The Charing Cross Mystery, J. S. Fletcher [portable ebook reader .txt] 📗

she was highly indignant at any suspicions being cast upon her, and still more so, rose to a pitch of most virtuous indignation when he told her that he’d got a warrant for her arrest and that she’d have to go with him. During a brief interchange of remarks she declared that if her bankers at Manchester had returned her cheque unpaid it must have been merely because they hadn’t realised certain valuable securities which she’d sent to them, and that if Malladale had presented his cheque a few days later it would have been all right. Now, that was all bosh!⁠—Hannaford, of course, had been in communication with the bankers; all they knew of the lady was that she had opened an account with them while staying at some hotel in Manchester, and that she had drawn all but a few pounds of her balance the very day on which she had got the necklace from Malladale and fled with it from Sellithwaite. Naturally, Hannaford didn’t tell her this⁠—he merely reiterated his demand that she should go with him. She assented at once, only stipulating that there should be no fuss⁠—she would walk out of the hotel with him, and he and his satellites could come back and search her belongings at their leisure. Then Hannaford⁠—who, between you and me, Hetherwick, had an eye for a pretty woman!⁠—made his mistake. Her bedroom opened out of the sitting-room in which he’d had his interview with her; he was fool enough to let her go into it alone, to get ready to go with him. She went⁠—and that was the very last Hannaford ever saw of her!”

“Made a lightning exit, eh?” remarked Hetherwick.

“She must have gone instantly,” asserted Hollis. “A door opened from the bedroom into a corridor⁠—she must have picked up hat and coat and walked straight away, leaving everything she had there. Anyway, when Hannaford, tired of waiting, knocked at the door and looked in, his bird was flown. Then, of course, there was a hue-and-cry, and a fine revelation. But she’d got clear away, probably by some side door or other exit, and although Hannaford, according to his own account, raked London with a comb for her, she was never found. Vanished!”

“And the necklace?” inquired Hetherwick.

“That had vanished too,” replied Hollis. “They searched her trunks and things, but they found nothing but clothing. Whatever she had in the way of money and valuables she’d carried off. And so Hannaford came home, considerably down in the mouth, and he had to stand a good deal of chaff. And if he found this woman’s picture in a recent paper⁠—well, small wonder that he did cut it out! I should say he was probably going to set Scotland Yard on her track!⁠—for, of course, there’s no time-limit to criminal proceedings.”

“This is the picture he cut out,” observed Hetherwick, producing it from his pocketbook. “But you say you never saw the woman?”

“No, I never saw her,” assented Hollis, examining the print with interested curiosity. “So, of course, I can’t recognise this. Handsome woman! But you meet me at my office⁠—close by⁠—tomorrow morning, at ten, and I’ll take you to our police-station. Gandham will know!”

Gandham, an elderly man with a sphinx-like manner and watchful eyes, laughed sardonically when Hollis explained Hetherwick’s business. He laughed again when Hetherwick showed him the print.

“Oh, aye, that’s the lady!” he exclaimed. “Not changed much, neither! Egad, she was a smart ’un, that, Mr. Hollis!⁠—I often laugh when I think how she did Hannaford! But you know, Hannaford was a softhearted man. At these little affairs, he was always for sparing people’s feelings. All very well⁠—but he had to pay for trying to spare hers! Aye, that’s her! We have a portrait of her here, you know.”

“You have, eh?” exclaimed Hetherwick. “I should like to see it.”

“You can see it with pleasure, sir,” replied the detective. “And look at it as long as you like.” He turned to a desk close by and produced a big album, full of portraits with written particulars beneath them. “This is not, strictly speaking, a police photo,” he continued. “It’s not one that we took ourselves, ye understand⁠—we never had the chance! No!⁠—but when my lady was staying at the White Bear, she had her portrait taken by Wintring, the photographer, in Silver Street, and Wintring was that suited with it that he put it in his window. So, of course, when her ladyship popped off with Malladale’s necklace, we got one of those portraits, and added it to our little collection. Here it is!⁠—and you’ll not notice so much difference between it and that you’ve got in your hand, sir.”

There was very little difference between the two photographs, and Hetherwick said so. And presently he went away from the police-office wondering more than ever about the woman with whose past adventures he was concerning himself.

“May as well do the thing thoroughly while you’re about it,” remarked Hollis, as they walked off. “Come and see Malladale⁠—his shop is only round the corner. Not that he can tell you much more than I’ve told you already.”

But Malladale proved himself able to tell a great deal more. A grave, elderly man, presiding over an establishment which Hetherwick, unaccustomed to the opulence of provincial manufacturing towns, was astonished to find outside London, he ushered his visitor into a private room, and listened to the reasons they gave for calling on him. After a close and careful inspection of the print which Hetherwick put before him, he handed it back with a confident nod.

“There is no doubt whatever⁠—in my mind⁠—that that is a print from a photograph of the woman I knew as the Honourable Mrs. Whittingham,” he said. “And if it has been taken recently, she has altered very little during the ten years that have elapsed since she was here in this town.”

“You’d be glad to see her again, Mr. Malladale⁠—in the flesh?” laughed Hollis.

The jeweller shook his head.

“I think not,” he answered. “No, I think not,