by Frank Froest
‘Those are pretty well all the facts, except this: when Jimmie was searched at the police station there were found on him three five-pound notes. These notes had been issued to Sweeney by a bank at Detroit before he left. I have the man’s own statement here, sir, if you’d care to look at it. It’s a string of lies.’
His chief waved aside the document and fiddled with his pince-nez as he considered the problem for a while. ‘You’re right to go easy, Whipple, but don’t overdo it. There’s almost enough evidence as it is to hang Red Jimmie. Intuition is good, but a jury won’t be interested in your psychology. They’d sooner read a book.’
‘Very good, sir.’ The detective-inspector went away, still far from satisfied. In view of the evidence now accumulated, he would have been inclined to believe Jimmie guilty had it not been for the singular news of Sweeney’s smash and the insurance. Coincidence is a factor in criminal investigation work, but this was straining it. If Sweeney had been murdered, the crime had come just right to provide for his family.
‘There’s some point that I’ve overlooked,’ he murmured to himself. ‘I can’t quite place it.’
He went back over the Albert Bridge to the police station, but no inspiration came to him. There was a bundle of reports awaiting him in his office, but after a casual glance he flung them aside and went down to the cells. He wanted to see Jimmie alone.
Jimmie looked up with pitifully haggard face as the door clanged behind the detective. Whipple nodded cheerfully and sat down.
‘Jimmie,’ he said familiarly, ‘wouldn’t you like to give me the straight griffin? I’ve heard from New York. You’d better let me know exactly what happened. What passed between you and Sweeney in the train coming down from Liverpool?’
He spoke in a quiet, conversational tone, but Jimmie jerked his head back as though to avoid a blow. He had had plenty of time to reflect on the leading points of circumstantial evidence that told against him. It staggered him more than a little that the police had been so quickly able to follow his trail backwards. He was conscious of his innocence of the major crime, conscious also that there was nothing he could do or say which would get away from the deadly array of facts that pointed against him.
‘Well, Jimmie?’ said Whipple persuasively.
Jimmie ran a hand through his dishevelled red hair. Then he shook himself as though trying to throw off the thoughts that possessed him. ‘See here, boss,’ he cried in an impulsive burst, ‘I’ll put you wise to the whole shemozzle. You won’t believe me anyway, but it’s the solemn truth, so help me. The bulls, they wouldn’t give me a rest in New York, so I chased myself over here where I’ve got one or two chums.’
‘Four-fingered Foster?’ queried Whipple absently. His thoughts were quite away from Jimmie, but he was nevertheless keenly following every word.
‘Has he squealed? Never mind, it don’t matter. Well, on the boat I got some chances, but I held myself in. There’d been a Central Office man to see me off, and I didn’t know but what he might have passed the word. I cut out the funny business till I got ashore, but I marked out one or two likely guys, Sweeney amongst them. Of course I steered clear of them on the ship, didn’t talk to ’em or nothing. I didn’t want to be noticed too much—you understand? When we shifted over into the boat-train at Liverpool, I saw Sweeney on his lonesome and got into the carriage with him. I lifted his leather from him—I admit that, boss—just as we reached London.’
‘You picked his pocket?’
‘Yes, his pocket-book. Then I went on to my hotel and sorted out the stuff. Some of them notes they took off me when they brought me in was among them. Then there was a lot of letters.’
‘What did you do with them?’
A flash of cunning crossed Jimmie’s face. ‘What do you think? Burnt ’em. Things like that don’t talk when they’re in the fire. There was one there, though, that I wish I’d saved now. It was written in print, if you understand what I mean, and told Sweeney to meet someone who had wrote it at Albert Bridge.’
‘Wait a minute. Can’t you remember exactly what it said?’
Jimmie wrinkled his brow in cogitation. Slowly he repeated the letter, which Whipple took down in shorthand on the back of an envelope. ‘I thought,’ said Jimmie, a little haltingly, ‘that I might butt in and catch this Black Hand gang and do Sweeney a turn. You see, I never believed in this gun-play myself, and I thought if I could stop it I might put myself right with Sweeney and perhaps he’d put me on to something—’
‘Take you into partnership,’ said Whipple; ‘saviour of his life and all that kind of thing.’
‘That’s it,’ agreed Jimmie.
Whipple smiled inwardly, but his face was grave. ‘And you want me to believe this yarn that you’ve been sitting thinking out, do you? Ah—don’t be a fool.’
Jimmie was utterly unstrung, or he never would have allowed himself a resort to violence which, even if it were successful, must have been futile. He thought he saw that he was still disbelieved, and had leapt at the detective’s throat with a mad idea of escape. Whipple side-stepped quickly, stooped, and the pickpocket felt himself lifted and flung to the other side of the cell.
‘Don’t be a fool, Jimmie,’ repeated Whipple mildly. ‘Even if you did knock me out, you couldn’t do anything. The cell is locked on the outside, and even I can’t get away till I ring. Sit down again quietly—that’s right. Now tell me one other thing: Did you notice anything in particular when you got on to the bridge last night?’
The other rubbed himself tenderly. ‘Nothing in particular,’ he answered. ‘There was a smell of paint—that’s not much good.’
‘Isn’t it!’ said Whipple, and pressed the bell that summoned the gaoler.
Two men sauntered on to the Albert Bridge. Whipple had got an idea, and though he had yet to test it, he was convinced that he was on the right track at last. He nodded as he saw the fresh green paint on the rails, and kept his eye fixed on them till he had passed a dozen yards by the spot where the murder had been committed. Then the two crossed to the other side of the bridge. The inspection of not more than three yards of the rail had taken place when Whipple halted and gave a satisfied chuckle. ‘We’re on it, Newton,’ he declared. ‘Look here.’
He pointed to some marks on the fresh paint-work. Across the top of the upper part of the rail, and continued downwards on the outer side, the paint had been scraped away. On the river side there were a couple of irregular bruises on the paint.
‘Kids been playing about,’ said the sergeant with decision. ‘I remember in the flat murder case we got mucked about by a lot of marks on a doorway. Some bright soul thought they were Arabic characters. It turned out they were boy scout marks.’
The detective-inspector laughed. ‘All right. Seeing’s believing with you. I’ll have a shot at this my own way, though. You might go and phone through to the river division. Ask ’em to send a couple of boats up here with drags.’
Newton spat over the rail into the tide. ‘You’ll not find anything with drags,’ he said, and with this Parthian shot, went to obey his instructions. Whipple remained in thought. Once, when there was a lull in the traffic, he paced out the distance between the marks on the rail and the place where Sweeney had been killed.
‘I’m right,’ he declared to himself; ‘I’d bet on it.’
Within twenty minutes two motor-launches were off the bridge and Newton had returned. Leaving him to mark the spot where the paint had been rubbed on the rail, Whipple went down to be picked up off a convenient wharf. A short discussion with the officer in charge as to the effect of the tide-drift, and they were in mid-stream again.
Then the drags splashed overboard and they began methodically to search the bed of the river. When half an hour had gone, Whipple was beginning to bite his lip. A drag came to the surface with whipcord about its lines. A constable began to unwind it. The detective leaned forward eagerly. ‘Steady, man, don’t let it break, whatever you do.’
They pulled the thing at
tached to the string on board and steered for the bank, Whipple in the glow of satisfaction that comes to every man who sees the end of his work in sight. He went straight to the police station telegraph room.
‘Whipple to Superintendent C.I.,’ he dictated. ‘Inform Detroit police Sweeney’s insurance void. Absolute proof committed suicide. Details to follow.’
Later, in his own office, his stenographer took down to be typed for record:
‘SIR,—I respectfully submit the following facts in regard to the supposed murder of the man Sweeney—
‘I first gained the impression that it was suicide from the doctor’s report that the explosion of a pistol had scorched the dead man’s face, showing that it had been held very closely to his head. This impression was strengthened by the fact that Iles, the American who was found by the body and at first suspected of the murder, could, if his motive was robbery, have attained this end more simply without violence. He is known to the New York police as an expert pickpocket. I need scarcely add that the knowledge that Sweeney was practically a bankrupt before he left the United States and had insured himself very heavily disposed me still more to the theory of suicide. If Sweeney had it in his mind to kill himself, it was indispensable to his purpose (since practically all life insurances are void in the event of suicide) to make the act appear (1) as an accident; (2) as a murder. He chose the latter.
‘Unfortunately for himself, Iles picked Sweeney’s pocket on the journey to London. Whether the latter discovered his loss before his death it is impossible to say with certainty. I believe not. Among the documents which Iles found was a letter in printed characters (which with others he burnt) demanding an appointment on the Albert Bridge, and conveying indirect threats. It is my belief that this letter was written by Sweeney himself with the idea that it would be found on his body and confirm the appearance of murder. I considered very fully the various means by which Sweeney might dispose of a pistol after he had shot himself. Only one practicable way occurred to me, and this was confirmed by an examination of the bridge rail, which had been newly painted. There were the paint stains on the dead man’s clothes, and Iles had said he noticed him looking over the rails.
‘It seemed to me that if the butt of a pistol were secured to a cord, and a heavy weight attached to the other end of the cord and dropped over the rail of the bridge before the fatal shot was fired, the grip on the pistol would relax and it would be automatically dragged into the water. The river was dragged at my request, and the discovery of an automatic pistol tied by a length of whipcord to a heavy leaden weight proved my theory right … With regard to Iles, I shall charge him with pocket-picking on his own confession, and ask that he shall be recommended for deportation as an undesirable alien … I have the honour to be your humble servant,
‘LIONEL WHIPPLE,
‘Divisional Detective-Inspector.’
‘All the same, sir,’ commented Detective-Sergeant Newton, ‘it looked like being that tough. He’s in luck that you tumbled to the gag.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Whipple smilingly. ‘It’s luck—just luck.’
III
THE MAN WITH THE PALE-BLUE EYES
A BLUE haze of smoke which even the electric fans could not entirely dispel overhung the smoking saloon of the S.S. Columbia. With the procrastination of confirmed poker players, they had lingered at the game till well after midnight. Silvervale cut off a remark to glance at his cards. He yawned as he flung them down.
‘She can call herself Eleanor de Reszke or anything else she likes on the passenger list,’ he declared languidly, ‘but she’s Madeline Fulford all right, all right. She’s come on a bit in the last two years, though she always was a bit of a high stepper. Wonder if de Reszke knows anything about Crake?’
Across the table a sallow-faced man, whose play had hitherto evinced no lack of nerve, threw in a full hand, aces up, on a moderate rise. No one save himself knew that he had wasted one of the best of average poker hands. His fingers, lean and tremulous, drummed mechanically on the table. For a second a pair of lustreless, frowning blue eyes rested on Silvervale’s face.
‘So that’s the woman who was in the Crake case? It was her evidence that got the poor devil seven years, wasn’t it? As I remember the newspaper reports, she was a kind of devil incarnate.’
‘I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ observed Silvervale dryly, ‘and I’m a newspaper man myself. I didn’t hear the trial, but I saw her afterwards. It never came out why she gave him away. There must have been some mighty strong motive, for he had spent thousands on her. I guess there was another woman at the bottom of it. Anyway, her reasons don’t matter. She cleared an unpleasant trickster out of the way and put him where he belongs. But for her he might have been carrying on that swindling bank of his now. I’ll take three cards.’
The man with the pale-blue eyes jerked his head abruptly. ‘Yes, he’s where he belongs,’ he asserted, ‘and she—why, she’s Mrs de Reszke and a deuced pretty woman … Hello!’ He broke off short, staring with fascinated eyes beyond Silvervale. The journalist swerved round in his chair, to meet a livid face and furious eyes within a foot of his own.
It was Richard de Reszke himself. He had not made himself popular on ship-board—indeed, it is doubtful if he could ever have been popular in any society. A New Yorker who had made himself a millionaire in the boot trade, he was ungracious both in manner and speech. He had entered the saloon unperceived, and now his tall, usually shambling figure was unwontedly erect. His left hand—big and gnarled it was—fell with an ape-like clutch on Silvervale’s shoulder.
‘You scandal-mongering little ape,’ he snarled, with a vicious tightening of the lips under his grey moustache. ‘By God, you’ll admit you’re a liar, or I’ll shake the life out of you.’
The chair fell with a crash as he pulled the journalist forward. Men sprang to intervene between the two. Cursing and struggling, de Reszke was forced back, but it took four men to do it. Suddenly his resistance relaxed.
‘That’s all right,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll let it go for now.’ A fresh access of passion shook him, and he shot out a malignant oath. ‘I’ll make you a sorry man yet for this, Mr Silvervale.’
The journalist had picked up the fallen chair. His face was flushed, but he answered coolly. ‘I apologise,’ he said quietly. ‘I had no business to talk of your wife.’
‘Then in front of these gentlemen you’ll admit you’re a liar.’
‘I guess not. I am sorry I said anything, but what I did say was the truth. Mrs de Reszke was Madeline Fulford, and she it was who gave evidence against Crake.’
The little group between the men stiffened in expectation of a new outburst. But none came. The stoop had come back to de Reszke’s shoulders, and he lifted one hand wearily to tug at his moustache. Then without another word he turned and shambled from the room.
There was a momentary silence, broken at last by the scratch of a match as someone lit a cigarette. The embarrassment was broken, and three or four men spoke at once.
‘Look out, Silvervale,’ said Bowen, a young New York banker. ‘Lucky for you we touch Southampton tomorrow. The old man is a-gunning for you, sure. His face meant murder.’
‘Thanks. I’ll look after my own corpse,’ drawled the journalist. He spoke with an ease he did not entirely feel. ‘I suppose the game’s broken up now. I’ve had enough excitement for one night. I’m going to turn in.’
The short remainder of the voyage, in spite of de Reszke’s threat and the prophecy of Bowen, passed without incident. It was not till he was back in London that the episode was recalled to Silvervale’s mind. The boat train had reached Waterloo in the early afternoon, and at six o’clock, Silvervale, for all that his two months’ vacation had yet three days to run, had been drawn into the stir and stress of Fleet Street.
The harrassed news editor of the Morning Wire was working at speed through a basket of accumulated copy. He paused long enough to shake hands and exchange a remark or two, a
nd then resumed his labours with redoubled ardour, for he was eager to hand over the reins to his night assistant.
He snatched irritably at a piece of tape that was handed to him by a boy, and then, adjusting his pince-nez, glanced at Silvervale.
‘Here’s a funny thing, Silver. Didn’t you come back on the Columbia? Read that.’
Silvervale took the thin strip and slowly read it through:
‘5.40: Mrs Eleanor de Reszke, the wife of an American millionaire, was this afternoon found shot dead in her sitting-room at the Palatial Hotel. She had been at the hotel only an hour or two, having arrived by the Columbia from New York this morning.’
Hardened journalist though he was, with a close acquaintance with many of the bizarre aspects of tragedy, Silvervale could not repress a little shudder. Here was a grim sequel for which he was in a degree responsible. He traced the sequence of events clearly in his imagination from the moment when de Reszke first heard that his wife had been the associate and betrayer of a swindler, to the ultimate gust of passion that must have led to the tragedy when it was borne upon him that the statement was the truth.
‘Yes. It’s—it’s queer, Danvers,’ he said unsteadily, ‘deuced queer.’ Then with a realisation that the news editor was regarding him with curiosity: ‘I’m sorry, old man; you mustn’t ask me to handle the story. You’d better put Blackwood on it. It should be a good yarn, but I’m rather mixed up in it. I may be called as a witness.’
Few things are calculated to startle the news editor of a great morning newspaper, but this time Silvervale had certainly succeeded. To tell the truth, the young man was astonished at his own scruples. He made haste to escape before he could be questioned.
Out in Fleet Street he hailed a taxi and was driven straight to the Palatial Hotel. A couple of men were in the big hall, smilingly parrying the questions of half a dozen journalists. One of them shook his head as Silvervale pushed his way to the front.