Elk 04 White Face (12 page)

He had left when Bray came importantly into the room.

“I’ve got those people.”

“Eh?” Mason looked up. He was reading again the account of Thomas Furse. No age was given, which was rather annoying, but he could put a beam cable inquiry through to Melbourne and find an answer waiting for him when he came back to the office.

“You’ve got those people, have you? Did you search the flat?”

“I left Elk to do that.”

Mason nodded.

“What are they hiding up?”

“That’s what I don’t quite know. I should have found out, but unfortunately Elk is a little difficult. I don’t want to complain, Chief, but I’m placed in an awkward position when a subordinate takes a case out of my hands and starts investigating and cross-questioning, taking no more notice of me than if I were the paper on the wall!”

“He does it with me,” Mason smiled broadly. “Why shouldn’t he do it with you? As a matter of fact, you oughtn’t to complain. These darned regulations about questioning prisoners are so framed that it’s good to have some other officer responsible for breaking them—you can always pass the kick on to him. Shoot ‘em in, Bray.”

He laughed quietly to himself after Bray had left. Elk was incorrigible, but Elk was invaluable. There was some odd kink in his mind which prevented his passing the educational test which would raise him to the dignity of inspector. For the fourth time Mason determined to beard the Commissioners and demand promotion for his erratic subordinate.

He rose to his feet when the door opened and Inez came in ahead of her husband. She was more composed than he had expected, not quite so white. He went across the room to shake hands with her, an unusual and unexpected greeting which momentarily took her aback.

“I’m terribly sorry to bring you out in the middle of the night, Mrs. Landor.” His voice was at its most sympathetic. “If it had been any less serious case I wouldn’t have bothered either you or your husband; but here we are, all of us up and doing when we want to be in bed, in the sacred name of justice, as the poet says.”

He personally placed a chair for her. Shale put a chair for Mr. Landor.

“I hope we’ve not alarmed you—that was worrying me.” His voice betrayed an almost tender solicitude. “But, as I say, in a case of this character it very often happens that decent citizens are put to inconvenience.”

It was Louis Landor who answered.

“I’m not at all worried, but it is rather unpleasant for my wife.”

“Naturally,” agreed Mason understandingly.

He sat down and pulled his chair a little nearer to the desk, looking up at Bray.

“Now what has Mr. Landor told you?”

Bray took out a notebook. He had kept his charges at Scotland Yard for a quarter of an hour while lie had jotted down with fair accuracy the gist of the statements which they had made to him.

“Mrs. Landor knew the murdered man, and Mr. Landor knew him also slightly,” he read. “The two notes for a hundred pounds found in the pocket were given to the deceased by Mr. Landor, who says it was in the nature of a loan. This statement was made after Mr. Landor had said that he did not know Donald Bateman.”

Mason nodded.

“Subsequently he admitted he did?”

“Yes. He also said he’d never been in Tidal Basin. Mrs. Landor said that the murdered man was a very intimate friend of hers many years ago, but she hasn’t seen him since. She has been married five years, was the widow of a man named John Smith. In the flat I found a belt with a place for two knives. One of the knives I found.” He put it on the table. “The other was missing.”

Mason took up the knife and pulled it from its sheath, looked at the little gold plate with the initials.

“L.L.—those are your initials?”

Landor nodded.

“Where did the other knife go?”

Bray supplied the answer from his notes.

“Mrs. Landor said it was lost. Both knives were presented to her husband at a rodeo competition in Central America for his skill in knife-throwing.” He closed his book with a snap. “That is all the statement they made.”

Mason’s face was very serious.

“You agree that that was what you said to-night to Inspector Bray?” and, when they answered in the affirmative: “Would you like to amplify or correct that statement in any way?”

“No,” said Louis.

“I’d like to point out, sir,” interrupted Bray, “that he has a bruise on his face. He said he knocked it against the door; Mrs. Landor said he got it as the result of a fall.”

“Would you like to make a statement of any kind?” asked Mason.

Louis Landor drew a quick breath.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Have you any objection if I ask you a few questions?”

Landor hesitated.

“No.” The word seemed forced from him.

“Or your wife?”

Inez shook her head.

“I’ll make it as easy as I can. I realise it is very trying for you. Have you ever been to Australia?”

To his surprise, Landor replied instantly.

“Yes, many years ago. I made a voyage round the world with my father. I was very young at the time.”

“Did you ever meet there or at any other place a man named Donald Arthur Bateman who, I happen to know, was an ex-convict?”

He shook his head.

“You say you have never been to Tidal Basin? If I tell you that you were recognised as having been seen in the vicinity of Endley Street fighting with Bateman, would you deny it?”

It was a bluff on Mason’s part, but it came off.

“I shouldn’t deny it—no.”

Mason beamed.

“That’s sensible! There’s no need to hide anything.” He was his solicitous self again. “Now just forget the statement you made to Mr. Bray and we’ll forget it, too,” he smiled. “You’re hiding something. To save you or your wife from some imaginary danger you’re implicating yourself further and further in the crime of wilful murder. Now, what are you afraid of?”

Louis Landor avoided his eyes.

“You’re probably hiding something that doesn’t matter two hoots. What does matter”—he emphasised every sentence with a tap of his finger on the pad—“is that I have sufficient evidence to charge you with murder. You were in Tidal Basin; a knife similar to this—I have the sheath—was used in the murder of Bateman, and you have been paying, or have paid, money to the dead man which is traceable to your banking account. Now, why?”

Bray asserted himself.

“You’re not going to stick to the story that you did it as an act of kindness–-” he began, and then he caught Mason’s eye, and saw there no encouragement to intervene.

“You were being blackmailed: isn’t that the truth?”

“Yes, that’s the truth.” It was Inez who spoke. “That is the truth! I can tell you that.”

Mr. Mason’s nods were not ordinary nods: they were an inclination of head not unlike the reverent obeisance before the statue of a heathen deity.

“Exactly. The murdered man knew that you or your wife had committed some offence, whether against the law–-” he paused expectantly.

“I’m not prepared to say,” said Louis quickly.

“You’re prepared to go in the dock on a charge of1 wilful murder, and your wife is prepared to let you. Is that what I understand?”

She was shaking her head, momentarily inarticulate.

“Very well, then. You were being blackmailed.”

“Yes.” It came faintly from Inez.

“What had you done? Had you murdered somebody? Robbed somebody?” His jaw dropped. Into his eyes came a look of intense amusement which was particularly out of place. “I know! You had committed bigamy!”

“No,” said Louis.

“This man Bateman was your husband.” His forefinger pointed to her. “He was alive when you married your present husband. Isn’t that the truth?”

“I thought he was dead.” Her voice was very low, but he heard every word. “I was sure of it. I had the newspaper cutting. He told me when I saw him that he circulated the story because he wanted the police off his track for some crime he had committed in England. I swear I didn’t know.”

Again Mason leaned back in his chair, and his thumbs went into the armholes of his waistcoat.

“Even Scotland Yard didn’t know, Mrs. Landor. I’ve got it here.” He tapped the pile of documents at his elbow. “Reported dead in Australia. Good God! What a thing to worry about—bigamy! That’s hardly an offence—you ought to get something out of the poor-box for that! And that’s what you’ve been hiding up? When did you see him last?”

The eyes of the husband and wife met, and Louis nodded.

“To-day,” said the woman.

“You heard he was in London four days ago,” interrupted Bray. “Your servant said you’d been distressed for four days.”

She hesitated.

“You can answer that,” said Mason, and his permission would have been a rebuff to any other man but Mr. Bray.

“He wrote—I couldn’t believe he was alive.”

Bateman knew they were well off; suggested she should pay him money, threatening to publish the story of her bigamy. He arrived from South Africa penniless, having met some sharper crooks on the boat, who had taken what little money he had had when he embarked. But he had excellent prospects, he told her.

“Yes,” said Mason dryly, “I know her name.”

He settled himself deeper in his chair and clasped his hands before him. He knew he was now coming to the really delicate part of his investigations.

“He called at your house—when?”

“To-day,” she said.

“Did he call yesterday—for the money?”

She shook her head.

“No, that was posted.”

“Then what did he call about to-day? To thank you?”

She did not answer.

“Your husband was out?”

She was looking straight at the wall ahead of her; he saw her lips quivering.

“Was he—affectionate?”

Bray was nearest to her, and caught her before she slid to the floor.

“All right, get some water.”

There was a water bottle on the mantelpiece. Shale poured out a glassful. Presently her eyes opened and her husband lifted her into the arm-chair which Bray pushed forward.

“You needn’t ask her anything more,” Landor said. “I can tell you everything.”

“I think you can,” said Mason. “What time did you arrive at the flat yesterday—after this man had seen your wife?”

“Immediately after. I passed him on the stairs, but didn’t know who he was.”

“And yet you recognised him in the photograph?”

“I’ve seen him since: I’ve admitted that, or practically admitted it, when I said I was in Tidal Basin.”

“You found your wife very upset? She told you what it was all about?”

He nodded.

“And you went after him?”

“Yes,” defiantly.

“With a knife similar to this?”

Inez Landor came up to her feet at this, her hand on the table.

“That’s a lie! He didn’t go after him with a knife,” she said passionately. “Donald took the knife—he took it from me. I’ll tell you the truth. I tried to kill him. I snatched the knife from the wall. I hated him! For all the years I had with him, for all that I suffered when he was out of prison, for my baby who died because of his beastliness!”

There was a silence. Mason could hear her quick breathing.

“He took the knife from you?”

“Yes. He said he’d keep it as a souvenir, and took the sheath and put it in his pocket. You know what he wanted, don’t you? He wanted me to live with him again.” Her voice rose. Mason had come round to the side of his desk and took her arm in his big hand and literally pushed her back into the chair.

“Gently, Mrs. Landor. Don’t get rattled. You’re doing fine.”

He looked round to Louis.

“You followed this man to Tidal Basin and fought with him. Did you know he had the knife in his pocket?”

“I didn’t know anything about it till my wife told me on the telephone. I didn’t see the knife or use it.”

“Why did you run away?” asked Mason.

Again Louis paused before he answered.

“I thought I’d killed him…my wife begged me not to touch him. He had some sort of heart disease.”

Mason nodded many times.

“And carried butyl ammonal in his pocket?”

“Yes,” said Inez eagerly, “a little thing he crushed in a handkerchief and inhaled. He always carried that.”

Mason began to walk slowly up and down the room, his hands in his pockets.

“You bolted, and found a door open in the gate of the Eastern Trading Company. I call it the beer door: you won’t understand why, and I can’t explain. And that’s all you know about it?”

“As God is my judge,” said Landor.

“You never threw a knife or used a knife?”

“I’ll swear I never did.”

“Did you hear all the commotion when we were outside the gate?”