“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but we are hoping you could help us with some information,” he said, when Mr. Harford came to speak to him in the entrance hall of “Belle Vista.”
“That’s as may be, officer. Come along in. I’m all for keeping on the right side of the law, and I don’t call to mind having murdered any one recently,” replied Mr. Harford.
Seated in the untidy but comfortable “den” of the master of the house, Reeves went on:
“You’ll call to mind a little collision you had at the corner of Elms Avenue and the Watford by-pass last May, Sir?”
“Good Lord, but that’s all settled and done with months ago,” replied Mr. Harford indignantly, and Reeves nodded reassuringly.
“Yes, Sir. It’s nothing to do with reopening that case, or anything of that kind. I’m making inquiries about the other party in the matter – the owner of the car you collided with. I expect you remember his name.”
“Can’t say I do – I’ve a shocking memory for names,” replied Mr. Harford. “I know it was an uncommon sort of name. I’ll look it up for you if that’s all you want.”
“No. I know the name – Mallowood, Basil Mallowood,” replied Reeves, and seeing no response on the other’s face, he added, “Haven’t you noticed the name in the papers lately, sir?”
“No. I’m afraid I haven’t. The fact is, I don’t bother much about the papers these days. I’ve got very keen on gardening since I retired, and the papers don’t interest me much, barring the pools and racing results,” said Mr. Harford with a lively wink, adding, “that’s hoping you won’t use same in evidence against me, officer.”
Reeves grinned. “That’s nothing to do with me, sir, there’s plenty of sound folk enjoy a flutter sometimes. Now about this Mr. Mallowood,” and Reeves gave a short resumé of the facts concerning Basil Mallowood’s suicide, his words being interspersed by ejaculations of surprise from Mr. Harford, until Reeves concluded: “Now we are trying to collect all the evidence we can about Mr. Mallowood, particularly about any assets left by him, and we’re not at all satisfied we’ve got to the bottom of the matter. In confidence, we think it possible he may have held other property under a different name, and we are trying to locate it.”
Mr. Harford showed an immediate appreciation of this point, and treated Reeves to another wink.
“Ah, ha! Looking for the keyhole to fit the second latch key, officer?”
“I didn’t put it quite that way myself, sir,” said Reeves, “but between you and me, that’s the idea – though you might get into very serious trouble if you suggested such a thing to any one else,” he added warningly, and Mr. Harford rubbed his nose with a stubby finger.
“I get you,” he replied. “Well, I don’t see that I can help you much, but I do know that he had a very high-class dame in that car with him. Was he married, by the way?”
“Not to our knowledge,” replied Reeves, and Mr. Harford put in suddenly:
“That’ll interest our Elsie, that will. Elsie, she’s my daughter, and a very good daughter, too. She was in the car with me that day we had our spot of trouble. He was a nasty nose-in-air sort of cuss,” went on Mr. Harford. “Spoke to me as though I was dirt, and made enough fuss to beat the band. I was in the wrong, and I knew it, but that Malloby, or whatever his name was, he was real downright disagreeable, and made fuss enough so’s you’d think his whole outfit was wrecked and himself crippled for life, instead of its being a matter of a dented wing and scratched paint. Our Elsie, she told him so, she was that mad the way he spoke to me. Funny, it was about the dame who was with him I was talking about. Elsie summed her up afterwards. ‘Thinks a lot of herself, but I bet I know what sort she is,’ said our Elsie – and if that’s libel, officer, well, you asked me to talk, and I’ve taken you at your word.”
“Just so, sir,” replied Reeves cheerfully, “and I hope you’ll go on talking. We get a lot of things told us in our job, and we know what not to put in our reports. Now I wonder if you could give me a description of this lady you’re talking about.”
“That’s a tall order for a chap like me, officer. It’s our Elsie you want to talk to. Come to think of it, she had a lot to say about that classy bit of goods in the Sunbeam. Elsie, she was an assistant at the Purple Orchis – that’s one of those high class road-houses out Penharden way, and Elsie said she’d seen this dame dancing there. I didn’t listen to all her chatter at the time, being worried about that collision we’d had, but Elsie, she’d remember all about it. I know the lady was a very smart sort of customer, turned out in first-rate style, though I’m not partial to paint myself. A blonde she was – gold hair and blue eyes, like you get in the story books, but not all that young.”
“It looks to me as though I’d better go and make friends with your Elsie,” said Reeves cheerfully. “Is she still at the Purple Orchis?”
“No. They cut down staff when the summer motoring season’s over,” replied Mr. Harford. “She’s in the box office of the Superb Cinema in St. Albans now. She’s on duty this evening, too. If you cut along now, you’d find her just at a slack time, before the 9.0 o’clock house starts.”
Reeves wasted no time in falling in with this excellent suggestion, and drove on to St. Albans, where he found Miss Harford in the booking office. Her father had rung up and told her that a C.I.D. man was calling to see her, and Elsie was all agog over this event. However, since the evening’s bookings promised to be unusually large, and the box office was by no means having a quiet time, Elsie Harford made the sensible suggestion that Reeves should go in and see the picture through and talk to her afterwards.
The C.I.D. man agreed to this pleasant variation on his duty, and spent a pleasant evening chuckling over “Contraband.” Reeves had summed up Elsie Harford as a shrewd, capable young woman of the modern type, “hard as nails, but quick in the uptake” was Reeves’ estimate of her, and he felt hopeful that she might be able to produce some useful facts.
When the film was drawing to its close, Reeves went back to the box office and was invited into an inner office. Miss Harford looked at him with her shrewd appraising eyes – eyes which missed nothing.
“I’ve told the manager you want some evidence about a car collision, and that I’m only a witness,” she said. “You can tell him the same yourself, so’s he doesn’t get it into his head the police are out after me.”
“I’ll do that all right,” agreed Reeves, and continued with a succinct account of his errand. Miss Harford listened attentively, staring at Reeves with her hard bright blue eyes – she was a bit like a good china doll herself, Reeves thought, with her rouged cheeks, tightly curled hair, and unwinking stare.
“Yes, I see. You want to know where she lives,” said Elsie Harford. “I can’t say I’m keen on giving people away to you cops,” she added. “After all, it’s not her fault if her boy friend was a rotter, but I was mad the way he spoke to my dad, and she just sat there, looking at us as though we were a nasty smell, and Mum crying because she was all upset. Well, as it happens, I’ve seen her again – the last evening I was at the Purple Orchis. She was wearing a real lovely frock, one of those queer petunia colours with a silver sash and silver shoes. I know where she got that frock, too. There’s a French dress shop in Golders Green. Sounds a bit rum, but this Madame Collette, she sells just lovely things – lovely prices, too, you bet. It was at the end of September that frock was in. the shop – I saw it when I went in with a girlfriend who wanted a job as mannequin.”
“By jove, that’s jolly smart of you,” said Reeves. “It’s a bit of luck for me, you being so observant. So few people notice things, or if they notice them they forget all about them.”
“If you’d had the jobs I’ve had you’d have learnt to be observant,” she retorted crushingly. “My word, you see some queer goings on and some queer customers in a place like the Purple Orchis. Even in a box office you’ve got to be pretty spry.”
“I bet you have,“said Reeves. “Now look here. Can y
ou help me a bit more? I want a description of that frock you saw the lady in – a real good description, so that the owner of the shop couldn’t fail to recognise it – unless, of course, your girl friend got the job of mannequin there. In which case, she might help.”
“You’re jolly certain we’re all on tiptoes yearning to help you, aren’t you?” retorted Elsie. “My friend – I know what she’d say to you – ‘Don’t know, I’m sure,’ – and you can’t get past that, can you? If I’d like to’ve made out I was just stupid and hadn’t noticed, you couldn’t have made me remember, and that’s a fact.”
“No. I couldn’t, but neither would you have made me believe you were stupid,” said Reeves with a grin. “We use our eyes in my job, too. Then there’s this to it,” he went on more seriously. “You may be scornful about helping the police, but come to think of it, you wouldn’t have much chance of getting on in the world if there weren’t law and order and all that. Our job’s to prevent people getting swindled, and you’ve got the brains to know it. You were mad because you say this Mr. Mallowood looked down his nose at your dad. You’d have been madder if your dad had been swindled – and madder still if other people pretended to be silly instead of helping so that your dad could get his rights.”
“My! You don’t half talk when you get going,” she replied. “Still, you do talk sense, I’ll say that for you. Now look here, it’s getting late, and they want to close down here. If you come back to-morrow night, I’ll have seen my friend, and I’ll find out the name of the customer who bought that frock and tell you, and after that you ought to stand me a private tour of Scotland Yard.”
“I would – if I were allowed,” said Reeves, “but I tell you I shall be jolly grateful, and you’ll have done a good bit of work.”
“Hope so, though it still seems a bit mean to me,” she replied. “Still, I suppose it’s ll on the square, you being a Yard fellow,” she concluded.
Reeves filled in the next day with a variety of jobs. He had now got copies from the Passport Office of photographs of Paul, Basil and Richard Mallowood, but, like most passport photographs, they were very indifferent portraits, and might have passed for a variety of dark-haired, dark-eyed men. He also got into touch with Macdonald by telephone, and received further instructions as to his next move if his inquiry progressed favourably.
Miss Elsie Harford would have been exceedingly indignant had she known that an unobtrusive woman-detective, hitting without hesitation on the time that two working girls would meet, had sat next to them in a café in Golders Green where Elsie had made an assignation with her mannequin friend, Ida Brown, and that the said woman officer had listened-in very successfully to the bulk of the girls’ conversation. By two o’clock in the afternoon, Reeves had learnt that the purchaser of the petunia frock was a Mrs. Brownleigh, and that her address was in Varley Close, a new “residential estate” just off Hendon Way. The lady in question was well known at Madame Collette’s, and the woman detective was much entertained by the naïve manner in which Elsie Harford asked her friend questions. In fact, Elsie’s shrewdness in covering the real reason for her inquiries under a show of tremendous interest in clothes was a real piece of detective work which the officer duly appreciated.
The next step in the enquiry took both Detective Reeves and his woman colleague (Detective Caroline Wright) into the vicinity of Varley Close to test the question if they were on the right scent or merely following a promising red herring. “Alvarley,” Mrs. Brownleigh’s house, proved to be closed, its owner away. Inquiries of her neighbours elicited the fact that she had “gone on a cruise” a month ago, though no information was forthcoming as to the direction of her cruise. Detective Wright was able to put in some useful work with the neighbouring servants, under cover of a hypothetical domestic job offered by a distant registry office, and she learnt that Mrs. Brownleigh had had two daily maids (who came from Golders Green) but no resident servant. Mr. Brownleigh, she was told, was not often at home, barring week-ends, and no one seemed to know much about him, except that he had a “posh car.” Mrs. Brownleigh was a very stand-offish neighbour, and her servants resembled her in being uncommunicative.
Reeves, armed with copies of the passport photographs, was able to take a more direct line. He made inquiries of postman, roadman, errand boys and neighbouring tradesmen. Three of these identified “Mr. Brownleigh” with the portrait obtained from Basil Mallowood’s passport. A nearby garage owner preferred Paul Mallowood’s portrait as the likeness of Mr. Brownleigh, who had occasionally put in for petrol. The postman said that all letters for “Alvarley” were being readdressed to Mrs. Brownleigh’s bank – the City and Provincial branch in Hendon. Reeves made his way to this establishment and asked to see the manager.
The C.I.D. man knew well enough that while bank managers are not in the least likely to give information about their clients’ affairs without a very authoritative demand from the powers that be, the said managers are very safe recipients of a confidence.
Mr. Thornhill, manager of the Hendon branch, was a rather lawyer-like, grey-haired man, severe of face and sparing of words. Reeves presented his police card, stated that he was employed on the inquiry into the affairs of the late Basil Mallowood, and asked for an assurance that the interview might be regarded as confidential. The C.I.D. man watched the manager’s face carefully, for the former was pretty certain that Mallowood’s affairs must be a matter of burning interest to all interested in finance and investment, and he saw Mr. Thornhill’s rather lack-lustre eyes brighten in anticipation.
“You may rest assured that your confidence will be respected, officer. What brings you to me?”
“Information received leads us to believe that the late Mr. Mallowood spent a portion of his time – week-ends, as a rule – in a house whose lessee is one of your clients, sir. The matter is not established beyond dispute, and it is necessary to move very carefully. That is why I laid so much stress on the confidential nature of this interview. To put the matter plainly, three different persons have identified a photograph of Basil Mallowood as a man commonly known as Mr. Brownleigh. Mrs. Brownleigh, of Alvarley, is one of your clients in this branch, I understand.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the manager, his voice utterly horrified. “You amaze me, officer! Have you substantial grounds for this allegation?”
“Substantial enough to justify me in this inquiry, sir. I came to you hoping that you might be able to help me with information. Is Mr. Brownleigh known to you?”
“No, certainly not. I have never seen him and know nothing about him. Mrs. Brownleigh has a private account here, and I know her slightly. She once said that her husband was frequently abroad and kept his banking account separate from hers. Naturally I made no further comment. My only concern was with Mrs. Brownleigh’s account – a matter which has never occasioned me any anxiety.”
“I gather that the lady herself is now abroad, sir, and that her letters are being forwarded by your branch,” went on Reeves, but Mr. Thornhill retorted sharply:
“You are outrunning your information, officer. However, before we proceed further, I think that you said that you had a photograph of Basil Mallowood?”
“Yes, sir. Here it is.”
Mr. Thornhill glanced at it, and then said:
“As I told you, Mr. Brownleigh is unknown to me, but the head clerk here lives in the Brownleighs’ neighbourhood, and has seen Mrs. Brownleigh out with her husband. I will ask Mr. Wilson – our head clerk – to come in, and you can see if he recognises the photograph. I believe it is customary in these cases to offer a variety of photographs for identification?”
“Yes, sir. I will follow the usual routine,” replied Reeves, producing a number of photographs from his wallet.
A moment later Wilson, the head clerk, a man not far short of Mr. Thornhill’s age, came into the manager’s office, and the latter said:
“I think you know Mrs. Brownleigh’s husband by sight, Wilson. This is a confidential matter, but th
is officer from Scotland Yard wishes you to try to identify Mr. Brownleigh’s photo from the collection he will show you – if Mr. Brownleigh’s is among them.”
Reeves spread out his photographs – a collection of very varying types, and Mr. Wilson studied them carefully. He picked out the one of Basil Mallowood after a careful scrutiny, saying:
“This, I should say, is a photograph of the man I have frequently seen with Mrs. Brownleigh. It is not a very good likeness, but I give it as my opinion that it is the man whom I have seen entering and leaving Mrs. Brownleigh’s house. I don’t think I can be mistaken, though I should hesitate to swear to it.” He studied the photograph again, axed then added, “I’m pretty well certain. It’s ‘a strongly marked type of face.”
Reeves thanked him, and the head clerk left the office, after a glance of inquiry at the manager, who said nothing to satisfy the other’s evident curiosity. Mr. Thornhill then said to Reeves:
“You seem to have established your point, officer. I can only tell you that I am amazed – absolutely, amazed. However, to anticipate your further questions, we have no record of any transactions here which could further your inquiry. Neither are we in possession of Mrs. Brownleigh’s address. She wrote advising us that she was going abroad for an unspecified period, and asked us to hold any letters readdressed to her here until she could let us have a forwarding address. Since then she has not advised us further.”
With this information Reeves had to be content for the moment. Any examination of Mrs. Brownleigh’s account or correspondence was a matter for his superior officers to arrange with the directors of the bank – and very good reason would have to be found before the bank officials would part with any information at all concerning the affairs of their client. In this matter, Reeves was not greatly interested. He had, with the assistance of considerable good luck, established the point with which he had been entrusted – the discovery of Basil Mallowood’s alternative home.
Rope's End, Rogue's End Page 13
