Mystery of Mr. Jessop (21 page)

GA. JESSOP

1. What was he doing at T.T.'s?

2. Was he a gambler?

3. Why was there £5,000 in foreign currency at his flat, and where did it come from?

GB. JACKS

1. Was he at the cinema, as stated, at the relevant time?

GC. WRIGHT

1. Was he motoring at the relevant time?

General query:

1. What were the actual relations between the partners and between them, and each of them, and their manager?

General observations:

1. Firm in low water financially.

2. No one but Jessop had seen the necklace for two or three weeks.

3. Check up on Wright's history as boxer, and secure impressions of his fingerprints to see if they are on record.

H. SUMMER-HOUSE AND OCCUPANTS
(unknown)

1. Were they accomplices of Wynne? Friends of Jessop? T.T.'s scouts? Unknowns after the necklace on their own account? Unknowns having nothing to do with what happened?

2. How the mischief to find out who they were?

J. MR. PATTERSON

1. Check up on story he was seen in Paris after ostensibly leaving for New York.

2. Is there anything in the fact that his special cigars were left both in T.T.'s place and in Miss May's flat?

General note:

Patterson seems to have had an eye on the necklace. Query: Was it more than an eye?

K. CHARLEY DICKSON

1. Check his statement he was too busy the day of the fete at Hastley Court to have had any time for making arrangements with Jessop.

2. See if Wright can identify him. If not, who was it introduced himself to Wright and Jessop as the duchess's secretary, giving Dickson's name?

3. Dickson lost his raincoat Saturday night. Is there anything in that? If so, what? He had been drinking, by report of constable on beat. If he left it at any pub near, that would show where he actually got his drink if the Cut and Come people are telling the truth in saying it wasn't there. (N.B. Cut and Come staff seldom tell the truth.)

4. Apparently sound alibi for the forcible entry to the Hilda May flat, but check up with Mr. Logan for this.

L. UNKNOWN YOUNG MAN noticed by Brush Hill constable, and considered by him to have behaved suspiciously

1. Does he come in?

2. If so, where?

M. GENERAL CLUES

MA.
Evening Announcer
with football results missing.

1. Why?

2. What became of missing pages?

MB
. Copy of
Upper Ten
two weeks old, with snap of duchess.

1. Why had Jessop this in his pocket?

MC
. Automatic pistol found near Jessop's body.

1. Jessop and Jacks possess one of same make and calibre. Had they another, similar, and, if so, did Jessop take it with him to Brush Hill?

2. Miss May said by Dickson to have an automatic in her possession. None found in flat. Check up on this when she can be questioned.

MD
. Fragment of steel, probably from knife blade.

1. Whose knife?

ME
. Thumb of rubber glove caught on trigger of pistol.

1. What chance of finding the glove?

Having typed this last sentence, Bobby put the machine away, and, getting out the copy of the
Upper Ten
found at Brush Hill, he brooded over it so long that presently, hypnotised by that long succession of photographs of supersmart women on super-shiny paper, he fell asleep. So he put the paper away and went discontentedly to bed.

Monday morning saw all the usual routine of a Scotland Yard inquiry in full spate. Every detail was being checked, so that the smallest discrepancy, the tiniest point left unexplained, might be carefully and fully examined and reported on. Every police force throughout the country was on the look-out for the missing Wynne; special attention was being given to tracing the history of the pistol found by the murdered man's side from the moment it left its factory of origin. Ulyett himself visited Jessop's lawyers and had a long conversation with them, from which it appeared that his affairs were certainly embarrassed, though to what extent the lawyers did not know. But he had consulted them about raising a loan, and they had been obliged to point out that the security he had to offer was not very satisfactory, especially as he did not wish to give any details of the Mayfair Square business, beyond his personal statement that it was exceedingly prosperous. The loan was, he had explained, to be entirely private to himself; he did not even wish his business associates to know of it; and so there the negotiations had come to an end.

At all ports, too, a sharp look-out was being kept, and every dealer in precious stones all over the country, all over Europe indeed, was already on the look-out for the Fay Fellows necklace, or for loose stones that might have come from it had it been broken up. And Inspector Ferris was down in the Hastley Court district, his errand there to confirm Charley Dickson's statement that Colonel Edwardes, who lived near by, had seen and recognised Jessop on the day of the garden fete, and that Charley himself had been so busy, and so much in public view, as to have had no opportunity for arranging private meetings between Jessop and the duchess – or anyone else, for that matter.

On both points Charley's story received most satisfactory confirmation. Colonel Edwardes remembered distinctly having seen Mr. Jessop, whom he knew quite well, having wondered whether he was there as a guest or on business, since the duchess's love of jewellery and fondness for little deals in it were well known, and having mentioned the incident to Charley when he happened to meet him a day or two later at the Cut and Come Again, of which club Colonel Edwardes was also a member – though, as he was careful to explain, he, like all the other members, hardly ever went there. By chance also it came out in the course of the chat with Ferris that he had seen Charley in the club on the Saturday evening. He had dropped in for a few minutes before going on to dine with a friend at Wimbledon, and he remembered having seen Charley there.

“The young ass,” said the colonel smilingly, “had been having more than he could carry comfortably. I told him so, and he said he was fed up with everything and he was going to get jolly well soaked, if it took him all evening. I told the people there they oughtn't to serve him, and they said they wouldn't.”

That seemed also conclusive proof that the Cut and Come Again staff had not been telling the truth when they denied Charley's presence that evening, but, then, that didn't matter much, as anyhow no one ever believed anything they said until it had been fully confirmed.

Other inquiries Ferris made seemed to prove a general agreement that on the occasion of the Hastley Court fete Charley had in fact been in evidence the whole afternoon till the last guest had departed, and long afterwards as well, though it also came out that the hostess herself had retired from the scene once or twice for brief intervals, for a respite from perpetual hand-shaking. It seemed probable, too, though not quite certain, that one of these intervals had been about the time when Mr. Jessop had arrived. But it was clear that, immediately before, during, and after the duchess's brief absence, Charley had been specially busy over some dispute or confusion caused by a threat of a shortage in the supply of strawberry ices.

Apparently too, even to Hollywood itself the news had been cabled, and there Miss Fay Fellows was dividing her time between fits of passionate weeping (see photographs in every paper, magazine, and journal in the whole wide world), granting interviews between sobs to newspaper men, and sending imperative cables to various official personages, insisting on the instant recovery of her necklace, or, in default, a demand for full compensation from the British Government. Also she instructed her agent to demand that her salary should be immediately put back to its former level.

“Big publicity,” she said to him, “and the best sort, because there's not even any possible smell of fake about it. Knocks even a pathetic divorce from a brutal husband.”

“Yes, it's fine; just all honey, cream, and jam,” agreed the agent, who once himself had nearly been a poet before he decided to become rich instead.

The Yard was busy, also, following up all the usual false trails presented to it by circumstance and by too zealous members of the public. Bobby, sent to check a story that a man answering Wynne's description had been seen examining a diamond necklace in a cafe at Hammersmith, soon found that the only foundation for it was that two girls there had been trying on in turn a string of beads one of them had just bought at a sixpenny bazaar; found, too, that this left him with a little time to spare, and availed himself of it for an investigation of his own – a side-line, so to say, he had received permission to follow up.

“It is just possible,” Ulyett had admitted, “that those bits of ends of hair of different kinds reported in the summerhouse may point to a hairdresser's assistant having been there, but that's pretty wide, isn't it?”

Bobby agreed that it was, but thought there was a chance, and now, according to instructions, reported at Brush Hill police station and there was given the name of the constable who had mentioned the incident of the young man in a hurry with an apparent dislike to being looked at by policemen. The constable in question was a married man, but lived quite close, so Bobby went along to his home, and there found him, since he did not go on duty again till two, spending a placid and domestic hour helping his wife peel the potatoes for dinner. He remembered the incident perfectly, but thought it was now cleared up.

“Young chap of the name of Young – Nolly Young – we've had an eye on for some time,” he explained. “He's been in trouble once or twice for pinching bicycles, and now he seems to have taken to snatching women's bags and purses in crowds. Makes a speciality of Fascist meetings, because there's generally a row and a chance to pick up something. He lives in Makin Street, the turning out of West Lane by the Red Lion, and when he saw I saw him he just dodged in home. Must have; the street was empty, and there wasn't anywhere else he could have gone. You can take it from me the artful young dodger wanted me to see him, so I should think he was safe at home and out of mischief, while really he just slipped out again by the back door and off to a Fascist meeting there was that night to see what he could pick up. Sort of establishing an alibi beforehand, if you see what I mean.”

“Yes, I see the idea,” Bobby agreed. “They do play that kind of trick sometimes; you have to look out for it. You didn't actually recognise him, though?”

“No; didn't give me a chance to see his face, but it must have been him because of his getting out of sight so quick.”

“What about the pub?” Bobby asked. “Couldn't he have slipped in there?”

“Not without crossing the road, and then I should have seen him,” answered the other. “Bound to.”

“Seems O.K., but we had better check up on his movements perhaps,” said Bobby, and thanked his informant, and then went back to the police station and left a message asking the local C.I.D. inspector to do this, if he agreed that it was worth while.

Then he went out again and found the sweet shop of which the name was on the paper bag discovered with the bits of ends of hair in the summer-house of the unoccupied residence next door to The Towers.

There Bobby explained who he was; and, when the awe and excitement two youthful and giggling assistants experienced at this announcement had subsided, went on to say he was trying to trace a customer who might have bought chocolates from them on Saturday night.

“We're that busy Saturday nights,” said one assistant.

“There isn't so much as time to look at who you're serving,” confirmed the other.

“There's some we know, if you can tell us his name,” said the first.

“Or what he looks like,” added the second. “Is it a man or a girl?”

“His name and what he looks like are what I'm trying to get at,” explained Bobby, “only I think most likely it's a girl I want to find.”

They waited expectantly, trustfully; a little bewilderedly, too.

“You see, we've a lot of customers; nip in and out, they do,” said the first assistant.

“Some of them,” said the second meditatively, “are that funny, you wouldn't believe.”

“When they're boys, that cheeky,” added the first, not without appreciation.

“When it's girls,” continued the second, a little bitter now, “watching all the time to see it's full weight, and if you don't give under now and then – well, where are you when it comes to stocktaking?”

“That's right,” agreed her colleague.

Bobby produced his paper bag.

“Nothing about that you can recognise, I suppose?” he asked.

“Is it – fingerprints?” asked one with a little gasp.

“Are there – blood-stains?” inquired the other, with her eyes open to the very widest.

However, further questioning established that “dozens and dozens” of customers had gone away with exactly similar bags on the Saturday night. .

“Quarter of cream chocs, cheap line,” was the expert verdict finally pronounced.

“One of your customers a young lady employed at a hairdresser's?” Bobby asked.

But they had no knowledge of any such customer.

Bobby thanked them and retired. It had been a long shot, and it had failed, as was the well-established nature of long shots. No great likelihood that the assistants in the confectioner's should have known the occupation of any one customer, but it had been worth trying. Now another trail must be followed. A directory had given him the names of various hairdressing establishments in the neighbourhood, and he set himself to visit them all in rotation, asking for a young lady assistant whose name he thought might be Jones, but he wasn't sure. She had been seen buying chocolates in a shop he named on Saturday night, and she might be in a position to give him some information he needed if he could find her, though of course nothing to do with her personally. At the first two or three shops he visited he had no luck. Many of the assistants bought chocolates at times, but none, it seemed, at that special shop mentioned, last Saturday night.