MAJOR OKEWOOD ENCOUNTERS A NEW TYPE
There is a sinister ring about the word “murder,” which reacts upon
even the most hardened sensibility. Edgar Allan Poe, who was a master
of the suggestive use of words, realized this when he called the
greatest detective story ever written “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
From the very beginning of the war, Desmond had seen death in all its
forms but that word “murdered,” spoken with slow emphasis in the quiet
room, gave him an ugly chill feeling round the heart that he had never
experienced on the battlefield.
“Murdered!” Desmond repeated dully and sat down. He felt stunned. He
was not thinking of the gentle old man cruelly done to death or of the
pretty Barbara prostrate with grief. He was overawed by the curious
fatality that had plucked him from the horrors of Flanders only to
plunge him into a tragedy at home.
“Yes,” said the Chief bluntly, “by a burglar apparently—the house was
ransacked!”
“Chief,” he broke out, “you must explain. I’m all at sea! Why did you
send for me? What have you got to do with criminal cases, anyway?
Surely, this is a Scotland Yard matter!”
The Chief shook his head.
“I sent for you in default of your brother, Okewood!” he said. “You
once refused an offer of mine to take you into my service, but this
time I had to have you, so I got the War Office to wire...”
“Then my appointment for ten o’clock to-day was with you?” Desmond
exclaimed in astonishment.
The Chief nodded.
“It was,” he said curtly.
“But,” protested Desmond feebly, “did you know about this murder
beforehand!”
The Chief threw back his head and laughed.
“My dear fellow,” he said; “I’m not quite so deep as all that. I
haven’t second sight, you know!”
“You’ve got something devilish like it, sir!” said Desmond. “How on
earth did you know that I was at the Palaceum last night?”
The Chief smiled grimly.
“Oh, that’s very simple,” he said. “Shall I tell you some more about
yourself? You sat...” he glanced down at the desk in front of him,”...
in Stall E 52 and, after Nur-el-Din’s turn, Strangwise took you round
and introduced you to the lady. In her dressing-room you met Mr.
Mackwayte and his daughter. After that...”
“But,” Desmond interrupted quickly, “I must have been followed by one
of your men. Still, I can’t see why my movements should interest the
Secret Service, sir!”
The Chief remained silent for a moment. Then he said:
“Fate often unexpectedly takes a hand in this game of ours, Okewood. I
sent for you to come back from France but old man Destiny wouldn’t
leave it at that. Almost as soon as you landed he switched you straight
on to a trail that I have been patiently following up for months past.
That trail is...”
The telephone on the desk rang sharply.
“Whose trail?” Desmond could not forbear to ask as the Chief took off
the receiver.
“Just a minute,” the Chief said. Then he spoke into the telephone:
“Marigold? Yes. Really? Very well, I’ll come straight along now... I’ll
be with you in twenty minutes. Good-bye!”
He put down the receiver and rose to his feet.
“Okewood,” he cried gaily, “what do you say to a little detective work?
That was Marigold of the Criminal Investigation Department... he’s down
at Seven Kings handling this murder case. I asked him to let me know
when it would be convenient for me to come along and have a look round,
and he wants me to go now. Two heads are better than one. You’d better
come along!”
He pressed a button on the desk.
The swift and silent Matthews appeared.
“Matthews,” he said, “when Captain Strangwise comes, please tell him
I’ve been called away and ask him to call back here at two o’clock to
see me.”
He paused and laid a lean finger reflectively along his nose.
“Are you lunching anywhere, Okewood?” he said. Desmond shook his head.
“Then you will lunch with me, eh? Right. Come along and we’ll try to
find the way to Seven Kings.”
The two men threaded the busy corridors to the lift which deposited
them at the main entrance. A few minutes later the Chief was
dexterously guiding his Vauxhall car through the crowded traffic of the
Strand, Desmond beside him on the front seat.
Desmond was completely fogged in his mind. He couldn’t see light
anywhere. He asked himself in vain what possible connection could exist
between this murder in an obscure quarter of London and the man at his
side who, he knew, held in his firm hands lines that stretched to the
uttermost ends of the earth? What kind of an affair was this, seemingly
so commonplace that could take the Chief’s attention from the hundred
urgent matters of national security that occupied him?
The Chief seemed absorbed in his driving and Desmond felt it would be
useless to attempt to draw him out. They wended their way through the
city and out into the squalid length of the Mile End Road. Then the
Chief began to talk.
“I hate driving through the City,” he exclaimed, “but I always think
it’s good for the nerves. Still, I have a feeling that I shall smash
this old car up some day. That friend of yours, Strangwise, now he’s a
remarkable man! Do you know his story?”
“About his escape from Germany?” asked Desmond.
The Chief nodded.
“He told me something about it at dinner last night,” said Desmond,
“but he’s such a modest chap he doesn’t seem to like talking about it!”
“He must have a cool nerve,” replied the Chief, “he doesn’t know a word
of German, except a few scraps he picked up in camp. Yet, after he got
free, he made his way alone from somewhere in Hanover clear to the
Dutch frontier. And I tell you he kept his eyes and ears open!”
“Was he able to tell you anything good” asked Desmond.
“The man’s just full of information. He couldn’t take a note of any
kind, of course, but he seems to have a wonderful memory. He was able
to give us the names of almost every unit of troops he came across.”
He stopped to skirt a tram, then added suddenly:
“Do you know him well, Okewood?”
“Yes, I think I do,” said Desmond. “I lived with him for about three
months in France, and we got on top-hole together. He’s a man
absolutely without fear.”
“Yes,” agreed the Chief. “But what about his judgment? Would you call
him a well-balanced fellow? Or is he one of these harum-scarum soldier
of fortune sort of chaps?”
“I should say he was devilish shrewd,” replied the other. “Strangwise
is a very able fellow and a fine soldier. The Brigadier thought a lot
of him. There’s very little about artillery work that Strangwise
doesn’t know. Our Brigadier’s a good judge, too... he was a gunner
himself once, you know.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” answered the Chief, “because there are
some things he has told us, about the movements of troops,
particularly, that don’t agree in the least with our own Intelligence
reports. I am an old enough hand at my job to know that very often one
man may be right where fifty independent witnesses are dead wrong. Yet
our reports from Germany have been wonderfully accurate on the whole.”
He stopped.
“Tell me,” he asked suddenly, “is Strangwise a liar, do you think?”
Desmond laughed. The question was so very unexpected.
“Let me explain what I mean,” said the Chief. “There is a type of man
who is quite incapable of telling the plain, unvarnished truth. That
type of fellow might have the most extraordinary adventure happen to
him and yet be unable to let it stand on its merits. When he narrates
it, he trims it up with all kinds of embroidery. Is Strangwise that
type?”
Desmond thought a moment.
“Your silence is very eloquent,” said the Chief drily.
Desmond laughed.
“It’s not the silence of consent,” he said, “but if you want me to be
quite frank about Strangwise, Chief, I don’t mind telling you I don’t
like him overmuch. We were very intimate in France. We were in some
very tight corners together and he never let me down. He showed himself
to be a very fine fellow, indeed. There are points about him I admire
immensely. I love his fine physique, his manliness. I’m sure he’s got
great strength of character, too. It’s because I admire all this about
him that I think perhaps it’s just jealousy on my part when I feel...”
“What?” said the Chief.
“Well,” said Desmond slowly, “I feel myself trying to like something
below the surface in the man. And then I am balked. There seems to be
something abysmally deep behind the facade, if you know what I mean. If
I think about it much, it seems to me that there is too much surface
about Strangwise and not enough foundation! And he smiles... Well,
rather often, doesn’t he?”
“I know what you mean,” said the Chief. “I always tell my young men to
be wary when a man smiles too much. Smiles are sometimes camouflage, to
cover up something that mustn’t be seen underneath! Strangwise is a
Canadian, isn’t he?”
“I think so,” answered Desmond, “anyhow, he has lived there. But he got
his commission over here. He came over some time in 1915, I believe,
and joined up.”
“Ah, here we are!” cried the Chief, steering the car down a turning
marked “Laleham Villas.”
Laleham Villas proved to be an immensely long terrace of small
two-story houses, each one exactly like the other, the only difference
between them lying in the color of the front doors and the arrangement
of the small strip of garden in front of each. The houses stretched
away on either side in a vista of smoke-discolored yellow brick. The
road was perfectly straight and, in the dull yellow atmosphere of the
winter morning, unspeakably depressing.
The abode of small clerks and employees, Laleham Villas had rendered
up, an hour before, its daily tribute of humanity to the City-bound
trains of the Great Eastern Railway. The Mackwayte’s house was plainly
indicated, about 200 yards down on the right-hand side, by a knot of
errand boys and bareheaded women grouped on the side-walk. A large,
phlegmatic policeman stood at the gate.
“You’ll like Marigold,” said the Chief to Desmond as they got out of
the car, “quite a remarkable man and very sound at his work!”
British officers don’t number detective inspectors among their habitual
acquaintances, and the man that came out of the house to meet them was
actually the first detective that Desmond had ever met. Ever since the
Chief had mentioned his name, Desmond had been wondering whether Mr.
Marigold would be lean and pale and bewildering like Mr. Sherlock
Holmes or breezy and wiry like the detectives in American crook plays.
The man before him did not bear the faintest resemblance to either
type. He was a well-set up, broad-shouldered person of about
forty-five, very carefully dressed in a blue serge suit and black
overcoat, with a large, even-tempered countenance, which sloped into a
high forehead. The neatly brushed but thinning locks carefully arranged
across the top of the head testified to the fact that Mr. Marigold had
sacrificed most of his hair to the vicissitudes of his profession. When
it is added that the detective had a small, yellow moustache and a
pleasant, cultivated voice, there remains nothing further to say about
Mr. Marigold’s external appearance. But there was something so patent
about the man, his air of reserve, his careful courtesy, his shrewd
eyes, that Desmond at once recognized him for a type, a cast from a
certain specific mould. All services shape men to their own fashion.
There is the type of Guardsman, the type of airman, the type of naval
officer. And Desmond decided that Mr. Marigold must be the type of
detective, though, as I have said, he was totally unacquainted with the
_genus_.
“Major Okewood, Marigold,” said the Chief, “a friend of mine!”
Mr. Marigold mustered Desmond in one swift, comprehensive look.
“I won’t give you my hand, Major,” the detective said, looking down at
Desmond’s proffered one, “for I’m in a filthy mess and no error. But
won’t you come in, sir?” he said to the Chief and led the way across
the mosaic tile pathway to the front door which stood open.
“I don’t think this is anything in your line, sir,” said Mr. Marigold
to the Chief as the three men entered the house, “it’s nothing but just
a common burglary. The old man evidently heard a noise and coming down,
surprised the burglar who lost his head and killed him. The only novel
thing about the whole case is that the old party was shot with a pistol
and not bludgeoned, as is usually the case in affairs of this kind. And
I shouldn’t have thought that the man who did it was the sort that
carries a gun...”
“Then you know who did it?” asked the Chief quietly.
“I think I can safely say I do, sir,” said Mr. Marigold with the
reluctant air of one who seldom admits anything to be a fact, “I think
I can go as far as that! And we’ve got our man under lock and key!”
“That’s a smart piece of work, Marigold,” said the Chief.
“No, sir,” replied the other, “you could hardly call it that. He just
walked into the arms of a constable over there near Goodmayes Station
with the swag on him. He’s an old hand... we’ve known him for a
receiver for years!
“Who is it?” asked the Chief, “not one of my little friends, I suppose,
eh, Marigold!”
“Dear me, no, sir,” answered Mr. Marigold, chuckling, “it’s one of old
Mackwayte’s music-hall pals, name o’ Barney!”