The Man Without A Face

by The Man Without a Face (retail) (epub)

  “There you are, Mr. Harrison,” she said, with a huge smile. “Rooms next door to each other. That’s where the conspirators made up their plots.”

  Mrs. Tunnery gave a fat chuckle as Harrison went into the first room.

  “This room has not been turned out at all, you say?” asked Harrison.

  “No need to sharpen your eyes, Mr. Harrison,” said Mrs. Tunnery. “That’s true, it hasn’t. Nor has the other. I’d better admit that, too, straight away. But I’m sorry for your wife, if you can tell that so easily.”

  “He hasn’t a wife,” said Henry, solemnly.

  “Lord, lord,” chuckled Mrs. Tunnery; “how on earth did the women come to miss him?”

  Harrison was by this time looking in the odd drawers of the room.

  “Perhaps he doesn’t want to marry them,” said Henry, in a superior tone; “I don’t blame him myself.”

  “Stuff and nonsense,” answered Mrs. Tunnery. “Even a detective can’t escape a woman who means to get him. I should have said he was too clever to keep single.”

  Henry was just going to reply with a scathing epigram when Harrison called him to help straighten out the crumpled papers which he had turned out on to the bed from a waste-paper basket.

  “I’m sorry to have made such a mess, Mrs. Tunnery,” said Harrison. “Your guests seem to have used their paper baskets as dustbins.”

  Mrs. Tunnery looked ruefully at her counterpane littered with cigar ends, ash, age-old apple-cores and other rubbish. “Never mind,” she said, “but I think I’ll put a newspaper down for you in the next room.”

  She hurried out while Harrison carefully studied each piece of paper from the basket.

  “Nothing at all,” he said, as he looked at the last piece. “Now for the next room.”

  Here they found that Mrs. Tunnery, with the speed which belied her weight, had covered the whole bed with newspapers. Harrison went through the same performance. The contents of the wastepaper basket were very similar to those he had previously examined. Again he went through it, paper by paper, while Mrs. Tunnery, Bamberger, and Henry watched him.

  “They would be poor criminals if they left any clue like that,” said Mrs. Tunnery, with terrific wisdom. “I’ve never read of any luck like that.”

  “You’re right, Mrs. Tunnery,” answered Harrison. “I haven’t had any luck. But you will admit that the cleverest people make the simplest mistakes. That is why one could not afford to overlook the wastepaper baskets.”

  “I feel disappointed too,” said the large lady. “You make me feel I want to put a nice fat clue in the basket when you’re not looking and then pick it up all innocently and say, ‘Surely, Mr. Harrison, you seem to have passed over this.’”

  Harrison laughed. He was not greatly disappointed, for the chances of finding anything of value were very heavily against him.

  “I said I would tell you what I was looking for,” said Harrison, turning to Bamberger and Henry. “As Mrs. Tunnery is so willing to fake up something just to please us—and I think it extraordinarily kind of her—I might tell her what it is I want. I hoped to find an envelope with a certain address in Havre written on it.”

  “Good heavens,” said Philip. “Do you connect the two as closely as that?”

  “I do, Bamberger,” answered Harrison, “and even if I haven’t found the proof here I have little doubt in my mind about it.”

  “‘Well, I don’t suppose I could have spelt it properly,” said Mrs. Tunnery, “so little use I should be to you. If you’ve finished here, Mr. Harrison, we’ll go downstairs again. I can’t bear the sight of these rooms as they are. They make me thoroughly ashamed.”

  They all went downstairs and found Mr. Albion Tunnery waiting in the hall.

  “There are just a few points I would like to clear up about your visitors,” said Harrison. “I particularly want to know about a man they called the ‘Head.’”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you on that, Mr. Harrison,” answered Tunnery. “He arrived after Eva and I had gone to bed and he’d gone again before I got up in the morning. I said I got up because Eva likes her bed. There isn’t a person who stays in bed longer than Eva in Penstoke.”

  “That’s true,” commented Mrs. Tunnery, complacently, “but look at the amount of me that is to get into bed. It would be a pity to have to shift it too quickly. And besides, that night of all nights.”

  Harrison looked curiously at her.

  “Why, Mrs. Tunnery, that night of all nights?”

  “It’s nothing, Mr. Harrison,” said Tunnery, anxiously. “She didn’t sleep well, that’s all.”

  “Oh, very well, Albion,” answered his wife, with a sigh.

  “But you usually sleep well, Mrs. Tunnery?” asked Harrison.

  “Like a tortoise,” was the reply.

  “So there was something which spoilt your sleep?”

  “It’s no good keeping anything from him, Albion,” exclaimed Mrs. Tunnery. “It’s Clay Harrison himself.”

  “Was it the food?” asked Harrison.

  “No food ever disagreed with me,” replied Mrs. Tunnery with conviction.

  “I suppose you must know, Mr. Harrison,” said Tunnery regretfully, “but you won’t repeat it, will you? Penstoke is such a place for gossip. That’s why I told Eva to keep quiet. It can only do harm and gives the place a bad name. You’d better tell him, Eva; it’s your story, isn’t it?”

  “Well, Mr. Harrison,” started Mrs. Tunnery, thoroughly happy to be the centre of the picture, “I had been sleeping the sleep of the just—nothing whatever on my conscience at present—when I woke with a start. I thought I heard voices. It must have been about two in the morning. I shook myself and was just going off to sleep again when I was certain I heard voices out in the yard. So I jumped out of bed—”

  “Your wonderful language again,” commented Tunnery. “If Eva really jumped out of bed she’d go through into the room underneath.”

  “Albion, keep your jokes for a more fitting occasion,” said his wife with dignity. “I went to the window, quiet as a mouse—” Tunnery opened his mouth to speak but closed it again—“and out in the yard what do you think I saw?”

  “What?” asked Harrison, patiently.

  “A man and a woman,” answered Mrs. Tunnery, with a melodramatic trill.

  “Disgraceful,” said Tunnery. “The ‘Sun’ of all places, too.”

  “They were close together,” continued Mrs. Tunnery. “It was a fairly light night. The woman seemed to be wearing riding breeches but there was no doubt it was a woman.”

  “And the man?” said Harrison.

  “Nothing particular about him,” replied Mrs. Tunnery; “nothing special. You could hardly have noticed him, and they were talking away to each other.”

  “You can guess what they were saying,” said Tunnery, with a meaning look.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” said Mrs. Tunnery. “Albion was sleeping like a bull. The whole place would be on the go by the time I had made enough noise to wake Albion. I had hardly decided to open the window and ask them what they meant by it when they seemed to say good-bye and the man went to the back door and the woman towards the archway. They didn’t seem best pleased with each other either.”

  “How was that?” asked Harrison.

  “Well, as she left him she spoke in a bit louder tone than before and I was just able to hear.”

  Harrison, Henry, and Bamberger were now listening excitedly to Mrs. Tunnery’s story and she relished the interest of her audience.

  “What did she say?” said Harrison.

  “As far as I could catch it she said, ‘You make me cross,’” replied Mrs. Tunnery. “So there must have been trouble, mustn’t there? As she went through the archway I rushed across the room to the window on the road—we have windows on each side, Mr. Harrison—and there I saw a motor-car standing.”

  “She got into it, of course?” asked Harrison.

  “Of course she did,” said Mrs. Tunn
ery, “and zip—she was off like a flash of lightning. And, Mr. Harrison, do you know who she was?”

  “Eva, Eva,” cried her husband, “it’s only guessing. You mustn’t talk like that. Better leave well alone.”

  “But he’ll only get it out of me,” said Mrs. Tunnery piteously.

  “It was somebody staying at Penstoke House,” said Harrison.

  “You see,” said Mrs. Tunnery, turning triumphantly to her husband. “What did I say, Albion? You can’t deceive Mr. Harrison. You’re perfectly right, it was somebody staying there. No more or less than the wild Miss Williams, the one who drives furiously all over the country. I’d know the motor-car anywhere. I shouldn’t have thought a lady like her would have gone on like that. It was a surprise, I can tell you.”

  “And that is the whole of the story, Mrs. Tunnery?” asked Harrison.

  “I can’t think of anything else, Mr. Harrison,” replied Mrs. Tunnery.

  “Women talk,” said Albion Tunnery grimly. “That’s the whole story right enough and not very pleasant for the ‘Sun’, I can tell you. She said you would have got it out of her just the same, but if ever there was a talker in Penstoke—”

  “Now don’t be hard, Mr. Tunnery, please,” answered Harrison. “I promise you I won’t repeat it and, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Tunnery has helped me enormously.”

  Mrs. Tunnery’s whole corpulence seemed to show her pleasure and she expressed her regret that she could not work up a few more attractive details.

  “And this man must have been the ‘Head’?” asked Harrison.

  “Certainly,” replied Tunnery. “Either Josephs or Skelofski must have shown him how to get in and out of the back door. Josephs, I should say, he seemed to take the lead in everything.”

  “Did you say anything to Josephs about it?” asked Harrison.

  “I asked him if the man he expected had come and he just said ‘yes’,” said Tunnery. “I vaguely hinted that he did not stay in his room but I did not dare say too much; you know what these foreigners are and he took no notice whatever.”

  “Do you think he understood what you meant?”

  “Of course he didn’t,” broke in Mrs. Tunnery. “When Albion gives a vague hint, as he calls it, there’s no one in the world would understand it. I expect he said he hoped he slept well and thought he had been jolly clever about it, too.”

  “My dear Eva—” expostulated Tunnery.

  “And there’s nothing more to be said about the other two?” continued Harrison.

  “I don’t think so,” answered Tunnery. “They were quiet sort of men, out between meals, quite free with standing drinks and never argued about their bills.”

  “Quite perfect visitors,” said Bamberger.

  “I think you might say that,” said Tunnery, “without it being a vague hint.” Mrs. Tunnery laughed uproariously.

  “Then if you don’t mind,” said Harrison, “there are one or two people coming to see me, Mr. Tunnery, and I’d like to have a room to myself for a little while.”

  Tunnery immediately became the good landlord and showing the men into an overcrowded sitting-room, he and his wife left them to themselves.

  “You’ve found something, sir,” said Henry, seeing the smile on Harrison’s face.

  “We’ve found something, Henry,” answered Harrison, lighting a cigar; “the first real clue.”

  “What is it?” asked Philip Bamberger, eagerly.

  “Surely there’s no need for me to tell you,” said Harrison. “We all heard it.”

  “I think you might explain, sir,” said Henry.

  “What did Miss Williams say to the unknown man?” asked Harrison.

  “‘You make me cross,’ “replied Henry.

  “That’s what Mrs. Tunnery thought she heard,” said Harrison. “But, think a moment. Is that the kind of phrase Miss Williams would use? I doubt it very much. Mrs. Tunnery might use it; it’s her kind of language but not Miss Williams’. No, certainly not Miss Williams’.”

  “And then—” asked Bamberger.

  “Can’t you see,” said Harrison, pulling quickly at his cigar, “you make me cross. A queer word, one that Mrs. Tunnery would use; cross. Cross, cross—”

  “Mr. Cross,” said Henry excitedly.

  “The unknown man was Mr. Cross,” said Bamberger.

  “Exactly,” said Harrison. “Mrs. Tunnery heard Miss Williams’ final greeting to him. We have discovered something at last.”

  Chapter XI

  Harrison’s Visitors

  “That has given me something to think about,” said Harrison, reflectively, “so I propose to give a little time of it.”

  “What do you want Mr. Bamberger and me to do, sir?” asked Henry.

  “Thank you for taking the hint, Henry,” answered Harrison. “It strikes me that I had better be alone for a little while. My next interviews, if the particular gentlemen arrive, might not go so well if there were a lot of us about. Far better for me to be alone. Have you a motoring map, Bamberger?”

  “Why, certainly,” said Philip Bamberger. “It’s in the car. I’ll go and get it.”

  “Thank you again, Henry,” said Harrison, when they were alone. “I really don’t know what I should do without you. Really I would much rather have you here with me but I think it would be better if you went with Bamberger.”

  “That’s what I thought, sir,” said Henry, somewhat impressed by his own astuteness.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust him,” said Harrison, “but it’s rather important that he should do exactly what I want. You understand, don’t you, Henry?”

  “Of course, sir,” said Henry, magnanimously, “although it will be rather dull.”

  By this time Bamberger had reappeared with the map and Harrison opened it and spread it on the table.

  “I think forty miles would be about right,” he said to himself. “Must be on the main road and not too large. Here we are,” he went on, putting his finger on the map, “I shall be awfully grateful, Bamberger, if you would drive Henry to Hawcross and wait at the most obvious hotel until I come.”

  “I expect it will be the ‘White Hart’,” said Henry. “Heaven knows why, but it always seems to be the ‘White Hart’ on this road.”

  “Just wait?” asked Bamberger.

  “That’s all,” answered Harrison. “I’ll get along as soon as I possibly can. And as you go, Henry, ask Mrs. Tunnery to send me in some tea.”

  The pair had soon left the yard in Bamberger’s car and Harrison settled himself down with his cigar in an armchair which age more than architecture had rendered comfortable.

  Mrs. Tunnery appeared herself with the tea-tray.

  “All alone, sir?” she asked.

  “It looks like it,” said Harrison. “They’ve deserted me.”

  “Something deep, I expect,” said Mrs. Tunnery. “Thinking over the clues.”

  “That’s it, Mrs. Tunnery,” answered Harrison. “All great detectives do that. I find I like a cigar better than a pipe and a cup of tea better than a dose of drugs, but that is the only difference.”

  “Drugs, sir?” she exclaimed, producing a small circular box from her pocket, triumphantly. “What is this then?”

  Harrison took the box and opened it carefully. It contained a white powder. He smelt it very carefully.

  “Mrs. Tunnery, where on earth did you get this?” he exclaimed.

  “What is it, sir?” she asked, her eyes twinkling with the joke.

  “Cocaine, Mrs. Tunnery,” he answered, “and pretty powerful, too. You wouldn’t get this at any chemist’s.”

  Mrs. Tunnery laughed uproariously. “A funny place for a chemist’s shop,” she gurgled.

  Harrison closed the box carefully and waited.

  “If you would like to know,” she answered, “it was somewhere where the great detective didn’t think to look. When the great detective, Clay Harrison, went downstairs, the cunning Mrs. Albion Tunnery thought she had better look up the chimney.”
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  “Up the chimney?”

  “Yes, where the children always look.”

  “Where?”

  “In the room Mr. Josephs had. It was on a ledge of brick just where one’s hand could reach. I suppose he put it there for safety’s sake.”

  “You win, Mrs. Tunnery,” said Harrison. “You’re a better detective than I am. This may be useful and it may not, but at any rate, I’d like to keep it.”

  “Certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Tunnery. “It’s another clue to think about. I hope you like your tea and I’ll leave you to yourself now.”

  She gave a fat laugh as she went out of the room and Harrison looked thoughtfully at the little box of cocaine. He felt that this brought a new element into the case. This he had not quite expected. Possibly it was not a clue, as Mrs. Tunnery suggested. Possibly Mr. Josephs had need of it for his personal use. But the box represented quite a fair sum of money and had to be obtained in many devious ways. Even for Josephs to know how to get hold of it suggested a fair knowledge of international roguery. The drug-dealers of the world were a suspicious lot of people and Josephs must be well in with them to obtain it. Harrison’s knowledge from other cases told him that this cocaine could not have been obtained except through these means.

  All the same, it might be a clue, and, if so, where did it lead? Could it be that it led to William Marston? Was he a dope-taker and did his striking of Bamberger result from some none-too-pretty dealings with an international gang? It seemed hardly possible. He hadn’t looked like that. But, of course, Harrison hadn’t seriously expected to find anything of this nature. That might be the direction the clue led but if it was, it would upset all the theories which Harrison had been building and, he thought, successfully building, on the isolated facts he had already obtained.

  At moment a large car drew up to the “Sun” and, looking out of the window, Harrison could see that it was the one that had taken him from the station to Penstoke House. He saw the chauffeur get out, give rather a furtive look around and then come quickly into the inn. Immediately afterwards he heard the chauffeur asking Mrs. Tunnery for him.