by John Rowland
So when I made my way back to the lodgings for lunch I was feeling a bit dismal. I had enough material, it was true, to phone another pretty sensational instalment to The Daily Wire that evening. But, while my main job was as a journalist, the fact remained that I had set my heart on solving the mystery, on presenting Inspector Shelley with a cast-iron case on which he could make an arrest. And I thought that there now seemed to be less and less chance that I should be able to do anything of the sort.
At the end of lunch I took a cup of coffee and went to drink it in the lounge. I wanted to think, and I knew that the dining-room would be a buzz of conversation—no doubt mainly concerned with the murders. That went without saying. These mysterious deaths now provided the main topic of conversation in Broadgate, and one couldn’t go anywhere without hearing them discussed. I was utterly fed-up with the most fantastic theories which I had heard quite seriously advanced by people who in actuality knew nothing at all about the case.
As I was sipping my coffee and smoking my cigarette—without much pleasure, I must admit—I heard the telephone ring outside. I didn’t give it a thought. Then Mrs. Cecil came into the room, looking rather puffed and hurried.
“Oh, Mr. London, I’m so glad that you’re here,” she said with an almost comic sense of relief.
“Why, Mrs. Cecil?” I asked.
“Because you’re wanted on the telephone.”
“Who wants me?”
“A Mr. Foster. He said that it’s very urgent, and that I was to get you at once.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Cecil,” I said. But I still felt fed-up, wondering what on earth Tim Foster could have to say to me that he couldn’t have said earlier in the day. Still, I made my way to the telephone.
“Hullo,” I said.
“Jimmy London?” queried the voice at the other end of the line.
“Speaking.”
“Tim Foster here,” he said.
“Yes, Tim, what is it?” I asked.
“Can you come round to the garage at once?” he asked, a suppressed eagerness in his voice.
“I should think so. Is it something very urgent?” I asked.
“Very urgent. I think that we’ve got some evidence that might well support the theory we were discussing earlier. I can’t say much on the telephone, but I think that if you come around here, you will be as excited as I am.”
He certainly sounded excited enough. He even infected me. I said “I’ll be with you in a few minutes, Tim,” slammed down the receiver, rushed up to my room to get a hat, and was out of the door within what could not have been more than a minute.
I hurried along the street. The sun was boiling hot, but I was quite prepared to run, should running appear to be in any way necessary. What on earth, I told myself, did Tim mean by the theory we had discussed earlier? Did he mean the theory about drug-peddling? Or did he mean some theory with regard to Mrs. Skilbeck which we had formed? I ran over in my mind what we had said, but I couldn’t make up my mind what he had meant.
I had intended to go and see Shelley after lunch, to try once more to pick the brains of the man from Scotland Yard. But Tim had sounded so insistent that I thought I must go and see him first. After all, if he had succeeded in getting some sort of concrete evidence, that would be all the better. I should have something worth while to hand on to Shelley when I did see him—and I didn’t intend that meeting to be far ahead.
Within the promised few minutes I was at the garage. As I came to the end of the road I could see Tim. He was in the street outside the garage, pacing up and down the pavement as if he could not contain himself in patience anywhere indoors. He waved wildly to me as he spotted me, and I waved back as sedately as I could.
Still, as I have already said, he had infected me with his excitement, and I found it very difficult to maintain my equanimity. I was sure now that Tim had got hold of something really worth while.
“Thank God you’ve come, Jimmy,” he said as I drew near. He grasped my arm with an iron grip and drew me near to the outer door of the garage.
“Here, easy does it, Tim!” I expostulated. “My arm’s not made of steel, you know. No need to do a lifelike imitation of a vice when you see me.”
“Sorry,” he replied. “But I’m so excited, Jimmy, that I scarcely know what I’m doing.”
“Keep yourself under control,” I advised him. “Whatever it is that you’ve found out, it’ll keep for a few minutes longer, you know.”
“I’m not sure that it will,” he said.
“Well, I’m the best judge of that,” said I. “Lead on, my lad, and let me see what it is that you’ve found that you think is so very important.”
Without a word he turned on his heel and led the way in. I followed as speedily as I could. He led the way into the inner office of the garage, where I had first seen him. Then he shut the door as soon as I had entered, and swung round to face me.
“You know,” he said, “that Maya suggested that the solution of this problem might well be something in the nature of the smuggling of drugs?”
“Yes,” I replied, “and I passed the suggestion on to my friend Inspector Shelley.”
“What did he say?” asked Tim Foster with much eagerness.
“He was very interested, and promised to put the drug squad from Scotland Yard on to the matter. He said that they could easily check up on all the addresses from Tilsley’s notebook and find if there was anyone mentioned there who has been known or suspected of having any connexion with the traffic of dangerous drugs,” I explained.
“Any results yet?”
“I don’t know. I was just going to see Shelley, as a matter of fact, when you phoned, and it sounded to me as if your message was more urgent than my going to see Inspector Shelley.”
“It certainly was,” Tim said. “In fact, it may well be that what I have found will be of some use to you—and to Inspector Shelley, if he’s really anxious to get to the solution of this business.”
“Well,” I said impatiently, “what have you found, Tim?”
He pulled open a drawer of his desk. “Do you know anything about sparking-plugs?” he asked.
“Nothing at all,” I said, “except that they are the things that go wrong when you’re driving a car, and leave you stranded miles from anywhere, down a lonely lane when it’s pouring with rain on a pitch-black night.”
Tim grinned. “I suppose that is the ordinary man’s opinion,” he said. “Well, it so happens that a few months ago sparking-plugs—good ones of the well-known makes—were very difficult to get hold of. And Tilsley provided me, from time to time, with quite a number. They were very useful to me, though I once fitted one to a car of my own and found it no good at all. Just refused to spark, in fact.”
“Well, get on, man!” I snapped irritably. Tim Foster seemed to be taking a terribly long time to get to the point of what he was trying to say—seemed, indeed, almost to be trying deliberately to spin the yarn out as long as he could. I found it all most tiresome.
“Sorry. I was just allowing my thoughts to ramble a bit,” he explained, “so that you should have some chance of getting straight the background of what I was trying to tell you.”
“Well, don’t let the old thoughts ramble any more,” I advised him. “I’m only anxious to know what it is that you’ve found. If you take such a long time to tell it, I shouldn’t think that it can be all that important.”
“It’s important enough,” he said, and, diving into some papers in the drawer which he had opened, produced a small tin, containing a sparking-plug. At least, it bore on its lid the name of a well-known make of plug, and I presumed that it contained one of these plugs inside.
He opened the tin and took out the little plug. “This, in fact, is the plug which I fitted to my own car and which was so poor,” he said. “I cleaned the points and did all the usual things that one does
, but nothing happened. The thing just completely failed to work.”
Now I thought that I was beginning to understand what he was getting at. We had heard a lot about the business connexions of John Tilsley, but this was the first time that we had actually been able to lay our hands on something which was part of the stock-in-trade in which the dead man had been dealing. It was clearly of some importance, and I again began to feel nearly as excited as Tim Foster.
“When did you think of this?” I asked.
“Only after leaving you this morning. You remember, Maya had suggested that there might be some possibility that Tilsley was using his various deals as a sort of blind for some other material—material which was illegal. I wondered whether we couldn’t lay our hands on something. I had nothing, I thought, which he had sold me—and then I suddenly remembered this plug. It had actually been intended for a customer of mine, but it had happened that just when he brought his car in I had had a consignment of half-a-dozen sparking plugs direct from the makers. So I fitted one of them on his car and shoved this away in a drawer. Then, some time later, when I had plug trouble, I remembered having this one and got it out. I was in a hurry—going to meet someone at the station, and when I found it was defective I hauled it out and put another one in.”
“And that’s the last time you handled it?” I suggested.
“Yes. Until today. Then I remembered it again, and I thought it would be a good idea to examine it with the greatest possible care, to see if there was anything in the suggestion that Maya put forward.”
“And was there any?” I asked.
“Wait!” he cautioned me. Then he unscrewed the top of the plug—it was a very neatly made little piece of apparatus, I thought—and removed it. He spread a large sheet of blotting-paper on the table and tipped up the inner part of the plug on it. A small amount of white powder emerged on to the blotting-paper.
“There!” he said with an air of triumph. And I really could not find it in me to blame him for his moment of excitement.
“What do you think it is?” he asked, after a few moments’ silence.
I dipped my finger in it, took up a few particles and placed them on my tongue. There was not much taste about it, but there was a queer tingling sort of sensation about my tongue afterwards.
“I would be prepared to guess that it’s cocaine,” I said. Tim Foster sat back in his chair with an air of absolute triumph.
“Maya was right!” he exclaimed.
“Maya was right!” I echoed.
“Do you think that your man from Scotland Yard will be satisfied with this?” he asked.
“I’m sure that Shelley will find it very interesting,” I said. “It certainly seems to provide the proof that we were after, with regard to the job that our friend Tilsley was doing.”
“And do you think that it lets me out of the soup?” asked Tim.
I looked serious. “I wouldn’t altogether say that,” I warned him. “In fact, I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t put you deeper in the mire.”
“In what way?”
“Well,” I explained. “Look at it through the detective’s eyes. His view would be that he thought you had some sort of connexion with this man. Tilsley was dealing in drugs, and here you are—with drugs in your possession. I know that your story is true, and Shelley might think it probably true. But he has to remain sceptical about everything that happens. And the obvious explanation is that you were in with Tilsley on his deals in drugs. And that might in some way provide the motive for the murder. See?”
Tim Foster saw. I have seldom seen a man so taken aback. But I thought that, after all, I had been wise in not allowing him to fill his mind with a false optimism which the events would not justify.
Chapter XXIII
In Which Shelley Makes a Move
Of course, in actuality I saw the value of Tim Foster’s discovery. I knew that what he had found out was likely to be a clue of great importance. But he thought that it was a kind of magic touchstone, which would enable him to prove his innocence of any connection with the murder. I just had to disillusion him on that score.
But at the same time I knew that Shelley would greet this new clue with real joy. It would provide him with the very sort of concrete evidence which he had constantly been complaining was absent in this case.
So I shook off Tim as quickly as I could, telling him not to worry overmuch, but that I would put things right with Shelley. That this was advice easier to give than to follow I knew. But I was now working on Tim’s behalf, and, even if he did worry for the time being, it was better to worry in a garage in Broadgate than in a cell at the Old Bailey—and the Old Bailey was what I was trying to save him from.
When I got to the Police Station the old, unpleasant sergeant was there in charge.
“I suppose you want to see Inspector Shelley again?” he said with a sneer.
“Yes,” I said, restraining my impulse to punch him on the nose.
“You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not here.”
This was a bit of a facer for me. For the first time I had secured what I thought to be really important evidence, and for the first time Shelley was not on the spot to receive it in person when I arrived.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Is there any reason why you should get an answer to that question?” the sergeant asked.
“I don’t know that there is, except that I have an important piece of evidence to give him,” I said.
“You wouldn’t consider giving it to me, I suppose?” the sergeant said with another sneer.
“I certainly wouldn’t. I am working with Inspector Shelley,” I said. “And I have promised to keep him informed of anything that I may find as a result of working for my paper.”
“You’d better come in and see Inspector Beech,” the sergeant remarked, leading the way to an inner room.
This was unexpected. It was not altogether welcome, either. I hadn’t seen Inspector Beech since the very beginning of the case, but I knew that I had taken a pretty dim view of the local man. I suspected, too, that he had taken a pretty dim view of me. But I couldn’t very well refuse to enter the man’s presence, merely because we had taken an instinctive dislike to each other from the start. So I followed the sergeant, hugging the tin with the sparking-plug in it. This was in my pocket, and I didn’t intend to take it out if I could possibly avoid it. The knowledge that I had I intended to share with Shelley and with no one else.
Inspector Beech looked up sharply as I came in.
“Well, London?” he snapped.
“I wanted to see Inspector Shelley,” I explained.
“I have already been told this,” answered the local inspector. “But I fail to see why you should be prepared to hand to him any information which you are not prepared to hand to me. After all, as Inspector Shelley has so often said, he and I are working together on this case. We share our discoveries and our opinions, and the fact that he belongs to the staff of Scotland Yard and I to the staff of the Kentish Constabulary makes no difference to our collaboration.”
I thought he was a pompous ass; but I couldn’t very well let him see what I felt. I cast about in my mind to think of some way to stall him off until such time as Shelley should arrive. It was an awkward situation.
To think out, on the spur of the moment, some excuse was not at all easy; but I knew that I should have to stall somehow. The main thing was to find out what Shelley was doing, and when he would be back. If, for instance, he had gone to London to carry out his enquiries, I could not expect to hold off Beech until Shelley’s return. If, on the other hand, Shelley was merely doing some sort of routine enquiries in Broadgate, I might possibly be able to hold things off while I awaited his return.
“I know that Inspector Shelley and yourself work in close collaboration, Ins
pector,” I said as smoothly and equably as I could. “But it so happens that I have promised him—not as a policeman but as a man—to tell him whatever I may be lucky enough to discover. And, while I am sure that you and he do not keep any secrets from each other, I should be a good deal happier to await his return than to tell things to you, and to have you hand the information on to him.” Then I thought that this sounded a trifle distrustful, so I added hastily: “It’s not that I want to withhold information from you, Inspector; it’s merely that I want to keep a promise given in all seriousness to Inspector Shelley a day or two ago.”
Beech, I thought, looked a bit taken aback at this. He was, naturally, not too pleased at the attitude I had taken, but there was little that he could do about it. I was not a criminal; I was not even a hostile witness, whom he could argue into submission. There was little, I thought, that he could legally do to force me to give him whatever information I had in my possession. For a few moments he frowned in an angry manner. Then his brow seemed to clear suddenly.
He said: “Inspector Shelley should be here shortly, Mr. London and I presume that you would then be prepared to hand over whatever it is that you have in the nature of evidence.”
“Certainly,” I replied.
“He is in Broadgate. He has gone to take a statement from someone involved in the case,” the Inspector explained. I was not at all sure that I liked this change in attitude; but it got me out of what might have been a nasty hole.
“Mrs. Skilbeck?” I asked. It was a shot in the dark but it went home. There was a sudden change in expression which seemed to me to indicate that he had decided that I knew more about this affair than he had first thought.
I wasn’t at all sure whether I had really impressed him, or whether he was merely making the best of a bad job. But I had no need to think this over any more, as at this moment Inspector Shelley came in.
“Good-morning, Inspector,” he said to Beech. “Hullo, Jimmy!” This with a friendly nod to me, which I was sure did not pass unnoticed by Beech.