Mystery of Mr. Jessop

by E. R. Punshon

  Bobby was less fortunate. Before the general exodus from The Towers, he was summoned to Ulyett’s presence. He had already sent in a brief note reporting T.T.’s anxiety to know the address of the firm supplying the removal van of which such ineffectual use had been made, and now he found his reticence approved.

  “I’ve told Inspector Ferris to warn the others to hold their tongues,” Ulyett said. “We don’t want T.T.’s pocket hooligans making trouble for the people we employ, or trying to bribe them to give information next time. T.T.’s got quite a good intelligence service of his own,” said Ulyett, musing bitterly on T.T.’s unmasking of their earlier manoeuvres and of how the story would soon be whispered all through London’s underworld – and overworld, too, for that matter. T.T.’s cry of sham amazement as he banged open the van door – “Why, there’s men inside” – was likely, Ulyett knew, to become a general catchword. Probably for months to come the door of no bar, no night-club, in all the town would be opened without the accompanying cry: “Why, there’s men inside.” Ulyett sighed resignedly. Some day, perhaps, they would get T.T., but not yet. He said suddenly: “T.T.’s talk about moving from here sounds a bit as if he had got the wind up and meant to do a bunk.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby thoughtfully. “Perhaps to pick up the Fellows necklace somewhere and get out of the country with it.”

  Ulyett winced at the suggestion, which he liked the less because it was one that had occurred to himself.

  “Can’t do anything,” he said. “Nothing we can hold him for. We can trail him, of course, but what’s the good of that? We can warn the Customs, but what’s the good of that?”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby sympathetically, fully agreeing with Ulyett’s unspoken thought that, after all, the thumbscrew and the rack had their advantages from the point of view of a harassed C.I.D.

  “I’m sending most of the others off duty,” Ulyett continued, abandoning happy dreams of T.T., boiling lead, and a full and complete account of what the dickens it was had really taken place. “No such luck for me,” he added enviously. “I shall have to be at it all day and all night, too, getting out schemes. We’ll have to be getting busy, you know. The papers will make a big splash of this affair. Bit of luck for the Government.”

  “Sir?” said Bobby, astonished.

  “Help to take people’s minds off the Abyssinia affair,” explained Ulyett. “Everyone wants to forget that. Of course, they all will before the next election, and that’s all that really matters, but the sooner they forget, the happier the big hats will be. They don’t want people – brooding.”

  “No, sir,” agreed Bobby. “Of course, sir, I’m not a politician.”

  “I should hope not,” said Ulyett, very sternly indeed. “Sorry I can’t let you off with the rest, Owen. There’s a job I want you for.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby with resignation, for full well had he known this was coming.

  “We’ve got to follow up that half-smoked cigar,” Ulyett went on. “T.T. swears he knows nothing about it, and that he and the Wynne bird only smoked cigarettes. So apparently it was either Jessop’s or the murderer’s. You are sure you’re right in thinking the monogram on it is that of the American gentleman you met at the Duke of Westhaven’s flat?”

  “I think so, sir,” answered Bobby. “It could easily be checked, but I don’t think I’m wrong.”

  “Jessop,” observed Ulyett, looking at the ceiling, “said something just before he died – something that sounded like ‘duke,’ didn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby.

  “If it was someone we had something against,” continued Ulyett, “it would be nearly good enough to pull him in on – what with the cigar we can trace to him and dying words as well. But there it is – a duke!”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby.

  “Of course,” mused Ulyett, “dukes aren’t what once they were, not by a long chalk. And more’s the pity,” added Ulyett, who was a strong Conservative and read the Morning Post every morning. “But still dukes.”

  “Yes, sir,” repeated Bobby, who always felt safe when he could conduct a conversation with superintendents and their like on the grounds of “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s got to be checked up on all the same,” declared Ulyett. “No getting away from it, only we’ll have to be tactful – tactful.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby – it was almost mechanical now. Then he added reassuringly, “It’s not as if there was any serious suspicion.”

  “Exactly,” said Ulyett; “only dukes and such – touchy, I’ve found.”

  Bobby produced his accustomed: “Yes, sir.”

  “Got one in your own family, haven’t you? Grandfather or something?”

  “Oh, no, sir, not at all, sir,” protested Bobby, stung this time to indignant denial.

  “I thought –” said Ulyett, with a stern don’t-you-try-to-pull-the-wool-over-my-eyes-young-fellow expression.

  “Well, sir,” admitted Bobby, “I’ve an uncle, but he’s only an earl; besides, he’s practically bankrupt,” he added as an extenuating circumstance.

  “All tar from the same brush,” declared Ulyett, waving excuses aside. “Anyhow, he has seen you before, and I want you to go round there again – alone; less official if there’s only one of you. Try to get a list, if possible, of all who might have had one of those cigars. At any rate, find out if Mr. Patterson was free with them. Then try to pump him about the necklace: why he went to see it; if he really contemplated buying it; if there have been any further negotiations; if he’s talked about it with anyone; how often the duchess has seen it; how badly she w anted it – anything you can get out of either of them, in fact. Oh, and you might ask him if he can make any suggestion what Jessop meant when he said ‘the duke’ just before he died. That’ll need tact.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bobby, this time more uneasily than mechanically.

  “And get him to tell you,” continued Ulyett, “where he was round about eight or nine o’clock last night. No harm in having a good alibi well established for him, and him being a duke – well, there won’t be any trouble about that. Lots of people will know where he was – dining at Buckingham Palace very likely, or something of the sort. Of course, it’ll need tact.”

  Bobby had his note-book out.

  “Trace possible possessors of cigars similar to that found near body,” he said, “and known to belong to duke’s friend now in New York. Inquire as to reason for inspecting Fellows necklace; how often his wife has seen it; was there serious thought of buying it, either on his part or that of duchess, who is known to have been interested. Inquire if he can suggest why Jessop made dying reference to him.”

  “Putting it like that,” observed Ulyett discontentedly, “it sounds almost like a case.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Bobby once more.

  “But of course, a duke!”

  “Of course, sir,” said Bobby.

  “You’ll need,” said Ulyett impressively, “you’ll need – tact.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Of course,” mused Ulyett, “if it really began to look like a real case – have to be hushed up, I suppose. Couldn’t afford it, with all this Bolshevism about; wouldn’t do at all.”

  “No, sir,” said Bobby, for variety’s sake, and was on his way to the door when Ulyett called him back.

  “Owen,” he said earnestly, “there’s one thing you mustn’t forget, one thing you’ll need more than anything –”

  “Yes, sir,” interposed Bobby. “Tact, sir.”

  “That’s right,” said Ulyett, relieved. “Glad you realise that, Owen.”

  But, though he understood, Bobby was more than a trifle uneasy as he departed, for the Duke of Westhaven was a Personage, and knew he was a Personage, and, moreover, had not the reputation of being the most amiable or best-tempered man in the world. And if he chose to take offence at this police questioning – well, that would mean that Bobby would be held to have failed badly in tact.r />
  In the hall he found T.T. looking on with gloomy satisfaction at the final preparations for departure of his uninvited and unwelcome guests.

  “I don’t see what I’ve done to have a thing like this happen to me,” he complained bitterly. “Look here,” he added to Bobby, “I suppose I’ve got to put up with you police chaps, but what right has all this crowd of journalists nosing round here?”

  “None,” said Bobby cheerfully. “They never have.”

  “Well, why don’t you throw them out?”

  “Why should we? Nothing to do with us. We’ve no authority to throw people out of houses. For all we know, they may be friends of yours.”

  “Friends?” repeated T.T. wildly. “Friends? Why, one of them has offered me a thousand for a full confession, only to be used after I’m hanged – £100 down and the rest to my heirs.”

  “Did you accept?” asked Bobby interestedly.

  T.T. spluttered something fierce and indignant, spluttered it almost as though the rope were already round his neck. Then he said:

  “Can I throw them out?”

  “Theoretically, yes. Practically – but anyhow you could try. Why not? But, even then, there’s keeping them out.”

  “I’ll buy a dog,” said T.T.

  “They’ll buy another,” said Bobby, “set ’em both fighting, and get a good – er – snappy story for the front page. There’s only one way to deal with a newspaper man.”

  “What’s that?” asked T.T. eagerly.

  “Tell him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, down to the last little detail,” said Bobby, “and then tell him it’s confidential.”

  “Oh, hell!” said T.T.

  “So it is,” agreed Bobby; “for them – worse. Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of a journalist told an exclusive in confidence. But you mustn’t mind that – serves them right. But I must get off. Any paper shops near here likely to be open?”

  “Lots,” answered T.T. “Why?”

  *'‘I want last night’s Evening Announcer,” Bobby explained, “with the football results.”

  T.T. was too pale with fatigue and worry and lack of sleep for his pallor to increase much, but there came into his pale and startled cold blue eyes a look that was almost murderous, even though murder was not, he said, his “line.” With those quick, furtive movements of his, he vanished, passing suddenly through the baize-covered service door behind the stairs. As it closed behind him, Bobby heard his somewhat shrill, high-pitched voice raised in what sounded like a vigorous curse – though aimed at what, or whom, Bobby could not hear, though he could guess.

  Thoughtfully Bobby made his way to the tube station, wondering very much to himself what there could be on the football pages of the Evening Announcer so disturbing to the usually imperturbable and self-possessed T.T., and what connection there could be between football results and the death of the unfortunate Jessop. In his possession, too, Bobby had that copy of the two-weeks-old Upper Ten that had been in Jessop’s pocket, but that, disregarded, had got kicked under a chair, whence Bobby had rescued it.

  CHAPTER 11

  NEWSPAPERS’ SECRET

  But carefully, minutely, repeatedly, though Bobby read over and over again every one of the football pages missing from T.T.’s copy of the Evening Announcer, deeply though he brooded upon the Upper Ten, with all its lovely photographs on paper as shiny as the front of a dress shirt just back from the laundry, there was nothing he could find that appeared to have any possible connection with the recent tragedy or the theft of the Fay Fellows necklace – if, in fact, that necklace had been stolen, as could only be known for certain when the strong-room of the Mayfair Square establishment was opened on Monday morning.

  What, for instance, in this connection could it matter that the Arsenal had bewilderingly met with defeat from a club of comparatively humble standing? The Upper Ten, it is true, had a photograph of the Duchess of Westhaven, in her characteristically old-fashioned attire, clapping her hands at the announcement of the victory, in the three o’clock, of the horse of a friend. But, then, no doubt it was precisely for that reason – because all the world knew she would be at those races – that that day had been selected for the odd affair at the Park Lane flat when unlawful intruders had apparently been satisfied to sit about and smoke their cigarettes. Nothing could Bobby find that by any stretch of the imagination could be supposed to account for the alarm and agitation a merely casual reference to the missing pages of the Evening Announcer had seemed to cause the usually cool and collected T.T. Nor could he see any reason why Mr. Jessop should have been carrying about with him that old copy of an illustrated society paper. Yet, none the less, Bobby was aware of an uneasy feeling that somehow, somewhere, in some odd way, all that he needed to know lay hidden there.

  “Beats me,” decided Bobby, as he reached his destination and, folding up the paper, put it in his pocket in the hope that time might bring an explanation. “Sort of thing that needs real brainwork, hard thinking, intuition, brilliant flight of the imagination to sweep you right over seas of doubt and land you on the firm facts with no bother about building logical bridges.” Bobby shook his head sadly. “Wish I could do that sort of thing,” he thought, “but I jolly well can’t. All I can do is dig up a lot of facts and see if any of ’em fit – journeyman of detection, that’s all I am.”

  A little depressed by this conclusion, but reflecting that it’s no good longing for gifts denied, Bobby emerged from the tube station to find himself in a world turned liquid. The rain that had been slowly gathering since the previous night’s drizzle had now burst into a kind of heavenly cataract. The gutters were overflowing, pedestrians had scattered in all directions, taximen were chuckling. Bobby was able by good luck to pounce on one taxi that had just brought to the tube station a passenger with whom Bobby almost collided as they simultaneously dashed, one for the cab and one for the station. Three other marooned pedestrians were frantically beckoning to the taxi, but Bobby’s dash had gained it for him, and, fortunately for his pockets, the block of flats, his destination, was not far, since it was quite certain that “Taxi – to avoid getting wet” was not an item with any chance of scraping through any expense list.

  The building was a new one, designed by one of the most eminent architects of the day, probably with the aid of a child’s box of bricks, and the whole of the top floor was occupied by the Duke of Westhaven. Changed times, no doubt, from the days when every duke had a town mansion like a young town itself, with a host of servitors to look after it and each other – and even their employers – and a private park around it big enough for a hunting-party. Another sign of changing times was that the rent payable for the flat was itself as much as some ducal revenues of earlier days, though this fact was of less importance to his grace of West– haven in that much of what he paid as tenant went back into his pocket as landlord.

  The flat had its own private lift the porters in the entrance-hall had the strictest orders to see was used by no unauthorised person. There was, of course, also access to the flat both by an interior stair, in case the lifts failed, and by the exterior stair insisted on by the building regulations for use in case of fire. Both these stairs, however, ended, as far as the ducal flat was concerned, in a small square lobby, whose one door, admitting to the flat itself, could only be opened from within, these careful precautions being insisted on to the insurance company as a reason for reducing the premium charged against the risk of burglary or housebreaking.

  Bobby, producing his official card, was allowed the use of the lift. But due warning of his approach was conveyed over the house ’phone, and when he stepped out of the lift he found the butler and a footman waiting to receive him, and a maid or two hovering in the background, though this was less a tribute to his social importance than to their own curiosity.

  “His grace is engaged at the moment, sergeant,” the butler informed Bobby, “but I’ll take in your card and I don’t suppose he’ll be long. Found
out anything yet?”

  “You expect quick work, don’t you?” Bobby remarked.

  “Two weeks ago, isn’t it?” retorted the butler, and Bobby realised he was referring to that unexplained incident when the flat, left temporarily unoccupied, had been entered by those odd intruders who, however, had removed nothing and done no damage.

  “Oh, about that,” Bobby said. “Well, no; besides, there’s nothing much we could do even if we knew who it was. Trespass itself isn’t punishable; there must be damage done or resistance to an order to go.”

  “All my eye, I say,” interposed the footman, less in awe of the butler than good footmen should be; but, then, the butler owed him for bets made, placed, lost, and not yet settled. “Most likely it was his nibs himself come back for something he didn’t want anyone to know about. As I keep telling Mr. Fisher,” said the footman to Bobby, with a jerk of his thumb at the butler to indicate that he was Mr. Fisher, “the lift hadn’t been used – locked, it was. And the lobby door from the stairs can’t be opened from the outside, not without an axe or such.”

  “No, but it can from the inside,” retorted Fisher, evidently going over again a familiar argument, “and a fellow rigged up as a workman could easy climb the fire-escape stair without anyone noticing, get in by the pantry window, and then open the lobby door and let in his pals.”

  “The pantry window was locked on the inside,” insisted the footman.

  “Easy to do that before they left by the inside stairs,” retorted the butler.

  “What should they go to all that trouble for and never touch a thing?” demanded the footman.

  “Must have had some game on,” pronounced Fisher. “We’ll know some day,” he prophesied darkly. “Of course, it’s – well, a rum go.”