THE RUSSIAN BANK-NOTES
The three searchers into what was rapidly becoming a most complicated
mystery drove back to New Scotland Yard in a silence which lasted until
they were set down at the door of the department whereat they had
interviewed the high official. Celia Lennard was thoroughly upset; the
sight of the dead woman had disturbed her even more than she let her
companions see; she remained dumb and rigid, staring straight before her
as if she still gazed on the white face set in its frame of dark hair.
Allerdyke, too, stared at the crowds in the streets as if they were
abstract visions--his keen brain felt dazed and mystified by this
accumulation of strange events. And Fullaway, active and mercurial though
he was, made no attempt at conversation--he sat with knitted forehead,
trying to think, to account, to surmise, only conscious that he was up
against a bigger mystery than life had ever shown him up to then.
The detective who had accompanied them to the mortuary conducted the
three straight back to his chief's office--the chief, noticing the effect
of the visit on Celia, hastened to give her a chair at the side of his
desk, and looked at her with a lessening of his official manner. He
signed to the other two to sit down, and motioned the detective to
remain. Then he turned to Celia.
"You recognized the woman?" he said softly. "Just so. I thought you
would, and I was sorry to ask you to perform such an unpleasant task but
it was absolutely necessary. Now," he continued, taking up his bundle of
papers again, "I want you to describe the man who met you and your maid
on your arrival at Hull the other night. Of course you saw him?"
"Certainly I saw him," replied Celia. "And I should know him again
anywhere--the scoundrel!"
The high official smiled and glanced at Fullaway.
"You are thinking, Miss Lennard, that the man you then saw is the man who
accompanied your maid to the hotel in which she was found dead," he said.
"Well, that may be so--but it mayn't. That is why I want you to give us
an accurate description of the man you saw. You described the maid very
well indeed. Now describe the man."
"I can do that quite well," said Celia, with assurance. "And I can tell
you the circumstances. The steamer--the _Perisco_--got into the river at
Hull about a quarter to nine and anchored off the Victoria Pier. We
understood that she couldn't get into dock just then because of the tide,
and that we must go on shore by tender. A tender came off--some of the
people on board it came on our deck. There was a good deal of bustle. I
went down to my cabin to see after something or other. Lisette came to me
there, evidently much agitated, saying that her brother had come off on
the tender to fetch her at once to their mother who was ill in
London--dying. She begged to be allowed to go with him. Of course I said
she might. She immediately picked up her suit-case and travelling coat
out of our pile of luggage, and I went up with her on deck. She and the
man--her brother, as I understood--got into a small boat which was
alongside and went straight off to the pier: the tender was not leaving
for shore for some time. And--that was the last I saw of her. It was all
done in a minute or two."
"Now--the man," suggested the chief softly.
"A young man--about Lisette's age, I should say--twenty-seven to thirty
anyway. Tallish. Dark hair, moustache, eyes, and complexion.
Good-looking--in a foreign way. I had no doubt he was her brother--he
looked French, though he spoke English quite well and without accent.
Very respectably dressed in dark clothes and overcoat. He would have
passed for a well-to-do clerk--that type. I spoke to him--a few words. He
spoke well--had very polite, almost polished manners. Of course he was
hurried--wanting to get Lisette away--he said they could just catch the
last train to London."
The chief shook his head.
"Not the man who accompanied her to the Paddington Hotel," he said.
"Listen--this is the description of that man, as given to the police by
the landlady and her servants: 'Age, presumably between forty and
forty-five years, medium height. Brown hair. Clean-shaven. Dressed in
grey tweed suit, over which he wore a fawn-coloured overcoat. Deerstalker
hat--light brown. Brown brogue shoes.' That, you see," continued the
chief, "describes a quite different person. You do not recognize the
description as that of any man you have ever seen in company with your
late maid, Miss Lennard?"
"I never saw my maid in any man's company," replied Celia. "Since I first
engaged her we have not been much in London. I was in New York and
Chicago for a time last year; then in Paris; then in Milan and Turin;
lately in Moscow and St. Petersburg. When we were at home, here in
London, she certainly had time of her own--her evenings out, you
know--but of course I don't know with whom she spent them. No--I don't
know any man answering that description."
The chief folded up his papers and restored them to his desk.
"Now that you are here," he said, "you may as well give me a few
particulars about your doings on the _Perisco_, especially as they relate
to Mr. James Allerdyke. When and where did you make his acquaintance?"
"On the steamer--a few hours after we left Christiania," replied Celia.
"Just as fellow-passengers, I suppose?"
"Quite so--just that. We sat next to each other at meals."
"Do you know where his cabin was on the steamer?"
"Yes, exactly opposite my own. He and I, I believe, were the only
passengers who had cabins all to ourselves."
"Did he ever mention to you these valuables which Mr. Fullaway tells us
he was carrying to England!"
"No--never at any time."
"Did you see him leave the _Perisco_ for the shore?"
"Why, yes, certainly! As a matter of fact, he and I came ashore at Hull
together, ahead of any other passengers. After Lisette had left the
steamer with her brother, I happened to come across Mr. James Allerdyke.
I told him what had just occurred, and asked him if he would help me
about my things, as my maid had gone. He immediately suggested that we
shouldn't wait for the tender, but should get a boat of our own--there
were several lying around. He said he was in a great hurry to get ashore,
because he'd a friend awaiting him at the Station Hotel. So he got a
boat, and his things and mine were put into it, and we left the steamer,
and were rowed to the landing-stage, just opposite."
"And you, of course, carried your jewel-case--or what you believed to be
your jewel-case--the duplicate chest which you subsequently carried to
Edinburgh?"
"Yes, of course--I had it in my hand when Lisette left, and, I never left
hold of it until I got into the hotel."
"Do you remember if Mr. James Allerdyke carried anything in his hand?"
"Yes, he carried a hand-bag. He had that bag in his hand when I met him
on deck; he kept it on his knee in the boat, and in the cab in which we
drove to the hotel from the landing-stage; I saw him carrying it upstairs
after we got to the hotel. What is more, I saw him bring it into the
coffee-room later on, and place it on the table at which he had some
supper. I saw it again in his room when I went in there to look at the
plans of the Norwegian estate which he had told me about. He didn't take
those plans out of that hand-bag; he took them out of a side flap-pocket
in a suit-case."
"Did you have supper with him that night?"
"No--I was sitting at another table, talking to a lady who had been with
us on the _Perisco_. A lot of _Perisco_ passengers--twenty, at least--had
come to the hotel by that time."
"Did any of them join Mr. James Allerdyke--at his table, I mean?"
"I don't remember--no, I think not. He sat at a table, one end of which
adjoined the wall--he put the hand-bag at that end. I remember wondering
why he carried his bag about with him. But then I, of course, was
carrying what I believed to be my jewel-case."
"Did you see him talking to any of your fellow-passengers that night?"
"Oh, yes--to two or three of them--in the hall of the hotel. I didn't
know who they were, particularly--except the doctor with the big beard. I
saw him talking to Mr. Allerdyke at the door of the smoking-room."
"Had you taken any special notice of your fellow passengers on board the
_Perisco_?"
"No--not at all. They were just the usual sort of passengers--I wasn't
interested in them. Of course, I talked to some of them, in the ordinary
way, as one does talk on board ship. But I don't remember anything
particular about them, nor any of their names, even if I ever knew their
names. Of course I remember Mr. James Allerdyke's name, because of the
business talk."
The chief, who had been making shorthand notes of this conversation,
paused for a moment, evidently considering matters, and then turned to
Celia with a smile.
"Why did you leave the hotel at Hull so suddenly?" he asked. "I daresay
you had good reasons, but I should just like to know what they were, if
you don't mind."
"I'd no reason at all," replied Celia, with almost blunt directness. "At
least, if I had, they were only a woman's reasons. I was a bit upset at
being left alone. I didn't like the hotel. I knew I shouldn't sleep. It
was a most beautiful moonlight night, and I suddenly thought I'd like to
go motoring. I knew enough of the geography of those parts to know if I
motored across country I should strike the Great Northern main line
somewhere and catch a train to Edinburgh in the early morning. So--I just
cleared out."
"Ah--you see you had quite a number of reasons!" said the chief,
smiling again. "Very well. Now then, before you go, Miss Lennard, I
want you to do just one thing more which may be useful to us in our
work." He turned to the detective. "Get those things," he said quietly.
"Bring the lot in here."
Celia made a little sound of distaste as the detective presently returned
to the room carrying in one hand a brown leather suit-case, and in the
other a cardboard dress-box, to which was strapped a travelling-coat,
lined with fur. Her face, which had regained its colour, paled again.
"Lisette's things!" she muttered. "Oh--I don't--don't like to see them!
What is it you want?"
"We want you to identify them--and, if you will, to look them over,"
replied the chief. "The cardboard box contains everything she was wearing
when she went to the hotel in Eastbourne Terrace; the suit-case and coat
are what she took in with her. Spread the things out on that side table,"
he continued, turning to the detective.
"Let Miss Lennard look them over."
Celia performed the task required of her with dislike--it seemed
somehow as if she were inspecting the dead woman afresh. She hurried
over the task.
"All these things are hers, of course," she said. "That's the suit-case
she had with her when she left me at Hull, and that's the coat I gave
her--and the other things are hers, too. Oh--I don't like looking at
them. Can't we go, please?"
"One moment," said the chief. "I wanted to tell you that amongst all
these things there is nothing that establishes the woman's identity--I
mean in the way of papers or anything of that sort. There were no letters
in this case--not a scrap of paper. There is money in that purse--two or
three pounds in gold, some silver. There is her watch--a good gold
watch--and there are two or three rings she was wearing. Now we have only
made a superficial examination of all these personal belongings--can you,
as her mistress, suggest if she was likely to hide anything in her
clothing, and if so, in what article? You might save us some trouble,
Miss Lennard."
Allerdyke, who was more interested in Celia than in what was going on,
saw a sudden gleam come into her eyes--her feminine spirit of curiosity
was aroused. She hesitated, turned back to the side-table, paused
before the various articles laid out there, took up and fingered two or
three, and suddenly wheeled round on the men, exhibiting a quilted
handkerchief case.
"There's something been sewn into the padding of this!" she said. "I can
feel it. Can any one lend me pocket-scissors or a penknife?"
The men gathered round as Celia's deft fingers ripped open the satin
covering: a moment later she drew out a wad of folded paper and handed it
to the chief. Fullaway and Allerdyke craned their necks over his
shoulders as he unwrapped and spread the bits of paper out before them.
And it was Fullaway who broke the silence with a sharp exclamation.
"Bank-notes!" he said. "Russian bank-notes! And new ones!"