For over two hours he worked, and at last, as he was beginning to accept defeat, he obtained just the information he required.
It appeared that about a quarter-past eleven on the night in question, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a widow living on the third floor was returning home from some small jollification when she saw, just as she approached the door, three persons come out. Two were men, one tall, well built and clean-shaven, the other short and stout, with a fair toothbrush moustache. The third person was Miss Merrill. A street lamp had shone directly on their faces as they emerged, and the girl had noticed that the men wore serious expressions and that Miss Merrill looked pale and anxious, as if all three were sharers in some bad news. They crossed the sidewalk to a waiting motor. Miss Merrill and the taller man got inside, the second man driving. During the time the girl saw them, none of them spoke. She remembered the car. It was a yellow one with, a coach body, and looked a private vehicle. Yes, she recognised the photograph the inspector showed her—Blessington’s. It was that of the driver of the car.
It did not seem worth while to French to try to trace the car, as he fancied he knew where it had gone. From Horne Terrace to Sime’s house in Colton Street was about a ten minute run. Therefore if it left the former about 11-15, it should reach the latter a minute or two before the half-hour. This worked in with the time at which the invalid lady, Mrs Sproule, had heard the motor stop in the street, and to French it seemed clear that Miss Merrill had been taken direct to Sime’s, and kept there until 1-45 p.m. on the following day. What arguments or threats the pair had used to get her to accompany them French could not tell, but he shrewdly suspected that they had played the same trick on her as on Cheyne. In all probability they had told her that Cheyne had met with an accident and was conscious and asking for her. Once in the cab it would have been child’s play for a powerful man like Sime to have chloroformed her, and having got her to the house, they could easily have kept her helpless and semi-conscious by means of drugs.
French returned on foot to the Yard, thinking over the affair as he walked. It certainly had a sinister look. These men were very much in earnest. They had not hesitated to resort to murder in the case of Cheyne—it was through, to them, an absolutely unforeseen accident that he escaped—and French felt he would not give much for Joan Merrill’s chances.
When he reached his office he found that a piece of news had just come in. A constable who had been on point duty at the intersection of South and Mitchem Streets, near Waterloo Station, had noticed about 2-0 p.m. on the day of the disappearance of the gang, a yellow motor-car pass close beside him and turn into Hackworth’s garage, a small establishment in the latter street. Though he had not observed the vehicle with more than the ordinary attention such a man will give to the passing traffic, his recollection both of the car and driver led him to the belief that they were those referred to in the Yard circular. The constable was waiting to see French, and made his report with diffidence, saying that though he thought he was right, he might very easily be mistaken.
‘Quite right to let me know anyhow, Wilson,’ French said heartily. ‘If you’ve seen Blessington’s car it may give us a valuable clue, and if you’re mistaken, there’s no harm done. We’ve nothing to lose by following it up.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s past my dinner hour, but I’ll take a taxi and go round to this garage on my way home. You’d better come along.’
Ten minutes later the two men reached Hackworth’s establishment, and pushing open the door of the tiny office, asked if the manager was about.
‘I’m John Hackworth. Yes, sir?’ said a stout man in shabby gray tweeds. ‘Want a car?’
‘I want a word with you, Mr Hackworth,’ said French pleasantly. ‘Just a small matter of private business.’
Hackworth nodded, and indicated a farther door.
‘In here,’ he invited, and when French and the constable had taken the two chairs the room contained, he briskly repeated : ‘Yes, sir?’
At this hint not to waste valuable time, French promptly introduced himself and propounded his question. Mr Hackworth looked impressed.
‘You don’t tell me that gent was a wrong ’un?’ he said anxiously, then another idea seeming to strike him, he continued: ‘Of course it don’t matter to me in a way, for I’ve got the car. I’ll tell you about it.’
French produced his photograph of Blessington.
‘Tell me first if that’s the man,’ he suggested.
Mr Hackworth pushed the card up to the electric bulb. ‘It’s him,’ he declared. ‘It’s him and no mistake. He walked in here yesterday—no, the day before—about eleven and asked to see the boss. “I’ve got a car,” he said when I went forward, “and there’s something wrong with the engine. Sometimes it goes all right and sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe,” he said, “you’ll start it up and it’ll run a mile or two well enough, then it begins to miss, and the speed drops perhaps to eight or ten miles. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
‘“What about your petrol feed?” I said. “Sounds like your carburettor, or maybe your strainer or one of your pipes choked.’
‘“I thought it might be that,” he said, “but I couldn’t find anything wrong. However, I want you to look over it, that is, if you can lend me a car while you’re doing it.”
‘Well, sir, I needn’t go into all the details, and to make a long story short, I agreed to overhaul the car and to lend him an old Napier while I was at it. He went away, and same day about two or before it he came back with his car, a yellow Armstrong Siddeley. It seemed to be all right then, but he said that that was just the trouble—it might be all right now and it would be all wrong within a minute’s time. So I gave, him the Napier—it was a done machine, worth very little, but would go all right, you understand. He asked me how long I would take, and I said I’d have it for him next day, that was yesterday. He had three or four suitcases with him and he transferred these across. Then he got into the Napier and drove away, and that was the last I saw of him.’
‘And what was wrong with his own car?’
‘There, sir, you have me beat. Nothing! Or nothing anyhow that I could find.’
‘Was the Napier a four-seater?’
‘Five. Three behind and two in front.’
‘A coach body?’
‘No, but with a good canvas cover, and he put it up, too, before starting.’
‘Raining?’
‘Neither raining nor like rain; nor no wind neither.’
‘How long was he here altogether?’
‘Not more than five or six minutes. He left just as soon as he could change the cars.’
French, having put a few more questions, got the proprietor to write out a detailed description of the Napier. Next, he begged the use of the garage telephone and repeated the description to the Yard, asking that it should be circulated among the force without delay. Finally he thanked the stout Mr Hackworth for his help, and with Constable Wilson left the establishment.
‘Now, Wilson,’ he said. ‘You’ve done a good day’s work. I’m pleased with you. You may get along home, and if I want anything more I’ll let you know in the morning.’
But though it was so late, French did not follow his subordinate’s example. Instead he stood on the sidewalk outside the garage, thinking hard.
As to the nature of the defect in the engine of the yellow car he had no doubt. What was wrong with it was just, what Hackworth had said was wrong with it—nothing whatever. French could see that the whole episode was simply a plan on Blessington’s part to change the car and thus cover up his traces. The yellow Armstrong-Siddeley was known to be his by many persons, and Blessington wanted one which, as he would believe, could not be traced. He would have seen from the papers that Cheyne had escaped the fate prepared for him, and he would certainly suspect that the outraged young man would put his knowledge at the disposal of the police. Therefore the yellow car was a danger and another must be procured in its place. The trick was obvious, and French had
heard of something like it before.
But though the main part of the scheme was clear to French, the details were not. From the statement of Mrs Sproule, the invalid of Colton Street, the yellow car had left Sime’s house at about 1-45. According to this Hackworth it had reached the garage at a minute or so before two. Now, from Colton Street to the garage was a ten or twelve minutes’ drive, therefore Blessington must have gone practically direct. Moreover, when he left Colton Street Joan Merrill and the other members of the gang were in the car, but when he reached the garage he was alone. Where had the others dismounted?
Another question suggested itself to French, and he thought that if he could answer it he would probably be able to answer the first as well. Why did Blessington select this particular garage? He did not know this Hackworth—the man had said he had never seen Blessington before. Why then this particular establishment rather than one of the scores nearer Sime’s dwelling?
For some minutes French puzzled over this point, and then a probable explanation struck him. There, just a hundred yards or more away, was a place admirably suited for dropping his passengers and picking them up again—Waterloo Station. What more natural for Blessington than to pull up at the departure side with the yellow Armstrong-Siddeley and set them down? What more common place for him than to pick them up at the arrival side with the black Napier? While he was changing the cars, they could enter, mingle with the crowds of passengers, work their way across the station and be waiting for him as if they had just arrived by train.
Late as it was, French returned to the Yard and put a good man on to make inquiries at Waterloo in the hope of proving his theory. Then, tired and very hungry, he went home.
But when he had finished supper and, ensconced in his arm-chair with a cigar, had looked through the evening paper, interest in the case reasserted itself, and he determined that he would have a look at the scrap of paper which he had found in the pocket of one of Dangle’s waistcoats.
As has been said, it was a list or memorandum of certain articles, written on the back of part of an old hotel bill. French re-read the items with something as nearly approaching bewilderment as a staid inspector of the Yard can properly admit. Peaches, safety matches, the Forsyte Saga, pencils, fountain pen ink and a sou’wester! What in the name of goodness could anyone want with such a heterogeneous collection? And the quantities! Three dozen tins of peaches, and six dozen boxes of matches! Enough to do a small expeditionary force, French thought whimsically, though he did not see an expeditionary force requiring the works of John Galsworthy, ink and pencils.
And yet was this idea so absurd? Did not these articles, in point of fact, suggest an expedition? Peaches matches, pencils and ink—all these articles were commonplace and universally obtainable. Did the fact that a quantity were required not mean that Dangle or his friends were to be cut off for some considerable time from the ordinary sources of supply? It certainly looked like it. And as he thought over the other articles, he saw that they too were not inconsistent with the same idea. The Forsyte Saga was distinguished from most novels in a peculiar and indeed a suggestive manner. It consisted of a number of novels, each full length or more than full length, but the point of interest was that the entire collection was published on thin paper in this one volume. Where could one get a greater mass of reading matter in a smaller bulk: in other words, where could one find a more suitable work of fiction to carry with one on an expedition?
The sou’wester also fitted from this point of view into the scheme of things, but it added a distinctive suggestion all its own: that of the sea. French’s thoughts turned towards a voyage. But it could not be an ordinary voyage in a well-appointed liner, where peaches and matches and novels would be as plentiful as in the heart of London. Nor did it seem likely that it could be a trip in the Enid. Such a craft could not remain out of touch with land for so long a period as these stores seemed to postulate. French could not think of anything that seemed exactly to meet the case, though he registered the idea of an expedition as one to be kept in view.
Leaving the point for the time being, he turned over the paper and began to examine its other side.
It formed the middle portion of an old hotel bill, the top and bottom having been torn off. The items indicated a stay of one night only, being merely for bed and breakfast. The name of the hotel had been torn off with the bill head, and also all but a few letters of the green rubber receipt stamp at the bottom. French felt that if he could only ascertain the identity of the hotel it might afford him a valuable clue, and he settled down to study it in as close detail as possible.
He recalled two statements that Speedwell had made about Dangle. First, the melancholy detective had said that commencing about a fortnight after the acquisition by the gang of Price’s letter and the tracing, Dangle had begun paying frequent visits to the Continent or Ireland, and secondly, that in a tube lift he had overheard Dangle say that he was crossing on a given night, but would be back the next. French thought he might take it for granted that this bill had been incurred on one of these trips. He wondered if Dangle had always visited the same place, as, if so, the bill would refer to an hotel near enough to England to be visited in one day. Of none of this was there any evidence, but French believed that it was sufficiently probable to be taken as a working hypothesis. If it led nowhere, he could try something else.
Assuming then that one could cross to the place in one night and return the next, it was obvious that it must be comparatively close to England, and, the language on the bill being French, it must be in France or Belgium. He took an atlas and a continental Bradshaw, and began to look out the area over which this condition obtained. Soon he saw that while the whole of Belgium and the north-west of France, bounded by a rough line drawn through Chalons, Nancy, Dijon, Angoulême, Chartres and Brest, were within the possible limit, giving a reasonable time in which to transact business, it was more than likely the place did not lie east of Brussels and Paris.
He turned back to the torn bill. Could he learn nothing from it?
First, as to the charges. With the franc standing at eighty, twenty-four francs seemed plenty for a single room, though it was by no means exorbitant. It and the 4,50 fr. for petit dejeuner suggested a fairly good hotel—probably what might be termed good second-class—not one of the great hotels de luxe like the Savoy in London or the de Crillon or Claridge’s in Paris, but one that ordinary people patronised, and which would be well known in its own town.
Of all the information available, the most promising line of research seemed that of the rubber stamp, and to that French now turned his attention. The three lines read:
… uit
… lon,
… S.
French thought he had something that might help here. He rose, crossed the room, and after searching in his letter file, produced three or four papers. These were hotel bills he had incurred in France and Switzerland when he visited those countries in search of the murderer of Charles Gething of the firm of Duke & Peabody, and he had brought them home with him in the hope that some day he might return as a holiday-maker to these same hotels. Now perhaps they would be of use in another way.
He spread them out and examined their receipt stamps. From their analogy the … uit on his fragment obviously stood for the words ‘Pour acquit,’ anglice: ‘paid.’ The middle line ending in … lon was unquestionably the name of the hotel, and the third, ending in S, that of its town. And here again was a suggestion as to the size of the establishment. A street was not included in the address. It must therefore be well known in its town.
It seemed to him moreover that this fact also conveyed a suggestion as to the size of the town. If the latter were Paris or Brussels—as he had thought not unlikely as both these names ended in s—a street address would almost certainly have been given. The names of the hotel and town alone pointed to a town of the same standing as the hotel itself—a large town to have so important an hotel, but not a capital city. In other words, there w
as a certain probability the hotel was situated in a large town comparatively near the English Channel, Paris and Brussels being excepted.
As French sat pondering over the affair, he saw suddenly that further information was obtainable from the fact that the lettering on a rubber stamp is always done symmetrically. Once more rising, he found a small piece of tracing paper, and placing this over the mutilated receipt stamp, he began to print in the missing letters of the first line. His printing was not very good, but he did not mind that. All he wanted was to get the spacing of the letters correct, and to this end he took a lot of trouble. He searched through the advertisements in several papers until he found some type of the same kind as that of the … uit, and by carefully measuring the other letters he at last satisfied himself as to just where the P of Pour acquit would stand. This, he hoped, would give him the number of letters in the names of both the hotel and the town. Drawing a line down at right angles to the t of acquit, he found that the n of … lon projected slightly over a quarter inch farther along, while the S of the town was almost directly beneath. By drawing another line down from the P of Pour, and measuring these same distances from it, he found the lengths of the names of hotel and town, and by further careful examination and spacing of type, he reached definite conclusions. The name of the hotel, including the word hotel, contained from eighteen to twenty letters and that of the town six, more or less according to whether letters like I or W predominated.
He was pleased with his progress. Starting from nothing he had evolved the conception of an important hotel—the something-lon, in a large town situated in France or Belgium, and comparatively near the English Channel, the name of the town consisting of five, six or seven letters of which the last one was S. Surely, he thought, such an hotel would not be hard to find.
Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery Page 19