To the constable who opened the cab door Foyle gave quick instructions
in a low voice. The Princess Petrovska found herself ushered into a
plainly furnished waiting room, decorated with half-a-dozen photographic
enlargements of the portraits of high police officials and a
photogravure of "Her Majesty the Baby." There the policeman left her.
Foyle came to her a moment later. His couple of questions to the cabman
as he paid him had not been fruitful. He had been ordered by the lady to
drive to Waterloo Station. It was a fairly obvious ruse, which would
have had the effect of effectually confusing her trail, for from there
she might have taken train, tube, omnibus, tram, or cab again to about
any point in London.
"I am sorry," he apologised. "We shall have to keep you here for an hour
or two while your statements are verified."
"I don't mind," she countered lightly. "It will be an amusing
experience. I have never seen a police station before. Perhaps you would
like to show me over while we're waiting, Mr. Foyle."
The superintendent was admiring her confidence a little ruefully. A
pleasant-faced, buxom woman tapped at the door, and Lola eyed her with
misgivings. Foyle's blue eyes were fixed on her face.
"I am afraid I must deny myself that pleasure," he said suavely. "There
are other matters which will take up our time. First, I shall be obliged
if you will let the matron here search you."
The nonchalance of the Princess Petrovska had disappeared in a flash,
and Foyle noted her quick change of countenance. She had recollected she
was carrying Lady Eileen Meredith's jewels. They would inevitably be
found, if she were searched. She was not so much worried by what
explanation she could give as to what would be the result of a
questioning of Eileen. Angrily defiant, she was on her feet in a flash.
"You have no right to search me. I am not under arrest," she declared.
Foyle knew she was right. What he was doing was flagrantly unlawful
unless he charged her with some offence. Yet there are times when it is
necessary for a police officer to put a blind eye to the telescope and
to do technically illegal things in order that justice may not be
defeated. This he felt was one of the occasions. He ignored her
protestations and left the room, closing the door after him. For a brief
moment the woman forgot the breeding of the Princess Petrovska in the
fiery passion of Lola the dancer. But if she meditated resistance, a
second's reflection convinced her that it would be futile. The matron,
for all her good-tempered face, was well developed muscularly, and did
not seem the kind of woman to be trifled with. The Princess submitted
with as good a grace as she could muster.
As the woman drew forth the casket of jewels Lola made one false move.
She laid a slim-gloved hand on her arm.
"If you want to earn ten pounds you will give me that back," she said
softly.
The matron shook her head with so resolute an expression that the word
"twenty," which trembled on the Princess Petrovska's lips, was never
uttered. Gathering in her hands the articles she had found, she stepped
outside. In three minutes her place was taken by Foyle. He quietly
returned to her everything but the jewel case. This he held between his
fingers.
"Where did you get this?" he demanded. His voice was keyed to the stern,
official tone he knew so well how to assume.
She gripped the side of a chair tightly.
"What is that to do with you? It is mine. Give it to me."
"Not unless you can prove it is yours. If you do not, I shall charge you
with being in possession of property suspected to be stolen."
She bit her lips until the blood came. Her face had become very pale. If
the threat were meant seriously--and she could see no reason why it
should not be--she was in an awkward predicament. Ordinarily she had
ready resource, a fertile genius for invention. Now her wits seemed to
have deserted her. Cudgel her brains as she would, she could see no way
out of the difficulty. To boldly state that the jewels had been
entrusted to her by Eileen would involve opening up a fresh line of
inquiry for the C.I.D. men that might have disastrous results. Nor was
there any person who might bear out a story invented on the spur of the
moment.
"Well?" He spoke coldly.
"I refuse to tell you where I got them," she retorted. "You must do as
you like."
"Then it is my duty to warn you that anything you say may be used in
evidence against you. You will be charged." He opened the door and cried
down the corridor, "Reserve!" To the constable who answered he indicated
the Princess by a nod. "Take this woman to the detention room. She will
be paraded for identification in half an hour."
The detention room of a London police station is a compromise between
the comparative luxury of a waiting-room and the harshness of a cell.
Like a waiting-room it is furnished with chairs and tables, and like a
cell its door is provided with a strong, self-acting lock. The Princess
Petrovska gritted her teeth viciously as she was left alone, and paid no
heed to the magazines and papers left on the table--a consideration for
visitors that had not been discernible in the waiting-room.
Meanwhile, Foyle had set every available man of the divisional
detachment of the C.I.D. busily at work. A couple had been sent to
verify the account given by the woman of her movements on the night when
the murder occurred. The remainder had been sent to bring in a score of
women, the wives and daughters of inspectors and other senior officers.
Detective-Inspector Taylor had turned up with Wills, who was informed of
the part he had to play.
"You say you couldn't recognise the woman who came out of Lord
Burghley's house. Now we're going to give you another try. We don't want
you to pick any one out unless you're absolutely sure. Mind that."
Some of the women who had been fetched in by the detectives were
rejected by Foyle as being too unlike the Princess. He intended the
identification test to be as fair as possible. The ten who finally took
their places in the high-pitched charge room were as nearly like the
Princess in build and dress as could be managed from the choice
afforded. They stood in a row on the opposite side of the room from the
steel-railed dock and the high desk. Then Lola was brought in. Her head
was held high, and her lips curled superciliously as she took in the
arrangements.
"Please choose a position among these ladies," said Foyle urbanely. "You
may stand anywhere you like."
There was an angry glitter in her dark eyes as she obeyed. She was not
the sort of woman to risk a scene uselessly. Then Wills was brought in.
Foyle put a formal question to him.
"Have you seen any of these ladies before? Don't be in a hurry to
answer. Walk down the line and take a good look at each."
Wills slowly carried out his instructions. As he reached the last woman
he shook his head. Lola's eyes caught those of Foyle with a glance of
malicious triumph. But the superintendent was not done yet.
"Walk round the room, if you please, ladies--from left to right. No, a
little quicker. Now, Wills, see if you can recognise any of them by
their walk."
Three times they made the circuit of the room, while the butler darted
nervous glances from one to the other.
"It's no good, sir," he confessed at last. "I don't know any of 'em."
To Foyle the result was not unexpected. He had adopted the expedient as
a forlorn chance of linking up the Princess with the crime. Now it had
failed, he intended to try other measures. He dismissed Wills and the
women with a nod of caution not to speak of the formality they had
witnessed, and at a nod from him a uniformed inspector stood up by the
high desk pen in hand.
"Do you charge this woman, Mr. Foyle?" he asked.
Taylor had ranged up against her, and almost unconsciously she found
herself standing by the desk facing the officer.
She searched the superintendent's inflexible face to see if it gave any
sign of relenting. Foyle was calm, inscrutable, business-like. That was
what had struck her from the moment she entered the police station--the
cool, business-like fashion in which these men had dealt with the
situation. There were no histrionics. They might have been clerks
engaged in some monotonous work for all the emotion they evinced. They
treated her as impersonally as though she was a bale of goods about
which there was some dispute.
She was not a person easily daunted, but the atmosphere chilled her.
She reflected quickly that her refusal to explain the possession of the
jewels was playing into Heldon Foyle's hands. He would guess that they
were Eileen Meredith's--in any case, she could not stop him from seeing
and questioning the girl. What advantage would it be to be placed under
lock and key? Before the superintendent could reply she had made up her
mind.
"One moment. I can explain how I got the jewels if I can see Mr. Foyle
alone."
The inspector looked hesitatingly at the superintendent, who was
stroking his chin with his hand. Foyle murmured an assent and led the
way back to the detention room. The woman swung round to him quickly
once they were alone.
"Those jewels were entrusted to me for a particular purpose by Lady
Eileen Meredith," she said peremptorily. "That is all you have any right
to know. You can easily ring her up and ask her. Do it at once and let
me go."
"Very well," he said imperturbably. "I shall keep you here until I have
done so."
But it was not to Berkeley Square that he telephoned from the privacy of
the divisional C.I.D. offices. It was to Scotland Yard. Within five
minutes Chief Inspector Green was setting out from the great red-brick
building to see, first, the Duke of Burghley and, secondly, Lady Eileen
Meredith. A full hour passed away, and Foyle received the result of the
inquiries into Petrovska's movements. Her alibi was complete. In every
particular her story of her movements had proved right.
Green, arriving at the police station with an agitated and puzzled
nobleman and his solicitor, saw his chief for a few moments alone.
"She admits having handed over the jewels to Lola, but she won't say a
word beyond that," he said. "She's as obstinate as a mule. I have told
the Duke something of where we stand, and he has agreed to take the gems
back without letting her know. It was a tough job, but I got him to see
at last that the girl might be implicating herself. He says he's never
heard of Petrovska."
"H'm." Foyle rubbed his chin vigorously. "I'll have a talk with the old
boy. See if you can get the Public Carriage Office to borrow us a
taxicab, and get Poole to drive it slowly up and down this street. If
she hails it when she goes out, well and good. If not, Bolt and you had
better follow her, and the cab will come after you so that you can use
it in emergency."
Green had done his work with the Duke and the lawyer with tact. Foyle
found his interview with them confined to evading questions that he had
no wish to answer. He dismissed them at last with the jewels in the
custody of the man of the law. Then he went straight to his prisoner.
"You can go," he said abruptly. "I shall ask you to be very careful,
however, Princess. If you are wise you will leave England at once."
"Why?" she asked, opening her blue eyes wide and gazing at him with
blank astonishment.
His voice became silky.
"Because, my dear lady," he said, "I feel that your career in England
may not be altogether without reproach. I shall try to find out a little
more about it, and if I get a chance, I warn you frankly, I shall have
you taken into custody. You are too mischievous to be allowed to run
around loose."
Her red lips parted in a scornful smile.
"Oh, you make me tired," she retorted. "Good-bye, Mr. Foyle."
"Pardon me," he said, and thrusting a couple of fingers into his
waistcoat pocket, fished out a piece of paper. "Do you know this
writing?"
She handed the piece of paper back to him with a shake of the head.
"No. I never saw it before," she retorted, and passed out.
But Heldon Foyle had her finger-prints.