Before returning to the office Richardson stopped at an ABC shop to stay his hunger with a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Then, mounting to the third floor in Scotland Yard, he caught the official photographer putting on his coat before leaving for lunch.
“I’m sorry to keep you from your well-earned meal, Philpott, but I want a print of those fingerprints you took from the underside of a sash-bar in Hampstead.”
“Haven’t you got one in the file?”
“I suppose we have, but I want another. I’ll let you have it back when I’ve done with it.”
“I don’t like parting with my office copy,” grumbled the photographer, “but if you want it, I suppose you must have it.” He returned to the studio, and after a two minutes’ search, produced the prints.
“Good man!” said Richardson. “There’s no need to make another set of prints. When I say that you shall have these back I mean it. You’ll feel like a boy scout who’s done his good action while you’re eating your lunch.”
Richardson ran downstairs with his photographs and crossed the carriage-way to Scotland House, where the Fingerprint Registry was installed on an upper floor. It chanced that the superintendent had lunched in the building and was just back to work. He greeted Richardson with a friendly smile.
“Hullo, young man! What new job have you brought us?”
Richardson spread the two sets of forms on the writing-table. “These two sets of prints have to do with a case of Mr. Foster’s.”
The superintendent brought his glass to bear upon the set of prints taken from the sash-bar. “It seems to me that I’ve seen this set before—and quite lately too. I have it. They are the prints found on a window-frame in the house where a murder was committed.”
“Yes, sir, they are.”
“Well, why do you bring them to me when I’ve already reported that they are not to be found in the registry.”
“Only to ask that they might be compared with the other set, which are those of Lieutenant Eccles—a man who came under suspicion in an earlier stage of the case.”
The superintendent took up the other set and laughed. “Who took these prints? If it was one of our people it is the first I have heard of it.”
“No, sir. I took them.”
“Good for you! They are very well taken. But surely you could see for yourself that the two sets are quite different. You needn’t have come to us about them. Oh, you want to know whether Lieutenant Eccles’ prints are in the registry? If there’s no suspicion against him, it would be a waste of the men’s time. Still, we are not very busy just now.” He examined each print with his glass and scribbled a formula on his blotting-pad; checked it over, entered it on the form and threw it across to Richardson, saying, “Here, take this to the registry and ask them whether they’ve got it.”
In the registry was another of Richardson’s class-mates who was still awaiting his turn for promotion to sergeant. They exchanged greetings and then got to business. In two minutes it was ascertained from a scrutiny of the files in the appropriate pigeon-hole that the prints were not in the collection.
Richardson now carried his prints across the road and sought out Superintendent Foster.
“Well, young man, you’ve taken your time,” said his chief. “What have you been doing?”
“I showed my description of the man at the Albert Hall to Mr. Meredith’s friend—the man who knows Poker Moore—and he laughed at any suggestion that the two were the same. Then I went on to Hampstead and took Mr. Eccles’ fingerprints.”
“Good God! Didn’t he object?”
“He did at first, sir, but after I had talked to him he let me take them. I wanted to compare them with those prints on the sash-bar in case any question should arise afterwards. Then I got the Fingerprint Registry to compare them. They were quite different. As an additional precaution they classified Eccles’ prints and made sure that they were not in the registry.”
“You seem to be filling in your time, but you know, Richardson, we mustn’t be running two hares at one and the same time. It’s the murder that we must concentrate on, and we’re not getting on. All this business about protecting Mr. Ralph Lewis against somebody who doesn’t approve of him is none of our business.”
“Quite true, sir, but I can’t help thinking that the same men may be concerned in both cases.”
“Because that marked newspaper was found by Eccles in that stolen car? I shouldn’t build too much upon that. It may have been a pure coincidence. No, we seem to be up against a dead wall. I had to tell Mr. Morden so this morning, and he didn’t like it, I can tell you.”
“Have you the file on your table, sir? May I look at that newspaper again?”
“Here, dig it out for yourself.”
Richardson ran rapidly through the file until he came upon the envelope containing the marked newspaper. He spread it out and examined each page. On reaching the fourth an exclamation broke from him.
“Look at this, sir. Something’s been cut out of this page.” He pointed to the right-hand corner where a square had been roughly torn out.
“We have the date of the paper. Send round to Fleet Street for another copy.”
“I will, sir.”
But in the passage it occurred to Richardson that the paper usually put its regular advertisements in the same position. He sent off a patrol to Fleet Street, but while he was gone he scoured the office for an issue of that day’s date, and learned that it was one of the papers supplied to the Commissioner, whose room was on the first floor. He dared not disturb so august a personage, but he did the next best thing, which was to consult the Commissioner’s messenger. From him he learned that the Commissioner was out at the moment, and that it would be quite safe to abstract the paper from his table for five minutes. This having been done, Richardson dashed down the stairs with it in triumph, for the advertisement at the bottom right-hand corner of page 4 contained the hours of the boat-trains from London to Paris.
He showed it to Foster who exclaimed, “If your man’s slipped over to Paris it’s going to be the devil. But how could he have got a passport? They don’t give passports to burglars, and if he got over with another man’s passport it will be the devil’s own job to trace him.”
“Wouldn’t the Paris police help us, sir?”
“You don’t know them, or you wouldn’t ask such a silly question. They are active enough and civil enough when a foreigner is suspected of having committed a crime in France, but if it’s a question of getting hold of a man wanted in this country they promise everything and do nothing.”
Chapter Eleven
IT WAS the morning of the Petty Sessions at Bridgwater. Dick Meredith and Ronald Eccles had travelled down from London together the night before, and immediately after breakfast Dick had sent up his card to the Chief Constable of the County—a retired army officer—who received him at once.
“I have come down,” said Dick, “to represent Lieutenant Eccles at the preliminary hearing this morning.”
“Ah yes, my people seem to have had rather a rough time with him. The black eye he gave one of them is turning yellow now, but it gives him a most sinister appearance.”
“The assault seems to me to be far less grave than the other charge.”
“You mean the charge of being in possession of a stolen car? Well, I’ve had some correspondence with my colleague at Portsmouth, and I may tell you at once that I propose to withdraw that charge altogether, but the assault—”
You propose to proceed with that?”
“I can’t help myself. When a young naval officer allows himself the luxury of blacking a policeman’s eye, he must pay for the entertainment. If I were to withdraw the charge, I should have unrest right through the Force. You can see that for yourself.”
“I quite understand,” said Dick, rising to go.
The Chief Constable walked with him to the head of the stairs.
“There’s one hint I might give you, Mr. Meredith,” he said. “Don’t let
your client speak if you can help it. Some of the magistrates are touchy folk, very much on their dignity, and if he puts their backs up they might commit him for trial.”
Dick Meredith sought out Ronald Eccles when he got back to the hotel, and broke it to him that he must plead guilty to the assault; that he must be seen and not heard, even if the Bench asked him what he had to say in reply to the charge. “After all, the police are going to withdraw that charge about the car, and if you were to try to justify hitting a policeman in the face, you would put the magistrates’ backs up, and they might send you for trial.”
“That’s all very well, but the blighter I hit assaulted me first. If I plead guilty and say nothing, the Personal Service people at the Admiralty will say that a bloke who goes about assaulting policemen isn’t fit to be put in charge of men.”
Meredith laughed. “If it comes to that, I shall have a word to say about the provocation you received, but take my word for it, it won’t. I shall enter a plea of guilty for you, and you must promise to keep your mouth shut.”
“All right then; I promise.”
“Come on then; it’s about time we started for the court-house.”
When the two entered the building they found a Bench of six magistrates dealing with cases of drunk and disorderly, and of dangerous driving. They were quickly disposed of. Then “Ronald Eccles” was called, and his name was taken up by a court official outside. Eccles surrendered to his bail and was ushered into the dock.
“I appear for the defendant, Your Worships,” said Meredith.
“Is this the case of stealing a motor-car?” asked the Chairman.
“It was, sir,” said the Chief Constable, “but we do not propose to proceed with that charge. Further inquiries that have been made—”
The flutter on the Bench became audible. A naval officer charged with stealing a motor-car did not come their way every day. It was as if the keeper of the lion-house had callously wheeled his barrow of raw meat past the den, leaving nothing but its scent behind him. A magistrate leaned across to the Chairman and prompted him.
“Surely, Chief Constable, this man was arrested while in possession of a stolen car? We ought to hear the evidence.”
“With all due submission, sir, it would greatly hamper the police in their efforts to discover the real thief, who had merely offered this prisoner a lift and whose identity was quite unknown to him. I do not propose to offer any evidence on that charge, but I will proceed with the second charge—that of assaulting the police.”
“Very well,” said the Chairman, after a moment’s hesitation. “We will hear the second charge.” The clerk read it over, concluding with the words, “Do you plead guilty or not guilty?”
“I am instructed to plead guilty to a common assault, Your Worships,” said Meredith.
The detective with the parti-coloured eye was sworn. He said that while in the course of his duty he had had to take the accused out of a stolen car, using as little force as possible, he became “wiolent,” and struck him a “wiolent” blow with his fist on the eye, which he exhibited to the Bench; that he had seldom encountered such a “wiolent” prisoner in the whole course of his service.
Dick Meredith cross-examined him about the provocation he had given to the accused. Later he cross-examined the other detective, who was called to corroborate the evidence of the first, and when his turn came to address the Bench, he suggested that the police had used unnecessary violence as a provocation, and dwelt upon the fact that this naval officer had been the victim of a car-thief, who had left him stranded in the road and had gone off.
“He has pleaded guilty,” observed the Chairman when Meredith sat down. The heads went together on the Bench and, as one magistrate appeared to dissent from the proposal, whatever it was, the Bench filed out to their private room to consult.
Meredith went over to the dock for a whispered conversation with his client, who was in an aggressive mood. “I’d like to have five minutes with that aggressive beak when he was off the Bench,” was his first remark.
“Hush!” whispered his counsel. “If a policeman overhears you, you’ll be for it.”
“What will they give me, do you think?”
“A stiffish fine and costs, I hope.”
The door leading to the magistrates’ room opened and the procession filed in again. Dick Meredith observed with satisfaction that the aggressive one had his chin in the air like a man beaten, but defiant. The Chairman addressed the prisoner, deploring that an officer in the service of His Majesty should have so far forgotten his obligations as to commit a serious assault upon another servant of the Crown who was doing no more than his duty. “The police must be protected,” he said, “otherwise there would be an end to law and order in this country. You will pay a fine of ten pounds and costs, or go to prison for a month with hard labour.”
“The fine will be paid at once,” announced Meredith, going towards the clerk’s table.
After paying the fine, he stopped at the table of the reporters, who were packing up their note-books, and pleaded with them not to make a feature of the case with leaded type, urging that Ronald Eccles was an ornament to the Navy, and that any exaggeration of the case might damage a distinguished career. Judging from a remark made by one of them he felt that he had not wasted his time. “I’d like to shake hands with him. I’ve often wanted to black the eye of that detective myself.”
On reaching the hotel, he found Eccles consulting a time-table in the hall. “Looking up our train back to town?” he asked.
Eccles hesitated a moment before replying, “Well, no; I’m afraid you’ll have to travel alone. An old shipmate of mine is in hospital at Portsmouth, and now that I’m down in the West I feel that I ought to go and see him, poor devil. Look here, I haven’t thanked you for pulling me out of this mess, old man. I think that you managed that gang on the Bench splendidly. At one moment I saw myself picking oakum in an underground dungeon swarming with rats! I shall have to push off now if I’m to catch my train to Portsmouth.”
On the journey back to London, Dick chanced upon a short paragraph in his evening paper about Mr. Vance’s journey of inspection of foreign prisons and reformatories, and felt that Mr. Vance must have a very alert press agent in his pay. The paragraph went on to say that his many well-wishers in this country who had been active in helping prisoners after their discharge were attending a luncheon at an hotel in Holborn at which it was hoped to hear an address by that “distinguished speaker, Mr. Ralph Lewis,” on the lack of progress of prison reform in Great Britain. Since the episode in the Albert Hall, Dick had resolved to attend every meeting at which Ralph Lewis was to speak. He cut out the paragraph with his pen-knife and stowed it in his pocket-book.
His first act on returning to Chelsea was to climb one storey higher and tap at Patricia’s door. She opened it in person.
“Why, they told me that you were away!”
“I’ve just come back from defending a case in Somersetshire.”
“I hope you got the poor man off. Had he done anything very dreadful?”
“That depends on what you would call dreadful. He had knocked down a policeman with his fist, but I haven’t come to tell you about that. I’ve come to make a confession.”
“Then you shall make it over a cup of tea, however dreadful it may be. Tea will give me strength to bear it.”
“Thanks, though I’m not sure that it will give me strength to make it. It’s about James.”
“You mean that something has happened to the little brute?”
“No, but don’t let me stop you getting that strength-giving tea, and then I’ll make a clean breast of it.”
Patricia hurried out to her tiny kitchen, and presently returned with a laden tray. While she was pouring out the tea, Dick asked when she expected Mr. Vance home from his travels.
“Oh, not for a week or two. I heard from him this morning. Why do you ask?
“Because I have been dishonest enough to plan a little de
ception on him in your interests—a plan to foist another parrot on him in place of James—a parrot who is now in training to say the word ‘Absolutely’ in a Canadian accent without stopping to take breath for hours at a stretch.”
Patricia topped in the act of conveying her teacup to her lips and stared at him.
“You’re not serious? Do you mean that there is no longer any hope of recovering James?”
“To be quite frank, I’m afraid that my hope gets weaker every day, and I wanted to have a second string to my bow in case Mr. Vance came back unexpectedly. I couldn’t bear to think of you losing your job through my carelessness.”
“It was a mad idea. Mr. Vance would have spotted the fraud in the first five minutes. No, when he comes I shall have to make a clean breast of the business and stand the racket.”
“The man who is training James’s understudy says that he would defy the bird’s own mother to detect the change, but I’m not going to relax my efforts to find the little brute, so we’ll talk of something else. I see that there is to be a sort of public luncheon to-morrow to discuss what is being done for discharged prisoners by Mr. Vance’s supporters, and that Ralph Lewis is to speak at it. Do you think that you could get me a ticket?”
“To go and scoff at him?”
“Not at all. Your belief in Ralph Lewis is infectious. I want to go and hear him again.”
“I could give you a ticket and take you in, of course, because I am more or less in charge of the arrangements, but you wouldn’t hear Mr. Lewis. His doctor has ordered him to go abroad for a change, and he is leaving by the boat-train to-morrow morning to join Mr. Vance in Germany.”
“Never mind. I should love to go if you will take me. Who is going to do the talking?”
“Mr. Gordon Pentland. He’s to be chairman at the luncheon. He’s not much of a speaker, they say, and he’s a retiring sort of man—in fact, I had some difficulty in persuading him to preside—but he has been doing wonderful work for Mr. Vance in getting work for discharged convicts, and he ought to have some very interesting things to tell us.”
Richardson Scores Again Page 13