by Cyril Hare
“Yes, indeed. It was ordered special, after the others had gone out. I remember it particularly. In a great hurry, it was. And then to try and get out of paying for it! It really seems criminal, doesn’t it?”
“Did you take the order yourself?”
“Indeed, yes. Over the telephone—nasty new-fangled thing, and such an expense too, you wouldn’t believe.”
“But who actually gave the order?”
“Why, Lord Bernard—or I suppose it was. I didn’t take much notice, naturally. But he said Lord Bernard’s account, as clear as I’m talking to you.”
“And it was delivered—to whom?”
“It wasn’t delivered at all. It was fetched, that very evening.”
Mallett could hardly restrain his impatience.
“Who fetched it?” he asked.
Mrs. Bradworthy shook her head.
“It was late, I know,” she said. “After I’d gone home, because I remember getting it out and doing up the parcel myself, before I left. You can’t trust these girls to do anything properly if you don’t do it yourself. But as for who actually handed it over, so to speak, now you’re asking. Amelia!”
A tall, ungainly, myoptic woman of uncertain age emerged from the dim background of the shop in answer to her call.
“Amelia, dear, that padded suit of Lord Bernard’s—were you there when it was fetched?”
“No, Mrs. Bradworthy. It was very late, after I’d gone. I know that, because Tom complained to me next day he’d been kept from shutting up by waiting for the gentleman. Five minutes after closing time he came in, Tom told me.”
“Then it was Tom who handed the parcel over?” said Mallett.
“Yes, that’s right,” said Mrs. Bradworthy in a peculiar tone of mournful satisfaction. “It must have been old Tom.”
“It was Tom all right,” echoed Amelia.
“Then Tom can tell us who actually took the parcel away,” Mallett exclaimed. He had no sooner uttered the words than he felt as if he had committed a blasphemy. Mrs. Bradworthy’s face took on an expression of pained reproach and Amelia looked as though she were about to cry.
“Oh, but haven’t you heard, Mr. Mallett?” Mrs. Bradworthy asked softly. “Poor old Tom—twenty-five years he’d been here—and then, only last week—those dreadful motor cars!”
Mallett’s hopes evaporated into thin air.
“So Tom is dead?” he said dully.
Mrs. Bradworthy nodded. Amelia blew her nose loudly and faded away.
“I see. Good afternoon, Mrs. Bradworthy, and thank you.”
“But what I want to know is, will Lord Bernard pay my bill or not?” asked Mrs. Bradworthy, overcoming her emotion with remarkable speed.
For the second time that day Mallett ended an interview on an unanswered question. He made his way back to Scotland Yard, oppressed with the strong realization that the evidence on which he had so confidently depended had failed him, and that all was to do again.
22
ARREST
* * *
* * *
Wednesday, November 25th
Sergeant Frant was busy, and perfectly happy. He kept the telephone fully employed on long-distance calls and was perpetually in and out of Mallett’s room, each time with a fresh piece of news to report. The inspector paid little attention. For the whole morning he sat at his desk, hunched up over a pile of documents, going over the statements of witnesses, the depositions at the inquest and his own memoranda. He refused the assistance which Frant offered him.
“There’s a link missing,” was all he would say, “and it’s somewhere here. I must find it myself.”
After a solitary lunch, he came back looking better pleased with himself. Frant met him on the stairs.
“I’m just going——” he began with a triumphant air.
“Can you tell me,” Mallett interrupted unceremoniously, “where Crabtree is to be found now?”
“Yes. He’s got a job in a wholesale fruiterer’s at Covent Garden.”
“Thanks. Where did you say you were going?”
“To Bow Street.”
“Then I’ll come with you.”
At the bottom of Bow Street, Frant indicated where the fruiterer in question was to be found, and the men parted. Mallett discovered Crabtree, a pile of orange-boxes on his head, on the pavement outside the shop. The man gave him a sour look as he recognized him.
“What is it this time?” he snarled.
“Just a question,” said Mallett genially. “You needn’t stop your work to answer it.”
“Then get out o’ the way!” Crabtree began to walk beneath his precarious load to a van drawn up some distance away. Mallett fell into step with him, as though interviewing in these circumstances was the most ordinary thing in the world.
“When you were with Mr. James,” he asked, “do you ever remember seeing him with an umbrella?”
“No!” The orange-boxes crashed down into the van by way of emphasis.
“Ah, I thought not. I just wanted to make sure. Good day!”
Crabtree scratched his head, now relieved of its burden, and informed the world in general that he, Crabtree, was several unprintable things; by which he was quite correctly understood by his friends to mean that he was rather more than mildly surprised.
Mallett meanwhile was making the best of his way towards Bramston’s Inn, the address of the only one of Ballantine’s concerns outside the offices of the “Twelve Apostles” in Lothbury. It is not very far from Covent Garden as the crow flies. As the Londoner walks, it is apt to be a tedious and tiresome journey, punctuated by the exploration of blind alleys and vain appeals for directions addressed to passers-by, who invariably prove to be themselves “strangers in these parts”. Mallett, who enjoyed nothing so much as threading with secure knowledge the by-ways of London—his “Forty-two routes from the Old Bailey to Scotland Yard” was a minor classic in police literature—covered the distance speedily enough. His way led across Kingsway, through the pleasant spaces of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, through Old Square and out into Chancery Lane under the archway on which Ben Jonson is said to have toiled as a bricklayer. Then he plunged into the network of narrow streets that lies between Fleet Street and Holborn. It is a region dominated by great printing works, its tortuous ways clogged by newspaper vans and horse-drawn drays, hiding in odd corners shy little chop-houses beloved of journalists, a house or two where history has been made and not merely recorded, and what must surely be the last row of cottage-gardens in Central London. Somewhere East of Fetter Lane the inspector turned sharply down an alley to his right, ducked under the nose of a carthorse in a warehouse entry, directed two lost Americans to Gough Square, turned to his left through a passage that seemed no more than a slit in the wall, veered right once more and finally came to a standstill facing the short row of early Georgian houses that bears the name of Bramston’s Inn.
Topographers and historians are unable to say for certain whether or not the Inn has any valid connection with that Sir John Bramston who was Chief Justice to Charles I. It was, say some, in its earlier days, an Inn of Chancery—a poor relation of the opulent and flourishing Inns of Court, and indeed it still wears a faint family resemblance to its more famous cousins. But it is a resemblance that has grown more and more distant with time. Hall and chapel have long since been swept away and now the only legal flavour that yet remains to its dark chambers and ruinous staircases is supplied by two firms of solicitors, neither of them of very high repute. For the rest, its tenants are obscurely charitable societies, minor trade associations and firms of uncertain reputation—such as, for example, the Anglo-Dutch Rubber and General Trading Syndicate.
The name, in dirty black paint upon a dirty yellow background, was still legible in the doorway of one of the four houses that made up the row. The offices were on the fourth floor, and from the dusty windows hung a board which announced: “These desirable offices to let. Apply caretaker.” The caretaker, a shabby, ill-shaven man with re
d and suspicious eyes, emerged from the basement at Mallett’s knock.
“Police?” he said querulously, in reply to the inspector’s summons. “We’ve ’ad ’em ’ere already. They didn’t find nothing.”
“All the same, I’ll have a look round, if you don’t mind,” answered Mallett.
They ascended the stairs together and went into the deserted office. It consisted of two rooms only, unfurnished save for a couple of desks and a safe, the door of which swung open to reveal the emptiness within. Mallett walked quickly round them, his footsteps sounding heavily on the uncarpeted floor, while the caretaker watched him from the door In the furthest angle of the inner room was a window, giving on to the back of the block. Mallett threw it open.
“What’s this?” he demanded.
“Fire escape. They put it in—the Anglo-Dutch people did—soon after they took it.”
The inspector leant out of the window and gazed thoughtfully down the narrow iron staircase. From the angle at which the window was set, it could not be overlooked in any way by neighbouring tenants. The wall of No. 3, next door, shrugged a protective shoulder which effectually screened it from observation. The wall of the building opposite was blank. He considered. That should be Black Dog Court below, and from it, he knew, a passage ran into Fleet Street. It was a well-devised back exit—or entry. He nodded in satisfaction and withdrew.
“’Ave you seen all you want to see?” asked the man behind him.
“I’ve seen all there is to see here,” returned Mallett, “but there’s still one thing not here I want to see. Will you show it to me?”
“What’s that?”
“The umbrella.”
“What are you talking about? What umbrella?”
“The umbrella which was left behind here the last time the tenant left this place.”
The man became talkative all at once.
“I don’t know nothing about no umbrella!” he cried. “Straight I don’t! I don’t know what you’re getting at, guv’nor! I’ve bin ’ere, man and boy, thirty years, and I’ve never so much as seen no umbrella! You ask any of the tenants ’ereabouts, they’ll tell you the sort of man I am——”
Meanwhile, Mallett, holding his arm in a firm but gentle grip, was impelling him slowly downstairs.
“An umbrella,” he murmured in his blandest tones, while the caretaker’s protests died away into whimperings. “A nice silk umbrella. With a broad gold band on it, for certain. And initials. Or perhaps a name and address on it. Oh, certainly, a name and address I should think. Where is it?”
They had reached the bottom landing. With a convulsive start, the man tore himself away from the inspector’s grasp and vanished into his dim abode below stairs. There was the sound of chairs being overset by hasty movements, of a key being turned in a lock, of a cupboard door opening and closing with a bang, and the man returned. He was pale with fear, and in a hand that trembled violently he extended to the detective an umbrella, precisely as had been described.
“Thank you,” said Mallett coolly. “That was what I had in mind.” He inspected the gold band that decorated the handle. “Name and address in full, I see. Just as I thought. Well, well!”
“I didn’t mean to keep it, guv’nor,” the caretaker insisted.
“No?”
“No. Yer see, it was like this. After Anglo-Dutch hadn’t been near the place two, three days or more, I thought I’d just go up to see if things was all right, see? And I found that there umbrella put away, like, be’ind the door. I didn’t look at the name on the ’andle or anythink, I just thought I’d keep it by me for ’im when ’e come back. Then the police coming in and all, I took another look at it, and when I seed ’oo it belonged to I got scared. I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t dare let on I’d got it, even.”
His eyes anxiously sought Mallett’s to see if he was believed. “I—I swear I never done nothink wrong, guv’nor,” he went on. “Only just what I told you, that’s all.”
Mallett cut him short with a “That’ll do!” The story might be true or not. He had sufficient experience of the terror that certain classes feel towards anything connected with the police to be prepared to credit it. But it was of little moment whether the man was lying or speaking the truth, now that he had provided the essential evidence.
“You talk about ‘Anglo-Dutch’ as if he was a person,” he said. “Did only one man use these offices, then?”
“At the start there was two or three used to come in and out, when they was moving in. After that there was only just the one. I never found out ’is name—that’s why I called ’im Anglo-Dutch.”
“Did he come regularly?”
“Most days—not every day. ’E’d come in the morning, ten o’clock or thereabouts, and leave in the evening. I never seed ’im go out to lunch, even. I used to wonder what ’e did there all day by ’isself. ’E never ’ad no callers.”
Mallett produced a photograph from his pocket.
“Did he look anything like this?” he asked.
The caretaker peered at it doubtfully.
“I’m a bit short-sighted,” he confessed. “I wouldn’t like to swear that’s the same man, not on oath, I wouldn’t.”
“But is it like him?”
“Oh, yes, it’s like ’im all right. The same sort of man, you might say. But it’s no good asking me to swear——”
“I’m not,” said Mallett curtly, and strode away.
But for all the sharpness of his words, his heart was singing. For the photograph he had shown to the caretaker was a copy of the police photograph of Mr. Colin James, and the umbrella under his arm was the umbrella of Lionel Ballantine.
* * *
Frank Harper was walking aimlessly up Fleet Street. His expression, as he turned into a tobacconist’s shop, was decidedly more clouded than that of a happily engaged young man should ordinarily be. He told himself, as he bought his cigarettes, that he was smoking a great deal too much. It was not the first time within the last few days that he had made the same reflection, and it had always ended in his going out somewhere and buying another packet. For whatever the voice of common sense might say, in the long run it was always his overstrained nerves that had the last word and drove him to seek relief. Even then, he knew, no relief could be anything but temporary, so long as the essential cause of the trouble remained unresolved. It lay in his pocket now, that cause, as it had lain for two days past—a letter from the girl he loved, asking, and asking insistently, the one question which he could not answer. And this morning another had been added to it, reproaching him for his failure to reply. Another would come soon, he knew—perhaps it would be a little more bitter than the last. And he, who had so lately been lifted to the summit of happiness, now saw himself travelling down a long slope leading to an inevitable quarrel—an estrangement, even. “If you won’t tell me, I can’t marry you!” Would it come to that? He shrugged his shoulders as he lit his cigarette. Well, if it came to that, it came to that! Meanwhile, there was nothing to do about it—except to smoke incessantly, and hope fervently that it wouldn’t. If a girl can’t trust a man, he thought bitterly—but what if a man can’t trust himself?
As he walked out of the shop he jostled a burly figure on the pavement. He murmured a perfunctory “Sorry!” and walked on. The man he had touched turned at the sound of his voice and walked quickly after him.
“Mr. Harper, isn’t it?” he said.
Harper looked round. For a moment or two he gazed blankly at the large man with the smart umbrella who had accosted him. Then a look of recognition came into his face.
“Ah, yes, of course. Inspector Mallett,” he murmured in his somewhat irritatingly superior manner.
Mallett’s eyes gazed keenly into the young man’s. For a fraction of a second there was a trace of disappointment in his expression, as though he failed to find what he had sought there. Then a smile illuminated his broad features.
“This is a bit of luck,” he exclaimed genially.
“You’re just the fellow I wanted to see.”
“You know my address, I think, if you wish to ask me anything,” returned the other coolly.
“No time like the present, though, is there?” said Mallett, unrebuffed. “I tell you what—I’m due at the Yard. If you’re not doing anything, why not share a taxi down there? We can have a little chat as we go.”
The smart umbrella was waved in the air, and a cab drew up at the pavement. Mallett flung open the door for Harper to get in. Harper hesitated a moment, looked up into the inspector’s still smiling face, then nodded abruptly and climbed into the vehicle. The door closed and the taxi moved off. A young reporter on an evening paper happened to see them go.
“Did you see that?” he said to a friend. “Inspector Mallett! He’s made an arrest!”
* * *
But it was Sergeant Frant, not Inspector Mallett, who was to make an arrest that day. His incessant labours had borne fruit. They had, to begin with, brought about a considerable liveliness in a quiet part of Yorkshire, involving not only the police, but also doctors, clergymen, registrars and asylum officials. The enquiries that Mr. Elderson had made quietly and unofficially were repeated with thoroughness and such dispatch that about the time that Mallett was entering Bramston’s Inn, Frant, in a police car, was turning into Mount Street, bearing in his pocket a fateful slip of paper, signed by the chief magistrate at Bow Street. He was just in time to see Captain Eales, a small suitcase in his hand, emerge from a house door, and step into a taxi which was waiting for him. The cab gathered speed slowly, and with the police car in its wake, drove off. As Frant had anticipated, it took a northerly direction, and in due time it drew up outside a pleasant little detached house in St. John’s Wood. Frant gave a quiet order to his driver, and the car slowed down close to the kerb, just giving him time to alight so that he touched the pavement almost at the same moment as did his quarry, fifty yards ahead. Then it drove on, past the house, turned into a side street, reversed and awaited further orders, just out of sight.
