Crow's Inn Tragedy (24 page)

“I had nothing to do with that,” Thompson interrupted with sudden fire. “I swear I had not! Mr. Bechcombe was alive and well when I left the offices. I was never more shocked in my life. You might have knocked me down with a feather when I saw in the paper that he had been murdered, and that I was wanted on suspicion as having murdered him.”

“Umph!” The inspector looked at him. “You are a solicitor, or next door to one, Mr. Thompson, I believe. You ought not to need the bit of advice I am going to give you now. As I told you, you will be at liberty to see a solicitor as soon as we reach London. Send for the best you know and tell him the whole truth about this unhappy affair and tell nobody else anything at all.”

Thus advised, Thompson wisely became dumb. He sat back in his corner of the car in a hunched up crouching condition. He looked strangely unlike the jaunty, self-satisfied man who had stepped on to the gangway of the
Atlantic
so short a time before. To the inspector, watching him, he seemed almost visibly to shrink, and as the detective's keen eyes wandered over him he began to understand some of the apparently glaring discrepancies between the descriptions of Thompson circulated by the police and the appearance of the man before him. Thompson's teeth had been noticeably defective. Samuel Horsingforth, otherwise Hoyle, had had all the deficiencies made good and was, when he smiled, evidently in possession of a very good set of teeth, real or artificial. This, besides entirely altering his appearance, made his face fuller and quite unlike the hollow cheeks of Mr. Bechcombe's missing clerk. That Thompson had worn a thin, straggly beard, while this man was clean-shaven, went for nothing but Thompson had been bald, with hair wearing off the forehead. Horsingforth's stubbly, grey hair grew thickly and rather low, and though the inspector now detected the wig he inwardly acknowledged it to be the best he had ever seen. Then, too, Thompson had been thin and spare, and though looking now at the man hunched up in the car one might see the padding on the shoulders, and under the protuberant waistcoat over which the gold watch chain was gracefully suspended, altogether it was not to be wondered at that Thompson had been so long at large. Inspector Furnival knew that his present capture would add largely to a reputation that was growing every day. At the same time he realized that he was still a long way from the achievement of the object to which all his energies had been directed—the capture of the Yellow Dog and the dispersal of the Yellow Gang.

Thompson took the inspector's advice for the rest of the drive and said no more. There were moments when the other two almost doubted whether he were not really incapable of speech.

They drove direct to Scotland Yard. From there, later in the day, Thompson would be taken to Bow Street to be formally charged, and from thence to his temporary home at Pentonville.

After the remand Steadman and the inspector walked away together.

“So that's that. A clever piece of work, inspector,” the barrister remarked.

The inspector blew his nose.

“All very well as far as Thompson is concerned. But Thompson is not the Yellow Dog.”

John Steadman shrugged his shoulders.

“Sometimes I have doubted whether he were not.”

The inspector looked at him with a curious smile.

“I don't think you have, sir. I think your suspicions went the same way as mine from the first.”

Steadman nodded. “But suspicion is one thing and proof another.”

“And that is a good deal nearer than it was,” the inspector finished. “The Yellow Dog's arrest is not going to be as easy a matter as Thompson's, though, Mr. Steadman. By Jove! those fellows have got it already.”

They were passing a little news-shop, the man was putting out the placards: “Crow's Inn Tragedy—arrest of Thompson.” Further on—“Crow's Inn Mystery—Arrest of absconding clerk at Southampton—Thompson at Bow Street—Story of his Career—Astounding Revelations!”

“Pure invention!” said the inspector, flicking this last with his stick. “I should like to put an end to half these evening rags.”

“I wonder what his history has been!” Steadman said speculatively. “I am sorry for his daughter—and Tony Collyer too. This will put an end to that affair, I fancy.”

“I don't know,” said the inspector as they walked on, “Mr. Tony seems to have made up his mind and I should fancy he could be pretty pig-headed when he likes. I sent the girl a letter from Scotland Yard covering one of Thompson's, so that she should not hear of this arrest first from the papers.”

“Poor girl! But I think she has been dreading this for some time. Probably anything, even this certainty, will be better, than the state of fear in which she has been living of late.”

“Probably,” the inspector assented. Then he went on after a minute's pause, “Thompson's is the most ingenious case I have ever come across of a deliberately planned course of dishonesty, with a second identity so that Thompson of Bechcombes' could disappear utterly and Mr. Hoyle of Rose Cottage, Burford, could just take up his simple country life, paint his pictures and potter about the village where he was already known.”

“Yes. His fatal mistake was made in putting in his daughter as Mr. Bechcombe's secretary,” John Steadman said thoughtfully. “It trebled his chances of discovery and I can't really see his motive. I suppose he thought she could assist his schemes in some way.”

“Yes, I fancy he did get some information from her,” the inspector assented. “Though I am certain the girl herself did not know that Thompson and Hoyle were one and the same until after Mr. Bechcombe's death. Then I imagine he disclosed his identity to her and that accounts for the state of tension in which she has been living. His second mistake was the leaving of her photograph in his room. That gave the clue to his identity.”

“Yes. Well, as you know, inspector, it is the mistakes that criminals make that provide you and me with our living,” Steadman said with a chuckle. “And now Mr. Thompson—Hoyle, will disappear for some considerable time from society. And the intelligent public will probably clamour for his trial for Mr. Bechcombe's murder. For a large section of it has already believed him guilty.”

“And not without reason,” the inspector said gravely. “Appearances have been, and are, terribly against Thompson. Mrs. Carnthwacke's evidence may save him if—”

“Yes. If,” Steadman prompted.

“If she is able to give it,” the inspector concluded. “But Mrs. Carnthwacke is not recovering from the injuries she received in that terrible assault upon her so quickly as was expected. In fact, the latest editions of the evening papers, after having devoted all their available space to Thompson's career and arrest, will have a paragraph in the stop press news recording Mrs. Carnthwacke's death.”

“What!” Steadman glanced sharply at the inspector's impassive face. Then a faint smile dawned upon his own. “So that, with that of Thompson's arrest, the Yellow Dog will feel pretty safe.”

“I hope so,” returned the inspector imperturbably.

“One minute, sir. I shan't hurt you!”

With a comical look at the inspector John Steadman submitted himself to the hands of the little old man in the shabby black suit, who was surveying him with critical eyes in the looking-glass, and who now approached him with a curious little instrument looking like a pair of very fine tweezers, combined with a needle so minute that it almost required a microscope to see it.

They were in a small room at the back of a little shop in Soho, whither the inspector had conducted John Steadman, and where the former had already undergone a curious metamorphosis. The presiding genius of the establishment was this little old man with an oddly wrinkled face that reminded Steadman of a marmoset, and with pale grey eyes that were set far apart, and that seemed to stare straight at you and almost through you, with as little expression as a stone. The room was odd-looking as well as its master. It had very little furniture in it. Nothing on the wall but the big looking-glass that ran from floor to ceiling, and occupied the greater part of one side. Two tables stood near and a very old worm-eaten escritoire was by the window. There were four chairs in the room, all of the plain Windsor variety, one standing right in front of the mirror differing from the others only in that it had arms and an adjustable head.

Inspector Furnival had just been released from its clutches, and now John Steadman was taking his place. A huge enveloping sheet was thrown over him; a brilliant incandescent light was focused upon him, and the queer little marmoset face, with a big, curiously made magnifying glass screwed into it, was submitting him to an anxious scrutiny.

“I shall not hurt you,” the soft, caressing voice with its foreign intonation repeated. “Just a few hairs put in—a very few put in, and Monsieur's best friend would not know him.”

Steadman thought it very likely his best friend would not as he glanced back at the inspector. But now the lean yellow fingers were at work. From the angle at which the head-rest was fixed the barrister could not see what they were doing, but they were pinching, prodding, stabbing. It seemed to him that they would never stop. At last, however, the tweezers were thrown aside and he felt little, tiny brushes at work, dropping moisture here, drying it up with fragrant powder.

“Monsieur's teeth?” the foreign voice said with its sing-song intonation.

Steadman shrugged his shoulders as he took a plate from his mouth and dropped it into the fingerbowl held out to him.

“Ah, all the top! That is goot—very goot!” Something soft and warm was pressed into his mouth, pushed up and down until at last it felt secure. Then, with a satisfied sigh, the yellow fingers raised the head-rest; the little man stood back, the marmoset face wrinkled itself into a satisfied smile. “I hope that Monsieur is pleased.”

Steadman, as he faced his reflection, thought that it was not a question of his best friend but that he himself would not have recognized the image he saw therein. The shape of the eyebrows had been entirely altered. They now slanted upwards, while a clever disposition of lines and hairs made the eyelids themselves appear to narrow and lengthen. His hair, thin in front and near the temples for many a long day now, had actually disappeared, and the enormously broad, high expanse of forehead was furrowed with skilfully drawn lines, and like the rest of his face of a greenish, greyish colour. The nose had become thinner in a mysterious fashion, the bridge had grown higher, the nostrils had widened. But the greatest change was in the mouth, the lips were thicker, more sensual looking. Then, in place of Steadman's perfectly fitting artificial teeth were several projecting yellow fangs with hideous gaps between.

“As the English talk, she, your own mother would not know you, eh?” the silky voice questioned anxiously.

And John Steadman, smiling in the curiously stiff fashion which was all the alterations would allow, said that he was sure she would not.

Both he and Furnival donned queerly designed overcoats that looked more like dressing-gowns than anything else, and soft hats. As they made their way through the streets with their hands folded in front and hidden by their wide sleeves, their eyes masked in blue spectacles, their heads turned neither to the right nor left, no one would have suspected their disguise—no one would have taken them for Englishmen. They got into a taxi and the inspector gave an address not far from Stepney Causeway. Once safely inside, he handed Steadman an automatic pistol and a police whistle.

“For emergencies,” he said shortly. “I don't fancy we shall have to use them; but the police are all round the house. At the sound of the whistle they will rush the place.”

“Yes, you may depend upon me, inspector,” Steadman said quietly.

“Here we are!” said the inspector, drawing a couple of parcels from his capacious pockets. One of them he handed to John Steadman, the other he unfastened himself. He shook out a voluminous, flimsy garment of bright yellow and unwrapped from its tissue paper a small yellow mask. “These dominoes we had better put on here beneath our overcoats, Mr. Steadman, and our masks we shall have to slip on as soon as we get inside.”

“You have had the cordon drawn all round as I suggested, inspector?”

“It is as narrow as can be, sir. They will almost be able to hear what we say. Oh, I am taking no risks. But I mean to catch the Big Yellow Dog himself to-night—dead or alive.”

“Ay! Dead or alive!” Steadman echoed. “You have been near him once or twice before, haven't you, inspector?”

“Not so near as I shall be to-night,” the inspector retorted.

They had no time for more. The taxi stopped and they got out. The inspector paused to give a few low toned directions to the cabman, then he led the way down a side street. From this it seemed to Steadman to spread out in every direction, a perfect network of narrow streets and alleys. It was a veritable maze and the barrister would have been utterly bewildered, but the inspector apparently knew his ground, he wound himself in and out with an eel-like dexterity. At last, however, he slackened his steps and then, side by side, he and Steadman made their way over the ill-kept, ill-lighted pavement, More than once the barrister heard a faint cheeping sound issue from the inspector's lips. Although he heard no response, he knew that the cordon that the detective had spoken of was in its place.

When the inspector stopped again he looked round and up and down, then turned sharply to the right, into a small
cul-de-sac
apparently running between two high brick walls, for Steadman could see no windows on either side. As they were nearing the opposite end to that by which they had entered, however, they came upon a low door at the right. To the barrister's heated fancy there was something sinister about its very aspect. The windows on either side were grimy and closely shuttered; they and the door were badly in need of a coat of paint. What there was upon it was blistered, and so filthy that it was impossible even to guess at its original colour. There was no sign of either knocker or bell, but right at the top of the door was a small grille through which the janitor could survey the applicants for admission, himself unseen. The inspector applied his knuckles to the door, softly at first, then with a crescendo of taps that was evidently a signal. Steadman, with his eyes fixed on the grille, could see nothing, no faintest sign of movement, but for one moment he felt a sickening sense of being looked at, he could almost have fancied of being looked through. Then moving softly, noiselessly, in spite of its apparently dilapidated condition, the door in front of them opened.