‘One of Wylde’s men has dug up a band-boy friend of the girl’s,’ Pullen rattled. ‘He has some story about her offering dope openly to anyone who seemed likely to have any money. It all sounds very amateurish. Wylde’s seeing the man now. I don’t like the dope angle myself. All the stuff came directly from Papendeik’s. We mustn’t lose sight of that.’
‘What?’
‘All the dope we found came from Mrs Valentine Ferris; I told you that last time I phoned, sir. There is no evidence to show that Adamson had any more than this in her possession. Wylde is inclined to believe Mrs Ferris’s story about the smuggling. His people are looking up the woman she sacked on suspicion. He thinks the name is familiar to him.’
‘Ah.’ Oates sounded unhappily convinced. ‘That leads us back to the swells.’
‘Looks like it. Still, that alibi of Laminoff’s is not satisfactory, is it? He’s a fat man, you know. I’ve got it here. Will you check it with yours? “Six-fifteen, left Caesar’s Court. Six-thirty-five, Savoy cocktail bar. Seven-forty, Tulip Restaurant. Eight-fifty, the Tatler Theatre to see Mickey Mouse programme (alone). Eleven, approx., the White Empress. Four-thirty a.m., left the White Empress for Caesar’s Court in taxi-cab.” That’s the White Empress Club in Grafton Street.’
‘I know. The high-class all-alien dive. No reliable witnesses there, you feel?’
‘Not one.’ The machine-gun was vehement. ‘Every one of ’em would swear each other out of hell.’
‘I suppose they’d try. You’ll go over them, of course.’
‘I was going down there now. I’ll ring you at two-thirty. Good-bye, sir.’
By a coincidence Gaiogi Laminoff was telephoning Matvey Kuymitchov, manager of the White Empress, at the same time that the two policemen were considering his alibi. He also was a trifle worried, but not over the same matter.
‘Matvey,’ he said, ‘you have in your hall some little birds in a gold cage shaped like a basket. Will you tell an old friend where you got them? They are charming.’
Kuymitchov was delighted to oblige. He rattled off the name of the importers of the golden canaries, and explained that the firm were also part-owners of the cage-making company.
‘I know them very well, Excellency. They are not easy people to deal with, but if you want some, perhaps I could get them for you.’
‘Would you do that, Matvey? That would be kind of you. I should appreciate that.’ The faint note of irony was well suppressed. ‘Can you get me sixty cages, each containing two little birds, to be delivered here by the thirtieth?’
‘Sixty cages?’
‘Yes. I went through my dining-room just now, not the main dining-room, but the little romantic one in the flower garden, and it depressed me. It is sad, Matvey. It is almost gloomy. I want it to be essentially gay, and I thought that if over each table there was one of those little basket-shaped gold cages it would make it look a little happier. Don’t you think so?’
Matvey laughed. ‘It is not very practical,’ he said. ‘You will get tired of them.’
‘Of course I shall. Then I shall get rid of them. But meanwhile they will look gay. Sixty cages by the thirtieth. You won’t disappoint me? Tell the firm to send a little boy to look after them. You will see they are all there?’
‘I will. You are an extraordinary person.’
‘Not at all.’ Gaiogi’s laugh was infectious. ‘I was depressed. Now I feel quite happy.’
Mr Lugg phoned Mr Campion by appointment. Mr Campion was in the private office of the Boiled Owl Club and Mr Lugg was in a small basement room which looked as though some thoughtless person had built four walls round a gipsy encampment.
‘Not a sossidge, cock.’ The thick melancholy voice was just audible above a chatter like the din of a monkey-house. ‘Ma Knapp was no good at all. Thos. is inside again, so he can’t help, poor chap. I’ve been to Walkie’s and to Ben’s and I dropped in at Conchy Lewis’s. Not a sossidge anywhere.’
‘Have you tried Miss King?’
‘I ’ave. Just got out alive. If Mr Tuke ever ’ears of this I’ll never ’old up me ’ead again. Mud-rollin’, that’s what I’m doing. They was all very pleased to see me. It was like old times.’
‘That must have been ever so nice. Keep your mind on the job.’
‘I am. My Gawd, you’re grateful, aren’t you? Here am I with me pockets sewn up mixin’ with dust I’ve shook orf my feet for ever. What d’you think I’m doin’ it for? What luck your end?’
‘Nothing yet. Phoebe gave me the Starlight, the Fish, the Newspaper, the Enraged Cow and a staggering dive called the All At Home. I’ve had a morning long after the night before. All a blank. Look here, try straight food with a smear.’
‘Smear meanin’ filf?’
‘Yes. I was wrapping it up for you. Ollie is the man you want. Ollie Dawson of Old Compton Street. Take him a bottle of kümmel.’
‘Is it kümmel? I thought ’is fancy was dressed crab? I’ll take both. Right-o. Any more dope?’
‘Dope? Oh, I’m sorry, I was on the other book. Yes, one thing. Listen. A long two-bladed knife, very narrow indeed.’
‘Ham-and-beef type?’
‘That’s about it. My hat! you’re horrible. All right then. Phone me at four at the Dorinda’s in the Haymarket. I’m keeping Pa Dorinda as a last hope. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye, cock. Good hunting.’
‘Yoicks to you, sir. Good-bye.’
Amanda, who had been sitting over the telephone in her private cubby-hole at the works for considerably over an hour, was commendably good-tempered when at last her fiancé kept his promise
‘Never mind,’ she encouraged with all the boundless energy of youth in her voice. ‘Never mind. Keep at it. I’ve got something. It’s a bit negative. You know the Clear, the badge? I say, that was Sid Yes, Sid. He pinched it from Georgia The sight of her wearing it turned him up, as I thought it would, and he pinched it off her lapel during the crush after lunch. He didn’t want to go into a lot of explanations, so he put it where someone who knew what it was would be bound to see it. He did that at once, while the plane was still empty.’
‘Did he, though? That was a bit roundabout, wasn’t it?’
‘Not really.’ She sounded embarrassed. ‘He’s only a bit touchy on the subject of his snappy pinching. He’s shy about it. The accomplishment wasn’t thought a lot of at his school. At your place they probably thought it was clever and funny; at his they didn’t. It’s a social question. I got it out of him this morning.’
‘I see. That means the deity in the machine may not have been near the hangar at all?’
‘I know. But so few people were there before Ramillies, were they? I say, A.D. has been trying to get you all the morning, but he’s out now seeing Gaiogi. I think he wants to ask if there’s anything he can do.’
‘If there is I’ll let him know. Good-bye, Lieut.’
‘Good-bye.’
Detective-Inspector Wylde, of Narcotics, had a soft, friendly voice and a habit of lowering it when speaking on the telephone. Superintendent Oates had to concentrate to hear him.
‘I’ve had a little talk with Happy Carter,’ Wylde murmured. ‘I’m afraid it’s not down our street at all, sir. We shall go on working on it, of course, until further orders, but I thought I’d let you know what the situation is. This girl Adamson certainly wasn’t in touch with any of the big people. It looks to me as though she stole the stuff, or had it given her, from someone at Papendeik’s, and simply tried to make a bit on the side.’
‘Oh, I see. Thank you very much, Inspector.’ Oates was gloomy ‘You’ll just cover every angle, won’t you? We don’t want anything to slip through our fingers at this stage, do we?’
‘No, of course not, sir, but I think you’ll find it’s not our pigeon. All right, sir. Good-bye.’
He had barely replaced the receiver when the Essex superintendent was on the line again.
‘Nothing at all to report.’ The cheerful voice sounded unwarrantably
pleased with itself. ‘We’ve practically stripped the clearing and there’s no weapon of any sort, unless you’d count three tin-openers and a bicycle pump. I reckon the seat of the mystery is at your end, as I said all along. Mayhap if you could get on to the motive now we might learn something.’
‘Mayhap we might,’ agreed Oates grimly. ‘We’ve had the medical report and none of the usual reasons apply.’
‘Fancy that, now. Oh well, we’ll go on looking. So long.’
‘Wait a minute. No news of the car?’
‘No, no, not a sign of it. The petrol stations can’t help us. There’s plenty of traffic on our roads just now, you know. We’ve been on to the lorry-driver again and he can’t add to his statement He only heard it, you see. Still, he knows engines and he sticks to his story. He says it was four cylinders, missing on one, and there was a body rattle like a sackful of old iron. But there’s plenty o’ they about at this time of year.’
‘You’re right, son. The woods are full of ’em. The boy’s evidence isn’t worth the paper it’s written on as it stands. It’s seeing that’s believing; that’s what they say.’
‘So they do, so they do. I don’t know if it interests you, but Glasshouse for the three-thirty. It’s a local horse. Sure to do well. Oh, perhaps not. I only thought it might. Good-bye.’
Oates hung up, considered a few moments, sighed and recalled Sir Henry Wryothsley. The pathologist seemed surprised at his question.
‘The Richmond Laboratories?’ he repeated. ‘Why, yes, I think so. I’ve never had any reason to doubt them. I can’t give you any first-hand information, unfortunately. They don’t do my stuff. But a big place like that is sure to be pretty sound. What’s the trouble? Anything I can do?’
‘No trouble at all.’ Oates was suspiciously casual. ‘I was only curious. It’s not this affair we’re on now. Another matter. If these people did a rushed analysis they’d be bound to find anything fairly obvious, would they?’
A laugh reached him. ‘What do you call “fairly obvious”?’
‘Well, acute morphine poisoning, for instance.’
‘A fatal dose? Oh lord, yes, I should say so, if they tested for it. Why don’t you ask ’em? Parsons is the man there. He’s a good chap. Frightfully conscientious. Ask him. He’s not chatty. He’ll be discreet if you tell him so. Ring him up.’
‘Perhaps I will. Thank you very much. Sorry to trouble you.’
‘Not at all. Have you been through my report? It’s interesting, isn’t it? I’ve got one or two theories. I’ll put them forward when I see you. I’ve got to rush back now. My assistant’s calling. We’re doing a Stass-Otto. Good-bye.’
Sergeant Francis Gwynne, hopeful product of the Hendon Police College, caught Inspector Pullen just before he settled down to write his report. The young man was diffident.
‘I took up the angle you suggested, sir, and I’ve found one interesting piece of gossip which may or may not be of some use to you. . . .’
‘Come to the horses,’ snapped the machine-gun, who was irritated by the accent which he insisted on considering, quite erroneously, as unmanly.
‘Well, sir, I saw Madame Sell, of the big hairdressing firm just off Bond Street, and she tells me that there has been a story going about for some weeks now concerning the death of Sir Raymond Ramillies and Mrs Valentine Ferris of Papendeik’s. Apparently Lady Ramillies and Mrs Ferris were quarrelling over the same man, and on the morning of Ramillies’s death Mrs Ferris gave Lady Ramillies a cachet blanc – a sort of aspirin in a rice-paper case – for herself, but instead of taking it the woman gave it to her husband. According to the story, it was the last thing he had before he died.’
‘This is only gossip, you say?’ Pullen was loth to show his intense interest.
‘Yes, sir, but I thought I’d better let you know at once in case it was useful.’
‘It may be. I can’t say. I’m going up to the superintendent now. I’ll mention it to him. That’s all right, Gwynne. Carry on. That may be of some use.’
Meanwhile Rex wrestled with the newspapers.
‘Lady Papendeik authorises me to state that she is extremely sorry that she cannot help you any further. The whole matter is in the hands of the police. I am really very sorry, but I myself know nothing. No, sir, nothing at all. Miss Caroline Adamson left our employ some weeks ago. I really cannot remember if she was dismissed or if she resigned. Yes, that is my last word, absolutely my last word.’
He rang off, only to pick up the receiver again as the instrument buzzed once more.
Val’s attempts to find her brother brought her in despair to Amanda’s office wire.
‘No, Val, not since lunch.’ Mr Campion’s fiancée was intensely sympathetic. ‘What’s the matter? Reporters?’
‘Oh, my dear, they’re everywhere.’ Val sounded despairing. ‘We’re in a state of siege. Four women have actually got into the building at various times by representing themselves as clients. The staff is hysterical. Tante Marthe’s had half a bottle of champagne and gone to sleep. You don’t know where he is at all?’
‘No, not at the moment, but he’s on the job. If you could only hang out for a bit he’ll see you through. Lock the doors if you have to. Shall I collect A.D. and come and help you? We could always barricade the windows.’
‘No, my dear.’ Val was almost laughing. ‘It’s not as bad as that yet. I’ll send out an S O S when the party begins to get rough. You think Albert’s doing something?’
‘Doing something? He’s moving heaven and earth.’
‘Your faith is very comforting.’
‘Faith nothing,’ said Amanda. ‘It’s the old firm. We’re invincible.’
It was four o’clock when a reluctant Oates, with Pullen at his elbow, got on to Papendeik’s.
‘Is that Mrs Valentine Ferris? This is Superintendent Oates of the Central Department, New Scotland Yard. Mrs Ferris, I wonder if you’d mind coming down to see me? Yes, at once, please. I’ll send a car for you. It’s nothing to get worried about. We just want a little statement.’
‘But I’ve told you all I can about Caroline Adamson.’ The high clear voice was nervy now and very much on the defensive.
‘I daresay you have, Ma’am.’ Oates was avuncular but firm. ‘It’s nothing alarming. I just want to have a little talk with you, that’s all.’
‘Is it very important? The house is surrounded by reporters. I daren’t set my foot outside the door.’
‘I’m afraid it is, Ma’am. Very important. Don’t worry about the Press, Ma’am. We’ll get you through them all right. You’ll be ready, will you? Thank you very much. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Val faintly.
At four o’clock Papendeik’s phoned Mr Campion’s flat without result At four-one Papendeik’s called the Junior Greys, but Mr Campion had not come in. At four-three Papendeik’s called Mr Campion’s fiancée again, but she had not heard from him. At four-five and a half Mr Campion called Oates and, on hearing that the superintendent could not speak to him, sent him a message which not only brought the eminent policeman to the phone but sent him and Inspector Pullen, to say nothing of a couple of plain-clothes men, hurtling down to Ninety-one, Lord Scroop Street, Soho, like a pack on the scent. Mr Campion’s original message sounded cryptic to the secretary who took it.
‘Ask him,’ he had said, ‘ask him if one of his fat suspects had curly hair.’
Chapter Twenty
IN SUMMER-TIME THE streets of Soho are divided into two main species, those which are warm and dirty and jolly, and those which are warm and dirty and morose. Lord Scroop Street, which connects Greek Street and Dean Street, belongs to the latter category. Number Ninety-one was a restaurant with high brick-red window-curtains and the name Hakapopulous in a large white arc on the glass. The main entrance, which was narrow and a thought greasy, had a particularly solid door with a picture of a grove of palm-trees painted on the glass, while the back entrance, which gave on to Augean Passage, was, as the local div
isional superintendent put it in a moment of insight, like turning over a stone.
Inside, the restaurant was strangely different from its exterior. The main room, which possessed a gilt-and-mahogany staircase rising up into mysterious blackness above, was indubitably shabby, but it was not a bare shabbiness. There was a cold darkness, a muffled quiet in the big curtain-hung room. All the tables were half-hidden, if only by shadows, and the carpet, the Victorian hangings and the columns to the ceiling were all so thick and dusty that the smell of them pervaded the place like a kind of unscented incense. It was this quality which met one as one entered. The quiet swooped down on one as does the quiet of a church, but here there was no austerity, only secrecy: not the exciting secrecy of conspiracy, but the awful, lonely secrecy of passion, the secrecy of minding one’s own business. It was not a pleasant room.
The divisional superintendent, a grizzled friend of Oates, who knew and rather loved his district, arrived at the back door at the moment that Oates and his company arrived at the front. This happy co-operation avoided the suggestion that anything so unfriendly as a raid was intended, and the two parties, save for those four men who were left to hang about the entrances, met in the shadows of the main dining-room, where there were only two customers, four-fifteen in the afternoon not being a busy hour with the house.
Mr Lugg and Mr Campion came out of their obscurity as Oates arrived. They had been sitting in a corner and their appearance had some of the elements of a conjuring trick, so that Pullen glanced round him suspiciously.
‘Anyone else here?’
‘No one. Only this lad.’ Mr Campion’s murmur was as discreet as the room itself, and they all turned to stare at the waiter on duty, who had come sidling out from behind a column. He was a small furtive person in an oiled tail-coat and dirty table-cloth and he took in the nature of the visit in a single wide-eyed glance. Then, shying away from them like a field animal, he sent an odd, adenoidal shout up into the pit of darkness above the staircase. He was answered immediately and there was a tremor in the walls above and every chin in the room was raised to greet the newcomer. After a moment of suspense he appeared, and a small, satisfied sigh escaped Inspector Pullen.
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