Richardson Scores Again (10 page)

“Why?”

“Well, you see those pegs over there? That's gentlemen hang their overcoats. It's in full view through the glass panels of the dining-room, and if a stranger walked in and went straight to the coats, either the boy or the girl at the desk would think it funny and ask him what he was doing. Of course, if it was someone who'd been lunching in the dining-room it would be different, but I knew them all by sight, or nearly all.”

“Nearly all? There were one or two strangers then?”

“Yes, two or three. I didn't take special notice of any of them.”

“Where would they hang their coats?”

“On those pegs over there. There's no other place.”

“Did you notice whether any of them left the hotel before Lieutenant Eccles?”

“No, I didn't.”

Richardson was less successful with Mr. Yule, the hotel manager, than he had a right to expect. He found the gentleman in a little office behind the reception counter, and introduced himself as a detective-sergeant from Scotland Yard. The manager seemed to resent his visit from the outset.

“Another of you!” he growled. “How many more detectives are coming here to waste my time? I've had three or four from the Borough Police already.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Yule, but without seeing you it is impossible to get much farther with an important case in London. You see, everything started with the theft of a pocket-book in the hall of your hotel.”

“I don't believe that there was any theft at all; or anyway, if there was one, that it took place in this hotel. All you've got to go upon is a statement made by this Lieutenant Eccles that someone pinched a note-case out of the pocket of his overcoat hanging in the hall while he had lunch.”

“Why do you doubt his word?”

“It's not the first time that that story has been told to me—people coming in and getting the run of their teeth, and then saying that their pockets have been picked, and that they've no money to pay for what they've had. And besides, Lieutenant Eccles didn't behave as a gentleman should behave…blustering in here and kicking up a row. When I told him that I couldn't be held responsible for things left in the hall, he said that he'd soon see whether I was responsible or not, and that he was going down to the police about me—for all the world as if he suspected me of stealing the thing. I tell you straight, I wasn't a bit surprised when the police found him in possession of a stolen car that very evening.”

“Did nobody in the hotel notice a man tampering with the coats hanging in the hall?”

“No, if they had they would have told me.”

It being obvious that nothing useful could be extracted from a man in that state of mind, Richardson's next visit was to the Chief Constable of the City Police—an officer who had worked his way up from the ranks and was genuinely anxious to help the sister force of the Metropolis. He was stout and rubicund.

“Glad to see you, sergeant. I was expecting somebody down from the Yard. Now what can I do for you?”

“I called, sir, to ask you whether you have had any line upon the man who is said by Lieutenant Eccles to have been posing as a detective of your Force.”

“So far none at all. I didn't believe the story at first, but inquiry at a number of the public-houses facing the docks have made me change my opinion. In one of them—the Westward Ho—the barman remembered a man coming in and arresting a fellow who had been standing drinks; he resisted and it caused quite a row. But in the end the man went quietly. No arrest was made at that hour of the afternoon, and no one came to the station to report any arrest.”

“Did the barman give a description of the sham detective?”

“None that could be of any use. I wish we could get one.”

“I got a fair description of him from the porter at the Crown. Here it is just as I took it down.”

The Chief Constable read it slowly until he came to the passage about the man's hands—”‘A Londoner by his speech—hands rough, with short thick fingers—more like a man who's had rough work to do day after day.' Does that suggest anything to you, sergeant?”

“Yes, sir, it does. A man in regular employment doesn't throw up his work to pose as a detective.”

“Exactly. That sort of man doesn't do any work unless he's made to. He lives by his wits. So, if that porter is right, the man we've got to look for is one who was doing rough work in some prison, and it must have been a convict prison, because they do not give their men rough work to do in local prisons. He must have been released quite recently from a convict prison where he worked either in the quarries or the stone-dressing parties. We seem to be getting warm. I dare say that if this description is sent to the Convict Supervision Office you could narrow down the inquiry to one out of a dozen possible men.”

“That shall be done, sir. I suppose that you had no difficulty in identifying the stolen car?”

“None at all. The owner came crying down to us and gave us a description of it. Really he deserved to lose it for his carelessness in parking it where he did, but he's got it back now and the theft of his car doesn't help us at all, because no one saw it done. But the coincidence of that burglary and murder in Hampstead following close upon the theft of that pocket-book can scarcely have been an accident. There must be a gang, and one member of it may be an ex-convict. That's something to work on. If I hear anything useful I'll 'phone to Superintendent Foster at the Yard, and if you get any light from the Convict Supervision Office, you'll do the same by 'phoning to me.”

Richardson's next visit was to the local superintendent of the County Constabulary, to whom he showed a copy of the woman's letter found in the pocket-book. The superintendent shook his head.

“As I read this letter, the writer is a farmer's wife, or a farmer on her own account, in urgent need of money. Well, sergeant, there are hundreds of little poultry farmers in my division round Portsmouth, and most, if not all of them, are in urgent need of money. No, sergeant; much as I should like to help you, it would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a bundle of hay, and a sheer waste of time and money to start an inquiry on nothing but this letter. If you had the envelope with a legible postmark something might be done.”

“No, sir; as you see, there's no address and we haven't got the envelope. The letter was found in the pocket-book of Lieutenant Eccles,
R.N.
—found on the scene of the Hampstead murder—and he declines to say who wrote it.”

“Is that the man who was arrested in Somersetshire for stealing a car in Portsmouth?”

“Yes, sir; the same man. I thought that perhaps one of your officers might know of some farmer who is in financial difficulties and might recognize the handwriting. We know that the writer lives quite close to the town.”

“She talks of her place as a ‘farm,' but probably it is nothing but an allotment with poultry running on it. After the war hundreds of ex-service men started poultry-keeping on little plots of land like that, expecting to make their fortunes. Most of them have gone under and the rest are on the verge of it. I could, of course, send an officer round the branch post offices in my division on the chance that one of their employees recognized the handwriting, but they aren't over-weighted with intelligence and I feel sure that it would be time wasted. I'm sorry.” Not being authorized to part with the original letter, Richardson thanked him and took his leave. He had still one visit to make, but the sacred hour of lunch-time was approaching, when small business offices were bound to be closed. He had had no breakfast, and the void within him was affecting his spirits. He must eat and drink like other people, but he determined to turn his meal to account if he could. Not for him the amenities of the Crown Hotel or its like, where naval officers took their lady friends to lunch. He made for the Westward Ho public-house.

The company assembled at the bar-counter seemed to be in a convivial mood, but a hush fell when he entered the bar-room. One or two of the company gulped down the contents of their glasses and melted unostentatiously away. The rest stood their ground and eyed him with suspicion. Apparently it was his clothes that failed to please them.

“Looking for somebody, mister?” asked a burly dock-labourer with a red face, painted by some other agency than the sun.

“No, mate; I've come in here to get something to eat.”

“Step into the bar-parlour, sir,” suggested the barman, correctly interpreting the wishes of his clients. “I'll be along in two ticks.”

Richardson passed through the door indicated and found himself alone in a tiny cubby-hole of a room. The door flew open behind him and the barman, in his shirt-sleeves, taking up a strategic position where he could take his guest's order and at the same time keep an eye upon his unguarded bar, asked him what he fancied.

“Cheese, bread and beer? That's easy. Got 'em all in the bar. Sit tight, sir, and I'll be back with them before you can turn round.” He was as good as his word, and as he clapped down the plates and glass on the table and slipped back to the door, he remarked, “Took you for a 'tec, they did, in there. They're disputing now whether you belong to the City Force or the County.”

“I suppose you get funny people in here sometimes and detectives pop in to have a look at them?”

“Funny people? You've said the word all right. Why, only a day or two ago a 'tec came in and arrested a bloke in that very room, and there was a bit of a rough-and-tumble over it right in the bar.”

“The fellow resisted arrest, do you mean?”

“Yes, but only for a minute or two. He calmed down wonderful as soon as the 'tec slipped the darbies on 'im. I had my suspicions of the bloke before the 'tec came. He was too flush of money to be 'ealthy: started treating folks he'd never clapped eyes on before: wanted to treat me, too—”

“Did you let him?”

“Not much. I didn't like 'is looks or 'is ways—a little rat of a man, 'e was, with eyes that looked every way but straight at you, and what looked suspicious to me was that nobody in the bar knew 'im.”

“And the detective? What was he like?”

“Oh, 'e was the real Mackay all right—same as you see on the pictures, stiff-built chap in a check suit and bowler 'at. But, Lord! It was as good as a play. The 'tec steps in at the door and starts looking round; the little bloke dives down and tries to hide his ugly mug behind the folks standing round 'im. The 'tec marches in, scatters the folks, and grips the little bloke by the arm, and 'e lets out a howl. ‘I want you,' says the 'tec; ‘you'd better come quiet or you'll be sorry after.' Then the fun began, right under my nose. One or two of the men looked ugly, but I told 'em that they'd be for it if they interfered with the police in the execution of their dooty, and they saw I was talking sense to them.”

Richardson would have liked to prolong his conversation with the barman, but there was a call from the bar and the man left him at a run. He finished his meal and passed through the bar to pay his score, and went on his way.

A constable on point-duty directed him to Hampton Street, a gloomy little backwater retired from the stream of traffic. Mr. Moss conducted his business in a first-floor room which his clients reached by clambering up rickety and very dirty stairs. Mr. Moss was in keeping with his surroundings: he looked as if he needed soap and water even more acutely than his stairs. He might have pleaded lack of time for cleanliness, for year in and year out he was to be found sitting, bloated and obese, at his desk, like a spider waiting in his lair for the errant fly. At the moment he was consuming beef sandwiches from a greasy piece of newspaper, which he swept into a drawer on his left as Richardson opened the door. He received his visitor with an oily, professional grin and motioned him to a seat while he gulped down a mouthful of sandwich.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Richardson had not the appearance or the mien of a borrower.

“You
are
Mr. Moss? Before I tell you who I am, I should like you to read this letter.”

Mr. Moss adjusted his spectacles and read the letter which had been found in Eccles' pocket-book. “Oh, I see. You are a gentleman from the Admiralty; but how did you know of the loan to Lieutenant Eccles? It's true that I threatened to tell the Admiralty, but I didn't do it; the threat was enough.” He chuckled with self-satisfaction.

“I don't come from the Admiralty. I am a detective-sergeant from New Scotland Yard, and I want full information from you as to how this loan of seventy pounds was contracted.”

“But why? The loan has been repaid and the interest too.”

“When?”

“Three days ago Mr. Eccles repaid the loan and interest, and what seemed funny to me was that he paid it all in Treasury notes for one pound. It took me quite a while to count it over.”

“Do you mean that he brought it himself?” Richardson had taken out his note-book.

“I didn't tell you that he brought it. He sent it by registered post.”

“With a letter?”

“No, just a typewritten slip as far as I remember.”

“Can you let me have that and the envelope?”

“I can, if I haven't thrown them both away.” Mr. Moss began tossing the papers that littered his desk here and there. Then he seemed to have an inspiration. He waddled over to a box covered with dirty cretonne which he used instead of a waste-paper basket, and shovelled out its contents on to the floor. Digging in the mouldering pile of old sandwich-papers and refuse, he found at last what he wanted. Richardson, who had been waiting in some impatience, caught at the precious documents, smoothed them out and conveyed them to his pocket-book, after noting that the postmark was Chancery Lane and the date the day following the murder.

S
UPERINTENDENT
F
OSTER
took the train to Redford without expecting great results from his journey. The plaster casts of the footprints in the rose-bed were in his view the least important part of his quest: he wanted, if he could, to extract information from Jackson, the farmer, whether there were any Bank of England notes among the money he had paid for the farm, and whether he had recorded their numbers and any signatures that might be found on the back of some of them. Treasury notes, as he knew, could not be traced from their numbers. As it was important not to alarm the man by letting him think that he was in any way under suspicion, he had resolved to make that part of the inquiry first.