Mr. Surefoot Smith was one of those individuals who never seem to do any
work. He was to be seen at odd hours of the day, and sometimes in odd
places of the West End. It seemed that he was able to dispense with
sleep, for you were as likely to meet him at four o'clock in the morning
as at four o'clock in the afternoon.
He had a villa at Streatham.
"He is the type of man," Dick Allenby once described him, "who was
foreordained to live with a married sister."
In addition, he had a room in Panton Street, Haymarket, and not the more
fashionable part of Panton Street either. In all probability this was
his real home, though the Streatham villa was not such a myth as his
colleagues chose to imagine it.
Thieves knew him and respected him; the aristocrats of the underworld,
who were his special prey, avoided him with great care, but not always
with conspicuous success. He was the terror of the little card-sharping
gangs; confidence men hated him, for he had put more of their kind in
prison than any two officers of Scotland Yard. He had hanged three men,
and bitterly regretted that a fourth had escaped the gallows through the
lunacy of a sentimental jury.
His pleasures were few. Beer was more of a necessity than a dissipation;
for how can one sneer at a man who consumes large quantities of malted
liquor necessary for his well-being and happiness, and find anything
commendable in the physical wreck who seeks, through copious potions of
Vichy water, to combat the excesses of his youth?
In the privacy of his Panton Street room, he worked out his problems in
a way peculiar to himself. He invariably wrote on white blotting-paper
with a pencil, and seldom employed any other medium except when he was
called upon to furnish a conventional report to his superiors. He
invariably covered both sides of his blotting-paper with writing which
nobody but he could read. It was a shorthand invented thirty years ago
by a freakish schoolmaster, and the only man who had ever learned it
thoroughly was Surefoot Smith. He had not only learned it, but improved
upon it. It was his boast that no human being could decode anything he
ever wrote; many had had the opportunity and tried, for after Mr. Smith
had finished with his blotting-paper it was passed on to junior officers
for a more proper use.
He worked out Leo Moran's movements chronologically so far as they could
be traced. One portion of the day previous to the murder had been
clearly marked. Moran had broadcast a lecture on banking and economics.
Surefoot Smith smiled at a whimsical thought. He would not die without
honour, if he was the detective who brought about the execution of the
first broadcaster.
After his lecture he had gone to the Sheridan Theatre; thence to Dick
Allenby's flat. After that, home, where he had found a letter--Surefoot
Smith conceded him the truth of this--which sent him in search of Mary
Lane.
What had he been doing on the morning of the murder? Possibly the
accountant had called him up and told him that his leave was not
granted. Mr. Accountant Smith had not said as much, but then between
bank employés there was a certain freemasonry, and one didn't expect, or
was a fool if one did, that they would tell everything about their
comrades, even if they were comrades suspected of forgery and murder.
Surefoot Smith allowed also the element of self-preservation to enter
into the accountant's evidence. He himself might not be free from blame;
the success of the forgery might be due in not a little measure to his
own negligence. Everybody had something to hide--and possibly the
accountant was no exception.
One thing was certain; the aeroplane had been ordered at a moment's
notice. That was not the method by which Moran intended leaving the
country.
What was the stock to the transfer of which he had been so anxious to
get Mary Lane's signature? Without a very long and careful search it was
unlikely that that question would be answered.
Jerry Dornford's disappearance presented a problem of its own. His
manservant in Half Moon Street said he was not worrying; Mr. Dornford
often went away for days together, but where, the man could not say,
because Mr. Dornford was not apparently of a confiding nature. If the
servant guessed, he guessed uncharitably. Here was a man also without
money, and almost without friends. He had one or two who had country
houses, but enquiries of these had produced no result. The servant
remembered the names and addresses of a lady or two, but these could
throw no light upon the mystery.
Dornford owned an estate in Berkshire. Part of it was farm land, which
produced enough income to pay the interest on the mortgage; and if the
mortgagees did not foreclose it was because a sale would bring only a
portion of the money which had been advanced. There had been a house on
the property, but this had been sold to a local golf club many years
before, and all that remained of Gerald Dornford's possessions were
about three hundred acres of pine and heather.
Here was a man who certainly could not afford two or three addresses.
The bullet had not been found, though the turf had been taken up, to
the distress of the park authorities, and the ground sifted to the depth
of a foot. There was a possibility that it might have passed at such an
angle that it fell into the canal or against the opposite bank. It all
depended on what angle the shot had been fired. If Surefoot Smith's
first theory held ground and the old man had been killed by a bullet
fired from a rifle on the upper floor of Parkview Terrace, the bullet
should have been found within a few feet of where the chair had stood.
If it had been fired from Dornford's car, it could hardly have passed
through his body and reached the canal.
He was in constant touch with Binny, but the chair-man could give no
further information. He had not heard the whiz of the bullet as it
passed him, not even heard its impact, and offered here a perfectly
reasonable excuse, that the noise of Dornford's car would, had it
coincided with the shot, have deadened all other sound.
It was four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and Surefoot Smith, who had
spent most of the night on his feet, found himself dozing in his chair,
a practice which for some reason he regarded as evidence of approaching
senility. He got up, washed his face in the bathroom wash-basin, and
went out into the Haymarket, not very certain as to the way he should
take or in what direction he should continue his investigations.
He crossed Piccadilly Circus and was standing aimlessly watching a
traffic block at the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue, when somebody bumped
into him. His unconscious assailant was moving on with a muttered
apology when Surefoot crooked his finger in his overcoat.
"What's the matter with you, Mike?"
There was reason for his surprise.
In twenty-four hours the appearance of Mike Hennessey had changed. The
big face had grown flabby; heavy pouches were under his eyes; his
unshaven face was a sickly yellow. Was it Surefoot's fancy, or did he
turn a shade whiter at the sight of him?
"Hullo!" he stammered. "Well ... now ... isn't that curious, meeting
you?"
"What's the matter, Mike?" asked Surefoot.
It was his habit to suspect criminal intentions in the most innocent of
men, and his very question was accusative.
"Eh? Nothing. I'm sort of walking about in a dream today ... that play
coming off and everything."
"I've been phoning you all the morning. Where have you been?"
Mike started.
"'Phoning me, Mr. Smith--Surefoot, old boy? I have been out of town.
What did you want me for?"
"You weren't at your lodgings, you weren't at the theatre. Why were you
keeping out of the way?"
Mike tried to speak, swallowed something, then, huskily:
"Let's go and have a drink somewhere. I've got a lot on my mind,
Surefoot, a terrible lot."
There was a brasserie in a side street near the Circus, where beer could
not be legally supplied until six o'clock. Nevertheless they made for
this spot and the head waiter bustled up with a smile.
"Do you want to have a little private talk, Mr. Smith? You don't need to
sit out here; the place is like a morgue. Come into the manager's
office."
The manager's office was not a manager's office at all, except by
courtesy. It was a very small private room.
"I'll bring you some tea, Mr. Smith. You'll have coffee, won't you, Mr.
Hennessey?"
Hennessey, sitting with his eyes shut, nodded.
"What is on your mind?" asked Smith bluntly. "Washington Wirth?"
The closed eyes opened and stared at him.
"Eh? Yes." He blinked at his questioner. "I think ... well, he won't be
in the theatrical business any more, and naturally that's worrying me,
because he's been a good friend of mine."
He seemed to find a difficulty, not only in speaking, but in breathing.
His chest puffed up and down, and then:
"Is that what you wanted to see me about?" he asked jerkily.
"That was just what I wanted to see you about. He was a friend of
yours?"
"A patron," said Mr. Hennessey quickly. "I looked after him when he was
in town. I didn't know very much about him except that he had a lot of
stuff--money, I mean."
"And you didn't ask him where he got it, Mike?"
"Naturally," said Hennessey, avoiding his eyes.
The head waiter came at that moment with a tray which contained two
large bottles of beer, a bottle of gin, cracked ice, and a siphon.
"Tea," he said formally, put it down, and left them.
Surefoot Smith was in no sense depressed as he broke the law.
"Now come across, Mike," he said, not unkindly. "I want to hear just who
is this fellow Wirth."
Mike licked his dry lips.
"I'd like to know where I am first," he said, doggedly. "Not that I
could tell you anything, Surefoot--not anything for certain. What's my
position? Suppose I thought he was somebody else, and said:
'Listen--you either help me, or I'm going to ask questions.'"
"Yes, suppose you blackmailed him?" interrupted Smith brutally.
Mike winced at this.
"It wasn't blackmail. I wasn't sure--do you get my meaning? I was
putting up a bluff. I wanted to see how far he'd go." And then suddenly
he broke down and covered his face with his big, diamond-ringed hands,
and began to sob. "Oh, my God! It's awful!" he moaned.
Other men would have been embarrassed; Surefoot Smith was merely
interested. He laid his hand on the other's arm.
"Are you in on the murder? That's the question?"
Mike's hands dropped with a crash on to the marble-topped table. His
ludicrous, tear-stained face was a picture of bewilderment.
"Murder...? What do you mean--murder?" He almost squeaked the question.
"The murder of Hervey Lyne. Didn't you know?"
The man did not answer; he was petrified with terror.
"Lyne ... murdered!" He croaked the words.
It was amazing to believe that he was the one man in London who did not
know that a mysterious murder had been committed in Regent's Park on
the previous day, because the newspapers were full of it. Yet Surefoot
felt that this was a fact.
"Murdered ... old Lyne murdered? My God! You don't mean that?"
"Of course I mean it. What do you think--that I'm trying to make you
laugh?"
Mike Hennessey was silent; speech was frozen in him. He could only sit
regarding the detective with round eyes from which all expression had
died. Mike had a weakness for weeping, but he also had an unsuspected
strength of will. When he spoke at last his voice was completely under
control.
"That's shocking. I didn't read the newspapers this morning."
"It was in last night's," said Surefoot.
The other shook his head.
"I haven't read a newspaper since Thursday morning," he said. "Old Lyne!
He was Miss Lane's guardian, wasn't he?"
He was fighting for time--time to get the last weakness in him crushed,
and to build himself the reserve that would prevent his collapse.
"No, I've read nothing about it. It's curious how you miss things in
newspapers, isn't it? I've been so worried over this theatrical business
that I've practically taken no interest in anything else in the world."
"What work did you do for Wirth?"
Surefoot's voice was cold. He had dropped his boy-friend manner, was
even without interest in the unopened bottle of beer.
"Did you draw money from the bank on his behalf?"
Mike nodded.
"Yes, I've done that for him--big sums of money. Gone to his bank and
met him afterwards by appointment."
"Where?" sharply.
"At various places--railway stations; the Kellner Hotel mostly. He
generally drew a big sum when he had his parties, and I used to hand it
over to him before the guests came. He said he was a merchant in the
Midlands, but to tell you the truth, Surefoot, I've always had my doubts
about that. Still, he didn't look a crook, and some of the queerest mugs
are rolling in money. Why shouldn't he have been? He's not the first jay
that put up money for a theatrical production, and not the last, please
God!"
"Which bank did you draw it from?"
Mike told him. It corresponded with the information which Surefoot
already had.
"He generally gave me a letter to take to the bank manager, asking him
to cash the cheque. I've been to Birmingham and Bristol and----"
"That's all right." Smith leaned heavily on the table. "Who was
he--Washington Wirth?"
Mike shook his head.
"Honestly I don't know. If I die this minute I don't know. I got in
touch with him after my last bankruptcy proceedings had appeared in the
newspapers. He wrote to me and said how sorry he was that a clever man
like me had got into trouble, and offered to finance me."
"A written note?"
"Typewritten. I've got the letter in my diggings somewhere. He asked me
to meet him at the Kellner. That was before the parties started, when he
had a smaller suite. I went. The only thing I knew about him was that he
wore a wig and that he wasn't what he appeared to be; but I've never
pried into his business----"
"That's a lie," said Surefoot. "You just told me that you blackmailed
him."
"I didn't really. I put a bluff up on him. I knew he wasn't what he
pretended to be; I had to guess what he really was."
He was lying: of that Surefoot Smith was perfectly certain.
"Does it occur to you that you're in rather a tight place if this man is
ever arrested? I have reason to believe that he has misappropriated
money, the property of the late Hervey Lyne, and I have also reason to
believe that he killed the old man--and that's murder. You don't want to
be mixed up in murder, Mike, do you?"
Michael Hennessey's face was contorted with anguish. He was almost
incoherent when he spoke.
"I'd help you if I could, Mr. Smith--but how can I? I don't know the
man--I swear I don't know the man!"
Smith peered into his face.
"Do you know anything about Moran?"
The big mouth dropped.
"The banker?" he stammered.
"Do you know anything about the faked balance sheet which was sent by
accident to Miss Lyne?"
For a second Surefoot thought the man was going to faint.
"No--nothing; I know Moran--I know Wirth too."
He stopped, was silent a little while.
"Suppose I found him--Wirth--what's my position then?"
Surefoot stood up.
"Your position is just the same whether you find him or whether we find
him," he said roughly. "You don't seem to know what you've let yourself
in for, Mike Hennessey. Here's a man been murdered--two men have been
murdered--probably by the same hand. Tickler was killed for knowing too
much. It might be safer for you if I put you inside."
A smile dawned on Mike's face.
"Am I a child?" he asked. He had got back his old poise. "How did I get
out of the gutter--by taking notice of threats? Don't worry about me,
Surefoot."
"There's a lot more I've got to say to you," interrupted the detective,
"but just wait here till I telephone."
A momentary look of alarm came to the man's face.
"Don't worry; I'm not going to pinch you. I shouldn't want any
assistance to do that."
There was a telephone booth in the outer room, and he called Scotland
Yard urgently.
"Chief Inspector Smith speaking. I want two of the best men on duty to
pick me up at Bellini's. I'm with Mike Hennessey, the theatrical man.
He's to be under observation day and night from now onwards, and no
mistakes must be made. Do you hear?"
They heard and obeyed. A quarter of an hour later, when they strolled
out through the narrow side street to Piccadilly Circus, two young men
followed them, and when Mike called a cab and drove off, a second cab
carried the watchers.
Mike Hennessey was not at the theatre when the curtain rang down
finally on _Cliffs of Fate_, and although the termination of this drama
meant a search for new work, there was not one of the cast who did not
breathe a sigh of relief when the muffled strains of the National Anthem
came through the thick curtains.
Dick was reading the evening newspaper when Mary came into the
dressing-room. The story of the Lyne murder was splashed over the front
page; it included an interview with Binny and a talk with the
park-keeper.
"I knew Mr. Lyne very well by sight," said James Hawkins, who had
been a park-keeper for twenty-three years. "He always came into the
gardens in the afternoon, and generally had a little nap before he
was taken home. I've spoken a word or two with him, but he was not
a gentleman who encouraged conversation. Mostly his attendant, Mr.
Binny, used to sit and read to him. I saw Mr. Binny reading that
afternoon, and went up to him and said: 'What's the good of your
wasting your breath? The guv'nor's asleep.' Little did I think that
he was dead! This is the second murder that we've had in the park
in thirty-five years...."
Dick put down the paper when the girl came in, and prepared to make
himself scarce.
"Sit down. I'm not going to change yet; I'm tired."
"Well, have you found your man?" he asked flippantly.
She did not smile.
"I think so," she said.
"Have you read the account?"
"I've read it--every ghastly line of it."
"Well," he challenged her, "is it Binny or the park-keeper?" And then,
realising that flippancy was in the circumstances a little callous, he
apologised.
"I don't know how it is, but I can discuss this murder as though it were
of somebody I'd never heard of. The poor old man loathed me, and I'm
sure if he could only have made up his mind as to who else would have
taken better care of his fortune than I, he would have left the money to
him like a shot! By the way, Binny has a theory of his own. I had a talk
with him today. He favours Jerry Dornford; mainly, I think, because he
doesn't like Jerry."
"Has Mr. Smith told you all the clues he has?" she asked.
She had evidently paid no attention to Binny's theory.
"No, I can't say that he has. He's rather stuffy when it comes to his
own business."
"Do you think he would tell me?"
He looked at her in amazement.
"My dear Mary----" he began.
"Don't 'dear Mary' me, or I shall be very rude to you," she said. "Do
you think he would?"
She was quite serious and he changed his tone.
"If he thought you could help him I'm sure he would," he said. "He has
promised to call here tonight and tell me the latest developments. Would
you like me to ask him?"
"I'll ask him myself," she said.
Surefoot arrived very late and very ruffled. He was entitled to his
annoyance, for at half-past seven that night a penitent young detective
had called him on the 'phone and had confessed failure.
"You missed him?" roared Smith. "Two of you? What's the matter with
you?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but he must have known he was being tailed, and he
dodged through the Piccadilly Tube. I'd just turned my head and he was
gone----"
"Turned your what?" sneered Surefoot. "All right; scour London and pick
him up. You know his address. He's got to be found."
He came to the Sheridan, full of bitterness about the new generation of
detectives.
"They expect everything to be done for them. They rely on science
instead of their eyesight," he fumed.
"Here's a detective for you."
Dick indicated the girl, and to his surprise Surefoot showed no sign of
impatience.
"I should say she's got more sense in her little finger than
those--gentlemen have in their big, useless bodies."
He looked at her thoughtfully.
"I'm going to ask you something, Mr. Smith," she said. "Would you tell
me all you know about this case? I think I may help you."
Again Dick Allenby was amazed that the big man made no jest of the
offer. He looked at her owlishly, opened his big mouth, closed it again,
rubbed his head (going through his repertory, noted Dick mentally).
"Why shouldn't you?" he said at last. "Do you want him to know?" He
jerked his head towards Dick.
She hesitated.
"If you don't mind. If you do we'll turn him out."
She was dressed for the street by the time the detective had arrived,
and suggested that they should go to her flat. They went up in the lift
together. Her flat was the last in the corridor. She went ahead of them,
and stood stock still, showing an alarmed face to the two men.
The door was wide open!
"Did your servant leave it open?" asked Smith.
Surefoot pointed to the lock; the marks of a powerful jemmy showed
where the door had been forced. The lock itself was hanging on one
screw.
He went ahead, switched on the lights, without result.
"It's been turned off at the fuse box. Where is it?"
She indicated the position, and after a little fumbling there was a
click, and light showed along the short passage.
"He fastened the door after he got in, but couldn't fasten it when he
left."
Smith picked up two small wooden wedges from the floor.
He went out again into the corridor, the end of which was formed by a
half wood, half glass door leading to the fire escape. He tried this,
and, as he expected, found it open. A flight of iron stairs led into the
darkness below. He sent for the lift-man, who could give no information
at all. On a Saturday night most of the people who lived in the flats,
he said, were in the country, where they spent their week-ends, and
there had been no strange visitors that he could remember.
Surefoot went ahead down the passage into the flat, saw a door wide
open, and entered Mary's bedroom. It was a scene of indescribable
confusion; every drawer of every bureau had been taken out and emptied
on the bed and roughly sorted. They found the same in the dining-room,
where the little secretaire desk, which she had locked before she went
out, had been broken and its contents piled on to the table.
Mary gazed with dismay upon the scene of destruction, but was agreeably
surprised when she found that a small box which had been in her desk
drawer, and which had been wrenched open, still contained the articles
of jewellery she had left there. They were valued at something over two
hundred pounds, she told the detective.
"Then what on earth did they come for?" she asked.
On further inspection Smith found that even the waste bin in the kitchen
had been turned bottom upward and sorted over. One valuable clue he
discovered: a small kitchen clock had evidently been knocked off the
dresser and had stopped at eleven-fifteen.
"Less than an hour ago--phew!" Surefoot whistled softly. "In a devil of
a hurry, too. Now tell me who knows this place--I mean, who has been
here before? Forget all your girl friends, but tell me the men."
She could enumerate them very briefly.
"Mike Hennessey has been here, has he? Often? I've seen all the rooms,
haven't I?"
"Except the bathroom," she said.
He opened the door of this well-appointed little apartment, switched on
the light, and went in. The intruder had been here too; the wash-basin
was half-filled with discoloured water.
"Hullo! What's that?"
Smith's eyes narrowed.
Level with the wash-basin, and a little to the right of it, the
enamelled walls of the bathroom bore a red smear. The detective touched
it; it was still moist. He looked at the tessellated floor. There was
nothing, but on the edge of the white bath the smear occurred again.
Behind the door was a clothes hook, and here also there was a trace of
red.
"He came in here first," said Surefoot slowly. "He had to wash his
hands, and, turning on the tap, his sleeve brushed the wall. There was
blood on it; he didn't notice this. He took his coat off and threw it on
the edge of the bath. Then he changed his mind and hung it up."
"Blood?"
Mary stared at the gruesome stain.
"Do you think he hurt himself getting in?"
"No, we should have seen it on the floor or in the passage. Besides, the
glass door of the corridor wasn't broken--I wonder where he got it?"
Surefoot considered all the possibilities in the shortest space of time.
"It beats me," he said.
Surefoot Smith went into the kitchen to re-examine the clock. He was no
believer in coincidences, had seen the stopped clock too often featured
in works of fiction to believe implicitly the story it told. But his
inspection removed all doubt; the clock had not stopped, but was still
ticking; the jolt had merely thrown the pin connecting the hands from
its gear, and no clever clue-maker could have done that.
Mary had followed him into the kitchen, and watched him silently whilst
he was making the examination.
"Now will you tell me?" she said quietly.
Surefoot Smith gaped at her.
"About----?"
"You said you would tell me what you have discovered about Mr. Lyne's
murder."
He perched himself on the edge of the kitchen table, and briefly told
her all he knew.
To say that Dick Allenby was surprised was to put it mildly. He regarded
every Scotland Yard detective as reticence personified. Surefoot Smith
was notoriously "dumb," and here he was talking freely to the girl, and,
if he showed any embarrassment at all, it was the presence of Dick
himself which provoked the inhibition.
Mary Lane sat, her hands clasped in her lap, her brow knitted.
"Got anything?" asked Surefoot anxiously.
And then he must have caught a glimpse of the astonishment in Dick
Allenby's face, for he scowled at him.
"You think I'm being foolish, Mr. Allenby? Get the idea out of your
mind; I never am. Every woman has just the kind of mind that every
detective should have and hasn't. No science in it--not that I mean to
be disrespectful, Miss Lane--just plain common-sense. Got it?"
He addressed the girl again. She shook her head.
"Not quite," she said. "I know why they burgled my flat, of course."
Surefoot Smith nodded.
"But you can't quite understand how they came to think it was here?"
Dick interrupted.
"May I be very dense," he asked politely, "and enquire what this is all
about? Didn't know what was here?"
"The bank statement," said Mary, without looking up, and again Smith
nodded, a broad grin on his face.
"I guess that is what they came for, but I can't understand how they
knew."
Surefoot chuckled.
"I am the clever fellow that gave it away," he said. "I told Mike
Hennessey this afternoon that a bank statement had been sent to you. I
didn't tell him that it was in my pocket, and I could have saved him a
lot of time and trouble. It's a great pity."
He ran his hand irritably through his hair and slid off the table.
"Those bloodstains now--they look bad," he said, and loafed out of the
room with the other two behind him into the bathroom. "That's his
sleeve--that's his hand, but too blurred to get a print. The man who
came here wasn't hurt, and probably wasn't aware that he was
bloodstained. Look at the top of that tap."
He pointed; there was a distinct smear of blood on the white-enamelled
word "hot" on one of the taps.
Surefoot Smith took out his pocket torch and began to examine the
passage-way. It gave him nothing in the shape of clues; but when he went
outside the fireproof door, and inspected the door itself, he found two
new traces of blood, one on the iron railings and one just below the
glass panel of the door.
"I'll use your 'phone," he said, and a few minutes later was talking
volubly to Scotland Yard.
Every railway station was to be watched; Dover, Harwich, Folkestone, and
Southampton were to be warned.
"Not that he'll attempt to get out of the country. It's curious how
seldom they do," he explained to the girl.
His offer to send up a man to be on guard outside the door she refused
immediately, but he insisted, and in such a tone that she knew it would
be a waste of time on her part to press her objection.
On his way home he called at old Lyne's house to interview Binny. That
worthy man was in bed when he knocked, and showed considerable and quite
understandable reluctance to open the door. No police had been left on
the premises; Surefoot had been content to remove all documents to
Scotland Yard for a closer scrutiny, and he sealed up the bedroom and
the study.
Binny led him down to the kitchen, poked together the dying remnants of
the small fire and dropped wood on it, for the night was a little
chilly.
"I wondered who it was knocking--it brought me heart up into me mouth,"
he apologised, as he ushered the visitor into the tiny room. "I suppose,
Mr. Smith"--his voice was very anxious--"the old gentleman didn't leave
me anything? I heard you'd found the will--mind you, I'm not going to be
disappointed if he didn't. He wasn't the kind of man who worried very
much about servants; he used to say he hated having them about the
place. Still, you never know----"
"I haven't read the will thoroughly," said Surefoot, "but I don't seem
to remember finding your name very prominently displayed."
Binny sighed.
"It's been the dream of my life that somebody would die and leave me a
million," he said pathetically. "I was a good servant to him--cooked his
food, made his bed, did everything for him."
The detective pushed over a carton of cheap cigarettes, and, still
sighing, Binny selected one and lit it.
"There's one way you can help me, I think," said Smith. "Do you remember
Mr. Moran coming here?"
Binny nodded.
"Do you know what he came about?"
The servant hesitated a moment.
"I don't know, sir. But I have an idea it had something to do with his
balance. Mr. Lyne was a very curious old gentleman; he never wanted to
see anybody, and when he did he was always a bit unpleasant to 'em."
"Was he unpleasant to Mr. Moran?"
Binny hesitated.
"Well, I don't want to tell tales out of school, Mr. Smith, but from
what I heard he did snap a bit at him."
"You listened, eh?"
Binny smiled and shook his head.
"You didn't have to listen, sir." He pointed to the ceiling. "The
study's above here. You can't hear what people are saying, but if a
gentleman raises his voice as Mr. Lyne did, you can hear him."
"You know Moran?"
Binny nodded.
"Do you know him very well?"
"Very well, sir. I was servant----"
"I remember, yes."
Surefoot Smith bit his lower lip thoughtfully.
"Did he speak to you after his interview with the old man?"
Again Binny hesitated.
"I don't want to get anybody into trouble----"
"The trouble with you, Binny, is that you can't say 'yes' or 'no.' Did
you see him?"
"Yes, sir, I did." Binny was evidently nettled. "I was taking in a
letter that had come by post as he went out. And now, Mr. Smith, I'll
tell you the truth. He said a queer thing to me--he asked me not to
mention the fact that he'd been, and slipped me a quid. Now I've told
you all I know. I thought it was funny--but, bless your heart, he wasn't
the first man to ask me not to mention the fact that they'd called on
Mr. Lyne."
"I suppose not."
On a little table near the wall was a small paper parcel, loosely
wrapped. Surefoot Smith was blessed with a keen sense of smell; he
could disentangle the most conflicting and elusive odours. But putty was
not one of them; it had a pungent, and, to Surefoot Smith, an unpleasant
aroma. He pointed to the parcel.
"Putty?"
Binny looked at him in surprise.
"Yes, sir."
"Have you been mending windows?" Surefoot looked up.
"No, sir, that was done by a glazier. I broke the scullery window this
morning. I didn't like to call anybody in, so I did it myself."
"The trouble in this house is that you're always having windows broken,"
said Surefoot Smith. "Why didn't you report to the police the attempt to
break into this house----Oh, I remember, Mr. Lyne didn't want it."
When he went outside he made a more careful examination of the premises
in the darkness than he had ever done by daylight. He went to the
trouble of going to the back of the house, along the narrow mews, and
here he saw how easy it was for a burglar to obtain admission. The back
of the house was not protected, as most of its fellows were, by a garage
block, and the door and window were approachable for anybody who could
either scale the wall or force the door into the back courtyard. Was it
a coincidence that this attempt had been made to gain admission into
Lyne's house on the night of----?
Surefoot Smith frowned. It must have been the night that Tickler was
murdered. Was there any connection between the two events?
He went back to Scotland Yard to receive reports, and found that his
enquiries had produced no result. Berlin could tell him no more about
Leo Moran, and there was absolutely no news at all of Gerald Dornford.
He opened the safe in a corner of his little room, took out the glove
and the silver key, and laid them on the table. That key puzzled him.
Was there any special reason why its owner should have gone to the
trouble of painting it so elaborately and yet so carelessly? Any plater
would have made a better job of it.
The glove told him nothing. He took from the big drawer of his desk a
large sheet of virgin blotting-paper and began to work out again the sum
of his problem.
Tickler had been killed; old Lyne had been killed, possibly by the same
hand, though there was nothing to connect the two murders. Leo Moran
was, to all intents and purposes, a fugitive from justice, a man against
whom could be made out a prima facie charge of felony. His disappearance
had coincided, not only with the death of Lyne, but with the discovery
that Lyne's bank account had been heavily milked.
Was he in Berlin at all? Somebody was very much interested in the
recovery of the bank statement, had gone to the trouble of burgling Mary
Lane's flat to recover it--who? One man at any rate knew, or thought he
knew, that the statement was at Mary's flat, and that man was Michael
Hennessey.
Mike's conduct that afternoon had been consistent with guilty knowledge.
He knew, at any rate, who was Washington Wirth. The gentleman called
Washington Wirth was a murderer, possibly a murderer twice over.
In disjointed sentences Surefoot wrote down his conclusions as they were
reached; crossed out one and substituted another; elaborated some simple
proposition in his mysterious shorthand, only to cross through the
wriggly lines and begin all over again. He made a little circle that
represented Mary, another for Dick Allenby, another for Gerald Dornford,
a fourth for Leo Moran. At the bottom of the page he put a fifth circle
for Lyne. How were they connected? What was the association between the
four top circles and the fifth?
Between them he placed a larger O that stood for Michael Hennessey.
Michael touched Washington Wirth, he touched Mary Lane, and possibly
Moran. He crossed out this last conclusion and started again.
Gerald Dornford touched Dick Allenby; he could draw a straight line from
Dick Allenby to the murdered man--a line that missed all and any
intermediary.
He got tired after a while, threw down the pencil, and sat back with a
groan. He was reaching for the key when the light went out. There was
nothing very startling and nothing very unexpected about that: the bulb
had been burning yellow for two or three days, and obviously required
replacement. Surefoot Smith, in his lordly way, had demanded a fresh
globe, and the storekeeper, in his more lordly way, had ignored the
request. Without warning, the bulb had ceased to function.
Surefoot was rising to his feet to reach for the bell when something he
saw stopped him dead. In the darkness the key was glowing like green
fire. He saw the handle and every ward of it. And now he understood why
it had such an odd colour--it had been treated with luminous paint.
He picked it up and turned it over. The under side was dull and hardly
showed, for it had not absorbed the rays of the lamp.
Surefoot went out into the corridor and summoned an officer, and a
little later a bulb was discovered and fixed. He examined the key now
with greater interest, jotting down notes upon his already over-crowded
blotting sheet.
He was beginning to see daylight, but only dimly. Then the telephone
bell buzzed; he took it up, and, going to the officer on duty at the
door, called him.
"If you see Mr. Allenby, send him up."
He looked at his watch; it was twenty-minutes past twelve, and he could
only wonder what had brought Dick to Scotland Yard at such an hour.
Possibly his gun had been recovered.
"I wondered if you were here," said Dick, as he came into the office and
closed the door behind him. "I should have telephoned, but I was scared
they wouldn't put me through to you."
"What's the trouble?" asked Surefoot curiously.
Dick smiled.
"There isn't any real trouble; only I've been--or rather, Mary has
been--called up by Hennessey's housekeeper for information about the
gentleman."
"Hasn't he come home?" asked Smith quickly.
"He wasn't expected home," said Dick. "The lady called up from Waterloo
Station; she's been there since nine with a couple of Mike's trunks. He
was leaving for the Continent by the Havre train, and had arranged for
her to be there to meet him with his baggage. She waited till nearly
twelve, got worried, and apparently called up several people who knew
Michael, amongst them Mary. Fortunately, I was just leaving the flat
when the woman telephoned."
"Have you been to his house?"
Dick shook his head.
"It wasn't necessary," he said. "He had a furnished flat in Doughty
Street; he paid his rent and closed up the place tonight. Obviously he
was making a getaway in rather a hurry. He didn't start packing till
this afternoon."
"After he'd seen me," said Surefoot. He scratched his chin. "That's
queer. I can quite understand his wanting to get away--as a matter of
fact, he wouldn't have got any farther than Southampton; I had already
notified the ports."
"You would have arrested him?" asked Dick, in amazement.
"There's no question of arrest, my friend," said Surefoot wearily. "It
isn't necessary to arrest everybody you want to stop going out of
England. Their passports can be out of order, the visa can be on the
wrong page, the stamp can be upside down--there are a dozen ways of
keeping the money in the country."
"Did Hennessey know this?"
Surefoot did not answer immediately.
"I can't understand it," he said slowly. "Of course he didn't know. That
wouldn't have prevented him catching the train."
There was a knock at the door, and a pleasant looking man, whom Dick
recognised as a chief inspector, came in.
"The Buckinghamshire police have got a case after your own heart,
Surefoot," he said. "A regular American gang murder."
Surefoot became instantly alert.
"A gang murder, eh? What kind?"
"They call 'em ride murders, don't they? Somebody has taken this poor
devil for a ride, shot him at close quarters, and thrown him out on to
the sidewalk."
"Where was this?"
"On the Colnbrook by-pass, this side of Slough. A big car passed, picked
up the man lying across the footpath with its lights, and reported to
the police. He couldn't have been dead more than half an hour when the
police got to him."
"What is his description?" asked Surefoot.
"A big made man of forty-five," said the other, "wearing a green
tie----"
"That was the tie that Mike Hennessey was wearing this afternoon!"