by Molly Thynne
“Have you tackled Mrs. Smith?” was his first question.
Gilroy shook his head.
“She was out when I called,” he said. “But I’d meant to have another shot to-night. You look as nearly rattled as I’ve ever seen you. What’s happened?”
Fenn grinned.
“What a thing it is to be a doctor,” he gibed. “Rattled is not the word, though. Listen to this!”
As briefly as possible he told Gilroy what had happened.
“There’s your second man for you,” he said, when he had finished. “And that’s the person Stephens heard go into the flat when he was hiding in the passage. Our only stumbling-block now is the time of the murder. Ling reached his lodgings at five minutes past seven, and, to do that, he must have left this building before seven. In which case, whose were the voices Jill Braid heard at seven in her grandfather’s flat?”
“It’s like some rotten chorus to a comic song,” said Gilroy disgustedly. “Whatever happens we always get back to that. ‘Whose were the voices, tum-ti-tum-ti-tum!’”
“Very funny,” was Fenn’s unappreciative rejoinder. “But I suppose you realize that it’s a serious matter for Jill Braid. It seems to me that we shall have to accept Mrs. Smith’s theory as to the time of the murder.”
“It isn’t Mrs. Smith’s. I don’t fancy she’s got the smallest belief in it. It’s Smith who is so keen on the idea.”
“And Smith’s no fool,” said Fenn. “But what I don’t like to contemplate is the play the counsel for the defence will make with those people who were overheard talking in the flat. Once he gets Webb and Stephens and Jill Braid into the box, it won’t be a bit like a comic song, I can assure you! And there’s another thing. It’s only going on the assumption that Sir Adam was one of the people who were speaking that we’ve cleared Stephens, and what clears Stephens, clears Ling, though I admit it’s by a narrower margin. It’s quite sufficient for the defence, though. I wish Mrs. Smith’s evidence was a bit more conclusive!”
“Are you going to tackle her, or shall I have another shot to-night?” asked Gilroy. “I think she’s more likely to talk to me.”
“I’ll leave her to you, for the present,” said Fenn. “I’ve got to get back to the Yard. We’ve got Ling under observation, and we can lay our hands on him when we want him. I’m still living in hopes that Goldstein may show up. If he’s hard pressed and goes to Ling, we can close down on both of them.” Gilroy saw Fenn to the door, and then went straight upstairs to the Smiths’ flat. This time he found them both at home, and the man, at any rate, seemed genuinely pleased to see him.
He tackled Mrs. Smith as to what she had overheard on the night of the murder, but could get no more from her than the account she had given Fenn. As to the time, she was immovable.
“And you’re sure you heard no one talking in Sir Adam’s flat?” asked Gilroy.
“Certain. But unless they were talking in the bedroom side of the house I shouldn’t have heard them. You must remember I had the bedroom window open or I shouldn’t have heard what I did. All the windows in the front were shut, and there’s your flat in between this and Sir Adam’s.”
“I wish to heaven I’d been at home,” said Gilroy. “It might have made all the difference. Though, as a matter of fact, if I’m working, as I generally am at that time, I hear very little of what’s going on outside. I’ve noticed your wireless occasionally. I remember setting my watch by Big Ben one night last summer when all the windows were open. But, as a rule, I’m too absorbed to notice what’s going on upstairs.”
“It wasn’t our wireless you heard,” said Smith. “We haven’t got one. It must have been the old gentleman’s. We used to get it sometimes upstairs, when all the windows were open.”
Gilroy stared at him.
“I could have sworn it came from your flat,” he said, in astonishment. “It just shows how deceptive sound is. But, as I say, it takes a pretty loud noise to take my mind off my work, so you can comfort yourselves with the thought that I’m not the kind of inconvenient neighbour who makes a fuss because the tenant overhead takes his boots off at one o’clock in the morning!”
He stayed for a time chatting, and then, realizing that his visit had been fruitless, went back to his flat.
After writing a couple of letters he strolled down Shorncliffe Street and across King’s Road into Chelsea to the small restaurant where he sometimes dined. As he ate he turned over his visit to the Smiths in his mind.
He had reached the coffee stage when an idea struck him that held him spell-bound, the cup halfway to his mouth, for the space of about five minutes. Then, as though suddenly released, he sprang to his feet and made for the kitchen at the back of the restaurant.
“Can I telephone?” he demanded breathlessly.
He was taken into a passage off the kitchen, and a few minutes later was talking to Fenn.
“I say,” he exclaimed, “can I have the key of Sir Adam’s flat?”
There was a grunt from the other end of the wire.
“I don’t know that you can,” said Fenn’s voice. “What do you want it for?”
“I’d rather not say until I’ve made a little experiment. When are you leaving?”
“This office, do you mean? Almost immediately.”
“Can you leave the key with me on your way back to Putney?”
Gilroy’s voice was urgent.
“I can, I suppose. Do you want to get to work to-night?”
“I’ll explain when I see you,” said Gilroy, and rang off before the other could expostulate.
He paid his bill and hurried back to the flat, and when Fenn arrived, rather irate and considerably mystified, he was waiting for him.
“Look here,” he said, as he took the key and thrust it into his pocket, “I want you to give me a free hand in this. If you don’t hear from me, will you meet me at the flat downstairs at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon? I shall know then whether I’m on the right tack or not.”
Fenn glanced at his face and gave in.
“Do you know,” he observed thoughtfully, “I believe that this is the first time I’ve ever seen you humanly excited. There’s one thing to be said for the Braid murder, it’s shaken the dry rot out of your system. You can have the key and do your damnedest with it, but if I don’t see you to-morrow, you’ll bring it back to the Yard yourself. I’m getting too old to climb in and out of the Putney bus after a hard day’s work. Good-night and good luck to you.”
“Don’t forget! Three o’clock to-morrow afternoon!” shouted Gilroy after him.
Shortly afterwards Gilroy left the flat, intent on gathering material for his experiment. He found it more difficult than he had anticipated and it was past midnight when he returned, with a bulky parcel under his arm, having at last run what he was looking for to earth.
But, though weary, he seemed well satisfied with his evening’s work.
CHAPTER XIX
It was shortly after nine o’clock next morning when Gilroy let himself out of Sir Adam Braid’s flat. As he closed the door behind him, his face alight with triumph and satisfaction, he was aware of hasty footsteps mounting the stairs from the hall below.
His heart sank as he recognized Miss Webb. She was breasting the stairs with a celerity surprising in one so plump, and her rather protruding blue eyes positively bulged with excitement. Gilroy told himself bitterly that she looked like nothing so much as a fat Pekinese, aquiver at the sight of food. She almost fell upon him in her enthusiasm.
“I was just coming up to your flat, Dr. Gilroy!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “But I see you’ve already noticed it.”
Gilroy mastered his exasperation with an effort.
“I’m afraid I’m responsible,” he said, with his pleasantest smile. “I’m so sorry if I alarmed you.”
“Well, I wasn’t frightened exactly, but being Sir Adam’s flat, if you understand me, after what happened—”
“I know, I ought to have been more careful. I pro
mise not to startle you again.”
He made a decisive move towards his own flat, but she did not intend to let him off so easily. Before he could escape she was by his side.
“I know you won’t mind my asking,” she exclaimed eagerly. “But, as a friend of Mr. Compton’s, you’re bound to know.”
“Mr. Compton?” he interrupted, genuinely puzzled. The name conveyed nothing to him.
“Sir Adam’s lawyer. You must have got the key from him. You see, there are only two keys to all these doors, and I know that the police have one, and when I asked Adams if he had the other, he said the lawyer had got it.”
In her absorption she was almost thinking aloud, and Gilroy listened, amazed at the unerring logic born of curiosity.
“I see,” he said. “But I’m afraid I haven’t the pleasure of Mr. Compton’s acquaintance.”
For a moment she looked really baffled, then her face cleared.
“Of course, he would naturally have handed it to Miss Braid by now. Then that means she really has inherited her grandfather’s money! That was what I wanted to ask you. I’m not being inquisitive, really, but both my brother and myself are so interested in Miss Braid, and we’ve been hoping all along that it would come to her.”
“There again, I’m afraid I can’t help you,” answered Gilroy smoothly. “It wasn’t Miss Braid who lent me the key.”
With which parting shot he ran swiftly upstairs and into his own flat.
Miss Webb descended very much more slowly than she had come, her brows knit in meditation.
Gilroy waited until he heard the sound of her front door closing, and then hurried out of the building. This time his quest took him to Southampton Street, whence he returned, well satisfied, in time to put in half a morning’s work before lunch.
Punctually at three o’clock Fenn knocked at his door.
“Well,” he said, with a rather sardonic smile, “you’ve brought me down here in the middle of a heavy day’s work. What of it?”
Gilroy declined to be impressed by his manner.
“You wait, my friend,” was his answer. “You’ll sing to another tune in a minute. Go on in, I’ll be back in a second.”
He disappeared downstairs, while Fenn strolled down the passage to Gilroy’s sitting-room. He had put down his hat and was shrugging himself out of his greatcoat, when he paused suddenly, his attention arrested, his chin thrust forward, his eyes bright with interest.
It was thus that Gilroy found him when he returned, and his face lit up with mischief at the sight.
He tucked his arm through Fenn’s.
“Come on,” he said, as he led him out of the flat and down the stairs to the landing outside Sir Adam Braid’s door.
Fenn said not a word. He was listening intently.
Gilroy released his arm.
“Now,” he said, “put yourself in the place of little Webb on the night of the murder and tell me what you make of it.”
From behind the closed door of Sir Adam’s flat came the sound of a man’s voice. It was impossible to distinguish the words that were being said, but the voice flowed on uninterruptedly.
“Good lord,” said Fenn at last. “Sounds like a foreigner.”
“It is,” was Gilroy’s quiet answer. “It’s a gentleman called Signor Galli.”
He handed Fenn the current number of the Radio Times, and pointed to an item on the programme: “Elementary Italian Lesson,” by Signor Galli.
“Sir Adam used headphones,” snapped Fenn, recovering himself. “This is a loud speaker.”
“Sir Adam was using headphones when Johnson left him on the night he was killed,” answered Gilroy; “but he had a loud speaker. I’ve heard it myself in the summer, when the windows were open; but, like a fool, I never put two and two together until Smith said something last night that put me on the track.”
He opened the door of the flat and led the way into the study.
“Do you remember that potty little wireless that the Webbs gave Johnson?” he asked, as he switched off the set. “There was a loud speaker standing on the table beside it when we paid that visit to his rooms, and I was amused at the idea of his trying to run it on a crystal set. I’m willing to bet that that was Sir Adam’s loud speaker, and that the fellow had pinched it from this flat after the murder. I thought then that it was much too expensive for his pocket. I raked London last night for one of the same make and size. It was too late to buy one and I had no end of a job running this to earth, but I was determined to make a thorough job of it while I was about it. I found this, at last, at the Children’s Hospital.”
He picked up another copy of the wireless paper from off the table.
“This about clinches it, I think,” he went on, handing it to Fenn. “Look at the programme for November the sixth.”
Fenn ran his eye down the page till he arrived at the item scheduled to take place at six-forty-five. With a gasp of comprehension, he read it.
THE ELOPEMENT
A Comedy by Roland Ney. In One Act.
Arabella Fanshaw.
Sir Robert Fanshaw, her father.
Richard Armstrong, a young gallant.
Toby Giles, an innkeeper.
Larry, a postilion.
Gilroy pointed to a sentence he had underlined in pencil in the short synopsis of the play that followed.
“In the course of a stormy interview with her father, Arabella avows her intention to remain true to Richard.”
“I think we may take it for granted that that was what little Webb heard through the keyhole,” he said, with a chuckle. “And the men’s voices overheard by the others are easily accounted for. The play must have lasted till well past seven o’clock, as the next item, an organ recital, isn’t timed to begin till seven-thirty.”
Fenn had already fished out his notebook, though he could have recited the times his various suspects had entered and left the building by heart.
“Johnson stated that he left Sir Adam with the earphones on listening-in,” he began slowly.
“He was probably listening to the B.B.C. Orchestra playing Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. It’s down for six-ten on the programme and was probably still going on at six-thirty. Very likely he used the headphones for good music, partly because he was slightly deaf, and partly owing to the greater purity of the tone. A lot of people do this. Then, after Johnson had gone, he turned on the loud speaker for the play, in which he wasn’t so interested.”
Fenn consulted his book again.
“Then, assuming that the cry Mrs. Smith heard came from Sir Adam and that the murder took place at six-forty-five, Stephens was already clear of the flat and Jill Braid had not yet arrived. We’ve got evidence of the time of her departure from the hairdresser who did her hair, and it is physically impossible for her to have reached this building before the time she said. Smith was in the train on his way to London. We’ve found a porter, by the way, who knows him well by sight, and who saw him get out at St. Pancras at six-fifty. He took the money off that American all right, and it was just his luck that the man should have been too drunk to identify him. That leaves only Ling unaccounted for. Macnab spoke to him and saw him enter this building just before Stephens came out, and he must be the second man your witness saw leave, shortly before Miss Braid entered the flats. If the attack on Sir Adam took place at a quarter to seven, Ling was the only one of the lot who was on the premises at the time.”
Gilroy nodded.
“Ling it is, unless he can prove he was delivering his papers just then. And Johnson left the door unlatched for him. No wonder he’s been scared stiff ever since the murder! I wonder which of them switched off the loud speaker.”
“We shan’t have much trouble in getting that out of Johnson, I’m thinking. I’ll take a chance and rope them both in to-night. I can hold Johnson for the theft of the loud speaker, if for nothing else, until we’ve got a bit more to go on. That’s an expensive set. I wonder whether the name of the firm that sold it to Sir Adam is
on it.”
Gilroy bent over the set.
“Here it is, bless ’em,” he said, “on a neat little ivory label. Carrick and Venner, Victoria Street. And the chances are that he bought the loud speaker from the same people.”
Fenn made a note of the name and also of the make of the loud speaker.
“You’re sure that’s the one you saw in Johnson’s rooms?” he asked.
“Positive. It’s lucky that I’d played about with wireless myself, or I shouldn’t have noticed it.”
“Right. I’ll settle that little question on my way back to the Yard. Want to come along?”
But Gilroy shook his head.
“Haven’t got time,” he said. “I’m busy.”
Fenn glanced at him with suspicion in his eye.
“I can’t have you queering my pitch at this stage of the game. What’s your business?” he demanded.
Gilroy, who had uncoupled the loud speaker and tucked it under his arm, was already on his way to the door.
“I’m going to return this to the kids at the hospital, and then I’m going to dig out Jill Braid and take her out to tea. Any objection?” he vouchsafed, over his shoulder, as he disappeared without waiting for an answer.
“And less than a month ago that was one of the oldest young men in London!” announced Fenn to the empty air.
It did not take many minutes for the salesman at Carrick and Venner’s to look up and verify the sale of the loud speaker to Sir Adam Braid. It was, as Gilroy had predicted, identical with the one they had seen in Johnson’s rooms.
After a short interview with the area superintendent in charge of the case, Fenn set out, armed with the necessary warrants, in company with a couple of plain-clothes men, to bring in Johnson and Ling.
CHAPTER XX
Fenn had little trouble with Johnson. At first he was inclined to be sullen and aggrieved, but once he realized that this time the police meant business, he lost his head completely, and, for a second, Fenn surprised blind panic in his eyes. His relief when it dawned upon him that the charge was one of theft was obvious, and he made no bones about admitting that he had taken the loud speaker. He declared that, knowing it was unlikely to be missed, the temptation was too great for him. He had the effrontery to ask to see Jill Braid.