Four Strange Women (26 page)

Bobby went back through the gate in the fence into the passage. Marsh was feeling a bruised knee, a damaged nose, a bump rapidly growing on his forehead. On the ground lay the coil of wire in which Bobby's feet had been caught. It was the kind of trick he himself had played more than once, but he liked it none the better for that. Near by lay a long-bladed knife, ground and sharpened. An ugly weapon. He picked it up very carefully, by the point, using his handkerchief.

Marsh said in a voice that was not quite steady:—

“That was hers, only she used the hilt and not the blade.”

“Yes,” said Bobby, looking at it.

“If she had used the blade,” Marsh said, we would both be dead 'uns by now.”

“Yes,” said Bobby, once again.

“Between the shoulders,” Marsh said. “I can feel it still, that's where she gave it me.”

“I got it here,” Bobby said. He felt his throat where it was red and bruised from the blow he had received. ‘Right over the jugular,” he remarked thoughtfully.

Marsh said:—

“It was a woman. Who was she?”

“Oh, just—she,” Bobby said.

Marsh was still standing looking at the knife in Bobby's hand. He seemed unable to take his eyes from it; and the more he looked at it, the less he liked it.

“Dead as stuck pigs, both of us,” he muttered, “if she had used the other end.”

“Dead as stuck pigs,” Bobby agreed, “and without being strung up to hooks, either.”

“What? what's that?” Marsh asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Bobby answered, wondering himself why there had come into his mind so vivid a memory and image of those hooks in the ceiling of the cellar under the hall that had so strongly reminded him of those others in the old barn at home, where at one time the farmer had been accustomed to slaughter his pigs each autumn.

“She could have laid us both out in two ticks with a thing like that and no one been the wiser,” Marsh said, his fascinated gaze still upon the thin and deadly blade in Bobby's hand. “What was the idea though? If she only meant to hit us a whack, anything would have done, and why did she leave it behind?”

“Probably meant it for a hint, a warning to watch our step and keep out,” Bobby said. “Evers must have told her we were asking questions. He has his own ideas of loyalty. He had taken her pay and so he had to earn it. He will have been told how to get a message to her, if necessary. So then she got things ready for us—a coil of wire and a push-bike all ready to get away on. A push-bike is a lot safer than a motor-bike, motor bikes can be traced sometimes, more likely to be noticed, too. And this nice little tool for use, if required. I expect if I had caught up with her too quickly, I should have got six inches of it under the ribs.”

“She could have outed us both as easy as not,” Marsh muttered.

“We were safe enough, except in the last resource,” Bobby said. “Publicity is the very last thing the lady wants, and two stuck policemen would make quite a fuss.”

“All thought out seemingly,” Marsh agreed with an uneasy laugh. “Regular plan of campaign—good staff work and all that. Makes you inclined to remember Sir Harold Hannay is a soldier and a general at that.”

“Yes, I know,” agreed Bobby, frowning. “It's possible. It was well planned all right. But not beyond her, I think. I think she must be quite good at planning things.”

“Who do you mean—she?” Marsh asked.

Bobby did not answer. He was still looking at the knife he held so carefully by its extreme point.

“We'll have a try for finger-prints,” he said, “but there isn't an earthly. We aren't up against any one so simple as all that.”

“Gloves,” commented Marsh. “They all know that answer.”

In the darkness the knife blade glimmered with an evil light as Bobby held it up, turning it this way and that.

“All the same,” he said, “there is something familiar about a thing like this, something simple, understandable, something human you could almost say. It's not hidden and unknown, not like the lurking hellishness you feel behind what's going on here. For I tell you, Marsh,”—he spoke with a sudden and profound emotion that astonished even himself, “there's enough in this business to turn the stomach of Satan himself.”

Marsh did not answer. Something of the same feeling had already stirred in his own mind. Unimaginative man as he was, he was yet aware of a sense of evil things around them that passed far beyond his knowledge or experience.

“I think I feel a little sick,” he said. “I suppose it's because of knowing how easy you and me might have been done in.”

But both he and Bobby knew well enough it was no physical danger that had so shaken them.

They talked a little longer and then departed, since it did not seem to either of them that now it was worth while, now ‘she' had gone, to continue their watch.

Happy to remember that he had no duty hours to keep, Bobby slept late the next morning and was still at breakfast when he was rung up to receive the information he had asked Marsh to obtain. It was to the effect that General Sir Harold Hannay had left Midwych for London the day before and that when in London he often stayed at Hassall's Hotel, an old-fashioned but still flourishing hotel near the Haymarket.

“Better tackle him, I suppose,” Bobby decided, as he completed his more immediate business with toast and marmalade, a decision he arrived at in pursuance of his general principle that when a detective wanted information his best plan was to go and ask for it.

To Hassall's Hotel he therefore proceeded, only to learn that the general had left an hour or two previously. He had not said where he was going. Certainly he had left in a taxi, but did Bobby, the hotel asked pityingly, really suppose that an hotel porter, who probably called a taxi every five minutes of his working day, remembered all the directions given to him to repeat to the driver? Two minutes later, he would hardly know whether he had told the driver to go to Euston or Victoria, to an address in the suburbs or to a Pall Mall club. Nor could they say, nor would they if they could, at what hour Sir Harold had returned the night before. The hotel was not a detective agency, as he, Bobby, so evidently and so unreasonably supposed, nor did it in any way attempt to keep any kind of check on the movements of its guests. It was his own affair if a gentleman like Sir Harold chose to stay out till the small hours, chatting with old companions of the Great War, which was in fact precisely what had happened the night before since Sir Harold had chanced to say as much to the night porter, another old soldier, on his return. But there was no reason why that fact should be communicated to Inspector Owen, nor any reason why he should think it any business of his.

Bobby said meekly he was very sorry, and of course the hotel was perfectly right to preserve so absolute a discretion, nor did he stress the fact that now he knew all he wished to know, namely, that Sir Harold had been out very late the previous night and had thought it necessary to offer an explanation therefor to the night porter. A sure sign, Bobby felt, of an uneasy conscience and of something to conceal.

The hotel, unplacated even by this display of meekness, remarked menacingly that Sir Harold would be informed of these very strange inquiries, and, in the opinion of the hotel, Sir Harold was not likely to be pleased. In any case, added the hotel with a touch of malice in its voice, here was Miss Hannay herself, just come in, and perhaps the inspector would be good enough to ask her for any further information he required.

Bobby turned quickly. He had had his back to the door and had not seen her enter. She was standing just behind him. Evidently she had already recognized him, had perhaps heard this last remark addressed to Bobby. Tall and frowning she stood there, her dark, angry eyes beneath the strongly-marked brows, seeming as it were to engulf him in their passionate inquiry. He saw how her hand, a large, capable hand, was fiercely clenched on the small umbrella she carried, nor could he help wondering if so, the evening before, her hand had clenched a bare and shining knife. She looked tired and worn, he thought, as if she had not slept well, or had not been long in bed, with dark rings beneath her eyes to match the dark, straight brows above.

At first she did not speak, nor did Bobby, and they stood intently watching each other, alert and challenging, with growing doubt on his side, with increasing anger or defiance—or was it just simply fear?—showing on hers. But in this mutual challenge of their eyes, it was hers that first turned aside, and that Bobby thought was significant, for he did not much suppose that it would have happened so easily or so soon, had there not been some reason. Abruptly she moved, in a too obvious effort to ignore his presence. To the clerk at the reception desk, watching with discreet interest, she said:—

“Is my father here?”

“He left first thing this morning, Miss Hannay,” the clerk answered. “I was just telling this gentleman so.” Reception clerks learn to be tactful. But this remark was distinctly lacking in that useful quality. Possibly for the moment professional tact was subordinate to human mischief. Anyhow, the remark made it difficult for Hazel to pretend longer to be ignorant of Bobby's existence. He took swift advantage of the opening thus given to say to her:— “I am trying to find Sir Harold. I am hoping he may be able to help me. Could you tell me how to get in touch with him? ”

“You could write, I suppose, couldn't you?” Hazel suggested coldly. “Probably he would arrange to see you when convenient.”

“It would mean delay I am anxious to avoid,” Bobby said, watching her closely and more and more certain that she was profoundly disquieted. “It may be important,” he added. “I don't know, but it may be.”

“If you care to give me any message I will tell him when I see him,” she said. “Why important? what is it about?”

“There is some information I have,” he answered, “Sir Harold may be able to confirm or correct. It would depend on where he was last night.” At that he saw her stiffen, her face grow blank like a mask, but a mask through which her eyes burned. He said quickly, on a swift impulse:— “Where were you last night, Miss Hannay?”

She made no answer. She turned and walked away, straight out of the hotel. Bobby watched her go, saw her call a taxi, wondered whether it was fear or anger or what else that had so, as it were, chased her away with such an aspect of flight, a flight he thought not usual with her. The hall porter, an imposing person, one accustomed to speak to the great as their mentor and guide, came up very angrily to Bobby.

“Now then, what's all this?” he demanded accusingly. “You've upset that lady. Miss Hannay, that was. You've upset her.”

“Looks like it,” agreed Bobby. “I wonder why.”

The hall porter stared.

“Miss Hannay,” he repeated impressively. “Her father's General Sir Harold Hannay, he is.”

“Yes, I know,” said Bobby.

“Well, we don't like it, annoying our clients,” said the hotel porter. “Annoying our clients,” he repeated, as one might say ‘committing high treason' and then, seeing how little impressed Bobby seemed, returned to his post to welcome, with an effusion he would not otherwise have shown, a mere second lieutenant who had just come in.

Bobby went away then and all the time as he walked slowly along there wavered before him the figure of Hazel, mingling indistinctly with another figure, one that fled through darkness and shadow down a narrow passage way between fence and wall. Were they identical, he wondered; did they, in fact, merge into one another as, in his fancy, they seemed sometimes to do; and through the roar of the busy London traffic he seemed to hear distinctly the tinkle of steel on stone as a long-bladed knife fell upon a flagged path.

“On the whole,” he told himself gravely, “I prefer automatics to knives—you can miss with an automatic and generally do, but a knife thrust is apt to get home. No safety catch on a knife blade, either.”

However, he had obtained some useful information, or rather, information that might be useful when he knew how to use it. For the present he had to be content with knowing that Sir Harold had been in town the night before, that he had been out late, that therefore it was at least possible that Marsh was right in his belief. An established possibility is, however, very different from completed proof. Also Sir Harold and his daughter had not come to town together and had not kept each other informed of their respective movements, since Hazel had come to seek her father at the hotel after he had left it. Did that suggest that he had followed her to town for some reason of his own and had not known exactly where to find her? Apparently Hazel, too, had spent the night in town, since no train from Midwych could have got her here so early, and she did not seem to have used a car or to have travelled by the night train. Quite plainly, too, she had found Bobby's question disturbing when he asked her where she had been, nor had she answered it.

All these different points Bobby found interesting, even suggestive, and yet, consider them as he might, and most of the rest of the day he devoted to that task, he could not see that what he had learned took the investigation beyond that domain of vague doubt and suspicion in which he felt himself caught and held.

He wondered whether to go back to Cardiff to make another attempt to interview the Jinnie Reynolds, whose name, like that of Lady May Grayson, seemed so often to crop up in the affair. He decided that such an interview he was unlikely to obtain at present, and that in any case it would be better to wait till he knew more—if that were ever to be the case. Then there was Leonard Glynne, too, who ought to be questioned again, though again, with small prospects of useful results. But he, too, it might be wiser to leave for the present. Time allowed for quiet thought sometimes induced the reflection that speech is wise and prudent—the innocent begin to feel it more honest, the guilty that they must do something to make themselves more secure. Experience had long ago taught Bobby that often it was the best course to wait and watch for the other fellow's next move.