by John Rowland
She glanced out of the car as it sped along the streets. She could not, however, make out where they were. All London streets look pretty much alike at night, and there seemed no chance of identifying any particular one in passing through it. Her hope was that the car might be driven too fast. It certainly seemed as if they might well be exceeding the speed limit. If a policeman stopped the driver she felt that it might easily happen that she could utter some protest. And, surely, her captor (for as such she now thought of him) would not dare to stop her from speaking.
This did not happen. It seemed that he must have known precisely what he was doing, and carefully refrained from driving at more than thirty miles an hour in any built-up area.
Once they stopped at a crossing, where the traffic lights were against them, and she moved as if to get out. But her companion gripped her wrist in his fingers. He hissed into her ears: “Stay still!” Almost petrified with fright, she was unable to get free, and helplessly acquiesced in her continued imprisonment—for such, she decided, this really was.
On they sped, the night getting ever blacker, and the rain, which had caused Sergeant Cunningham such trouble in his attempt to find her, coming down in sheets. It struck the windscreen of the car as if with malice aforethought, but splashed off helplessly into the road.
By now they had left the last straggling houses of the outer suburbs of London behind, and were sweeping along a fine, broad road, where many cars passed them, and great lumbering lorries had to be passed in their turn.
“Is this the Great North Road?” she asked, and her companion nodded.
“It is,” he said. “But I warn you: talk no more, or it will be the worse for you.”
She subsided into silence. Clearly this man who had kidnapped her so fearlessly was absolutely without scruple. Obviously he was the murderer, she told herself, and her heart made a wild leap into her mouth at the thought.
At last, however, she thought of a way of leaving, at any rate, some sort of clue behind. It might never be picked up, but it did give her the satisfaction of knowing that she was doing her best to give the police—who would, she hoped, do their best to track this dreadful man to his lair, wherever that might be—some sort of chance of discovering her. So she cautiously opened her handbag, taking out her handkerchief and ostentatiously wiping her nose. Then she pretended to replace it in her bag, but really retained it in the palm of her hand, screwed into a little ball. As they swung around a corner in the road, she leaned towards the window, and gripped the little handle that opened it.
But her manœuvre had not passed unobserved. Again she felt the iron grip of the man’s hand close around her wrist, and he muttered in her ear.
“Window’s shut, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” He leaned across her, turned a little key which was in the door of the car, and then sank back in his seat. His eyes had been glued to the road ahead. He had not for a moment looked either at her or at the door, but she now found, when she tried to open the window of the car, that it was locked.
She could have cried with vexation. Her only chance of leaving some sort of clue behind her, some little thing (for her hand-kerchief, though tiny, was marked with her full name) which would enable Harry Baker or Mr. Fairhurst or the police, or all the three in collaboration, to get on her trail and rescue her before it was too late!
Now they swung into some big town. She gazed out of the window helplessly, trying to see where it could be, but was unable to catch any glimpse of a post office or anything else which would enable her to identify the town or city through which they were passing.
“Where are we?” she asked at length, but her companion merely shook his head, never uttering a word. Violet had never felt so helpless in her life. Where on earth could they be? What on earth could be the meaning of this wild dash through the night? It seemed the craziest thing, and yet, when she looked at the grim, determined face of her captor, the black beard on his chin waggling as he muttered to himself disjointed words in some uncouth Eastern tongue, she felt that he would not do anything unless it was in complete accord with some preconceived plan. It seemed utterly impossible that he would catch her and take her away like this unless there was some very real method in his madness, unless he had every intention of carrying out a plan matured to the last detail.
What could it be? She shrugged her shoulders hopelessly, and peered out into the darkness ahead. The rain had stopped now, but the roads still shone like sheets of polished glass in the vivid light of the car’s headlamps. Not so many cars passed them now, though an occasional lorry rumbled past, its burly weight almost shaking the road as it rattled along.
Surely, she thought to herself, they could not be going for long like this. Then they came to another town, and this time she determined to make an effort to attract attention. Although they were going at a fair speed, she thought that it would not be too dangerous to throw herself out. She felt so desperate that anything would be better than to continue in this forced captivity, hurtling across England to an unknown fate in an unknown destination.
She gripped the handle of the car’s door tightly, scarcely conscious that the car was coming to a standstill in a lonely street. As she managed to get the door open her captor, a rubber truncheon in his hand, hit her smartly across the back of the head. Violet did not know what had happened. She merely saw the flashes of vivid light which so often prelude violent unconsciousness, and then oblivion descended on her.
She came to in broad daylight. She was lying on a dirty bed in an untidy room. She sat up, but at once collapsed into a prone position again. Her head ached, and her every limb felt as if it had been passed through some machine which had mangled them terribly.
Gradually, however, she mastered her nausea, and sat up. She was in a small room, white-washed long ago, but now with walls of an indeterminate grey.
Besides the bed, the room contained merely a chair and a small occasional table. It was uncarpeted, and there was merely a small piece of oilcloth, of a grotesquely ugly pattern, beside the table, and was obviously meant for her to stand on when performing her toilette, for on the table there was resting a large jug of water and a basin, in which she splashed her face and hands, then feeling considerably better to face whatever might be coming her way.
She staggered to the window, which was barred on the outside, and then looked around. She was in the country, but what country she could not tell. Before her eyes was stretched a wide panorama of hill and vale. The hills were of an uneven brown colour, fading away into black in the distance, save where outcrops of cruel granite stuck grey fingers through the sparse, brown grass. A brown road stretched its ribbon length away into the distance, and immediately below her, outside the front door of the house, she supposed, was a low, racing car—presumably that which had brought her here from London.
There was only one grain of comfort to be extracted from the situation. She was still in England, for they would never have dared to take the car out of the country. The risk of shipping it would have been too great. Still, she might be almost anywhere. Certainly she had never seen anything like this bitter, grim landscape in her life before. It even exceeded in cruelty the Mendip Hills of her childhood and the Dartmoor village where she had once, in her schooldays, spent a holiday.
The door opened, and a man entered. It was the man who had captured her the night before. His hair was now brushed more or less tidily. His beard was a little more neatly trimmed. In fact, he looked almost civilised. But still the fire of enmity burned in his steady eyes.
“My dear Miss Arnell,” he said in sarcastic tones, “I trust that we have made you comfortable in our humble way, and that you have no complaints to make as to our north-country hospitality?”
“I demand,” replied Violet with some dignity, “to be released at once.”
“Certainly,” he said, smiling at her. “You s
hall be released very shortly; but there are a few little formalities which will, I fear, have to be complied with before that no doubt desirable consummation can be achieved. Our conditions are, I assure you, the merest formality; but I think that I shall have to give you a little rest before I go on to discuss them with you.”
“Conditions?”
“That, my dear young lady, was the word that I have used.”
“What are they?”
“That, as I said a moment ago, will have to wait until you are just the wee-est bit more able to discuss matters of business.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well,” he explained, “you have gone through a somewhat difficult and trying experience; and I feel that I owe it to you to give you time to rest.”
“I want no rest,” snapped Violet. “I want to get out of here without delay. Tell me your conditions, and I will tell you if I can agree to them. I shouldn’t be able to rest in this dreadful room, anyhow.”
His eyebrows rose. “I see no reason for delay, my dear lady, if you do not,” he said. “Let us talk business.” He sat on the bed and faced her.
Chapter XVI
Revelations?
It took Shelley several seconds to recover from his astonishment when Moses Moss entered the room. They had decided that this man was the murderer, the kidnapper of Violet Arnell. And that kidnapper was quite certainly somewhere in the north of England at this very moment! But who could he be? Shelley racked his brains, but was totally unable to decide. However, it was obvious that the next move was to find out to what they owed this very unexpected visit.
“You wanted to speak to us about the Arnell case, Mr. Moss?” he asked, managing by a great effort of will to keep his voice level.
“Yes,” answered Moss, a quiet smile spreading over his somewhat sombre face. “I thought that it was time I gave you the ‘low-down’ on what has been happening—as far as I can, that is.”
Shelley was puzzled, and looked it. “Why did you decide to do this now, Mr. Moss?” he asked.
Again Moss smiled his almost inscrutable smile.
“Well,” he said. “I reckon you’ll think me about the biggest fool in Christendom when I tell you the silly joke I fell for this afternoon. But the fact of the matter is that I’m very hard up, and I can’t afford to throw away a chance of a possible piece of commission.” He paused, and Shelley quickly interjected a question before the other could resume his rambling statement.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Moss,” he said; “but I’m afraid I don’t understand. You must begin at the beginning, and go straight through. That’s the only way that we can get this business in order.”
“Okay,” said Moss. “I suppose I was telling the tale in a funny way. Little weakness of mine that I can’t tell a tale straight through in a sensible way.”
“Do your best,” Shelley advised him; and he smiled.
“Well,” he began, “I suppose the fact that I’m hard up, and in the hands of that old skinflint Victor Isaacs, really has nothing to do with the case.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that, Mr. Moss,” Shelley remarked dryly; “but, as a matter of fact, we know all about your financial position already.”
“Do you, by Jove?” A rueful smile spread over the countenance of the young Jew. “What I was really saying all that for, though, was to explain that I am eager to get hold of any sort of job that will bring in a few quid—old Isaacs wants a bit of staving off; but I think if I could let him have fifty within the next few days he would wait a little longer.”
“And then…?” Shelley was quietly insistent.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Moss shrugged his shoulders. “No doubt something or other would turn up, sooner or later,” he said.
“Well, Mr. Micawber,” smiled Shelley, “what precisely does all this lead up to?”
“This,” said Moss. “I had a note this afternoon; and a pretty little wild-goose chase it’s led me, too.”
“A note?”
“Yes.”
“What sort of note?”
“Well, this is it,” said Moss, producing a letter from his pocket, and handing it over.
Shelley took it, handling it very gingerly, and removed it carefully from its envelope. Then he read it aloud, for the benefit of Cunningham, who had sat by almost open-mouthed at the preliminary conversation.
“15, Berlin Square South, N.W.21” [he began]. “Dear Mr. Moss, Your name has been given me by a mutual friend, as one who can be relied on as a dealer in second-hand cars. I am told that you can usually get hold of something to suit anyone’s requirements. Well, what I want is an Austin or Morris, about twelve horse-power, not older than 1934, price not above £75. Do you think that you can get hold of something for me? If you can, drive it around here this afternoon, as I am in rather a hurry to get fixed up, as I have to go on an important journey very shortly. If you cannot lay your hands on either of these, please bring along anything that you have anywhere near it, as it is very urgent that I should get fixed up soon. Please come this afternoon, as it is not sure at what times I shall be in for the rest of the week. Yours sincerely, Michael Baron.”
“Well, what do you make of that, Inspector?” asked Moss.
“First of all,” was Shelley’s comment, “that Mr. Michael Baron was very anxious to get you out to—would it be Cricklewood?—this afternoon.”
“Yes, damn him!” returned Moss. “And his blasted address doesn’t exist.”
“Doesn’t it, now?” Shelley positively beamed at him. “That is indeed very gratifying.”
“Gratifying, do you call it?” Moss objected. “I call it damned annoying. I went out there this afternoon, and spent hours looking for the blasted place. There’s a Berlin Square right enough. As a matter of fact I knew it, and had been there before. But it’s a square with only three sides, if you follow me. There’s a Berlin Square North, East, and West, but no South.”
Shelley positively purred. “Oh, very clever, very clever indeed,” he murmured. “Just near enough to a real address to keep you puzzled, you see, Mr. Moss. The whole affair carefully thought out.”
“Yes, but why?” asked Moss.
“Oh, that we shall find out in due course,” said Shelley calmly.
“You think so?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Well, I’m glad of that, at any rate.”
“In the meantime, Mr. Moss, I’d like to perform a little experiment,” announced Shelley.
Moss looked alarmed. “Experiment?” he asked.
“Yes. I’d like to examine this letter for finger-prints. It’s postmarked ‘N.W.21,’ I see, so the man took the trouble to go out there to post it.” Shelley scribbled a note on a piece of paper, and then handed it to Cunningham, together with the letter.
“Take this to the finger-print department, Sergeant,” he said, “and ask them if they can identify any of the prints on it with anyone in our records. This isn’t a novice, and may well be due to an old hand at the game. I don’t suppose he’s left any prints, but the best people go astray at times.”
“H’m.” Moss did not look at all impressed at this suggestion, but Shelley quickly rounded on him.
“I shall require your finger-prints, of course, Mr. Moss,” he said, “so that the finger-print department can eliminate them from the large number that will doubtless be on the envelope.”
“Certainly,” said Moss. “There will be no difficulty about that. Naturally, I don’t raise any objection at this stage.”
So he went through all the paraphernalia of inking fingers, one by one, and pressing them on the correct spaces on a marked and numbered card. One or two were slightly smudged, and had to be repeated, but at last Shelley announced himself satisfied with the results that they had attained. He rang a bell, and handed the card to a constable who had entered, telling him
to take it down to the finger-print department for purposes of elimination in the specimen that he had just sent down.
“Tell them that these are the prints of Mr. Moss, the gentleman to whom the letter was addressed,” he said. “And ask them to send up the result by Sergeant Cunningham as soon as available. I hope they hurry up, too. We have to go to the north of England tonight.”
“North of England?” There was a question implicit in the tones of Moss’s voice.
“Yes,” said Shelley. “The gentleman who sent you that note—at any rate, I think he is responsible—kidnapped Miss Violet Arnell this afternoon. They are somewhere near Sheffield.”
“Ah!” Moss was suddenly eager, his whole face expressing surprised comprehension of something that had hitherto been puzzling him. “So that explains the reason for the note.”
“How?” Shelley could be laconic enough when his interest was aroused.
“I was to see Miss Arnell this afternoon or early evening—at least, that was the last arrangement that I had with her, I remember,” Moss announced.
“Why?”
“Well,” Moss hesitated. “We were sort of joint legatees of the old man,” he explained. “And I was in a way suggesting to her…suggesting to her…that she might care to…care to…” His halting speech petered away into silence. Shelley smiled.
“You were suggesting to her that she should advance you a little of the money that was to be yours in any case eventually,” he said.
“That’s it,” said Moss. “You see, I was in such a tight corner that I didn’t know where to turn; and I thought that she might possibly see her way clear to do something about it.”
“I follow,” said Shelley. “Of course, Mr. Moss, I suppose it never occurred to you that your motives might be misconstrued?”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“I should have thought that my meaning was clear enough.”
“Well, it isn’t; so I wish you’d explain yourself, and not go talking in riddles,” Moss objected.
