“All right, I’ll pay,” grumbled Denis.
He hailed a passing taxi, and, once they were installed and the taxi on its way, he said:
“Now, tell me what’s up about Miss May?”
Bobby gave a brief account of what had happened, and asked Denis where he had been on Sunday. Denis explained that it was his day to be in charge at the garage, so as to give the foreman manager a day off, but added that he had left early to go into the country.
“On business,” he said. “I had to ring up Wilks – the chap who helps runs the place. Had to promise him a quid extra to come on again. Lucky to find him at home.”
“Odd time, Sunday evening, for important business to crop up,” Bobby remarked.
“Well it just happened,” Denis answered.
“Can you give me particulars?”
“Don’t see why I should. Nothing to do with you or Jessop’s murder, or the Fellows necklace, either.”
“What were your precise movements when you left the garage?”
“Hopped into a car with a friend and left,” answered Denis. “Why? I tried to see Miss May first, if that’s what you’re getting at, but she wasn’t in. I had an appointment with her for Monday I wanted to tell her I couldn’t keep.”
“You didn’t see her, then? Did you leave a message or anything?”
“No. I thought I would ring her in the morning.”
“I take it you found her door locked?”
“Of course. She wouldn’t be likely to leave it open while she was out.”
Bobby pressed the point. But Denis was quite clear. The door of the flat was securely shut, and showed no trace of having been interfered with. It was impossible, Denis insisted, he could have failed to notice any signs of forcible entry had any then existed. But about the time he was not sure, not to half an hour one way or the other. He remembered having noticed Charley Dickson with a friend just outside the flats. He had wondered if Dickson, too, were calling on Miss May, but concluded, as he had a friend with him, that was probably not so. He denied having recognised the friend as “Penny” Logan, but admitted he knew Logan slightly, though he showed no sign of any special interest in, or animosity towards, that gentleman.
“I only noticed Dickson had someone with him,” he said. “I was in a hurry. I didn’t look particularly, and he was on the other side of Dickson. I dare say it was Logan. Does it matter?”
Bobby said he didn’t suppose so, but one never knew. He thought to himself that what did matter was that, so far as the somewhat vague times could be established, then if Dickson’s story were true and his watch was accurate, it seemed to follow that Denis had preceded Bobby’s call at Miss May’s flat by not more than, at the outside, ten minutes. But certainly it must have taken more than ten minutes to force the door, search the flat, carry out the attack on Miss May, and depart. It followed, therefore, that on Dickson’s evidence, corroborated to some extent by what Denis said himself, the door must have been in the same condition when Denis arrived as when Bobby himself got there.
It did not, however, seem to occur to Denis – or, if it did so, his manner showed no consciousness of the fact – that his admitted presence on the spot involved him in any suspicion.
“If nothing was taken,” he now said thoughtfully, “does that mean the chap was interrupted?”
“If so, why was no alarm given by whoever interrupted him?” Bobby asked. “No one calling at the flat after it had been broken into could have failed to notice the door.”
“Well, then, what was the idea; if there’s nothing missing? You don’t break into places just for fun.”
“No,” agreed Bobby, “but I did not say nothing was missing. I said nothing we know of, or that Miss May has reported missing.”
Denis stared at him, but made no immediate comment. By this time the taxi had reached the Yard, and when Denis had paid the man he turned to Bobby and said:
“You don’t mean some fool thought Hilda had the necklace?”
“We are looking for some explanation of what seems a meaningless sort of business at present,” Bobby answered.
“I call it silly,” Denis muttered, but without much conviction, and then was silent, as if beginning to be aware of dark waters of suspicion slowly rising about him on every side.
They entered the building together. Bobby reported their arrival, and, possibly as a reward for having brought Denis in, was allowed to be present at a lengthy examination that revealed nothing new, though Denis remained obstinate in his refusal to say what business had taken him out of London, or where he had gone.
“Isn’t it wiser to answer questions?” Ulyett asked in his mildest manner. “Of course, you don’t have to.”
“Then I won’t.”
“Leaves us guessing,” murmured Ulyett, looking hard at the ceiling, as though guesses were registered there.
“Guess away,” said Denis.
“Well, then, for a guess – just a friendly guess, you understand, by way of – well, guessing. Rather fun, guessing games, don’t you think? Miss May and you had it fixed up together to lift the Fellows necklace – she knew all about it, and you want money; got a position to keep up, and may have to file your petition any day almost. Your alibi for Saturday night depends on Miss May’s word and her alibi on yours; cancels both out. Miss May took charge of the necklace. She argued it would be safer with her. You thought you would like it yourself; better a whole share than going halves. You had an idea she would be out. You forced the door of her flat, but she came back unexpectedly. You knocked her out, and your business on Sunday night was to put the necklace in a safe hiding-place. How’s that for guessing?”
Denis was on his feet now, breathing heavily. Bobby could quite believe, as he watched him, what had been said of the strength and sudden fury of his passions.
“I’d like,” he stammered, “I’d like –”
“Yes, I know you would,” said Ulyett amiably, “only you mustn’t, you know. Taboo – that’s the police. Besides, only guessing, and you asked for it. If people won’t answer questions – well, got to guess, haven’t we?”
“I’ll see my solicitors,” Denis said, still breathing hard, “before I say another word.”
“Right,” said Ulyett. “Very sensible, too. Know where you are with solicitors. Oh, you won’t be leaving London again just now, will you? No? That’s all right, then. You’ll let us know the name of your solicitors, will you? Or ask them to write? We shall want to ask them to advise you to make a statement in full – no gaps.”
With that, Denis was allowed to depart, and Bobby, after he had turned in the report of his conversation with Hilda, went off to interview Mr. Wright, receiving permission to do so on the strength of some excuse he put forward, to the exact nature of which, fortunately, little attention was paid, since at the moment his own services were not required and in other directions there was much routine work to be got through.
Pleased at having got the permission he wanted without having had to explain in detail an idea his superiors might have thought a little far-fetched, Bobby went off to Mayfair Square and found Mr. Wright in a surly mood, and inclined to be rude to Bobby over the failure of the police to recover the missing necklace.
“Defence protection,” murmured Bobby to himself, for he knew how important it is to be up to date with the latest discoveries, the newest thought, and how much more profound it seems to say “defence protection” than to be so hopelessly old-fashioned and behind the times as to quote the ancient saying that attack is the best defence.
“I don’t care a hoot who shot Jessop,” Wright declared frankly. “Old swine he was. But what’s the good of the so-and-so police if they can’t recover so-and-so stolen property?”
“Must give us time,” said Bobby amiably, though wondering at all the different adjectives Wright knew. “And we have to care who did the murder. That comes first.”
“It didn’t ought,” grumbled Wright. “Jessop’s dead and done with, b
ut the necklace is still there and still worth a packet – and we are still responsible. May do for the firm if we don’t get it back.”
“We’ll do our best,” Bobby promised. “There’s one point I’d like to go over again. The first time it was shown the duchess you went to the Park Lane flat with Miss May, but you didn’t actually see the duchess yourself, I think?”
“No. I told you. I waited in the entrance-hall. I didn’t have much to do with the selling end. Not my job. Take it or leave it and get to hell out of here. That’s my line. Jessop’s was soap, and lots of it. Jacks the same. Makes me sick.”
“The second time it was shown the duchess was at Hastley Court, I think? Some sort of garden-party on, wasn’t there?”
“Yes. That’s why she rang us up to come along that day, so we could slip in with the crowd. That was so the duke wouldn’t be so likely to spot us.”
“Had you any difficulty in getting in?”
“Good Lord, no. Wide open to all the world. You just drove up, parked your car in a roped-in enclosure behind the stables, and went and paid your respects to the duke and duchess – or, if you were gate-crashers like us, kept out of their way. I’ll bet we weren’t the only ones who had left their invitation cards at home. Of course, we kept out of it as much as we could. We waited in the car, in the car park, till she was ready to see us.”
“How did you know when that was?”
“Her secretary fellow came along – chap called Dickson. He was long enough, too. I know I had time to finish my cigar.”
“Hope it was a good one?”
“As good a smoke as ever I came across – an American gentleman, a Mr. Patterson, gave me a handful from his own factory. Sell at three or four bob each, I believe.”
“Got any left?” asked Bobby carelessly.
“No. Finished the last the other day. Wish I had more of the same sort.”
“Perhaps you will find one you had forgotten,” observed Bobby, and Wright didn’t seem to like the suggestion, and scowled, and said that wasn’t likely.
“You were with Mr. Jessop this time when he showed the necklace to the duchess?”
“Yes. I hung on to it. All right at the flat, when I could sit in the entrance-hall and no other way out, but I wasn’t parting with it in a crowd like that. All sorts there that day.”
“Was the secretary, Mr. Dickson, present at the interview with the duchess?”
“No. I never saw him the whole time. When we were waiting in the car, Jessop spotted him and hopped out to speak to him. Then Jessop came back and said the duchess was waiting for us. Dark little hole where she was, too; running no risks of the duke interrupting. Room off a passage leading straight from a side-entrance. She cooed over that necklace like a mother over her baby. No doubt about her wanting it if she could get the money and fix things with the duke.”
“Had you ever seen the duchess before?”
“Not to speak to; once or twice, perhaps, only at a distance. She wasn’t a customer of ours; went to a Bond Street firm when she wanted to deal. She tried to get us to leave the necklace with her. Nothing doing. Jessop wanted to, but I stood out for a first cash payment and a written contract. If we had left it with her, it might have got lost or anything, and the duke could have repudiated responsibility. Not good enough. She got all in a twitter when I mentioned hubby. He wasn’t to know anything about it on any account. Jessop was dead sure he had her hooked. I wasn’t so sure. She was in too much of a funk about her old man for my liking. I was right, too. We heard nothing more, of course we might have in time. Jessop declared the wait meant nothing.”
“There were no other negotiations?”
“Not with her. Jessop showed it once or twice to other prospects. He said he hoped she would hear we were still offering it. Hurry her up, he thought. All the time he stuck to it she was hooked.”
“I want to ask you something important, Mr. Wright,” Bobby said. “Are you certain it was the duchess you saw?”
“Good God!” said Wright, startled. “Of course! It was Hastley Court. Who else could it be? You mean ?”
“We are trying to consider every possibility,” Bobby said. “That’s all.”
“Yes, but, hang it all, it must have been her all right. You mean someone personated her? But Jessop was there. He knew her. Anyhow, he had seen her before.”
“You said it was a dark little cubby-hole, and there is such a thing as creating a resemblance by make-up.”
“Yes, yes, but –” protested Wright, obviously disturbed. Then he brightened up. “What for?” he asked. “She didn’t get the necklace. You wouldn’t have caught me parting except for cash or good security. And then we shouldn’t have cared whether it was her or her cook.”
“It was only an idea,” Bobby said. “One has to think of everything. I don’t say it would clear things up, even if we knew it wasn’t the duchess you saw but someone impersonating her. The identity of the murderer, what Mr. Jessop was doing at Brush Hill, what’s become of the necklace, who attacked Miss May and why, would all be as big puzzles as ever. Had you heard of the attack on Miss May?”
“Yes. Jacks and I were at the Yard, you remember. You told us to go round to report the necklace was missing.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Bobby. “Funny business about Miss May – no motive, apparently; nothing missing. Thanks very much for what you’ve told me. It must be getting late.” He took a watch from his pocket – his own he usually wore on his wrist he had left in his desk at the Yard. “Oh, I forgot,” he said; “it’s not going. Fellow I took it to said it was worn out. Is it, do you think?”
He had opened the case, and as he spoke he handed the watch to Wright. The manager looked at it, smiled, took out a big penknife, and on the point of a small blade extracted a piece of fluff.
“That’s about all that’s wrong with it,” he said.
“Thanks awfully,” said Bobby. “I say, what a jolly knife. May I look?”
Mr. Wright handed it over quite willingly.
“Old friend of mine,” he said. “Don’t forget to give it me back. I showed it to a fellow the other day – Denis Chenery his name is – and he put it in his pocket and went off with it. I only got it back this morning. Excuse me. I think I’m wanted.”
He hurried off, and Bobby, despite the warning received, put the knife in his pocket and went slowly away, thinking deeply.
“Another problem,” he muttered to himself. “Why did Wright think he was wanted just then? Or is that not a problem, but an answer?”
CHAPTER 24
THE PISTOL TRACED
It was not long after the submission of Mr. Wright’s penknife to the experts before back came a reply identifying with a tiny notch found on the bigger blade the fragment of steel picked up near the forced door of Hilda May’s flat.
“So that’s that,” said Ulyett, “and one thing established. Important, too. Oh, by the way, Owen,” he added, “there’s a report in from Brush Hill, too. The young chap seen in West Lane there on Saturday, and who disappeared into one of the houses – the pub, I should say – is not the fellow the Brush Hill man thought. That particular chap was seen at the time hanging about a public hall some distance off, where there was to be a Fascist meeting later on. But I don’t see it amounts to much, anyway, unless there’s some way of identifying the other bloke. And that doesn’t seem possible now.”
“No, sir,” agreed Bobby. “Of course, you never know what turns up in these cases.”
“Red herrings, chiefly,” growled Ulyett, and passed on his way, for this brief colloquy had taken place in a corridor when Ulyett was passing and had chanced to see Bobby talking to Lawson, the man who, attired in a green baize apron, sat on the tail-board of the van used in the abortive raid on The Towers. Over his shoulder, as he was going, Ulyett said: “Lawson told you about Chenery, I suppose?”
That was indeed the news Lawson had been eager to impart, for his special share in the investigation had been
to h
elp in the tracing of the pistol found near Jessop, and now he had succeeded in proving that it had belonged to Denis Chenery.
“Had a licence for it, too, all as proper and regular as you like,” Lawson went on to Bobby. “Got it three years ago when he was managing a small garage in an out-of-the-way spot where there was a gang in the district that had gone on from poaching to car-pinching and highway robbery. Good enough, eh?”
“Looks like it,” agreed Bobby, for this, indeed, seemed clear, definite evidence at last. “Has he been asked about it?”
“Yes, and let go again after telling three different stories,” answered Lawson with deep disgust. “First said he had given it to a friend, then that he had lost it, and then he wouldn’t answer any more questions till he had his solicitor there. And then – what do you think then?” demanded Lawson, with rising indignation.
“What?” asked Bobby.
“Let him go,” said Lawson. “Like that. Opened the door and bowed him out. Ought to have charged him, I say. I know the inspector thought so – Ferris it was; he was there. Said sarcastic like: ‘Perhaps you gave it to your sweetheart for a Christmas present?’ Chenery didn’t like that; went all pale; knew that meant no one believed a word he said. I was getting ready to take him downstairs when they let him go – practically cast iron and they let him go.”
“Is it cast iron?” Bobby said, for he was thinking to himself that perhaps that shaft aimed by Ferris with ironic intent had in fact hit the truth; and that possibly it was the fact that Chenery had given the pistol to Hilda with some idea of providing her with protection when she was in charge of the duchess’s jewels. Hilda might have mislaid or forgotten it, and so it might – or might not – have got into someone else’s hands. Or, for that matter, Denis might have taken it back. At any rate, there seemed to be more possibilities about its later ownership than Lawson was apparently prepared to consider.
“Accumulation of evidence,” Lawson was saying now. “One pointer may be wrong, but not half a dozen. He panicked, too – panicked when he knew we were on to the pistol being his.”
Mystery of Mr. Jessop Page 21
