THE PHOTOGRAPH
Allerdyke went off to Hull, post-haste, because of a telephone call which
roused him out of bed an hour before his usual time. It came from
Chettle, the New Scotland Yard man who had been sent down to Hull as soon
as the news of Lydenberg's murder arrived. Chettle asked Allerdyke to
join him by the very next express, and to come alone; he asked him,
moreover, not to tell Mr. Franklin Fullaway whither he was bound. And
Allerdyke, having taken a quick glance at a time-table, summoned Gaffney,
told him of his journey, bade him keep his tongue quiet at the Waldorf,
wrote his hasty note to Appleyard, dressed, and hurried away to King's
Cross. He breakfasted on the train, and was in Hull by one o'clock, and
Chettle hailed him as he set foot on the platform, and immediately led
him off to a cab which awaited them outside the station.
"Much obliged to you for coming so promptly, Mr. Allerdyke," said the
detective. "And for coming by yourself--that was just what I wanted."
"Aye, and why?" asked Allerdyke. "Why by myself? I've been wondering
about that all the way down."
Chettle, a sleek, comfortable-looking man, with a quiet manner and a sly
glance, laughed knowingly, twiddling his fat thumbs as he leaned back in
the cab. "Oh, well, it doesn't do--in my opinion--to spread information
amongst too many people, Mr. Allerdyke," he said. "That's my notion of
things, anyway. I just wanted to go into a few matters with you, alone,
d'ye see? I didn't want that American gentleman along with you. Eh?"
"Now, why?" asked Allerdyke. "Out with it!"
"Well, you see, Mr. Allerdyke," answered the detective, "we know you.
You're a man of substance, you've got a big stake in the country--you're
Allerdyke, of Allerdyke and Partners, Limited, Bradford and London. But
we don't know Fullaway. He may be all right, but you could only call him
a bird of passage, like. He can close down his business and be away out
of England to-morrow, and, personally, I don't believe in letting him
into every secret about all this affair until we know more about him. You
see, Mr. Allerdyke, there's one thing very certain--so far as we've
ascertained at present, nobody but Fullaway, and possibly whoever's in
his employ, was acquainted with the fact that your cousin was carrying
those jewels from Russia to England. Nobody in this country, at any rate.
And--it's a thing of serious importance, sir."
Just what Appleyard had said!--what, indeed, no one of discernment could
help saying, thought Allerdyke. The sole knowledge, of course, was with
Fullaway and his lady clerk--so far as was known. Therefore--
"Just so," he said aloud. "I see your point--of course, I've already seen
it. Well, what are we going to do--now? You've brought me down here for
something special, no doubt."
"Quite so, sir," answered Chettle composedly. "I want to draw your
attention to some very special features and to ask you certain questions
arising out of 'em. We'll take things in order, Mr. Allerdyke. We're
driving now to the High Street--I want to show you the exact spot where
Lydenberg was shot dead. After that we'll go to the police-station and
I'll show you two or three little matters, and we'll have a talk about
them. And now, before we get to the High Street, I may as well tell you
that on examining Lydenberg's body very little was found in the way of
papers--scarcely anything, and nothing connecting him with your cousin's
affair--in fact, the police here say they never saw a foreign gentleman
with less on him in that way. But in the inside pocket of his overcoat
there was a postcard, which had been posted here in Hull. Here it
is--and you'll see that it was the cause of taking him to the spot where
he was shot."
Chettle took from an old letter-case an innocent-looking postcard, on one
corner of which was a stain.
"His blood," he remarked laconically. "He was shot clean through the
heart. Well, you see, it's a mere line."
Allerdyke took the card and looked at it with a mingled feeling of
repulsion and fascination. The writing on it was thin, angular, upright,
and it suggested foreign origin. And the communication was brief--and
unsigned--
"High Street morning eleven sharp left-hand side old houses."
"You don't recognize that handwriting, of course, Mr. Allerdyke?" asked
Chettle. "Never seen it before, I suppose?"
"No!" replied Allerdyke. "Never. But I should say it's a foreigner's."
"Very likely," assented Chettle. "Aye, well, sir, it lured the man to his
death. And now I'll show you where he died, and how easy it was for the
murderer to kill him and get away unobserved."
He pulled the cab up at the corner of the High Street, and turned
southward towards the river, looking round at his companion with one of
his sly smiles.
"I daresay that you, being a Yorkshireman, Mr. Allerdyke, know all about
this old street," he remarked as they walked forward. "I never saw it,
never heard of it, until the other day, when I was sent down on this
Lydenberg business, but it struck me at once. I should think it's one of
the oldest streets left in England."
"It is," answered Allerdyke. "I know it well enough, and I've seen it
changed. It used to be the street of the old Hull merchants--they had
their houses and warehouses all combined, with gardens at the back
running down to the river Hull. Queer old places there used to be in this
street, I can tell you when I was a lad!--of late years they've pulled a
lot of property down that had got what you might call thoroughly
worm-eaten--oh, yes, the place isn't half as ancient or picturesque as it
was even twenty years ago!"
"There's plenty of the ancient about it still, for all that," observed
Chettle, with a dry laugh. "There was more than enough of it for
Lydenberg the other day, at any rate. Now, then, you remember what it
said on the postcard--he was to walk down the High Street, on the
left-hand side, at eleven o'clock? Very well--down the High Street he
walks, on this side which we are now--he strolls along, by these old
houses, looking about him, of course, for the person he was to meet. The
few people who were about down here that morning, and who saw him, said
that he was looking about from side to side. And all of a sudden a shot
rang out, and Lydenberg fell--just here--right on this very pavement."
He pulled Allerdyke up in a narrow part of the old street, jointed to
the flags, and then to the house behind them--an ancient, ramshackle
place, the doors and windows of which were boarded up, the entire fabric
of which showed unmistakable readiness for the pick and shovel of the
house-breaker. And he laid a hand on one of the shattered windows, close
by a big hole in the decaying wood.
"There's no doubt the murderer was hidden behind this shutter, and that
he fired at Lydenberg from it, through this hole," he said. "So, you see,
he'd only be a few feet from his man. He was evidently a good shot, and a
fellow of resolute nerve, for he made no mistake. He only fired once, but
he shot Lydenberg clean through the heart, dead!"
"Anybody see it happen?" asked Allerdyke, staring about him at the scene
of the tragedy, and thinking how very ordinary and commonplace everything
looked. "I suppose there'd be people about, though the street, at this
end, anyway, isn't as busy as it once was?"
"Several people saw him fall," answered Chettle.
"They say he jumped, spun round, and fell across the pavement. And they
all thought it was a case of suicide. That, of course, gave the murderer
a bigger and better chance of making off. You see, as these people saw no
assailant, it never struck 'em that the shot had been fired from behind
this window. When they collected their thoughts, found it wasn't suicide,
and realized that it was murder, the murderer was--Lord knows where! From
behind these old houses, Mr. Allerdyke, there's a perfect rabbit-warren
of alleys, courts, slums, twists, and turns! The man could slip out at
the back, go left or right, mix himself up with the crowd on the quays
and wharves, walk into the streets, go anywhere--all in a minute or two."
"Clever--very clever! You've no clue?" asked Allerdyke.
"None; not a scrap!" replied the detective. "Bless you, there's score of
foreigners knocking about Hull. Scores! Hundreds! We've done all we can,
the local police and myself--we've no clue whatever. But, of course, it
was done by one of the gang."
"By one of the gang!" exclaimed Allerdyke. "Ah you've got a theory of
your own, then?"
Chettle laughed quietly as they turned and retraced their steps up
the street.
"It 'ud be queer if I hadn't, by this time," he answered. "Oh yes, I've
thought things out pretty well, and I should say our people at the Yard
have come to the same conclusion that I have--I'm not conceited enough,
Mr. Allerdyke, to fancy that I'm the only person who's arrived at a
reasonable theory, not I?"
"Well--what is your theory?" asked Allerdyke.
"This," replied the detective. "The whole thing, the theft of the
Princess Nastirsevitch's jewels from your cousin, of Miss de Longarde's
or Lennard's jewels, was the work of a peculiarly clever gang--though it
may be of an individual--who made use of both Lydenberg and the French
maid as instruments, and subsequently murdered those two in order to
silence them forever. I say it may be the work of an individual--it's
quite possible that the man who killed the Frenchwoman is also the man
who shot Lydenberg--but it may be the work of one, two, or three separate
persons, acting in collusion. I believe that Lydenberg was the actual
thief of the Princess's jewels from your cousin; that the Frenchwoman
actually stole her mistress's jewels. But as to how it was worked--as to
who invented and carried out the whole thing--ah!"
"And to that--to the real secret of the whole matter--we haven't the
ghost of a clue!" muttered Allerdyke. "That's about it, eh?"
Chettle laughed--a sly, suggestive laugh. He gave his companion one of
his half-apologetic looks.
"I'm not so sure, Mr. Allerdyke," he said. "We may have--and that's why I
wanted to see you by yourself. Come round to the police-station."
In a quiet room in the usual drab and dismal atmosphere which Allerdyke
was beginning to associate with police affairs, Chettle produced the
personal property of the dead man, all removed, he said, from the Station
Hotel, for safe keeping.
"There's little to go on, Mr. Allerdyke," he said, pointing to one
article after another. "You'll remember that the man represented himself
as being a Norwegian doctor, who had come to Hull on private business. He
may have been that--we're making inquiries about him in Christiania,
where he hailed from. According to those who're in a position to speak,
his clothing, linen, boots, and so on are all of the sort you'd get in
that country. But he'd no papers on him to show his business, no private
letters, no documents connecting him with Hull in any way: he hadn't even
a visiting-card. He'd a return ticket--from Hull to Christiania--and he'd
plenty of money, English and foreign. When I got down here, I helped the
local police to go through everything--we even searched the linings of
his clothing and ripped his one handbag to pieces. But we've found no
more than I've said. However--I've found something. Nobody knows that
I've found it. I haven't told the people here--I haven't even reported
it to headquarters in London. I wanted you to see it before I spoke of it
to a soul. Look here!"
Chettle opened a square cardboard box in which certain personal effects
belonging to Lydenberg had been placed--one or two rings, a pocket-knife,
his purse and its contents, a cigar-case, his watch and chain. He took up
the watch, detached it from the chain, and held it towards Allerdyke, who
was regarding these proceedings with intense curiosity.
"You see this watch, Mr. Allerdyke," he said. "It's a watch of foreign
make--Swiss--and it's an old one, a good many years old, I should say.
Consequently, it's a bit what we might call massive. Now, I was looking
at it yesterday--late last night, in fact--and an idea suddenly struck
me. In consequence of that idea, I opened the back of the watch, and
discovered--that!"
He snapped open the case of the watch as he spoke and showed Allerdyke,
neatly cut out to a circle, neatly fitted into the case, a
photograph--the photograph of James Allerdyke! And Allerdyke started as
if he had been shot, and let out a sharp exclamation.
"My God!" he cried. "James! James, by all that's holy--and in there!"
"You recognize it, of course?" said Chettle, with a grim smile. "No doubt
of it, eh?"
"Doubt! Recognize!" exclaimed Allerdyke. "Lord, man--why, I took it
myself, not two months ago!"