Crewe had well-furnished offices in Holborn but lived in a luxurious flat
in Jermyn Street. Although he went to and fro between them daily, his
personality was almost a dual one, though not consciously so; his passion
for crime investigation was distinct--in outward seeming, at all
events--from his polished West End life of wealthy ease. Grave,
self-contained, and inscrutable, he slipped from one to the other with an
effortless regularity, and the fashionable folk with whom he mixed in his
leisured bachelor existence in the West End, apart from knowing him as
the famous Crewe, had even less knowledge of the real man behind his
suave exterior than the clients who visited his inquiry rooms in Holborn
to confide in him their stories of suffering, shame, or crimes committed
against them. His commissionaire and body-servant, Stork, had once, in a
rare--almost unique--convivial moment, declared to the caretaker of the
building that he knew no more about his master after ten years than he
did the first day he entered his service. He was deep beyond all belief,
was Stork's opinion, delivered with reluctant admiration.
Although Crewe did not allow the externals of his two existences to
become involved, his chief interest in life was in his work. He had
originally taken up detective work more as a relief from the boredom of
his lot as a wealthy young man, leading an aimless, useless life with
others of his class, than by deliberate choice of his vocation. His
initial successes surprised him; then the work absorbed him and became
his life's career. He had achieved some memorable successes and he had
made a few failures, but the failures belonged to the earlier portion of
his career, before he had learnt to trust thoroughly in his own great
gifts of intuition and insight, and that uncanny imagination which
sometimes carried him successfully through when all else failed.
Serious devotees of chess knew the name of Crewe in another capacity--as
the name of a man who might have aspired to great deeds if he had but
taken the game as his life's career. He had flashed across the chess
horizon some years previously as a player of surpassing brilliance by
defeating Turgieff, when the great Russian master had visited London and
had played twelve simultaneous boards at the London Chess Club. Crewe was
the only player of the twelve to win his game, and he did so by a
masterly concealed ending in which he handled his pawns with consummate
skill, proffering the sacrifice of a bishop with such art that Turgieff
fell into the trap, and was mated in five subsequent moves. Crewe proved
this was not merely a lucky win by defeating the young South American
champion, Caranda, shortly afterwards, when the latter visited England
and played a series of exhibition games in London on his way to Moscow,
where he was engaged in the championship tourney. Once again it was
masterly pawn play which brought Crewe a fine victory, and aged chess
enthusiasts who followed every move of the game with trembling
excitement, declared afterwards that Crewe's conception of this
particular game had not been equalled since Morphy died.
They predicted a dazzling chess career for Crewe, but he disappointed
their aged hearts by retiring suddenly from match chess, and they mourned
him as one unworthy of his great chess gifts and the high hopes they had
placed in him. But, as a matter of fact, Crewe's intellect was too
vigorous and active to be satisfied with the triumphs of chess, and his
disappearance from the chess world was contemporary with his entrance
into detective work, which appealed to his imagination and found scope
for his restless mental activity. But if detective work so absorbed him
that he gave up match chess entirely, he still retained an interest in
the science of chess, reserving problem play for his spare moments, and,
when not immersed in the solution of a problem of human mystery, he would
turn to the chessboard and seek solace and relaxation in the mysteries of
an intricate "four-mover."
He had once said that there was a certain affinity between solving chess
problems and the detection of crime mystery: once the key-move was found,
the rest was comparatively easy. But he added with a sigh that a really
perfect crime mystery was as rare as a perfect chess problem: human
ingenuity was not sufficiently skilful, as a rule, to commit a crime or
construct a chess problem with completely artistic concealment of the
key-move, and for that reason most problems and crimes were far too easy
of detection to absorb one's intellectual interests and attention.
It was the morning after Crewe's visit to Riversbrook, and the detective
sat in his private office glancing through a note-book which contained a
summary of the Hampstead mystery. Crewe was a painstaking detective as
well as a brilliant one, and it was his custom to prepare several
critical summaries of any important case on which he was engaged, writing
and rewriting the facts and his comments, until he was satisfied that he
had a perfect outline to work upon, with the details and clues of the
crime in consecutive order and relation to one another. Experience had
taught him that the time and labour this task involved were well-spent.
If an unexpected development of the case altered the facts of the
original summary Crewe prepared another one in the same painstaking way.
The summaries, when done with, were methodically filed and indexed and
stored in a strong room at the office for future reference, where he also
kept full records of all the cases upon which he had been engaged,
together with the weapons and articles that had figured in them: huge
volumes of newspaper reports and clippings; photographs of criminals with
their careers appended; and a host of other odds and ends of his
detective investigations--the whole forming an interesting museum of
crime and mystery which would have furnished a store of rich material
for a fresh Newgate Calendar. It was an axiom of Crewe's that a detective
never knew when some old scrap of information or some trifling article of
some dead and forgotten crime might not afford a valuable clue. Expert
criminals frequently repeated themselves, like people in lesser walks of
life, and Crewe's "library and museum," as he called it, had sometimes
furnished him with a simple hint for the solution of a mystery which had
defied more subtle methods of analysis.
Crewe, after carefully reading his summary of the murder of Sir Horace
Fewbanks, and making a few alterations in the text, drew from his pocket
the glove which Inspector Chippenfield had handed him as a clue, took it
to the window, and carefully examined it through a large magnifying
glass. He was thus engrossed when the door was noiselessly opened, and
Stork, the bodyguard, entered. Stork belied his name. He was short and
fat, with a red mottled face; a model of discretion and imperturbability,
who had served Crewe for ten years, and bade fair to serve him another
ten, if he lived that long. In his heart of hearts he often wondered why
a gentleman like Crewe should so far forget what was due to his birth and
position as to have offices in Holborn--Holborn, of all parts of London!
But the awe he felt for Crewe prevented his seeking information on the
point from the only person who could give it to him, so he served him and
puzzled over him in silence, his inward perturbation of spirits being
made manifest occasionally by a puzzled glance at his master when the
latter was not looking. It was nothing to Stork that his master was a
famous detective; the problem to him was _why_ he was a detective when he
had no call to be one, having more money than any man--and let alone a
single man--could spend in a lifetime.
Stork coughed slightly to attract Crewe's attention.
"If you please, sir," he said, "the boy has come."
While Crewe was busy with his magnifying glass Stork returned with the
boy who had accompanied Crewe on his visit to Riversbrook on the
previous day.
The boy, a thin white-faced, sharp-eyed London street urchin, seemed
curiously out of place in the handsomely furnished office, with his legs
tucked up under the carved rail of a fine old oak chair, and his big
dark eyes fixed intently on Crewe's face. The tie between him and the
detective was an unusual one. It dated back some twelve months, when
Crewe, in the investigation of a peculiarly baffling crime, found it
advisable to disguise himself and live temporarily in a crowded criminal
quarter of Islington. The rooms he took were above a secondhand clothing
shop kept by a drunken female named Leaver; a supposed widow who lived
at the back of the shop with her two children, Lizzie, a bold-eyed girl
of 17, who worked at a Clerkenwell clothing factory, and Joe, a typical
Cockney boy of fourteen, who sold papers in the streets during the day
and was fast qualifying for a thief at night when Crewe went to the
place to live.
Crewe soon discovered, through overhearing a loud quarrel between his
landlady and her daughter, that Mrs. Leaver's husband was alive, though
dead to his wife for all practical purposes, inasmuch as he was serving a
life's imprisonment for manslaughter. A fortnight after he had taken up
his temporary quarters above the shop the woman was removed to the
hospital suffering from the effects of a hard drinking bout, and died
there. The girl disappeared, and the boy would have been turned out on
the streets but for Crewe, who had taken a liking to him. Joe was
self-reliant, alert, and precocious, like most London street boys, but in
addition to these qualities he had a vein of imagination unusual in a lad
of his upbringing and environment. He devoured the exciting feuilleton
stories in the evening papers he vended, and spent his spare pennies at
the cinema theatres in the vicinity of his poor home. His appreciation of
the crude mysteries of the filmed detective drama amused the famous
expert in the finer art of actual crime detection, until he discovered
that the boy possessed natural gifts of intuition and observation,
combined with penetration. Crewe grew interested in developing the boy's
talent for detective work. When the lad's mother died Crewe decided to
take him into his Holborn offices as messenger-boy. Crewe soon discovered
that Joe had a useful gift for "shadowing" work, and his street training
as a newspaper runner enabled him not only to follow a person through the
thickest of London traffic, but to escape observation where a man might
have been noticed and suspected.
"Well, Joe," said Crewe, as the boy entered on the heels of Stork, "I
have a job for you this morning. I want you to find the glove
corresponding to this one."
Crewe, having finished his examination of the glove, handed it to the
boy, whose first act was to slip it on his left hand and move his fingers
about to assure himself that they were in good working order in spite of
being hidden. It was the first occasion on which Joe had worn a glove.
"It was found in the room in which Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered,"
continued Crewe. "The other one was not there. The question I want to
solve is, did it belong to Sir Horace, or to some one who visited him on
the night he was murdered? The police think it belonged to Sir Horace
because it is the same size as the gloves he wore, and because Sir
Horace's hosier stocks the same kind--as does nearly every fashionable
hosier in London. They think he lost the right-hand glove on his way up
from Scotland. It will occur to you, Joe, though you don't wear gloves,
that it is more common for men to lose the right-hand glove than the
left-hand, because the right hand is used a great deal more than the
left, and even men who would not be seen in the street without gloves
find there are many things they cannot do with a gloved hand. For
instance, to dive one's hand into one's trouser pocket where most men
keep their loose change the glove has to be removed."
"Then the gentleman would take off his right glove when he paid for his
taxi-cab from St. Pancras," said Joe, who was familiar through the
accounts in the newspapers with the main details of the Fewbanks mystery.
"Right, Joe," said his master approvingly. "And in that case he dropped
the glove between the taxi-cab outside his front gates and his room, and
it would have been found. I have made inquiries and I am satisfied it was
not found."
"He might have lost it when he was getting into the train at Scotland,"
suggested the lad. "He had to change trains at Glasgow--he might have
lost it there."
"That is a rule-of-thumb deduction," said Crewe, with a kindly smile. "It
is good enough for the police, for they have apparently adopted it, but
it is not good enough for me. What you don't understand, Joe, is that an
odd glove is of no value in the eyes of a man who wears gloves. He
doesn't take it home as a memento of his carelessness in losing the
other. He throws it away. Therefore if this is Sir Horace's glove he took
it home because he was unaware that he had lost the other. He would put
on his gloves before leaving the train at St. Pancras. And he would pull
off the right-hand one--he was not left-handed--when the taxi-cab was
nearing his home so as to be able to pay the fare. Therefore, if it is
Sir Horace's glove the fellow to it was dropped in the taxi-cab, or
dropped between the taxi-cab and the house. If the glove had been lost at
the other end of the journey in Scotland Sir Horace would have flung this
one out of the carriage window when he became aware of the loss. As I
have told you no glove was found between the gate at Riversbrook and the
room in which Sir Horace was murdered. I got from the police the number
of the taxi-cab in which Sir Horace was driven from St. Pancras, and the
driver tells me that no glove was left in his cab. So what have we to do
next, Joe?"
"To find the missing glove? It's a tough job, ain't it, sir?"
"Yes and no," replied Crewe. "It is possible to make some reasonable
safe deductions in regard to it. These would indicate what had happened
to it, and knowing where to look, or, rather, in what circumstances we
might expect to find it, we might throw a little light on it. In the
first place, it might be assumed that if the glove did not belong to Sir
Horace it belonged to some one who visited him on the night he returned
unexpectedly from Scotland. That indicates that his visitor knew Sir
Horace was returning; a most important point, for if he knew Sir Horace
was returning he knew why he was returning--which no one else knows up to
the present as far as I have been able to gather--and in all probability
was responsible for his return, say, sent him a letter or a telegram
which brought him to London. So we come to the possibility of an angry
scene in the room in which Sir Horace's dead body was subsequently found.
We have the possibility of the visitor leaving the house in a high state
of excitement, hastily snatching up the hat and gloves he had taken off
when he arrived, and in his excitement dropping unnoticed the right-hand
glove on the floor."
"And leaving his gold-mounted stick behind him," said Joe, who was
following his master's line of reasoning with keen interest.
"Right, Joe," said Crewe. "That was placed in the stand in the hall, and
when the visitor left hurriedly was entirely forgotten. But at what stage
did the visitor become conscious of the loss of his glove? Not until his
excitement cooled down a little. How long he took to cool down depends
upon the cause of his excitement and his temperament, things which, at
present, we can only guess at. He would probably walk a long distance
before he cooled down. Then he would resume his normal habits and among
other things would put on his gloves--if he had them. He would find that
he had lost one and that he had left his stick behind. He would know that
the stick had been left behind in the hall, but he would not know the
glove had been dropped in the house. The probabilities are that he would
think he had dropped it while walking. But if he felt that he had dropped
it in the house, and he had the best of all reasons for not wishing
anyone to know that he had visited Sir Horace that night, he would
destroy the remaining glove and our chance of tracing it would be gone.
The fact that he had left his stick behind was a minor matter that he
could easily account for if he had been a friend of Sir Horace who had
been in the habit of visiting Riversbrook. If anything cropped up
subsequently about the stick he could say that he had left it there
before Sir Horace closed up his house and went to Scotland.
"But the problem of the glove is a different matter, Joe. There are three
phases to it: first, if the visitor thought he had dropped it in the
house and wanted to keep his visit there a profound secret from
subsequent inquiry he would take home the remaining glove and destroy
it--probably by burning it. Secondly, if he thought he had dropped it
after leaving the house he would not feel that safety necessitated the
destruction of the remaining one, but he would probably throw it away
where it would not be likely to be found. In the third place, if he had
no particular reason for wishing to hide the fact that he had visited
Riversbrook he would throw it away anywhere when he became conscious that
he had lost the other. He would throw it away merely because an odd glove
is of no use to a man who wears gloves. The man who doesn't wear gloves
would pick up an odd glove from the ground and think he had made a find.
He would take it home to his wife and she would probably keep it for
finger-stalls for the children."
Crewe put down his notes and got up from his chair. "Your job is this,
Joe. Go to Riversbrook and make a careful search on both sides of the
road for the missing glove. I do not think he threw it away--if he did
throw it away--until he had walked some distance, but you mustn't act on
that assumption. Look over the fences of the houses and into the hedges.
Walk along in the direction of Hampstead Underground. Search the gutters
and all the trees and hedges along the road. Take one side of the street
to the Underground station and if you do not find the glove go back to
Riversbrook along the other side. Make a thorough job of it, as it is
most important that the glove should be found--if it is to be found."
After Joe had departed Crewe put on his hat and left his office for the
Strand. His first call was at the shop of Bruden and Marshall, hosiers,
in order to find out if any information was to be obtained there about
the ownership of the glove. He was aware that the police had been there
on the same mission, but his experience had often shown that valuable
information was to be gathered after the police had been over the ground.
On introducing himself to the manager of the shop that gentleman
displayed as much humble civility as he would have done towards a valued
customer. He could not say anything about the ownership of the glove
which Crewe had brought, and he could not even say if it had come from
their shop. It was an excellent glove, the line being known in the trade
as "first-choice reindeer." They stocked that particular kind of article
at 10/6 the pair. They had the pleasure of having had the late Sir Horace
Fewbanks on their books. He was quite an old account, if he might use the
expression. He was one of their best customers, being a gentleman who was
particular about his appearance and who would have nothing but the best
in any line that he fancied. On the subject of Sir Horace's taste in hose
the manager had much to say, and, in spite of Crewe's efforts to confine
the conversation to gloves, the manager repeatedly dragged in socks. He
did it so frequently that he became conscious his visitor was showing
signs of annoyance, so he apologised, adding, with an inspiration, "After
all, hose is really gloves for the feet."
Crewe ascertained that a large number of legal gentlemen were
customers of Bruden and Marshall. He innocently suggested that the
reason was because the shop was the nearest one of its kind to the Law
Courts, but this explanation offended the shopman's pride. It was
because they stocked high-class goods and gave good value in every way,
combined with attention and civility and a desire to please, that they
did such an excellent business with legal gentlemen. In refutation of
the idea that proximity to the Courts was the direct reason of their
having so many legal gentlemen among their customers the manager
declared that they received orders from all parts of the world--India,
Canada, Australia, and South Africa, to say nothing of American
gentlemen who liked their hosiery to have the London hall-mark. Their
orders from the Colonies came from gentlemen who found that these
things in the Colonies were not what they had been used to, and so they
sent their orders to Bruden and Marshall.
Crewe's interest was in the legal customers and he asked for the names of
some. The manager ran through a list of names of judges, barristers and
solicitors, but the name Crewe wanted to hear was not among them. He was
compelled to include the name among half a dozen others he mentioned to
the manager. He ascertained that Mr. Charles Holymead was a customer of
the firm, but it was apparent from the manager's spiritless attitude
towards Mr. Holymead that the famous K.C. was not a man who ran up a big
bill with his hosier, or was very particular about what he wore. The
world regarded some of the men of this type famous or distinguished, but
in the hosier's mind they were all classed as commonplace. But the
manager would not go so far as to say that Mr. Holymead would not buy
such a glove as that which Crewe had brought in. He might and he might
not, but, as a general rule, he did not pay more than 8/6 for his gloves.
Crewe took a taxi to Princes Gate in order to have a look at the house
in which Holymead lived. It occurred to him that if Holymead was not
particular about what he spent on his clothes he was extravagant about
the amount he spent in house rent. Of course, a leading barrister
earning a huge income could afford to live in a palatial residence in
Princes Gate, but it was not the locality or residence that an
economically-minded man would have chosen for his home. But Crewe had
little doubt that the beautiful wife Holymead possessed was responsible
for the choice of house and locality.
After looking at the house Crewe walked back to the cab-stand at Hyde
Park Corner. He had arrived at the conclusion that it was necessary to
settle beyond doubt whether the K.C. had visited Riversbrook the night Sir
Horace had returned from Scotland. If the K.C. had done so, he was
anxious to keep the visit secret, for not only had he not informed the
police of his visit but he had kept it from Miss Fewbanks. Crewe had
ascertained from Miss Fewbanks that Mr. Holymead when he had called at
Riversbrook on a visit of condolence had not mentioned to her anything
about having left his stick in the hall stand on a previous visit. On
leaving Miss Fewbanks Mr. Holymead had gone up to the hall stand and
taken both his hat and stick as if he had left them both there a few
minutes before.
Crewe reasoned that if Holymead had gone out to see Sir Horace Fewbanks
at Riversbrook and had desired to keep his visit a secret he would not
have taken a cab at Hyde Park Corner to Hampstead, but would have
travelled by underground railway or omnibus. In all probability the Tube
had been used because of its speed being more in harmony with the
feelings of a man impatient to get done with a subject so important that
Sir Horace had been recalled from Scotland to deal with it. He would
leave the Tube at Hampstead and take a taxi-cab. He would not be likely
to go straight to Riversbrook in the taxi-cab, if he were anxious that
his movements should not be traced subsequently. He would dismiss the
taxi-cab at one of the hotels bordering on Hampstead Heath, for they
were the resort of hundreds of visitors on summer nights, and his actions
would thus easily escape notice. From the hotel he would walk across to
Riversbrook. But the return journey would be made in a somewhat different
way. If Holymead left Riversbrook in a state of excitement he would walk
a long way without being conscious of the exertion. He would want to be
alone with his own thoughts. Gradually he would cool down, and becoming
conscious of his surroundings would make his way home. Again he would use
the Tube, for it would be more difficult for his movements to be traced
if he mixed with a crowd of travellers than if he took a cab to his home.
It was impossible to say what station he got in at, for that would depend
on how far he walked before he cooled down, but he would be sure to get
out at Hyde Park Corner because that was the station nearest to his
house. Allowing for a temperamental reaction during a train journey of
about twenty minutes, he would feel depressed and weary and would
probably take a taxi-cab outside Hyde Park station to his home. That was
a thing he would often be in the habit of doing when returning late at
night from the theatre or elsewhere, and therefore could be easily
explained by him if the police happened to make inquiries as to his
movements.
As Crewe anticipated, he had no difficulty in finding the driver of the
taxi-cab in which Holymead had driven home on the night of Wednesday
last. The K.C. frequently used cabs, and he was well-known to all the
drivers on the rank. Crewe got into the cab he had used and ordered the
man to drive him to his office, and there invited him upstairs. He
adopted this course because he knew that the driver, who gave his name as
Taylor, would be more likely to talk freely in an office where he could
not be overheard than he would do on the cab-rank with his fellow-drivers
crowding him, or in an hotel parlour where other people were present.
"Tell me exactly what happened when you drove Mr. Holymead home on
Wednesday night," said Crewe. "Did you notice anything strange about
him, or was his manner much the same as on other occasions that he used
your cab?"
"Well, I don't see whether I should tell you whether he was or whether he
wasn't," replied the taxi-cab driver, who was as surly as most of his
class. "What's it to do with you, anyway? He's a regular customer of mine
on the rank, and he's not one of your tuppenny tipsters, either. He's a
gentleman. And if he got to know that I had been telling tales about him
it would not do me any good."
"It would not," replied Crewe, with cordial acquiescence. "Therefore,
Taylor, I give you my word of honour not to mention anything you tell me.
Furthermore, I'll see that you don't lose by it now or at any other time.
I cannot say more than that, but that's a great deal more than the police
would say. Now, would you sooner tell me or tell the police? Here's a
sovereign to start with, and if you have an interesting story to tell
you'll have another one before you leave."
The appeal of money and the conviction that the police would use less
considerate methods if Crewe passed him over to them abolished Taylor's
scruples about discussing a fare, and it was in a much less surly tone
that he responded:
"I didn't notice anything strange about him when he called me off the
rank, but I did afterwards. First of all, I didn't drive him home. That
is, I did drive him home, but he didn't go inside. When I drew up outside
his house in Princes Gate, I looked around expecting to see him get out.
As he didn't move I got down and opened the door. 'Aren't you getting out
here, sir?' I said, in a soft voice. 'No,' he said. 'Drive on.' 'This is
your house, sir,' I ventured to say. 'I'm not going in,' he replied,
'drive on.' I was surprised. I thought he was the worse for drink, and
I'd never seen him that way before. But some gentlemen are so obstinate
in liquor that you can't get them to do anything except the opposite of
what you ask them. I thought I'd try and coax him. 'Better go inside,
sir,' I said. 'You'll be better off in bed.' 'Do you think I am drunk?'
he said sharply. You could have knocked me down with a feather. He was as
sober as a judge, all in a moment. 'No, sir, I didn't,' I said. 'I
wouldn't take the liberty,' I said. 'Then get back on your seat and drive
me to the Hyde Park Hotel--no, I think I'll go to Verney's. But don't go
there direct. Drive me round the Park first. I feel I want a breath of
cool air.'"
"Go on," said Crewe, in a tone which indicated approval of Taylor's
method of telling his story.
"Well, I turned the cab round and drove through the Park. But I was
puzzled about him and looked back at him once or twice pretending that I
was looking to see if a cab or car was coming up behind. And as we passed
over the Serpentine Bridge I saw him throw something out of the window."
"A glove?" suggested Crewe quickly.
The driver looked at him in profound admiration.
"Well, if you don't beat all the detectives I've ever heard of."
"He tried to throw it in the water," continued Crewe, as if explaining
the matter to himself rather than to his visitor. "Did you get it?"
"Hold on a bit," said Taylor, who had his own ideas of how to give value
for the extra sovereign he hoped to obtain. "I couldn't see what it was
he had thrown away, and, of course, I couldn't pull up to find out. I
drove on, but I kept my eye on him, though I had my back to him. As we
were driving back along the Broad Walk I had another look at him, and
bless me if he wasn't crying--crying like a child. He had his hands up to
his face and his head was shaking as if he was sobbing. I said to myself,
'He's barmy--he's gone off his rocker.' I thought to myself I ought to
drive him to the police station, but I reckoned it was none of my
business, after all, so I'll take him to Verney's and be done with it.
So I drove to Verney's. He got out, and paid me, but I couldn't see that
he had been crying, and he looked much as usual, so far as I could see. I
thought to myself that perhaps, after all, he'd only had a queer turn;
however, I said to myself I'd drive back to the bridge and see what he'd
thrown out of the window. It _was_ a glove, sure enough. It had fallen
just below the railing. I looked about for the other one, but I couldn't
find it, so I suppose it must have fallen into the water."
"No, it didn't," said Crewe. "I have it here." He opened a drawer in his
desk and produced a glove. "It was a right-hand glove you found. Just
look at this one and see if it corresponds to the one you picked up."
Taylor looked at the glove.
"They're as like as two peas," he said.
"What did you do with the one you found?" inquired Crewe. "I hope you
didn't throw it away?"
"I'm not a fool," retorted Taylor. "I've had odd gloves left in my cab
before. I kept this one thinking that sooner or later somebody might
leave another like it, and then I'd have a pair for nothing."
"Well, I'll buy it from you," said Crewe. "Have you anything more
to tell me?"
"I went back to the rank and one of the chaps was curious that I'd been
so long away, for he knew that Mr. Holymead's place isn't more than ten
minutes' drive from the station. But he got nothing out of me. I know how
to keep my mouth shut. You're the first man I've told what happened, and
I hope you won't give me away."
"I've already promised you that," said Crewe, flipping another sovereign
from his sovereign case and handing it to Taylor, "and I'll give you five
shillings for the glove."
Taylor looked at him darkly.
"Five shillings isn't much for a glove like that," he said insolently.
"What about my loss of time going home for it? I suppose you'll pay the
taxi-fare for the run down from Hyde Park?"
"No, I won't," said Crewe cheerfully.
"Then I don't see why I should bring it for a paltry five shillings,"
said Taylor. "If you want the glove you'll have to pay for it."
"But I don't want the glove," said Crewe, who disliked being made the
victim of extortion. "What made you think so? I'll sell you this one for
five shillings. We may as well do a deal of some kind; it is no use each
of us having one glove. What do you say, Taylor? Will you buy mine for
five shillings, or shall I buy yours?"
Taylor smiled sourly.
"You're a deep one," he said. "Here's the other glove." He dipped his
hand into the deep pocket of his driving coat and produced a glove. "I
suppose you knew I'd have it on me. Five shillings, and it's yours."
"The pair are worth about five shillings to me," said Crewe as he paid
over the money. "Do you remember what time it was when Mr. Holymead
engaged you at Hyde Park?"
"Eleven o'clock."
"You are quite sure as to the time?"
"I heard one of the big clocks striking as he was getting into my cab."
Taylor took his departure, and Crewe, after wrapping up the left-hand
glove which he had to return to Inspector Chippenfield, put the other one
in his safe.
"We are getting on," he said in a pleased tone. "This means a trip to
Scotland, but I'll wait until the inquest is over."