by Molly Thynne
“You’ll have to look after that young woman of yours, Robert,” remarked Fenn quietly. “She’ll need a firm hand for the next week or so.”
The faces of both his guests became suffused with a rich scarlet.
“This is as good a time as any to drink your health,” he went on, raising his glass as he spoke. “If you don’t think beer’s good enough, I can’t help it.”
Then as he looked at them, his expression changed.
“You may not believe it,” he said gruffly, “but this is one of the happiest moments of my life. Bless you both. When did you fix it up?”
“Last night,” answered Gilroy. “Jill wouldn’t listen to me before. What did you expect?”
“It wasn’t so much what I expected as what I hoped,” retorted Fenn. “It’s a comfort to feel that some good’s come out of this wicked business.”
“What will happen to Johnson?” asked Jill. “He’s a disgusting little coward, to say the least of it, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him, in a way.”
Fenn nodded.
“He never had a chance at Ling’s hands. He’s an accessory and he’ll have to take what’s coming to him, but he was merely a tool from the beginning. It was betting that was his undoing. He’s cutting a pretty poor figure now, though, and I believe he’d give away his own mother if he thought it would help him. I shouldn’t waste too much sympathy on him, if I were you.”
“He admits now that he left the door open, I suppose?” said Gilroy.
Fenn nodded.
“He left it unlatched, by arrangement, for Ling. It was Johnson who told Ling about Sir Adam’s habit of hiding his money away in the hat-box, and Ling terrified him into letting him into the flat. I believe Johnson’s speaking the truth when he says that he did his best to dissuade Ling. In the end he refused to take any hand in the affair, beyond leaving the door open, and went off to ‘The Nag’s Head,’ frightened out of his wits that Ling would bungle it and his share in it come out. That Ling would use violence never seems to have occurred to him, and it’s no wonder he went to pieces when he discovered what had happened. His life hasn’t been worth living since, and I believe it’s almost a relief to him now that the whole thing’s come out. Ling chose a rotten accomplice!”
“I suppose he knows what happened while he was away?”
“Ling told him everything afterwards. He had to. Johnson knew too much already. They were counting, of course, on Sir Adam’s absorption in the wireless, and it was sheer bad luck for them that he should have elected to take off the earphones and turn on the loud speaker just after Ling entered the flat. If he had kept the earphones on he would probably never have heard Ling, and the tragedy would never have happened.”
He glanced at Jill.
“We needn’t go into what occurred,” he said briefly. “It’s enough that Sir Adam heard a noise in the bedroom and went in to investigate, and Ling, presumably, lost his head. He was in the flat when Webb rang the bell, and got away immediately after Webb went downstairs.”
“Leaving the wireless still on,” put in Gilroy.
“Yes. It was the wireless that Webb and Stephens and Jill heard, and Smith, as it now turns out, was right when he insisted that his wife had established the time of the murder. Ling handed over part of the money he took to Johnson, and it was he, of course, who sent Ike Sanders to Brighton with the letter warning Johnson not to circulate any more of the notes. If it hadn’t been for that slip of mine, when I told Ling to his face that I was tracing the numbers, Sanders would be alive to-day.”
“Do you suppose that Ling killed Sanders?” asked Gilroy.
Fenn shook his head.
“I think Mrs. Sanders is right and that Ling put Eddie Goldstein on the job. We haven’t been able to trace the connection, but Ling had no doubt run into Goldstein at some period of his career. His business would bring him in touch with gentlemen of Goldstein’s persuasion, though the small bookies and the race gangs don’t usually run in double harness. He was a shrewd customer, Ling, and he may have had some hold over Goldstein. Anyway, he was just the man for his purpose, and he undoubtedly used him again to get Macnab out of the way.”
“Does Johnson know anything about that business?”
“He says that Ling told him that Macnab spoke to him outside Romney Chambers and that he nearly chucked the whole thing in consequence. Then he remembered that Macnab, when he was in the shop, had told him he was just sailing for America, and he decided to risk it. He was right there, for if he had simply done what he was out to do and robbed the flat, it’s unlikely that the affair would ever have come to Macnab’s ears. It was sheer bad luck for him that Macnab was Stephens’ witness.”
“How on earth did he know that Macnab had been recalled?” asked Gilroy. “It was not in the papers.”
Fenn turned to him with a rueful smile.
“That’s where I made my second howler,” he admitted. “My dear chap, I told him myself when I answered the telephone message from the Yard in his shop, under his very nose. You were there! He was a quick worker, I’ll say that for him. He must have got on to Goldstein at once, and I’ve no doubt that that was the job Goldstein offered to Sanders, and that Sanders, thanks to his wife, refused. I’ve a strong suspicion that Goldstein, for once, was driven to do his own dirty work, and I’m going to get him for the assault on Macnab, though it’s an open question whether we ever manage to bring the murder of Sanders home to him.”
“There’s been no news of him, I suppose?”
“None. He’s covered his tracks well this time, but he’s bound to come into the open sooner or later, and he hasn’t got a dog’s chance when he does.” He dismissed Goldstein from his mind and beamed on Jill.
“That’s that,” he concluded. “Now I’m going to enjoy my good food, and I advise you to put the whole thing out of your head for the present. I got your grandfather’s solicitor on the telephone this morning, by the way, and put him wise to what has happened. He wants to see you, and, if I were you, I’d trot round and see what it feels like to have a comfortable balance at the bank. Meanwhile, I’m going to commandeer your young man for the afternoon, if he’s nothing better to do.”
“After I’ve seen Jill to Lincoln’s Inn, I’m at your service,” said Gilroy, pink, but determined.
Fenn grinned.
“I was young once,” he reminded him. “Meet me at three, outside Ling’s shop. I want to go over the ground again there, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t make yourself useful.”
“Why not ask Miss Webb to join the party?” suggested Gilroy, with a twinkle in his eye.
“I suppose the whole of Chelsea knows that she was in at the death by now,” groaned Fenn. “Good lord, what a woman!”
“I don’t know how many other people she may have told,” answered Gilroy, with a chuckle, “but, when one meets a perfectly respectable spinster lady on the stairs with a really beautiful black eye, it’s difficult to contain one’s curiosity. I must say she showed none of the reticence that is generally connected with that particular form of injury!”
Gilroy kept his appointment with Fenn punctually, and together they entered the shop and climbed down the ladder into the cellar.
“You may as well take a glance at Ling’s little retreat,” said Fenn, “though our real objective is the house where he lodged. I want to have a good look through his papers and see whether, by any chance, he rented a third room somewhere. There’s something here that wants explaining, and I’ve got a suspicion that I know what it means.”
He indicated a package, done up in newspaper, that lay on the top of one of the packing-cases. The string was already unfastened, and Gilroy unfolded the paper and looked inside.
A goodly pile of sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer met his astonished gaze.
“Seems to have been a far-seeing sort of beggar,” he remarked. “But these wouldn’t have lasted him long, if he was contemplating lying low down here.”
“H
e wasn’t,” said Fenn decisively. “This place was no good to him, for the simple reason that he couldn’t mask the trap-door once he was inside. No, I’ve got my own theory as to the destination of that parcel, and I’m counting on the fact that the person for whom it was intended is getting a bit hungry by now.”
Gilroy’s eyes met his.
“Goldstein?” he queried.
“Goldstein it is, unless I’m very much mistaken, and the question is, where was Ling harbouring him? That’s why I think he may have another room somewhere. It’s not unusual for these people to have an extra shed or a lumber room for their clients to bring the betting slips to. If the house he lodged in had a backyard with an old shed in it, I’d be willing to bet on that, but it hasn’t. He must have had a place outside somewhere.”
They went round to Ling’s lodgings, and Fenn questioned his landlady once more, but it was soon evident that she knew very little of her lodger’s affairs. Then they spent an unprofitable hour going through a pile of old bills and invoices connected with the man’s legitimate business. Beyond these, they could find nothing.
At last Fenn stood up and stretched himself.
“Nothing doing,” he said, with a sigh. “We shall have to wait till our man comes into the open, and if he was dependent on Ling for food, we shan’t wait long. A nasty, dusty job this, and if you ask me to your flat for a wash and a cup of tea, I shan’t say no. Or have you got another engagement?” he added, with a wicked gleam in his eye.
But Gilroy was proof by now against his insinuations.
“My only engagement is going shopping after she has done with her lawyer,” he said imperturbably. “So my time is my own.”
They strolled back to Romney Chambers. As they went in Gilroy nearly fell over a man who was on his knees just inside the half-closed front door.
“Hallo, Adams!” he exclaimed. “What are you up to?”
The porter looked up from the pail of water over which he was bending.
“Looks as if some one or other had been dossin’ behind this door and had been a bit careless with ’is supper,” he said, with a grin. “I’ve always said as it ought to be locked at night, but the tenants won’t be bothered with the extra key. If I hadn’t happened to push to the door, I should never ’ave seen this.”
He pointed to the pool of liquid he had been about to wipe up.
“Some one’s been wastin’ good stuff!” he commented.
Gilroy bent over it, and as he did so, was aware of a familiar aroma.
He straightened himself, and his eyes met Fenn’s.
“Good lord, it’s beer!” he exclaimed.
CHAPTER XXII
Fenn turned to the porter.
“Have you ever found anything before, behind this door?” he asked sharply.
Adams shook his head.
“Never,” he said. “And what any one wanted to stand a bottle of beer there for is more than I can see.”
“Supposing some one did put, say, a parcel there, would you be likely to see it?”
Adams hesitated.
“I should see it when I was scrubbing out the hall; but, the rest of the week, the door stands open, night and day, and it’s almost flush with the wall. If there was something there I might miss it for a day or two.”
Fenn guessed that the man was not in the habit of sweeping out the hall as often as he might, and did not care to admit it. He pursued his inquiries tactfully.
“Which is your day for scrubbing the hall?” he asked.
“Monday. It’s been done once a week regular ever since I’ve been ’ere.”
“Four days ago,” said Fenn thoughtfully. “You stick to Monday, I suppose?”
Adams nodded.
“Monday’s always been my day, and Monday I do it,” he answered emphatically.
“Have you looked behind that door since Monday last?”
“Not to my knowledge,” answered the man, with a note of defiance in his voice. “There’s very little dust blows in here, and there’s never been any complaints about the hall, so far as I knows.”
“I’m not blaming you,” said Fenn. “What I’m trying to get at is whether any one, knowing you did the hall on a certain day, would know also that a parcel could be left here for a day or two with impunity.”
“I suppose it might,” admitted Adams grudgingly.
He threw his rag into the pail and got on to his feet.
“I suppose neither of you gentlemen knows who’s got the key to Sir Adam’s boxroom?” he asked, as he turned to go. “Would it be the old gentleman’s lawyer?”
Fenn stared at him.
“What’s this about a boxroom?” he asked.
Gilroy explained.
“There’s a row of small boxrooms up on the roof which are let out to the tenants at a small rental. You get to them through a door at the top of the main staircase. They’re numbered, and each tenant has the key to his own room.”
“How many keys did Sir Adam have?” asked Fenn of the porter.
“He’d have one, unless he had another made,” answered Adams. “It used to hang on a hook in the kitchen, with the key of the coal cellar. I’ve seen it many a time when I’ve been up to see about washers for the taps and that.”
“What made you ask about it?” demanded Fenn.
A slow grin crept over Adams’s face.
“There’s an idea goin’ round that there’s a ghost or somethin’ in Sir Adam’s boxroom,” he answered. “One of the tenants was up in the room next door to it a couple of days ago and heard somethin’. The truth is, they’re all a bit jumpy after what’s happened. Still, I thought it wouldn’t do no harm to have a look.”
Fenn smiled.
“I’ll see about it, as I’m here,” he said carelessly. “Don’t you worry. It’s probably only a rat or something of that sort.”
Adams’s grin widened.
“According to what I can make out, it’s a sneeze that was heard,” he volunteered. “And, I must say, I’ve never heard tell of a rat sneezin’!”
The three men laughed.
“Some one’s got plenty of imagination,” was all Fenn said, as he made his way up the stairs.
“It would be the simplest thing in the world for any one hiding in the boxroom to come down at night and fetch food from behind the front door,” said Gilroy, as soon as they were out of range of the porter’s ears. “And Ling used to come into the building every evening with Adams’s paper. He could drop his parcel behind the door then.”
“If there’s anything in that theory, it’s pretty evident where Sir Adam’s key is,” answered Fenn. “In the lock of the boxroom door, inside! However, we’ll soon make sure of that.”
He paused outside Sir Adam’s flat, and, taking a key from his pocket, let himself in.
The key of the cellar was hanging, as Adams had said, on a hook on the kitchen dresser, but the box-room key was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m not tackling Goldstein single-handed, I don’t mind telling you,” said Fenn thoughtfully. “But I don’t want to take any risks of his getting the wind up in the meanwhile. Have you got a room up there?”
“Yes. And it’s at the end of the row. I’ve got to pass Sir Adam’s to get to it. Do you want me to have a look?”
Fenn hesitated.
“Any windows to these boxrooms?” he asked.
“There’s none to mine, but I’m not quite sure about the others. I should think not. They’re so small, little more than sheds, that you get enough light from the door when it’s open.”
“What about ventilation?”
Gilroy laughed.
“The door’s so rotten that, as far as mine’s concerned, I should think there’s more draught than ventilation!”
“Plenty of slits a man might put his eye to, eh?”
“Very likely. I’ve never tried.”
“Then we’d better not risk anything. You go up. Take your key with you, and, if you can, get through the door at the top of the s
tairs without making a noise. You may manage to see something before you have to declare yourself. After that, make the dickens of a row and go openly to your own box-room. Fetch something out, and, if possible, try to see if there’s a key in the lock of Sir Adam’s room as you go by. That’s all we can do for the moment. But don’t do anything to rouse his suspicions.”
Gilroy nodded and ran upstairs.
Fenn followed him more slowly and waited outside the door of his flat till he heard the sound of footsteps returning.
One look at Gilroy’s face was enough.
“There’s some one there,” he whispered, as he let Fenn into his flat. “Come inside. I’ve got a feeling that the fellow followed me.”
He stood listening for a moment just inside the front door, but there was no sound from above. Then he led the way into the sitting-room.
“My luck was in,” he said. “The door at the top of the stairs was open when I got there, and as it happens I’m wearing rubber-soled shoes. I’d hardly got my head round the corner when I saw that the door of the third boxroom was open—wide open. I crept back down the stairs and then turned and went up again, whistling and making as much racket as I could. I went slowly, so as to give the fellow time to shut his door. And he had, too, by the time I got up there. I went straight to my room and got out an old suitcase, and, on my way back, I had a squint at the door I’d seen open. It was Sir Adam’s right enough, and it was not only shut, but locked. I couldn’t see if there was a key inside or not, but as it wasn’t outside, and as somebody had locked that door within the last few minutes, we can take it for granted that it was there.”
Fenn made for the door.
“That’s good enough for me,” he said. “I’ll be back in ten minutes with a couple of men from the station here.”
He was as good as his word, and Gilroy found his heart beating a little faster as he followed the three men up the stairs to the roof.
Fenn spoke over his shoulder.
“The doors open outwards, I suppose?” he said.