Merrick and Crook looked one at the other, and put the bottle back. What did it mean? The bottle had been opened, certainly.
They made toward the door, and the chief constable marched into the corridor. Merrick turned to Crook and whispered.
“What does it mean?” he said. “That scoundrel knew what was in the house, and yet he opened a new magnum for you! Why? How did this one get here? Was it only for sixty or seventy pounds that he did murder — or was it for something more? Something in that bottle of wine?”
The two men looked each in the other’s face and passed out in the wake of the chief constable.
MR. POOLEY’S MAGNUM
“I GUESS this little holiday of ours is likely to be a hustlin’er sort of holiday than we allowed,” observed Mr. Lyman W. Merrick. “And we did allow to hustle some, too.”
Harvey Crook smiled. He remembered the sanguine programme arranged by his American friend and his daughter on board the Rajapur, with its two thousand square miles or so of Great Britain per diem. Daisy Merrick smiled, too; which was a pleasant thing in itself, and interesting to any person who might have been noticing the fact that she and Crook were getting into a habit of smiling together.
“However,” Mr. Merrick pursued, “there’s to be no holiday-making till we’ve introduced ourselves to Mr. Pritchard, and I’ll see that man arrested if I have to stay in England the rest of my life. You and I’ll see about that, Mr. Crook.”
“Anything I can do, of course, I will,” Crook said. “But I doubt if either of us can do as much as the police, who are organised specially for such work. Moreover” — Crook smiled again— “I have a little hunt of my own in progress, as you know, Mr. Merrick. There’s that green diamond! That to me is very much what your five hundred dollars’ worth of land was twenty-six years ago. Though of course I don’t expect so much out of this as you have derived from your own little speculation!”
“Yes, yes — the green diamond,” Mr. Merrick answered thoughtfully. “There’s such a deal of excitement about today that I was clean forgetting that; though it isn’t the sort of thing you’d think one would forget easily, either. Well, what’s your next move with that?”
They had returned to the hotel after the inquest, and were refreshing themselves with tea. It was a little late for tea, but the inquest was responsible for that, and it still lacked some hour or two to dinnertime.
“My next move,” said Crook slowly, “I can’t pretend to prophesy. Except, of course, that I want to examine — or want you to examine — that bottle of Tokay you have in London.”
“Of course — that’s the first thing. Why, I have had such a day — finding Mr. Clifton, and finding him dead, and getting hustled up and down this way and that, that I positively began to forget buying that bottle of McNab. Snakes! What a piece of luck if the diamond should be in that!”
“Well,” Crook responded, “it’s an eight-to-one-chance against, of course — which otherwise mathematically expressed, is a chance of one in nine. There were a dozen magnums to begin with, and it’s certain that the diamond was in one of them. The first we opened and drank on the Rajapur. It wasn’t in that. The second got to Mr. Norie the artist — it certainly wasn’t in that, since I poured every drop from it myself. Then there was the magnum that poor Mr. Clifton bought — the one brought me in the course of that amazing dinner last night. As to that I can certify also — I decanted it myself. That leaves nine of the dozen unaccounted for, and one of those is the mysterious bottle we ourselves discovered this afternoon, opened, in Mr. Clifton’s bookcase — a very mysterious bottle that.”
“Mysterious it is.” Mr. Merrick slapped his knee and nodded vehemently. “Mysterious it is, I say, and it may supply a bigger motive for those murders than the few hundred dollars that are gone.”
“Quite likely,” Crook responded, “but the solution of that mystery must wait till the murderer is caught — even if we reach it then. Meantime, we mustn’t neglect the other magnums, for after all we have nothing but the wildest conjecture as to this. I must waste no time, for the very magnum containing that great green diamond may be being uncorked at this very moment! I must waste no time, as I say, and yet for the life of me I can’t see how next to employ it, or where to look now. At any rate, we’ll have a look at your bottle as soon as we are in London again. Meantime, I might go and see the auctioneer’s clerk again; though if he had anything to tell me he would have been round here with it.”
“It was he who gave you the names of some of the buyers, wasn’t it?” Daisy asked.
“Yes, as far as he could. Though that wasn’t very far, as I have told you.”
“Well, now, Mr. Crook,” Daisy said, with a whimsical smile, “I wonder it has never occurred to you to ask anybody else who was present at the sale, beside the auctioneer’s clerk — me, for instance!”
“You! Why, of course — if you can remember—”
“Yes” — Daisy laughed— “I can remember more than father can, anyway, I’m sure! I don’t remember much that can be of use perhaps, but I do remember that two of the passengers on the Rajapur bought magnums — two passengers at least. There were Mr. Pooley and Mr. Allen.”
“I knew Allen bought one,” Crook observed. “He gave his name, and the clerk had it down on the marked catalogue. Come — we’ll try for Allen next. I should be able to get at him somehow through the steamship office, no doubt. But who was Pooley?”
“Oh, I expect you wouldn’t have heard his name. He was a very quiet passenger, and we only knew it through an accident. A box of his was put into father’s cabin by mistake, and he came round with the steward after it. He was a clean-shaven, rather overdressed man, but quiet in his ways, and he kept very much in his own quarters. Perhaps you don’t remember him?”
“I don’t think I do.”
“Well, at any rate, he bought one of the magnums. Let me recollect, now. When the first lot was put up there was a long pause — nobody seemed to want the wine, or to know what to bid. It began low, and McNab, the steward, got the magnum for nine shillings. Father remembers that — the price startled him, I tell you!”
“It did!” Mr. Merrick assented.
“A funny little man bought the next lot — a very carefully brushed and oiled little man, with very loud clothes He bought four magnums one after another for ten shillings each, and gave the name of Smith. He was a wine merchant’s traveller, they said. And then Mr. Allen bought a bottle, and then Mr. Pooley.”
Crook was consulting the copy he had made of this part of Symons’s marked catalogue. “Yes,” he said, “and then a bottle was sold to the artist, Mr. Norie. The next was number ninety-five star, and the name Curtice is against that. But stay — there is something I can do now — before dinner, even. The shipping office is in London, but the ship must still be here. I’ll go and knock up McNab, the steward.”
The Rajapur carried cargo of a superior kind, as well as passengers, and was still discharging pending repairs. McNab, the chief steward, might have obtained leave to come to London by rail, leaving his assistant in charge, since the passengers had all left the ship. But the thought of such an extravagance would have appalled his thrifty mind. By sticking to his post as long as possible, he not only saved his railway fare, but also lived at the expense of his employers; and nothing short of an obvious pecuniary balance on the other side could have induced him to forego such advantages. So that Crook reached the steward’s pantry of the Rajapur to find McNab still in it.
McNab, dour and distrustful, waited while Crook explained that he was anxious to find the addresses of Mr. Allen and Mr. Pooley, late passengers on the Rajapur, and would be glad of any help to that end. Then the steward cleared his throat and said: “Ha, hum. Ye’ll ken it’s nae pairt o’ my duties to gie addresses, or assist in getting addresses, o’ passengers that hae left the ship an’ are no any further concern of mine?”
“Oh yes, of course. If you are able to give me any help, of course I shall be very grate
ful” — here McNab looked sourer than ever— “and, of course, I’ll pay whatever you think is right for your trouble.”
At this the McNab no longer looked sour, but rather disappointed. “Oh ay,” he said, “that’s weel enough, but I’m thinkin’ I can do naething for ye. I ken nae mair o’ their addresses than ye ken yersel’! But I’ll remember what ye say, if ye’ll let me hae your ain address.”
“Certainly. Though I wanted the information without delay.”
McNab shook his head. Then he said, looking curiously in Crook’s face, “There’s a curious thing about they names, Mr. Crook. Mr. Allen and Mr. Pooley each bought one o’ they muckle big bottles o’ Tokay at the sale — the same that ye sold Mr. Merrick; an’ I bought one myself!”
“Well?”
“Weel, Mr. Merrick bought mine back frae me. Now you come yersel’ and want the addresses of twa ither buyers; and I’ve had ither inquiries. I suspeecion I’ve sold Mr. Merrick that bottle too cheap!”
Plainly the shrewd McNab smelt a rat somewhere.
“Indeed!” Crook observed carelessly.
“And as to the other inquiries, I expect some of them came from a man named Hahn, didn’t they? A man of near about fifty, not so tall as me, with a short, grey beard. Speaks excellent English, but is a foreigner?”
“Weel, Mr. Crook, I won’t deny but what you seem to ken him. And I’ve guid reason to believe I could have done better with my bottle with him than with Mr. Merrick. But it’s no’ him alone has been makin’ inquiries.”
“Who else?”
“The police! Ay, the police have been here for Mr. Pooley’s address!”
“The police!”
“Ay, the police. I couldna tell them more than I could tell you, o’ course, and equally o’ course they told me naethin’, and for why they came I ken naethin’. But it was the police, an’ a plain-clothes policeman at that!”
So with this information — and it was surprising enough — Harvey Crook was fain to return to his dinner. The steward watched him as he left the ship, and returned to his pantry with many wise shakes of the head. Plainly, Mr. McNab was convinced that big things were afoot; and even though he had not a ghost of a notion what the big things were, he was resolved to squeeze a profit from them if any profit were to be squeezed.
To Harvey Crook the puzzle before him became multiplied by a hundred. What did this mean — the police? Was it possible that Hahn and his tricks had been betrayed, and that the police were in as eager search of those dispersed magnums of Tokay as he himself was? In that case he felt he might as well give up the chase on his own account and turn to more profitable business. The police, with all their elaborate machinery, their armies of trained detectives, their command of every source of information, could do more in an hour than he could attempt in a week. But the true explanation of the matter came in a very little while.
Crook made no delay on his way from the dock, but went straight back to the hotel. True, he would be too early for dinner, but why not just as well wait in the company of Mr. Merrick and Daisy — for it would be futile to pretend that she had nothing to do with the matter — as not?
He found his friends in their private sitting-room with visitors. One visitor was a youngish-looking man, clean-shaven, broad-framed but bony, who looked rather like a prize-fighter a little over-trained, and with an exceptionally intelligent head; the other was the chief constable who had accompanied them over Mr. Clifton’s house only an hour or two ago.
“Here’s my friend Mr. Crook,” Merrick said as Crook entered. “Though I doubt if he can tell you more than we can. This gentleman,” he said, turning to Crook, “is a detective of the London force, Sergeant Wickes. It seems we’ve been travelling in bad company. That Mr. Pooley, the quiet passenger in the loud clothes, is wanted by the police!”
“Well — the police would like to know where he is — that’s all,” the chief constable said. “He’s a notorious character, you see, and one of the sort the police must keep track of if they can, you know, or they’ll be in serious mischief and away again before they can be stopped. The Scotland Yard authorities lost track of him some little while back, and only just received information that he had been to the great Durbar in India. He is a great swell in his way, you see, and that is just the sort of place he’d go to, and make it pay him, somehow, too. It is discovered now that he returned in the Rajapur and landed a few days back, with you; but where he’s gone they can’t tell, and that is what the sergeant here is trying to find out. He has been to the ship, and he has seen the passenger-list, but that tells nothing. He came to the Southampton police also, of course, and I, knowing that you came over in the same boat, brought him here. I’m sure you’ll tell him anything you may have noticed on the voyage?”
“I would willingly, of course,” Crook replied, “but really, I noticed nothing.”
“Never spoke to him, I suppose?” the detective asked keenly.
“Never.”
“This lady and gentleman here tell me that he had very little luggage, kept very much to himself during the voyage, and they saw nothing of him after he landed except that he went to a local auction room and bought some wine. Is there anything you can remember to add to that, sir?”
“No,” Crook replied; “nothing whatever.”
“Thank you,” replied Wickes, rising promptly. “Sorry to trouble you, of course, but police duty’s very necessary, as you will understand. I must make inquiries in other directions. Buying wine would look rather like staying in Southampton, at least for a bit, but it’s pretty certain he isn’t here. Gone to London in all probability. Good evening!”
When their visitors had gone Mr. Merrick looked across at Crook and clicked his tongue suggestively.
“What does that mean?” he observed. “Not the police inquiries, of course — they’re natural enough, I guess — but why does a dead sharp like that, a well-known tough of the highest circles in scoundrelism, anxious to come into the country without attracting notice from the police — why does that sort of man stop to buy himself a magnum of Tokay? A big hefty lump of a bottle to lug around, too, for a man with nothing else but a portmanteau of clothes, and anxious to dance around flying light. It seems to me that a tough like that don’t buy the bottle for the sake of the wine, anyway?”
It was certainly very suggestive, and Crook said so.
“Is it possible,” he added, “that he could have known of Hahn’s little game, and cut into it by buying the bottle containing the jewel? It might almost seem like it at first. But did you hear any more about this fellow Pooley? Anything before I came in, I mean?”
“Oh yes — in a general sort of way. The detective wasn’t tellin’ much about him, but the chief constable ‘lowed he was a rare tough in the heavy swindle way, with miscellaneous abilities. A big bill forgery, a bank robbery, or a gamble with stocked cards — they are all very much in his line, it seems, if the boodle’s big enough. He isn’t above bunco-steering if the plunder’s likely to be large. He’s strictly honest, they ‘low, in any matter that there’s not much to be made out of, and he only condescends to touch big things. Now, just you think of this. Ain’t it mighty likely he’s in this diamond ramp, and came over in the same steamer to keep an eye on you, while you, all innocent, took the risk of bringing the plunder over? Now, don’t that strike you as a pretty probable guess? And if that’s so, that green diamond was in that magnum that Mr. Pooley bought and walked off with!”
Crook was thoughtful for a few moments before replying. Then he said, “No, I don’t agree. It looks right enough at first sight, but not after. For how should he know which particular magnum that diamond was concealed in? Hahn himself doesn’t know, plainly. He is dancing about distractedly trying to get hold of any of the bottles he can, and enduring all sorts of trouble in the search. Plainly, he depended on getting the case intact and so finding the jewel where he left it with no trouble. And even if he knew, and if Pooley knew, in what part of the case the bottle stood
which contained the stone, how should he know the bottle when it was one among eleven, put up one after another at a sale? He didn’t bid for any other bottles, did he?”
Daisy Merrick shook her head. “I don’t think he did,” she said. “At any rate, that is the only one he bought.”
“Just so; and if it was impossible that he could know which of those bottles held the diamond, the assumption is that he didn’t know that a diamond was in any one of them, else he would have bought the lot — or tried to buy them, at any rate. And if that is so, why did he buy the one?”
But that was a conundrum that nobody could answer. After a few random speculations, Mr. Merrick wound up with this dictum: “Guessin’s and wonderin’s won’t hoe this row. There’s a great diamond in one of a few bottles of wine, and a dead sharp, with a natural instinct for plunder, has gone off with one of those bottles. That’s enough. Mr. Pooley’s the victim to go for next!”
“Well, yes,” Crook assented with a smile, “unless we find the stone in your magnum! But what I’m mostly concerned about now is where to go for Mr. Pooley!”
With this the waiter began to lay the cloth for dinner, and there was silence, save for the little noise the waiter made at his work. Crook sat deep in thought, gazing into the fire. Presently he stood up and spoke.
“Waiter,” he said, “You have the London papers here, I know. Can you get me those London papers for the last three days or so? I suppose they’ll be kept somewhere?”
“Well, sir; no, sir; not kept, sir; not very long, I should say, sir,” the man answered. “I don’t quite know what ‘ud become of ‘em, sir, but I’ll inquire, if you like.”
“Very well,” Crook answered. “If you can bring me all your London papers for the past three days, and bring them in half an hour, I’ll give you five shillings.”
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 216