by Frank Froest
He was neither a coward nor a fool. He had known close acquaintance with sudden death before. But that was different. It had not happened so. He was incapable of connected thought. One thing only he was clear upon—he must see Eileen, tell her the truth and throw himself on her mercy. Meanwhile he would answer no questions until he had considered the matter quietly.
This was his state of mind when he shook hands with Foyle. He had schooled his voice, and it was in a quiet tone that he spoke.
‘It’s a horrible thing, this,’ he said, twirling his hat between his long, nervous fingers.
Foyle was studying him closely. The movement of the hands was not lost upon him.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, stroking his chin. ‘I asked you to come here because Mr Grell dined with you last night. Do you know if he left you to keep an appointment?’
‘No—that is, it might have been so. He left me, and I understood he would be back. He did not return.’
‘At what time?’
Fairfield hesitated a second before replying. Then, ‘I haven’t the remotest idea.’
The face of Foyle gave no indication of the surprise he felt. He did not press the question, but slid off to another.
‘Do you know of any woman who was likely to visit him at that time of night?’
‘Great heavens, no, man! Do you suspect a woman? He—’ He checked himself, and looked curiously at the detective. ‘Mr Grell was a friend of mine,’ he went on more quietly. ‘Things are bad enough as they are, but you know that he had influential friends both here and in America. They won’t thank you, Mr Foyle, for trying to go into such things.’
Heldon Foyle’s eyes lingered in quiet scrutiny on the other’s face.
‘I shall do what I consider to be my duty,’ he said, his voice a little hard. ‘Come, Sir Ralph, you will see I must do my best to bring the murderer of this man to justice. Had Mr Grell any relations?’
‘I don’t believe there’s one in the wide world.’
‘And you don’t remember what time he left? Try, Sir Ralph. It is important. Before you came I sent a man to the club, and none of the servants recollects seeing either of you go. They say he was with you most of the evening. You can clear up this matter of time.’
‘I don’t remember what time he left me.’
The baronet’s voice was hoarse and strained. Foyle rose and stood towering over him.
‘You are lying,’ he said deliberately.
Sir Ralph recoiled as though he had been struck in the face. A quick wave of crimson had mounted to his temples. Instinctively his hands clenched. Then regaining a little control of himself he wheeled about without a word. His hand was on the handle of the door when the superintendent’s suave voice brought him to a halt.
‘Oh, by the way, Sir Ralph, you might look at this before you go, and say whether you recognise it.’
He held his clenched hand out, and suddenly unclasped it to disclose the miniature set in diamonds.
Sir Ralph gave a start. ‘By Jove, it’s little Lola of Vienna!’ he exclaimed. Then realised that he had been trapped. ‘But I shall tell you nothing about her,’ he snapped.
‘Thank you, Sir Ralph,’ said the other quietly.
‘But this I think it right you should know,’ went on Fairfield, standing with one hand still on the handle of the door: ‘When Grell was with me last night he showed me a pearl necklace, which he said he had bought as a wedding present for Lady Eileen Meredith. If you have not found it, it may give you some motive for the tragedy.’
‘Ah!’ said Foyle unemotionally.
CHAPTER V
DAY had long dawned ere Foyle and his staff had finished their work at the great house in Grosvenor Gardens. There had been much to do, for every person who might possibly throw a light on the tragedy had to be questioned and requestioned. The place had been thoroughly searched from attic to cellar, for letters or for the jewels that, if Sir Ralph Fairfield were right, were missing.
Much more there would be to do, but for the moment they could go no further. Foyle returned wearily to Scotland Yard to learn that of the finger-prints on the dagger two were too blurred to serve for purposes of identification. He ordered the miniature to be photographed, and held a short consultation with the assistant commissioner. The watch kept for Ivan had so far been without avail. In the corridor, early as it was, a dozen journalists were waiting. Foyle submitted good-humouredly to their questions as they grouped themselves about his room.
‘Yes. Of course, I’ll let you know all about it,’ he protested. ‘I’ll have the facts typed out for you, and you can embroider them yourselves. There’s a description of a man we’d like to get hold of—not necessarily the murderer, but he might be an important witness. Be sure and put that in.’
He always had an air of engaging candour when dealing with newspaper men. Sometimes they were useful, and he never failed to supply them with just as much information about a case as would in any event leak out. That saved them trouble and made them grateful. He went away now to have the bare details of the murder put into shape. When he returned he held the diamond-set miniature in his hand.
‘This has been left at the Lost Property Office,’ he declared unblushingly. ‘It’s pretty valuable, so they’ve put it into our hands to find the owner. Any of you boys know the lady?’
Some of them examined it with polite interest. They were more concerned with the murder of a famous man. Lost trinkets were small beer at such time. Only Jerrold of The Wire made any suggestion.
‘Reminds me of that Russian princess woman who’s been staying at the Palatial, only it’s too young for her. What’s her name?—Petrovska, I think.’
‘Thanks,’ said Foyle; ‘it doesn’t matter much. Ah, here’s your stuff. Good-bye, boys, and don’t worry me more than you can help. This thing is going to keep us pretty busy.’
He saw them out of the room and carefully closed the door. Sitting at his desk he lifted the receiver from the telephone.
‘Get the Palatial Hotel,’ he ordered. ‘Hello! That the Palatial? Is the Princess Petrovska there? What? Left last night at ten o’clock? Did she say where she was going? No, I see. Good-bye.’
He scribbled a few words on a slip of paper, and touching the bell gave it to the man who answered. ‘Send that to St Petersburg at once.’
It was a communication to the Chief of the Russian police, asking that inquiries should be made as to the antecedents of the Princess.
For the next three hours men were coming rapidly in and out of the superintendent’s office, receiving instructions and making reports. Practically the whole of the six hundred men of the C.I.D. were engaged on the case, for there was no avenue of investigation so slender but that there might be something at the end of it. Neither Foyle nor his lieutenants were men to leave anything to chance. Green was seated opposite to him, discussing the progress they had made.
The superintendent leaned back wearily in his chair. Someone handed him a slim envelope. He tore it open and slowly studied the cipher in which the message was written. It read:
Silinsky, Chief of Police, St Petersburg.
To Foyle, Superintendent C.I.D., London.
Woman you mention formerly Lola Rachael, believed born Paris;
formerly on stage, Vienna; married Prince Petrovska, 1898.
Husband died suddenly 1900. Travels much.
No further particulars known.
Foyle stroked his chin gravely. ‘Formerly Lola Rachael,’ he murmured. ‘And Sir Ralph recognised the miniature as little Lola of Vienna. She’s worth looking after. We must find her, Green. What about this man Ivan?’
‘No trace of him yet, sir, but I don’t think he can give us the slip. He hadn’t much time to get away. By the way, sir, what do you think of Sir Ralph?’
‘I don’t know. He’s keeping something back for some reason. You’d better have him shadowed, Green. Go yourself, and take a good man with you. He mustn’t be let out of sight night or day. I may tackle him a
gain later on.’
‘Very good, sir. Waverley’s still at Grosvenor Gardens. Will you be going back there?’
‘I don’t know. I want to look through the records of the Convict Supervision Office for the last ten years. I have an idea that I may strike something.’
Green was too wise a man to ask questions of his chief. He slipped from the room. Half an hour later Foyle dashed out of the room hatless, and, picking up a taxicab, drove at top speed to Grosvenor Gardens. He was greeted at the door by Lomont.
‘What is it?’ he demanded, the excitement of the detective communicating itself to him. ‘Have you carried the case any further?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied the detective. ‘I must see the body again. Come up with me.’
In the death-chamber he carefully locked the door. A heavy ink-well stood on the desk. He twisted up a piece of paper and dipped it in. Then, approaching the murdered man, he smeared the fingers of his right hand with the blackened paper and pressed them lightly on a piece of blotting paper. The secretary, in utter bewilderment, watched him compare the prints with a piece of paper he took from his pocket.
‘What is it?’ he repeated again.
‘Mr Lomont,’ replied the detective gravely, ‘I wish I knew. Unless our whole system of identification is wrong—and that is incredible—that man who lies dead there is not Robert Grell.’
CHAPTER VI
LOMONT reeled dizzily, and his hand sought the support of the wall. To him Foyle’s voice sounded unreal. He stared at the detective as though doubtful of his sanity. His life had been hitherto ordered, placid. That there were such things as crimes, murders, detectives, he knew. He had read of them in the newspapers. But hitherto they had only been names to him—something to make the paper more readable.
He was a thin-faced man of about thirty, with somewhat sallow cheeks on which there was now a hectic flush, a high-pitched forehead that seemed to have contracted into a perpetual frown, and colourless eyes. The son of a well-known barrister, he had tried his luck in the City after leaving Cambridge. In a few years the respectable income he had started with had dwindled under the drain of his speculations, and it was then that a friend had recommended him to Robert Grell, who was about to take up his residence in England. James Lomont had jumped at the chance, for the salary was respectable and would enable him to maintain a certain footing in society.
‘Not Robert Grell!’ he echoed incredulously.
Foyle fancied that there was some quality other than incredulity in the tone, but decided that he was mistaken. The young man’s nerves were shaken up. So far as time would allow he had gathered all there was to know about him. Lomont had not escaped the network of inquiry that was being woven about all who had associated with Robert Grell.
No fewer than three chapters in a book the Criminal Investigation Department had commenced compiling were devoted to him. They lay with others neatly typed and indexed in Heldon Foyle’s office.
One was his signed statement of events on the night of the tragedy. The last time he had seen Grell alive was at half-past six, when his employer had left for the St Jermyn’s Club. He himself had gone to the Savoy Theatre, and, returning some time after eleven, had let himself in with his own key and gone straight to bed. He had only been aroused when the police took possession of the house. The third was headed: ‘Inquiries as to career of, and corroboration of statements made by, James Lomont’.
The curtains had remained drawn, and only a dim light filtered through into the room. Foyle lifted a little green-shaded electric lamp from the table, and switched on the light so that it fell on the face of the dead man.
‘Look,’ he said, in a quiet voice, ‘do you recognise your chief?’
The young man flung back his shoulders with a jerk, as though overcoming his own feelings, and approached the body with evident distaste. His hands, slender as a woman’s, were tight-clenched, and his breath came and went in nervous spasms. For a moment he gazed, and then shook his head weakly.
‘It is not,’ he whispered with dry lips. ‘There is an old scar across the temple. Mr Grell’s face was not disfigured.’ He stretched out a hand and clutched the superintendent nervously by the shoulder. ‘Who is this man, Mr Foyle? What does it all mean? Where is Mr Grell?’
Foyle’s hand had stolen to his chin and he rubbed it vigorously.
‘I don’t know what it means,’ he confessed irritably. ‘You know as much as I do now. This man is not Robert Grell, though he is astonishingly like him. Now, Mr Lomont, I rely on you not to breathe a word of this to a living soul until I give you permission. This secret must remain between our two selves for the time being.’
‘Certainly.’
In spite of his air of candour, Heldon Foyle had not revealed all he knew. He left the house pondering deeply.
‘You see, sir,’ he explained to the Assistant Commissioner later, ‘no one who knew Grell had seen the body closely. The butler had taken it for granted that it was his master. It was pure luck with me. In looking through the records in search of this woman Petrovska, I hit against the picture of Goldenburg. It was so like Grell that I went off at once to compare finger-prints. They tallied; and then young Lomont spoke of the scar. Though what Harry Goldenburg should be doing in Grell’s house, with Grell’s clothes, and with Grell’s property in the pockets, is more than I can fathom.’
Sir Hilary Thornton drummed on his desk with his right hand.
‘Isn’t this the Goldenburg who engineered the South American gold mine swindle?’ he asked.
‘That’s the man,’ agreed Foyle, not without a note of rueful admiration. ‘He’d got half-a-dozen of the best-known and richest peers in England to promise support, when we spoilt his game. No one would prosecute. He always had luck, had Goldenburg. He’s been at the back of a score of big things, but we could never get legal proof against him. He was a cunning rascal—educated, plausible, reckless. Well, he’s gone now, and he’s given us as tough a nut to crack as ever he did while he was alive.’
‘How did you get his finger-prints if he was never convicted?’ asked Sir Hilary with interest.
Foyle looked his superior full in the face and smiled.
‘I arrested him myself, on a charge of pocket-picking in Piccadilly,’ he said. ‘Of course, he never picked a pocket in his life—he was too big a crook for that. But we got a remand, and that gave us a chance to get his photograph and prints for the records. We offered no evidence on the second hearing. It was perhaps not strictly legal, but—’ The superintendent’s features relaxed into a smile. ‘He never brought an action for malicious prosecution.’
‘And about Grell? How do you propose to find him?’
Foyle drew his chair up to the table and scribbled busily for a few minutes on a sheet of paper. He carefully blotted it, and handed the result of his labours to Sir Hilary, who nodded approval as he read it.
‘You think we shall catch one man by advertising for another?’
‘I think it worth trying, sir,’ retorted the superintendent curtly. ‘The description and the photograph fit like a glove—and we shan’t be giving anything away.’
As Heldon Foyle passed through the little back door leading to the courtyard of Scotland Yard an hour later, he stopped for an instant to study a poster that was being placed among the notices on the board in the door. It ran:
POLICE NOTICE.
———
£100 REWARD
HARRY GOLDENBURG, alias THE HON. RUPERT BAXTER,
MAX SMITH, JOHN BROOKS, etc.
WANTED FOR
MURDER.
———
DESCRIPTION.—Age, about 45; height, about 6 ft. 1 in.;
complexion, bronzed; square features; grey hair;
drooping grey moustache; upright carriage.
NOTE.—Henry Goldenburg has travelled extensively, and
is an American by birth, but his accent is almost
imperceptible. He speaks several languages, and
———
The above Reward will be paid to any person (other
than a member of any Police force in the United
Kingdom) who gives such information as will lead
to the apprehension of the above-named person.
The superintendent had wasted no time.
CHAPTER VII
THE first grey daylight had found Sir Ralph Fairfield pacing his sitting-room with uneven strides, his hands clasped behind his back, the stump of a cold cigar between his teeth. His interview with Heldon Foyle had not been calculated to calm him.
‘I’m a fool—a fool,’ he told himself. ‘Why should they suspect me? What have I to gain by Grell’s death?’
It was the attitude of a man trying to convince himself. There was one reason why he might be supposed to wish his friend out of the way, but he dared not even shape the thought. There was one person who might guess, and it was she whose lips he hoped to seal. A quick dread came to him. Suppose the police had already gone to her. The thought stung him to action. He had not even removed his hat and coat since his return from Grosvenor Gardens. He made his way to the street and walked briskly along until he sighted a taxicab.
‘507 Berkeley Square,’ he told the driver.
It was a surprised footman who opened the door of the Duke of Burghley’s house. Fairfield, at the man’s look of astonishment, remembered that he was unshaven, and that his clothes had been thrown on haphazard. It was a queer thought to intrude at such a time. But he was usually a scrupulously dressed man, and the triviality worried him.