The Hand in the Dark
The girl hesitated perceptibly before answering the question.
"Perhaps I might have done so but for your recognition of my mother,"
she said at length, in a low tone.
"I fail to see how that affected your own position."
"It seemed to me then that it did," she responded in a firmer tone. "I
knew that my story sounded improbable, but after learning what you knew
about my mother it seemed to me that you would be even less likely to
believe me, so I thought the best thing I could do was to keep silence,
and trust to the truth coming to light in some other way."
The recollection of the incidents of his visit to the moat-house came
thronging into Merrington's mind at this reply.
"Did you see your mother when you got downstairs on the night of the
murder?" he asked.
"Not at first. She came in afterwards."
"How long afterwards?"
The girl, struck by a new note in his voice, looked at him with horror
in her widened eyes.
"I understand what you mean," she replied, "but you are wrong--quite
wrong. My mother knows nothing whatever about it. She did not even know
that I had been upstairs. She is as innocent as I am."
"That does not carry us very far," said Merrington coldly, rising to his
feet and touching a bell in front of him. "I do not believe you have
told all."
CHAPTER XXIV
Strong in his conviction that the story of Hazel Rath was largely the
product of an hysterical imagination, Merrington dismissed it from his
mind and devoted all his energies to the search for Nepcote. The task
looked a difficult one, but Merrington did not despair of accomplishing
it before the day came round for the adjourned hearing of the charge
against the girl. He knew that it was a difficult matter for a wanted
man to remain uncaptured in a civilized community for any length of time
if the pursuit was determined enough, and in this instance the military
police were assisting the criminal authorities.
Merrington's own plans for Nepcote's capture were based on the belief
that he had not the means to get away from London unless the Heredith
necklace was still in his possession. As that seemed likely enough,
Nepcote's description was circulated among the pawn-brokers and
jewellers, with a request that anyone offering the necklace should be
detained until a policeman could be called in. He also had Nepcote's
former haunts watched in case the young man endeavoured to approach any
of his friends or acquaintances for a loan. Having taken these steps in
the hope of starving Nepcote into surrender if he was not caught in the
meantime, Merrington next directed the resources at his command to
putting London through a fine-tooth comb, as he expressed it, in the
effort to get hold of his man.
But it was to chance that he owed his first indication of Nepcote's
movements since his disappearance. He was dictating official
correspondence in his private room at Scotland Yard three days after his
visit to Lewes, when a subordinate officer entered to say that a man had
called who wished to see somebody in authority. It was Merrington's
custom to interview callers who visited Scotland Yard on mysterious
errands which they refused to disclose in the outer office. The
information he received from such sources more than compensated for the
occasional intrusion of criminals with grudges or bores with public
grievances.
The man who followed the janitor into the room was neither the one nor
the other, but a weazened white-faced Londoner, with a shrewd eye and
the false, cringing smile of a small shopkeeper. He explained in the
strident vernacular of the Cockney that his name was Henry Hobbs--"Enery
Obbs" was his own version of it--and he kept a pawnbroker's shop in the
Caledonian Road. It was his intention to have called at Scotland Yard
earlier, he explained, but his arrangements had been upset by a domestic
event in his own household.
"They've kep' me runnin' about ever since it happened," he added,
bestowing a wink of subtle meaning upon the pretty typist who had been
taking Merrington's correspondence. "The ladies--bless their
'earts--always make a fuss over a little one."
"When it is legitimate," Merrington gruffly corrected. "Miss Benson," he
said, turning to the typist, who sat in a state of suspended animation
over the typewriter at the word where he had left off dictating, "you
can leave me for a little while and come back later. Now my man," he
went on, as the door closed behind her, "I've no time to waste
discussing babies. Tell me the object of your visit."
The little man stood his ground with the imperturbable assurance of the
Cockney.
"We thought of calling it Victory 'Aig. Victory, because our London lads
seem likely to finish off the war in double-quick time, and 'Aig after
our commander, good old Duggie 'Aig, whose name is every bit good enough
for _my_ baby. What do _you_ think? Don't get your 'air off, guv'nor,"
Mr. Hobbs hastily protested, in some alarm at the expression of
Merrington's face, "I'm coming to it fast enough, but my head is so full
of this here kiddy that I hardly know whether I'm standing on my 'ead or
my 'eels. It's like this 'ere: a few days ago there was a young man come
into my shop to pawn his weskit. I lent him arf-a-crown on it and he
goes away. But, yesterday afternoon he comes back to pawn, a little
pencil-case, on which I lends him a shilling. Now, I shouldn't be
surprised if this young man wasn't the young man we was warned to look
out for as likely to offer a pearl necklace."
"What makes you think so?"
"By the description. I didn't notice him much at first, but I did the
second time, perhaps because I'd just been reading over the 'andbill
before he come in. He looks a bit the worse for wear since it was drawn
up--hadn't been shaved and seemed down on his luck--but I should say it
was the same man, even to the bits of grey on the temples. Bin a bit of
a dandy and a gentleman before he run to seed, I should say."
"What makes you think that?" asked Merrington, who had scant belief in
the theory that gentility has a hallmark of its own.
"Not his white hands--they're nothing to go by. It was his clothes. I
was a tailor in Windmill Street before I went in for pawnbroking, and I
_know_. This chap's suit hadn't been 'acked out in the City or in one of
those places in Cheapside where they put notices in the window to say
that the foreman cutter is the only man in the street who gets twelve
quid a week. They hadn't come from Crouch End, neither. They was
first-class West End garments. It's the same with clothes as it is with
thoroughbred hosses and women--you can always tell them, no matter how
they've come down in the world. And it's like that with boots too. This
chap's boots hadn't been cleaned for days, but they were _boots_, and
not holes to put your feet into, like most people wear."
"You made no effort to detain him?"
"How could I? He didn't offer the necklace, or say anything about
jewels, so I had no reason for stopping him. I could see 'e was as
nervous as a lady the whole time he was in the shop, so before I gave
him a shilling for his pencil I marked it with a cross as something to
'elp the police get on his tracks in case he is the man you're after.
When he left I went to my door to see if there was a policeman in sight,
but of course there wasn't. I doubt if he'd have got him, though. He was
off like a shot as soon as he got the shilling--down a side street and
then up another, going towards King's Cross. Here's the pencil-case he
pawned. I didn't bring the weskit, but you can 'ave it if it's any good
to you."
Merrington glanced carelessly at the little silver pencil-case, and
after asking the pawnbroker a few questions he permitted him to depart.
Then he touched his bell and sent for Detective Caldew.
Half an hour later Caldew emerged from his chief's room in possession of
the pawnbroker's story, with the addition of as much authoritative
counsel as the mind of Merrington could suggest for its investigation.
Caldew did not relish the task of following up the slender clue. He had
not been impressed by the relation of Mr. Hobbs' supposed recognition of
Nepcote, although as a detective he was aware that unlikely statements
were sometimes followed by important results. But the element of luck
entered largely into the elucidation of chance testimony. There were
some men in Scotland Yard who could turn a seeming fairy tale into a
startling fact, but there were others who failed when the probabilities
were stronger. Caldew accounted himself one of these unlucky ones.
But luck was with him that day. At least, it seemed so to him that
evening, as he returned to Holborn after a long and trying afternoon
spent in the squalid streets and slums of St Pancras and Islington. The
goddess of Chance, bestowing her favours with true feminine caprice, had
taken it into her wanton head, at the last moment, to accomplish for him
the seemingly impossible feat of tracing the pawnbroker's marked
shilling, through various dirty hands, to the pocket of the man who had
pawned the pencil-case. Whether she would grant him the last favour of
all, by enabling him to prove whether this man and Nepcote were
identical, was a point Caldew intended to put to the proof that night.
Caldew was in high good humour with himself at such a successful day's
work, and he alighted from the tram with the intention of passing a
couple of hours pleasantly by treating himself to a little dinner in
town before returning to Islington to complete his investigations. He
wandered along from New Oxford Street to Charing Cross by way of Soho,
scanning the restaurant menus as he passed with the indecisive air of a
poor man unused to the privilege of paying high rates for bad food in
strange surroundings.
The foreign smells and greasy messes of Old Compton Street repelled his
English appetite, and he did not care to mingle with the herds of
suburban dwellers who were celebrating the fact that they were alive by
making uncouth merriment over three-and-sixpenny tables d'hotes and
crude Burgundy and Chianti in the cheap glitter of Wardour Street. As a
disciplined husband and father, Caldew's purse did not permit of his
going further West for his refection, so when he reached Charing Cross
he turned his face in the direction of Fleet Street. He had almost made
up his mind in favour of a small English eating-house half-way down the
Strand, when he encountered Colwyn.
The private detective was wearing a worn tweed-suit and soft hat, which
had the effect of making a considerable alteration in his appearance. He
was about to enter the eating-house, but stopped at the sight of Caldew
looking in the window, and advanced to shake hands with him.
"Thinking of dining here, Caldew?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Caldew. "It seems a quiet place."
"It certainly has that merit," responded Colwyn, glancing into the empty
interior of the little restaurant. "You had better dine with me if you
have nothing better to do. I should like to have a talk with you."
Caldew expressed a pleased acquiescence. He had not seen the private
detective since he had taken him a copy of Merrington's notes of his
interview with Hazel Rath, and he wished to know whether Colwyn had made
any fresh discoveries in the Heredith case.
At their entrance, a waiter reclining against the cash desk sprang into
supple life, and with a smile of prospective gratitude sped ahead up the
staircase, casting backward glances of invitation like a gustatory siren
enticing them to a place of bliss. He led them into a room overlooking
the Thames Embankment, hung up their hats, took the wine card from the
frame of the mirror over the mantelpiece, wrote down the order for the
dinner, and disappeared downstairs to get the dishes.