Mr. James B. Coulson settled down to live what was, to all appearance,
a very inoffensive and ordinary life. He rose a little earlier than was
customary for an Englishman of business of his own standing, but he made
up for this by a somewhat prolonged visit to the barber, a breakfast
which bespoke an unimpaired digestion, and a cigar of more than ordinary
length over his newspaper. At about eleven o’clock he went down to the
city, and returned sometimes to luncheon, sometimes at varying hours,
never later, however, than four or five o’clock. From that time until
seven, he was generally to be found in the American bar, meeting old
friends or making new ones.
On the sixth day of his stay at the Savoy Hotel the waiter who looked
after the bar smoking room accosted him as he entered at his usual time,
a little after half past four.
“There’s a gentleman here, Mr. Coulson, been asking after you,” he
announced. “I told him that you generally came in about this time.
You’ll find him sitting over there.”
Mr. Coulson glanced in the direction indicated. It was Mr. Jacks who
awaited him in the cushioned easy chair. For a single moment, perhaps,
his lips tightened and the light of battle flashed in his face. Then
he crossed the room apparently himself again,--an undistinguished,
perfectly natural figure.
“It’s Mr. Jacks, isn’t it?” he asked, holding out his hand. “I thought I
recognized you.”
The Inspector rose to his feet.
“I am sorry to trouble you again, Mr. Coulson,” he said, “but if you
could spare me just a minute or two, I should be very much obliged.”
Mr. Coulson laughed pleasantly.
“You can have all you want of me from now till midnight,” he declared.
“My business doesn’t take very long, and I can only see the people I
want to see in the middle of the day. After that, I don’t mind telling
you that I find time hangs a bit on my hands. Try one of these,” he
added, producing a cigar case.
The Inspector thanked him and helped himself. Mr. Coulson summoned the
waiter.
“Highball for me,” he directed. “What’s yours, Mr. Jacks?”
“Thank you very much,” the Inspector said. “I will take a little Scotch
whiskey and soda.”
The two men sat down. The corner was a retired one, and there was no one
within earshot.
“Say, are you still on this Hamilton Fynes business?” Mr. Coulson asked.
“Partly,” the Inspector replied.
“You know, I’m not making reflections,” Mr. Coulson said, sticking
his cigar in a corner of his mouth and leaning back in a comfortable
attitude, “but it does seem to me that you are none too rapid on this
side in clearing up these matters. Why, a little affair of that sort
wouldn’t take the police twenty minutes in New York. We have a big
city, full of alien quarters, full of hiding places, and chock full of
criminals, but our police catch em, all the same. There’s no one going
to commit murder in the streets of New York without finding himself in
the Tombs before he’s a week older. No offence, Mr. Jacks.”
“I am not taking any, Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector answered. “I must
admit that there’s a great deal of truth in what you say. It is rather
a reflection upon us that we have not as yet even made an arrest, but I
think you will also admit that the circumstances of those murders were
exceedingly curious.”
Mr. Coulson knocked the ash from his cigar.
“Well, as to that,” he said, “and if we are to judge only by what we
read in the papers, they are curious, without a doubt. But I am not
supposing for one moment that you fellows at Scotland Yard don’t know
more than you’ve let on to the newspapers. You keep your discoveries out
of the Press over here, and a good job, too, but you wouldn’t persuade
me that you haven’t some very distinct theory as to how that crime was
worked, and the sort of person who did it. Eh, Mr. Jacks?”
“We are perhaps not quite so ignorant as we seem,” the Inspector
answered, “and of course you are right when you say that we have a few
more facts to go by than have appeared in the newspapers. Still, the
affair is an extremely puzzling one,--as puzzling, in its way,” Mr.
Jacks continued, “as the murder on the very next evening of this young
American gentleman.”
Mr. Coulson nodded sympathetically. The drinks were brought, and he
raised his glass to his guest.
“Here’s luck!” he said--“luck to you with your game of human chess, and
luck to me with my woollen machinery patents! You were speaking of that
second murder,” he remarked, setting down his glass. “I haven’t noticed
the papers much this morning. Has any arrest been made yet?”
“Not yet,” the Inspector admitted. “To tell you the truth, we find it
almost as puzzling an affair as the one in which Mr. Hamilton Fynes was
concerned.”
Mr. Coulson nodded. He seemed content, at this stage in their
conversation, to assume the role of listener.
“You read the particulars of the murder of Mr. Vanderpole, I suppose?”
the Inspector asked.
“Every word,” Mr. Coulson answered. “Most interesting thing I’ve seen in
an English newspaper since I landed. Didn’t sound like London somehow.
Gray old law-abiding place, my partner always calls it.”
“I am going to be quite frank with you, Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector
continued. “I am going to tell you exactly why I have come to see you
again tonight.”
“Why, that’s good,” Mr. Coulson declared. “I like to know everything a
man’s got in his mind.”
“I have come to you,” the Inspector said, “because, by a somewhat
curious coincidence, I find that, besides your slight acquaintance with
and knowledge of Mr. Hamilton Fynes, you were also acquainted with this
Mr. Richard Vanderpole,--that you were,” he continued, knocking the
ash off his cigar and speaking a little more slowly, “the last person,
except the driver of the taxicab, to have seen him alive.”
Mr. Coulson turned slowly around and faced his companion.
“Now, how the devil do you know that?” he asked.
The Inspector smiled tolerantly.
“Well,” he said, “that is very simple. The taxicab started from here.
Mr. Vanderpole had been visiting some one in the hotel. There was not
the slightest difficulty in ascertaining that the person for whom he
asked, and with whom he spent some twenty minutes in this very room, was
Mr. James B. Coulson of New York.”
“Seated on this very couch, sir!” Mr. Coulson declared, striking the arm
of it with the flat of his hand,--“seated within a few feet of where you
yourself are at this present moment.”
The Inspector nodded.
“Naturally,” he continued, “when I became aware of so singular an
occurrence, I felt that I must lose no time in coming and having a few
more words with you.”
Mr. Coulson became meditative.
“Upon my word, when you come to think of it,” he said, “it is a
coincidence, sure! Two men murdered within twenty-four hours, and I seem
to have been the last person who knew them, to speak to either. Tell
you what, Mr. Jacks, if this goes on I shall get a bit scared. I think I
shall let the London business alone and go on over to Paris.”
The Inspector smiled.
“I fancy your nerves,” he remarked, “are quite strong enough to bear the
strain. However, I am sure you will not mind telling me exactly why Mr.
Richard Vanderpole, Secretary to the American Embassy here, should have
come to see you on Thursday night.”
“Why, that’s easy,” Mr. Coulson replied. “You may have heard of my
firm, The Coulson & Bruce Company of Jersey City. I’m at the head of a
syndicate that’s controlling some very valuable patents which we want to
exploit on this side and in Paris. Now my people don’t exactly know how
we stand under this new patent bill of Mr. Lloyd George’s. Accordingly
they wrote across to Mr. Blaine-Harvey, putting the matter to him, and
asking him to give me his opinion the moment I arrived on this side. You
see, it was no use our entering into contracts if we had to build the
plant and make the stuff over here. We didn’t stand any earthly show of
making it pay that way. Well, Mr. Harvey cabled out that I was just to
let him know the moment I landed, and before I opened up any business.
Sure enough, I called him up on the telephone, an hour or so after I got
here, and this young man came round. I can tell you he was all right,
too,--a fine, upstanding young fellow, and as bright as they make em.
He brought a written opinion with him as to how the law would affect our
proceedings. I’ve got it in my room if you’d care to see it?”
Mr. Jacks listened to his companion’s words with unchanged face.
“If it isn’t troubling you,” he said, “it would be of some interest to
me.”
Mr. Coulson rose to his feet.
“You sit right here,” he declared. “I’ll be back in less than five
minutes.”
Mr. Coulson was as good as his word. In less than the time mentioned he
was seated again by his companion’s side with a square sheet of foolscap
spread out upon the round table. The Inspector ran it through hurriedly.
The paper was stamped American Embassy,’ and it was the digest of
several opinions as to the effect of the new patent law upon the import
of articles manufactured under processes controlled by the Coulson &
Bruce syndicate. At the end there were a few lines in the Ambassador’s
own handwriting, summing up the situation. Mr. Coulson produced another
packet of letters and documents.
“If you’ve an hour or so to spare, Mr. Jacks,” he said, “I’d like to go
right into this with you, if it would interest you any. It’s my business
over here, so naturally I am glad enough of an opportunity to talk it
over.”
Mr. Jacks passed back the paper promptly.
“I am extremely obliged to you,” he said. “I am sure I should find it
most interesting. Another time I should be very glad indeed to look
through those specifications, but just now I have this affair of my
own rather on my mind. About this Mr. Richard Vanderpole, Mr. Coulson,
then,” he added. “Do I understand that this young man came to you as a
complete stranger?”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Coulson answered. “I never saw him before in my life.
As decent a young chap as ever I met with, all the same,” he went on,
“and comes of a good American stock, too. They tell me there’s going to
be an inquest and that I shall be summoned, but I know nothing more than
what I’ve told you. If I did, you’d be welcome to it.”
Mr. Jacks leaned back in his chair. Certainly the situation increased in
perplexity! The man by his side was talking now of the adaptation of
one of his patents to some existing machinery, and Jacks watched him
covertly. He considered himself, to some extent, a physiognomist. He
told himself it was not possible that this man was playing a part. Mr.
James B. Coulson sat there, the absolute incarnation of the genial man
of affairs, interested in his business, interested in the great subject
of dollar-getting, content with himself and his position,--a person
apparently of little imagination, for the shock of this matter
concerning which they had been talking had already passed away. He was
doing his best to explain with a pencil on the back of an illustrated
paper some new system of wool-bleaching.
“Mr. Coulson,” the Inspector said suddenly, “do you know a young lady
named Miss Penelope Morse?”
It was here, perhaps, that Mr. Coulson sank a little from the heights of
complete success. He repeated the name, and obviously took time to think
before he answered.
“Miss Penelope Morse,” the Inspector continued. “She is a young American
lady, who lives with an invalid aunt in Park Lane, and who is taken
everywhere by the Duchess of Devenham, another aunt, I believe.”
“I suppose I may say that I am acquainted with her,” Mr. Coulson
admitted. “She came here the other evening with a young man--Sir Charles
Somerfield.”
“Ah!” the Inspector murmured.
“She’d read that interview of mine with the Comet man,” Mr. Coulson
said, “and she fancied that perhaps I could tell her something about
Hamilton Fynes.”
“First time you’d met her, I suppose?” the Inspector remarked.
“Sure!” Mr. Coulson answered. “As a matter of fact, I know very few of
my compatriots over here. I am an American citizen myself, and I haven’t
too much sympathy with any one, man or woman, who doesn’t find America
good enough for them to live in.”
The Inspector nodded.
“Quite so,” he agreed. “So you hadn’t anything to tell this young lady?”
“Not a thing that she hadn’t read in the Comet,” Mr. Coulson replied.
“What brought her into your mind, anyway?”
“Nothing particular,” the Inspector answered carelessly. “Well, Mr.
Coulson, I won’t take up any more of your time. I am convinced that you
have told me all that you know, and I am afraid that I shall have to
look elsewhere to find the loose end of this little tangle.”
“Stay and have another drink,” Mr. Coulson begged. “I’ve nothing to do.
There are one or two boys coming in later who’ll like to meet you.”
The Inspector shook his head.
“I must be off,” he said. “I want to get into my office before six
o’clock. I dare say I shall be running across you again before you go
back.”
He shook hands and turned away. Then Mr. Coulson made what was, perhaps,
his second slight mistake.
“Say, Mr. Jacks,” he exclaimed, “what made you mention that young lady’s
name, anyway? I’m curious to know.”
The Inspector looked thoughtfully at the end of the fresh cigar which he
had just lit.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know that there was anything definite in my
mind, only it seems a little strange that you and Miss Penelope Morse
should both have been acquainted with the murdered man and that you
should have come across one another.”
“Sort of bond between us, eh?” Mr. Coulson replied. “She seemed a very
charming young lady. Cut above Fynes, I should think.”
The detective smiled.
“All your American young ladies who come over here are charming,” he
said. “Goodbye, Mr. Coulson, and many thanks!”
The Inspector passed out, and the man whom he had come to visit, after a
moment’s hesitation, resumed his seat.
“These aren’t American methods,” he muttered to himself. “I don’t
understand them. That man Jacks is either a simpleton or he is too
cunning for me.”
He crossed to a writing table and scribbled an unnecessary note,
addressing it to a firm in the city. Then he rang for a messenger boy
and handed it to him for delivery. A few minutes afterwards he strolled
out into the hall. The boy was in the act of handing the note to one of
the head porters, who carefully copied the address. Mr. Coulson returned
to the smoking room, whistling softly to himself.