The Crime Club

by Frank Froest

  Barraclough got them to point out the rooms which had been occupied by Gwennie herself, by ‘Green,’ and by ‘Shilworth.’ It was in the drawer of a writing-table in the apartment of the commercial traveller that he came across what he wanted. He descended to the dining-room and addressed the two prisoners.

  ‘See here, you two people. You know as well as I do that I’ve no right to question you, but I may as well tell you that I’m not on the bluff. I’ve got evidence that you were concerned in the abduction of Miss Rockward, and I know why. You can’t do any good by holding her up any longer. We’re bound to find her—and Yid Foster. Now, where is she?’

  ‘You’re a wise guy,’ sneered Velson.

  ‘Shut up,’ ordered Gwennie imperatively, and the little man relapsed into scowling silence. She fixed an appraising gaze on Barraclough. ‘You’re a gentleman, Mr Barraclough,’ she said. ‘Will you let up on us if we put you on the line?’

  ‘I can’t make bargains, I’m afraid,’ said Barraclough.

  Gwennie placidly crossed her arms.

  ‘Then you’ll have to work out your own business,’ she observed.

  Detective-Inspector Watford faced Detective-Inspector Barraclough as they sat in two of Gwennie’s softly-cushioned arm-chairs. Gwennie and Velson were safely on their way by taxi-cab to King Street police station, and a more minute search of the house than Barraclough had been able to make was being systematically conducted by the three men Watford had brought with him.

  The latter tapped the bowl of an empty pipe thoughtfully upon the heel of his boot.

  ‘I wish I was sure you hadn’t dragged me out of bed on a wild-goose chase,’ he observed. ‘It seems to me like a dead end. We can’t prove that they had anything to do with the Great Southern Bank business, and that’s my funeral. You may feel sure about the abduction, but you haven’t got the lady. I’m not quite comfortable. I own it freely.’

  Barraclough stood up.

  ‘Of all the infernal gratitude! Why, man, it’s as clear as crystal! Here’s this forgery committed. You suspect one of the bank clerks and keep young Elsleigh under observation. You find him colloquing with Brixton George, and, like a sensible man, you send ’em both down. They’re both as tight as oysters, and there’s a hundred thousand of the best stowed away somewhere that you can’t lay your finger on.’

  ‘Well?’ said Watford dryly.

  ‘Well, it stands to reason that there’s something behind it. They’ve briefed Luton, K.C., to defend them at the trial. Somebody’s finding the money, and that somebody has got the hundred thousand stowed away in an old stocking. Now, you told me the other day that the defence intend to apply for an adjournment to the next sessions when the case comes up at the Old Bailey.’

  ‘Well?’ repeated Watford.

  ‘There’ll be an application for bail,’ went on Barraclough. ‘The rest of the gang know Brixton George. They’ve got to get him out if they want him to save their own skins. He would talk too much if they deserted him. That’s what Luton is for—to get bail—and then George could slip the country. Now the judge is bound to want a person of reputation as well as financial standing for bail—a man like Rockward, for instance.’

  His colleague moved till he was upright in his chair.

  ‘I see your theory. Miss Rockward has been abducted to force Rockward to go bail for Brixton George.’

  ‘That’s it. It’s certain that Brixton George has been in close touch with Gwennie and Yid Foster. Add it all together, and you couldn’t get a likelier gang than Gwennie, the Yid, Velson, and George for a job of this kind. And why did Velson draw a gun?’

  A tap at the door and the entry of one of his men prevented Watford from answering. He took from him a couple of letters and three bank pass-books, and looked them through. The creases smoothed out of his bronzed face.

  ‘By the great horn spoon, you’re right!’ he cried. ‘Here’s letters from the Yid. Why on earth Gwennie kept them I don’t know. Where did you find then?’

  ‘Stuffed between the mattress and the springs of her bed,’ replied the other.

  ‘Listen to this,’ said Watford. He read: ‘“You’re a real wonder, Gwennie. After you had given the girl the dope in the tea-room in Bond Street I got her away to Charing Cross as simply as A.B.C. She kept up her daze right across the water, though I got a bit of a shock at Boulogne when I thought she was coming round. However, it was a false alarm. We got here safe enough to your friend at Rue Vaillant 24.”

  ‘Then there’s the other letter: “I went round to see the kid this morning. She’s a little tartar, but I guess T. will learn her to be good. I am staying at the Bristol, and am feeling a heap better. Have you fixed up about Chelsea yet?”’

  ‘The Bristol!’ remarked Barraclough. ‘That’s going some. I suspect the Yid will have worse lodgings before long. Will you go out and burn up the wires, or shall I?’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Watford.

  The unravelling of a skein, once the right end of a mystery is found, proceeds rapidly. It was ten o’clock in the morning when Barraclough and his assistants finished ransacking the house at Tooting. A bath and a shave effaced the traces of a sleepless night, and Barraclough made his way to Scotland Yard. He found Watford in his room with a packed bag in one corner.

  ‘Paris?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ replied his friend. ‘I’m off to fetch the Yid. The business is well weighed up now. Those bank-books show that all the money has been paid into the account of Gwennie and her pals, and we shall have no difficulty in proving the case. The Brigade de Sûreté have nobbled Foster and found the girl. She was in a little house cooped up with an old hag named Templeton, who was with Gwennie in a swindling ladies’ bank in the States some years ago. Rockward is going over with me. He asked to be remembered to you, and said that if the commissioner approved he would like to hand you over a cheque.’

  ‘That so?’ said Barraclough wearily. ‘Good!’

  Watford tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘See here, old man, I’m puzzling how you got on to this in the first place. You might tell.’

  Barraclough sighed, and dragged the note that had been sent to Rockward out of his pocket.

  ‘See how that’s edged with pink?’ he said. ‘That’s what got me on to it. Of course, that edging was bound to attract anyone’s attention. I didn’t know whether it was important or not, so I took it to the people most likely to know—a firm of paper merchants. They told me that the paper—technically a cream-tinted vellum—was made of esparto grass, and that aniline sulphate solution would turn it pink. That didn’t seem to help much. I asked if anything else would have done it. Then I got my tip. It seemed that sulphur fumes might have done the trick—they had heard of a case where it had happened when a room had been fumigated.

  ‘I hit right on to that. A room would probably be fumigated after some infectious disease, and that was what I had to look for. I had gone right over London before I hit Big Billy and got the straight tip. That’s all there was to it.’

  ‘Quite simple, my dear Barraclough,’ grinned Watford. ‘There’s the guv’nor in his room waiting to pat you on the back.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Crikey! I’ll have to run to catch that train. Good-bye.’

  ‘Good-bye,’ said Barraclough.

  XI

  THE STRING OF PEARLS

  HELDON FOYLE dropped his cigar on the pavement, crushed it under his heel, and went thoughtfully on his way as the woman stepped into a taxi-cab. In the distance some public clock faintly hammered out the stroke of twelve.

  A touch of imagination if it be harnessed to common sense does no harm to a detective. It was just that quality of imagination which had caused Foyle of New Scotland Yard to pause for a second at the point where Clarges Street runs into Piccadilly. It was his common sense that took him on.

  From one of the houses in that street of austere respectability a woman had emerged, closing the door behind her with infinite caution and listening before she des
cended the steps. It was her caution that attracted Foyle’s closer attention. He noticed that the house was in utter darkness. The woman was in evening dress of some dark fabric, and the wrap over her head had been drawn close to shield her face. Once, as she crossed the road, she had thrown a furtive glance over her shoulder as though she feared she might be followed. She had halted a passing taxi-cab with an air of furtive haste.

  Now there was no man more acquainted with queer happenings in all grades of society than Heldon Foyle. Years of experience at Scotland Yard had made him slow to jump to conclusions. But it is not usual for well-dressed women to steal surreptitiously at midnight from houses in a fashionable quarter. The thing touched his imagination. He was stirred to speculation.

  One of the great street electric lights shone down on him as he lit a fresh cigar. There was nothing of the police officer about him—he would have considered himself unfitted for his business if there had been. He might have been between thirty and forty. Tall, with broad shoulders and indomitable chin, a carefully-kept brown moustache and steady, shrewd, humorous blue eyes; he was dressed scrupulously but unobtrusively.

  Coincidence is by no means a negligible asset to Scotland Yard. To Heldon Foyle the next day there was announced Count von Haussen, whose card bore in one corner the number of a house in Clarges Street. The chief detective gave a little whimsical whistle as he deposited the reports which he had been busy perusing in a drawer, and prepared to receive his visitor.

  The Count von Haussen was a slim-built man with a lean, sallow face, which was now twitching with some strong emotion, so that he seemed to be perpetually readjusting the eyeglass that he wore. His morning coat accentuated the thinness of his figure, and he wore spats over his sharp-pointed, highly-polished boots.

  ‘Mr Heldon Foyle?’ he asked in quick staccato tones, as he shook hands. ‘You are the chief detective here?’ In spite of his German name and title his English was perfect.

  ‘The superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department,’ answered Foyle. ‘Will you sit down? What can I do for you?’

  Count von Haussen placed his silk hat and gloves on the corner of the table.

  ‘It is a case of robbery,’ he declared, plunging at once into his subject. ‘I have had a string of pearls stolen, taken from my safe somehow—it seems like magic. They were there two or three days ago; this morning they were gone.’

  Foyle nodded and lifted the telephone receiver from its place.

  ‘Get through to Grape Street,’ he said quietly, ‘and ask Inspector Milford to come up here as soon as he can.’ He put back the receiver. ‘Milford is in charge of our West End fold,’ he explained; ‘we may want him. Go on, Count. What are these pearls worth?’

  ‘I don’t know. They have always been in my family. They are insured for £3000, but their value is more than that. The queer thing is that the safe was not broken open. It is quite a small one, but the makers assured me it was absolutely burglar-proof. I last went to it, I believe, three days ago. The jewels were all right then. This morning, an hour ago, I had to go to it again. They were gone.’

  The detective stroked his chin, a habit he had when considering a problem. ‘You mean to say that someone opened it with a duplicate key?’ he asked.

  ‘That is impossible. There is only one key, and that never leaves my possession.’

  ‘You are sure you didn’t leave the safe unlocked?’

  ‘Quite certain.’

  A head showed round the corner of the door. The chief of the department beckoned with his forefinger.

  ‘Come in, Mr Milford,’ he said. ‘This is Count von Haussen, of Clarges Street, Piccadilly. He has had some valuable pearls stolen. I wish you would go into the matter. Take a description and the Count’s statement. Let me know when you are ready, and we’ll go down to Clarges Street together.’

  Milford bowed ceremoniously at the introduction, and disappeared with the Count.

  In the next twenty minutes Heldon Foyle did many things which made several of the six hundred men under his charge exceedingly busy. He knew that the sooner the great machinery which he controlled was set to work the greater the chance of solving the problem that had been set him. A swift pursuit often saved long labour.

  A list of those expert professional thieves who were known to have been in London on the day the jewels were last seen was instantly to hand, and a little army of men set to trace and check their movements. Reports were called for from the departmental men continually on duty at the London termini; from the watchers at the ports—Harwich, Dover, Folkestone, Southampton, and other places, including the Continental ports.

  These were all first steps in routine, to be amplified or modified by instructions as developments might occur. A known jewel thief leaving London would scarcely have escaped the notice of the triple line of observers, and once his trail was picked up he would be watched until his guilt or innocence was reasonably settled.

  A cable to Amsterdam, to which place it was likely that stolen jewels might be sent for disposal, advised the police in that city of the robbery.

  There may be more sport in fishing with a rod and line, which is what the single-handed detectives in books do, but there is more certainty about a net. Foyle always regarded the capture of criminals as a business matter, and, as far as possible, adopted business methods. All his precautions might go for nought—the thief might not be a professional at all—but they left him free to deal with any matters that might arise in the course of the investigation.

  The chief detective had five minutes to think over events when his last order had been despatched over the private telegraph wire. For the first time he allowed his thoughts to ponder over the mysterious woman he had seen leaving Clarges Street the night before.

  Milford stalked in at last, a big sheet of foolscap paper in his hand. Heldon Foyle began to put on his hat and coat.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What do you make of it?’

  The divisional inspector shook his head.

  ‘Nothing at present, sir. It’s odd, if what the Count says is right.’

  ‘Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘Only what he tells me. His father was a German, but he’s lived in England all his life. The pearls—there were eighteen of them—were a kind of heirloom. He is rather vague about them, but I phoned through to Halford and Jones, the assessors to Lloyd’s, who tell me that the man who examined them for insurance was struck by their individual purity and the way they were matched. They’re worth a lot more than the money they’re insured for. I’ve got a full technical description.’

  ‘Is this gentleman married?’

  ‘No.’ Milford referred to the paper in his hand. ‘The only people living in the house besides himself are a Miss Ethel von Haussen—a girl who comes of Devonshire stock, whom he adopted as his daughter nine years ago—and four servants—a housekeeper, two maids, and a page-boy.’

  The chief detective rubbed his chin.

  ‘Right you are, Milford. You’d better let that description go out at once. Hurry up. We’ll take a taxi.’

  He joined von Haussen, who was waiting in the corridor. There were few men who could turn a stranger into a friend or who knew more of the art of indirect cross-examination than Heldon Foyle. The dapper little Anglicised German was as empty of all information as a wrung sponge by the time the cab drew up at Clarges Street. Foyle had learnt much of the character and history of each person in the house—not excepting Miss Ethel and von Haussen himself.

  A little hitch of the shoulder was all the sign he gave as he recognised the house from which the mysterious woman had emerged. His keen eyes noted the Yale lock on the outer door, and the couple of heavy bolts which secured it at top and bottom. Von Haussen led them through to a room at the back. It was furnished as a sitting-room. He drew aside a small curtain in a recess.

  ‘This is the safe, you see,’ he said.

  The two detectives stooped to examine it closely. Foyle inserted the key
and, turning the handle, swung back the heavy door. As the Count had said, there was no indication that it had been tampered with, Even their expert scrutiny could find nothing likely to prove of use to the investigation. Foyle shrugged his shoulders and Milford made a few notes in his official pocket-book.

  ‘You would like to question the servants?’ demanded von Haussen.

  ‘Mr Milford will see to that,’ said Foyle. ‘Perhaps you will introduce me to Miss von Haussen first if she happens to be in.’

  ‘Oh, certainly,’ said the little man. ‘She is probably in her room. Will you come with me? Excuse me for one moment, Mr Milford.’

  Heldon Foyle found himself ushered into a dainty boudoir and bowing to a slim, girlish figure who rose from the depths of a big arm-chair as they entered. Miss von Haussen was a girl whose wholesome beauty would have attracted attention anywhere. Her exquisitely moulded cheeks were stained with a touch of scarlet as she bowed in response to the introduction. She stood uncertainly gripping the back of a chair, but her brown eyes met those of the detective steadily. Von Haussen had returned to Milford.

  ‘I do hope you’ll be able to recover the pearls, Mr Foyle,’ she said. ‘It’s terrible to have lost them like this. As you know, perhaps, they were to have been mine in six months’ time.’

  ‘We shall do our best, Miss von Haussen,’ he said smoothly. He was scrutinising her with subtle care, making up his mind how to deal with her. There was nothing in what von Haussen had told him that would have afforded any explanation of the midnight excursion, yet he felt sure that she was the woman he had seen.

  He was becoming aware of a penetrating scent that filled the apartment. He glanced at the window. It was wide open.

  ‘Can you tell me if you suspect anyone?’ he asked. ‘I won’t conceal from you that my present idea is to believe that the robbery must have been carried out by someone in the house—someone who could have gained access to Count von Haussen’s keys.’