The Complete Four Just Men (97 page)

‘A tyre burst on the Great West Road,’ she said, rubbing her hands at the fire. ‘What are you worrying about, Saul? We’ve done nothing. It ain’t as though we ever threatened her. That’d be crime. Just askin’ her to help a poor feller who’s ill, that ain’t crime.’

They discussed the pros and cons of this for nearly an hour. Then came the knock at the door.

It was the man who went out to interview the visitor . . .

‘If I don’t come in,’ said Leon Gonsalez pleasantly, ‘the police will. There will be a warrant issued tomorrow morning and you will be held on a charge of conspiring to defraud.’

A few seconds later he was questioning a trembling audience . . .

Poiccart and George Manfred were waiting up for him when he returned in the early hours of the morning.

‘Rather a unique case,’ said Leon, glancing through his notes. ‘Our Ambrose, a well-educated man, had a love affair with the Earl of Carslake’s daughter. He loses his job – because he loves the girl he decides not to communicate with her. He goes into the Army and, before he is sent overseas, he writes to his landlady, asks her to take out a sealed envelope, full of letters from Irene and burn them. By the time she gets these instructions, Ambrose is reported killed. The landlady, Mrs Dennis, with the inquisitiveness of her class, opens the envelope and learns enough to be able to blackmail this unfortunate girl. But Ambrose isn’t dead – he is discharged from the army on account of wounds and, accepting the invitation of a South African soldier, goes to the Cape, where he makes good.

‘In the meantime the Dennises wax rich. They pretend that “Jim”, as they called him, is desperately ill, trusting that Irene has not heard of his death. By this means, and on the threat of telling her husband, they extract nearly twenty thousand pounds.’

‘What shall we do to them?’ asked Poiccart.

Leon took something from his pocket – a glittering diamond ring. ‘I took this as payment for my advice,’ he said.

George smiled.

‘And your advice, Leon?’

‘Was to get out of the country before Ambrose found them,’ said Leon.

The Slane Mystery

The killing of Bernard Slane was one of those mysteries which delight the Press and worry the police. Mr Slane was a rich stockbroker, a bachelor and a good fellow. He had dined at a Pall Mall club and, his car being in the garage for repairs, he took a taxi and ordered the driver to take him to his flat in Albert Palace Mansions. The porter of the mansions had taken the elevator to the fifth floor at the time Mr Slane arrived.

The first intimation that there was anything wrong was when the porter came down to find the taxi-driver standing in the hall, and asked him what he wanted.

‘I’ve just brought a gentleman here – Mr Slane, who lives at Number Seven,’ said the driver. ‘He hadn’t got any change so he’s gone in to get it.’

This was quite likely, because Slane lived on the first floor and invariably used the stairs. They chatted together, the porter and the driver, for some five minutes, and then the porter undertook to go up and collect the money for the fare.

Albert Palace Mansions differed from every other apartment-house
of its kind in that, on the first and the most expensive floor, there was one small flat consisting of four rooms, which was occupied by Slane.

A light showed through the transom, but then it had been burning all the evening. The porter rang the bell and waited, rang it again, knocked – without, however, getting an answer. He returned to the driver.

‘He must have gone to sleep – how was he?’ he asked.

By his question he meant to inquire whether the stockbroker was quite sober. It is a fact that Slane drank rather heavily, and had come home more than once in a condition which necessitated the help of the night porter to get him to bed.

The driver, whose name was Reynolds, admitted his passenger had had as much as, and probably more than, was good for him. Again the porter attempted to get a reply from the flat and, when this failed, he paid the driver out of his own pocket, four shillings and sixpence.

The porter was on duty all night, and made several journeys up and down his shaft. Through the open grille on the first floor he commanded a view of No 7. His statement was that he saw nothing of Mr Slane that night, that it was impossible for the stockbroker to have left the building without his seeing him.

At half past five the next morning a policeman patrolling Green Park saw a man sitting huddled up on a garden chair. He wore a dinner jacket, and his attitude was so suspicious that the policeman stepped over the rails and crossed the stretch of grass which intervened between the pathway and the chair which was placed near a clump of rhododendrons. He came up to the man, to find his fears justified. The man was dead; he had been terribly battered with some blunt instrument, and a search of the pockets revealed his identity as Bernard Slane.

Near the spot was an iron gateway set in the rails leading to the Mall, and the lock of this was discovered to be smashed. Detectives from Scotland Yard were at once on the spot; the porter of Albert Palace Mansions was questioned; and a call was sent round, asking the driver Reynolds to call at the Yard. He was there by twelve o’clock, but could throw no light on the mystery.

Reynolds was a respectable man without any record against him, and was a widower who lived over a garage near Dorset Square, Baker Street.

‘A most amusing crime,’ said Leon Gonsalez, his elbows on the breakfast table, his head between his hands.

‘Why amusing?’ asked George.

Leon read on, his lips moving, a trick of his, as he devoured every printed line. After a while he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

‘It is amusing,’ he said, ‘because of the hôtel bill that was found in the dead man’s pocket.’

He put his finger on a paragraph and Manfred drew the paper towards him and read.

The police discovered in the right hand pocket of the murdered man’s overcoat a bloodstained paper which proved to be an hôtel bill, issued by the Plage Hôtel, Ostend, five years ago. The bill was made out in the name of Mr and Mrs Wilbraham and was for 7,500 francs.

Manfred pushed the paper back.

‘Isn’t the mystery why this half-drunken man left his flat and went back to Green Park, some considerable distance from Albert Palace Mansions?’ he asked.

Leon, who was staring blankly at the farther wall, shook his head slowly; and then, in his characteristic way, went off at a tangent.

‘There’s a lot to be said for the law which prohibited the publication of certain details in divorce cases,’ he said, ‘but I believe that the circumstances which surrounded the visit of Mr and Mrs Wilbraham to the Plage would have been given the fullest publicity if the case had come into court.’

‘Do you suspect a murder of revenge?’

Leon shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject. George Manfred used to say that Leon had the most amazing pigeon-hole of a mind that it had been his fortune to meet with. Very seldom indeed did he have to consult the voluminous notes and data he had collected during his life, and which made one room in that little house uninhabitable.

There was a man at Scotland Yard, Inspector Meadows, who was on the friendliest terms with the Three. It was his practice to smoke a pipe, indeed many pipes, of evenings in the little Curzon Street house. He came that night, rather full of the Slane mystery.

‘Slane was a pretty rapid sort,’ he said. ‘From the evidence that was found in his house, it is clear that he was the one man in London who ought not to be a bachelor if about two dozen women had their rights! By the way, we’ve traced Mr and Mrs Wilbraham. Wilbraham was of course Slane. The lady isn’t so easy to find; one of his pick-ups, I suppose – ’

‘And yet the only girl he was willing to marry,’ said Gonsalez.

‘How did you know that?’ asked the startled detective.

Leon chuckled.

‘The bill was obviously sent to give the husband evidence. The husband, either because he was willing to give his wife another chance or because he was a Roman Catholic, did not divorce her. Now tell me – ’ he leaned forward over the table and beamed on the detective – ‘when the taxi drew up before the door of Albert Palace Mansions, did Slane immediately alight? – I can tell you he didn’t.’

‘You’ve been making inquiries,’ said the other suspiciously. ‘No, he waited there. The driver, being a tactful individual, thought it best to keep him inside until the people who were in the hall had gone up in the lift – which is visible from the door.’

‘Exactly. Was it the driver’s idea or Slane’s’?

‘The driver’s,’ said Meadows. ‘Slane was half asleep when the man pulled him out.’

‘One more question: when the elevator man took this party to the fifth floor, did he come down immediately?’

The Inspector shook his head.

‘No, he stayed up there talking to the tenants. He heard Slane’s door slam, and that was the first intimation he had that somebody had come in.’

Leon jerked back into his chair, a delighted smile on his face.

‘What do you think, Raymond?’ He addressed the saturnine Poiccart.

‘What do you think?’ said the other.

Meadows looked from Poiccart to Gonsalez.

‘Have you any theory as to why Slane went out again?’

‘He didn’t go out again,’ said the two men in unison.

Meadows caught George Manfred’s smiling eyes.

‘They’re trying to mystify you. Meadows, but what they say is true. Obviously he didn’t go out again.’

He rose and stretched himself.

‘I’m going to bed; and I’d like to bet you fifty pounds that Leon finds the murderer tomorrow, though I won’t swear that he will hand him over to Scotland Yard.’

At eight o’clock next morning, when, with a cigarette in his mouth, Reynolds, the taxi-driver, was making a final inspection of his cab before taking it out for the day, Leon Gonsalez walked into the mews.

Reynolds was a man of forty, a quiet, good-looking fellow. He had a soft voice and was courteous in a particularly pleasing way.

‘You’re not another detective, are you?’ he asked, smiling ruefully. ‘I’ve answered as many foolish questions as I care to answer.’

‘Is this your own cab?’ Leon nodded to the shining vehicle.

‘Yes, that’s mine,’ said the driver. ‘Cab-owning is not the gold mine some people think it is. And if you happen to get mixed up in a case like this, your takings fall fifty per cent.’

Very briefly Leon explained his position.

‘The Triangle Agency – oh, yes, I remember: you’re the Four Just Men, aren’t you? Good Lord! Scotland Yard haven’t put you on the job?’

‘I’m on the job for my own amusement,’ said Leon, giving smile for smile. ‘There are one or two matters which weren’t quite clear to me, and I wondered if you would mind telling me something that the police don’t seem to know.’

The man hesitated, and then: ‘Come up to my room,’ he said, and led the way up the narrow stairs.

The room was surprisingly well furnished. There were one or two old pieces, Leon noticed, which must have been worth a lot of money. On a gate-legged table in the centre of the room was a suitcase and near the table a trunk. The driver must have noticed his eyes rest on these, for he said quickly: ‘They belong to a customer of mine. I’m taking them to the station.’

From where he stood, Leon could see they were addressed to the Tetley cloak room to be called for; he made no comment on this, but his
observation
evidently
disconcerted
his host
for
his manner
changed.

‘Now, Mr Gonsalez, I’m a working man, so I’m afraid I can’t give you very much time. What is it you want to know?’

‘I particularly wish to know,’ said Leon, ‘whether the day you brought Slane to his house had been a very busy one for you?’

‘It was fairly profitable,’ said the other. ‘I’ve already given the police an account of my fares, including the hospital case – but I suppose you know that.’

‘Which hospital case was this?’

The man hesitated.

‘I don’t want you to think I’m boasting about doing a thing like that – it was just humanity. A woman was knocked down by a bus in Baker Street: I picked her up and took her to the hospital.’

‘Was she badly hurt?’

‘She died.’ His voice was curt.

Leon looked at him thoughtfully. Again his eyes roved to the trunk.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Will you come to Curzon Street tonight at nine o’clock? Here’s my address.’ He took a card from his pocket.

‘Why?’ There was a note of defiance in the voice.

‘Because I want to ask you something that I think you’ll be glad to answer,’ said Leon.

His big car was waiting at the end of the mews, and he set it flying in the direction of the Walmer Street hospital. He learnt there no more than he expected, and returned to Curzon Street, a very silent and uninformative man.

At nine o’clock that night came Reynolds, and for an hour he and Leon Gonsalez were closeted together in the little room downstairs. Happily, Meadows did not consider it necessary to call. It was not until a week afterwards that he came with a piece of information that surprised only himself.

‘It was rather a rum thing – that driver who took Slane back to his flat has disappeared – sold his taxi and cleared out. There’s nothing to associate him with the murder or I should get a warrant for him. He has been straightforward from the very first.’

Manfred politely agreed. Poiccart was staringly vacant. Leon Gonsalez yawned and was frankly bored with all mysteries.

* * *

‘It’s very curious,’ said Gonsalez, when he condescended to tell the full story, ‘that the police never troubled to investigate Slane’s life at Tetley. He had a big house there for some years. If they had, they couldn’t have failed to hear the story of young Doctor Grain and his beautiful wife, who ran away from him. She and Slane disappeared together; and of course he was passionately fond of her and was ready to marry her. But then, Slane was the type who was passionately fond of people for about three months, and unless the marriage could be arranged instantly the unfortunate girl had very little chance of becoming his wife.

‘The doctor offered to take his wife back, but she refused, and disappeared out of his life. He gave up the practice of medicine, came to London, invested his savings in a small garage, went broke, as all garage proprietors do unless they’re backed with good capital, and having to decide whether he’d go back to the practice of medicine and pick up all that he’d lost in the years he’d been trying to forget his wife, he chose what to him was the less strenuous profession of cab-driver. I know another man who did exactly the same thing: I will tell you about him one of these days.

‘He never saw his wife again, though he frequently saw Slane. Reynolds, or Grain, as I will call him, had shaved off his moustache and generally altered his appearance, and Slane never recognized him. It became an obsession of Grain’s to follow his enemy about, to learn of his movements, his habits. The one habit he did discover, and which proved to be Slane’s undoing, was his practice of dining at the Real Club in Pall Mall every Wednesday evening and of leaving the club at eleven-thirty on those occasions.

‘He put his discovery to no use, nor did he expect he would, until the night of the murder. He was driving somewhere in the north-west district when he saw a woman knocked down by a bus and he himself nearly ran over the prostrate figure. Stopping his cab, he jumped down and, to his horror, as he picked her up, he found himself gazing into the emaciated face of his wife. He lifted her into the cab, drove full pelt to the nearest hospital. It was while they were in the waiting-room, before the house surgeon’s arrival, that the dying woman told him, in a few broken, half-delirious words, the story of her downward progress . . . She was dead before they got her on to the operating table – mercifully, as it proved.

‘I knew all this before I went to the hospital and found that some unknown person had decided that she should be buried at Tetley and had made the most lavish arrangements for her removal. I guessed it before I saw Grain’s suitcase packed ready for that tragedy. He left the hospital, a man mad with hate. It was raining heavily. He crawled down Pall Mall, and luck was with him, for just as the porter came out to find an empty taxi, Grain pulled up before the door.