Case with No Conclusion (15 page)

“I wonder,” I said sarcastically, “that you have not apparently realized the obvious way to find Wilson.”

“What's that?” he asked.

“Go to the Belgian police and get their cooperation. They'd run round the hotel registers in no time.”

“Don't be silly. I can't ask them that. I'm here in a private capacity and I've got to find things out for myself. That's all very well for Stute with his letters from South America and such, but we've got to do this job by ourselves. Come on, where's this Casino?”

It seemed to me that if Rose and Ed Wilson were at the Casino at all, it was very probable that only the chauffeur would be at the gaming-tables. We might, I thought, have to find them separately.

“Where else might she be, then?” asked Beef.

“Well, at the concert, for instance.”

“What pierrots and that?”

He received my explanation in an impressed silence, and then, when I had finished, “Music,” he said, “I like a bit of a tune sometimes.”

I took Beef first to the little office at the doors of the gaming-rooms to insure our entry into these when the time came. Fortunately I was a member at Monte Carlo and had my carnet in my pocket-case. This enabled me to get six-day tickets for the two of us. There was an uncomfortable moment when the official asked Beef what club he belonged to.

“Club?” he said, “I've just joined the Marylebone and Paddington Liberal Club, if that's what you mean.”

To my relief this was glossed over by the courteous officials and no obstacle was put in our way. But I decided first to visit the concert-hall.

I led Beef to where the orchestra was already playing “a bit of a tune” and we sat down together. Beef folded his arms and sat rapt and silent for about ten minutes. Then he began to refold his arms, shuffle his feet, and out of the comer of my eye I could see his head creeping round trying to see how the people behind were taking it. At last he could contain himself no longer and leaned over towards me. Bringing his mouth close against my ear he said in a hoarse whisper, “When are they going to start?”

“They have started,” I said shortly, and handed him the programme, indicating the Ravel Quartet
which they were just then playing. Beef looked at the printed page in silence for a moment, and then suddenly slapped his thigh explosively and looked at me with a huge grin on his face. “Do you know what I thought?” he said.

But although I did not know what he had thought, I did not, at that moment, take the offered opportunity of finding out. If Beef had wanted everybody to look at him so that he could see if Rose were in the hall, he could not have chosen a better method. But he was oblivious of the white shocked faces which stared at us in dismay from every side.

“I thought—” he said, still laughing, but I grasped him firmly by the arms and half guided, half thrust him out into the foyer.

“You idiot,” I said to him violently as soon as we were outside. “That girl will have warned Wilson before we can get to the gaming-tables, and then we shall never be able to catch them.”

“Which girl?” asked Beef, bewildered.

“Rose, of course. She was sitting there listening to the concert until you made a nuisance of yourself,” I fumed, “and then of course she turned round with the rest. Directly she saw you she ran for the door. If we don't catch them before they get out of this place we probably never shall.”

Beef was still looking dazed as I propelled him along the corridor, but he had quickly recovered by the time we reached the wide doors which opened into the room in which the tables were. Shaking me loose from his arm like Saul recovering from his fit
as David played to him, he stood with his legs apart and surveyed the room quickly, his eyes travelling over the backs and faces of all the people there.

“Ah,” he said suddenly, and moved forward quickly. A moment after him I recognized the back of Wilson's head where he sat, his eyes intent on the table. The pile of counters in front of him seemed evidence that he was playing for high stakes that evening, and Beef stood silently behind him until the wheel had stopped spinning. Then he put his hand on his shoulder as only a policeman can put his hand on a strange man's shoulder. A firm but weary hand, as if weighted by the search, like the tired grip of a falcon as it returns to its master's wrist after an unsuccessful flight.

At this moment there was a disturbance near the door, where Rose had pushed her way past the watchful attendants. But when she saw Beef she stopped and her shoulders seemed to droop slightly. Few of the players had noticed the incident, and the attendants were quite discreet as with quiet, uncaring expressions they pulled back the doors to let the four of us out into the corridor again.

“You silly young fool,” said Beef to the chauffeur as soon as we had left the Casino, “whatever possessed you to do a thing like that?”

But Wilson was not to be cowed by this sort of moral lecture from Beef. He was quite as confident now as he had been that day when Beef interviewed him in the library at the Cypresses. “I
wanted to see things and get about a bit. Stuck there like a bit of sausage in a toad in the hole. I want to have some fun.”

Beef looked at him severely. “You want to read the illustrated Sunday papers,” he said, “to see what happens to people like you. Never come to a good end, they don't. And then bringing this girl out,” he went on. “Shocking, I call it. What would her people think about it? Living a life of gilded sin. And on the money you took off a dead man too. I don't know how you sleep at nights.”

At this phrase Rose gave a short giggle, but she suppressed it immediately.

“And what's more,” Beef went on remorselessly, “you're coming back with me by the next boat, that's what you're going to do.”

Wilson lit a cigarette and thrust his hands in his pockets. “I've got answers to nearly all of that,” he said calmly. “Now in the first place you're not a policeman, so you can't arrest me, and in the second place we're on foreign soil, so you couldn't if you were. I took the money all right. Why not? He didn't need it any more. I didn't think anybody would know he had it on him. Nobody saw me take it anyway, but I suppose if you've got the numbers of the notes you can prove that against me all right.”

“I can prove it,” said Beef, “don't you worry.”

“I haven't finished yet,” went on Wilson. “It's that other thing you said about Rose and me that I'm thinking of. What right you have to come along
and make immoral suggestions to us I don't know, but let me tell you this. While we're on the subject of the illustrated Sunday papers, I should say that it's people with minds like yours that write them. Rose and I have been properly married now for nearly a year, and why we didn't tell anybody is nobody's business.”

At this point I interrupted. “What
I'd
like to know,” I said to Beef, “is what connection this man has with the crime. And what's all this about money?”

“His connection with the crime,” said Beef, “is that he's a witness who Inspector Stute may be able to do without, but I can't. He saw that old man leaving the gates that morning, and he was the second on the scene of the murder.”

This was disheartening. “So you've come all the way to Ostend after a minor witness?”

Beef looked almost human. “I've come all the way to Ostend,” he said, “after a silly young fool who's nearly ruined his life, and may yet be able to put it right if he does what I tell him. How much of that five hundred pounds have you got left?” he asked Wilson.

A broad grin spread over the chauffeur's face. “About seven hundred and twenty,” he said.

I thought the Sergeant was working to suppress a smile, but he spoke severely. “Well, I'll tell you what. You come straight back with me and see Mr. Peter Ferrers. If you hand him back the money at once, I don't think he'll say anything more about
it. But if you don't, it'll be my duty to have you extricated.”

“Extradited,” I whispered. Beef scorned to correct himself.

Wilson grinned. “Well, I suppose that's decent of you,” he said, “but you might have given me a few days longer here and let me turn it into a thousand.”

“Or lose it all,” said Beef. “I know you young chaps. What about the years I spent in the Force with nothing happening but a few chickens stolen and a drunk to run in for the night? Do you think I never wanted to hop off and see things? Everyone has that feeling whatever job they're in. But you can't go doing it. Not on stolen money, anyway.”

“Who else knows about this?” asked Ed Wilson. “Do the police?”

Beefs chest swelled. “No one knows about it—only me,” he said. “It took old Beef, what Inspector Stute doesn't think much of, to realize that there were two lots of five hundred pounds. One of them had been drawn when Benson was away on his holidays, and never paid over at all.”

“But what was all this paying of money to Benson by Stewart Ferrers?” I asked impatiently.

“That's one of the things we've got to find out. In the meantime I noticed that the five hundred pounds was locked away in a drawer in Stewart Ferrers's bedroom, whereas the confession of suicide, which would have been equally incriminating, was still in his pocket. How was that? Well, I'll tell you. Because the five hunded pounds that was
in his drawer wasn't the same that he'd paid to Benson that night at all, that's why.”

“But how did you know?” I asked.

“I didn't
know
,” said Beef, “but I knew this young fellow had something up his sleeve. I'm used to dealing with your type, you know,” he said to Wilson. “I've had young constables under me just like you. And I could tell there was something you was hiding. Then when you disappeared, I guessed you'd found that wad of notes on Benson in the morning, and slipped them in your pocket.”

“How did you trace me here?” asked Wilson with some interest.

“That's part of my method of investigation which I don't intend to reveal,” was Beefs grand reply. “And now I should like to know if you're going to be sensible and come back with me?”

Wilson and Rose exchanged glances. I felt there was more than ordinary understanding between these two people, and was inclined to envy them the future.

“Yes,” said Wilson, after a moment's hesitation, “I'll come. You think you can put it right with Peter Ferrers, do you?”

“I can't promise you that,” said Beef, “but I don't think there's much doubt.”

Ed Wilson seemed relieved, but he made no comment beyond a curt promise to be on the night boat.

“Better hand us over the money before you go,” said Beef.

“The five hundred, you mean?” asked Wilson anxiously.

“What you've been doing here is no business of mine,” was Beefs ponderous reply. “I'll return this money to its owner, and you must hope for the best.”

Wilson invited us to his hotel, where, he said, he would give us the packet, and the four of us marched into the Super Splendide, a vast building not far from the Casino.

“Doing yourself all right, wasn't you?” said Beef. “Mr. Townsend and I were staying at the Liverpool.”

Wilson grinned. “Why not?” he said. “It was only for once in a lifetime, and it was worth it. I know now what its like to live on a decent scale.”

Beef shook his head. “You've got to get back to your job,” he said severely, “and put all this nonsense out of your head. It'll get you into worse trouble than this if you're not careful. I've seen young chaps ruined by no more than a taste for big cigars.” He turned to Rose. “Can't you put some sense into his head?” he said. “You'll have him a criminal before you know where you are, with all this talk about riches and luxury.”

Rose spoke for the first time. “I don't think I should mind,” she said in a quiet and blasé voice, “as long as he didn't get caught, or anything sordid like that.”

Beef made an impatient sound with his lips. “If I thought you meant that,” he said, “I wouldn't half have something to say to the pair of you. But I
believe this'll be a lesson. Now go and get those notes, and let's get off.”

Wilson made an application at the manager's office and returned with a packet similar to the one we had examined at the Cypresses. “It's all there,” he said. “When I won last night I returned the full amount. I was going to send it back in any case.”

Beefs final comment to me when we were alone on the deck of the steamer going home with Ed and Rose Wilson below was characteristic.

“This roulette must be all right,” he said. “Two hundred and twenty pounds in two days. I wish we'd had the time to try it.”

O
UR
return to London was a cue for a sudden burst of activity on Beef's part. He told me that we should really have to get down to this, that there had been too much playing around, and that he meant business if no one else did. As Stewart Ferrers would come up for trial in about a fortnight, this resolution seemed reasonable enough, and I asked him if there was anything I could do. I was surprised to hear him say that there was.

“I want you to take Peter Ferrers and Sheila Benson out to dinner tonight. Somewhere classy,” he added.

“What about the expense?”

“That's all right,” said Beef, “I've got money for expenses.”

“Are you suggesting that I should give Peter Ferrers dinner with his own money?” I asked.

“It's not his own money yet,” said Beef, “and it won't never be if I can clear Stewart as I expect. You ring him up and ask him, and ask her too. Tell them you've got something to explain about Wilson.

I nodded and went to the telephone. Rather to my surprise, they both accepted—Peter quietly, Sheila
with verbal enthusiasm. Beef then gave me my instructions. It was his wish, apparently, to “have a look round” Peter's flat while he wasn't there, and in this design I was expected to assist him. The scheme he evolved for his own entry was ingenious, and really seemed to argue that he was not such a blunderer after all. I was to call for Peter that evening, and tell him that Beef and I had noticed a man in a jeweller's shop not far from his flat whom we suspected of being the mysterious Orpen or Oppenstein. I was to say that Beef urgently wanted the point cleared up, and persuade him, Peter, to go round the corner and, on the pretence of examining something in the window, see if the man really was their visitor of some years ago. While he was out of the building I was to admit Beef into the flat and conceal him somewhere until Peter and I had left. Then, while we were dining, Beef would have all the opportunity he needed for making the search.