by Molly Thynne
“To work on the same lines as you did in the case of the window cleaner. How you found out which pub he was in the habit of frequenting, I don’t know, but, roughly, what I want is any information you can gather concerning a certain Mr. Charles Miller or his late wife. I don’t fancy you will find either his butler or his footman very congenial companions, but I should be very much obliged if you would sink your prejudices and join them in a friendly glass wherever they may be in the habit of foregathering. I leave you to find out where that is.”
“Is that the husband of the Mrs. Miller, may I ask, sir?” enquired Manners, in a voice carefully devoid of all interest.
“If, by that, you mean the lady who was killed the other day, it is. I am anxious to disabuse the police of certain ideas they persist in holding regarding Sir Richard’s presence in the house at the time, but I must warn you that I may be giving you a hopeless task. There is nothing against Mr. Miller save his very unpleasing personality, but I’m going on the principle of leaving no stone unturned.”
“I will do my best, sir. Would it be possible to ascertain the names of the persons in question?”
Constantine telephoned to the Yard and had no difficulty in getting the required information.
“Remember I want all the gossip. The more, the better,” were his parting directions, as he added Miller’s address to the names of the two servants.
His next act was to ring up Davenport.
“I’m sorry to bother you at the end of a long day’s work,” he said, when the dentist had, with difficulty, been persuaded to come to the telephone himself. “But can you tell me who owns the empty house next door to you? I have my own reasons for asking. Your own landlord? No, it doesn’t matter about his name. I can get that from the agents if you’ll put me onto them. Thearle and Thearle. Yes. By the way, has that house been done up lately, do you know? A couple of months ago. Thank you. I’m very grateful. No, I’m very well satisfied where I am, but a friend is interested.”
Next morning he called on Messrs. Thearle and Thearle. He had heard through Mr. Davenport of a house in Illbeck Street that he thought might suit him and he understood that it was in their hands. Messrs. Thearle’s urbane young man said that it was. If it hadn’t been for the fact that rents were high in that part of the world and times bad they would have disposed of it long ago. As it was, they could offer it at a comparatively low rental. Would Dr. Constantine like to look over it now? He had already risen when Constantine stretched out a detaining hand.
“I’m afraid I haven’t made myself clear,” he said briskly. “I’m not interested in the rental. I want to buy. From something Mr. Davenport said, I concluded that the house was for sale, or I shouldn’t have approached you about it.”
The agent’s face fell, but he acknowledged defeat slowly, after the manner of his kind.
“I couldn’t persuade you to go over it, I suppose?” he urged. “I think we might persuade our client to consider a slight reduction in rent if the house met with your approval. We can strongly recommend it and if, after you have seen it, you feel inclined to change your mind ...”
Constantine cut him short ruthlessly.
“Unless you can persuade your client to sell, I am not interested.”
“We could approach our client,” said the agent doubtfully, “but I doubt whether we should be successful. He purchased four houses in that block, including Mr. Davenport’s about a year ago and it is unlikely that he would sell again. We have several admirable properties on our books, suitable for the medical profession, if you would care to consider them.”
He was assuming that his visitor was a doctor of medicine and Constantine did not undeceive him.
“I’ve set my heart on Illbeck Street,” he said, with convincing finality, “and I shall be leaving for the Continent in a day or two. I suppose, as time is short, you could not put me in touch with your client? I might be able to persuade him to sell. I need not say that all future negotiations would, of course, be conducted through you.”
“‘I’m afraid I cannot even give you his name,” answered the agent. “All our negotiations have been through a firm of solicitors. We could put you onto them, of course.”
Constantine shook his head.
“No good,” he said. “I haven’t time for that sort of thing. Unless I can get in direct touch with the owner I must give up the idea. It is a pity. If the house suited me I should be prepared to make a good offer.”
The agent, seeing the chance of a profitable deal slipping through his fingers, made a final effort.
“We could approach the solicitors,” he suggested. “In the event of their being willing to negotiate, how long could you give us?”
Constantine looked dubious.
“I’ve had too much experience of the dilatoriness of lawyers,” he said. “If you can give me the name of the actual owner of the property this evening I will undertake to approach him myself. If I can persuade him to sell I will communicate with you.”
Leaving his address with the agents he was about to depart when he paused as though a sudden idea had struck him.
“By the way,” he said, “I understand that these houses were redecorated not long ago. If this deal goes through I may want to arrange about certain alterations in a hurry. Can you recommend the firm that did the work?”
The agent could and was only too ready to supply the name: Dicks and Hoskins, Quebec Street. Constantine thanked him and, placating his conscience with the thought of all he had suffered at the hands of house agents in days gone by, went back to his flat and rang up Arkwright. He was not at the Yard and it was late in the afternoon before Constantine could get onto him.
Arkwright was aggrieved.
“Look here, sir,” he complained, “those inscriptions may be in Greek, but they’re absolutely meaningless. If you’ve made anything of them ...”
“I haven’t. When I do I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, I’ve a job here that your people can do far more quickly and efficiently than I can. How goes the official conscience?”
Arkwright’s disappointment was reflected in his voice.
“That hardly comes into it, sir,” he said. “After all, we’re both working for the same ends.”
“We are not, if, by that, you mean your case against Sir Richard.”
Arkwright chuckled.
“You can only upset my apple-cart by producing the murderer,” he pointed out. “We’re willing enough to help you there, sir.”
“This may be a step on the way, it’s true, though I don’t guarantee any results.”
“Good enough. What do you want us to do?”
“Get in touch with a firm of decorators named Dicks and Hoskins and run your rule over the men who were employed in redecorating that empty house in Illbeck Street. The keys must have been in their possession for a considerable period.”
There was a pause, then, ruefully:
“You’ve got us there, sir. An ordinary routine job we ought to have seen to. I’ll get onto it and let you know the result. Anything else?”
“Nothing at present.”
Constantine replaced the receiver with a sigh. Arkwright, with a fixed object in view, was in a better case than himself. It had amused him to score over him, but he had been speaking only the truth when he admitted that the inscriptions on the knives conveyed as little to him as to the police. He had sent Manners on his quest on the vague chance that, if Miller were concealing something, his servants might let fall some clue as to its significance. As for the empty house, it was a forlorn hope at best. Even if the murderer had make his escape that way, there was no reason to believe that he had had any previous connection with it. A window left unlatched by a careless painter would have given him the means to enter and he could have left by the front door in the ordinary way.
The knowledge that he had thought it worth while to waste a large portion of his day on the empty house only served to increase Constantine’s sense of his own futility, and the retu
rn of Manners with his report did not tend to raise his spirits, though, in the time, the man had performed wonders. He had spent the hours between tea and dinner in visiting the bars of various houses he described as “well spoken of” and had succeeded in locating the one patronised by Miller’s butler. Though he had not seen the man himself he had established relations with the landlord and had found no difficulty in getting him to talk about the murder. The man, proud of being in possession of information straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were, had passed on all that Miller’s butler had told him. That Miller had been at his office at the time of his wife’s death, there seemed no doubt. One of his clerks, who had called at the house since the murder, had told the butler that he was actually in the room with him at the time it had taken place. The whole of the domestic staff, including Mrs. Snipe, had been in the house all the morning. The secretary had been seen by the butler to enter the Square with the dog, and a small girl, whose nurse was an acquaintance of the butler’s, had played with the dog while it was in the Square. In fact, the butler had been talking to the nurse when the secretary returned to the house. Evidently the crime had been discussed exhaustively, in all its aspects, in the bar of the public house, many times before Manners came on the scene.
“That was the best I could do, sir,” he finished. “Would you wish me to see Mr. Miller’s man personally? I have ascertained when he is to be found there and, as it appears that he is a keen billiard player, I should have no difficulty in approaching him, being fond of a game myself.”
“How did the landlord’s account strike you?” asked Constantine.
“Very reliable, I should say, sir. The police had been questioning Mr. Miller’s man and he seems to have repeated his conversations with them to the landlord, with a bit extra, on his own, as it were.”
“In fact, if anything, we now know a little more than the police,” suggested Constantine.
“Exactly, sir. It is unfortunate that it all points the same way, seeing that it’s extra knowledge,” assented Manners ponderously and Constantine could only agree with him.
“All the same,” he told him, “you might see the man for yourself. Get him to gossip, if you can.”
At seven o’clock a note arrived from the house agents. The owner of the property in Illbeck Street was a Mrs. Marks. It was most unlikely that she could be persuaded to sell.
“Thank goodness for that small mercy,” murmured Constantine, as he sat down to his dinner and the contemplation of a wasted day.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Arkwright swung round the corner into Shepherd’s Market and barely escaped a collision with two men who were walking in the opposite direction. He flashed a swift, appraising glance at them, stopped dead in sheer amazement, then, with a delighted chuckle, pursued his way. He had come within an ace of bowling the irreproachable Manners into the gutter and the companion with whom Manners was progressing sedately along the pavement was none other than Miller’s rather raffish looking butler.
His amusement was enhanced by Manners’s reaction to the meeting. For the first time in their acquaintance Arkwright saw his imperturbability badly shaken. At the sight of the detective his hand went involuntarily to his hat, then, realising that Arkwright must be well known to Miller’s servants and that he would be severely hampered in his task if they suspected him of any connection with the police, he stiffened. The uncertain, almost appealing glance he threw at the detective as he passed on, cutting him deliberately, was a comedy in itself. Arkwright was quick to grasp the significance of the encounter. So Constantine was on the job! If there were to be any results, he would no doubt arrive at them, he reflected rather ruefully, realising that Manners was in a far better position to collect stray gossip than any of his own men.
He was on his way to Miller’s house. Having failed to discover anything of interest among the murdered woman’s possessions he had asked Miller to go through his wife’s papers on the chance of there being old letters of Vera Abramoff’s among them. The jeweller had promised to do so and now Arkwright, realising that two days had gone by with no word from him, had decided to see to the matter himself. He had telephoned to Miller’s office to find that he was not expected there that day and actuated by that indefinite feeling of distrust with which the jeweller had begun to inspire him, had decided not to warn him of his coming but to take his chance of finding him at home.
As he approached the house a man who had been walking ahead of him turned up the steps and rang the bell. Arkwright instinctively slackened his pace, preferring to wait until the coast was clear. He saw the door open and Miller’s secretary, Bloomfield, on the threshold. There was a short colloquy, then Bloomfield handed something to the man, went back into the house, and closed the door. His visitor ran down the steps and walked briskly along the Square ahead of Arkwright, carrying the object Bloomfield had given him, a large white envelope, in his hand. Arkwright quickened his steps once more, only to be brought again to a halt by the reopening of the front door. The secretary emerged, wearing a hat and a heavy overcoat, shut the door gently behind him and, with a rapid, curiously furtive glance at the windows of the house he was leaving, followed hurriedly in the wake of his late visitor. Ordinarily speaking there was nothing out of the usual in the whole transaction, and, had it not been for Bloomfield’s manner, Arkwright would not have given it a second thought. As it was he was sufficiently interested to follow the secretary until he turned the corner and stand watching the two men as they made their way down the narrow side street.
Bloomfield did not attempt to diminish the distance between himself and the man he was following, neither did he make any endeavour to attract his attention, and Arkwright watched with increasing interest as they continued on their way until, halfway down the street the front man turned into a small post office. Bloomfield, in his wake, peered for a moment through the glass of the office door, then went in.
His back had hardly disappeared before Arkwright was off the mark and, a few minutes later, he, in his turn, had his nose pressed against the glass of the post office door. There were several other customers grouped in the constricted space in front of the counter, but he could see his men clearly enough. The first was bending over the narrow ledge that served as a desk for those unfortunates who might be driven to use it, and was engaged in tying up and sealing the envelope Bloomfield had given him, obviously unaware of the presence of that gentleman, who stood behind him, shamelessly peering over his shoulder. Arkwright took advantage of his absorption to slip through the door and into the solitary telephone booth that stood at Bloomfield’s elbow. Leaving the door ajar and keeping his back turned he buried his nose in the Directory and waited. The moment he had hoped for soon arrived. Some movement of Bloomfield’s must have warned the other man for he swung round with a swiftness that caught him utterly unprepared.
“Na yer don’t!” he snarled. “Follerin’ of me, was yer? Think yerself clever, I suppose. Well, yer can tike yerself orf, see? Yer can foller me to every post orfice in London, but yer won’t see me address this parcel. I got plenty o’ time on me ’ands. And now I’ve spotted yer I know what to do with it!”
Then, as Bloomfield did not answer:
“Well, what abart it?”
Bloomfield remained silent and Arkwright, realising that, at this juncture, he would hardly have eyes for anyone but his companion, turned until he could see him clearly through the glass door of the booth.
He watched the secretary unbutton his coat, take a bundle of notes from his pocket and count out five of them onto the ledge at the man’s elbow. Keeping his hand on them he echoed the other’s words.
“What about it?”
A slow grin spread over the man’s face.
“What d’jer think?” he jibed. “I’ve got my whack comin’ to me, all right, and don’t you worry. I’ve only got one thing to say to you. You ’op it, mister. It’s no manner o’ use yer follerin me, no matter what yer got in yer pocket.”
Bl
oomfield spoke again.
“I’ll make it ten if you give me that address.”
The other’s only answer was to thrust the envelope into his pocket, keeping his hand on it.
“Orl right, smarty,” he jeered, settling his back more comfortably against the shelf and crossing his legs. “’Ere we are and ’ere we stays.”
For a moment Bloomfield glared at him with baleful eyes, then, seeing himself beaten, swung round, pushed his way through the little crowd round the counter and vanished. The other man watched him off the premises, gave him time to get away, then, with a wary eye on the door, busied himself once more with the envelope.
Arkwright waited till he had finished laboriously printing the address before he stepped out of the booth. The man, having nothing to fear from that quarter took no heed of him and when a huge hand descended on the envelope his consternation was such that he could do no more than make a feeble snatch at his property. Arkwright’s other hand closed on his like a vice.
“Oy, what jer doin’?” squealed his victim.
Arkwright surveyed him and beheld a square-shouldered, pug-nosed youth of about twenty. His clothes were neat, shoddy, and altogether atrocious, but he bore none of the earmarks of the habitual criminal. Arkwright turned the hand he held palm up and looked at it. Bending forward he sniffed the air appreciatively.
“Potman, aren’t you?” he demanded.
“What’s that to you? ’And over that there parcel!”
Arkwright caught the eye of the post office clerk goggling at him through the wire netting over the counter. He took a step nearer to her, dragging his captive with him.
“It’s all right, Miss,” he said in a low voice. “I’m a police officer.”
At the words, the wrist he held gave a convulsive twitch and then lay passive and he knew that the bolt had gone home. Before the man had time to recover, he shot another at a venture.
“Blackmail’s a criminal offence,” he said. “How did you come to be mixed up in it?”
The pasty face grew a shade whiter. Then the words came, a spate of them, tumbling over each other.
