A Scream in Soho (9 page)

Chapter XI

Motive

In that pleasant room overlooking the Embankment in which the Assistant Commissioner performed his duties, that hard-worked official was pacing up and down in a manner which suggested to McCarthy the peregrinations of a tiger, newly caged.

“'Tis a dam' queer thing, Bill,” McCarthy was saying with as much bad temper as ever his friend had known him to show, “how the divil this sort of thing happens. Damme, don't tell me that the highly-placed officer to whom these things were entrusted just left them out at the pavement-edge in his open car while he nipped into his club to have a drink! That's the sort of thing ye read of in the papers every day. The last I seem to remember had something to do with a Naval Code Book.”

“This wasn't half as stupid as anything of that sort, Mac,” Sir William told him hurriedly. “These Anti-Aircraft Defence Plans—and don't forget they embraced the whole system for Great Britain and are invaluable to the enemy—were stolen from Whitehall and unfortunately there's no doubt but that they were stolen direct. The plans had been accurately checked over by General Sir Marcus Pettingill, who was in charge of the whole business, and had been put, and carefully locked into, the safe in his room in Whitehall from which he went no farther than across a corridor to a conference. He was away less than half an hour and remained in his room for the rest of the afternoon. At about half-past five he had occasion to refer to them again, reopened the safe, which certainly had not been touched by any one official and they were gone.

“From that moment to this not the slightest trace of them have they been able to find. Every soul in the place who could possibly have been anywhere near that part of the building has been questioned, but without results. It means that unless we can prevent them being got out of Britain every disposition must be altered for others, obviously not so good or they would have been chosen first, and many months of preparatory work rendered absolutely useless.”

“Yes, that's fairly obvious,” McCarthy said thoughtfully. “Dammit, Bill, that's good espionage work on their part, isn't it?”

Through the inspector's mind a certain query was beginning to percolate; could there possibly be any connection between the murder of this mysterious “Madame Rohner” and these stolen plans? That the disguised man was here for espionage he was quite satisfied in his own mind. However, for the moment he kept his thoughts to himself. Time enough to air his suspicions when he knew more of what had happened in Whitehall.

“Was the door of the general's office left open while he went to this conference?” he asked.

Haynes shook his head negatively. “It has a snap-lock which, of course, becomes effective the moment the door is closed,” he informed McCarthy. “It has to be opened again by a key by the general himself. He has the only one—with the exception of the master-key in the hands of an absolutely reliable official who is always upon the scene when the room is open during the whole time the office is being cleaned.”

“What's the safe like?” McCarthy asked.

“You shall see it for yourself,” Haynes told him. “I can tell you that it is one of Chubb's latest combination patents. That one there”—he pointed to an extremely solid safe which stood in one corner of his room—“is a mere paraffin can in comparison with it.”

McCarthy sat up alertly.

“That proves class work, Bill,” he said seriously. “To get into the place at all, gain entry to that room, open the safe, remove those plans and then get out again in less than half an hour is to say two things. The first, that the man must have had some dashed fine first-hand information as to just where what he wanted was to be found, for one thing. For a second, he must have been one of their really crack men to handle that safe in the way that he did; no little tinpot spy is going to tackle a job of that kind.”

“That is only too obvious,” Haynes said ruefully. “Hence the necessity for speedy action. If the spy in question was clever enough to get them in the time that he did, it won't overtax his resources to find some way to have them out of the country.”

“True enough,” McCarthy agreed. “I needn't ask whether the S.B. men have been up on their toes on the job.”

“On their toes!” Haynes echoed. “My dear fellow, I've not so long since left their superintendent, and every available man has been at it from within a quarter of an hour of the discovery of the theft. Every German man or woman not already interned and in any way under the slightest suspicion, has been rounded up, but so far, all of them have cast-iron alibis. No, there's been no time wasted, I can assure you of that. And I may tell you,” he added in a different tone, “that it's a very big feather in your cap that, even in a moment of desperation, the Special Branch chiefs should have applied to the H.Q. for your services.”

“It's very nice of them,” McCarthy said with a wry smile, “but I'd rather be——However, never mind about that. I suppose the room in question is just as it is when the loss was discovered—hasn't been cleaned out, or any damn silly routine foolishness of that kind?”

“Good heavens, no, man! The place, after it was gone over for fingerprints, was at once almost hermetically sealed: a guard placed over doors, and even outside windows. You'll find it exactly as it was.”

“Thank heaven for that!” McCarthy said fervently, and added whimsically: “The good old game of locking the stable door after the horse is gone. If you're ready we'll get there right away.”

As they walked through Cannon Row towards Whitehall, McCarthy gave the A.C. a further quick
résumé
of the happenings in Soho Square after that scream had rung out, and the later and still more extraordinary developments.

“I may be altogether wrong, Bill,” he concluded, “but I can't shake off the hunch which struck me the moment I set eyes again in the square on that man we saw at Signora Spadoglia's. I'm certain that in some way or other he's connected with the crimes, if not himself the actual dual murderer. What happened to Regan, and the discovery of the body only confirms it.”

“A most extraordinary business,” Sir William commented. “But still there's no actual evidence to connect him with the assault on Regan. He certainly wasn't in the car.”

“No, but it's my belief that he phoned for it from Marylebone Lane. And I've another hunch, Bill,” McCarthy said sombrely, “and that is that… but I'll let that go for awhile. At any rate until I've taken a look over this room.”

Not another word passed his lips until they entered the portals of the ravaged building and were led by a high official to the door of that room which had been so mysteriously burgled the afternoon before. The man on duty before the door stepped to one side and the official in question was about to turn the key in the lock when McCarthy stopped him.

“If you don't mind,” he said quietly, “I'd like to be the first to enter this room. Sometimes just a sight of things as they've been left tells you something.”

Throwing open the door he stepped into the room. As he did so a waft of heavy air from the sealed interior passed across his face. A strange, most satisfied look came into his eyes, and he uttered a soft “Ah!” which made the Assistant Commissioner step towards him quickly.

“What is it, Mac?” he asked sharply. “Seen something that gives you a lead?”

“No,” McCarthy said quietly, “not seen—smelt. For some little time now I've had the idea that I knew who did this job—now I'm sure of it. And I know now the motive behind the murder,” he went on slowly; “I know now
why
he was killed.”

“He? Who? You're talking in parables, Mac,” the A.C. protested irritably.

“To you—maybe,” McCarthy returned. “To myself—no. ‘Madame Rohner' worked this job—that is why ‘she' was murdered.”

For the thing that had halted him as he entered that room, stopped him dead in his tracks as might a bullet, was the pleasant odour of that same scent which had invaded his nostrils on the doorstep of the house in Soho Square, and again at the mortuary. It had been rendered doubly pungent by the fact that the room, both windows and doors, had been tightly closed ever since the pseudo woman who had robbed it had been in the place. It had been equally strong in that upper office in Soho.

“Come on,” he said, “I'm done here for the time being. My work lies elsewhere.”

Only one thing the inspector asked to be shown before leaving the building, and that was a facsimile of the sheets which had been stolen.

“The material on which the dispositions were drawn or printed on, I mean,” he explained.

He was shown a sheet of a sort of extremely fine oiled paper of a deep blue colour. It was about two feet square in size, and six of them, the number stolen, folded tightly together could have been concealed upon anyone without the slightest risk of detection. McCarthy studied them for a moment in silence, then, wetting the tips of the thumb and finger of his right hand, rubbed the surface softly; after a moment or two a blue tinge showed up the ball of his thumb.

“That's all,” he said abruptly and was off out into Whitehall again. Sir William pounded after him, wondering inwardly what crazy idea was going to seize upon McCarthy next.

At the pavement edge McCarthy hailed the first taxi he saw running towards Piccadilly, which vehicle pulled up promptly. It happened to be driven by that particular protégée of McCarthy's, taxi owner-driver “Big Bill” Withers, who saluted both gentlemen with the deepest respect. But for once the ever-genial McCarthy merely grunted a response, got in, gave his orders to be driven to the mortuary, then passed into silence, staring frowningly at the floor of the taxi. Haynes also kept silence—when McCarthy was in that mood he was thinking at high pressure and the less interruption he got the better.

Arrived at the grim building, McCarthy made for the mortuary-keeper's office and demanded at once the now cellophane-covered and carefully docketed packet of clothes which had been taken from the body of the murdered “Madame Rohner.” No sooner had he unfastened the package than again a waft of that perfume came to him, even over the unpleasant one of dried blood.

“Smell that,” he requested Haynes curtly. “Didn't you get exactly that same scent when the door of that room was opened?”

“I did,” the A.C. responded instantly. “What does it mean, Mac?”

“It means that the man who was murdered in Soho Square, the one to whom these clothes belong, was the thief. But I'm hoping to find definite traces of something else which will prove it beyond all doubt.”

Over every inch of the top portions of the silken underwear he went with the aid of a pocket magnifying-glass, to be rewarded at length by finding upon one of the garments a faint blue stain which corresponded exactly with the one upon his thumb. A moment or two later he had found a tiny fray of the same colour.

“There's the whole story, Bill,” he said. “The man having got the prints, folded them and pushed them down the front of his dress. The warmth of his body loosened some of that dye, and left the imprint. The killer must have had a fair idea as to where he would find what he wanted, and in tearing them from where they were hidden separated just this tiny fragment of frayed edge from one of the sheets. To find them we've got to lay hands upon the murderer of this man who masqueraded in London as ‘Madame Rohner.'”

“Rohner…Rohner…?” Haynes repeated. “I seem to know that name somewhere quite apart from your mention of it.”

But McCarthy was already away upon another angle. Hurrying to the slab upon which the murdered man lay he turned down the cover and examined the finger-tips of both hands. Upon those of the right hand he found definite traces of the same stain.

“That settles the point finally, Bill,” he said. “We've got the thief—and much good he is to us.”

“What's your next move, now, Mac?” Sir William asked anxiously. “Is there no other clue to give you a lead of some sort or kind?”

“A lace handkerchief without even a monogram on it, and a bloodstained knife without fingerprints or marks of any kind,” McCarthy said. “There's nothing whatever in the place in Soho Square but a heap of charred ashes, and even they belonged to the murdered man and certainly won't give me a clue to the one who killed him. I daresay one of these great detectives of fiction would see a dozen leads in what I've got, but dam'd if I can see an inch ahead of me.”

“Which means that you've really no idea which way to turn now, Mac?” Haynes questioned, the same anxious note in his voice.

McCarthy paused before answering.

“Well,” he said reflectively, “there's a certain gentleman I want a word with who was one of the party who tried to run over me this morning. It might have been Dan Regan they were after, but I have my doubts.”

“Ha! That's an idea,” the A.C. exclaimed eagerly. “You can demand…”

“Demand,
nothing!
” McCarthy interrupted. “If I as much as let fall a suggestion that I knew him to be one of them, that would be the end of it. I'll have to go to work in a divil of a roundabout way with him.”

“Then, for heaven's sake, get a start upon him without loss of time. You've no idea the state of mind the powers that be are in over this business.”

McCarthy smiled. “I can imagine,” he returned. “I've seen ‘jitters' in high places before to-day. The best thing you can do,” he continued, “is to get back and cheer them with the news that the great Detective Inspector McCarthy has already discovered the thief and found him as dead as ever he's likely to be. The next thing is to find his killer. After that, there
may
, with a bit of luck, be a chance of recovering the stolen sheets. Off you go, Bill, and lighten their hearts. And don't take Withers; I'll want him.”