From the gate he turned to the right, and, in the same silent, furtive manner, stole along the wall of the churchyard towards the place into which the car had seemed to disappear. Short as the distance was, it seemed interminable in the agony of suspense that possessed him. For the car was indispensable. It had been the keystone of his plan—the appointed means of safety and escape. But suppose it had been seen, or, still worse, taken away! The fearful possibility brought the sweat afresh to his already clammy brow, and set his trembling limbs shaking so that he staggered like a drunken man.
At length he reached the corner of the wall. Beside the churchyard ran a narrow, leafy lane, enclosed between the high wall and a tall hedgerow, and as dark as a cellar. He peered desperately into the dense obscurity, but at first could see nothing. With throbbing heart he stole up the lane as quickly as he dared, still craning eagerly forward into the darkness, yet still careful not to trip on the rough ground. Suddenly he gave a gasp of relief; for, out of the darkness ahead, a shape of deeper darkness emerged, and, as he hurried forward, he recognized the big covered car with which he had had so many dealings in the past.
Shaken as he was, he still had all his wits about him, and he realized that there must be no false start. Once he was on the move, he must get straight away from the neighbourhood. It would never do to be held up on the road by any failure of the engine or other occasion of delay. Accordingly, he went over all the working parts with the aid of a small electric lamp that he produced from his pocket and satisfied himself that all was in order. Then he threw the light back along the lane to see that the way was clear for steering out in reverse. That was the immediate difficulty. There seemed to be no room to turn round. He would have to back out; and to back out at the first attempt.
At length he prepared for the actual start. Getting into the driver’s seat, he switched on the lights and the ignition and pressed the electric starter. Instantly, the silence was shattered by a roar that seemed fit to rouse the whole countryside, and brought the sweat streaming down his face. Still, though the hand that held the steering wheel shook as if with a palsy, he kept his wits under control. The lane was practically straight and the car had been run straight in. By the dim light of the rear lamp he could see through the rear window well enough to back the car down the lane to the road.
At last, he was out in the open, as he could see by the light from the front lamps shining on the corner of the churchyard wail. He put the steering-wheel over and started forward, now quite noiselessly, through the village street and so out on to the London road.
It was getting on for two o’clock when he drove into the small car-park attached to the garage.
“Late, ain’t you?” said the night watchman. “They told me Mr. Toke was going to bring her back by half-past eleven. Did he miss his train?”
“No,” replied Hughes. “He caught his train all right. It was my fault. I had to go somewhere else and couldn’t bring her along any sooner.”
“Well,” was the philosophical response, “better late than never.”
“Very much better,” Hughes agreed. “Good night—or rather, good morning.”
He paused for a moment to light a cigarette, and then walked out into the street and was lost to sight.
BOOK II
INSPECTOR BADGER DECEASED
CHAPTER V
The Tragedy in the Tunnel
Mr. Superintendent Miller was by no means an emotional man. He had his moments of excitement or irritation, but in general he was a person of a calm exterior, and gave the impression of one not easily ruffled. That was my view of him, born of years of intimacy. But the Superintendent Miller whom I admitted to our chambers in response to a somewhat peremptory knock was a new phenomenon. His flushed, angry face and lowering brow told us at once that something quite out of the ordinary had occurred, and we looked at him expectantly without question or remark. Nor was there any occasion for either; for, without seating himself or even taking off his hat, he came instantly to the point.
“I want you two gentlemen to come with me at once, if you can. I’ve got a car waiting. And I want you to bring all your wits and knowledge to bear on this case as you never brought them before.”
Thorndyke looked at him in surprise. “What is it, Miller?” he asked.
The Superintendent frowned at him fiercely, and replied in a voice husky with passion: “It is Badger. He has been murdered. And I look to you two gentlemen as officers of the law to strain every nerve in helping us to bring the crime home to the villain who committed it.”
We were profoundly shocked; and we could easily understand—and indeed share—his wrathful determination to lay hands on the murderer. It is true that Inspector Badger had been no favourite with any of the three of us. His personal qualities had not been endearing. But now this was forgotten. He had been, in a sense, an old friend, if at times he had seemed a little like an enemy. But especially, he was a police officer; and to a normally constituted Englishman, a police officer’s life is something even more sacred than the life of an ordinary man. For the police are the guardians of the safety of us all. The risks that they accept with quiet matter-of-fact courage are under taken that we may walk abroad in security and rest at night in peace and confidence. Well may we feel, as we do, that the murder of a police officer is at once an outrage on the community and on every member of it.
“You may take it, Miller,” said Thorndyke, “that we are at your command, heart and soul. Where do you want us to go?”
“Greenhithe. That is where the body is lying and where the murder must have been committed. There is a fairly good train in a quarter of an hour, and the car will get us to the station in five minutes. Can you come?”
“We must,” was the reply; and without another word Thorndyke rose and ran up to the laboratory to notify our assistant, Polton, of our sudden departure. In less than a minute he returned with his “research case” in his hand, and announced that he was ready to start; and as I had already made the few preparations which were necessary, we went down to the car.
During our brief journey to the station nothing was said. As we arrived at the platform from the booking office, the train came alongside, and the passengers poured out. We took up our position opposite a first-class coach, and, when the fresh passengers had all bestowed themselves and the train was on the point of starting, we entered an empty compartment and shut ourselves in.
“It is very good of you gentlemen,” said Miller, as the train gathered speed, “to come off like this at a moment’s notice, especially as I have not given you any inkling of the case. But there will be plenty of time for me to tell you all I know—which isn’t very much at present. Probably we shall pick up some fresh details at Greenhithe. My present information is limited to what we have heard over the telephone from there and from Maidstone. This is what it amounts to.
“Yesterday morning poor Badger went down to Maidstone to look over a batch of prisoners for the assizes and see if there were any old acquaintances lurking under an alias. But principally his object was to inspect a man who had given the name of Frederick Smith, but whom he suspected of being a certain crook whose real name was unknown to us. We were a good deal interested in this man. For various reasons we associated him with a number of burglaries of a rather clever type—one-man jobs, which are always the most difficult to deal with if they are efficiently carried out. And we had something to go on in one case, for Badger saw the man making off. However, he got away, and neither he nor the stuff was ever traced. So our position was that here was a man whom we suspected of quite an important series of crimes, but who was, so to speak, in the air. He was not even a name. He was just a ‘person unknown.’ Whether we had his fingerprints under some name we couldn’t guess, because nobody knew him by sight excepting Badger; and his opinion was that the man had never been in custody, and couldn’t be identified—excepting by himself.”
“But,” said I, “surely Badger could have put a description of him o
n record.”
“M’yes,” replied Miller. “But you know what Badger was like. So beastly secretive. One doesn’t like to say it now, but he really didn’t play the game. If he got a bit of information, instead of passing it round for the benefit of the force and the public, he would keep it to himself in the hope of bringing off a striking coup and getting some kudos out of it. And he did bring it off once or twice, and got more credit than he deserved. But to come back to this Maidstone business. Badger gleaned something from the reports concerning the prisoners there that made him suspect that this man, Smith, might be the much-wanted burglar. So down he went, all agog to see if Smith was the man he had once got a glimpse of.”
“I shouldn’t think a recognition of that kind, based on a mere passing glance, would have much value as evidence,” I objected.
“Not in court,” Miller admitted. “But it would have had considerable weight with us. Badger had a devil of a memory for faces, and we knew it. That was his strong point. He was like a snapshot camera. A single glance at a face and it was fixed on his memory for ever.”
“Do you know if he recognized the man?” Thorndyke asked.
“He didn’t,” replied Miller, “for the man wasn’t there. In some way he had managed to do a bolt; and up to the present, so far as I know, they have not been able to find him. It is quite likely that he has got clean away, for, as he was wearing his own clothes, he won’t be very easy to track. However, Badger seems to have satisfied himself that the man was really the one he was looking for—probably he thought he recognized the photographs—and this morning he started for Town with the papers—the personal description, photographs, and fingerprints—for examination and comparison at the Criminal Record Office. But he never arrived; and about eleven o’clock his body was found near the middle of the Greenhithe tunnel. The engine driver of an up train saw it lying across the rails on the down side, and reported as soon as he got into Greenhithe. But it seemed that at least one train had been over it by then. I gather that—but there! I don’t like to think of it. Poor old Badger!”
“No,” Thorndyke agreed sympathetically. “It is too horrible to think of. But still, as we have to investigate and ascertain what really happened, we must put aside our personal feelings and face the facts, terrible as they are. You spoke of his having been murdered. Do you know if there were any signs, apart from the mutilation caused by the train passing over him, that he had met a violent death? Is it clear that it was not an accident?
“Quite clear, I think,” replied Miller. “I know nothing about the condition of the body, but I know that there was no open door on the off side of the train that he travelled by.”
“That would seem to be conclusive,” said Thorndyke, “if the fact can be established. But it isn’t always easy to prove a negative. A passenger, getting into an empty compartment and finding the door open, would naturally shut it and might not report the circumstance. The point will have to be enquired into.”
“Yes,” Miller agreed; “but I don’t think there is much doubt. You must remember that the train passed through Greenhithe station and past the signal boxes both there and at Dartford. An open door on the off side would be very noticeable from the down platforms. Still, as you say, the point will have to be settled definitely. Probably it has been by now. We shall hear what they have to say when we get to Greenhithe. But for my part I have no doubt at all, door or no door. Badger was not the sort of fool who leans out of the window of a moving train without seeing that the door is fastened. It is a case of murder, and the murderer has got to be found and dealt with.”
If the Superintendent may have seemed to have formed a very definite opinion on rather slender evidence, that opinion received strong confirmation when we reached Greenhithe. Awaiting us on the platform were a detective sergeant and one of the senior officers from Maidstone Prison. They had travelled up from Maidstone together, apparently comparing notes and making enquiries by the way.
“Well, sir,” said the Sergeant, “I think we can exclude the suggestion of accident, positively and certainly. It was unlikely on the face of it. But we have got some definite facts that put it out altogether. This officer, Chief Officer Cummings, whose duties include all matters relating to descriptions and records, handed to Inspector Badger the papers relating to the prisoner, Frederick Smith—fingerprints, description, and photographs—and saw him put them into his letter wallet. Now, I have been through that wallet with the greatest care, and there is not a trace of any of those papers in the wallet or in any of his pockets.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Miller in a tone of grim satisfaction, “that settles it. I take it, Cummings, that there is no possible doubt that the Inspector had those papers in his pocket when he started from Maidstone?”
“Not a shadow of doubt, sir,” replied Cummings. “I gave him the papers, carefully folded, and saw him put them into his wallet—just into the open wallet, as they were too large to go into the pockets without further folding. He stowed the wallet away in his inside breast pocket and buttoned his coat. And I can swear that it was in his pocket when he started, for I walked with him to the station and actually saw him into the train. He asked me to walk down with him, as there were various questions that he wanted to put to me respecting the prisoners, especially this man, Smith.”
“Yes,” said Miller, “we shall have to have a talk about Mr. Smith presently. But the fact that the Inspector had those papers on his person when he got into the train, and that they were not on the body, makes it certain that he was not alone in the carriage.”
“It does, sir,” the Sergeant agreed. “But apart from that, we have got direct evidence that he was not. The station-master at Strood gave us the particulars. The Inspector’s train stopped there, and he had to get out and wait a few minutes for the London train. The station-master saw him standing on the platform, and, as they knew each other, he went up to him, and they had a few words together. While they were chatting the London train came in and drew up at the platform. Inspector Badger was just moving off to find a compartment when a man came along from the entrance. As soon as the Inspector saw this man, he stopped short and stood watching him. The man walked rather quickly along the train, looking in at the windows, and got into an empty first-class smoking compartment. But the station-master noticed that, before he got in, he looked into each of the adjoining compartments, which were both empty. As soon as he had got in and shut the door after him, the Inspector wished the station-master ‘Good morning,’ and began to saunter slowly towards the compartment that the stranger had got into. A few paces away from it he stopped and waited until the guard blew his whistle. Then he walked forward quickly and got into the compartment where the strange man was.”
“Could the station-master give you any description of the man?”
“No, sire No description that would be of any use. He said he was a middle-aged man of about medium height, not noticeably stout or thin, moderately well-dressed in a darkish suit, and wearing a soft felt hat. He thought that the man had darkish red hair and rather a red nose. But that isn’t very distinctive. And he thought he was clean-shaved.”
“Did you ask him if he would know the man again if he saw him?”
“I did, sir, and he said that he might or he might not, but he didn’t think he would, and he certainly wouldn’t swear to him.”
The Superintendent emitted a growl of dissatisfaction, and, turning to the Chief Officer, asked: “What do you say, Cummings? Does the description suggest anything to you?”
The officer smiled deprecatingly. “I suppose, sir, you are thinking of Frederick Smith, and it does seem likely. Smith certainly has darkish red hair and a reddish nose. And he is about that age and about that height and he hasn’t got a beard, and when I last saw him he was wearing a darkish suit and a soft felt hat. So it might have been Smith. But as the description would apply to a good many men that you might meet, it isn’t much good for identification.”
“No,” growled Miller,
“not enough details. And now that the fingerprints and detailed description are gone, it might be difficult to prove his identity even if we should get hold of him.”
“It isn’t as bad as that, sir,” said Cummings. “As it happens, luckily, we have a duplicate of the fingerprints, at least of some of them. The officer who took the fingerprints made rather a mess of one of the rolled impressions. So he had to waste that form and start over again. Fortunately, the spoiled form wasn’t destroyed. So we’ve got that, and of course we’ve got the negatives of the photographs, and the officer who took the description can remember most of the items. There will be no difficulty in proving the identity if we can get hold of the man. And that ought not to be so very difficult, either. There are several of us who have seen him and could recognize him.”
The Superintendent nodded. “That’s all to the good,” said he; “but before we can recognize him we’ve got to find him. The train didn’t stop here, I understand.”
“No, sir,” the Sergeant replied. “The first stop after Strood was Dartford. We’ve been over there, but we had no luck. There were a lot of people waiting for the train, so the platform was pretty crowded, and it was not easy to see who got out of the train. None of the porters noticed any first-class passengers getting out, though there must have been one, for a first-class ticket was collected—from Maidstone.”
“Maidstone!” exclaimed Miller. “Well, that couldn’t have been our man. He came onto the Strood platform from the entrance.”
“So the station-master says. But the booking-office clerk there doesn’t remember issuing any first-class ticket, or any ticket at all to Dartford.”
“Hm,” grunted Miller. “Looks rather as if he didn’t get out at Dartford. May have chanced it and gone on to London. We must have all the tickets checked. Did you make any enquiries from the ticket collector?”
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