The devils mountain, p.6
The Devil's Mountain, page 6
“There is nothing here, sir,” said he at length to Inspector Harmsworth, “nothing at all.”
“And did you think anything would be there, O wisest of detectives?” asked Mr. Phipps. “In the meantime, what happens to my reputation if the story of this search gets about?”
“But it must not!” cried the hotel’s manager: “it must be kept a secret.”
“It will be,” promised Inspector Harmsworth; “I am sorry the search had to be made.” He looked reproachfully at Brown.
“You can say, sir,” suggested that worthy, “that Mr. Phipps was trying to help us, and we had a talk together in his room—for people have seen us come in here, and will wonder why.”
“That is an excellent suggestion,” agreed Mr. Phipps. “I perceive that there are depths of intelligence in Sherlock Holmes which I have not yet plumbed. I have heard of rough diamonds, and of Lady Rosedale’s diamonds, and now I have met a black diamond. The age of discovery is not yet closed.”
A knock at the door sounded, and a maid’s voice was heard informing Inspector Harmsworth that Lady Rosedale was asking for him: he, the manager and the detective went out to meet here. Mr. Phipps accompanied them.
Lady Rosedale and Marian were standing in the corridor waiting for them. “There is not a jewel to be found in either of our rooms,” said Lady Rosedale at once. “I am certain of that. We have both search thoroughly. Have you made any search yourself, Inspector?”
“We have, but discovered nothing, Lady Rosedale,” Harmsworth replied. “And now Brown will take down your full statement and that of Miss Braeme, and then we’ll go and see the Inspector General. But first we must talk to the night watchman and one or two other persons in this hotel. We are only at the beginning of our enquiry,” he continued hopefully, “and before long I trust you will have your necklaces back again. You are not going today to take pictures, Miss Braeme?”
“No; nor tomorrow. I don’t come into the scenes the director is taking today,” explained Marian.
“I am glad of that, after all the annoyance and excitement of this morning,” courteously observed the Inspector. “Goodmorning. Goodmorning. Lady Rosedale. Brown will take down what you both have to say.”
“May I hazard a guess, Harmsworth?” said Mr. Phipps, as they moved away together.
“What is it?”
“That the necklaces will never be found.”
“That will be rather serious for me and for Lady Rosedale,” said Harmsworth grimly.
“It might be much more serious for the thief,” returned Mr. Phipps, “and, as a man of humane feeling, I am bound to think of him also. I sympathise with you; but, frankly, for Lady Rosedale I have not the slightest sympathy. She does not deserve it.”
VII
THE POLICE CONFER
Some hours after the robbery at the Myrtle Bank Hotel the Inspector General of the Jamaica Police was seated in his office, a spacious room situated on the ground floor of a large block of yellowish ferro-concrete buildings in the lower or business section of the city of Kingston. Two wire-screened windows, facing westwards and opened at the top, admitted light and air, while shutting off the interior of the room effectually from all curious or impertinent glances thrown towards it by those who passed without.
The Inspector General was a short, thick-set man, with perky features and of martial appearance. He had been a Major in the King’s Army, and was now head of the semi-military police organisation of Jamaica by virtue of having served in India in an entirely differently capacity from that of a policeman. Ordinarily, in spite of its self-sufficient expression, his face gave one an impression of determination and shrewdness; and indeed those who knew him best were satisfied that Major Fellspar was anything but a fool. Just now, however, he was looking neither shrewd nor self-confident, but irritable, worried, perplexed. For now he was faced with the biggest problem of his life—the recovery of Lady Rosedale’s jewels.
He sat at his desk, and his Deputy, a tall placid person of noncommittal features, was seated at his right hand near the desk. Inspector Harmsworth occupied a chair a few feet away from the Deputy, while against the western wall of the office, in an attitude of alert attention, stood the two detectives who had conducted the investigation at the Myrtle Bank Hotel that morning.
Inspector Harmsworth had been specially summoned, with Detectives Brown and Sampson, to a conference with the Chief and his Deputy. At present the role of the Deputy seemed to be to show sympathy with his puzzled and sorely-tried superior officer.
The latter had read through carefully the statements made to Sergeant Brown by Lady Rosedale, Miss Braeme, Mr. Phipps, the hotel’s watchman, the night maid on the first floor of the Myrtle Bank, and one or two of the bellboys. Brown had been thorough in his efforts to educe information which he thought likely to be at all valuable. The names of persons who were known to have been in the vicinity of Lady Rosedale’s room during the night before, and their movements, in so far as these could be ascertained, were duly recorded in the papers on the Inspector General’s desk. A bellboy—the same whom Mr. Phipps had sent for his cigarettes—had mentioned that Mr. Beaman had also searched Mr. Phipps’ room for cigarettes, and had remained upstairs for several minutes. The night watchman had stated that he had seen no one on the roof of the verandah, or making any attempt to reach it from the ground. The Inspector General, after reading through this man’s statement twice, turned to the Deputy with a gesture of irritation.
“It would seem from what this night watchman has said,” he fumed, “that he is a model of vigilance and did nothing all last night except keep his eyes fixed on that part of his hotel where Lady Rosedale’s room is situated. I gather that, for some entirely inexplicable reason, he had that room under surveillance for several hours. Now how can we be expected to believe any such preposterous thing?”
“Quite so, sir,” murmured the Deputy; “his statement isn’t worth much to us.”
“There is this man, Beaman,” continued the Chief: “what was he doing so long in Phipps’ room?”
“I understand that he was worried last night; gloomy and abstracted,” explained Harmsworth. “He wouldn’t be very quick and lively in the circumstances.”
“But what was he gloomy about? That’s something for you to find out.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Then there is this actress: you tell me that Brown suspected her from the start?”
“I did, Chief,” put in Detective Brown himself respectfully; “for thought it is true that she did lock the lady’s trunk after she put back the jewel box, she might have taken out the necklace while the box was on the table, when Lady Rosedale wasn’t looking, and slipped it into her pocket.”
“A lady’s evening dress does not contain pockets,” remarked Inspector Harmsworth. “Ladies’ dresses are not made with pockets nowadays.”
“You seem to know a great deal about ladies’ dresses, Mr. Harmsworth,” said the Inspector General grimly. “Could she not have slipped it into her bodice?”
“But Lady Rosedale is positive, as you will see from her statement, sir, that she did not take her eyes off the jewel case while it was on the dressing table. In fact, she opened it and handled it herself up to the moment she asked Miss Braeme to put it away in the trunk. There can be no doubt of that.”
“So that takes suspicion off Miss Braeme,” said the Inspector General: “and of course the pearls and her own jewellery were stolen out of her room.”
“But what about Mr. Phipps?” asked the Deputy.
“I am coming to that,” said Major Fellspar. “Phipps admits that he retired to his room last night almost before anyone else did. His room is situated near to Lady Rosedale’s and Miss Braeme’s. It would be easy enough for him to slip out of his room on to the verandah, and enter room nearby, wouldn’t it? He could do so at different hours of the night if he is a man of nerve. But how would he know where Lady Rosedale kept her diamonds?”
“The young lady might have told him, Chief,” remarked Detective Brown bluntly.
“Brown still suspects the actress,” the Inspector General went on; “and he may be quite right. But how can we establish complicity between the two?”
“That is the question, sir,” said the Deputy.
“It is, and it is only one of the questions we have got to answer. The Governor has already heard of this robbery, and has telephoned me to say I must leave no stone unturned to get back the necklaces. He doesn’t understand the difficulties in the way. This Police Force was never intended to deal with such problems!”
“I think Phipps above suspicion myself,” observed Inspector Harmsworth. “And as Miss Braeme has been in the island for less than a month, she could hardly be a confederate of Phipps.”
“But what do we really know about him?” asked the Chief. “Who is he? His name by the way”—he took up a paper from his desk—“is Archibald K. Phipps. What does the K stand for?”
“Nobody seemed to know; but, from the look on his face, the Deputy apparently considered the question one of vast importance, the answer to which would materially assist the Police in a solution of the problem before it.”
“What does the K mean?” again demanded the Inspector General, looking round the room for information. His eyes happened to rest upon the face of Detective Sampson. The latter, thinking that he was directly addressed, and wishing to be helpful, hurriedly suggested that the K might mean “Cupid.”
“You ass!” stormed the head of the Police, “Cupid is not spelt with a K! How am I ever to find these necklaces if I have a staff that cannot even spell? What do you know about this man, Phipps, Mr. Harmsworth?”
“He is an American, sir, who has been about two years in the colony. He owns or rents a small property in St. Ann, about fifty or sixty miles from here, and is believed to be pretty well off. He has been back to the States three or four times since he settled in Jamaica.”
“Is he really well off?”
“Nobody seems to know exactly. But he is a very pleasant sort of man. Quite sporting.”
“He seems a suspicious sort of person to me,” sniffed the Inspector General; “besides it is decidedly queer that he should have hurried away to his lawyers while Brown was investigating the robbery. What did he go to Jones and Bedlaw for?”
“That of course we don’t know,” murmured Inspector Harmsworth.
“No; and it is a pity that we don’t. But we can’t ask a man’s lawyers anything about him, and a firm like Jones and Bedlaw can’t even be remotely suspected of receiving stolen goods—that is quite out of the question.”
“True,” agreed Inspector Harmsworth. “I don’t quite see myself that there is anything to connect this robbery with Mr. Phipps,” he added.
“We may know more about that later on. His movements have been very peculiar. Still, it seems to me that Brown has been clinging far too much to his belief that the robbery was committed by someone in the hotel; why should it have been done by one of our ordinary burglars? Why should we insist upon leaving well-known burglars out of account?”
“We are not doing that, sir,” Inspector Harmsworth hastened to assure him. “We propose to search the rooms of those we have any reason to imagine might have been connected with this theft. I have already made arrangements for that. I think it quite likely myself that someone of them may have committed this robbery.”
“But, begging your pardon, Inspector, no thief from outside could know about where Lady Rosedale kept her necklace, or that Miss Braeme next to her had a necklace for him to steal at the same time,” insisted Detective Brown.
“As to the necklaces,” replied Inspector Harmsworth, “any burglar might have heard of them from a bellboy. From the same source he could have obtained an impression of Lady Rosedale’s locks. I don’t think it all impossible for false keys to be made by clever crooks here. Why should it be?”
Brown was about to retort to the effect that a Jamaica burglar who only searched for an expensive necklace on breaking into a jewel case would be a type quite new to his experience, but the look on the Inspector General’s face did not encourage him to an argument with Inspector Harmsworth.
“Have you questioned all the bellboys?” asked the Inspector General.
“Yes, sir,” said Harmsworth; “but what they said was quite straightforward, and their movements last night can easily be accounted for. They are all fellows of good character: we have nothing against them in our records.”
“We are all good character until we are found out,” muttered the Chief sententiously. “But if these boys have no police records, we cannot of course arrest any of them on suspicion. That’s a great pity. Perhaps you could find out something about one of them by enquiring of previous employers?”
This question having been addressed to Brown, he answered that he would do his best, his manner suggesting that he had no doubt whatever that, by enquiring closely enough, he could discover much to the detriment of anybody’s character.
“If one of our ordinary thieves has stolen Lady Rosedale’s jewels,” continued the Inspector General, “their recovery will be an easy matter. You will find them under his bed, or under the flooring of his room: they never seem to hide their booty anywhere else. But if someone of a different type has got hold of them, then only an accident, so far as I can see, will put us on their track. We have almost nothing to go upon. Lady Rosedale completely exonerates Miss Braeme, and, anyhow, nothing is found in Miss Braeme’s room. Baeman’s movements after he went to Phipps’ room, and after he left the hotel, have yet to be thoroughly investigated, but I don’t see that that will help us at all. We come back to Mr. Phipps; but what is there damaging against him? Nothing. He is laughing at us; that is plain from what you told me this morning. If he is an American crook, he knows that we are not organised here for dealing with a man like him. I don’t know what the devil we are organised for,” he concluded angrily, “since I can never get the Government to give me the money I need for making this Force worth a curse.”
Here the Deputy gurgled some words of sympathy and Detectives Brown and Sampson assumed expression indicative of their deep disapproval of Government parsimony. But they did not dare to gurgle. That would have been indiscipline and rank impertinence.
“I shall have to take an active part in this enquiry, Harmsworth,” the Inspector General resumed; “the Governor has asked me to do so. Well, have the room of every habitual criminal searched thoroughly; you can put all the detectives on the job, save those we have at the Myrtle Bank Hotel. How many have you go there now?”
“One, sir—Dixon. He was left there to watch the movements of persons connected with this case.”
“Very good. I think I shall call on Lady Rosedale this afternoon. It will encourage her to know that I myself am looking after her case.”
He rose from his chair, signifying that the conference was at an end. As he did so, the telephone tinkled.
The Deputy, who was nearest to the telephone, put the receiver to his ear.
“Yes; this is the Inspector General’s office; yes, Inspector Harmsworth is here. Dixon wants you, Harmsworth,” said the Deputy handing Inspector the receiver; “he is speaking from Myrtle Bank.”
The Inspector General paused in the act of putting on his helmet, his interest fully aroused. Harmsworth listened attentively to the voice at the other end of the phone, then called out to Detective Dixon to “hold the line.”
“Dixon says,” he informed Major Fellspar, “that Mr. Phipps left the Myrtle Bank in his big motor car a few minutes ago, going at full speed. Phipps seems to have sent over to the garage for it, and Dixon believes he is not returning tonight. He wants to know what he is to do.”
A look of triumph fitted over the heavy face of Detective Brown, who evidently saw this latest move of Mr. Phipps’ ample justification of all suspicions entertained against him. Major Fellspar smote the desk with his open hand.
“Gone, eh!” he exclaimed; “gone to his country home as quickly and as unexpectedly as possible. What do you make of that, Harmsworth?”
“He is always coming and going, sir.”
“I don’t like the look of it all the same,” returned the Inspector General. He came to a swift decision. “We must keep a sharp eye on that man. He’ll repay watching.”
“Could we get a car and follow him?” suggested the Deputy.
“We could, but it would be half an hour at least before you could start, and he is probably expecting that we’ll make some such effort. We’d hardly be able to overtake him if his car is a good one—and I suppose it is.”
“A Hudson super-six,” said Harmsworth.
“That makes any pursuit we could offer quite out of the question; and if we did overtake him, what could we do? It would not be wise to arrest him without good reason to believe that he had the necklaces with him. He may be a crook; I believe he is myself; but you can never be certain about Americans. He may be a second cousin or something of some Senator we never heard of, and we don’t want any talk about American citizens being brutally mistreated by the Jamaican Police. Let him go! Let him believe that we entertain no further suspicion of him; that may make him careless. Tomorrow I will tell you what steps we must take with regard to him if we don’t find the necklaces in the meantime.”
He nodded and walked out of he office, the others following, after Inspector Harmsworth had informed the detective at Myrtle Bank to proceed at once to the Police Station to await further instructions.
