The Grell Mystery

by Frank Froest

  ‘A little out of your usual line this,’ went on Foyle, watching his man intently. ‘As neat a job as ever was spoiled by accident. Now you know, as well as I do, that we can’t force you to talk. But it’ll help us a bit if you tell us who you got those keys from, for instance.’

  The office was small and plainly furnished, and Ike stared into the fire as he sipped his whisky, with placid face. That the interview was to be the English equivalent of the third degree, he knew not. There would be no bullying, only coaxing. Foyle was in a position where consummate tact was needed if he was to extract anything from the prisoner. He dared neither threaten nor promise. However helpful Ike might be, he would still have to submit the issue of guilt and punishment to a judge and jury. Ike, unlike Dutch Fred, had no relations, and if he had it was doubtful if any promise of consideration for them would move him.

  ‘It’s no good, Mr Foyle,’ said Ike. ‘The only man that was in this with me was Dutch Fred. You’d better go and get him, because I shall tell all about it in court. He gave me the keys.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Ike,’ interposed Green.

  The prisoner glanced from one to the other with cunning, twinkling eyes. He was too wary to say anything that may be used as evidence.

  ‘I guess that it isn’t bursting into the place that’s put you two to work,’ he said. ‘You want to know something. If I could help you I s’pose you’d drop this case?’

  Heldon Foyle shook his head resolutely.

  ‘You know we can’t do that in a case of felony. Mr Green will put in a good word for you at the trial. That’s the farthest we can go to.’

  Ike put down his empty glass. He believed he held the whip hand—that he had much to gain and nothing to lose by holding out for better terms. It was a false impression, though a natural one. Heldon Foyle had neither the power nor the inclination to drive a bargain that would permit Ike to go unscathed to renew his depredations on society.

  ‘It’s no good, guv’nor,’ said Ike. ‘If you want me to talk I’ll do it—if you’ll let me go.’

  ‘Right.’ Foyle rose abruptly. ‘We’ll let it go at that, Ike. You please yourself, of course. Mr Green, you’d better charge him now.’

  He had passed out of the door, and his footsteps were dying away when Ike awoke to the fact that his attempt at bluff had failed. He raised his voice. ‘Hi! Mr Foyle! Don’t go yet. I’ll cough up what I know. Come back.’

  CHAPTER XXVII

  A GRIM smile flickered under Chief Inspector Green’s grey moustache as Heldon Foyle stepped briskly back into the room and closed the door. Ike met a stare of the superintendent’s cold blue eyes squarely.

  ‘You’ve got the bulge on me this time, guv’nor,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘I give you best. You’re welcome to all I know—though that isn’t much.’

  Now that he was near attaining his end, Foyle had to steer a delicate course. The law very rightly insists that there shall be neither threat nor promise held out to any person who is accused of a crime. From the moment a police officer has made up his mind to arrest a man, he must not directly or indirectly induce a person to say anything that might prove his guilt—and a warning of the possible consequences is insisted upon even when a statement is volunteered. Otherwise admissions or evidence so obtained are ignored, and there is trouble for the police officer who obtained them. That is one of the reasons why detective work in England demands perhaps nicer skill than in most other countries.

  Green had pulled a fountain pen from his pocket and adjusted a couple of sheets of official foolscap. Foyle remained standing.

  ‘Don’t let’s have any misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘We’re not making any promises except that the court will know you helped us in another case. If you choose to keep quiet we can’t do a thing to you.’

  ‘I know all about that,’ said Ike, with a little shrug of his shoulders. ‘You know I wouldn’t squeal in an ordinary job. I’m no Dutch Freddy to give my pals away. I don’t owe the chap anything who put me up to this. What do you want first?’

  ‘Tell us all about it your own way. Where did you get the keys of the house?’

  ‘Off that chap you raked in along of me. I was sitting in a little game of faro at a joint in the Commercial Road about a week ago, when this tough pulls me out and puts it up to me. I didn’t much like it, but the chink who runs the show told me he was straight, and he offered me half—’

  ‘You told Freddy you were only getting a third,’ interposed Green.

  ‘Did I?’ Ike grinned cunningly. ‘It must have been a slip of the tongue. Anyway, I said I’d chip in for half or nothing. He pow-wowed a bit, but at last he gave in. Funny thing about it was he wouldn’t hear of keeping an eye open on the day we brought the job off. Said I must get a pal. Yet here he turns up as large as life all the time.’

  The prisoner had hit on a point which had puzzled Foyle for a time, but light had already flashed upon him. In the ordinary course of things, a robbery at Grosvenor Gardens by two known criminal characters would not of necessity be associated with the murder. The third man was taking no chances of being identified as an associate.

  ‘Anyway, I took the job on, and he handed me over the twirls and a lay-out of the house. He didn’t tell me who was behind him. And I didn’t ask too many questions. He called himself Mr Smith, and we met once or twice at the —.’ He named a public-house in Leman Street, Whitechapel. ‘That’s where I was to have met him tonight with the stuff. Now you know all I know.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Foyle quietly. ‘What’s the address of this gambling-joint where you first met him?’

  Ike shook his head. ‘Oh, play the game, guv’nor. You aren’t going to have that raided after what I’ve done for you?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ evaded Foyle. ‘Where is it?’

  Reluctantly, Ike gave the address. Green held out a pen to him and pointed to the bottom of the foolscap.

  ‘Read that through and sign it if it’s all right.’

  The man appended a dashing signature, and with a cheerful ‘Good night, Mr Foyle,’ was ushered by a chief detective-inspector down to the charge-room. Heldon Foyle rested his elbows on the table and remained in deep thought, immobile as a statue. He roused himself with a start as Green returned.

  ‘Both charged,’ said the other laconically. ‘The other chap refuses to give any account of himself. Refuses even to give a name. Seems to be a Yankee. I had his finger-prints taken. There was nothing on him to identify him.’

  ‘Yankee, eh?’ repeated Foyle. ‘So is Grell. There won’t be anyone in the finger-print department at this time of night. We’ll go along and have a search by ourselves, I think. If we’ve not got him there, Pinkerton of the U. S. National Detective Agency is staying at the Cecil. We’ll get him to have a look over our man and say whether he recognises him.’

  ‘Very good, sir. There’s one other thing. When I searched this man I found this. I don’t know if you can make anything out of it. I can’t.’

  He handed across an envelope already torn open, addressed to ‘The Advertisement Dept., The Daily Wire.’ Within were two plain sheets of notepaper and a postal order. On one was written: ‘Dear Sir, please insert the enclosed advts. in the personal column of your next issue.—John Jones.’ On the other were two advertisements:

  ‘R.F. You are closely watched. Don’t forget 2315.

  Don’t forget 2315. G.’

  ‘E. £27.14.5. Tomorrow. B.’

  ‘Very curious,’ commented Foyle. ‘Copy them out carefully and have ’em sent to the paper. They can’t do any harm. Now let’s get along.’

  The fog hung heavy over a muffled world as they walked down Victoria Street. Green, whose wits were a trifle less supple than those of his chief when imagination was required, put a question. Foyle answered absently. The mysterious advertisements were not altogether mysterious to him. He recalled the cipher that had been found at Grave Street, and decided that there was at least room for hope in that direction. Besides, ther
e was at least one man now in custody who knew something of the mystery, and, even if he kept his lips locked indefinitely, there was a probable chance of a new line of inquiry opening when his identity was discovered. And even if finger-prints and Pinkerton failed to resolve that, there was still the resource of the newspapers. With a photograph scattered far and wide, the odds were in favour of someone recognising its subject.

  As Foyle switched on the lights in the finger-print department, Green sat down at a table and with the aid of a magnifying-glass carefully scrutinised the prints which he carried on a sheet of paper. Ranged on one side of the room were high filing cabinets divided into pigeon-holes, numbered from 1 to 1024. In them were contained hundreds of thousands of finger-prints of those known to be criminals. It was for the detectives to find if among them were any identical with those of their prisoner.

  The whole science of finger-prints for police purposes resolves itself into the problem of classification. It would be an impossible task to compare myriads of records each time. The system employed was absurdly simple to put into execution. In five minutes Green had the finger-prints of the two hands classified into ‘loops’ and ‘whorls’ and had made a rough note.

  ‘W.L.W.L.L.

  ‘L.W.W.L.W.’

  That done, the remainder was purely a question of arithmetic. Each whorl was given an arbitrary number according to its position. A whorl occurring in the first pair counts 16 in the second, the third 4, the fourth 2, and the fifth 1. Thus Green’s effort became:

  16 – 4 – – = 20

  – 8.4 – 1 13

  The figure one was added to both numerator and denominator, and Green at once went to the fourteenth pigeon-hole, in a row of the filing cabinet numbered 21. There, if anywhere, he would find the record that he sought. For a while he was busy carefully looking through the collection.

  ‘Here it is,’ he said at last and read: ‘Charles J. Condit. American. No. 9781 Habitual Convicts’ Registry.’

  ‘Put ’em back,’ said Foyle. ‘We’ll find his record in the Registry.’

  The two detectives, uncertain as to where the regular staff kept the files of the number they wanted, were some little time in searching. It was Foyle who at last reached it from a top shelf and ran his eye over it from the photograph pasted in the top left-hand corner to the meagre details given below.

  ‘This is our man right enough,’ he said. ‘American finger-prints and photograph supplied by the New York people when he took a trip to this country five years ago. Never convicted here. It says little about him. We’ll have to cable over to learn what they know.’

  ‘That gives us a chance for a remand,’ remarked Green.

  ‘Exactly. And in the meantime he may tell us something. A prisoner gets plenty of time for reflection when he’s on remand.’

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  FIVE minutes after Big Ben had struck ten o’clock Heldon Foyle walked into his office to find Sir Ralph Fairfield striding up and down and glancing impatiently at the clock. He made no direct answer to the detective’s salutation, but plunged at once into the object of his visit. ‘Have you seen the Wire this morning?’ he asked abruptly.

  Foyle seated himself at his desk, imperturbable and unmoved.

  ‘No,’ he answered, ‘but I know of the advertisement that brought you here. As a matter of fact, I sent it to the paper. I should have called on you if you hadn’t come. Grell meant it for you, right enough.’

  The significance of the detective’s admission that he knew of the advertisement did not immediately strike Fairfield. He unfolded a copy of the Daily Wire.

  ‘What do you make of the infernal thing?’ he demanded. ‘It’s absolute Greek to me.’

  With a letter selected from the pile of correspondence on his desk unopened in his hand, Heldon Foyle swung round and faced his questioner.

  ‘It’s simply a sighting shot, Sir Ralph,’ he remarked quietly. ‘Grell credits you with intelligence enough to remember that number later. Have you any knowledge of ciphers?’

  ‘I have an elementary idea that to unravel them you work from the most frequently recurring letter; E, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Foyle. ‘But there are other ciphers where that system won’t work. Mind you, I don’t pose as an expert. If I had a cipher to unravel, I should go to a man who had specialised in them, exactly as I should go to a doctor on a medical question. Still, the advertisement today isn’t a cipher. It means exactly what it says.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Fairfield drily. ‘I am now as wise as when I started.’

  ‘Sorry,’ murmured Foyle suavely. ‘You’ll be wiser presently. The thing isn’t complete yet. If you’ll excuse me a few minutes, I’ll just run through my letters, and then, if you don’t mind taking a little walk, we’ll go and see Lady Eileen Meredith.’

  Some formal reply rose to Fairfield’s lips—he never knew what. The last time he had seen Eileen was fixed in his memory. Then she had practically denounced him as a murderer. Since then she had learnt that every shadow of suspicion had been cleared away from him. How would she receive him if he visited her unexpectedly with Foyle? Why did Foyle wish him to go? Perhaps, after all, there was nothing in it. He told himself fiercely that there was no reason why the meeting should embarrass him. Some day, sooner or later, they would have to meet. Why not now? He was hungry for a sight of her, and yet he was as nervous as a child at the thought of going to her.

  The slamming of a drawer and the soft click of a key in the lock told that Foyle had finished. He picked up a copy of the Daily Wire and his hat and gloves.

  ‘Now, Sir Ralph,’ he said briskly, and together they descended the narrow flight of stone steps which leads to one of Scotland Yard’s back doors. The detective was apparently in a talkative mood, and Fairfield got no chance to ask the questions that were filling his mind. In spite of himself he became interested in the flow of anecdotes which came from his companion’s lips. There were few corners of the world, civilised or uncivilised, where the superintendent had not been in the course of his career. He had the gift of dramatic and humorous story-telling. He spoke of adventures in Buenos Aires, in South Africa, Russia, the United States, and a dozen other countries, of knife-thrusts and revolver shots, of sand-bagging and bludgeoning, without any suspicion of vaunting himself. The baronet made some comment.

  ‘No,’ said Foyle. ‘Take it all round, a detective’s life is more monotonous than exciting. It’s taken me thirty years to collect the experiences I’m telling you about. Things always happen unexpectedly. Some of my narrowest squeaks have taken place in England, in the West End. Why, I was nearly shot in one of the best hotels by an officer sent over from the United States to take charge of a man I had arrested. He was the sheriff of some small town and had a bit of a reputation as a gun-man, and had come over with the district attorney to escort the chap back. They did themselves well while they were here waiting to catch a boat back. One morning I strolled into the hotel, and who should run into me but the attorney with a face the colour of white paper.

  ‘“That you, chief?” he gasps. “For God’s sake don’t go upstairs. —’s on the landing, blazing drunk and with his gun out. He’s a dead shot.”

  ‘Well, I could see that a Wild West sheriff was out of place in a decent hotel, so up I went. He had me covered like a flash, and I yelled out to him not to shoot.

  ‘“Hello, chief,” he says. “That’s all right. Come right up. I won’t do a thing. Just wait till I’ve plugged that cur of an attorney and we’ll go and have a drink.”

  ‘By this time I was up level with him. I daren’t risk trying to get the revolver from him, for he was a quick shot, so I pushed my arm through his.

  ‘“I haven’t got much time, sheriff,” says I. “Let’s go and have a drink first, and you settle up with him afterwards.”

  ‘“That’s a bet,” he says, and I led him down to the bar. I persuaded him to try a new drink of my own invention—its chief component was soda-water
—and followed it up with strong hot coffee. Meanwhile I managed to get the gun away, on the pretext of admiring it. He was reluctant at first, telling me I could have it for keeps after he had finished that cur of an attorney. But I got it, and he was fairly sober by the time I left him.

  ‘Then there was a sequel. I had warned the sheriff and the attorney, who had made up their differences, that the man they had got was a slippery customer to handle. However, they got him in the boat all right. When they got to New York I had a cable from the captain—a friend of mine. He said the prisoner had not only cleared off the ship by himself, but had carried away the hand-baggage of his escort.’

  This reminiscence had brought them to Berkeley Square. Fairfield felt his heart thumping quickly although his face was impassive as the door was opened in response to Foyle’s ring. She might be out; she might refuse to see them. Neither of the two alternatives happened. Within three minutes Eileen had descended to them in the drawing-room.

  She stopped, a graceful figure in black, by the doorway, and gave a barely perceptible start as her eyes rested on the baronet. She bowed coldly.

  ‘I did not know you were here, Sir Ralph. I understood Mr Foyle wished to see me.’

  She was frigid and self-possessed. He had half expected some expression of apology for the wrong she had done him, but she entirely ignored that. But that Fairfield had himself well in hand he would have openly resented the snub inflicted on him. It was Foyle who answered.

  ‘I brought Sir Ralph here. I thought his presence might be necessary.’

  She moved across the room, and sank on a couch with a petulant frown.

  ‘Well, I suppose you have some disagreeable business to transact. Let us get it over.’