The Rogues’ Syndicate: The Maelstrom

‘I’m not shifting any job of mine on to anyone else’s shoulders, Mr Foyle,’ he said acidly.

‘That’s all right,’ said Foyle imperturbably. ‘Go ahead.’

Menzies tapped his pile of statements.

‘As far as I can boil down what we’ve got, this is how it stands. Old Greye-Stratton was a retired West Indian merchant—dropped out of harness fifteen years ago, and has lived like a hermit by himself in Linstone Terrace Gardens ever since. It seems there was some trouble about his wife—she was a widow named Errol when he married her, and she had one son. Five years before the crash there was a daughter born. Anyway, as I was saying, trouble arose, and he kicked his wife out, sent the baby girl abroad to be educated, and the boy—he would then be about twenty—with his mother. Well, the woman died a few years after. Young Errol came down to Greye-Stratton, kicked up a bit of a shindy, and was given an allowance on condition that he left the country. He went to Canada, and thence on to the States, and must have been a bit of a waster. A year ago he returned to England, and turned up at Linstone Terrace Gardens. There was a row, and he went away swearing revenge. Old Greye-Stratton stopped supplies, and neither the lawyers nor anyone else have seen anything of Errol since.’

Foyle rolled a pencil to and fro across his blotting-pad with the palm of his hand. He interrupted with no question. What Menzies stated as facts he knew the chief-inspector would be able to prove by sworn evidence if necessary. He was merely summarising evidence. The inference he allowed to be drawn, and so far it seemed an inference that bade fair to place a noose round young Errol’s neck.

‘We have got this,’ went on Menzies, ‘from people in Linstone Terrace Gardens, from Greye-Stratton’s old servants, from the house-agents from whom he rented his house, and from Pembroke, of Pembroke and Stephens, who used to be his solicitors. Greye-Stratton was seventy years old, as deaf as a beetle and as eccentric as a monkey. I don’t believe he has kept any servant for more than three months at a stretch; we have traced out a dozen, and there must be scores more. But it is only lately that he has taken to accusing them of being in a plot to murder him. The last cook he had he made taste everything she prepared in his presence.

He had no friends in the ordinary way, and few visitors. Twice within the last year he has been visited by a woman, but whom or what she was, no one knows. She came evidently by appointment, and was let in by the old man himself, remained half an hour, and went away. Practically all his business affairs had been carried on by correspondence, and he was never known to destroy a letter. Yet we have found few documents in the house that can have any bearing on the case, except possibly this, which was found in the fire-grate of the little bedroom he habitually used.’

He extracted from the pile of statements a square of doubled glass, which he passed to Foyle. It contained several charred fragments of writing-paper, with a few detached words and letters discernible.

‘J. E. Gre … will see … ld you … ues … mother to her death … ous swine … let me hea …’

‘Errol’s writing?’ queried Foyle.

‘I haven’t got a sample yet, but I’ve little doubt of it. Now, here’s another thing. It was Greye-Stratton’s custom to lock up the house every night at dusk himself. He would go round with a revolver and see to every one of the bolts and fastenings, and no one was alowed in or out afterwards. It was one of the grievances of the servants that they were prisoners soon after four o’clock each day in winter. And though he always slept with that revolver under his pillow, we can’t find it.

‘There’s another thing. Greye-Stratton had a little study where he spent most of the day, and there was a safe built into the wall. It may mean nothing, or anything, but the safe was open and there was not a thing in it. Now, we have been able to discover no one who has ever seen that safe open before. It’s curious, too, in view of Hallett’s story about the cheques, that we have not been able to lay our hands on a single thing that refers to a banking transaction—not so much as a paying-in book or a bunch of counterfoils.

‘The doctors say the old man was shot about three hours before we got there; that would be about half-past nine. I don’t know how Hallett struck you, Mr Foyle, but, according to his own account, he must have arrived at Linstone Terrace Gardens at nine.’

Foyle rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

‘You mean, he may have been there when the shot was fired?’

Menzies made an impatient gesture.

‘I don’t know. I own freely I don’t quite take in this yarn, and yet the man struck me as genuine. He’s got good credentials, and if he’s mixed up with the murder, why did he ’phone to me?’

‘Search me,’ said Foyle. ‘What about the daughter? You said there was a girl.’

Menzies stuck his thumbs in the sleeve holes of his waistcoat.

‘That’s another queer point. She was brought up abroad, and scarcely ever saw the old man. Pembroke says she spent her holidays with an old couple down in Sussex, to whom he had instructions to pay three hundred pounds a year. When she left school, he paid the allowance to her direct, but for two years she has not called or given any instructions about it. He wrote to Grey-Stratton, who retorted that it was none of his business—that the allowance would be paid over to his firm, and that if the girl did not choose to ask for it, it could accumulate. He did not seem at all concerned at her disappearance. Take it from me, Mr Foyle, we shall run across some more deuced funny business before we get to the bottom of this. There’s not even a ghost of a finger-print. If only we can find Errol—’

Foyle was too old a hand to offer conjecture at so early a stage of the case; nor did Menzies seem to expect any advice. Hard as he had driven the investigation during the night, the ground was not yet cleared. Until he had all the facts in his possession, it was useless to absolutely pin himself to any one line of reasoning. There was now one man who, on known facts, might have committed the murder; but, plausible as was the supposition that Errol was the man, the detectives knew that at best it was only a suspicion. And suspicion, nowadays, does not commit a man; it does not always justify an arrest. There must be evidence, and so far there was not a scrap of proof that Errol had been within a thousand miles of Linstone Terrace Gardens on the night of the murder.

Menzies went away with his bundle of documents to have them typed, indexed, and put in order, so that he could lay his hand on any one needed at a moment’s notice. He was in for a busy day.

Two advertisements he drafted in the sanctuary of his own office. One was to check Hallett’s own account of the evening before, and to identify, if possible, the street in which the cheques had been forced on him.

‘£1 REWARD. The taxi-cab driver who, on the evening of —, drove a fare from the West End to 34, Linstone Terrace Gardens, Kensington, will receive the above reward on communicating with the Public Carriage Office, New Scotland Yard, S.W.’

The other ran differently, and seemed to give him more trouble. Several sheets of notepaper he wasted, and discontentedly surveyed his final effort.

‘If James Errol, last heard of at Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A., will communicate—’

He crushed the sheet up, flung it in the waste-paper basket, and lifted a speaking-tube.

‘Any newspaper men there, Green? Right! Tell ’em I’ll see ’em in half an hour. Send me up a typist.’

The newspaper Press, if deftly handled, may be a potent factor in the detection of crime. Moreover, the ubiquitous reporter is not to be evaded for long by the cleverest detective living. The wisest course is to meet him with fair words—to guide his pen where there is a danger of his writing too much, and put him on his honour on occasion. Many a promising case has been spoilt by tactless treatment of a pressman at a wrong moment.

Menzies dictated an account of the murder in which he said just as much as he wanted to say and not a word more. The conclusion ran:

‘The stepson of the deceased gentleman, a Mr James Errol, left England for the United States many years ago, and his present whereabouts are unknown. The police are anxious to get into touch with him in order that certain points in connection with his father’s career should be cleared up.’

The chief detective-inspector knew that the simple paragraph would throw into the search for Errol the energies and organisation of every great newspaper—an aid he did not despise. It was not intended as an official statement. The Criminal Investigation Department does not issue bulletins officially. It was an act of courtesy, and incidentally a stroke of policy, to maintain the goodwill of the Press. The reporters might paraphrase it as they would.

He received the newspaper men pleasantly, parried their chaff and too adroit questions with unruffled good humour, and told them little anecdotes which had not the slightest bearing on the murder of Greye-Stratton. They read the typewritten sheets he handed them greedily, and cross-examined him as mercilessly as he had ever been cross-examined at the Old Bailey. A clerk brought a card to him, and he read it without a change of countenance.

‘In a minute,’ he said to the waiting clerk, and put the card in his waistcoat pocket. ‘Well, gentlemen, you know as much as I do now. If there’s anything else you want to know, just drop in and see me when you like. Good-morning.’

They accepted their dismissal, and he took another glance at the card.

‘Miss Lucy Olney,’ he read, and underneath written in pencil, ‘Peggy Greye-Stratton.’

CHAPTER V

THE early evening papers were on the streets before Jimmie Hallett rose, and the inevitable reporters had established a blockade of his hotel. He cursed them while he shaved. It seemed that the notoriety which he had left New York to escape had followed him to England. As an old newspaper hand himself, he had little taste to be served up again all hot and spiced for the delectation of a morbidly hungry public.

He surveyed a salver full of cards that had been brought up to him with a scowl. Vivid recollections came to him of the way in which he had himself dealt in ‘personal sketches’ and ‘personal statements’ on big ‘stories’, and he began to conceive a certain fellow-feeling for his long-forgotten victims. But his chin grew dogged.

‘I’ll see ’em in blazes before I’ll talk. Go away and tell ’em I’m dead.’

The liveried functionary who had brought the cards gave as near an approach to a grin as his dignity permitted.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said quietly; ‘they’ll not believe it, sir.’

Hallett swung his eyes sideways to the man, and his hand slipped to his trousers pocket. It was no use getting angry.

‘Say, what are you getting out of this, sonny?’ he demanded. ‘It’s all right. You needn’t answer.’ A banknote crackled between his fingers. ‘If you can clear out the gang below this is yours. It’s more than they’ll give you.’

‘Very good, sir. There’ll be no harm in telling them you’re in a very critical condition, sir, I suppose?’

‘Not in the least. If they’re the least bit human they won’t worry a dying man. It will stave them off for a while perhaps.’

As a matter of fact, beyond a mild headache and some stiffness, he felt scarcely a trace of the attentions of his overnight assailant. He was uncertain whether that was a tribute to the skill of the divisional surgeon or to the hardness of his skull. He inwardly congratulated himself that the injury was not a particularly noticeable disfigurement. Indeed, a skilful brushing of the hair almost hid it.

He descended to breakfast with an appetite that in itself was proof that his general health remained unaffected, and discovering that there was a back entrance to the hotel, decided to make use of it, lest some pertinacious reporter might still be lingering in the reception-hall. He wanted to know something of what the police were doing, and a visit to Scotland Yard seemed the best way of finding out. In the background of his thoughts there was perhaps less concern that a murderer should be brought to justice than curiosity in regard to the lady of the fog.

There is a way mostly used by tradesmen at the Palatial Hotel, which leads through a narrow alley for fifty yards on to the embankment. Through this Hallett sauntered. He was half way through when a tap on the shoulder caused him to wheel. He confronted a slim-built, sallow-faced man, of lank moustache and burning black eyes.

‘Pardon,’ he said. ‘Your name is Hallett?’

He spoke silkily, and the extremely correct pronunciation of his words showed that he was neither English nor American.

‘Well?’ demanded Hallett, shortly.

He feared that he had been run down by a reporter, after all.

‘You were at the place where this man was killed yesterday, eh?’ The man shook a newspaper under his face.

‘Well?’ said Hallett again.

He had resumed his walk, but the other was keeping pace with him.

A hand caught at his arm. The burning black eyes were within three inches of his face.

‘You know who killed heem, eh?’ The English had become a little less correct under stress of some excitement. ‘You have not told the pol-lice yet? You will not tell them?’

Hallett shook himself free angrily.

‘Look here, my man,’ he said. ‘I don’t propose to answer your questions, so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it. Now git!’

He clenched his fists.

The foreigner’s hand dropped to his pocket. He did not remove it, but pressed something hard through the cloth against the young man’s ribs.

‘You are hasty, Mr Hallett,’ he remonstrated. ‘You don’t know what it is you say—what you’re up against. This is a pistol you can feel’—he pressed it close—‘and unless you listen quietly I shall keel you dead. Understand?’

‘Well?’ said Hallett, quietly for the third time.

‘You were at the house. You saw who killed the old man? You would know him again?’ The man did not wait for an answer. ‘You must keep your mouth shut. This is a warning. If you see him again you not tell, eh? There are many of us. You will be watched. And if you split—’

A prod with the pistol finished the sentence.

The theory that his molester was a reporter had long ago been abandoned by Jimmie Hallett. It was evidently thought that he had seen the face of the man at Linstone Terrace Gardens, and he was to be terrorised into silence. He had sense enough to reflect that, for all the audacity of the hold-up, the threat of surveilance was bluff—perhaps even the concealed pistol was bluff. Not that his actions would have differed much even had he supposed them real.

He took a quick step backwards and sideways, and a bullet that tore its way through the cloth of the other man’s pocket told that that part of the story was reliable. Then Hallett’s knee was in his back, and Hallett’s arms were woven in a strangle-hold about his throat. The man collapsed gurgling.

The whole business had occurred in barely two seconds of time. As they fell there was a third arrival.

‘Hold him down a minute, Mr Hallett. That’s all right.’

The third man possessed himself of the squirming captive’s wrists and twisted them behind his back to Hallett. Then he methodically and quickly ran his hands through the prostrate man’s clothing, possessing himself of a still smoking Derringer and a formidable sheath-knife.

‘Thank you, sir. Now this gentleman might get up. We’ll run him along to King Street Station, and see what Mr Menzies has to say about it.’

Then Hallett noticed that the man who had come to his assistance was the liveried functionary who had accepted his five-pound note to put off the pressmen less than an hour ago. But he no longer wore livery. He was in quiet, unassuming tweeds, and his manner was not exactly that which might be expected from a waiter to an hotel guest—even under such strange circumstances.

He surprised Hallett’s look of inquiry, and smiled as he locked his arm into that of the prisoner.

‘Detective-sergeant Royal, sir,’ he explained. ‘I’ll let you know all about it later. What’s your name, my man?’

He shook his captive slightly.

‘Smeeth—William Smeeth,’ said the man sullenly; and Royal winked at Hallett.

‘That’s a good old Anglo-Saxon name,’ he said. ‘Come along.’

It was in the Criminal Investigation office at King Street, while they were awaiting Menzies, that Royal gave his explanation, with a certain apologetic tone.

‘It was this way, Mr Hallett. You see, Mr Menzies asked me to keep an eye on you when you were sent home yesterday. Of course, he thought you were all right, but it doesn’t do to take anyone’s word in our trade. This is murder you see, and, though it seemed all right, you might have forged or stolen the introduction you had. We could not be sure your name was really Hallett.’

‘And sand-bagged myself on the back of the head,’ interpolated Hallett with irony.

Royal gave a shrug.

‘Mr Menzies doesn’t take any risks, sir. It couldn’t do you any harm. They know me at the hotel, and that’s how it was I was able to get into livery and walk into your room pretty well as I liked.’

A new light broke upon Hallett.

‘I get you. I thought perhaps I was a bit fogged when I got up, and had forgotten where I put things. You’ve been searching my room.’

Royal’s face never shifted a muscle.

‘I don’t admit it, sir. That would be illegal without your permission.’

‘Illegal or not, you did it,’ retorted Hallett. ‘I hope you’re quite satisfied.’

‘Oh, there’ll be no more trouble about that. Mr Menzies told me on the telephone just now that he’d cabled to the States, and they’ve put your reputation straight. Besides, there’s what I learned about you.’

‘I suppose you read my letters?’ ventured Hallett. ‘No; don’t worry to soothe me down. I’d probably have killed you if I’d caught you at it, but I’m quite calm now. By the way, there was a fiver—’

A flush mounted to the temples of the detective and he shook his head in vehement denial of the implication contained in the broken sentence.

‘I had to take it, or you might have suspected something. I passed it on to the servants, and told them what to do. I never saw the Press people myself. Some of ’em might have known me. When you went down to breakfast I changed my clothes and slipped a ’phone message through to headquarters. They told me to hang on to you till Mr Menzies had seen you. You’d never have known a word about it if it hadn’t been for our bird down below.’

He jerked his head in the direction of the cells.

Hallett begun to appreciate some of the realities of detective work. Before he could make any comment, Menzies came in. He nodded affably to the young man.

‘Morning, Mr Hallett. Not much the worse for last night, I see. I’ve got a little job for you presently. Meanwhile, I want to see your friend down below. Like to come along?’

He made no apology for the espionage he had set on foot, and Hallett did not think it worthwhile to thrash out the subject again.

‘William Smith’, it seemed, had already been searched with care and thoroughness. Royal explained to his chief that nothing which would serve as a hint as to whom he was had been found on him—nothing but the pistol, nine cartridges, and some money.

‘Have you looked for the name of the tailor on his clothes—the brace buttons, the inside of the breast-pocket, the trousers band?’ demanded Menzies.

‘Of course, sir,’ said Royal. He was a trifle offended that it should even be thought that he had neglected so elementary a precaution. ‘There’s nothing—nothing at all.’

Preceded by a uniformed inspector, they went down to the cells. Smith looked up sullenly from the bench on which he was seated, and met Menzies’ gaze squarely.

The detective chief was no believer in Lombroso’s theories of physiognomy, but he studied the face intently. In point of fact, he was analysing the features to discover if he had seen the man before. He wanted, too, to get some clue as to the manner he should adopt—authoritative and official, or familiary and persuasion.

‘Well, sonny,’ he said gently, ‘you’ve tumbled into a mess. Attempted murder is a serious business in this country.’

Smith glanced at him blackly over his shoulder. Menzies went on:

‘Of course, we don’t believe the cock-and-bull story you told Mr Hallett of there being a gang of you—’

‘You don’t, eh?’ exclaimed the prisoner, wheeling in sudden passion to face his visitors. ‘Then you are—what shall I say?—wooden blockheads!’ He pointed a long, slender forefinger at each of them in turn. ‘You and you and you! I tell you, you will be marked. I failed—but there are others who will not fail if you persist.’

Royal turned away to hide a snigger. This kind of melodrama failed to impress him.

‘No doubt, no doubt!’ assented Menzies soothingly. He might have been calming down a headstrong questioner at a vestry meeting. ‘But there are a good many police officers in London. It will take a long time to kill ’em off. Now, why don’t you be reasonable, Mr Smith?’

‘Pah!’ interrupted the prisoner.

He spat on the cell floor to indicate his contempt.

‘You’ve shown you know something about this murder,’ went on Menzies. ‘The judge is pretty sure to take that into account one way or the other at your trial. I, of course, should tell him if you helped us. It would probably make a difference, you know.’

The prisoner showed two rows of yellow teeth in an unmirthful, contemptuous grin.

‘Go away, wooden-head! I shall not go to prison, but you will die. You don’t know what you call—what you are up against.’

‘Perhaps I’ve got an idea,’ said Menzies. His voice changed. ‘I don’t know whether you’re playing the fool, my man,’ he said sternly. ‘or whether you really believe that kind of wild talk. Perhaps your friend Errol will be able to enlighten us.’

‘Errol?’ said Smith blankly. ‘I know him not.’

‘I hear you,’ said Menzies. ‘You think over what I’ve said, my lad. Meanwhile we’ll have a doctor to look at you.’

CHAPTER VI

MENZIES let an unparliamentary expression slip from his lips as the cell door clanged behind them. It is tantalising to have a piece of evidence drop into one’s lap, so to speak, and then refuse to be evidence. He was annoyed because his efforts to unlock the lips of the prisoner failed. He knew that if only the man could have been induced to talk, days, possibly weeks, of heartbreaking labour would be saved.

This fresh development ‘had him guessing’, as Jimmie Hallett might have said. Who was ‘William Smith’? Why had he threatened Hallett, and even gone so far as to try to carry his threat into execution? The hint of an organised conspiracy to save the murderer of Greye-Stratton would have excited his derision if it had not aroused speculation. The secret societies in England may talk murder at times, but they never seriously plot murder or carry out a murder. A man who imperils his neck has invariably some strong personal motive. And when others actively shield him, they also have some other motive than pure altruism.

One person may commit an irresponsible act for no reason; it is even conceivable that two people may act in concert in some insane crime. But here were at least three people concerned, and possibly more—the woman who had passed the cheques to Hallett, the murderer of Greye-Stratton, and ‘William Smith’. What was the link that bound them all together? That each was acting from some powerful self-interest he felt confident. It might be community of interest, but he was sceptic enough to think that accidental.

The chief-inspector checked his flow of thought with a jerk. Speculation without materials spelt a fixed theory—and to a detective a premature theory may be fatal. He is apt to try to prove his theory rather than prove the truth.