Inspector Combridge listened to this theory of the crime with the close and critical attention of one who was expert in the details of such deductions, and who desired nothing so much as that the truth should be found, by whatever means.
He had no professional jealousy of Mr. Jellipot, with whom he had been previously a.s.sociated in investigation of the criminal practices of Professor Blinkwell, in which they had learned a mutual respect and friendship, but he had the caution of one who has blundered twice already in a business in which such blunders cannot be lightly condoned.
"It sounds plausible," he said, "when you put it like that; but what about the crime having been the work of a left-handed man?"
"I suggest that Banks deliberately used his left hand, so that suspicion might fall upon Mr. Entwistle, rather than himself."
"And you think he would risk Entwistle giving him away when he found himself threatened with the capital charge for a murder with which he had had nothing to do?"
"Yes. I think he did. And I think the course of events showed that he could have done it with safety, so long as Mr. Entwistle had no cause to think that he was instigating or a.s.sisting the prosecution; or probably anything more than a vague guess -- if that -- as to who the actual criminal was."
"But I don"t think he antic.i.p.ated that Mr. Entwistle would be prosecuted, or perhaps even suspected. He would have preferred that it should remain an unsolved mystery, or been attributed to Hammerton"s desperate need for funds -- robbery leading to murder, as it so frequently does. It was only as an additional insurance against detection that he struck with the razor in his left hand.
"To use an apposite metaphor, he did not wish the lightning to come in his direction, but he provided a lightning-conductor, in the person of Mr. Entwistle, as a precaution against it if it should.
"He must have gone quietly up the stairs of number thirteen, a house where many feet would pa.s.s with little notice during the night, and knowing that he could make a good excuse if he were observed to enter.
"Had he not been noticed by one of the women on the lower floor as he left, and had not Miss Weston followed him to the window by which he retreated, he would not have thought that it would be conducive to his own security to encourage the idea of Mr. Entwistle"s guilt... And, of course, even then he would not have done so, had he known of the alibi by which the accusation could be rebuffed.
"Had Mr. Entwistle been in his room that night, I doubt whether he would have improved his position by accusing Banks, even had he been prepared to defend himself on those lines. He would have had to denounce Banks in his capacity as the alleged head of a criminal gang, and to explain his knowledge of, and a.s.sociation with him, so that the motive of the murder might be established, and in the end he would most probably have been wrongly convicted himself as a party to, if not as the actual perpetrator of the crime. He might have succeeded in involving Banks, had his accusations been credited, but he would have done no good for himself.
"I think any solicitors -- and certainly those he had instructed -- would have advised him that he had a better chance of acquittal if he should deny everything, and throw the onus of legal proof entirely upon the prosecution.
"He was saved by the fact that he was not in his room that night; and Banks has only come to his present jeopardy because I have been able to convey to Mr. Entwistle the fact that he has been what is, I believe, colloquially known as double-crossed by one whom he should have been able to trust."
The Inspector considered this, and saw two flaws in a reconstruction with which he was otherwise inclined to agree.
"There"s Bigland"s evidence," he said. "You must get over that."
"I don"t think that"s a point about which we should worry much. I never did take it very seriously, beyond that it showed that Miss Weston really had gone down the stairs in the night, which there had never been any reason to doubt.
"Did you ever know an authentic case of a man lying awake all night? No doubt there are such, but the number of people who think they have done so must be a hundred times as numerous. He may have told the truth as far as he knew. Actually, if he were restless, and inclined to wake easily, he would be more likely to notice a woman"s step, which was unusual upon those stairs, than that of a man, which was an accustomed sound."
"Yes, I should say that"s likely enough," the Inspector answered, "but what do you make of Banks risking the murder with Miss Weston in the next room? He knew she was in the house. He almost certainly knew where she slept. He had received her report that she had followed someone -- probably himself -- over the slates before."
"I agree about that," Mr. Jellipot conceded readily, "but there are one or two points which may be taken into consideration, and which diminish its force.
"In the first place, I suppose that his position was desperate. If Rabone told him, as he probably did, that it was too late to argue; perhaps even that he had already written to his general manager, and so giving him no more than a few hours to clear out, he must have known that it was then or never, and anger against the man who had resolved to betray him may have strengthened the impulse of self-preservation which urged the crime.
"But it is probable that he may not have regarded Miss Weston as so great a danger to his security as she proved to be.
"He may have planned to kill his victim by a blow so sudden that no cry would have left his lips. The ferocity of the two cuts supports this conclusion, and it is probable that his purpose was only defeated by his own subtlety. The first stroke almost reached to where the larynx would have been severed beyond the possibility of an articulate cry, and had it been struck with the full force of his right -- that is with his accustomed -- hand it is probable that William Rabone would have fallen without a sound which could have been heard by a woman presumably asleep in the next room.
"And if, as was normally probable, she had been asleep, and almost certainly undressed at that hour, he might have thought that there would be little danger that she could have followed him promptly enough even to detect the window to which he fled. And against that remote risk he provided, as far as circ.u.mstances allowed, when he struck a left-handed blow."
Chapter XLI.
INSPECTOR COMBRIDGE looked half-convinced. He said: "It looks as though there won"t be much bed for me. I think I"ll go back to the Yard, and see whether it"s not too late to have a consultation on this before morning. I"m not going to make another arrest off my own bat... Tomorrow, it"s likely I may give Mr. Banks a call."
Mr. Jellipot looked his dissatisfaction. "There"s such a thing as being cautious at the wrong time."
"So there is. And there are risks that are worse than that. What real evidence have we got? I daresay I shall interview Gracie Fortescue during the night. Fortunately she"s a lady who keeps late hours."
Inspector Combridge got up to go.
But Mr. Jellipot held to his point, with his usual mild-mannered tenacity. "And if you lose your princ.i.p.al witness by the delay? You can"t suppose Mr. Entwistle"s life will be very safe if they learn that he"s been two hours talking with us?"
"There"ll be no risk about that. Peter"s coming with me."
Mr. Entwistle, who had a lively sense of the peril ir which he stood, proved to be a willing party to this arrangement. He offered to spend the night in the compilation of a written statement of a more voluntary character than those curious doc.u.ments usually are.
He only required the previous use of Mr. Jellipot"s telephone, to inform his wife that they would not be leaving for Scotland as promptly as they had planned, but that there would be no need for alarm if he were not home during the night.
While he was at the instrument, Mr. Jellipot did not fail to remember that his own client was Francis Hammerton, and that his interests had not yet received the attention which he considered that they required.
He asked: "What are you going to do about Hammerton and the German woman?"
"I don"t know what more I can do tonight. You may be sure the search won"t be relaxed. I hope, when we"ve got Entwistle"s statement, there"ll be some pointers in that."
"I should have thought that you would have asked him that first."
Inspector Combridge, whose mind was sufficiently occupied at the moment with other aspects of the problem which confronted him, took Mr. Jellipot"s unusual acerbity with a good-humoured smile. "
So I will," he said. "If he can tell me where Driver would be most likely to go to earth, it might be useful in more ways than one."
As he spoke, Peter Entwistle came back from the adjoining room, in which the telephone was situated. He said: "They cut me off rather short. There"s a call for you, Inspector."
Inspector Combridge went to the instrument, and after a short but lively conversation, in which his voice could be heard giving instructions with an animation suggestive of active and favourable developments, he came back to say: "We haven"t got to run after Driver. Beddoes caught him in a Greek Street restaurant where he had been sitting for two hours, apparently waiting. for someone who didn"t come. Beddoes wouldn"t take him till he got up to go, hoping that some more fish might walk into the net. It"s some comfort to think that we"ve got one good man in the force. I"m not sure that I oughtn"t to recommend him to take my place when I resign in about two days" time, as I"m most likely to do... We"ve got no charge against Driver, except that he was in possession of firearms without a licence, but they can hold him for questioning for a few hours, and I daresay Peter"ll give us the right dope before we have to bring him up in the morning... And that brings me to what I promised to ask. Can you give me a pointer to where, if he"s still alive, they"d be most likely to have Hammerton hidden away?"
"No, I can"t say that I know. But if Colonel Driver"s under arrest, you"ll do well to have Cuckford watched. But I suppose you know all about that."
Inspector Combridge was obliged to say that the name conveyed no useful idea to his mind. Peter Entwistle, who was accustomed to credit the police with more omniscience than they possess, as most criminals are inclined to do, was more surprised than he would have considered it good manners to show.
"It"s the Flying School at Cuckford I mean," he explained. "I don"t know who"s supposed to own it, but it"s under Driver"s control. If you get Banks, or any of the others, badly alarmed, and don"t run them in, you"ll find that they won"t risk Croydon. They"ll put off from Cuckford without the formality of having their pa.s.sports examined."
"That"s a good tip," the Inspector answered, and, per haps not illogically, the statement gave him more confidence than he had felt previously that he was not on the wrong track for a third time. "Thanks, Jellipot," he added generously, recognizing that it was the lawyer"s urgency which had brought that information so promptly before him.
He went at that, with Peter Entwistle in his company. On arriving at the Yard he made him comfortable there, with refreshments appropriate to the occasion, and the writing materials that were equally indicated.
He had a hurried consultation with such of his colleagues as were available at that hour, with results somewhat discouraging to himself, and then gave certain instructions which resulted in the local police-sergeant at Cuckford remaining on duty long after his usual hours, and two cars of plain-clothes men, to whom firearms had been served out, leaving half an hour later, on the Cuckford road.
After that, he went out to interview Miss Gracie Fortescue, whom he was fortunate enough to find without much difficulty, and when she understood that he came in peace, and was not proposing to subject her to one of those periodic arrests by which she was required to share her earnings with the authorities of the State, she made little difficulty, finding how much he already knew, of a frank disclosure of the circ.u.mstances under which she had received a substantial bribe from Mr. Jesse Banks.
She said that he had been more expeditious than the Inspector (having a more direct and evident reason) in interviewing her after the murder. He had told her that he had been engaged in a secret investigation of great importance on behalf of the London & Northern Bank, and that it was essential that, if she were questioned by anyone, she should not disclose that he had been there during the night.
He had accompanied this statement with the enormous-seeming bribe of a hundred pounds, which he had implied was from funds placed in his hands by the bank (from which source Inspector Combridge saw that it might actually have been drawn), and that the importance of the matter at issue made this a relatively trifling amount.
At that time, she had not supposed that his presence at No. 13 could have any connection with a murder four doors away, and had accepted the money without antic.i.p.ation that she might be drawing trouble upon herself, especially as she understood that Mr. Banks was of the nature of a police officer himself, and in the confidence or the force.
When the inspector had questioned her subsequently, she had not mentioned an incident which she had already pledged herself to conceal, and which she honestly thought to have no connection with the matter to which his own enquiries were directed.
Such was her tale, and when she found that she was neither to be involved in trouble for what she had failed to disclose on the earlier occasion, nor required to disgorge the money, she readily undertook to make a written statement in confirmation of the account she had given.
Chapter XLII.
THE Cuckford Aviation and Instructional Company Limited owned a track of moorland country several hundred acres in extent, which lay, level and high, about three miles from the ancient village from which its name was derived.
It took flying pupils, for whom it provided a service of cars to bring and return them from their Cuckford lodgings, as there was no nearer accommodation. The company"s buildings consisted of a canteen, some hangars of considerable extent, and a range of barrack-like edifices which provided lodging for the permanent staff.
In separate rooms in these buildings, too closely watched for opportunity of escape, Augusta Garten and Francis had been confined, without opportunity for communications to pa.s.s between them.
They had been brought there at a late hour of the previous night, each in a closed car, and with an armed guard sitting on either hand, after they had been subjected to some preliminary questioning at the Berkshire residence of a man whom Francis heard addressed as Captain Morgan, and who was known to Miss Garten by some other names in addition, without certainty as to which, if any, had been his original property.
After arrival at Cuckford, Miss Garten had been further questioned by this gentleman, and some other of her previous a.s.sociates. The examination had not been unfriendly, and appeared to be genuinely concerned to arrive at the truth of her relations with Francis, and of her continued loyalty to the gang, and she had sustained it with sufficient success to feel some expectation that she would recover their shaken confidence, until, as the evening advanced, Captain Morgan entered her room with an expression such as she had not seen on his face before, and asked curtly: "What was the meaning of "Don"t come" in the letter you sent to Hammerton two days ago?"
The question was so abrupt, and its substance so unexpected, that even her practised duplicity could not conceal the first moment of consternation, but she recovered herself instantly to reply: "I don"t know what you mean. I never sent any letter at all."
"And that is the only explanation you have?"
"It seems to me to be a complete answer."
Captain Morgan turned, with no further word, and went out of the room. He left her wondering how that letter could have come to his knowledge, unless Francis himself had revealed it, in a last desperate effort to save himself from the danger in which he lay, and even that explanation failed when she recalled that he had only heard of it from her, and could have no exact knowledge of the wording which Captain Morgan had quoted so accurately. But if they knew for a fact that she had sent such a communication, she saw that the last hope of mercy was surely gone.
Francis, meanwhile, had been subjected to a different ordeal. He had been offered release, or, at least, to be handed over to the care of the local Cuckford police, if he would make a written confession of his complicity in the crime for which he had been convicted, and the penalty of refusal had been plainly stated.
"If you are so unreasonable as to refuse," Captain Morgan had said, "you will put me to the unpleasant necessity of a.s.sisting you to escape from the penalty of the law. We must provide you with a machine in which you can attempt to cross the Channel to such safety as may be found on the other side. We can start you off, but you will see that we cannot afterwards navigate the machine. If you should fall into the sea, which I fear would be a very probable end of your adventure, you will see that you will have perished in the endeavour to flee from an appeal in the merits of which men will suppose that you had no belief, and they will judge it to be the act of a guilty man.
"Why not therefore save your life by a confession which will place you in no worse position?"
Stated so, it was a hard thing to refuse, and he might not have rejected the temptation to write and then endeavour to repudiate such a doc.u.ment, had he not felt a natural distrust of the good faith in which the proposal was made. Might it not be that they desired to obtain it from him for their own security, before they sent him to dreadful death?
It was at a late hour of the winter night when he was roused from such sleep as his condition allowed, to be told to dress, as he would now be permitted to leave at once.
He was led, with a pistol-muzzle against his back, to one of the smaller hangars, which were for the renting of those who kept their own private planes at the aerodrome.
He looked up at a machine which was, in fact, of the larger size, and which seemed immense to his unaccustomed eyes, which had only seen such monsters before as they pa.s.sed far over his head, or in pictures upon the screen.
He looked round in the vain hope of escape, or for someone to whom he might make what his reason told him would be no more than useless appeal, and saw Augusta Garten, similarly guarded, a few paces away.
She returned his glance, and saw in his eyes the desperation of fear. Better, he thought, to die in a useless struggle there, to make one last effort of breaking free, to be shot down if he must, rather than to be sent aloft to that certain and dreadful death. She said: "It"s no use, Harold. We"ve got to go. There"s no other way," and he found himself calmed and steadied by the dull hopelessness of her voice, and by a sense of companionship in misery that it gave. He felt as though he would be deserting her at her equal need, if he should endeavour to break away.
All this was in an instant of time, for their captors were in a great haste. They saw, to their surprise, a pilot climb into the machine. They were pushed and hurried into seats at his rear.
They could not guess that the occasion for haste was that Inspector Beddoes was known to have already stopped at the Cuckford police-station, and now to be on the point of starting his cars on the three miles of road still separating him from the aerodrome, which four minutes would be sufficient to cover. They heard the whirr of the propeller. Slowly, heavily, but at ever-increasing speed, the machine moved out on to the field, and rose into the darkness.
Inspector Beddoes saw it go, and supposed ruefully that he had missed his intended prey. He did not see the pilot drop by parachute from the machine when he had taken it to a sufficient height, and headed it on a southern course. He left it rising slightly but steadily into the wind, with sufficient petrol in its tank to take it well out over the sea.
Chapter XLIII.
INSPECTOR BEDDOES was a sanguine and resolute officer. He did not consider the possibility of failure so much as the results of success, if he should become a prominent instrument in rooting out a gang on whose tracks he had been for the past two years, with no more result as yet than that Tony Welch was behind prison bars for a number of years to come.
If we contrast his conduct with the hesitations of Inspector Combridge, we must in justice observe that he had no more than a subordinate responsibility, that he had not the burden of two mistaken arrests on his record in this case already, and that he had more to gain and less to lose than his superior officer, whose brilliant record could more easily be sullied by conspicuous failure than brightened by one additional triumph.
Finding the aerodrome to be in a condition of activity unusual for the night hours, he had no scruple in surrounding it, and placing everyone he found on the premises under detention while he commenced his investigations.
He was told at once that Captain Morgan was in control, and he proceeded to question him.
"I understand that you are in charge here?"
"In Colonel Driver"s absence, yes."
"You have had a young man here named Francis Hammerton?"
This was a random shot, which was lucky to find its mark, and Inspector Beddoes had additional cause for surprise when he received a frank and affirmative answer.
"Yes, if that be his real name. He came here under that of Vaughan, with a young woman named Garten, with whom he appeared to be on rather intimate terms. He wanted to hire a "plane, which I was unwilling to let him have. I should say that Miss Garten is, more or less, an acquaintance of Colonel Driver. She"s been here before, and no doubt it was she who brought him.
"I learned that he was a convict with a bad record, and though he said he was out on bail, I had no confirmation even of that.
"I made excuse that we must have a large deposit before letting him have a machine out, and though he offered to pay it, it was by cheque, which I said we must have time to clear.
"I suppose they knew you were on their track. Anyway, they"ve stolen a "plane, and bolted only a few minutes ago. I expect you saw them as you came, heading out to the sea."
Inspector Beddoes listened to this explanation with a face which gave no sign of his thoughts. He said only: "I expect I shall have further instructions by morning. In the meantime, I am taking charge here. You can all get back to bed."