Sykes turned his head and crossed his arms.
“He hears of the approaching departure of the baroness from Liverpool and he is desperate. So he decides to forge her signature, which as the owner of the bank, it is easy for him and to steal her money.”
“Lies!” said Sykes, calmly.
“Non, Monsieur!” Poiret walked to Watkins and he took a document from his pocket and gave it to Poiret. Poiret waved it in the air. “It is here, Monsieur. The proof of the empty account of the Baroness Bluemayne.”
Lord Henderson said, “How did he expect to get away with that?”
“With the murder, Monsieur!”
“Lies,” screamed Sykes.
“The murder of Baroness Bluemayne. That is the reason, he is on the train.”
“Lies,” screamed Sykes again and sprang up. He was forcibly seated by half a dozen policemen.
“The maid,” she was surprised to find Monsieur Sykes also in the sleeper. He asks her for the key of the room of the baroness and promised her the large reward. In making this offer he produces the wallet, which it is filled with the banknotes. Mademoiselle Coleen, she is not willing to give the key, but she is greedy and becomes possessed by the idea of robbing him. She secures the sleeping liquid of the baroness and drugs the conductor in Leicester and hides in the vacant compartment. Is that not so, Mademoiselle Coleen?”
Coleen remained silent and stared with an insolent look at the detective. The baroness looked at her with a pleading expression in her eyes.
“Mademoiselle Coleen, she waits until Monsieur Sykes, he leaves his compartment to go to the gentlemen’s room and then enters with the stolen keys of the drugged conductor and searches for the money. Her surprise is big, when she discovers that there is not the few thousands of Pounds, but the tens of thousands. Just then enters Monsieur Patrick Stewart.” Poiret held up the Welshman’s notebook. “He is the police officer, who has been corrupted by the greed and who according to his own words is out to blackmail Mr. Sykes. Mademoiselle Coleen and Monsieur Stewart have the argument over the money and decide to split the money and leave the compartment. Just then Monsieur Sykes, he enters the room. There is the fight and Monsieur Stewart, he is stabbed in the chest and dies. What happened, Mademoiselle Coleen?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she answered.
“Mademoiselle, please to help yourself! To talk!”
“I won’t talk!”
The baroness cried out, in tears, “Coleen, for the love of our parents, please tell him the truth. Don’t let them die of a broken heart, because their favourite daughter is an accomplice to murder.”
“I say! The baroness and her maid are sisters?”
“Oui, mon ami!”
“It is not her fault. I was lucky to meet a kind gentleman, who married me and she was never that lucky. Never! And now robbery and murder,” she sobbed.
“I didn’t have the knife. I wanted the money,” said the maid.
“Who brought the knife?” asked Watkins, quickly.
“Stewart! Sykes took it away from him and stabbed him with it. He then threatened me, but I begged him to give me some of the money and I would disappear. He told me to go through the window to the roof and that he would then hand me my money. He lied.”
“You were wearing the clothes of your sister, Mademoiselle?”
“Yes. She lets me have her old things.”
“So it was Monsieur Sykes, who gave the alarm signal and stopped the train?”
“Yes!” Coleen replied. “I descended from the train not far from a small station. There I took the local train for London. Arriving at Waterloo Station, I heard of the inquiry and waited.”
“Meanwhile, Monsieur Sykes has seen his plan to murder Baroness Bluemayne come apart and more, there is the corpse in his compartment. He decides to take the identity of the dead man and to take the money and disappear. But there is the obstacle, Madame Bluemayne. She knows him. He threatens her, telling her he knows where her sister is. Oui, because he knows the secret. That is the reason he is bribing the maid to help him win the hand of not her mistress, but her sister. Is that not so, Madame?”
The baroness nodded, crying in her handkerchief.
“At the railway station, there is the police investigation. Monsieur Sykes, using the identity of the dead man, he is able to fool the police into letting him leave the railway station.” Poiret glanced at Inspector Watkins, who balled up his hands into fists and grit his teeth. Poiret smiled and wanted to say something, but a train whistle made him look at his pocket watch. “Mademoiselle Coleen, please to tell us, what happened after you left the station.”
Coleen nodded, “I saw Sykes leave in company with another man, a policeman I know now. I followed Sykes. I saw him leaving the restaurant and I demanded my money. He offered me five thousand Pounds as the price for my silence. I went with him to Hotel Callenberg, where I was to receive my money. There he double crossed me again and locked me up and disappeared with all the money. That is the truth, sir. I am no murderer. I only wished to have some money like my sister has and not wear her old clothes anymore.”
“Mademoiselle, Poiret…”
Another train whistle cut him short. He looked at his watch.
“Vite! Haven, please to take the luggage. The train, it will depart.”
And Poiret rushed to the door and opened it. Captain Haven rolled his eyes and picked up their luggage. He slowly walked to the door, which Poiret held open for him.
“Not to waste the time, mon cher Haven! We must not miss the third train to Brighton.”
The little man tipped his hat to the dumbfounded ladies and gentlemen in the waiting room and closed the door.
THE END
Jules Poiret Mystery Series
The Five Casks
A Woman’s Life
The Murder of Lady Malvern
Murder in Torquay
Lord Hammershield dies
Panto
English Rose
Sir Alexander dies
Murder on the Liverpool Express (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 17) Page 10