The Clue of the Silver Key, Edgar Wallace [interesting books to read .TXT] 📗

scullery window myself

this morning. I didn’t like to call anybody in, so I did it myself.’

 

‘The trouble in this house is that you’re always having windows broken,’

said Surefoot Smith. ‘Why didn’t you report to the police the attempt to

break into this house—Oh, I remember, Mr Lyne didn’t want it.’

 

When he went outside he made a more careful examination of the premises

in the darkness than he had ever done by daylight. He went to the trouble

of going to the back of the house, along the narrow mews, and here he saw

how easy it was for a burglar to obtain admission. The back of the house

was not protected, as most of its fellows were, by a garage block, and

the door and window were approachable for anybody who could either scale

the wall or force the door into the back courtyard. Was it a coincidence

that this attempt had been made to gain admission into Lyne’s house on

the night of—?

 

Surefoot Smith frowned. It must have been the night that Tickler was

murdered. Was there any connexion between the two events?

 

He went back to Scotland Yard to receive reports, and found that his

inquiries had produced no result. Berlin could tell him no more about Leo

Moran, and there was absolutely no news at all of Gerald Dornford.

 

He opened the safe in a corner of his little room, took out the glove and

the silver key, and laid them on the table. That key puzzled him. Was

there any special reason why its owner should have gone to the trouble of

painting it so elaborately and yet so carelessly? Any plater would have

made a better job of it.

 

The glove told him nothing. He took from the big drawer of his desk a

large sheet of virgin blotting-paper and began to work out again the sum

of his problem.

 

Tickler had been killed; old Lyne had been killed, possibly by the same

hand, though there was nothing to connect the two murders. Leo Moran was,

to all intents and purposes, a fugitive from justice, a man against whom

could be made out a prima facie charge of felony. His disappearance had

coincided, not only with the death of Lyne, but with the discovery that

Lyne’s bank account had been heavily milked.

 

Was he in Berlin at all? Somebody was very much interested in the

recovery of the bank statement, had gone to the trouble of burgling Mary

Lane’s flat to recover it—who? One man at any rate knew, or thought he

knew, that the statement was at Mary’s flat, and that man was Michael

Hennessey.

 

Mike’s conduct that afternoon had been consistent with guilty knowledge.

He knew, at any rate, the true identity of Washington Wirth. The

gentleman called Washington Wirth was a murderer, possibly a murderer

twice over.

 

In disjointed sentences Surefoot wrote down his conclusions as they were

reached; crossed out one and substituted another; elaborated some simple

proposition in his mysterious shorthand, only to cross through the

wriggly lines and begin all over again. He made a little circle that

represented Mary, another for Dick Allenby, another for Gerald Dornford,

a fourth for Leo Moran. At the bottom of the page he put a fifth circle

for Lyne. How were they connected? What was the association between the

four top circles and the fifth?

 

Between them he placed a larger O that stood for Michael Hennessey.

Michael touched Washington Wirth, he touched Mary Lane and possibly

Moran. He crossed out this last conclusion and started again.

 

Gerald Dornford touched Dick Allenby; he could draw a straight line from

Dick Allenby to the murdered man—a line that missed all and any

intermediary.

 

He got tired after a while, threw down the pencil, and sat back with a

groan. He was reaching for the key when the light went out. There was

nothing very startling and nothing very unexpected about that: the bulb

had been burning yellow for two or three days, and obviously required

replacement.

 

Surefoot Smith, in his lordly way, had demanded a fresh bulb, and the

storekeeper, in his more lordly way, had ignored the request. Without

warning, the bulb had ceased to function.

 

Surefoot was rising to his feet to reach for the bell when something he

saw stopped him dead. In the darkness the key was glowing like green

fire. He saw the handle and every ward of it. And now he understood why

it had such an odd colour—it had been treated with luminous paint.

 

He picked it up and turned it over. The under side was dull and hardly

showed, for it had not absorbed the rays of the light.

 

Surefoot went out into the corridor and summoned an officer, and a little

later a bulb was discovered and fixed. He examined the key now with

greater interest, jotting down notes upon his already overcrowded

blotting sheet. He was beginning to see daylight, but only dimly. Then

the telephone rang; he lifted the receiver and listened: then he called

the officer on duty at the door. ‘If you see Mr Allenby, send him up.’

 

He looked at his watch; it was twenty minutes past twelve, and he could

only wonder what had brought Dick to Scotland Yard at such an hour.

Possibly his gun had been recovered.

 

‘I wondered if you were here,’ said Dick, as he came into the office and

closed the door behind him. ‘I should have telephoned, but I was scared

they wouldn’t put me through to you.’

 

‘What’s the trouble?’ asked Surefoot curiously.

 

Dick smiled. ‘There isn’t any real trouble; only I’ve been—or rather,

Mary has been—called up by Hennessey’s housekeeper for information about

the gentleman.’

 

‘Hasn’t he come home?’ asked Smith quickly.

 

‘He wasn’t expected home,’ said Dick. ‘The lady called up from Waterloo

Station; she’s been there since nine with a couple of Mike’s trunks. He

was leaving for the Continent by the Havre train, and had arranged for

her to be there to meet him with his baggage. She waited till nearly

twelve, got worried, and apparently called up several people who knew

Michael, amongst them Mary. Fortunately, I was just leaving the flat when

the woman telephoned.’

 

‘Have you been to his house?’

 

Dick shook his head. ‘It wasn’t necessary,’ he said. ‘He had a furnished

flat in Doughty Street; he paid his rent and closed up the place tonight.

Obviously he was making a getaway in rather a hurry. He didn’t start

packing till this afternoon.’

 

‘After he’d seen me,’ said Surefoot. He scratched his chin. ‘That’s

strange. I can quite understand his wanting to get away—as a matter of

fact, he wouldn’t have got any farther than Southampton; I had already

notified the ports.’

 

‘You’d have arrested him?’ asked Dick, in amazement.

 

‘There’s no question of arrest, my friend,’ said Surefoot wearily.’ It

isn’t necessary to arrest everybody you want to stop going out of

England. Their passports can be out of order, the stamp can be upside

down—there are a dozen ways of keeping the money in the country.’

 

‘Did Hennessey know this?’

 

Surefoot did not answer immediately. ‘I can’t understand it,’ he said

slowly. ‘Of course he didn’t know. That wouldn’t have prevented him

catching the train.’

 

There was a knock at the door, and a pleasant looking man, whom Dick

recognized as a chief inspector, came in. ‘The Buckinghamshire police

have got a case after your own heart, Surefoot,’ he said. ‘A regular

American gang murder.’

 

Surefoot became instantly alert. ‘A gang murder, eh? What kind?’

 

‘They call ‘em ride murders, don’t they? Somebody has taken this poor

devil for a ride, shot him at close quarters, and thrown him out on the

sidewalk.’

 

‘Where was this?’

 

‘On the Colnbrook by-pass, this side of Slough. A big car passed, picked

up the man lying across the footpath with its lights, and the driver

reported to the police. He couldn’t have been dead more than half an hour

when the police got to him.’

 

‘What’s his description?’ asked Surefoot.

 

‘A big made man of forty-five,’ said the other, ‘wearing a green tie—’

 

‘That was the tie that Mike Hennessey was wearing this afternoon!’