Trent Intervenes

by E. C. Bentley

  Trent went to the window and opened it for a moment. ‘Yes, there might be a draught that anyone sitting in this arm-chair would feel. I agree; it does look as if somebody has been coming in here while you were away—in particular, sitting in your arm-chair, and plumping up the cushion when he leaves the place.’

  An exclamation of disgust came from Marion Silvester. ‘And that’s a nice thing to think of, isn’t it? I prefer to know something about people who visit my flat and sprawl in my arm-chair. And it’s no use going to the police about it, as you can see. What have I got to tell them? The place hasn’t been broken into, nothing has been stolen. I’ve no actual proof that anyone has been making themselves at home here. They’d only grin, and say—or think—I was fancying things.’

  Trent considered. ‘Yes, I suppose they would. By the way, what time do you leave here in the morning?’

  ‘Nine-fifteen; and get back about seven, usually.’

  ‘Much at home during the weekends?’

  ‘No, not a lot. I spend a good deal of the time with friends—Paula Kozicki and other people I know in London. On Sundays I get out into the country if the weather’s decent, and have a day in the open air, with or without a companion. I don’t have at all a dull life, Phil. The one bad spot is this silly little mystery.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Trent said, ‘the best thing you can do, Marion, is to leave it to me. I must be on my way now, but I will let my giant intellect play round the subject, and make a few inquiries and see you again very soon.’

  She jumped up. ‘Heaven bless you, Phil! That’s what I hoped you would say.’

  ‘And before I go, would you like to trust me with those spare keys of yours?’

  She fetched them from the bedroom. ‘If you use them, you must promise not to pilfer anything, or smash up the furniture.’

  Trent expressed the hope that he would be able to overcome his lower nature. Before he left the house, he tried each of the keys in its lock, and found that they fitted easily.

  In the Cactus Club most ways of life are represented, and there are few subjects on which some information cannot be gleaned from fellow-members whenever there is a large muster. Lunching there next day, Trent was able to draw upon more than one source for facts about Dr Kozicki. He was an orthopædic specialist with certain methods of his own devising and a fancy for making his own surgical appliances. He had built up a large practice in his native city of Posen, and made a European reputation. The afflicted grandson of Jason B. Rhodes, the sulphur magnate, had been brought across the ocean to him for treatment, and had been cured.

  An ex-patient of the doctor, who had attended him at his own house, gave some more intimate details. Kozicki was a widower. His son and daughter had been sent to school in England, so as to escape the influence of German culture, of which the doctor disapproved, for he had been an ardent Polish patriot under the German rule. This had not been a success in the case of the son, who had turned out a hopeless waster.

  Some ten years ago Dr Kozicki had, it was vaguely known, ‘got into trouble’ with the German authorities, and had found it advisable to transfer himself to London, where he had resumed his practice, and was doing more than well. The son, going from bad to worse, had turned his attention to forgery, and had been sent to penal servitude. The doctor was entirely wrapped up in his daughter, who was a Slade art student. He had not succeeded in spoiling her, and every one thought her charming.

  Besides his liking for Marion Silvester, Trent had another motive for taking up her ‘little mystery.’ He thought there might be something more in the affair than she imagined, and his curiosity was awake. It might be worth while to look further into the affairs of Dr Kozicki; and there was one line, at least, that could be followed up. After leaving the Cactus Club, he spent a fruitless hour searching the files in the offices of the Record for a report of the trial of the younger Kozicki; and he was still at this task when Homan, the paper’s regular crime expert, came into the library.

  ‘If you’re hunting for the name Kozicki,’ Homan said, ‘you won’t find it. I remember the case. He was prosecuted under the name of Jackson, by which he was known to the police as being mixed up with a bad lot. He had forged a stolen cheque and collected the money. It didn’t come out till afterwards that he was the doctor’s son, and the fact was never made public. He was informed on by a man he had quarrelled with, and his evidence got Jackson five years.’

  Thus put on the right track, Trent soon turned up the report of the case. It was colourless enough; but Trent noted that the name of the informer was given as Whimster, that he had been on intimate terms with Jackson before their quarrel, and that his going to the police had the air of an act of treachery rather than of dauntless public spirit. A public house called the Cat and Fiddle, in the Harrow Road, had figured in the evidence as a rendezvous of Jackson, Whimster, and their associates. A comparison of dates showed that Jackson-Kozicki’s sentence had still six months to run; but as Homan pointed out, it might be shortened considerably as the reward of good conduct.

  The landlord of the Cat and Fiddle, whose beer Trent found to be in excellent condition, had known Whimster very well. Jackson had been before his time. When the landlord first came to the place, three years ago, Whimster had been using the Cat and Fiddle regularly. He was a racing tipster, and seemed to do pretty well out of it, taking good times with bad. Last year Whimster had left the district, saying nothing to nobody; but Joe Chittle, being over in Woolwich not long ago, had seen him in the street. Joe could swear it was Whimster; but when he spoke to him he said that wasn’t his name, and he had never seen Joe in his life—quite nasty about it he was, Joe said. Well, what could you make of it?

  Funny, but Trent was not the first to be asking after Whimster, the landlord said. There had been a gent in not long ago wanting to get in touch with the same party, and the landlord had told him the same as he had told Trent.

  ‘Would you know that man again?’ asked Trent.

  Yes, the landlord would; it was a face that gave you a funny feeling, you couldn’t easily forget it. But what, the landlord wondered, was the reason for all this interest in Whimster?

  Trent could only tell him that he thought Whimster might have some information that would be useful to him. What was the landlord having? The landlord’s was a toothful of old Jamaica—good stuff this chilly weather. Happy days, sir!

  Chief Inspector Bligh, receiving Trent in his little office at Scotland Yard, pushed the cigarette-box across the table.

  ‘Yes, I can tell you something more about Ladislas Kozicki, alias George Jackson,’ Mr Bligh said, when Trent had set forth the extent of his own information. ‘I’m glad you got the landlord of the Cat to talk; his evidence will be useful. We hadn’t got onto that line, because, you see, the man you know as Whimster has called himself Barling since he went to live in Woolwich. They must be the same man; I can see that. We have got plenty on Jackson as it is, but you can’t have too much.’

  ‘Why, is he in trouble again?’

  ‘You might call it that,’ the inspector said grimly. ‘He came out of prison five weeks ago. He’s wanted now for attempted murder. Last Tuesday night Barling passed two men who knew him walking up Foxhill Street, where he lives. There was nobody else about. They exchanged greetings as they passed; and then the two chaps met another, whose face they say they didn’t like. This fellow was staring after Barling, and looked as if he was following him. Well, out of curiosity they turned and followed too.

  ‘Just as Barling was approaching a pub called the Red Cow, which he was probably on his way to, they saw the follower catch him up and take him by the arm. They were too far behind to hear what was said, but the other man seemed to steer Barling into the entry of a builder’s yard at the side of the pub. Then they heard Barling yelling for help, and as they ran up, the other man came bolting out of the entry and made off in the opposite direction, towards the main road.

  ‘They found Barling lying in his blood, apparently dead
; he had been stabbed twice. His injuries were serious, but not fatal. Next day he was able to state that the man who had knifed him was George Jackson, who had done time for forgery. We looked him up in the Rogue’s Gallery, and showed the two witnesses his picture, which they recognized at once. Barling refuses to say anything more.’

  Trent, his elbows on the table, had followed this terse narrative with kindling eyes. ‘And Jackson is still on the run?’

  ‘He is. He probably slowed down when he got to the main road, seeing he wasn’t being pursued; and he could have boarded any one of a dozen buses or trams. It was easy for him to vanish. His description has gone out, of course, with his prison photo; but there’s no trace of him as yet. As we knew his real name and history, Dr Kozicki was called on and interrogated; but he could tell us nothing—didn’t even know his son was at liberty, he says. He had had six months knocked off his sentence, you see, for being a good boy. He shed his virtue with his convict’s uniform—they often do—’

  Trent eyed the inspector thoughtfully for a few moments, then looked away. ‘It all fits in,’ he said as if to himself. ‘I don’t like it, but it can’t be helped.’

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ Mr Bligh demanded. ‘Is it another of your bright ideas? They are usually worth something, so let’s have it.’

  ‘Well, I have an idea—I don’t know if you’ll call it a bright one—about where you can lay hands on your man. But it means more tragedy for someone, if I’m right.’

  ‘It’ll mean tragedy for you, my lad, if you connive at the escape of a dangerous criminal,’ the inspector said briskly, drawing his chair up to the table. ‘Come on; let’s hear it.’

  Trent let him hear it.

  At the corner of Reville Place next morning Trent met Mr Bligh, who was followed at some distance by another plain-clothes officer, already known to Trent as Sergeant Borrett. A closed car was waiting there, and as they passed it the inspector and its driver exchanged almost imperceptible nods.

  ‘You’ve told her what to do?’ Mr Bligh asked.

  ‘She will have got my letter this morning,’ Trent said. ‘As we arranged, I didn’t tell her anything—only asked her to leave at her usual time, not to take any notice of us when she sees us at the door, and to go straight off to her job as if nothing was happening.’

  ‘Right.’

  They came to the door of No. 43, and Trent opened it with Marion’s latch-key. When the sergeant had joined them in the entry, they went quickly up to the top floor and waited before the entrance to the flat. ‘Probably nothing will happen until she’s been gone some time,’ the inspector remarked, ‘but we don’t want to have this door opening and shutting more than it usually does.’

  At nine-fifteen precisely Marion, equipped with hat and handbag, opened the entrance door and came out. She was flushed and bright-eyed as she took in the sight of the three tall figures waiting on the stair-head. ‘I got your note,’ she murmured to Trent; then hurried down below.

  The three men entered quietly, shutting the door behind them, however, not so quietly. Mr Bligh, after a glance into each of the four rooms that opened upon the landing, led the way into the largest, the living-room in which Trent had listened to Marion’s story; and there they waited in silence with the room door open, for what seemed to Trent the longest half-hour his watch had ever told.

  At last a sharp, slight noise came from without, and the inspector motioned the others to stand farther back from the door. Other faint sounds followed; and then there came into view through the doorway an object which was slowly descending from the ceiling outside the room. It was a small suitcase, dangling from a cord fastened to its handle. This came noiselessly to rest on the landing; the cord dropped beside it; and then with a dry rattle, a rope ladder with rungs of cane unrolled itself swiftly from above until its end just cleared the floor.

  The ladder began to thresh about and to creak, and two feet appeared. A man was feeling his way down by this awkward means; a short, strongly-made man with disproportionately broad shoulders. But just before the head on the shoulders came into the watchers’ field of vision the two officers were out of the room with a rush.

  The man was instantly dragged from the ladder. There followed a furious and wordless struggle, during which a small hall table and the bowl of flowers upon it were smashed to pieces, and a panel of the entrance door was cracked by a boot heel. At last the handcuffs snapped, and George Jackson was formally acquainted with the reason for his arrest as he stood glowering and panting in the secure grasp of Sergeant Borrett.

  Jackson’s broad, high forehead and over-developed jaws made his face almost square; his lips were thin, his chin was short, his narrow-lidded eyes were much too far apart, and he was villainously unshaven.

  Mr Bligh jerked an automatic pistol from the captive’s breast pocket.

  ‘You see,’ he remarked to Trent, ‘there couldn’t have been a better way of getting him. If he’d had his hands free, somebody might have been hurt with this Betsy before he could be stopped. If we had tried to get him in that loft, somebody would have been killed pretty certainly, and he could have stood the whole force off up there, so long as he had food and ammunition. But if he was making use of the flat, there had to be a rope or a ladder of some kind; and while he was coming down he was helpless.’

  He went to the window opening on the street, put his head out and waved a hand. The car at the corner rolled gently up to No. 43.

  ‘Take him along, Borrett,’ Mr Bligh said, opening the entrance door. ‘I’ll be over when I have had a look round up above.’

  The sergeant twined one fist scientifically into Jackson’s collar, the other into a sleeve, and propelled him at arm’s length through the doorway and down the stairs. From first to last he had not spoken a word.

  ‘First we’ll have a look at his travelling outfit,’ Mr Bligh said, as he slipped the catches of the suitcase on the floor. ‘Good idea, that—saved a lot of climbing up and down. What have we here? Toothbrush, soap, and towel, brush and comb—he has nice, clean habits, anyhow, and didn’t like to use anything of Miss Silvester’s more than he had to. He was able to wash regularly and leave no traces—have a bath, too. No shaving tackle—as you might expect from the look of him.’

  ‘That was the notion, I think,’ Trent said. ‘To lie low—or rather high—until the hunt for him had cooled off, and meanwhile grow a beard and moustache that would be a better disguise than anything else. What’s that you’ve got there?’

  The inspector held it up, eying it appreciatively. ‘Boned chicken in glass—none of your vulgar tins. Tomato soup in bottle. Biscuits, butter—his old man was doing him well, I must say. Salt and pepper, packet of tea. Two cloths—for washing up, I suppose, so as not to use Miss Silvester’s. He must have made free with her plates and knives and forks and kitchen things, though; there’s none of them here. By the way, she may notice a rise in her gas bill, if Jackson has been using the cooker as well as the kitchen and bathroom geysers, and the gas-fire in the sitting-room. I should say he was very comfortable here, making himself quite at home for eight hours or so a day.’

  ‘And at intervals the doctor would look in with fresh supplies,’ Trent remarked. ‘That would be when he was supposed to be attending patients at their own homes, no doubt.’

  The inspector closed the suitcase and rose from his knees. ‘I’m glad his old man supplied a ladder. It will be easier than a rope for anybody my size.’

  ‘It will certainly be easier than the way Jackson first got up into the loft,’ Trent remarked, ‘if I am right in thinking they dragged the living-room table onto the landing and put a chair on top of it. Jackson would only just be able to push up the trapdoor with his fingers, and hauling himself up required some strength. The scratches made by the feet of the chair gave me an idea almost at the start.’

  ‘But that wasn’t all you had to go on?’ suggested the inspector.

  ‘No. Before that I thought the doctor must have some reason fo
r manufacturing a job for a girl he didn’t know, and keeping her safe in his own house all day. What he did know was that she lived in a top-floor flatlet; and he visited her once to see if the usual loft and trapdoor were where they could be made use of. When she started work with him, he borrowed the keys from her bag at the first opportunity, took a squeeze of them, and filed duplicates from a couple of Yale blanks—he’s quite a craftsman, I’m told. Then he laid in the necessary stores, and one evening when Miss Silvester was at the theatre with his daughter he met Ladislas, brought him here, and left him settled in under the roof. That’s my story, anyhow. I’ve thought over it a lot since yesterday, and that’s how I fill in the outlines.’

  Mr Bligh grunted. ‘It must have been something like that. Of course he knew his son was released as soon as it happened. Probably he got the doctor on the phone and arranged a meeting somewhere. He may have told him what he meant to do to Whimster. He must have told him he was going to be wanted by the police again, and must have a safe hideout. Then the doctor was struck by a notion, and he began working on the plan for making a hideout of the loft over his daughter’s friend’s place. A good plan, too.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t need to be told what a lad like that was going to do to the man who put him away,’ Trent suggested. ‘If you’re a Pole, as well as a wrong ’un, you are not apt to have a forgiving nature. If it was a question of saving his son from a hanging, I suppose he was ready for anything.’

  ‘Well, he’ll get plenty, I dare say—though there’ll be sympathy for him, too. Now will you hold onto the foot of this ladder while I go up? If you want to come, you’ll have to manage by yourself, as Jackson did.’

  ‘If I want to come?’

  By the light of the inspector’s big electric torch they surveyed the sleeping quarters of the soi-disant George Jackson. Between two of the roof beams a light canvas hammock was slung, folded blankets within it. Some sheets of pasteboard had been laid over the ceiling joists in one corner, and on them stood an array of preserved foods, a tin of biscuits, a carton of eggs, a packet of candles, and other household necessaries. In another corner was a pile of newspapers.