by Zenith Brown
He handed the man his card. The hand that took it trembled a little. The man who had been talking to Peskett moistened his lips.
“Will you come this way, sir.”
“What’s your name?” Bull asked.
“Doaks, sir. Martin Doaks.”
“What do you do here?”
Tra Mr. Field’s man.”
“How long?”
“A year, sir, and a little over.”
“Do you see much of Peskett?”
The man’s hesitation was not long, but it was perceptible.
“Peskett, sir?”
“Peskett. Mr. Colton’s chauffeur. The man you were just talking with down the lane.”
“Yes, sir. I see very little of him, really. Only when Mr. Colton came down here, or to Mr. Field’s cottage in Kent.”
“Was that often?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, what’s he up to?”
“Up to, sir?”
“Up to. What was he talking to you about?”
Mr. Doaks’s perturbation was not concealed. His face was colourless, his hands shook, he stammered and stumbled in his speech.
“It was nothing, sir.”
“Where were you the night Mr. Colton was robbed and murdered?”
“I don’t know anything about it, sir, and that’s God’s truth,” he cried. “He said he wouldn’t tell, the sneaking hound!”
The terror-stricken vehemence brought an expression of mild dismay to Inspector Bull’s placid face. He was astonished at the change in the man. If he had been nervous before—which Bull, knowing the effect of his card on many people who outwardly had nothing to conceal, could readily understand—he was now in the grip of overwhelming terror.
“Now, Mr. Doaks!” Bull said reassuringly. “Pull yourself up. Sit down over there. I want to hear all about this.”
Doaks made an effort.
“It’s all right, sir,” he said with a ghastly smile. “If he told you I was at Slough I had a good reason for being there.”
“What was it?” said Bull.
“I was visiting my brother. Wednesday’s my day off. That’s what I was doing.”
“I see. Why didn’t you want Peskett to tell me you were at Slough?”
“Because it’s near Colnbrook, that’s why.”
Bull looked curiously at him.
“A lot of places are near Colnbrook, Mr. Doaks,” he said. “Your name is Doaks, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Well, what were you and Peskett talking about?”
Doaks had succeeded to a large extent in recovering himself. Here he made a mistake. He took a covert but intelligent glance at the kindly simple face of Inspector Bull, and made the erroneous but natural judgment that Bull was as simple as he looked. It was to that deceptive appearance that Bull owed half his successes.
“I . . . it wasn’t anything of importance,” Doaks said more calmly. “You’re only guessing, Inspector. You don’t know anything. Coming in here and saying Peskett double-crossed me!”
Bull shrugged his very large shoulders.
“I don’t remember saying that,” he said simply. “As I remember it, it was your own idea.”
He put on his hat and got up.
“If that’s the way you feel about it, it’s all right with me,” he said amiably. “But I’d be careful if I were you. Doaks, you said the name was. Good day. Don’t try to leave town.”
Bull went down the stairs leaving Mr. Doaks looking very uncertainly after him.
“Doaks, Doaks, Doaks, Doaks,” he muttered. He had heard the name somewhere. “Doaks, Doaks.” He racked his brain as he closed the door behind him and started down towards Holborn. Then he smiled. Things were picking up. He remembered. Doaks was one of the names on the list of motorcycle owners in Slough. He had noticed it at the time because when he was a young constable on point duty along the North Woolwich docks there was a public house keeper there named Doaks. One night his wife went off with a sailor from Madagascar and Doaks jumped off into the river. Somebody had made a jingle that began
Jolly old Doaks
Jumped off the docks.
Inspector Bull remembered no more of the lyric, but the name brought back, as he thought of it, memories of cold blowy nights and Mr. Doaks’s back parlour after closing time. In spite of Mr. Doaks’s sad end it was the bright spot in Inspector Bull’s early days on the Force.
Bull thought he could figure it out now. Doaks knew Peskett. Peskett knew Doaks was at Slough and that he had a motorcycle. Assuming that Doaks knew Colton’s plans, which he might have done through Peskett, or through snooping in his employer’s affairs, or in collusion with someone at the Royces’ in Windsor, he could have been at Colnbrook when the Coltons arrived. Assuming that Peskett’s first story was true and that he had later recognised Doaks as the man who held them up—then Peskett’s bank account and visit to Doaks was explained. Peskett was not accomplice in the crime but accessory after the fact. In other words—blackmail.
Bull lighted a cigarette and made his way slowly and thoughtfully to Holborn, allowing his new hypothesis to grow luxuriantly. At the first tobacconist’s he stopped and made a short phone call to Scotland Yard. Then he proceeded methodically along, still engrossed in contemplating the possibilities of Mr. Doaks. There was only one thing against Mr. Doaks as criminal, he thought; but it was a serious fault for a first-rate theory to have. Bull recalled the quivering terrified man at the head of the stairs. It took nerve to hold up a car. It took more to rob a man like George Colton of a satchel full of diamonds and make a quick and precise getaway . . . even if it did not*take nerve to shoot a man down in cold blood.
Inspector Bull shook his head. Nevertheless he took a taxi to Paddington and caught the next train for Slough.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Bull settled himself as comfortably as possible in the corner of a third class carriage, and turned the business of Doaks still further over in his mind.
Doaks had got the wind up over something. That much was plain. No one, however, knew how deceptive such states could be better than Bull. In fact the more upset such a man as Doaks was, the clearer it usually was that he had committed not a major crime but some paltry misdemeanour—sold ham after hours, gone through one of the new red lights at Oxford-circus, something of that kind.
Still, the only motorcycle that had turned up in connection with anybody was connected with Doaks. That much was also plain.
Bull could not have told why he was on his way to Slough with a less depressed feeling about the Colnbrook Outrage than he had had the day before. The truth was that he was glad the focus of the case had shifted from the several possible theories that had so relentlessly involved Mrs. Colton. It was preposterous to suppose that she was in league with a person like Doaks. That much of Inspector Bull’s faith in appearances was unshakeable. Louise Colton was a beautiful woman. As such it was perfectly possible for her to help kill and rob her husband; that Bull admitted; but she could not be as beautiful as she was and be in league with an inferior creature like Doaks. Or, Bull reflected, Peskett either; although Peskett was not a Doaks by any means, nor an inferior person by any but artificial standards. What Bull meant was that given a desert island with Doaks and Peskett along, Mrs. Colton could find an equal in Peskett but never in John Field’s valet.
At Slough Bull went directly to police headquarters and got a young constable to show him the way to the Doaks cottage on the outskirts of the town. It was in a row of bleak and unprepossessing houses.
Mrs. Doaks, an anaemic, harassed woman of forty-five or so, wiped off a chair with her apron and asked Bull to sit down. The constable she knew and was not formal with. Bull decided she had been a house servant in a good place in her youth. He decided also that Mrs. Doaks was on her guard.
“Are you on the phone, Mrs. Doaks?” he asked.
“More’s the pity,” she replied ungraciously. “My husband’s by rights a contractor, and
we have to have it in a business way. Times is so bad we’ve precious little use for it these days.”
“What does Mr. Doaks do now?”
“He’s working on the new villas, sir, they’re putting up on the London road. Until times pick up a bit.”
“Drives to work on the motorcycle, I suppose?”
“Not now he don’t. I says to him, a gallon of petrol will buy more than a gallon of milk, and he can walk to his work like other men. The children need it more than he does.”
Inspector Bull noticed that her chin was as determined as her brother-in-law’s was weak.
“I wonder if I could see it, please.”
Mrs. Doaks promptly opened the side door.
‘There it is, and welcome. It ain’t been used for a month or longer. I put my foot down on that. I drained all the petrol out with my own hands.”
Bull went out to the shed, with the constable, and looked at the machine. Then he came back into the house.
“Now, Mrs. Doaks, I understand that your brother-in-law was here a week ago Wednesday?”
“Yes, sir. He comes down mostly, when he has a day off. It’s something like home to him, what with the children so fond of him.”
“What time did he come?”
“He came just before dinner. He says that Mr. Field, his gentleman, went out to lunch, so he got most of the day off.”
“When did he leave, Mrs. Doaks?”
Bull wondered if there was a guarded look in the woman’s eyes. Was another of the Doakses hiding something? Bull looked at her almost with impatience. “Why don’t they come out with it?” he thought.
“About half past nine, sir. He caught the 10.04 express to Paddington.”
“Then he was here until half past nine?”
This time she hesitated palpably.
“Yes, he was. At least, he was with my husband. I went to bed about nine, I have the children, and I have to get up early. My husband was with him.”
“Here in the house?”
“No. I think they walked around a bit.”
“They took the motorcycle?”
The thin lips closed tightly.
“They didn’t have that thing out,” she said stubbornly. “I’d have given them what for if they had.”
The motorcycle, Bull reflected, with appreciation of the irony that might be involved, was evidently a bone of contention in the Doaks household. He started another question, when suddenly there was a wild commotion in the front of the house.
“Land’s sakes!” said Mrs. Doaks in vexation. More children than Bull would have thought could be attached to one household rushed into the room. Out of the general babble Bull gathered, to his great but guarded interest, that the new parlour suite Uncle George had promised was at that moment arriving.
Mrs. Doaks bit her lip and glanced sharply at Bull. Bull, looking calmly out of the front window, had already observed the gorgeous tan and red and green jacquard davenport coming in the door. It meant, obviously, that Uncle George had come into money in what might be called a big way. A kind-hearted man, he hoped for Mrs. Doaks and the many small Doakses that Uncle George had not been as indiscreet as he thought he had.
“That’s a handsome piece, Mrs. Doaks,” he remarked, taking his hat. “Good day, and thank you.”
“Now take me to the husband,” he directed his constable.
The other Doaks was very much like Uncle George, except that he had a narrow pointed face with crafty eyes and a bald head. If guile was not written in that face, it had never been written, Bull thought. He reflected that in case he ever should want contracting done he would remember that Mr. Doaks was not to do it.
Doaks admitted at once that the motorcycle had been out, as Bull had seen at a glance, within the last few days. More, he admitted quite readily that it had been out Wednesday night last when his brother had been at their home. His wife, however, was not to know it, because she wouldn’t hear of his wasting money on petrol when times were so hard. Bull could understand how it was. The little woman was hard-working and chapel-going and took care of her home and her children. But she was a little hard on her husband. Moreover, she had an annuity of £75 left by an old lady she had worked for. That made her more positive than her husband liked; but £75 was £75. You couldn’t say she was close except in matters of petrol, tobacco and beer.
As a matter of fact Wednesday night his brother George was with them and got a telephone call about eight o’clock. He said it was from his employer, but between men of the world it was a woman. He could hear her voice. He couldn’t hear what she said. But when she was through, his brother asked if he could borrow the motorcycle. He was glad to oblige, provided George saw she was filled up before he got home. No, he didn’t know where George had gone. He wouldn’t care to say if he did. His brother was a hard-working man, and if he liked a drop occasionally, and had a go once in a while with the ladies, it was no more than was natural.
Bull could understand that He wondered if Mr. Field could.
“Well, thank you, Mr. Doaks,” he said. “That’s a fine looking piece of furniture your brother sent out today.”
The man looked at him sharply. Bull caught the tell-tale glint of fear in his eyes.
“Oh, yes. George is a fine boy. Generous to a fault. Always saving his money, he is, and sending little things to my wife. I tell them it’s no use; I’m hale and hearty and good for fifty years, and he’d better get him a wife for himself, to shower his presents on. Good day, Inspector.”
Bull smiled in spite of himself. Nevertheless the picture of Mrs. Doaks being showered with presents was a little pathetic. Bull was willing to wager that the red green and gold suite was the first present she had ever got. Since the £75 annuity, of course. He left Mr. Doaks to his work, wondering how much the uneasiness of both man and wife mattered, what it meant, if anything; and particularly what Uncle George had done with the motorcycle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When Scotland Yard is on a man’s trail the distinction between night and day is forgot. At half past three in the morning Inspector Bull’s telephone jangled insistently. Bull jumped out of bed, cracked his shin on the chair that he had propped against the door to keep the wind from banging it shut, swore vehemently, and barged, wide awake, into the study.
“Hello! Bull speaking. What—Gates? Voorhees picked him up? Good Lord! I’ll be down in half an hour.”
In five minutes Bull had discarded his lavender pajamas, donned his brown Harris tweeds and set out into the biting March night, completely disregarding, in the hurry of the moment, the small grey figure in long outing flannel night shirt, standing wistfully at the head of the stairs. Mr. Pinkerton had waked up too late to join in the hunt.
But Pinkerton had heard enough. He knew much more about the inner organisation of Scotland Yard than anyone —even Inspector Bull—had any idea of. He spent hours of his solitary little life reading the Police Commissioner’s reports and all records that were made public. Sometimes Bull dropped a bit of information without knowing it, and that Pinkerton gathered up and stored carefully away. He knew by name if nothing else almost the entire personnel of the C.I.D.—at least the part of it that was not secret, and even some of the secret members as well. In the present instance, it was enough that Pinkerton heard Bull pronounce the name *Voorhees’; for he knew that Voorhees was Inspector of the River Constabulary. And when he heard Bull say “Voorhees picked him up!” Mr. Pinkerton knew at once that someone connected with the Colnbrook Outrage had been found in the river.
Mr. Pinkerton decided to start out on his own, and to start at once.
Inspector Bull joined Inspector Voorhees at the mortuary.
“Found him at 3.15,” Voorhees explained. “He couldn’t have been in long. We’d just gone down, not twenty minutes before—had a call from Woolwich. Started back right away, going pretty fast too. One of the boys spotted him just under Blackfriars Bridge, downstream side. Your man?”
Bull raised the she
et that covered the drowned man.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Never seen him. Looks like it might be. Eleven stone, thin grey hair, brown eyes, medium height. Look at his hands. They’ve never done much work. Could be him, easy. I’ll get Steiner down to identify him. Monty been in yet?”
Voorhees shook his head. “Telephoned him. Says he’ll be down as soon as he can.”
“Then I’ll get hold of Steiner. Let’s see; it’s 4.10 now.”
“He’ll tell you to go to hell, Bull. I would.”
“No. He ought to be interested.”
Bull groaned as he tried to get his number.
“The girls are bad enough sometimes,” he complained, “but the men they get at night are terrible. If I had all the time I’ve wasted . . . Hello! I want to speak to Mr. Steiner. This is Inspector Bull of Scotland Yard. It’s very important. What? He’s gone? Well, where is he? You don’t know? Well, was he there for dinner? All right, was he there at nine o’clock? Weil, why the . . . why didn’t you say so?”
Bull put down the receiver with a grunt.
“I’m damned,” he said simply.
“Try this,” said Voorhees. He handed Bull a cup of steaming coffee and a sausage roil. “What’s the matter with Steiner?”
“Went to France on the midnight boat from Southampton. No word about when he was coming back.”
Bull thought a minute, while Voorhees looked at him with a grin. He picked up the receiver and called Scotland Yard. “Get off a wireless to Southampton, please. I want to know if Albert Steiner, Hatton-garden, is on the midnight boat to Le Havre. Report in half an hour. Get a move on, will you?”
“What are you going to do?” asked Voorhees. “Arrest a decent Jewish merchant because you had to get up at 3.30?”
Bull put down his coffee cup and brushed the crumbs from his coat front. “Go to blazes,” he said cheerfully. “I’m not going to arrest him. I want to know where he is. Didn’t this man have anything in his pockets?”
“Not a thing. No hat that we could find. We did find something that’ll interest you, though. Hey, where’s that black satchel?”