Collected works of j s f.., p.415
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 415
“Just as I said,” he remarked. “Gone! Mr. Detective — that’s where Chen Li hid the diamond — and that Japanese man has got it. And now — you’d better be after him — half-an-hour’s start to him is as good as a week’s would be to you.”
He drew the sheet over the dead face and strode out, and Ayscough followed, angry, mystified, and by no means convinced.
“Look here!” he said, as they reached the ante-room; “that’s all very well, Dr. Mirandolet, but it’s only supposition on your part!”
“Supposition that you’ll find to be absolute truth, my good friend!” retorted Mirandolet, calmly. “I know the Chinese — better than you think. As soon as I heard of this affair tonight, I came to you to put you up to the Chinese trick of secreting things of value in their pigtails — it did not occur to me that the diamond might be there in this case, but I thought you would probably find something. But when we reached this mortuary, and I heard that a Japanese had been here, presenting your card when he had no business to present it, I guessed immediately what had happened — and now that you tell me that you told him all about this affair, well — I am certain of my assertion. Mr. Detective — go after the diamond!”
He turned as if to leave the place, and Ayscough followed.
“He mayn’t been after the diamond at all!” he said, still resentful and incredulous. “Is it very likely he’d think it to be in that dead chap’s pigtail when the other man’s missing? It’s Chang that’s got that diamond — not Chen.”
“All right, my friend!” replied Mirandolet. “Your wisdom is superior to mine, no doubt. So — I wish you good-night!”
He strode out of the place and turned sharply up the street, and Ayscough, after a growl or two, went back to the mortuary keeper.
“How long was that Jap in there?” he asked, nodding at the death chamber.
“Not a minute, Mr. Ayscough!” replied the man. “In and out again, as you might say.”
“Did he say anything when he came out?” enquired the detective.
“He did — two words,” answered the keeper. “He said, ‘That’s he!’ and walked straight out, and into his car.”
“And when he came he told you I’d sent him?” demanded Ayscough.
“Just that — and showed me your card,” assented the man. “Of course, I’d no reason to doubt his word.”
“Look here, George!” said Ayscough, “you keep this to yourself! Don’t say anything to any of our folks if they come in. I don’t half believe what that doctor said just now — but I’ll make an enquiry or two. Mum’s the word, meanwhile. You understand, George?”
George answered that he understood very well, and Ayscough presently left him. Outside, in the light of the lamp set over the entrance to the mortuary, he pulled out his watch. Twelve o’clock — midnight. And somewhere, that cursed young Jap was fleeing away through the London streets — having cheated him, Ayscough, at his own game!
He had already reckoned things up in connection with Yada. Yada had been having him — even as Melky Rubinstein had suspected and suggested — all through that conversation at Gower Street. Probably, Yada, from his window in the drawing-room floor of his lodging-house, had watched him and Melky slip across the street and hide behind the hoarding opposite. And then Yada had gone out, knowing he was to be followed, and had tricked them beautifully, getting into an underground train going east, and, in all certainty, getting out again at the next station, chartering a cab, and returning west — with Ayscough’s card in his pocket.
But Ayscough knew one useful thing — he had memorized the letters and numbers of the taxi-cab in which Yada had sped by him and Mirandolet, L.C. 2571 — he had kept repeating that over and over. Now he took out his note-book and jotted it down — and that done he set off to the police-station, intent first of all on getting in touch with New Scotland Yard by means of the telephone.
Ayscough, like most men of his calling in London, had a considerable amount of general knowledge of things and affairs, and he summoned it to his aid in this instance. He knew that if the Japanese really had become possessed of the orange and yellow diamond (of which supposition, in spite of Mirandolet’s positive convictions, he was very sceptical) he would most certainly make for escape. He would be off to the Continent, hot foot. Now, Ayscough had a good acquaintance with the Continental train services — some hours must elapse before Yada could possibly get a train for Dover, or Folkstone, or Newhaven, or the shortest way across, or to any other ports such as Harwich or Southampton, by a longer route. Obviously, the first thing to do was to have the stations at Victoria, and Charing Cross, and Holborn Viaduct, and London Bridge carefully watched for Yada. And for two weary hours in the middle of the night he was continuously at work on the telephone, giving instructions and descriptions, and making arrangements to spread a net out of which the supposed fugitive could not escape.
And when all that was at last satisfactorily arranged, Ayscough was conscious that it might be for nothing. He might be on a wrong track altogether — due to the suspicions and assertions of that queer man, Mirandolet. There might be some mystery — in Ayscough’s opinion there always was mystery wherever Chinese or Japanese or Hindus were concerned. Yada might have some good reason for wishing to see Chen Li’s dead body, and have taken advantage of the detective’s card to visit it. This extraordinary conduct might be explained. But meanwhile Ayscough could not afford to neglect a chance, and tired as he was, he set out to find the driver of the taxicab whose number he had carefully set down in his notebook.
There was little difficulty in this stage of the proceedings; it was merely a question of time, of visiting a central office and finding the man’s name and address. By six o’clock in the morning Ayscough was at a small house in a shabby street in Kentish Town, interviewing a woman who had just risen to light her fire, and was surlily averse to calling up a husband, who, she said, had not been in bed until nearly four. She was not any more pleased when Ayscough informed her of his professional status — but the man was fetched down.
“You drove a foreigner — a Japanese — to the mortuary in Paddington last night?” said Ayscough, plunging straight into business, after telling the man who he was. “I saw him — just a glimpse of him — in your cab, and I took your number. Now, where did you first pick him up?”
“Outside the Underground, at King’s Cross,” replied the driver promptly.
This was precisely what Ayscough had expected; so far, so good; his own prescience was proving sure.
“Anything wrong, mister?” asked the driver.
“There may be,” said Ayscough. “Well — you picked him up there, and drove him straight to the mortuary?”
“No — I didn’t,” said the man. “We made a call first. Euston. He went in there, and, I should say, went to the left luggage office, ‘cause he came back again with a small suit-case — just a little ‘un. Then we went on to that mortuary.”
Euston! A small suit-case! More facts — Ayscough made notes of them.
“Well,” he said, “and when you drove away from the mortuary, where did you go then?”
“Oxford Circus,” answered the driver, “set him down — his orders — right opposite the Tube Station — t’other side of the street.”
“Did you see which way he went — then?” enquired Ayscough.
“I did. Straight along Oxford Street — Tottenham Court Road way,” said the driver, “carrying his suitcase — which it was, as I say, on’y a little ‘un — and walking very fast. Last I see of him was that, guv’nor.”
Ayscough went away and got back to more pretentious regions. He was dead tired and weary with his night’s work, and glad to drop in at an early-opened coffee-shop and get some breakfast. While he ate and drank a boy came in with the first editions of the newspapers. Ayscough picked one up — and immediately saw staring headlines: —
THE PADDINGTON MYSTERIES. NEW AND STARTLING FEATURES. DIAMOND WORTH £80,000 BEING LOOKED FOR MURDER IN MAIDA VALE
Ayscough laid down the paper and smiled. Levendale — if not dead — could scarcely fail to see that!
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ONE O’CLOCK MIDNIGHT
FIVE MINUTES AFTER Ayscough had gone away with Dr. Mirandolet the hotel servant who had summoned him from Purdie’s sitting-room knocked at the door for the second time and put a somewhat mystified face inside.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, glancing at Purdie, who was questioning Melky Rubinstein as to the events of the evening in their relation to the house in Maida Vale. “Two ladies outside, sir — waiting to see you. But they don’t want to come in, sir, unless they know who’s here — don’t want to meet no strangers, sir.”
Purdie jumped to his feet, and putting the man aside looked into the dimly-lighted corridor. There, a few paces away, stood Zillah — and, half hidden by her, Mrs. Goldmark.
“Come in — come in!” he exclaimed. “Nobody here but Andie Lauriston and Melky Rubinstein. You’ve something to tell — something’s happened?”
He ushered them into the room, sent the hotel servant, obviously in a state of high curiosity about these happenings, away, and closed the door.
“S’elp me!” exclaimed Melky, “there ain’t no other surprises, Zillah? You ain’t come round at this time o’ night for nothing! What you got to tell, Zillah? — another development?”
“Mrs. Goldmark has something to tell,” answered Zillah. “We didn’t know what to do, and you didn’t come, Melky — nobody come — and so we locked the house and thought of Mr. Purdie. Mrs. Goldmark has seen somebody!”
“Who?” demanded Melky. “Somebody, now? What somebody?”
“The man that came to her restaurant,” replied Zillah. “The man who lost the platinum solitaire!”
Mrs. Goldmark who had dropped into the chair which Purdie had drawn to the side of the table for her, wagged her head thoughtfully.
“This way it was, then,” she said, with a dramatic suggestion of personal enjoyment in revealing a new feature of the mystery, “I have a friend who lives in Stanhope Street — Mrs. Isenberg. She sends to me at half-past-ten to tell me she is sick. I go to see her — immediate. I find her very poorly — so! I stop with her till past eleven, doing what I can. Then her sister, she comes — I can do no more — I come away. And I walk through Sussex Square, as my road back to Praed Street and Zillah. But before I am much across Sussex Square, I stop — sudden, like that! For what? Because — I see a man! That man! Him what drops his cuff-link on my table. Oh, yes!”
“You’re sure it was that man, Mrs. Goldmark?” enquired Melky, anxiously. “You don’t make no mistakes, so?”
“Do I mistake myself if I say I see you, Mr. Rubinstein?” exclaimed Mrs. Goldmark, solemnly and with emphasis. “No, I don’t make no mistakes at all. Is there not gas lamps? — am I not blessed with good eyes? I see him — like as I see you there young gentleman and Zillah. Plain!”
“Well — and what was he doing?” asked Purdie, desirous of getting at facts. “Did he come out of a house, or go into one, or — what?”
“I tell you,” replied Mrs. Goldmark, “everything I tell you — all in good time. It is like this. A taxicab comes up — approaching me. It stops — by the pavement. Two men — they get out. Him first. Then another. They pay the driver — then they walk on a little — just a few steps. They go into a house. The other man — he lets them into that house. With a latch-key. The door opens — shuts. They are inside. Then I go to Zillah and tell her what I see. So!”
The three young men exchanged glances, and Purdie turned to the informant.
“Mrs. Goldmark,” he said, “did you know the man who opened the door?”
“Not from another!” replied Mrs. Goldmark. “A stranger to me!”
“Do you know Mr. Levendale — by sight?” asked Purdie.
“Often, since all this begins, I ask myself that question,” said Mrs. Goldmark, “him being, so to speak, a neighbour. No, that I do not, not being able to say he was ever pointed out to me.”
“Well, you can describe the man who pulled out his latch-key and opened the door, anyhow,” remarked Purdie. “You took a good look at him, I suppose!”
“And a good one,” answered Mrs. Goldmark. “He was one of our people — I saw his nose and his eyes. And I was astonished to see so poor-looking a man have a latch-key to so grand a mansion as that! — he was dressed in poor clothes, and looked dirty and mean.”
“A bearded dark man?” suggested Purdie.
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Goldmark. “A clean-shaved man — though dark he might be.”
Purdie looked at Melky and shook his head.
“That’s not Levendale!” he said, “Clean-shaven! Levendale’s bearded and mustached — and I should say a bit vain of his beard. Um! you’re dead certain, Mrs. Goldmark, about the other man?”
“As that I tell you this,” insisted Mrs. Goldmark. “I see him as plain as what I see him when he calls at my establishment and leaves his jewellery on my table. Oh, yes — I don’t make no mistake, Mr. Purdie.”
Purdie looked again at Melky — this time with an enquiry in his glance.
“Don’t ask me, Mr. Purdie!” said Melky. “I don’t know what to say. Sounds like as if these two went into Levendale’s house. But what man would have a latch-key to that but Levendale himself? More mystery! — ain’t I full of it already? Now if Mr. Ayscough hadn’t gone away—”
“Look here!” said Purdie, coming to a sudden decision, “I’m going round there. I want to know what this means — I’m going to know. You ladies had better go home. If you others like to come as far as the corner of Sussex Square, come. But I’m going to Levendale’s house alone. I’ll find something out.”
He said no more until, Zillah and Mrs. Goldmark having gone homeward, and he and his two companions having reached a side street leading into Sussex Square, he suddenly paused and demanded their attention!
“I’ve particular reasons for wanting to go into that house alone,” he said. “There’s no danger — trust me. But — if I’m not out again in a quarter of an hour or so, you can come there and ask for me. My own impression is that I shall find Levendale there. And — as you’re aware, Andie — I know Levendale.” He left them standing in the shadow of a projecting portico and going up to Levendale’s front door, rang the bell. There was no light in any of the windows; all appeared to be in dead stillness in the house; somewhere, far off in the interior, he heard the bell tinkle. And suddenly, as he stood waiting and listening, he heard a voice that sounded close by him and became aware that there was a small trap or grille in the door, behind which he made out a face.
“Who is that?” whispered the voice.
“John Purdie — wanting to see Mr. Levendale,” he answered promptly.
The door was just as promptly opened, and as Purdie stepped within was as quickly closed behind him. At the same instant the click of a switch heralded a flood of electric light, and he started to see a man standing at his side — a man who gave him a queer, deprecating smile, a man who was not and yet who was Levendale.
“Gracious me!” exclaimed Purdie, “it isn’t—”
“Yes!” said Levendale, quietly. “But it is, though! All right, Purdie — come this way.”
Purdie followed Levendale into a small room on the right of the hall — a room in which the remains of a cold, evidently impromptu supper lay on a table lighted by a shaded lamp. Two men had been partaking of that supper, but Levendale was alone. He gave his visitor another queer smile, and pointed, first to a chair and then to a decanter.
“Sit down — take a drink,” he said. “This is a queer meeting! We haven’t seen each other since—”
“Good God, man!” broke in Purdie, staring at his host. “What’s it all mean? Are you — disguised?”
Levendale laughed — ruefully — and glanced at the mean garments which Mrs. Goldmark had spoken of.
“Necessity!” he said. “Had to! Ah! — I’ve been through some queer times — and in queer places. Look here — what do you know?”
“Know!” cried Purdie. “You want me to tell you all I know — in a sentence? Man! — it would take a month! What do you know? That’s more like it!”
Levendale passed a hand across his forehead — there was a weariness in his gesture which showed his visitor that he was dead beat.
“Aye, just so!” he said. “But — tell me! has John Purvis come looking for his brother?”
“He has!” answered Purdie. “He’s in London just now.”
“Has he told about that diamond? — told the police?” demanded Levendale.
“He has!” repeated Purdie. “That’s all known. Stephen Purvis — where is he?”
“Upstairs — asleep — dead tired out,” said Levendale. “We both are! Night and day — day and night — I could fall on this floor and sleep—”
“You’ve been after that diamond?” suggested Purdie.
“That — and something else,” said Levendale.
“Something else?” asked Purdie. “What then?”
“Eighty thousand pounds,” answered Levendale. “Just that!”
Purdie stood staring at him. Then he suddenly put a question.
“Do you know who murdered that old man in Praed Street?” he demanded. “That’s what I’m after.”
“No!” said Levendale, promptly. “I don’t even know that he was murdered!” He, too, stared at his visitor for a moment; then “But I know more than a little about his being robbed,” he added significantly.
Purdie shook his head. He was puzzled and mystified beyond measure.
“This is getting too deep for me!” he said. “You’re the biggest mystery of all, Levendale. Look here!” he went on. “What are you going to do? This queer disappearance of yours — this being away — coming back without your beard and dressed like that! — aren’t you going to explain? The police—”
“Yes!” said Levendale. “Ten o’clock this morning — the police-station. Be there — all of you — anybody — anybody who likes — I’m going to tell the police all I know. Purvis and I, we can’t do any more — baffled, you understand! But now — go away, Purdie, and let me sleep — I’m dead done for!”
