The cool night air seemed to revive her a little, and after they had walked up and down several times along the front of the warehouse, she began to show some signs of recovering. But it was not going to be easy getting her down the slippery wooden steps and into the launch, and Wyatt began to wonder if it would not be advisable to try and get a taxi. However, as Lathom, who had joined them, pointed out, this would be none too easy at that late hour.
Lathom was very anxious to question the girl, but Wyatt restrained him, pointing out that she might still be under the influence of the drug, and would not be able to recollect details effectively.
Eventually they half-carried her down the steps. The sergeant had produced a padded seat cushion and she sat on this in the well of the launch, looking around her very uncertainly.
‘You can turn the light on, Sergeant,’ said Lathom, but Wyatt called out:
‘Wait a moment! There’s something coming this way …’
They all listened intently, and the distant throb of a motor-boat engine grew gradually louder.
‘It wouldn’t be the river patrol, would it, Sergeant?’ asked Wyatt. The sergeant shook his head.
‘He isn’t showing a light. Somebody up to no good, if you ask me.’
Whoever it was, the boat was obviously heading in their direction, and Lathom ordered the sergeant to swing round his powerful lamp in line with the oncoming vessel.
When the motor-boat was about fifty yards away, the engine cut out and they could hear the swish of the water around its bows. But the inspector did not order the light to be switched on, for he had an idea that in another two minutes the newcomer would be too close to them to make a getaway when suddenly dazzled by its full glare.
Then without warning a dim figure rose to a kneeling position in the motor-boat and called out:
‘Hello! Are you there!’
‘Great Scott!’ breathed Perivale. ‘It’s Linder!’
‘There seems to be no mistake about that,’ nodded Wyatt.
The man in the boat repeated his cry, and at a signal from Perivale the sergeant switched on the lamp.
‘Yes, it is Linder!’ exclaimed Lathom, who had been rather doubtful before.
The man in the boat suddenly disappeared and there came a sharp crack of a revolver. Almost immediately there was a splintering of glass and the launch’s lamp went out.
The sergeant cursed and began to connect up his emergency lamp. It was a little difficult to see what was happening after the powerful light had been extinguished, and it was not until they heard a splash that Wyatt realized that Linder had dived into the water.
Perivale and Wyatt tried to trace his course, but apart from an occasional splash, as he swam with a powerful stroke, they could not be certain. A minute later, the emergency lamp was on, and its beam swept the sullen waters. But there was no trace of Hugo Linder.
‘He could have been under the warehouse by this time,’ grunted Lathom.
‘On the other hand, he might be well downstream,’ said Wyatt.
‘We could put out a call to H Division,’ suggested the sergeant.
‘Yes, that would be best,’ decided the Chief. ‘No point in hanging around here, and Miss Faber should be taken home as soon as possible. Put out the radio call, Sergeant.’
‘I’m afraid Linder has got away with it this time,’ said Lathom, taking over the lamp himself and swivelling the beam over the river.
‘We’ll just hang on till the sergeant gets through,’ decided Perivale, ‘then we’ll get back to Westminster as quickly as possible.’
The sergeant busied himself with the small portable transmitter, and meanwhile Lathom continued to rake the waters with the beam from the baby searchlight.
‘What do you make of this Linder business, Wyatt?’ he said presently. ‘Do you think his turning up tonight proves that he’s “Mr Rossiter”?’
‘Of course he isn’t “Rossiter”,’ interposed Perivale in an irritable tone. ‘We know from what Royston said that Luigi must be “Mr Rossiter”. It’s just a question of getting sufficient evidence to convict him. Don’t you agree, Wyatt?’
But Wyatt refused to be drawn.
‘I don’t think Sally would agree with you, Sir James,’ he replied with a faint smile. ‘She suspects Mr Knight and nothing will shake her.’
‘Good lord!’ ejaculated Perivale. ‘What on earth’s given her the idea that nincompoop could possibly be a master criminal?’
‘It’s the ladies’ prerogative – feminine intuition!’
‘I’m afraid we’ll need something a bit more concrete than that,’ grunted Perivale, straining his eyes to follow the beam of light. ‘Dash it all, why Knight was very nearly murdered himself …’
He realized that no one was listening. Wyatt and Lathom were staring at a dark object floating on the surface which the beam had just picked up.
‘It’s a body – a man’s body!’ snapped Lathom. ‘It’s floating towards us.’
He grabbed the boathook that lay along the port side of the launch.
Wyatt looked across at Marjorie Faber rather anxiously, but she appeared to be quite oblivious to what was going on.
A few minutes later, Lathom had pulled the body towards them and the sergeant, having completed his radio message, stood by to give him a hand.
The man’s face was turned from them and the light was none too certain, so that it was not until the body was right alongside that Lathom exclaimed in surprise:
‘Good lord! It isn’t Linder after all!’
‘No,’ said Wyatt quietly. It was the body of Charles Luigi.
Wyatt had spent an hour in his study after breakfast, writing letters and jotting down some notes in a book which he kept locked in a drawer of the writing-desk. He had been very silent over breakfast, and Sally’s efforts at conversation had obviously not been welcome.
Sally made no further attempt to start a conversation, and when her husband disappeared into the lounge, she picked up the morning papers with a little sigh of relief and began to read an account of the recovery of Marjorie Faber and the death of Charles Luigi.
At eleven o’clock she went into the kitchen and made some coffee.
Wyatt was obviously in a more pleasant mood, and seemed to welcome the intrusion, or at least the refreshment. As she poured the coffee, she said:
‘That wasn’t a very good picture of Mr Linder in the paper, was it, Lionel?’
‘Maybe he’s one of those peculiar people who never photograph very well,’ Wyatt replied. Sally passed his coffee, noticed his change of mood, then said with a little hesitation:
‘Darling, you didn’t really mind my going to the Palais last night?’
Her anxious expression was so comic that he burst out laughing.
‘Why, I’d quite forgotten all about it,’ he admitted. ‘Did you get back at a respectable hour, or are we going to have the neighbours talking?’
‘We were back ages before you.’
She sat on the corner of his desk and sipped her coffee.
‘Lionel, do you think the police will find Linder?’ she asked.
‘If he’s alive.’
‘The paper says that there was an announcement made on the radio.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘Have you any idea what made him turn up at that awful warehouse?’ asked Sally.
‘Quite obviously he had an appointment.’
‘With “Mr Rossiter”?’
He shrugged.
‘Lathom seems to think that Linder is “Mr Rossiter”,’ he told her.
‘That’s ridiculous!’ she scoffed.
Wyatt smiled.
‘You’re still backing Maurice Knight. I told Sir James about it … I’m afraid he came down rather heavily.’
‘Did he?’ said Sally indifferently. ‘I don’t want to argue … I tell you I just know!’
‘All right, darling,’ said Wyatt equably, lighting a cigarette and picking up The Times.
&nb
sp; Sally fidgeted uncomfortably, rearranging the flowers in a vase and replacing a couple of books on the shelves. At last she was unable to contain herself any longer.
‘Lionel, how exactly was Luigi murdered?’
Wyatt looked up from his paper.
‘He was strangled,’ he replied casually.
‘Had he been in the water very long?’
‘About an hour, the doctor seemed to think.’
Sally went on tidying the room.
‘What did Sir James make of it all?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid it shook him rather badly. After what Royston told us, he seemed pretty convinced that Luigi was “Mr Rossiter”, and that it was simply a question of collecting sufficient evidence. In fact, he seemed to regard the case as practically settled.’
Sally gathered up a small pile of periodicals and neatly stacked them on a corner of the settee, moving over to a side table near the door.
‘Darling, you haven’t opened your letters,’ she said presently, when she noticed them lying under a paper-weight. ‘Fred has sent on quite a pile of them from the farm.’
‘Good lord! I quite forgot …’ he murmured. ‘I’ve had so many things on my mind this morning …’
‘There’s a registered letter, too,’ she pointed out, handing him a neat little envelope which appeared to contain a small solid object. He slit open the packet with his paper-cutter and extracted a neat little penknife, with an imitation mother-of-pearl handle. Around it was wrapped a sheet of thick parchment notepaper, which Wyatt unfolded. On it was written:
‘DEAR MR WYATT,
I tried to get you at your flat last night, but unfortunately there was no reply. I am sending you this penknife because I think it will be much safer in your hands than mine. I am convinced that it is a valuable clue to the identity of “Mr Rossiter”. I will explain exactly what I mean when I see you.
Sincerely,
MAURICE KNIGHT.’
Wyatt passed over the note.
‘From your Number One Suspect,’ he smiled. ‘How does that fit in with your intuition?’
Sally frowned thoughtfully, opening each of the two small blades and closing them. It seemed to be a very ordinary sort of penknife, costing a few shillings at any hardware store.
Then a thought struck her.
‘It couldn’t be anything to do with fingerprints, could it?’
‘I’m afraid it’s a bit late in the day to think of that,’ he grinned.
‘But it can’t possibly—’
She was interrupted by the telephone ringing outside; she ran to answer it. Presently, Sally put her head round the door.
‘It’s Maurice Knight,’ she announced.
Wyatt picked up the receiver of his extension and heard the anxious voice of his caller.
‘Did you get the penknife all right?’
‘I’ve just this minute opened your letter. It’s quite safe. Sorry we were out last night. Now, what’s all this about the knife being valuable evidence? Where did you get it?’
There was a slight pause, then Knight said very deliberately:
‘I got it from “Mr Rossiter”.’
‘Then you’ve actually met him?’
‘The swine tried to murder me again last night! It was horrible!’
Wyatt whistled softly.
‘How did it happen?’
‘I went out about half-past five to post a letter, and when I got back he was waiting for me on the landing outside my flat. Luckily, there’s a light there and I spotted his shadow as I came up the stairs. So I hesitated a fraction of a second before I turned the corner at the top of the stairs. Then I felt his hands on my neck.’
‘But surely you saw his face,’ said Wyatt.
‘No, he forced my head right back, and it’s only a dim light on the landing. I fought like the devil. I tried to call for help, but he choked every sound out of me. It was terrible! Then, just as everything was going black, he must have heard someone down below, and he was off like a flash. I felt too upset to try to follow him immediately; in fact I stood there, clutching the banisters, trying to get my breath back. But, as he rushed round the bend of the landing below, I thought I heard something fall from his pocket, and afterwards I went down and found the knife lying there.’
‘You’re quite sure that this person who attacked you was a man?’
‘No doubt about that. I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything else … it all happened so suddenly; I was completely taken by surprise …’
‘I quite understand,’ said Wyatt sympathetically. ‘Well, I’ll pass the knife on to the Yard and get their expert on it. Of course, it’s a very common type of penknife, but you never know …’
‘Thanks, Wyatt … I have a feeling that it might lead to something. I hope it does, because I can’t stand much more of this – this nerve-racking business.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Wyatt. ‘We’re beginning to get results now.’
‘So I see from the morning papers. Well, it can’t be too soon for my liking. Goodbye.’
As he replaced the receiver, Wyatt realized that Sally had left the room. She came in a moment later.
‘I was listening on the other phone,’ she informed him shamelessly.
Wyatt picked up the penknife by its edges and dropped it back into the envelope.
‘That conversation must have made you change your mind.’
‘Not at all,’ she persisted defiantly. ‘I still think Maurice Knight is the man you’re after.’
She was about to enlarge on this, but the front-door bell rang.
‘My turn,’ said Wyatt, and went to answer it. In the hallway stood Doctor Fraser and Hugo Linder.
‘Well, well, this is quite a morning,’ said Wyatt, rubbing his hands. ‘Come inside.’
He led them into the lounge, where Sally’s eyes widened when she saw who the visitors were.
Wyatt was a little surprised to see that Linder showed no outward signs of the previous evening’s adventure. It was Doctor Fraser who looked pale and a trifle haggard.
Almost at once she began to apologize for troubling Wyatt, taking the blame on herself.
‘It was my idea entirely,’ she said. ‘I read all the papers this morning, and heard the report on the wireless, and I insisted that Hugo owes you some explanation. So do I, if it comes to that.’
Linder interposed somewhat hastily:
‘Gail, please! I won’t have you dragged into this …’
The doctor waved him aside.
‘Darling, please don’t interrupt,’ she begged in a distressed voice. ‘I’ve got to tell the truth now, and it isn’t going to be easy.’
He looked at her anxiously for a few moments, then said quietly: ‘Very well, Gail.’ He went and stood over by the window, with his hands in his trouser pockets. Doctor Fraser turned to Wyatt once more.
‘Hugo went to that warehouse last night because I had a telephone call soon after ten-thirty …’
Wyatt held up his hand and said:
‘Before you tell us your story, Doctor, there’s just one question I’d like to ask Mr Linder.’
Linder came over from the window.
‘What is it?’ he asked curiously.
Wyatt took up the registered packet from his desk and emptied the penknife into the palm of his left hand, which he thrust under Linder’s eyes.
‘Have you seen this before?’ he asked quietly.
‘But of course,’ said Linder in astonishment, ‘it’s mine!’
‘You lost it?’ queried Wyatt.
‘Well, not exactly. As a matter of fact, I lent it to someone quite a while back, and he rather conveniently forgot to return it.’
‘Whom did you lend it to, Hugo?’ asked the doctor curiously.
‘I think I can answer that now,’ said Wyatt, watching both of them closely. ‘Correct me if I’m mistaken, Mr Linder, but I have an idea you lent it to Bill Tyson, the fisherman. Am I right?’
Hugo Linder slowly nodded
.
CHAPTER XII
Presenting: ‘Mr Rossiter’
Wyatt slid the penknife back into the packet.
‘How did you know it was Tyson?’ asked Linder at last.
‘We can come to that presently. What I’m anxious to hear now is Doctor Fraser’s side of the story. Try that other chair, Doctor; you’ll find you can relax in it. And let me give you a cigarette.’
A few seconds later, Doctor Fraser began her story in a low, earnest tone.
‘Hugo went to that warehouse because I got a telephone call at half-past ten from “Mr Rossiter”. He told me that he wanted me to go to a deserted warehouse not far from Millgate Steps. He said that if I went there at the time he stipulated he would hand over certain highly confidential letters of mine.’
‘You mean letters that you had written?’ queried Sally.
‘Mrs Wyatt, if only you knew what I’ve been through trying to get those letters back,’ said Doctor Fraser in an anguished tone. ‘I’ve been through absolute hell – I’ve cursed myself a thousand times for writing them.’
‘Before you go any further,’ interrupted Wyatt, ‘I hope you realize the significance of what you have just told us.’
She nodded.
‘You mean that I’ve admitted that I know the identity of “Mr Rossiter”?’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes,’ she replied bitterly. ‘I’ve known it right from the beginning. You see, it was like this, Mr Wyatt. Several years ago, I was involved in a most unfortunate scandal. It was a euthanasia case, and I won’t go into details, except to tell you that if certain aspects were made public I should be ruined. That was when I wrote the letters, which would have incriminated several well-known people and caused a first-class scandal in the profession. I was only going to use them as a last desperate resource if I had to defend myself against certain charges; they were addressed to my solicitors, setting out all the details of the case. It was one of those cases that were hushed up and never came into court, but there was a chance for quite a long time that it might. So I kept the letters locked in a drawer of my desk. One day, that lock was forced and the letters stolen.’
She fingered the clasp of her handbag.
‘About a week later,’ she went on, ‘a certain gentleman telephoned me and read out the first paragraph of two of the letters over the phone. That was when it started …’
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