“Sara, do you think …?” began Andrew.
“Yes,” she said. “I think that’s it.”
“What?” said Thatcher, picking up a pair of binoculars. “Where?”
Sara pointed, but before he could bring the binoculars to bear, the last barge had cut off his vision. The tug towing the barges was moving more slowly than ever, and it seemed to take hours before the last barge had gone past them. By that time the other tug was out in the middle of the river. Thatcher focussed his glasses on her stern.
“Harrier of Greenwich,” he said. “That’s it. Robbie, cast off!”
Robbie had slipped the rope almost before the order was given, Thatcher signalled for full speed ahead and pulled the tiller over to bring her around.
“She’s got a pretty good start on us,” said Wyatt. “Do you think we can catch her?”
“We’ll catch her if we have to blow up the boiler to do it,” said Thatcher grimly.
They were going downstream now, the launch vibrating with the thrust of her powerful engine, her prow cutting through the water and sending up a high bow wave. But the tug, with her engine designed to pull heavy loads, was a fast boat too. She turned south, past the West India Docks, through the Greenwich Reach and around the Isle of Dogs, then north again into Blackwall Reach. The launch gained on her, but only very slowly, for the tugboat skipper seemed to know the river as well as Thatcher and took advantage of every eddy in the current. The tug cut across the bows of an American schooner coming upriver with a deckload of lumber, and an officer on her deck shook his fist at her.
“Can’t you give us a little more, Jack?” called Thatcher to the man at the engine. The engineer looked at a gauge on the boiler, frowned and threw some more coal on the fire.
They were now close enough to the tug that they could see the coffin on the deck just behind the pilot house and the figures huddled near it. Wyatt borrowed Thatcher’s glasses, looked through them, then passed them to Sara.
“There they are, all three of them,” she said, the glasses to her eyes. “But I still can’t tell who the one in the cape is.”
She gave the glasses to Andrew and he was no more successful than she was. For though the old woman and the little man with the cap were easily recognizable, he could not see the face of the man in the cape either.
“Do you think they know we’re after them?” asked Wyatt.
“Hard to tell,” said Thatcher. “But it’s time we let them know.” And reaching for the whistle cord, he blew three shrill blasts.
The tugboat captain leaned out of the pilot house and looked back at them. Andrew still had the glasses and could see that he wore a peaked seaman’s cap and had a short grey beard. He said something to the three in the stern, and the tug began to slow up. The man in the cape looked back also, drew a revolver from under his cape and went forward into the pilot house. Almost immediately the tug picked up speed again, began travelling faster than ever.
“Was that a gun?” asked Wyatt.
“Yes,” said Andrew, giving him the glasses. “The man with the cape must have threatened the captain, told him he’d shoot him if he stopped.”
“Well, we know where we stand now,” said Thatcher grimly. “Jack, hang your hat over the gauge. You’ve got to give us a few more knots.”
Again the engineer looked at him, at the gauge. Then, opening the firebox, he threw on shovelful after shovelful of coal. Shuddering like a live thing, the launch responded, and though black smoke was pouring from the tug’s smokestack, it was now clear that the launch was the swifter craft. Slowly, yard by yard, she drew closer to the tug.
“Do you have any firearms on board, Inspector?” asked Wyatt.
“No, we haven’t. Why?”
The answer came from the tug. Leaning out of the pilot house, the man with the cape raised his hand. There was a flash, a loud report and a bullet drilled a hole in the smokestack just over his head.
“Get down,” said Wyatt, pushing Sara and Andrew to the deck. “And stay down!”
“So he’s going to cut up rough, is he?” said Thatcher. “All right. Then you’ve got my word for it that we’ll lay him by the heels if we have to follow him to China!”
Spreading his legs wide for better balance, he watched the tug carefully and when the man with the cape raised his hand again, he pushed the tiller over. The launch veered sharply and the second shot missed the launch by several feet, sending up a splash of muddy water.
Now the tugboat captain decided to take a hand in the game. As the launch drew closer and the man with the cape raised his hand for a third shot, he spun the wheel hard over; the tugboat swung to starboard, rammed her nose into a mudbank with such force that the man with the cape went flying and landed sprawling on the forward deck.
“Put me on board her!” said Wyatt.
Reversing his engine, Thatcher brought the launch alongside the tug. Wyatt jumped onto it. As he ran forward, the man with the cape got to his feet and started to raise his gun again, but diving at him, Wyatt brought him crashing down. There was a brief struggle; then, knocking the gun from his hand, Wyatt pinned him to the deck and called, “Got a pair of darbies?”
Thatcher, holding the launch just off the tug’s stern, threw him a pair of handcuffs. Wyatt snapped them on and pulled the man to his feet. His hat had been knocked off in the struggle, and now even Sara and Andrew on the launch could see his shaven head and realized he was Brother Ibrahim. At the same time, seeing the old woman by daylight, they recognized her as Mrs. Snyder, mother of the missing girl, Lily.
It was after ten when they arrived back at Wapping. The launch had helped pull the tug off the mudbank, and even though Wyatt did not seem to be having any trouble with the fugitives once he had put the handcuffs on Brother Ibrahim, Thatcher thought he should stand by and so they proceeded up the river together.
As the launch and the tug tied up at the floating dock, the station house door opened and Finch came down the steps.
“Good morning, Inspector,” said Thatcher cheerfully. “As you can see, we got them.”
“Got who?”
“Why, the people you wanted.”
“Who said I wanted them?”
“What?” Thatcher looked at Finch, then at Wyatt, who stood at the tug’s stern holding Brother Ibrahim by the arm. “Constable Wyatt.”
“He told you I wanted them?”
“Why, yes. Don’t you?”
Before Finch could answer, Ibrahim, who had been following this exchange closely, said, “I demand to see Egypt Consul! I demand to know why I handcuffed!”
“I haven’t the faintest idea why you’ve been handcuffed,” said Finch.
“But the constable here …” said Thatcher.
“The constable,” said Finch savagely, “is not going to be a constable for very much longer! He was suspended from all duties and confined to quarters several days ago. This is how he followed orders on that. And now we can add this little dido to the other charges against him!” And he gestured toward the fugitives who stood at the stern of the tug.
Thatcher blinked. “I don’t understand …” he began.
“What’s so difficult about it?” said Finch. “I’ve told you about Wyatt. As for those three there, while I know who two of them are, I haven’t a thing against them and as far as I’m concerned you can turn them loose.”
11
The Corpse Reappears
Andrew should not have been surprised—he had been aware of Finch’s hostility toward Wyatt for some time—but he was. He was so surprised that for a moment he was speechless. Sara, however, had no such disability.
“Why, you sod!” she said. “You meeching, softheaded slop! You should have your buttons snipped off, you should, and be drummed out of the force!”
“Are you addressing me?” asked Finch.
“You bet your khyber, I am!” As she stepped onto the dock, eyes blazing, and prepared to continue, the station house door opened again and Verna came out foll
owed by a grey-haired man with a close-cropped military mustache. Though Sara had mentioned his name a short while before, it was not until Finch and Thatcher both looked startled and straightened up that Andrew remembered who he was; Divisional Superintendent Wendell of Scotland Yard, whom he’d met at Bentley’s with Lord Lowther after theatre.
“So there you are,” said Verna, looking first at Sara and then at Andrew. “Are you all right?”
“Yes and no,” said Andrew.
She frowned, but before she could ask him what he meant, Wendell took over.
“Hello there, Finch,” he said pleasantly. “Hello, Thatcher. Well, what’s all this?” he asked, nodding at Brother Ibrahim and his two companions.
“I don’t rightly know, sir,” said Thatcher. “According to Constable Wyatt, they’re wanted for robbery and murder. But according to Inspector Finch, they’re not wanted at all.”
“Oh? Would you care to explain, Inspector?”
“I’m afraid I can’t, sir,” said Finch, “since I don’t have a thing against these people. But I think I should tell you that I suspended Wyatt from all duties several days ago and confined him to quarters pending a hearing at which I will bring charges against him for insubordination and for assaulting a superior officer, namely me.”
“Hmm. I must say that sounds very serious, Inspector. But in that case, perhaps we should ask Constable Wyatt to explain.”
“I’ll be glad to, sir,” said Wyatt. “But may I make a request?”
“You can certainly make it. Whether I’ll grant it is something else again.”
“My request is that I be permitted to make my explanation at the scene of the crime—or of one of the crimes. To wit: Three Oaks in St. John’s Wood.”
“The Marchioness of Medford’s place?”
“Yes, sir. I would like the marchioness and her house guest, Mrs. Van Gelder, to be present. They can help me considerably by answering a few questions. And since I will be making accusations against these three individuals here, it seems only right that they should come along too.”
“Well, that sounds fair enough. What do you say, Finch?”
“I say it’s all nonsense. But if you’re prepared to waste your time on it …”
“Oh, I am. After all, everyone’s entitled to his day in court. Anything else, Constable?”
“That coffin should be brought along, too.”
“Right. Will you take care of the details, transportation and all that, Inspector? I think we should proceed there—to Three Oaks—immediately.”
It may have been because one of his superiors was involved, but Finch proved quite efficient in this particular exercise. The fact that Fred was there with the landau helped of course—it was he who had taken Verna to Scotland Yard to get the superintendent and then brought both to the police station—and he now drove the family, Wendell and Wyatt back to St. John’s Wood. As a result, in a little over an hour, they were all assembled in the salon at Three Oaks and the marchioness was saying, “Yes, of course it’s all right. It’s just that I’m bewildered. I mean, handcuffs on Brother Ibrahim?”
“It’s an outrage!” said Mrs. Van Gelder. “An absolute outrage!”
“Perhaps it is a bit excessive,” said the superintendent. “Do you think we might have them off, Finch?”
“I didn’t put them on in the first place. Ask Wyatt.”
“Since we do have men posted outside, I think we can take a chance on it,” said Wyatt, producing a key and opening the handcuffs. “Now may I ask you a few questions, ma’am?”
“If it will clear this up,” said the marchioness. “Yes, of course.”
“Will you tell us where and how you met Brother Ibrahim?”
“Why, yes. It was last winter in Cairo. Mrs. Van Gelder told me about him, and—”
“You knew Mrs. Van Gelder?”
“No. We met in Cairo. We were staying at the same hotel, were both alone, both widows, and we liked each other. As I said, she told me about him, took me to see him, and I was most impressed. He was such a spiritual person.” Ibrahim bowed. “And he told me such interesting things.”
“What kind of things?”
“About my dead husband. Things no one could possibly know—things he’d said to me—and where he was now, what he was doing in the Great Beyond, and how we were going to be together there.”
“And so you invited him to come back to England with you.”
“Yes. He was reluctant at first. He said he had his temple and his own work there. But Mrs. Van Gelder joined me in persuading him that we in the west were now ready for the teachings of Ageless Wisdom.”
“So you built a temple for him here.”
She nodded. “My father had put in the grotto when he landscaped Three Oaks. Brother Ibrahim told me what he wanted done to it—how it should be enlarged and so on—and I did it; and then, after he had sanctified it, we celebrated the mysteries there.”
“Who is we?”
“Mrs. Van Gelder and I and friends of mine—ten or twelve of them—who were interested and who Brother Ibrahim thought were ready to participate.”
“Will you tell us a little about these mysteries?”
“I don’t know,” said the marchioness, a little uncertainly.
“No!” said Mrs. Van Gelder sharply. “You can’t! Don’t forget you took an oath of secrecy.”
“That’s true,” said the marchioness. She looked at Brother Ibrahim, and when he shook his head, she said, “I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Very well,” said Wyatt. “Then I’ll tell you. There was incense. There was soft music and chanting and you usually saw something—something strange and inexplicable.”
“Yes,” whispered the marchioness.
“Did anyone else participate or assist in these mysteries besides you, Mrs. Van Gelder and your friends?”
“Yes. Near the end there was someone else—a young woman whom Brother Ibrahim had trained as a temple dancer.”
“What do you mean by ‘near the end’?”
“She … she only came two or three times. Then … well, we stopped performing the mysteries.”
“Why? What happened to her?”
The marchioness started. “How did you know that something happened to her?”
“Never mind. Will you tell us what happened?”
“This is outrageous!” said Mrs. Van Gelder. “Is this your famous British justice? I can assure you that nothing like it could happen in America!”
“Like what, Mrs. Van Gelder?” asked Wyatt.
“Questioning someone like this with no lawyer present and without charging them with anything!”
“I doubt that there’s any intention of charging the marchioness with anything,” said Wendell mildly. “Is that correct, Constable?” And when Wyatt nodded, “At the moment, she is merely assisting in an investigation.”
“And what about Brother Ibrahim and these other two people, this man and poor old woman? Why are they being held?”
“There certainly seems to be good reason for asking Brother Ibrahim some questions,” said the superintendent. “He was trying to flee the country, and I am informed that he not only menaced a tugboat captain, he fired at the Thames Police when they tried to stop him.”
“Because did not understand!” said Ibrahim. “Because did not know were police—thought were river pirates!”
“Didn’t the tugboat captain tell you it was the police?” asked Wyatt. “The launch carried a green light.”
“Don’t know. I told you, did not understand—too upset. As for going away, leaving country, it was because …”
“We’ll come to that,” said Wendell. “In the meantime, I think the constable should be permitted to continue.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Wyatt. “I suspect that this will be rather difficult, ma’am,” he said, turning to the marchioness again. “But will you now tell us what happened to the young girl who participated in your mysteries?”
“I …” bega
n the marchioness, looking unhappily first at Mrs. Van Gelder and then at Brother Ibrahim.
“No, Maria,” said Mrs. Van Gelder firmly. “Remember we discussed it all thoroughly.”
Wyatt did not wait for the marchioness’s refusal. “Let me ask you another question, then. Was the young woman’s name Lily Snyder?”
“Why, yes. It was. How did you know that?”
“It was fairly obvious. She was the young woman who disappeared somewhere in St. John’s Wood a little over a week ago, and I spent some time searching for her. Now will you tell us what happened to her?” Then, as the marchioness still hesitated, “Would it make any difference to you if I told you that this lady here,” and he pointed to the old woman who sat next to Ibrahim, “was her mother?”
“Oh,” said the marchioness. “I wondered. It seemed to me that I’d seen her with Inspector Finch and … Yes, it does make a difference, and I will tell you. She was killed!”
“Lily Snyder?”
“Yes.”
Unconsciously, Andrew’s eyes had gone to the old woman, and though it was difficult to see her face, it was his impression that her expression had not changed. Why? Was this something she already knew?
“Will you tell us how she was killed?”
“It was during one of the mysteries—an evocation. We had gone through the early ritual, and the girl was dancing. We were hoping for some kind of manifestation—Isis or Hathor, one of the goddesses. Instead …” She shuddered. “I still get nightmares about it—Seth appeared!”
“Seth?”
“Yes. The evil, animal god. He was huge, apelike, with fangs and claws. He seized her, she screamed, and the torches went out.”
“Why do you say she was killed?”
“Because, when the torches were lit again, she was gone—they were both gone—and we were all spattered with blood.”
The Case of the Vanishing Corpse Page 14