by Molly Thynne
He thrust back his chair and sat staring at the table. Then, with a frown, he straightened himself.
“Better have a look at that bag, anyway,” he grunted.
Constantine waited while he arranged to have the bag fetched from the Tube cloak-room. When the messenger had left the room he picked up the folder he had got from the Special Branch.
“What about my little exhibit?” he asked mildly.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Arkwright bent forward and switched on the desk lamp, tilting it so that the light fell on the report Constantine had taken from the folder. It appeared to consist of a couple of typewritten pages, to the outer of which was attached an unmounted photograph.
“Not much to go on there, is there?” he observed disparagingly.
“What there is is to the point,” answered Constantine, “though it only deals with the gentleman’s activities in his own country. He was traced to Switzerland and your people were warned, both by the Swiss and Russian authorities, that he might try to land here. He’s in trouble with his own government and would get short shrift if he were compelled to go home. Hence this little biography.”
“Would it be indiscreet to ask what connection he has with this case?” enquired Arkwright, drily.
Constantine smiled.
“It would,” he said, “at this juncture. Let me get my facts together in my own way. Did you follow up my suggestion as to the lettering on those two knives?”
Arkwright opened a drawer and produced a photograph.
“I did,” he answered. “It didn’t get us far. My knowledge of Greek is nil, but I gather that the letters, rough as they are, are easily decipherable. But the word is meaningless. Our man suggested that it might be Russian. This is what he made of it.”
He pushed the photograph over to Constantine. It was a print of the inscriptions on the Chinese knives and underneath it was written the word Malin in Greek and English lettering.
“The chances seemed to point towards Malin being the name of the owner of the knives.” he continued. “I’m beginning to see sense in all this. Is Malin the name at the head of your report?”
Constantine nodded.
“Peter Malin,” he said. “We have both been misled by the fact that the knives were undoubtedly of Chinese origin, but I had less excuse, as I recognised, the first time I saw them, that the lettering might very well be a rough attempt at the Russian alphabet. What I ought to have remembered was the fact that Chinese executioners were imported by the Russians in the early days of the revolution. When it did occur to me I had no difficulty in fitting Vera Abramoff into the story.”
He turned to the report.
“The Special Branch had the information we wanted all the time,” he went on. “According to them, Peter Malin first came to the fore in nineteen nineteen, when he worked with the Chinese Che-Ka at Kiev. Later he became an executioner and has a long list of victims to his name. I think we may take it that the numerals written under his name on the knives represent the tally of the executions he performed. The clothes and jewels of his victims were his perquisites and he is believed to have lined his pockets well before leaving Russia. In nineteen twenty-one he was accused of stealing government property and seems to have got so badly into the black books of the authorities that he barely escaped from Russia with his life. Both our own agents and the Soviet Government marked him down as a dangerous man and, according to your own people he would be repatriated promptly if he were discovered in this country. And he wouldn’t stand a dog’s chance once he set foot in Russia. The Chinese had taught him how to use those knives and, with his record, he would not hesitate to adopt the easiest way to stop the mouth of anyone likely to inform against him.”
“Presuming he were in England.”
“He settled in England some time ago, built up a prosperous business and had every reason to consider himself secure. When one thinks of what discovery meant to him; the enforced return to his own country where, at best, he would have to face the confiscation of his money, at worst, a long term of imprisonment or, more likely, execution, it isn’t difficult to see where the motive for the murder of Vera Abramoff lay.”
Arkwright stared at him.
“You are referring to Miller, of course,” he said. “We’ve no proof that there had ever been any earlier connection between him and Vera Abramoff.”
“How about this?” retorted Constantine. “The report runs: ‘Is believed to have gone to Switzerland on leaving Russia and to have passed there under the name of Miller. May be accompanied by a dancer named Ivanovna, with whom he was associated in Russia.’ Now, according to a member of Karamiev’s company, Madame Abramoff acted at one time as dresser to a dancer of the name of Ivanovna. It would hardly be stretching a point to assume that Vera Abramoff had seen Malin in Petrograd and would be in a position to recognise him. If he could have discovered any way of preventing her from coming to England she would no doubt be alive now.”
“And Mrs. Miller? She’d never had any connection with Russia. Your motive doesn’t hold good there.”
“I admit Pm working in the dark as regards Mrs. Miller, but I suspect that her renewal of her old acquaintance with Vera Abramoff was the beginning of the end, as far as she was concerned. How Madame Abramoff came to suspect Malin’s whereabouts, I don’t know, but she probably communicated her suspicions to Mrs. Miller. There are a dozen ways in which Malin may have discovered what had passed between the two women. In a fit of temper Mrs. Miller may even have twitted him with her knowledge of his identity. From the moment she did that, her fate was sealed.”
Arkwright frowned.
“Miller has been living openly in this country for five years,” he said. “Our people were warned. They even knew of his change of name. Why didn’t they get onto him when he first turned up here? There’s been bad staff work somewhere.”
Constantine’s lips twitched. If Arkwright had not been absorbed in following his own train of thought he would have taken warning from the mischievous gleam in the old man’s eyes.
“Don’t be too hard on them,” he said. “They had every excuse. Miller, according to his passport, was born in Riga in eighteen eighty-one. The date of Malin’s birth is given as nineteen hundred and he is reported to have been working as an errand boy in Moscow at the time of Miller’s trial in Cape Town. I understand that a certain amount of attention was paid to Miller when he first landed here, but it is a common enough name and it would not take long to convince them that he was not their man.”
Arkwright’s jaw dropped. He ran a frenzied hand through his hair and glared at Constantine.
“Then who, in the name of Heaven ...” he began.
Then, as the truth dawned on him, the words died on his lips.
“Bloomfield,” he whispered. “Good Lord, I ought to have seen it. The egregiously efficient secretary! I knew he was too good a man for that job, but I put him down as marking time and picking his employer’s brains in the process. How did he get his hold over Miller, do you suppose?”
“I fancy there’s a relationship somewhere, but he may have simply terrorised the older man. In any case, I think we may take it that those lost years of Miller’s were spent in Russia. There’s no mention of him in the Malin report, but he hailed from Riga, remember, and the probability is that, after the Cape Town debacle, he went back to his own people. The mere fact that he came out of the revolution unscathed and fairly prosperous points to his having thrown in his lot with the Bolshevists, and Malin’s adoption of the name ‘Miller’ suggests that there may have been some relationship between them. They would seem to have been in Switzerland at the same time and were probably together there. My own theory is that while they were there Malin discovered that the Soviet agents were on his heels and made his escape, changing his name to Bloomfield.”
Arkwright nodded.
“Miller volunteered the information that he had brought Bloomfield with him from South Africa. By going from Switzerland to
Cape Town he no doubt succeeded in covering his tracks. I’ll get onto the Home Office and have a look at his passport. Not that that’s anything to go by, nowadays. You’re sure of your facts, I suppose, sir?”
Constantine unclipped the photograph from the report and threw it over to Arkwright.
“That proves his identity, I think,” he said. “He wore a beard in those days, but the upper part of the face is unmistakable. As regards the two murders, there should be no difficulty in bringing Madame Abramoff’s death home to him. The fact that he used a beard to disguise himself may prove his undoing. He was seen, not only by the garage proprietor and the porter, but by several members of Karamiev’s company, who were naturally interested in Madame Abramoff’s friend. I should suggest trying them first with the photograph. The difference in a photographic print between a grey beard and a black one is not so very great. The Miller murder is a more difficult problem, as it rests purely on circumstantial evidence.”
“And we’re still up against those alibis,” Arkwright reminded him. “Bloomfield’s just as well covered as Miller.”
Constantine raised his eyebrows.
“Is he? I’ll deal with those alibis in a moment. Meanwhile, I’d better give you the points against him as I made them. I started out on the assumption that the Miller murder, at any rate, was committed by some member of the Miller household. My object originally was to break Miller’s alibi. I put Manners on the job and he failed, but, as you know, he succeeded in tracing the notes paid for the hire of the car, to Miller. I’d already discovered that the empty house next door to Davenport’s was part of certain property bought by Miller on behalf of a Mrs. Marks and it seemed safe to conclude that he had access to it. Finding that Miller’s alibi held good I turned my attention to the other members of his household and realised almost immediately that Bloomfield, when he took the dog into the Square on the morning of Mrs. Miller’s murder, could, if he had passed straight through the Square and out at the opposite gate, have got to Illbeck Street, committed the murder and come back in time to pick up the dog and return to the house at the time he was seen by the butler.”
Arkwright’s eyes narrowed.
“Wait a minute,” he exclaimed. “Bloomfield was actually seen in the Square by a child who played with the dog and also by the child’s nurse.”
“I’m not so sure. The butler’s account to Manners was that the child and the nurse saw him cross the Square and that the child played with the dog for over half an hour. It was a foggy day, remember, and they naturally took it for granted, as they saw him both arrive and leave, that he was in the Square all the time. Manners has been trying to get in touch with that nurse and, knowing him, I have no doubt he’ll succeed in the end. I’ve given him instructions to ring me up here if he manages to bring it off this afternoon, but I’ve no doubt as to what his report will be when it comes. My main difficulty has been to discover how Bloomfield managed to cover the ground between the Square and Illbeck Street in the time. No taxi has been traced and we know he did not use the Miller car. It wasn’t till I turned my attention to the car parked on the opposite side of the Square that I arrived at a possible solution. I think you will find that Bloomfield walked straight across the Square, and, taking advantage of the fog, stepped through the opposite gate into a car standing at the rear of the rank, drove to Illbeck Street, and returned the same way, leaving the car where he had found it. If it had not been for the fact that the owner of the car had turned his speedometer back to zero the evening before no one would have jumped to the fact that the car had been borrowed. As it is he will be ready to come forward when the time arrives.”
Arkwright leaned forward eagerly.
“Given that your theory is right, what about the evening? We have the butler’s evidence that Bloomfield was working in his room at the time of the Abramoff murder.”
“Bloomfield was ostensibly working in his room,” corrected Constantine. “He was heard typing by the servants both at seven thirty and seven fifty, and we have his own statement and Miller’s that he took letters to the library for his employer’s signature several times in the course of the evening. I should imagine that that statement is hardly worth the paper it is written on! As regards the evidence of the servants, Miller was seen coming from the secretary’s room at eight o’clock. Does that suggest nothing to you? Bloomfield was heard typing at seven fifty, remember.”
There was a dull thud as Arkwright’s fist struck the table.
“By Jove, they could have faked it between them!” he exclaimed. “If Miller was responsible for the typing!”
“Exactly. Miller was backwards and forwards between the library and the secretary’s room all the evening. No one actually saw Bloomfield except Miller during that period. Bloomfield no doubt had a latch-key and could have let himself in and out of the house without attracting attention. Greeve assumed that the driver of the car was Miller, but he never saw him. I fancy that it’s about the only time in history that a blackmailer has actually levied toll on his victim under the impression that he was dealing with a third person. Greeve was undoubtedly genuine in his belief that Miller was the murderer.”
“It hangs together all right!” admitted Arkwright, “but I wish we’d got more to go on. If those people can identify him, all well and good. If they can’t, I can see the Public Prosecutor pointing out some of the weak lines in the evidence! There are plenty of them!”
“We’ve traced the notes,” Constantine reminded him.
“To Miller, not to Bloomfield,” Arkwright objected. “And Miller’s a slippery customer. He’s safeguarded by his alibi and he can easily deny having given them to Bloomfield.”
“That he did give them to him, I feel sure. According to the butler he placed them under a weight on his table when he received them instead of putting them in his pocket. I fancy we shall find that Miller was merely a dummy and entirely under Bloomfield’s thumb. If Bloomfield isn’t the real head of the firm I shall be surprised.”
“How do you suppose he discovered Vera Abramoff’s intentions? If Mrs. Miller suspected him she would hardly be likely to give the show away.”
“He had the run of Miller’s correspondence and Madame Abramoff’s visit must have been discussed openly beforehand. If he recognised the name that would be enough to bring his danger home to him. In addition to which Miller presumably knew who he was and would have warned him. The most interesting problem to me is Miller himself. That he was an accessory after the fact is obvious, but how far he was implicated in the actual murders is an open question.”
He was interrupted by the entrance of the detective who had been sent to fetch Vera Abramoff’s bag from the station cloak-room. Arkwright stripped the paper off it and shook the contents out onto the table. As Greeve had said, it contained nothing but the murdered woman’s passport, money, powder box and lip-stick. Tucked away behind the mirror was a letter from Mrs. Miller, but it consisted only of a blurred scrawl saying that, if she were not at the station to meet her, Madame Abramoff was to take a taxi and drive straight to the house.
“Precious little there to help us,” grumbled Arkwright, as he rose stiffly to his feet. “Well, there’s nothing for it but to act. We can’t afford to let him slip through our fingers now. We’ve got a case, but a clever counsel can play Old Harry with it.”
He picked up the report.
“I must see the Superintendent about this. Will you hang on, sir, and await results?”
“We may as well add one link to the chain, if possible,” said Constantine. “Manners should be back by now. May I use your telephone?”
Manners had returned and, judging by his voice, was in a state of restrained jubilation.
“I was about to ring you up, sir,” he explained. “I had no difficulty in obtaining a few words with the little girl’s nurse. It is as you thought, sir. After Mr. Miller’s secretary had passed her with the little dog she did not see him again until he called the dog and went back to the house with i
t. When the dog came running towards them they naturally took it for granted that the secretary was still walking in the Square. It was very foggy just then, the nurse says, and she was in two minds whether to take the child home. The little girl was playing close to her all the time and she is sure that she did not see the gentleman either.”
“I told Mr. Arkwright you’d pull it off!” exclaimed Constantine. “As a matter of curiosity, I wish you’d tell me how you did it.”
“It came about very naturally, sir. I watched the nurse go into the Square and then dropped in on Roper for a friendly call. Finding him occupied I offered to take the little dog for a run in the Square. Very unpopular with the household, the little dog is, on account of its constant barking, and they were glad to get him out of the way. If I might make a suggestion, sir.”
“Yes?”
“I worded my enquiries as carefully as I could, but the nurse is the kind of woman that puts two and two together, as they say. She is also of a chatty nature. If steps are to be taken it might be advisable to take them at once, sir.”
“I quite agree with you, Manners. You’ve done magnificently.”
Arkwright, who had been availing himself of the second earphone, grinned.
“Manners deserves a presentation watch and he shall have it if this comes off,” he said. “Anything else you can suggest?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid,” answered Constantine. “Karamiev gave me these for you, by the way. They were forwarded to Madame Abramoff from Paris. Evidently arrived too late to catch her before she started.”
He handed Arkwright the letters the manager had given him. Arkwright ripped open the envelope and ran through them.
Three of them were circulars, the fourth was a long letter, in a handwriting which made him glance swiftly at the signature.
“From Mrs. Miller,” he exclaimed, as he turned back to the first page. Constantine bent over the table and they read it together. It opened abruptly and had evidently been scrawled hastily on the spur of the moment.