The Man Who Knew

by Edgar Wallace

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE MAN WHO LOOKED LIKE FRANK

  Saul Arthur Mann came back to England full of his news, and found Frankat the little Jermyn Street hotel where he had installed himself, andFrank listened without interruption to the story of the letter.

  "Of course," the little fellow went on, "I went straight over toMontreux. The note heading was not on the paper, but I had nodifficulty, by comparing the qualities of papers used at the varioushotels, in discovering that it was written from the Palace. The headwaiter knew this Rex Holland, who had been a frequent visitor, hadalways tipped very liberally, and lived in something like style. Hecould not describe his patron, except that he was a young man with avery languid manner who had arrived the previous morning from Hollandand had immediately inquired for Frank Merrill."

  "From Holland! Are you sure it was the morning? I have a particularreason for asking," asked Frank quickly.

  "No, it was not in the morning, now you mention it. It was in theevening. He left again the following morning by the northern train."

  "How did he find my address?" asked Frank.

  "Obviously from the visitors' list. The waiter on duty in the writingroom remembered having seen him consulting the newspaper. Now, my boy,you have to be perfectly candid with me. What do you know about RexHolland?"

  Frank opened his case, took out a cigarette, and lit it before hereplied.

  "I know what everybody knows about him," he said, with a hint ofbitterness in his voice, "and something which nobody knows but me."

  "But, my dear fellow," said Saul Arthur Mann, laying his hand on theother's shoulder, "surely you realize how important it is for you thatyou should tell me all you know."

  Frank shook his head.

  "The time is not come," he said, and he would make no further statement.

  But on another matter he was emphatic.

  "By heaven, Mann, I am not going to stand by and see May ruin her life.There's something sinister in this influence which Jasper is exercisingover her. You have seen it for yourself."

  Saul Arthur nodded.

  "I can't understand what it is," he confessed. "Of course Jasper is nota bad-looking fellow. He has perfect manners and is a charmingcompanion. You don't think--"

  "That he is winning on his merits?" Frank shook his head. "No, indeed, Ido not. It is difficult for me to discuss my private affairs, and youknow how reluctant I am to do so, but you are also aware of what I thinkof May. I was hoping that we should go back to the place where we leftoff, and, although she is kindness itself, this girl who is more to methan anything or anybody in the world, and who was prepared to marry me,and would have married me but for Jasper's machinations, was almostcold."

  He was walking up and down the room, and now halted in his stride andspread out his arms despairingly.

  "What am I to do? I cannot lose her. I cannot!"

  There was a fierceness in his tone which revealed the depth of hisfeeling, and Saul Arthur Mann understood.

  "I think it is too soon to say you have lost her, Frank," he said.

  He had conceived a genuine liking for Frank Merrill, and the period oftribulation through which the young man had passed had heightened therespect in which he held him.

  "We shall see light in dark places before we go much farther," he said."There is something behind this crime, Frank, which I don't understand,but which I am certain is no mystery to you. I am sure that you areshielding somebody, for what reason I am not in a position to tell, butI will get to the bottom of it."

  No event in the interesting life of this little man, who had spent hisyears in the accumulation of facts, had so distressed and piqued him asthe murder of John Minute. The case had ended where the trial had leftit.

  Crawley, who might have offered a new aspect to the tragedy, haddisappeared as completely as though the earth had swallowed him. Themost strenuous efforts which the official police had made, added to theinvestigations which Saul Arthur Mann had conducted independently, hadfailed to trace the fugitive ex-sergeant of police. Obviously, he wasnot to be confounded with Rex Holland. He was a distinct personalityworking possibly in collusion, but there the association ended.

  It had occurred to the investigator that possibly Crawley hadaccompanied Rex Holland in his flight, but the most careful inquirieswhich he had pursued at Montreux were fruitless in this respect as inall others.

  To add to his bewilderment, investigations nearer at home wereconstantly bringing him across the track of Frank Merrill. It was asthough fate had conspired to show the boy in the blackest light. Frankhad been acting as secretary to his uncle, and then Jasper Cole hadsuddenly appeared upon the scene from nowhere in particular. Thesuggestion had been made somewhat vaguely that he had come from"abroad," and it was certain that he arrived as a result of longnegotiations which John Minute himself had conducted. They werenegotiations which involved months of correspondence, no letter of whicheither from one or the other had Frank seen.

  While the trial was pending, the little man collected quite a volume ofinformation, both from Frank and the girl, but nothing had been quite asinexplicable as this intrusion of Jasper Cole upon the scene, or theextraordinary mystery which John Minute had made of his engagement.

  He had written and posted all the letters to Jasper himself, and hadapparently received the replies, which he had burned, at some otheraddress of which Frank was ignorant.

  Jasper had come, and then one day there had been a quarrel, not betweenthe two young men, but between Frank and his uncle. It was a singularlybitter quarrel, and again Frank refused to discuss the cause. He leftthe impression upon Saul Arthur's mind that he had to some extent beenresponsible. And here was another fact which puzzled "The Man Who Knew."Sergeant Smith, as he was then, had been to some extent responsible. Itwas Frank who had introduced the sergeant to Eastbourne and brought himto his uncle. But this was only one aspect of the mystery. There wereothers as obscure.

  Saul Arthur Mann went back to his bureau, and for the twentieth timegathered the considerable dossiers he had accumulated relating to thecase and to the characters, and went through them systematically andcarefully.

  He left his office near midnight, but at nine o'clock the next morningwas on his way to Eastbourne. Constable Wiseman was, by good fortune,enjoying a day's holiday, and was at work in his kitchen garden when Mr.Mann's car pulled up before the cottage. Wiseman received his visitorimportantly, for, though the constable's prestige was regarded inofficial circles as having diminished as a result of the trial, it wasfelt by the villagers that their policeman, if he had not solved themystery of John Minute's death, had at least gone a long way to itssolution.

  In the spotless room which was half kitchen and half sitting room, withits red-tiled floor covered by bright matting, Mrs. Wiseman produced awell-dusted Windsor chair, which she placed at Saul Arthur Mann'sdisposal before she politely vanished. In a very few words theinvestigator stated his errand, and Constable Wiseman listened innoncommittal silence. When his visitor had finished, he shook his head.

  "The only thing about the sergeant I know," he said, "I have alreadytold the chief constable who sat in that very chair," he explained. "Hewas always a bit of a mystery--the sergeant, I mean. When he was'tanked,' if I may use the expression, he would tell you stories by thehour, but when he was sober you couldn't get a word out of him. Hisdaughter only lived with him for about a fortnight."

  "His daughter!" said Mr. Mann quickly.

  "He had a daughter, as I've already notified my superiors," saidConstable Wiseman gravely. "Rather a pretty girl. I never saw much ofher, but she was in Eastbourne off and on for about a fortnight afterthe sergeant came. Funny thing, I happen to know the day he arrived,because the wheel of his fly came off on my beat, and I noticed thecircumstances according to law and reported the same. I don't even knowif she was living with him. He had a cottage down at Birlham Gap, andthat is where I saw her. Yes, she was a pretty girl," he saidreminiscently; "one of the slim and slender kind, very dark
and with acomplexion like milk. But they never found her," he said.

  Again Mr. Mann interrupted.

  "You mean the police?"

  Constable Wiseman shook his head.

  "Oh, no," he said; "they've been looking for her for years; long beforeMr. Minute was killed."

  "Who are 'they'?"

  "Well, several people," said the constable slowly. "I happen to knowthat Mr. Cole wanted to find out where she was. But then he didn't startsearching until weeks after she disappeared. It is very rum," musedConstable Wiseman, "the way Mr. Cole went about it. He didn't comestraight to us and ask our assistance, but he had a lot of privatedetectives nosing round Eastbourne; one of 'em happened to be a cousinof my wife's. So we got to know about it. Cole spent a lot of moneytrying to trace her, and so did Mr. Minute."

  Saul Arthur Mann saw a faint gleam of daylight.

  "Mr. Minute, too?" he asked. "Was he working with Mr. Cole?"

  "So far as I can find out, they were both working independent of theother--Mr. Cole and Mr. Minute," explained Mr. Wiseman. "It is what Icall a mystery within a mystery, and it has never been properly clearedup. I thought something was coming out about it at the trial, but youknow what a mess the lawyers made of it."

  It was Constable Wiseman's firm conviction that Frank Merrill hadescaped through the incompetence of the crown authorities, and therewere moments in his domestic circle when he was bitter and eveninsubordinate on the subject.

  "You still think Mr. Merrill was guilty?" asked Saul Arthur Mann as hetook his leave of the other.

  "I am as sure of it as I am that I am standing here," said theconstable, not without a certain pride in the consistency of his view."Didn't I go into the room? Wasn't he there with the deceased? Wasn'this revolver found? Hadn't there been some jiggery-pokery with his booksin London?"

  Saul Arthur Mann smiled.

  "There are some of us who think differently, Constable," he said,shaking hands with the implacable officer of the law.

  He brought back to London a few new facts to be added to his record ofSergeant Crawley, alias Smith, and on these he went painstakingly towork.

  As has been already explained, Saul Arthur Mann had a particularlyuseful relationship with Scotland Yard, and fortunately, about thattime, he was on the most excellent terms with official policeheadquarters, for he had been able to assist them in running to earthone of the most powerful blackmailing gangs that had ever operated inEurope. His files had been drawn upon to such good purpose that thepolice had secured convictions against the seventeen members of the gangwho were in England.

  He sought an interview with the chief commissioner, and that same night,accompanied by a small army of detectives, he made a systematic searchof Silvers Rents. The house into which Jasper Cole had been seen toenter was again raided, and again without result. The house was emptysave for one room, a big room which was simply furnished with atruckle-bed, a table, a chair, a lamp, and a strip of carpet. There werefour rooms--two upstairs, which were never used, and two on the groundfloor.

  At the end of a passage was a kitchen, which also was empty, save for alength of bamboo ladder. From the kitchen a bolted door led on to a tinysquare of yard which was separated by three walls from yards of similardimensions to left and right and to the back of the premises. At theback of Silvers Rents was Royston Court, which was another cul-de-sac,running parallel with Silvers Rents.

  Mr. Mann returned to the house, and again searched the upstairs rooms,looking particularly for a trapdoor, for the bamboo ladder suggestedsome such exit. This time, however, he completely failed. Jasper Cole,he found, had made only one visit to the house since John Minute'sdeath.

  It is a curious fact, as showing the localizing of interest, thatSilvers Rents knew nothing of what had occurred almost at its doors,and, though it had at its finger tips all the gossip of the docks andthe Thames Iron Works, it was profoundly ignorant of what was commonproperty in Royston Court. It is even more remarkable that Saul ArthurMann, with his squadron of detectives, should have confined theirinvestigations to Silvers Rents.

  The investigator was baffled and disappointed, but by the oddest ofchances he was to pick up yet another thread of the Minute mystery, athread which, however, was to lead him into an ever-deeper maze thanthat which he had already and so unsuccessfully attempted to penetrate.

  Three days after his search of Silvers Rents, business took Mr. Mann toCamden Town. To be exact, he had gone at the request of the police toHolloway Jail to see a prisoner who had turned state's evidence on amatter in which the police and Mr. Mann were equally interested. Veryfoolishly he had dismissed his taxi, and when he emerged from the doorsthere was no conveyance in sight. He decided, rather than take the tramswhich would have carried him to King's Cross, to walk, and, since hehated main roads, he had taken a short cut, which, as he knew, wouldlead him into the Hampstead Road.

  Thus he found himself in Flowerton Road, a thoroughfare of respectabledetached houses occupied by the superior industrial type. He wasstriding along, swinging his umbrella and humming, as was his wont, anunmusical rendering of a popular tune, when his attention was attractedto a sight which took his breath away and brought him to a halt.

  It was half past five, and dull, but his eyesight was excellent, and itwas impossible for him to make a mistake. The houses of Flowerton Roadstand back and are separated from the sidewalk by diminutive gardens.The front doors are approached by six or seven steps, and it was on thetop of one of these flights in front of an open door that the scene wasenacted which brought Mr. Mann to a standstill.

  The characters were a young man and a girl. The girl was extremelypretty and very pale. The man was the exact double of Frank Merrill. Hewas dressed in a rough tweed suit, and wore a soft felt hat with afairly wide brim. But it was not the appearance of this remarkableapparition which startled the investigator. It was the attitude of thetwo people. The girl was evidently pleading with her companion. SaulArthur Mann was too far away to hear what she said, but he saw theyoung man shake himself loose from the girl. She again grasped his armand raised her face imploringly.

  Mr. Mann gasped, for he saw the young man's hand come up and strike herback into the house. Then he caught hold of the door and banged itsavagely, walked down the stairs, and, turning, hurried away.

  The investigator stood as though he were rooted to the spot, and beforehe could recover himself the fellow had turned the corner of the roadand was out of sight. Saul Arthur Mann took off his hat and wiped hisforehead. All his initiative was for the moment paralyzed. He walkedslowly up to the gate and hesitated. What excuse could he have forcalling? If this were Frank, assuredly his own views were all wrong, andthe mystery was a greater mystery still.

  His energies began to reawaken. He took a note of the number of thehouse, and hurried off after the young man. When he turned the cornerhis quarry had vanished. He hurried to the next corner, but withoutovertaking the object of his pursuit. Fortunately, at this moment, hefound an empty taxicab and hailed it.

  "Grimm's Hotel, Jermyn Street," he directed.

  At least he could satisfy his mind upon one point.