Partners in Crime (22 page)

‘That’s all right then. Just telephone down and find out who is supposed to occupy this suite.’

The waiter returned in a minute or two.

‘Mrs Cortlandt Van Snyder of Detroit.’

Mr Carter became very thoughtful.

‘I wonder now. Is this Mrs Van Snyder an accomplice, or is she –’

He left the sentence unfinished.

‘Hear any noise from inside?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Not a thing. But the doors fit well. One couldn’t hope to hear much.’

Mr Carter made up his mind suddenly.

‘I don’t like this business. We’re going in. Got the master key?’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Call up Evans and Clydesly.’

Reinforced by the other two men, they advanced towards the door of the suite. It opened noiselessly when the first man inserted his key.

They found themselves in a small hall. To the right was the open door of a bathroom, and in front of them was the sitting-room. On the left was a closed door and from behind it a faint sound–rather like an asthmatic pug–could be heard. Mr Carter pushed the door open and entered.

The room was a bedroom, with a big double bed, ornately covered with a bedspread of rose and gold. On it, bound hand and foot, with her mouth secured by a gag and her eyes almost starting out of her head with pain and rage, was a middle-aged fashionably-dressed woman.

On a brief order from Mr Carter, the other men had covered the whole suite. Only Tommy and his Chief had entered the bedroom. As he leant over the bed and strove to unfasten the knots, Carter’s eyes went roving round the room in perplexity. Save for an immense quantity of truly American luggage, the room was empty. There was no sign of the Russian or Tuppence.

In another minute the waiter came hurrying in, and reported that the other rooms were also empty. Tommy went to the window, only to draw back and shake his head. There was no balcony–nothing but a sheer drop to the street below.

‘Certain it was this room they entered?’ asked Carter peremptorily.

‘Sure. Besides –’ The man indicated the woman on the bed.

With the aid of a pen-knife, Carter parted the scarf that was half choking her and it was at once clear that whatever her sufferings they had not deprived Mrs Cortlandt Van Snyder of the use of her tongue.

When she had exhausted her first indignation, Mr Carter spoke mildly.

‘Would you mind telling me exactly what happened–from the beginning?’

‘I guess I’ll sue the hotel for this. It’s a perfect outrage. I was just looking for my bottle of “Killagrippe”, when a man sprung on me from behind and broke a little glass bottle right under my nose, and before I could get my breath I was all in. When I came to I was lying here, all trussed up, and goodness knows what’s happened to my jewels. He’s gotten the lot, I guess.’

‘Your jewels are quite safe, I fancy,’ said Mr Carter drily. He wheeled round and picked up something from the floor. ‘You were standing just where I am when he sprang upon you?’

‘That’s so,’ assented Mrs Van Snyder.

It was a fragment of thin glass that Mr Carter had picked up. He sniffed it and handed it to Tommy.

‘Ethyl chloride,’ he murmured. ‘Instant anaesthetic. But it only keeps one under for a moment or two. Surely he must still have been in the room when you came to, Mrs Van Snyder?’

‘Isn’t that just what I’m telling you? Oh! it drove me half crazy to see him getting away and me not able to move or do anything at all.’

‘Getting away?’ said Mr Carter sharply. ‘Which way?’

‘Through that door.’ She pointed to one in the opposite wall. ‘He had a girl with him, but she seemed kind of limp as though she’d had a dose of the same dope.’

Carter looked a question at his henchman.

‘Leads into the next suite, sir. But double doors–supposed to be bolted on each side.’

Mr Carter examined the door carefully. Then he straightened himself up and turned towards the bed.

‘Mrs Van Snyder,’ he said quietly, ‘do you still persist in your assertion that the man went out this way?’

‘Why, certainly he did. Why shouldn’t he?’

‘Because the door happens to be bolted on this side,’ said Mr Carter dryly. He rattled the handle as he spoke.

A look of the utmost astonishment spread over Mrs Van Snyder’s face.

‘Unless someone bolted the door behind him,’ said Mr Carter, ‘he cannot have gone out that way.’

He turned to Evans, who had just entered the room.

‘Sure they’re not anywhere in this suite? Any other communicating doors?’

‘No, sir, and I’m quite sure.’

Carter turned his gaze this way and that about the room. He opened the big hanging-wardrobe, looked under the bed, up the chimney and behind all the curtains. Finally, struck by a sudden idea, and disregarding Mrs Van Snyder’s shrill protests, he opened the large wardrobe trunk and rummaged swiftly in the interior.

Suddenly Tommy, who had been examining the communicating door, gave an exclamation.

‘Come here, sir, look at this. They did go this way.’

The bolt had been very cleverly filed through, so close to the socket that the join was hardly perceptible.

‘The door won’t open because it’s locked on the other side,’ explained Tommy.

In another minute they were out in the corridor again and the waiter was opening the door of the adjoining suite with his pass key. This suite was untenanted. When they came to the communicating door, they saw that the same plan had been adopted. The bolt had been filed through, and the door was locked, the key having been removed. But nowhere in the suite was there any sign of Tuppence or the fair-bearded Russian and there was no other communicating door, only the one on the corridor.

‘But I’d have seen them come out,’ protested the waiter. ‘I couldn’t have helped seeing them. I can take my oath they never did.’

‘Damn it all,’ cried Tommy. ‘They can’t have vanished into thin air!’

Carter was calm again now, his keen brain working.

‘Telephone down and find out who had this suite last and when.’

Evans who had come with them, leaving Clydesly on guard in the other suite, obeyed. Presently he raised his head from the telephone.

‘An invalid French lad, M. Paul de Vareze. He had a hospital nurse with him. They left this morning.’

An exclamation burst from the other Secret Service man, the waiter. He had gone deathly pale.

‘The invalid boy–the hospital nurse,’ he stammered. ‘I–they passed me in the passage. I never dreamed–I had seen them so often before.’

‘Are you sure they were the same?’ cried Mr Carter. ‘Are you sure, man? You looked at them well?’

The man shook his head.

‘I hardly glanced at them. I was waiting, you understand, on the alert for the others, the man with the fair beard and the girl.’

‘Of course,’ said Mr Carter, with a groan. ‘They counted on that.’

With a sudden exclamation, Tommy stooped down and pulled something from under the sofa. It was a small rolled-up bundle of black. Tommy unrolled it and several articles fell out. The outside wrapper was the long black coat Tuppence had worn that day. Inside was her walking dress, her hat and a long fair beard.’

‘It’s clear enough now,’ he said bitterly. ‘They’ve got her–got Tuppence. That Russiandevil has given us the slip. The hospital nurse and the boy were accomplices. They stayed here for a day or two to get the hotel people accustomed to their presence. The man must have realised at lunch that he was trapped and proceeded to carry out his plan. Probably he counted on the room next door being empty since it was when he fixed the bolts. Anyway he managed to silence both the woman next door and Tuppence, brought her in here, dressed her in boy’s clothes, altered his own appearance, and walked out bold as brass. The clothes must have been hidden ready. But I don’t quite see how he managed Tuppence’s acquiescence.’

‘I can see,’ said Mr Carter. He picked up a little shining piece of steel from the carpet. ‘That’s a fragment of a hypodermic needle. She was doped.’

‘My God!’ groaned Tommy. ‘And he’s got clear away.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Carter quickly. ‘Remember every exit is watched.’

‘For a man and a girl. Not for a hospital nurse and an invalid boy. They’ll have left the hotel by now.’

Such, on inquiry, proved to be the case. The nurse and her patient had driven away in a taxi some five minutes earlier.

‘Look here, Beresford,’ said Mr Carter, ‘for God’s sake pull yourself together. You know that I won’t leave a stone unturned to find that girl. I’m going back to my office at once and in less than five minutes every resource of the department will be at work. We’ll get them yet.’

‘Will you, sir? He’s a clever devil, that Russian. Look at the cunning of this coup of his. But I know you’ll do your best. Only–pray God it’s not too late. They’ve got it in for us badly.’

He left the Blitz Hotel and walked blindly along the street, hardly knowing where he was going. He felt completely paralysed. Where to search? What to do?

He went into the Green Park, and dropped down upon a seat. He hardly noticed when someone else sat down at the opposite end, and was quite startled to hear a well-known voice.

‘If you please, sir, if I might make so bold –’

Tommy looked up.

‘Hullo, Albert,’ he said dully.

‘I know all about it, sir–but don’t take on so.’

‘Don’t take on –’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Easily said, isn’t it?’

‘Ah, but think, sir. Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives! Never beaten. And if you’ll excuse my saying so I happened to overhear what you and the Missus was ragging about this morning. Mr Poirot, and his little grey cells. Well, sir, why not use your little grey cells, and see what you can do.’

‘It’s easier to use your little grey cells in fiction than it is in fact, my boy.’

‘Well,’ said Albert stoutly, ‘I don’t believe anybody could put the Missus out, for good and all. You know what she is, sir, just like one of those rubber bones you buy for little dorgs–guaranteed indestructible.’

‘Albert,’ said Tommy, ‘you cheer me.’

‘Then what about using your little grey cells, sir?’

‘You’re a persistent lad, Albert. Playing the fool has served us pretty well up to now. We’ll try it again. Let us arrange our facts neatly, and with method. At ten minutes past two exactly, our quarry enters the lift. Five minutes later we speak to the lift man, and having heard what he says we also go up to the third floor. At say, nineteen minutes past two we enter the suite of Mrs Van Snyder. And now, what significant fact strikes us?’

There was a pause, no significant fact striking either of them.

‘There wasn’t such a thing as a trunk in the room, was there?’ asked Albert, his eyes lighting suddenly.

‘
Mon ami
,’ said Tommy, ‘you do not understand the psychology of an American woman who has just returned from Paris. There were, I should say, about nineteen trunks in the room.’

‘What I meantersay is, a trunk’s a handy thing if you’ve got a dead body about you want to get rid of–not that she
is
dead, for a minute.’

‘We searched the only two there were big enough to contain a body. What is the next fact in chronological order?’

‘You’ve missed one out–when the Missus and the bloke dressed up as a hospital nurse passed the waiter in the passage.’

‘It must have been just before we came up in the lift,’ said Tommy. ‘They must have had a narrow escape of meeting us face to face. Pretty quick work, that. I –’

He stopped.

‘What is it, sir?’

‘Be silent,
mon ami
. I have the kind of little idea–colossal, stupendous–that always comes sooner or later to Hercule Poirot. But if so–if that’s it–Oh, Lord, I hope I’m in time.’

He raced out of the Park, Albert hard on his heels, inquiring breathlessly as he ran, ‘What’s up, sir? I don’t understand.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Tommy. ‘You’re not supposed to. Hastings never did. If your grey cells weren’t of a very inferior order to mine, what fun do you think I should get out of this game? I’m talking damned rot–but I can’t help it. You’re a good lad, Albert. You know what Tuppence is worth–she’s worth a dozen of you and me.’

Thus talking breathlessly as he ran, Tommy reentered the portals of the Blitz. He caught sight of Evans, and drew him aside with a few hurried words. The two men entered the lift, Albert with them.

‘Third floor,’ said Tommy.

At the door of No. 318 they paused. Evans had a pass key, and used it forthwith. Without a word of warning, they walked straight into Mrs Van Snyder’s bedroom. The lady was still lying on the bed, but was now arrayed in a becoming negligee. She stared at them in surprise.

‘Pardon my failure to knock,’ said Tommy pleasantly. ‘But I want my wife. Do you mind getting off that bed?’

‘I guess you’ve gone plumb crazy,’ cried Mrs Van Snyder.

Tommy surveyed her thoughtfully, his head on one side.

‘Very artistic,’ he pronounced, ‘but it won’t do. We looked
under
the bed–but not
in
it. I remember using that hiding-place myself when young. Horizontally across the bed, underneath the bolster. And that nice wardrobe trunk all ready to take away the body in later. But we were a bit too quick for you just now. You’d had time to dope Tuppence, put her under the bolster, and be gagged and bound by your accomplices next door, and I’ll admit we swallowed your story all right for the moment. But when one came to think it out–with order and method–impossible to drug a girl, dress her in boys’ clothes, gag and bind another woman, and change one’s own appearance–all in five minutes. Simply a physical impossibility. The hospital nurse and the boy were to be a decoy. We were to follow that trail, and Mrs Van Snyder was to be pitied as a victim. Just help the lady off the bed, will you, Evans? You have your automatic? Good.’

Protesting shrilly, Mrs Van Snyder was hauled from her place of repose. Tommy tore off the coverings and the bolster.

There, lying horizontally across the top of the bed was Tuppence, her eyes closed, and her face waxen. For a moment Tommy felt a sudden dread, then he saw the slight rise and fall of her breast. She was drugged–not dead.