by John Rowland
“Well,” said Shelley, and paused. It was now his turn to find things rather difficult to say.
“Carry on,” said Moss with savage glee, experiencing considerable pleasure in being thus able to turn the tables on the famous detective.
“Miss Arnell is a very beautiful young lady, and an heiress to boot,” snapped Shelley taking this conversational hurdle in his stride! “Also her fiancé is in prison—or was, until he was released early this evening.”
“Are you suggesting that I was making up to Miss Arnell with the idea of marrying her?” shouted Moss.
“I was suggesting nothing,” said Shelley, whose little experiment had succeeded. Moss was crimson with rage at the mere suggestion. This was no assumed temper; and Shelley felt now fairly confident that the young Jew was completely innocent of criminal intent. The detective had put this offensive suggestion with the idea of seeing the reaction of his companion, for he felt sure that a guilty man would either have treated the idea as something merely to be smiled or sniggered at, or else as a serious idea which could be amicably discussed. A completely innocent man would be almost certain to react as Moss had done.
“Well,” Moss stormed at him, “if you didn’t suggest that, what the hell were you getting at, anyway? I tell you, you fellows think that you can get away with anything when you get people in here. Well, you can’t as far as I’m concerned; and the sooner you get to know that the better it will be for you, and for all concerned.”
“Now, that’s all right, Mr. Moss,” Shelley murmured, smoothing him down as best he could. “Please forget that anything of the sort was ever said. I quite see that it was impossible that you could have done, to have contemplated doing, anything of the sort.”
“That’s all right then,” murmured Moss in slightly mollified tones.
“Good,” remarked Shelley. “But what I want to know, Mr. Moss, is this: who could have done it? After all, even though he is a criminal, who has, for some unknown reason, kidnapped Miss Arnell, he must be known to you personally in some way.”
“Why do you think that?”
“That letter,” Shelley pointed out. “It shows a pretty considerable knowledge of your habits, of your job, and of what you do. After all, one must know you fairly well to be aware that you can fish up a second-hand car of a particular make, year, and price. Or don’t you think so?”
Moss considered this for a few moments. “I don’t know,” he said at length. “After all, I am pretty well known in the world of second-hand cars, you know. I must have dealings with a score of people a month—or more, even. Some months I might have dealings with as many as fifty people, and each of those fifty would have some friends to whom they’d mention my name. You know—‘Got a decent second-hand car from a chap called Moss’—that sort of thing.”
“But that’s different from knowing your private address and so on,” Shelley objected. “After all, the letter was addressed to you personally at your home address. Don’t forget that.”
“I’m in the ’phone book,” Moss reminded him.
“Yes, that’s so,” said Shelley. He felt almost “stumped.” The thing did, on reflection, seem almost inexplicable, unless the man was someone who knew Moss well, he thought; and yet each of the little points, which in sum seemed to mean so much, had a perfectly natural explanation. But to the trained mind of the detective the explanations somehow did not quite ring true. There seemed to be something forced, something vaguely unnatural about them. He could not manage to lay his finger on any particular spot in the explanation which was wrong; and yet, taken as a whole it was all wrong. The detective of wide experience gets these occasional “hunches,” and it was one of Shelley’s deepest feelings that they rarely proved wrong. He felt perfectly sure that in this instance he was correct; and that the criminal, whoever he might eventually turn out to be, would be someone well known to Moss.
Before he had time to put this matter before Moss, however, Cunningham returned, his face one broad beaming smile.
“Hullo, Cunningham,” he said with a smile which answered that on Cunningham’s countenance. “You look as if you’d picked up a five-pound note. That must mean that you have some good news for us.”
“Indeed, it does, sir.”
“Well, don’t waste time, man. Tell us all about it. Fire ahead.”
“The finger-prints on the envelope were entirely Mr. Moss’s, and someone’s who we couldn’t identify,” said Cunningham.
“Right. I understand your meaning, even if your grammar isn’t all it might be,” smiled Shelley. “Probably the postman is the gentleman whom you couldn’t identify.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what we thought.”
“And the letter, man. Don’t keep us waiting.” Shelley was clearly on tenterhooks.
“The letter had a distinct thumb-print on the back,” said Cunningham with a smile, “which was identified in the department.”
“Who was it?”
“Wallace. J. K. Wallace,” returned Cunningham.
Shelley looked puzzled for a moment, and then his memory became its usual efficient self. “J. K. Wallace,” he said reflectively. “That was the man who did ten years for a cheque-book fraud, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” said Cunningham. “That was before my time at the Yard, though.”
“He came out about ten years ago,” said Shelley.
“How old would he be?” asked Cunningham.
Again Shelley reflected for a moment, and then: “Oh, not much over forty,” he said. “He was a very young fellow, not much over twenty when he was convicted. Ten years in prison, ten years out. Yes, that would make him fortyish now.”
Then he turned to Moses Moss. “Did you ever come across a man called Wallace?” he asked. “Moderate height, clean-shaven with a blue chin. Thick black hair, close-cropped?”
Now came perhaps the greatest shock which Shelley had hitherto sustained in this case. Blankly, his face showing total ignorance, Moss shook his head. “No. Never met him in my life,” he said.
“And what do we do now?” asked Shelley.
Nobody enlightened him.
Chapter XVII
An Astounding Offer
Violet was terrified, but she was firmly determined not to show it. Whatever might be the remarkable offer which this strange man was going to make, she steeled herself to meet it with real stoicism. She had nearly reached the end of her tether, and her nerves were ragged and on edge; but she kept a firm grip on herself, being resolved not to show the man the terror that had laid hold upon her.
He smiled an oily smile, and settled himself on the edge of the bed. She was standing in the middle of the room.
“Won’t you take a seat, my dear young lady?” he said, leering at her unpleasantly.
“Thank you,” she replied in the stiffest, most formal tones she could command, “but I think that I prefer to stand.”
“As you like,” he murmured with a shrug of his shoulders; “but what I have to say to you may well take some considerable time, and I feel sure that you will be tired with standing all that time. Are you certain that you will not sit down? Honestly, it is entirely for your own good that I suggest it. There is no ulterior motive in the suggestion. I can assure you of that.”
There was still a queer little trace of foreign accent in his speech, and Violet kept asking herself what was his nationality. She could not, however, make up her mind about the matter—and in any case, she told herself, what on earth did that matter?
“If you insist,” she said, “I will sit down. But I ask you, please, to be as quick as you can. I have no desire to have a long interview.”
She found herself unconsciously slipping into the stiff, formal phraseology, as if she felt that by thus keeping him conversationally at a distance, she would be able to ward off whatever danger might be threatening her.
“W
ell, neither have I,” he admitted. “I say that quite frankly. But I fear that what I have to say—the proposition I am going to put before you—requires a certain amount of explanation, and cannot be disposed of in two or three minutes, as it would seem you wish.”
“Tell me what you want, and then go,” said Violet imperiously, and he grinned. There was a little more humour in his grin now. It was not, she fancied, quite as grim and menacing as had been the smiles that he had showered on her so plenteously earlier in the interview.
“As you like,” he said, spreading his hands in quite a French fashion; and then, without more ado, he began to say what he wanted to tell her.
“You are, I understand,” he began, “engaged to be married to Mr. Harry Baker.”
“Yes.”
“Are you—what they would say, very much in love with that young gentleman?”
“Yes.”
“You still think that he will be set free by the so foolish police, eh?”
“Yes.”
“And you still think that when he is thus set free you will marry him, eh?”
“Yes.”
“You are not in a very chatty mood, are you?” he asked, leaning towards her and grinning up into her face.
“I am not,” returned Violet. “And I would remind you, sir, that this interview is not of my seeking. I understood that you wished to put some sort of proposition before me. I did not know that you were intending to cross-examine me as to certain private matters which are, after all, entirely my own affair.”
“Haughty!” he exclaimed, and chuckled loudly.
“It was necessary,” he went on, “that I should know certain things about your private life, my dear Miss Arnell, before I went on to put this proposition before you. I hope that you understand what I mean; and that you do not think that all those questions were just pieces of studied insolence on my part.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand in the least,” said Violet hotly. “I haven’t any idea what you are driving at; and, if you don’t soon explain what you want me to do, I shall begin to think that you are merely trying to waste my time—though to what end, I simply can’t imagine at all.”
Again he chuckled. “I do not waste your time, my dear young lady,” he said. “Nor, for that matter, do I waste my own, which I would guess is probably a good deal more valuable than yours.”
“Explain yourself, then, and don’t beat about the bush in this way,” said Violet.
“I will,” said he, and paused. He seemed to find his mysterious proposition, whatever it might be, exceedingly difficult to put into words, and Violet found herself gazing out of the window, admiring the lovely shades of brown and gold which were there. Again she found herself wondering precisely where she was; and she put her thought, almost unwittingly, into words.
“I wonder,” she asked, “if you would mind telling me precisely where I am?”
“Certainly, I will tell you where you are,” he replied, somewhat surprisingly. “You are in the spare bedroom of a little cottage that I keep up here for my own use in moments of emergency.”
“But where is ‘up here’?” Violet persisted, stubbornly intent, now that she had managed to get him to talk on this subject, on gaining her point.
“I see no harm,” he said quietly, “why you should not know. You are on the Yorkshire moors, not very far from Sheffield.”
“But this is lovely countryside,” she objected, and he smiled.
“You have the usual south-country idea that Yorkshire is one big, smoky, dirty city,” he said. “Sheffield is less than fifteen miles away. You seem to find that difficult to believe, do you not?”
She nodded.
“Well,” he said, “if and when you get free, you just look on a map of England in an atlas, and find a little town called Penistone. You are about a mile or two away from there at this moment.”
“Penistone?” Violet thought deeply for a moment or two. “I’ve never heard of it before,” she added.
“I do not suppose for one moment that you have,” he agreed. “Possibly it has not heard of you.” And he chuckled again at his footling little joke.
“But,” said Violet, “will you please get on with your explanation of this mysterious proposition which you were so anxious to put before me not so very long ago?”
“Ah! I had almost forgotten, in the excitement of our little geographical discussion,” he said. “But do not forget, my dear Miss Arnell, that it was you who led us off that pleasant little bypath of conversation.”
“Please,” said Violet. “I am tired of this. Tell me what it is that you wish me to do.”
“One or two more questions, if you do not mind,” he added, and then, before she had time to raise any objections, he went on hurriedly: “You have said that you are very much in love with Mr. Harry Baker. But what if he were found guilty of murder—as he almost certainly will be? What if he is hanged? What will be your feelings about marriage then, my dear young lady?”
Violet shuddered. She had to admit to herself that it seemed only too likely that Harry would be hanged. In spite of the discoveries which Mr. Fairhurst had made at her instigation, there was, she knew, still a very strong case against Harry; and it might well be that, even with the assistance of the best counsel who could be obtained, he would be unable to prove his innocence.
“I don’t think that it is in the least likely that he will be found guilty,” she announced bravely.
“We shall see about that, Miss Arnell,” returned her captor. “I think it only too likely that he will. There is an exceedingly strong case against him; he has acted most suspiciously, and, when once the police lay their hands on a man, they are not very ready to let him go.”
“But in any case, I do not see what on earth is the use of all this discussion of something that will in all probability never happen,” Violet objected.
“Take it as something purely hypothetical, Miss Arnell,” urged the man. “I assure you that your attitude on this matter is highly important.”
Violet suppressed an inclination to giggle. In spite of the terrible seriousness of her position, the thought of discussing the love-affair which had given her such joy—and above all, of discussing it with a man she scarcely knew; whose very name, even, she had never heard—seemed crazily absurd.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Merely what would be your view of marriage if Mr. Baker did not exist,” he explained.
“If Harry died, I should have no desire to marry,” she said with quiet dignity. “He is the only man I have ever cared for at all deeply; and I do not suppose that I shall ever again love anyone as I love him.”
“So? That is rather a pity,” he commented.
“Why a pity?” asked Violet. “After all, as I said just now, it is in the last degree unlikely that he should be found guilty; so really the question of what I should want to do in the event of his death does not arise.”
“But,” he said quietly, “you have to put Mr. Harry Baker right out of your life.”
“Put him out of my life?” Violet laughed aloud. “My dear sir, you don’t know what you are talking about. Harry and I will be married within a few months—as soon as we decently can, without showing any sort of disrespect to my father’s memory.”
“Alive or dead,” he persisted, “you will not marry Harry Baker.”
“And who am I to marry, pray?” she asked, with some hauteur, the question being rather a rhetorical one than one where an answer was either required or expected.
“Mr. Moses Moss,” answered the other, and again she laughed aloud.
“If Mr. Moss were the only man on earth, I should go to my grave an old maid,” she said. “Besides, why should Mr. Moss want to marry me?”
“I do not know,” said her captor, “that Mr. Moss has even considered marrying
you. But I do know that he will do so when I order him to.”
“When you order him to?”
“Precisely.”
“But what power have you that you can order other people’s lives?” she asked, and she saw the dangerous glitter of madness come into his eyes.
“I have the greatest power on earth, my dear Miss Arnell,” he said. “The power that no man or woman dare defy or neglect.”
“And that is?”
“That is the power of money.”
Violet was now between tears and laughter; but she still felt that she must argue with this man, lunatic though she was now sure that he was.
“I fear that you have not enough money to make me marry Mr. Moss,” she objected. “I would not marry him for all the money in the world. I have told you that I am very deeply in love with Harry Baker, and if I cannot marry him I shall never marry at all.”
“That is as it may be,” he said. “You now have great strength of will—or so you think. We will see what a little solitary confinement will do.”
“Am I to be kept prisoner here indefinitely?” she asked indignantly.
“No,” he replied with a smile. “You will not be kept here indefinitely, my dear Miss Arnell. I could afford to spare neither the time nor the money that would be necessary for such a course of action.”
“Then what is to happen when you realise that I am not going to give in to your outrageous demands?” asked Violet. “And you know you will be compelled to realise that sooner or later.”
“If you prove so obstinate that there is obviously no moving you, my dear young lady,” he said in tones as sweet as his words were harsh, “then you will have to be otherwise disposed of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Need I be more explicit?”
“I certainly think you do. I haven’t the foggiest notion of what you are getting at.”
“Just think it over, Miss Arnell. I think that if you get that obstinate little brain of yours to work you will soon see the answer to the problem.”
With that he was gone. He whisked himself quickly through the door, and shut it behind him. Violet heard the key turning in the lock.