by Molly Thynne
“He was lucky if he got that second-hand for forty shillings,” he said. “It’s a beauty. Besides, I saw it in his cupboard when I was here the other day. It was probably a wedding present.”
“If it wasn’t, he seems to have done pretty well out of his ‘bit of War Loan,’ as he calls it,” was Fenn’s sceptical comment as they left the house.
CHAPTER XV
Chief Inspector Abel Fenn was the fortunate possessor of a tiny house on the towing-path at Putney. He had bought it when such houses were cheap, and could have doubled the price he paid for it easily during the last ten years, instead of which he had divided it into two small flats, letting one to a friend, a fellow-bachelor, and living very comfortably on the upper floor himself.
After leaving Johnson’s rooms he had gone back to his office, put the finishing touches to his day’s work, dined on his way home, and at last settled down gratefully to the enjoyment of a long peaceful evening by the fire. There was little or no traffic on the towing-path, and except for the gentle lapping of the tide, caused by the wash from the long strings of barges that filed like grey ghosts past his windows, there was hardly a sound to disturb him. He had the book on his knee that he had been saving for just such an evening, but his mind reverted obstinately to the Braid case, and he did not open it. Gradually the warmth and stillness laid its spell on him, and he drifted off into that pleasant state that is half sleep, half incoherent meditation.
He was roused by the buzz of the electric bell which connected the front door with his flat. He looked at his watch, and was annoyed to find that he had let the evening slip by and that it was past ten o’clock. With an exclamation of impatience he strode to the window, threw it up, and peered out into the darkness.
His heart sank as he recognized the uniform of the man standing below, and, without wasting time in further parley, he went downstairs and opened the door.
The constable who stood on the steps saluted and handed him a letter.
“From Inspector Flamborough, sir,” he said.
Flamborough was one of the inspectors attached to the Putney police station and an old acquaintance of Fenn’s, who consigned him mentally to the devil as he opened the letter.
His face changed at the sight of the contents.
“Tell the inspector I’ll be with him in ten minutes,” he said, as he turned and ran upstairs to his flat.
He was as good as his word.
“Sorry to disturb you,” said Flamborough apologetically, “but I understand that you were inquiring after this man yesterday. Straker, here, used to be on duty at Epsom, and he identified him at once. I thought it better to let you know.”
“Quite right,” answered Fenn. “This will save me a journey from the Yard to-morrow. Any idea how the thing happened?”
“Looks as if he’d been slugged and then dumped into the river. The surgeon’s seen him and his verdict is, ‘death from drowning,’ but there’s a crack on the back of the man’s head that didn’t come there after death. Will you see him?”
Fenn nodded.
“When was he found?”
“Six-twenty this evening. Warren, one of the Thames lightermen, who was out in a skiff, saw something half under a barge and went to have a look at it. The man couldn’t have been in the water more than half an hour. Warren, who knows the river well, is of opinion that he was taken out in a boat and slipped overboard. He must have been sucked under the barge and held there by the current, like that poor chap who fell off the bridge last year.”
To Fenn, fresh from the hospitable warmth of his fireside, the mortuary seemed cold and dank as the river itself, and, hardened though he was through long experience, a shudder ran through him as Flamborough drew aside the sheet that covered the bit of human wreckage that was stretched on the stone slab.
He drew a long breath.
“It’s Sanders, right enough,” he said soberly. “Have his people been notified?”
“His wife’s up at the station now,” answered Flamborough. “He was brought in about seven, but Straker, who was on his beat, didn’t see him to identify him till close on eight. As soon as I got his name I applied to the Yard and got his address from them there. It was they who suggested that I should notify you, that’s why I didn’t do it earlier. Meanwhile I’d sent a man down to his place, and he brought the wife back with him. She’s in a proper stew, poor woman. I left her in charge of the policewoman, and I can tell you I was thankful she was still on duty. If some of those old jossers had a few of our dirty jobs to do, they wouldn’t blow a lot of hot air about women police being an unnecessary extravagance. The poor soul’s in the family way and it’s a woman’s job, not a man’s, looking after anybody like that whose man’s just been pulled out of the river.”
Fenn nodded. He entirely agreed with him.
“I’d like to see the contents of the pockets,” he said.
As they entered the police station they almost ran into a little group of people coming out. One of them, a big woman in a thick tweed coat, was leaning on the arm of a police-woman. Her heavy features were swollen with weeping, but she seemed to have exhausted her first paroxysm of grief.
“Mrs. Sanders?” queried Fenn, under his breath.
“Yes,” answered Flamborough. “Do you wish to speak to her?”
Fenn turned to the police-woman.
“If she feels equal to it,” he said, with his kindly smile. “If not, to-morrow will do as well.”
Mrs. Sanders raised her dazed eyes to his.
“What is it now?” she asked heavily.
Fenn glanced into the waiting-room. It was empty.
“Only that, if you feel you can stand it, I’d like a few words with you. I won’t keep you long, and it might be easier for you if we got it over now. You’re as anxious to get to the bottom of this as I am, I expect, and anything you can say would be a help to me.”
A sudden flush stained the woman’s sallow skin as she stared at him.
“He was done in, Ike was. You know that?” she demanded.
“Yes,” said Fenn gently. “And I’d give something to know who did it.”
“If I knew, I’d tell you right enough. I wish to God I did know!” she finished passionately.
“You’ve no suspicion of anybody?”
She hesitated, her fingers tearing at the sopping handkerchief she held.
“I’ve got my own ideas about it,” she muttered at last. “You’re welcome to them, if they’re any good to you.”
Fenn took her by the arm and led her into the waiting-room.
Once there she broke down once more. Fenn fetched her a glass of water and waited patiently until she was able to speak. There was little enough he could say to comfort her.
“He was a good husband, Ike was,” she said at last, drying her tears with the apology for a handkerchief. “And goodness knows what me and the kids’ll do without him.”
“Do you know if he had any enemies?” asked Fenn.
“Ike and the lot he went with was bound to have enemies,” she admitted frankly. “But there wasn’t one of the regular lot would have done this. He’s been set on, Ike has, before now, like any one else. This is different.”
“He never said anything to you to make you think he was in any danger?”
“If anything was said, it was by me! And he wouldn’t listen! I told him, when that dirty beast, Goldstein, started his little game that I wouldn’t have him inside my place, and I warned him he wasn’t up to no good. And, in spite of all I said, he just walked into it.”
“What did Goldstein want with him? He wasn’t one of his regular pals, was he?”
“Him? There’s been bad blood between them ever since I can remember. There aren’t many as will work with Eddie Goldstein, and them as does gets the dirty done on them before they’ve finished. So that, when he started suckin’ up to Ike somethin’ over a week ago, with a lot of talk about lettin’ bygones be bygones and bein’ able to put money in his pocket, I was worrie
d, and I told Ike what I thought. And, in the end, Ike backed out and wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with it, and I thought it was all right. But he got round him the second time, right enough, curse him!”
“What did he want with him?”
“I don’t know. Ike wouldn’t say. But he came up one night and called Ike out on to the landin’, and I overheard something. From what I could make out, there was a job down Southampton way he wanted Ike for, and Ike wouldn’t take the risk. He didn’t like the look of it then, and what with me speakin’ so strong against it, he did refuse it in the end.”
“You’ve no idea what the job was?”
“None, but it was the kind Eddie wouldn’t touch himself and wanted some one else to do for him. It must have been pretty bad for him to feel that way about it. Ike was to go to Southampton or thereabouts, that I do know. And, if you ask me, Ike knew too much after that. He wouldn’t be the first that Eddie had got put out of the way.”
“You really think Goldstein’s responsible for this?” asked Fenn thoughtfully.
“I don’t think, I know!” she exclaimed passionately. “And I’ll wager he got some one else to do his dirty work for him, the same as he always does. When he came back that second time, sayin’ he’d make it worth Ike’s while to take a letter for him, I knew he wasn’t up to no good. But Ike would have it that it was all straight and above-board, and there you are!”
“I don’t see why Goldstein wanted to employ Sanders. Surely there were plenty of men among his own lot he could have given the job to?”
“And had it traced to him afterwards!” was Mrs. Sanders’s shrewd comment. “That’s Goldstein all over. Him and Ike had never worked together and every one knew it. Whatever Ike might do, no one would think of Goldstein being at the back of it. Oh, he’d got good enough reason for usin’ Ike, and good enough reason for gettin’ rid of him afterwards too. And there’s this. Ike told me about his seein’ you at the Yard. You may be sure there were others besides me knew about that. What he told you, I don’t know. He didn’t say, but, if he spilled anything, or the Goldstein lot thought he had, he’d be for it!”
Fenn nodded.
“That’s likely enough,” he agreed. “He didn’t ask for police protection or he could have had it. I wish now he had. I want a word with Goldstein on my own account, and I can promise you that, if he’s had a hand in this, he shall answer for it. Meanwhile, keep your suspicions to yourself, if you want to see justice done. By the way, did you ever hear your husband speak of a man called Ling?”
She shook her head.
“Never. I’ve never heard him or any of his pals mention no one of that name. If he’d ever worked with him I should know.”
“You’re sure he didn’t mention him in connection with this business of Goldstein’s?”
“Certain. He told me Goldstein was workin’ alone on this and didn’t want to bring any of his pals into it. That’s what made me smell a rat.” Fenn thanked her and handed her over to the police-woman. Then he made his way to the inspector’s room and went through the heterogenous collection of limp and sodden objects that had been found in the dead man’s pockets. They provided no clue as to how he had met his end, but, adhering to the wet lining of a cheap purse, Fenn discovered a pound note, and that note bore one of the numbers he was looking for.
With a sigh he added it to his collection. Sanders, the only person who could have told him where it came from, was dead, and, so far, his attempts to trace any connection between Goldstein and either Ling or Johnson had proved abortive. Mrs. Sanders was no doubt speaking the truth when she declared that her husband had been merely a tool in Goldstein’s hands, and the probability was that the other man had deliberately planted the note on Sanders, wishing to get it off his hands, and banking on the fact that it would pass unnoticed should Sanders use it for the purpose for which it had been paid him. If it had been given him for his travelling expenses, a busy railway station was the one place, of all others, where a “wanted” note might be expected to slip through unobserved.
The report on Ling’s movements which he found on his desk next morning did not serve to lighten his gloom. According to Ling’s errand-boy, Albert Tombs, the newsagent had left his shop at six-thirty-five on the night of the murder. The boy was able to fix the time approximately, as it was his custom to run home at six for his supper and return to the shop at six-thirty, so as to be on hand for the evening delivery. He admitted that he was occasionally a few minutes late, but it appeared that Ling, though on the whole a considerate employer, was apt to deal firmly with unpunctuality, and it was doubtful whether Tombs was more than five minutes out in his estimate of the time. Ling had left the shop about five minutes after the boy’s return, taking with him a batch of evening papers which he proposed to leave at their respective destinations on his way home. It was apparently his custom to do this every evening, leaving the boy in charge of the shop until his return about seven-thirty. There was no further trace of his movements until his arrival at his own rooms in Selby Street at a few minutes after seven, when he had spoken to a Mrs. Dugmore, who lodged in the same house with him; but the papers had been delivered to the customers as usual that night, and there was no reason to suspect that he had departed in any way from his usual procedure. Mrs. Dugmore had heard him leave the house somewhere about seven-fifteen, and, according to the errand-boy’s report, he was back at his shop at seven-thirty.
Fenn did not overlook the fact that Ling might have been the person Stephens had heard enter Sir Adam Braid’s flat when he was waiting in the passage. It was well within the bounds of possibility that he had done so, and come out with sufficient time in hand to leave his papers as usual and reach his lodgings by a few minutes after seven; but, taking into account the evidence of the voices that had been heard in the flat, it would appear that Sir Adam was alive at least as late as six-fifty-five, when Ling must have been already half-way between Shorncliffe Street and his lodgings in Selby Street. Fenn had already ascertained that, of all the inhabitants of Romney Chambers, only Adams, the caretaker, was in the habit of taking an evening paper, so that there was nothing to account for the presence of the newsagent on the upper floors of the building at that hour, should he have gone there.
It seemed to Fenn that his best chance now lay with Goldstein, and Goldstein was a forlorn hope, at best, if, as was probably the case, he was merely mixed up with Johnson’s depredations. That these had taken place after the murder Fenn would have had very little doubt had it not been for Stephens’ story of the open door.
It began to look as though, even should he succeed in bringing Sanders’s death home to Goldstein, he would still be very little nearer to the solution of the Braid case.
CHAPTER XVI
Two nights later Gilroy was fitting his latchkey into the lock of his door when he became aware of a sound on the stairs behind him that brought all his professional instincts to the fore. He paused and listened. Judging by the noise alone, somebody’s bronchial tubes were in a bad way, and he was not surprised when Smith made his appearance round the turn of the staircase. For some time past Gilroy had heard him coughing in the flat overhead and had drawn his own conclusions.
He watched him as he paused on the landing to regain his breath. The man looked, and obviously felt, ill, but his dry humour had not deserted him and he grinned as he caught Gilroy’s eye.
“A bit of a pull when the machinery isn’t working properly,” he observed huskily.
Gilroy smiled.
“It’s not the best weather for bronchitis,” he said. “You ought to be careful.”
Smith glanced sideways at him.
“If you can’t be good, be careful, eh?” he answered meaningly. “I don’t let it worry me, doctor. It’s an old friend, had it since I was a boy, on and off, and it hasn’t downed me yet. There’s more bark than bite about it, and that’s the truth.”
“All the same, you might give it a chance. Your doctor can relieve it a bit, you know.
Hasn’t he given you anything for it?”
“Haven’t got a doctor. I’ve had too much of them in the past, I suppose, with all due apologies to you!”
“I don’t blame you,” said Gilroy, laughing. “I can give you a prescription that will relieve that cough though, if you feel disposed to trust me. Don’t tell me you’re not dosing yourself with some poisonous contraption or other you’ve seen advertised.” Smith looked distinctly sheepish.
“You’ve got me there,” he admitted. “The truth is, the wife worries if I bark at night.”
There was a likeable quality about the man, and it was not merely curiosity that made Gilroy push open his door and invite him in.
“Have a drink, anyway,” he said. “And I’ll see whether I can’t foist a prescription on you as well. Properly speaking, I don’t practise now, so you won’t feel you’re taking advantage of me.”
He led the way into his sitting-room and made up the fire. Then he poured out a stiff drink and placed it at Smith’s elbow. The man looked as though he needed it.
“You’re better without these, you know,” said Gilroy, as he pushed the cigarettes towards him.
Smith took one.
“I’m not your patient yet,” he observed, with a smile that somehow, in spite of its irony, robbed the words of all malice.
As Gilroy held a match to his cigarette, he looked up at him.
“You’re keeping bad company, doctor,” he said. “I don’t know what Mr. Fenn would say to this.”
Gilroy’s eyes twinkled.
“He’d probably congratulate me on getting in touch with the only person in this building capable of discussing the Braid case intelligently,” he answered.
“Meaning that I may tell you more than I’d tell him,” observed Smith shrewdly. “Nothing doing, doctor. But I will say this, and you can believe it or not as you like, neither the wife nor I had any hand in that business.”
“I’m quite willing to believe that,” agreed Gilroy readily. “I wish you’d give me your frank opinion of the whole thing, though. I can promise it won’t go any further if you do. And you can take it that I didn’t ask you in here for any ulterior purpose!”
