The Snuffbox Murders (20 page)

‘Excuse me, sir,’ Ahmed said. ‘Didn’t you say there should be twenty-eight snuffboxes, sir?’

Angel’s eyes flashed wide open. ‘Don’t tell me there are any missing.’

‘Oh no, sir,’ Ahmed said. ‘There’s none missing. But there are forty-eight snuff boxes, not twenty-eight.’

Angel jumped to his feet. ‘Forty-eight? Show me, lad.’

Ahmed opened the box and put the snuffboxes in eight rows of six on the desk top.

Angel quickly opened each box and each bag to be sure that there was a snuffbox in every container. Ahmed was indeed correct.

Then Angel sat down slowly and said, ‘You know what these means, Ahmed.’

‘No, sir.’

‘The extra twenty were stolen from Sir Jack Prendergast’s house last month. It means that Brian Farleigh is not only the murderer of Charles Razzle, he is also leader of the country-house gang, and murderer of Stefan Muldoon and Aimée Polditz.’

Suddenly Angel’s door was thrown open causing it to bang noisily on the chair against the wall. Standing motionless in the doorway was the constable who had been acting as duty jailer. He looked strangely uncomfortable. His hands were down by his sides but his shoulders were hunched up. His face seemed inexplicably paralysed. Only his startled eyes moved. They traversed jerkily from left to right.

Angel’s pulse began to pump faster. He rose to his feet.

‘What do you want, lad?’ Angel said.

The constable didn’t reply. He just stood there, frozen to the spot.

Angel and Ahmed looked at each other, then back at the constable.

Then Brain Farleigh’s head bobbed from behind the young man’s head. His eyes were staring, his head jerky, his hair dishevelled. ‘
There
you are, Angel. I’ve been looking for you.’

Angel’s heart began to pound.

Farleigh pushed the constable into the office. ‘Go inside, lad,’ Farleigh said. ‘Hurry up. The Inspector wants to know how I got out of the cell. Shall I tell them or will you?’

Then Angel saw that he was holding something in his hand that looked dangerously like a Glock G17 handgun. That model had a magazine that held seventeen rounds. It was fast, accurate and could kill at sixty yards. Farleigh waved it around dangerously in every direction.

Farleigh then quickly closed the door and turned the key. ‘That’s cosy. Just the four of us.’ He prodded the constable from behind and said, ‘Well, tell him, lad.’

‘I don’t know how he got the gun, sir,’ the constable said. ‘I took him in a cup of tea and he pulled it on me. Then made me tell him which was your office.’

Angel sighed and said, ‘All right, Constable.’

Angel had been worried for some time that prisoner’s visitors had not been adequately searched. It seemed his fears had been justified.

Farleigh suddenly saw the deed box, the money and the snuffboxes on Angel’s desk. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. ‘Here, Angel, that’s mine.’ He was going to come forward to get a better look, but stopped. ‘Well, that’s fine. You’ve saved me a job. It’s amazing, Angel. You’ve already been into
my
deed box and
my
money. Were you going to share it out among yourselves?’

He turned to PC Ahaz and said, ‘Pack all those snuffboxes up, lad. And all that money. Quickly. Put it all back in the box and lock it up.’

Ahmed hesitated. He glanced at Angel.

‘Do as he says, Ahmed.’

Farleigh blinked when he heard the name.

Ahmed began to repack the deed box.

‘You wanted to see me, Farleigh,’ Angel said. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want a fast car and a tank of fuel.’ Farleigh glanced at Ahmed and said, ‘The lad would like a day out of the office, with me, wouldn’t you, Ahmed?’

Ahmed winced.

‘No,’ Angel said. ‘I can do the car and fuel, Farleigh, but Ahmed stays here.’

Farleigh’s face hardened. He looked Angel up and down and said, ‘You’re hardly in a bargaining position, Angel.’

Angel pursed his lips then said, ‘Take me. I’ll be your hostage. Just leave these two lads alone.’

‘No. You might try something brave, and I would have to kill you.’

‘You’re the one with the gun, aren’t you?’ Angel said. ‘You’ve already murdered three people, a fourth would hardly make any difference.’

Farleigh smiled and waved the gun at him triumphantly. ‘I like the way you think, Angel. I put the fear of God into anybody I thought might be getting too close for comfort. I tried to keep everything secret. There’s security in secrecy, you know.’

‘You managed that all right, Farleigh. Tearing out people’s tongues tends to frighten everyone who knows them. Tell me, did you steal to order, or would any genuine valuable antiques satisfy your customer?’

‘You are asking questions, Angel.’

‘You’re surely retiring now. It hardly matters what you tell me.’

Farleigh sighed, then said, ‘If the pickings looked good and plentiful enough, and there were at least two ways of escaping in the event of being surprised by the owners or the cops, I would consider it.’

‘Interesting,’ Angel said. ‘That’s the Hermann Lamm method.’

Farleigh looked at him thoughtfully for a second. He looked as if he was going to reply but changed his mind. Instead he turned to Ahmed. ‘Come on, lad. Hurry up.’

Ahmed glanced at him, finished pushing the bundles of bank notes into the deed box, lifted over the deed box lid, but it wouldn’t close. He opened it again and began to rearrange the bundles.

Farleigh watched him for a few seconds. ‘Hurry up,’ he screamed, then he looked at Angel. ‘Help him lock that frigging deed box.’

Angel pulled out a couple of bundles of the bank notes. ‘These won’t go in.’

Farleigh snatched them from him and stuffed them in his jacket pocket.

Angel finally lifted over the deed box lid, applied his weight to it and Ahmed turned the key. It was locked. Farleigh dragged the box off the desk and put it by the door. ‘I’ll take my keys, Angel, thank you. Throw them. Very carefully.’

Angel did so.

Farleigh caught the keys and, with a satisfied nod, bounced them in his hand and dropped them into his pocket. Then he turned to the constable and said, ‘Show me your handcuffs, lad.’

The constable hesitated, looked at Angel, who nodded. He took them out of the pocket on his belt and held them up.

Farleigh said, ‘Right. Show me the key.’

The constable dug into his pocket and produced the key.

‘Throw it,’ Farleigh said, then with a menacing stare added, ‘very carefully.’

Farleigh caught it and put it in his pocket. ‘Now put your right wrist in one cuff. Fasten it. Tight.
Tighter
. Now go over to that radiator. Thread it round the securing bracket.’

The constable obeyed. There was nothing else he could do.

‘Now then,
you
, Angel,’ Farleigh said. ‘Go over there and put your left wrist in the other cuff.’

Angel didn’t move.

Farleigh glared at him. ‘Move it.’

Angel glared back at him and said, ‘No. You’re not taking any of my officers with you as hostage.’

Farleigh’s face went scarlet. He breathed very deeply. ‘Put your frigging wrist in that frigging cuff.’

Angel’s chest burned like an open furnace. He didn’t move.

‘I’m telling you,’ Farleigh said, ‘if you don’t put your hand in that cuff before I count to—’

Suddenly the phone rang.

All eyes turned to look at it.

It kept ringing.

Farleigh screamed an expletive, reached over the desk and, with one hand, snatched at it, gave it a sharp pull, tearing the wires out of the connection box on the wall, and threw it into the corner of the office. He turned back to Angel, his hand pointing the weapon at him, his eyes flashing like a madman’s, perspiration running down both his temples and said, ‘You have five seconds to put your hand in that cuff.’

‘I’ll go as your hostage,’ Angel said quietly. ‘But leave my men alone.’

Angel’s self-control made Farleigh angrier. He pushed Ahmed roughly out of the way and came right up close to Angel, grabbing him by the collar of his suit.

Angel’s chest was heaving.

Farleigh said, ‘If you don’t put your frigging hand in that cuff in three seconds, I will kill you. And you know I can do it.’

Ahmed could stay silent no longer. ‘I’ll be the hostage, sir,’ he yelled. ‘Do it, sir. I’ll be the hostage. Honestly, sir. Willingly.’

The constable turned from the radiator and said, ‘Don’t be a fool, sir.’

Angel indeed knew that Farleigh could kill him. He had already murdered three people, another murder would make little difference to his sentence when he was caught. He looked into his eyes. They were the eyes of a madman.

Farleigh stuck the gun into Angel’s chest and said, ‘I’m counting up to three.
One
.’

Ahmed screamed, ‘Sir! Sir!’

Farleigh’s eyes flashed as he jabbed the weapon deeper into Angel’s chest.

Angel looked down at it. He sighed. A smile developed across his face.

‘It’s all right, Ahmed,’ Angel said. ‘He’s not going to kill me.’

Farleigh’s face muscles tightened. ‘I assure you that I will,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘
Two
,’ he bawled.

‘
Please
, sir!’

‘You have one second to live, Angel,’ Farleigh said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Angel said. He made a grab for Farleigh’s left hand, gave it a twist, pushed his knee into Farleigh’s stomach. Farleigh groaned and bent forward, causing his jaw to come in contact with Angel’s left fist. The weapon dropped on to the floor. Farleigh went down on his knees. Angel put his knee and all his weight on to his back and Farleigh was on the floor on his face.

‘Ahmed,’ Angel said, ‘there’s some handcuffs in the middle drawer of the desk.’

Ahmed quickly found them, dashed over, dropped on to his knees and closed them round Farleigh’s wrists as Angel held on to them.

Angel and Ahmed then stood up, breathing heavily.

Farleigh stayed on the floor, wriggling and shouting every obscenity he knew, and he knew plenty.

The constable turned away from the wall and said, ‘Bloody hell. That was damned risky.’

PC Ahaz nodded and said, ‘Why didn’t he just pull the trigger and kill us all, sir?’

Angel bent down and picked up the weapon. ‘Simple. It wasn’t a bit risky, lad, or else I wouldn’t have done it. When he came up close to me and pushed this thing into my chest, it didn’t have the cold, hard feel of steel. Then I remembered. He was a follower of the Hermann Lamm method. The gun was not made of steel at all. Then it brought to mind all the soap that had been disappearing in the station this last three days? Also I asked myself, why was he so keen to have a tin of black shoe polish to keep his shoes polished? And where had the missing part of the radiator outside the CID office disappeared to? Farleigh had been accumulating these bits to make himself a lookalike gun. That’s the Hermann Lamm method. You should learn your criminal history, lads. Lamm used a lookalike wooden gun to bluff his escape out of Utah State Prison in 1917.’

Angel’s mobile phone suddenly began to ring. He pushed down into his jacket pocket to find it.

It was Harker. He sounded impatient. ‘I tried to reach you in your office. What are you messing about at?’

Angel stroked his chin. ‘Phone’s out of order, sir.’

‘
Well get it fixed
,’ Harker said. ‘You should look after police equipment. There’s DI Lord from Skiptonthorpe urgently trying to reach you. Whatever you’re doing, drop it. Phone him back immediately. He said that he has some information that might assist you.’

‘Right, sir.

Angel ended the call from Harker and immediately found Lord’s mobile number from his phone’s memory. He clicked on it.

Farleigh was still writhing on the floor, growling like a tiger, occasionally trying to rise to his feet. PC Ahaz was standing over him and watching him carefully. The other PC was still fastened to the radiator and wishing he wasn’t.

‘Ah, there you are, Angel,’ Lord said. The tone of his voice indicated that he wasn’t his usual buoyant self. ‘I don’t know how you are doing … but I’ve had a bit of a turn around here. I’ve had Muldoon’s daughter all over me in tears. She’s retracted her statement. It wasn’t Stefan Muldoon’s son-in-law who murdered him. When I last spoke to you, the evidence from her seemed to be cut and dried. She’s gone back to her husband, his son-in-law. They’ve made it up. She says she only said what she did to get her husband to take more notice of her. Now I’m left without a clue and without a prisoner.’

Angel smiled. ‘That’s all right, Lord. I’ve got the guilty one here, and I’ve all the proof you’ll need and a tin box full of motive.’

There was a pause. ‘Really? That’s great,’ Lord said, sounding mortified. Then brightly he said, ‘It’s amazing what you can achieve when two forces work together as a team.’

In the Midst of Life
Choker
The Man in the Pink Suit
The Importance of Being Honest
Mantrap
Salamander
Sham
The Umbrella Man
The Man who Couldn’t Lose
The Curious Mind of Inspector Angel
Find the Lady
The Wig Maker
Murder in Bare Feet
Wild About Harry
The Cuckoo Clock Scam