by Frank Froest
That the man Errol was a scoundrel was certain, on her own showing. He glimpsed through her reticence the fresh tragedy that his advent had meant to her life. Vainly he tried to see for what purpose she was being used. Of course, Errol had been bleeding her, but there was something more. It came to him suddenly. She knew the murderer—she had said so. Here was a motive for Errol, a motive more powerful than revenge or passion. She would stand to gain a fortune by Greye-Stratton’s death, and Errol would expect to dabble his fingers in it.
Yet this was the man for whom she was playing with fire. He was not very clear about English legal methods, but he conceived that in trying to shield him she was laying herself open to suspicion. He had judged Menzies acutely. If Greye-Stratton’s fortune were to come to her, that detective would leave nothing undone to be absolutely sure that she had no hand in the crime. Points would arise, actions be revealed, that would look black against her by the very reason that she had carefully concealed them.
‘Miss Greye-Stratton,’ he said gravely, ‘—forgive me for what I am going to say. I believe it is a crime here to be an accessory after the fact. Do you realise that? Don’t you think it would be wiser, for your sake—for your brother’s sake—to be candid with the police? Believe me, all that you have told me is sure to be known sooner or later.’
Her face was irresolute.
‘You think they will find out? That it will be worse because I tried to conceal it?’
‘I do. If you will take my advice—my sincere advice—you will come with me to Menzies now. Understand me. I shall not betray a word of our conversation without your permission.’
She placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her cupped hands, staring across the room in reverie. Then her head sank and her shoulders heaved.
‘I dare not,’ she sobbed. ‘God help me, I dare not …’
CHAPTER VIII
NO effective detective organisation is dependent on one man. Co-operation is the essence of all successful detective work, exactly as it is in the carrying on of any great business. Scotland Yard will throw a score, a hundred, ten thousand men into an enterprise, if need be, and every one of them, from the supreme brain downwards, will have an understudy ready at any moment to pick up a duty abandoned from any cause. No individual is vital, though some may be valuable. Every fact, every definite conclusion arrived at, is on record. There is no stopping, no turning back to cover ground already traversed. The spade work of detection is as automatic as book-keeping.
That is why Weir Menzies found time to cover the case against the pickpockets he had captured the preceding evening and to return to headquarters to smoke a quiet pipe and consider things in general. He propped his feet on a desk, leaned back in his chair, and began serenely to go through the reports that had accumulated from every point where information, however remote, might have been gathered on the Greye-Stratton affair.
He liked to have the salient facts of an investigation clear-cut in his mind. That often saved time in an emergency, as well as being an aid to definite thinking. Presently he began to make his Greek notes with a stubby pencil on the back of an envelope. Some of them would have surprised Hallett had he chanced to see them.
‘Statement of P. Greye-Stratton clearly incomplete. Knows much more than she says. Certain that Errol has been for many months constant visitor at her flat in Palace Avenue. (Gould’s report—interview with maid at her flat.) Yet she denies that she has spoken to, or been in communication with, her brother for nearly a year. Lift attendant remembers man calling on her the evening of the murder. Left after short interview, and immediately after she went out, hatless, in a hurry.’
He commenced a string of question-marks across the paper. ‘I’ll see that liftman myself,’ he murmured, and continued:
‘It was the maid’s night out. Lift attendant does not remember having seen man before, but he knows Errol. Description vague. Think possible P. G.-S. alarmed. Must handle cautiously and keep under constant surveillance. If can induce Hallett to cultivate her, may learn something.’
A sharp tap at the door interrupted him. He snapped an irritable ‘Come in!’ and, pencil in hand, surveyed frowningly a young man with a badly bruised eye.
‘Well, Jakes,’ he demanded impatiently, ‘who’s been decorating you? What’s the trouble?’
‘I got this from Hallett, sir. He—’
Menzies’ feet dropped from the table with a crash.
‘What the blazes! Some muddle, I’ll be bound. Where’s Gordon?’
‘Down below, sir. We—’
‘Then you’ve lost the girl?’ He smacked an angry fist down on the table. ‘Oh, curse your explanations! I beg your pardon—you confounded idiot!’ He sprang to the door, and roared down the green-painted corridor: ‘Royal! Royal!’ That individual popped out of a door like a rabbit out of a hole. ‘Come here, Royal. These two cabbages have let Miss Greye-Stratton dodge ’em. Take Smithers and get along to her flat, No. 74, Palace Avenue, and see if you can pick her up. She may have gone straight home, or she may not. I’ve got to come there myself presently, but I’ll hear what this dough-witted jackass has got to say.’
Ordinarily Menzies was courteous to his underlings, but when anything like stupidity interfered with his plans, he let himself go.
‘They remember it, and it’s better than putting ’em on the M.R.,’ he explained once to a colleague, which was his way of saying that he preferred a few hot words to putting the culprits on the morning report for judgment and punishment. ‘Only I sometimes wish that I didn’t swear so much at them.’
Royal had slipped away to carry out his instructions with the swiftness of the well-trained man. Menzies turned with a snarl to the young detective, who was trembling nervously, and as ill at ease as any young clerk ‘carpeted’ before his departmental chief for the first time.
‘Let’s have it,’ he said shortly.
The young man squared his shoulders.
‘They lunched at the Duke’s, in Piccadilly, sir. I went in with them, but could not get near enough to hear what was said. The lady did most of the talking. When they came out they walked towards Regent Street. I was close behind. Gordon was almost twenty paces behind me. They turned into Regent Street, and then sharp back along Jermyn Street. When they reached St James’s Street he said something to her, and came back towards me. I would have passed him, but he caught me by the shoulder, and asked me what I meant by molesting a lady.
‘I pulled myself free, and told him I was a police officer. I would have gone on, but he pulled me back again, and Gordon came up—’
‘And stopped to see what the matter was, instead of going straight on,’ commented Menzies bitterly. ‘I know. Go on.’
‘He stopped to help me. Mr Hallett was giving me a fair rough time. It took the two of us to tackle him properly. He kept it up for about three minutes, and then gave in.’
‘And by that time the girl might have been in Timbuctoo. He laid a nice trap for you, and you both fell into it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did you arrest him?’
‘No. We thought it ought to be reported to you before we did anything.’
‘That’s the only gleam of common sense you showed in the whole business. Go away. I’ll think it over. And the next time you’re shadowing, young man, remember you’ve got to stick—if the heavens fall you’ve got to stick!’
He whistled softly to himself when the other was gone.
‘I thought as much. She’s got him on a bit of string—and Hallett is a brainy man.’
He revolved the matter steadily in his mind as he walked to Palace Avenue. Hallett, if he could be persuaded, would be a valuable ally in discovering what information Peggy Greye-Stratton had withheld. Menzies used the instruments to his hands; and there was no reason why he should have scruples. If he had troubled at all to formulate the ethics of the question, he might have argued that when a crime was committed a girl who deliberately withheld or evaded giving info
rmation could not fairly object to any means adopted to break her taciturnity. That the role he proposed allotting to Hallett was actually that of a spy did not concern him. That would be Hallett’s own affair, if he accepted the commission.
Royal appeared out of nowhere as he neared the corner of Palace Avenue.
‘Not come back yet,’ he reported, laconically.
‘Well, there’s plenty of time yet,’ said Menzies, with a resignation that had been conspicuously absent in his talk with the delinquent officer. ‘She’s bound to turn up. You’d better ’phone for Gould to relieve you, and get down to the court to charge Smith.’
He strolled on to the block of flats, sent his card in to the manager in a sealed envelope, briefly explained as much of his errand as was necessary, and was presently confronted with a weedy, pale-faced youth, who nervously twisted his cap in his hands as the detective questioned him. His story varied nothing from the statement Gould had made.
‘Now, don’t get flustered, old chap,’ said Menzies, with that naÏve, bluff air he knew so well how to assume. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t know the man again? Try and think for a moment. Was he tall or short, fat or thin?’
‘Just an ordinary-looking man,’ said the attendant. ‘I didn’t pay any notice.’
‘No, of course not. Do you remember if he had a beard, or moustache, or was he clean-shaven?’
The youth wrinkled his brows, and after a moment’s thought shook his head.
‘Couldn’t say, sir. I rather believe he was clean-shaven.’
It was hopeless to try to extract a description from him. Menzies had expected as much. Observation is not in most people a natural gift; it is a matter of the most meticulous training, and many and laborious are the hours spent in teaching recruits to the C.I.D. staff the art of noticing. He switched to another point.
‘When the man came out of her flat, did he seem in a hurry?’
‘No, sir; not particularly. He rang for the lift.’
‘Didn’t say anything?’
‘Not to me. At least, he had something in his hand. He dropped it, and when it rolled down the shaft he swore. I offered to go and get it, but he said it didn’t matter—it was only a halfpenny.’
‘H’m!’
Menzies stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and tapped his toe on the floor.
‘You went and made sure it was only a halfpenny afterwards, of course?’
The man’s eyes had hitherto not met his. Now they were fixed boldly on his face.
‘No,’ he declared; ‘I didn’t think it worthwhile.’
A man may fail to look one in the face and be perfectly honest and truthful. But when such a man does meet questioning with a steady eye it is because he has become conscious that an averted gaze may arouse suspicion. Menzies smiled under his moustache, and stretched out a hand.
‘Where is it?’ he added quietly. ‘Give it to me.’
The lift attendant flushed and drew back. The directness of the demand had disconcerted him.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got anything.’
‘That so?’ said Menzies, smilingly. And then, with a swift change of voice: ‘Now, sonny, don’t let’s have any monkey business. You can’t play with me.’
Reluctantly, as though hypnotised, the attendant thrust two fingers into his waistcoat pocket, slowly drew something out, and placed it in the detective’s hand.
It was a plain, heavy circlet of gold—a wedding ring!
CHAPTER IX
JIMMIE HALLETT ran into Weir Menzies in the police-court corridor after the magistrate had formally remanded ‘William Smith’. The detective threw up his hands quickly in the attitude of one parrying a blow.
‘Don’t hit me, Mr Hallett,’ he implored. ‘I’ve got a weak heart.’
Jimmie grinned a little shame-facedly. He had not been quite sure how the detective chief would take the assault on the shadowers of Miss Greye-Stratton. He brazened it out.
‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ he demanded.
Menzies caught him about the arms and pulled him into a small room set apart for consultations between lawyers and clients.
‘I suppose you know that men have got six months for less than you did this afternoon? You can’t knock police-officers about with impunity, you know.’
There was an underlying current of seriousness in his jocular tone which Jimmie could not fail to perceive. He ran his hand through his hair.
‘I’ll see you,’ he said, adopting the language of the poker table. ‘What are you driving at?’
‘This.’ The detective laid a thick forefinger on the palm of his left hand. ‘You’ve got sense, Mr Hallett, and you’ve had experience. Now, I’ve gone into your credentials, and I believe you’re straight. But I’m not going to stand any funny business. I’m investigating a case of murder, and anyone who stands in the way is liable to get hurt. Now, don’t interrupt. Let me finish. I don’t know whether you were playing a little game after lunch to win the girl’s confidence, or if she talked you over.’
He paused inquiringly.
Hallett pressed his lips together firmly.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Right. You were pushed into this at the start, and I’ve tried to treat you fairly. Don’t you forget murder’s a dirty thing, however you look at it. I don’t say Miss Greye-Stratton’s not straight, but she knows a deuce of a sight more than she ought to—or than she’s telling us. She’s got something up her sleeve. She’s no fool, for all her pretty face. She seems to have taken a fancy to you. Do you know why?’
The other shook his head, although he had a very good idea as to what Menzies was going to say. His face was impassive.
‘For the same reason that the man we’ve got below tried to get you this morning. You’re an important witness. She wants to shut your mouth and to find out how much you really do know.’
Jimmie laughed outright.
‘You’re wrong there. She’s not asked me a single question. All the talking was on her side.’
Then he realised that he had fallen into a trap. Not that Menzies gave any obvious indication of triumph. He merely stroked his moustache serenely.
‘Well, I don’t know that I’m far wrong. She wouldn’t be too quick. So she talked, did she? What did she say?’
The young man was not to be caught off his guard a second time.
‘It will all be stale to you. She repeated what she said she had already told you.’
‘All the same there may be something new,’ persisted the detective. ‘Let’s have it.’
‘If you like to let me have a look at her statement, I’ll tell you if there’s anything fresh I can add,’ parried Jimmie.
Menzies raised his eyebrows.
‘I think I see,’ he said. ‘I’d consider this a lot, if I were you. Why, man, can’t you see she’s playing with you? Confidence for confidence is an old trick. She has known you a matter of hours, and here she is pitching a tale to you as though you were an intimate friend. I trust you—you trust me! That’s what it comes to. Now, why not play our game instead of hers? If she’s innocent you won’t hurt her, but if she’s got her pretty fingers in the tar—’
Hallett became conscious of a smouldering rage at the innuendo of the comfortable, ruddy-faced detective. He did not realise that he was being deliberately provoked for a purpose. Menzies wanted to discover without doubt his attitude towards the girl.
‘Cut it out,’ he advised curtly. And then more quietly: ‘I think you entirely misjudge the lady. If I’ve only known her for a few hours, I guess I’m a better judge of her type than you.’
‘Bearings a bit hot, eh?’ smiled Menzies. ‘It’s no good getting angry with me. I’m clumsy, but I mean well. I hate to see a man stepping into trouble. And you’ll find trouble on your hands pretty soon, believe me. If I were you, I think I’d carry a life preserver or advertise that you didn’t see the man who killed Greye-Stratton.’
> Hallett had taken a quick turn or two about the room, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. He came to a sudden halt.
‘What do you mean by that?’
Weir Menzies had a well-worn briar pipe in one hand and tobacco-pouch in the other. He methodically filled the pipe before answering.
‘Only from what I have gathered the lady’s in with a tough mob. I’ll know more about ’em by tomorrow, but I don’t want you laid out before I’ve picked up all the ends. I’ve warned you. You must do as you like. Only don’t go believing she’s a little blue-eyed saint, that’s all.’
Jimmie’s temper, held in till now, continued to rise. Whether it was the implication that he was being made Miss Greye-Stratton’s catspaw, or whether it was the suggestion that the radiant girl was the willing accomplice of a gang of criminals, he did not stop to analyse. He was angry with Menzies because he did not know by intuition what was plain to him—that if she were acting a part it was for the sake of someone else. He regretted now that he was bound not to divulge anything she had told him.
‘I guess you’re a fool, Menzies!’ he sneered. You’re making a mistake this time.’
Menzies took the handle of the door.
‘You think so, do you? Well, we’ll let it go at that.’ He swung the door open. ‘I suppose the lady told you she was—married?’
He spoke casually, as though by an after-thought, but he was quick to observe the change that passed over Jimmie’s face.
‘That’s a lie!’ he blurted out. ‘You’ve got something at the back of your head.’
The detective swung the door to again, and took something from his pocket.
‘Look at that!’ he said; and smoothed a sheet of paper before Hallett’s eyes.
Jimmie read it over twice, unable at first to completely grasp its significance. It was an attested copy of a marriage certificate between Peggy Greye-Stratton and Stewart Reader Ling.
‘She didn’t tell you about this?’ went on the detective, levelly. ‘That may alter your idea that she intends to play straight with you.’