Elk 04 White Face (11 page)

He was silent.

“Can you, Mrs. Landor?”

“I don’t know anything about the numbers of banknotes–-” she began desperately.

“That’s not what we’re asking,” said Bray sternly. “Have you given or sent to any person during the past week two banknotes each for a hundred pounds?”

“They come from my account,” said Louis quietly. “I suppose I’d better tell the truth. We did know Donald Bateman was back in London. He wrote to us and said he was in great distress, and asked me for the loan of two hundred pounds.”

“I see,” nodded Bray. “You sent them to his address in Norfolk Street by letter post?”

Louis nodded.

“Did he acknowledge receipt of the money?”

“No,” said Louis.

“He didn’t even call to thank you?”

“No,” said Inez.

She spoke a little too quickly.

“You’re not going to tell us the truth, either of you.” Elk’s voice was rather sad. “Not the truth about this man or this money or your visit to Tidal Basin. You’ve a bruise on your face—been fighting?”

“No, I hit it against a cupboard door.”

“Your wife said you fell down,” said Elk drearily, “but it doesn’t matter. Why do you keep these knives here?” He picked up the belt and dangled it in his hand.

“Why does he keep these saddles on the wall?” asked Inez impatiently. “Be reasonable, please. They are prizes he got at a rodeo in the Argentine.”

“For what?” asked Bray.

“It was a knife-throwing competition–-” began Louis, and stopped.

“Hiding up!” groaned Elk. “Get your coat on, Landor!”

Inez Landor darted to him and caught him frantically by the arm.

“You’re not going to take him away?”

“I’m taking you both away,” said Elk cheerfully, “but only to Scotland Yard. You’ll have to see Mr. Mason, but you needn’t worry. He’s a very sympathetic man—even more sympathetic than Mr. Bray.”

There was a touch of malignity in this thrust which Bray did not observe.

She did not go into the bedroom with her husband; her own coat was lying on the back of a chair. She had quite forgotten that fact—saw now the absurdity of the reading-lamp, the sewing and the book whilst this raincoat of hers testified mutely to her wanderings.

Louis came back in a very short space of time and helped her into the leather jacket.

“It’s all right, we’ve got a police-car downstairs; you needn’t bother about a taxi,” said Bray, in answer to his inquiry.

He was a little huffy, being conscious that whatever result had been achieved brought him little personal kudos.

“I shan’t want you to come with me, Elk,” he said shortly. “You can help shove these people into the car and then you can come back and search the flat. Would you like to see the warrant?” he asked.

Louis shook his head.

“There’s nothing in the flat that I object to your seeing,” he said, and pointed to the little escritoire. “There’s about three thousand pounds in that drawer, and railway tickets. I was leaving the country to-morrow with my wife. Give Mr.–-“

“Elk’s my name.”

“Give Mr. Elk the keys, Inez.”

Without a word she handed the case to Elk.

As they walked through the door of the flat Bray put out his hand and switched off the light. He was a domesticated man with a taste for economy, and he acted instinctively.

“Save your light, Mrs. Landor,” he apologised for his action.

The door closed and the sound of their movement grew fainter to the listening man who stood behind the locked door of the maid’s room. He came out noiselessly, a dark figure, a black felt hat pulled down over his eyes, his face hidden behind a white mask.

Quickly he went to the desk, took something out of his pocket; there was the sound of breaking wood and the drawer slid out. A small pocket torch revealed what he sought, and he thrust money, passport and tickets into his pocket. He had hardly done so before he heard the detective returning, and moved swiftly towards the door. He was standing in its shadow when it opened. Elk’s back was towards him when he heard a slight sound, and turned quickly. Not quickly enough. For the fraction of a second he glimpsed the white-faced thing, and then something struck him and he went down like a log.

White Face stooped, dragged the inanimate figure a little way from the door so that it would open, and a second later had slipped out of the flat, leaving the door ajar.

He ran up one flight of stairs, passed through an open window and went swiftly down a narrow iron stairway which brought him to the courtyard. There was no guard here, as he knew.

Ten minutes later one of the detectives waiting outside the house went upstairs to proffer his assistance to Elk. He heard a groan and, pushing the door open, found the sergeant in his least amiable mood.

As for Michael Quigley, he had never felt less sleepy in his life, and the coffee which was brought to the superintendent’s room was as a stimulant quite unnecessary. It brought Mr. Mason to irritable life.

His complaint was that, at whatever hour of the day or night he arrived at Scotland Yard, he was certain to find some official document waiting for his attention. There were half a dozen minutes warningly inscribed and heavily sealed.

“They can wait till the morning.” He examined the two or three telephone messages that were on his desk, but they told him nothing new. There was no news from Bray. It was a quarter of an hour later that Elk and his superior had their interview with the Landors.

Michael looked at his watch. It was too late to go to bed. He wanted to see Janice early in the morning.

“You can call back and I’ll tell you anything that’s going,” said Mason. “About that ring, Michael: I’m afraid we shall have to have a little talk with the young lady. I’ll make it as pleasant as possible. Maybe you can arrange for us to meet—I don’t want to bring her down to the Yard, because that would rattle her.”

Michael was grateful for this concession. Ever since he had told Mason the truth about the ring, a dull little shadow of worry had rested in his mind.

“You’re a pretty nice man for a policeman, Mason.”

“I’m a pretty nice man for any kind of job,” said the superintendent.

Michael strolled out on to the Embankment and up through Northumberland Avenue. He had reached Trafalgar Square and was standing at the corner of the Strand, wondering whether it would be sensible to go home and snatch a few hours’ sleep, or whether to call at his club, which was open till four o’clock, when a taxicab went rapidly past him in the direction of the Admiralty gate. Midnight taxicabs either crawl or fly, and this one was moving quickly—not so swift, however, that he did not glimpse a familiar figure sitting on the box, a pipe clenched between his teeth. If he had been moving more slowly Michael would have hailed old Gregory Wicks.

“Did you want a cab, Mr. Quigley?” It was a a policeman by his side; Michael was fairly well known to this division. “No, thank you.”

“I thought you were trying to stop that driver. They take liberties, those fellows.”

Michael laughed.

“That was an old friend of mine. I suppose you know him—old Gregory Wicks?”

“Gregory, eh?” The policeman was a middle-aged man who knew his West End extremely well. “The old fellow’s getting about again. I hadn’t seen him for months till I saw him the other night sleeping on his box at the corner of Orange Street. He lost a good fare that night. I wanted him to take Mr. Gasso down to Scotland Yard to make a statement—I was in that case,” he added a little proudly.

Chance policemen encountered in the middle of the night can be very talkative, and Michael was in no mood for conversation. But the mention of Gasso arrested his attention.

“You were in what case?”

“The Howdah case. You know, the night they held up Mrs. What’s-her-name—Duval or something, and pinched her diamond chain. Naturally my name hasn’t been mentioned because the case has never been into court, but I was on point duty near the Howdah Club when the robbery occurred. If anybody had screamed, or I’d heard ‘em scream, I’d have been on the spot in a second. It only shows you what chances you miss because people won’t behave sensibly.”

Michael gathered that behaving sensibly was synonymous with screaming violently.

“Old Gregory was about here that night, was he?”

“He had his cab about fifty yards from the club. He never joins a rank, and, knowing him, we aren’t very strict. If he can find a nice quiet corner to have his snooze we never disturb him.”

Old Gregory! Then in a flash Michael remembered the mysterious words of the nondescript of Gallows Court: “What was the matter with Gregory?”

Here was a new angle to many problems. He made a quick decision. Calling a more leisurely taxi, he drove off to Tidal Basin. Gallows Court had something to tell, and since Gallows Court never slept it might be more instructive in the middle of the night than in the broad and hateful light of day.

Shale arrived at Scotland Yard simultaneously with the telephoned news that Bray was on his way accompanied by the two people he had been sent to seek. Mr. Mason leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands. He was relieved. To find suspects quietly was more desirable than telling all the world they were wanted; for a suspect, having gained much undesirable publicity, very often proves to be perfectly innocent. Questions are asked in Parliament, and there have been cases where payment has had to be made as compensation for the wounded feelings of someone called urgently to police investigations.

Parliament had been playing too interfering a part in the police force lately. A new Commissioner had come and was taking credit for all the reforms his subordinates had forced upon his predecessor. The Home Office had issued new instructions which, if they were faithfully carried out, would prevent the police from asking vital questions. Every step that the crank and the busybody could devise to interfere with the administration of justice had assumed official shape.

Superintendent Mason knew the regulations by heart. One had to know them to evade them. Like every other high official of Scotland Yard, he lived at the mercy of stupid policemen and the perjury of some eminent man’s light o’ love. But the risk did not sit heavily upon him.

Wender, of the Identification Bureau, was ready to see him, and he sent Shale to bring that long-suffering man, with his data.

Wender was a small, stout gentleman with a tiny white moustache, and the huge horn-rimmed spectacles he wore did not add any measure of wisdom to his face, but rather emphasised its placidity. He arrived with a bundle of documents under his arm and a short briar pipe between his teeth. He was wearing a smoking-jacket, for he had been at a theatre when he was called to make a examination of the few clues which had been acquired in the case.

“Come in, Charlie,” said Mason. “It’s good to see somebody looking cheerful at this hour of the morning.”

“I’m always cheerful because I’m always right,” said Wender, pulling up a chair and sitting down.

“Why the fancy dress?” asked Shale, who was Wender’s brother-in-law, and could therefore be flippant with his superior.

“Theatre,” said his relative briefly.

He was indeed an equable and happy man at all hours of the day and night. Nothing disturbed him. He was, too, something more than an authority upon fingerprints. The range of his information was astounding.

“Before we start discussing whorls, islands and circles,” said Mason, as he took from his pocket the capsule and laid it on the blotting-pad, “what is this?”

Wender took it up and turned it over between his fingers.

“I don’t know—butyl ammonal, I should think. I’ve seen it done up in capsules like that. Where did you find it?”

Mason told him.

“I’m not sure, of course,” said Wender, “not having a nose that can smell through a glass case, but it’s that colour. Now, what else did you want to know?”

“Is there any record of the Landors?” asked Mason.

Mr. Wender shook his head.

“None whatever. That doesn’t mean we haven’t got a record under another name. It’s a curious circumstance”—he smiled brightly—“that criminals occasionally give themselves names that they weren’t born with. I took this particular job on myself,” he explained, “because my night man is about as useful as a performing flea.” He laid the documents on the table. “There you are.”

“Have you got the fingerprints of the dead man?”

The identification man sorted them out

“Yes. Who took them?”

“I did,” admitted Shale.

“They were of no use to me—the first lot, I mean. I had to send down and get another lot. You young officers are still rather hazy as to how to take a print.”

Mason examined the cards with their black smudges. They meant nothing to him.

“Is he known?”

“Is he known!” scoffed Wender. He sorted out another document. “Donald Arthur Bateman, alias Donald Arthur, alias Donald Mackintosh. He’s got more aliases than a film star.”

Mason frowned heavily.

“Donald Arthur Bateman? I know that name. Why, I had him at the London Sessions for housebreaking.”

“Fraud,” corrected the other. “Twelve months hard labour, 1919.”

Mason nodded.

“That’s right—fraud. He swindled Sir Somebody Something out of three thousand pounds—a land deal. That was his speciality. And then he was up again at the Old Bailey—”

“Acquitted,” said Wender. “The prosecutor had something to hide up and was too ill to give evidence. There’s a conviction here at the Exeter Assizes—eighteen months, the Teignmouth blackmail case. You won’t remember that: it was in the hands of the locals; they didn’t call in the Yard.”

“Then he went abroad.”

“And died there! Semi-officially!”

Mason read the note.

“Reported dead in Perth, Western Australia, in 1923. Doubtful. Believed to have gone to South Africa.”

“He’s dead enough now,” he added.

He brooded over the card.

“Blackmail, fraud, fraud, blackmail…he was versatile. Married, of course…dozens of times, I should think. Went to Australia; concerned with the brothers Walter and Thomas Furse in holding up the Woomarra branch of the South Australian Bank. Offered King’s evidence…accepted; no prosecution. Walter Furse eight years penal servitude, Thomas Furse three years. Walter an habitual criminal; Thomas, who had only arrived in Victoria from England a month before his conviction, released after two years.”

He read it aloud.

“That’s our Tommy,” said Shale. “You remember the woman said, ‘Tommy did it’?”

But Mason was reading the “confidential.” It was written in minute type and he had recourse to his reading glass.

“‘During their imprisonment,’” he read, “‘Bateman disappeared, taking with him the young wife of Thomas.’” He looked up. “That’s Lorna. ‘Walter Furse died in prison in 1935.’ Tommy’s the murderer, Lorna’s his wife, Bateman’s the murdered man. It’s as clear as daylight. There’s the motive!”

“What do we know about Tommy? Have you any Australian records?”

Mr. Wender had laid three paper-covered books on the table. He selected one of these.

“In this office we have everything that opens and shuts,” he boasted. “Here you are: ‘Strictly confidential. Record of persons convicted of felony in the State of Victoria, 1922. Published by authority’—”

“Never mind about the authority,” said Mason patiently.

The identification man turned over the leaves rapidly, murmuring the names that appeared at the head of each column.

“‘Farrow, Felton, Ferguson, Furse’—here you are: ‘Walter Furse, see volume 6, page 13.’”

He pushed the book to Mason. This collection was more interesting than most Government Blue Books, for the record of every man was in the form of a short and readable biography.

‘Thomas Furse. This man was educated in England by his brother; was probably unaware of his brother’s illegal occupation when he came to the Colony. Furse was certainly an assumed name (see W. Furse, Vol. 8, p. 7), and there is a possibility that he was educated under his own name by his brother and with his brother’s money, though he adopted the name of Furse when he came to the Colony. He married Lorna Weston—’

Mason stopped reading to look up.

‘He married Lorna Weston, whom he met on the voyage out to Australia. She disappeared after his conviction. Thomas released…’

He read on in silence, and presently closed the book. “The identity of these people is now positively established,” he said. “The motive is here for anyone who can read. Thomas goes to Australia; within a month or two he is caught for this hold-up and gets two years. Donald Arthur Bateman turns King’s evidence and disappears with Lorna. Thomas comes back to England and in some way meets Donald last night. Now the only question is: is Thomas Furse another name for Louis Landor? That’s what we’ve got to find out. If it is, then we have the case in a nutshell.”

There were one or two other documents, and he turned them over.

“What’s this?” he asked. It was a large photograph of a thumb-print.

“That was on the back of the watch,” said Wender. “Harry Lamborn, as plain as a visiting-card. Five convictions—”

“I know all about him,” interrupted Mason.

“A fine print,” said Wender ecstatically.

“You ought to have it framed, Charlie,” said Mason in his more complimentary mood. “I shan’t want you any more.”

“Then I’ll toddle home to bed.” Mr. Wender stretched himself and yawned. “If I haven’t brought somebody to the gallows my evening has been wasted.”

“You’ll get the usual medal and star,” said Mason.

“I know,” said the other sardonically; “and when I put my expense account in—a cab from the Lyceum to Scotland Yard—they’ll tell me I ought to have taken a ‘bus!”