FLECKS OF WHITE POWDER
It did not take more than twenty minutes to cover the distance between
Portman Square and the Imperial Institute, and they found that
aristocratic building a veritable whirlwind of repressed excitement. It
was closed to the public, and downstairs in the outer hall was already
assembled an army of expert packers, ready to despatch the units of the
exhibition to their respective galleries. But toward none of these men
did the two stolid-looking policemen give even a passing glance.
It was the redoubtable secretary whom Cleek was most anxious to see, and
two minutes later found him in that gentleman's presence. Narkom's
assertion that Mr. Belthouse was "half out of his mind over the matter"
had prepared him to find an excitable, fear-shaken, harassed official,
while his own expectations were of seeing a shifty-eyed individual who
had succeeded in effecting a clever coup. He found instead a
serious-faced, undemonstrative man of about forty-five, with the kindest
eyes and the handsomest and most sympathetic countenance he had seen for
many a day.
"I am glad to meet you, Mr. Headland," he said, heartily, after the
first formalities were over; and Cleek, who had assumed, as he always
did at first introduction, a heavy, befogged expression indicative of
incompetence, felt his suspicions of Charles Galveston Belthouse melting
away like snow beneath a winter sun. "This business has me distracted,
and if you can hunt up any sort of clue that'll keep the directors quiet
for a few days, I'll be only too glad. When I undertook to see this
business through for my friend, the Marquis of Willingsley, I didn't
expect to run up against the British police."
"It's a pretty tall order, Mr. Belthouse," said Cleek, scratching his
head perplexedly, "but I'll have a thorough look around, anyway."
If he had anticipated any sign of confusion upon the part of Mr.
Belthouse, he was wholly disappointed, for the man, with a sudden and
unexpected burst of enthusiasm, seized his hand and pressed it warmly,
saying heartily:
"Oh, do, Mr. Headland, do. Search anywhere, do anything that will get on
to the track of the thieves. One blessing is, they cannot offer the
statue for sale in open market. It is intrinsically utterly valueless,
and what the object of stealing it at all is I can't imagine. Still it
must be got back somehow, without the Italian Government's knowing what
has happened. Personally, I don't mind saying, I'll give every penny I
have in the world, if only you can get it restored safe and sound."
Cleek darted a swift look at the speaker, but the man was evidently in
dead earnest.
"Your sentiments do you credit, sir," he said, stolidly, "and I'll do my
best. First of all, who was it that discovered the actual loss of the
statue?"
"I did, myself," was the prompt reply. "I came early to see which
statues were to be sent off first, and although some ten minutes were
spent pacifying a confounded woman----"
Cleek twitched an inquiring eyebrow.
"Oh, an indignant female who stayed too late and got locked in all
night."
Cleek looked at Mr. Narkom, as if mutely asking why he had not been told
of this fact before, and Mr. Narkom looked back blankly at his ally.
"First I've heard of it," he said, quickly, and the secretary looked
from one to the other in bewilderment. Then he laughed.
"Why, what's wrong? You don't think that a fat old woman could have
smuggled out the Capitoline Venus in her reticule, do you? I never gave
thought to her on that score. She says she got locked in one of the
distant galleries, and though she hammered and shouted, she couldn't
make a soul hear. She went off in a cab that one of our men fetched for
her--wouldn't have a taxi, must have a fourwheeler--and swore vengeance
against the whole board of directors. She declared it had been done on
purpose, and we should hear from her solicitors. Regular old virago, I
do assure you."
"Did you get her name and address?" asked Cleek.
"Good gracious, no. I was only too glad to get rid of her. I dare say
Thompson can give you the address she gave the cabby, though. I'll send
for him, if you like."
"Yes, do, please," said Cleek. "I don't suppose there is any connection,
but you never know your luck. What happened after the young lady--did
you say?--had gone?"
"Young lady!" The secretary smiled broadly. "She was about sixty-five if
a day, with a face like a full moon, and a ridiculous child's hat
perched on her head. She was no Venus, I assure you. After she had gone
I went upstairs with my friend, Doctor Montret--I had met him just
coming down the Cromwell Road, and I was jolly glad he was with me--when
we came plump on the body of poor Scott. The sight of it and that empty
pedestal gave me all sorts of thoughts of murder and burglary, but
Montret soon found that the poor fellow had died naturally. As I take
it, he must have been making his rounds and when he came down the
gallery, and discovered the loss, he dropped dead with the shock. But
you shall see for yourself."
While talking he had led the way down one passage and up another, till
they were in the actual gallery from which the famous statue had so
mysteriously vanished. It stood out in one of the wings of the
Institute, its steel-barred windows on each side, being some thirty or
forty feet clear from the ground. The walls were lined with pictures,
not one of which obviously had been moved, and it seemed impossible for
secret entry to have been made either during the day or the night.
The empty pedestal stood some six feet away from the wall, against which
stood some heavy grouped figures and examples in plaster of bas-relief.
For a few minutes Cleek walked aimlessly round and round the gallery,
his eyes dull and heavy, his face stupidly blank in expression.
Suddenly he looked up at the exquisitely painted ceiling and gave an
inane little chuckle that caused the secretary to look at him in
surprise.
"I see," he exclaimed. "I wondered where it came from; but I suppose you
have had the ceiling repaired--eh, what?"
If ever a man looked puzzled, it was the secretary.
"Ceiling repaired?" he echoed. "Really, Mr. Headland, I can't understand
you. What on earth makes you think that?"
Mr. Headland pointed to two or three flecks of powdered plaster,
obviously dropped from the ceiling above, but the secretary only gave a
little sniff of contempt.
"Vibration of the traffic," he exclaimed. "No one's been near the
ceiling." He turned suddenly. "Ah, here is Thompson. If you think you
will want that address----?" He was clearly not very taken with the
deductive powers of Mr. Headland, and he showed it very plainly.
"Yes, sir," said Thompson, when Cleek had questioned him. "Quite plain I
heard it: 'Imperial Mansions, Shepherd's Bush,' and I dare say I could
find out from the cabman himself. He's sure to be on the stand outside."
Dismissed on this errand, he left the gallery, while Cleek wandered to
the window, which looked out on a little courtyard. His eyes noted
almost unconsciously the presence of a large moving van standing near
the gateway to the street.
"Oh, Mr. Belthouse," he exclaimed, "going to move the blessed statues in
a furniture van?"
Mr. Belthouse joined him, but his voice was even more irritable as he
exclaimed:
"Certainly not; that must be for the effects of the caretaker. She has
lived in the basement, but she said she was moving as soon as the
exhibition was over. And now, perhaps, Mr. Headland, if you don't mind
my saying so, my time is valuable. So if you will ask me anything else
you want to know----?"
Cleek stopped short in his prowl at the top end of the gallery, and
stood, looking the very picture of perplexity.
"This case fair stumps me, Mr. Belthouse, I must say. Perhaps you
wouldn't mind telling me where this door leads to?"
He touched the frame of a door almost concealed by a huge picture which
was hung across it.
"That? Oh, that, I believe, opens on to a passage which leads to the
caretaker's quarters. Very estimable people, the Perrys, mother and
daughter, and I should say the Institute people will be sorry to lose
them. They are moving, as you noticed, and into the country. This door,
though, has been kept locked and screwed up--you can see the screws for
yourself, can't you?--so there has been no possible means of ingress or
egress. Anything else, Mr. Headland?"
Mr. Headland shook his head dolefully.
"Nothing to be learned here. I think I'd like to get that address, the
old woman's, you know," he added, meekly.
"Oh, that! Still thinking of that elderly Venus, eh? Well, I'll go and
find Thompson for you myself," said the now openly sneering Mr.
Belthouse.
"Any ideas, old chap?" whispered Mr. Narkom, as his ally bent down and
touched another few flakes of plaster-like white powder.
"Bushels," was the laconic reply. "But when a mouse gets into a trap,
what does it do?"
"Why, stays in, of course!" said the mystified Narkom, and Cleek gave a
little satisfied laugh as he lurched to the end of the hall where Mr.
Charles Galveston Belthouse, in a supremely bad temper, arrived a moment
later in company with the stalwart commissionaire, Thompson.
"No go, sir; no sign of that blessed cab, and the taxi men never noticed
it on the stand before. They are rare in these parts nowadays, sir. I
hardly expected to get one, only the good lady was set on it. Said she
wouldn't go near one of those dangerous motor things, and the way she
sniffed even at the cabby----!"
A queer little smile crept round Mr. Headland's mouth.
"It's of no importance, my man. I don't think we shall want either the
cab or the good lady again."
The man returned to his own post, and Cleek followed the secretary from
the gallery. But a little distance away he stopped short, feeling in his
pocket, then uttered a little cry of dismay.
"I thought I heard it. Excuse me, sir, it's my pen. I dropped it. Won't
keep you waiting a minute."
He turned and ran swiftly back, returning some three minutes later, the
pen in his hand, a smile on his face, and still further patches of white
on his coat that would have suggested to even a less keen observer than
Mr. Narkom that he had been very near to the ceiling.
"And now to see the body, Mr. Belthouse," he said, briskly, looking
placidly at that gentleman's perturbed face as he opened the door of a
little room wherein had been borne the body of the unfortunate
policeman.