A Scream in Soho

by John G. Brandon

  “We’ll come to that later. It will be sufficient for me to mention that I happen to know that the stolen papers were handed to you last night by the Baron Hellner and he was assured that Heinrich would have them out of England to-day.”

  “Assured by whom, Inspector?” she inquired.

  “By yourself, Baroness,” he informed her. “Your memory is surely not so poor that you’ve forgotten that. He brought them to you immediately he had received them at a dirty little wine shop in Soho, known as the Circolo Venezia, kept by one Fasoli—a place, by the way, with which you’re quite familiar, as you undoubtedly called there yesterday afternoon. It was after Hellner had left that place that our unpleasant little friend, Ludwig, murdered Mascagni, also at Hellner’s instigation. Unfortunately,” the inspector went on with his ingratiating smile, “his unfortunate lack of manners towards those he considers to be his inferiors in life, aroused the ire of a certain friend of mine, who followed him to Grosvenor Square, and, with great perspicacity, listened in upon the conversation you held with Hellner at your own door. A great mistake that, Baroness; it’s amazing how voices carry in the stillness of the black-out.”

  The lady addressed said nothing; her smile was just as set as it had always been, but McCarthy saw her eyes wander towards the rope of an old-fashioned bell-pull set beside one of the bay windows opening down on to the square. Lazily he moved to place himself between her and it.

  “It would do no good whatever, Baroness, to call either for assistance or—or whatever else it might be in your mind to do. The whole of your staff of servants are bottled up where they won’t get out in a hurry, with an extremely capable gentleman standing guard over them with a shovel. Heinrich is in equally bad shape, and certainly not in a position to answer any call upon him that you might make.”

  “Heinrich is a captive?” she exclaimed sharply.

  “Well—er—scarcely that, though quite as good. I had the pleasure, the extreme pleasure I might say, of knocking that gentleman stone cold before making my appearance up here. Or rather,” he corrected hastily, “my friend, Mr. Withers here, performed that very valuable contribution to this raid, and what he does in that line, he does very thoroughly, I can assure you.”

  “Where is Baron Hellner now?” she demanded sharply.

  “That particular gentleman, who, by the way, you don’t know, is at the present moment reposing in a cell at either Vine Street or Cannon Row police station, if everything’s gone according to my instructions, which I don’t doubt that it has. With him, or nearby, is that extremely beautiful, though I regret to say unlucky young lady, the Signorina Tessa Domenico, by whose aid Mascagni was put on the spot for his murder. By this time every soul concerned with that crime, and the Soho Square murder, is under arrest, with two notable exceptions, Ludwig and yourself. That will be rectified within the very near future.”

  As he spoke he glanced through the window to see slowly coming into the square the car which had driven Tessa Domenico and her belongings from Doughty Street to Park Lane. At the wheel, perched up in his usual jack-in-the-box fashion, was the dwarf, Ludwig.

  “Withers,” he said quietly, “if you go down to the basement you’ll probably run into the very one I was just speaking about. The dwarf we saw drive Tessa Domenico to Park Lane this morning. Make no bones whatever about him, and be sure to intercept him before he can get up to the kitchen where we have the others. I shouldn’t like to find our stalwart friend the coalie dead with a knife through his back, which would most probably be his finish if that gargoyle-faced merchant gets wind at what he’s at.”

  “Leave that to me, guv’nor,” “Big Bill” said grimly, and departed swiftly out and down the stairs. At once McCarthy faced the baroness, all sign of lightness gone from him.

  “I’ll have those stolen papers, Baroness Eberhardt,” he said grimly. “To deny any knowledge of them is simply futile. They were placed in your hands last night to smuggle out of England by the medium of your servant, Heinrich. In any case it is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest upon a charge of espionage, and, further, of complicity in, and accessory before and after, the fact of three murders. It is also my duty to inform you that anything you may have to say will be taken down and used in evidence against you.”

  Just who was to do the “taking down” was rather more than McCarthy could have said at the moment, unless, of course, it was Sir William Haynes. That gentleman sat staring from one to the other of them as though his mind was in a perfect maze, and made no movement whatever to suggest that he was about to become McCarthy’s amanuensis in this paralysing business.

  Without a word, but with a dejected shrug of her shoulders which seemed to acknowledge defeat, the baroness moved slowly towards an inlaid buhl table which stood just inside the door. Laying a hand upon the handle of one of its drawers she drew it open. But a certain sudden rigidity in the set of her back and her shoulders warned McCarthy that this woman was not yet defeated. With a sharp exclamation which brought Haynes to his feet, he dashed across the room at her and seized her wrist as she half turned, in her hand an automatic pistol! Swift as he was, she had even then time to open the safety catch and the bullet which most certainly would have found a billet in one or other of them ploughed through the ceiling of the drawing-room. Nor was it an easy matter to disarm her, for she fought like a wild cat and he was to find that that litheness of movement of hers was a matter of sinew, and not acquired grace. It took a full minute of hard struggle, in which he was aided by a still semi-dazed Sir William, before he forced her down into an armchair and handcuffed her by one wrist to it. Even then she left some fresh marks upon his already maltreated features.

  “There’s nothing for it, Bill, but to have a squad here and go through this place from the cellars to the attic. Those papers are here right enough, you can be sure of that.”

  At which moment Withers appeared, lugging up the stairs with his feet trailing against every tread, the inanimate form of the dwarf, Ludwig.

  “I ’ad to land ’im one, sir,” he half-apologized. “’E may be short in the ’eight, so t’ speak, but blimey ’e’s as strong as a gorilla fr’m the waist up.”

  “Tie him up, Withers, and make dead sure of him,” McCarthy ordered. “He’s due to swing for the murder of Flo. Mascagni.”

  A shout went up from the street. Running to the window McCarthy saw the thick-set form of Heinrich stealing across the square as rapidly as it was possible for him to move without drawing too much attention to himself. In a flash it crossed the inspector’s mind that he was the person who had those papers in his possession! He was all ready to get away when Ludwig called for him with the car, as had no doubt been previously arranged. The baroness knew it and had she been able to have got that gun unmolested she would have held them up there until her servant got clear away. Heinrich had seen his opportunity for escape while the coalie was upstairs in that kitchen; had probably heard Withers’ scuffle with the dwarf and realized that it was now or never, if he was to fulfil his mission.

  With a cry McCarthy flung open one of the long windows opening to the balcony, crossed it and without hesitation vaulted the parapet and landed in the garden with an anything but pleasant thud. For a moment it shook the wind out of him, but in the next he was over the fence and streaking across the square after the German as fast as ever a fox ran before hounds. He was nearly up with him at the corner of Grosvenor Street when the man suddenly turned and pulled a gun from his pocket. Without hesitation McCarthy charged blindly in at him, and a shot which would have most likely ended his mortal career whined past his ear as he came to grips with the man. As it was he took a wicked rap on the side of the head with the heavy weapon which, for a moment, sent him dizzy.

  But by sheer main strength and the force of his attack he rushed the man back against the railings of a house as he thought; it proved to be the gate leading down to the area which flew open and the pair o
f them dived headlong down the stone steps. Twice the German’s head contacted heavily as they rolled over each other in their descent—and once McCarthy’s hit the side of the wall with force enough to send him sick and dizzy, but he clung on like a bull-terrier, although after the strenuous efforts of that day he began to find his strength waning.

  But, as it happened, help was close at hand for the pair of coalies who had been left in Withers’ taxi had been observers of all that had taken place and were making their way to the spot at which the pair had disappeared as hard as their legs could carry them.

  By this time Heinrich and the inspector were engaged in a slogging bout in which no rules were observed by either, and the German was using his feet as well as his hands to escape the fate he knew was certain to follow capture. Another couple of minutes would have seen that end well in sight, for McCarthy, though sticking to the much heavier man like a leech, was reeling in front of him like a man “out” upon his feet.

  He had just taken a heavy kick which had nearly knocked what little breath he had out of him when the first of the coalies took the steps at a dive and, believing in the sound principle of an eye for an eye where a fight was concerned put his heavy number ten boot into the German’s stomach with such accuracy and force that the man doubled up like a jack knife. In the next moment the second was upon him and the pair bore him to the ground and kept him there while McCarthy searched his pockets. In a concealed one, stitched underneath the man’s shirt, he found the oilskin-covered packet which meant so much.

  The trio were forcing the German up the steps again when a constable came round the corner almost on top of them. He was a young man but newly sent in from the country, and he stared at this curiously assorted quartette as though he could scarcely believe his eyes. In the brief time that he had known Grosvenor Square he certainly had never struck anything like this particular lot before.

  “Give me your cuffs,” the most battered looking of the lot said in a tone of authority, and holding out his hand for those highly desirable articles.

  “Not so fast; not so fast,” the C. Division rookie returned with a calm wave of his hand and speaking in a strong Wiltshire accent. “We’ll hear some more about this before I give anybody anything. This looks to me like a case of Common Assault.”

  “It’ll be the most uncommon one you’ve ever heard of if you don’t dig out those cuffs when you’re ordered,” the inspector snapped at him, his hand still held out for the articles requested.

  Doubt assailed the gentleman from the country. There was something in the tone of this battered-looking object that seemed to imply authority; a man, this, who sounded as though he was used to being obeyed when he gave orders.

  “Who might you be?” C. 1674 inquired, the doubt he was feeling strong in his voice.

  “Well,” McCarthy answered, through bruised lips, “I might be anybody, I might even be the Prime Minister or, come to that, His Holiness the Pope in disguise. I could even be one of the reigning monarchs travelling incognito. But as it happens I’m not. My name’s McCarthy, and I’m an inspector of the C.I.D. Do you want to see my Warrant Card?”

  “No, sir,” he was hurriedly answered, and the cuffs produced and snapped upon the German’s wrists in the twinkling of an eye.

  McCarthy looked at his fellow guardian of the peace, a whimsical twist at the side of his mouth.

  “And how do you know that I really am Inspector McCarthy?” he asked quietly. “You’ve handed over your cuffs without the slightest proof that I’m who I say. I’ve seen men run out of the Force for less.”

  “I—I took your word for it, sir,” C. 1674 stammered, a look of perturbation growing rapidly upon his face.

  “That’s the way,” McCarthy said. “That’s the way, lad. Take everything that’s told you in London for gospel! ’Tis the most truthful town in the world. Follow up that idea and you’ll either be one of two things. You’ll either be looking for a job, or they’ll make you an inspector—and then the good Lord look after you for nobody else will.”

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