The Man of Dangerous Secrets

by Maxwell March

  The cripple leant back in his chair, and for the first time the inspector got a clear glimpse of his face in the mirror. It was some distance away from him, and the features were slightly blurred, and also the light was not good. But he saw enough to put him on the alert.

  The cripple was regarding the man opposite him with an intensity that was terrifying, and when at last he spoke his voice was redolent with that same forceful quality which had so startled the inspector before.

  “Fern, you’re a fool,” he said. “A dangerous fool.”

  Once again the old baronet laughed.

  “The results may be the same, but your diagnosis is wrong, Fisher,” he said. “I’m a desperate man. Even a worm turns, you know. I’ve been pretty much of a coward in my time, but that was for the sake of my girl, my poor Jenny. But now they’ve driven me too far. I’m being harried to death. But that fiend shan’t get me and live. I’ll put him where he belongs, if it’s the last thing I do.”

  The cripple continued to sit motionless in his chair, his lids drawn down over his eyes, his chin resting upon his pigeon breast.

  “Fern,” he said, “can you guess who the Dealer is?”

  There was something so uncanny in his tone, something so soft and yet so sinister, that at the risk of giving himself away the inspector leant further back in his chair and peered through the crack between the screen and the wall.

  He was now barely a couple of feet away from the cripple’s right side, and his attention was arrested immediately by a stealthy movement of the man’s right hand, which was hidden from his companion’s sight by the ledge of the table.

  Meanwhile Sir Henry, his blue eyes distended and his lips drawn back, sat staring at the evil creature before him.

  “You!” he said thickly. “You are——”

  “Yes, my friend. Interesting, isn’t it? Do you know you are the first person with whom I have ever shared this fascinating confidence?”

  The menace in his tone was unbelievable, and as he spoke the man leant forward out of his chair and the thing he held in his right hand came slowly into sight from the crack in the screen.

  The inspector saw and recognized it just as the final threat left the twisted lips.

  “How sad that you will never be able to betray my confidence, Sir Henry.”

  Inspector Whybrow sprang to his feet and sent the screen crashing to the ground with one lion-like movement. A moment later his great hand descended upon the weapon which the cripple had drawn and snatched it from his grasp.

  The whole thing happened so swiftly that both men were taken completely off their guard. The inspector held the thing he had taken at arm’s length. He knew well enough not to bring it anywhere within range of his mouth or nostrils.

  It was a syringe, a delicate glass affair fitted with a plunger and a tiny spray and half filled with a colourless liquid.

  At the first glimpse, Whybrow guessed what it was. The practice of spraying poison of the prussic acid or cyanide variety into the mouth and nostrils of an unsuspecting victim was a form of crime with which the inspector was becoming too familiar.

  Coma, followed by death, would, he knew, be almost certain, and it would take an astute doctor some time to locate the cause.

  These things raced through his mind, however, and he had no time for further consideration, for, before the sound of the crash had brought the few hotel servants in the vicinity hurrying to the scene, the first incredible incident occurred.

  The man in the cripple’s chair became suddenly galvanized into action. His arm shot out, and he vaulted across the table onto the parquet floor.

  The inspector felt his scalp rising. If the man had vanished into thin air, Whybrow would not have been more surprised.

  On reaching the ground, Caithby Fisher fled.

  The vast dim lounge, peopled so gloomily by its empty chairs, seemed to have become a place of fantasy as the figure sped down the wide strip of carpet to the open doors in the main vestibule.

  As he ran, an extraordinary change took place in the twisted frame. The shoulders straightened, the legs seemed to grow longer, and, although the head was still hunched upon the shoulders, and the face and hair were those of Caithby Fisher, there was something unreal about him, a creature from another world or a nightmare.

  The inspector rushed after him, but he was gone. As the policeman reached the vestibule, he caught a glimpse of the grotesque fugitive disappearing down the steps into the crowded street.

  When he reached the pavement, there was no sign of the man. A swiftly moving limousine threaded its way in and out of the traffic, but there was no way of telling whether its passenger was the man he sought.

  The inspector’s first feeling was one of frank astonishment. He was more than bewildered. His breath had been taken away literally. But then, as his sane common sense gradually reasserted itself, his next reaction was one of intense anger.

  The man he most wanted to lay hands upon in all the world had disappeared from under his very nose.

  The whole thing was ridiculous and absurd. He knew that the bare facts set down on an official form would look like a fairy tale. And yet it had happened. He had seen it with his own eyes.

  He sent an excited hotel servant to fetch Sir Henry and then settled himself at the telephone in the manager’s office and began to give clear if slightly irritable orders to minions at the other end of the wire.

  There was much to be done. Statements would have to be taken from all sorts of people who might have seen the flying figure; someone would have to take charge of Sir Henry; while he himself must proceed at once to the home of the chairman of Armaments Limited.

  It was as he came out of the manager’s office that the second bewildering incident occurred, the thing that made the inspector doubt his own sanity for days to come.

  The first person he saw in the vestibule was his own detective-sergeant, Mayhew, an intelligent officer with whom he usually worked. The man came up to him eagerly.

  “I’m glad I found you, sir,” he said. “I didn’t like to phone you in case you hadn’t given your name to the people here, and it might be inconvenient if they disturbed you. An important development, sir. Inspector Mowbray feels you ought to hear about it at once. The body of Caithby Fisher, the chairman of Armaments Limited, has just been taken from the river at Chelsea. Seems to have floated down from some point considerably higher up. It’s been in the mortuary since eleven o’clock this morning, but he’s only just been identified. Good heavens, sir, what’s the matter?”

  Inspector Whybrow was staring at his subordinate, his mouth hanging open, his bright eyes wide and incredulous.

  “Caithby Fisher taken from the river? Are you sure? Who identified him? What evidence have you got?”

  Sergeant Mayhew bridled.

  “His doctor, Sir Humphrey Peeler, has seen the body. So has his personal valet, name of Reith. They both swear to him. He’s not a difficult person to identify, sir. He’s a cripple.”

  Inspector Whybrow passed a shaking hand over his damp forehead.

  “How long had the body been in the water before it was discovered?”

  “I’m not quite sure, sir, but in the opinion of two doctors it couldn’t have been less than twenty-four hours and not more than forty. What’s the matter, sir? Anything up?”

  CHAPTER 24

  Inspector Whybrow Wonders

  “WELL, Whybrow, I hope you’re convinced it really is Fisher. You’ve seen the body, you’ve seen the doctors. There doesn’t seem any avenue of doubt to me.”

  Inspector Mowbray glanced across the famous windowless room in the old house behind the great offices of Armaments, Limited, and spoke somewhat dryly to his old friend, who stood by the fireplace looking more like a Scotch terrier than ever, his head slightly on one side and his eyes puzzled beneath their shaggy brows.

  Inspector Whybrow passed his stubby fingers through his short grey hair.

  “Oh I admit it, I admit it,” he said testily
. “I’m not an obstinate fool. But I tell you, Mowbray, I’ve had a shock. When your own eyes deceive you, the feeling is most unpleasant. Whoever the man talking to Sir Henry was, his acting was magnificent.

  “Of course,” he went on, speaking more to convince himself than to explain to the other man, “I didn’t know Fisher personally. I’d seen him once or twice, but that was all. Still, the illusion was perfect as far as I was concerned, and, of course, the extraordinary thing is that Sir Henry seemed to be satisfied also.

  “I tell you, Mowbray, when that fellow sprang out of his chair and raced across the entrance lounge, I felt the hair rising on my scalp, and I thought my knees were going to give way. I haven’t had such an experience, not in thirty years.”

  Mowbray was inclined to be amused, but he tactfully refrained from showing it.

  “Well, we’re getting along gradually,” he said, deliberately ignoring the slightly comic figure of bewilderment which the older man presented. “We’ve established the fact that Fisher was shot before his body entered the water. He had only been missing twenty-four hours, and his valet does not seem to have considered it worth while to notify the police of his disappearance. Apparently he was in the habit of going off by himself like this from time to time.

  “I’m holding that man Reith on suspicion, by the way. He doesn’t seem to have been very fond of his master. He’s a fine-looking chap, but bone from the neck up.”

  “Oh, Reith wasn’t in this.”

  Inspector Whybrow spoke with conviction.

  “We’re up against something much more important than Reith could ever account for. You’ll find, Mowbray, that this murder is part and parcel of all the others. As soon as Sir Henry can talk we’ll have the whole story out of him. I rather fancy we’ve got our hands on the right man at last. These lunatics are very clever sometimes.”

  Inspector Mowbray considered this suggestion.

  “I must admit the question of insanity had not crossed my mind,” he said. “But of course the girl, his daughter, is not normal, or she wouldn’t be where she is. You’ve got Sir Henry at his own house, I hear?”

  Inspector Whybrow seated himself on the edge of the shining table which filled the centre of the room, and glanced round the panelled walls before replying.

  “Yes,” he said at last. “I didn’t want too much publicity until we get the whole thing straightened out. If we arrest a man of his calibre before we are ready to formulate the charge in its entirety, we shall have the press howling at our heels, and the others involved in this business will get clear.

  “Sir Henry’s an old man, Mowbray,” he added, “and if I had a shock this afternoon, his must have been trebly strong. I saw him afterwards when he recovered consciousness, and I should have called him a maniac. He’s quite safe, however. There’s a strong police guard in his house and three good doctors in attendance, Sir Gordon Woodthorpe among them. He tells me we can’t hope to question the man for at least another twenty-four hours, and then, my boy, we shall get one or two revelations.”

  He mopped his brow vigorously.

  “I shall be glad of it. It’s getting on my nerves.”

  There was no doubt of the truth of this statement, but Mowbray’s comments were cut short by the sudden arrival of Detective Sergeant Verity, the young expert whom Mowbray had brought down from the Yard to assist in the search for evidence among Caithby Fisher’s papers.

  He was an eager, plumpish youngster whose round face and brown eyes were at the moment alight with excitement.

  “I say, sir,” he said explosively, “I believe I’ve stumbled on something really interesting.”

  He planked an old brown-paper file down upon the table as he spoke, and went on as the older men gathered round him:

  “I found this in a most ingeniously hidden little safe built into the wall above the head of the bed. No one seemed to know of it, and even Reith seemed flabbergasted when he saw it. I haven’t examined these very closely, but I’ve seen enough to know we’ve got hold of something really interesting. There’s enough evidence here to show that Fisher was in the Camden Gun Scandal—in fact, he and another man seem to have engineered the whole thing.”

  “The Camden Gun Scandal?”

  The words dropped from Inspector Mowbray’s lips involuntarily.

  Less than eighteen months before, all England had been stirred by the dramatic discovery that armaments were being shipped out of England for the ultimate use of her enemies. Public feeling had run high, and although Scotland Yard had succeeded in tracing and bringing to justice all those immediately concerned, they had not been able to lay hands upon the actual instigators of the affair.

  Eventually the hue and cry had died down, but hitherto there had remained a blank space in the secret documents at Scotland Yard which related to the crime.

  Whybrow pounced on the papers. He was no expert, but his experienced eye told him that Verity had not been exaggerating. Here indeed was evidence which would have sent Fisher to prison had he not at that moment been lying, a terrible, mangled, shapeless thing, in the mortuary in Seeker Street.

  “But that’s not all,” Verity continued. “D’you see this name, sir?”

  He turned to Mowbray as he spoke, and the other inspector leant forward.

  “If Fisher is dead,” the younger man continued, “at least we can get his colleague. Look, here it is, the whole thing. Just imagine what a great K. C. could make of a charge like that!”

  “Sir Henry Fern?” said Whybrow quickly.

  Verity looked at him blankly.

  “Why, no, sir,” he said. “This is a very different person.”

  “Sir Ferdinand Shawle!”

  It was Mowbray who spoke, and there was an expression of frank bewilderment on his face, for there, lying before him on the table, was evidence which involved the famous banker in probably the greatest scandal of post-war years.

  Old Whybrow sat down in the green leather armchair in which Madame Julie had listened trembling to the little hunchback’s questions only a few days before.

  “Well, this beats the band,” he said. “This case is getting me out of my depth. Perhaps they’re all in it,” he added, brightening.

  But Verity shook his head.

  “No, sir. There’s no other name. There’s nothing here even to suggest that Sir Henry knew anything about the Camden case.”

  Inspector Mowbray had become brisk and businesslike.

  “Well, at any rate,” he said, “there’s enough evidence in our hands to send Sir Ferdinand to prison. Shall we pull him in, Whybrow? What do you say?”

  The elder man held up his hand.

  “I don’t think so. In my opinion, Mowbray, our best plan is to keep him under strict surveillance and wait. First we must get Sir Henry’s story, and then I shall get that information from the Canadian police that I’ve been waiting for so long. There’s more of value there than you dream of, Mowbray. I’m certain of it.”

  His colleague shrugged his shoulders and smiled. He had a very real opinion of Whybrow’s gifts, not least among which was a sort of intuition which made him often place his finger unerringly upon the truth even when it seemed the most unlikely thing in the world.

  At the moment, however, he was inclined to be skeptical.

  “I don’t want to damp your ardour, Jack,” he said, grinning, “but I must say the faith you’re putting in that dirty bit of paper you found by the telephone in Fern’s office the night we had the spoof call from young Grey strikes me as being a bit trusting. You’re not beginning to put your faith in magic in your old age, are you?”

  Whybrow looked at him gravely, and the expression in the bright blue eyes was so serious that for a moment even Mowbray was silenced.

  “The longer I live,” said Inspector Whybrow solemnly, “the more remarkable human nature seems to become. When I was a lad about Verity’s age”—he smiled at the boy with that easy friendliness which earned him his popularity at the Yard—“when I was a kid,�
�� he repeated, “it seemed to me that there were only half a dozen crimes in the world, only two or three dozen types of men and women, and that Scotland Yard knew all about the lot.

  “But since I’ve grown older, and especially since my experience in the lounge of the De Rigueur this afternoon, I’m beginning to wonder if the phases of human nature are not as many as the stars in the sky.

  “And as for that spoof call from Grey, as you call it, Mowbray, I tell you I recognized that boy’s voice on the phone, and if any of these swine has murdered him, I’ll have ’em strung up and watch the execution myself with pleasure.”

  Mowbray grunted, and Verity shot a swift glance at his superior, his brown eyes alight with interest. “The Old Man” was definitely rattled, he told his friend Sergeant Ferguson afterwards, and there was a vigorous, not to say vindictive, case brewing against someone. He was sure of it.

  CHAPTER 25

  In Hiding

  “ROBIN, I feel I ought to get to Daddy. I’ve got a sort of feeling that he’s in serious trouble.”

  Jennifer spoke hesitantly. She was kneeling on the hearthrug in the pleasant little front room of the flat owned by Mrs. Phipps’s married daughter in Bayswater. The girl looked very frail and white after the terrifying experiences of the past few days. There were dark rings under her eyes, and her lips were tremulous.

  The lights were low in the little room, and Robin stood by the side of the window well out of sight of the street but in a position from which he could peer through a crack in the blind at the wet pavements below.

  In the past day or so he seemed to have become older. The bland expression had faded from his face, his eyes were hard and anxious, and the line of his jaw had become grim and determined.

  “Not yet, Jennifer,” he said softly. “Not yet, my dear. We’re not out of the wood by any means yet.”