‘You’ve been lucky tonight,’ Wells said thoughtfully, ‘though it wasn’t all luck I’ll admit. But what further help can you give me?’
‘The location of one of their French bases to start with and for future operations my association with Mademoiselle Sabine. If you arrest her prematurely, on some minor charge, you’ll ruin the whole shooting-match, and you can’t work her yourself now because she’s already aware that you’re a Scotland Yard man. On the other hand I can. I got her out of a nasty hole in Deauville and we parted on a very friendly footing, so if your people can locate her in London tomorrow morning, assuming that she’s on her way there now, I can get in touch with her again and follow up the whole business without her suspecting what I’m after. See the line of country?’
‘I do and it’s a good one. All the same I can’t promise to let her off. The best I can do is to say that we won’t press the case against her more than we have to and we’ll see to it that she gets the maximum benefit of any extenuating circumstances which she may be able to plead before the court.’
Gregory stood up, pulled out a cigarette, lighted it, and began to walk up and down impatiently. ‘But you can’t understand!’ he burst out. ‘This girl’s only a pawn in the game.’
‘She’s engaged in smuggling and I can prove it,’ Wells said doggedly. ‘She is running a permanent business in order to evade the customs and facilitate the importation of contraband silk.’
‘Silk!’ Gregory swung upon him angrily. ‘Haven’t your people told you the truth about what’s at the bottom of all this?’
The Inspector’s eyes opened wider. ‘What on earth d’you mean?’ he asked in a puzzled voice.
‘Know anything about the present situation in China?’
‘No. What’s that got to do with it anyway?’
‘Only that the Japs have organised smuggling gangs to break down the customs barriers of Northern China that are costing the Chinese Government a hundred million dollars a year in revenue, wrecking their home industries, and making it utterly impossible for the duty paid goods of other nations to compete in the same market. It’s the same sort of thing we’re up against here. Britain’s been a free market too long for our business rivals to submit tamely to our protective laws. Our enemies are engaged in a desperate attempt to smash up the whole of our new commercial system. If, consciously or unconsciously, Sabine can enable us to defeat their ends what the devil does it matter if she has been cajoled or trapped into placing her stocking factory at Gavin Fortescue’s disposal as a blind.’
Wells hesitated. ‘How d’you know that is so?’
‘I don’t, but do you never use deduction?’
‘I prefer to stick to facts and I know she’s smuggling silk into this country.’
Gregory stared at the younger man stonily. ‘Is that all you’re after? Good God, you’re in the Special Branch. You know where the Bolsheviks last concentrated all their energies don’t you—Spain, and Spain went Red in consequence. Having done their work there they’re concentrating now on France. Any fool could see that who reads his daily paper. Next it will be our turn and you sit there talking about silk!’
‘I’m afraid I’m rather dense,’ confessed the Inspector. ‘You’ve just said yourself that the smugglers are out to wreck our protective barriers. Surely silk now constitutes one of the most important items in our tariffs?’
‘Of course. But don’t you see that if silk can be smuggled in other things can as well. To bankrupt our business houses and cut our customs revenue in half is only their first objective. Unless we can checkmate them they’ll start dumping anarchists and agitators here by the hundred—all the scum whose full-time job it is to spread discontent and ruin. Then they’ll send cargoes of illicit arms to their secret depots, and bombs, and poison gas and every sort of foulness to desecrate England’s green and pleasant land. For God’s sake man! Forget petty larceny for a bit and give me a free hand to stop that arch-traitor Gavin Fortescue staging a Red Revolution.’
10
The Strange Tenant of Quex Park
Five minutes later Mrs. Bird put her head round the door and announced: ‘Baked beans and very good butter, all good people come to supper.’
Gregory smiled at the old tag as they followed her out of the hall and down the stone-flagged passage. He had managed to convince the Inspector of the real menace to Britain which lay behind the modern smuggling racket, and given him particulars of the secret depot on the Calais downs, after an agreement had been reached that they should pool their intelligence for the future.
Those were the best terms he could get, as he had never intended for one moment to withhold such vital information and he had demanded immunity for Sabine only in the hope that he might be able to trap the Inspector into making some promise which might prove useful later, while knowing quite well that the officer had no power to release her once she had been arrested.
In Mrs. Bird’s cosy sitting-room they found Rudd busily dishing up generous portions of scrambled eggs on to large squares of thick hot toast.
All four of them set to with gusto having acquired a remarkable appetite from their night’s adventures. When they had done the Inspector turned to their hostess.
‘Now you’re satisfied that I’m a police officer, Mrs. Bird, I’m sure you won’t object to my asking you a few questions.’
‘Ask away young man,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Being a law-abiding woman it’s my duty to answer.’
‘Good; perhaps you’d tell us then, in your own words, how long you’ve been here and what you know about the owners of this house.’
‘I don’t know a thing about them except what I’ve heard from the gardeners who keeps the place in order. He’s a Major Powell-Cotton; a fine gentleman and a great hunter, so they say. There’s a museum next to the house where he keeps his trophies, lions and tigers and all sorts of fearsome-looking beasts, though stuffed of course. He and his wife shot every one themselves, and they’re away now in some un-Christian place looking for white leopards, if you ever heard of such a thing—have been for months and may be for another year—so meantime the Park’s been let through an agent.’
‘I see. Then you’re not employed by the owner, but by the tenant.’
‘That’s right. Lord Gavin Fortescue’s his name. He took the place from the March quarter and engaged me himself a few weeks later. Bit of luck for me he did too.’
‘Why—particularly?’
Mrs. Bird’s thick eyebrows shot up into her lined forehead. ‘Why?—you’re asking. Well, I’d had a worrying time before. You see, I was housekeeper to a Doctor Chalfont who lived at Dulwich. That was his daughter, Milly, you saw walking in her sleep, poor lamb. Her mother died when she was a baby and I was her nurse. We lived very happy at Dulwich, the Doctor and Milly and me, but last November the Doctor died and when we went into things we found he’d left next to nothing, He was such a generous soul, always a’giving and a’giving and refusing payment from poor patients who couldn’t afford it. If we’d ever thought we might have known he never had much chance to save. He was only fifty-two so he probably expected to live a lot longer and put something by, or maybe he thought that Milly would be married before he died.
‘Anyhow, we found the house didn’t belong to him and the few bits of furniture didn’t bring in much after the lawyer was paid, and Milly having no relatives at all it was for me to do the best for her I could. Fortunately I’ve been a careful woman so I had a bit tucked away in the bank for me old age, as you might say, but not enough for the interest on it to keep the two of us, even living very quiet, and my money would have gone in a year or so if I hadn’t been able to get a job.’
Wells nodded sympathetically and the broad-bosomed Mrs. Bird went on: ‘One day I saw an advertisement in the paper—“Caretaker wanted for country house, occasionally visited by tenants, must be able to cook, no other staff kept.” Well, that might not have suited everybody as it looked a lonesome sort of post and most caretakers a
ren’t much good in the kitchen, but it suited me all right so I put on my bonnet and went up to apply, as the advertisement said, to the office of the Carlton Hotel.
‘I was shown up to a private sitting-room where there was a funny little deformed creature who told me he was Lord Gavin Fortescue and that the advertisement was his. He asked me no end of questions about the doctor and the life I’d led, but in the end he seemed satisfied and agreed that Milly might live in the house with me too. He made a point of it that I was to have no other visitors though, even for a cup of tea, because there’s all sorts of valuables in the house. He was afraid that if people came to the place they might speak about them to other folk outside and that might lead to a visit from the burglars. Very scared of having burglars in his absence, he was, and he asked me if I was afraid of handling firearms.
‘I said I wasn’t afraid of burglars or firearms and that seemed to please him quite a lot because he told me he would have put a man in; except that it was so difficult to find a man who could cook. As he flew backwards and forwards from France quite a lot on business he’d be landing in the grounds, sometimes late at night, and want a meal. He put me through it proper about the cooking too, as to what I could do and what not. A very particular gentleman he seemed but it wasn’t for me to argue about that so Milly and I moved in last February.’
‘That’s all nice and clear Mrs. Bird,’ the Inspector nodded ‘Now, will you tell us what’s been happening since.’
‘He didn’t come near the place for a month, except to settle us in. It was then he gave me the revolver with instructions that if I saw anybody in the grounds at night I was to shoot first and ask questions afterwards. He said the police wouldn’t make any trouble about it, me being a lone woman in a house like this, and that my first duty was to protect the property. He said too, he’d prefer me not to go into Birchington or any of the other places round about, or make friends with the local people and that I’d have no cause to bother with the tradesmen calling because all our food would be sent down from London, except fresh vegetables and fruit, as it is—in big cases marked “Fortnum”—and very good food too. Towards the end of April.…’
‘You hardly see a soul apart from the gardeners then?’ Gregory interrupted.
‘No, and not much of them either. All but one old deaf chap and a couple of lads who look after the glass houses and keep the place tidy have been lent to a charity institution by the owner of the estate while he’s away. It’s for a big new building they’re putting up near Canterbury and a lovely place they’re making of it too I’m told. They have to live near their work, of course, so the head gardener’s cottage has been empty since we’ve been here and he only comes over once in a while for an hour or so to see that the others is not neglecting their job.’
‘How about the lodge keeper? I suppose there is one in a place like this.’
‘Well, he had an accident poor man, soon after we got here.’
‘What sort of accident?’ Gregory asked quickly.
‘Knocked down by a motor car, he was, just outside the park gates, but his Lordship behaved very decent about that. Sent him away to have treatment at Bournemouth, and his wife and children with him—all expenses paid.’
Gregory exchanged a significant glance with Wells. ‘Then apart from your foster daughter and yourself there is not a single person sleeps on the estate now.’
‘That’s so, sir.’
‘You were going to tell us what happened at the end of April.’
‘Well, his little Lordship came down and stayed the night. Then next day a gang of workmen arrived to build a big shed at the edge of the trees on the far side of the house. A few days later he turned up again in an aeroplane which was garaged in the shed. Since then he’s been backwards and forwards quite a lot, mostly at night time, and he never stays more than a few hours. Sometimes there’s a tall gentleman with him, who’s got a game leg and sometimes a dark lady. Very lovely she is; but some sort of foreigner. She was with him tonight and he always has two men too who fly his plane. He gives very little trouble and pays my wages regular as clockwork. Always very civil, too, though silent, and it never entered my head that there could be anything tricky about him until tonight. You wouldn’t think it yourself, would you, him being a lord and a rich one into the bargain?’
The Inspector smiled noncommittally. ‘And is that all you can tell us Mrs. Bird?’
‘It is. And now it’s my turn. It’s funny somehow that it never struck me as queer before, this landing in aeroplanes at night and him not wanting me to make friends with the people round about. Isn’t he a lord at all?’
‘Oh, his name is Lord Gavin Fortescue,’ Gregory assured her, ‘but the fact of a man having a title doesn’t necessarily prevent him being a criminal.’
‘The sooner we get out the better then. It’s hard to lose an easy job but I’ve got Milly to think of.’
‘I hope you won’t decide to do that, Mrs. Bird,’ Wells said quickly. ‘There’s not the least likelihood of these people doing you or Miss Chalfont any harm and if you say nothing about our visit they won’t have any reason to suspect you of knowing that the police are interested in their activities. If you can see your way to stay on here just as though nothing had happened it’d be a very great help to us. You see, I’d send a man down to keep in touch with you outside the Park and through him you could let us know each time Lord Gavin or his people come and go from here.’
‘That’s all very well, young man, but if they’re criminals, as you say, they might murder us both in our beds one night.’
‘No, no! Their business is smuggling silks and other dutiable goods over from France and I feel certain that they won’t do you the least harm. There’s another point too, if you leave at once you’ll be out of a job again, whereas if you’re prepared to stay on and give us your help I think I can promise we’ll be able to find a comfortable billet in a decent family for you, when it’s all over, through the police organisation.’
Mrs. Bird considered for a moment. ‘It’d be a big load off my mind if you could. All right, I’ll stay then.’
‘Splendid.’ The Inspector stood up. ‘Well now, I haven’t got a search warrant but since you’re going to give us your help you won’t mind if I have an unofficial look round the house, will you? I just might spot something which would be useful to us later on.’
Mrs. Bird nodded agreement, but Gregory shrugged, ‘As they only use this place for secret landings, and never stay here more than an hour or two, I doubt if you’ll find anything of interest. Anyhow, I’m going to leave you to it and get back to London. Poor old Rudd looks as though he could do with an hour or two’s sleep.’
Rudd yawned. ‘You’ve said it, sir, but you’re looking fresh as a daisy yourself. How you manage to keep going at times like this has always bin a poser ter me.’
Wells came out to see them on their way and accompanied them through the shrubbery at the side of the house round to its front. It was past four o’clock and in the faint light of the early summer dawn the coppices and broad meadows of the park now showed up clearly. To their left, from a group of trees a few hundred yards away, a turret rose, crowned by an openwork steel spire which looked like a small replica of the Eiffel Tower or a wireless mast, adding an extra fifty feet to its height. On the fringe of another group of trees, a little nearer, to their right, they could now see a big wooden shed.
Gregory jerked his head towards it. ‘That’s the hangar where they house the plane. Having all those trees behind it explains why I failed to spot it last night.’
‘They’ve certainly got the very place for their job here,’ Wells commented. ‘That steel mast above the tower must be visible for miles. It’s perfect for a signal light to bring in other planes that don’t know the lie of the land.’
‘Well, what does A. do now?’ asked Gregory, preparing to move off.
The young Inspector laughed. He was in high good humour as a result of his night’s work. ‘A., b
eing you, calls at the Carlton tomorrow and endeavours to make contact with B., the lady in the case. It looks like more than even chances she’s staying there again and I daren’t go near the place. She’d flit at the bare sight of me, knowing now that I’m a policeman, while C., being myself, returns to dull routine, sending a junior here to keep in touch with Mrs. Bird and the Park under observation.’
‘Right, then. So long, Inspector.’ Gregory turned away with Rudd beside him and set off down the east drive towards the field where he had left his plane.
Wells went back into the house and his inspection of it soon assured him that Gregory’s view had been correct. It was only used as a port of call from which Lord Gavin and his associates came and went without arousing the suspicions of the residents in Birchington. No papers which might throw further light upon the conspiracy seemed to be kept there. The drawers of all the desks and bureaux were unlocked and empty and there was no safe in the house.
The two tall windowless buildings behind the conservatories to the west, which Gregory had thought might be squash or tennis courts, proved to be the Museum holding the magnificent collection of Major Powell-Cotton, the absent owner of the estate. Vast cases, occupying in some instances the full length of the walls and twenty feet or more in height, contained jungle scenes where the great stuffed beasts, elephant, rhino, sable antelope, baboon, kudu, giraffe, and countless other varieties of wild beasts were mounted in life-like postures, plunging through tall grass or wallowing in muddy streams, so that they could be seen in all the splendour of their natural habitation.
On other walls of the buildings were ranged smaller cases containing native costumes and weapons, the grotesque masks of African witch doctors, collections of fearsome-looking beetles and a thousand other items of interest, brought from every corner of Africa, India and Tibet by the great hunter.
As Wells could make no further move of importance in his investigation until he learned whether Gregory had managed to get in touch with Sabine, he saw no necessity to hurry back to London, so he spent over an hour admiring the great beasts and studying the curiosities in the smaller cases. It was half past six before he got back to Mrs. Bird’s kitchen again and with her he found Milly.
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