yourself, fearing that someone else might get in first with information that would incriminate you. Now answer my question. Did you try to find Enid Mulholland again?"
Edwin Clissold shuffled nervously in his chair.
"Passing along the corridor on the way back to my own seat I glanced into several compartments, but saw nothing of her."
"Your seat, you say, was in the third coach from the engine. Did you go further on the corridor beyond that?"
"No."
"This, of course, was all before the train reached Peterborough," said Silver. "Where were you when it pulled up at that station?"
"In my own seat, in the third coach."
"Did you get the impression that anyone besides yourself was particularly interested in Enid Mulholland?"
"Such a thought never occurred to me."
"After returning to your own compartment before the train reached Peterborough did you enter the corridor again?"
"Not for a moment. I never got up again until the train pulled up at King's Cross."
"Was there anybody else in that compartment who might corroborate your statement?"
"Unfortunately no. I had the compartment to myself."
"And you promptly forgot all about her?"
"I won't say I forgot. Actually when we reached London I glanced through the crowd on the platform but saw nothing of her. I happened to notice that the guard and several others were gathering round the door of one of the compartments of the front coach, and of course I understood why next day, but at the time it never dawned on me that she was involved."
Again Silver's fingers tapped on his blotter.
"Mr. Clissold, I am going to ask you a very important question and I warn you that evasion of the truth now will not ultimately help you in the least. Have you ever been in the office of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate?"
"Never in my life."
"But you know where it is."
"So do most people, in view of all that has happened recently."
"Very well. Now, tell me, where were you at six o'clock last Tuesday evening?"
The visitor regarded Silver dubiously.
"You mean Monday, of course?" he suggested.
"I mean precisely what I say. Where were you at six o'clock last Tuesday evening?"
The eyes of the detective were fixed relentlessly on those of the other man. There was silence in the room for the space of perhaps twenty seconds.
"Why, Inspector," said Clissold at length, "it is strange that you should ask me that. Because nobody could possibly know except myself. I was in Shaftesbury Avenue. I had occasion to walk through there from Piccadilly Circus."
"Well!"
"I don't know what you want me to say."
"At about six o'clock you were displaying peculiar interest in the entrance to the office of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate. What have you got to say about that?"
Edwin Clissold shuffled in his chair.
"The evening papers were full of the murder of Ismay and the attack on Enid Mulholland," he answered. "I didn't know the name of the girl I had talked to on the train, but from the description of the injured passenger I couldn't help wondering whether it was the same one. The paper said she had been employed by the Theatrical Syndicate in Shaftesbury Avenue. As I passed there—well, can't you understand? I suppose that in the same circumstances anyone would have displayed what you call 'peculiar interest' in the place."
He paused for a moment, his mind reverting to the scene in Shaftesbury Avenue.
"A girl came out while I was standing there," he went on, "and though it had never occurred to me up to then that I might be mixed up in the midnight mail affair, the way she looked at me made me feel queer. I wasn't sure, however, that the girl I had talked to was Enid Mulholland until next morning when I saw her photograph in the papers.
"Even then I didn't see how it would help if I told the police about my conversation with her on the train between York and Peterborough. The murder was committed hours after that. So I didn't communicate with you. I didn't want my name dragged into it—you quite understand why.
"But from the moment the newspapers printed that long interview with the dining-car attendant my life has been a living hell. I knew that suspicion rested on the man with red hair, and I knew that by not coming forward I was making the case against myself worse. Then I began to fear that there was no way I could possibly prove my innocence.
"Every hour I have been hoping to hear that the real murderer had been arrested, and I grew to dread picking up a newspaper lest I found some fresh suggestion there about the man with red hair.
"My nerves were going to pieces and it began to show. My wife has noticed it and whenever I've been with my partner during the last forty-eight hours it has been like a nightmare. He keeps looking at me as if I was doomed to go to the gallows. That's what it seems like, anyway. I don't know what he thinks, but all the time I've been expecting him to send for a policeman.
"Now I've told you everything I know about the affair and I feel about ten years younger," he concluded.
Silver's fingers were playing with a small piece of blue silk cord which had once been cut by a railway guard. As he tossed it on to the desk in front of Edwin Clissold the detective was watching his visitor's expression.
"Have you ever seen a piece of cord like that before?" he asked.
Clissold extended one hand but of a sudden drew it back and a look of terror came into his eyes.
"Why—why do you ask me?" he demanded, his face ashen hued. "It must be the string that was found round the girl's throat. Does—does this mean you still suspect that—that I committed the crime?"
The detective ignored the question, but scribbled four words on a piece of paper and pressing a bell push handed the note to the messenger who appeared.
Ten minutes later an agony of doubt ended for Mr. Clissold when he was allowed to pass out of that building, and though the night was cool he wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead. He decided to walk along the Embankment and take train from Charing Cross, but some instinct made him glance over his shoulder. And a cold shiver ran through him as he noticed a man strolling along casually some little distance behind.
Clissold stopped and leaned over the parapet, watching the dark waters of the Thames glide past. The man behind paused to fasten a shoe lace and then also leaned against the parapet.
Clissold's heart began to pound. Instead of walking straight along the Embankment he took a short cut through to the Strand. As he turned the corner he was aware that the man was close behind.
Edwin Clissold began to tremble worse than ever. He decided that it was madness to have gone anywhere near Scotland Yard.
Dr. Guthrie, who had dropped into Silver's office at the Yard for a chat, cast a professional glance at the detective.
"This won't do," he said. "You look ill. What's wrong?"
"I'm fine!" replied Silver abruptly. "Never better in my life." His face was drawn and about his eyes there was that unmistakable look of a man who has hardly slept for days.
Guthrie sat on a rickety chair.
"Glad to hear that," he said. "I had a talk with Briant just now. He tells me you've been carrying on a war of your own to-day and got pipped."
"It's nothing," replied Silver. "Just a scratch on the arm. You might loosen the bandage, though, while you're here, Doctor. It's burning a bit."
"Slip your coat off, then. By the way, I met one of the King's Cross Hospital surgeons just now. That girl Enid Mulholland is holding her own, and she's well on the road to recovery, but she doesn't seem to have the faintest idea what really happened on the train."
"I wonder!" said the detective. "One gets cynical at this police job sometimes. You wait till she's well enough to be told that her brother has been strangled in Battersea. Then she may open up. Nobby certainly was not on the midnight mail, but my belief is that the girl is trying to shield him in some way."
"Or else trying to shield Silas Ismay?" Guthrie suggested.
"Darned if I know," said the detective. "We've traced back Ismay's record to the year dot, and if a man's past is anything to go by—though I don't say it is—he's been fitted up with a best-quality halo and a harp by now. There's only one chapter in his life that we can't get at, and maybe that doesn't amount to anything."
"Distinguished sort of person, wasn't he?"
"Silas Ismay was born in Camberwell. Both his parents died before he was twelve months old and he was adopted by a tailor called Straus, who lived in one room."
"But," said Guthrie, "I understand that Ismay was of the very polished type."
"So he was at the finish, but he originated in the worst kind of slums. When he left school he was put to work in Straus's little tailoring business and then Straus began to go blind. Ismay seems to have been a decent kid, and brainy. As soon as he saw how things were turning he started punting around to make money in other ways. According to what I hear, he really began to educate himself about that time and he got on fast. Sent Straus down to a cottage in the country and kept him there till the old man died eight years ago."
"How did Ismay make money?"
"All sorts of ways. He was not only clever, but also lucky with everything he touched. He had five big tailoring shops going by the time he was twenty-four. Then he sold out and went to Johannesburg, but we haven't been able to trace his real history in South Africa. There might be some link between that and his death, though we've no definite reason to suppose so. Anyway, they say he did some quick deals in property there.
"He was back in London when the war broke out and served four years in the army. Won the D.S.O. but never talked about it. Linked up with the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate soon after he was demobbed and after that went ahead like a rocket. He's left pots of money, the whole of which goes to hospitals. Never got married. Lived by himself, with three servants, in a house at Highbury. Hardly had any friends, being a bit nervous socially, maybe because of his origin. He was as hard as iron in business but gave away big sums to charities without making a song about it. Never displayed the slightest interest in women and from first to last everybody says he was never known to do anything dishonourable. His own partner, Lawrence Bruce, says Silas Ismay was as straight a man as ever drew breath."
"Then how on earth did he come to be murdered?" asked the doctor.
"You can make what you like out of it. That's all we know about him. And yet there's a possibility that he went to Enid Mulholland's compartment on that train last Sunday night and was in the act of attempting to murder her when he himself was murdered. What beats me is, why should he have attacked her?"
Having rearranged the bandage on the detective's arm, Dr. Guthrie resumed his perch at the corner of the table.
"It's all too abstruse for me," he said. "Tell me honestly, Silver, do you think you're any nearer the truth now than you were when it happened four days ago?"
Silver pointed to a chair.
"Only half an hour since a man was sitting there who may have committed the crime. If I allowed my imagination to run riot I could picture a scene on that train which led up to the murder. I could even make out a very plausible story against the man. But that would be sheer guesswork, and guesses aren't evidence. We make mistakes at Scotland Yard: I've made tons of 'em. But when it comes to a case of murder there really isn't much room for doubt about a man's guilt when we finally pull him in. Even then the murderer is sometimes acquitted. It's one thing for me to be certain that James Smith murdered William Brown, but it's quite another thing for me to convince a jury so completely that they'll send him to the hangman. So much that comes to our knowledge and convinces us of a man's guilt is not admissible as evidence in a court of law."
"May I take all this to mean that you have some sort of idea who committed the murder on the train?" asked Guthrie.
Silver looked at his friend intently for a moment, as though he were aching to say something, but checked the impulse.
"I can give you a list of half a dozen people who might be mixed up in the affair," he said finally, "and I can't for the life of me see how I could be wrong in every case. Yet that's possible. It's such a complicated affair. There are loose ends hanging about in all directions and some of them are devilish contradictory. Yes, we try to get the last nail for a man's coffin before actually making an arrest of this sort." He paused, then added: "But, just between you and me, we haven't got one single conclusive fact to put before a jury."
Guthrie tapped the ashes out of his pipe.
"I'm sorry, Silver. Because—well—this isn't quite an ordinary case—for you personally—is it?"
Silver looked up quickly.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, maybe I'm wrong, but from what Briant said I rather gathered that you and Sally Marsh——" He broke off.
Silver got up and paced the office for a full minute before he stopped in front of his friend.
"Briant told you that?" he demanded.
"Well, he gave me the impression."
There was a touch of amazement in Silver's expression.
"But how on earth did he know?"
Dr. Guthrie smiled.
"You may not be aware of it, my lad, but you're not the only detective in Scotland Yard. Briant has had quite a lot of experience too, I understand."
Silver sat down again.
"I give you my word of honour I haven't mentioned it to a single soul, Doctor, not even to Sally herself, though she knows as well as I do. Yes, I'm in love with her, and if ever she turns up again it won't be long before we're married if my guess isn't all wrong."
Dr. Guthrie did not reply immediately. He was thinking of a conversation which he had had that evening with Briant.
"Any fool can see that Silver is sweet on Sally Marsh," the Chief Inspector had said, "and I'm afraid he'll be hard hit when the truth's known. In my opinion the girl has been murdered."
Briant, moreover, was one of the shrewdest men at the Yard.
"The Home Office certainly would raise Cain if anything went wrong," said Colonel Venables, swinging a monocle between finger and thumb.
"Do you wonder?" replied Chief Inspector Briant. "Especially as we suspect in advance that there might be some attempt to steal the Maharajah's jewels. However, I don't care a darn what happens once His Highness gets safely away from the dock at Southampton, on his way back to India."
"I'm afraid they'd care pretty considerably in my department, though," replied the Colonel. "Anyway, the jewels will be locked in the strong room and specially guarded as soon as they are taken on board the ship. I don't think there will be much chance for the most astute of thieves then."
Briant puffed slowly at his pipe.
"Let's hope not," he said in a noncommittal fashion.
"What do you mean?"
The Chief Inspector blew a couple of smoke rings thoughtfully before answering.
"We're not sure that any attempt will be made to steal them, yet when there's a nice ripe plum like that hanging ready to pluck, it puts ideas into the heads of every crook in London. The little fellows' mouths may water, but they'll do nothing. Too much to bite off, see? It's just the sort of plum that the Spider would like, though. And if he sets his heart on those jewels they won't be dead safe until the Maharajah has them under lock and key in his own palace at Mydarah. Even then I wouldn't bank on their being all right."
"It is quite possible, however," said Colonel Venables, "that no attempt may be made to steal them."
The expression of Chief Inspector Briant cracked into one of his rare smiles.
"I should be very disappointed," he observed.
Colonel Venables stared at him oddly.
"You don't really mean that?"
"I certainly do. As you know we've been planning for some time to trap the Spider. Well, this is the trap."
"And the Maharajah's jewels are the bait?"
"Precisely. One little nibble from our friend and we've got him. Just between you and me, I shall have a good night's sleep for the first time in weeks when that gentleman is locked up. We may get several of his gang at the same time, but I'm not worrying about them too much. They're nobodies compared with him. He's the mainspring."
The monocle swung backwards and forwards from the Colonel's fingers.
"Most interesting," he observed. "May I inquire as to the details?"
"There are exactly five men who know what our plans are, Colonel."
"And of those the Maharajah, I presume, is one?"
"On the contrary he hasn't the faintest idea yet that his precious jewels are in the slightest danger. And that is where you come in. My instructions were to explain the whole situation to you now, and afterwards we go together to the Maharajah's house in Notting Hill Gate and persuade his nibs to fall in with our plans."
"Where are the jewels?"
"At his bank in Notting Hill Gate, as secure as concrete and steel can keep them. And there they will remain until the last moment."
The Colonel placed the monocle in his eye and regarded the Chief Inspector.
"I understand that the Maharajah himself takes charge of his jewellery when he is making journeys such as this which has been fixed for to-morrow."
"He does, and you couldn't pry him away from it with a red-hot crow bar."
"I see," observed Colonel Venables. "Then of course he will be provided with adequate police protection as far as Southampton. The crowning catastrophe would be if he personally was attacked en route, and—bless my soul, he might even be murdered!"
Briant puffed away at his pipe.
"We've weighed up the chances of that," he agreed. "And I don't mind telling you the Maharajah wouldn't eat his breakfast with relish to-morrow morning if he knew all we know or think we know."
"I take it, then, that as far as is humanly possible you are making the whole thing fool proof for him."
"Just about. And I should say that both he and his valuables still remain a good insurance prospect but for one thing. A man whom we cannot trace is known to have been making casual inquiries a few days ago concerning the journey down to Southampton. You can have two guesses, the same as the rest of us, what that amounts to. Possibly nothing: possibly quite a lot. We have the man's description. He claimed to be a reporter on the Daily Courier, but the Courier editor says he never sent a man on that job and they haven't a man on their staff who answers his description. Moreover the fellow was so polite about it that I can't help thinking it has the flavour of one of the Spider's tricks. Maybe he was disguised, maybe it was one of his gang. Anyway we shall know a good deal more by this time to-morrow evening."
"I'm bound to tell you, Briant," said Colonel Venables, "that there is a decided undercurrent of anxiety at the India Office concerning this matter. A vague sort of rumour seems to have reached there that the Yard is anxious about the Maharajah's welfare."
Briant's lip curled.
"You don't say so!" he observed. "It would be a pity to disturb their placid slumber. Well, Colonel," the Chief Inspector got up, "it's late and I've made a rendezvous with the Maharajah by telephone. He isn't a bad old stick."
"I'm curious," said the Colonel, "to hear details about the great trap for the Spider."
"I'll tell you all about that as we go along to Notting Hill Gate," replied Briant, putting on his hat.
It was an hour afterwards when the Maharajah of Mydarah, somewhat amused but by no means perturbed, agreed to the suggestion of these urbane officials from Scotland Yard.
"Though," he said as the interview ended, "I do not see any necessity for such precautions."
"I tell you I'm right, Joe." The girl was peering out into the street from behind the curtain. "See, that's a flattie at the other side of the road, if ever I saw one. Please, please don't go out on that racket with the Spider to-day, or you'll get pinched for certain."
The American pushed aside his breakfast coffee and stood up, looking over her shoulder.
"What, that little feller across there!" he said in his big breezy way. "Why, he's waiting for a bus. I guess you're dreaming, baby."
She turned to Joe Quirk.
"He's not little, Joe, and what's more important, I'm sure he's a copper. You know that as well as I do."
"Well, he's getting plenty of fresh air out there. Don't you worry, sweetness."
"You only laughed at me when I said they were shadowing you last night," she reminded him. "Don't you see if they got you now it would be the end of everything?"
Only for a moment a hint of seriousness overshadowed Quirk's smile.
"Listen, honey. The day we got married I promised you I'd cut all this out, didn't I?"
Her fingers were toying with the lapel of his coat.
"You said that to make sure I'd go straight, Joe." Life hadn't been a bed of roses for Anne until this man took her under his wing when she was down and nearly out. He was the kind of man to give the coat off his back to a blind beggar, but robbing millionaires had been a game of his ever since Fate had landed him one in the solar plexus.
"You're no crook, peaches," he told her. "I'm hard boiled, but I've a reason for going straight now, and you're it."
"You never did a dirty trick to anyone in your life, Joe. And that—that's why—well, if anything happened—just when we're ready to begin all over afresh in America together—Joe, can't you understand it would break me right up!"
"I know the very place in New Hampshire where we'll build that house, Anne. In the town where I was a kid. You'll like it."
She had the steamer tickets safely in her handbag. They were due to sail in two days. Only forty-eight hours hence! And yet that seemed an eternity when you remembered what might happen in any one minute between now and then.
"Don't go to-day, Joe. The coppers have taken Ikey Glockstein. How did they manage that? Why, one of the flatties spotted him when you were all going into that house down Wapping way, of course. And they're shadowing you for the same reason. Maybe they're not sure about you, but if you make any slip now that'll be the end. They're like cats playing with a mouse. All they want is some proof that you're linked up with the Spider, and then you're finished."
"I can't let those fellers down, honey," he answered. "It's the last game we shall all play together, and when I gave you my promise I said I'd quit after this particular deal. The gang have been on the level with me and I'd feel like a rat if things went wrong to-day just because I didn't turn up. And that might happen. The way the Spider fixes things, each man is like a wheel in a machine. They've been real pals to me, and that means a lot, girlie, when the social system has given you the knockout, same as I once got it. I'm not bursting into tears about that, but I'd hate to turn yellow on the very last day."
"If the Spider wants this money why can't he do the job himself?" Anne persisted. "We don't need the money."
"Nor does he," replied Joe. "You don't understand. He wasn't crazy about our going after the Maharajah's stuff to-day, and he might even get the thing finished without needing me, but there'll be a share-out just the same. Meanwhile if they got landed because I wasn't there to do my bit, what would I think of myself, afterwards?"
The girl was silent for a moment.
"You swear to me this'll be the last time, Joe?"
"After to-day, Anne, you wouldn't get me off the straight and narrow with a pickax."
An hour later when Joe Quirk strode out of that flat in Kensington smoking a cigar and apparently looking neither to the right nor the left, a man in a soft felt hat who had been standing near a letter box reading a newspaper for some time, strolled off in the same direction.
From a window the eyes of a white-faced girl followed them both. There was something of the tigress in her at that moment. The steamer tickets in her bag and even her own future happiness were forgotten. She was obsessed by fear for the safety of her man and hatred of that ominous figure trailing behind him. When finally they both disappeared she sank into a chair and stared blankly before her.
If the blow fell it would come in much less than forty-eight hours. The clock hands pointed to ten now. By six that evening—or five—or perhaps long before then—the cops might have her Joe fastened up.
It was as if she could hear his laugh, the kind of laugh that held no touch of unkindness but came almost startlingly at black moments and made you feel that things never could be as bad as you'd thought they were. He was the biggest thing that had ever come into the queer adventure-ridden existence of Anne Quirk, child of a famous forger who had died in Dartmoor Prison by the time she was fifteen, leaving that dubious memory as her only heritage. Since then life had been an incomprehensible battle not only against herself but against that rough-and-tumble world into which she had been pitchforked too soon.
Then Joe Quirk had become her god, and instincts which she had never analyzed before had created vague yearnings within her for another sort of existence. It was weeks before she could express something of the kind to Joe. She had been afraid he would laugh and that would have killed it. But to her astonishment he didn't. Except in certain things Anne knew she was no more intelligent than most folks, but although Joe was as clever as anyone she had ever met, he had a way of taking the girl so seriously at times that it startled her.
"That goes if you say so," had been his answer. "Get busy with the reservations on the boat, but I've got to work off one or two dates here first."
And from then onward it had seemed to her that their home in far-away New Hampshire, with all that it stood for, was a real thing. Yet now as she sat in that Kensington flat, conscious only of the game of hide and seek which was being played by two men somewhere in the streets of London, she shuddered.
Meanwhile Joe Quirk's shadow dogged him. It was the kind of work at which Detective Carruthers was specially skilful, and peculiar interest was added to his job to-day because this was part of a big "show." The Yard was out for blood. With average luck, he reflected, they ought to make a rare killing.
He and Quirk were in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross Station by now. So far the American had not given the slightest sign that he was aware of what was going on, though that didn't signify much. It was just how one expected a crook to behave if he was likely to play any monkey tricks.
Quirk climbed on a bus and rode along the Strand, oblivious to other passengers, one of whom, wearing a soft felt hat, got inside and sat near the doorway.
Opposite the Daily Telegraph office the American jumped easily down to the road while the vehicle was moving, and turned into Wine Office Court. Carruthers reached the entrance to that narrow passage in time to see his man strolling along at a leisurely pace.
By chance there was nobody else in the court and the detective, rather than make his proximity obvious, allowed Quirk to get thirty or forty feet ahead. There is a labyrinth of narrow old passages there, and Carruthers, knowing the area well, was keyed up for sudden manœuvres on the part of the American.
Without looking round, Joe Quirk turned down Gunpowder Alley. The detective hurried forward and peeped round the corner. Then frowned. There was nobody in sight. Quirk must have moved with amazing speed.
Carruthers raced down the short length of Gunpowder Alley and at the bottom stared right and left along Shoe Lane. He could see nobody even remotely resembling his quarry, and, realizing that he had been tricked, swore picturesquely.
For a space the detective stood at the nearest corner watching, but while his back was momentarily turned Quirk emerged from a friendly doorway, and under cover of a large van that was being trundled along Shoe Lane, he made his way back to Fleet Street. There he raised a finger to a taxi and was soon bowling westward.
The taxi driver was a grumpy soul, so accustomed to odd "fares" that if a pink elephant had signalled him to stop and said "Pish!" his instinct would have been to pull the flag down and reply "Where to?" All things in his cab were just "fares."
But before he reached the Law Courts now that hard-bitten old fellow glanced over his shoulder twice.
"'Strewth!" he muttered, "'e'll laugh 'is blinkin' 'ead off in a minute!"
Then, because nobody could resist the temptation when Joe Quirk really got going, that disgruntled Jehu permitted his face to develop the ghost of a smile for the space of ten seconds. And this was in the nature of a record for him.
On the same day, a police constable named Blenkinsop, who usually earned his pay by preserving law and order in an out-of-the-way corner of London, arrived at Scotland Yard in a slightly dubious frame of mind.
He had been told there was a spot of promotion that might be earned, that he had been selected because of a vague resemblance between him and some mysterious person whose name had not been mentioned, and assured that if it all ended in a funeral the obsequies would be conducted with full ceremony.
When he entered Chief Inspector Briant's room he saw there a theatrical-looking person who was clutching an attaché case in one hand, at the same time regarding Blenkinsop critically through wobbling pince-nez.
"Now, my lad," Briant began, "after Mr. Smithers here has dolled you up, all you've got to do to-day is to sit tight and keep your mouth shut whatever happens. You think he'll do, Mr. Smithers?"
"Well, so far I've only seen the other man's photograph," replied the owner of the pince-nez, "but by the time I've got him fixed up he won't be so bad."
Feeling somewhat like an elderly lamb preparing for the slaughter, P.C. Blenkinsop stood there stiff and erect while Smithers peered at him from various angles as if he were a freak exhibit.
Briant glanced at his watch. He was popularly supposed to be devoid of either feelings or nerves, but there was a tinge of anxiety in his expression.
"Come on. I'll take you myself," he said, pushing his chair away. A while afterwards they arrived at the back entrance of a house in Notting Hill Gate and were ushered into the presence of the Maharajah of Mydarah.
The pince-nez of Mr. Smithers wobbled as he scrutinized first the handsome, slightly tinted features of the Eastern potentate and then those of P.C. Blenkinsop.
"Yes, I think I can make a good job of him," observed Smithers, putting down his attaché case and rubbing his hands together.
"With your Highness's permission," said Briant, "I'll get back to the Yard."
Wondering why Scotland Yard should want to create a duplicate of this distinguished foreigner, Smithers placed Blenkinsop in a chair near the window, produced his make-up outfit, and carefully selected a stick of grease paint.
"Blenkinsop," Smithers heard the Chief Inspector add, "you'll remain here after he's made you up. Later on you'll get your instructions. Mr. Smithers, put your best into this, please."
"There's nothing more for me to do, Mr. Briant, after I've finished his Highness—I mean the other his Highness?"
"No, you can go then. But not one word to a soul outside, understand."
The Maharajah grew bored after watching Smithers at work for a few moments, and strolled out of the room, but returned occasionally to watch the process of turning a policeman into a maharajah. When Blenkinsop's face was finally adorned with a beard and moustache, a turban was wound around his head and he was provided with suitable clothing, the artist regarded his own handiwork with pride which was not unjustifiable. He stood back as one who had painted a picture, adding a deft touch here and there; then replaced his paraphernalia in the attaché case, and left P.C. Blenkinsop bewildered in his artificial glory.
It was some hours before Briant reappeared. There was no amusement in his face as he stood before the mock maharajah. Briant's manner was more abrupt than ever. For once excitement had got hold of him. There was nothing of play acting about all this so far as he was concerned. It was a deadly serious business. Big things hung on a slender hair and nobody knew when it might break.
"I'd better explain, Blenkinsop," he said. "There's the possibility that we might make some important arrests to-day; perhaps the Spider himself. We've got a sporting chance, anyway. The Maharajah of Mydarah intended to travel down to Southampton this afternoon with enough jewellery to fill a bucket. We've persuaded him to change his plans, because there may be some attempt to rob him before his ship sails to-night. The Maharajah will go down to Southampton by train, leaving Waterloo at three-thirty and taking the jewellery with him.
"Meanwhile you will travel from here towards Southampton in the Maharajah's car, taking with you a similar case to that in which the jewels are kept. This is what his Highness had originally planned to do. The chauffeur, a man named Bates, is English and has worked for the Maharajah here and in India for years. Whether he has been got at or not we don't know, but if you keep your mouth shut the odds are that he won't know you're a fake. Anyway, two trustworthy members of his Highness's suite will travel with you in the car, to make the whole thing look more real.
"As you know, the Spider is as tricky as a trainload of monkeys, and there's no guessing at what point he'll try to pull this thing off. My guess is that it will be on the quay at Southampton or on board the ship itself, but the Maharajah's car, with you inside, may be held up on the way from London. Don't mention it to anyone, but I don't like that chauffeur Bates. He may be as big a fool as he looks but it hardly seems possible. Anyway a man like the Spider could twist him round his little finger.
"From the moment you leave this house there will be two Flying Squad cars in attendance though the idea is to keep that a secret. In other words we want the thieves to make an attack on the dummy maharajah with his dummy jewel case."
"I see, sir," observed Blenkinsop. "I'm there to be shot at, like." A wonderfully interesting life police work provided sometimes!
"If anything of the sort happens," said Briant, "just forget that you're a policeman until we arrive on the spot. If they smell a rat they'll be off like a rocket. Hang on to the dummy jewel case and delay things a bit. That's all your job consists of. Now you understand thoroughly?"
"Yes, sir," replied Blenkinsop stolidly. It wasn't altogether going to be jam for him, but if the capture of the Spider was afoot, now he knew what they were talking about when a spot of promotion had been mentioned. Well, it looked as though he'd earn it.
"All right," said Briant curtly. "Carry on. The car's waiting at the door. In a quarter of an hour exactly walk straight out of the front entrance of this place as if you'd been a maharajah all your life."
Then Briant left the house by the back door, and in a secluded street near by climbed into a covered vehicle which had the appearance of a delivery van, driven by a somewhat untidy workman with a cigarette stuck behind his ear, but which in reality was a camouflaged racing car. Moving off, it passed another vehicle that had the appearance of a commercial traveller's brougham. In it were secreted several keen Yard men, one of whom was taking a wireless message.
"Briant says we're to stay here for about another ten minutes," he explained.
Directly on time P.C. Blenkinsop descended the steps of the Maharajah's beautiful home in Notting Hill Gate, keeping an apparently anxious eye on one particular item of his luggage. The fake maharajah avoided the chauffeur's eyes and took his place in the car. Two turbaned Mohammedans followed him and then a quaint little procession picked its way through the traffic of London, heading for the open road just as the sun began to settle toward the western horizon.
Bates, the chauffeur, who looked a fool, led the way. Never quite near, but never entirely out of sight, followed the covered delivery van whose untidy-looking driver now had half a cigarette dangling from his lip, but whose alert eyes were dancing with suppressed excitement.
Some distance in the rear came the vehicle which looked like a commercial traveller's brougham. The driver of that "hush-hush" car steered according to instructions which were called out to him by one of his passengers who had a pair of telephone receivers clipped to his ears.
At a street corner the brougham was held up by traffic for a while. By pressing a switch the driver could have caused the policeman on point duty to clear a way through that block of slow-moving vehicles in an incredibly short time. But to do so would have revealed the fact that his outfit was not quite what it appeared to be. And the moment for action had not yet arrived. So he waited his turn and in due course jogged on. Presently the three cars were racing on through the open country.
The real Maharajah, by now somewhat impressed by these precautions to guard his valuable property, had made arrangements to arrive at Waterloo Station as unostentatiously as it is possible for a maharajah to arrive anywhere.
Both Colonel Venables and Chief Inspector Briant had painstakingly explained how, even in broad daylight, "smash and grab" affairs were carried out in such places as Bond Street and Piccadilly, and his Highness was conscious of a sense of relief in the knowledge that the strong arm of Scotland Yard lay between him and robbery.
His diamonds and pearls—he especially valued those pearls which had adorned women of the Brentshire family for generations and were destined, he hoped, to rest on the neck of a woman still more worthy of their charm—were fully insured, but money would never be adequate compensation if that jewellery were stolen.
It was just after three o'clock when the Maharajah's entourage was shown to the reserved Pullman which was to convey the party to Southampton. The only person who had not yet arrived was the Maharajah himself.
Ali Khan, Secretary of State at Mydarah, stood near the door on the platform with only an occasional twinge of nervousness showing in those slender brown fingers which held his cigarette. He guessed rightly that a hatchet-faced individual in a hard felt hat who stood near the door was a limb of Scotland Yard. A wonderful institution, Ali Khan reflected, which enabled one to steer through the pitfalls of this great London safely with one's belongings. All the same, he was beginning to appreciate the fact that they would be conscious of still greater safety when those jewels were securely locked up in the palace at far-off Mydarah where their own soldiers would guard them amongst their own people.
Ali Khan glanced at his watch. Ten minutes past three. It was about time for the Maharajah to arrive. Acting on the advice of those serious-minded Scotland Yard folk who knew London and its ways so much better than he did, his Highness had agreed to take the utmost care.
Ali Khan looked at his watch again. Less than a quarter of an hour before the train was due to start! The tinted Secretary of State supposed it was all right, but the Maharajah was evidently cutting the thing rather fine. He could, of course, go down to Southampton by special train if he missed this one, but an atmosphere of uneasiness began to exist not only in that Pullman. Two other detectives stationed a little way down the platform began to glance anxiously at the big station clock.
Twenty-five minutes past three!
The hatchet-faced individual approached the Pullman and thrust his head in the door with the air of one committing sacrilege.
"'Scuse me, but might I ask if there's been any change of plans?"
"There will be some changes at Scotland Yard if the Maharajah misses this train," replied Ali Khan in a smooth voice which was laden with venom, as he stepped out and glanced along the platform, then at the inexorable clock.
Two minutes! One! The train doors were banging. Swiftly Ali Khan rushed over to the guard who was standing ready to give the starting signal.
"Will you please wait for a little while? It is veree important."
The guard glanced unmoved at the coloured face. Keep the boat train back! That railway official didn't even smile, but put a whistle to his lips and issued a shrill blast.
Then as the train moved he swung on to it and stood there staring back at the man who had made such a peculiar request. One of that reserved Pullman crowd who were evidently on their way back to India. What did they think this was? a penny bus? He might have held her back on his own responsibility for about a minute for the King or the Prince of Wales in an emergency, and he wasn't quite sure how he'd stand even in a case like that.
The guard drew his head in and the boat train slid away, leaving on the platform one aghast Secretary of State, several of the Maharajah's satellites chattering furiously in an alien tongue, and a little collection of Scotland Yard detectives who simultaneously arrived at the same conclusion.
It was expressed adequately by the hatchet-faced man in a hard felt hat who, quite unaware of what he was doing, mumbled aloud:
"Blime! Now someone's going to get it in the neck!"
At that moment Scotland Yard's hush-hush cars, with the Flying Squad hidden within, were careering along at forty miles an hour over the smooth country roads toward Southampton, never too near, yet never far from that dancing little red light ahead which marked the progress of the Maharajah's expensive limousine.
Once or twice when some monster roared past with glaring headlights, Chief Inspector Briant's interest quickened. The attack, if it came at all, would probably be from road pirates in a vehicle of that sort.
Guildford had been left far behind and the little procession was rushing through Hampshire when the man with ear phones clipped to his head rasped out an imperative message that had darted from headquarters in London.
With his mind's eye fixed on a pretty colleen whom he had left behind at Killarney only six short months ago when he came to join the Metropolitan Police, Constable Maloney was patrolling Vesey Street, just off Notting Hill Gate, when his material eye fell on a taxicab that was ticking its heart out at the side of the road. And he took as much notice of the thing as if it had been any one of all the other taxis in London.
Sure it was a fine job that he'd tumbled into, reflected P.C. Maloney. In another six months, wid a pinch of luck, he'd have Noreen over from Ireland, and they would be married. Everything was all plain sailing at last. On the whole it was a very pleasant, peaceful world to live in.
"Hi, mister! Murder! Murder!"
Constable Maloney, who had strolled past the taxi, swung around as if a snake had bitten him.
On the edge of the pavement there was a tousle-headed boy gesticulating wildly, in an emotional ecstasy, with one dirty hand pointed at the cab.
The very existence of the lady in Killarney was instantly forgotten as Maloney took a hasty step nearer.
"Look at 'em, mister!" implored the gamin, with ghoulish delight. "Two of 'em—no, there's three! All dead!" This was the most thrilling moment he had experienced in his entire fourteen years.
Maloney blinked at the sight within the taxi, and he swallowed hard. Then professional training began to work. He opened the door, but the next moment fell back before a blast of fumes that rushed from the cab.
A man lay huddled in one corner, arms hanging down helplessly. A second passenger lay sprawling on the seat, while a third, who wore a turban and was evidently a native of India, had crumpled up into a heap on the floor of the cab.
With that vivid suggestion of a triple murder still ringing in his ears, Maloney blew his whistle and then shrewdly grasped the arm of the overjoyed boy, who seemed to know more about the affair up to now than anyone else.
"Who's done this?" he demanded.
For the fraction of a second the gamin crashed from his seventh heaven.
"Blime, I didn't, mister," he protested while that firm hand gripped him, with swift fear of an untimely end at the gallows.
Maloney thrust the boy aside and putting powerful arms around one of the cab's occupants lifted him bodily on to the pavement just as two other policemen came, dashing up.
"What's wrong?" he heard one of them inquire.
"Holy saints alive!" muttered Maloney, diving to the rescue of the second victim. "Sure it's the divvle himself that's just gone down the street, but," he added a moment later, noticing that all three men out of the cab were still breathing, "he was in too much of a hurry to finish the job. Ring up the ambulance, quick!"
In the fresh air the victims began to show signs of recovering consciousness, and a policeman kneeling over one of them uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"Why, this is Inspector Nettlestone of the Yard!" he declared, and after scrutinizing the features of the others went on, "and that's another Yard man. There'll be hell to pay about this business. How did it happen, Maloney?"
"I don't know any more about it than you do," replied the Irishman. "I just found the cab full of 'em, like that."
"Have you got the driver of the cab?"
Maloney, who had so quickly changed his mind about this being a pleasant, peaceful world, pushed his way through the rapidly gathering crowd, on the outskirts of which the unattended taxi was still ticking up the fare, but there was nobody in sight who bore the slightest outward resemblance to a cab driver. The small boy, moreover, having had more than his fill of entertainment, had retired.
"Did anyone see what happened here?" Maloney demanded of the gaping crowd.
"I heard that boy yell out 'murder!' but they ain't dead, are they, mister?" was the only reply he got.
Maloney suddenly felt that the honour of the force had settled completely upon his young shoulders.
"It's the taxi man I want," he said. "Did you see him? Where's he gone?"
"'Opped it, I reckon," replied his informant helpfully just as several other policemen and a sergeant arrived.
With a few snappy questions the latter learned all that was known, glanced quickly at the victims, and turned his attention to the cab.
"Gas!" he muttered, sniffing inside the vehicle, then lifted the seat. Beneath it, wedged snugly in the folds of a rug, lay a metal container to the end of which a valve was fixed. Attached to this was a flexible rubber tube which, the sergeant found, led under the carpet of the floor to the driver's seat. There, by the simple process of pressing a bulb, it was possible to turn an innocuous-looking taxi into a lethal chamber on wheels.
The clanging of an ambulance came along the street. In view of his discovery the sergeant returned to the three victims, hoping to get some sort of a statement out of them, but they were in no condition to elucidate matters. Leaning over the semi-conscious Inspector Nettlestone while the stretchers were being lifted down, he asked one question.
"Can you tell me anything about what happened, sir?"
The Yard inspector was gasping for breath now, and it almost seemed as if he had not heard. Then it became obvious that he had.
"Jewels, you fool!" he managed to utter, after which he closed his eyes and apparently took no further interest in the proceedings.
As the ambulance was driven away and the crowd began to melt, it was only a sense of dignity which prevented the sergeant from tilting his helmet back and scratching his head.
"Jewels, you fool!" meant so little and yet such a lot.
Three men, two of whom were well-known detectives, found near enough to death to be comfortable in a taxi the like of which he had not seen during twenty years' experience of police work, and not even the taxi driver handy to suggest what construction could be placed on that mystic though biting phrase of Mr. Nettlestone's! At least it was a conundrum.
Taking out a notebook, he entered therein the number of the cab.
"Two of you stand by here while I ring up the station," he said to the uniformed men. "You others, get back to your beat."
The wireless message which reached Chief Inspector Briant in his hush-hush car during its career through Hampshire caused him to snort. The text of it ran:
Return to headquarters immediately. The Maharajah's jewels have already been stolen here in London.
And this after such elaborate precautions had been taken to protect his Highnesses property!
Within a minute or two the driver of the hush-hush car had closed in on the limousine and caused it to stop.
"What d'you want?" demanded Bates, the chauffeur.
But Briant was in no mood to enter into elaborate explanations. Bates heard gruff voices, an abrupt order with which the Maharajah complied uncomplainingly, then saw the man whom he believed to be his august master whisked away in a disreputable-looking delivery van. He gaped after it for a moment and turned to the two members of the Maharajah's suite who remained in the car, wondering whether he ought to have seized a heavy spanner and, if necessary, gone down fighting.
"Drive on to Southampton," said one of his passengers.
The chauffeur, not in the least understanding what it was all about, gave a slight shrug of the shoulders and drove on. Three years in the service of an Eastern potentate had taught him that many strange things may happen.
Briant meanwhile was well on his way back to London and found that beneath the eternal unruffled calmness of Scotland Yard an undercurrent of excitement was at work. The India Office had kicked the Home Office. The Home Office had kicked those who sit in high places at the Yard, and they in turn were venting their troubles on lesser fry. Even the doorkeeper studying "form" in the Turf Guide felt the echoes of those impacts.
But besides this there was gall and wormwood for the Yard in the reflection that the very criminal whom they had set out to capture had turned the tables on them.
Briant was privileged to spend about three minutes with the distinguished Chief Constable, and what Sir Hector Froud managed to concentrate into words during that brief period was as acid as it was memorable. Briant came out of the room with a white face, set lips, and the explosive qualities of a ten-inch shell.
His first lightning rush was to the hospital where the three victims of the cab outrage lay. Until now the doctors had declined to permit anything in the nature of an interview.
Inspector Nettlestone managed to give a concise account of the affair, but what he had to say about maharajahs in general and his Highness of Mydarah in particular was somewhat trying even to the ear of Briant. As Nettlestone's voice rose and fell some of his phrases drifted across the ward to the ears of a very unhappy potentate sprawling in a commoner's cot, with a head that felt as though it had been cleaved with an ax, and a sense of utter desolation about his jewels.
"We had it all planned, as you know," Nettlestone began. "The Maharajah was to call at the bank personally for the stuff and we two were to accompany him from there to Waterloo in one of his own cars driven by one of his own men. The whole thing was fool proof, short of an actual hold-up in the main street with machine guns or something equally effective.
"Well, Inspector Wade and I arrived at the bank and there we found his nibs had varied one detail of the plan without mentioning it to us. As a matter of fact he'd got into a horrible funk, I could see, and by that time hardly knew what he was doing.
"His bright notion was that it might be too conspicuous to use his own car so he wished to go to Waterloo in an ordinary taxi instead.
"There was nothing wrong about that in a way, and he was footing the bill, so Wade and I agreed at once, especially as there wasn't any too much time. His blinkin' Highness accepted delivery of the jewel case from the bank and as we walked out one at each side of him he was carrying it.
"I signalled to a taxi on a cab rank just in front of the bank. The driver had the bonnet up at the time and had apparently been tinkering with the engine, but as we came out of the bank he slammed the bonnet down and pulled over to the curb.
"It never occurred to me at the time because I was thinking about the danger of anyone snatching that case out of the Maharajah's hands on the footpath, but it's as plain as daylight now that the driver had kept on tinkering with the engine, waiting for the very thing that happened. Whether he knew it was going to happen or not I'm not sure, but I fancy that was just one of an elaborate series of plans that had been made to secure the jewellery. If this isn't the Spider's work I give it up."
Briant's eyes glittered.
"Sir Hector, I gather," he said, "holds that view. He also holds views concerning me, and considering that I'm talking to a sick man it wouldn't be fair just now to repeat all that he said about you. Was it the Spider himself, do you suppose, who was driving the taxi?"
"How the hell do I know?" retorted Inspector Nettlestone, pressing a hand to his aching forehead.
"What kind of a chap was he?"
"Just a typical elderly London taximan," replied Nettlestone. "I remember he was somewhat tall and inclined to stoop, with heavy eyebrows and a gray beard and moustache. He had rather a gruff voice, but not more so than most cab drivers. Possibly he was a regular taximan specially dragged into this racket."
Briant's face twitched.
"One of the things on which Sir Hector laid particular emphasis," he put in, "was the fact that two of the blacksmiths—I will not repeat the adjective which he placed before the word 'blacksmiths'—whom he had hitherto regarded as detectives of a sort had allowed the Maharajah under their care to enter a vehicle which even an infant in arms might have seen was a fake. Those were his exact words, though I fancy he may have exaggerated in the heat of the moment so far as the baby in arms was concerned. He certainly was not quite calm."
"How do you mean fake?" asked Nettlestone.
"I understand it is an old cab which had probably been bought for some such occasion," said Briant. "The license is a forgery and the number plates were not issued to that cab. Also, though perhaps I ought not to rub it in just now, Sir Hector made a few comments on the fact that though he didn't expect too high a grade of intelligence on the part of his men he had a preference for those who could know a genuine cabdriver from a dolled-up crook."
Nettlestone lay there grinding his teeth for a moment.
"Briant, tell me, do you think that taximan was the Spider?"
"It's an even bet that it was one of his gang and I shouldn't be a bit surprised if it was the Spider himself. By all accounts he has a positive genius for altering his appearance. Anyway, you got into the darned taxi. Go ahead."
Nettlestone groaned.
"We did. I asked the man to go to Waterloo and I remember telling him to drive carefully. That must have been the tit-bit of the whole performance for him.
"The windows of the cab were closed; it was a cold afternoon. We hadn't gone more than ten yards before I heard a peculiar hissing sound, as if a tire had punctured in where we were sitting. And then almost instantly I began to feel lifeless and couldn't breathe properly.
"Before I lost consciousness I knew we were being gassed and all I wanted was to get my fingers on the throat of the man I'd asked to drive so carefully. But I couldn't move a finger. I don't know what gas the crook used but he chose it well."
"I'm told it was probably fluorine or something very similar," put in Briant. "None of you would have lived long bottled up in that atmosphere."
The contents bill of an evening newspaper caught Briant's eye as he left the hospital. It read:
MYSTERY
OF TWO
MAHARAJAHS
There was something about that which he did not like. Secrets had been known to leak out of Scotland Yard but this had been guarded with especial care. He thrust a penny into the newsboy's hand and opened the paper under a street lamp.
The taxi outrage was the one prominent thing on the front page, displayed with great enthusiasm. A vivid account was given of the dramatic incident in Pembridge Gardens.
This is one of the most remarkable outrages that has ever occurred in the streets of London [the journal continued].
Although the police are observing the utmost reticence concerning certain phases of the affair, it is admitted that the wonderful collection of diamonds and pearls which the Maharajah of Mydarah was taking back to India must have been snatched out of the cab as soon as its occupants became unconscious.
Why these detectives chose to travel with the Maharajah and a minor king's ransom in an ordinary taxicab, Scotland Yard has not yet explained, but they doubtless have some excellent reason, for both Inspector Nettlestone and Inspector Wade are counted amongst the cleverest of the C.I.D. staff, and the utmost indignation must be felt on their behalf by all their colleagues, from Sir Hector Froud, the head of the Yard, downwards.
A guttural sound escaped from the back of Briant's throat. He folded the paper over and scanned the remainder of the leaded column.
An extraordinary complication of the affair, and one which plunges it into still more profound mystery is provided by our Wallington (Hampshire) correspondent who sends the following amazing story.
A large motor car pulled up in that village this evening and the chauffeur entered the police station in a state of considerable agitation.
Giving his name as Herbert Bates, he stated that he left the Maharajah's house this afternoon in Notting Hill Gate with instructions to drive to Southampton. His Highness entered the car with two of his suite.
Bates drove for nearly two hours and was in the neighbourhood of Collingwood, travelling at a considerable speed, when he was overtaken by a vehicle which resembled an ordinary delivery van. It was manœuvred so that it blocked the road and caused him to stop.
According to the statement of Bates, a very rough-looking character jumped hurriedly out of the delivery van, opened the door of the limousine, and in a most unseemly manner ordered the Maharajah to get out.
For the second time that guttural sound was emitted by Briant. In order to hurry matters it was he personally who had leaped out of the hush-hush car and authorized Blenkinsop to return to London. The Inspector was growing a little red at the wattles as he gave the paper a shake and read on.
Evidently afraid of personal violence, as there were several men in the delivery van, the Maharajah obeyed, whereupon he was promptly hustled into the other vehicle which swung around and drove away at great speed.
The chauffeur Bates, who says he served in the Great War for four years, was on the point of attacking these ruffians in defence of his master when the Maharajah's two companions coolly ordered him to drive on as if nothing had happened.
Greatly perplexed, he did so, but he began to form the gravest suspicions. To his knowledge the Maharajah always made a point of carrying his valuable jewellery with him and on reaching Wallington he decided to take the bull by the horns, so reported to the police that the Maharajah had been kidnapped.
His opinion, he stated, was that the two Mohammedans accompanying the Maharajah were in league with the gang of roughs in the delivery van, and his story was so circumstantial that Sergeant Bullfinch, to whom he explained the whole matter, immediately detained them.
Amongst the luggage in the car was that which Bates believed to be the jewel case, because the Maharajah had watched over it with the utmost care when it was put into the vehicle at Notting Hill Gate.
The odd thing is that when Sergeant Bullfinch examined this case he found it was empty, and this fact seemed to confirm the theory of Bates that not only had the Maharajah been kidnapped but that his jewellery had also been hastily abstracted from the car.
One of the Mohammedans, who declared that he held high office under the Maharajah's rule, made an explanation which has not been revealed to the press, but which caused the Wallington sergeant to telephone immediately to Scotland Yard.
What the Yard replied is another thing which has been kept rigidly concealed, but the effect of it was that Sergeant Bullfinch at once intimated to the Mohammedans that they were at liberty to proceed on their journey.
They did so, but to the astonishment of Bates one of them leaped to the steering wheel and drove off, leaving him at Wallingford.
We confess that up to the time of going to press we, like Bates, are entirely perplexed, for at the hour when one Maharajah of Mydarah was being hustled unceremoniously into a disreputable-looking delivery van down in Hampshire, another Maharajah of Mydarah was lying unconscious in London, the victim of a gas outrage. Is there some extraordinary blunder on the part of Scotland Yard?
Under that street lamp Chief Inspector Briant crushed the newspaper between his hands into a ball and pitched it into the gutter.
As a newspaper man specializing in crime Andy Collinson was not primarily concerned, like Scotland Yard, with hunting murderers and fetching them to the gallows. His job was to write articles which would interest the two million readers of the Daily Budget.
If he could inspire a thrill in the good folk of Putney and Poplar or cause a bishop or a pickpocket to drop a tear into the matutinal egg, the greater part of his task was achieved. Though naturally it was a still greater achievement if, in bringing about either of those emotional crises, he incidentally led the way for the police to make an arrest or answered some riddle of the underworld which had intrigued the British public.
Throughout that week while the Yard men had wrestled untiringly with the intricate clues and hints of clues concerning the murder of Silas Ismay and the attempted murder of Enid Mulholland, Andy had regarded the mysterious disappearance of Sally Marsh and Oliver Foss as the most interesting themes for investigation.
Even the discovery of the dead body of either of those two would stir Putney and Poplar but such a discovery would also be of immense help to the Yard because any clue, even concerning the manner of their death, might have an important sequel.
But so far as Sally Marsh was concerned the police had been unable to form any sound theory or track her movements a single yard. She had gone out of the office into the swirling multitude in Shaftesbury Avenue, and from that moment had vanished utterly. Columns had been written in the daily press by journalists with fertile imaginations suggesting this or that explanation of the girl's continued absence, but the unalterable fact remained that nobody had seen her since about eleven o'clock last Wednesday morning when she left the office of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate and not a soul could advance a practical suggestion for the task of finding her. Meanwhile three days had elapsed.
The problem of looking for Sally Marsh, therefore, was a difficult one, and that of hunting Oliver Foss was not much better, for all England had rung with his name in vain, but the general fear by now was that Sally had been murdered. On the other hand the known facts indicated that Foss was a fugitive from justice and the spotlight of public attention had never for an instant been deflected from that Australian.
A warrant had finally been issued for his arrest on the strength of Enid Mulholland's shorthand notes. A description of him had been circulated throughout the British Isles, and the police of other countries were on the look-out for him.
The consensus of opinion had been expressed with praiseworthy discretion by the writer of an editorial article in the Morning Echo who said:
Whatever crime he may or may not have committed, and whether his ultimate fate is to be acquitted or sentenced before a judge and jury, one cannot refrain from hoping that if ever Oliver Foss is arrested he may be able to throw some light on the problem of Sally Marsh.
Very properly the law of this country does not permit one to condemn a man in print before he has been found guilty in the proper tribunal. Foss has not come forward in spite of the fact that the utmost publicity has been given to the case, but one must not lose sight of the possibility that, like Silas Ismay, he may have been brutally murdered.
Even though he be entirely innocent, it is felt that if he were found alive his assistance would be of paramount importance, for it is but logical to suppose now that there is some connecting link between his disappearance and the many inexplicable events, some of them deeply tragic, which have been associated in one way and another with the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate this week.
More crudely expressed, the view of Andy Collinson was that Oliver Foss, having threatened to murder Ismay, had probably done so. There was nothing whatever to show that he was innocent, and there were at least two facts which suggested that he was guilty, namely, his threat and his subsequent disappearance. Whether he had also strangled Enid Mulholland's brother was a problem, but to Andy it seemed likely that with the capture of Foss the key might be found to the whole of these mysteries.
And for that reason Andy had remained in York, but so far had drawn blank. The hard-headed northern police there, in common with most people, believed Foss to be guilty, and cases of less importance in that city had been sidetracked so that every available detective could help in the hunt.
On a search warrant his possessions had been ransacked, but this had revealed nothing material, and when inquiries were made at his bank an official there frigidly stated that no checks had been drawn by Oliver Foss that week nor had they any idea where he might be found.
It was some hours before the memorable adventure of the Maharajah of Mydarah with his valuables in the London taxi that Andy Collinson came down to breakfast at the Royal Hotel in York and, casting his eyes on the letter rack, observed a buff-coloured envelope addressed to him.
He held it in his fingers for a few delicious seconds, wondering whether it was a reply to that long cable which he had sent to his friend on the Sydney Daily Times. That had been an arrow shot more or less at random, and yet it had seemed promising.
Then suddenly Andy slit the thing open and read:
Henrietta Foss, mother of Oliver, known here as Pearlie Foss, was a widow when she left Sydney five years ago. Understand that she subsequently married a London rubber merchant named Michael Morgan Verrinder who died there last year. Henrietta's address not known here. Cheerio. How's things? CARTWRIGHT.
Andy read it all through again, filled his pipe, lighted it, then sank into a chair to do a little careful thinking.
"Good old Bob Cartwright!" he muttered. "But what has he handed me? A lemon?"
In a way this message brought the crime investigator very little nearer his real object, which was to get an interview with the mother of Oliver Foss on the subject of that elusive offspring of hers.
Andy's first reaction on perusing the cable had been one of intense disappointment, but a few moments later he began to brighten. Henrietta was no longer Mrs. Foss, and even her second husband was defunct, but undoubtedly she remained Mrs. Michael Morgan Verrinder, relict of a gentleman of that name who had once dealt in rubber, unless remarrying had become a regular habit of hers.
Yes, the Budget crime expert felt distinctly better. In fact when he came to think of it this left only one or two hurdles to negotiate and the thing was as good as done. It wasn't as if Henrietta had mated the second time with someone whose undistinctive name was John Jones, of no occupation. The situation would have been different then, but as it stood there was not much in this little riddle that should tax the resources of a newspaper man hot on the scent.
Andy looked up the next train to London, ate his breakfast, and walked to the station.
Before boarding the train, however, he sent the following wire to the news editor of the Budget.
Am returning immediately. Meanwhile please put someone on to ascertaining the present address of Mrs. Verrinder, widow of the late Michael Morgan Verrinder, a London rubber merchant. COLLINSON.
Then with that exhilaration which fills a good journalist when he senses an excellent story, he found a corner seat in a railway carriage and smoked his pipe.
It was already late afternoon when Andy stood in front of a house in London and took from his waistcoat pocket a slip of paper which had been handed to him by the news editor on his arrival at the office of the Budget.
"Marley Lodge, Addison Road, Clapham Road," he read. This was not the house where the late rubber merchant had ceased his earthly troubles a year ago. His widow had changed her home since then. Marley Lodge was one of those severe stone abominations that stand for dull respectability in suburbia, with a small garden in which evergreens hold up a valiant head in spite of their environment.
Andy opened the gate, walked up the path and rang the bell. Nothing happened, so he rang it again, and then the door was opened by a middle-aged woman who had a touch of frost in her demeanor.
"I wish to speak to Mrs. Verrinder," said Andy.
"That is my name," she answered tonelessly, but about her there was the subtle air of a woman who, though crushed, could still face the world. Of a sudden the man disliked his task.
"I should like to speak to you—about your son," he said.
Her eyes held Andy. There was something unusual about them. They were of deep violet and until now had lacked lustre. The woman was under admirable control but for those eyes. In them Andy read fight—and fear.
There came the barest quiver of her lips and then:
"Who are you?"
"My name is Collinson. I am a newspaper man."
There was a quick flash of relief in those expressive eyes of hers. Obviously she had anticipated something worse than a journalist.
"What do you want?"
"I am sorry to bother you," he said, "but may I ask when you last saw Oliver Foss?"
"It is some time since," was her answer.
"You know there is a warrant out for his arrest on a charge of murder?"
The woman's fingers tightened and a gray hue crept into her cheeks.
"So I understand. You must realize that to a mother this is a terribly painful conversation."
"I should not be here now," said Andy, "only you have omitted to notify the police that you are his mother."
"You think it necessary for a woman to aid the police in the apprehension of her son on—on that kind of charge?"
"By no means," said Andy. "The instinct of a mother is always to protect her children, is it not?" He was watching those tell-tale eyes and caught the quick reaction of renewed fear.
"My son is innocent," she said. "Of that I am sure."
"You mean he denies committing the crime?" asked Andy.
"I know that if I asked him he would tell me he is innocent," she parried.
"Your son has only to prove that he was not on that train and he would have nothing to fear."
"Yes, but—but I know nothing about it."
Andy bit on to his lip.
"Mrs. Verrinder, it so happens that the police are not yet even aware of the fact that the mother of Oliver Foss is in London. But when they do learn of it I suppose you know what they will at once ask you?"
"I can tell them nothing," she answered with a growing undercurrent of defiance.
"They will assuredly ask you, as I did, when you last saw Oliver Foss."
The woman's expression hardened.
"I have answered you," she replied coldly.
"But," said Andy, "the answer you gave me will not satisfy the men from Scotland Yard. Your words were, 'It is some time since.' That means nothing."
"It is the truth," she said.
Again Andy bit on his lip.
"You will be asked to state precisely how many weeks—or days—or hours it is since you saw Oliver."
"Yes, I expect they will ask me that," she replied in her old colourless tone. "And if they come I shall tell them. I have not seen Oliver since the beginning of last month. That was about five weeks ago."
What a grim business was murder, reflected Andy. Here was a woman manifestly prepared to lie her way through hell itself if necessary to save her son's neck. Yet with all the courage in the world she was merely a supremely pathetic figure, rather simple, unskilled in the art of telling untruths, and utterly unconvincing. The Yard officials would see through her in the first instant.
"Do you authorize me, then," said Andy, "to go back to my newspaper and print the statement that Oliver Foss came here to see his mother five weeks ago but that she has not set eyes on him since the night when Silas Ismay was murdered on the midnight mail?"
The alarm in her face quickened.
"I don't want you to say anything about it in the paper."
"But sooner or later the police are bound to track you down as his mother. They are making the most searching inquiries in connection with this case and you can take it from me they will not stop."
The woman was now like some hunted creature with her back to the wall.
"Before they come here," she replied, "they may arrest the real murderer."
This, then, was obviously her one real hope, the thing to make sure of which she would willingly sacrifice her life. And one could not escape the inference. But apart from that, a dairy boy delivering at that house had already artlessly admitted to Andy when questioned that this woman who lived alone had been taking twice her usual supply of milk all the week, "for a stray cat," as she had carefully explained. A stray cat! Mothers could be wonderful creatures, but murder was a terrible thing.
He left the woman with a vision of her eloquent eyes still before him. She was in torture. There were times when Andy Collinson found his work joyless, leaving an acrid flavour. And this was one of them.
A stray cat! And a mother who would rather die ten times than tell the truth about one thing.
Andy looked about for the nearest telephone. Twice since his return to London he had tried to get in touch with Silver and each time had been abruptly told over the wire that the Inspector was out. Now, on getting through to the Yard he found himself speaking direct to the Chief Constable.
"Very well, Sir Hector," said Andy, "this should be Silver's pigeon really, but as he hasn't come back yet I'd better explain to you."
Four minutes later a car, temporarily held up by a traffic block at the Plough, Clapham, suddenly shot forward, although the signal was against it.
The point duty officer, swinging around, only waved it on, for a sign had blazed up on its wind screen—the sign of the Flying Squad in full cry. The wireless operator in that vehicle had just received an urgent message from Sir Hector Froud.
Mr. Rosenbaum, who wore gold-rimmed glasses, spats, and a permanent smile, stood twiddling a charm attached to his massive watch chain, bright little eyes fixed on a suit of clothes which lay on the counter.
"Don't believe anything that nobody tells you in business, Isaac," he had frequently admonished his son, "and keep in with the police even if it chokes you."
Memory of his own advice came echoing back upon him now. There is more in the science of making money under the sign of the three balls than meets the naked eye, and Mr. Rosenbaum was a pawnbroker at the little upriver town of Shepperton.
At the very moment when Andy Collinson had settled down to read his newspaper in the train at York while on his way to London, and as one Mr. Smithers, skilled in the art of theatrical make-up, was still converting the appearance of Constable Blenkinsop into that of a maharajah, Mr. Rosenbaum decided to telephone to the local police.
"Never give anything away unless you can make a profit," was another of his axioms. Well, he was giving next to nothing away, but the police would reward him with a pat on the back as a zealous, honest citizen. And the way of a pawnbroker was hard. He was at the mercy of all crooks whom he could not beat at their own game.
"If one of your officers could come to my shop," he said over the wire, using his free hand helpfully as a semaphore, "I will be pleased to tell him something."
Mr. Rosenbaum's smile was slightly more pronounced than usual when in due course one of the Shepperton detectives entered the doorway.
"Good-morning, Mr. Pycroft," said the pawnbroker. "I don't know if I done right to trouble you gentlemen, because you're always so busy, but," he pointed with a thumb to the suit of clothes on the counter, "I thought maybe you'd like to look at this."
Pycroft turned the clothes over, then glanced at the other man.
"What's the idea?"
"Well, Mr. Pycroft, you're cleverer than I am at your own profession, and I might be wrong, but it did seem to me there was something peculiar about that suit. For one thing it's in very good condition. Quite a high-class suit, I'd call it. And yet all the buttons have been cut off the coat and the waistcoat too."
The detective frowned.
"Well, what about it?" he demanded.
"I don't know whether you remember a man called Pete Mellish who lives here at Shepperton. Thin, long hair, spends most of his days fishing in the Thames."
"I know him. Looks as though the sight of a day's work would kill him. He's a bit soft, I think."
"That's right. Well, them clothes was brought here this morning by Mellish. He told me it was his best suit. Said he'd fallen in the river while wearing it but had ironed the things out as best he could. I noticed the buttons were missing but that didn't matter to me as he only wanted ten shillings on the suit, and there were several more people waiting in the shop, so I made out the ticket and gave him the money.
"Of course, as you know, Mr. Pycroft, there's suits and suits. After a bit when I came to look at the things Mellish had pawned I began to think it was strange. He's been knocking about for years looking like two penn'orth of Gawd help us and them's a toff's clothes."
The detective grunted, fingering the material.
"Somebody might have given them to the man," he suggested.
"That's all right," said the pawnbroker, "but Pete Mellish is a little feller and that suit was made for someone not far short of six foot high. Now if those clothes fell in the river," Mr. Rosenbaum paused for dramatic effect, "who was in 'em at the time? Not Mellish, or I'm a Chinaman."
Pycroft looked at the inner breast pocket where tailors sew their own label. It had been ripped out.
The detective stroked his chin.
"Looks like something's wrong," he admitted. "I s'pose it has been in the river?"
"Oh yes, I think so, Mr. Pycroft. There's mud on it now and you can see it hasn't been pressed properly since. Not tailor pressed, if you understand me."
"He's pinched the things somewhere, I expect. I'll look into this."
"Of course it's not for me to know about your kind of work, Mr. Pycroft," said the pawnbroker, who had been in the business for a quarter of a century and had forgotten more about crooks and their ways than this young detective had yet absorbed, "but what I can't get over is the buttons all being off. Look, they've been cut! You can see that, and the coat's nearly new, too."
"What's in your mind?" asked the detective, growing interested.
"Well, I don't quite know, Mr. Pycroft, but it all looks peculiar doesn't it? And as I say, how did they get in the river? Maybe there's nothing in it, but you can't tell. Somebody might even have been murdered." There was an incongruous touch in the bright smile of Mr. Rosenbaum as he uttered that illuminating thought.
"I don't know about this being a case of murder," observed the detective, "but certainly——"
"Maybe not, Mr. Pycroft, but what put me in mind of that was a case that happened recently. A button was found in the railway carriage last Monday—you remember the midnight mail murder."
The lower lip of Pycroft disappeared inwards as this suggestion gave a fillip to his gray matter. He turned the clothes over again with still more interest.
"That's just what's been making me suspicious all the time," he said with happy inspiration, "but I don't mind telling you this is hardly what we'd call a clue."
"Just the buttons being missing? No, you're quite right there, Mr. Pycroft. But then there's the matter of the river."
"That's what I was coming to. It's a case that needs careful handling, this."
"I s'pose there's no body been found?" suggested Rosenbaum hopefully.
"Not in our district. But I'll make inquiries. We've never had anything against this man Mellish, though I've kept my eyes on him for some time. I guessed we'd have him through our hands sooner or later. If you'll pass me a piece of paper I'll take this suit along with me."
As the detective walked away the smile of Mr. Rosenbaum wilted a little. When he had telephoned to the police he had hardly expected that his imagination would carry him so far. He had paid ten good shillings out, and now the clothes were gone. Perhaps after all Pete Mellish had come by them honestly, in which case all would be well, but an unpleasant doubt on the point had arisen.
It was early that afternoon when Detective Inspector Silver answered the telephone at Scotland Yard.
"This is Detective Pycroft of Shepperton," came a voice. "The sergeant here has asked me to ring you up on a matter that I've been investigating. I don't know that it's worth troubling you about, but——"
"Go ahead," said Silver. "What's wrong?"
"Well, sir, I can't exactly say, though there's something suspicious and I haven't got to the bottom of it yet. And seeing you're on that midnight mail business—what's that you say, sir?"
"Never mind. I'm listening. Go on, please."
"We've got a man here in custody on suspicion."
"Suspicion of what?" came crisply over the wire.
"Well, larceny. A man called Mellish who lives down this way."
"Yes, yes, hurry up."
Getting into his second wind, Pycroft explained matters in detail.
"Mellish might have found the suit on a body," he concluded, "but we've no evidence of that and we don't exactly think there's been anything in the way of homicide, but the reason you've been called up is because there's something very unsatisfactory about it and of course they are those missing buttons."
"Did Mellish cut them off?" asked Silver.
"I don't know. All he says is that there never were any either on the coat or waistcoat."
"Well, thanks for letting us know, but I see no reason to suppose that it's got anything to do with us. You might let me know the name of the tailor."
"Can't do that, sir. All marks of identification have been removed."
"Have you got the clothes there now?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are there any buttons on the trousers?"
A brief pause, then:
"Yes, sir."
"And do you mean to tell me the Shepperton police don't know that nine tailors out of ten have their own name stamped on every trouser button they use?"
Another pause.
"There is a name on these buttons, sir, though I hadn't noticed it. It says 'T. S. Finch.'"
"Fine! You're getting on down Shepperton way. It's a hundred to one that the man who cut the coat buttons off wasn't aware of what remained. T. S. Finch is one of the biggest tailors here in Savile Row. Hold the line a minute. There's rather an important question I want to ask that firm over the telephone."
Detective Pycroft stood there for a while drawing meaningless designs on a blotting pad before him until he heard Silver speaking again, this time in a very different voice.
"Hold that man at all costs," the Yard officer said peremptorily. "It is of vital importance. I'm coming down to Shepperton myself as quickly as possible."
Replacing the receiver, Pycroft turned to a veteran of the force who was writing at a desk.
"That's tickled 'em up at the Yard, Sergeant," he observed, throwing his chest out. "Shouldn't wonder if this was a hanging job after all."
The sergeant glanced over the top of his spectacles, pen poised in mid-air, then went on writing.
"A hangin' job, eh?" he remarked thoughtfully. "Some people get all the luck!"
With one swift glance Silver made a survey of Pete Mellish. Not yet technically under arrest, the man sat huddled up on a wooden chair. His hat, battered and green with use, lay on the floor near. His hair, lank and neglected, hung untidily over his forehead. The lower part of his face had a curiously ratlike appearance. Mentality very low, Silver decided. Obstinate as a mule. The eyes, small and set closely together, held a cunning look as they in turn surveyed this tall man who had just entered.
"Well, Mellish, what's the trouble?" asked Silver, sitting astride of the only other chair in the room, and resting his arms on the back.
"You're another of 'em, I s'pose," retorted the man.
"I belong to the police, but I'm not worrying about you," Silver answered easily. "As a matter of fact you've done me a bit of a kindness."
"What're you getting at?" asked the man suspiciously.
Silver began to roll a cigarette.
"Why, I've been looking for that suit of clothes for days. Why don't you tell them where you got it? You won't come to any harm."
"I know that. I ain't done nothin' wrong," answered Mellish. "I've never been in dink an' you can't put me there either. I know the law. I got ten shillings on that suit, and I ain't goin' to part with it."
"I don't suppose you'll have to," said Silver. "Not if you tell the truth, anyway."
"Well, they can find out, see?" retorted the man impudently, his piglike eyes glittering. "What's mine's my own and you can't say it isn't."
"That's quite true," replied the detective, burning with eagerness and maintaining his casual manner with the utmost difficulty. Somewhere hidden in that lout's head might lie a secret on which everything depended. Yet what that secret might be no man could guess. Though nothing was known against Mellish except that he had always been a wash-out, he belonged to a type that was dangerous. One never knew in what direction such characters might break out. "The trouble is," Silver went on, "you may not get out of here as easily as you think, and that's a rotten position when one is quite innocent."
Mellish emitted a sneering laugh.
"That copper said I looked like gettin' six months," he declared. "But I know! They can't put you in prison if you haven't done anything wrong."
A change swept over Silver. He was getting the measure of the man and though the detective's patience held, he realized that his method of attack had been wrong. One could spend hours in this way and not get anywhere.
He rose and, standing over Mellish, spoke with a new, menacing note in his voice.
"It won't be six months only if you are sentenced—for murder!"
The sneering laugh faded slowly and almost visibly, the ratlike little creature seemed to shrink. That one terrible word had cut deep. The man's mouth was open and a look of vague terror was transforming him as he stared up at Silver.
"Murder!" The word came almost in a whisper. "Did you say murder?" Unconsciously he raised one hand to his throat and held it there.
"The penalty for that," the detective went on, pressing home his advantage, "is hanging."
"But," Mellish was cowed now, "I ain't done anything like that, mister. S'welp me Gawd I ain't." His hands became tightly clutched together: a little red tongue darted along his lips.
"You'll be charged now—not to-morrow, but now—as an accessory in connection with a case of murder," rasped Silver, "unless you tell me the whole truth. Where did you get that suit of clothes?"
There was no cunning left in those little eyes now. The man was beaten.
"I found it," he said. "On my dyin' oath that's a fact, guv'nor." His fingers were catching at his lips tremblingly. "I tell you I don't know nothin' about anyone bein' murdered."
"Where did you find it?"
"In the river. I was down there fishin'."
But this, Silver knew, could not be all.
"You're keeping something back," said the detective remorselessly. "What is it?"
A single flash of the old cunning came back to the man.
"If I never speak another word, I pulled it out of the river, and that's all I can tell you, sir."
"Maybe. Why didn't you say that at first, anyway?"
"Findin's keepin's, isn't it?" the man cringed, at his last fence.
"Come on," thundered Silver. "Out with it."
"I looked in the pockets, same as anyone else would have done."
"And what did you find?"
"Ten pounds in notes, in the waistcoat," admitted Mellish. "I've committed no crime and that ten quid's mine. Nobody's goin' to get it out of me," he added with a show of defiance.
So that was at the root of the man's obstinacy! And it seemed likely that he was telling the truth.
"Never mind about the ten pounds," Silver again changed his tactics. "You can keep that so far as I am concerned. When did you find the suit?"
If he was not going to stand in the dock on a charge of murder and if nobody was going to take the ten pounds from him there was nothing else to worry about! He still felt the jar of that awful threat, but was beginning to recover.
"Why, it was one night early this week, sir."
"What day?"
"Tuesday, I think. Yes, that was it."
"Whereabouts in the river did this happen?"
"Just at the old houseboat Rose Mary. There's a deep hole there where I generally reckon on gettin' a few fish. It was getting late—about half-past ten or eleven o'clock, I s'pose. Moonlight, you understand. There's a landing by the side of the Rose Mary, an' I was sitting there by myself in the shadder when I heard someone on the landing at the other side of the houseboat. Didn't take no notice of that, but I saw some sort of a bundle shoot out right into the water.
"I know who threw it—that feller who's got the bungalow near there. He didn't see me but I could see him."
"But you didn't speak?"
"No, I just went on fishin'."
"I don't suppose you would ever have fished again if he'd spotted you," observed Silver. "So you dragged the bundle out?"
"Well, I went on fishin' for a while, wondering what it was he'd dumped into the river, and then as I wasn't catching anything I tied a big hook on and tried to find the bundle. After a bit I got it. Pretty heavy, too. He'd fastened a stone inside. I squeezed the things out an' took 'em home. Then I found that money he'd forgotten to take out of the waistcoat pocket. I don't see what that's got to do wiv anybody now. He'd chucked it away. It's mine, and I'm goin' to keep it."
"You're quite sure you know the man who threw it in?"
"'Course I am. I've often seen him."
"What is his name?" asked Silver, his own hands by now none too steady.
"Mr. Wilcox, he's called. You can't miss his bungalow. It's called Bending Willows. The place stands by itself with a fence around it, just above the Rose Mary. But don't go and do the dirty on me, guv'nor, telling him there was ten quid in the pocket. Not after what I've let you in on."
Mr. Pete Mellish, however, was left in doubt on the point, for Silver had turned on his heel and walked away in silence.
Just outside Shepperton Police Station the detective stood still for a space, weighing up the situation. It seemed almost unbelievable, after days of such suspense, that he might now be on the very threshold of ending it all.
How it could finish he had no idea. The one great fear in his heart had gnawed ceaselessly since the moment when Lawrence Bruce's words hit him over the telephone: "I'm afraid something has happened to Sally Marsh!"
The tangled ends of all this baffling mystery had twisted and tied themselves into bewildering knots, but here and there Silver's finger tips had almost touched upon an elusive solution. Until now, however, he had found broken links between him and that which he sought to clutch. The gaps were closing up, though. Unwittingly that useless creature whom he had just left had helped him to bridge a vital gulf. Anything might happen in the next few hours—anything!
Bending Willows—Mr. Wilcox! The names were etched indelibly on his memory. One blunder at this stage and success might slip through his fingers. It seemed to Silver that the crucial moment of his life lay just beyond the horizon. Whatever happened, he would be contending against the shrewdest of criminal brains.
Of a sudden he strode off and in the falling darkness came to the derelict houseboat Rose Mary. The water lapped against the side of the hulk with a soft musical note. It was a thing of the yesterdays, fast drifting into decay. On the landing he looked at the dark flowing Thames. Here, evidently, was the place where one Pete Mellish spent idle hours fishing.
Silver found the doors of the Rose Mary securely fastened with padlocks, but her windows were broken and he could hear a melancholy swish within as the sodden old houseboat swayed under his weight. She was deserted: nearing the end of her days.
Much depended upon Pete Mellish's story being true! Silver visualized the scene that was said to have been played here last Tuesday night. There was a landing just above the Rose Mary, with a footpath, now overgrown with high reeds, leading down to it. Along that path the man from the bungalow known as Bending Willows must have come, bearing with him the suit of clothes in a bundle. Everything could have occurred just as Mellish had described.
Silver made his way back to the road and approached the bungalow. Not only was it in a curiously secluded position, but also a tall fence surrounded the building which, as far as he could judge in that bad light, was no ordinary upriver shack. Putting his hands on the top of the fence, he drew himself up and looked over, surveying the place in this way from each side. There was a light burning in one room at the back, which he took to be a kitchen, but the blind was drawn. Who was in that room?
The C.I.D. man's pulse beat a shade faster. Was there to be just one more crushing disappointment here at Shepperton, or was this house of mystery to prove the end of the trail? And if so what secrets were to be revealed when the veil was torn aside?
Silver glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. A handful of police officers, all efficient enough for ordinary purposes, could be recruited quickly from the local headquarters, but this was not an ordinary situation. The bungalow had become a trap, from this detective's point of view. Maybe the mice he wanted were in it already—some little mice that in any case ought to be caught—but what about the big mouse he was really after? If that one was still outside he must be terribly careful not to frighten it away.
He knew that many things might have happened by now at Scotland Yard, for Silver had helped to plan the campaign staged for that day. Here at Shepperton it had been necessary to make very sure of his ground before starting a sweeping manœuvre which could, he knew, so easily end in disastrous failure.
A door banged. The sound had come from Bending Willows. Cautiously Silver drew himself up the side of the fence again. The room at the back was now in darkness but there was a light in the hall and someone was walking down the path—a woman. Presently there came the click of the gate as she went out. Pressing his tall form close to the fence, he watched her go down the road. In her hand she had a shopping basket.
Clearly the moment had come for decisive action. Apparently there was nobody in the bungalow now. Creeping forward, he passed through the gate.
There was peculiar stillness amongst the trees within that garden. Not the least breath of wind and the nearest house was more than a hundred yards away. Faintly the howling of some far-away dog was borne to the man's ears.
Cautiously he approached the main door but, as he had anticipated, found it was fastened. Going round to the back he tried the door there with similar result. Then he began to examine the windows systematically and discovered a small one slightly open. This was no moment to think about niceties in the matter of regulations. Up went the window and after squeezing through the narrow space Silver discovered that he was in a bathroom.
So far so good. He longed for an electric torch. Feeling in his pocket, he pulled out a match box and shook it. One match only! and the one thing he dared not do was to switch on the light.
In the doorway he stumbled over a chair which clattered as only things can when you would give your ears to preserve silence. For a few moments he remained motionless. Evidently the place was empty. Not even a dog.
By the aid of that light in the hall he made a hurried survey of the bungalow. There were seven or eight rooms, some of them in almost total darkness.
And then Silver decided to gamble with his solitary match. Once that woman returned it would be of no use to him, and his need to get in touch with the Yard had become urgent. It was not glory that he was out for on this job. To pull it off alone would give him intense satisfaction but to try to do so without knowing what lay ahead would be a grave tactical blunder.
Striking the match and shading the beam of light as much as possible with his hands, he entered two rooms before finding what he sought—a telephone.
What a time they took to put him through to the Yard! His ears were strained for the sound of that door being opened again. At last!
"Hello, Baxter," he said, recognizing the switch operator's voice at the Yard. "I want Chief Inspector Briant, and hurry!" The detective's foot was moving up and down impatiently. "I say, Baxter, come on, what the hell are you playing at—what's that?—oh, I beg your pardon, Sir Hector. This is Silver. I'm on the wrong line. I want Mr. Briant."
"Inspector Briant is here," came back bluntly from the distinguished head of the Yard. "What news have you, Silver?"
"I think it's all right, sir. Will you please shoot the Squad down here at top speed. I'm at——"
There came the sharp click of a key in a latch and Silver, dropping the receiver on the table, leaped out of the way, his sentence incomplete.
The door closed. Steps moved along the hall and the detective followed.
Then two exceeding astonished people faced one another.
"Why—Mr. Silver!"
The detective's eyes narrowed.
"Our old friend Queenie!" he exclaimed. "I haven't seen you for years."
The woman's bold glance, however, was wavering.
"But what are you doing in here, Mr. Silver?" she asked uneasily. "This is——" she paused.
"This is what?" he prompted.
"Well, I was going to say this is a gentleman's private house."
"Oh, I see. And what are you doing here?"
"Working for him. Oh, I wish you'd go, Mr. Silver," she begged. "He may be back any minute and I wouldn't have him know for anything that—that——"
"That there's an old jail bird in the nest?" the detective put in. "Cut out the innocence stuff, Queenie. You're for it this time!"
"What d'you mean?" she demanded, looking around wildly but finding her wrist suddenly tightly held.
"Just this," said Silver. "The whole game's up!"
The woman's face hardened.
"Some of you flatties think you're very clever. Am I under arrest?"
"You certainly are."
"What's the charge?"
"I expect it will be about a yard long by the time you have your breakfast in a cell to-morrow morning." He drew her back across the hall toward the telephone, still holding her wrist as he picked up the receiver. "I have a date with your Mr. Wilcox, too," he added. "Glad you mentioned that he was just coming back."
She laughed softly in a way that flicked Silver on the raw. There was a snag somewhere.
"What a hope!" came from her. "He left for Paris this morning. Scotland Yard gives me a pain in the neck! You think you're a big piece of cheese, don't you!" And this time her laugh was shrill, but through it Silver heard a sharp click. At the same instant his eyes were attracted by a faint green light which appeared high up in a tree between the window near which he stood and the garden gate.
Queenie had her back against the wall with one arm behind her. Silver jerked the woman aside and observed an electric switch.
"This place is a regular box of tricks, isn't it?" he observed dryly, switching out the green light. "Perhaps your Mr. Wilcox didn't get quite so far as Paris after all. I fancy he won't now, anyway."
Again he picked up the receiver.
"Give me the Shepperton Police Station," he barked, "and make it snappy.... Hello! This is Inspector Silver. Send a couple of men round here at the double—Mr. Wilcox's bungalow, Bending Willows. It's urgent. If they're not here in four minutes I'll—— What's that? Oh, fine!"
There was an electric atmosphere in the office of Sir Hector Froud. Several grave-faced officials, all men who had spent a lifetime pitting their wits against the wolves of the underworld, were gathered about him, and it was not a pleasant party.
The Yard was so well organized that in the ordinary way the Chief Constable never interfered with tried men who were on their mettle, but for once he had stepped on to the bridge himself. That quiet-voiced Chief always spoke rather slowly, and never a degree more loudly, but to-day each word was saturated with gall.
Everything had broken down. His men had done their best, but their best had not been good enough against those wolves. The India Office was raging on account of the indignity to which the Maharajah of Mydarah had been submitted while visiting the mother country, not to mention the loss of jewels which would keep even a film star in luxury for a twelvemonth. This in a measure accounted for the fact that the Home Secretary had put on his special kicking boots, and was making things uncomfortable all round.
Now and again there came a soft buzz on Sir Hector's private telephone at his elbow. All calls dealing with the big situation on hand were being put through direct to this room. In answering them there was a deadly directness in all that he said.
Messages came up frequently from the wireless room. An army of the Yard's hush-hush cars was scouring London. The Chief was in direct touch with each one. At a word from him those squads could be pulled up in any crowded traffic miles away.
Sir Hector picked up the telephone receiver.
"Well, Silver, what news have you?"
The Chief's gray eyes twinkled brightly as he heard the Inspector's urgent call for the Squad.
"I'm at——" Silver got as far as that when silence came.
"Hello—Silver!"
But there was no answer.
Sir Hector's face became stern. Using another telephone, he spoke to the Yard switchboard operator.
"I was talking to Inspector Silver just now. Were we cut off?"
"No, sir," said the operator. "You're still through, apparently."
"Find out where he was speaking from and let me know."
Sir Hector turned to one of his men near.
"There's something queer going on, Briant," he said. "Get away, as quickly as you can, in the direction of Shepperton. Silver is alone on the job there, and I fancy he's found trouble. I'll let you know more by wireless. Cut along!" Then as that officer was hastening away the Chief raised his voice for the first time. "Good luck, Briant!" That washed out nearly all the gall.
"The Shepperton exchange reports that your line is still connected with a bungalow there called Bending Willows, sir," reported the Yard switchboard man a moment afterwards.
Sir Hector wrote a few words on a piece of paper and sent it to the wireless room. The driver of Briant's Squad car had hardly got into top gear before those instructions were delivered, and by then Sir Hector had received another message from the Yard wireless room. He glanced through it with considerable satisfaction. The officer in charge of Squad Eight reported:
Have arrested Oliver Foss at his mother's house and according to orders am now returning to headquarters with him.
His story is that he travelled up to London by the train on which Ismay was murdered but that he does not know who committed the crime.
Foss asserts that his threat against Ismay at York was uttered in a momentary temper, and that he only remained in hiding after Monday because he feared it might be impossible to prove his innocence.
Sir Hector was not yet counting his chickens. Things had begun to move at last but——
The door opened and an excited man was ushered in.
"Mr. Peter Irwin," said the Chief, glancing at the written name before him.
Irwin looked round at faces all of which were strange.
"I want Inspector Silver," he declared. "It's terribly important."
"Silver is out," said the Chief quietly, sensing that things were about to move still more.
"But I've got to see him," said Irwin. "It's about Enid Mulholland. I've just come from the hospital. Her mind has been affected by that blow on the head. All of a sudden to-day while I was talking to her her memory came back."
Sir Hector leaned forward.
"Who murdered Silas Ismay?" he asked incisively.
At that moment a white-faced girl who had waited for hours in a Kensington flat, with nerves strung almost to breaking point, gave a jump as the telephone bell jangled.
It might be anything—even a trick! Perhaps Joe had given the cops the slip and they were trying to get on to him again. They were up to all sorts of dodges like that. She must keep her head. The girl stood still until she was sure of herself while the bell jangled, but her fingers were trembling as she raised the receiver to her ear.
"Hello!"
And then her heart leaped as she caught the answering voice.
"Hello, sweetness! All alone?"
"Yes," she told him, but she was only concerned with the shadow she had last seen at Joe's heels. "Is—is your friend still with you?"
Conversation was held up for a few moments while a sound came over the wire that made Anne Quirk feel years younger.
"No, he's gone back to his home in some cheese," said Joe. "Listen, honey, we're taking no chances. Throw what you're likely to need into a grip and leave everything else behind. There's nothing there at the flat that we want. Travel light. Make sure the coast is clear, and hike out. Keep moving until you're dead certain nobody is following, then make straight for that hotel where we went after we were married. You know where I mean. You'll find a no-good guy there waiting for you, and take it from me, girlie, he'll see no harm comes to you from now on."
Silver was alone. The only light burning was in the hall. The two officers who had rushed round to the bungalow from the local police station were already on their way back to the lockup with Queenie. After bundling them off Silver had put in one more quick call to Scotland Yard and ended the conversation with an abruptness which must have startled Sir Hector. All that remained now was for the big mouse to walk into the trap at Bending Willows.
Queenie had gone with a mysterious smile playing about her lips, the meaning of which Silver was unable to fathom. Had she, after all, succeeded in leaving some signal that would act as a warning? Or was there some other snag in this house of tricks? A booby trap? Perhaps. If so it would probably be a clever one.
Ten minutes ticked away while the C.I.D. man waited. A quarter of an hour! There came a ring on the telephone, but he ignored it. It might be from the Yard to explain that he was too late. It might—but there were other possibilities.
Silver was standing just within a room on the left of the hall. The main thing was for his quarry to get inside the house. After that Silver could deal with the situation somehow. His only weapon, however, was a staff which lay ready in a hip pocket.
Twenty minutes!
Then came the sound of footsteps on the gravel path outside. A key was fitted into the door, which swung open.
And for a moment Silver felt the anguish of utter disappointment. Instead of the man whom he expected there had come into the place a typical elderly London taxicab driver. And beyond a doubt he was ill.
"Queenie!" the cabbie called out, swaying into the room opposite.
Silver's reaction at the sound of that voice was instantaneous. He strode swiftly across the hall.
"Lawrence Bruce," he said, entering the room opposite, "I arrest you for the murder of——"
Bruce, who had sunk on to a chair by the side of a desk, raised one hand. In it was a revolver. The fingers of his other hand were closed round something on the desk.
"Sally Marsh will be blown to atoms if you come one step nearer," he said. "And so shall we—both of us."
It was not the vision of that gleaming revolver barrel which pulled the detective up sharply, but the mention of the girl's name and a dreadful ring of truth in the voice.
So there was, after all, another snag! A dozen feet separated the two men.
"What do you mean?" demanded Silver.
"As you may observe, my left hand is on a switch," said Bruce. "That is connected with a large quantity of dynamite—sufficient to reduce the whole of this place to bits. You're too close to me already. Kindly step back a little way."
Was this gigantic bluff? Beads of sweat stood on the detective's forehead, but he held his ground.
"I've warned you," said Bruce menacingly.
"Where is Sally Marsh?" Silver demanded throatily.
The features of Bruce relaxed a fraction.
"Here under this roof," he said. "A little sleepy perhaps, because it was necessary to keep her under the influence of drugs, but otherwise she is perfectly safe and unharmed. Evidently you haven't searched the place properly."
"Then your story of her walking out of the office after receiving a letter was all lies?"
"On the contrary she did receive a letter, as the boy explained, but I don't know that it was of any consequence. It is true, however, that she went out at my request. I invented some trivial excuse for sending her here, and here she remained according to my instructions."
"And now," said Silver, "you propose to murder her also?"
"At least she would know nothing of it, my dear Silver," replied Bruce. "Have you ever seen a really big explosion? I had some experience of such things during the war, though fortunately I was not too close. Nothing could be quicker or more final. I have often thought that there could be no easier way of going out. An infinitesimal fraction of a second and all is finished."
"I suppose your friend Queenie knew about this infernal arrangement?" said Silver, remembering the woman's queer smile as she was taken away.
"Queenie? Yes, but as a matter of fact even she never knew that I myself might end this way. It was originally designed for the benefit of others—forgive me for being personal, but I mean people like detectives from Scotland Yard."
The C.I.D. man's brain was racing. If Bruce had not intended to die from the explosion he spoke of, how would he be able to cause it and escape injury? Was this all bluff? If so, Silver still had to reckon with the wicked-looking revolver, but one could take a chance on that.
He measured the distance between them with his eyes. No use making a rush straight forward: that would just be jumping to death. In any case if Bruce was not bluffing—if, in fact, a huge mine lay in the cellar of the bungalow awaiting the touch of a detonator—a sudden attack might divert the man's attention from the switch that his fingers were on.
Without moving a muscle Silver mentally braced himself and then with a swerving movement leaped forward.
He was conscious of a flash from the revolver and of something striking the side of his head. That was followed by confusion. He was hanging on to the edge of a mighty precipice, the ground crumbling away beneath him. In another second he would fall into a yawning space so vast that the bottom seemed miles away.
His feet were slipping. He was clawing frantically at the air. Now he was falling ... falling....
It seemed days afterwards that he opened his eyes. The side of his head felt as though it had been split open. Then he found he could move neither arms nor legs. That bothered him until a familiar voice reached his ears and he remembered everything.
"At least you will admit that I warned you," Bruce was saying. "You must pardon me for making sure with a little cord that you don't interrupt the conversation again. Actually I am not sorry to have this opportunity of discussing one or two little things with you. Purely from an academic point of view, of course."
"You seem to have a way of making use of a little cord," retorted the trussed-up detective. "We've got a bit waiting for you. About enough to allow you a drop of six feet."
Lawrence Bruce pressed his hand to his chest and did not speak for a few moments.
"So," he went on at last, "you don't believe even now that we're both going to be reduced to fragments by dynamite presently!" A dry laugh rang through the room. "And the funny thing is that you never will know. It will be so quick—and so complete. I recollect a young officer who was caught on the hop by a high-explosive shell. All we ever found of him afterwards was one finger with a signet ring on it. The sort of thing that will happen to us, Silver."
The place had been spinning like a gyroscope but it was slowing down now and Silver's groping mind reached out to hope. His last message to the Yard had been explicit enough. How long would the Squad take to get to Shepperton? How long had they already been tearing in this direction?
"I quite believe you're capable of it," said the C.I.D. man. "Still there's one thing you will do first if you have a spark of manhood or decency left in you."
"And that is——?"
"Take Sally Marsh outside. If she can't walk lay her on the ground anywhere far enough away so that she won't get hurt."
Bruce shook his head.
"Had this been a few days ago I would have done so, Silver, not for your sake, but for hers. It was not my wish to injure her in any way. I have never killed anyone unless I considered it was logical and I suppose Sally is lucky to be alive now, because she knew too much, but I always had a personal liking for her."
"Well," the C.I.D. man urged, "take her outside now."
"What you ask is impossible. Do you know what an aneurism is, Silver? You have a rough idea, perhaps. Will it bore you if I make it clear? The thing was explained to me with the most scientific brutality yesterday by a specialist whom I consulted.
"'You might possibly live for a month or two,' he said, 'if you eliminate every possible detail from your daily routine that might cause the slightest tinge of excitement.'
"That to me, Silver! The trouble in my case is in the main artery from the heart. The artery in that one spot becomes distended and ultimately resembles one of those toy balloons that children play with. There is no earthly hope. It is exactly like having a bomb in your chest. Or, to bring the thing home to you more closely, like remaining in this bungalow after I have pulled at the switch here—as I shall pull at it shortly.
"All my life the craving for excitement has been a ruling passion. That sort of thing grows with indulgence, Silver. Moments that once seemed wonderful become tame and flat. Even to-day, however, I managed to squeeze in one last thrill. If the little bomb inside had burst, well that would have been as good an end for me as the one we're just going to have together. You know, perhaps, that I had the pleasure of relieving the Maharajah of his jewellery this afternoon?"
"I'm surprised, knowing what you were up against," admitted Silver. "Actually I had not heard of it. My conversations with them at the Yard have been distinctly snappy. What did you do with the stuff?"
"Jewellery is no use to me now," said Bruce. "I have a few friends who seemed to appreciate it though. So I split the haul up amongst them. That little affair with the Maharajah, however, nearly finished me off. I got a kick out of it all right, but it was a kick with the punch of death behind it. This is comical, when you think of it, my sitting here, burnt out and practically ended, telling you all about myself. You of all people! Lord, there's irony in death as well as life!"
"Just a moment," said the C.I.D. man. "If you're going to die anyway you might as well do it while trying to carry that girl out."
"Unfortunately I might merely collapse," replied Bruce, "and as you have remarked there is a rope awaiting me. That would be an unpleasant anti-climax. How much simpler is death from dynamite!
"But I was revealing the secrets of my soul to you, Silver. Perhaps it may interest you to know that I have never before spoken to anyone of these things.
"For a while I got all the excitement I needed out of legitimate business. Taking big risks and seeing the whole foundations of one's life balanced on a razor edge! But that eventually palled for the simple reason that I was lucky. I made money, but the mere possession of a large bank balance was not enough. And so I took to crime. Only tentatively at first, though. It was not for some time that I developed a proper organization. That I am—or rather was—known as the Spider is, I suppose, no news to you."
"Not exactly news."
The master criminal again paused, holding one hand to his chest, while the other remained on that deadly switch.
"I wonder, as this is such a heart-to-heart talk, Silver," he went on presently, "if you will be so kind as to explain at precisely what point you first got on to that fact. I have wondered. Once in my office you looked at me so strangely that I got a genuine thrill out of it. But afterwards I was less sure that you suspected."
"I never was dead sure until this afternoon," replied Silver. "Otherwise you'd have been arrested long ago. That suit you threw away was found. You thought you had entirely removed the maker's name from it, but you had not. I telephoned to Finch, the tailor, and he admitted that you were one of his clients."
"Well, well!" said Bruce with mock sadness. "Anyway it makes no difference now. You've been a thorn in my side for days, Silver. I couldn't make out how much you knew and how much you were only guessing."
"So that's why you plugged me in the Grand Hotel yesterday?"
"The prospect of being arrested for murder did not appeal to me at all," replied the Spider. "It was a real disappointment, I confess, when I learnt that you were only winged. Incidentally I was afraid that if the bullet missed, you would guess who had fired that shot. You did guess, of course?"
"I rang up your office immediately afterwards and found you weren't there. That wasn't conclusive, but it put another nail in your coffin. And now," he went on grimly, "it's your turn. Just what did happen on that train last Monday? You joined it at Peterborough, of course?"
"How did I manage to do that? Remember I was with Irwin in London somewhat late that evening."
"You raced up by car. Must have done some swift travelling for a while."
"I did, and even then wouldn't have caught the train only she happened to be four minutes late."
"At that time," said Silver, "I had an idea Irwin might be the murderer. I went up to Peterborough on the Tuesday to see if I could hear of any big car having been garaged in a hurry round about half-past ten the previous night. That nearly brought you into the net. A car had been driven into a garage quite close to Peterborough Station at that time and it was left there till after five o'clock next morning. But the night watchman couldn't describe the car in any way and the description he gave of the driver didn't tally with anyone I knew. You were probably disguised, eh?"
"Exactly. As you see, I have rather a talent for that sort of thing."
"And you had the nerve to go back by the next train to Peterborough for the car?"
"One couldn't leave the car there in the circumstances."
"What was in your mind when you joined the midnight mail at Peterborough?"
"Everything that has happened this week," the Spider explained, "is due to one peculiar circumstance. The man known as Hackett, as you are aware, was Enid Mulholland's brother. It was by pure chance that she worked in the office of the Anglo-American Theatrical Syndicate. I had kicked Hackett out of the crime gang as an inefficient. He came to the office to see his sister and probably caught sight of me there. Anyway he discovered I was the head of that concern in Shaftesbury Avenue.
"You remember Tim, the office boy, telling us about a conversation between Foxy Hackett and his sister at the foot of the office stairs?
"Well, what really happened was this. Foxy, not even knowing of Ismay's existence, said to Enid, 'Your boss is a big crook known as the Spider.' And Enid, disliking Ismay intensely, assumed that he was talking about my partner.
"That morning she came to me almost in tears and wanted to resign. When I pressed her for an explanation she blurted out what she had heard. Wasn't quite sure whether it was true, but it had scared her.
"This was altogether too near the knuckle for my liking, and I realized that something would have to be done about it soon, but in front of her I laughed at the idea.
"And then all of a sudden I caught Enid looking at me differently. Perhaps the way I laughed didn't ring right. It probably didn't. She had given me a terrific jolt where I least expected it. And I knew she was wondering whether by chance her brother had meant me when he said 'your boss.'
"However, after I had told her not to pay any attention to such silly nonsense, and promised to transfer her to another business with which I was connected, she became calmer and eventually went to York.
"But you see where it left me! One indiscreet word from her and my number was up. Now I can tell you something which I should never have admitted except in these peculiar circumstances. It was not imprisonment that I feared most. I had a much more important reason for avoiding arrest. Do you remember a night watchman being found shot dead in that Bond Street jewellery shop ten months ago?"
"Quite well," replied Silver.
"I killed him," said Bruce. "It was only in self-defence, but that argument would not have helped if I had been charged with murder. Tell me, had the police any suspicion I did that?"
"Frankly I don't think they had."
"It has been the one big fly in my ointment ever since," Bruce went on. "I could never forget the dread of being executed.
"As for Hackett, in such a crisis, it seemed the only thing one could do was to kill him. To have murdered him and left Enid Mulholland would have been altogether too dangerous, so I decided to wipe her out also. The idea of all this was unpleasant but that seemed to be the only logical way out of the situation.
"I guessed there might be a chance to deal with the girl on the train. And there was. That man Oliver Foss, of course, had nothing to do with it. Enid Mulholland was asleep when I reached the compartment in which she was travelling. I struck her on the forehead with a knuckle duster and pulled out of my pocket a piece of silk cord which I had picked up in the street that day and preserved for the purpose. So you Yard sleuths after all hadn't much chance of using the cord as a clue, had you?
"While I was stooping over the girl tightening the thing about her neck—as a matter of fact I thought it was tight enough—Silas Ismay came along the corridor and entered the compartment, probably to give her some instructions or even dictate a letter.
"You can imagine what happened when he saw what I was doing. And also, as you can easily realize, once that racket started I had no alternative to finishing him off. So I throttled Ismay and threw the body on the line. Then pitched the girl's handbag after him with some notion—which immediately afterwards I realized was utter stupidity—of giving the impression that robbery had been the motive for the crime.
"As for Hackett, the thing was simple. I had his address. Nobody saw me either enter or leave the house where he lived in Battersea. Even if they had, I shouldn't have been recognized, for I was disguised.
"You remember thinking that Sally Marsh knew something? Well, of course, she'd heard that conversation between Nobby and Enid Mulholland. Enid had evidently told her long before that Nobby was a waster. It was loyalty that kept Sally silent. She only feared that Nobby was mixed up in that train business. But it was my fear that she might mention the name Spider to you which caused me to keep out of the way.
"In your case, my dear Silver, there will be something of poetic justice about our going up together in minute fragments. You would have handed me over to that man with a rope without any compunction. I am being more merciful to you. No long-drawn-out suffering. For quite a considerable period you fellows have tilted a lance at me, and, well in the end I shall have beaten you. It is no child's game that we have played, my friend, and this is a fitting finale. Is there any other point on which you feel curious before I pull this switch?"
Silver did not answer. All this time his ears had been strained for sounds in the garden and now he heard hurried footsteps. His last instructions to the Yard were working.
"If there is only the light in the hall burning," he had said, "keep well away out of sight. But break straight in if you see lights in any of the rooms. You'll be needed."
With a crash the window splintered and a hand was thrust in through the cavity. The catch was being unfastened.
Silver's glance shot back to the Spider and what he saw had a curiously paralyzing effect upon him.
A saturnine grin was on the man's face. He pulled at the switch on his desk. Then sagged forward.
Several men leaped in through the window and there was the snap of a pair of handcuffs on the Spider's inert wrists.
"Just in time, apparently!" Silver heard the voice of Briant as a knife cut through the cords that bound him.
"Outside, quick!" roared Silver, staggering to his feet. "This place is mined!"
For a brief second the Yard men stared unbelievingly at Silver, then as Briant barked a quick order they rushed for the door, bearing with them the form of Lawrence Bruce.
But Silver was already staggering from room to room. Was there anything in all that talk about an infernal machine? Was there? If so it hadn't worked yet, but the detective was beginning to understand why. The thing was so made that the Spider would have been able to pull the switch over and then get outside before the explosion occurred. If so, how many minutes were left? Or seconds?
Silver called out one name desperately, over and over. In the third room he entered his fingers touched an electric switch and there his eyes fell on Sally Marsh. She was lying listlessly on a bed, eyes wide open. As he bent over her she smiled faintly.
"Jim! Somehow I knew you'd——"
But with one sweeping movement of his arms he was already gathering her up and the next moment was charging for the door.
Along the path he raced, through the gate, swaying, for that wound in the head had sapped most of his vitality. He was moving mechanically now, lifting leaden uncertain feet by sheer will power. Every yard might count.
Under the weight of his burden he stumbled, but with a supreme effort kept upright and tottered further down the lane.
And then came a shattering din. The earth seemed to rock, and Silver fell like a log.
It was days later and Silver, his head swathed in bandages, was lying propped up on a couch rolling a cigarette, his eyes darting toward the door every few moments. Even the news he had just received that the Spider was likely to live long enough to be hanged had been thrust into the background.
Then the moment for which he had been waiting occurred. Before him stood Sally. This was the first time he had seen her since the bungalow went up in powder.
There were a dozen things that he wanted to say to her all at once, but neither he nor she spoke. She came closer, slowly, and the half-made cigarette trickled from the man's fingers to the floor.
"I couldn't wait any longer, Jim," she was whispering at last, eyes and lips very near to his, "although the doctor said——"
But Jim Silver's arm was about her shoulder. He was drawing her still closer. Sally was here, in the flesh, alive and radiant. That wonderful fact was all that concerned him.
THE END
[The end of The Midnight Mail by Henry Holt]