“Here’s my report, sir.”
“Here! Don’t run away. Come in here and tell me what you found out down there.” He led the way into the superintendents’ room.
“Well, sir, for one thing, I have cleared up the question of how Lieutenant Eccles spent the morning before the murder, and I’ve seen the woman who signed herself ‘Gwen’ in that blackmailing letter. You’ll find all the details in that report.”
“Good! That’s something done.”
“But I’ve found out another thing that may prove to be more important. Mr. Gordon Pentland, the man who caused Mr. Lewis to break down in his speech at the Albert Hall the other night, drove down from London in his car yesterday morning and paid a visit to that woman.”
“Did she tell you so?”
“No, sir; I saw him driving away from the house.” He went on to tell Foster his reason for believing that a man was staying at Thornhill Farm during the absence of the husband.
“Ah,” said Foster, “that fits in with what they told me at Pentland’s office when I went to have an interview with him. The clerk said that he was away in the country for the day. Do you know, Richardson, that I’m beginning to think that you were right in what you said about the connection between the case of Ralph Lewis and the Hampstead murder. That is why I went round to that office in Charing Cross Road yesterday.”
“I’m very glad you did, sir. What were the clerks like?”
“There were only two—both ex-convicts, I should say, by the look of them.”
“You didn’t let them know who you were?”
“Lord, no. I let them think that I was an employer of labour who wanted a handy man at low wages, and was interested in helping men who had been in trouble. Now, we’ve got to go carefully into this. Mr. Pentland, you say, is a friend of Mr. Vance, and runs an unofficial Aid Society for discharged convicts. You saw him yesterday paying a visit to a woman who is, on her own showing, very hard up, and you have reason for thinking that some man was staying in the house with her. There may be quite an innocent explanation. You know what these cranks are. They don’t worry about the law. Suppose that Pentland is paying the woman to give house and home to one of his pets, who is wanted by the police for a crime, or for failing to report.”
“Perhaps, sir,” said Richardson doubtfully.
“I’m only putting the case to you. Like all young officers, you are prone to make up your mind and stick to it.”
“Wouldn’t the best plan be for you, sir, to see Pentland yourself and hear what he has to say?”
“No, that will have to be your job as you know all the details, but in the meantime we might ask the County Police to have discreet observation kept on that farm to ascertain whether any man is living there, and what he looks like.”
Richardson looked doubtful.
“Well, what’s wrong with the plan?”
“Only the lie of the ground, sir. Anyone loitering in that lonely lane would be spotted by the neighbours at once, and the word would go round that the farm was being watched by the police. The postman would spread it, and the woman herself would come out and ask the officer what he was doing there. Besides, I doubt whether the Chief Constable has a man in the Force who could be trusted to keep discreet observation. The man would probably go straight to the house and ask for a list of its occupants. No, sir, I believe it would be better to see Mr. Pentland and be guided by what he says: then, if his answers are unsatisfactory, we might ask the County Constabulary to go boldly to the house and question the occupants.”
“All right, well leave it at that. You’d better go and see Mr. Pentland this morning and turn him inside out.”
Richardson’s visit to the little office in Charing Cross Road was an experience which he always afterwards looked upon with satisfaction. He climbed a neglected staircase encumbered with waste-paper and cigarette-ends, to a door on the fourth floor and knocked. It was opened a few inches by a furtive little man of middle age, dressed in a dark suit of the cut which Richardson recognized as that of the prison tailor who made the liberty clothes for convicts a week or two before their discharge.
“Yes?” he asked in the tone of one who says, “What do you want?” at the same time closing the door an inch.
“I want to see Mr. Pentland,” said Richardson blandly.
“Sorry, but he’s out, sir.”
“I don’t think so. I can hear his voice. Let me in, please.”
The man gave way, some subtle instinct having probably warned him with whom he had to deal. He slunk away into his den, and Richardson, entering the room, found himself in the presence of the man he had come to see and the girl he had seen at the luncheon with Dick Meredith.
“Must I go, Mr. Pentland?” she was saying as he came in. “Mr. Vance telegraphed to me from Stuttgart for that newspaper, so it is urgent. I’m sure it is somewhere in this file.” She was going through a vast bundle of old newspapers.
“Don’t go on my account, miss,” said Richardson gallantly. “There is nothing private about my business with Mr. Pentland.”
“Carry on, Miss Carey,” said Pentland. His voice was cultivated and singularly musical. He turned to Richardson with a smile. “I didn’t hear your name, sir.”
“My name is Richardson. I have been instructed to call and ask you for some information about the work you are doing among ex-convicts.”
“You represent a newspaper?”
“No, Mr. Pentland. It is an official inquiry from one of the public departments connected with the Home Office.”
“I see. Possibly one of the official Aid Societies is becoming uneasy about the success of our work as compared with theirs. Well, we have nothing to hide. Many of the men who are discharged to the care of one of the official societies take their gratuities and disappear into space. They are not heard of again until they are arrested for a second crime. My friend, Mr. Vance, who is deeply interested in prisoners, when he became aware of this, decided to found an unofficial office to find honest work for these men, and knowing that I was equally interested, he invited me to join him and take charge of that side of his work. We enjoy no money grant from the State: all our funds are drawn from private sources. I may tell you confidentially that the greater part comes from Mr. Vance himself.”
“I suppose that you keep a register of the men who come to you?”
“Oh, yes. The register is on that shelf if you care to look at it, and in this card-index is the history of each man as far as employment is concerned.”
“Are you pretty successful in finding work for the men? It must be difficult with so many honest men on the dole.”
“It is, and quite a number of the men have eventually to turn to the dole themselves. That is inevitable. If we continued to support them all we should go under. But we do find work for quite a large number. I make it a point never to hide the man’s past record from the employer, and people are glad to give the poor fellow a sporting chance of turning over a new leaf. The important thing in keeping them straight is the personal touch: I make a point of seeing every man myself. I get many grateful letters from them afterwards.”
“Do you employ any of them in this office?”
“Yes, I have two. They are very carefully chosen, and they have never given me a moment’s anxiety. One of them must have opened the door to you.”
“I suppose that sometimes you board some of them out in the country?”
Pentland stared at him. “I’m afraid that I don’t understand what you mean. Board them out?”
“Yes, Mr. Pentland. I assumed that that was your object when you motored to Thornhill Farm, near Portsmouth, yesterday. I assumed that one of your protégés was boarded out there.”
It was a bold shot and it told. Pentland reddened, but he did not lose his composure. On the contrary, he laughed quietly and said, “How funny that you should know Mrs. Manton too. I have known her for years—a nice woman. But I should not think of asking her to board out one of my black sheep. Has s
he anyone living in her house? She did not mention it to me when I saw her yesterday.”
Richardson felt that the interview was not going as well as he hoped it would. The man was so entirely self-possessed, and everything he said was so entirely plausible. Dared he broach the subject of the Albert Hall meeting; say that he was on the platform and had divined the cause of the speaker’s breakdown? No, a man so alert and self-possessed as this would affect to be amused by the implied suspicion; would speak feelingly about the extravagant calls a man like Ralph Lewis made upon his strength, and matters would remain exactly as they were.
During the brief silence Pentland turned easily to the young lady and asked how she was getting on.
“I’ve been right through this file, Mr. Pentland, and I can’t find the paper Mr. Vance wants. I must go and telegraph to him.”
“I wish I could help you, but I don’t remember the paper at all.”
“Oh, stop a moment. What’s this?” She seized a slender bundle of papers and began to spread them out. “The paper I’m looking for may have got filed with these.”
To Richardson’s surprise the man’s good manners fell from him like a garment. He sprang to his feet and almost snatched the bundle from her hands, exclaiming, “You came here to search the news-file, not to meddle with my private papers.”
The action and the tone were so rude that Patricia could not fail to take offence. “I’m sorry,” she said, gathering up her gloves and handbag. Bowing coldly, she left the room with her chin in the air.
Pentland stuffed the bundle of papers into a drawer in his writing-table and turned the key on it. Then turning with unconcern to Richardson, he asked “You were saying—?”
“I was wondering whether I had anything else to ask you, sir, but I cannot think of anything else. You do not publish an annual report of your work, I suppose?”
“No, because, as I told you, we draw no Government grant, and printing costs money.”
“And you have no supervising committee?”
“No, my subscribers give me a free hand, and as long as they are satisfied—”
“Thank you, sir. Then that is all I need ask you.” Richardson ran down the stairs with a faint hope of overtaking Patricia Carey, but he had given her a start, and to attempt to overtake a pedestrian in Charing Cross Road was a hopeless task. Yet he must see her, for she was his only means of knowing what was in the bundle of papers that he had seen locked into Pentland’s drawer. His only hope was that Mr. Meredith, the barrister, might know her address. He went to Fountain Court.
Dick Meredith was on the point of leaving his chambers for lunch. Richardson met him on the landing, and explained as rapidly as possible the object of his visit.
‘‘Not only can I give you Miss Carey’s address, sergeant, but I will take you to her now if you like.”
“But I don’t want you to miss your lunch, sir.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I can lunch in Chelsea instead of the Temple. We’ll take a taxi: it will be quicker.”
Twenty minutes later Richardson found himself in Dick Meredith’s flat, where he had been asked to wait while his host brought down Patricia from the floor above. The introductions were made and Patricia found herself talking to the man who had witnessed Mr. Pentland’s “rudeness” to her.
“I’ve never known him behave like that before,” she said. “His manners were always perfect, as they ought to be for a man who was educated at Winchester. Besides, what did I do? He had told me to hunt in that bundle of papers for what I wanted, and those papers were mixed up with it.”
“Did you happen to see what the papers were?” asked Richardson.
“I had only time to read the top one before he pounced on it. It was a handbill, offering a reward for the arrest of a man named Owen Jones for murder. The reward, I remember, was five thousand dollars. There was a long description of the man, which I didn’t read, and the information was to be given to the High Constable of Quebec.”
“Owen Jones?” exclaimed Meredith. “Why, that was the name of the man that my Canadian friend, Milsom, spoke of—the man that his friend from the wild and woolly West was looking for to shoot.”
Chapter Fourteen
RICHARDSON’S report of his interview with Gordon Pentland was the subject of a conference in Charles Morden’s room.
Morden viewed the matter from the legal angle.
“I can’t see that we can find fault with a man who runs a private Aid Society for discharged convicts if he chooses to spend his own money on the business and draws no Government grant. He may even be doing some good, for in these days of an overcrowded labour market the official agencies can’t be doing much for the men.”
“Quite true, sir, but there are a lot of men gazetted for failing to report. How do we know that some of them are not being hidden away by this Mr. Pentland?”
“Suppose there are: suppose, for example, that the man with the funny hat which Sergeant Richardson saw hanging on the peg in that farm-house was an ex-convict, we should have to get evidence that Pentland was responsible for hiding him before we could deal with him. And after all, what has this to do with the Hampstead murder?”
“Not much so far, sir, I admit, but Sergeant Richardson thinks that it has.”
Charles Morden smiled. “Now, Richardson, let me hear what case you can put up.”
This summons took Richardson by surprise. At such conferences a junior is expected to take a back seat and let his seniors do the talking. He pulled himself together. “This is the way I see the case, sir. We know that the burglary and murder were committed by one member of a gang; that two other members were employed in kidnapping Lieutenant Eccles with the object of keeping him out of the way, we have good reason for believing that the man who posed as a detective was an ex-convict. In the car that he stole was found a newspaper with an announcement of the Albert Hall meeting marked in pencil. At that meeting I saw Mr. Pentland near the platform, and when Mr. Lewis broke down in his speech, I noticed that his eyes were fixed upon Mr. Pentland. We know that about the same time an American, or Canadian, called ‘Poker Moore,’ disappeared after letting it be known that he had come over to shoot Mr. Lewis whom he mistook for a man named Owen Jones. Then, this morning, while I was in his office, there was a curious incident. Mr. Vance’s lady secretary, whom I know by sight as a friend of the barrister, Mr. Meredith, was in the office looking for some newspaper which Mr. Vance had telegraphed for. She couldn’t find it, and when she took up another file of printed matter, Mr. Pentland snatched it from her hand very rudely. Up to that point his manners had been very polite. He said angrily that she was prying into his private papers. He locked the bundle into a drawer, and she took offence and marched out.”
“But we don’t know that there was anything compromising in the bundle.”
“Pardon me, sir; I’ve just seen the lady and she tells me that the only paper she saw was a handbill offering a large reward for the arrest of a man named Owen Jones for murder. At this stage of the case I do not suggest that Mr. Pentland had any knowledge of the burglary or the murder, but I do suggest that the two cases concern the same men in some way and that we cannot solve the Hampstead murder without getting to the bottom of the other case.”
“You think that the plot was hatched among Pentland’s ex-convicts?”
“I do, sir. The men who go to the ordinary Aid Societies get their gratuities and disperse. When two or three of them combine in committing a crime it is because they live in the same neighbourhood and see one another every day. But Mr. Pentland’s plan is to keep them together—he has two working in his office—and this crime was elaborately planned by a man of some brains and education. There are always a few of them in convict prisons—gentlemen who’ve gone wrong.”
“And what do you think we should do now?” asked Morden with a twinkle.
“I think, sir, that the first thing to do is to get hold of the man that hat belonged to. On thinking it over, I believe that it was
the same kind of hat that I’ve seen on the cowboy films.”
“Why, it may be the man you call ‘Poker’ Moore—the man who’s disappeared. Why shouldn’t his friend go down there and see?”
“He could, sir, but if the man turns out to be an ex-convict, wanted for failing to report, Mr. Meredith’s friend couldn’t arrest him.”
“Never mind that. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this business. What do you think, Mr. Foster?”
“I think that Sergeant Richardson had better get hold of Mr. Meredith’s friend and get him to run down to that farm.”
“Very well, do so,” said Morden, turning to his next file of papers.
Richardson used the telephone to ask Dick Meredith for Milsom’s address, and learned that at that hour he was always to be found at his club. To the club in Pall Mall he went; the porter sent in his name, and Jim Milsom tore himself from the bridge-table to see him in the hall. The club was one of those in which members were condemned to see their visitors in a sort of glass cupboard partitioned from the hall. He conducted Richardson into this uninviting den and asked him to sit down. “I’ve been reviewing my more recent past, sergeant, wondering which of my misdeeds have at last come to light. Have you brought the warrant with you?”
“It’s not as bad as that, sir,” laughed Richardson. “I’ve called to ask you whether you have had any news of your friend, Mr. Moore.”
“Not a word.”
“When you saw him last how was he dressed?”
“Poker Moore is no toff as regards clothes. I doubt if he ever buys a suit till he bursts out of the suit he’s wearing through high feeding.”
“He’s a stout man, then?”
“No, not stout; just square—as broad and deep as he’s long, like an old Dutch galleon.”
“Has he a big head?”
“Just the biggest head you ever saw in your life—yes, and the biggest appetite.”
“Then I think that I can give you his present address. Here it is.”
Richardson Scores Again Page 16