AT SCOTLAND YARD
Dismissing from his mind for the moment the incident which Rosabelle
Sheldon had made a special visit to communicate to him—the anonymous
letter would put in train the machinery for elucidating the real facts
of that—there were two pressing problems that Lane was anxious to solve
without any undue delay. The one was the actual position of Sir George
Clayton-Brookes. Was he a comparatively poor man, as his paying-in book
went to prove; or a rich one, as his lavish expenditure in certain
directions tended to show? The second problem was the real identity
of the young man calling himself his nephew, and also passing as the
nephew of Mrs. Morrice by the marriage of her sister to the brother of
the mysterious baronet.
The latter of the two puzzles was in the capable hands of Sellars. Much
would depend upon the result of that interview with the friend of Mrs.
Morrice’s youth, Alma Buckley. And the result depended upon the woman
herself. First of all, had she any knowledge of Lettice Larchester
after they had parted company at the little village of Brinkstone
sufficiently intimate to include the details of her life between that
date and her marriage to the wealthy financier? If she knew them, was
she too staunch a friend to the companion of her youth to satisfy the
curiosity of a stranger, or could she be tempted to open her mouth by
a bribe of sufficient magnitude. If she were a venal person she would,
no doubt, require a considerable sum for any information she gave.
No large sums could be extracted from the meagre resources of Richard
Croxton. Anxious as he appeared to clear himself, he could not be
expected to reduce himself to penury for an investigation which might
not lead to any clear evidence of his innocence. Even if Alma Buckley
knew the real identity of Archie Brookes and sold the knowledge for
an agreed sum of money, the fact of proving him an impostor would not
necessarily acquit Croxton of the suspicions resting upon him.
In that case the only person to whom application could be made would be
Morrice himself. And that would entail immediate avowal of what Sellars
had found out; and it might be that such an immediate avowal might be
a little too precipitate for Lane’s plans. Anyway, in that direction
he could do nothing till he knew the result of his lieutenant’s
negotiations with this middle-aged actress.
The further investigations into the case of Sir George he was for the
present keeping in his own hands. Later on he must tackle that of
Archie Brookes, not as regards his antecedents, but his expenditure and
the source of his income. Popular rumour credited Sir George with the
financial support of his alleged nephew. Well, a certain light upon
that portion of the problem had been thrown by Rosabelle’s statement of
the conversation in her aunt’s boudoir which she had overheard.
It was evident, even from the little she had gathered, that money was
the topic of that conversation; equally evident that Mrs. Morrice had
contributed large sums to the young man’s support. But however generous
her allowance, his supposed aunt could not alone maintain the burden
of young Brookes’s lavish expenditure as detailed by Simmons, who had
the information from a reliable source. He must have other resources,
and the nature and extent of those resources must be discovered.
Lane felt he would like to discuss this matter in strict confidence
with somebody as clever as himself. Sellars was very intelligent in his
own way, had a wonderful nose for investigation when he was once put
on the right track, when, to use a hunting metaphor, he had picked up
the scent. But he lacked experience and he was not very imaginative—he
had little faculty of anticipating facts, in contrast to Lane, who had
moments of inspiration which guided him instinctively in a puzzling
labyrinth.
Casting about in his mind for a helpful confidant, he thought at once
of his old friend MacKenzie, who now occupied a prominent position at
Scotland Yard. They had joined the Force together as young men, had
risen together, step by step, till separation came when Lane decided to
set up for himself. Of the two, Lane was slightly the better man, owing
to the particular streak of imagination—that frequency of inspiration
to which allusion has been made. But MacKenzie was only slightly
inferior; very sound, very painstaking, very logical.
There was perfect confidence between the two men. If MacKenzie wanted
counsel or sometimes assistance from Lane, he applied to him without
hesitation; and his friend as frequently availed himself of the shrewd
Scotchman’s powers of analysis and deduction. There was nothing the
two men enjoyed more than a long yarn over their experiences, to the
accompaniment of a good cigar and a stimulating dose of sound whisky.
“Ah, glad to see you, my boy, it’s a little time since we met,” was
MacKenzie’s greeting to his old friend and comrade, uttered in his
rather broad Scotch, which need not be reproduced here. “We are rather
quiet at the moment, nothing very exciting, just a few simple little
things. I hope you have got something really worth taking trouble
about.”
“I’ve got in hand one of the most remarkable cases I think I’ve ever
had in my life,” was Lane’s reply, and he straightway plunged into a
full recital of the Morrice mystery and the salient facts connected
with it.
His friend listened with the deepest attention, and when it was
finished the two men engaged in a long and animated discussion,
exhausting the arguments for and against the various hypotheses that
were thrown out first by the one and then by the other.
“Well, now, about this Clayton-Brookes,” said MacKenzie presently.
“I think I can give you a little assistance. We’ve had him under
observation since a little after you left us, and that’s a few years
ago now.”
“Ah!” Lane drew a deep breath. He was glad that he had paid this visit
to his old friend and wished that he had come sooner.
The Scotchman waved his big hand round his comfortable, roomy
apartment. “I wouldn’t care to say it outside these four walls, and
not to more than a few inside them, because we’ve nothing but very
substantial conjecture, and up to the present we’ve not been able to
lay a finger on him, he’s so devilish clever. But there’s no doubt he’s
a ‘wrong ’un.’”
“Do you mean actually a crook?” queried Lane.
MacKenzie nodded his massive head. “Anyway, the friend of crooks; he’s
been observed in some very queer company quite outside of his own
proper beat, which we know is the West End and the fashionable clubs
and a few smart and semi-smart houses. We know birds of a feather flock
together, and men are known by the company they keep.”
So Sir George Clayton-Brookes, the elegant man-about-town, led a double
life then—associating at one end of the scale with the fashionable and
semi-fashionable denizens of the west, at the other with certain flashy
members of the underworld.
MacKenzie proceeded to relate that their attention had been first
attracted to him by a series of burglaries committed at certain country
houses and hotels, from the owners of and visitors at which valuable
jewellery and articles of plate had been stolen. At three of the houses
in question he had actually been a guest at the time of the robberies,
and with regard to the others, he had been a visitor a little time
previously. The theory was that he took advantage of his opportunities
to spy out the position of the land, to furnish the actual thieves with
plans of the interior of the different mansions at which he had stayed,
and give details of the jewellery belonging to the various guests.
It was curious, to say the least, that robberies should occur, as it
seemed, automatically either during his actual visits or very shortly
after them.
Further evidence was afforded by the fact that he had frequently been
observed in the company of certain high-class crooks who engineered and
financed various criminal schemes, the practical working of which was
left to subordinates.
Lane could not say he was surprised overmuch, he had long ago come to
the conclusion that there was something very mysterious about this
supposed man of wealth and substance, who could purchase a thousand
pound car one day, and be scared out of his wits on another lest a
cheque for a paltry thirty pounds should be dishonoured.
“But as I say,” concluded MacKenzie, “he’s as artful as a monkey, and
we can’t get evidence enough to connect him with any one of the actual
thefts. But there is the coincidence I have mentioned, and that’s
evidence for us, although it wouldn’t do for a judge and jury.”
“And what about the young man—his supposed nephew?” asked Lane.
“Oh, we’ve had him under observation as well, and, of course, he must
be mixed up with Sir George in some way or another, but we don’t think
in these particular things. They see each other pretty nearly every
day, but they appear to lead different lives. Young Brookes doesn’t go
very much into the same sort of society; he doesn’t stay at country
houses, seems on a bit lower plane than the baronet. But I’ve no doubt
they run some little show of their own together.”
“Do you know anything about his antecedents before he came on the scene
as Sir George’s nephew?”
“Yes, we know a bit. He was a clerk in a City warehouse before Sir
George took him on. He was living then with a woman who had apparently
brought him up from a child.”
“Do you know the name of the woman?” Lane felt he was on the track of
something, but he was more than startled at the answer. “But of course,
you would learn that.”
“Yes, she is a music-hall artist of a third or fourth-rate type, but
pretty well known in the profession. _She is called Alma Buckley._”