Partners in Crime (13 page)

It was at that small select meeting place mentioned by Inspector Marriot. There was dancing there, but the real attraction of the place lay behind a pair of imposing folding doors. There were two rooms there with green baize-covered tables, where vast sums changed hands nightly.

Marguerite Laidlaw, rising at last to go, thrust a quantity of small notes into Tommy’s hands.

‘They are so bulkee, Tommee–you will change them, yes? A beeg note. See my so sweet leetle bag, it bulges him to distraction.’

Tommy brought her the hundred pound note she asked for. Then in a quiet corner he examined the notes she had given him. At least a quarter of them were counterfeit.

But where did she get her supplies from? To that he had as yet no answer. By means of Albert’s cooperation, he was almost sure that Laidlaw was not the man. His movements had been watched closely and had yielded no result.

Tommy suspected her father, the saturnine M. Heroulade. He went to and fro to France fairly often. What could be simpler than to bring the notes across with him? A false bottom to the trunk–something of that kind.

Tommy strolled slowly out of the Club, absorbed in these thoughts, but was suddenly recalled to immediate necessities. Outside in the street was Mr Hank P. Ryder, and it was clear at once that Mr Ryder was not strictly sober. At the moment he was trying to hang his hat on the radiator of a car, and missing it by some inches every time.

‘This goddarned hatshtand, this goddarned hatshtand,’ said Mr Ryder tearfully. ‘Not like that in the Shtates. Man can hang up his hat every night–every night, sir. You’re wearing two hatshs. Never sheen a man wearing two hatshs before. Must be effect–climate.’

‘Perhaps I’ve got two heads,’ said Tommy gravely.

‘Sho you have,’ said Mr Ryder. ‘Thatsh odd. Thatsh remarkable fac’. Letsh have a cocktail. Prohibition–probishun thatsh whatsh done me in. I guess I’m drunk–constootionally drunk. Cocktailsh–mixed ’em–Angel’s Kiss–that’s Marguerite–lovely creature, fon o’ me too. Horshes Neck, two Martinis–three Road to Ruinsh–no, roadsh to roon–mixed ’em all–in a beer tankard. Bet me I wouldn’t–I shaid–to hell, I shaid –’

Tommy interrupted.

‘That’s all right,’ he said soothingly. ‘Now what about getting home?’

‘Nohometogoto,’said Mr Ryder sadly, and wept.

‘What hotel are you staying at?’ asked Tommy.

‘Can’t go home,’ said Mr Ryder. ‘Treasure hunt. Swell thing to do. She did it. Whitechapel–white heartsh, white headsn shorrow to the grave –’

But Mr Ryder became suddenly dignified. He drew himself erect and attained a sudden miraculous command over his speech.

‘Young man, I’m telling you. Margee took me. In her car. Treasure hunting. English aristocrashy all do it. Under the cobblestones. Five hundred poundsh. Solemn thought, ’
tis
solemn thought. I’m
telling
you, young man. You’ve been kind to me. I’ve got your welfare at heart, sir, at heart. We Americans –’

Tommy interrupted him this time with even less ceremony.

‘What’s that you say? Mrs Laidlaw took you in a car?’

The American nodded with a kind of owlish solemnity.

‘To Whitechapel?’ Again that owlish nod.

‘And you found five hundred pounds there?’

Mr Ryder struggled for words.

‘S-she did,’ he corrected his questioner. ‘Left me outside. Outside the door. Always left outside. It’s kinder sad. Outside–always outside.’

‘Would you know your way there?’

‘I guess so. Hank Ryder doesn’t lose his bearings –’

Tommy hauled him along unceremoniously. He found his own car where it was waiting, and presently they were bowling eastward. The cool air revived Mr Ryder. After slumping against Tommy’s shoulder in a kind of stupor, he awoke clear-headed and refreshed.

‘Say, boy, where are we?’ he demanded.

‘Whitechapel,’ said Tommy crisply. ‘Is this where you came with Mrs Laidlaw tonight?’

‘It looks kinder familiar,’ admitted Mr Ryder, looking round. ‘Seems to me we turned off to the left somewhere down here. That’s it–that street there.’

Tommy turned off obediently. Mr Ryder issued directions.

‘That’s it. Sure. And round to the right. Say, aren’t the smells awful. Yes, past that pub at the corner–sharp round, and stop at the mouth of that little alley. But what’s the big idea? Hand it to me. Some of the oof left behind? Are we going to put one over on them?’

‘That’s exactly it,’ said Tommy. ‘We’re going to put one over on them. Rather a joke, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll tell the world,’ assented Mr Ryder. ‘Though I’m just a mite hazed about it all,’ he ended wistfully.

Tommy got out and assisted Mr Ryder to alight also. They advanced into the alley way. On the left were the backs of a row of dilapidated houses, most of which had doors opening into the alley. Mr Ryder came to a stop before one of these doors.

‘In here she went,’ he declared. ‘It was this door–I’m plumb certain of it.’

‘They all look very alike,’ said Tommy. ‘Reminds me of the story of the soldier and the Princess. You remember, they made a cross on the door to show which one it was. Shall we do the same?’

Laughing, he drew a piece of white chalk from his pocket and made a rough cross low down on the door. Then he looked up at various dim shapes that prowled high on the walls of the alley, one of which was uttering a blood-curdling yawl.

‘Lots of cats about,’ he remarked cheerfully.

‘What is the procedure?’ asked Mr Ryder. ‘Do we step inside?’

‘Adopting due precautions, we do,’ said Tommy.

He glanced up and down the alley way, then softly tried the door. It yielded. He pushed it open and peered into a dim yard.

Noiselessly he passed through, Mr Ryder on his heels.

‘Gee,’ said the latter, ‘there’s someone coming down the alley.’

He slipped outside again. Tommy stood still for a minute, then hearing nothing went on. He took a torch from his pocket and switched on the light for a brief second. That momentary flash enabled him to see his way ahead. He pushed forward and tried the closed door ahead of him. That too gave, and very softly he pushed it open and went in.

After standing still a second and listening, he again switched on the torch, and at that flash, as though at a given signal, the place seemed to rise round him. Two men were in front of him, two men were behind him. They closed in on him and bore him down.

‘Lights,’ growled a voice.

An incandescent gas burner was lit. By its light Tommy saw a circle of unpleasing faces. His eyes wandered gently round the room and noted some of the objects in it.

‘Ah!’ he said pleasantly. ‘The headquarters of the counterfeiting industry, if I am not mistaken.’

‘Shut your jaw,’ growled one of the men.

The door opened and shut behind Tommy, and a genial and well-known voice spoke.

‘Got him, boys. That’s right. Now, Mr Busy, let me tell you you’re up against it.’

‘That dear old word,’ said Tommy. ‘How it thrills me. Yes. I am the Mystery Man of Scotland Yard. Why, it’s Mr Hank Ryder. This
is
a surprise.’

‘I guess you mean that too. I’ve been laughing fit to bust all this evening–leading you here like a little child. And you so pleased with your cleverness. Why, sonny, I was on to you from the start. You weren’t in with that crowd for your health. I let you play about for a while, and when you got real suspicious of the lovely Marguerite, I said to myself: “Now’s the time to lead him to it.” I guess your friends won’t be hearing of you for some time.’

‘Going to do me in? That’s the correct expression, I believe. You have got it in for me.’

‘You’ve got a nerve all right. No, we shan’t attempt violence. Just keep you under restraint, so to speak.’

‘I’m afraid you’re backing the wrong horse,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ve no intention of being “kept under restraint,” as you call it.’

Mr Ryder smiled genially. From outside a cat uttered a melancholy cry to the moon.

‘Banking on that cross you put on the door, eh, sonny?’ said Mr Ryder. ‘I shouldn’t if I were you. Because I know that story you mentioned. Heard it when I was a little boy. I stepped back into the alleyway to enact the part of the dog with eyes as big as cart-wheels. If you were in that alley now, you would observe that every door in the alley is marked with an identical cross.’

Tommy dropped his head despondently.

‘Thought you were mighty clever, didn’t you?’ said Ryder.

As the words left his lips a sharp rapping sounded on the door.

‘What’s that?’ he cried, starting.

At the same time an assault began on the front of the house. The door at the back was a flimsy affair. The lock gave almost immediately and Inspector Marriot showed in the doorway.

‘Well done, Marriot,’ said Tommy. ‘You were quite right as to the district. I’d like you to make the acquaintance of Mr Hank Ryder who knows all the best fairy tales.

‘You see, Mr Ryder,’ he added gently, ‘I’ve had my suspicions of you. Albert (that important-looking boy with the big ears is Albert) had orders to follow on his motorcycle if you and I went off joy-riding at any time. And whilst I was ostentatiously marking a chalk cross on the door to engage your attention, I also emptied a little bottle of valerian on the ground. Nasty smell, but cats love it. All the cats in the neighbourhood were assembled outside to mark the right house when Albert and the police arrived.’

He looked at the dumb founded Mr Ryder with a smile, then rose to his feet.

‘I said I would get you Crackler, and I have got you,’ he observed.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ asked Mr Ryder. ‘What do you mean–Crackler?’

‘You will find it in the glossary of the next criminal dictionary,’ said Tommy. ‘Etymology doubtful.’

He looked round him with a happy smile.

‘And all done without a nose,’ he murmured brightly. ‘Good-night, Marriot. I must go now to where the happy ending of the story awaits me. No reward like the love of a good woman–and the love of a good woman awaits me at home–that is, I hope it does, but one never knows nowadays. This has been a very dangerous job, Marriot. Do you know Captain Jimmy Faulkener? His dancing is simply too marvellous, and as for his taste in cocktails –! Yes, Marriot, it has been a very dangerous job.’

‘Do you know where we are going to lunch today, Tuppence?’

Mrs Beresford considered the question.

‘The Ritz?’ she suggested hopefully.

‘Think again.’

‘That nice little place in Soho?’

‘No.’ Tommy’s tone was full of importance. ‘An ABC shop. This one, in fact.’

He drew her deftly inside an establishment of the kind indicated, and steered her to a corner marble-topped table.

‘Excellent,’ said Tommy with satisfaction, as he seated himself. ‘Couldn’t be better.’

‘Why has this craze for the simple life come upon you?’ demanded Tuppence.

‘
You see, Watson, but you do not observe
. Iwonder now whether one of these haughty damsels would condescend to notice us? Splendid, she drifts this way. It is true that she appears to be thinking of something else, but doubtless her sub-conscious mind is functioning busily with such matters as ham and eggs and pots of tea. Chop and fried potatoes, please, miss, and a large coffee, a roll and butter, and a plate of tongue for the lady.’

The waitress repeated the order in a scornful tone, but Tuppence leant forward suddenly and interrupted her.

‘No, not a chop and fried potatoes. This gentleman will have a cheesecake and a glass of milk.’

‘A cheesecake and a milk,’ said the waitress with even deeper scorn, if that were possible. Still thinking of something else, she drifted away again.

‘That was uncalled for,’ said Tommy coldly.

‘But I’m right, aren’t I? You are the Old Man in the Corner? Where’s your piece of string?’

Tommy drew a long twisted mesh of string from his pocket and proceeded to tie a couple of knots in it.

‘Complete to the smallest detail,’ he murmured.

‘You made a small mistake in ordering your meal, though.’

‘Women are so literal-minded,’ said Tommy. ‘If there’s one thing I hate it’s milk to drink, and cheese-cakes are always so yellow and bilious-looking.’

‘Be an artist,’ said Tuppence. ‘Watch me attack my cold tongue. Jolly good stuff, cold tongue. Now then, I’m all ready to be Miss Polly Burton. Tie a large knot and begin.’

‘First of all,’ said Tommy, ‘speaking in a strictly unofficial capacity, let me point out this. Business is not too brisk lately. If business does not come to us, we must go to business. Apply our minds to one of the great public mysteries of the moment. Which brings me to the point–the Sunningdale Mystery.’

‘Ah!’ said Tuppence, with deep interest. ‘The Sunningdale Mystery!’

Tommy drew a crumpled piece of newspaper from his pocket and laid it on the table.

‘That is the latest portrait of Captain Sessle as it appeared in the
Daily Leader
.’

‘Just so,’ said Tuppence. ‘I wonder someone doesn’t sue these newspapers sometimes. You can see it’s a man and that’s all.’

‘When I said the Sunningdale Mystery, I should have said the so-called Sunningdale Mystery,’ went on Tommy rapidly.

‘A mystery to the police perhaps, but not to an intelligent mind.’

‘Tie another knot,’ said Tuppence.

‘I don’t know how much of the case you remember,’ continued Tommy quietly.

‘All of it,’ said Tuppence, ‘but don’t let me cramp your style.’

‘It was just over three weeks ago,’ said Tommy, ‘that the gruesome discovery was made on the famous golf links. Two members of the club, who were enjoying an early round, were horrified to find the body of a man lying face downwards on the seventh tee. Even before they turned him over they had guessed him to be Captain Sessle, a well-known figure on the links, and who always wore a golf coat of a peculiarly bright blue colour.

‘Captain Sessle was often seen out on the links early in the morning, practising, and it was thought at first that he had been suddenly overcome by some form of heart disease. But examination by a doctor revealed the sinister fact that he had been murdered, stabbed to the heart with a significant object,
a woman’s hatpin
. He was also found to have been dead at least twelve hours.

‘That put an entirely different complexion on the matter, and very soon some interesting facts came to light. Practically the last person to see Captain Sessle alive was his friend and partner, Mr Hollaby of the Porcupine Assurance Co, and he told his story as follows:

‘Sessle and he had played a round earlier in the day. After tea the other suggested that they should play a few more holes before it got too dark to see. Hollaby assented. Sessle seemed in good spirits, and was in excellent form. There is a public footpath that crosses the links, and just as they were playing up to the sixth green, Hollaby noticed a woman coming along it. She was very tall, and dressed in brown, but he did not observe her particularly, and Sessle, he thought, did not notice her at all.

‘The footpath in question crossed in front of the seventh tee,’ continued Tommy. ‘The woman had passed along this and was standing at the farther side, as though waiting. Captain Sessle was the first to reach the tee, as Mr Hollaby was replacing the pin in the hole. As the latter came towards the tee, he was astonished to see Sessle and the woman talking together. As he came nearer, they both turned abruptly, Sessle calling over his shoulder: “Shan’t be a minute.”

‘The two of them walked off side by side, still deep in earnest conversation. The footpath there leaves the course, and, passing between the two narrow hedges of neighbouring gardens, comes out on the road to Windlesham.

‘Captain Sessle was as good as his word. He reappeared within a minute or two, much to Hollaby’s satisfaction, as two other players were coming up behind them, and the light was failing rapidly. They drove off, and at once Hollaby noticed that something had occurred to upset his companion. Not only did he foozle his drive badly, but his face was worried and his forehead creased in a big frown. He hardly answered his companion’s remarks, and his golf was atrocious. Evidently something had occurred to put him completely off his game.

‘They played that hole and the eighth, and then Captain Sessle declared abruptly that the light was too bad and that he was off home. Just at that point there is another of those narrow “slips” leading to the Windlesham road, and Captain Sessle departed that way, which was a short cut to his home, a small bungalow on the road in question. The other two players came up, a Major Barnard and Mr Lecky, and to them Hollaby mentioned Captain Sessle’s sudden change of manner. They also had seen him speaking to the woman in brown, but had not been near enough to see her face. All three men wondered what she could have said to upset their friend to that extent.

‘They returned to the clubhouse together, and as far as was known at the time, were the last people to see Captain Sessle alive. The day was a Wednesday, and on Wednesday cheap tickets to London are issued. The man and wife who ran Captain Sessle’s small bungalow were up in town, according to custom, and did not return until the late train. They entered the bungalow as usual, and supposed their master to be in his room asleep. Mrs Sessle, his wife, was away on a visit.

‘The murder of the Captain was a nine days’ wonder. Nobody could suggest a motive for it. The identity of the tall woman in brown was eagerly discussed, but without result. The police were, as usual, blamed for their supineness–most unjustly, as time was to show. For a week later, a girl called Doris Evans was arrested and charged with the murder of Captain Anthony Sessle.

‘The police had had little to work upon. A strand of fair hair caught in the dead man’s fingers and a few threads of flame-coloured wool caught on one of the buttons of his blue coat. Diligent inquiries at the railway station and elsewhere had elicited the following facts.

‘A young girl dressed in a flame-coloured coat and skirt had arrived by train that evening about seven o’clock and had asked the way to Captain Sessle’s house. The same girl had reappeared again at the station, two hours later. Her hat was awry and her hair tousled, and she seemed in a state of great agitation. She inquired about the trains back to town, and was continually looking over her shoulder as though afraid of something.

‘Our police force is in many ways very wonderful. With this slender evidence to go upon, they managed to track down the girl and identify her as one Doris Evans. She was charged with murder and cautioned that anything she might say would be used against her, but she nevertheless persisted in making a statement, and this statement she repeated again in detail, without any subsequent variation, at the subsequent proceedings.

‘Her story was this. She was a typist by profession, and had made friends one evening, in a cinema, with a well-dressed man, who declared he had taken a fancy to her. His name, he told her, was Anthony, and he suggested that she should come down to his bungalow at Sunningdale. She had no idea then, or at any other time, that he had a wife. It was arranged between them that she should come down on the following Wednesday–the day, you will remember, when the servants would be absent and his wife away from home. In the end he told her his full name was Anthony Sessle, and gave her the name of his house.

‘She duly arrived at the bungalow on the evening in question, and was greeted by Sessle, who had just come in from the links. Though he professed himself delighted to see her, the girl declared that from the first his manner was strange and different. A half-acknowledged fear sprang up in her, and she wished fervently that she had not come.

‘After a simple meal, which was all ready and prepared, Sessle suggested going out for a stroll. The girl consenting, he took her out of the house, down the road, and along the “slip” on to the golf course. And then suddenly, just as they were crossing the seventh tee, he seemed to go completely mad. Drawing a revolver from his pocket, he brandished it in the air, declaring that he had come to the end of his tether.

‘“Everything must go! I’m ruined–done for. And you shall go with me. I shall shoot you first–then myself. They will find our bodies here in the morning side by side–together in death.”

‘And so on–a lot more. He had hold of Doris Evans by the arm, and she, realising she had to do with a madman, made frantic efforts to free herself, or failing that to get the revolver away from him. They struggled together, and in that struggle he must have torn out a piece of her hair and got the wool of her coat entangled on a button.

‘Finally, with a desperate effort, she freed herself, and ran for her life across the golf links, expecting every minute to be shot down with a revolver bullet. She fell twice, tripping over the heather, but eventually regained the road to the station and realised that she was not being pursued.

‘That is the story that Doris Evans tells–and from which she has never varied. She strenuously denies that she ever struck at him with a hatpin in self-defence–a natural enough thing to do under the circumstances, though–and one which may well be the truth. In support of her story, a revolver has been found in the furze bushes near where the body was lying. It had not been fired.

‘Doris Evans has been sent for trial, but the mystery still remains a mystery. If her story is to be believed, who was it who stabbed Captain Sessle? The other woman, the tall woman in brown, whose appearance so upset him? So far no one has explained her connection with the case. She appears out of space suddenly on the footpath across the links, she disappears along the slip, and no one ever hears of her again. Who was she? A local resident? A visitor from London? If so, did she come by car or by train? There is nothing remarkable about her except her height; no one seems to be able to describe her appearance. She could not have been Doris Evans, for Doris Evans is small and fair, and moreover was only just then arriving at the station.’

‘The wife?’ suggested Tuppence. ‘What about the wife?’

‘A very natural suggestion. But Mrs Sessle is also a small woman, and besides, Mr Hollaby knows her well by sight, and there seems no doubt that she was really away from home. One further development has come to light. The Porcupine Assurance Co is in liquidation. The accounts reveal the most daring misappropriation of funds. The reasons for Captain Sessle’s wild words to Doris Evans are now quite apparent. For some years past he must have been systematically embezzling money. Neither Mr Hollaby nor his son had any idea of what was going on. They are practically ruined.

‘The case stands like this. Captain Sessle was on the verge of discovery and ruin. Suicide would be a natural solution, but the nature of the wound rules that theory out. Who killed him? Was it Doris Evans? Was it the mysterious woman in brown?’

Tommy paused, took a sip of milk, made a wry face, and bit cautiously at the cheesecake.

II

‘Of course,’ murmured Tommy, ‘I saw at once where the hitch in this particular case lay, and just where the police were going astray.’

‘Yes?’ said Tuppence eagerly.

Tommy shook his head sadly.

‘I wish I did. Tuppence, it’s dead easy being the Old Man in the Corner up to a certain point. But the solution beats me. Who did murder the beggar? I don’t know.’

He took some more newspaper cuttings out of his pocket.

‘Further exhibits–Mr Hollaby, his son, Mrs Sessle, Doris Evans.’

Tuppence pounced on the last and looked at it for some time.

‘She didn’t murder him anyway,’ she remarked at last. ‘Not with a hatpin.’

‘Why this certainty?’

‘A lady Molly touch. She’s got bobbed hair. Only one woman in twenty uses hatpins nowadays, anyway–long hair or short. Hats fit tight and pull on–there’s no need for such a thing.’

‘Still, she might have had one by her.’

‘My dear boy, we don’t keep them as heirlooms! What on earth should she have brought a hatpin down to Sunningdale for?’

‘Then it must have been the other woman, the woman in brown.’

‘I wish she hadn’t been tall. Then she could have been the wife. I always suspect wives who are away at the time and so couldn’t have had anything to do with it. If she found her husband carrying on with that girl, it would be quite natural for her to go for him with a hatpin.’

‘I shall have to be careful, I see,’ remarked Tommy.