Room 13

by Edgar Wallace

  Jeff Legge was in a hurry: the elevator did not move fast enough for him, and he stepped out on to the third floor and asked a question.

  “No, sir, nobody has come. If they do, I’ll send them along to you. Where will you be? You haven’t a room engaged – your own room is taken. We don’t often let it, but we’re full tonight and Mr Legge raised no objection.”

  “No, I don’t object,” said Jeff; “but don’t you worry about that. Let me see the book.”

  Again the red-covered engagement book was opened. Jeff read and nodded.

  “Fine,” he said. “Now tell me again who is here.”

  “There is Mr George Kurlu, with a party of friends in No. 3; there’s Mr Bob Albutt and those two young ladies he goes about with – they’re in No. 4.” And so he recited until he came to No. 13.

  “I know all about No. 13,” said Jeff Legge between his teeth. “You needn’t bother about me, however. That will do.”

  He strode along the carpeted hallway, turned abruptly into the right-angled passage, and presently stopped before a door with a neat golden ‘13’ painted on its polished panel. He opened the door and went in. On the red-covered table was a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  It was a moderately large room, furnished with a sofa, four dining-chairs and a deep easy chair, whilst against one wall was a small buffet. The room was brilliantly lighted. Six bracket lamps were blazing; the centre light above the table, with its frosted bulbs, was full on. He did not shut the door, leaving it slightly ajar. There was too much light for his purpose. He first switched out the bracket lamps, and then all but one of the frosted bulbs in the big shaded lamp over the table.

  Then he sat down, his back to the door, his eyes on the empty fire-grate.

  Presently he heard a sound, the whining of the elevator, and smiled. Johnny stepped out to the porter’s desk with a friendly nod.

  “Good evening, Captain,” said the porter with a broad grin. “Glad to see you back, sir. I wasn’t here last night when you came in. Hope you haven’t had too bad a time in the country?”

  “Abroad, my dear fellow, abroad,” murmured the other reproachfully, and the porter chuckled. “Same old crowd, I suppose?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Same old bolt down the fire-escape when the ‘busies’ call – or have you got all the ‘busies’ straightened?”

  “I don’t think there’s much trouble, sir,” said the porter. “We often have a couple of those gentlemen in here to dinner. The club’s very convenient sometimes. I shouldn’t think they’ll ever shut us up.”

  “I shouldn’t think so, either,” said Johnny. “Which of the ‘busies’ do you get?”

  “Well, sir, we get Mr Craig, and – once we had that Reeder. He came here alone, booked a table and came alone! Can you beat it? Came and had his dinner, saw nobody and went away again. I don’t think he’s right up there” – he tapped his forehead significantly. “Anything less like a ‘busy’ I’ve never seen.”

  “I don’t know whether he is a detective,” said Johnny carelessly. “From all I’ve heard, he has nothing whatever to do with the police.”

  “Private, is he?” said the other in a tone of disappointment.

  “Not exactly private. Anyway,” with a smile, “he’s not going to bother your or our honourable members. Anybody here?”

  The porter looked to left and right, and lowered his voice.

  “A certain person you know is here,” he said meaningly.

  Johnny laughed.

  “It would be a funny club if there wasn’t somebody I knew,” he said. “Don’t worry about me; I’ll find a little corner for myself…”

  Jeff looked at his watch; it was a quarter to ten, and he glanced up at the light; catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror of the buffet, was satisfied.

  Room 13! And Marney was his wife! The blood surged up into his face, gorging the thick veins in his temples at the thought. She should pay! He had helped the old man, as he would help him in any graft, but he had never identified himself so completely with the plan as he did at that moment.

  “Put her down to the earth,” had said Emanuel, and by God he would do it. As for Johnny Gray…

  The door opened stealthily, and a hand came in, holding a Browning. He heard the creak of the door but did not look round, and then:

  “Bang!’’

  Once the pistol fired, Jeff felt a sharp twitch of pain, exquisite, unbearable, and fell forward on his knees.

  Twice he endeavoured to rise, then with a groan fell in a huddled heap, his head in the empty fireplace.

  14

  The doors and the walls of the private dining-rooms were almost sound-proof. No stir followed the shot. In the hall outside, the porter lifted his head and listened.

  “What was that?” he asked the waiting elevator-man.

  “Didn’t hear anything,” said the other laconically. “Somebody slammed a door.”

  “Maybe,” said the porter, and went back to his book. He was filling in the names of that night’s visitors, an indispensable record in such a club, and he was filling them in with pencil, an equally necessary act of caution, for sometimes the club members desired a quick expungement of this evidence.

  In Room 13 silence reigned. A thin blue cloud floated to the ceiling; the door opened a little farther, and Johnny Gray came in, his right hand in his overcoat pocket.

  Slowly he crossed the room to where the huddled figure lay, and, stooping, turned it upon its back. Then, after a brief scrutiny, his quick hands went through the man’s pockets. He found something, carried it to the light, read with a frown and pushed the paper into his own pocket. Going out, he closed the door carefully behind him and strolled back to the hall.

  “Not staying, Captain?” asked the porter in surprise.

  “No, nobody I know here. Queer how the membership changes.”

  The man on duty was too well trained to ask inconvenient questions.

  “Excuse me, Captain.” He went over to Johnny and bent down. “You’ve got some blood on your cuff.”

  He took out his handkerchief and wiped the stain clean. Then his frowning eyes met the young man’s.

  “Anything wrong, Captain?”

  “Nothing that I can tell you about,” said Johnny. “Good night.”

  “Good night, sir,” said the porter.

  He stood by his desk, looking hard at the glass doors of the elevator, heard the rattle of the gate as it opened, and the whine of the lift as it rose again.

  “Just stay here, and don’t answer any rings till I come back,” he said.

  He hurried along the corridor into the side passage and, coming to No. 13, knocked. There was no answer. He turned the handle. One glance told him all he wanted to know. Gently he closed the door and hurried back to the telephone on his desk.

  Before he raised the receiver he called the gaping lift-boy.

  “Go to all the rooms, and say a murder has been committed. Get everybody out.”

  He was still clasping the telephone with damp hands when the last frightened guest crowded into the elevator, then:

  “Highlow Club speaking. Is that the Charing Cross Hospital?… I want an ambulance here… Yes, 38, Boburn Street… There’s been an accident.”

  He rung off and called another number.

  “Highlow Club. Is that the police station?… It’s the porter at the Highlow Club speaking, sir. One of our members has shot himself.”

  He put down the instrument and turned his face to the scared elevator-man who had returned to the high level. At the end of the passage stood a crowd of worried waiters.

  “Benny,” he said, “Captain Gray hasn’t been here tonight. You understand? Captain-Gray-has-not-been-here-tonight.”

  The guest-book was open on t
he desk. He took his pencil and wrote, on the line where Johnny Gray’s name should have been, ‘Mr William Brown of Toronto’.

  15

  The last of the guests had escaped, when the police came, and, simultaneously with the ambulance, Divisional-Inspector Craig, who had happened to be making a call in the neighbourhood. The doctor who came with the ambulance made a brief examination.

  “He is not dead, though he may be before he reaches hospital,” he said.

  “Is it a case of suicide?”

  The doctor shook his head.

  “Suicides do not, as a rule, shoot themselves under the right shoulder-blade. It would be a difficult operation: try it yourself. I should say he’d been shot from the open doorway.”

  He applied a rough first dressing, and Jeffrey was carried into the elevator. In the bottom passage a stretcher was prepared, and upon this he was laid, and, covered with a blanket, carried through the crowd which had assembled at the entrance.

  “Murder, or attempted murder, as the case may be,” said Craig. “Someone has tipped off the guests. You, I suppose, Stevens? Let me see your book.”

  The inspector ran his finger down the list, and stopped at Room 13.

  “Mr William Brown of Toronto. Who is Mr Brown of Toronto?”

  “I don’t know, sir. He engaged a room by telephone. I didn’t see him go.”

  “That old fire-escape of yours still working?” asked Craig sardonically. “Anybody else been here? Who is the wounded man? His face seemed familiar to me.”

  “Major Floyd, sir.”

  “Who?” asked Craig sharply. “Impossible! Major Floyd is–”

  It was Floyd! He remembered now. Floyd, with whom he had sat that day – that happily married man!

  “What was he doing here?” he asked. “Now, spill it, Stevens, unless you want to get yourself into pretty bad trouble.”

  “I’ve spilled all I know, sir,” said Stevens doggedly. “It was Major Floyd.”

  And then an inspiration came to him.

  “If you want to know who it was, it was Jeff Legge. Floyd’s his fancy name.”

  “Who?”

  Craig had had many shocks in his life, but this was the greatest he had had for years.

  “Jeff Legge? Old Legge’s son?”

  Stevens nodded.

  “Nobody knows that but a couple of us,” he said. “Jeff doesn’t work in the light.”

  The officer nodded slowly.

  “I’ve never seen him,” he admitted. “I knew Legge had a son, but I didn’t know he was running crook. I thought he was a bit of a boy.”

  “He’s some boy, let me tell you!” said Stevens.

  Craig sat down, his chin in his hands.

  “Mrs Floyd will have to be told. Good God! Peter Kane’s daughter! Peter didn’t know that he’d married her to Legge’s son?”

  “I don’t know whether he knew or not,” said Stevens, “but if I know old Peter, he’d as soon know that she’d gone to the devil as marry her to a son of Emanuel Legge’s. I’m squeaking in a way,” he said apologetically, “but you’ve got to know – Emanuel will tell you as soon as he gets the news.”

  “Come here,” said Craig. He took the man’s arm and led him to the passage where the detectives were listening, opened the door of a private room, the table giving evidence of the hasty flight of the diners. “Now,” he said, closing the door, “what’s the strength of this story?”

  “I don’t know it all, Mr Craig, but I know they were putting a point on Peter Kane a long time ago. Then one night they brought Peter along and kidded him into thinking that Jeff was a sucker in the hands of the boys. Peter had never seen Jeff before – as a matter of fact, I didn’t know he was Jeff at the time; I’d heard a lot about him, but, like a lot of other people, I hadn’t seen him. Well, they fooled Peter all right. He took the lad away with him. Jeff was wearing a Canadian officer’s uniform, and, of course, Jeff told the tale. He wouldn’t be the son of his father if he didn’t. That’s how he got to know the Kanes, and was taken to their home. When I heard about the marriage, I thought Peter must have known. I never dreamt they were playing a trick on him.”

  “Peter didn’t know,” said Craig slowly. “Where’s the girl?”

  “I can’t tell you. She’s in London somewhere.”

  “At the Charlton,” nodded the other. “Now, you’ve got to tell me, Stevens, who is Mr Brown of Toronto? It’s written differently from your usual hand – written by a man who has had a bad scare. In other words, it was written after you’d found the body.”

  Stevens said nothing.

  “You saw him come out: who was he?”

  “If I die this minute–” began Stevens.

  “You might in a few months, as ‘accessory after’,” said the other ominously; “and that’s what you’ll do if you conceal a murderer. Who is Mr Brown?”

  Stevens was struggling with himself, and after a while it came out.

  “Johnny was here tonight,” he said huskily. “Johnny Gray.”

  Craig whistled.

  There was a knock at the door. A police officer, wanting instructions.

  “There’s a woman down below, pretty nigh mad. I think you know her, sir.”

  “Not Lila?” blurted Stevens.

  “That’s the girl. Shall I let her come up?”

  “Yes,” said Craig. “Bring her in here.”

  She came in a minute, distracted, incoherent, her hair dishevelled, her hands trembling.

  “Is he dead?” she gasped. “For God’s sake tell me. I see it in your face – he’s dead. Oh, Jeff, Jeff!”

  “Now you sit down,” said the kindly Craig. “He’s no more dead than you or I are. Ask Stevens. Jeff’s doing very well indeed. Just a slight wound, my dear – nothing to worry about. What was the trouble? Do you know anything about it?”

  She could not answer him.

  “He’s dead,” she moaned. “My God, I killed him! I saw him and followed him here!”

  “Give her a glass of wine, Stevens.”

  The porter poured out a glass of white wine from one of the many deserted bottles on the table, and put it to her chattering teeth.

  “Now, Lila, let’s get some sense out of you. I tell you, Jeff’s not dead. What is he to you, anyway?”

  “Everything,” she muttered. She was shivering from head to foot. “I married him three years ago. No, I didn’t,” she said in a sudden frenzy.

  “Go on; tell us the truth,” said Craig. “We’re not going to pull him for bigamy, anyway.”

  “I married him three years ago,” she said. “He wasn’t a bad fellow to me. It was the old man’s idea, his marrying this girl, and there was a thousand for me in it. He put me down in Horsham to look after her, and see that there were no letters going to Johnny. There wasn’t any need of that, because she never wrote. I didn’t like the marriage idea, but he swore to me that it was only to get Peter’s money, and I believed him. Then tonight he told me the truth, knowing I wouldn’t squeak. I wish to God I had now, I wish I had! he is dead, isn’t he? I know he’s dead!”

  “He’s not dead, you poor fish,” said Craig impatiently. “I might be congratulating you if he was. No, he’s got a bit of a wound.”

  “Who shot him?”

  “That’s just what I want to know,” said Craig. “Was it you?”

  “Me!” Her look of horror supplied a satisfactory answer to his question. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t know he was here, or coming here. I thought he was at the hotel, till I saw him. Yet I had a feeling that he was coming here tonight, and I’ve been waiting about all evening. I saw Peter and dodged him.”

  “Peter? Has he been near the club?”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t know. He was on his wa
y. I thought he was going to the Highlow. There’s nowhere else he’d go in this street – I saw him twice.”

  Craig turned his bright, suspicious eyes upon the porter.

  “Peter been here? I didn’t see anything about Mr Brown of Montreal?” he asked sarcastically.

  “No, he hasn’t. I haven’t seen Peter since the Lord knows when,” said the porter emphatically. “That’s the truth. You can give the elevator boy permission to tell you all he knows, and if Peter was here tonight you can hang me.”

  Craig considered for a long time.

  “Does Peter know his way in by the easy route?” he asked.

  “You mean the fire-escape? Yes, Peter knows that way, but members never come in by the back nowadays. They’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Craig went out of the room and walked down the passage, stopping at No. 13. Immediately opposite the door was a window, and it was wide open. Beyond was the grille of the fire-escape landing. He stepped out through the window and peered down into the dark yard where the escape ended. By the light of a street lamp he saw a stout gate, in turn pierced by a door, and this led to the street. The door was open, a fact which might be accounted for by the presence in the yard of two uniformed policemen, the flash of whose lanterns he saw. He came back into the corridor and to Stevens.

  “Somebody may have used the fire-escape tonight, and they may not,” he said. “What time did Gray come in? Who came in first?”

  “Jeff came first, about five minutes before Gray.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I had a chat with Captain Gray,” said the porter, after a second’s hesitation. “He went round into the side passage–”

  “The same way that Jeff had gone?” The porter nodded.

  “About a minute later – in fact, it was shorter than a minute – I heard what I thought was a door slammed. I remarked upon the fact to the elevator-man.”

  “And then?”

  “I suppose four or five minutes passed after that, and Captain Gray came out. Said he might look in later.”

  “There was no sign of a struggle in Captain Gray’s clothes?”