by Frank Froest
CHAPTER XXXIX
SOMETHING of the chagrin caused to Heldon Foyle by the escape of the man on the barge had vanished with the success of his operations in Smike Street. If his frontal attack had failed, he had at least achieved something by his flank movement. The break-up of the gambling-den, too, was something. Altogether he felt that his injuries were a cheap price to pay for what had been achieved.
In bare detail he related the sequence of events to Sir Hilary Thornton, who, with a gloved hand jerking at his grey moustache, listened with only an occasional observation.
The inevitable crowd of journalists, who had been warned by telephone from their colleagues at Smike Street, were jumbled in a tiny, tiny waiting-room when Foyle and his superior reached headquarters. The superintendent, having changed his attire, made it his first business to satisfy their clamorous demands by dictating a brief and discreet account of the raid, to be typed and handed out to them, then with a head that ached intolerably he forced himself to do some clear thinking.
With the dossier of the case before him, he read and re-read all that had been gathered by his men and himself since that night when he had been called from his sleep to find Harry Goldenburg dead. Was there some point he had overlooked? He knew how fatal it was in the work of criminal investigation to take anything for granted. Although the main work of the explorer was now focused on Grell, it was not entirely certain that he was the murderer. Indeed, strange as his proceedings had been, there might be some explanation that would account for them. It might be that after Grell was found the whole investigation would have to begin again with the scent grown cold. Stranger things had happened.
The superintendent dropped his papers wearily into a drawer and turned the key. His speculations were unprofitable. He turned over in his brain his plans for running down Grell. Of the people who had been assisting him to evade capture three were out of the way for the time being. Ivan Abramovitch and Condit were safely under lock and key. The Princess Petrovska was out of London, and there was a fair margin of assumption that she was located somewhere in Liverpool, where the local police were assisting the Scotland Yard men. It was hardly possible that she would double back, even if she evaded their rigorous search. With the detectives on duty at the London termini reinforced and on strict watch, her chances of doing so were very slim.
With three of his friends out of touch, and hampered by want of money, Grell would have to seek a fresh refuge. The chief result of Foyle’s actions had been to make any steps he might take more difficult. That was all. It was still possible for him to dodge the pursuit.
The evening papers with the story of the raid were already upon the streets. What would be the effect upon Grell’s plans when he learned that Ivan had been captured? In the case of an ordinary criminal, Heldon Foyle might have forecasted what would happen with a fair degree of certainty. But Grell was not an ordinary criminal, even if he were a criminal at all. If he could gain a hint of the possible intentions of the fugitive he might be able to meet them.
There was a vague chance that either Ivan Abramovitch or Condit might be induced to volunteer a statement, although the possibility was remote. In America or France there would have been ways of forcing them to speak. In England it was impossible.
With a yawn Foyle relinquished his efforts, and his head dropped forward on his desk. In a little he was fast asleep. He was roused by a light touch on the shoulder. Green had returned.
‘Hello!’ said the superintendent. ‘I must have dozed off. How have you got on?’
Green adjusted his long body to the comfort of an arm-chair. ‘We found the Chinaman. He’d climbed through a trap-door on to the roof. We went over the house with a tooth-comb, both before and after I’d had a little talk with Keller. It seems that both he and his partner the Chinaman had known the man for some time before they gave him a room. They’re old hands at the game and won’t talk too much. He went out very occasionally, and mostly at night. We found nothing bearing on the murder, but plenty to show that Keller and his pal were running a pretty hot shop.’
‘H’m! Could you dig anything out of any of the others? There was the door-keeper.’
‘No. Tight as oysters, all except those who don’t know anything. Ivan has a fit of the sulks. He’s called in Mordix to help him fix up his defence.’
The superintendent was rubbing his chin. ‘Mordix isn’t too scrupulous. I think we’ll hold over the charge of abduction for the time being until we see how things look. Nobody hurt much, I suppose?’
The saturnine features of the inspector wrinkled into as near a grin as they were capable of. ‘Some of them are rather sore, but the doctor thinks they can all appear in court tomorrow.’
Foyle stretched himself and rose. ‘Right. We won’t worry any further about it for the moment. I’m feeling that the best thing for me is a good night’s rest. You’d better go home and do the same. Good night.’
CHAPTER XL
A NOTE came to Sir Ralph Fairfield while he was lingering over his breakfast, and the first sight of the writing, even before he broke open the envelope, caused a thrill to run through him.
‘You must see me at once,’ said the well-remembered writing imperatively. ‘Urgent, urgent!’
The paper trembled in Fairfield’s hands, and it was only the reminder of the servant that the messenger was waiting that brought him sharply out of his daze.
‘Yes, yes. Show him in. And, Roberts, while I am engaged I don’t want to be disturbed by anybody or anything. Don’t forget that.’
If Roberts had not been so well trained it was possible that he might have shown surprise at his master’s order. For through the door he held open there shambled an ungainly figure of a man, hunchbacked, with a week’s growth of beard about his chin, and wearing heavy, patched boots, corduroys, a shabby jacket and a bright blue muffler. His cap he twisted nervously in gnarled, dirty hands as he stood waiting just inside the room till he was certain that the servant had retired out of hearing.
Then, with a swift movement, he locked the door, straightened himself out, and strode with outstretched hand to where Fairfield stood, stony-faced and impassive. The baronet deliberately put his hands behind him, and the other halted suddenly.
‘Fairfield!’
Then it was that the impassivity of Sir Ralph vanished. He gripped his visitor by the arm, almost shaking him in a gust of quick, nervous passion.
‘You fool—you damned fool! Why have you come here? If they catch you, you will be hanged. Do you know that? For all I know the place is watched. They may have seen you come in. Perhaps the place is surrounded now.’
‘I’ll risk it,’ said the other coolly, drawing a chair up to the table. ‘I’ve got to risk something. But I don’t think they saw me come in. I don’t think they’ll catch me, and if they do I don’t think they’ll hang me. What do you think of that, Fairfield?’
There was the old languid mockery in his voice, but his friend, looking at him closely, could see that the face had become a trifle thinner, that beneath the dirt that begrimed it there were haggard traces that betrayed worry and sleeplessness. Fairfield had thought much of Robert Grell lately, but he had never dreamed that the hunted man would come to him—come to him in broad daylight, without a word of warning. Did Grell know that he was in touch with the police? Had he come, a driven, desperate man, to fling reproaches at the friend who had joined in the hunt? That was unlikely. Grell, murderer or not, was not that type. He did nothing without a reason. He was, Fairfield reflected, a murderer—a murderer who had not dared stay to face the consequences of his deed. That surely severed all claims, whatever their old friendship might have been.
‘What do you want?’ he asked, with a hard note in his voice. ‘Why have you come to me?’
The man in the chair lifted his shoulders.
‘That is fairly obvious. I want you to do what, if our situations were reversed, I would do for you. I want money. If you can get me a few hundreds I shall be all right.
’
A spasm contracted Fairfield’s face for a second. He had not asked for explanations. Grell had volunteered none. It seemed as though he were taking for granted the assumption that he was guilty of the murder. Surely an innocent man would have been eager to assert his innocence at the first opportunity. When Sir Ralph answered, it was slowly, as though he were weighing each word that he spoke. ‘I would be willing enough to help a friend—you know that, Grell. But why you should think I would lift a finger to help you evade justice I fail to see. I know enough of the law to know that I should become an accessory to the fact.’
‘You really think I killed that man?’ The words came quick and sharp, like a pistol shot. ‘I thought you had known me long enough—’
‘Words,’ interrupted Fairfield bitterly. ‘All words. You were the last man I should have thought capable of such a thing; but all the facts are against you. Need I go over them? Let me tell you that if ever a jury knows what Scotland Yard knows and you stand in the dock, no earthly power can save you. If that crime is on your conscience it seems to rest lightly enough.’
Grell stood up and rested one hand lightly on the sleeve of his companion. ‘Fairfield, old chap,’ he said earnestly, ‘we have been through enough together to prove to you that I am not a coward. I swear on my honour that I had nothing to do with that man’s death—though I have had reason enough to wish him dead, God knows. Do you think it is fear for myself that has driven me into hiding?’
Fairfield shook his head impatiently, and shaking himself clear paced quickly up and down the room. ‘That’s all very well, Grell,’ he said more mildly, ‘but it is hardly convincing in the face of facts. You disappear immediately after the murder, having got me to lie to cover your retreat, and the next I hear from you is when you want money. It’s too thin. If I were you I should go now. For the sake of old times I will say nothing about your visit here, but to help you by any other means—no. If you had no hand in that murder, come out like a man and make a fight for it. I will back you up.’
‘Thanks.’ There was a dry bitterness in Grell’s tone that did not escape Sir Ralph. ‘I couldn’t have got better advice if I’d gone to Scotland Yard itself.’ His voice changed to a certain quality of harshness. ‘Look here, Fairfield. Suppose I do know something about this business; suppose I know who Harry Goldenburg was, and how and why he was killed; suppose I had stayed while inquiries were being made, then I should either have to have betrayed a friend or taken the burden on my own shoulders; suppose I say I was honest that night when I asked you to conceal my absence from the St Jermyn’s Club; that I did nothing which I would not do over again’—he banged his fist on the table and his eyes glowed fiercely—‘I tell you I have had no choice in this matter. Even you, who know me as well as any man, do not know what I had been through until that man lay dead. Since then I have suffered hell. The police have been at my heels ever since. I carried little enough money away with me, and I dared not attempt to change a cheque while I was thought to be dead.’ He drew a gold watch from his pocket. ‘I dare not even pawn this, for even the pawnbrokers are watched. They stopped all my efforts to raise money in other directions, and have isolated me from my friends. I have fifteen shillings left, and yet since they routed me out of cover the day before yesterday I have not dared get a lodging for fear that I might arouse suspicion. I slept on the Embankment last night.’
He paused, breathless from his own vehemence. Fairfield had seen him in moments of danger, yet never had he seen him so roused out of himself. He could see one of the sinewy hands actually trembling, and that alone was proof enough of the violence of the hunted man’s emotion. He went to a side table, and pouring out a generous dose of brandy from a decanter, squirted a little soda-water in it and handed it to Grell. But his face was still hard and set.
‘Drink that,’ he said. And then, as the other obeyed: ‘It is no use fencing with the question, Grell. If you want me to help you you will have to give some explanation. I am not going to dip my hands in this business blindly. Don’t think it’s a matter of you and I simply. This concerns Eileen.’
Grell put down his empty glass and stared into the other’s eyes.
‘Ah yes, Eileen,’ he said quietly. ‘What about her?’
‘This,’ Fairfield spoke tensely, ‘that if you are guilty you have ruined her life; if you are innocent and cannot prove it you might as well be guilty. I’ll not conceal from you that I have given Scotland Yard some measure of assistance in trying to find you. Do you know why? Because I judged you to be a man. Because I thought that if put to it you might prove your innocence or take the only course that could spare her the degradation of seeing the man she loved convicted as a murderer.’
A grim unmirthful smile parted Robert Grell’s lips. He understood well enough what was meant. ‘You always were a good friend, Fairfield,’ he retorted. ‘Perhaps you have a revolver you could lend me.’
‘Will you use it if I do?’ burst impulsively from Fairfield’s white lips. He was sincere in his suggestion. To his mind there was only one escape from the predicament in which his friend found himself. Anything was preferable, in his mind, to the open scandal of public trial.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Grell, making a gesture as though waving the subject aside. ‘I shall not commit suicide—at any rate, while I’ve got a fighting chance. Let’s get to the point. Will you lend me some money?’
The clear-cut face of Fairfield had gone very pale. When he answered it was with dry lips and almost in a whisper.
‘Not a farthing.’ And then with more emphasis—‘Not a farthing.’
A mist was before his eyes. The lock of the door clicked and Grell shambled out. For ten minutes or more Ralph Fairfield remained, his fingers twitching at the buttons of his waistcoat. A revulsion of feeling had come. Had he done right? Was Grell’s course the wisest, after all? How had his own feelings towards Eileen influenced him in his decision not to help the man who had been his friend?
He resolved to try to shake the matter from his mind, and his hand sought the bell-push. Twice he rang without receiving any reply, and he flung open the door and called imperatively:
‘Roberts!’
Still his man failed to answer. He walked quickly through all the rooms that constituted his apartments. There was no trace of the missing servant. A quick suspicion tugged at his brain, and he wondered why he had not thought of it before. Of course, Roberts knew Grell, but the disguise of the explorer was not absolutely impenetrable. In spite of his clothes, his missing moustache, and his tousled hair dyed black, Fairfield had known him. Why not the servant? And if Roberts had recognised him and was missing—
Fairfield began to hurriedly put on an overcoat.
CHAPTER XLI
THE police court proceedings in connection with the gambling-joint in Smike Street had opened satisfactorily so far as the police were concerned. All the prisoners but the principals and those involved in the attack on Heldon Foyle had been subjected to small fines, and were, as the legal phrase goes, ‘bound over.’ The remainder had been remanded for a week at the request of the prosecuting solicitor, a half-hearted request for bail being refused.
For the first time since he had attained the rank of superintendent, Foyle himself had gone into the witness-box. That was unavoidable, as he was the only man who could give direct evidence of the character of the house. Hitherto he had arranged so that the court work fell on his subordinates while he gave his attention to organisation and administrative detail; for the giving of evidence is only the end of the work of a detective. There are men behind the scenes in most cases that come into the criminal courts who are never told off, happenings never referred to. They are summed up in the phrase ‘Acting on information received, I—’ The business of a detective is to secure his prisoner and give evidence, not to tell how it was done.
‘Still no news from Liverpool,’ said the superintendent as he left the court with Green. ‘I begin to wish I’d sent you down there. T
hat woman has got the knack of vanishing.’
‘Yes,’ agreed his lieutenant, producing a well-worn brier and pressing the tobacco down with a horny thumb. ‘And yet people think we’ve got an easy job. Lola knows her business, and I’m open to bet she’ll not be found before she wants to be found.’
Foyle chuckled at this enunciation of rank heresy. Only a veteran of Green’s experience would have dared question the ability of Scotland Yard to maintain a scent once picked up. The superintendent did not take the pessimism too seriously. In theory it is not difficult for one person to disappear among forty millions, but to remain hidden indefinitely, in the face of a vigorous, sustained search by men trained to their business is not so simple in practice.
‘You’ve got a habit of looking on the worst side of things,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve never known us want anyone we knew badly but what we got ’em at last. Besides, Blake’s down there, and he’s a good man. He’s got a personal interest in running her down now.’
‘H’m,’ commented Green, in the tone of one not entirely convinced, and lapsed into a stolid silence which would have irritated some men, but merely amused the superintendent.
They separated at the door of Foyle’s room at headquarters, and an impatient detective-sergeant, whose duty it was to weed out callers, promptly headed Heldon Foyle off.
‘A man’s been waiting to see you, sir,’ he said. ‘He refused to give his name, but said he had some important information which he would only give to you personally. He wouldn’t hear of seeing anyone else.’
‘Yes, of course. They’ve all got important information, and they all want to see me personally—or else the Commissioner. Well, where is he, Shapton? Show him in.’
‘I can’t. He’s gone, sir. He’d been waiting here half an hour or so when he was taken away by Sir Ralph Fairfield.’
If he had not been trained to school his feelings, Heldon Foyle might have started. As it was, he picked up a pen and toyed idly with it. The man, who had a fair idea that his news was of importance, was a little disappointed.