Fair Passengers
Once he had decided his course of action, French was not the man to
let the grass grow under his feet. On that very same evening on which
he had learnt of the existence of the three box office girls, he began
his investigation into their lives.
His first move was to warn his helpers, Sergeants Carter and Harvey,
for duty at nine o’clock. Promptly at the hour the trio sallied forth
from the Yard and turned their steps in the direction of the
Haymarket.
“It’s in connection with that Portsmouth murder,” French explained as
they walked. “I want three girls shadowed. We’ll do one each. But I
want each of you to recognize all three, so we’ll go round first and
I’ll point them out.”
The façade of the Cosmopolitan blazed with coruscations of flaming
lights as they ascended the marble steps to its doors. Just inside
stood French’s friend, the porter.
A word from French and he pointed to the pay box over which Miss
Lillian Burgess presided.
“Girl in this box is Number One,” French whispered, then going to the
window he put down a pound.
“Three stalls, please.”
The girl dropped out the three metal disc tickets and rapidly laid a
ten-shilling note and a shilling on the ledge.
“Could you spare me silver?” French asked her. “I’m short of change.”
Without replying, Miss Burgess took back the note and replaced it with
a small pile of coins.
The whole transaction was a matter of seconds, yet in the time each
member of the trio had carefully observed the young woman and
impressed her features on his memory. As they passed into the
auditorium and out again into the street via the bar each could have
creditably passed an examination as to her face, dress, and to some
extent, manners.
“Now for Number Two,” said French.
They repeated their proceedings at the gorgeous Panopticon in
Leicester Square, where, unknown to the lady herself, they made the
acquaintance of Miss Molly Moran. Then they went down to the Strand
and similarly “met” Miss Esther Isaacs at the Venetian.
“That’s all right until shortly before eleven,” French declared. “I
want each of these girls followed home. If they meet anyone get his or
her description. I’ll do the Cosmopolitan, Carter the Panopticon, and
Harvey this place. Here are the girls’ addresses. As soon as they get
home you may drop it for the night. But I’ll want you at eight-thirty
in the morning at the Yard. We’re carrying on tomorrow.”
The three men separated. Harvey suggested that as they were in the
cinema they might as well see the programme, and settled down to enjoy
himself. Carter was not on for pictures and went to look up a friend
who lived close by, while French, feeling restless and unsettled, set
off for a stroll through the crowded streets.
Though a Londoner, French could never get over his wonder at the
streets, especially at night. The blazing lights, the flashing sky
signs, the endless streams of vehicles on the polished asphalt surface
of the roadway, the sauntering or hurrying crowds on the pavements,
the life and movement and yet the orderliness, the surprising silence
of it all, struck him afresh as one of the wonders of the world. In
Paris and other cities he had visited they had the life and the
movement, but compared with London the streets were filled with the
blare of a thousand noises, while the traffic seemed to rush
chaotically in every direction. But here it was as if some great
machine were functioning, quietly, efficiently, inexorably.
The air was mild and pleasant as he crossed Trafalgar Square and
reached the comparative solitude of the Mall. He sat down on one of
the seats to rest after the fatigue of the day, smoking placidly until
time, acting through the hands of his watch, called him back once more
from refreshment to labour. Then knocking out his pipe he returned to
the Haymarket and took up his stand behind one of the great vestibule
pillars of the Cosmopolitan. From here he had a good view of the door
by which, according to the porter, Miss Lillian Burgess invariably
left.
Soon he saw her. She tripped out and ran rapidly down the steps in the
direction of Piccadilly Circus. French, hurrying after her, was just
in time to see her disappearing into the tube station. He sprinted
forward, picking her up among the crowd, and kept behind her as she
took a south-bound Bakerloo train. From the next compartment he kept
her in view, and when she passed out of the Elephant station he was
within twenty feet of her. She led the way down New Kent Road,
straight to her address in Theobald Street.
As far as that evening was concerned, therefore, he had drawn blank.
He did not think she would reappear that night, so after waiting on
chance for a few minutes, he went home.
After interviews with Carter and Harvey next morning, at which he
learned that their experiences had been precisely similar to his own,
the shadowing was resumed. As the three girls did not begin work until
one o’clock and were kept late at night, it was unlikely that they
would be early risers. Nevertheless, French was leaving nothing to
chance and before nine he and his lieutenants were at the scenes of
their various labours. In French’s case there was a rather shabby
restaurant across the road from Miss Burgess’ boarding house and
there, hidden behind the dilapidated window blind, he toyed with
breakfast and watched the street. But he had to read the paper very
thoroughly and smoke a number of pipes before he saw his quarry. No
less than two hours passed before she left the house and walked in a
leisurely way down the street. French in an even more leisurely way
walked after her.
She went straight to Westminster Bridge Road, crossed the river, and
passing through into Great George Street, entered St. James’s Park. At
a steady pace she crossed the Mall and the Green Park and reached Hyde
Park. There she went up one side of the Serpentine, round the top of
the Bayswater Road, and down the other side to Hyde Park Corner.
French had fallen far behind, but when he saw her start off along
Piccadilly he closed up and kept about twenty feet off. She led him
along Piccadilly to the Circus, then turning down the Haymarket, she
disappeared into the Cosmopolitan.
In spite of the fact that he had been expecting some such
_dénouement_, French swore. There was his whole morning gone and
nothing to show for it! He had an accurate knowledge of where the
young lady had taken her morning exercise, but that was all he had
learnt. It looked as if he was on the wrong track and that this girl
at least had no connection with the gang.
But such had not been proved. It would require a much longer and more
detailed investigation to set the point at rest. Shrugging his
shoulders, he went back to the Yard to hear how Carter and Harvey had
fared.
He overtook Harvey at the door. Miss Isaacs had spent her morning in a
very similar way to Miss Burgess. She had left her boarding house
about eleven and gone for a walk. Harvey had kept her in sight during
the whole period and was satisfied that she had not communicated with
any other person.
In a few minutes Carter came in. Molly Moran had left her boarding
house in Nelson Street, a small street running between High Street and
Arlington Road, at 11.30. She had taken a Hampstead and Highgate train
at Mornington Crescent station and had travelled to Charing Cross. On
emerging from the station she had strolled slowly about, first under
the Southern Railway bridge, and then up and down Craven Street.
Carter had had considerable difficulty in keeping her under
observation without revealing his objective. But he had imagined that
she was waiting for someone and had not let her out of his sight for a
moment.
After about ten minutes a grey saloon car had come quickly down the
street, and pulling in to the pavement, had stopped beside Miss Moran.
She had immediately jumped in and the car had swung off towards the
Strand. Carter had raced for a taxi. By a stroke of luck he had got
one without having to go to the rank under the bridge and when he had
reached the Strand the grey car was still in sight, circling Trafalgar
Square. But his luck had then given out. In the press of traffic his
taxi had been held back, and by the time it had got free the quarry
had disappeared up Cockspur Street. After fruitless attempts to find
it, Carter had driven to Leicester Square and taken up a position from
which he could watch the doors of the Panopticon. In some forty
minutes Miss Moran had arrived, walking slowly. As it was then twenty
minutes to one, Carter had assumed that she would not again leave the
building, and had returned to the Yard.
“What was the number of the car?” French asked.
“MX1382. As far as I could see it answered the description of the one
you heard of in Hampshire.”
French nodded.
“I was going to ask you that. Did you see anyone in it?”
“Only the driver. I couldn’t see him clearly through the glass, but he
seemed a big, stout, clean-shaven man. He wore a soft felt hat; looked
like grey, but I couldn’t be sure of the colour.”
“Did the girl get in beside him?”
“No. She didn’t seem to speak to him, but jumped in behind and he
drove off at once. The thing seemed arranged and they hurried it
through as quickly as possible.”
This hurry seemed significant to French. Moreover, the driver was
suggestively like Thurza Darke’s description of Westinghouse.
“Same thing tonight and tomorrow morning,” he said to his satellites,
“only that we’ll change round. We don’t want those girls to spot that
they’re being shadowed. You, Carter, can take the Isaacs girl and
Harvey, Miss Burgess and I’ll shadow this Molly Moran.”
That night the three young women went quickly home as before and next
morning at nine o’clock French found himself trying to kill time
unostentatiously in Nelson Street until Miss Moran should take it into
her rather pretty head to sally forth on the day’s adventures. There
was here no convenient restaurant and he found himself hard put to it
to keep an eye on the boarding house without attracting the attention
of the curious. But French was an expert at his job, and by buying
innumerable boxes of matches and cigarettes at the neighbouring
tobacconists and making indefatigable inquiries for one Mrs.
Entwhistle, a mythical dressmaker whom he had invented for the
occasion, he contrived to fill in the time.
At just half past eleven, the same hour as on the previous day, the
young lady in question emerged from the boarding house and turned her
unhurried steps towards Mornington Crescent tube station. Again she
took a south-bound train. French expected that she would alight at
Charing Cross as before, but she nearly gave him the slip by jumping
out of the train just before it started from the Strand. However, he
managed to follow her and when she reached the courtyard of the main
line station he was not more than ten yards behind.
Determining that he should not be left in the lurch like Carter, he
engaged a taxi, telling the driver to follow the young lady in blue.
The man, allowing himself the suspicion of a wink, started off as if
the following of pretty young women was a matter in which he had
considerable experience. Whether or not this was so, he performed his
task with practised skill, stopping at times to adjust his engine or
ask a direction or to allow French to buy a paper, so as to keep his
speed down to that of his quarry’s.
The chase led across the Strand and up Chandos Street, and there at
the quiet end next Bedford Street the previous day’s performance was
repeated. Miss Moran walked slowly up and down until suddenly a grey
saloon car appeared, drew in to the footpath beside her, and stopped.
It was driven by an elderly, clean-shaven man of the successful
American business type. So far as French could see it contained no one
else. Miss Moran stepped quickly forward and got into the tonneau and
immediately the vehicle slid away.
“Follow the car,” French told the driver.
The journey was short. From Chandos Street the grey saloon turned up
Bedford Street and into Garrick Street. There it stopped and Miss
Moran got out. Immediately it drove quickly away.
“After the car,” cried French. “Never mind the girl.”
But just as Carter had been held up on the previous day, so now
French’s luck deserted him. The grey car, passing along Cranbourne
Street, just crossed Charing Cross Road when the officer on point duty
closed the road and French was held up.
Seeing that to follow the car was out of the question, he was about to
shout to his man to try to find the girl again, when glancing through
the back window, he saw her approaching. He therefore paid his man off
and when she had passed, slipped out of the taxi and followed her.
But she merely walked on aimlessly through the streets, evidently
killing time, until some forty minutes later she reached Leicester
Square and turned into the Panopticon.
French walked slowly back to the Yard, pondering over what he had
seen. The whole proceeding was certainly very suggestive. He didn’t
believe there could be any innocent explanation. Something shady, he
felt sure, was in progress.
Next morning he had another try. This time he waited at Mornington
Crescent and picked up Miss Moran as she was entering the train. He
followed her to Charing Cross, where she changed and took an
east-bound Circle train to the Temple. There she got out, and turning
away from the river, began pacing up and down Norfolk Street. French
hailed the first taxi he saw, and instructing his man as before, sat
back in it to await events.
In about five minutes he saw the proceedings of the previous day
repeated. The grey car appeared, driven, as far as he could see, by
the same man. It picked Miss Moran up, crossed the Strand, and passed
up Aldwych and into Kingsway. Then turning down a street to the left,
it ran into Wild Street. There the young lady got out.
French had told his driver what to expect, and as the grey car ran on
into Drury Lane, French’s vehicle was close behind. Through Broad
Street and High Street it passed and then along Oxford Street to North
Audley Street, down which it turned. And then in Grosvenor Square the
whole thing was repeated.
On the footpath in Grosvenor Square stood a young woman. French could
not see much of her, but he noticed that she was well dressed and that
her bobbed hair was flaming red. The car stopped, she jumped into the
back seat, and once again the car swung on.
More interested than ever, French continued the chase. The grey car
passed on down South Audley Street and along South Street into
Waverton Street. There it stopped and the girl got out, the car
turning on down Charles Street.
For a moment French hesitated as to which of his two quarries he
should follow. He would have given a good deal not to have been
playing a lone hand at that moment. Rightly or wrongly, he decided on
the car.
Once again to his amazement a similar scene was enacted. From Charles
Street the car ran by Berkeley Street, Piccadilly, Grosvenor Place,
and Vauxhall Bridge Road to Tachbrook Street. There another girl was
waiting who in her turn jumped into the back of the car. She was
driven through Bessborough street to Grosvenor Road, and set down at
the end of Page Street.
Still another time French followed the car and still another time the
same thing happened. A fourth girl was picked up in Darwin Street, off
the Old Kent Road and near Bricklayers’ Arms goods station. She was
taken to Long Lane in Bermondsey and there set down, while the car
went on to Newington Causeway.
French began to wonder if the whole day was to be spent in giving
rides to girls. It was now nearly one, the hour at which most of the
cinemas opened, and if the girls picked up were engaged in cinema box
offices there would scarcely be time to deal with any more. With keen
interest he settled back in his taxi, anxious to learn the next
development.
But this fourth girl, it turned out, was the last. The grey car ran on
westwards till it reached Waterloo. Then it turned to the left into
York Road and again to the right into a narrow street labelled Tate’s
Lane, disappearing finally into a gateway about half-way down the
street. French’s car ran on past the gateway, and turning into the
cross street at the end of Tate’s Lane, stopped. Telling his driver to
keep him in sight, French walked back to the corner and watched the
gateway.
He had noticed as he came past that the latter was surmounted by a
signboard bearing the legend: “Thos. Cullan, Coachbuilder.” A glimpse
through the open gate revealed a dilapidated yard in which stood a
number of carts and lorries. Evidently Mr. Thos. Cullan was not in too
successful a way of business. French wondered if the man he had
shadowed was Cullan himself. At first he thought not. That untidy,
ineffective looking yard did not accord with the forceful, decided
face of the driver of the car. Then he saw that if the business with
the girls was the serious factor in the man’s life, coachbuilding
might be merely a blind to mask his other activities.
For fifteen minutes or more French hung about the corner. Then the man
appeared, well dressed and prosperous looking, and set off striding
with assured steps down the Lane to York Road. He turned to the right
into Waterloo Road, and French had to sprint at his highest speed to
avoid losing him at the corner. He was just in time to see him
disappearing into the station and with a rapidly increasing sense of
satisfaction he followed him to the restaurant.
At opposite ends of the big room French and his quarry lunched, then
the chase was once more resumed. This time the trail led down Waterloo
Road, past the Old Vic and into Webber Street, where the man vanished
into a doorway.
French hung back until he thought the coast was clear, then lounged
forward and entered also. The doorway led into a dilapidated passage
with a flight of stairs rising at the end to offices above. On the
jambs were the names of the occupants. Seven persons or firms French
counted. There were two solicitors, an estate agent, an engineer and
architect, a commission agent, a wholesale tea merchant, and a firm of
electrical suppliers. Having noted the names, French passed back to
the street and took up a position from which he could keep the
entrance in view.
For the best part of an hour he waited, sitting in his taxi for the
most part, while the driver busied himself with his engine. Then
suddenly the quarry reappeared and strode off in the same forceful and
determined way. French shadowed him to Waterloo and down to the
Bakerloo tube. Booking to Watford, which he thought should cover any
journey that the unknown might make, French followed him to the
platform. The man took a north-bound train and French, slipping in his
usual way into the next carriage, settled down to await developments.
At Harrow the man got out. French noted that he was evidently a
“season” and a man of some standing, for the ticket collector touched
his cap respectfully. He turned out of the station on the down side of
the line and set off towards the Hill.
“Can you tell me if that is Mr. Pointer?” French asked the collector
as he gave up his own ticket.
“No, sir. Mr. Welland is his name.”
Curtice Welland, Commission Agent, was one of the names on the office
door in Webber Street. So far, so good.
On these comparatively deserted roads shadowing was no easy task.
French had to drop a long way behind to avoid attracting his quarry’s
attention. Every time the man turned a corner French was therefore at
a disadvantage and had to run to reach the cross-road before the other
disappeared from view. This again brought him too close and he had
suddenly to loiter until the necessary distance again intervened—a by
no means unobtrusive mode of progression.
The last turn led into a recently made road. Its end, in fact,
vanished into the fields and fresh earthwork showed that it was in
process of being extended. The houses along it were all quite new.
Several were unfinished, while a few vacant building lots still
remained.
About half-way down on the right were a couple of small semi-detached
houses, mere bungalows. Into one of these the man turned, letting
himself in with a latchkey.
French was approaching a cross lane, and down this he immediately
turned. So far he felt satisfied with his progress. The man, he was
sure, had not seen him. Now he must find some cover from which he
could keep the house under observation.
Right at the end of the unfinished portion of the road, a couple of
hundred yards beyond the house, he had noticed a small clump of low
growing trees. He thought if he could reach this it would suit his
purpose.
Passing down the cross lane to the back of the row of houses, he came
into open fields. These were separated by thorn hedges, one of which
ran parallel to the street. French crept along behind the hedge until
he came to the clump. There he found that, while himself completely
hidden from view, he had an excellent view of the house.
He lay down at his ease on the soft grass, and taking out his pipe,
began a leisurely smoke. It was a perfect summer’s day, warm and
balmy, with a bright sun, a brilliantly blue sky and in the distance a
few faint, fairy-like streaks of cirrus cloud. The meadow behind him
had recently been cut and the soft breeze bore a delightful scent of
fresh hay. The air was quivering with the songs of birds, with as a
pedal bass the hum of innumerable insects. It was all so peaceful and
soporific that after a few minutes. French deliberately sat up in a
somewhat strained position lest he should fall asleep and miss his
quarry.
Up to the present he had been too busy to think over what he had seen,
but now he began to turn the facts over in his mind. That he was on to
some very peculiar happenings there could be no doubt, but as yet
there was no evidence to show that these were criminal. Still less was
there proof that they were connected with the murders. But he was at
least satisfied that the affair was sufficiently suspicious to warrant
further investigation.
What, he wondered, could be going on? It looked as if the unknown man
had an interview each day with each of these four girls. This, of
course, was not proved, as you could not argue to the general from two
days’ experience. But it seemed likely; and if so, what could be the
object of these interviews?
It was improbable, he thought, that the man could be interested in the
girls themselves. Rather he imagined that they must represent channels
by which something was passed between the man and still other
unknowns. Whether that something was material, such as stolen goods or
money, or whether information was being conveyed between the members
of some organization and headquarters, he could not imagine. In any
case it was desirable that Scotland Yard should know more about it.
It would not be his fault, he resolved grimly, if before long Scotland
Yard did not know all there was to be known.