Mystery of Mr. Jessop

by E. R. Punshon

  He expressed himself as delighted to see Bobby. Any visit from his friends of the C.I.D. afforded him always intense pleasure, a pleasure heightened when his visitor was Sergeant Bobby Owen, who no doubt would now join him in a mouthful of the best. Bobby declined, and Dillon said he knew what slaves the C.I.D. men were to duty, and having absorbed Bobby’s share, and his own, of “the best,” set himself to work to evade, deny, or profess complete forgetfulness or ignorance of everything Bobby asked. He had to admit that Hilda, Denis Chenery, and Charley Dickson were all members, but protested that none of the three ever visited the club except on the rarest occasions. Of course, members often drifted in and out without his seeing them. Bobby could ask Ted, the barman, if he liked. Ted was pretty sure to see – and serve – any member who did look in. In any case, he, Mr. Dillon, was fairly sure none of the three mentioned had been in the club on the Saturday. Finch and Ted were likely to know if they had been. Wynne was a name entirely unfamiliar to Mr. Dillon. Bobby could look through the members’ list and the visitors’ book, too, if he liked. As for any gossip about the Fellows necklace having taken place in the club, all Mr. Dillon could say was that he had heard none, and had certainly never heard of the Fellows necklace or of Miss Fay Fellows herself, except vaguely as a film star whose name flared occasionally on placards outside cinemas. But of course Ted might have heard something; members chatted freely both to him and between themselves while indulging in a little refreshment. A reference to the Duke of Westhaven brought a look of such mingled longing and surprise to Mr. Dillon’s usually inexpressive countenance that Bobby was again forced to the conclusion that wheresoever it might be that the duke had heard of Jessop’s gambling propensities, it was not here.

  Another question brought an admission that Mr. T.T. Mullins occasionally visited the club as a friend of one or other member. Apparently he knew several. But the visits were very few and at long intervals. Mr. Dillon did not think he had been there for months, possibly years.

  Bobby asked for the members’ list, and, looking through it – it was admirably kept, showing the most meticulous observance of all the very strict club rules about the admission of new members – noticed presently with interest the name of the Count de Teirney, his address being given as the Hotel Magnifique. Bobby took a note of the names of his proposer and seconder, one of whom, Mr. Dillon regretted to say, had now resigned, while the other was at present travelling abroad. To Bobby’s request for a description of the Count, Mr. Dillon replied that he didn’t think he had ever seen him.

  “He hardly ever comes,” Mr. Dillon declared.

  “Odd thing about your members,” Bobby commented. “They all hardly ever come.”

  “You know, sergeant,” protested Dillon mildly, “I resent that. I resent that very much. It’s an aspersion on the club. Most of our members are very regular; they look upon it as a second home, but a home free from all the worries and troubles a householder has to put up with.”

  “Well, if the Count de Teirney turns up here, let us know,” Bobby said. “He might be able to give us some information about a man named Wynne we are looking for. Wynne was there shortly before Jessop was shot, and we want to interview him.”

  “You may depend on us,” Mr. Dillon assured him earnestly. “You know that.”

  “I know all about that,” agreed Bobby. “Only, in a case of murder, perhaps you will really help. Murder’s a thing I hope you do draw the line at.”

  But he said this without much hope, for he felt, murder or no murder, Dillon’s one idea would be to keep everything connected with the Cut and Come Again as far from the police as possible. He asked a few more questions, and then wandered into the bar-room to have a chat with Ted, whom he found, as he expected, singularly communicative and singularly adroit in avoiding communicating anything of interest or importance. But about the prospects of next week’s racing, dogs or horses, Ted was a gushing fountain of information, and in the midst of a highly technical description of the merits of a certain greyhound Bobby interposed:

  “Oh, yes, that’s the dog Charley Dickson talks about. Dickson hadn’t had more than he could carry yesterday, had he?”

  “Mr. Dickson? Oh, yes, I know him,” Ted answered, evidently searching his memory. “Why, he hasn’t been round for a month of Sundays.”

  “He wasn’t here yesterday?” Bobby asked.

  Ted shook his head again.

  “Don’t know when I saw him last,” Ted asserted. “Wasn’t yesterday, anyhow – or last week, for that matter.”

  “Funny, then,” observed Bobby, “that he was trying to climb a lamp-post just outside here, so as to get a light for his cigarette.”

  “Was he now?” grinned Ted. “Must have had a skinful, then. But not here. It happens that way sometimes. Gents get thrown out of pubs, and then they think they’ll come here and get served, being members. Don’t work, of course, but they try it. Means trouble, though, if they do get here and past Finch. Grateful we are to your chaps if they pick them up on the way.”

  “Curious,” observed Bobby, “that he was seen coming out.”

  “Out of here?” asked Ted. “Not him. Out of the door, perhaps, if Finch sent him off. Or maybe out of the restaurant downstairs; may have gone in there for a drink. But I can’t remember I ever set eyes on him all day, and that I’ll swear to.”

  Bobby shot in another question about the Duke of Westhaven, and was rewarded by another look of blank surprise, confirming his conviction that wherever the duke had picked up his knowledge that Jessop betted, it was not here. Nor had Ted heard any talk in the club about the Fay Fellows necklace; there might have been, of course, but not that he had heard, or at any rate remembered. But, then, he had his work to attend to, and most of the chatter he heard at the bar went in at one ear and out at the other.

  Bobby departed after that, and as he nodded a good-bye to Finch he stopped and said suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him:

  “I suppose Mr. Dickson was quite sober when he left here last night?”

  “Mr. Dickson?” Finch repeated. “Member, isn’t he? I expect I should know him if I saw him, but I can’t put a face to the name at the moment. But, anyway, if he was here, which he wasn’t or I should remember him, he was perfectly sober when he went, because they all were – not a member last night but wasn’t as sober as a judge.”

  “They would be,” agreed Bobby.

  He went away then, feeling that his visit had not been much of a success. It had produced nothing but a series of denials, though it was a good rule to interpret anything the Cut and Come Again staff said by the rule of contraries. Still, there seemed no special reason why they should so emphatically deny Dickson’s presence, if, in fact, he had been there. It was not on their premises he had been discovered. Slowly Bobby walked back to the block of flats where Hilda May lived. He wanted very badly to know what she had to say about her dismissal from the employ of Messrs. Jessop & Jacks she had not mentioned the previous night.

  The elevator took him again to the top floor, and when he came near her door he saw that it was an inch or two open. That meant, he supposed, that Miss May was there, but when he drew near he saw that the woodwork of the door by the Yale lock, and on the door-post opposite, showed signs of freshly inflicted damage.

  “Looks like forcible entry,” he said to himself, a little uneasily, as, pushing the door more widely open, he went in.

  The flat was in confusion. Evidently recent intruders had searched it thoroughly. Drawers were open, their contents on the floor. A vase of flowers was on the floor, too, the water it had contained making a small pool. The table-cloth that once had been an Indian shawl he remembered noticing and admiring, seemed to have vanished. As the table was bare now, he guessed it had been jerked off hurriedly, taking the vase of flowers with it. Then he noticed that lying on the floor near by, was a half-smoked cigar, and, when he stooped and looked at it carefully, he saw that it, too, bore the monogram of the American, Mr. Patterson.r />
  Bobby went a little pale as he looked at it. There was something ominous, he thought, about this repetition here of an object found by the body of the murdered man.

  He looked quickly and with some dread into the bathroom and the kitchenette. To his relief, there was nothing there, though both rooms had evidently been subjected to the same search. He wondered what else was missing besides the Indian shawl table-cover, and why that had been taken. The search, he thought, had been made hurriedly, and by someone who had not much idea of how to set to work. There were two or three likely places his experienced eye showed him had been overlooked. He took down the ’phone and rang up, first the Yard to report, and then the porter, who arrived promptly and in a state of considerable agitation. He had no idea where Miss May was, had not known whether she was in or out. Why should he? Probably the office would blame it all on him, but how could he help it? He had noticed no one suspicious. But he always had plenty to do, and people were always coming in or out without his having much chance of noticing them. If you asked him, his ‘phone never stopped for two minutes together all the blessed day. While he was answering it, he had his back to the entrance, and anyone could come in or go out without his seeing them. Nor had he any idea whether anything was missing. How was he to tell?

  “There was an Indian shawl on the table,” Bobby remarked. “It doesn’t seem to be here now.”

  The porter knew nothing of Indian shawls. Nor had he any idea where it would be possible to get in touch with Miss May. Tenants didn’t tell him where they were going. Why should they?

  Bobby had another look round and then went back into the tiny entrance-lobby. There were two tall, narrow cupboards there, one for brooms and brushes and such other domestic necessities, the other for hats and coats. He opened the first. It had not been disturbed. He opened the second. A body fell out into his arms – the body of a woman, the upper part tightly wrapped round by the missing Indian shawl, the feet tied together with a silk scarf.

  CHAPTER 16

  CONSULTATIONS

  With all speed Bobby tore off the Indian shawl and disclosed the inanimate form of Hilda May. To his relief, she was alive, though her general appearance – the shallow breathing, the fluttering pulse – suggested that her condition was not merely due to a fainting fit.

  “Had a blow on the head. Concussion, I think,” he said, and thought he could detect a swelling over the left ear.

  He had, of course, as a recruit, taken the usual course in first aid, and he knew enough to prevent the porter, much to the good man’s indignation, from carrying out the not uncommon and extremely dangerous practice of pouring brandy as a restorative down the unconscious girl’s throat.

  “Don’t want to finish her off in a fit of choking,” he said. “I don’t think she’s badly hurt. There doesn’t seem to be any bleeding from the ears or nose.” Then he made the porter still more indignant by refusing to allow her to be moved to the bed in the alcove in the inner room. “There’s more air where she is,” he said. “If you’ll open that window, there’ll be a good draught right across where she’s lying. We won’t move her till a doctor comes. You can get some cushions, though, to put under her – but keep her head down. And some blankets or a coat or something to keep her warm, and that’s all we can do till we get help.”

  Help arrived soon, first in the person of the doctor ’phoned for. He approved the measures taken, agreed that the case was one of slight concussion caused by a blow on the head from behind, and looked grave when Bobby described how he had found her.

  “Another hour or so like that – no air, no chance to breathe – ten to one death would have occurred,” he said.

  Using the ’phone, he summoned ambulance men and arranged for Hilda’s removal to hospital, declared that she must have at least twenty-four hours’ complete rest, answered Bobby’s protest that it was most important to learn from her as soon as possible what had happened by retorting that saving her life was more important still, and that anyhow it was highly improbable she would know or remember anything about it. By way of emphasis he added that any case of concussion, even slight, required at least three weeks’ complete rest to allow the brain to recover.

  “Easier to shake a brain up than to shake it down again,” he said.

  Then Superintendent Ulyett appeared with various assistants – not that dignitaries like superintendents often visit forcible entry cases, even when common assault is added, but the suggestion that there might be some connection with the Jessop murder was sufficiently plain. The doctor vanished with his patient, grudgingly admitting that if it were really necessary she might just possibly next day be in a state to answer a few questions, provided, of course, some qualified person were present to stop them when necessary.

  “Most likely she won’t remember a thing,” was his final parting shot.

  Ulyett and his helpers, left in charge of the flat, proceeded to make of its interior a careful, systematic examination that told them just nothing at all.

  There were plenty of fingerprints, of course, but most seemed those of Hilda herself. However, they were all care-fully recorded and classified. An inventory of the contents of the flat was made. Some money, a post office savings bank book, and a few articles of jewellery of some value – amounting in all, perhaps, to about £100 – were discovered, so that ordinary robbery hardly seemed the motive.

  “Looked nearly everywhere,” Ulyett grunted. “Amateurs though – complete amateurs; never thought of the top of the cupboard any experienced crook thinks of at once, because he knows it’s every woman’s favourite hiding– place. What was it they were after, though? And did they get it – or didn’t they?”

  No answer being available to these questions, Ulyett turned his attention to the door. It had been forced by the insertion of an instrument of some kind between lock and jamb, and the particular expert who had specialised in forcible entries drew Ulyett’s attention to a splinter of wood shaved from the jamb and to a tiny piece of steel he had discovered near it on the floor, with other small broken fragments of wood from the door and the jamb.

  “Looks to me,” said the expert, “as if a sharp knife with a strong blade had been used – sharp, because of that bit of the jamb shaved off, as if the tool used had slipped; a knife, because this bit of steel looks as if it came from a knife blade; and strong, because it would have to be to force the lock.”

  “Good,” said Ulyett. “It all helps; help us to identify the tool if and when we identify the man, though it won’t help us much to do that. Any fingerprints?”

  “Only smudges,” answered gloomily the other expert whose province that was. “Gloves, of course; always are.”

  Everything possible having been done, a constable was left in charge until, first, the damaged portions of door and jamb could be cut away for preservation, and, secondly, until the damage so done had been repaired. The porter protested violently, and threatened legal proceedings on the part of “the office,” but did not succeed in getting much attention paid to him. Ulyett was serenely confident that the last thing “the office” would desire would be to draw public attention to the fact that burglaries and housebreakings were possible upon their well-guarded premises. Then, back at Scotland Yard, Ulyett took Bobby into his private room, told him he might smoke, set the good example himself, and proceeded to question him closely.

  “Taking it, of course,” he said, “that this attack on Miss May has some connection with the Jessop case.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby.

  “Only what?” demanded Ulyett, and Bobby tried to look as if he were thinking awfully hard, but ventured on no reply.

  “Something being looked for,” continued Ulyett, “something someone wanted pretty badly – the Fellows necklace by any chance?”

  “If it was that, sir,” observed Bobby, “apparently they got it, for it isn’t there now. I take it Mr. Jacks and Mr. Wright have reported it missing from the Mayfair Square strong-room?”

  “
Yes. I was having a statement taken when you rang up,” Ulyett answered. “It’s pretty plain Mr. Jacks suspects Jessop was up to something on his own. If that’s so, and Jessop had the necklace with him when he was murdered, it explains a lot.”

  “But not, sir,” Bobby ventured to point out, “why Jessop himself rang up earlier to say it had been stolen; or why a man in his position, knowing, presumably, all the ins and outs of the trade, should want to call in the help of a man like T.T. And T.T. certainly didn’t know him, or who he was.”

  “Well, T.T.’s in it somehow,” Ulyett remarked. “Complicated sort of business. This duke and duchess seem mixed up in it, too, but of course they’re above suspicion. Thank God,” said Ulyett piously, “we aren’t Bolsheviks yet at Scotland Yard.”

  “No, sir,” agreed Bobby. “Perhaps we shall be, though, after another election or two.”

  Ulyett went pale at the thought.

  “I should resign,” he declared.

  “Yes, sir,” approved Bobby. “Of course,” he added thoughtfully, “they might want an experienced man for Chief Commissioner or something like that.”

  “Ah,” said Ulyett. “Um-m. Yes. There’s that. Look here,” he said fiercely, “politics are no business of the police.”

  “No, sir,” agreed Bobby. “Of course, sir, I quite agree people like dukes and duchesses are above suspicion – but not beyond proof.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then don’t say it,” snapped Ulyett. “Of course,” he mused, “you coming from the same lot yourself –”

  Bobby squirmed; references to his unfortunate ancestry that included a – fortunately – impecunious earl as uncle, always made him squirm. “And so,” continued Ulyett, “knowing ’em better than most, naturally you respect ’em less.”