The horrified manager gaped at him.
“To kill you?” he repeated stupidly. “Why should he want to kill you?”
“Because he thinks I’m going to be a nuisance,” said Lowe, “and he’s right! I’m going to be a damned nuisance!”
“Do you know who it was then, sir?” asked the manager, and the dramatist nodded.
“I don’t know what he calls himself in private life,” he retorted, “but publicly he’s known as ‘The Hangman!’”
The manager’s fat face became the colour of lard, and he uttered a little squeal of terror.
“‘The—the Hangman?’” he gasped huskily. “Good God—here!” And then as a sudden thought struck him: “But they’ve got ‘The Hangman’ at the police station.”
“They’ve got Harold Smedley at the police station, which is not the same thing at all,” said Lowe. “White, get my torch, there’s a good fellow.”
The secretary hurried away, and Lowe, after a glance at the porter, turned to the shivering little manager.
“Is there any brandy you can get at quickly?” he asked. “Because if there is, you’d better give your porter a good stiff glass. He’s not only had a nasty shock, but he’s wounded as well.”
“I’ve got some in my office,” said the manager, and fumbled in the pocket of his hastily-assumed trousers for his keys. “I’ll get it.”
He unlocked a door beside the reception desk, and entered the room beyond. Presently he came back with a bottle and glasses.
“Perhaps you’d like some too, Mr. Lowe,” he suggested as he poured out two stiff drinks.
The dramatist shook his head.
“No thanks,” he answered.
The manager gave a glass to the porter, who gulped it down eagerly, and swallowed the contents of the other himself. A little colour came back to his flabby cheeks.
“That’s better,” he breathed, as he set down the empty glass, and looked round as Arnold White came hastily down the stairs.
“Here you are, sir,” he said, and Lowe took the torch he held out.
“I’m going out into the garden,” he said, crossing to the door that led to the kitchen. “You may as well come with me.”
The secretary followed with alacrity.
“So that’s how he got in,” he remarked as he saw the open window.
“And that’s how he got out,” said Lowe, unfastening the back door. “Perhaps we can find some more traces of him in the garden.”
They searched the place thoroughly and by a low brick wall that divided the garden from a narrow lane they found in the soft mould of a wide flower-bed several deeply printed footmarks.
“That’s where he got over,” muttered the dramatist.
He looked over the wall, paused for a moment and then hoisted himself up. The lane on the other side was very narrow, and ended in a door in the wall. Lowe dropped to the ground and flashing his light before him, walked towards the point where the lane joined the road. He found nothing in the lane itself, but out on the road near the entrance was a little pool of black oil. The man had evidently come in a car and left it standing there. He found nothing else, and coming back, once more climbed the low wall, and rejoined White in the hotel garden.
“Found anything?” asked his secretary, and Lowe shook his head.
“Nothing of any importance,” he replied. “He came by car.”
“This pretty definitely clears Smedley, doesn’t it?”
“So far as I’m concerned, it does,” said the dramatist, “but it wouldn’t convince a jury, I’m afraid. They’d argue that there was no proof that the man who attempted to kill me was ‘The Hangman.’”
“And there isn’t, either,” remarked Arnold White.
“That’s true,” agreed his employer. “But it couldn’t have been anyone else.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t be able to recognize him again?” asked the secretary.
“No, I scarcely saw him at all,” answered Lowe. “The room was dark.”
“Perhaps the porter can help,” suggested White. “The lounge was lighted and he must have been pretty close to have got wounded.
The porter, however, could offer no assistance.
“I never saw his face, sir,” he declared. “’E ’ad it covered with some black thing, an ’andkerchief it looked like.”
“What build was he?” persisted the dramatist.
The porter scratched his chin, and shook his head.
“I couldn’t tell you, and that’s a fact, sir,” he said frankly. “It all ’appened so quick like, that I was fair bowled over. I couldn’t tell you what ’e was like.”
He stuck to this statement later when questioned by Shadgold and Lightfoot. The stout inspector, hastily dragged from his bed, and minus his collar and tie, arrived with Lightfoot ten minutes later. He listened with a wrinkled forehead to Lowe’s brief account of the night’s happenings.
“And the fellow got away?” he commented at the finish. “Pity, that. I wish you’d caught him. If I’d been here——”
“If you’d been here he’d probably have stopped to breakfast,” snapped Lowe irritably. “Realizing that he had nothing to fear.”
Shadgold reddened.
“There’s no need to be rude, Mr. Lowe,” he remonstrated, and the dramatist’s face cleared.
“I’m sorry, Shadgold,” he apologized, “but this business is getting on my nerves.”
He saw the surprise in the Scotland Yard man’s face and went on quickly:
“It’s not this attempt on my life. It’s the whole thing. Everything seemed plain sailing and easy at first, and it’s turned out to be nothing of the sort. The murderer is still at large, and for all we know, waiting to pounce on a fresh victim. The horrible part of it is, that if he is we can’t stop him. We haven’t the faintest clue to his identity. All we’re sure of, and we can be pretty sure of that, is that he isn’t mad. But that’s all, we don’t know anything else.”
Shadgold scratched his chin with a stubby finger.
“I suppose there’s no doubt that it was ‘The Hangman’ who came to-night?” he remarked.
“Not the slightest, so far as I’m concerned,” said Lowe. “He’s got to hear, in some way, that we’ve realized that the case against Smedley is a frame-up, and this was his effort to put me out of the running. If he’d succeeded he’d probably have had a go at you too.”
Shadgold frowned.
“How could he have heard?” he said. “We haven’t told anybody.”
The dramatist shrugged his shoulders.
“You can’t keep things dark in a place like this,” he answered. “All the local police have got wives, and they talk.”
He yawned.
“There’s one thing, if our friend knows that his plans regarding Smedley have gone wrong, he’s had a shock, and that may do some good. If he panics he may do something to give himself away.”
His words were truer than he knew. The man who called himself “The Hangman” was in something very near a panic, for he had not only received one shock that day, but two.
Chapter Twenty-Four – missing!
Jim kept his promise to Joyce on the following morning and he was in a frame of mind that was by no means free of pessimism. He travelled up to Town by car, and having left the vehicle in the care of a City garage went on foot to seek out his Fleet Street friend.
He found him doing nothing in particular, in the big newspaper building in which he worked, and he came to Jim in the waiting-room.
“No, I’m not busy at the moment,” he said after greetings had been exchanged. “What’s up?”
Jim persuaded him to come out to a nearby hostelry and drink beer, and over the beer, he explained his errand.
Dick Warren whistled into his tankard.
“You’ve cut off a large slice of trouble for yourself, haven’t you?” he grinned. “I’ve read up all about the Hanging Murders, and I don’t think there’s much doubt of this fellow’s guilt.”
>
“I don’t think so either,” confessed Jim. “But I’m in a rather difficult position. I can’t very well refuse to help.”
The other nodded sympathetically.
“No, of course you can’t, old chap,” he agreed. “But I don’t think you’ll accomplish much. However, anything I can do I will, and what you want is pretty easy.”
He drained the tankard and ordered two more.
“I can probably get all the information you want from the office,” he added. “If you come along back there with me I’ll see.”
Jim thanked him, and after the beer had been gratefully consumed, walked back to the offices with his friend. An hour later he was in possession of as much information concerning the victims of the murderer as the police.
“Who’s this woman, Conner?” he asked, as over lunch, which he had insisted on sharing with Dick, he read through the various items they had succeeded in collecting.
“Elderly, a widow, and very rich,” answered the reporter laconically. “Lives in a big house in Knightsbridge, and seldom goes outside the door.”
“And she was related to these people?” said Jim, wrinkling his brows. “I suppose there’s no chance of getting a glimpse of the will?”
“Her lawyer might let you, but it’s doubtful,” said the reporter shortly. “Why?”
“I was just wondering”—Jim helped himself to some more cheese—“to whom she’s left her money.”
“Don’t see how that’s going to help you,” argued Dick. “Supposing she’d left it to Wallington and Mortimer, they won’t get it; and, anyway, she’s still alive.”
“It’s only an idea of mine,” explained Jim rather apologetically. “I was wondering if there couldn’t be something like this: Supposing this woman, Conner, has made a will leaving her money to Wallington and Mortimer, with a clause that if they should die before her the money goes to somebody else? Supposing this somebody else knows that and bumps off Wallington and Mortimer, with the intention of later on bumping off the lady with the money? That would supply a motive.”
Dick Warren sat up quickly.
“By Jove, young Bryant!” he exclaimed, “that’s darned smart!”
“I’ve dabbled a lot in law,” said Jim modestly. “Was going to read for the Bar at one time.”
“Look here,” said Dick excitedly. “Mrs. Conner’s solicitors are Rushton & Small, of Lincoln’s Inn. Let’s go round there. I’ll come with you and see if we can find anything out.”
Jim agreed, and finishing their coffee quickly he paid the bill, and they went out. A taxi deposited them at the door of Messrs. Rushton & Small, and a dried-up looking clerk took Dick’s card into the august presence of Mr. Lester Rushton, the only surviving member of the firm.
After a short interval they were ushered into the private office of the solicitor. Mr. Lester Rushton frowned at them over his steel-rimmed glasses. He was an aged man, and seemed to have absorbed a great deal of the dust that surrounded him. His voice when he spoke crackled like ancient parchment, and his skin looked as though it would have been most useful to engross a lease on.
“Mr.—er—Warren,” he said, glancing at the card between his fingers.
“That’s me,” broke in Dick. “I’m afraid, Mr. Rushton, that we’ve come on a most unconventional errand, and you will when you hear it probably order us out of the office.”
The solicitor raised his thin eyebrows.
“That,” he said, “is not a very propitious beginning. At the same time I can assure you that I have listened to a great many—um—unconventional stories in this office. Supposing you start by sitting down?”
They sat down, and Dick began at once.
“You have a client, I believe,” he said, “who was distantly related to the people who were killed at Hill Green——”
Mr. Rushton made a gesture and checked him.
“You are referring to Mrs. Conner,” he said. “The lady is a client of mine but if you are seeking any information regarding her I’m afraid I cannot help you. I have already supplied the police with all the information that lies in my power.”
“I don’t want to use this for publication,” said Dick hastily. “I have really called to see you on behalf of my friend here, Mr. Bryant, who is interested in the case.”
He proceeded to tell the solicitor just how interested Jim was, and their reason for coming to see him. Mr. Lester Rushton listened in silence, and when Dick had finished, frowned, removed his glasses and wiped them carefully. For a long time he remained silent, and then he leaned back in his chair and looked at Dick.
“I’m afraid,” he said, with a slight shake of his head, “that I cannot show you my client’s will without her express permission. You will understand that it would be most unprofessional. But I can assure you that your—um—friend’s theory is not tenable. Mrs. Conner’s property was willed to be equally divided between Doctor Wallington and Miss Mortimer, but in the event of their decease before her the entire property goes to the London and Suburban Hospital for Cancer Research.” Mr. Rushton’s face broke into a cracked smile. “I’m sure,” he added, “that you can hardly suspect the hospital of being concerned in the deaths of these two unfortunate people.”
“And that’s that,” said Dick, two minutes later, as they walked towards the Strand. “It was a good idea, young Bryant, but there’s nothing in it.”
Jim Bryant went back to Hill Green feeling rather dispirited. That flash of inspiration at lunch had raised his hopes, and he had seen himself going back to Joyce with the problem solved, or, if not exactly solved, at least with someone whom they could suspect. But now it appeared as if there was nothing else to do but accept the police theory that Harold Smedley was guilty after all. There was definitely no other motive except insanity.
Jim had no means of knowing that the police were even at that moment revising their original theory, and were by no means as convinced of Smedley’s guilt as they had been. He had left too early in the morning to hear about the attempt on Trevor Lowe’s life, and it was not until he called round to the Nethcotts’ house that evening that he heard of it.
He found Francis Nethcott rather worried and perturbed.
“Hallo, Jim!” said the little man as he was shown into the drawing-room. “Have you seen Joyce?”
“Seen Joyce?” echoed the young man. “No, not since yesterday afternoon. Why?”
“She went out early this afternoon,” said Mr. Nethcott, shaking his head, “and she hasn’t been back since. I waited dinner for over half an hour for her.”
“Perhaps she is dining with some friends,” suggested Jim.
“She isn’t,” declared the other. “I thought that at first, and then I thought it funny she hadn’t phoned—she always does—and I rang up the only people she would be likely to be with and none of them had seen her.”
Jim felt a little thrill of apprehension run through him.
“Did she say where she was going when she went out?” he asked.
Mr. Nethcott nodded.
“She said she was going for a spin in the car,” he replied. “Which undoubtedly she did, for I sent down to the garage and the car had gone.”
“Then she may have had a breakdown,” said Jim, and felt a tinge of relief. “That’s about what has happened.”
He helped himself to a cigarette with a hand that trembled slightly. For a moment he had imagined unnameable things.
“I hope you’re right,” replied the little man gloomily. “I can’t help feeling worried all the same.”
It was then he told Jim about the attempt to kill Trevor Lowe.
“But this lets your brother out, surely,” exclaimed the young man. “They can’t hold him after that.”
“That’s what I thought,” agreed Mr. Nethcott. “But apparently there’s no proof that this man who broke into the ‘Hillside Hotel’ was ‘The Hangman.’ I believe the police are beginning to have their doubts about Harold’s guilt, but they’re not going to release hi
m.”
“Anyway, it looks better for him than it did,” said Jim.
He remained chatting until both men, realizing that the girl was still absent, and that it was getting late, fell into an uneasy silence. The clock pointed to eleven when Nethcott, who had been pacing restlessly up and down, suddenly stopped.
“Something’s happened to her,” he said huskily. “I’m sure of it. There’s nowhere she could be all this time unless something had happened.”
Jim tried to reassure him, although he was feeling thoroughly alarmed now himself, but Nethcott would not listen.
“If she isn’t here by half-past eleven, I’m going to inform the police,” he declared.
Half-past eleven came and went, but no Joyce came with it, and the little man, pale and frightened, went out into the hall and picked up the telephone receiver.
“Give me the police station,” he said in a voice that shook, and a few seconds later was speaking rapidly to Inspector Lightfoot. While he did so, Joyce was wondering, helplessly, how long she had got to live!
Chapter Twenty-Five – the hangman!
When Joyce Elliot announced her intention of going for a drive in the car, that was exactly what she had intended doing. She had spent the morning thinking over her compact with Jim and wondering exactly how best she could start her campaign to prove her uncle’s innocence. This had been more difficult than she had imagined, but she had started by making a list of all the people who had had access to the house during the past month—she thought that was taking it back far enough—and a formidable array of names it was.
She counted them and found they totalled twenty-six, including the servants. And not one of the twenty-six was, so far as she could tell, likely to be responsible, or have any reason, for killing Doctor Wallington, Miss Mortimer or “Monkey” George.
She felt it was a very good beginning, and hoped that Jim would have better luck with his friend the reporter. If only they could light on some possible motive, seventy-five per cent of their task would be completed.
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