The Clue of the Silver Key by Edgar Wallace (free biff chip and kipper ebooks .TXT) 📖
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‘In a way, and without any offence to you, Mr Allenby, I’m glad to see it
go. All these new inventions are coming so thick and fast that you can’t
keep track of them.’
‘Which reminds me,’ said Dick, ‘that this thing was loaded.’
Surefoot was not gravely concerned. ‘If somebody gets shot,’ he said
calmly, ‘we shall find out who did it.’
He was less interested in the robbery than in the killing of Tickler.
‘It’s a puzzle to me. I can’t understand it. I wouldn’t mind if it hadn’t
been in that cab. It’s the Americanization of English crime that’s
worrying me. These Americans have got our car trade, they’ve got our tool
trade; if they come here and corner our murder market there’s going to be
trouble.’ He stopped suddenly, stooped and picked something from the
floor. It was a pearl waistcoat button. ‘This sort of thing only happens
in stories,’ he said as he turned it over. ‘The fellow was in evening
dress, and rubbed this off when he was carrying the gun. As a clue it’s
about as much use as the evidence of the old lady in every murder case
who saw a tall, dark man in a big, grey car.’
He looked at the button carefully. ‘You can buy these at almost any store
in London. You don’t even have to buy ‘em—they give ‘em away.’ He made a
careful scrutiny of the floor but found nothing new. ‘Still, I’ll put it
in my pocket,’ he said.
‘It may have been Leo Moran’s,’ said Dick, remembering. ‘He wore a white
waistcoat. He and I came back together.’
Surefoot’s nose wrinkled.
‘This! It would have been diamonds and sapphires. Ain’t he a bank
manager? No this is the button of some poor depositor. I shouldn’t be
surprised if it was somebody with an overdraft! What do you think of Mr
Moran?’ He was looking at Dick keenly.
‘He’s a nice fellow; I like him,’ said Dick.
‘There are moments when I don’t but, generally speaking, I do. Who’s
Sisley?’
‘Sisley?’ said Dick. ‘You mean Alfred Sisley the painter?’ Smith nodded.
‘Oh, he’s a very famous impressionist.’
‘Expensive?’ asked Surefoot.
‘Very,’ said Dick. ‘His pictures sell for thousands.’
Surefoot rubbed his nose irritably. ‘That’s what I thought. In fact, he
said as much. Seen his flat? It looks as though it had been furnished for
the Queen of Sheba, the well-known Egyptian. Persian carpet, diamond
lampshades…’
‘You’re talking about Moran’s flat? Yes, it’s rather beautiful. But he’s
got money of his own.’
‘It was his own when he had it, anyway,’ said Smith darkly, and left on
this cryptic note.
He had left Scotland Yard with some reluctance, for there was visiting
London at that period one John Kelly, Deputy Chief Commissioner of the
Chicago Police, and one of America’s foremost detectives. Earlier in the
evening Surefoot had discussed the Regent Street murder.
‘It sounds like a “ride”,’ said Kelly, shaking his head, ‘but I guess
that kind of crime will never be popular in this country. In the first
place, you’ve no big men in your underworld, and if you had, your police
force and Government are pull-proof. It reads to me like an “imitation
murder”. I suppose you’ve got bad men here—I only know one English
gangster. They called him London Len. He was a bad egg—bumped off half a
dozen men before a rival gang got after him and got him on the run. He
was English-born—so far as I’ve been able to trace he wasn’t in the
country five years.’
London Len was an ‘inside man’—he got himself into positions of trust,
and at the first opportunity cleared the contents of the office safe.
‘Quick on the draw and ruthless,’ said John; ‘but he certainly wouldn’t
give a man a hundred pounds and leave it behind when he shot him!’
Now that he was abroad on this foggy night, Surefoot decided to interview
a certain forgetful constable, and before he left the Yard he arranged to
meet the man at Marylebone Road station. He found the police officer,
waiting in the charge-room, rather proud, if anything, that he had
recalled the one fact that he should not have forgotten.
Surefoot Smith listened to the story of the little man who had been found
sitting on the doorstep of an apartment in Baynes Mews, and of the
inebriated songster.
‘It’s funny I should have forgotten that—’ began the policeman. ‘But as
I was shaving this morning I thought—’
‘It’s not funny. If it was, I should be laughing. Am I laughing?’
‘No, sir,’ admitted the police officer.
‘It’s not funny, it’s tragic. If you’d been a rabbit wearing uniform, you
would have remembered to tell your superior officer about that incident.
A poor, harmless, lop-eared rabbit would have gone straight to his
sergeant and said “So-and-so and so-and-so”. And if a rabbit can do
that, why couldn’t you?’
The question was unanswerable, partly because the bewildered young
constable was not sure whether ‘rabbit’ had any special esoteric meaning.
‘And you’re taking credit,’ Surefoot went on inexorably,’ for thinking—I
repeat, thinking—as you were shaving this morning, that you ought to
have told somebody about meeting that man in the mews. Do you use a
safety razor, my man?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the officer.
‘Then you couldn’t cut your throat, which is a pity,’ said Surefoot. ‘Now
lead me to this place, and don’t speak unless I speak to you. I am not
suspending you from duty, because I am not associated with the uniformed
branch. There was a time when I was associated,’ he said carefully, ‘but
in those days police constables had brains.’
The crushed policeman led the way to Baynes Mews and pointed out the door
where he had seen the figure of Tickler sitting. The door did not yield
to Surefoot’s pressure.
He took from his pocket some skeleton keys which he had borrowed at the
station without authority, and tried them on the door. Presently he so
manipulated the key that he succeeded in snapping back the lock. He
pushed open the door, sent a ray of light up the dusty stairs, and
climbed, breathing stertorously, to the top. He came upon a landing and a
barrier of matchwood, in which was a door. He tried this and again had
recourse to his skeleton key.
Without a warrant he had no right whatever to invade the privacy of an
English home; but Surefoot had never hesitated to break the law in the
interests of justice or the satisfaction of his curiosity.
He found he was in a large bare room, almost unfurnished except for a
big, cheap-looking wardrobe, a table, a large mirror, and a square of
carpet. At the back of the room, behind the matchboarding partition, was
a washplace. Singularly enough, there was no bed, not even a couch. On
the wall was an old print representing the marriage of Queen Victoria. It
was in a dusty maple frame and hung groggily. Mr Smith, who had a tidy
mind, tried to straighten the picture, and something fell to the floor.
It was a white glove which contained something heavy; it struck the floor
with a clump. He picked it up and laid it on the dressing-table. The
glove was of kid, and it held a key—a large, old-fashioned door-key.
What was remarkable about this key was its colour; it had been painted
with silver paint.
Surefoot looked at the key thoughtfully. An amateur had painted it—the
inside of the business end had not been touched; the steel was bright and
evidently the key was often used.
He brought it beneath the one naked electric globe which served to
illuminate the room, but found nothing new about it.
Putting the key in his pocket, he continued his search without, however,
discovering anything more noteworthy, until he found the cupboard. Its
door seemed part of the matchboard lining of the room, to the height of
which it rose. There was no handle, and the keyhole was so concealed in
the dovetailing that it might have passed unnoticed but for the fact that
Surefoot Smith was a very painstaking man.
He thought at first it was a Yale lock, but when he tested it out with
the aid of a big clasp-knife, which contained half a dozen tools, he
found it was a very simple ‘catch’. The cupboard held a complete dress
suit, including silk hat and overcoat. On a shelf was a number of plain
but exquisitely woven handkerchiefs, socks, folded dress ties and the
like.
He searched the pockets but could find no clue to the ownership of the
suit. There was no maker’s tab on the inside of the coat, or concealed in
the breast pocket. Even the trousers buttons were not inscribed with the
tailor’s name.
He examined the dress shirts; they were similarly unidentifiable. He
found nothing more except a large bottle of expensive perfume and a
locked box. This he forced under the lamp, and found three wigs,
perfectly made. One was wrapped in silver tissue, and it was either new
or had been newly dressed.
‘Bit odd, isn’t it?’ said Surefoot Smith aloud.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the constable, who had been silent until that moment.
‘I was talking to myself,’ said Surefoot coldly.
He made another round of the room, but without adding to the sum of his
knowledge.
He replaced everything where he had found it, except the key and the
glove. After all, there might be a perfectly simple explanation of his
finds. The man may have been an actor. The fact that Tickler had been
sitting on his doorstep, listening to his drunken song, meant little, and
would certainly carry no weight with a jury.
On the other hand, if the explanation was so simple, Surefoot Smith was
in a position of some embarrassment. Against his name, if the truth be
told, were many black marks for unauthorized entry. This might very well
be the cause of another.
He went out into the mews, locked the door, and walked silently into
Portland Place, followed by the policeman. And Surefoot Smith did not
forget that the constable might be a witness at any inquiry before the
Commissioner.
‘I think that is all, officer,’ he said, ‘but I am not blaming you for
failing to report. Things like that,’ he went on, ‘slip out of a man’s
mind. For instance, I left my house yesterday and forgot to take my
pipe.’
The officer murmured his polite surprise. He was a little mollified, and
was sufficiently intelligent to understand the reason for this change of
attitude.
‘I suppose it’s all right, sir, going into that place without a warrant?’
he said.’ I’m asking because I’m a young officer, new to the force—’
Surefoot Smith surveyed him soberly.
‘I went,’ he said, with great deliberation, ‘because you reported a
suspicious circumstance. You told me you had reason to believe that the
murderer might be hiding in that loft.’
The constable gasped at this atrocious charge, gasped but was speechless.
‘So that, if there’s any trouble over it,’ said Surefoot, ‘we’re both in
it. And my word’s better than yours. Now go home and keep your mouth
shut—it won’t be hard for you.’ He could not resist the temptation to
gibe. ‘In fact, I should say you were a pretty good mouth-shutter.’
The key and the white glove he locked away in a drawer of his desk at
Scotland Yard. There was nothing remarkable about either article.
Surefoot Smith would indeed have been glad to
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