The Man of Dangerous Secrets

by Maxwell March

  As soon as the door had closed behind the convict and his escort, Inspector Whybrow plunged into the details of the case without giving Mowbray time to express any opinion.

  Robin knew the old man well enough not to say any word of thanks, but a glance passed between them which was sufficient.

  “That settles that,” said Whybrow. “You’re not suffering from hallucinations, Robin, and it was no ghost who attacked you up in Knighton’s office. I’m sorry to put you through this all over again, but we must get the matter clear.

  “You say you saw Rex Bourbon last night, and he fired at you. You also say that you know Rex Bourbon to be dead—in fact that you saw his dead body several days ago.”

  Robin rose to his feet.

  “I know that sounds like the statement of a lunatic,” he said, “and you may think I’m crazy. I may be, for all I know. But I tell you that is exactly what happened.”

  Whybrow and Mowbray exchanged glances, and it was Mowbray who spoke.

  “No need to look so alarmed, Robin,” he said. “Whybrow here has put his finger on the whole secret, I believe.”

  Robin laughed abruptly. “I’m glad to hear it. I suppose you’re thinking that the man I saw last night was a man in disguise? I tell you you’re wrong. I only saw his face for an instant, but I could have sworn it was Bourbon himself.”

  Whybrow beckoned to the boy.

  “Come here, Robin,” he said. “With my post this morning I received a letter from Canada. I’ve been waiting for it impatiently for over a week. The man you saw last night was not actually in disguise, and yet he was not Bourbon. The man we’re dealing with, the man who is responsible for the most cold-blooded set of crimes which it has ever been my lot to investigate, has one very amazing gift. Had he chosen to exploit it on the stage he would probably be one of the most famous men in the world.

  “Just as Houdini was recognized as the master magician of the age, so this man has a gift for mimicry. But whereas the ordinary mimic is only able to imitate walks, gestures, inflections of his subject, this man was able to imitate the very faces of certain men. Some actors have this gift in a lesser degree, but this man is a past master at the game. Given certain broad physical resemblances, such as age, height, sex, and so on, he was able by very slight recourse to artificial aids to assume the outward appearance of at least half a dozen men, each of whose peculiarities he has studied carefully over a number of years.”

  Robin was listening spellbound, a light of hope in his eyes.

  “This is my theory,” he said. “This is what I’ve been thinking ever since I heard Jennifer’s story. But after last night I can hardly believe it. I tell you the man was incredibly like Bourbon.”

  Mowbray leant forward.

  “How often had you seen Bourbon, Robin? Three or four times at most, and then at a distance?”

  Robin nodded.

  “That’s true,” he said. “But how you got onto the idea, I can’t possibly imagine. You hadn’t even Jennifer’s story to go on. Besides, this is amazing if it’s true.”

  “Oh, it’s true all right.” Whybrow’s tone was grim. “What do you make of this, Robin?”

  As he spoke he drew an envelope from his pocket and extracted two pieces of yellow paper, which he laid down upon the desk. One was the torn playbill which the inspector had taken up from beside the telephone in Sir Henry Fern’s office on the night that Rex Bourbon met his death, and the other was another copy of the same playbill, identical save that the sheet was in its entirety.

  “There you are,” said Whybrow triumphantly. “We set the Canadian police a pretty hard task, but they did it. Cast your eye down that, my boy. It may not be actual evidence, but it’s a pretty strong clue to my way of thinking.”

  Robin followed the inspector’s stubby finger down the list of turns advertised on the bill. It came to rest beneath a single name, “CHARON,” in inch-high letters, and beneath, in smaller type. “THE MAN WITH A DOZEN FACES. See him change before your eyes into someone else. The most remarkable show ever staged. Any test gladly given.”

  Robin stared at the inspectors in amazement for a moment. Then the truth slowly dawned in his eyes.

  “So this is why Rex Bourbon phoned me that night?” he said. “He’d stumbled on the truth. Don’t you see, when I found him lying dead in Sir Henry Fern’s office he had this torn playbill clasped in his hand. The murderer must have snatched it from him either before or just after he shot him and did not realize until too late that he had torn the paper.

  “This explains everything,” he went on slowly. “The man on the railway station—the man who Jennifer thought was Sir Ferdinand Shawle in the taxicab—the man on the staircase of Bellew’s flat—good heavens! It’s probably even the explanation of the man in the nursing-home garden who Jennifer thought was her father.”

  Mowbray nodded. “The whole thing’s so ingenious that it takes one’s breath away,” he said. “You see, this fellow they call the Dealer—and I must say that but for you, and Sacret, Robin, we should never have cleared up this point—having got half a dozen rogues in his power, proceeded to blackmail them most ingeniously. He was able to force them to do several swindles on his behalf, and even to convince them that certain of their numbers had committed murder at his instigation.

  “Of course what he actually did was to commit the murders himself—no man’s going to trust another man to do a crime like that for him—but always when he had disguised himself, or transformed himself if you prefer it, to look exactly like one of the others.

  “You must realize,” he went on, “that he had studied this half-dozen for years. He knew their every trick, their every mannerism, so it wasn’t so difficult as it sounds.

  “By this method he had a complete alibi for himself and a scapegoat in whose guilt at least five other men believed should the occasion demand it.”

  “The one fly in the ointment was Morton Blount’s box. Jennifer Fern had to be kept alive, and at the same time prevented from marrying. Quite a pretty little business, don’t you think?”

  Robin sat staring at the playbill.

  “Charon,” he said softly. “Charon. But who? Even now you can’t be sure.”

  Inspector Whybrow regarded him kindly.

  “My dear boy,” he said, “I see the awkwardness of your position, but I’m afraid there are one or two unpleasant revelations coming. Remember,” he went on, “the ranks are getting thin. Caithby Fisher is dead. So is Rex Bourbon.”

  He got no further. The little conference in the austere office was brought to an abrupt close by the arrival of a flustered constable.

  “A lady calling herself Madame Julie outside, sir,” he said. “Says it’s a case of life or death. Seems to mean what she says.”

  “Madame Julie!” Robin was already halfway across the room, and the next moment Madame Julie herself, white and haggard from loss of sleep, appeared upon the threshold.

  “Where is he?” she said, her voice trembling. “Oh, Robin, where is he? They—they haven’t caught my husband?”

  Tired as he was and racked by nervous strain, Robin found time to reassure her.

  “It’s all right. Don’t worry. Where is Jennifer? You swore you wouldn’t leave her.”

  The woman stared at him in astonishment, and Inspector Whybrow came forward.

  “Calm yourself, Madame,” he began, and stopped abruptly before the expression of blank bewilderment in the woman’s eyes.

  “Inspector Whybrow,” she said. “But—but—you’re different!”

  Robin, with a sudden inkling of the revelation to come, caught the woman’s arm, his face distorted with fear, his eyes blazing.

  “Where’s Jennifer?” he repeated. “For God’s sake, Madame Julie, what is it?”

  It was Inspector Whybrow who assisted the trembling woman to a chair, and the two inspectors and the distraught boy bent over her while she stammered out her story.

  “I don’t understand. ... It’s like a nightmare. Very
early this morning, Robin, before it was dawn, Inspector Whybrow—only it wasn’t this Inspector Whybrow, it was someone very, very like him, someone a little taller, a little less—oh, how shall I say?—less kind-looking—came to fetch Jennifer to bring her here to you. He explained that she wasn’t arrested, but that she’d got to come at once, and that I was to stay where I was and not to attempt to get in touch with you until I heard from you first.”

  “But I told you,” said Robin huskily, “I told you not to let her out of your sight.”

  “I know. But this was the police.“

  Inspector Whybrow forced Robin gently out of the way. His face was very grim and his blue eyes had lost much of their kindliness.

  “Let’s hear about this man, Madame. You had seen me before, and yet you thought the stranger who came for Jennifer was me?”

  The woman nodded. Her lips were white, her eyes staring.

  “I’d seen you only once before, Inspector, and, although I see now that there are differences, I could have sworn at the time that it was the same man.

  “I went down to the car with her myself,” she went on. “It was a big saloon car. There was a man in chauffeur’s uniform driving. Jennifer sat at the back beside the man who looked like you.

  “I—I was convinced,” she went on helplessly, “because—well, because——”

  “Because what?”

  Robin bent over her, as though already he knew what she was about to say.

  She met his eyes, frantic appeal in her own.

  “Because,” she said wretchedly, “there was an iron-bound box on the seat between them, and I hoped——”

  Robin’s frantic laugh of sheer despair silenced her.

  “Well,” he said, turning to the inspectors, “there you are. That shows one great flaw in your theory. Sir Henry Fern is under lock and key at his home, and yet a man disguised as Rex Bourbon shot me at half-past eleven in Quality Passage, and a man like Inspector Whybrow arrested Jennifer at dawn this morning.”

  The two inspectors exchanged glances. Then Inspector Whybrow stepped forward and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t tell you before,” he said. “The news came through on the phone this morning when we were sitting here. D’you remember? Sir Henry Fern escaped some time last night. When the detectives went to his room this morning they found the nurse who had been left in charge of him had been locked in a cupboard in the bedroom since ten o’clock yesterday evening. The boys are out after Sir Henry now.”

  “I won’t believe it of Sir Henry. I can’t.”

  It was Robin who spoke.

  The two inspectors looked at him dubiously, but before either of them could speak the telephone bell had again rung. Whybrow bent over and took the instrument.

  After a hurried conversation he hung up the receiver and turned to the others.

  “Things are moving fast. Sir Ferdinand Shawle slipped out of his house last night. He eluded our men but came back this morning, called his car, and has motored out of town. Our men are following him. That message was from a callbox on the London to Ipswich Road.”

  “The east coast!” said Robin eagerly. “He’s making for Crupiner’s nursing home. And that’s where you’ll find Sir Henry, too, Whybrow. He’s gone down there to find his daughter. He doesn’t know she escaped. Shawle’s the man we want—I’m sure of it. Some accomplice of his has probably got Jennifer.”

  Startling confirmation of Robin’s suggestion came within the next five minutes when a secretary entered with a confidential report which had just come through by phone from the special squad who, aided by the local police, were keeping an eye on Crupiner’s establishment.

  “Unusual activity down here,” the inspector read. “Phone instructions.”

  He handed it silently to Mowbray and, receiving his colleague’s nod of assent, scribbled a few words on a pad of paper, handing it to Mowbray for approval before he gave it to the secretary to despatch.

  “I think you’re right, Jack,” said the younger inspector as their subordinate departed. “We’ll go down right away. You’d better stay here, Robin,” he added kindly. “You’re in no condition for a trip of this sort.”

  The boy did not appear to hear him. There was a puzzled expression in his eyes and he stood hesitating.

  “Why,” he said at last, “why should he go there? It’s a god-forsaken place, and he had the box.” He answered his own question, still in the same musing tone. “Of course it might have been anything—to pick up documents, perhaps, evidence that he was afraid to leave behind. And yet, why should he take Jennifer? If he’s got the box himself he can’t have any interest in her any longer.”

  Old Whybrow’s face clouded.

  “I don’t want to alarm you unduly, Robin,” he said, “but I think there’s one little point you’re rather overlooking. Hasn’t it occurred to you that Jennifer Fern and yourself are the only two people who knew the whole truth of that business in the nursing home when they proposed to operate?”

  Robin turned to him, the fear which had been lurking in his eyes suddenly leaping into prominence.

  “Of course,” he said. “And he probably thought he had killed me last night. My God, Whybrow, we’ve got no time to lose! I’m coming with you. We must go at once. He’s got a good start.”

  No one knew better than Whybrow how important it was to avoid delay, and he did not attempt to argue with the younger man.

  Mowbray gave a few curt instructions over the telephone, and they prepared to depart.

  “Where is this place?” said Mowbray suddenly as they reached the door. “It’s out beyond Colchester somewhere, isn’t it? On the marshes?”

  A wave of helplessness passed over Robin. The only time he had approached the lonely nursing home from London had been in the ambulance, and he remembered with a touch of despair those narrow winding lanes in the pitch darkness.

  Now there was no time to lose. By the time they had gone to the local police headquarters and picked up a guide, the Dealer would have been able to escape and to dispose of Jennifer and any other evidence he wished to hide.

  Suddenly the boy’s eye fell on Madame Julie, sitting white and silent in a chair. Her eyes sought his, imploring him to let her help.

  The inspector followed the direction of his glance and read the thought which had passed through his mind.

  “Of course,” he said. “She knows. Take her. Have you got a gun on you, Mowbray?”

  He took his own from a drawer in the desk as he spoke, and the next moment the four anxious people sped down the concrete staircase to the car waiting below.

  Both the inspectors were keen. They were nearing the finish of the most sensational case of their career. Madame Julie had private reasons for wishing to help the police in every conceivable way in her power, since it was only through them that she could hope for her husband’s ultimate salvation.

  But Robin was moved by the strongest force on earth. The girl he loved was in danger. Upon their swiftness now depended everything that mattered in the world to him.

  CHAPTER 29

  The Dealer

  “YOUR instructions have been followed closely, sir. We have men on every road. That is to say, there’s another police trap like this one on the north road, and a third on the byway which runs west. We didn’t go too near for fear of alarming them, as you suggested.”

  The sergeant of the local police saluted as he finished speaking and stepped back from the car.

  It was now nearly noon, and yet a grey haze still hung over the rain-soaked marshes which stretched on either side of them as far as the eye could reach.

  Whybrow nodded to the man and climbed out upon the road, ignoring Robin’s impatient signals for him to go on.

  They were about a quarter of a mile from the nursing home, and the mass of shrubs and trees which surrounded it was just visible ahead.

  “Every exit has been covered, then? What’s that lane over there? Isn’t that a way along the c
oast?”

  The old man pointed to a strip of green running behind the nursing home along the sea border.

  “That’s a cul-de-sac, sir,” said the sergeant. “It leads down to a broken pier left over from the days when they tried to develop this part of the world into a seaside resort. The pier’s derelict—rotten through and through. There’s no way of escape there, sir.”

  This conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a constable on a motor bicycle. He pulled up at some little distance upon observing the car, but came forward when the sergeant beckoned him.

  He made his report in a brief and workmanlike fashion. Dr. Crupiner, three nurses, and four members of the nursing-home staff had been held up on the northern road.

  “We’re holding them, pending inquiries, sir,” he finished. “That’s according to instructions, isn’t it?”

  Whybrow smiled. “That’s splendid, Sergeant,” he said. “Couldn’t be better. That means we have only the visitors who came down by car this morning left in the house.”

  The man considered.

  “Yes, sir, that’s right,” he said at last. “There were two cars noticed this morning, and someone is thought to have arrived last night, although, of course, as we weren’t on guard then we can’t be sure.”

  Whybrow turned and, catching sight of Robin’s white, agonized face, decided to push on. With a word of thanks to the sergeant he climbed back into the car, and they sped on down the road towards the sinister building which Robin had such good reason to loathe and fear.

  As they came nearer, Robin got his first clear view of the nursing home by daylight. The long, low building looked very austere and prison-like with its huge surrounding wall. An immense iron fire escape led up to a gallery surrounding the glass roof of what was evidently a recent addition to the building.

  Robin recognized the operating theatre with a shudder.

  Madame Julie’s quiet voice from behind him brought back the scene still more vividly to his mind.