Mystery of Mr. Jessop (28 page)

“Is it cast iron?” Bobby said, for he was thinking to himself that perhaps that shaft aimed by Ferris with ironic intent had in fact hit the truth; and that possibly it was the fact that Chenery had given the pistol to Hilda with some idea of providing her with protection when she was in charge of the duchess's jewels. Hilda might have mislaid or forgotten it, and so it might – or might not – have got into someone else's hands. Or, for that matter, Denis might have taken it back. At any rate, there seemed to be more possibilities about its later ownership than Lawson was apparently prepared to consider.

“Accumulation of evidence,” Lawson was saying now. “One pointer may be wrong, but not half a dozen. He panicked, too – panicked when he knew we were on to the pistol being his.”

“Enough to make him,” agreed Bobby. “He always kept his head before,” he added.

“Another thing,” Lawson went on; “you remember we couldn't find him when we wanted him on Monday, and he wouldn't say where he was? Well, he was asked about that again.”

“Did he say this time?”

“Yes. Said he had been arranging with some big furniture removal people to do some haulage for their vans – some sort of tractor he lets out on hire.”

“Good Lord,” Bobby gasped, “more furniture vans! The case is lousy with 'em.”

“Fed up with 'em myself,” agreed Lawson. “Couldn't sit down all Sunday with any comfort, the way I got bumped about on that blessed tail-board.”

“Did Chenery explain why he didn't say so at once?” Bobby asked.

“Wanted to know if we thought he really liked our nosing round every customer he had, asking questions. Said it was enough to ruin any business, and his wasn't in any shape to stand much of that sort of thing. Don't you call it good enough to charge him on? Direct proof the pistol used was his and all.”

“Nasty look about it,” agreed Bobby, “very nasty. Holes in the picture still, though.”

“There always are,” retorted Lawson. “Charge your man as soon as your case looks good, I say, and you'll find the holes fill up as you go along. Of course, it's plain enough what they're waiting for – the necklace.”

“Shouldn't wonder,” agreed Bobby.

“Afraid,” said Lawson, “of acting too quickly and losing the blessed thing for good. Keeping off in the hope of spotting where it is. Not regular, I say. Incorrect. We've got the murderer, or as good as. Our duty is to bring him in, whether what the super calls ‘precipitate action' loses the necklace or not.”

“You're a precisian, you see.”

“Look here,” said Lawson, offended, “don't you come Oxford over me.”

“My dear chap,” protested Bobby, “what's Oxford got to do with precisian? One of the finest Parisian detectives ever lived.”

“Oh, well,” said Lawson, mollified.

“What I mean is, there are still points Treasury counsel will want to know how to answer if the defence brought them up. For one thing, what was Jessop doing at T.T.'s?”

“No good,” opined Lawson. “But what's it matter? He was there all right, wasn't he? No defence can get away from that, and we don't want to know any more.” He paused, smiled, chuckled. “Old T.T.'s fair upset about it all. Shouldn't wonder if it didn't almost scare him into turning honest. He's taken a cottage in the country – going to spend his time growing prize cabbages, he says. Offered me a job helping him move.”

“Oh,” said Bobby, interested. “Taking it on?”

“Put him off,” answered Lawson. “Don't see why I shouldn't, though. Do you? Might get to know something useful, you can never tell. If I did, I'd have a good look at the silver; might identify some of it. He offered a fiver.”

“I'm wondering,” said Bobby slowly, “where that fits into the picture.”

“It doesn't,” asserted Lawson, surprised. “Why should it?”

“I don't know,” said Bobby. “I'm wondering.”

“Lots of people,” Lawson pointed out, “wouldn't care to go on living in a house where there had been a murder – natural enough.”

“Yes, but T.T. isn't,” Bobby said. “Any other of our chaps had the same offer?”

Lawson didn't think so, but from a few inquiries Bobby made he learnt that T.T. had been hanging continuously about headquarters, inquiring what progress was being made towards the discovery of the murderer and urging greater effort. One or two men expressed the opinion that he knew more than he pretended, and that it would have been worth while charging him himself, only for the incontestable fact that he had been in the company of the police at the moment when the shot was fired.

“Might have worked it by some kind of man-trap dodge,” suggested one man, “and if it's right he didn't know Jessop, might have meant it for someone else.”

“Too many ‘mights,'” said Bobby. “They've no use for ‘mights' in the Public Prosecutor's office.”

It also came out that several others of the C.I.D. men had been asked to help in T.T.'s prospective removal. Most of them had taken the suggestion as a joke and had answered accordingly, but all agreed that T.T. seemed more nervous and agitated than ever they had known him before.

“Something biting him,” was the general verdict, and Lawson added to Bobby:

“Got half an hour to spare? What about a cup of tea?”

“I could do with it,” said Bobby, “but duty before tea. I'll slip round to –” He named a building near. “I know a chap in an office there; he'll let me use their 'phone. If I'm wanted, I'll be there.”

“Lots of 'phones here,” suggested someone.

“Not a blessed one you can use for two minutes without someone else asking how long you'll be,” grumbled Bobby.

“Going to spend all your tea interval ringing up your girl friends?” asked Lawson.

“That's right,” answered Bobby. “Only not girl friends; furniture removers – as many as I can get in touch with.”

He went off accordingly to put that project into execution, and, after considerably more than the half-hour he had mentioned, was able to establish that T.T. had made many inquiries about the cost of removals, but had proved hard to please. Every estimate submitted had been rejected, and another obtained from another firm. Also Bobby discovered that a man answering to the description of Wynne had been trying to get employment with firms in the furniture removal business, but, curiously enough, never with those firms from whom T.T. had made inquiries.

“Interesting little point,” Bobby said to himself, and, returning to the Yard, was informed that his day could be considered finished and he could go home.

Gratefully Bobby obeyed, looking forward to the quiet hour or two he would thus be able to devote to the serious and careful thinking things out that the rush and bustle of the last few days had allowed little time for. Even less time had he had for any attempt to co-ordinate the confused huddle of ascertained fact and construct therefrom the complete and satisfactory picture of events necessary before official action could be taken.

After supper, he got out again his copy of the
Evening Announcer
with the Saturday football results, and the copy of the
Upper Ten
Jessop had had in his pocket with its snap of the Duchess of Westhaven in her characteristically old-fashioned attire.

But, long and late though he brooded over them, he could find in them no revelation, discover in them no gleam of light to throw upon the problems confronting him.

“If it was that photo,” Bobby mused, “threw Jessop into the state of panic and excitement Miss May described, why? Why shouldn't she have been there? Anyhow, whoever broke into the Park Lane flat must have known the place was empty, and the duke and duchess and the staff all somewhere else.”

He had finished supper now, and, lighting a pipe, he sat down in an arm-chair and turned on the wireless to listen to a popular crooner, hoping that his brain, thus reduced to pulp, might, when it returned to normal, be fresh and clear, cleansed from all previous conceptions.

Often before he had found this a good plan when he wished to make an entirely fresh start.

The half-hour elapsed, he turned off the wireless and, getting out his carbon copy of the series of questions and notes he had jotted down previously, he began to go over them again.

And now, taking them with what he had learned that day, one fact began to emerge.

“If anyone did in fact personate the duchess,” he thought, “it would be Magotty Meg; she has every qualification, but she wasn't in the whole affair, and that's why she said she didn't hold with murder. Anyhow, it seems pretty clear what became of the necklace.”

He began to write a fresh report, and he was reading it over carefully when there entered his landlady with some question about his laundry which had just been returned with the customary additions and subtractions.

“Still worrying about things, Mr. Owen?” she said. “I'm sure it's a wonder your brain isn't upside down.”

“Oh, it is,” he assured her, “at least, it is, if mush can be upside down – a nice point that.” He paused, and pointed to his now completed report. “I think I'm right about the necklace,” he said. “Probably it's been there all the time. But as for the murder, that all depends on what a pawnbroker will have to say.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Owen,” said the landlady severely.

“I don't know that I do myself,” said Bobby, “so I'll go to bed.”

Bobby was so far trusted at headquarters that he had little difficulty next morning in obtaining the permission he asked over the 'phone to call, before reporting for duty, at that pawnbroker's shop in West Lane, Brush Hill, which stood opposite the Red Lion. He was warned, however, that this permission was to be in no way regarded as any excuse for coming on duty any later than usual, or at any rate than was absolutely necessary. It was intimated quite firmly that detective-sergeants who went wandering off on their own account were expected, all the same, to keep time like anyone else. However, it was also agreed that his full explanation as to why he wanted to go chasing round after odd pawnbrokers' shops could wait till he gave it in person, since headquarters had, after all, something else to do than listen to long rigmaroles over the 'phone.

So Bobby, making an early start, presented himself at the pawnbroker's in West Lane even before the shutters were down. But he met with a disappointment.

“Last Saturday,” said the proprietor, a Mr. Weaver, watching his assistants getting ready for the work of the day. “Oh, yes, I remember. I went off early. Had tickets for the Super-Palace Cinema for the wife and family. Good show, too. I left young Higson in charge.”

“Can I see him?” Bobby asked.

“Not got here yet,” answered Weaver. “Won't be yet awhile. Can't say when. A friend's running him up from Bournemouth in his car and as he's a commercial – the friend I mean – they're making calls on the way. Higson got knocked about a bit the other day, and he went to Bournemouth to get over it. No good having a chap behind the counter with two black eyes, a split ear, his mouth cut, and a nose like a pancake. Customers don't like it.”

“I expect not,” said Bobby. “What happened? Motorcar?”

“No, no,” answered Mr. Weaver. “Higson's a thoughtful sort of boy, very interested in politics, and he's got to be very keen on Fascism.”

“Been arguing it out with some of the Reds?” suggested Bobby.

“No-o, it wasn't that exactly. The Fascists were having a big meeting Saturday at the public hall, and Higson made up his mind to join up at it.”

“Yes?” said Bobby, slightly puzzled by this preamble.

“Well, you see,” explained Mr. Weaver, “it struck him it would be a good way to get himself introduced if he got up and asked some sort of sympathetic question, such as, ‘Did Fascism Guarantee to Stamp Sedition in the Mud?' or ‘Would Fascism Undertake to Abolish Discontent?' – something to show he believed in them and their ideas.”

“But I don't quite see...” said Bobby, still more puzzled.

“It was a misunderstanding,” explained Mr. Weaver. “When he got up to ask his question, the Fascists thought he was a Red trying to heckle.”

“Oh,” said Bobby. “What happened?” he asked interested.

“It's Plan 3, Public Meetings,” Mr. Weaver told him. “They put it in action at once – Fascism is Action, you know. Action,” he repeated admiringly. “Two of them got each one of his legs, so he couldn't get away; two more held his arms, one each, so he couldn't hit back; one punched him in the stomach, so he couldn't cry out; one hit him over the face from behind, so he couldn't see who it was; and three stood in front, so no one else could see what was happening. Then they frog-marched him to the door, face down so that he wouldn't be able to identify any of them, and threw him into the street, and two others who were on duty there kicked him in the ribs till two of the Fascist ambulance came along and took him to hospital – reported him as attacked by Red hooligans. There was a photo in the papers next day – ‘Red Outrage.' You can say what you like about the Fascists,” declared Mr. Weaver, “but they are efficient – prompt and efficient – and that's what England wants – efficiency.”

“That's right,” agreed Bobby. “So it does.”

“The Fascist Way,” said Mr. Weaver, “different from the slow old English style.”

“So it is,” agreed Bobby. “Very different.”

“It's why I like the Blackshirts,” explained Mr. Weaver. “Efficiency. Action. They don't talk; they – Act.”

“They do, don't they?” Bobby agreed once more.

“Of course,” admitted Mr. Weaver, “misunderstandings do happen sometimes.”

“Even with the best regulated Fascists,” Bobby murmured.