Elk 04 White Face (4 page)

He heard the shrill call of the door-bell, looked plaintively round, finally rose and went to the door. The night had come down blackly; the pavement outside was glistening: you do not hear the rain falling in the East End.

“Are you Dr. Marford?”

The woman who stood in the doorway exhaled the faint fragrance of some peculiarly delicate perfume. Her voice, thin for the moment with anxiety, had the quality of culture. She was a stranger; he had never heard that voice before.

“Yes. Will you come in?”

The surgery had no other light than the reading-lamp on the desk. He felt that she would have had it this way.

She wore a leather motoring coat and a little tight-fitting hat. She unfastened the coat hurriedly as though she were hot or had some difficulty in breathing. Under the coat she wore a neat blue costume. From some vague clue, he thought she was American. A lady undoubtedly, having no association with Tidal Basin, unless she was a passenger on the Moroccan boat which sailed with the tide from Shrimp Wharf.

“Is he—is he dead?” she asked jerkily, and in her dark eyes he read an unconquerable fear.

“Is who dead?”

He was puzzled; searched his mind rapidly for patients in extremis and could find none but old Sully, the marine store dealer, who had been dying for eighteen months.

“The man—he was brought here…after the fight. A policeman told me.. they were fighting in the street and he was brought here.”

She stood, her hands clasped, her thin body bent forward towards him, breathless.

“A man?…Oh, yes; he’s dead, I’m afraid.”

Dr. Marford was for the moment bewildered. How could she be interested in the fate of one Stephens, dock labourer, of Poplar?

“Oh, my God!”

She whispered the words, dropped for a second. Dr. Marford’s arm went round her and assisted her to a chair.

“Oh, my God!” she said again and began to cry.

He looked at her helplessly, not knowing for whom he could frame a defence—for the dead or the living.

“It was a fair fight as far as one could see,” he said awkwardly. “The man fell…hit his head on the sharp edge of the kerb…”

“I begged him not to go near him,” she said a little wildly. “I begged him! When he telephoned to say he was on his track and had traced him here…I came by cab…I implored him to come back.”

All this and more came incoherently. Dr. Marford had to guess what she said. Some of the words were drowned in sobs. He went to his medicine shelf and took down a bottle labelled “Ap. Am. Arm.,” poured a little into a medicine glass and added water.

“You drink this and tell me all about it,” he said authoritatively.

She told him more than she would have told her confessor. Sorrow, remorse, the crushing tragedy of fear removed all inhibitions. The doctor listened, looking down at her, twiddling the stem of the medicine glass in his fingers.

Presently he spoke.

“This man Stephens was a dock labourer—a heavy fellow, six feet tall at least. A fair-haired man. The other man was a young fellow of twenty something. I only saw him for a second when he was in the hands of the police. He had a light, almost a white, moustache—”

She stared up at him.

“Fair…a young man…”

Dr. Marford held the glass out to her.

“Drink this; you’re hysterical. I hate telling you so.”

But she pushed the glass aside.

“Stephens—are you sure? Two, well, two ordinary men?…”

“Two labourers—both drunk. It’s not unusual in this neighbourhood. We have an average of two fights a night. On Saturday nights—six. It’s a dull place and they have to do something.”

The colour was coming back to her face. She hesitated, reached for the glass, swallowed its contents and made a wry face.

“Sal volatile…beastly!”

She wiped her lips with a handkerchief she took from her bag and rose unsteadily to her feet.

“I’m sorry, Doctor. I’ve been a nuisance. I suppose if I offered to pay you for your time you’d be offended.”

“I charge ten cents for a consultation,” he said gravely, and she smiled.

“How accommodating you are! You think I am American? I am, of course, though I’ve lived in England since—oh, for a long time. Thank you, Doctor. Have I talked a lot of nonsense, and, if I have, will you forget it?”

Dr. Marford’s thin face was in the shadow: he was standing between her and the lamp.

“I won’t promise that; but I will not repeat it,” he said.

She did not give him her name: he was wholly incurious. When he offered to walk with her until she found a cab, she declined his escort. He stood in the drizzling rain and watched her out of sight.

Police-Constable Hartford came from the direction she had taken and stopped to speak.

“They say that Stephens is dead. Well, if they will drink, they must expect trouble. I’ve never regretted taking the pledge myself—I’ll be Chief Templar in our lodge this summer if Gawd spares me. I sent a young lady; she was makin’ inquiries about Stephens. I didn’t know he was gone or I’d have told her.”

“Thank you, for not telling her,” said Marford.

He was shy of P.C. Hartford, who was notoriously loquacious and charged with strange long words.

He locked the door and went back to his book, but the corruptions and permutations of Madame de Lamballe interested him no more.

Pulling up the surgery blind, he looked out into the deserted street. There was some sort of movement in progress under the shadow of the wall which encircles the premises of the Eastern Trading Company.

He saw a man and a woman talking. There was light enough from the street standard to reveal this much. The man was in evening dress, which was curious. The white splash of his shirt front was plainly visible. Even waiters do not wear their uniform in Tidal Basin.

Dr. Marford went out and opened the street door as the man and the woman walked in opposite directions. Then he saw the third of the trio. He was moving towards the man in evening dress, following him quickly. The doctor saw the first man stop and turn. There was an exchange of words and a scuffle. The man in dress clothes went down like a log, the second bent over him and went on quickly and disappeared under the railway arch which crosses Endley Street, opposite the Eastern Company’s main gateway.

Dr. Marford watched, fascinated, was on the point of crossing to see what had happened to the inanimate heap on the pavement, when the man got up and lit a cigarette.

The clock struck ten.

P.C. Hartford was at that moment composing a little speech which he intended to deliver at the next lodge meeting, where matters of very considerable interest were to be discussed. His thoughts being so centred, it was not unlikely that he should miss seeing the fugitive.

A certain Harry Lamborn, who was by trade a general larcenist, and who at that moment was standing in the shelter of a deeply-recessed door on the opposite side of the road, had less excuse, except that his eye was on the approaching copper and that he had little interest in ordinary civilians. That night he had certain plans connected with No. 7 warehouse of the Eastern Trading Company, and he was waiting for P.C. Hartford to reach the end of his beat and return before he put them into operation.

He watched the constable’s leisurely stride, drew back still farther into the recess which afforded him freedom from observation and protection from the falling rain, and transferred a collapsible jemmy from one pocket to another for greater comfort.

Hartford could not help seeing the man in evening dress. He stood squarely in the middle of the sidewalk, wiping the mud from his black overcoat. Instantly Hartford descended from the dais of Vice-Templar and became a human police constable.

“Had a fall, sir?” he asked cheerfully.

The man turned a good-looking face to the officer and smiled. Yet he was not wholly amused, for his hands were trembling violently and the whiteness of his lips was in odd contrast to his sunburnt face. And when he spoke he was so breathless that the words came in gasps. Rain had been falling; there was a brown, muddy patch on his overcoat. He looked backward, the way he had come, and seemed relieved when he saw nobody.

“Have I had a fall?” he repeated. “Well, I think I have.”

He looked past the constable. “Did you see the man?”

Police-Constable Hartford looked back along the deserted stretch of pavement.

“Which man?” he asked, and the other seemed surprised.

“He went your way; he must have passed you.”

Hartford shook his head.

“No, sir, nobody’s passed me.”

The white-lipped man was sceptical.

“Did he do anything?” asked Hartford.

“Did he do anything?” The stranger had a trick of repeating questions and tinging them with contempt. “He punched me in the jaw, if that’s anything. I played possum.” His face twisted in a smile. “Scared him—I hope.”

He gave a certain emphasis to the last words. Police-Constable Hartford surveyed him with greater interest.

“Would you like to charge the man?” he asked.

The other was fixing his white silk neck-cloth and shook his head.

“Do you think you could find him if I charged him?” he asked sarcastically. “No; let him go.”

“A stranger to you, sir?”

P.C. Hartford had not handled a case for a month and was loath to let his fingers slide off the smooth edge of this.

“No; I know him.”

“There’s a bad crowd about here,” began Hartford. “A drunken, dissipated–-“

“I know him, I tell you.” The stranger was impatient.

He dived his hand into an inside pocket, took out a silver case and opened it. P.C. Hartford stood by while the man lit his cigarette, and noticed that the hand which held the patent lighter was shaking.

“Here’s a drink for you.”

Hartford bridled, and waved aside the proffered coin.

“I neither touch, taste nor ‘andle,” he said virtuously, and stood ready to pass on his majestic way.

The stranger unbuttoned his coat and felt in his waistcoat pocket.

“Lost anything?”

“Nothing,” said the other with satisfaction.

He blew a cloud of smoke, nodded, and they separated.

The man in evening dress came slowly to where a granite-paved roadway bisected the path before the gates of the Eastern Trading Company. The thief in the covered doorway saw him take his cigarette from his mouth, drop it on the pavement and put his foot upon it. And then, suddenly and without warning, he saw the white-faced man stagger; his knees gave from under him and he went down with a crash to the sidewalk.

Lamborn was an opportunist—saw here a gift from heaven in the shape of a drunken swell; looked left and right, and crossed the road with stealthy footsteps. He did not see Hartford moving towards him in the shadow of the wall. Lamborn flicked open the coat of the stricken man, dived in his hand and found a note-case. His fingers hooked to a watchguard; he pulled both out with a simultaneous jerk and then saw the running policeman. To be arrested on suspicion is one thing; to be found in possession of stolen property is another. Lamborn’s hand jerked up to the high wall which surrounded the company’s yard, and he turned to fly. Half a dozen paces he took, and then the hand of the law fell on him, and the familiar “Here, you!” came hatefully to his ears. He struggled impotently. Mr. Lamborn had never learned the first lesson of criminality, which is to go quietly.

Hartford thrust him against the wall, and then saw somebody crossing the road, and remembered the man lying under the lamp-post as he recognised the figure.

“Doctor—that gentleman’s hurt. Will you have a look at him?”

Dr. Marford had seen the stranger fall and stooped gingerly by his side.

“Keep quiet, will yer?” said Hartford indignantly to his struggling prisoner.

His whistle sounded shrilly in the night. There were moments when even Lamborn grew intelligent.

“All right, it’s a cop.” he said sullenly, and ceased to struggle.

It was at that moment that the policeman heard an exclamation from the stooping, peering doctor.

“Constable—this man is dead—stabbed!”

He held up his hands for the policeman’s inspection. In the light of the standard Hartford saw they were red with blood.

Elk, who was at the end of the street keeping a spieling house under observation, heard the whistle and came flying towards the sound. Every kennel in Tidal Basin heard it and was drawn. Men and women forfeited their night’s rest rather than lose the thrill of experience; when they heard it was no less than murder they purred gratefully that their enterprise was rewarded. They came trickling out like rats from their burrows. There was a crowd almost before the uniformed police arrived to control it.

When Elk came back from ‘phoning the divisional surgeon the doctor was washing his hands in a bucket of water that the policeman had brought for him.

“Mason’s at the station; he’s coming along.”

“Here, Elk, what’s the idea of holding me?”

Lamborn’s voice was pained and hurt. He stood, a wretchedly garbed figure of uncouth manhood, between two towering policemen, but his spirit was beyond suppression.

“I’ve done nothing, have I? This rozzer pinched me—”

“Shut up,” said Elk, not unkindly. “Mr. Mason will be along in a minute.”

Lamborn groaned.

“Him!” he almost howled. “Sympathetic Mason, what a night for a party!”

Chief Detective Inspector Mason was visiting his area that night, and was in the police station when the call was put through. He came in the long, powerful police tender with a host of detectives, and a testy and elderly police surgeon. Dr. Rudd was a police surgeon because it offered him the maximum interest for the minimum of labour. He was a bachelor, with an assured income from investments, but he liked the authority which his position gave him; liked to see policemen touching their helmets to him as he passed them on the street; was impressed by the support he received from magistrates when he declared as having been drunk influential people who brought their own doctors from Harley Street to prove that they suffered from nothing more vicious than shell-shock.

He knew Dr. Marford slightly, and favoured him with a cold nod; resented his being in the case at all, for the penny doctor was one of the poor relations of the profession, not the kind of man one would call into a consultation, supposing Dr. Rudd called in anybody.

He made a careful examination of the still figure.

“Dead, of course,” he said.

He gave the impression that, had he arrived a little earlier, the tragedy might have been averted.

“There is a knife wound,” began Marford, “which penetrated—”

“Yes, yes,” said Dr. Rudd impatiently. “Of course. Naturally.”

He looked at Mr. Mason.

“Dead,” he said. “I will make an examination. Obviously a knife wound. Death was probably instantaneous.”

He looked at Marfod.

“Were you here when it happened?”

“Soon after,” said Marford; “a minute after—probably less than that.”

“Ah, then,” said Dr. Rudd, his hands in his pockets, his legs apart, “you’ll be able to tell us something—”

Mason intervened. He was a bald man, with a humorous eye and a deep, unctuous voice.

“Yes, yes, we’ll see all about that, Doctor.”

He showed no resentment at this attempt to usurp his function; was almost jovial in the face of an impertinence which was not an unusual experience when Dr. Rudd was in a case.

“We’ll see all about that. Doctor—”

“Marford.”

“Doctor Marford, you were here when the murder was committed or soon after: you’ll be able to tell us something, I’m sure. But now naturally you’re a little upset.”

Marford smiled and shook his head. “There’s nothing I can tell you, Mr. Mason, except that I saw the man fall.”

“I’m detaining this man, sir.” It was Hartford, stiffly saluting, more important than a Chief Commissioner on his first case.

Mason bent down over the body and let the powerful rays of his hand-lamp pry into ugly places.

“Where is the knife?” he asked. “We want to look after that.”

“There is no knife,” said Elk, with gloomy satisfaction.

“Excuse me, sir.” P.C. Hartford, unrebuffed, stood regimentally stiff: accuser, prosecutor and expositor all in one. “I’ve got a man here detained in custody.”

Mason became aware of his humble subordinate, took him in from the rose on the crest of his helmet to the toes of his large, polished boots.

“He should be at the police station,” he said gently.

It was Elk who explained.

“I kept the man here, sir, till you arrived.”

Mr. Mason put his little finger in his ear and twiddled it impatiently.

“All right,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to know that everything is being done in strict accordance with the rules of procedure. You seem to have a nice bunch of highly intelligent police officers in your division, Inspector.”

He addressed Divisional Inspector Bray, who accompanied him; but Bray had no sense of humour, and was entirely oblivious of sarcasm.

“They’re a pretty useful lot,” he said complacently.

Mr. Mason looked at the body at his feet, and thence to the man held between the two policemen, and back to the body again.

“No knife…You might search the body, will you, Elk? Help him, will you, Shale? Thank you.”

He peered round at the crowd, and there were a few who, desiring at the moment to escape his scrutiny, melted quietly into the darkness.

At any rate he had seemed oblivious of the presence of Dr. Marford, who was silent in an atmosphere charged with hostility to penny doctors. Suddenly Elk lugged something from beneath the body.

“Here you are, sir.”

It was a knife sheath, and at the moment was not pleasant to handle. Mr. Mason found an old envelope in his pocket and took it carefully.

“Is the knife there?”

“No.”

Bray had joined the search party and was emphatic on the point. They had moved the body slightly.

“No knife.” Mason looked up at the high wall. “It might have been thrown over there,” he mused.

“Excuse me, sir.” Constable Hartford froze to attention.

“Wait,” said Mason. “Now tell me, Doctor, what did you see?”

He addressed Marford, who, brought suddenly into the ambit of publicity, stammered and was ill at ease.

“I came out of my surgery”—he pointed awkwardly—“that place with the red light. I—er—heard two men fighting—I thought I heard a little altercation before then—and I went in and got my hat and mackintosh—”