Richardson Scores Again (24 page)

The broad man nodded.

“The man said that he had been down at the docks that morning and had overheard part of his conversation with his friend outside a bird shop; that he knew the lady at the farm, and was sure that she would make him comfortable. Well, they went down to the farm together; the lady was very forthcoming, and Mr. Moore decided to stay with her. But the man he was waiting for never turned up, and he had just made up his mind to clear out when he got a telegram saying that the man was in Stuttgart.”

“Did the lady say anything about her relations with the man Mr. Moore wanted to see?” asked Dick.

“Yes, every morning she assured him that he was certain to come that day—otherwise Mr. Moore would have left the farm long before he did.”

Dick exchanged glances with Richardson and asked, “Did Mr. Moore tell you why he was so anxious to see this man?”

“I was coming to that. He says that a few years ago he became involved in a quarrel in a saloon in Quebec; that this man, who was introduced to him as ‘Owen Jones' threw the cards in his face, accused him of cheating, upset the table and attacked him; that there was a rickety balcony overhanging the river in that saloon, and that Jones pushed him through the glass door on to this verandah; that the railing gave way with his weight and he fell twenty feet into the St. Lawrence River, and Jones made no attempt to rescue him; that if it hadn't been for some boatmen crossing the river, he would have been drowned. As it was, when they pulled him out, he found that all the money in his pocket-book had been pinched. He was taken to the hospital and was in for an attack of pneumonia. When he got better he scoured Quebec for the man who had nearly murdered him, but was told that he had sailed for England. As soon as he had money enough to pay for his passage he came over, as he says, ‘to square the account.' But on the voyage over he began to realize that with nothing more to guide him than a name it wouldn't be easy to find the man who had tried to drown him. It was only when he landed that he saw the man's portrait on a handbill and learned that his real name wasn't ‘Owen Jones,' but ‘Ralph Lewis.'”

Richardson had not forgotten the first instinct of a detective officer—to add to his collection of personal descriptions. “Excuse me, Mr. Milsom. Can your friend describe the man who called on him at the hotel?”

“You hear, Poker? What did the man look like?”

Moore put down his glass and frowned: for the first time he found his tongue. “Wa'al, he was a thin, wriggling sorter guy like a rat. He'd got his eyes too near together and yaller teeth—an' he kep' whispering-like—the sorter guy that'd go through yer pockets if he caught yer with yer eyes shut.”

Richardson, who was making notes on the back of an envelope, looked up. “Did he stutter a bit in his speech?”

“Yessir, he did.”

“You know him, Mr. Richardson?” asked Dick Meredith.

“Yes, it's a good description of one of the men I saw at Mr. Pentland's office in Charing Cross Road the other day. Hullo! Who's this?”

They had all heard the clash of the lift-gates: there was a sharp rap at the door. Meredith went to it with the intention of heading off the visitor: he found Ronald Eccles facing him. He had not seen him since his journey to Paris with Superintendent Foster.

“I've looked in to say good-bye, Meredith, and to thank you for all you've done for me. I'm off to join my ship to-morrow morning. But you've got people with you? I won't butt in. All I want is to ask you to do me a service—to keep me posted about what happens to that blighter who led me that dance in the stolen car. I should like to know that he gets it in the neck.”

“Come in. I think that you know everybody here, except one.”

Ronny Eccles strolled in, nodded to Milsom and Richardson, and halted before Poker Moore.

“I believe we've met before,” he said. “Now where was it? I know. It was in that waterside saloon in Quebec when I had shore leave from the
Mermaid
.”

“I don't remember you,” said Moore bluntly.

“No? Well, that doesn't surprise me. You were in the middle of a heated argument with the gentleman opposite; the table went over and you both crashed through the glass door. You remember that?”

“Did you see what happened afterwards?” asked Meredith, deeply interested.

“No, I cleared out. You see, it was a first-class rumpus, and I didn't want the police to come in and start taking names. I was a youngster then and my old man was a stickler for propriety. If he'd read my name in the papers as being mixed up in a gambling row, in a dive like that, he would have laughed at my defence that I was studying low life for my general knowledge paper and would have stopped my leave for six months. The ward-room called him ‘Holy Joe'; he's an admiral now.”

“Anyway, you were long enough there to remember my friend, Poker Moore?” observed Milsom.

“Yes, I'd never seen poker played before, and I was watching his play. The other chap was half seas over—an excitable young ass—and when this gentleman called his bluff and laid down four aces—well, the youngster threw the cards in his face, accused him of stacking the deal, and went for him. Besides, this gentleman has a face that one doesn't often see—”

“A caricature of a face, you mean. No offence, Poker.”

“I wouldn't call it that,” replied Eccles, looking musingly at Moore. “I'd call it an unusual face.”

“Would you recognize the other man if you saw him?” asked Richardson.

“I doubt it. He was a youngster; he was half drunk, and it was getting on for five years ago.”

“I should like to have a word with you alone, sir, before I go,” murmured Richardson to Dick Meredith.

“All right! Sit tight until they go.” Aloud he said, “Jim, I hope that you've made it clear to your friend that if he meets this man, Owen Jones, in the street or anywhere else, he must keep his hands off him.”

“Yes, he knows that. I'm giving him a shake-down in my flat until this business is cleared up, and he won't go out without me. I think that we'd better push along now and get some sleep after our journey. What about you, Mr. Eccles. Can we give you a lift?”

But Ronny Eccles preferred the humble Tube to Hampstead, and took his leave. Dick saw the three of them to the lift, and returned to Richardson.

“Are you beginning to see daylight, sergeant?”

“I think I am, sir, but there is still some way to go before we can act. We
must
get into touch with Mr. Ralph Lewis.”

“I wish I could help you, but when a man deliberately goes into hiding, what can one do? Stop; there is one hope. Don't move from this room until I come back. I shan't be more than five minutes.”

He ran upstairs and tapped at Patricia's door. He had not much hope of rousing her at such an hour, for probably she was in bed. But at his third knock he heard the sound of slippered footsteps, and the voice he knew so well cried “Who is it?” through the closed door.

“Dick Meredith,” he called through the keyhole. “I must see you for a moment. It is very important.”

The door opened a few inches, and he had a glimpse of Patricia in a pink silk dressing-gown, with the sleep hardly out of her eyes.

“I would never have dared to come at such an hour, but I know you'll forgive me when I tell you the reason. There is a detective from Scotland Yard down in my rooms. He wants to know Ralph Lewis's address.”

Patricia opened her eyes very wide. “Why? It must be a mistake.”

“No, he's explained it to me. Lewis is wanted as a witness in a murder case and they must get his address at once. Do you know it?”

“I do happen to know it, but he gave it me in confidence and told me on no account to give it to anyone else. He sent it only that I might arrange for forwarding his letters. What ought I to do?”

“If the Scotland Yard people insist on having it, I don't see how you can well refuse.”

“Why can't they wait till Wednesday when Mr. Vance comes back? I'd far rather that he took the responsibility of giving it.”

“Mr. Vance coming back? What about his parrot?”

The girl shrugged her shoulders hopelessly. “It can't be helped. I shall have to make a clean breast of it and be given the order of the boot.”

“Rather than that, why not try that other parrot? My friend tells me that it now says ‘Absolutely' without a fault. At least you can let me bring it round for you to see.”

“Oh, I don't know—”

It was the first sign of weakening, and Dick resolved then and there to take advantage of it. He felt strongly elated. “Now, if you'll give me that address I'll go down to that man from the Yard. I promise not to give it to him unless he satisfies me that it will be to Lewis's advantage that they should have it.”

“Oh well, if you promise that—his address is Hotel de Normandie, Veules-les-Roses.”

“I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, sergeant,” said Dick, returning to his room. “I had some difficulty in obtaining the address. If you'll lend me your note-book, I'll write it down for you. There! Veules-les-Roses is a little seaside place, not very far from Dieppe. By the way, I could only get the address by promising that it would only be used in a way that would be to Mr. Lewis's advantage.”

“So it will, sir. I have felt sure for a long time that he was being blackmailed on account of some indiscretion of his youth. Now I think I have the key to the puzzle, but I can get no further until I see Mr. Lewis face to face and get the whole story from him. I can think of nothing that would be of greater advantage to him than to be freed for ever from a blackmailer.”

Nothing further could be done that night. Richardson had the invaluable gift of dismissing his cases from his mind when he went to bed and taking them up afresh in the morning. He went home and slept well. Superintendent Foster found him waiting for him in his room when he reached the office next morning, and listened to his account of what he had learned overnight without interrupting him. They discussed the case in all its bearings, and Foster agreed that Ralph Lewis must be induced to return to England immediately.

“The only question is, who shall go over to fetch him?”

“I thought that you would do that, sir.”

“Did you? I'm expecting to get that extradition warrant for Brown this morning. I shall have to go and fetch him over, and a man can't be in two places at once.”

“Couldn't some other officer from Central go over for him?”

“What, let the case go out of the family? No, young man, we've borne the burden and the heat: you and I will jolly well see it through. Besides, I shouldn't be at all surprised to find that, after spending a week with the rats in one of those horrible dungeons in the cellars of the Prefecture, Brown will be talkative on the journey home. I may get something useful out of him. By the way, you haven't told me whether you traced that telegram that took Poker Moore away to Germany.”

“I did, sir, but I didn't expect to get much from that. The message was handed in by a boy: it was signed ‘Henry Wilkins, 57 Albemarle Street.' There is no such number in the street.”

“The usual trick with blackmailers when they send telegrams. Well, I'll see Mr. Morden, and get authority from him for your journey to Veules-les-Roses, or whatever the place is called. Meanwhile you'd better get on with your report of what you've told me.”

Richardson had half finished his report when the messenger called him to the superintendents' room.

“Mr. Morden is quite worked up over our case. He took me in to see Sir William, who made me go over the whole of the evidence, and he's worked up too. The upshot is that you are to go over to France to-night and bring Ralph Lewis back with you. It didn't seem to occur to either of them that he might refuse to come with you. They seemed to think that when once he had you to deal with, he would agree to do anything you told him to. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, and don't let your head swell.”

T
HE VILLAGE
of Veules-les-Roses, which is largely made up of hotels for summer visitors, lies fifteen miles west of Dieppe. Richardson was relieved to find that a motor-bus was leaving for the coast road half an hour after the arrival of the boat, for he knew that a charge for taxi-hire would be sternly disallowed by the Receiver's accountant. Throughout the drive he was haunted by the fear that Lewis had moved on and that he would have had his journey for nothing. On arriving at Veules-les-Roses, he determined to walk to the Hotel de Normandie, carrying his suit-case. He stopped at a tobacconist's to buy a box of matches, and asked the way to the hotel. His pronunciation of the language, which, to say the least, was Britannic, seemed to thrill the woman, for English tourists were becoming increasingly rare in the village, owing to the disastrous fall in the exchange, and his fellow-countrymen had left a good reputation behind them. With elaborate directions from the good woman, whose English was almost as unintelligible as his French, he had little difficulty in finding the hotel—a primitive-looking hostelry which had not yet modernized itself to attract the foreign tourist. A stout lady was sitting behind the desk in the hall; a couple of French children were playing a noisy game of hide-and-seek among the cane chairs in the lounge.

Richardson asked for Mr. Lewis: the lady looked blank: he asked to see the list of guests, adding that he would point out the name he was inquiring for. The lady pushed over to him a sheaf of registration forms which ought to have been filed at the police station, but were not. He ran through them: all were French names, their occupation being given as “commis voyageur,” which Richardson rightly interpreted as “commercial traveller.” It struck him as a strange hiding-place for a wealthy Englishman to choose. And yet—

At last he came upon the form he was seeking: “Lewis;
Prénom
, Ralph; born in Wales; Age, thirty-five; Occupation, blank.” He showed it to the lady at the desk.