The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation, J. S. Fletcher [best fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

her noted down as Mamselle. She had paid her rent regularly, and had remained in the house five weeks—that was all he knew about her. Had he ever seen her since? Not that he knew of—in fact, he shouldn't know her if he saw her—they were all pretty much alike, these young Frenchwomen. Did he know where she came from to his house—where she went from his house? Not he! he knew no more than what he had just told.

"What now?" asked Allerdyke as the three searchers paced dejectedly up the street. "This is doing no good—it's worse than the Hull affair. However, there's one thing suggests itself to me. Didn't you say," he went on, turning to Celia, "that you had some very good testimonials with this young woman? If so, and you've still got them, we might trace her in that way."

"I had some, and I may have them still, but you saw just now what an awful mess all my letters and papers are in," replied Celia, almost tearfully. "I always do get things like that into hopeless confusion—I never know what to destroy and what to keep, and they accumulate so. It would take hours upon hours to look for those letters, and in the meantime—"

"In the meantime," remarked Fullaway as he signalled to a taxi-cab, "there's only one thing to be done. We must go to the police. Get in, both of you, and let's make haste to New Scotland Yard."

Once more Allerdyke received an impression of the American's usefulness and practical acquaintance with things. Fullaway seemed to know exactly what to do, whom to approach, how to go about the business in hand; within a few minutes all three were closeted with a high official of the Criminal Investigation Department, a man who might have been a barrister, a medical specialist, or a scientist of distinction, and who maintained an unmoved countenance and a perfect silence while Fullaway unfolded the story. He and Allerdyke had held a brief consultation as they drove from Bloomsbury to Whitehall, and they had decided that as things had now reached a critical stage it would be best to tell the authorities everything. Therefore the American narrated the entire sequence of events as they related not only to Mademoiselle de Longarde's loss but to the death of James Allerdyke and the disappearance of the Nastirsevitch valuables. And the official heard, and made mental notes, soaking everything into some proper cell of his brain, and he said nothing until Fullaway had come to an end, and at that end he turned to Celia Lennard.

"You can, of course, describe your maid?" he asked.

"Certainly!" answered Celia. "To every detail."

"Do so, if you please," continued the official, producing a pile of papers from a drawer and turning them over until he came to one which he drew from the rest.

"A Frenchwoman," said Celia. "Aged, I should say, about twenty-six. Tall. Slender—but not thin. Of a very good figure. Black hair—a quantity of it. Black eyes—very penetrating. Fresh colour. Not exactly pretty, but attractive—in the real Parisian way—she is a Parisian. Dressed—when she left me at Hull—in a black tailor-made coat and skirt, and carrying a travelling coat of black, lined with fur—one I gave her in Russia."

"Her luggage?" asked the official.

"She had a suit-case: a medium-sized one."

"Large enough, I presume, to conceal the jewel-box your friend has told me about just now?"

"Oh, yes—certainly!"

The official put his papers back in the drawer and turned to his visitors with a business-like look which finally settled itself on Celia's face.

"You must be prepared to hear some serious news," he said. "I mean about this woman. I have no doubt from what you have just told me that I know where she is."

"Where?" demanded Celia excitedly. "You know? Where, then?"

"Lying in the mortuary at Paddington," answered the official quietly.

In spite of Celia's strong nerves she half rose in her seat—only to drop back with a sharp exclamation.

"Dead! Probably murdered. And I should say," continued the official, with a glance at the two men, "murdered in the same way as the gentleman you have told me of was murdered at Hull—by some subtle, strange, and secret poison."

No one spoke for a minute or two. When the silence was broken it was by
Allerdyke.

"I should like to know about this," he said in a hard, keen voice. "I'm getting about sick of delay in this affair of my cousin's, and if this murder of the young woman is all of a piece with his, why, then, the sooner we all get to work the better. I'm not going to spare time, labour, nor expense in running that lot down, d'you understand? Money's naught to me—I'm willing—"

"We are already at work, Mr. Allerdyke," said the official, interrupting him quietly. "We've been at work in the affair of the young woman for twenty-four hours, and although you didn't know of it, we've heard of the affair of your cousin at Hull, and the two cases are so similar that when you came in I was wondering if there was any connection between them. Now, as regards the young woman. You may or may not be aware that in Eastbourne Terrace, Paddington, a street of houses which runs alongside the departure platform of the Great Western Railway, there are a number of small private hotels, which are largely used by railway passengers. To one of these hotels, about nine o'clock on the evening of May 13th (just about twenty-four hours after you, Miss Lennard, landed at Hull), there came a man and a woman, who represented themselves as brother and sister, and took two rooms for the night. The woman answers the description of your maid—as to the man, I will give you a description of him later. These two, who had for luggage such a medium-sized suit-case as that Miss Lennard has spoken of, partook of some supper and retired. There was nothing noticeable about them—they seemed to be quiet, respectable people—foreigners who spoke English very well. Nothing was heard of them until next morning at eight o'clock, when the man rang his bell and asked for tea to be brought up for both. This was done—he took it in at his door, and was seen to hand a cup in at his sister's door, close by. An hour later he came downstairs and gave instructions that his sister was not to be disturbed—she was tired and wanted to rest, he said, and she would ring when she wanted attendance. He then booked the two rooms again for the succeeding night, and, going into the coffee-room, ate a very good breakfast, taking his time over it. That done, he lounged about a little, smoking, and eventually crossed the road towards the station—since when he has not been seen. The day passed on—the woman neither rang her bell nor came down. When evening arrived, as the man had not returned, and no response could be got to repeated knocks at the door, the landlady opened it with a master-key, and entered the room. She found the woman dead—and according to the medical evidence she had been dead since ten or eleven o'clock in the morning. Then, of course, the police were called in. There was nothing in the room or in the suit-case to establish or suggest identity. The body was removed, and an autopsy has been held. And the conclusion of the medical men is that this woman has been secretly and subtly poisoned."

Here the official paused, rang a bell, and remained silent until a quiet-looking, middle-aged man who might have been a highly respectable butler entered the room: then he turned again to his visitors.

"I want you, Miss Lennard, to accompany this man—one of my officers—to the mortuary, to see if you can identify the body I have told you of. Perhaps you gentlemen will accompany Miss Lennard? Then," he continued, rising, "if you will all return here, we will go into this matter further, and see if we can throw more light on it."

Allerdyke's next impressions were of a swift drive across London to a quiet retreat in Paddington, where, in a red-brick building set amidst trees, official-faced men conducted him and his two companions into a sort of annex, one side of which was covered with sheet glass. On the other side of that glass he became aware of a still figure, shrouded and arranged in formal lines, of a white face, set amidst dark hair … then as in a dream he heard Celia Lennard's frightened whisper—

"That's she—that's Lisette! Oh, for God's sake, take me out!"

CHAPTER XI THE RUSSIAN BANK-NOTES

The three searchers into what was rapidly becoming a most complicated mystery drove back to New Scotland Yard in a silence which lasted until they were set down at the door of the department whereat they had interviewed the high official. Celia Lennard was thoroughly upset; the sight of the dead woman had disturbed her even more than she let her companions see; she remained dumb and rigid, staring straight before her as if she still gazed on the white face set in its frame of dark hair. Allerdyke, too, stared at the crowds in the streets as if they were abstract visions—his keen brain felt dazed and mystified by this accumulation of strange events. And Fullaway, active and mercurial though he was, made no attempt at conversation—he sat with knitted forehead, trying to think, to account, to surmise, only conscious that he was up against a bigger mystery than life had ever shown him up to then.

The detective who had accompanied them to the mortuary conducted the three straight back to his chief's office—the chief, noticing the effect of the visit on Celia, hastened to give her a chair at the side of his desk, and looked at her with a lessening of his official manner. He signed to the other two to sit down, and motioned the detective to remain. Then he turned to Celia.

"You recognized the woman?" he said softly. "Just so. I thought you would, and I was sorry to ask you to perform such an unpleasant task but it was absolutely necessary. Now," he continued, taking up his bundle of papers again, "I want you to describe the man who met you and your maid on your arrival at Hull the other night. Of course you saw him?"

"Certainly I saw him," replied Celia. "And I should know him again anywhere—the scoundrel!"

The high official smiled and glanced at Fullaway.

"You are thinking, Miss Lennard, that the man you then saw is the man who accompanied your maid to the hotel in which she was found dead," he said. "Well, that may be so—but it mayn't. That is why I want you to give us an accurate description of the man you saw. You described the maid very well indeed. Now describe the man."

"I can do that quite well," said Celia, with assurance. "And I can tell you the circumstances. The steamer—the Perisco—got into the river at Hull about a quarter to nine and anchored off the Victoria Pier. We understood that she couldn't get into dock just then because of the tide, and that we must go on shore by tender. A tender came off—some of the people on board it came on our deck. There was a good deal of bustle. I went down to my cabin to see after something or other. Lisette came to me there, evidently much agitated, saying that her brother had come off on the tender to fetch her at once to their mother who was ill in London—dying. She begged to be allowed to go with him. Of course I said she might. She immediately picked up her suit-case and travelling coat out of our pile of luggage, and I went up with her on deck. She and the man—her brother, as I understood—got into a small boat which was alongside and went straight off to the pier: the tender was not leaving for shore for some time. And—that was the last I saw of her. It was all done in a minute or two."

"Now—the man," suggested the chief softly.

"A young man—about Lisette's age, I should say—twenty-seven to thirty anyway. Tallish. Dark hair, moustache, eyes, and complexion. Good-looking—in a foreign way. I had no doubt he was her brother—he looked French, though he spoke English quite well and without accent. Very respectably dressed in dark clothes and overcoat. He would have passed for a well-to-do clerk—that type. I spoke to him—a few words. He spoke well—had very polite, almost polished manners. Of course he was hurried—wanting to get Lisette