Elk 04 White Face (7 page)

“He’ll get the sack,” she managed to breathe.

Mason looked at her and shook his head.

“I’m not reporting to the Eastern Trading Company, though you might have helped a little bit if you hadn’t hidden up the truth when I asked you about the beer. I blame myself for not realising that you had something to hide, and what it was. It might have made a big difference.”

“You’re not reporting it, mister?” she asked tremulously, and was on the verge of tears. “I’ve had a very hard time. That poor woman could tell you how hard it was: she used to live with me till she came into money.”

“Which poor woman is this?” asked Mason quickly.

“Mrs. Weston.”

She had lost some of her fear in the face of his interest.

“She lodged with you?”

Elk had left the room. Mason motioned her to the chair which the sergeant had vacated and which was nearer to him.

“Come along and let’s hear all about it,” he said genially.

A bald man, with a round, amused face and a ready smile, removed all her natural suspicions.

“Oh, yes, sir, she used to lodge with me, till she got this money.”

“Where did she get the money from?”

“Gawd knows,” said Mrs. Albert piously. “I never ask questions. She paid me all that she owed me, that’s all I know. I’ve been wondering, sir”—she leaned forward confidentially—“was it her husband or her young man who was killed?”

“Her young man was killed,” said Mason without hesitation. “You knew them?”

She shook her head.

“You knew the husband, at any rate?”

“I’ve seen photographs of him in her room. They were taken in Australia—her and the two. When I say I’ve seen them,” she corrected herself, “I was just going to take a look at ‘em when she come in the room and snatched the frame out of my hand—which was funny, because it had always been on the mantelshelf before, but I never took any notice of it till she said one day it was her husband and a great friend. It was on the following day I took up the picture to have a look.”

“And she snatched it out of your hand? How long ago was this?”

She thought.

“Two years last July.”

Mason nodded.

“And soon after that she came into money, almost immediately after?”

Mrs. Albert was not surprised at his perspicuity. She had the impression that she had given him that information.

“Yes, sir, she left me the next day, or two days after. I haven’t spoken to her since. She lives in the grand part of Tidal Basin now. I always say that when people are well off–-“

“I’m perfectly sure I can guess what you always say.” He was not unkind but he was very firm. “Now, what sort of a frame would this be in—leather?”

Yes, she thought rather that it was leather—or wood, covered with leather.

“I know she put it in her box because I saw her do it—a little black box she used to keep under her bed.”

He questioned her and cross-checked her answers, eliminating in the process all possibility that her narrative might be embroidered by imagination. Into the lives of the poor comes no other romance than that of their own creation.

He grew suddenly vague; she could not understand the questions he put to her. They seemed to have no foundation in reason. And then suddenly he touched a high note of romance. Had she ever seen a man with a piece of white cloth on his face? She shuddered pleasurably.

“The Devil…I’ve heard of him, but never seen him, thank God! It was him that done it—everybody was saying so in the crowd.” “Have you ever seen him?” She shook her head vigorously.

“No, an’ I don’t want to in my state. But I know people who have…in the middle of the night.”

“When they’ve been dreaming,” suggested Mason, but she would not have this.

The Devil was a possession of Tidal Basin; not willingly would she surrender the legend. When he showed into the charge-room a woman made tearfully grateful by the knowledge that she could go to her home and her three children. Marford was waiting to say good night. Dr. Rudd had already left.

“If you want me to-night, I shall be at my surgery. I hope I may be allowed to sleep.”

Mason had three things he wished to do at the same time—three errands on which he could trust nobody but himself. He decided to perform his first task single-handed and call back for Elk to assist him with the second.

“Carrion,” said Mason pleasantly, “the body has been removed.”

“Who is it, Mason?”

Mr. Mason shook his head.

“There was once,” he said jovially, “a medical student who was asked how many teeth Adam was born with, and he replied, very properly, ‘God knows.’”

“Unknown, eh? A swell, they tell me?”

“He’s well dressed,” said Mason in his noncommittal way. “Go along and have a look at him. You know all the toughs in the West End.”

Michael shook his head.

“That can wait. What is this murder—a little joke of White Face?”

“Why White Face?” demanded Mason. “Listen, Quigley, you’ve got a bug in your brain. White Face doesn’t belong to Tidal Basin any more than your devil.”

“He’s been seen here,” insisted the reporter, and Mason sighed.

“A man who wore a lump of lint over his face has been seen here. Dr. Marford, in a weak-minded moment, told you. You’d see the same in the neighbourhood of any hospital.”

Michael Quigley was unusually silent.

“Oh…where are you going?”

No other reporter dared ask such a question, but Mason knew this young man rather well.

“You’ll get me hung, Michael, but I’ll let you come along with me. I’m going to see a green door and have a little independent search. Your encouragement and help will be welcome. How is Miss Harman?”

Mike almost showed his teeth.

“You can collect gossip, even if you can’t collect murderers!” he snarled. “Miss Harman is a very good friend of mine who is going to marry somebody else.”

“I congratulate her,” said Mason as they stepped out towards Endley Street. “It must be a terribly un-romantic life being married to a reporter.”

“There is no question of my being married to anybody,” said Michael savagely, “and you’re getting under my skin, Mason.”

“Fine,” said Mason. “Some day I’ll go shooting elephants.”

They trudged side by side, cold anger in the heart of one and an idea that was growing into shape in the mind of Mr. Mason. He whistled softly as he walked under the high wall of the Eastern Trading Company.

“Do you mind,” asked Michael with sour politeness, “choosing some other tune than the Wedding March?”

“Was I whistling that?” asked the other in surprise. “Ever noticed how like a funeral march it is? Change the time and you’re there.”

It was a beast of a night; a wind had risen, with the cold of the Eastern steppes.

“Policemen and reporters,” said Mason, “get their living out of other people’s misfortunes. Has that ever struck you? Here they are!”

The “they” were three men walking abreast towards them. They slackened their pace when Mason came into view and halted to receive them.

“We’ve found nothing and nobody,” said the senior. “We searched the yard, but there wasn’t a sign of a man, though there were plenty of places where he could have hidden.”

“And the wicket gate?”

“That was ajar,” replied the detective. “Albert, the night watchman, swore that it hadn’t been opened. It’s against the rules to open the wicket gate unless there’s a fire.”

“Maybe there was a fire,” suggested Mason. “It’s a good night for a fire. All right, you can come along with me.”

They had only a few yards to go before they came to the place where the pavement, the private yard road and the railway arch formed a triangle.

“This is where the body was found.” suggested Michael, and Mason indicated the spot.

He was still whistling when he walked to the green-painted wicket door and pushed. It was locked now. If he’d only thought of trying that door—but if there had been a man behind it he would have had the sense to have shot in the bolts. He must have been hiding in there when Elk was searching the yard for the pocket case and watch. But if Mrs. Albert had talked—

He confided his woes to Michael, a safe and sure recipient, for Michael Quigley knew just what not to print.

“You get that sort of thing in all these cases,” said Michael philosophically. “And you expect it, anyway. Nobody tells the truth, because there’s some twiddling little thing to hide that may bring discredit upon them. Personally, I can’t understand their mentality.”

His eyes roved over the pavement.

“You searched the gutter, I suppose? There’s a distinct slope to this sidewalk.”

Mason looked inquiringly at one of the detectives, but nobody could tell him anything except that the traps where storm water runs had been emptied and the mud at the bottom carefully searched, without anything of value being found.

Michael straddled the gutter, and, pulling up his sleeve, ran his fingers through the slowly moving water, groping…

“First shot!” he cried exultantly. “What’s this?”

Mason took it in his hand. It looked like a button or a tiny brown electric light bulb. One of the detectives put his light upon the find as it lay in Mason’s hand.

“It looks to me like a capsule,” said Michael, turning it over curiously.

It was indeed a tiny capsule of thin glass, containing something the colour of which was indistinguishable.

“I seem to know the shape, too. Now where the devil have I seen those before?”

“It can go to the police analyst, anyway,” said Mason, and put it carefully in his pocket. “Mike, you’re lucky: try again.”

Michael’s wet hand went through the water, but he could find nothing. And then he saw what hundreds of pairs of eyes, focused on that strip of pavement, had not seen. It lay poised upon the sharp edge of the kerb, as if it had been carefully placed there, though it must have rolled and fallen into its position through no other agent than the force of gravity. The long stone hung over the kerb: the platinum circle was so dulled with rain that it was indistinguishable from the granite on which it rested.

He picked it up, his heart thumping painfully.

“What is this?”

Mason took it from his unwilling hand.

“A ring! To think those poor, blind bats—a ruby ring! I suppose the ruby’s an imitation, but it looks ruby.”

Michael Quigley said nothing. The men were swaying blurs of shadow; he found a difficulty in breathing. Something in his attitude must have attracted Mason’s attention, for he looked at him sharply.

“What’s the matter with you? God Almighty, you look like a dead man! It was stooping down that did it—the blood rushing to your head, eh?”

Michael knew Mason well enough to realise that Superintendent Mason was advancing an excuse for the benefit of the other detectives, and this was confirmed when he sent them left and right groping vainly through the gutters for some new clue. Then it was, he took Michael’s arm.

“Son,” he said kindly, “You’ve seen that ring before, haven’t you?”

Michael shook his head.

“What’s the use of telling me a lie?” Mason’s voice was reproachful and hurt.

“I don’t remember seeing it before,” said Michael harshly. It did not sound like his voice speaking.

“Hiding up?” said Mason gently. “What’s the use? Somebody’s bound to come along and blow it all. You were saying only a minute ago how silly it was to keep things from the police—twiddling little things that don’t count. And you couldn’t understand their mentality. Are you understanding their mentality any better?”

“I’ve never seen that ring before.”

It required a mighty effort on his part for Michael to make this statement. Mr. Mason was by nature a sceptic and not easily convinced.

“You’ve seen it before and you know whom it belongs to. Listen, Michael! I’m not going to be sympathetic with you and I’m not going to try any of the monkey tricks that I use with half-witted criminals. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble and somebody else more, if you take me into your confidence. It doesn’t mean that the person who owns that ring is going to be pinched, or that they’re booked for pads of publicity—you know me too well for that. Hiding up, as you say, is one of the curses of the business.”

Michael had recovered himself by now.

“You’ll be pinching me for the murder in a minute,” he said lightly. “No, I don’t know that stone at all. I was a little dizzy from trying to do stunts in the gutter with my head between my legs. Try it yourself and see what effect it has on you.”

Mason looked at him for a long time, then at the ring.

“A lady’s ring, I should say.” He tried it on his little finger. “And a little finger ring. It doesn’t go any farther than the top of mine. That will mean publicity,” he said carelessly. “I don’t want to say anything against you newspaper men, Michael, but you certainly spread yourselves on a mysterious clue like this, and I shouldn’t be surprised to find a portrait of the young lady—”

He stopped suddenly.

“Not Miss Harman?”

“No,” said Michael loudly.

“Liar,” retorted Mr. Mason. “It’s Miss Harman’s ring! And you knew it the moment you saw it!”

He looked at the jewel for a while, then put it into his pocket.

“This man who was murdered was a South African?” asked Mike.

Mason nodded.

“Had he come recently from South Africa?”

“We don’t know, but we guess within the last week or two.”

“What is his name?”

“We don’t even know that, except that it’s Donald.”

His jaw dropped; his large protruding eyes opened to their widest extent.

“Whom is Miss Harman going to marry?” he asked.

“An Irishman named Feeney,” said Michael mendaciously. “No, as a matter of fact, Mason, she’s marrying me. But I’ve had a little tiff with her. Can I see the body?”

“Let’s go together and make an evening of it,” said Mason, and linked arms with him.

Their gruesome errand lasted only a few minutes and left Michael more puzzled than ever. Puzzled and terribly distressed. There was no question at all that the man who had dropped that ring, whether it was the dead man or the murderer, was the romantic lover. He must find out the truth at all costs.

He left Mason at the police station and ran out, almost knocking down a girl who was hesitating at the foot of the station steps.

“Michael…Michael!” she gasped, and clutched him by the arm. “They told me you were here. I had to see you…Oh, Michael, I’ve been a fool and I do want help terribly badly!”

He looked at her with momentary suspicion.

“How long have you been here, Janice?” he asked.

“I’ve just arrived. There’s my car.” She pointed to its dim lights. The shoulders of her skin coat were wet with rain. “Could we go anywhere? I want to speak to you. There’s been a murder, hasn’t there?”

He nodded.

“How dreadful! But I’m glad I knew where I could find you. There always seem to be murders here,” she shuddered. “And I’ve been murdered, too, Michael. All my vanity, all my pride—if it’s true. And I feel that you are the only person that can bring them to life again. Where can we go?”

He hesitated. He had supplied the needs of the last edition; there was nothing more for him to write tonight, though his work was by no means done. He went back to the car. She was in so pitiable a condition that he took the wheel from her hand and drove her to Bury Street. He had never been in her flat before, so that he was a stranger to the maid who opened the door.

Janice led the way to the pretty little drawing-room and closed the door.

“Take your coat off,” he commanded before she started speaking. “Your shoes and your stockings are all wet—go and change them.”

She went meekly, and returned in a few minutes with a dressing-gown wrapped round her, and cowered down in a low arm-chair before an electric radiator.

“Here’s the cablegram I had.”

She handed him a folded paper without looking up.

“Wait! Before you read it I want to tell you. He said he had a farm in Paarl and he was very anxious to buy an adjoining property…and I was buying it for him and cabled out to Van Zyl, that awfully nice boy I spoke to you about, and told him to buy it. That is his answer.”

He opened the telegram. It was a long message.

“The property you mention is not at Paarl but in Constantia adjoining the convict prison. It is not and never has been for sale. Donald Bateman, whom you mention as proprietor, is unknown as landowner either here or in Rhodesia. My friend Public Prosecutor is afraid man you mention is Donald Bateman, who served nine months imprisonment at Constantia for land frauds; tall, rather good-looking man, long scar under his chin, grey eyes. He left by “Balmoral Castle” five weeks ago en route England. His frauds take shape of persuading people advance money buy property and decamping with deposit. Please forgive if this little melodramatic. Always anxious to serve. Carl.”

He folded the telegram aim looked at her oddly.

And then he said in a strange voice:

“The scar under the chin. It’s curious, that’s the first thing I noticed.”

She turned and looked up at him, startled.