by Molly Thynne
Gilroy took it from her.
“At the risk of shocking you, I’m going to look inside,” he said. “It isn’t done, I grant you, but I’m certain that there’s something fishy about Master Johnson, and I’m going to take advantage of an obviously heaven-sent opportunity. We can stick it up again afterwards. Whoever licked it in the first place scamped his job badly.”
He drew it carefully out of the envelope. As he did so, two pound notes fluttered out on to the table.
Then he ran his eye over the letter, and a slow smile spread over his face.
“Little Webb again,” he murmured. “How they do crop up!”
He handed the letter to Jill. It ran:
“To Johnson, with best wishes from Bella and Everard Webb.”
“Depressingly unincriminating,” commented Gilroy, “but so funny that it was worth sacrificing the principles of a lifetime for. They would be the only people who knew the exact date of Johnson’s wedding!”
He picked up the notes and folded them, preparatory to putting them back in the envelope.
“Have you got two one pound notes on you?” asked Jill suddenly.
“I have. Do you want to make Johnson a wedding present?”
“No. But if you’ve got two more to put in their place, I’m going to keep these for Mr. Fenn. He’s trying to trace the money that was taken from the flat on the night of the murder.”
Gilroy took a couple of notes from his pocket-book and placed them, with the letter, in the envelope. Then he stuck down the flap and slipped the whole thing back under the string of the parcel.
A couple of minutes later they were in the street.
“Surely you haven’t got to the point of suspecting little Webb?” exclaimed Gilroy.
Jill laughed rather shamefacedly.
“It does seem absurd, doesn’t it? And yet, I don’t know why we all take it for granted that he couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it. He was on the spot, and we’ve only got his sister’s word for it that he was with her at the time.”
“But you don’t suspect him, all the same!”
“One simply can’t, somehow,” she admitted. “But these notes have come from Romney Chambers and, though it’s only the forlornest of chances, there’s no harm in showing them to Mr. Fenn when I see him to-morrow.”
“What’s he up to to-morrow?” asked Gilroy. “You don’t mean to say that the indefatigable beggar works on Sunday?”
She gave him the gist of her interview with Fenn that afternoon.
“Bad luck,” was his only comment, but she could see that he too was perturbed.
“I’m a fool to let it get on my nerves,” she said, when she had finished. “But I feel sometimes that if this goes on much longer I shall begin to think I did do it!”
For a moment he did not answer her, then—
“I wish you could get away for a bit, out of all this,” he exclaimed. “It isn’t Fenn’s fault, I know, but if he wants to break your nerve he’s going the best way about it. Look here, couldn’t you take a week-end out of town?”
Even as he made the suggestion he realized that there would be Fenn to reckon with. It was hardly likely, at this juncture, that he could afford to let her go.
“I could manage it, I suppose.” Jill’s voice was not enthusiastic. “But it would be pretty beastly at this time of year.”
“There’s Brighton, of course,” began Gilroy vaguely. Then, with sudden enthusiasm, “What about it? Running down to Brighton, I mean, and taking a squint at Johnson and his bride? I don’t suppose they’ll do anything very startling, but we could keep our eyes open and see if they’ve got any friends there and whether Johnson’s very free with his money. You never know what may crop up, and, anyhow, it will be an excuse to get out of London. I can get away for four days at least, next week, and there’s a chap I used to dig with in London who’ll put me up. You could go to a hotel, and we could carry on the good work together. Say you’ll come!”
He was as enthusiastic as a boy of fifteen, and, in spite of herself, Jill found his mood infectious. She had not been exaggerating when she said that the situation was getting on her nerves, and she found the temptation to get away very strong.
In the end she gave in, helped to her decision by the fact that one of her editors had that morning paid up, and that she was sufficiently in funds to be able to afford a short holiday.
That Fenn might have any objection to the plan fortunately did not occur to her.
CHAPTER XI
Punctually at eleven o’clock next morning Fenn knocked at Jill’s door. To his relief she was already fully dressed.
“I didn’t realize what an outrageous nuisance I must be making of myself,” he said apologetically, “until I saw the bottles of milk reposing outside the doors as I came up. Yours is the only one that has been taken in, so far, and I’m afraid that’s my fault for forgetting that Sunday is a day of rest.”
Jill laughed as she drew a comfortable chair up to the fire.
“We have got rather a habit of what my charwoman calls ‘layin’ up’ on Sundays,” she admitted. “But, then, we do work pretty hard during the week. As a matter of fact, I’ve been up for hours. I was too busy to stay in bed.”
Fenn nodded sympathetically.
“I know,” he said. “Even if one’s only going away for a day or two, there are all sorts of odds and ends that crop up at the last minute to keep one busy.”
Jill stared at him. It was true that she had been engaged in packing her suitcase when he knocked, but her bedroom door was now closed and the sitting-room bore no sign of impending departure.
“How did you know?” she asked. “I only made up my mind to go last night!”
“Once the vast machinery of New Scotland Yard is set in motion,” intoned Fenn ponderously, “little passes that does not come to the ears of the Big Four! I’m quoting from my favourite author. As a matter of fact, Gilroy rang me up last night and told me you were off to Brighton. I can see nothing against your going, provided you leave me your address, in case of any unexpected development.” Jill gave him the name of a cheap boarding-house at which she had sometimes stayed with her father, and watched him as he made a note of it in his book.
“I’ll stay if you think I’d better,” she said. “I don’t want it to seem as if I was—well, running away. It hadn’t occurred to me that it might look like that.”
“It doesn’t,” Fenn assured her. “It’ll do you good to shake all this off your shoulders for a day or two, and I may very possibly have some news for you when you get back. Anyway, try to forget it all for a bit. And keep an eye on Gilroy. He’s one of the most puzzling aspects of this blessed case.”
Jill, who was bending over the fire, stiffened.
When she spoke her voice sounded strained and breathless.
“Mr. Gilroy? Surely he’s got nothing to do with it?”
“With your grandfather’s death? Nothing. It’s Gilroy himself that’s got me guessing. Do you realize that he’s ten years younger than he was a week ago? Perhaps you don’t, seeing that you haven’t known him as long as I have, but you can take my word for it that that young man was rapidly degenerating into a sober, middle-aged scientist. In another year or so he’d have forgotten how to play. Then a tragedy occurs which is making us all old before our time and Gilroy becomes positively skittish! You may be able to account for it. I can’t”.
Jill caught the twinkle in his eye, and turned away to hide the red that stained her cheeks. Fenn helped himself to a cigarette from the box she had handed him and sat smoking placidly. He was meditating over his next move. His rather heavy pleasantries had not been without a motive, for he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and the less official the atmosphere, the easier it would be to break to her at least one of the reasons for his visit.
“You spoke of your charwoman,” he said casually. “Does she come to you on Sundays?”
“No. Most of them get Sunday off.”
&n
bsp; “You do your own housework then, I suppose?”
“On Sundays, yes. As a matter of fact, I’ve been economizing lately and she’s only been coming twice a week, so I’m pretty well used to it. It doesn’t take long in rooms like these. I’d finished before ten this morning. Did you want to see her?”
He stood up and threw the stump of his cigarette into the fire.
“Lord, no! I only wondered whether the place was ship-shape. If it is. I’d like to take a look round.”
“Of course you can look at it,” she answered in surprise. “There are only these two rooms, and a kind of cupboard, with a gas ring, on the landing. Why do you want to see it?”
Fenn realized that it was no good beating about the bush any longer.
“It’s simply a matter of routine,” he explained carefully. “You were on the premises when your grandfather died, and, properly speaking, we ought to have had a look round here before, but I didn’t want any one but myself to do it. It’s always an annoying business for the people concerned. Besides which, I wanted to be able to say that, to my own knowledge, there was nothing here that could have any possible bearing on the case. If you’re going away, we may as well get the thing over and done with.”
Jill caught her breath. So this was what it had come to—an official search of her rooms!
“Of course,” she answered, trying to speak naturally, in a loyal attempt to support his efforts to spare her feelings. “Will you begin with my bedroom?”
“If you don’t mind. You just sit here and smoke a cigarette.”
On his way to the door he halted in front of her.
“Don’t let it worry you,” he said. “As I told you, it’s just a matter of routine, a pure formality.”
He disappeared into the bedroom, and Jill, with a little shiver, drew her chair closer to the fire. She wondered now why he had been so willing to let her go to Brighton, and then, with a shock that sent her heart beating wildly in her throat, she realized the truth! Probably every step she took from now onwards would be known to the police.
She was huddled over the fire, dejection in every line of her figure, when Fenn came back into the sitting-room. But she responded gamely to his cheerful assumption that a police search was an every-day occurrence in most well-ordered lives.
“I’ll go into the other room while you have a look round,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “It’ll be easier if we play Box and Cox.”
When he opened the door to tell her he had finished she had regained a little of her self-confidence and was able to review the situation more calmly.
“Nothing doing,” he announced cheerily. “That’s over and done with, and I can leave you to get on with your packing. Now I’ll have those notes, if you don’t mind.”
He counted out seven Treasury notes on to the table and exchanged them for those Sir Adam had given her. The transaction reminded her of Webb’s wedding present to Johnson, and she was just going to speak of it when Fenn forestalled her.
“By the way,” he remarked, regarding her with a disconcerting twinkle in his eye, “what were you and Gilroy doing in Johnson’s rooms yesterday? If you’d asked me I could have told you that he was away on his honeymoon.”
Then, catching sight of her horrified face—
“You needn’t look so guilty,” he assured her dryly. “You’ve got a perfect right to call on your grandfather’s valet if you like.”
“You’ve made me feel an awful fool all the same,” she admitted frankly. “I very nearly rang you up last night to tell you that Johnson had gone away.”
“Why didn’t you? I should have taken it in the spirit in which it was meant, though I don’t mind telling you that I’ve had Johnson under observation for some time now. My man saw you go in, and reported it to me as a matter of course.”
He was afraid for a moment that she might jump to the fact that his man had been shadowing, not Johnson, but herself. Fortunately, her thoughts were elsewhere.
“Did he tell you we were burgling?” she asked demurely.
“If he had I should have been obliged to put a few rather unpleasant questions to our friend Robert. What mischief has he been leading you into?”
For answer she fetched the notes which she had placed in readiness in an envelope and gave him an account of what had happened.
He listened to her with marked disapproval.
“Look here,” he said, as he placed the envelope in his pocket-book, “this has got to stop. I’ve no doubt Robert means well, but he’s taking a greater risk than he realizes, besides making my job even more difficult than it is already, by blunders of this sort. Make him understand this, will you? As regards this trip to Brighton, I don’t know what Robert has up his sleeve, but I am relying on you, if you do run into Johnson, not to do or say anything that may put him on his guard.”
His voice was stern, but when he had finished he tempered his little homily with a kindly smile.
“I’m not saying, mind you, that I shan’t be grateful for anything Johnson may let drop in the course of conversation. Anything you can report may be of use to us. But do impress the fact on Robert that if he tries to act independently of the police he may do irretrievable mischief.”
So convinced was he of the futility of Gilroy’s ill-advised action that he did not even go to the trouble of opening the envelope Jill had given him till late that night.
He had begun to undress, and was turning out the contents of his pockets on to the dressing-table when the sight of his pocket-book reminded him of the Treasury notes. He took them out and compared them with the numbers on his list.
As he had expected, those that Sir Adam had given to Jill came within the limits of the numbers he was looking for. Then he opened the envelope she had handed him and took out Webb’s two notes. At the sight of the numbers they bore he gave a sharp exclamation and bent down to examine them more closely. There was no doubt about it.
They were two of the eighty Treasury notes which had been issued to Sir Adam Braid on October the thirtieth.
By eight o’clock next morning he was knocking at the door of Webb’s flat. He was shown into the little study, where the brother and sister were breakfasting.
“Delighted to see you, inspector,” beamed the little man, his eyes alight with curiosity as to the object of Fenn’s visit. “You’ll join us in our meal, I hope.”
Fenn, assuring him that he had breakfasted already, produced the two Treasury notes.
“Can you tell me anything about these?” he said. “I understand that they were given by you to Johnson, Sir Adam Braid’s servant.”
Webb eyed them with interest, and immediately deluged the unhappy Fenn with a flood of irrelevant information.
“I sent Johnson a small wedding present from Miss Webb and myself in the shape of a crystal wireless set,” he explained. “It only cost a matter of fifteen shillings, so we decided to add a couple of pounds to the present, so that he could get himself a pair of decent headphones as well. He was a very pleasant and obliging sort of fellow, and had done us more than one small service while he was living here, and we both felt that some little tribute was due from us. These may be the notes I sent him, but, of course, I cannot say for certain. He has never had any other money from me.”
“Can you tell me where you got these notes, Mr. Webb?” asked Fenn, wondering whether, after all, there might not be something behind the little man’s verbosity. He remembered now how difficult it had always been to pin him down to any definite statement. Even now he seemed incapable of giving a plain answer to a plain question.
“Ah! there you have me,” he said, cocking his head on one side and peering up at the detective. “I changed, let me see, two cheques last week—”
“I gave you those notes out of my housekeeping money,” broke in Miss Webb, who had been listening, mouth and eyes wide with curiosity, absorbing every detail of the little scene. “Don’t you remember? You were short of change and I had a little over from the wee
k before.”
Webb looked manifestly relieved.
“Of course. I bought the set in the afternoon, I remember, and in the evening we talked it over and decided to add a small sum to our present. I give my sister a cheque every week for our joint housekeeping expenses,” he explained redundantly, “and these notes came out of that money.”
“Where did you change your cheque, Miss Webb?” asked Fenn patiently.
“At the paper shop. I always change my housekeeping cheque there. I must say Mr. Ling is very obliging in that way.”
A new light began to dawn on Fenn.
“You’re sure there’s no other source from which those notes could have come?” he suggested. “There was no other money in your possession?”
“I keep a reserve fund in my jewel case,” she answered, “but I hardly ever touch it. These notes were part of the cheque I changed at Ling’s shop. I am sure of it.”
Fenn, having with difficulty stemmed the flow of questions that poured, without intermission, from both brother and sister, and assured them that the notes in question related merely to certain payments of Sir Adam’s that he was trying to trace, escaped from their clutches and made his way to the newspaper shop, acutely conscious of the scrutiny of two pairs of eyes glued to the ground floor windows of Romney Chambers.
Ling, whose working day began with the early morning newspaper delivery, was standing in his doorway. He greeted the detective with a somewhat surly nod.
“Can I see you alone for a moment?” asked Fenn, indicating the boy who was sorting papers in a corner of the shop.
Ling gave him a keen glance, then picked up a couple of monthlies from the counter.
“Here, Bert,” he said, “nip over to Mr. Carter’s with these. Tell him they only sent ’em up last night.”
The boy once out of the way, Fenn produced his two notes and explained his mission. Ling examined them.
“Come from me, did they?” he asked. “Well, if Miss Webb says so, I’m ready to take her word for it. I did change a cheque of hers, same as usual.”
He looked at Fenn meaningly.
“Stands to reason I can’t say nothin’ for certain,” he said slowly. “But it looks to me uncommon likely that these two beauties were part of that fifteen pound odd Johnson paid me. Mind you, I don’t say they were, but it looks like it.”