A Scream in Soho

by John G. Brandon

  That the rent of that particular flat—he pointed it out as the one showing six balconied windows on the right hand of the front and overlooking Park Lane and that plaisance itself—was fifteen hundred pounds a year, and that, taking it all round, the mere acquisition of such a flat was a guarantee not only of extreme financial solvency, but also of respectability, as the inquiries made by the manager in both directions were exhaustive.

  There were quite a number of other things which McCarthy either wheedled or forced from the big linkman which more than ever strengthened the opinion that, where the beautiful Tessa Domenico was concerned, there was very definitely something more afoot than met the eye.

  One last, but most pregnant question he put to the linkman.

  “And I suppose, James,” he said, “that if I wanted to pay a little visit to the flat, purely an official visit, ye’ll understand, without the formality of being taken up and announced, or, for the matter of that, anyone knowing about it, it could be managed?”

  A rather scared look came into the man’s face.

  “Don’t forget it’s Scotland Yard that’s asking, Delaney,” he said quietly. “And we don’t forget little favours.”

  “I—I suppose…” Mr. Delaney got out nervously.

  “Then that’s all right,” McCarthy cut him off cheerfully. “I may look along later—perhaps at a time when ye could make it convenient to be at some duty that takes ye from the front door. Not that that’ll matter!”

  At that moment Withers’ cab returned and parked in the place in which it had stood before.

  “I’ll be seeing you, James—I’ll be seeing you,” McCarthy murmured pleasantly.

  With another wave of his hand he departed and took his seat in the taxi.

  “I think,” he said, “we’ll take a quick run back to Doughty Street first. I fancy a word with Tessa Domenico’s landlady is indicated. I beg her pardon—the Countess Something Hellner.”

  McCarthy’s one question to that lady was brief and to the point. Did her late lodger, Miss Tessa Domenico, send out a call from the telephone belonging to the house at one o’clock that morning? The landlady’s answer was quite as terse and equally to the point. Miss Domenico had not, and for the very simple reason that since leaving the house at about half-past eleven the night before, she had not returned to it until half-past seven this morning.

  “Sich goings on,” she was commencing with a virtuous snort, when McCarthy cut her short.

  “I know; I know,” he interrupted with a glance over the dingy hall. “Sich goings on have never been known in your respectable household before. Well, I believe y’, madam, but there are thousands that wouldn’t—including the lads of the ‘E’ Division, Metropolitan Police.”

  But, in spite of this jocosity McCarthy left the place in thoughtful, indeed, in an extremely grim mood.

  Chapter XIX

  McCarthy Paralyses His Superior Officer

  It was somewhere in the region of midday that Sir William Haynes’ phone rang out sharply; lifting the receiver he found that the man who happened to be uppermost in his thoughts at the moment was on the line to him—Detective Inspector McCarthy.

  “I say, Mac,” he exclaimed. “They seem to have been going it very hot in Soho last night. Do you know that there’s been a third murder there since midnight?”

  “Indeed? Who is it this time?” McCarthy asked in a voice which suggested that the subject was a matter of complete indifference to him.

  “You’ll never guess in a hundred years,” the A.C. returned, almost excitedly.

  “I’m not trying,” the inspector said calmly. “If it’s Floriello Mascagni you mean, I could have told you that within a quarter of an hour of the time of the murder. And let me correct you upon another point, Bill. Old Joe Anselmi, who I take it is one of the three you mention, was murdered before midnight, not after. Not so very long before, possibly only ten minutes or so, but the first duty of an Assistant Commissioner of Police is to have his facts right.”

  “You knew about Mascagni then?” the A.C. asked, somewhat snappily for him.

  “Between you and I, Bill—or p’raps it’s you and me, blest if I know—I was the first that knew anything about that particular bump-off; to be precise, I discovered the body and notified the police—when I’d done with it.”

  “You discovered…”

  “I discovered the body and notified the police,” McCarthy repeated. “And it wasn’t any too pretty a sight. Nothing to be compared with the ‘lady’ of Soho Square, of course, but you don’t see that kind of butchery every day—the Lord be thanked.”

  “Anything new in that direction, Mac?” Sir William asked avidly.

  “Quite a number of things,” McCarthy answered placidly, “though they are not ready to be the subject of a full official report yet awhile. When they are I fancy they’ll make nice juicy reading for the Sunday newspapers.”

  “Where are you ringing from now?” the A.C. wanted to know.

  “From a telephone-booth not far from Oxford Street,” McCarthy informed him. “I’ve been doing quite a little bit of running round this morning, Bill—long before you were out of your bed, I daresay. By the way, old sawbones turned up with most unusual alacrity at the mortuary after you’d rung him up. You must have used the honeyed tongue on him, Bill; he was as bucked as the divil.”

  “Did he get anything useful out of his P.M., that’s the big thing. Anything that is going to help us stop those plans getting out of the country, Mac?” he asked anxiously.

  “We’ll do that, all right,” McCarthy assured him. “I want you to lend a hand and without asking any questions, Bill. There’s a certain dirty hole of a wine shop called the Circolo Venezia that I want watched. And when I say watched I don’t mean that I want eight tons of human beef spread out all round it so that no one could mistake either who they are, or what they’re at. I want clever youngsters put on to this game; chaps who don’t look police, or act like them—that clear?”

  “Perfectly. You won’t give me any inkling of what’s afoot?”

  “I’ll tell you this much, Bill. Those plans passed through that joint of Fasoli’s last night, and in my opinion one man who had something to do with them was Floriello Mascagni. Whether it was through them that he was murdered, I can’t say; but I’m quite certain of one thing, and that was that he was put ‘on the spot,’ definitely. There’s another angle of that crime looming up very strongly, and it looks very much to me as though a hunch, a quite unexplainable hunch I had is going to turn up trumps. However, you see to the Fasoli side of it, and if any of the big bugs of the H.O. or the War Office start worryin’ your little guts about those plans tell them that you’ve reason for believing that they’ll be back in official hands before the day is out.”

  “That will put me in a most invidious position if they’re not, Mac,” Haynes said worriedly.

  “Forget it,” McCarthy responded lightly, “let your mind dwell upon the glory that’ll be yours when you do hand ’em back.”

  Without warning he made one of those sudden and disconcerting switches of his.

  “By the way, Bill, have you been to the Baroness Lena Eberhardt’s house lately? I should perhaps say how long is it since you paid her a visit?”

  “What has that to do with it?” Sir William asked sharply.

  “The business of the interrogated is to answer questions as simply and directly as possible, not ask others in return which are merely evasive replies,” McCarthy said whimsically.

  “You shoot from one thing to another like a—a…”

  “Gadfly,” McCarthy supplied. “I repeat the question, Bill, how long since you visited at the Baroness Lena Eberhardt’s house?”

  “Although I still don’t see what that has to do with the business in hand, I’ll answer you. I should think it’s a matter of quite a couple of months since I had a
cup of afternoon tea there.”

  “Look at that, now!” McCarthy said softly. “The A.C. takes afternoon tea with the beautiful baroness in her mansion in Grosvenor Square. And I suppose,” he continued, “that during that, or any other previous calls you might have made, the possibilities are that you might have met some of her friends.”

  “Of course I’ve met some of her friends—any amount of them. The baroness is one of the best known and most popular women in society—you’d have a hard job to go anywhere without meeting acquaintances of hers.”

  “Ah, evasive again, Bill,” the inspector chided. “I wasn’t speaking about her social acquaintances. I meant her own intimate friends, those to be met at her house.”

  “I have met some who might be called her really intimate friends,” the Assistant Commissioner replied, the note of perplexity strong in his voice. “And I’ve met them at her house.”

  “Ah!” came softly from McCarthy. “Now we’re getting somewhere. And were any of them Austrian, like herself, Bill? I mean those who were lucky enough to light out prior to Hitler’s precious anschluss, or even after?”

  There was a moment’s pause before Sir William answered.

  “Some of them were, Mac. Look here, what’s at the bottom of all this questioning?”

  “Just give me the answers, Bill, and leave what’s at the bottom of it to me,” the inspector returned smoothly. “Believe me I’m not wasting the breath I’ll be wanting one of these fine days. You’re quite sure,” he proceeded, “that they were Austrian, and not German, by any chance? I reckon to know my Continentals fairly well, but there are times when I’ve a devil of a job to tell the difference.”

  The troubled note came into the A.C.’s voice again.

  “So far as I can tell you, Mac, they were Austrians, but I may have been mistaken, of course. They certainly were introduced to me as Austrians, mostly of the class we’re speaking of. I’ve no reason for doubting the baroness. Have you?” he shot swiftly.

  “Me? The good Lord forbid that I should take any such liberty! What about her servants? Did any of them that you might have run across strike you as being of the true Teuton breed?”

  Again there was a pause before Haynes answered.

  “N-no,” he answered, on a long-drawn thoughtful note. “I can’t say that any I’ve encountered did.”

  “What about Heinrich?” McCarthy questioned. “Do you know which of ’em he happens to be?”

  “Heinrich; Heinrich,” Haynes repeated. “Yes, I do happen to know that particular one. He’s her butler—a confidential servant who she brought with her from Vienna.”

  “Look at that, now,” McCarthy said again, in that soft, enigmatic way he had. “And is there anything about Heinrich which might lead you to think that he was of Teutonic origin?”

  “Well,” Haynes answered thoughtfully. “Come to that, Mac, as far as build and general appearance goes he certainly could be German—of the old under-officer type that we got so familiar with in the war. But, of course,” he added hastily, “that doesn’t say that he is German for a moment. I can’t believe that a lady who hates the Nazis and all their works as much as she does would have a German for her major-domo, for that I understood was practically the man’s position there.”

  “It doesn’t seem very likely—does it,” McCarthy said emolliently, in fact so much so, that it added considerably to the perplexity of mind of his superior officer.

  “Look here, Mac,” he snapped. “Let’s have done with all this. I hate to say it, but as your superior officer I demand to know what’s at the bottom of all this questioning. You’ve something in your mind, and it’s my business to know what it is. What is it that you’re trying to say as far as the Baroness Lena Eberhardt is concerned?”

  “Now, now, now,” McCarthy chided. “Temper, Bill, does no good to anyone and, in particular, clouds the judgment of those who sit in high places—like yourself. The question really at the bottom of my mind is when are you likely to take tea with the lady again? Now don’t fly off the handle; just give the question your kind consideration and the questioner a civil answer.”

  Across the line McCarthy heard the Assistant Commissioner choke down something. “I have an invitation to look in upon the baroness any time that I’m passing,” he said stiffly, and with obvious effort.

  “The invitation extended to you again no later than yesterday perhaps?” McCarthy questioned.

  “If it’s any part of your business, that is so,” Haynes answered tartly.

  “It’s very much my business, Bill,” the inspector told him. “And what’s more you needn’t go all up stage and high hat about it. If you’ll do what I want you to, you’ll drop in for that same cup of tea quite unannounced this afternoon, keeping in your mind the suggestion I’ve made concerning Heinrich, the lady’s butler, major-domo, or whatever you like to call him.”

  That the Assistant Commissioner was paralysed with astonishment by the request was very palpable from the tone in which he answered it.

  “You mean that?” he asked incredulously. “This isn’t some…”

  “This isn’t anything but the proper prosecution of the job you’ve assigned me to,” McCarthy said seriously. “I’ve my own reasons, and very good ones, for wanting someone who has an official eye to run the rule over that particular man, and any others he gets the opportunity of sizing up. There’s no one else at the Yard who can do it, without arousing suspicion, and that at the moment is the last thing I want. It’s up to you, of course. You’re the lad with the say so, not me.”

  A certain note in the inspector’s voice told the A.C. that, whatever there might be of what McCarthy called “phlahoolic” in his usual make-up, at the present moment he was absolutely serious.

  “All right, Mac,” he said, though reluctantly. “Since you think it’s necessary, I’ll go. Though what the woman will think of my turning up in that way, I’m dam’d if I know. I’ll have to invent some excuse about being in the immediate neighbourhood, and try to make it sound plausible. But I can tell you this,” he concluded grimly, “that if…”

  “If everything doesn’t turn out one hundred per cent good,” McCarthy cut in, “the good Lord help Patrick Aloysius McCarthy, for nobody else at the Yard will. I’ll chance it. You be there, Bill, and for the love of Mike,” he went on incorrigibly, “don’t forget any of the pretty little parlour tricks your mama taught you at her knee. Be a credit to the Force, and the Force will be a credit to you. And for all you know there may be other distinguished guests drop in to keep you company. You never can tell, as Mr. Bernard Shaw says.”

  And before the Assistant Commissioner could find any suitable retort to this persiflage, McCarthy had rung off, leaving Sir William Haynes using language totally unfitted for an ex-officer and gentleman, not to mention one of the high executives of New Scotland Yard.

  Chapter XX

  McCarthy Strikes a Snag

  It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when Withers’ cab pulled up again against the Hyde Park railings opposite that magnificent set of mansion flats. In his little box-office in the hall, ex-convict James Delaney was perusing the pages of an afternoon paper when a shadow fell across him which made him start. He started still more when he discovered the identity of the person who threw that shadow—Detective Inspector McCarthy!

  “In?” the inspector questioned, with a jerk of his head upstairs.

  “Out,” Delaney answered somewhat nervously. “Not expected back till about four-thirty. First floor, and first door to the right. It’s right next to the lift.”

  “I’ll use the stairs,” the inspector said. “Lifts are an idle habit.”

  Without another word he turned up a magnificent marble staircase. As he did so, out of the corner of his eye he saw Delaney hurriedly depart along the hallway.

  The landing, off which a corridor little less in opulence
than the hallway ran, was entirely empty. Not a sign of a living person was there to be seen, either at that level or on the stairs leading upwards. Taking a picklock from his pocket, he deftly inserted it in the keyhole of that door to the right of the elevator, gave a couple of cunning twists, then pushed it open and walked quietly in.

  He found himself in an inner, small, but again ornately-furnished hall which led into a large drawing-room. Crossing to the front windows he saw that they looked directly down upon Park Lane. From the balcony outside he could have hailed Withers as easily as from the pavement.

  He very quickly decided that this particular room would have no interest for him. It was too newly occupied to contain anything likely to be of use to him. But he looked about it and attended to one or two things which might prove serviceable later. From that he passed into a bedroom very nearly as large, and certainly quite as ornate as the drawing-room itself. Here had been placed those brand-new, expensive trunks which Tessa Domenico had removed from her lodging in Doughty Street that morning. They were still locked, and, apparently, had not been touched since the servitors of the flats had set them down. He would give them some personal attention as soon as he had been right through the flat; experience had told him that it was bad business not to know the lay of the land in any place where trouble might come upon you at any moment.

  Out of this commodious sleeping apartment was a completely marbled bathroom which surpassed anything he had ever had the pleasure of taking his ablutions in, even in the most expensive hotels. It was double-doored; the one leading from the bedroom, and another opening into a dressing-room attached, which again opened on to an inner corridor which contained four doors.

  Trying the first he came to, he discovered it to be that of another bedroom. Closing the door after him he went on to the next; it too was yet another, and even these palpably extra, or “spare,” rooms were furnished in a state to make an ordinary man stare. No question that if these particular flats were, as they were accredited with being, the most expensive in London, they certainly gave the person who leased them something for their money.