The first part of the commission given by Heldon Foyle to Chief
Detective-Inspector Green was simple to execute and cost him no effort
of ingenuity. A straight drive through into Kingston, a call at the
tailor's shop where Grell had re-fitted himself with clothes, and a few
minutes' conversation with the assistant who had served him, gave him
all the facts concerning the appearance of the man he was following.
"I'd better take these two notes away," he said, beginning to fold up
the flimsies. "I shall want you to keep a note of the numbers, in case
you are called upon to give evidence."
The tailor scratched his head doubtfully, and cast a glance on a
policeman passing slowly on the other side of the street. He was
beginning to suspect the tall stranger who asserted he was a police
officer, and so calmly appropriated money. He was wondering whether,
after all, it might not be an ingenious scheme of robbery. He had heard
of such things, and the composure of the detective did not comfort him.
Green had given no proof of his identity beyond his bare word.
With some mumbled excuse the tailor stepped to the door and beckoned to
the policeman. With much volubility he explained the situation and his
suspicions. The constable listened gravely. He was very young to his
duties, and remembered the cautions that had been given him not to
accept any one's word where actions were suspicious.
"He didn't show you a warrant-card, did he?" he asked. "All right, Mr.
Jones, you leave this to me." And he marched importantly into the shop.
Green, who had just lit a well-worn brier pipe, and was waiting for the
assistant to return in order to pay him the value of the notes, smiled
grimly at the apparition of the constable in uniform. He guessed exactly
what had happened.
"This is the man?" asked the police officer. The tailor nodded, and he
went on, addressing Green, "What's this about you taking money and
pretending to be a police officer?" He had produced an official notebook
and looked very important as he loomed in the doorway, gazing sternly at
the detective. "Don't answer any questions unless you want to. You know
I shall have to take anything you say down in writing, and it may be
used as evidence against you."
The situation had a piquant humour that tickled Green. The constable was
strictly within his duty, as he had been called in, but the pomposity of
his manner betokened that he was very, very young in the service. In a
deliberate silence the detective felt in his pocket for a warrant-card
that would clear up the mistake. A moment later he was wildly searching
in all his pockets without success. For the first time in a lifetime in
the service he must have been careless enough to leave it at home.
He flourished a number of envelopes inscribed "Chief Detective-Inspector
Green, New Scotland Yard, S.W.," but the knowing look of the young
constable was emphasised by the cock of the eyebrows. Green never
carried official documents except when he was obliged to.
"That won't do, old chap," said the constable, in the manner of one well
used to the ways of the criminal fraternity. "You don't come that on me.
You might have written those envelopes yourself. You'll have to come
along."
If the letters had failed to impress him, Green felt certain that his
visiting-card would be of little use. Since he had decided to visit the
police station in any case, it did not much matter. It was humiliating,
in a way, but it did not much matter.
"All right, my man," he said authoritatively. "I'll see the station
officer. Send for a cab."
"Cool hand, isn't it?" whispered the policeman to the tailor. "See how
he's dropped trying to pull off his bluff on me. Just hop out and see if
you can find a cab. I'll keep an eye on him."
So it was that a high official of the Criminal Investigation Department
reached an outlying police station under the conduct of a young
constable whose swelling pride was soon reduced to abject misery as the
divisional detective-inspector, who was leaning on a high desk and
chatting with a station-sergeant, sprang forward to greet the suspect.
"They 'phoned through from headquarters for me to meet you here, sir.
There's one or two messages come through for you."
The constable's jaw dropped. "Is this man--this gentleman from the
Yard?" he gasped.
The local man stared from Green to the policeman, and from the policeman
to Green. Some notion of what had happened began to occur to him. "What
the blazes----" he began, but the chief inspector cut him short.
"That's all right," he said. "I was careless enough to come out without
a warrant-card, and this young man has made a little mistake. Don't you
worry about it, my lad. Only, next time, don't put so much zeal into a
doubtful case. Cut along back to your beat and give that chap this."
Some sovereigns chinked. "Now, Mr. Malley, I'll be glad to have those
messages, and to put a call through to Mr. Foyle."
He followed Malley into an inner room, and the local man handed him a
couple of messages which had been telephoned to Scotland Yard by the
county police, and one sent by Foyle immediately after his interview
with Dutch Fred, giving amplified particulars of the car. Green made his
report over the telephone and then, replacing the receiver, turned to
Malley. "This last message shows he's got a good start. He passed
through Haslemere an hour ago. Can you get away yourself, or have you
got a good man you can lend me?"
"That's all arranged, sir," was the answer. "Mr. Foyle said that I was
to go with you if you wanted me."
"Right. We'll have to rake out a good car somewhere. You see to that.
We'll pick up any fresh news at the county police station at Haslemere.
This man may have been stopped by now."
Malley was already speaking into the telephone. He paused for a moment.
"Will a chauffeur be necessary, sir? I could drive if you liked."
"So much the better. Tell 'em to hustle the car along here. It'll be
just as well to have plenty of petrol."
A matter of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before the motor-car was
at the police station. Malley slipped into the driver's seat, and Green
coiled up his long body by his side. With a jerk they started, and in a
little were out on the broad Portsmouth road, while a thin, penetrating
rain was powdering the windscreen. Presently Malley increased the speed
and, though it was well outside the legal limit, Green made no
remonstrance.
Stolid and unimaginative as he might seem to casual acquaintance, the
chief inspector usually worked with tremendous enthusiasm and
doggedness. As Foyle had said, he was as tenacious as a bull-dog. He was
determined to catch Grell, if human wit and perseverance could do it.
And he chafed to think that the start had been so long.
Dusk had fallen before they entered Haslemere, pausing only to ask their
way to the local police headquarters. Short as the run had been, they
were both chilled to the bone, and their overcoats were sodden with
rain. There was no thought of a halt, however. A man ran bare-headed out
of the police station door as though he had been waiting for them.
"Mr. Green?" he asked.
"That's my name," answered the chief inspector.
"Your people have been on the 'phone to us, and so have the Hampshire
Constabulary at Petersfield. Nothing has been seen of the car you want
since it passed through here, apparently on the way to Petersfield. We
didn't know you wanted it held up till too late, but one of our bicycle
patrols remembered having seen it go by. Ten minutes later, we got word.
Both Petersfield and Midhurst have had men out waiting for it. No luck
at all. It seems to have vanished clean off the face of the earth.
You'll probably meet some of our bicycle patrols if you're going on.
We've been searching the by-roads."
Green bit back an expletive. The prospect of a night's search in the wet
and wind and rain did not appeal to him. There seemed no help for it,
however. "Much obliged," he said. "We'll watch for your men. Drive on,
Mr. Malley." And they slipped forward into the gloom.
"There's too much of the needle in a haystack business about this to
suit my taste," he complained when once they were clear of the town.
"That car might have taken any one of fifty side-turnings. Anyway, we'll
go on to Petersfield and see whether they've had any luck. Slow down a
bit. There's not much object in speed now."
Presently their big acetylene lights picked out a caped policeman
standing in the centre of the roadway, his arm upraised for them to
halt. They could see his bicycle resting on the grass. As they stopped,
he advanced and, glancing at the number on the bonnet, scrutinised the
two detectives sharply.
"It's all right, constable," said Malley. "We're not the people you're
looking for. We're from London, and we're looking for the same man."
The policeman, satisfied, stepped back with a clumsy salute and a "Beg
pardon, gentlemen," and once more they were off. Ten minutes later,
another cyclist, pedaling furiously, rode into the zone of light cast by
their head-lamps. A hail brought him to a stop, and Green put a
question, explaining who he was.
"We've found it, sir," exclaimed the man excitedly. "It's in a lane at
the other side of the little village called Dalehurst, a mile farther
up. It had been run into a ditch and left there. There's no sign of the
man who was in it. I'm just riding in to report. There's a sergeant
looking after it."
"Never mind about reporting, yet," said Green. "You come back with us
and show us where this car is. I'll take all responsibility."
They travelled on at a pace that permitted the cyclist to keep
alongside, and presently, turning sharply to the right, picked their way
along a narrow roadway which, overgrown with grass and flanked by
densely-wooded country, was as desolate and lonely a spot as could be
conceived. The car bumped and swayed over ruts and hummocks, and Green
touched his companion's sleeve to bid him stop.
"We shall get on quicker and safer if we walk," he said, and dropped
stiffly to the ground. Malley followed suit, and swung his arms
vigorously about his body to restore some degree of warmth to his
cramped frame.
"We'll carry one of the headlights with us," said Green. "Faith, it's
muddy."
Their boots made a soft, squelching noise as they tramped on under black
shadows of the trees for a hundred yards. The track of the previous car
was embedded plain on the soft earth. And here and there were footmarks
recently made which the three avoided confusing, on Green's order, by
keeping to the side of the roadway. The wheelmarks ended abruptly round
a slight bend, where they came upon the car itself. It was tilted at an
acute angle, with its leading front wheel embedded in the low ditch. All
the lights had been extinguished, and the rear of the car, with the
number, was picked out in high relief against the dark background by the
acetylene light carried by Malley.
"Who's that?" growled a husky voice, and a police-sergeant stepped into
the section of light.
"It's all right, sergeant," said the man who had acted as guide to the
detectives. "It's only two gentlemen from London who are engaged on the
case. I met them and brought them along."
The chief inspector had taken the lamp from Malley and was throwing its
light on the ground around the car. Then he stepped into the car itself
and began a minute inspection of rugs and cushions. The search was only
a matter of habit, and it revealed nothing. He stepped down and pointed
to some footprints. "Any one been here but you two men?" he asked.
"Here, both of you, press your right feet here. That's it." He
contemplated the marks with careful deliberation for a while, and then,
stepping wide, followed a series of footmarks leading up the lane.
"Our gentleman walked pretty fast," observed Green. "See how plain the
heel and toe marks come out, while the rest of the impression is
blurred. Hello! what's this?"
The road had terminated abruptly in a bridle-path leading apparently to
the interior of the wood, and the foot-prints had become more and more
indistinct with the transition to ground covered with fallen leaves.
They had failed entirely as Green spoke, and he flung the light about in
an effort to pick them up again. Then something met his eye on a spike
of blackthorn, and he carefully picked off a thread of brown cloth.
"We're done for to-night, I'm afraid," he said. "He's gone off the track
and got into the wood. We'll get back, Malley, and try to find a room or
somewhere to sleep near here. Then we can turn out with daylight. But
first of all we must 'phone to the Yard. By the way, sergeant, do you
know whose estate we're on?"
"I'm not quite sure," growled the officer. "It used to be Colonel
Sawford's, but I believe he sold it to that man who was killed in London
a little while back. Grell was his name, wasn't it?"
"Really? Thank you, sergeant. Come on, Malley. Perhaps we can find the
village post office and use the 'phone."