Richardson Scores Again (20 page)

“I don't know about that, sir. She made herself very pleasant.”

“She would. Well, as you seem to know the whole story—”

“I should like to hear it from you, sir.”

“Manton was my shipmate in the
Ariel
for a whole commission. He was my greatest pal ever since Osborne days. He was a few months senior to me, and when they started axing officers after the Washington Conference, he came under the axe, poor chap. It was a desperate business for him with no money and a wife to keep. You remember, it was the time when everyone was mad about chicken-farming. Manton knew as much about chicken-breeding as I do about breeding elephants. All he knew was that chickens came out of eggs, so you bought eggs and there you were with your fortune made.”

“How was he going to hatch them, sir?”

“With a beastly contrivance they call an incubator. He found that farm you went to, just outside Portsmouth, and was going to sell his chickens and eggs to ward-room messes in the Fleet, but everything went wrong; the eggs addled in the incubators; the chicks he did raise moulted and died on him, and I had to lend them money to carry on. I had to borrow the money to do it.”

“Including that loan from the Portsmouth money-lender, sir—the loan which we told you had been repaid?”

“Yes.”

“You see, sir, the money-lender's letter was in your pocket-book which was stolen from you.”

“That blighter, whoever he was, must have had it in for me.”

“Only to cover up his own tracks, I think, sir.”

A light dawned in Eccles' face. “You think that the bogus detective man was working with him to keep me out of the way while he was committing the burglary. No, because there was the man he arrested. He couldn't have been in the swim too.”

“I think he was, sir.”

“Look here, sergeant, if there is anything I can do to help you chaps run that gang to ground, I'll do it.”

“There is one thing, sir. You can tell me whether Mrs. Manton had any male admirers.”

“Had she not! She made poor Jack Manton's life a hell. You see, people who admire her style would call her pretty; she dances well and has plenty to say for herself. Poor old Jack Manton has been in love with her all the time though she behaved like a cat to him. Come, as you know so much, you'd better have the whole story. She was always threatening to leave him, and one day he came to me in an awful state. She had left him that morning—gone off with another man. He implored me to get her to come back to him.

“Well, I went to the address he gave me and found her in a swank hotel, all dolled up, waiting for her new man to come and take her out for the evening. To me she seemed the nastiest piece of work that ever God made, but for Jack Manton's sake I had to go through with it. I talked to her straight for a good half-hour; told her that she was behaving like a cat to my pal and that she'd live to regret it when it was too late, and all that sort of bilge, and, by Jove, I got her crying in the end. She wouldn't tell me who her fancy man was, and I don't know it to this day, but my talk must have had more effect upon her than I thought it had, because next day Jack rang me up to say that she'd come back. Well, then something had to be done about keeping them together. Jack had hardly any money, but he had heard of that little farm going cheap, and I lent him a little money to pay for fitting it up. I had to borrow it. Since then she has looked upon me as the man who has blighted her life, and whenever she's broke more than usual, she tries to blackmail me for funds to carry on.”

“Did she ever talk about taking in paying guests?”

“Not that I know of. Why, has she got one?”

“I'm not sure yet, sir. Perhaps you can tell me whether Mr. Manton has an abnormally large head.”

“What extraordinary questions you ask! No, I should say that his head was rather smaller than mine.”

“I wonder whether you would let me try on one of your hats, sir?”

Eccles looked at him curiously, thinking, no doubt, that overmuch sleuthing had affected his brain. Richardson had to repeat his request. Eccles went out into the hall and returned with a hat: it proved to be a little small for his visitor.

“Thank you, sir,” said Richardson, returning the hat. “I ought to explain that there was a hat in the hall at Thornhill Farm and that I took the liberty of trying it on while Mrs. Manton was upstairs. It came down over my ears. That is why I asked you whether she was taking in paying guests. And now I mustn't keep you any longer, sir. I shall keep what you have told me this evening quite confidential.”

When Superintendent Foster reached his office next morning he found Richardson waiting for him in the passage with a written report in his hand. He had spent the previous evening in reducing his discoveries at Portsmouth to writing.

“Here's my report, sir.”

“Here! Don't run away. Come in here and tell me what you found out down there.” He led the way into the superintendents' room.

“Well, sir, for one thing, I have cleared up the question of how Lieutenant Eccles spent the morning before the murder, and I've seen the woman who signed herself ‘Gwen' in that blackmailing letter. You'll find all the details in that report.”

“Good! That's something done.”

“But I've found out another thing that may prove to be more important. Mr. Gordon Pentland, the man who caused Mr. Lewis to break down in his speech at the Albert Hall the other night, drove down from London in his car yesterday morning and paid a visit to that woman.”

“Did she tell you so?”

“No, sir; I saw him driving away from the house.” He went on to tell Foster his reason for believing that a man was staying at Thornhill Farm during the absence of the husband.

“Ah,” said Foster, “that fits in with what they told me at Pentland's office when I went to have an interview with him. The clerk said that he was away in the country for the day. Do you know, Richardson, that I'm beginning to think that you were right in what you said about the connection between the case of Ralph Lewis and the Hampstead murder. That is why I went round to that office in Charing Cross Road yesterday.”

“I'm very glad you did, sir. What were the clerks like?”

“There were only two—both ex-convicts, I should say, by the look of them.”

“You didn't let them know who you were?”

“Lord, no. I let them think that I was an employer of labour who wanted a handy man at low wages, and was interested in helping men who had been in trouble. Now, we've got to go carefully into this. Mr. Pentland, you say, is a friend of Mr. Vance, and runs an unofficial Aid Society for discharged convicts. You saw him yesterday paying a visit to a woman who is, on her own showing, very hard up, and you have reason for thinking that some man was staying in the house with her. There may be quite an innocent explanation. You know what these cranks are. They don't worry about the law. Suppose that Pentland is paying the woman to give house and home to one of his pets, who is wanted by the police for a crime, or for failing to report.”

“Perhaps, sir,” said Richardson doubtfully.

“I'm only putting the case to you. Like all young officers, you are prone to make up your mind and stick to it.”

“Wouldn't the best plan be for you, sir, to see Pentland yourself and hear what he has to say?”

“No, that will have to be your job as you know all the details, but in the meantime we might ask the County Police to have discreet observation kept on that farm to ascertain whether any man is living there, and what he looks like.”

Richardson looked doubtful.

“Well, what's wrong with the plan?”

“Only the lie of the ground, sir. Anyone loitering in that lonely lane would be spotted by the neighbours at once, and the word would go round that the farm was being watched by the police. The postman would spread it, and the woman herself would come out and ask the officer what he was doing there. Besides, I doubt whether the Chief Constable has a man in the Force who could be trusted to keep discreet observation. The man would probably go straight to the house and ask for a list of its occupants. No, sir, I believe it would be better to see Mr. Pentland and be guided by what he says: then, if his answers are unsatisfactory, we might ask the County Constabulary to go boldly to the house and question the occupants.”

“All right, well leave it at that. You'd better go and see Mr. Pentland this morning and turn him inside out.”

Richardson's visit to the little office in Charing Cross Road was an experience which he always afterwards looked upon with satisfaction. He climbed a neglected staircase encumbered with waste-paper and cigarette-ends, to a door on the fourth floor and knocked. It was opened a few inches by a furtive little man of middle age, dressed in a dark suit of the cut which Richardson recognized as that of the prison tailor who made the liberty clothes for convicts a week or two before their discharge.

“Yes?” he asked in the tone of one who says, “What do
you
want?” at the same time closing the door an inch.

“I want to see Mr. Pentland,” said Richardson blandly.

“Sorry, but he's out, sir.”

“I don't think so. I can hear his voice. Let me in, please.”

The man gave way, some subtle instinct having probably warned him with whom he had to deal. He slunk away into his den, and Richardson, entering the room, found himself in the presence of the man he had come to see and the girl he had seen at the luncheon with Dick Meredith.

“Must I go, Mr. Pentland?” she was saying as he came in. “Mr. Vance telegraphed to me from Stuttgart for that newspaper, so it is urgent. I'm sure it is somewhere in this file.” She was going through a vast bundle of old newspapers.

“Don't go on my account, miss,” said Richardson gallantly. “There is nothing private about my business with Mr. Pentland.”

“Carry on, Miss Carey,” said Pentland. His voice was cultivated and singularly musical. He turned to Richardson with a smile. “I didn't hear your name, sir.”

“My name is Richardson. I have been instructed to call and ask you for some information about the work you are doing among ex-convicts.”

“You represent a newspaper?”

“No, Mr. Pentland. It is an official inquiry from one of the public departments connected with the Home Office.”

“I see. Possibly one of the official Aid Societies is becoming uneasy about the success of our work as compared with theirs. Well, we have nothing to hide. Many of the men who are discharged to the care of one of the official societies take their gratuities and disappear into space. They are not heard of again until they are arrested for a second crime. My friend, Mr. Vance, who is deeply interested in prisoners, when he became aware of this, decided to found an unofficial office to find honest work for these men, and knowing that I was equally interested, he invited me to join him and take charge of that side of his work. We enjoy no money grant from the State: all our funds are drawn from private sources. I may tell you confidentially that the greater part comes from Mr. Vance himself.”

“I suppose that you keep a register of the men who come to you?”

“Oh, yes. The register is on that shelf if you care to look at it, and in this card-index is the history of each man as far as employment is concerned.”

“Are you pretty successful in finding work for the men? It must be difficult with so many honest men on the dole.”

“It is, and quite a number of the men have eventually to turn to the dole themselves. That is inevitable. If we continued to support them all we should go under. But we do find work for quite a large number. I make it a point never to hide the man's past record from the employer, and people are glad to give the poor fellow a sporting chance of turning over a new leaf. The important thing in keeping them straight is the personal touch: I make a point of seeing every man myself. I get many grateful letters from them afterwards.”

“Do you employ any of them in this office?”

“Yes, I have two. They are very carefully chosen, and they have never given me a moment's anxiety. One of them must have opened the door to you.”

“I suppose that sometimes you board some of them out in the country?”

Pentland stared at him. “I'm afraid that I don't understand what you mean. Board them out?”

“Yes, Mr. Pentland. I assumed that that was your object when you motored to Thornhill Farm, near Portsmouth, yesterday. I assumed that one of your protégés was boarded out there.”

It was a bold shot and it told. Pentland reddened, but he did not lose his composure. On the contrary, he laughed quietly and said, “How funny that you should know Mrs. Manton too. I have known her for years—a nice woman. But I should not think of asking her to board out one of my black sheep. Has she anyone living in her house? She did not mention it to me when I saw her yesterday.”

Richardson felt that the interview was not going as well as he hoped it would. The man was so entirely self-possessed, and everything he said was so entirely plausible. Dared he broach the subject of the Albert Hall meeting; say that he was on the platform and had divined the cause of the speaker's breakdown? No, a man so alert and self-possessed as this would affect to be amused by the implied suspicion; would speak feelingly about the extravagant calls a man like Ralph Lewis made upon his strength, and matters would remain exactly as they were.

During the brief silence Pentland turned easily to the young lady and asked how she was getting on.

“I've been right through this file, Mr. Pentland, and I can't find the paper Mr. Vance wants. I must go and telegraph to him.”

“I wish I could help you, but I don't remember the paper at all.”

“Oh, stop a moment. What's this?” She seized a slender bundle of papers and began to spread them out. “The paper I'm looking for may have got filed with these.”