‘Madam, sir? Yes, she went out a little time ago.’
‘Went out, you fool? Where?’ stormed Jeff.
‘I don’t know, sir. She just went out. I saw her going along the corridor.’
Jeff seized his hat and went down the stairs three at a time. The reception clerk had not seen the girl, nor had any of the pages, or the porter on the door. Oblivious to any immediate danger, he dashed out into the street, and, looking up and down, saw the minder and called him.
‘She hasn’t come out this entrance. There’s another in Pall Mall, he explained. ‘Jimmy Low’s there.’
But the second man on the Pall Mall entrance had not seen her either. Jeff went back to interview the manager.
‘There is no other way out, sir, unless she went down the service stairs.’
‘It was that cursed maid, the Welsh woman,’ snarled Jeffrey. ‘Who is she? Can I see her?’
‘She went off duty this afternoon, sir,’ said the manager. ‘Is there anything I can do? Perhaps the lady has gone out for a little walk? Does she know London?’
Jeff did not stop to reply: he fled up the stairs, back to the room, and made a quick search. The girl’s dressing-case, which he knew had been taken into the bedroom, was gone. Something on the floor attracted his attention. He picked it up, and read the few scribbled lines, torn from a notebook; and as he read, a light came into his eyes. Very carefully he folded the crumpled sheet and put it into his pocket. Then he went back to his sitting-room, and sat for a long time in the big armchair, his legs thrust out before him, his hands deep in his trousers pockets, and his thoughts were not wholly unpleasant.
The light was now nearly gone, and he got up. ‘Room thirteen,’ he said. ‘Room thirteen is going to hold a few surprises tonight!’
Chapter 13
To Parker, the valet, as he laid out Johnny’s dress clothes, there was a misfortune and a tragedy deeper than any to which Johnny had been a spectator. Johnny, loafing into his bedroom, a long, black, ebonite cigarette-holder between his teeth, found his man profoundly agitated.
‘The buckle of your white dress waistcoat has in some unaccountable way disappeared,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘I’m extremely sorry, sir, because this is the only white dress waistcoat you have.’
‘Be cheerful,’ said Johnny. ‘Take a happier view of life. You can tie the tapes behind. You could even sew me together, Parker. Are you an expert needle worker, or do you crochet?’
‘My needlework has been admired, sir,’ said Parker complacently. ‘I think yours is an excellent suggestion. Otherwise, the waistcoat will not sit as it should. Especially in the case of a gentleman with your figure.’
‘Parker,’ said Johnny, as he began to dress leisurely, ‘have you ever killed a man?’
‘No, sir, I have never killed a man,’ said Parker gravely. ‘When I was a young man, I once ran over a cat – I was a great cyclist in my youth.’
‘But you never killed a man? And, what is more, you’ve never even wanted to kill a man?’
‘No, sir, I can’t say that I ever have,’ said Parker after a few moments’ consideration, as though it were possible that some experience had been his which had been overlooked in the hurry of his answering.
‘It is quite a nice feeling, Parker. Is there a hip pocket to these – yes, there is,’ he said, patting his trousers.
‘I’m sorry there is,’ said Parker, ‘very sorry indeed. Gentlemen get into the habit of carrying their cigarette cases in the hip pocket, with the result that the coat tail is thrown out of shape. That is where the dinner jacket has its advantages – the Tuxedo, as an American gentleman once called it, though I’ve never understood why a dinner jacket should be named after a Scottish town.’
‘Tuxedo is in Dixie,’ said Johnny humorously, ‘and Dixie is America’s lost Atlantis. Don’t worry about the set of my coat tail. I am not carrying my cigarette case there.’
‘Anything more bulky would of course be worse, sir,’ said Parker, and Johnny did not carry the discussion any farther.
‘Get me a cab,’ he ordered.
When Parker returned, he found his master was fully dressed.
‘You will want your cane, sir. Gentlemen are carrying them now in evening dress. There is one matter I would like to speak to you about before you go – it is something that has been rather worrying me for the past few days.’
Johnny was leaving the room, and turned.
‘Anything serious?’ he asked, for a moment deceived.
‘I don’t like telling you, sir, but I have discussed the matter with very knowledgeable people, and they are agreed that French shapes are no longer worn in silk hats. You occasionally see them in theatrical circles –’
Johnny put up a solemn hand.
‘Parker, do not let us discuss my general shabbiness. I didn’t even know I had a hat of French shape.’ He took off his hat and looked at it critically. ‘It is a much better shape than the hat I was wearing a week ago, Parker, believe me!’
‘Of course I believe you, sir,’ agreed Parker, and turned to the door.
Johnny dismissed his cab in Shaftesbury Avenue and walked down toward the club. It was dark now; half-past nine had chimed as he came along Piccadilly.
It was a point of honour with all members of the Highlow that nobody drove up to the club, and its very existence was unknown to the taximen. That was a rule that had been made, and most faithfully adhered to; and the members of the Highlow observed their rules, for, if a breach did not involve a demand for their resignation, it occasionally brought about a broken head.
Just before he reached the club, he saw somebody cross the road. It was not difficult to recognise Jeff Legge. Just at that moment it would have been rather embarrassing for Johnny to have met the man. He turned and walked back the way he had come, to avoid the chance of their both going up in the elevator together.
Jeff Legge was in a hurry: the elevator did not move fast enough for him, and he stepped out on to the third floor and asked a question.
‘No, sir, nobody has come. If they do, I’ll send them along to you. Where will you be? You haven’t a room engaged – your own room is taken. We don’t often let it, but we’re full tonight, and Mr Legge raised no objection.’
‘No, I don’t object,’ said Jeff; ‘but don’t you worry about that. Let me see the book.’
Again the red-covered engagement book was opened. Jeff read and nodded.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Now tell me again who is here.’
‘There is Mr George Kurlu, with a party of friends in No. 3; there’s Mr Bob Albutt and those two young ladies he goes about with – they’re in No. 4.’ And so he recited until he came to No. 13.
‘I know all about No. 13,’ said Jeff Legge between his teeth. ‘You needn’t bother about me, however. That will do.’
He strode along the carpeted hallway, turned abruptly into the right-angled passage, and presently stopped before a door with a neat golden ‘13’ painted on its polished panel. He opened the door and went in. On the red-covered table was a bottle of wine and two glasses.
It was a moderately large room, furnished with a sofa, four dining chairs and a deep easy chair, whilst against one wall was a small buffet. The room was brilliantly lighted. Six bracket lamps were blazing; the centre light above the table, with its frosted bulbs, was full on. He did not shut the door, leaving it slightly ajar. There was too much light for his purpose. He first switched out the bracket lamps, and then all but one of the frosted bulbs in the big shaded lamp over the table. Then he sat down, his back to the door, his eyes on the empty fire-grate.
Presently he heard a sound, the whining of the elevator, and smiled. Johnny stepped out to the porter’s desk with a friendly nod.
‘Good evening. Captain,’ said the porter with a broad
grin. ‘Glad to see you back, sir. I wasn’t here last night when you came in. Hope you haven’t had too bad a time in the country?’
‘Abroad, my dear fellow, abroad,’ murmured the other reproachfully, and the porter chuckled. ‘Same old crowd, I suppose?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Same old bolt down the fire-escape when the busies call – or have you got all the busies straightened?’
‘I don’t think there’s much trouble, sir,’ said the porter. ‘We often have a couple of those gentlemen in here to dinner. The club’s very convenient sometimes. I shouldn’t think they’ll ever shut us up.’
‘I shouldn’t think so, either,’ said Johnny. ‘Which of the busies do you get?’
‘Well, sir, we get Mr Craig, and – once we had that Reeder. He came here alone, booked a table and came alone! Can you beat it? Came and had his dinner, saw nobody and went away again. I don’t think he’s right up there’ – he tapped his forehead significantly. ‘Anything less like a busy I’ve never seen.’
‘I don’t know whether he is a detective,’ said Johnny carelessly. ‘From all I’ve heard, he has nothing whatever to do with the police.’
‘Private, is he?’ said the other in a tone of disappointment.
‘Not exactly private. Anyway,’ with a smile, ‘he’s not going to bother you or our honourable members. Anybody here?’
The porter looked to left and right, and lowered his voice.
‘A certain person you know is here,’ he said meaningly.
Johnny laughed.
‘It would be a funny club if there wasn’t somebody I knew,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about me; I’ll find a little corner for myself . . .’
Jeff looked at his watch; it was a quarter to ten, and he glanced up at the light; catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror of the buffet, he was satisfied.
Room 13! And Marney was his wife! The blood surged up into his face, gorging the thick veins in his temples at the thought. She should pay! He had helped the old man, as he would help him in any graft, but he had never identified himself so completely with the plan as he did at that moment.
‘Put her down to the earth,’ had said Emanuel, and by God he would do it. As for Johnny Gray . . .
The door opened stealthily, and a hand came in, holding a Browning. He heard the creak of the door but did not look round, and then –
‘Bang!’
Once the pistol fired. Jeff felt a sharp twitch of pain, exquisite, unbearable, and fell forward on his knees.
Twice he endeavoured to rise, then with a groan fell in a huddled heap, his head in the empty fireplace.
Chapter 14
The doors and the walls of the private dining-rooms were almost sound-proof. No stir followed the shot. In the hall outside, the porter lifted his head and listened.
‘What was that?’ he asked the waiting elevator man.
‘Didn’t hear anything,’ said the other laconically. ‘Somebody slammed a door.’
‘Maybe,’ said the porter, and went back to his book. He was filling in the names of that night’s visitors, an indispensable record in such a club, and he was filling them in with pencil, an equally necessary act of caution, for sometimes the club members desired a quick expungement of this evidence.
In Room 13 silence reigned. A thin blue cloud floated to the ceiling; the door opened a little farther, and Johnny Gray came in, his right hand in his overcoat pocket.
Slowly he crossed the room to where the huddled figure lay, and, stooping, turned it upon its back. Then, after a brief scrutiny, his quick hands went through the man’s pockets. He found something, carried to it the light, read with a frown and pushed the paper into his own pocket. Going out, he closed the door carefully behind him and strolled back to the hall.
‘Not staying, Captain?’ asked the porter in surprise.
‘No, nobody I know here. Queer how the membership changes.’
The man on duty was too well trained to ask inconvenient questions.
‘Excuse me. Captain.’
He went over to Johnny and bent down. ‘You’ve got some blood on your cuff.’
He took out his handkerchief and wiped the stain clean. Then his frowning eyes met the young man’s.
‘Anything wrong, Captain?’
‘Nothing that I can tell you about,’ said Johnny. ‘Good night.’
‘Good night, sir,’ said the porter.
He stood by his desk, looking hard at the glass doors of the elevator, heard the rattle of the gate as it opened, and the whine of the lift as it rose again.
‘Just stay here, and don’t answer any rings till I come back,’ he said.
He hurried along the corridor into the side passage and, coming to No. 13, knocked. There was no answer. He turned the handle. One glance told him all he wanted to know. Gently he closed the door and hurried back to the telephone on his desk.
Before he raised the receiver he called the gaping lift-boy.
‘Go to all the rooms, and say a murder has been committed. Get everybody out.’
He was still clasping the telephone with damp hands when the last frightened guest crowded into the elevator, then: ‘Highlow Club speaking. Is that the Charing Cross Hospital? . . . I want an ambulance here . . . Yes, 38, Boburn Street . . . There’s been an accident.’
He rung off and called another number.
‘Highlow Club. Is that the police station? . . . It’s the porter at the Highlow Club speaking, sir. One of our members has shot himself.’
He put down the instrument and turned his face to the scared elevator man who had returned to the high level. At the end of the passage stood a crowd of worried waiters.
‘Benny,’ he said, ‘Captain Gray hasn’t been here tonight. You understand? Captain – Gray – has – not – been – here – tonight.’
The guest-book was open on the desk. He took his pencil and wrote, on the line where Johnny Gray’s name should have been, ‘Mr William Brown of Toronto’.
Chapter 15
The last of the guests had escaped, when the police came, and, simultaneously with the ambulance, Divisional-Inspector Craig, who had happened to be making a call in the neighbourhood. The doctor who came with the ambulance made a brief examination.
‘He is not dead, though he may be before he reaches hospital,’ he said.
‘Is it a case of suicide?’
The doctor shook his head.
‘Suicides do not, as a rule, shoot themselves under the right shoulder-blade. It would be a difficult operation: try it yourself. I should say he’d been shot from the open doorway.’
He applied a rough first dressing, and Jeffrey was carried into the elevator. In the bottom passage a stretcher was prepared, and upon this he was laid, and, covered with a blanket, carried through the crowd which had assembled at the entrance.
‘Murder, or attempted murder, as the case may be,’ said Craig. ‘Someone has tipped off the guests. You, I suppose, Stevens? Let me see your book.’
The inspector ran his finger down the list, and stopped at Room 13.
‘Mr William Brown of Toronto, Who is Mr Brown of Toronto?’
‘I don’t know, sir. He engaged a room by telephone, I didn’t see him go.’
‘That old fire-escape of yours still working?’ asked Craig sardonically. ‘Anybody else been here? Who is the wounded man? His face seemed familiar to me.’
‘Major Floyd, sir.’
‘Who?’ asked Craig sharply. ‘Impossible! Major Floyd is –’
It was Floyd! He remembered now. Floyd, with whom he had sat that day – that happily-married man!
‘What was he doing here?’ he asked. ‘Now, spill it, Stevens, unless you want to get yourself into pretty bad trouble.’
‘I’v
e spilled all I know, sir,’ said Stevens doggedly. ‘It was Major Floyd.’ And then an inspiration came to him. ‘If you want to know who it was, it was Jeff Legge. Floyd’s his fancy name.’
‘Who?’ Craig had had many shocks in his life, but, this was the greatest he had had for years.
‘Jeff Legge? Old Legge’s son?’
Stevens nodded.
‘Nobody knows that but a couple of us,’ he said. ‘Jeff doesn’t work in the light.’
The officer nodded slowly.
‘I’ve never seen him,’ he admitted. ‘I knew Legge had a son, but I didn’t know he was running crook. I thought he was a bit of a boy.’
‘He’s some boy, let me tell you!’ said Stevens.
Craig sat down, his chin in his hands.
‘Mrs Floyd will have to be told. Good God! Peter Kane’s daughter! Peter didn’t know that he’d married her to Legge’s son?’
‘I don’t know whether he knew or not,’ said Stevens, ‘but if I know old Peter, he’d as soon know that she’d gone to the devil as marry her to a son of Emanuel Legge’s. I’m squeaking in a way,’ he said apologetically, ‘but you’ve got to know – Emanuel will tell you as soon as he gets the news.’
‘Come here,’ said Craig. He took the man’s arm and led him to the passage where the detectives were listening, opened the door of a private room, the table giving evidence of the hasty flight of the diners. ‘Now,’ he said, closing the door, ‘what’s the strength of this story?’
‘I don’t know it all, Mr Craig, but I know they were putting a point on Peter Kane a long time ago. Then one night they brought Peter along and kidded him into thinking that Jeff was a sucker in the hands of the boys. Peter had never seen Jeff before – as a matter of fact, I didn’t know he was Jeff at the time; I’d heard a lot about him, but, like a lot of other people, I hadn’t seen him. Well, they fooled Peter all right. He took the lad away with him. Jeff was wearing a Canadian officer’s uniform, and, of course, Jeff told the tale. He wouldn’t be the son of his father if he didn’t. That’s how he got to know the Kanes, and was taken to their home. When I heard about the marriage, I thought Peter must have known. I never dreamt they were playing a trick on him.’
The Casefiles of Mr J. G. Reeder Page 9
