Detection Unlimited ih-4
Page 30
The manager was seated at a large knee-hole desk, the cashier to whom Hemingway had spoken at his elbow. He looked up over the top of his spectacles, by no means pleased by the unceremonious entrance of three uninvited persons. “Mr. Plenmeller?” he said, surprised. He glanced from Harbottle to Hemingway, and then at the card in his hand. “Chief Inspector—er—Hemingway? You wish to see me?”
“Properly speaking, it's Mr. Plenmeller who wishes to see you,” said Hemingway. “He deposited a package with you on Monday, for safe-keeping, and now he wants to show me what's in it.—Take him, Harbottle!”
“But how did you know, Chief?” Harbottle demanded, when at last he found himself alone with the Chief Inspector.
“I didn't,” replied Hemingway calmly. “I took a chance on it.”
“Took— You never!” said Harbottle, with conviction. A look of foreboding crept into his face. “You aren't going to tell me it was this flair of yours?” he said imploringly.
“I oughtn't to have to tell you!” retorted Hemingway. “Not but what there was a bit more to it than than,” he added truthfully. “In fact, I ought to have tumbled to it before I actually did. I told the Chief Constable yesterday that if this were London I should be nosing round the safe-deposits, and why I didn't carry straight on from there, and think of bank strong-rooms, I can't tell you.”
“Everyone was talking you silly,” suggested the Inspector helpfully.
“Very likely! And if I have any lip from you, my lad, you'll be sorry!”
“I get into the way of repeating the things you say, sir,” explained the Inspector. “But do you mean that just because I told you Plenmeller had gone into the bank you guessed he'd deposited that Colt there?”
“Well, no, not quite,” confessed Hemingway. “When you told me that, it came to me in a flash that he was just coming out of a bank when I happened to run into him here on Monday morning. Putting two and two together, and taking into account the psychology of Mr. Gavin Plenmeller, it seemed fairly safe to trust my instinct.”
“Good lord!” ejaculated the Inspector. “And where would you have been if he hadn't deposited the Colt in the bank?”
“Exactly where I am now. I should have arrested him anyhow. But the instant he set eyes on me I knew I was right. He's a good actor, but seeing me in the bank gave him the nastiest shock he's had—so far.”
“But to rush it like that—!” said Harbottle, his respect for forms and ceremonies considerably shocked. “Pushing into the manager's office without a by your leave, and telling him lies about Plenmeller's wanting to show you the contents of a package you'd no proof was in the bank at all! You ought to have had a warrant!”
“Yes, that's where I think quicker than you do, Horace. You try getting a warrant to search a bank! First, you've got to put up a strong case, then you've got to get authority to make the manager disclose that he has received a package from your suspect, and after that you've got to apply for a special warrant, and lastly, just to round things off, you've got to wait for three days after you've presented it before you can execute the warrant! Thanks, I've had some! Meanwhile, Mr. Gavin Plenmeller gets wind of what you're up to, and thinks up an ingenious stalemate. No, the proper thing to do was to rock him right off his balance.”
“He couldn't have done anything,” argued the Inspector. “We could have had him watched, and the bank too.”
“We could, of course, but there's something you're forgetting, Horace. Two things, in fact.”
“What are they?” asked the Inspector, frowning.
“All that hanging about would have been a bad curtain. If you hadn't got a silly prejudice against the theatre, you'd know that. And on top of that,” said the Chief Inspector comfortably, “I've got a fortnight's leave due to me on Saturday. I had to force the pace!”
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