Inspector French's Greatest Case

by Freeman Wills Crofts

  He wondered how it came that Mackay had not at the time recognised the Vanes as a wanted couple. Probably, he thought, the man had been so much occupied with his own case that he had not read up the particulars in the Bulletin, which, after all, was a magazine intended more for the rank and file than for men on specialised duties. However, the fact remained that Mackay had missed his chance, though his habit of detailed observation had enabled him to some extent to redeem his error.

  But if it was true that the Vanes had not left the ship at Liverpool, what became of the statements of the Captain and Purser? It was not likely that these men could be hoodwinked over such a matter. They were experts; moreover, they were dealing with a ship with whose every part they were familiar. To the Vanes, on the other hand, the ship would be strange, and they would be ignorant of its routine. Under these circumstances it was absolutely out of the question that the pair could have hidden themselves on board. No, if they were there, the Captain would have known of it. French could not devise any explanation of the matter. The whole thing seemed a contradiction.

  He had, however, to settle his own plans. The kindly French police officer had helped him by ’phoning the local office of the Booth Line and finding out the itinerary of the Enoch. This was Saturday, and on the afternoon of the following day, Sunday, the steamer was expected to reach Leixoes, the port of Oporto. She would remain there that night and the next day, leaving Leixoes about 8 o’clock on the Monday evening. Next day about noon she was due in Lisbon, where she would remain for two days. After that her first call was Madeira.

  French had intended to meet her in Lisbon, but it now occurred to him that he might be able to make Oporto in time to join her there. He had bought a railway guide in Havre, and he now proceeded to look up the trains. The route, he saw, was to Bordeaux by the Paris-Orleans line, then on by the Midi to the Spanish frontier at Irun, and so by Medina and Salamanca to Oporto. The first through train from Paris after their arrival at 4.35 p.m. was the 10.22 p.m. from the Gare Quai d’Orsay, and this reached Oporto at shortly after midday on the next day but one, Monday. Oporto to Lexioes was only half an hour’s run, so he had six or seven hours’ margin. Oporto, he decided, was his goal.

  They were fortunate in securing sleeping berths between Paris and Bordeaux, and there was a restaurant car on the train to Irun. They waited an hour at the frontier station, and French blessed the intelligence of Manning, who had had their identification papers made available for Spain and Portugal as well as France.

  French on his trip from Chamonix to Barcelona had been amazed by the illimitable extent of the earth, but his feelings of wonder on that occasion were as nothing compared to those he now experienced. The journey from Irun to Oporto was absolutely endless; at least he thought so as interminable mile succeeded interminable mile, while day turned into night and night more slowly turned back into day. It was cold, too, through the high tableland of Spain—bitterly cold, and the two men could not get the kind of meals they liked, nor could they sleep well in the somewhat jolting coaches. But all things come to an end, and at half-past one on the Monday, about an hour late, the train came finally to a stand in the Estacao Central of Oporto. There was plenty of time, and the travellers went straight to the Porto Hotel for a short rest before setting out to find the tramway to Leixoes.

  French was immensely struck with the picturesque, old world city, nestling on the steep, hilly banks of the Douro, and he marvelled to feel quiver at every horse-hoof the great high level Dom Luez bridge, which throws its spidery steel arch in a single span of nearly 600 feet across the placid river flowing far beneath. Then after passing down the steeply-inclined streets to near the water’s edge, he and Carter boarded the tram and set off seawards along a road skirting the right bank of the stream.

  In spite of the business which had brought them so far, both men gazed with intense interest at the unwonted sights they passed, the semi-tropical vegetation, the long, narrow, four-wheeled carts with their teams of oxen, the mole constructed across some three-quarters of the mouth of the Douro to increase the scour through the remainder, then, passing a stretch of sandhills, they finally reached the houses of Leixoes, with lying below them the harbour contained within its two encircling stone piers, and, blessed sight, the Enoch lying at anchor therein.

  They made a bargain with a dusky boatman for what seemed to French a fortune of reis, and ten minutes later they had ascended the ladder and were once more on the steamer’s deck.

  CHAPTER XIX

  FRENCH PROPOUNDS A RIDDLE

  If Captain Davis experienced surprise on seeing French reappear at the door of his cabin, he gave no indication of his feelings.

  “Good-afternoon, Inspector,” he greeted him quietly. “Come aboard again? You should have stayed with us, you know.” He smiled quizzically. “It would have been much less tiring than going all that way round by land, and for the matter of fact, a good deal cheaper. Found your criminals?”

  “Well, I’ve not,” French answered slowly, “—yet. But I hope to soon. Captain, I’ve had a wire from the Yard that those people are on board after all.”

  The Captain frowned.

  “No doubt the Yard is a wonderfully efficient organisation,” he said gravely, “but when it comes to telling me who is or is not on board my ship—well, I think that is a trifle, shall we say, thick? How do they profess to know?”

  “I’ll tell you. I got a wire shortly after the ship left Havre on Saturday, and it said that one of the Liverpool detectives, Sergeant Mackay, was watching your ship before she sailed. He was looking out for a man also wanted for murder, not this Vane—a different person altogether. He saw the Vanes going on board, though, of course, he did not realise they also were wanted. But he saw them right enough, at least, he was able to convince the Yard as to their identity. Mackay waited until the ship sailed, and he states the Vanes did not go ashore. I know Mackay personally, and he is a most careful and accurate officer. I am satisfied that if he makes this statement it is true. Now, none of your people saw them go ashore, and with all due respect to you and your purser, the suggestion is that they’re still on board. The wire ended by instructing me to follow up the ship either here or to Lisbon, and investigate further.”

  “You’ve certainly followed us up all right, but having overtaken us I should like to ask, if it is not an indiscreet question, what you propose to do next?”

  French saw that if he was to retain the help of Captain Davis he would have to be careful how he answered.

  “There, Captain, I was going to ask for your kind help, though I feel I have troubled you more than enough already. I’ll tell you what I was thinking over in the train. Suppose for argument’s sake the Yard is right, and that these people really are on board. It is obvious from your search that they’re not here in their own characters, therefore they must be posing as two other people. That, I take it, is what the people at the Yard had in mind also.”

  “Well?”

  “This is not such an unlikely supposition as it sounds. The woman is, or rather was, an actress, and we know she is a clever one. Not only was she well thought of when on the stage, but she has recently carried off successfully a far stiffer test than that. She crossed from New York to Southampton on the Olympic, and convinced the people on board that she was English, and then she went on to London and convinced the people there that she was an American. I have seen the people in each case—critical, competent people who know the world—and each lot ridiculed the idea that she was not what she seemed. If she could do that, she could surely manage another impersonation. A comparatively simple disguise would do, as there would be nothing to make you or the purser suspect.”

  The Captain was listening with considerable interest, but it was evident that his ruffled feelings were not yet entirely smoothed down.

  “That may be all very well,” he admitted, “but you have not taken into consideration the evidence of the bookings. 176 passengers booked from Liverpool, and in almost eve
ry case their tickets were taken and their staterooms reserved several days in advance. The exceptions in all cases were men. 176 passengers turned up, Mr. and Mrs. Vane among them. But there were only 174 passengers on board when we left Liverpool. You follow what I mean; that all the other passengers on board are accounted for?”

  “I see that,” French admitted slowly, “and you may be right. It certainly doesn’t seem easy to answer what you say. At the same time, in the face of the instructions I have had from the Yard, I daren’t do other than go on and sift the thing further.”

  “Naturally, but how?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t see my way clear as yet. For one thing, I shall have to meet every woman on board, with the special object of trying to penetrate any disguise which may have been attempted. If that fails I may give up the search or I may try something else. I suppose you can take me on as far as Lisbon at all events?”

  “With pleasure.” The Captain seemed to have recovered from his momentary irritation. “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you. Though I confess I think you’re on a wild-goose chase, I’ll give you every facility I can.”

  “Thank you, Captain. You will understand that whatever I may think myself, I am not my own master in the matter. The only thing I should like at present is a chat with the purser over the passenger list.”

  “That, at all events, is easily arranged,” answered Captain Davis as he touched a bell.

  The purser had not observed French’s arrival, and professed amazement on finding him on board.

  “I begin to wonder if the ship’s not haunted,” he smiled as he shook hands. “Mr. and Mrs. Vane we leave behind at Liverpool, and you say they’re aboard at Havre. You we leave behind at Havre—I saw you myself on the wharf—and here you are aboard at Leixoes! What distinguished stranger are we to expect to find on board at Lisbon?”

  “I hope there’ll be a clearance of four at Lisbon,” French rejoined. “Though it sounds impolite, nothing would please me better than to change to a homeward bounder in company with my Sergeant and Mr. and Mrs. Vane.”

  “What? Do you still think they’re on board?”

  “The Inspector still thinks so,” the Captain intervened, “and he wants to talk to you about it. Better take him to your cabin and give him any help you can.”

  “Right, sir. Will you come along, Mr. French?”

  Mr. Jennings, in spite of his obvious competence, had a pleasant, leisurely manner which conveyed to the many who sought his counsel that though he might be busy enough at other times, he was not too hurried at that moment to give them his most careful and undivided attention. So he listened to French’s story, and so he took out the passenger list, and set himself to discuss the personalities of those enumerated thereon.

  “I’ll deal with the women first,” French explained. “You say that there are sixty-seven on board, as against about twice as many men. Besides, I have more information about Mrs. Vane than her husband. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s get on with them.”

  The purser ran his finger down the list.

  “Miss Ackfield is the first,” he explained. “She is a lady of between fifty and sixty, I should say. You can easily see her, but in my opinion there is not the slightest chance that she could be otherwise than what she seems.”

  French noted the particulars.

  “Right,” he said. “Next, please.”

  “The next is Miss Bond. She’s also pretty well on in years, but she couldn’t be your friend because she’s at least four inches taller.”

  “Very good.”

  “Then there is Mrs. Brent. She is a young girl. Her husband is on board, and they are evidently newly married. She’s too young.”

  They worked on down the list, provisionally eliminating the unlikely. Mrs. Cox was too tall, Miss Duffield too short, Mrs. Eaglefield too stout, Miss Fenton too thin, and so on. In the end they had reduced the number to ten, of which French had to admit that not one seemed in the least promising.

  There was indeed one couple who had at first appealed to him, a Mr. Pereira da Silva, and his daughter, Miss Maria da Silva, because they kept almost entirely to their cabins, mixing but little with the life of the ship. Mr. da Silva, a man of over seventy, Mr. Jennings thought, was an invalid, and had come on board with difficulty, leaning on a stick and his daughter’s arm. He was practically confined to bed, and Miss da Silva was assiduous in her attention to him, reading to him and keeping him company when many another similarly placed daughter would have been on deck or in the saloon, amusing herself among the other passengers. The two had their meals together, and the lady, though friendly enough when she did go on deck or when occasionally she sat in the saloon, was but rarely seen. This was, thought French, a likely enough ruse for the fugitives to adopt, and his suspicions were strengthened by the fact that Miss da Silva’s general appearance was not unlike that of Mrs. Vane. But Mr. Jennings soon demolished his house of cards. The da Silvas were obviously Brazilian. They, or rather the girl, for the old man had been too feeble even to deal with the business of the tickets, spoke fluent Portuguese, the Portuguese of a native, and her English was not only broken, but was spoken as a Portuguese alone speaks it. Besides, she looked like a Portuguese. They lived at Rio, so Mr. Jennings had gathered, and had visited England to see Mr. da Silva’s brother, a London merchant. They had booked to Para, near where other relatives lived, and from where they would return to Rio. They had taken tickets and reserved their staterooms some time before the Vanes.

  French was disappointed. He booked on to Lisbon on chance, then not wishing to be seen, he retired to his cabin, leaving Sergeant Carter to watch the ladder leading to the shore boats.

  As he sat smoking beside the open porthole, he kept on racking his brains for some method of solving his problem, but at last it was a chance word of the purser’s that gave him his idea. Mr. Jennings had dropped in just after the ship, pushing out between the two great stone moles of the harbour, had dipped her nose into the deep, slow-moving Atlantic swell, and he had said: “Talking of disguises, it’s a pity you couldn’t disguise yourself and come into the saloon to-night, Mr. French. We are having our first sing-song, and you would have a good chance then of seeing the lady passengers.”

  “That’s rather an idea,” French had replied. “Could you not hide me somewhere, say, near the door of the saloon through which those attending must enter, so that I could see each as she passed?”

  Mr. Jennings had believed it might be possible, and had promised to see what could be done. And then as he was taking his leave, the idea flashed into French’s mind, and he had called him back.

  “Don’t trouble about that business in the meantime, Mr. Jennings. Would it be convenient to you to call back again in half an hour? I shall have something to ask you then.”

  Jennings glanced at him curiously, but all he said was “Right-o!” as he went on his business. After the allotted span he came back, and French spoke earnestly.

  “Look here, Mr. Jennings, if you could do something for me, you’d put me under a heavy debt of gratitude. I’ll tell you what it is. First I want you to smuggle me into the saloon before the concert begins, without any one having seen me. I want to sit in some place where I can’t be seen by a person entering until he or she is right inside the room. Is that possible?”

  “Why, yes, I think so. I’ll fix it for you somehow. I take it your notion is that if the lady sees you so suddenly and unexpectedly she will give herself away?”

  “Quite, but there is something else, Mr. Jennings. That scheme would only work if she knows my appearance, but I don’t think she does. I want some one to read this out as an item. Will you do it?”

  He handed over a sheet of paper which he had covered with writing during his half-hour’s wait. It read:

  “RIDDLE.

  “A prize of a 5-lb. box of chocolates is offered for the best answer to the following riddle:

  “If she is Winter in Comedy,

  Wa
rd in Olympic,

  Root in Savoy, and

  Vane in Crewe,

  What is she on the Enoch?”

  Mr. Jennings looked somewhat mystified.

  “I don’t quite get you?” he suggested.

  “Woman’s aliases and the places where she used them.”

  Something like admiration showed in the purser’s eyes.

  “My word! Some notion, that! If the woman is there and hasn’t smelt a rat, she’ll give herself away when she hears that. But why won’t you read it yourself?”

  “If she makes a move to leave I want to be out before her. If she leaves, it will mean that her husband is not present and I want to get her before she can warn him. Carter’ll be on the same job.”

  “Well, I’ll read it if you like, but frankly I’d rather you had some one else to do it.”

  “What about Captain Davis?”

  Jennings glanced round and sank his voice.

  “If you take my advice, you’ll leave the old man out of it altogether. He just mightn’t approve. He treats the passengers as his guests, and bluffing them like that mightn’t appeal to him.”

  “But I’m not bluffing them,” French retorted with a twinkle in his eye. He drew a pound note from his pocket and passed it over. “That’s for the chocolates, and whoever puts in the best answer gets it. It’s all perfectly straight and above board. Whether we get the woman over it or not no one need ever know.”

  The purser smiled, but shook his head doubtfully.

  “Well, it’s your funeral. Anyway, I’ve said I’ll go through with it, and I will.”

  “Good!” French was once more his hearty, complacent self. “Now there is another matter if this one fails. Mrs. Vane may stay in her cabin. I want you to check the women present by your list, and give me a note of any absentees. Then I shall go round their cabins and make some excuse to see each.”