by Frank Froest
The chief-inspector smoothed his sparse hair. ‘Didn’t know,’ he said shortly. ‘I guessed, as Ling did. We were too pushed to judge except by appearances, and he’s probably right about it’s being a fake. No good worrying till we hear from Royal. He may have tumbled to it, but you see he’d go to a hospital and then to the local station, and then perhaps to the opium den. We don’t know what sort of a rumpus he may have had. We came straight on here to Kensington to charge Ling. If she’s got away he’ll have done everything necessary to head her off. We can only wait in patience.’
‘But he must know where you are?’ remonstrated Jimmie.
Menzies smiled. ‘He knows that I’d have brought Ling here, and if he didn’t he could find out in ten minutes by putting in an all-station call from wherever he happened to be. There’s the tape machine and the telephone to every police station in London, and you can’t lose an officer unless he wants to be lost. No, the question of Gwennie isn’t going to upset me yet. In our business you can’t often run a one man show. You’ve got to trust your colleagues. Royal’s keen enough, and if she should bilk him the wires would be alight mighty quick.’ He pulled out his watch. ‘I shall give him another five minutes, and then go home. I’m fairly worn out.’
‘Do you think there’s anything in that guff of Ling’s? Whether he’s bluffing or not, it seems to me you’ve got your work cut out to prove any murder against him if she does get away. She had as much motive as he did.’
‘Yes. It sounded plausible didn’t it?’ said the chief-inspector, serenely. ‘There’s only one little legal point that he as well as you missed. I’m dead sure that Ling killed Greye-Stratton, but it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to him if I couldn’t prove it—which I think I can. It doesn’t matter a button who fired the shot—all those in the conspiracy are equally guilty of murder—even if they were a million miles away at the time. There’s the motive, there’s the fact that Ling (or someone wearing clothes of exactly the same material which would be an extraordinary coincidence) was in the house, there is Greye-Stratton’s pistol, which you will have to swear you took from him, and—oh, there’s a dozen things.’
The swing door of the charge-room clattered noisily open, and Jimmie wheeled to confront Royal. The detective-sergeant’s clothes were torn and smothered in mud, and there was an ugly black bruise on his stained face. Deep encrimsoned scratches were on both cheeks, and his eyes were bloodshot. He laughed unsteadily as he saw them.
‘What a night we’re having!’ he said. ‘What a night we’re having! You got Ling?’
CHAPTER XXXIII
MENZIES was at his side in an instant, and had slipped a supporting arm round him.
‘Got him tight,’ he answered. ‘You look to have been in something, old chap. Much hurt? All right, don’t trouble to talk now.’ He raised his voice. ‘One of you people call that doctor up again.’
‘I got Gwennie,’ muttered Royal feebly. ‘Slippery Jezebel she is, too, but I got her. She wasn’t dead at all, Mr Menzies. She …’
‘That’s all right,’ said the chief-inspector, soothingly. ‘You shall tell us all about it later.’ But he drew a long breath of relief.
It was half an hour later that Royal, pulled together by the skilled ministrations of the divisional surgeon, was able to tell his story. He grinned apologetically at Menzies.
‘Sorry to have made an ass of myself like that, sir,’ he said. ‘I wanted to come right on and tell you all about it, so I didn’t stay to be patched up. I never thought I’d get the worst doing I’ve ever had from an old woman.’
‘She seems to have mucked you up, and that’s a fact,’ agreed Menzies.
‘She did that,’ explained Royal. ‘I was too busy cursing my luck at being left to look after a deader while you were on the warpath with Ling, that I never stopped to consider she mightn’t be dead after all.’
‘I made the same mistake,’ said Menzies. ‘You aren’t to blame there.’
‘Maybe I was in a bit of a hurry,’ confessed Royal. ‘I didn’t think a corpse required much watching. I was thinking of the driver. He might have been all right, and again he mightn’t. So when he patched the engine up I took my seat alongside of him and we started off for the hospital at quite a respectable speed. We’d just turned into the main road when I heard a click behind me, and it flashed across my mind that I’d been careless in taking the old girl so much on trust. I bent round the side of the cab to take a look through the window, and there was a hand fumbling with the door handle. I’d had to twist like an acrobat to get a fair look, and I suppose I was a little off my guard. First thing I knew the cab gave a lurch, and I was rolling over and over in the mud of the roadway. It was a mercy I didn’t break my neck but I wasn’t thinking of that. I just picked myself up, and there was the cab a hundred yards ahead putting on steam for all it was worth.
‘It came to me, then, what a damn fool I’d been. If you’ll believe me, sir, I hadn’t even taken the number of that rotten cab, and it was too far away to see it. “This about puts the finish to your career in the C.I.D., Royal, my man,” I thinks to myself, and pulled out my whistle. Of course, I knew there wasn’t a chance in a million of that doing any good. She’d got too big a start.
‘I’m not much of a believer in miracles, but I’m blessed if one didn’t happen then. As I’m alive, a great big touring car came sliding along towards me. The chauffeur was bringing it back from Southend or somewhere I learned afterwards. I jumped to it and pulled him up.
‘“You noticed a taxi-cab that you’ve just passed?” I says. He looks me up and down, and you can guess I was in a pretty pickle of mud from head to foot. If I hadn’t pulled myself up into the seat alongside of him and took possession, I reckon he’d have gone on without me.
‘“You’ve got a devil of a cold nerve,” he says. “Get off this car, or I’ll fling you off and call a policeman.”
‘I was getting over my shake up a bit then, but there wasn’t time for argument. “For God’s sake don’t chew the rag with me,” I says. “Turn her head round and get after that cab before it gets a chance to dodge me.”
‘Well, that chauffeur was a sport. I will say that for him. He jerked that big car about in double quick time, and we began sliding after Gwennie. I felt my luck was in.
‘“Now, what’s it all about?’ he says, as soon as we got going. “If you’re having a game with me, my lad, you’ve got the biggest sort of hiding you ever had in your life coming to you.” He looked it, too.
‘“I’m a detective officer,” I says, “and in that cab there’s a woman wanted for murder. Now, bust your car or catch her.”
‘He nodded, and let the car out. You know the Whitechapel Road’s fairly straight in stretches, and we had a view of the cab before it took one of the bends. There’ll be some summonses out against that car this morning for exceeding the speed limit unless we put in a word. That chauffeur was quick to take a hint, and you can bet we shifted. The road was fairly clear at that hour, and we came up to the cab as if it was standing still.
‘“What do you want me to do?” asks the chauffeur.
‘“Get alongside and yell to the driver to stop,” I says. I hadn’t any plan very clear in my own mind, and that was the best I could rake up at the moment. It was just silly, too, because if he’d stop for a demand like that he’d have stopped when I tumbled off.
‘Anyway we tried it, and then I got an idea of what was happening. The driver’s face was like dirty white paper, and he was hanging on the steering wheel like grim death. Inside Gwennie had opened one of the windows—you know some taxi-cabs have got windows that open straight on to the driver’s seat—and was leaning forward with a little ivory mounted pistol in her hand. He told us later on that when I tumbled off he started to pull up, and the feel of the pistol muzzle in his ribs was the first thing that woke him up to the fact that Gwennie was going to have a say so. He thought she was a ghost at first.
‘As we came level I yelled
to the man to stop. He just took no notice. She had him too thoroughly frightened for that. All his mind was on his steering, and that wicked little pistol that was behind his back.
‘Then she saw us, and swung the pistol round towards us. But she never fired. She must have understood what kind of a fix I was in, for while she kept the cab going, it seemed impossible that I could get at her. She just smiled, and then kissed her hand towards us.
‘That got my goat, as the Americans say. I passed the word to my chauffeur to drop a little behind, and then I put it to him.
‘“Can you cut a wheel off that thing for me—smash the blighting thing up?”
‘It didn’t seem to appeal to him. He looked grave. “I wouldn’t mind so much if this was one of the guvnor’s old cars,” he says, “but it isn’t. It’s his pet, and I wouldn’t risk a smash for anything.”
‘“How much petrol you got?” I asks, thinking we might shadow the other car till it was forced to a standstill.
‘“I don’t know exactly,” he answers, “but it isn’t much. We may get to the bottom of the tank any minute. Whatever you’re going to do you’d better do quick. I’m game for anything that won’t do in the car.”
‘I looked at the road sliding past, and it gave me the shivers. We were fairly hustling. However, I wasn’t going to let her have the laugh on me.
‘“You put us level with that cab again,” I says, “and hold as close and as near the same pace as you can. I’m going to board it.”
‘“You’ll be killed,” he says.
‘“That’s my business,” I tells him. “I’ve got to stop that woman, and I’m going to do it.” I was pretty well strung up. Perhaps her kissing her hand to me had something to do with it.
‘Well, he eased up to let me get on the footboard, and I held on with one hand. I knew I had to be mighty quick in pulling open the door of the cab and grabbing Gwennie, and I didn’t like the idea of her pistol a little bit.
‘That chauffeur knew how to handle a car. He swung out a bit a little behind till he had gauged the pace, and then he edged up till as we drew level again there wasn’t three inches between the cars. I tore at the door of the cab, and wrenched it open somehow. I hate to think in cold blood of how I did it. There wasn’t much time for thinking, and I went for her hell and leather before she could get to work with the shooter.
‘I got her wrist as she turned, and smashed it against the side window. It cut us both about a bit, but she dropped the gun, and that was a great thing. They say it wasn’t two minutes before the cab stopped then. It was just about the busiest two minutes I ever spent. A tiger’s cage would be a peaceful spot compared to the inside of that cab. She may be a woman and an old woman at that, but she’s got muscles like whip-cord.
‘Once she got her hand at the back of my neck, and I saw forty million stars as she flung me up against the side of the cab. Then I got my arms around her, and tried to force her down, and she used her ten commandments on my face. I thought my cheeks had gone. And all the while that door was open, and I’d got a kind of idea that at any minute we might both go through it.
‘But we didn’t, although we must have been near it once or twice. I’d got my arms locked round her, and I wasn’t going to let her go, though I was half tempted to take a chance and smash her one under the jaw to lay her out—especially when she got her teeth into my shoulder, and bit right through coat and all. She was all animal just then.
‘At last the cab stopped, and my chauffeur comes to my help. The driver was too paralysed to do anything but sit straining goggle-eyed. We dragged her out into the roadway, and managed to get the cuffs on her—a nice job that was, too—just as a constable came up.
‘Things were easy after that. She saw the jig was up, and didn’t make too much trouble. I shipped her down to the local station, and left her there without any charge, and when I found you were here, came on straight away. I thought you’d like to know. Shall I make out my report in the morning, sir?’
Menzies nodded complacently, and let a hand drop gently on his subordinate’s shoulder. ‘You run away laddie, and get some sleep,’ he said. ‘That’s all you’ve got to think of now. There’s no urgency about getting to the office tomorrow. Let me know when you turn up, that’s all. By the way, did you ever pass the Civil Service examination for inspector?’
Royal’s face glowed. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then I wouldn’t wonder if you got called before the C.I. Board sometime. Good-night. Which way are you going, Hallett?’
‘Back to the hotel. What time will you be off duty tomorrow?’
The glance the chief-inspector shot at him had a mixture of questioning and amusement. ‘Tomorrow looks like being my busy day. Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ Jimmie was a trifle confused. ‘I’ve been taking a little interest in gardening lately and I thought I’d like to have a look at some of your roses again—if you’d let me come over to Magersfontein Road some time.’
‘H’m.’ Menzies surveyed him doubtfully. ‘I don’t know. Honest injun, how do you know a Captain Hayward from a Caroline Testout?’
‘I was hoping to learn something from you,’ said Jimmie, humbly.
‘I’ll bet you are,’ agreed Menzies. ‘You turn up at the Yard at six tomorrow evening if I don’t send for you before, and we’ll see.’
CHAPTER XXXIV
THERE was a carnation in the glass of water on the mantelpiece, and Weir Menzies, in the old alpaca jacket that saved his morning coat, was bending over his desk, a quill pen in his hand.
Truly, as he had informed Jimmie Hallett, it was his busy day. Before him lay the piles of paper which were evidence of the minuteness with which Scotland Yard, aided by other great police organisations, had ransacked the world for the slightest fact. Hundreds of men had spent days and money in compiling the reports that lay before him, and nine-tenths of them were useless.
Keen eyes and intelligent brains had been behind each one. Each one, however negative it seemed, had been read and re-read, scrutinised and re-scrutinised half-a-dozen times as every fresh angle of the case developed.
Here, for instance, was the tested statement of Alfred Jones, paper seller, who had seen a man, evidently in great agitation, running from the direction of Linstone Terrace Gardens on the night of the murder—he could not be certain that it was the same night, but he believed it was.
Here was a statement of John Smith (found after an infinity of trouble) identified by Alfred Jones as the mysterious fugitive, that on the night preceding the murder his wife was taken ill, and that he was running for a doctor.
Then the statement of an Islington lady that a mysterious lodger who had given little account of himself had gone out on the day of the murder and never returned. He was always muttering to himself. Here the statement of the lodger, ultimately traced, who described himself as an actor of the Red Hand company, lately dispersed, whose disappearance had in it nothing more culpable that the desire to avoid the just claims of his landlady.
Trivial tittle-tattle and crimson imaginings had all helped to swell that snowball of reports, for most of the reports had given birth to half-a-dozen others. Always a cast had to be made till each scent proved false. The public, as always, had jumped fervently to the role of amateur detectives.
Before he met the Treasury solicitor and the counsel who would have charge of the case in court, it was Menzies’ task to have his evidence at least roughly sorted into what was material and what was immaterial to the case, and the border-line was often one of infinite nicity.
Yet Menzies, if he had been asked, would have asserted that this business was infinitely more after his own heart than what may be called the active detail of a case. It demanded an analytical mind and a certain legal knowledge. In fact Menzies was taking more upon his shoulders than he perhaps need have done. He hated to have anything like a slovenly case to be straightened out by the legal advisers of the Treasury.
More than once the door opened no
iselessly, and Foyle peeped in, took in the industrious figure at the desk, and as noiselessly vanished.
As he arranged the reports that he considered had a bearing on the case, Menzies sent for each officer responsible, and went through the statement with deliberate care. Sometimes a man would be sent off to verify a pertinent point that had appeared of no value at the time, a statement was taken, and gradually things began to fall into shape. The chief-inspector began to pack the genuine documents and exhibits into a dispatch case.
For the fifth time Helden Foyle poked his head inside the door, and then the rest of his body followed. Menzies looked up and nodded.
‘Just finished,’ he said.
Foyle walked to the fireplace, lifted the carnation, smelt it, and replaced it in the glass. ‘How does it look?’ he asked.
‘Fair. Very fair, indeed,’ said Menzies cautiously.
‘Heard about Ling?’ demanded the superintendent.
‘What about him? I was down at the station on my way here, and there was nothing much fresh then.’
‘Nothing much. It’s interesting, though.’ Foyle kicked an obdurate coal with the toe of his brightly polished boot. ‘It happened after you had gone, and they’ve just been on to me on the ’phone. You know they put a constable in the cell with him? He offered the man £100 to smuggle him out.’
‘That’s interesting. Looks as if he doesn’t fancy his chance over much.’ The detail did not appear to greatly stir Menzies.
‘Yes, but listen to this. The blamed fool, after refusing it, seems to have got into conversation with Ling, and asked him if he really did shoot Greye-Stratton.’
Some sign of consternation flickered over Menzies’ face. ‘You don’t say?’ he exclaimed. ‘The cabbage headed idiot …’ Words failed him.
There is one unforgiveable blunder in the Metropolitan Police, the hideousness of which no layman can adequately plumb. To question a prisoner, to coax or bully him into an admission of guilt, is one of those things that no zeal, no temptation can excuse. It is not merely that it is against the law. It is not playing the game. The slightest suggestion that such a course has been pursued has before now secured a guilty man’s acquittal. Worse than that, it lays the credit of the service open to suspicion. A police officer had better cheat at cards—that affects only his own character.