Delphi collected works o.., p.617
Delphi Collected Works of Peter Cheyney Illustrated, page 617
Duvenin looked at the woman.
Callaghan said: “I’ve been through to the police. They’ll be here in a minute.”
He produced his cigarette case.
“Maybe,” he said, “you’d like a cigarette while we’re waiting.”
IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY
Slim Callaghan
WINDEMERE NIKOLLS — Callaghan’s Canadian assistant — a little out of breath, came down into the basement restaurant and stood looking about him. After a moment he saw Callaghan sitting in the corner eating pancakes. He went over.
He said: “Well, I’ve seen this dame, an’ she’s sweet. She’s about forty, but I might be five years wrong either way. She’s got somethin’ though. She’s got that sort of stuff you’d go for — allure they call it, don’t they?”
Callaghan bisected another pancake. He said:
“What do you think of her?”
Nikolls shook his head.
“I don’t like it, Slim,” he said. “It’s a case, an’ the dough’s all right, but one of these fine days one of those hot mommas is goin’ to get you into plenty trouble.”
“I’ll chance that,” said Callaghan. “When am I going to see her?”
Nikolls lit a cigarette.
“She’ll be down here in five minutes,” he said. “She said she’d rather tell you the whole story. She said she felt you’d sort of understand.” He looked round. “There she is,” he said.
Callaghan took a long look at the woman who was approaching the table. She was tall; possessed a slim and seductive figure. Callaghan thought she did not look a bit like forty years old, but then you never knew with that type of woman. Her hair was auburn; her face oval, the features exquisitely cut. Callaghan got up, placed a chair for her. He said: “I’m afraid it is very hot down here. All these basement cafes are hot. I’d take your furs off if I were you, Mrs. Eames.”
She sat down, threw back her fox fur. She said: “I expect Mr. Nikolls has told you that I’m terribly worried, Mr. Callaghan. It’s an awful position for a mother to be in. I expect he’s told you about it....”
Callaghan said: “No, he hasn’t. He’s just outlined the story. I’d like to hear the whole thing.”
She sighed.
“It is hot down here, isn’t it?” she said.
She removed the white kid glove from her right hand. Callaghan saw that her fingers were long and beautiful, the rings on them valuable. She stopped in the middle of removing her other glove and looked at Callaghan hopelessly. He saw the tears in her eyes.
“Take it easy, Mrs. Eames. There’s nothing so bad that it couldn’t be worse, you know.”
She smiled gratefully.
“It’s nice of you to say that, Mr. Callaghan,” she said, “but I don’t think anything could be worse than what has happened to me. I was always so proud of Leslie....”
Callaghan said: “Supposing you start at the beginning.”
She said: “I’ll tell you the whole thing. It was about six months ago, that I realised that my son was a thief. He’s always been an odd sort of boy; charming and very popular with everybody, especially women. He had quite a good allowance from me. It was only when I realised that he was spending a great deal of money and yet not getting into debt, that I knew that he must be getting money from somewhere. I need not say that I never for one moment suspected that my son could be a crook.” Callaghan said: “How old is he?”
“He’ll be twenty-two next March,” she said, “But he looks and behaves as if he was live or six years older.”
The detective nodded. “Go on, Mrs. Eames,” he said.
“One night, after a party given by some friends of ours,” the woman continued, “our hostess missed a valuable bracelet. A week after that, rummaging through the drawers in my son’s rooms, trying to find an old photograph of him when he was a boy, I found the bracelet, hidden away under a pile of underclothes. I was so shocked that I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t do anything.”
Callaghan said: “You don’t mean to say you didn’t tackle him about it?”
She shrugged her shoulders hopelessly.
“I was afraid to,” she said, “I thought if I said anything he’d go away. I thought that if he did that the worst might happen to him. He might become just an ordinary common or garden crook.”
“What did you do?” asked Callaghan.
“I pinched and scraped every penny I could,” she said, “and six months afterwards I bought my friend another similar bracelet. I gave it to her as a present. That anyhow was a salve to my conscience. I hoped too that Leslie might wonder why I had done it, might guess that I’d suspected him, might want to turn over a new leaf.
“I don’t know what he’s done since then,” she went on, “but I do know that other people — usually rich people with whom he’s struck up the sudden friendships that he makes so easily — have missed things, usually articles of jewellery. But no one has ever suspected him. He’s the sort of person you just couldn’t suspect — he’s too charming. He looks the sort of boy who could never tell you a lie.”
Nikolls said: “That’s what you think.”
Callaghan raised his eyebrows.
“A mother’s opinion is always prejudiced, Windy,” he said. “But I understand what Mrs. Eames means.”
She said: “Believe me, I’m not prejudiced about him, but now I’m terribly frightened. This last thing is too much.”
Callaghan produced his cigarette case. He offered her a cigarette which she took. As he lit the cigarette he noticed that her eyes were still filled with tears.
“And what’s the last thing?” asked Callaghan.
She sighed. Then she said miserably:
“I must tell you something about Leslie, so that you’ll understand. He has very definite ideas about women. He’s always had them. One of his ideas is that he can’t stand blondes. Even as a little boy he disliked fair women. You will imagine then how amazed I was when three months ago he told me he had fallen deeply in love with a girl, that he wanted to be engaged to her. She was charming and delightful. I couldn’t have picked a better wife for my son. There was one thing I couldn’t understand — she was blonde. Her hair is the colour of corn. That intrigued me. I spoke to him about it and he laughed and said that peopie change their opinions.
“Eight or nine weeks ago I discovered that my son’s fiancee — Miss Garston — had inherited some very valuable jewellery. Then I noticed that although she was a girl who disliked wearing jewellery, Leslie persuaded her to wear it on every possible occasion. I suddenly got a terrible idea in my head. I got the idea that Leslie wasn’t in love with this girl at all, that he’d arranged the whole thing simply so that he might be able to steal that jewellery.
“I tried to dismiss the idea from my head, but it persisted in spite of everything. It’s almost driven me mad. Now things have come to a crisis.”
“I see,” said Callaghan. “Tell me about the crisis.” Then he said quickly: “Be careful of that cigarette. It’s going to burn your glove in a minute.”
She looked down at her gloved hand. She had smoked her cigarette rapidly, nervously. The stub held between her thumb and forefinger had already burned a brown patch on the fingertip of her white glove. She stubbed the cigarette out, looked at the burn mark at her finger-tip and made a little grimace. Then her face changed.
“The crisis is this, Mr. Callaghan,” she said sadly, “Two days ago my son’s fiancee decided to join some friend in Scotland. She’s been living with one or two servants at her parents’ house just outside London. They have already gone to Scotland. I learnt from her yesterday that Leslie, who had arranged to join them in a week or two’s time in Edinburgh, had persuaded her to take her jewellery with her. He had persuaded her to remove the jewellery from the bank vaults where it’s stored and keep it in the house — near Maidenhead — for one or two nights, and then to take it with her when she went.”
Nikolls whistled softly between his teeth. Callaghan raised his eyebrows a bit.
“I see,” he said. “And you think...”
“I think,” said the woman, “that to-morrow night Leslie is going to steal that jewellery.”
Callaghan said: “I see. But why to-morrow night? Why not to-night?”
She said: “I arranged it so that he couldn’t. I insisted that to-night he should come round and dine with me. I said that there were some papers we must go over. I did that because I had heard about you, and I had decided that whatever happened I was going to come to you and tell you the whole story, to entreat you to help me.”
Callaghan nodded.
“That was a good idea,” he said. “That narrows his time for possible operations down to to-morrow night. But tell me something, Mrs. Eames. Why don’t you tell him just what’s in your mind?”
“For the same reason that I told you before,” she said. “I believe if I told him that I knew he was a thief, that I knew what he was planning to do to this unfortunate girl, he’d go away. I should never see him again, and you see, whatever he may be, Mr. Callaghan, he’s my son.”
Callaghan said: “You are sure in your mind, Mrs. Eames, that he’s going to steal this jewellery?”
She nodded.
“I’m absolutely certain,” she said, “And I’ll tell you why I’m certain.”
She opened her handbag, took out a piece of paper. “This morning,” she said, “I waited until I knew Leslie would have gone out. Then I went round to his flat. I said I’d wait until he came back. I knew he wouldn’t be back under an hour and a half. I took the opportunity of looking round the place, of seeing if I could find anything that would confirm my suspicion. I found it. I found a piece of paper, and this is a copy of what was on it.”
She handed a piece of notepaper to Callaghan. On one side of the paper was a plan, on the other some figures. Nikolls, leaning forward to see, whistled through his teeth again.
“Gee,” he said. “The kid’s got brains, hey? A plan of the house and the safe combination. What a sweet little feller!”
Callaghan said: “Shut up, Windy.” He looked at the woman and smiled. “It looks as if Nikolls is right,” he said.
She nodded. Callaghan thought he’d never seen any one look so miserable.
“Directly I found this, I knew what it was,” she said. “He made this plan and somehow he got possession of the combination of the safe. He’ll go down there to-morrow night. He’ll steal that jewellery. Then he’ll turn up the next day prepared to see Miss Garston off to Edinburgh. The robbery will be discovered, but of course he’ll never be suspected.”
Callaghan said: “It looks as if you’re right, Mrs. Eames. And what do you want me to do?”
She said: “It’s quite simple, Mr. Callaghan.” She laid an envelope on the table. “In that envelope are two hundred and fifty pounds. I want you to go to that house to-night. I want you to open that safe, remove the jewellery, bring it back to me. I shall go to Edinburgh. I shall hand that jewellery back to Miss Garston’s parents. I shall tell them the truth about it. At least I can stop that unfortunate girl from marrying a crook.”
Callaghan said: “What’s he going to do when he finds out?”
“He won’t find out,” she said. “I’ll make them promise not to tell him. They’ll owe me something anyway. The only conclusion he can come to is that someone got there first. He must be working in league with other people,” she said, “someone to whom he sells this jewellery that he steals. Someone must know of his plans. Possibly he’ll come to the conclusion that they’ve stolen the jewellery.”
Callaghan said: “You might be right, Mrs. Eames.”
He lit a cigarette. The woman looked at him eagerly.
“Mr. Callaghan,” she said, “will you do this for me?”
Callaghan inhaled a gulp of cigarette smoke. He exhaled it slowly through one nostril.
“Why not?” he said. “Life hasn’t been very interesting of late.”
He picked up the envelope and opened it. Inside were five new fifty-pound notes. He grinned and put them in his pocket.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Eames,” he said. “The motto of Callaghan Investigations is: ‘We get there somehow and who the hell cares how.’ We’ll turn ourselves into burglars in a good cause.”
She gave a sigh of relief.
“Mr. Callaghan,” she said, “I can never thank you enough.”
“Don’t try,” said Callaghan. “I’ll come and see you or telephone you to-morrow. I’ll bring you that jewellery. You can return it to Miss Garston’s parents. I think playing it this way, we might even give your son a lesson.”
She held out her hand.
“Thank you, Mr. Callaghan,” she said.
Callaghan watched her as she walked gracefully towards the entrance. He said:
“It’s not often you see a figure like that, Windy.” Nikolls grunted.
“You don’t have to do house-breaking just because you like a woman’s figure,” he said. “Personally speaking, I think you’re nuts.”
IT was just after midnight when Callaghan stopped his car on the grass verge of a lonely road behind Gable Manor. The night was pitch black and he found his way across the fields that led to the back wall of the house with difficulty. Once arrived, it was easy. It took him exactly three minutes to open the frenph windows that led into the houses from the back lawn. The excellent black-out precluded any possibility of his flashiamp being seen from outside.
In another four minutes Callaghan was in the back library where the safe was kept, and ten minutes after that he had opened the leather cases containing the jewellery and was examining it. He whistled softly to himself as he examined a set of diamond necklets and bracelets that were worth a small fortune. Then he shut and locked the cases up, put them under his arm and left as quietly as he had entered.
THE next day, Callaghan got up at twelve, went out, gave himself an excellent lunch. It was three o’clock when he arrived at his office. He took out his notebook and looked up Mrs. Eames’ telephone number. He rang through. When she came on the line, Callaghan said:
“All your troubles are over, Mrs. Eames. I’ve got the jewellery, but I’m afraid I shall be too busy to hand it over to you to-day. I’m going to suggest that you catch the eleven-five for Edinburgh to-morrow. I’ll meet you at King’s Cross and hand the jewellery over to you then.”
She said: “I’m eternally grateful to you, Mr. Callaghan. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” said Callaghan. “I’m getting paid for this. I’ll be seeing you to-morrow,” he concluded, “Good-bye.”
He hung up.
WHEN Callaghan arrived on the platform it was already one minute after departure time. Down towards the front part of the train Callaghan could see Nikolls standing on the platform talking to Mrs. Eames, who was leaning out of the compartment window. Her face brightened as Callaghan appeared.
“Good-morning,” said Callaghan. “You’ve got a lovely day for your journey.”
The guard blew his whistle. The train was just about to move out. Callaghan handed up a leather attaché case to Mrs. Eames. As he did so he opened it. Inside she could see the jewellery cases.
“There’s the jewellery,” said Callaghan, “I hope you have a good journey. Good-bye. Good luck to you.”
The train steamed out.
AT four o’clock that afternoon Callaghan was sitting in his office, his feet on his desk, blowing smoke rings. He looked up as Nikolls came into the office. Nikolls was grinning, “I suppose you haven’t seen the paper, Slim?” he said.
Callaghan said: “No, why?”
Nikolls’ grin became broader than ever. He held the newspaper out towards Callaghan.
“If you read on the front page,” he said, “you’ll see that last night thieves broke in at Gable Manor at Maidenhead and pinched £40,000 worth of jewellery.” He sighed. “I knew there was something screwy about this deal from the first, Slim,” he said. “They’ve taken you for a ride. They knew that jewellery was going to be there; they got a plan of the place and they cooked that job up between them. I’ve been ferreting round,” Nikolls went on, “and who do you think your precious mother and son are?”
“You tell me,” said Callaghan.
Nikolls said: “They’re Adela and Jim Crotti — brother and sister — two of the slickest jewellery thieves in Europe. And you were the fall guy. You were the guy who did the burglary for them.”
Callaghan grinned. “Don’t you believe it, Windy,” he said. “Come round here.”
He opened the bottom drawer in the right tier of his desk. Looking down, Nikolls, his eyes almost popping from his head, saw that the drawer was almost filled with jewellery.
“I waited till the last moment this morning,” said Callaghan, “so that Mrs. Eames wouldn’t have time to open the jewellery cases and see that they had nothing inside them except some pebbles. I expect she’ll find that out on the way up.”
Nikolls whistled.
“For crying out loud!” he said. He fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette. “What gave you the idea that this business was screwy, Slim?” he asked.
Callaghan said: “The trouble with you, Windy, is that you’re so fond of talking you don’t use your eyes. Didn’t you notice that when I first met Mrs. Eames down in the restaurant, she only took one glove off. She stopped while she was taking her left hand glove off. Even when she burned the glove with a cigarette stub, she still did not take it off.”
Nikolls scratched his head.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
