by E.
“There is one other point of quite considerable interest in this connection which I am not prepared to divulge at present. It is, however, taken with the others I have just mentioned, quite conclusive proof that Enora was not on the stage during the Highgate Hill scene and could not, therefore, have murdered Miss de Grey.”
The Assistant Commissioner was the first to recover from the surprise occasioned by the totally unexpected denouement of the scientist. He leaned forward in his chair and played with the monocle on its long, silken cord, that had not been near his eye for the last five minutes.
“I know your dislike of theorizing, Doctor,” he said, “but I feel it would be of some help to Jones, here, if you could give him some idea of what did happen in that dressing-room.”
Doctor Manson nodded. “I was about to do so, Sir Edward,” he said. “There is no theorizing about it, not in the sense you mean. I have never objected to theorizing when there are facts on which to theorize; my objection is to theorizing and then looking for facts to fit the theory. In this case the facts are, to me, perfectly plain. Somebody doped the drink which Enora always had at that time of the evening. That somebody was very close at hand, for he entered the dressing-room within three minutes of Enora taking the drink. That somebody at once stripped Enora of his skin, if he had not already got out of it for his rub-down, got into the skin and made up the lower part of the face from the make-up box of Enora. Then that somebody, having locked the dressing-room door, played the Highgate Hill scene, left the stage in the excitement of the moment when Miss de Grey was carried off, returned to the dressing-room, stripped off the skin, partly replaced it on Enora, and left the room, taking the make-up box and the bottle and glass.
“The reason for taking the make-up box is obvious; it would necessarily have fingerprints on it. Why the bottle and glass I do not know, except that it may be the person was not sure whether their hands had not come into contact with it during the scurry.”
“No idea, Doctor, who it could be?” asked the A.C.
A shake of the head. “None, Sir Edward. It must be obvious, however, that it was somebody who knew the part, and who knew just the moment to do the deed. They had also access to the theatre, and knew the habits of Enora.
“By the way, there is just another little corroboration of the fact that the Cat was not Enora. The stage-manager, in describing the scene on Highgate Hill, said that for a moment he had a shock when he could not see the Cat coming on with Miss de Grey. Then he saw him enter from a little farther back-stage. Enora, who had chosen his entrance and had made it at that spot every night throughout the pantomime, would not change it. No artiste would.”
Superintendent Jones, recovered from his surprise, now spoke.
“Doctor’s right . . . ’course . . . Ought . . . have seen it. . . Only one person fits . . . other cat . . .”
“His alibi,” protested Inspector Bradley.
“Alibis are made to be broken, Inspector, as we know very well,” said Sir Edward. “What are your views on the second Cat, Doctor?”
“No ideas at all, Sir Edward, I have nothing to show that it was the deputy Cat.”
The Assistant Commissioner half rose in his chair. “Then that seems as far as we can go,” he announced. “Have you any further suggestions, Doctor?”
Manson thought. Then: “Only one, Sir Edward, and that I have already mentioned—that I would like to know all the background story of Miss de Grey, especially who were her friends. I regard this as most important.”
“Kenway . . . seein’ . . . that,” explained Superintendent Jones, and rose to depart.
At a sign from the Assistant Commissioner, Doctor Manson remained behind after the other officers left the room. The scientist eyed his friend, smilingly.
“This is a rum business, Harry,” Sir Edward hazarded. “I notice you didn’t mention anything about the fire, so kept silent myself. What is the connection between the fire and this?”
“A very queer one, Edward, and one I dropped on by sheer chance.”
He recited the circumstances in which Jones had asked for his help, and the coincidence that he was actually going down to Burlington on that day. He recounted his astonishment on seeing the mink coat of obviously four figure value among the possessions of a provincial pantomime girl.
“Still, Harry, there are many ladies of the stage with similar treasures. I understand that some have gentleman friends who are prepared to fork out in order to associate with ladies of the footlights.”
“That I know all about, Edward,” was the reply. “But they do not, I take it, all have mink coats which have been reported as totally destroyed in a fur warehouse fire, and on which full insurance has been paid out by an insurance company.”
“Good Lord—in the Nottingham warehouse?” asked the Assistant Commissioner.
“So. And what is more, she also had a number of silk dust sheets bearing the label, Silks, Ltd., which were never sold to customers, and which, also, were supposed to have been destroyed in the fire at those premises.”
The Assistant Commissioner turned the matter over in his mind. “It might be, of course, Harry, that she, or her boy friend, bought the coat from someone to whom it had been sold by the fur warehouse. What I mean is that the coat might have been removed from the warehouse in preparation for the fire, sold, and then resold quite innocently by the vendor.”
“That is precisely why I want to find Miss de Grey’s boy friend, Edward. But I have my doubts on the probability of your theory; in fact I might go so far as to venture the opinion that it cannot hold water.”
“Why not?”
“Because there was no label inside the coat. Now, if a firm deals in and sells £1,500 mink coats, they are only too proud to acknowledge the fact, and the name of the firm appears on a tag somewhere inside the coat, together with the name of the customer, for identification, and the date of the sale. You have a peep inside the breast-pocket of that handsome-looking coat of yours. Where do you buy your coats, by the way?”
“You’ve no idea where to look, I suppose?”
“Not the slightest, and I can’t ask anybody without revealing the fact that we are making inquiries into the fire, which is just the thing we do not want to do at the present stage. I am relying on Kenway to give me a line.”
He paused as though a sudden thought had occurred to him. The Assistant Commissioner watched him in silence for a few moments. Then: “Thought of something?” he asked.
“Yes,” agreed Manson. “Yes, I have. A remark made by the manager of the late Silks, Ltd., has given me an idea. I think I’ll set about looking into it.”
CHAPTER XIII
MR. OPPENHEIMER’S FIRE
The Hammersmith Fire Brigade received a call at 11.30 on a dark night, and turned out with clanging bells along the road linking Hammersmith with Shepherd’s Bush Green, and into the Uxbridge Road, as far down as the junction of that thoroughfare and Montmorency Road. There, round the corner, flames were just starting to shoot through the roof of a two-storey dwelling. Hoses were run out, a ladder pushed up and from above and below firemen played water on the blaze. Little by little the flames died down, until, at last, the fire was officially returned as extinguished.
Now, following the visit of Mr. Redwood, the insurance company’s legal representative, to Scotland Yard, and the arrangements made by the Assistant Commissioner and Doctor Manson, the companies had presented to the police a fist of certain premises the contents of which were particularly combustible, and which for no reason that could be given a name the companies viewed with perturbation. Also a request had gone to the heads of the various fire brigades that any fire which broke out in any business premises should at once be notified to the police, without waiting for the extent of it to be ascertained. The report was asked for within as early a time from the call as was physically possible. Thus, at roughly a quarter to twelve on this particular night, Mr. Redwood was telephoned by Scotland Yard and asked whether any of his
companies would be interested in a fiery beacon of two-guinea frocks now reaching to the sky through the roof of Modern Gowns, Ltd., of Montmorency Road, Shepherd’s Bush.
Mr. Redwood replied that he was intensely interested, so much so that he would be obliged if Scotland Yard would put into effect the arrangements made between the Assistant Commissioner and himself. And he would present himself on the scene at, say, eight o’clock the next morning.
Thus it came about that a guard of the salvage corps was posted round the burned building and its contents, with instructions that nobody was to enter unless they bore a special permit issued by the Assistant Commissioner, or was known to be a police officer not below the rank of inspector. At 7.30 a.m. Mr. Izzy Oppenheimer arrived, having been informed of the fire by a policeman way out in the wilds of his Commercial Road, East, rooms, from which he had, unfortunately, been absent when that same policeman had called earlier in the morning. He was proceeding to enter the premises when a captain of the salvage corps barred the entrance, explaining that nobody was allowed admittance until the police had inspected the place.
Mr. Oppenheimer waved his arms at the captain. “But I am the owner isn’t it?” he announced. “All my beautiful frocks have gone. I am ruined.”
“Well, sir, you can’t bring them back now, can you?” retorted the captain. “And they won’t come to any more harm by waiting until the police come. In any case you aren’t allowed to go in. And that’s that.”
Mr. Oppenheimer, dancing like a cat on hot bricks, perambulated up and down the frontage until 8.15 a.m., when there arrived in a black Oldsmobile car Mr. Redwood, Doctor Manson, and Detective-Inspector Makepeace. A second car followed bearing Sergeant Merry and Wilkins, the Laboratory chief assistant.
To this collective assembly Mr. Oppenheimer made his complaint. He did not know the extent of the damage and he had to make an early return to his insurance company according to the conditions of his insurance policy.
“Vy is it I vos not to go into my own shop?” he demanded.
“Nobody is stopping you going into your own shop, Mr. Oppenheimer,” announced Mr. Redwood, “and as regards the insurance, I am representing the insurance company and will take notice of the fact that you have been delayed by official action in making your return. After we have inspected the interior of the premises, you can enter and stay there to your heart’s content. Meanwhile, you must remain outside until we send for you.”
Leaving the proprietor still moaning his protests, Doctor Manson and Mr. Redwood proceeded to inspect the property from the outside. Its position was not without interest. It occupied the second position in the road. The first, or corner shop was empty, and had been so for some time. In consequence of its damaged condition, it had had all the windows boarded up. This, it was explained, had been partly on the request of Mr. Oppenheimer when he had taken the adjoining premises, for, he pointed out, access to this empty premises would make it quite easy for thieves to break through the party wall into his shop, and work their way unseen. The third shop, adjoining the gown shop, although not empty, was a lock-up, used as a laundry office. It closed at four o'clock each afternoon. Along the back of all this property ran an engineering works. Only a small yard, some twelve feet deep, separated the shops from the high, walled, back of the works. Doctor Manson surveyed the layout with lively interest.
“An ideal place for a fire to be burning some time before being discovered, Mr. Redwood,” he suggested. “Empty premises either side, and a blank wall of other premises unoccupied during the night.”
Mr. Redwood agreed. “And a fire within two months of opening up in business,” he suggested.
The outside survey completed, the two men, accompanied by the inspector, entered the burnt-out shop. Blackened walls surrounded them. The interior of the premises had been destroyed completely. The roof, though badly burned, had not fallen, except for a few slates, which had crashed to the ground. Blackened beams represented all that was left of the ceiling and the room above the shop. On the floor were the ashes of the burnt frocks, with here and there a few pieces of twisted iron, presumably the hooks of the hangers which had held the dresses.
From appearances the fire had been fiercest at the rear of the premises, where the floor itself was badly burned. The fire salvage corps local chief, who had joined the party, expressed the confident view that the blaze had started at that spot. The least destruction was noticeable in the large window, across which an iron shutter rolled down for the night protection of the stock. There, some couple of dozen frocks still hung on cardboard heads and shoulders. They were scorched, and bedraggled with water; in fact as much ruined as were those reduced to ashes.
It was at this stage that Mr. Oppenheimer was invited to enter his own ruins. He came in, a look of anxious enquiry on his face. Doctor Manson greeted him.
“Ah, Mr. Oppenheimer. Perhaps you can help us with a reconstruction of the premises,” he said. “For instance, what part of the set-up was this little space?” He pointed to what it had been agreed was the original firing point.
“The vorkshop,” replied Mr. Oppenheimer, promptly. “Vhere the frocks vas altered vhen they did not fit.”
“Do we understand that it was just a part of the shop open to the gaze of the public, then?”
“No, No, No. That is wrong. It had a partition round it, so.”
Mr. Oppenheimer drew a diagram on the floor showing where the wooden walls had been.
“I see,” said Doctor Manson, thoughtfully. “The frocks were altered and made to fit in there. Were they altered in order that the customer might take them away at once?”
“Yes, yes!”
“So that they would have to be pressed, eh?”
“Pressed?” Mr. Oppenheimer started. “Zat damn’ woman. She leave the iron. It make the fire. She left it before, I remember.”
“Oh, there was an electric iron, was there?” The scientist carefully sifted through the ash below the burned floor.
Mr. Redwood took up the questioning of the businessman. “Now, about the damage, Mr. Oppenheimer. I represent the insurance company, you know. We have to be very careful of these fires. What stock had you here?”
“I had three hundred frocks wot I sells at two guinea each one. That is six hunderd pounds and six hunderd shillin. That makes—twice six hun—”
“That makes £630,” put in Mr. Redwood, helpfully.
“And I had fifty rolls of ze best silk to make more frocks which it came only two day ago.”
“Ah. And how much would that be worth a roll, Mr. Oppenheimer?”
“I pay the French firm fourteen pounds a roll and I must make a profit, isn’t it?”
“So that is another £700. You did a good trade here then?”
“No. It was not for here I want the silk. It is for another shop I open. I make the frocks here.”
“You can, I suppose, produce the evidence of the frocks and the silk?”
Mr. Oppenheimer looked pained, and at the same time agitated. Pained that his word should be doubted, no doubt. The agitation was relieved when he hurried over to a corner of the burnt-out premises and opened a small iron door in a part of the blackened wall. It revealed itself as a wall safe. From it he extracted two or three books and a bundle of invoices. A second helping revealed a sheaf of papers. All were slightly scorched, but otherwise unscathed. With a pleased smile Mr. Oppenheimer hurried back to the waiting company, and displayed them.
They appeared to be a full list of the frocks that had been in the shop the previous day, the invoices of a number of them, and of the silk, together with his day book and ledger. Mr. Redwood expressed some surprise at the very up-to-date list of frocks. “Rather a fortunate circumstance, is it not?” he inquired.
“No, no, mister,” protested Mr. Oppenheimer. “I take ze stock each Friday. And then I make up the profits of the week. I take the stock yesterday, see.”
“Then you’ll show a nice profit this week, Mr. Oppenheimer,” said Doctor Mans
on, brightly. “All the goods sold, so to speak, and no bad debts, eh? Now, about this woman who left the iron burning, or, at least, seems to have done so. Who is she?”
“Rachel Wherner, mister. She will be here on Monday. Her address I do not know.”
The scientist looked across at Mr. Redwood, who shook his head. He had been glancing through the books and papers. He now put them into his attaché-case. “I will keep these and check them for the figures, Mr. Oppenheimer,” he announced. “You can have them back when we have arrived at the insurable amount of the loss.”
Detective-Inspector Makepeace, who had departed on some errand after a whispered conversation with Doctor Manson, returned as Mr. Oppenheimer hurried from the premises and started off down the street. The inspector answered the scientist’s unspoken question with a nod.
“I spoke to the supervisor, Doctor, who is taking all calls there herself,” he announced. “A police-constable is on the lookout, and will let us know.”
Mr. Redwood looked at Manson. “Then you think there is something queer, Doctor?” he asked.
“I feel that the fire has the same characteristics as the seven we discussed some time ago, Mr. Redwood,” was the reply. “There is the same fierceness of flame which has destroyed nearly everything. There is the same loneliness of position making it possible for the flames to get a very considerable—in fact, almost a hopeless—hold before there was any likelihood of discovery. Whether it is just chance or design I am not prepared to say, at present. But I propose to make one or two experiments, which may give me data on which to express such an opinion.”
He turned to the salvage corps officer. “You know who I am, Captain?”
