by Zenith Brown
“Give it to me,” she said, holding out her hand.
“You must have been mistaken, Mother,” her son said evenly. “There was no letter there.”
She stared at him dumbly.
“I . . . mistaken?” she gasped slowly. She sank down in her chair. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said then, faintly.
Inspector Bull stood up.
“Perhaps the letter has been stolen, Mrs. Royce?”
Mrs.Royce was silent. Then she raised herself erect in her chair.
“I must not have saved the letter, Inspector,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Bull looked calmly at the two. There was no evidence of the abruptness of his mental about-face as he rapidly recast several of his ideas.
He went across the room to Royce.
“Let me have the letter, please,” he said.
Royce held up his hands promptly. “I haven’t got it,” he said. “Search me if you want to.”
“I don’t need to do that,” Bill replied. “Will you excuse me, ma’am?”
He bowed and left the room. He closed the door deliberately. In the hall his manner changed; he was at the head of the stairs in two strides and down them in five, silently on the heavily carpeted steps. Quickly and quietly he went down the lower hall and turned the handle of Mrs. Royce’s sitting room. A glance into the cold fire-place was enough; a few black cinders were all that was left of the letter that Gates had written to Mrs. Royce. Michael had even scattered them with the poker.
Inspector Bull let himself out the front door into the High-street. Walking slowly up the hill he glanced at the statue of the good queen. A famous remark of hers that precisely fitted his own feelings came into his mind. “We are not amused.” Bull had never been less so in his life.
He turned left to the station. On the train he thought how nearly he had come to taking the Royces, both of them, into his confidence. He had come to Windsor for the sole purpose of asking Mrs. Royce why she had given Mrs. Colton the cheque. He had underestimated the old lady. He had failed to realise that her love for her son was greater than her idea of duty to the Crown. That was his mistake, and a stupid one. He should never have permitted it, but he had been so persuaded of the young man’s innocence that he had dismissed the vague warning that he felt when Mrs. Royce sent her son after the letter. It had not occurred to him that Royce was desperate. The set-up was changing radically.
Bull looked at his watch. It was close to seven o’clock. He put his feet up on the seat across from him, pulled his hat down over his eyes and slept peacefully until the guard tapped his arm at Paddington. He got a hurried bite to eat and took a taxi to the Embankment. He had many things to do before he went to the Ship to dine with Walters.
On the desk were various reports from men following diverse tracks to a common meeting place, or so Bull hoped.
1. It had proved impossible to trace the motorcycle. A woman in Cranford—she whom the police thought unreliable—had seen a car parked behind the hedge about nine o’clock. At half past nine she heard a motorcycle somewhere on the road. There was no doubt now that she had really heard Colton’s murderer. The serial number had been carefully and thoroughly obliterated. The cycle could not be identified.
2. A bullet fired at about two feet distance from a 22 calibre revolver had killed Oliver Peskett.
3. A woman operative who had taken the place of the Coltons’ house-maid, suddenly taken ill, had found an empty phial of one-half grain phenol barbital tablets in the dust-bin in the kitchen. A few such tablets would insure unusually sound sleep. They were tasteless, but might leave a furry condition of the mouth the next morning and cause a general sleepiness.
4. The unknown man picked up in the Thames was identified by Michael Royce, Jermyn-street, under oath, as James B. Gates, age unknown, clerk at the jewelry shop of Mr. George Colton in St. Giles-street. The time of his death was approximately two o’clock.
5. The constable on duty in Bond-street had glanced down St. Giles-street at 12.53 A.M. and seen a man apparently trying to get into the padlocked shop of the late George Colton, jeweller. He had given chase but the man eluded him.
Bull stopped and glanced again at the time of that occurrence. 12.53 A.M. Bull smiled happily. The pieces were fitting together; he did not despair of getting his jig-saw puzzle to look like something. The heads of some important figures were forming with unmistakable clarity. He could name four men who were in London last night at 12.53.
6. Albert Steiner had left Croydon by special plane at six A.M. that morning and arrived at Le Bourget an hour and ten minutes later. The manager of the Hôtel Angleterre in Brussels verified the statement that Steiner was staying there.
7. At 6.30 that afternoon Doaks had left the house only to go to market and directly back.
8. Mrs. Louise Colton had deposited a cheque for £500 to her personal account at Coutts’s Bank in Piccadilly.
9. Miss Agatha Colton had gone on a shopping trip in Knightsbridge in the afternoon and returned home shortly after five o’clock.
Bull left a note for the commissioner and went out. He hailed a taxi and gave the driver the Coltons’ address.
The maid who opened the door looked quickly around her before she stepped aside to let him in.
“Is Mrs. Colton in?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll tell her you’re here. She’s upstairs.”
“I’ll wait in the library.”
The young woman was back in a moment.
“Is Miss Colton in?” Bull asked quietly.
The girl smiled. Bull wondered, as he had done before, how people could possibly think she was actually a parlourmaid. Her intelligent dark eyes, her poise, her tone of voice were anything but those of a servant girl. Bull had never seen the cow-like glaze in her eyes as she explained to a new mistress that a favourite piece of bric-a-brac had just jumped right out of her hands onto the floor.
“She’s packing. She sulked all morning. Asked me every five minutes if Mr. Royce hadn’t called her. They had a lovers’ quarrel last night, Mrs. Coggins says. She went out at three and came in about five.”
“What for? Do you know?”
The girl smiled again. “I went up to straighten her room—that’s the parlour-maid’s chief job here, cleaning up after her. She was trying to pack. I think she was just getting things she needed for travelling. She called me just after she came in. She told me to tell Mrs. Colton she was going to Paris.”
Bull smiled indulgently. The girl vanished just as Mrs. Colton came into the library.
“Good evening, Inspector Bull,” she said. “I’ve been lying down. Will you sit down?”
She motioned him to the chair across from her and leaned her head wearily against the velvet back of the chair Bull had drawn forward for her.
She did look tired, Bull thought. He realised again that she was a very beautiful woman.
He came at once to the point
“Mrs. Colton, you put a cheque for £500, given you by Mrs. Royce, in the bank today. I have to ask you why Mrs. Royce gave you that money.”
Mrs. Colton flushed and drew her breath sharply.
“I’m afraid I rather resent this prying into my personal affairs, Inspector Bull. I don’t mind your searching my house, and I don’t particularly mind your putting a person in the house who obviously isn’t a parlour-maid. As a matter of fact she’s extremely intelligent and has been very useful, though it’s annoying never to turn your back without feeling she’s going through your writing table or dust-bin. But I do particularly object to your interfering with my banking arrangements.”
“I’m sorry,” Bull said apologetically. “But you see, Mrs. Colton, your husband was shot. His clerk was killed. Your chauffeur was shot and killed in his room over your garage. It’s my job to follow any clue I have, no matter who it annoys. So I have to ask you that question. Why did she give you the money?”
“Because, Inspector Bull,” Mrs. Colton said coldly, “I ha
ve no money. I needed it, and I asked her for it,”
“Why did you go to Mrs. Royce, instead of your bank, or Mr. Field?”
She looked at him with a half-smile on her lovely face.
“Because I preferred to go to Mrs. Royce,” she said calmly.
Bull looked placidly at her from his mild blue eyes.
“Mrs. Colton!” he said. “You can’t do this. You don’t understand your situation.”
“On the contrary, Inspector Bull, I understand it entirely.”
“I’m afraid you don’t.”
She seemed astonished at his persistence.
“You knew, of course, that Mrs. Royce’s diamonds were insured for £ 35,000, and that they worth about £ 10,000 on the market?”
Mrs. Colton was an intelligent woman. He hoped he wouldn’t have to go any farther. She sat staring absently into the fire, apparently unaware that he was still in the room. Finally she looked up and smiled frankly.
“I do understand my position,” she repeated; “but I’m quite prepared to cope with it. Let me tell you something.”
She leaned forward, her elbow on her crossed knee, her chin in her palm. She looked into the fire, not at Bull.
“Mr. Steiner was here the night Peskett was shot.—Was that only last night?”
For an instant the horror of it came back to her, and she closed her eyes.
“It seems centuries ago,” she said softly. An involuntary tremor seemed to ripple through her body. Then she drew a deep breath and went on.
“Steiner told me that Mr. Colton had made an arrangement with him that he had accepted with reluctance. He had done so, however—agreed to it—in view of a number of things. One of them—although he didn’t mention it—is his almost morbid passion for diamonds. My husband needed ready money. In the last two years he has tied up all of his money up so that in the event of his death I couldn’t get my hands on it for some time. As a result, when money suddenly tightened up so decidedly, he found himself in a difficult place. He couldn’t sell without a considerable loss—just as I can’t sell without a greater loss. He undertook to borrow money from Mr. Steiner. He wanted to do it without disturbing his credit relations. I mean, he did not want, for professional reasons, to put up any of his own collateral”.
Bull looked curiously at her.
“Didn’t you tell me you knew nothing about your husband’s business affairs?”
“No. I didn’t. I told you once that my husband never discussed his affairs with me.”
It was Bull’s turn to be surprised. Before he could ask more the bell rang, and the maid announced Dr. Bellamy. Bull looked covertly at his watch. It was past ten o’clock. An odd time for even an old friend of the family to call. Mrs. Colton hesitated, and he rose.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting along. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Then Mrs. Colton did a very surprising thing. She held out her hand impulsively. Bull took it clumsily. She smiled a bright wistful little smile.
“I’m sorry about all this. But . . . well, I’ll see you in the morning.”
Bull met Dr. Bellamy in the hall. They nodded to each other. Bull went out quickly. He had one more thing to do, before he reached out the long arm of the law. Was it for Albert Steiner? Doaks? Michael Royce? Inspector Bull did not know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Bull left the underground at Chancery-lane and started around the corner. Near the entrance to the station he came upon an old crone trying to sell a bunch of soiled violets to a very much intoxicated young man in evening clothes.
The young man, propped perilously against the wall, was making superhuman efforts to get some pennies out of his trousers pocket. The old woman was giving him as much help as she thought would escape the eye of any passing constable. The young man was saying, “Don’t cry, little flower girl.”
Bull hesitated, trying to decide whether he was justified as a member of the C.I.D. to stop the old woman, or as a fellow being to help the young man, when the flower seller’s voice made him stop short and step back out of the light.
“Orl right, sir, tyke these ’ere lahvely posies ’Ome to your lidy.”
She whined ingratiatingly, and made a sudden dive for a half crown that rolled out of the young man’s pocket. She retrieved it, looked at it, thrust it into the ragged folds of a voluminous filthy cloak and made off down Holborn, leaving the dilapidated bunch of violets on the pavement in front of her client.
Another coincidence in the same spot was more than the most inveterate gambler—which Bull was not—could have anticipated. That the old woman whom he and Royce had met coming out of the mortuary, where she had been to identify Gates, should be in almost the exact spot where Peskett and Doaks had their rendezvous, was much too significant to pass over. Bull took a last appraising glance at the young man, who was making a futile effort to pick up the violets, and set out discreetly after the woman.
Without a glance either way she turned, with surprising agility, it seemed to Bull, into the narrow passage leading from Holborn to the gates of Gray’s Inn. Bull followed. She was peering through the closed gates. Bull could hear her whine as she spoke to the porter, but he could not hear what she was saying. After a few moments she turned and went back to Holborn, passing Bull without a glance. He went up quickly to the porter.
“I’m Inspector Bull, Scotland Yard,” he said urgently. “What did the old woman want?”
The porter shook his head.
“Balmy, sir,” he said. “As near as I could make out it was Mr. Field’s man Doaks as she wanted. I sent her around the other way, and I told her she’d better be minding her own affairs.”
Bull thanked him and went back to Holborn and west to the passage leading to Jockey’s-fields. The old woman—who he hadn’t the least doubt was Constable Porter’s Lizzie, shuffled easily along with no attempt at concealment. She was peering up at the names in the registers. When she came to No. 8-A she stopped, looked up and down, and went across to the other side of the road. Inspector Bull sauntered leisurely into the street. She sank down in a door-way, one eye on Bull, the other on Mr. Field’s dining room window, and pretended to sleep. She was absolutely still. Once she raised her head; she had seen a white glass-curtain move as if somebody had brushed against it. Bull came almost even with her and threw her a few coppers.
“Gawd bless you, sir,” she mumbled. Bull passed on.
In Mr. Field’s dining room a man stood discreetly concealed from the outside by the long maroon velvet window hangings. Now and then he drew the glass-curtains aside and gazed intently down into the dimly lighted road. He saw an old woman come along from the Holborn end and disappear. Then he saw her cross the road directly beneath him. She glanced up at the window where he stood and sank down in a doorway. The man looked down at her with a puzzled air. He would have thought she was just a homeless old hag sleeping in any open doorway, but he knew the London nomads. A certain instinct drew them to the same hole every night She had never been there before. She must have some purpose; and the man dreaded anyone watching that house with a purpose.
He fingered the revolver in his hands, which trembled less now than when he had taken it—three shells missing—from his box upstairs a few minutes before.
He saw a very large man come slowly down the road, toss the old woman some coins. He saw her quick movement to get them. He recognised Inspector Bull, and moved forward, drawing the curtains a little to the left with his free hand. Not a movement, not a sound, warned him that he was not alone; then a grip as strong as a vise paralysed his hand. The gun slipped to the floor. Without releasing his hold John Field stooped and picked it up. He turned it over in his hand, examining it thoughtfully.
“That’s enough of that, Doaks,” he said quietly, and put the revolver in his pocket.
Bull hailed a taxi in Theobald’s-road and went to the Ship to meet Walters. He was so late that Walters had nearly given him up.
“Sorry,” Bull said. “FU
see if I can’t show you something tonight.”
He excused himself, found a telephone, and gave rapid orders to Scotland Yard. A constable in uniform was to parade around Gray’s Inn and disturb the old woman across from 8-A, Jockey’s-fields without alarming her. He wanted to get her back to her stand at St. Andrew’s in Upper Thames-street. Bull thought a while. Then he ordered the removal of the operative watching the Colton household, and directed him to be stationed in a shop across St. Giles-street from the jeweller’s. He was to make no effort to stop anyone from going in.
The great bell of St Paul’s was just striking midnight when the two came in sight of the grey tower of the deserted St. Andrew’s. The constable in uniform had done his duty; Bull reached down and prodded the snoring bundle of filth and rags crouched in the corner against the ancient grey wall. Lizzie stirred. They heard a few Thames-side imprecations. She struggled to her feet and glowered sullenly at the men in front of her. Then she recognised Bull; he knew it by the crafty light that glinted an instant in her bleary faded eyes, and the ingratiating smirk on her drunken face.
Another change came over her that Bull did not miss either. At first she remembered him as the man who had given her coppers; then the dark shadow of fear passed behind the watery eyes. She cringed, wiping her mouth with the back of a grimy hand. She had put two and two together with the quickness of the street-tramp, and they had worked out at “Police.”
“Look here, mother,” Bull said. “I want to know what happened here last night.”
She blinked cunningly at him.
“Out with it, now. I want to know all about it. I saw you coming out of the mortuary. You went there to see the man who was drowned at the bottom of the lane down there. And what were you doing at Gray’s Inn?”
Bull knew that with this wretched creature it was simply a question of where the most profit would come. She gave him a calculating glance; he knew now that she did know something for him.
“ ’Ow much do I get?” she said simply.
In ten minutes Bull had his story, which was exactly what he expected. Stripped of its flavour and ramblings into her own life-history and the grievances of her class, it was simple.
