Murder in the Museum, A British Library Crime Classic (12 page)

“I want no rest,” snapped Violet. “I want to get out of here without delay. Tell me your conditions, and I will tell you if I can agree to them. I shouldn't be able to rest in this dreadful room, anyhow.”

His eyebrows rose. “I see no reason for delay, my dear lady, if you do not,” he said. “Let us talk business.” He sat on the bed and faced her.

Chapter XVI

Revelations?

It took Shelley several seconds to recover from his astonishment when Moses Moss entered the room. They had decided that this man was the murderer, the kidnapper of Violet Arnell. And that kidnapper was quite certainly somewhere in the north of England at this very moment! But who could he be? Shelley racked his brains, but was totally unable to decide. However, it was obvious that the next move was to find out to what they owed this very unexpected visit.

“You wanted to speak to us about the Arnell case, Mr. Moss?” he asked, managing by a great effort of will to keep his voice level.

“Yes,” answered Moss, a quiet smile spreading over his somewhat sombre face. “I thought that it was time I gave you the ‘low-down' on what has been happening—as far as I can, that is.”

Shelley was puzzled, and looked it. “Why did you decide to do this now, Mr. Moss?” he asked.

Again Moss smiled his almost inscrutable smile.

“Well,” he said. “I reckon you'll think me about the biggest fool in Christendom when I tell you the silly joke I fell for this afternoon. But the fact of the matter is that I'm very hard up, and I can't afford to throw away a chance of a possible piece of commission.” He paused, and Shelley quickly interjected a question before the other could resume his rambling statement.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Moss,” he said; “but I'm afraid I don't understand. You must begin at the beginning, and go straight through. That's the only way that we can get this business in order.”

“Okay,” said Moss. “I suppose I was telling the tale in a funny way. Little weakness of mine that I can't tell a tale straight through in a sensible way.”

“Do your best,” Shelley advised him; and he smiled.

“Well,” he began, “I suppose the fact that I'm hard up, and in the hands of that old skinflint Victor Isaacs, really has nothing to do with the case.”

“I wouldn't exactly say that, Mr. Moss,” Shelley remarked dryly; “but, as a matter of fact, we know all about your financial position already.”

“Do you, by Jove?” A rueful smile spread over the countenance of the young Jew. “What I was really saying all that for, though, was to explain that I am eager to get hold of any sort of job that will bring in a few quid—old Isaacs wants a bit of staving off; but I think if I could let him have fifty within the next few days he would wait a little longer.”

“And then…?” Shelley was quietly insistent.

“Oh, I don't know.” Moss shrugged his shoulders. “No doubt something or other would turn up, sooner or later,” he said.

“Well, Mr. Micawber,” smiled Shelley, “what precisely does all this lead up to?”

“This,” said Moss. “I had a note this afternoon; and a pretty little wild-goose chase it's led me, too.”

“A note?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of note?”

“Well, this is it,” said Moss, producing a letter from his pocket, and handing it over.

Shelley took it, handling it very gingerly, and removed it carefully from its envelope. Then he read it aloud, for the benefit of Cunningham, who had sat by almost open-mouthed at the preliminary conversation.

“15, Berlin Square South, N.W.21” [he began]. “Dear Mr. Moss, Your name has been given me by a mutual friend, as one who can be relied on as a dealer in second-hand cars. I am told that you can usually get hold of something to suit anyone's requirements. Well, what I want is an Austin or Morris, about twelve horse-power, not older than 1934, price not above
£75
. Do you think that you can get hold of something for me? If you can, drive it around here this afternoon, as I am in rather a hurry to get fixed up, as I have to go on an important journey very shortly. If you cannot lay your hands on either of these, please bring along anything that you have anywhere near it, as it is very urgent that I should get fixed up soon. Please come this afternoon, as it is not sure at what times I shall be in for the rest of the week. Yours sincerely, Michael Baron.”

“Well, what do you make of that, Inspector?” asked Moss.

“First of all,” was Shelley's comment, “that Mr. Michael Baron was very anxious to get you out to—would it be Cricklewood?—this afternoon.”

“Yes, damn him!” returned Moss. “And his blasted address doesn't exist.”

“Doesn't it, now?” Shelley positively beamed at him. “That is indeed very gratifying.”

“Gratifying, do you call it?” Moss objected. “I call it damned annoying. I went out there this afternoon, and spent hours looking for the blasted place. There's a Berlin Square right enough. As a matter of fact I knew it, and had been there before. But it's a square with only three sides, if you follow me. There's a Berlin Square North, East, and West, but no South.”

Shelley positively purred. “Oh, very clever, very clever indeed,” he murmured. “Just near enough to a real address to keep you puzzled, you see, Mr. Moss. The whole affair carefully thought out.”

“Yes, but why?” asked Moss.

“Oh, that we shall find out in due course,” said Shelley calmly.

“You think so?”

“I'm sure of it.”

“Well, I'm glad of that, at any rate.”

“In the meantime, Mr. Moss, I'd like to perform a little experiment,” announced Shelley.

Moss looked alarmed. “Experiment?” he asked.

“Yes. I'd like to examine this letter for finger-prints. It's postmarked ‘N.W.21,' I see, so the man took the trouble to go out there to post it.” Shelley scribbled a note on a piece of paper, and then handed it to Cunningham, together with the letter.

“Take this to the finger-print department, Sergeant,” he said, “and ask them if they can identify any of the prints on it with anyone in our records. This isn't a novice, and may well be due to an old hand at the game. I don't suppose he's left any prints, but the best people go astray at times.”

“H'm.” Moss did not look at all impressed at this suggestion, but Shelley quickly rounded on him.

“I shall require your finger-prints, of course, Mr. Moss,” he said, “so that the finger-print department can eliminate them from the large number that will doubtless be on the envelope.”

“Certainly,” said Moss. “There will be no difficulty about that. Naturally, I don't raise any objection at this stage.”

So he went through all the paraphernalia of inking fingers, one by one, and pressing them on the correct spaces on a marked and numbered card. One or two were slightly smudged, and had to be repeated, but at last Shelley announced himself satisfied with the results that they had attained. He rang a bell, and handed the card to a constable who had entered, telling him to take it down to the finger-print department for purposes of elimination in the specimen that he had just sent down.

“Tell them that these are the prints of Mr. Moss, the gentleman to whom the letter was addressed,” he said. “And ask them to send up the result by Sergeant Cunningham as soon as available. I hope they hurry up, too. We have to go to the north of England tonight.”

“North of England?” There was a question implicit in the tones of Moss's voice.

“Yes,” said Shelley. “The gentleman who sent you that note—at any rate, I think he is responsible—kidnapped Miss Violet Arnell this afternoon. They are somewhere near Sheffield.”

“Ah!” Moss was suddenly eager, his whole face expressing surprised comprehension of something that had hitherto been puzzling him. “So that explains the reason for the note.”

“How?” Shelley could be laconic enough when his interest was aroused.

“I was to see Miss Arnell this afternoon or early evening—at least, that was the last arrangement that I had with her, I remember,” Moss announced.

“Why?”

“Well,” Moss hesitated. “We were sort of joint legatees of the old man,” he explained. “And I was in a way suggesting to her…suggesting to her…that she might care to…care to…” His halting speech petered away into silence. Shelley smiled.

“You were suggesting to her that she should advance you a little of the money that was to be yours in any case eventually,” he said.

“That's it,” said Moss. “You see, I was in such a tight corner that I didn't know where to turn; and I thought that she might possibly see her way clear to do something about it.”

“I follow,” said Shelley. “Of course, Mr. Moss, I suppose it never occurred to you that your motives might be misconstrued?”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“I should have thought that my meaning was clear enough.”

“Well, it isn't; so I wish you'd explain yourself, and not go talking in riddles,” Moss objected.

“Well,” said Shelley, and paused. It was now his turn to find things rather difficult to say.

“Carry on,” said Moss with savage glee, experiencing considerable pleasure in being thus able to turn the tables on the famous detective.

“Miss Arnell is a very beautiful young lady, and an heiress to boot,” snapped Shelley taking this conversational hurdle in his stride! “Also her fiancé is in prison—or was, until he was released early this evening.”

“Are you suggesting that I was making up to Miss Arnell with the idea of marrying her?” shouted Moss.

“I was suggesting nothing,” said Shelley, whose little experiment had succeeded. Moss was crimson with rage at the mere suggestion. This was no assumed temper; and Shelley felt now fairly confident that the young Jew was completely innocent of criminal intent. The detective had put this offensive suggestion with the idea of seeing the reaction of his companion, for he felt sure that a guilty man would either have treated the idea as something merely to be smiled or sniggered at, or else as a serious idea which could be amicably discussed. A completely innocent man would be almost certain to react as Moss had done.

“Well,” Moss stormed at him, “if you didn't suggest that, what the hell were you getting at, anyway? I tell you, you fellows think that you can get away with anything when you get people in here. Well, you can't as far as I'm concerned; and the sooner you get to know that the better it will be for you, and for all concerned.”

“Now, that's all right, Mr. Moss,” Shelley murmured, smoothing him down as best he could. “Please forget that anything of the sort was ever said. I quite see that it was impossible that you could have done, to have contemplated doing, anything of the sort.”

“That's all right then,” murmured Moss in slightly mollified tones.

“Good,” remarked Shelley. “But what I want to know, Mr. Moss, is this: who could have done it? After all, even though he is a criminal, who has, for some unknown reason, kidnapped Miss Arnell, he must be known to you personally in some way.”

“Why do you think that?”

“That letter,” Shelley pointed out. “It shows a pretty considerable knowledge of your habits, of your job, and of what you do. After all, one must know you fairly well to be aware that you can fish up a second-hand car of a particular make, year, and price. Or don't you think so?”

Moss considered this for a few moments. “I don't know,” he said at length. “After all, I am pretty well known in the world of second-hand cars, you know. I must have dealings with a score of people a month—or more, even. Some months I might have dealings with as many as fifty people, and each of those fifty would have some friends to whom they'd mention my name. You know—‘Got a decent second-hand car from a chap called Moss'—that sort of thing.”

“But that's different from knowing your private address and so on,” Shelley objected. “After all, the letter was addressed to you personally at your home address. Don't forget that.”

“I'm in the 'phone book,” Moss reminded him.

“Yes, that's so,” said Shelley. He felt almost “stumped.” The thing did, on reflection, seem almost inexplicable, unless the man was someone who knew Moss well, he thought; and yet each of the little points, which in sum seemed to mean so much, had a perfectly natural explanation. But to the trained mind of the detective the explanations somehow did not quite ring true. There seemed to be something forced, something vaguely unnatural about them. He could not manage to lay his finger on any particular spot in the explanation which was wrong; and yet, taken as a whole it was all wrong. The detective of wide experience gets these occasional “hunches,” and it was one of Shelley's deepest feelings that they rarely proved wrong. He felt perfectly sure that in this instance he was correct; and that the criminal, whoever he might eventually turn out to be, would be someone well known to Moss.

Before he had time to put this matter before Moss, however, Cunningham returned, his face one broad beaming smile.

“Hullo, Cunningham,” he said with a smile which answered that on Cunningham's countenance. “You look as if you'd picked up a five-pound note. That must mean that you have some good news for us.”

“Indeed, it does, sir.”

“Well, don't waste time, man. Tell us all about it. Fire ahead.”

“The finger-prints on the envelope were entirely Mr. Moss's, and someone's who we couldn't identify,” said Cunningham.

“Right. I understand your meaning, even if your grammar isn't all it might be,” smiled Shelley. “Probably the postman is the gentleman whom you couldn't identify.”

“Yes, sir. That's what we thought.”

“And the letter, man. Don't keep us waiting.” Shelley was clearly on tenterhooks.

“The letter had a distinct thumb-print on the back,” said Cunningham with a smile, “which was identified in the department.”

“Who was it?”

“Wallace. J. K. Wallace,” returned Cunningham.

Shelley looked puzzled for a moment, and then his memory became its usual efficient self. “J. K. Wallace,” he said reflectively. “That was the man who did ten years for a cheque-book fraud, isn't it?”