The Grell Mystery

by Frank Froest

  ‘I am sorry,’ he apologised. ‘We shall have to keep you here for an hour or two while your statements are verified.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she countered lightly. ‘It will be an amusing experience. I have never seen a police station before. Perhaps you would like to show me over while we’re waiting, Mr Foyle.’

  The superintendent was admiring her confidence a little ruefully. A pleasant-faced, buxom woman tapped at the door, and Lola eyed her with misgivings. Foyle’s blue eyes were fixed on her face.

  ‘I am afraid I must deny myself that pleasure,’ he said suavely. ‘There are other matters which will take up our time. First, I shall be obliged if you will let the matron here search you.’

  The nonchalance of the Princess Petrovska had disappeared in a flash, and Foyle noted her quick change of countenance. She had recollected she was carrying Lady Eileen Meredith’s jewels. They would inevitably be found, if she were searched. She was not so much worried by what explanation she could give as to what would be the result of a questioning of Eileen. Angrily defiant, she was on her feet in a flash.

  ‘You have no right to search me. I am not under arrest,’ she declared.

  Foyle knew she was right. What he was doing was flagrantly unlawful unless he charged her with some offence. Yet there are times when it is necessary for a police officer to put a blind eye to the telescope and to do technically illegal things in order that justice may not be defeated. This he felt was one of the occasions. He ignored her protestations and left the room, closing the door after him. For a brief moment the woman forgot the breeding of the Princess Petrovska in the fiery passion of Lola the dancer. But if she meditated resistance, a second’s reflection convinced her that it would be futile. The matron, for all her good-tempered face, was well developed muscularly, and did not seem the kind of woman to be trifled with. The Princess submitted with as good a grace as she could muster.

  As the woman drew forth the casket of jewels Lola made one false move. She laid a slim-gloved hand on her arm.

  ‘If you want to earn ten pounds you will give me that back,’ she said softly.

  The matron shook her head with so resolute an expression that the word ‘twenty,’ which trembled on the Princess Petrovska’s lips, was never uttered. Gathering in her hands the articles she had found, she stepped outside. In three minutes her place was taken by Foyle. He quietly returned to her everything but the jewel case. This he held between his fingers. ‘Where did you get this?’ he demanded. His voice was keyed to the stern, official tone he knew so well how to assume.

  She gripped the side of a chair tightly.

  ‘What is that to do with you? It is mine. Give it to me.’

  ‘Not unless you can prove it is yours. If you do not, I shall charge you with being in possession of property suspected to be stolen.’

  She bit her lips until the blood came. Her face had become very pale. If the threat were meant seriously—and she could see no reason why it should not be—she was in an awkward predicament. Ordinarily she had ready resource, a fertile genius for invention. Now her wits seemed to have deserted her. Cudgel her brains as she would, she could see no way out of the difficulty. To boldly state that the jewels had been entrusted to her by Eileen would involve opening up a fresh line of inquiry for the C.I.D. men that might have disastrous results. Nor was there any person who might bear out a story invented on the spur of the moment.

  ‘Well?’ He spoke coldly.

  ‘I refuse to tell you where I got them,’ she retorted. ‘You must do as you like.’

  ‘Then it is my duty to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you. You will be charged.’ He opened the door and cried down the corridor, ‘Reserve!’ To the constable who answered he indicated the Princess by a nod. ‘Take this woman to the detention room. She will be paraded for identification in half an hour.’

  The detention room of a London police station is a compromise between the comparative luxury of a waiting-room and the harshness of a cell. Like a waiting-room it is furnished with chairs and tables, and like a cell its door is provided with a strong, self-acting lock. The Princess Petrovska gritted her teeth viciously as she was left alone, and paid no heed to the magazines and papers left on the table—a consideration for visitors that had not been discernible in the waiting-room.

  Meanwhile, Foyle had set every available man of the divisional detachment of the C.I.D. busily at work. A couple had been sent to verify the account given by the woman of her movements on the night when the murder occurred. The remainder had been sent to bring in a score of women, the wives and daughters of inspectors and other senior officers.

  Detective-Inspector Taylor had turned up with Wills, who was informed of the part he had to play.

  ‘You say you couldn’t recognise the woman who came out of Lord Burghley’s house. Now we’re going to give you another try. We don’t want you to pick anyone out unless you’re absolutely sure. Mind that.’

  Some of the women who had been fetched in by the detectives were rejected by Foyle as being too unlike the Princess. He intended the identification test to be as fair as possible. The ten who finally took their places in the high-pitched charge room were as nearly like the Princess in build and dress as could be managed from the choice afforded. They stood in a row on the opposite side of the room from the steel-railed dock and the high desk. Then Lola was brought in. Her head was held high, and her lips curled superciliously as she took in the arrangements.

  ‘Please choose a position among these ladies,’ said Foyle urbanely. ‘You may stand anywhere you like.’

  There was an angry glitter in her dark eyes as she obeyed. She was not the sort of woman to risk a scene uselessly. Then Wills was brought in. Foyle put a formal question to him.

  ‘Have you seen any of these ladies before? Don’t be in a hurry to answer. Walk down the line and take a good look at each.’

  Wills slowly carried out his instructions. As he reached the last woman he shook his head. Lola’s eyes caught those of Foyle with a glance of malicious triumph. But the superintendent was not done yet.

  ‘Walk round the room, if you please, ladies—from left to right. No, a little quicker. Now, Wills, see if you can recognise any of them by their walk.’

  Three times they made the circuit of the room, while the butler darted nervous glances from one to the other.

  ‘It’s no good, sir,’ he confessed at last. ‘I don’t know any of ’em.’

  To Foyle the result was not unexpected. He had adopted the expedient as a forlorn chance of linking up the Princess with the crime. Now it had failed, he intended to try other measures. He dismissed Wills and the women with a nod of caution not to speak of the formality they had witnessed, and at a nod from him a uniformed inspector stood up by the high desk pen in hand.

  ‘Do you charge this woman, Mr Foyle?’ he asked.

  Taylor had ranged up against her, and almost unconsciously she found herself standing by the desk facing the officer.

  She searched the superintendent’s inflexible face to see if it gave any sign of relenting. Foyle was calm, inscrutable, business-like. That was what had struck her from the moment she entered the police station—the cool, business-like fashion in which these men had dealt with the situation. There were no histrionics. They might have been clerks engaged in some monotonous work for all the emotion they evinced. They treated her as impersonally as though she was a bale of goods about which there was some dispute.

  She was not a person easily daunted, but the atmosphere chilled her.

  She reflected quickly that her refusal to explain the possession of the jewels was playing into Heldon Foyle’s hands. He would guess that they were Eileen Meredith’s—in any case, she could not stop him from seeing and questioning the girl. What advantage would it be to be placed under lock and key? Before the superintendent could reply she had made up her mind.

  ‘One moment. I can explain how I got the jewels if I can see Mr Foyle alone.�
��

  The inspector looked hesitatingly at the superintendent, who was stroking his chin with his hand. Foyle murmured an assent and led the way back to the detention room. The woman swung round to him quickly once they were alone.

  ‘Those jewels were entrusted to me for a particular purpose by Lady Eileen Meredith,’ she said peremptorily. ‘That is all you have any right to know. You can easily ring her up and ask her. Do it at once and let me go.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said imperturbably. ‘I shall keep you here until I have done so.’

  But it was not to Berkeley Square that he telephoned from the privacy of the divisional C.I.D. offices. It was to Scotland Yard. Within five minutes Chief Inspector Green was setting out from the great red-brick building to see, first, the Duke of Burghley and, secondly, Lady Eileen Meredith. A full hour passed away, and Foyle received the result of the inquiries into Petrovska’s movements. Her alibi was complete. In every particular her story of her movements had proved right.

  Green, arriving at the police station with an agitated and puzzled nobleman and his solicitor, saw his chief for a few moments alone.

  ‘She admits having handed over the jewels to Lola, but she won’t say a word beyond that,’ he said. ‘She’s as obstinate as a mule. I have told the Duke something of where we stand, and he has agreed to take the gems back without letting her know. It was a tough job, but I got him to see at last that the girl might be implicating herself. He says he’s never heard of Petrovska.’

  ‘H’m.’ Foyle rubbed his chin vigorously. ‘I’ll have a talk with the old boy. See if you can get the Public Carriage Office to borrow us a taxicab, and get Poole to drive it slowly up and down this street. If she hails it when she goes out, well and good. If not, Bolt and you had better follow her, and the cab will come after you so that you can use it in emergency.’

  Green had done his work with the Duke and the lawyer with tact. Foyle found his interview with them confined to evading questions that he had no wish to answer. He dismissed them at last with the jewels in the custody of the man of the law. Then he went straight to his prisoner.

  ‘You can go,’ he said abruptly. ‘I shall ask you to be very careful, however, Princess. If you are wise you will leave England at once.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, opening her blue eyes wide and gazing at him with blank astonishment.

  His voice became silky.

  ‘Because, my dear lady,’ he said, ‘I feel that your career in England may not be altogether without reproach. I shall try to find out a little more about it, and if I get a chance, I warn you frankly, I shall have you taken into custody. You are too mischievous to be allowed to run around loose.’

  Her red lips parted in a scornful smile.

  ‘Oh, you make me tired,’ she retorted. ‘Good-bye, Mr Foyle.’

  ‘Pardon me,’ he said, and thrusting a couple of fingers into his waistcoat pocket, fished out a piece of paper. ‘Do you know this writing?’

  She handed the piece of paper back to him with a shake of the head.

  ‘No. I never saw it before,’ she retorted, and passed out.

  But Heldon Foyle had her finger-prints.

  CHAPTER XXII

  SIR HILARY THORNTON lifted his coat-tails to the cheerful blaze as he stood with his back to the fireplace. Heldon Foyle, with the book which he was giving his nights and days to compiling on the desk in front of him, sat bolt upright in his chair talking swiftly. He was giving an account of the progress of the investigation. Now and again he ran a well-manicured finger down the type-written index and turned the pages over quickly to refer to a statement, a plan, or a photograph. Or he would lift one of the speaking-tubes behind his desk and send for some man who had been charged with some inquiry, to question him on his report.

  ‘These youngsters are all the same,’ he complained querulously. ‘They will put flowers into their reports. It is always a beast of a job to make ’em understand that we want a fact plain and prompt. They can do it all right in the witness-box, but when they get a pen in their hand they fancy they’re budding Shakespeares. The old hands know better.’

  He passed from this outburst to particulars of what had happened. The Assistant Commissioner listened gravely, now and again interpolating a question or a suggestion. Foyle rapidly ran over the case, emphasising his points with a tap of his finger on the pile of papers.

  ‘We’re progressing a little, though not so fast as I’d like. We know that Grell is alive, that he is in touch with Ivan Abramovitch and Lola Rachael—or the Princess Petrovska, as she calls herself. There is at least one other man in it—probably more. It’s fairly certain that Grell knows who killed Harry Goldenburg even if he didn’t do it himself. Goldenburg was apparently dressed in Grell’s clothes before he was killed. It is clear now that the clothes were his own with Grell’s belongings put in the pockets. A Mexican dagger was used. That may be or may not be of importance. Grell has travelled in Mexico. We have eliminated Ivan and Sir Ralph Fairfield as the actual murderers. Nor do the Princess Petrovska’s finger-prints agree. I had Bolt take the finger-prints of all the servants in the house, so that we are sure that none of them actually committed the crime. All this narrows the investigation. If we find Grell we are in a fair way to finding the author of the murder.’

  Sir Hilary Thornton stroked his moustache doubtfully.

  ‘That’s all very well, Foyle, but Mr Grell is hardly the sort of man to commit murder. I gather that your suspicions point to him. Besides, where is the motive?’

  ‘Every man is the sort of man to commit murder,’ retorted the superintendent quickly. ‘You can’t class assassins. All murders must be looked upon as problems in psychology. Mind you, I don’t say that Grell did have a hand in this murder. I am merely summing up the cold facts. Why should he disappear? Why should he mix himself up with the shady crew he is with—people who have twice tried to murder me, and who knocked out and kidnapped Waverley? If we find him, we shall find the murderer. That’s why I wanted the description of Goldenburg sent out. It makes work—I’ve got two men out of town now working on statements made at Plymouth and Nottingham, which I feel sure will have no result, but it gives us a sporting chance to nail him if he tries to leave the country. Another line we’re looking after is money. He’s failed with Fairfield. Lola had a try with Lady Eileen Meredith, who handed over her jewels. We stepped in, bagged ’em, and gave ’em back to the Duke of Burghley. All this means he’ll have to make some desperate try for cash soon.’

  ‘In fact, it’s check,’ commented Sir Hilary, who was something of a chess-player. ‘Now you’re manœuvring for checkmate.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Foyle. ‘I’ve been trying, too, to get hold of something about Goldenburg. Neither we nor the American police have yet been able to connect him up with Grell. We’re still trying, though. Sooner or later we shall get hold of something. And there’s Lola. If we could have got Wills to identify her as the veiled woman, we should have had a very good excuse for arresting her in spite of her alibi. She’s the sort of woman who would prepare an alibi. We’ve not got any proof that she knew Goldenburg. That’s our great difficulty now—to link up the various persons and find how they’ve been associated with each other before. There’s one thing, sir. I’ve managed to get the inquest adjourned for a month, so we shan’t have to make any premature disclosures in evidence. The newspapers are still hanging about. They got wind that something was happening at Malchester Row, and there were a dozen or more men waiting for me when I came out, I told ’em that we’d been trying to identify a woman and had failed. They’d have known that anyway. They promised to be discreet. They’re good chaps. It isn’t like the old days. There was one man—Winters his name was—who came up to the Yard to see me once. He was told I was at Vine Street. He went down there and was told I hadn’t been there.

  ‘“Here’s a piece of luck,” he says to himself, and went back to his office. There he wrote up a couple of columns telling how the whole of the C.I.D. had
lost trace of me. I came out of Bow Street, where I’d been giving evidence in a case, to see a big contents-bill staring me in the face:

  FAMOUS

  DETECTIVE

  VANISHES

  ‘Before I could buy a paper, another newspaper chap comes along. He stared at me as if I was a ghost.

  ‘“Hallo!” he says. “Don’t you know you’re lost? Every pressman in London is looking for you.”

  ‘“Am I?” says I. “How?”

  ‘Then it all came out. Since then I have been very careful in dealing with newspaper men.’

  Sir Hilary laughed and nodded. ‘Is there anything more?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Foyle had grown grave once more. ‘I handed over the cipher that we found at Grave Street to Jones, to see if he could make anything out of it. He’s an expert at these kind of puzzles. Well, he’s just reported that the thing is simple as it stands though in other circumstances it might be difficult. The translation runs:

  ‘This will be the best method of communicating with E. M. if L. supplies her with key. Her ’phone number 12845 Gerrard.’

  CHAPTER XXIII

  UNLESS a case is elucidated within a day or two of the commission of an offence the first hot pursuit resolves itself into a dogged, wearisome but untiring watchfulness on the part of the C.I.D. A case is never abandoned while there remains a chance, however slight, of running a criminal to earth. And even when the detectives, like hounds baffled at a scent, are called off, there remains the gambler’s element of luck. Even if the man who had original charge of the case should be dead when some new element re-opens an inquiry, the result of his work is always available, stored away in the Registry at Scotland Yard. There are statements, reports, conclusions—the case complete up to the moment he left it. The precaution is a useful one. A death-bed confession may implicate confederates, accomplices may quarrel, a jealous woman may give information. There have been unsolved mysteries, but no man may say when a crime is unsolvable.