The Milliner's Hat Mystery (16 page)

“Quite sure, sir. If he entertained ladies it must be at some restaurant.”

“I suppose the chauffeur will be able to tell me more about these visits to restaurants.”

Anton gave a short laugh. “That chauffeur could tell you, sir, but he will not speak. He never speak to anyone and he has no friends. He hated all of us.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“No, he told no one where he was going. All the others, I know where to find them, but not that chauffeur.”

“The car is still in the garage?”

“Oh, yes sir; nobody take the car out: the police have the key of the garage.”

Just then the telephone bell began to ring persistently. Vincent quickly made up his mind on a course of action.

“Answer the call and if they ask for Mr Blake or Mr Lewis, say that you will call them and come for me.”

He listened to the half-conversation.

“I can call Mr Lewis to the telephone, madam, if you hold on.” With frantic dumb play Anton signalled to Vincent, who among his other accomplishments could talk American.

He went to the instrument and cried: “Hallo!”

A woman's voice answered: “Is that you?” It was a quavering voice, shaken with emotion of some kind, and without waiting for the answer she went on eagerly: “Have you got it?”

In his best American accent Vincent replied: “I must know who you are.”

“Oh, you know, I'm Dodds—Alice Dodds. I want it for myself and her as well. God knows we want it badly enough.”

Vincent realized that this woman was in a state in which drug addicts throw caution to the winds. He answered: “Come round to this house right now.”

“It'll take me a good part of an hour to make the journey.”

“Never mind; I'll wait for you.”

He put down the receiver and turned to Anton. “A lady is coming to see me. If the telephone bell rings again do not answer. Let them go on ringing.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Meanwhile I am going to look over the house again.”

Vincent did not expect to make any fresh discovery, but he always found that bodily activity of some kind stimulated thought. These continual telephone messages, what did they mean? Obviously Blake and Lewis must have given the dead man's Hampstead address as a rendezvous and that meant that they intended to use the house, which they supposed would be empty, as a hiding place. If that theory was correct they would first ring up to make sure that the house was empty; that was why he had given Anton the order not to answer the phone. By the letter from Alice Dodds found in Madame Germaine's letter box it was clear that the men were expected on August 1st, and this was July 31st. Almost he began to wish that he had not taken steps to have the men stopped at whatever port they came to, but it was now too late to rescind the order.

Having made a perfunctory second search of the house without result he went down to the ground floor and rang the bell for Anton.

“As I told you, I am expecting a lady. When she comes, go to the door, and if she asks for Mr Lewis show her into the dining room and fetch me. I shall be in that little smoking room opposite.”

He had not long to wait. His visitor had been better than her word. When the bell rang Anton followed his instructions, showed the visitor into the dining room and fetched Vincent.

She was a walking example of what addiction to heroin will reduce a self-respecting woman to. It was obvious from her speech that she belonged to the upper servant class, but she was ill dressed and untidy in her person and there was an air of entire indifference to her appearance. She did not rise when he entered the room, but looked at him with lacklustre eyes.

“Where's Mr Lewis and who are you?”

“I'm here to see you instead of Mr Lewis.”

A dark cloud of distrust and suspicion was evident in her expression. “Has he let me down?”

“You mean, has he failed to bring what you expected?”

“He's got it all right, but he wants to frighten me into paying more than the regular rate. He thinks that she will always pay anything he chooses to ask.”

Vincent realized that this lack of caution was characteristic of the addict in the later stages. She had taken it for granted that he was one of Lewis's associates. He decided to drop all play-acting, together with his assumed American accent.

“Mr Lewis is not here, madam, but now that you have come I have some questions to ask you.”

Her attitude changed: she shook with fear, not the fear of being questioned, but the fear that she was not going to receive what she had come for.

“When do you expect him here?” she said with a kind of wail in her tone.

“We'll talk about Mr Lewis later on. First I want you to answer my questions. Why did you expect Mr Lewis to be here?”

“Because he answered the telephone.”

“Why did you telephone to him here?”

“Because his letter said this house on August 1st and tomorrow is the first. She said he might arrive earlier.”

“Who is she?”

“I'm not going to answer your questions,” she said rudely.

“Very well, just as you like, only unless you do you'll have to come with me to the police station.”

“No, don't take me there,” she said, cringing with alarm. “They took
her
there once when she was put on probation and she's never forgotten it. She went through hell.”

“Is she your mistress?”

“She was once, but I'm not in service now.” She assumed a boastful air. “I'm a lady living on my own now.”

Vincent decided to adopt another method of attack. “Who gave you that ten-pound note which you changed for treasury notes at the bank in Holland Park?”

“Oh, I picked it up in the street, and finding's keeping, you know.”

“When you pick up valuable property in the street you should take it to the nearest police station.”

“Oh, I can't be bothered with all these silly rules. I often pick up money in the streets.” She went on to recount wild stories of wealth she had picked up in the gutter; of jewels worth a fortune dropped by ladies getting out of taxis. Vincent gave her five minutes with her imagination and then began to question her again. For another five minutes he plied her patiently, but with no good result. Sometimes she behaved as if she hadn't heard him.

“Did you hear what I said?” he asked.

“Yes, but I can't be bothered answering questions.”

Vincent decided that the proper course was to take her to the police station and let the police surgeon deal with her. He went to the door and signalled to Anton.

“Ring up a taxi,” he whispered, “and when it arrives, come in and announce it. I shall take this lady away, but I shall come back because I intend to spend the night here.”

To Vincent's great relief the woman followed him to the taxi without demur. He gave the address of the nearest police station and they drove off together.

T
HE POLICE SURGEON
was sent for and while the woman was in charge of the matron Vincent explained the situation to the doctor.

“Of course, you know all about the symptoms of drug addicts when they have been deprived of their favourite poison.”

“I ought to; if I don't it is not from lack of practice.”

“Well, I have questions to put to this woman and I can get nothing out of her in her present state. She can be held for the present on another charge: she was in possession of a stolen ten-pound note.”

“Very good. I'll see to her and I'll ring you up as soon as she is in a state where she can usefully be questioned. I suppose if I ring up the Yard you will get the message?”

“Yes,” said Vincent. “I'm going back there immediately, but I may not be able to stop there long.”

“Oh, that's all right. The woman will sleep here tonight and I shan't want you until the morning.”

Vincent found Walker in the sergeants' room at the Yard and called him into the chief inspectors' room.

“You and I have got a busy night before us. We'll have to take it in turns to keep watch in that house at Hampstead, because it is quite possible that our American friends, thinking the house empty, will take the liberty of breaking in: it will save a deal of trouble if they do. Anton tells me that the telephone bell has been busy and I think that the clients are expecting those two, and that they have been given that address.”

“Unless they've already landed, I think they'll have difficulty in getting through. I have warned the coast guard people as well as the port officers and there'll be a sharp lookout everywhere.”

“Then we'll be off and trust to Anton to provide us with some kind of meal.”

Anton proved himself to be a skilled chef. He provided them with a meal worthy of a first-class restaurant. The two officers kept alternate watch during the night, but it passed off uneventfully. Police officers are accustomed to disappointments of this kind; neither was depressed by the failure of their hopes. Anton provided them with hot baths and breakfast before they made for the Yard.

On Vincent's table lay two telegrams, one from Goron to say that the two women had left Cannes and, not improbably, would attempt to enter England; the other from the coast guard at Newquay saying that a motorboat had landed two men and two women in Pulsey Cove in the early hours of the morning and they were being detained by the Newquay police on the charge of landing illegally.

Vincent leapt from his chair and made a dash for the door of the sergeants' room to find Walker. The sergeants, engaged in writing up their reports, were accustomed to these sudden irruptions: Vincent had a reputation throughout the service of being a man who could not take life easily.

“I want you, Walker. Come along to my room.”

They were alone in the chief inspectors' room and Vincent was free to indulge his instinct for quick movement. He paced up and down.

“Here, Walker, read these.” He handed him the telegrams. “There'll be no mayor to connive at their escape on this side of the Channel, thank the Lord. But you and I will have to go down to Newquay immediately; otherwise the local beaks may dismiss them with a caution.”

“Won't the Aliens' Department at the Home Office have something to say?”

“They may, but they're funny people at the Home Office. It depends upon whose hand the papers fall into. While you are getting the car round and filling her up I'll telephone to the doctor at Hampstead about that woman, Alice Dodds.”

The police surgeon at Hampstead had a callous manner of dealing with such cases.

“We've got the woman in cold storage, but you know what it is with addicts when the supply is suddenly cut off. She has all the symptoms of reaction, vomiting, sneezing, sweating and palpitation of the heart. It will be some days before she will be fit to be questioned.”

“Were any papers found in her handbag, or concealed about her person, because I've reason to believe she has been acting for a person in a much higher social position.”

“Nothing was found on her, except her name and address and a sum of eighty pounds in treasury notes.”

“Will you give me her address and I'll have inquiries made about her in the division.”

He made a note of the address and before Sergeant Walker returned he had time to send a note to the division requesting that a report should be made to him on the woman's mode of life. By that time the car was waiting for him. Vincent took the wheel himself; it was to be a long run and a fast one.

At Newquay police station they saw Inspector Harrowby, the officer who was in charge of the car in which Bernard Pitt had apparently been murdered.

“You are holding four people on a charge of landing illegally,” said Vincent.

“We are—two men and two women. They have told us the usual kind of fairy tale, that the captain was a personal friend and that it seemed to be the cheapest way of coming. We've submitted the case to the Aliens' Department at the Home Office and are awaiting instructions. If it is decided not to prosecute, they will be taken in custody to the nearest port and pushed out.”

“I want them for something else. It may interest you to know that they were the men who left that motorcar behind when they left Newquay a few days ago.”

“Do you think they were coming back for the car?”

“No. I think their plan was to make for the nearest railway station and take the train to London. Have they been searched?”

“They have. They were carrying personal luggage but nothing contraband.”

“An excessive amount of luggage?”

“Nothing out of the way. Would you like to see them?”

“Yes, I should—one at a time and the women first. Let each one bring her luggage in with her.”

Mrs Blake was the first to come in carrying a suitcase of moderate size. She was tall and rather handsome. Vincent judged her to be a little on the wrong side of thirty. She spoke English with a very slight foreign accent.

“You are the customs officer, no doubt,” she said, with a charming smile. “We did not know that we were committing a grave crime in landing as we did. We happened to know the captain of the motorboat and begged him to give us a passage, but you can examine everything we brought with us, just as if we had landed at Dover or Folkestone.”

She opened her suitcase with alacrity. “You see there is nothing here, but one change of clothes, which any woman would need.”

“I see,” said Vincent, dryly; “and of course a second hat.”

“Of course,” she agreed.

“I am particularly interested in the hat, also in the one you have on your head. May I ask you to remove it and let me look at it.”

She looked a little disconcerted, but she did as he asked with the best grace she could muster.

“You see,” he explained with a smile, “I happen to know your milliner in Paris. Madame Germaine.”