Adventures of Martin Hewitt (10 page)

“Hullo, Brett!” he said. “Condole with me. Mrs. Geldard has changed her
mind, and considers me a pernicious creature anxious to make mischief between
her and her husband; I’m very much afraid I shan’t get my fee.”

“No,” I answered, “she told me you wouldn’t.”

We compared notes, and Hewitt laughed heartily. “The appearance of Emma
Trennatt at Geldard’s office this morning is explained,” he said. “She went
first with a message from Geldard to Mrs. Geldard at Camberwell, explaining
his absence and imploring her not to talk of it or make a disturbance. Mrs.
Geldard had gone off to town, and Emma Trennatt was told that she had gone to
Geldard’s office. There she went, and then we first saw her. She found nobody
at the office, and after a minute or two of irresolution returned to
Camberwell, and then succeeded in delivering her message, as you saw. Mrs.
Geldard is apparently satisfied with her husband’s explanation. But I’m
afraid the revenue officers won’t approve of it.”

“The revenue officers?”

“Yes. It’s a case of illicit distilling—and a big case, I fancy.
I’ve wired to Somerset House, and no doubt men are on their way here now. But
Mrs. Geldard’s up at the house, so we’d better hurry up to the police station
and have a few sent from there. Come along. The whole thing’s very clever,
and a most uncommonly big thing. If I know all about it—and I think I
do—Geldard and his partners have been turning out untaxed spirit by the
hundred gallons for a long time past. Geldard is the practical man, the
engineer, and probably erected the whole apparatus himself in that house on
the hill. The spirit is brought down by a pipe laid a very little way under
the garden surface, and carried into one of the irrigation stand-pipes in the
nursery ground. There’s a quiet little hole behind the pipe with a couple of
stop-cocks—one to shut off the water when necessary, the other to do
the same with the spirit. When the stopcocks are right you just turn the tap
at the top of the pipe and you get water or whisky, as the case may be.
Fuller, the man up at the house, attends to the still, with such assistance
as the deaf old woman can give him. Trennatt, down below, draws off the
liquor ready to be carried away. These two keep up an ostentatious appearance
of being at unending feud to blind suspicion. Our as yet ungreeted friend
Geldard, guiding spirit of the whole thing, comes disguised as a carter with
an apparent cart-load of linoleum, and carries away the manufactured stuff.
In the pleasing language of Geldard and Co., ‘smoke,’ as alluded to in the
note you saw, means whisky. Something has been wrong with the apparatus
lately, and it has been leaking badly. Geldard has been at work on it,
patching, but ineffectually. ‘What you did was no good’ said the charming
Emma in the note, as you will remember. ‘Uncle was anxious.’ And justifiably
so, because not only does a leak of spirit mean a waste, but it means a
smell, which some sharp revenue man might sniff. Moreover, if there is a
leak, the liquid runs somewhere at random, and with any sudden increase in
volume attention might easily be attracted. It was so bad that ‘F.’ (Fuller)
thought Geldard must light another pipe (start another still) or give up
smoking (distilling) for a bit. There is the explanation of the note.
‘To-morrow, to carry’ probably means that he is to call with his
cart—the cart in whose society Geldard becomes Cookson—to remove
a quantity of spirit. He is not to come late because people are expected on
floral business. The crosses I
think
will be found to indicate the
amount of liquid to be moved. But that we shall see. Anyhow Geldard got there
yesterday and had a busy day loading up, and then set to repairing. The
damage was worse than supposed, and an urgent thing. Result, Geldard works
into early morning, has a sleep in the place, where he may be called at any
moment, and starts again early this morning. New parts have to be ordered,
and these are delivered at Trennatt’s to-day and passed through the hedge.
Meantime Geldard sends a message to his wife explaining things, and the
result you’ve seen.”

At the police station a telegram had already been received from Somerset
House. That was enough for Hewitt, who had discharged his duty as a citizen
and now dropped the case. We left the police and the revenue officers to deal
with the matter and travelled back to town.

“Yes,” said Hewitt on the way, after each had fully described his day’s
experiences, “it seemed pretty plain that Geldard left his office by the back
way in disguise, and there were things that hinted what that disguise was.
The pipes were noticeable. They were quite unnecessarily dirty, and partly
from dirty fingers. Pipes smoked by a man in his office would never look like
that. They had been smoked out of doors by a man with dirty hands, and hands
and pipes would be in keeping with the rest of the man’s appearance. It was
noticeable that he had left not only his clothes and hat but his boots behind
him. They were quite plain though good boots, and would be quite in keeping
with any dress but that of a labourer or some such man in his working
clothes. Moreover the partly-smoked cigars were probably thrown aside because
they would appear inconsistent with Geldard’s changed dress. The contents of
the pockets in the clothes left behind, too, told the same tale. The cheap
watch and the necessary keys, pocketbook and pocket-knife were taken, but the
articles of luxury, the russia-leather card-case, the sovereign purse and so
on were left. Then we came on the receipts for stable-rent.
Suggestion—perhaps the disguise was that of a carter.

“Then there was the coach-house. Plainly, if Geldard took the trouble thus
to disguise himself, and thus to hide his occupation even from his wife, he
had sonic very good reason for secrecy. Now the goods which a man would be
likely to carry secretly in a cart or van, as a regular piece of business,
would probably be either stolen or smuggled. When I examined those pieces of
linoleum I became convinced that they were intended merely as receptacles for
some other sort of article altogether. They were old, and had evidently been
thus rolled for a very long period. They appeared to have been exposed to
weather, but on the outside only. Moreover they were all of one size and
shape, each forming a long hollow cylinder, with plenty of interior room. Now
from this it was plainly unlikely that they were intended to hold
stolen
goods.

“Stolen goods are not apt to be always of one size and shape, adaptable to
a cylindrical recess. Perhaps they were smuggled. Now the only goods
profitable to be smuggled nowadays are tobacco and spirits, and plainly these
rolls of linoleum would be excellent receptacles for either. Tobacco could be
packed inside the rolls and the ends stopped artistically with narrow rolls
of linoleum. Spirits could be contained in metal cylinders exactly fitting
the cavity and the ends filled in the same way as for tobacco. But for
tobacco a smart man would probably make his linoleum rolls of different
sizes, for the sake of a more innocent appearance, while for spirits it would
be a convenience to have vessels of uniform measure, to save trouble in
quicker delivery and calculation of quantity. Bearing these things in mind I
went in search of the gentle nurseryman at Crouch End. My general survey of
the nursery ground and the house behind it inspired me with the notion that
the situation and arrangement were most admirably adapted for the working of
a large illicit still—a form of misdemeanour, let me tell you, that is
much more common nowadays than is generally supposed. I remembered Geldard’s
engineering experience, and I heard something of the odd manners of Mr.
Puller; my theory of a traffic in untaxed spirits became strengthened. But
why a nursery? Was this a mere accident of the design? There were commonly
irrigation pipes about nurseries, and an extra one might easily be made to
carry whisky. With this in mind I visited the nursery with the result you
know of. The stand-pipe I tested (which was where I expected—handy to
the vehicle-entrance) could produce simple New River water or raw whisky at
command of one of two stop-cocks. My duty was plain. As you know, I am a
citizen first and an investigator after, and I find the advantage of it in my
frequent intercourse with the police and other authorities. As soon as I
could get away I telegraphed to Somerset House. But then I grew perplexed on
a point of conduct. I was commissioned by Mrs. Geldard. It scarcely seemed
the loyal thing to put my client’s husband in gaol because of what I had
learnt in course of work on her behalf. I decided to give him, and nobody
else, a sporting chance. If I could possibly get at him in the time at my
disposal, by himself, so that no accomplice should get the benefit of my
warning, I would give him a plain hint to run; then he could take his chance.
I returned to the place and began to work round the grounds, examining the
place as I went; but at the very first outhouse I put my head into I was
surprised in the rear by Mrs. Geldard coming in hot haste to stop me and
rescue her husband. She most unmistakably gave me the sack, and so now the
police may catch Geldard or not, as their luck may be.”

They did catch him. In the next day’s papers a report of a great capture
of illicit distillers occupied a prominent place. The prisoners were James
Fuller, Henry Matthew Trennatt, Sarah Blatten, a deaf woman, Samuel Geldard
and his wife Rebecca Geldard. The two women were found on the premises in
violent altercation when the officers arrived, a few minutes after Hewitt and
I had left the police station on our way home. It was considered by far the
greatest haul for the revenue authorities since the seizure of the famous
ship’s boiler on a waggon in the East-End stuffed full of tobacco, after that
same ship’s boiler had made about a dozen voyages to the continent and back
“for repair.” Geldard was found dressed as a workman, carrying out extensive
alterations and repairs to the still. And a light van was found in a shed
belonging to the nursery loaded with seventeen rolls of linoleum, each
enclosing a cylinder containing two gallons of spirits, and packed at each
end with narrow linoleum rolls. It will be remembered that seventeen was the
number of crosses at the foot of Emma Trennatt’s note.

The subsequent raids on a number of obscure public-houses in different
parts of London, in consequence of information gathered on the occasion of
the Geldard capture, resulted in the seizure of a large quantity of secreted
spirit for which no permit could be shown. It demonstrated also the extent of
Geldard’s connection, and indicated plainly what was done with the spirit
when he had carted it away from Crouch End. Some of the public-houses in
question must have acquired a notoriety among the neighbours for frequent
purchases of linoleum.

It is a good few years ago now that a suicide was investigated by a
coroner’s jury, before whom Martin Hewitt gave certain simple and direct
evidence touching the manner of the death, and testifying to the fact of its
being a matter of self-destruction. The public got certain suggestive
information from the bare newspaper report, but they never learnt the full
story of the tragedy that led up to the suicide that was so summarily
disposed of.

The time I speak of was in Hewitt’s early professional days, not long
after he had left Messrs. Crellan’s office, and a long time before I myself
met him. At that time fewer of the police knew him and were aware of his
abilities, and fewer still appreciated them at their true value. Inquiries in
connection with a case had taken him early one morning to the district which
is now called “London over the border,” and which comprises West Ham and the
parts there adjoining. At this time, however, the district was much unlike
its present self, for none of the grimy streets that now characterise it had
been built, and even in its nearest parts open laud claimed more space than
buildings.

Hewitt’s business lay with the divisional surgeon of police, who had, he
found, been called away from his breakfast to a patient. Hewitt followed him
in the direction of the patient’s house, and met him returning. They walked
together, and presently, as they came in sight of a row of houses, a girl,
having the appearance of a maid-of-all-work, came running from the side door
of the end house—a house rather larger and more pretentious than the
others in the row. Almost immediately a policeman appeared from the front
door, and, seeing the girl running, shouted to Hewitt and his companion to
stop her. This Hewitt did by a firm though gentle grasp of the arms, and,
turning her about, marched her back again. “Come, come,” he said, “you’ll
gain nothing by running away, whatever it is.” But the girl shuddered and
sobbed, and cried incoherently, “No, no—don’t; I’m afraid. I don’t like
it, sir. It’s awful. I can’t stop there.”