“You never saw her again?”
“No. No one did.”
“I see.” Wyatt’s voice was curiously gentle. “What did you do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No. Brother Ibrahim explained that it was no one’s fault—that sometimes the forces of evil were too powerful to control. But he said it would be a mistake to go to the police. That they would not understand. So we did nothing.”
“Not even when the stories about the missing girl appeared in the newspapers and this woman here, her mother, began haunting St. John’s Wood, searching for her?”
“No. Not until we got those notes.”
“What notes?”
“We all got them—everyone who had been at the grotto that night. But I think mine was the first.”
“Do you have the note?”
“No, I destroyed it afterward, but I remember most of it. I said, ‘There is blood on your hands—the blood of an innocent girl.’ Then … I forget exactly how it was phrased, but the idea was that if I wished to make amends I was to put a thousand pounds into a bag and throw it over the garden wall in a certain place and at a certain time of night. If I did that, whoever had written the note would remain silent about it.”
“Did you do it?”
“Yes, I did.”
Andrew suddenly remembered the strange whistle he had heard the night he had come home from school. Could that have been when it happened? Wyatt’s next question seemed to confirm this.
“Was this before Miss Tillett’s jewels were stolen?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Was that related in any way to what you’ve been telling us?”
“No. Unless … well, in a way, it might have been. Because right after that Augusta—Mrs. Van Gelder—got a note that said if she didn’t have the money, she could give them her jewels. And she said she wouldn’t mind doing that because afterwards she could claim that they’d been stolen as Miss Tillett’s had been. That way she could collect the insurance and not lose anything by it.”
“Just a second,” said Mrs. Van Gelder angrily. “Are you accusing me of trying to cheat the insurance company?”
“Well, you must admit that you did mislead them, Augusta—and also the police—when you said your jewels had been stolen. Because they weren’t. You threw them over the wall in a bag, just as I did the money, according to the directions in a note.”
“And did anyone else do that same thing,” asked Wyatt, “give the blackmailer jewels and claim they had been stolen?”
“Yes,” said the marchioness. “At least, I think so. Because Mrs. Van Gelder suggested the idea to everyone who had been here the night the girl was killed.”
“I think that, sir,” said Wyatt to the superintendent, “accounts for the wave of jewel robberies. All except Miss Tillett’s. I believe that if those involved are questioned, they will admit that their jewels were not stolen, but that they were given to the blackmailer to purchase his silence.”
“You say all except Miss Tillett’s?”
“Yes. Her jewels—or rather the Denham diamonds, which were in her possession—were actually stolen.”
“I suppose,” said Finch, speaking for the first time, “you not only know how they were stolen, but who stole them and who the blackmailer is.”
“Yes, I think so,” said Wyatt.
“Before we get to that,” said Mrs. Van Gelder, “there are several points I should like to have cleared up. I shall of course see a lawyer about the way I have been defamed and slandered here. But there is something else I insist on knowing right now. Did you say that there was a murder involved in all this?”
“I did,” said Wyatt.
“I assume you mean the murder of this Lily Snyder who disappeared.”
“Why, no,” said Wyatt. “She was not murdered nor did she disappear. She’s right here.” He had been standing in front of the elderly Mrs. Snyder, who sat huddled in her chair. Now, turning suddenly, he pulled off first her shawl and then a grey wig that covered her dark hair. As she gasped and shrank back, he used the shawl to wipe away enough of the grease paint to show the young face underneath.
“You’re right!” said the marchioness. “That is the girl! But now I’m more confused than ever. What actually happened that night? Why did she pretend to disappear, and …”
“I’ll explain that later,” said Wyatt. “What I’d like to do now is go into the matter of the murder.”
“Murder of who?” asked Finch.
“The best way to answer that is to show you the body. If you would accompany me into the garden …”
“A question,” said Finch. “Is this the famous corpse that your two young friends claimed they saw and that disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“And you know where it is?”
“I think so.”
“This should be very interesting,” said Finch with rather ponderous sarcasm. He called in a constable, instructed him to keep watch on Ibrahim, Lily Snyder and the small, as yet unidentified man, and followed the others—including the marchioness and Mrs. Van Gelder—out the french door and down through the garden.
Parr, the gnomelike head gardener, was working near the greenhouse with one of his assistants. At Wyatt’s request, the marchioness summoned them and they came along.
“Just a blooming minute,” said Finch when Wyatt paused in front of the same bush they had dug up before. “Are you suggesting …?”
“Yes,” said Wyatt. Then to Parr, “Would you dig here, please?”
“Again?” said Parr.
“Yes, please.”
Parr looked at him, at Finch, who was grinning smugly, then, jerking his head at his assistant, the two of them got spades and set to work. For the second time they lifted out the bush, Parr’s precious Indicum-Roseum, then began digging in earnest. Since the earth had been recently turned and there were two of them digging, it took almost no time for them to go down three feet or so. At this point they stepped into the hole and continued digging, the undergardener steadily and stolidly and Parr with the expression of a man who is humoring a backward child. He stepped on his spade, driving it deep into the soft earth, then his expression changed.
“There be something here,” he said.
“I thought there might be,” said Wyatt. “I suggest that you work carefully now. And I also suggest that you ladies and Sara and Andrew move back because I’m afraid that what we’re going to bring up is not going to be a very pleasant sight.”
Sara and Andrew did not move, and though Verna, the marchioness and Mrs. Van Gelder did draw back, they kept their eyes on the two men in the excavation. They had put their spades aside and were working with their bare hands. Finally, bracing themselves, they heaved together and lifted something large and heavy to the edge of the hole. Wyatt, Finch and Wendell reached down and helped them, and when they stepped back, there at the edge of the excavation was the body of the man with the brutal face that Sara and Andrew had seen several nights before outside the wall of Three Oaks.
“But that,” said the marchioness wondering, “that looks like …”
“You will all stay where you are,” said Mrs. Van Gelder in a flat, hard voice. “No one will move.”
They all looked at her incredulously—all except Wyatt. She had stepped back several paces, and she had a short-barreled pistol of very large calibre in her hand.
“You,” she said to Sara, her eyes as cold and steady as the gun barrel, “come here.”
Sara hesitated, then walked toward her. Mrs. Van Gelder took her by the hand.
“Good,” she said, pressing the gun to the back of Sara’s head. “Now you will all do exactly as I say.”
“That won’t get you anywhere, Mrs. Van Gelder,” said Wyatt quietly. “Or should I say Mrs. Stokey?”
“Oh, yes, it will. It will get Doc and me out of the country. Or this quite nice child will have her head blown off. Now we will all go back up to th
e house, where I will tell you what I want done and how. And I am sure that I need not warn you that if one of you makes a move I don’t like—Aah!”
She broke off, her voice rising as a large hand reached around from behind her, seized her wrist and bore down on it.
“What bad manners some of you Americans have,” said Beasley. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that pointing guns at people is not only dangerous, but downright rude? No, you don’t!” he said as she turned, tried to bring the gun to bear on him. He twisted her wrist sharply, and she cried out and dropped the gun. Verna, meanwhile, had grabbed Sara and pulled her away.
“Well done,” said Wyatt. “May I present my friend Baron Beasley, who has been extremely helpful even before this?” Then as Beasley bowed, “I think Inspector Finch would like that gun if you will keep hold of Mrs. Stokey. And now perhaps we should follow her suggestion and return to the house while we tie up the remaining loose ends.”
12
The Loose Ends
“There’s nothing very strange about it,” said Beasley. He glared at the small man who sat between Lily Snyder and Ibrahim. “The mickey he slipped me had me out like the tide till about ten this ack emma. When I came to, I went over to the Tillett house. My young friends weren’t there and neither was Miss Tillett, but Sara’s mother gave me some breakfast and something for my head. Then, a little while ago, the coachman came in and said he’d just taken Miss Tillett, the young ’uns and Wyatt next door and that the police were bringing the flash-coves they’d been chasing. So I thought I’d amble-ramble over. When I got there, you were all watching that stiff being dug up, didn’t notice me.”
“Particularly Mrs. Stokey,” said Wyatt. “Which was a lucky thing. I assume that by now everyone knows what happened, how and why.”
“Certainly not,” said the marchioness. “If I was confused before, I’m completely baffled now.”
“Perhaps you’d better run through it from square one,” said Wendell. “I gather it began as a very elaborate confidence game.”
“Exactly, sir. What the Americans call a scam. Our friend here,” he indicated Ibrahim, “is an American. I’m not sure what his real name is, but he’s known to the police as Doc Stokey.”
“When you say known, I take it he’s not a doctor of medicine.”
“No, sir. He’s apparently quite a good magician and illusionist, had a travelling magic and medicine show. That is, he sold various kinds of nostrums and cure-alls. This led him and his wife into the confidence game. They did quite well at it until one man whom they’d fleeced went to the New York Police. He was found dead the next day, and when the police tried to question Stokey, they discovered that he and his wife had disappeared.”
“They’d come here?”
“I think so. Beasley believes they were here for about six months to get the lay of the land, work out their scam and make their connections. Then they took off for Egypt where Stokey became Brother Ibrahim and Mrs. Stokey became Mrs. Van Gelder.”
“This brings us to what the marchioness has told us. Can you tell us what actually happened on the night she described?”
“I believe so. Lily had been cast in the role of one of the temple handmaidens or dancing girls. She had danced once or twice as part of the so-called evocation. On that particular night they also made use of a former prizefighter, rampsman and demander named ‘Mauler’ Cobb.”
“He played the god, Seth?”
“Yes. It would have been a simple matter for a skilled illusionist to arrange for his appearance and his disappearance with Lily. Stokey was now ready to demand blackmail from all those who had been there that evening. In order to exert additional pressure on them, he had Lily playing her own bereaved mother, asking the newspapers for help and castigating the police.”
“That’s clear,” said Wendell. “And I can understand why the marchioness might have paid up. She would not only have felt guilty, responsible because the incident took place here, but would have been advised to pay up by her friend and house guest, Mrs. Van Gelder. But what about the others?”
“Some probably felt as guilty as the marchioness. Some were probably willing to pay up, not because they felt guilty but because they didn’t want anyone to know that they’d been involved in anything as bizarre as that. But one of the big factors—and this is where Stokey showed himself to be really creative—was the fact that, except for the marchioness, it would not cost them anything. They could turn over their jewels, claim they had been stolen, and be reimbursed by the insurance companies.”
“Yes, I can see that. However you said that Miss Tillett’s jewels—or rather the Denham diamonds that were in her possession—were actually stolen. Is that correct?”
“It is. This established the pattern that would allow the others to pretend that their jewels had been stolen, and it also created a false scent, for it had all of us looking for a gang of jewel thieves.”
“This is all very interesting,” said Finch. “But if you’ll excuse my saying so, a lot of it’s talk. Can you tell us just how the Denham diamonds were stolen if it was an outside job?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Wyatt. He turned to Sara and Andrew. “Do either of you recognize this man?” he asked, indicating the small man who sat between Ibrahim and Lily.
They shook their heads.
“We both felt that there was something familiar about him, but … no,” said Andrew.
Wyatt had apparently rubbed some lead from his pencil on his forefinger. Now, with two swift strokes, he drew a large mustache on the small man’s face.
“Now do you recognize him?”
“The organ grinder!” said Sara. “Wait a minute. You don’t mean he sent the monkey up to steal the diamonds?”
Wyatt smiled. “I think he would have liked to, but … no. That would take too much training. However, it wouldn’t be difficult to get a monkey to climb up the front of a house carrying a cord that could be used to pull up a rope, which he could then climb. Because, unless I’m very much mistaken, this gentleman is Jocko Nimm, a well-known cat burglar or second-story man.”
“But how did he know about the Denham diamonds?” asked Verna. “Know that they were there?”
“He didn’t,” said Wyatt. “That was a piece of unexpected luck. They needed a robbery that would attract attention, picked you because you’re well-known and would certainly be written about. Actresses usually have jewels, and of course you’d wear them at an opening night party.”
“That’s true,” said Verna. “I don’t have much jewelry, but I would have worn what I had if I hadn’t worn the Denham diamonds.”
“I assume it was Nimm who went around collecting the jewels from the other victims,” said Wendell. “But what about the murder? Am I correct in also assuming that the body we dug up was that of the prizefighter, Mauler Cobb?”
“Yes, sir,” said Wyatt. “My guess is that while Cobb had only been engaged to play the god Seth on the night Lily was to disappear, he suspected that what he had done was part of something very big, especially when the stories about the jewel robberies began appearing in the press. I therefore believe that he, in turn, tried to blackmail Stokey, saying that he would talk unless he got a share of the loot. So Stokey served him as he did the man in New York—pretended to agree, got him to come here to Three Oaks late at night, then, while Cobb waited to be paid off, slipped a knife between his ribs.”
“You’re going to have a hard—a very hard time—proving any of this!” said Stokey, exchanging his Egyptian accent for a more natural American one.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” said Wyatt.
“You’re all taking this very matter-of-factly,” said Verna. “Speaking for myself, I think the way you’ve unravelled this very complicated plot, Constable, is absolutely brilliant.” Then, as Wyatt bowed modestly, “May I ask when you first suspected the truth?”
“Well, I did think there was something a little odd about the organ grinder. His manner and accent were very good, b
ut his clothes seemed a little too new. When your house was robbed, I was convinced it was an outside job—the clues all pointed to someone coming in through the window. And while I didn’t see how anyone could have climbed up, I remembered the monkey, realized he could have done so—and also realized that pretending to be an organ grinder was the perfect disguise for someone who wanted to study a place before robbing it.”
“‘Strewth, it is that!” said Beasley. “When you stand in front of it, lamping it, folks’ll think you’re looking out for them as might toss you some rhino.”
“Exactly,” said Wyatt. “The next step in my suspicions came when I met friend Stokey as Brother Ibrahim and he showed us his tattoo.”
“What was wrong with it?” asked Stokey.
“The falcon and the Eye of Horus didn’t quite match—as if they had been done at different times by different tattoo artists. I finally decided that the falcon had originally been an American eagle that had been done some time ago, and since tattooing can never be completely removed, you had someone work it over, do the Eye of Horus above it and hoped you could pass the whole thing off as Egyptian. But the clincher was two items that were found, one behind a tree near where Cobb was murdered and the other near where his body was found here in Three Oaks.”
“What were they?” asked Wendell.
“I don’t suppose you have them with you?” Wyatt asked Andrew.
“If you mean those cigarette butts, no,” said Andrew. “They’re in my room.”
“Is there something special about them?” asked Wendell.
“Yes,” said Wyatt. “In the first place they indicated that whoever hid behind the tree and killed Cobb had access to Three Oaks and probably buried him. But there was something else about them that was very significant. Will you describe them, Andrew?”
“Well, the tobacco was kind of loose and there was something odd about the paper …” He suddenly remembered the cowboy he had watched making a cigarette at the Wild West Show. “I know! They’re the butts of the kind of cigarettes that cowboys smoke when they roll their own! That means that whoever made and smoked them must have been an American, and …”
The Case of the Vanishing Corpse Page 15