THE POLICE RETURN
Hetherwick now began to arrive at something like an understanding of a
matter that had puzzled him ever since and also at the time of the
conversation between Hannaford and his companion in the train. He had
noted then that whatever it was that Hannaford was telling, he was
telling it as a man tells a story against himself; there had been signs
of amused chagrin and discomfiture in his manner. Now he saw why.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "She was one too many for him. Then?"
"A good many times too many!" laughed Hollis. "She did Hannaford
completely. He strove hard to find her, and did a great deal of the
spade-work himself. And at last he ran her down--in a fashionable
hotel in London. He had a Scotland Yard man with him, and a detective
from our own police-office here, a man named Gandham, who is still in
the force--I'll introduce you to him to-morrow. Hannaford, finding
that Mrs. Whittingham had a suite of rooms in this hotel--a big West
End place--left his two men downstairs, or outside, and went up to see
her alone. According to his own account, she was highly indignant at
any suspicions being cast upon her, and still more so, rose to a pitch
of most virtuous indignation when he told her that he'd got a warrant
for her arrest and that she'd have to go with him. During a brief
interchange of remarks she declared that if her bankers at Manchester
had returned her cheque unpaid it must have been merely because they
hadn't realised certain valuable securities which she'd sent to them,
and that if Malladale had presented his cheque a few days later it
would have been all right. Now, that was all bosh!--Hannaford, of
course, had been in communication with the bankers; all they knew of
the lady was that she had opened an account with them while staying at
some hotel in Manchester, and that she had drawn all but a few pounds
of her balance the very day on which she had got the necklace from
Malladale and fled with it from Sellithwaite. Naturally, Hannaford
didn't tell her this--he merely reiterated his demand that she should
go with him. She assented at once, only stipulating that there should
be no fuss--she would walk out of the hotel with him, and he and his
satellites could come back and search her belongings at their leisure.
Then Hannaford--who, between you and me, Hetherwick, had an eye for a
pretty woman!--made his mistake. Her bedroom opened out of the
sitting-room in which he'd had his interview with her; he was fool
enough to let her go into it alone, to get ready to go with him. She
went--and that was the very last Hannaford ever saw of her!"
"Made a lightning exit, eh?" remarked Hetherwick.
"She must have gone instantly," asserted Hollis. "A door opened from
the bedroom into a corridor--she must have picked up hat and coat and
walked straight away, leaving everything she had there. Anyway, when
Hannaford, tired of waiting, knocked at the door and looked in, his
bird was flown. Then, of course, there was a hue-and-cry, and a fine
revelation. But she'd got clear away, probably by some side door or
other exit, and although Hannaford, according to his own account, raked
London with a comb for her, she was never found. Vanished!"
"And the necklace?" inquired Hetherwick.
"That had vanished too," replied Hollis. "They searched her trunks and
things, but they found nothing but clothing. Whatever she had in the
way of money and valuables she'd carried off. And so Hannaford came
home, considerably down in the mouth, and he had to stand a good deal
of chaff. And if he found this woman's picture in a recent
paper--well, small wonder that he did cut it out! I should say he was
probably going to set Scotland Yard on her track!--for, of course,
there's no time-limit to criminal proceedings."
"This is the picture he cut out," observed Hetherwick, producing it
from his pocket-book. "But you say you never saw the woman?"
"No, I never saw her," assented Hollis, examining the print with
interested curiosity. "So, of course, I can't recognise this.
Handsome woman! But you meet me at my office--close by--to-morrow
morning, at ten, and I'll take you to our police-station. Gandham will
know!"
Gandham, an elderly man with a sphinx-like manner and watchful eyes,
laughed sardonically when Hollis explained Hetherwick's business. He
laughed again when Hetherwick showed him the print.
"Oh, aye, that's the lady!" he exclaimed. "Not changed much, neither!
Egad, she was a smart 'un, that, Mr. Hollis!--I often laugh when I
think how she did Hannaford! But you know, Hannaford was a
soft-hearted man. At these little affairs, he was always for sparing
people's feelings. All very well--but he had to pay for trying to
spare hers! Aye, that's her! We have a portrait of her here, you
know."
"You have, eh?" exclaimed Hetherwick. "I should like to see it."
"You can see it with pleasure, sir," replied the detective. "And look
at it as long as you like." He turned to a desk close by and produced
a big album, full of portraits with written particulars beneath them.
"This is not, strictly speaking, a police photo," he continued. "It's
not one that we took ourselves, ye understand--we never had the chance!
No!--but when my lady was staying at the 'White Bear,' she had her
portrait taken by Wintring, the photographer, in Silver Street, and
Wintring was that suited with it that he put it in his window. So, of
course, when her ladyship popped off with Malladale's necklace, we got
one of those portraits, and added it to our little collection. Here it
is!--and you'll not notice so much difference between it and that
you've got in your hand, sir."
There was very little difference between the two photographs, and
Hetherwick said so. And presently he went away from the police-office
wondering more than ever about the woman with whose past adventures he
was concerning himself.
"May as well do the thing thoroughly while you're about it," remarked
Hollis, as they walked off. "Come and see Malladale--his shop is only
round the corner. Not that he can tell you much more than I've told
you already."
But Malladale proved himself able to tell a great deal more. A grave,
elderly man, presiding over an establishment which Hetherwick,
unaccustomed to the opulence of provincial manufacturing towns, was
astonished to find outside London, he ushered his visitor into a
private room, and listened to the reasons they gave for calling on him.
After a close and careful inspection of the print which Hetherwick put
before him, he handed it back with a confident nod.
"There is no doubt whatever--in my mind--that that is a print from a
photograph of the woman I knew as the Honourable Mrs. Whittingham," he
said. "And if it has been taken recently, she has altered very little
during the ten years that have elapsed since she was here in this town."
"You'd be glad to see her again, Mr. Malladale--in the flesh?" laughed
Hollis.
The jeweller shook his head.
"I think not," he answered. "No, I think not, Mr. Hollis. That's an
episode which I had put out of my mind--until you recalled it."
"But--your loss?" suggested Hollis. "Close on four thousand pounds,
wasn't it?"
Mr. Malladale raised one of his white hands to his grey beard and
coughed. It was a cough that suggested discretion, confidence,
secrecy. He smiled behind his moustache, and his spectacled eyes
seemed to twinkle.
"I think I may venture a little disclosure--in the company of two
gentlemen learned in the law," he said. "To a solicitor whom I know
very well, and to a barrister introduced by him, I think I may reveal a
little secret--between ourselves and to go no further. The fact of
this matter is, gentlemen--I had no loss!"
"What?" exclaimed Hollis. "No--loss?"
"Eventually," replied the jeweller. "Eventually! Indeed, to tell you
the truth plain, I made my profit, and--er, something over."
Hollis looked his bewilderment.
"Do you mean that--eventually--you were paid?" he asked.
"Precisely! Eventually--after a considerable interval--I was paid,"
replied Mr. Malladale. "I will tell you the circumstances. It is, I
believe, common knowledge that I sold the diamond necklace to Mrs.
Whittingham for three thousand, nine hundred pounds, and that the
cheque she gave me was dishonoured, and that she cleared off with the
goods and was never heard of after she escaped from Hannaford. Well,
two years ago, that is to say, eight years after her disappearance, I
one day received a letter which bore the New York postmark. It
contained a sheet of notepaper on which were a few words and a few
figures. But I have that now, and I'll show it to you."
Going to a safe in the corner of his parlour, the jeweller, after some
searching, produced a paper and laid it before his visitors.
Hetherwick examined it with curiosity. There was no name, no address,
no date; all that appeared was, as Malladale had remarked, a few words,
a few figures, typewritten:--
Principal . . . . . . . . . . £3,900
8 years' Interest @ 5% . . . . 1,560
------
£5,460
Draft £5,460 enclosed herein: kindly acknowledge in
London _Times_.
"Enclosed, as is there said, was a draft on a London bank for the
specified amount," continued Mr. Malladale. "£5,460! You may easily
believe that at first I could scarcely understand this: I knew of no
one in New York who owed me money. But the first
figures--£3,900--threw light on the matter--I suddenly remembered Mrs.
Whittingham and my lost necklace. Then I saw through the
thing--evidently Mrs. Whittingham had become prosperous, wealthy, and
she was honest enough to make amends; there was my principal, and eight
years' interest on it. Yet, I felt somewhat doubtful about taking
it--I didn't know whether I mightn't be compounding a felony? You
gentlemen, of course, will appreciate my little difficulty?"
"Um!" remarked Hollis in a non-committal tone. "The more interesting
matter is--what did you do? Though I think we already know," he added
with a smile.
"Well, I went to see Hannaford, and told him what I had received,"
answered the jeweller. "And Hannaford said precisely what I expected
him to say. He said 'Put the money in your pocket, Malladale, and say
nothing about it!' So--I did!"
"Each of you feeling pretty certain that Mrs. Whittingham was not
likely to show her face in Sellithwaite again, no doubt!" observed
Hollis. "Very interesting, Mr. Malladale. But it strikes me that
whether she ever comes to Sellithwaite again or not, Mrs. Whittingham,
or whatever her name may be nowadays, is in England."
"You think so?" asked the jeweller.
"Her picture's recently appeared in an English paper, anyway," said
Hollis.
"But pictures of famous American ladies appear in English newspapers,"
suggested Mr. Malladale. "I have recollections of several. Now my
notion is that Mrs. Whittingham, who was a very handsome and very
charming woman, eventually went across the Atlantic and married an
American millionaire! That's how I figured it. And I have often
wondered who she is now."
"That's precisely what I want to find out," said Hetherwick. "One
thing is certain--Hannaford knew! If he'd been alive he could have
told us. Because in whatever paper it was that this print appeared
there would be some letterpress about it, giving the name, and why it
appeared at all."
"You can trace that," remarked Hollis.
"Just so," agreed Hetherwick, "and I may as well get back to town and
begin the job. But I think with Mr. Hollis," he added, turning to the
jeweller, "I believe that the woman is here in England: I think it
possible, too, that Hannaford knew where. And I don't think it
impossible that between the time of his cutting out her picture from
the paper and the time of his sudden death he came in touch with her."
"You think it probable that she, in some way, had something to do with
his murder--if it was murder?" asked Mr. Malladale.
"I think it possible," replied Hetherwick. "There are strange features
in the case. One of the strangest is this. Why, when Hannaford cut
out that picture, for his own purposes, evidently with no intention of
showing it to anyone else, did he cut it out without the name and
letterpress which must have been under and over it?"
"Queer, certainly!" said Hollis. "But, you know, you can soon
ascertain what that name was. All you've got to do is to get another
copy of the paper."
"Unfortunately, Hannaford's granddaughter doesn't know what particular
paper it was," replied Hetherwick. "Her sole recollection of it is
that it was some local newspaper, sent to Hannaford by post, the very
morning that he left here for London."
"Still--it can be traced," said Hollis. "It was in some paper---and
there'll be other copies."
Presently he and Hetherwick left the jeweller's shop. Outside, Hollis
led his companion across the street, and turned into a narrow alley.
"I'll show you a man who'll remember Mrs. Whittingham better than
anybody in Sellithwaite," he said, with a laugh. "Better even than
Malladale. I told you she stayed at the 'White Bear' when she was
here? Well, since then the entire staff of that eminent hostelry has
been changed, from the manager to the boots--I don't think there's a
man or woman there who was there ten years ago. But there's a man at
the end of this passage who was formerly hall-porter at the 'White
Bear'--Amblet Hudson--and who now keeps a rather cosy little saloon-bar
down here: we'll drop in on him. He's what we call a bit of a
character, and if you can get him to talk, he's usually worth listening
to."