NO. 4, MONTROSE PLACE.
The inspector stood there with his hand on his heart, as if he had run
far and fast. So far as Jack could see, Bates was suffering from some
strong emotion. He flopped down in the chair indicated for him, and
took Jack's proffered cigarette with a shaking hand. Although his
feelings were not exactly under the control one would have expected
from one of the leading lights of Scotland Yard, there was at the same
time a certain suggestion of grim humor playing about the corners of
his mouth. Jack looked across at Rigby and smiled significantly.
"Evidently a new development of the case," Jack said, glancing once
more at his friend. "As a matter of fact, inspector, I have just been
telling Mr. Rigby all about last night's ghastly business. By the way,
you will recollect, of course, that Mr. Rigby is my friend whom we met
at Mr. Carrington's last night. Not to make too long a story of it,
there are sidelights of this business of which you are not at present
aware--but all that is beside the point. What I want you to tell me is
about this disappearance of the body of Nostalgo. Seriously, do you
want my friend and me to believe that the body of a dead man has
disappeared from Shannon Street police station right under the eyes of
the authorities?"
"Well, that is about the size of it," Bates admitted ruefully.
"Naturally enough, we look forward to important developments at the
official inquiry. I had a chat late last night with the doctor, who
seemed to be of the opinion that the dead man had been shot with
something quite new in the way of a weapon."
"What, do you mean a new projectile or a new sort of small arm?"
Masefield asked.
"Well, not exactly that," the inspector replied; "but something quite
new in the way of a missile. There were marks on the breast of our
unfortunate friend which indicated the presence of a shot of some kind
that did mortal damage without leaving traces of anything material
behind."
"Oh, that is all very well, so far as it goes; but what I want to get
at chiefly is the cause of the disappearance of the body," Rigby put
in impatiently. "What is the good of trying to establish all sorts of
new theories when you have not so much as a dead body of the deceased
man before you? It seems incredible to me that this outrage could have
been committed in a police station. Was no one about--was the whole
place deserted, whereby some stranger could have coolly stepped in and
walked off with the body of a powerful man?"
"Well, that is not so difficult as it might seem," Bates said eagerly.
"As a matter of fact, our mortuary is merely an outside room which at
one time had been used as a kitchen. Mr. Masefield will recollect last
night noticing that the light of the room consisted entirely of a kind
of skylight. The ceiling is exceedingly low, so that it would be quite
possible for a tall man to lift the body through and carry it away
without the least trouble, provided, of course, that he had sufficient
strength. At any rate, there it is, and we have to make the best of
it."
"I hope that you have managed to keep this matter from the public so
far," Masefield said. "I don't think anything will be gained by
allowing this new sensation to get into the papers. The best thing we
can do is to come round to Shannon Street with you and see if we can
lay our hands upon anything in the way of a clue. My friend Mr. Rigby
has had a lot of experience in amateur detective work; I dare say you
recollect his success in the matter of the Mortlake coiners, on behalf
of the _Planet_."
Bates expressed his willingness to fall in with this arrangement. Not
that he had any particular confidence in amateur detectives generally;
but he was so bewildered and disheartened at present that anything was
preferable to his own painful thoughts. The police station was reached
at length, and a thorough search of the shabby little apartment at the
back of the office made. But no amount of investigation served to
throw any light on this new phase of the mystery. It was even as Bates
had said: with the darkness of the night, and expecting no
developments of this kind, a bold and unscrupulous character might
easily have entered the room and taken away anything, however bulky,
without much chance of detection.
Nothing daunted by the want of success attending his efforts, Rigby
climbed on to the roof and looked around him. He was particularly
struck by the deserted area at the back of the police station. It was
some distance from his coign of vantage to the nearest house. No doubt
at one time the open space had consisted of fertile gardens, but the
same space was now given over to arid grass and a few stunted trees--a
scene of desolation indeed. On the opposite side, some two hundred
yards away, the backs of a terrace of large houses looked blankly on
the scene. Rigby, with a new idea entirely in his mind, inquired the
name of the terrace. Bates smiled with the superior air of the
professional, and replied that it was Montrose Place.
"And what class of people live there?" Rigby asked.
"Well, rather mixed, I should say," Bates replied. "There was a time,
not so many years ago, when Montrose Place was quite fashionable. Mind
you, they're exceedingly good houses, quite good enough for any
moneyed class; but I understand that the landlord is by no means a
liberal man, and, as the houses have fallen out of repair, they have
become void."
Any further information on this head was cut short by the sudden
calling away of the inspector. It seemed to Masefield that Rigby was
by no means disposed to mourn for the official's company. He stood
with his brows bent frowning at the sombre row of houses in front of
him, but, from the quick working of his hands, Masefield could see
that his versatile friend's brain was busy.
"I see you have made a discovery," Masefield said quietly. "Would you
mind telling me what it is?"
Rigby pointed to the fourth house from the end of the terrace. Did
Masefield notice anything about it peculiar? he asked. But Masefield
did not see anything about the house at all ominous or suggestive,
except that the windows were grimy and dirty, and that the erstwhile
fashionable silk blinds were hanging in tatters like banners behind
the murky glass.
"But surely you see something?" asked Rigby impatiently. "For
instance, take the third window on the left over the ledge, which
probably is that of the bathroom. Don't appear to be looking, and, at
the same time, keep your eye casually on the window."
With a quickening of his pulses, Masefield glanced up in a vague kind
of way in the direction of the window. He felt instinctively that in
some way the deserted house was involved in the disappearance of
Nostalgo. There was not much time for speculation on this point. Very
slowly and cautiously the blind was raised, and a haggard face peeped
out. It was like a picture from some old print, this strange weird
yellow face behind the grimy glass. So thick was the murky dust upon
the casement that it was impossible at so short a distance to decide
whether the features were those of a man or a woman. Anyway, the face,
if it were that of a man, was clean-shaven, the pale head half hidden
behind a tangle of thick black hair. It was only for a moment that
this weird face presented itself to the eager eyes of the spectators
below; an instant later and the whole phantom had vanished.
"Now, what do you think of that?" Rigby asked eagerly. "Don't you
agree with me that this strange apparition has something to do with
the story? Now, supposing you or I had some powerful inducement for
getting hold of the missing body, could we find a better place to work
from than that deserted house?"
"Provided always that it is deserted," Masefield said guardedly.
"Don't let's go quite so fast. Surely your own experience must have
taught you what strange creatures one often sees as caretakers in good
houses?"
"So much the better for me," Rigby replied. "If you are correct in
your suggestion, it will make my task all the more easy; for, come
what may, I am going to see the whole inside of that place before I
sleep to-night."
Rigby walked back into the police station with the air of a man who
has said his last word on the matter. It was no advantage to him,
working as he was on behalf of his own newspaper, to mention his
discovery to Bates. Possibly Masefield's common-sense view of the
problem might have been the correct one, after all, in which case
Bates would have had the laugh of his unprofessional ally. But Bates
had evidently been called out on other business, so that there was no
occasion to say anything to him at all. Declining to return to
Masefield's rooms and there discuss the matter further over tea, Rigby
went thoughtfully back to the office of the _Planet_. He dined alone
at his club, lingering till about ten o'clock over the evening papers,
and then proceeded on his way to Montrose Place by the somewhat
circuitous route of Covent Garden.
But there was more method in Rigby's madness than met the eye. The
sleek, well-groomed barrister and journalist who entered the shop of
Jonas the costumier shortly after ten o'clock, emerged a little before
eleven carefully and effectually disguised as a seller of newspapers.
Then, with the fag-end of a cigarette of doubtful quality in his
mouth, he slouched along towards his destination.
Montrose Place from a front view was considerably more prepossessing
than the similar outlook that presented itself from the back. At least
half the houses were tenanted by people of means, judging from the
neatness of the blinds and the amount of light displayed in the
various windows. Yet, at the same time, it was quite evident that
Bates' estimate was fairly correct.
The first three houses in the terrace bore plates of highly polished
brass, testifying to the fact that doctors were not lacking in the
locality. No. 4, however, stood out in marked contrast to its
neighbors. There was no chance of Rigby's presence there exciting
undue suspicion, for there was not a soul to be seen in the terrace.
Emboldened by this fact, Rigby had no hesitation in lighting a vesta
and making a comprehensive examination of the door-steps. They were
dirty enough in all conscience; no housemaid had knelt there for many
months or even years past; but Rigby's sharp eyes did not fail to note
the fact that some one more than once recently had left footprints on
the grimy flags. They were not dearly indented footprints; indeed,
there was a misty hesitation about them which at first puzzled the
amateur detective exceedingly.
He struck another match after looking cautiously up and down the
terrace. Nobody was in sight; the precaution was quite unnecessary;
the blue flame picked out the misty footprints grimed into the filthy
steps, and then Rigby understood. Whoever made those marks had been
wearing rubber-soled shoes.
"And new shoes at that," Rigby muttered to himself. "I can see the
pattern in the centre of the sole clearly indented now. And the
prints go and come up and down the steps quite regularly. Now, the
fact that somebody comes here and wears new rubber shoes makes it
clear that the wearer has been here very recently. It is also evident
that the wearer wears rubber-soled tennis shoes so as to make no
noise. I feel pretty certain that I am going to learn something now."
But Rigby was a little too sanguine. In the first place, he had to
gain admission to the house, the front door of which was locked. It
was perhaps a significant fact that, though the lock of the door was
green with rust, the edge of the rim of the hole where the latch-key
indented was bright and clear at the edges.
"Evidently used regularly," Rigby went on. "Now, the ordinary
caretaker does not usually sport a latch-key; he or she generally uses
the area door. I should not wonder if the area window was open; I'll
try it."
The area window was not open, but the loose catch had been carelessly
pushed to. The blade of a stout penknife sufficed to prize the catch,
and a moment later Rigby was in the housekeeper's room, safe from all
outside observation.
There was no sign of life here; no vestige of it on the stairs leading
to the big rooms overhead. Rigby could not but notice what a fine
house it was; the last tenant had evidently been lavish in the way of
decorations. With a match in his hand carefully shaded from the
window, Rigby crept up the stairs. He could see in the dust lying
there the constantly repeated footprint of the rubber shoe, indicating
that the owner of that shoe was in the habit of spending a great deal
of time there.
But now, so far as he could judge, the house was absolutely deserted.
He tried door after door softly, and each yielded to his touch,
revealing gloom and desolation and dirt by the faint light of the
vesta. As each stump burned low Rigby carefully dropped the end of it
in his pocket. He was conscious of a feeling of disappointment. Almost
before he was fully cognizant of that feeling he paused in an attitude
of rigid attention. Something like the sound of a smothered cough
struck on his ear; it seemed to him that he could hear somebody
approaching. The stair creaked, and Rigby drew back into a doorway.
He was not mistaken. Somebody was coming up the stairs.