The Crime Club

by Frank Froest

  ‘Good Lord! Here’s another vulture. It’s no good, Mr Silvervale. We’ve just been telling your friends here that we don’t know anything. The doctors have not finished their examination yet.’

  ‘But it looks like suicide, Mr Forrester,’ interposed one of the crowd. ‘You’ve found a pistol.’

  A knowing smile extended on Detective-Inspector Forrester’s genial countenance. ‘That won’t work, boys,’ he remonstrated with a reproving shake of his head. ‘You don’t draw me.’

  Silvervale managed to get the detective aside. ‘You must give me five minutes,’ he whispered hastily. ‘I know who killed her. I came over in the same boat.’

  Forrester thrust his hands deep in his trousers’ pockets. His brow puckered a little, and he studied the journalist’s face thoughtfully. For all his casual unworried air, his instinct rather than anything definite in the preliminary investigations had warned him that the case was likely to prove a difficult one. A detective—the real detective—is quite as willing to take short cuts in his work as any other business man.

  ‘The deuce you do,’ he said. ‘Come, let’s get out of this. Half a moment, Roker.’

  His assistant disengaged himself from the other newspaper men, and Forrester led the way to the lift. At the third floor they emerged. Very quietly the door of the lift closed behind them, and half-unconsciously Silvervale found himself tiptoeing along the corridor, although in any event the soft carpet would have deadened all sound. A man standing stiffly against a white door flung it open as they approached. Within, a couple of men were bending over something on a couch, and two more were busy near the window overlooking the river. No one looked up. Forrester passed straight through to another and smaller room, and fitted his burly form to a basket arm-chair. He waved Silvervale to another one.

  ‘And now fire away, sonny,’ he said.

  Concisely, in quick, succinct sentences, Silvervale told his story. As he concluded, Forrester drew a worn briar pipe from his pocket and packed it with a meditative forefinger.

  ‘Are you writing anything about this?’

  ‘Not a word. I know I may be wanted as a witness.’

  ‘That’s true.’ The inspector puffed contemplatively for a moment. ‘Then there’s this, I don’t mind telling you: That chap downstairs was right. There was a pistol—a five-chambered revolver—found clutched in that woman’s hand. But de Reszke is missing. He never came with her to the hotel.’

  ‘Then you think it is suicide after all?’

  The detective leaned forward and levelled a heavy forefinger at his questioner. ‘You’ve earned a right to know something of this business, Mr Silvervale. It’s no suicide. The body was discovered by the maid just after five o’clock. No one had heard a shot, but that’s nothing—these walls are pretty well sound-proof. The dead woman was lying on a couch with the revolver in her hand—so the girl’s story runs. She thought her mistress was asleep, and it was only when she touched her and the weapon fell to the floor that she discovered she was dead. She was shot through the left eye.’

  ‘I see. You mean a woman wouldn’t kill herself that way. She’d poison or drown herself—some bloodless death.’

  ‘There is something in that, but it proves little by itself. But there are not many people who’d shoot themselves deliberately in the eye. It’s curious, but there—But to my mind the conclusive thing is the pistol. Any student of medical jurisprudence will tell you that usually it needs considerable force to relax the grip of a corpse from anything it is clutching at the moment of death. No, Mr Silvervale, this is a carefully calculated murder, if ever there was one. And I think your information will help us to fix the man. Roker’—he addressed his companion—‘you might get hold of the maid again. Get a full description of de Reszke, and there’s bound to be a photograph somewhere. Take ’em along to the Yard and have ’em circulated. We merely want to question him, mind. Now, Mr Silvervale, we’ll see what the doctors say.’

  The two doctors, the police divisional surgeon and the medical man who had been first called on the discovery of the murder, had finished their examination as Forrester passed into the next room. He spoke a few words in an undertone to the surgeon, who nodded assentingly.

  The two men by the window were still busy. Now Silvervale had an opportunity to see what occupied them. They were busy with scale plans of the room whereon were shown the relative positions of everything in the room, marked out even to inches. Photographs, he surmised, must already have been taken.

  Forrester seemed to have forgotten Silvervale’s existence. As soon as the doctors had gone, the inspector had extracted a small bottle of black powder from his pocket and sprinkled it delicately over the open pages of a book resting on a table a couple of yards from the couch. Presently he blew the stuff away. The finger-prints had developed in relief on the white margin.

  ‘There’s a blotting-pad over there on the writing-table, Mr Silvervale,’ he said; ‘would you mind helping me for a moment?’

  Forrester was cool and business-like, yet it was very gently that he lifted the dead white hands and impressed the finger-tips on a sheet of paper on top of the pad. Silently he compared the impressions with those on the book.

  ‘I’m only an amateur at this finger-print game,’ he said at last. ‘Grant ought to have been here. See if you make these prints agree, Mr Silvervale.’

  Silvervale carried the book to the window and bent his brows over it. He found it slow work, but at last he raised his head. ‘These are her thumb-prints on the outer margin,’ he said. ‘The one at the bottom of the book is not hers.’

  ‘That’s how I make it. Now we can get a fair theory of how the thing was done: Mrs de Reszke was on the couch reading. The murderer entered softly from the corridor, closing the door behind him. She looked up and placed the book beside her. He must have fired point-blank. Then to work out his idea of suicide he placed the pistol in her hand, and, picking up the book, put it on the table. Here’s where we start from—a piece of indisputable proof when we catch the murderer.’

  A little contempt at the apparent deliberation of the detective—at the finesse wasted on what seemed an obvious case—had come to Silvervale’s mind. He hazarded a suggestion; Forrester grinned.

  ‘I’ll bet a dollar I know what you’re thinking. I’m wasting my time meddling with details while the murderer’s escaping. Do you know I had five men here besides these’—he nodded towards the draughtsmen—‘questioning every one who might know anything about the case? Mrs de Reszke has received no one; no one resembling her husband has been seen in the hotel. Do you know that there is not one railway station in London, not one hotel that is not even now being searched for a trace of de Reszke? We are not so slow as our critics think. If de Reszke did this murder he won’t get away, you can take it from me. There’s plenty of people trying to catch him—I’ve seen to that.’

  He checked himself suddenly as if he realised that he had for a while lost his wonted imperturbability. ‘I thought you knew better than to run away with the delusion that all we’ve got to do is to arrest a man we’ve fixed our suspicions on. In point of fact it is often more difficult to get material evidence of a moral certainty than to start without any facts at all.’

  He moved heavily to the door. ‘I’m going on to the Yard,’ he said. ‘Care to come?’

  As they turned under the big wrought-iron arch that spanned the entrance to New Scotland Yard, Silvervale noted that they avoided the little back door that leads to the Criminal Investigation Department and went up by the broad main entrance to those rooms on one of the topmost floors devoted to the Finger-print Department.

  Grant, the chief of the department, a black-moustached giant with lined forehead and shrewd, penetrative eyes, was seated at a low table pushing a magnifying-glass across a sheet of paper. Forrester had clapped him heavily on the shoulder, and he wheeled around frowningly.

  ‘It’s you, is it?’ he growled. ‘One of these days you’ll play that trick too of
ten, my lad. Of course, you come when every one’s gone home. What do you want?’

  ‘Don’t be peevish, old man,’ smiled Forrester, and seated himself on the table. ‘You’ll be sorry you weren’t more kind to me when the daisies are growing over my grave.’

  ‘Fungi, you mean,’ retorted Grant acidly. ‘What’s the bother?’

  ‘This.’ Forrester produced the book he had found at the hotel and the scrap of paper on which he had taken the murdered woman’s finger-prints. ‘It’s the Palatial Hotel business. The prints on the paper are those of Mrs de Reszke. They agree with those on the sides of the book. The one at the bottom of the book is that of the murderer.’

  ‘H’m.’ Grant glanced at the prints and gave a corroborative nod. ‘You’ll want photographs of these, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes—as soon as I can get them. I suppose you’ll have to have a search to make sure that the other print isn’t on the records. It’s unlikely, though.’

  ‘That will have to wait. I’ll have the photographs taken and sent down to you as soon as they’re ready. Now go away.’

  He dismissed them abruptly, and they could hear his deep voice thundering into the telephone receiver as they made their exit. He was ordering a wire to be sent recalling one of the staff photographers. As in any other big business firm, the ordinary staff of Scotland Yard goes off duty at six.

  Downstairs in his own room, Forrester found three or four subordinates and a handful of reports and messages awaiting him. His leisurely manner dropped from him. He became brisk, official, brusque. A shorthand clerk with open notebook was waiting, and to him the chief inspector poured out the bulk of his instructions to be forwarded by telegraph or telephone. Silvervale realised how vast and complex were the resources that were being handled to solve the mystery.

  Forrester dismissed the clerk at last and turned abruptly on the waiting men. There was no waste of words on either side. As the final subordinate left the room, Forrester yawned and stretched himself wearily.

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘I guess we can’t do anything more for an hour or two. It may interest you, Mr Silvervale, to know that de Reszke has booked a passage back to New York in his own name, by the boat that leaves Liverpool the day after tomorrow. He called at the White Star offices at five o’clock. It’s a bluff, I guess, and pretty obvious at that. He thinks we’ll concentrate attention on that scent while he slips some other way. Yes—what is it?’

  Someone had torn the door open hurriedly. A young man, tall and sparse, whispered a few words into Forrester’s ear. The chief inspector sat up as though galvanised. His hand searched for the telephone.

  ‘Get him put through here … You have a taxi-cab ready, Bolt. You may have to come with me.’ The young man vanished and Forrester spoke into the telephone. ‘Hello, that you, Gould?… Yes, this is Forrester … At the Metz, you say … How many men have you? All right, I’ll be along straight away. Good-bye.’

  ‘Located him?’ ventured Silvervale.

  ‘Yes.’ Forrester’s brow was puckered. ‘He’s at the Metz under his own name. Hanged if I can make it out. He’s either mad or he’s got the nerve of the very devil. Come on!’

  Bolt was awaiting them in a taxi-cab outside, which whirled them swiftly away as they took their seats. They drew up in Piccadilly, a hundred yards or so from the severe arches of the great hotel, and walked forward till they were met by a bronzed, well-dressed man of middle age who nodded affably and fell into step with them.

  ‘Well, Gould?’ queried Forrester.

  ‘Everything serene, sir. He’s gone in to dinner. There’s two of our men dining at the next table.’

  ‘That’s all right then. I’ll see the manager and fix things.’

  A commissionaire pushed back the revolving door and the four walked in.

  Five minutes later a waiter crossed the softly-lighted dining-room with a card. It did not contain Forrester’s name—nor indeed that of anyone he knew. Nor did de Reszke seem to know it, for he frowned as the waiter presented it to him.

  ‘I don’t know any Mr Grahame Johnston,’ he said. ‘This isn’t for me.’

  The waiter was deferential. ‘The gentleman said, “Mr John de Reszke,” sir. He says it’s very urgent, and wants you to spare him a minute in the smoking-room.’

  The millionaire slowly divested himself of the serviette, and rising, shambled after the waiter. Curiously enough, one of the diners at the adjoining table seemed simultaneously to have occasion to leave the room by the same exit.

  Forrester and his companions were waiting in a small room which had been placed at their disposal. As de Reszke was ushered in, the first face he caught sight of was that of Silvervale. His face lowered and he paused on the threshold.

  Quickly and deftly Gould shouldered by him as though to pass out. De Reszke gave way, and the detective closed the door and leaned nonchalantly against it.

  ‘Mr de Reszke,’ said Forrester quickly, ‘I am a police officer. Your wife has been murdered since her arrival in London. If you wish to make any statement as to your movements you may do so, though I must warn you that unless you can definitely convince me that you had no hand in the murder I may have to arrest you.’

  Blankly, uncomprehendingly, de Reszke stared in front of him as though he had not heard. His lean fingers clenched and unclenched, and his eyes had become dull. The police officers, although neither their attitudes nor their faces showed it, had braced themselves to overcome him at the first hint of resistance. But this man had no appearance of being the madman that Silvervale had pictured. The life seemed to have gone out of him.

  ‘You heard me?’ questioned Forrester sharply.

  ‘I heard you,’ said de Reszke dully. ‘You say Nell’s dead—no, not Nell—her name’s not Eleanor; it’s Madeline—Madeline Fulford; that’s it—she’s been murdered? I heard—ha! ha! ha!’ He broke into shrill uncanny laughter, and then pressing both hands to his temples pitched forward heavily to the floor.

  ‘A doctor, someone,’ ordered Forrester, and Gould vanished. Unconscious, de Reszke was lifted to a couch by the other three. Forrester shrugged his shoulders. ‘Looks like a bad job,’ he muttered.

  The doctor summoned by Gould confirmed the suspicion. ‘It’s a paralytic stroke,’ he explained. ‘I doubt if he’ll ever get over it. You gentlemen are friends of his?’

  Forrester inserted a couple of fingers in his waistcoat pocket. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘We are police officials. There is my card.’

  ‘Ah!’ The doctor’s eyebrows jerked up. ‘Well, it’s no business of mine. Of course, it’s obvious that he’s had a shock.’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Forrester.

  The inevitable search of de Reszke’s room and baggage had been conducted with thoroughness, but it yielded nothing that seemed of importance to the investigation. Forrester voiced his misgivings as he walked back to Scotland Yard with Silvervale.

  ‘This business is running too smoothly. I don’t like it. I feel there’s a smack in the eye coming from somewhere. There’s several little odds and ends to be cleared up. It would have been easier if he hadn’t had that stroke.’

  ‘There’s the finger-print on the book,’ ventured Silvervale.

  ‘Yes. I took de Reszke’s and sent Bolt with them to the Yard. Grant will have fixed all that up by the time we get there.’

  Grant was waiting for them when they arrived. On his table he had spread out a series of enlargements of finger-prints. He shook his head gravely at Forrester. ‘It’s no good, old chap,’ he said. ‘These things you sent me up by Bolt don’t tally.’

  Forrester, suddenly arrested with his overcoat half off, felt his jaw drop. For a second he frowned upon Grant. Then he writhed himself free of the garment. ‘Don’t tally?’ he repeated. ‘You’re joking, Grant. They must.’

  ‘Well, they don’t.’

  The chief detective-inspector brought his fist down with a bang on the table. He laid no claim to the superhuman intelligence of
the story-book detectives. Therefore he was considerably annoyed at this abrupt discovery of a vital flaw in the chain of evidence that connected de Reszke with the murder. He had no personal feeling in the matter. It was merely the discontent of the business man at finding that work had been wasted. He brought his fist down with a bang on the table.

  ‘It beats me,’ he declared viciously. ‘It fairly beats me. Who else could have done it? Who else had a motive?’

  Grant stole out of the room, and Silvervale rested his elbows on the table and his chin in his cupped hands, striving to recall some avenue of investigation that he might have overlooked.

  Suddenly his face lightened and he jerked himself from his chair with a swift movement of his whole body. Ignoring the journalist, he rushed from the room. It was long before he returned. When he did he was accompanied by Grant.

  ‘Tell me’—he addressed Silvervale—‘did you ever see Crake?’

  The other shook his head. ‘I was out of town when he was tried. It was after the case was over that I interviewed Madeline Fulford.’

  Grant was frowning. ‘If I hadn’t seen the records, Forrester, I’d say you were mad. It’s the most unheard-of thing …’

  ‘We’ll see whether I’m mad or not,’ said the chief inspector grimly. He placed a photograph, the official side and full-face, before Silvervale. ‘Did you ever see that man before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor that?’ The second photograph was a studio portrait with the name of a Strand firm at the bottom. It awoke some vague reminiscence in Silvervale. He held it closer to the light.

  ‘Wait a minute.’ Grant placed a sheet of paper over the bottom of the face, hiding the moustache and chin. Recollection came to Silvervale in a flash. It was Norman, the man with the lustreless blue eyes who had commented on Madeline Fulford in the smoking-room of the Columbia.

  He explained. ‘The hair’s done differently,’ he added, ‘but I can recognise the upper part of the face, though he’s older now than when this photograph was taken. Do you think he’s mixed up in this?’