Inspector French's Greatest Case (31 page)

French was disappointed. He booked on to Lisbon on chance, then not wishing to be seen, he retired to his cabin, leaving Sergeant Carter to watch the ladder leading to the shore boats.

As he sat smoking beside the open porthole, he kept on racking his brains for some method of solving his problem, but at last it was a chance word of the purser's that gave him his idea. Mr. Jennings had dropped in just after the ship, pushing out between the two great stone moles of the harbour, had dipped her nose into the deep, slow-moving Atlantic swell, and he had said: “Talking of disguises, it's a pity you couldn't disguise yourself and come into the saloon to-night, Mr. French. We are having our first sing-song, and you would have a good chance then of seeing the lady passengers.”

“That's rather an idea,” French had replied. “Could you not hide me somewhere, say, near the door of the saloon through which those attending must enter, so that I could see each as she passed?”

Mr. Jennings had believed it might be possible, and had promised to see what could be done. And then as he was taking his leave, the idea flashed into French's mind, and he had called him back.

“Don't trouble about that business in the meantime, Mr. Jennings. Would it be convenient to you to call back again in half an hour? I shall have something to ask you then.”

Jennings glanced at him curiously, but all he said was “Right-o!” as he went on his business. After the allotted span he came back, and French spoke earnestly.

“Look here, Mr. Jennings, if you could do something for me, you'd put me under a heavy debt of gratitude. I'll tell you what it is. First I want you to smuggle me into the saloon before the concert begins, without any one having seen me. I want to sit in some place where I can't be seen by a person entering until he or she is right inside the room. Is that possible?”

“Why, yes, I think so. I'll fix it for you somehow. I take it your notion is that if the lady sees you so suddenly and unexpectedly she will give herself away?”

“Quite, but there is something else, Mr. Jennings. That scheme would only work if she knows my appearance, but I don't think she does. I want some one to read this out as an item. Will you do it?”

He handed over a sheet of paper which he had covered with writing during his half-hour's wait. It read:

“RIDDLE.

“A prize of a 5-lb. box of chocolates is offered for the best answer to the following riddle:

“If she is Winter in Comedy,
Ward in
Olympic
,
Root in Savoy, and
Vane in Crewe,
What is she on the
Enoch
?”

Mr. Jennings looked somewhat mystified.

“I don't quite get you?” he suggested.

“Woman's aliases and the places where she used them.”

Something like admiration showed in the purser's eyes.

“My word! Some notion, that! If the woman is there and hasn't smelt a rat, she'll give herself away when she hears that. But why won't you read it yourself?”

“If she makes a move to leave I want to be out before her. If she leaves, it will mean that her husband is not present and I want to get her before she can warn him. Carter'll be on the same job.”

“Well, I'll read it if you like, but frankly I'd rather you had some one else to do it.”

“What about Captain Davis?”

Jennings glanced round and sank his voice.

“If you take my advice, you'll leave the old man out of it altogether. He just mightn't approve. He treats the passengers as his guests, and bluffing them like that mightn't appeal to him.”

“But I'm not bluffing them,” French retorted with a twinkle in his eye. He drew a pound note from his pocket and passed it over. “That's for the chocolates, and whoever puts in the best answer gets it. It's all perfectly straight and above board. Whether we get the woman over it or not no one need ever know.”

The purser smiled, but shook his head doubtfully.

“Well, it's your funeral. Anyway, I've said I'll go through with it, and I will.”

“Good!” French was once more his hearty, complacent self. “Now there is another matter if this one fails. Mrs. Vane may stay in her cabin. I want you to check the women present by your list, and give me a note of any absentees. Then I shall go round their cabins and make some excuse to see each.”

The purser agreed to this also. “I'll send you some dinner here, and at once,” he added as he rose to take his leave, “then I'll come for you while the passengers are dining, and get you fixed up in the saloon.”

“Better send Carter here, and he can dine with me while I explain the thing to him.”

When Mr. Jennings had gone, French stood in front of his porthole gazing out over the heaving waters. Daylight had completely gone, but there was a clear sky and a brilliant full moon. The sea looked like a ghostly plain of jet with, leading away across it, a huge road of light, its edges sparkling with myriad flashes of silver. His cabin was on the port side, and some three miles off he could dimly trace the white line of surf beating along the cliffs of the coast. The sea looked horribly cold, and he turned from it with a slight shudder as the door opened and Sergeant Carter entered.

“Ah, Carter, Mr. Jennings is sending us in some dinner. We'll have it together. I have a job on for to-night,” and he explained his plan and the part his subordinate was to play therein. Carter said, “Yes, sir,” stolidly to everything, but French could see he was impressed.

Shortly before eight, Mr. Jennings appeared and beckoned his fellow-conspirators to follow him. They passed quickly across the deck and along some passages, and reached the saloon unobserved. There they found that the purser had placed two arm-chairs for their use close to the door, but hidden from outside it by screens. From French's chair the face of each person who entered the room would be visible, while Carter's was arranged so that he could see all those of the seated audience which were out of French's immediate purview.

The concert was timed for half-past eight, and before that hour little groups of people began to arrive. French, with a novel open on his knees, sat scrutinising unostentatiously each person as he or she entered. Once he stared with increased eagerness, as a dark, stoutish woman entered with two men. It seemed to him that she bore some resemblance to the photograph, but as he watched her foreign gestures and as he listened to her rapid conversation in some unknown language, he felt sure she could not be the woman he sought. He called a passing steward, and learned from him that she was the Miss da Silva, whom he had already suspected and acquitted in his mind.

As the time drew on the saloon gradually filled, but nowhere did he see any one whose appearance he thought suspicious. When the hour arrived, the proceedings were opened with a short recital by a well-known pianist who was making the voyage to Madeira for his health.

French was not musical, but even if he had been he would have paid but scant attention to the programme. He was too busily engaged in covertly scrutinising the faces of the men and women around him. He was dimly conscious that the well-known pianist brought his contribution to an end with a brilliant and highly dexterous feat of manual gymnastics, that two ladies—or was it three—sang, that a deep-toned basso growled out something that he took to be a Scotch song, and that a quiet, rather pretty girl played some pleasant-sounding melody on a violin, when his attention was suddenly galvanised into eager life and fixed with an expectant thrill on what was taking place. Mr. Jennings had ascended the platform.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the purser said in his pleasantly modulated voice, “while possibly it may be true that the days of riddles have passed, and while it certainly is true that the middle of a concert is not the happiest time for asking them, still perhaps you will allow me to put this one to you. It is a topical riddle concerning our voyage made up by one of our company, and he offers a prize of this large box of chocolates for the best solution. The riddle is this, and I can let any one who cares to consider it have a copy: ‘If she is Winter in Comedy, Ward in
Olympic
, Root in Savoy, and Vane in Crewe, what is she aboard the
Enoch?'”

The audience listened with good-humoured attention, and for a moment Mr. Jennings stood motionless, still smiling pleasantly. The little buzz of conversation which usually sprang up between the items had not yet begun, and save for the faint, all-pervading murmur of the engines, the gently-swaying saloon was momentarily still. Then through the silence came a slight though unexpected sound. Miss da Silva's handbag had slipped off her knee, and the metal hasp had struck the parquet floor with a sharp tap.

French glanced at her face with a sudden thrill. It had gone a queer shade of yellowish brown, and her hand, hanging down by her side, was clenched till the knuckles showed the same livid brownish hue. She evidently had not noticed her bag fall, and in her fixed and staring eyes there grew the shadow of a terrible fear. No one but French seemed to have noticed her emotion, and a man beside her stooped to pick up the bag. At the same time the silence was broken by a stout, military-looking old gentleman, who with some “Ha, ha's!” and “Be Gad's!” adjured the company to set about solving the puzzle, and conversation became general. Miss da Silva rose quietly and moved rather unsteadily towards the door.

For French to get up and open the door for her was an act of common politeness. With a slight bow he held it as she passed through, then following her immediately, he closed it behind him.

They were alone in the passage leading to the companion-way, and as he glanced keenly at her face he felt no further doubt. Disguised by some adroit alterations to hair and eyebrows, and, he believed, with a differently-shaped set of false teeth, a darkened complexion and glasses, there stood before him the original of the photographs. He laid his hand on her arm.

“Miss Winter,” he said gravely, “I am Inspector French of Scotland Yard. I arrest you on a charge of being concerned in the murder of Charles Gething and the theft of precious stones and money from Messrs. Duke & Peabody's on the 25th of November last.”

The woman did not reply, but like a flash her free arm went to her mouth. French grasped wildly and caught it. She gulped, and at the same moment reeled. French, himself trembling and with beads of perspiration on his forehead, laid her gently on the floor, where she lay unconscious. He hastily stepped back into the saloon, and moving quietly to where he had seen the ship's doctor sitting, whispered in his ear. Sergeant Carter got up at the same moment, and a second later the two detectives stood looking down with troubled faces, while Dr. Sandiford knelt beside the motionless figure on the floor.

“Good God!” he cried at once, “she's dead!” He put his nose to her lips. “Prussic acid!” He gazed up at his companions with a countenance of horrified surprise.

“Yes; suicide,” said French shortly. “Get her moved to my cabin before any one comes.”

The doctor, ignorant of the circumstances, looked at the other with a sudden suspicion, but on French's hurried explanation he nodded, and the three men bore the still form off and laid it reverently on the sofa in the Inspector's stateroom.

“When you've examined her, tell the Captain,” French said. “Meantime Carter and I must go and arrest the poor creature's husband. You might show me his cabin when you're through.”

A few seconds sufficed the doctor for his examination, and then in silence he led the way to a cabin on the boat deck. French knocked, and instantly opening the door, passed inside, followed by the others.

It was a large, roomy stateroom, fitted up as a private sitting-room, an open door revealing a bedroom beyond. The room had a comfortable, used appearance. Books and papers lay about, a box of chessmen and a pack of cards were on a locker, while in a lounge chair lay a woman's crochet work. On a table stood an empty coffee cup and the smell of a good cigar was heavy in the air.

In an arm-chair under the electric light, clad in a dressing-gown and slippers, sat an old gentleman, the cigar in one hand and a book in the other. He seemed a tall man, and his long hair was pure white. He wore a long white beard and moustache, and had bushy white eyebrows. He sat staring at the intruders with surprise and apparent annoyance.

But as his eyes settled on French's face their expression changed. Amazement, incredulity, and a growing horror appeared in rapid succession. French advanced, but the other sat motionless, his eyes still fixed on his visitor's with a dreadful intensity, like that of an animal fascinated by a snake. And then French began to stare in his turn. There was something familiar about those eyes. They were a peculiar shade of dark blue that he recalled very clearly. And there was a mole, a tiny brown mole beneath the corner of the left one, which he had certainly seen not long previously. So, for an appreciable time both remained motionless, staring at one another.

Suddenly French recalled where he had seen that shade of iris and that mole. With a murmur of amazement he stepped forward. “Mr. Duke!” he cried.

The other with a snarl of anger was fumbling desperately in his pocket. Like a flash, French and Carter threw themselves on him and caught his arm as it was half-way to his mouth. In the fingers was a tiny white pilule. In another second he was handcuffed, and French's skilful fingers had passed over his clothes and abstracted from his pocket a tiny phial containing a few more of the little white messengers of death. At the same moment Captain Davis appeared at the door.

“Shut the door, if you please, Captain,” French begged. “The Yard was right after all. This is the man.”

A few sentences put the Captain in possession of the facts, and then French gently and with real kindness in his tones broke the news of Miss Winter's death to his unhappy prisoner. But the man expressed only relief.

“Thank God!” he cried with evidently overwhelming emotion. “She was quicker than I. Thank God she was in time! I don't care what happens to myself now that she's out of it. If it wasn't for my daughter”—his voice broke—“I'd be thankful it was over. I've lived in hell for the last few months. Wherever I turn I see Gething's eyes looking at me. It's been hell, just
hell!
I shouldn't wish my worst enemy to go through what I have. I admit the whole business. All I ask is that you get on and make an end quickly.”