‘Locked, sir.’
‘Locked?’ French repeated. ‘Are you quite sure that?’
‘Positive,’ Pugg returned. ‘I mightn’t be able to tell you if it ’adn’t been for that there account in the noospaper. But when I read it I thought about the run and I remembered about Sir John and about Mr Coates too.’
‘What you tell me is a bit surprising,’ French declared. ‘Do you know that Mr Coates specially applied for communicating berths for himself and Sir John?’
‘I don’t know nothing about that,’ Pugg said firmly, ‘but I know the communicating door was locked all night.’
‘Mr Coates might have opened it?’
‘I don’t think so, sir. Those are special keys and he wouldn’t ’ave one.’
‘Did you see them speaking together at all?’
‘No, sir. Never met or spoke a word, not so far as I know.’
‘They didn’t arrive together?’
‘No, sir, and they didn’t leave together. I saw them both go at Stranraer. Sir John went first and Mr Coates followed after two or three minutes.’
If the attendant were correct this was certainly a significant fact. It was difficult to believe that communicating berths should have been applied for if they were not wanted. And if they were wanted and Pugg was not asked to open the door, it meant that they were wanted for some secret and therefore presumably improper purpose. French considered.
‘You say you examined the tickets of both men?’
‘Yes, sir. The ticket collector doesn’t come through the sleepers. I do the collecting.’
‘And both gentlemen were going through to Belfast?’
‘No, sir,’ he answered, glancing once again at the book. ‘Sir John Magill had a through ticket to Belfast, but Mr Coates had booked to Stranraer only.’
‘Oh. Stranraer only?’ This was a welcome fact. If Coates had stopped at Stranraer it should be possible to get on to his trail. Once again in the course of a very few hours French experienced a thrill of satisfaction, and from the look on M’Clung’s features it was evident that his reaction was similar.
French continued his questions, but Pugg had no more to tell and presently the two detectives bade him good day and returned to the Yard.
Here further news awaited them. There had just been a reply from Belfast. There was no such address in the city as 7 Talbot Terrace, Sandy Row.
French was immensely pleased.
‘We’re on to it at last, M’Clung,’ he said in a low eager tone. ‘If we had this man Coates I believe we’d begin to see daylight. We should be able to get on to him at Stranraer. Another night in the train, curse it! Pity we didn’t know yesterday.’
M’Clung agreed that it was a pity, though half-heartedly. As a matter of fact he was enjoying himself profoundly. Here he was on one of the most important cases that had taken place in Northern Ireland for many a long day, in company with a famous officer of New Scotland Yard, a man moreover whom he found pleasant, friendly and approachable. And apart from the case and the chances of promotion which it might bring, he was having a delightful change from the monotony of his ordinary work, he was visiting new scenes under conditions of unwonted luxury, and he was laying up a store of experience which could not but be valuable to him in his career. Under these conditions, the longer the case went on, the better.
‘Well,’ said French, ‘that’s all we can do in the meantime. Will you engage berths on the 7.40 tonight. I have some things to attend to here, but I’ll meet you at the station at 7.35.’
They had a good journey and at 5.25 to the minute the train drew up at Stranraer harbour. French at once began work.
‘We’d better see these steamer people before the boat sails,’ he said, and waiting till the passengers had gone on board, he tackled the officers who were checking tickets at the gangway. From them he went to the stewards, and indeed everyone who came in contact with passengers, but without result. When half an hour later he and M’Clung left the steamer, French felt fairly satisfied that Coates had not crossed.
At the harbour station a short inquiry sufficed. No train left until the boat came back from Larne between nine and ten at night. Coates could not therefore have left from there, nor had he been seen anywhere about.
‘We’d better go and get some breakfast,’ French decided. ‘After that we can try the town station.’
With the first of these proposals at all events M’Clung was in profound agreement. Accordingly they walked up to the town and turned into the King’s Arms Hotel. French decided that he might improve the shining hour.
‘I wonder,’ he said to the young lady in the office, when they had ordered their meal, ‘if you saw a friend of mine who passed through Stranraer this day fortnight? A tall, well-built man with bright red hair? He came off the night train from London.’
The girl wrinkled her pretty eyebrows.
‘What was his name?’ she asked.
French leaned across the little counter. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said confidentially, ‘he was travelling incog. He might have given the name Coates, or he might have given something else.’ He gave her a keen glance; then, as if satisfied with her appearance, went on: ‘I’d better tell you, but don’t give me away.’ He bent still lower and spoke still more confidentially. ‘I’m an officer from Scotland Yard. See, here’s my card. I’m after this man. I don’t say he has committed a crime, but he has some information I want. If you can give me any help I’ll be grateful.’
She seemed thrilled. For a few moments she remained motionless, evidently thinking, then she slowly shook her head.
‘I don’t think so,’ she declared. ‘Red hair? Wait now a minute, there was a man—’ Again she stopped, then she made a little gesture. ‘Yes,’ she exclaimed, ‘I believe I remember that man. Wait till I think.’ She pressed a bell. ‘Look here, Andy,’ she said to the waiter who appeared, ‘do you remember this day fortnight a man coming in for breakfast off the London train, a tall man with red hair? Didn’t he meet another man coming in off a car?’
‘Aye,’ the waiter returned concisely. ‘I mind them fine. They had their breakfasts about half seven.’
‘I thought so,’ said the girl, turning to French. ‘This—friend of yours came in as you say shortly after the London train arrived. He asked for breakfast, just as you’ve done, but before he had it a friend came in from a car. They had the fine greetings and in the end they breakfasted together. I remember the whole thing now as if it was yesterday. The friend was Mr—Mr—’ She wrung her fingers slightly as if to aid her memory, then rapidly turned over the pages of a book. ‘Teer,’ she exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Mr Teer.’
‘Good,’ said French heartily, ‘that’s fine. That’ll save me a lot of trouble.’ As so often before he was feeling the happy thrill of the hunter who comes on a fresh spoor of the animal he is after.
‘There was something about him too,’ the young lady went on eagerly. ‘That’ll do, Andy,’ to the waiter, who had hung indeterminately in the background, but who now vanished. ‘I remember it all.’ She turned over the pages of her book. ‘On the Tuesday, that was two days before, we got a letter from Mr Teer, ordering a room for Wednesday night. I haven’t got it, it’s been destroyed, but it said he was motoring from Carlisle and he expected to get here late on Wednesday night. He wanted the room to be ready for him and the garage open for his car. Well, I arranged this, but he didn’t turn up. Then next morning, that was Thursday, he arrived. He said he had been unexpectedly detained and that he would not now want the room as he was going on after breakfast. But I had to charge him for the room as we had lost another letting because of his reservation.’
‘Of course,’ French agreed smoothly. ‘I suppose from what you say he arrived about seven?’
The girl thought again.
‘Yes, about seven,’ she said presently. ‘He had breakfast with the red-haired man soon after, then they sat and smoked in the lounge an hour or so. He went off in his car about half
past nine, he and your friend.’
‘The red-haired man went with him?’ French exclaimed. ‘Do you know where they went to?’
The girl had no idea.
‘They didn’t leave an address for letters?’
No, they had left no clue as to their movements. They had simply got into Mr Teer’s car and driven off. She hadn’t seen what direction they took, but maybe Angus, the porter, had. She would send for Angus.
But Angus was unable to throw much light on the situation. He remembered the men and their leaving in Teer’s car. He also remembered that they had started along the street towards the right, but as this was the way in which the car was pointing after being brought from the garage, and as at the next corner they could have turned in any direction, the information was not helpful.
In accordance with his usual practice, French, before leaving the hotel, interrogated every member of the staff who had come in contact with either of the strangers. But he learned very little. No one had observed details which might help in a search for the men, nor had anyone overheard illuminating remarks.
The one useful fact was gleaned from Angus, the porter. He was an old chauffeur and he had noticed Teer’s car. It was a Morris six of the familiar buff-brown colour and almost new. Unfortunately he had forgotten the number.
‘Better than nothing,’ said French, as they distributed largesse and sallied forth on the next stage of their quest.
10
Portpatrick
‘An outsider would say,’ French remarked as they strolled through the streets of the little town, ‘that with our excellent police organisation the first place for us to go would be the police station. But as a matter of fact I go there last.’ He glanced across at M’Clung to see if that worthy followed his argument.
‘How’s that, sir?’ the sergeant said tactfully.
‘It’s hard to put it in words,’ French answered. ‘It’s not that local men are officious exactly, but application to them involves a lot of wearisome explanations, and you lose your free hand. Of course often one can’t do without the local force, but when one can, one does, or at least I do. Now there are two ways, so far as I can see, that we can get to work. We can go to the police here and ask them if they saw a new Morris six on that Wednesday morning. That’s one way.’
‘That’s the way I should have adopted,’ M’Clung declared.
‘You may be right and we may have to come back to it. But there is another way that I’m going to try first. When it works it’s the best way. It’s to sit down and think where those men are likely to have gone and then to check up if they did so. Now just start in, M’Clung, and do a bit of guessing. Where do you say we should look?’
M’Clung hesitated and French went on.
‘Begin by going over what we know about them.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘One, Coates had travelled from London. Two, the train that he came by stops at Dumfries, Castle-Douglas and Newton-Stewart. Three, Teer came by motor from Carlisle, or said he did. Four, they left in Teer’s car about nine-thirty. Now, what do you make of it?’
Once again M’Clung hesitated and once again French went on.
‘What direction did they go in?’
‘Well,’ the sergeant suggested, ‘they didn’t go towards Carlisle, because that’s where they both came from.’
‘Right,’ French approved. ‘I see you have the root of the matter in you. That’s the method. Always eliminate. Now you’ve eliminated the Carlisle direction. And note, of course, that that includes intermediate places except those close to Stranraer. They would have stopped at Castle-Douglas or Newton-Stewart if their destination had been easier got at from these places. So we may say that they did not go east. Very well?’
‘And they didn’t go west, because that’s where the sea lies.’
‘Right again. Roughly speaking, therefore, they went north or south. Now which was it?’
‘I would think south, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, if they had been going north, they would hardly have come to Stranraer at all, unless of course it was to somewhere fairly close, But if it was any distance, say to Girvan or beyond, they would have gone by the line from Dumfries towards Glasgow.’
‘I agree, though, mind you, that’s not so probable as your first two guesses.’
‘I know that, Mr French. Well then if they went south there’s a likely place you’d think of at once, and that’s Portpatrick. It’s a tourist place where people do go and through Stranraer is the natural way, I would guess Portpatrick, sir.’
‘And so should I,’ French approved. ‘That’s quite good, M’Clung. We may both be wrong, but we’ll try it out. Let’s get up to that town station and look up trains. Or there may be a bus.’
Their visit to the station was opportune and half an hour later they were walking down the hill into Portpatrick. The little town looked very attractive on this pleasant October day. French, who had never been there before, was agreeably surprised. ‘The next time I want a quiet holiday,’ he told M’Clung, ‘this is the place for me.’
‘It used to be a more important place than it is now,’ M’Clung observed. ‘In old times it was the port for the north of Ireland. I remember my grandfather telling me about his seeing the mail packet sailing from here to Donaghadee. See the money that’s been spent on this harbour and it’s the same at Donaghadee. Only there the place is half silted up.’
‘Not very far across, is it?’
‘I think about twenty-three miles, but I’m not just certain.’
They continued discussing the changes time had brought about in travel until presently French returned to the subject of their quest.
‘Going to that hotel turned out lucky in Stranraer. Suppose we try the hotels here to begin with.’
Climbing the hill to the large building above the harbour, they soon were stating their business to the manager. French made no secret of his profession, showing his official card and explaining that he was on a murder case. Unfortunately the manager could only say that the persons described had not visited his hotel. On French’s suggestion he called in several members of his staff, but these merely confirmed his own statement.
From the Portpatrick Hotel the detectives visited the smaller hotels in the town and then the garages and petrol supply stations, in every case with the same result.
‘Looks like the police station after all,’ French declared. ‘We passed it on the way down from the train. Let’s go back.’
The local sergeant was visibly impressed by a visit from so important a man as Inspector French. But unfortunately he had seen no one resembling either of the strangers, and though he questioned his entire force, nothing that could help French came out.
‘That’s all right,’ French said, as the man expressed his regret. ‘It’s evident they didn’t come to Portpatrick and to have learned that is progress. We can’t expect to get them first shot. We’ll try north up towards Girvan.’
Having to wait nearly an hour for their train, the two detectives strolled down once more to the front and had another look at the harbour. Though French imagined the latter might be hard to enter during bad weather, there could be no doubt that when once inside even the smallest boat would be supremely safe. The inner basin indeed looked less like a harbour than a great square stone tank. In the middle, moored by a bow anchor and warps which swung up in easy curves from the stern to the wall of the basin, lay a small steam yacht, and here and there without seeming arrangement were a few row boats and a couple of smacks. Whatever greatness the place might have formerly had certainly passed away. As a port it was dead. But there was the usual group of jersey-clad longshoremen leaning against a low wall and smoking stolidly.
‘One of the mysteries I can never get to the bottom of is how those fellows live,’ French observed. ‘You see them at every watering place, a group of them just like that. You never see them move about or do any work. They seem to stand there smoking all day. How do they do it?’
M’Clung chuckled.
‘Some of them are fishermen, Mr French. They’re out at night mostly. And it’s no joke, their job, I can tell you. I’ve been out and I know.’
‘Well, if the ones I’ve watched are out all night they never sleep, unless you’d call that standing there sleeping.’
Again M’Clung chuckled.
‘That’s all right, sir, but they’re not asleep, whatever they may look. I bet you they know all about us already, when we came and where we’ve been and maybe our business as well. There’s not much they miss, I can tell you.’
‘That so?’ said French. ‘Well, if they’re so wide awake as all that, slip over and ask them if they’ve seen Teer’s car.’
M’Clung crossed what had once been a busy wharf and mingled with the group. None of the men moved except to fix him with their cold, fish-like eyes. He spoke and one shrugged his shoulder slightly and murmured some reply. M’Clung spoke again and the man nodded slowly. Finally M’Clung beckoned across the road. French went over.
‘These men saw the car, Mr French,’ M’Clung said, and French silently commended the total lack of interest or eagerness in his manner. ‘It stopped and parked just here and the two men went aboard a motor launch which had just come in.’
In spite of himself French started. A motor launch! Victor Magill’s story of his holiday leaped into his mind. Could it be that this was Victor’s launch and that Coates was Victor’s friend—what was the name he mentioned? Oh, yes, Joss. Could Coates be Joss? As French rapidly recalled what Victor had said, the idea began to grow more and more likely. The launch had arrived at Portpatrick at about ten in the morning in question and had there picked up the remaining two members of the party. That tallied. One of these members, Joss, had travelled by the night train from Euston, the train by which Coates travelled, for French remembered pointing out to Victor that his friend must have used the same train as Sir John. The other friend, whose name Victor had not mentioned, had come by motor, as Teer had done. If these two men were not members of Victor’s party, there was here a very remarkable coincidence.
Inspector French: Sir John Magill's Last Journey Page 11
