Mystery of Mr. Jessop (10 page)

“May yet,” said the other C.I.D. man, winking at Bobby. “Expect we shall find there was an earlier shot none of us noticed.”

“No good trying to pull my leg,” retorted T.T. “The gun's there, and only two cartridges fired. Besides, you all know murder's not my line – I hate violence. What have we got brains for?”

“What indeed?” murmured Bobby.

“I shall clear out, find another place, move,” repeated T.T. “I like it here, but I shall never feel right again after this. I should always be expecting to see that poor devil's ghost. You fellows ought to pile in and help me get out. It's all through you; the least you can do is to help. What's a good firm for removals? Who did you hire that van from you chaps came in to-night?”

“Don't know. I wasn't one of that lot,” answered the C.I.D. man, who, in fact, had come later on the scene.

“You'll know,” suggested T.T., turning to Bobby.

“What's the idea?” asked Bobby. “Want to send some of your toughs round to bully them for helping us?”

“Good Lord, no,” exclaimed T.T. hastily.

“No idea of offering a tenner for advance information another time?” Bobby asked again.

“Sergeant,” declared T.T. very earnestly, “I never thought of that for one moment; never entered my head. Honest – God's truth. All I want is just to get hold of a good trustworthy firm.”

“Plenty of them,” said Bobby. “No trouble finding one.”

“Oh, well, if you want to be so almighty close,” snapped T.T. “I'll bet some of the others won't mind telling.”

“I'll pass the word round they're not to,” Bobby said calmly. “We don't want any of your pocket gangsters trying to make themselves unpleasant.”

“Sergeant,” protested T.T., even more earnestly than before, “you've got it wrong. Straight, all I want is the name of a good reliable firm, because I'm not going to stop here after this – not me. And I know if it's a firm you can trust, I can trust them too.”

“Yes, but we don't trust you,” retorted Bobby.

“Oh, well, it doesn't matter,” said T.T., though with an angry emphasis that made it a little difficult for him to get out his words. “I call it childish to be so close about trifles.” He turned away in a great temper, and the other C.I.D. man, who looked a good deal amused, both at T.T.'s insistence and at Bobby's refusal to gratify his curiosity, gave a chuckle and said to Mullins:

“Official reticence – you mustn't mind him, T.T. Comes natural to us fellows; why, we don't give anything away, even where we buy the baby's milk. Comes especially natural to sergeants, particularly when caught young.” 

Bobby acknowledged the hit with a grin, and the other continued:

“Mustn't bear malice, T.T. Tell us instead how the Arsenal got on – the football
Evening Announcer
special's there, but the results are missing.”

Mullins turned very pale; his jaw dropped; he stood aghast, as if for the first time he saw disaster clearly facing him.

“Why, what's the matter?” the C.I.D. man asked him; and without a word T.T. rushed furiously away.

“Well, now, what's biting him?” wondered the C.I.D. man, turning bewilderedly to Bobby, who only shook his head in an equally bewildered response.

They were still wondering why this demand for information about the day's football results should have so startled, thrown into panic even, the generally self-possessed T.T., when Inspector Ferris joined them.

“Better get some sleep while you can,” he said. “Orders are, every man available to help go through the grounds as soon as it's light. The necklace isn't in the house, but it may have been dumped outside somewhere.”

“Well, sir, I'm wondering,” said the C.I.D. man, who had been talking to Bobby, “what's the matter with Wynne having gone off with it?”

“That would mean he had it in his pocket when he was standing there while T.T. was talking to us,” Ferris observed doubtfully. “He would want a lot of cheek to do that, knowing he might be questioned any minute and his pockets gone through. T.T. would have enough gall, but not many. Anyhow, T.T. hadn't got it. I made him turn out his pockets all right.”

“Wynne might have rushed back to the house and grabbed the thing before he cleared off,” the C.I.D. man persisted. “How's this for a guess? Jessop was crooked, and meant to swipe the necklace for himself. First step: rings us up and says it's been stolen. Then he comes on here to put through a deal with T.T. They get warning we're on. T.T. and Wynne come out to divert attention while Jessop does a bunk. But then Wynne sees his chance, rushes back to the house, pots Jessop, grabs the necklace, and off.”

“If it's like that,” objected Bobby, “what was Wynne doing here? T.T. isn't the kind to bring in a third person unless he has to. And why didn't Jessop do a bunk himself if that was the idea? Besides, was there time? The shot was fired almost immediately after Wynne started back to the house from where he had been standing at the gate to the drive.”

“It could have been done,” decided Ferris; “matter of seconds, but it's feasible. No one timed when Wynne walked away, and ‘almost immediately' might mean much longer than you think.”

“Yes, sir, there's that,” agreed Bobby, “only there are the rubber gloves, too. The murderer was wearing them – there's a thumb tom from one caught on the trigger guard of the pistol used. And in a matter of minutes even the time to pull on rubber gloves would count.”

Lawson, of the now discarded green baize apron, had come up and was listening. He said:

“Well, as to that, I had an eye on Wynne, because I thought I knew the bird, though I couldn't quite place him. I'm pretty sure he didn't go straight back to the house; anyhow, there was someone behind those bushes where the drive turns. Looked to me like it was Wynne waiting to see what happened. Then, when we heard the shots, whoever it was cleared off, top speed, but he didn't make for the house, more away to the left.”

“You're not sure it was Wynne?” Ferris asked.

“I thought it was at the time, but I couldn't swear to it,” Lawson repeated.

“Knock any case on the head if that came out in evidence, though,” Ferris commented, “and the defence would have to be told. Unless we can show some other bird.”

“The funny thing is, I'm nearly sure I've seen him somewhere,” Lawson said again.

“That's right,” Ferris told him. “Expect you have. Fingers' got some dabs in the study, and one lot has been checked up as those of a bird that's been inside twice. Card-sharping and confidence and a bit of bullying, too – one three-year stretch for shooting with intent. Name of Isidore Hill and plenty others as well – Count de Teirney and The MacGregor of that Ilk, whatever he thinks that means. Description seems to answer to Wynne, so it's likely him, unless there's been the Hill bird round here as well, and he and Wynne are twins or something like that.”

“Was there anything on the pistol – or the cigar?” Bobby asked.

“No; cigar half burnt away and the pistol probably handled with gloves on,” Ferris answered. “We'll have to check up on the pistol; that may help. Anyhow, Wynne's in the picture. Plenty to ask him when we do pick him up.”

“If T.T. was expecting Jessop,” Bobby repeated, ”what was Wynne doing? And if Jessop turned up on his own, without being expected – well, what for?”

“To do a deal on the cross with T.T.?” suggested Ferris.

“Well, sir, it might be that,” agreed Bobby, with the deference mere sergeants owe to the theories of inspectors, “but, with his position in the jewellery trade, Jessop would surely be able to get rid of all the stuff he wanted without bringing in T.T. or anyone else.”

Ferris remarked that possibly another reason might have been the necessity for keeping the transaction hidden from partner and staff, and Bobby agreed that was possible, and got leave to return to his lodgings and change from uniform to plain clothes again, though only on the strict understanding that he was back before dawn, since the renewed, more thorough search of the grounds was to start the moment daylight appeared. By the unauthorised use, in the face of all regulations, of one of the waiting police-cars, Bobby succeeded in being back not only before dawn, but even in time to get a little sleep on the dining-room hearthrug, all the available pieces of furniture in that room being already occupied by snoozing colleagues. Upstairs was strictly forbidden – T.T. had not proved hospitably inclined. The drawing-room was occupied by patient reporters, who there sat or slept or smoked or gossiped as inclination was, so that they might be ready when operations began again. The study had been locked up. The breakfast-room was occupied by Mr. Ulyett himself, on whom none dared intrude. And the hall was draughty, and the kitchen, like upstairs, out of bounds, so that there was nothing for it but the floor of the crowded dining-room.

The first sign of light came to most of them as a relief from their uneasy slumbers, and, as the light strengthened, a carefully organised search began. Every inch of ground almost was examined, if not quite with a microscope, at least with very keen and close attention.

The flagged paths that ran from the broken-down fence separating garden from common up to the house were hopeless for footprints, and revealed nothing else of interest, but a print was found in the border by one of the gaps in this fence that corresponded exactly with the shoes worn by Mr. Jessop. Other footprints, less distinct, but fairly certainly made by the same person, were discovered in the ditch on the common side of the fence, so that it seemed proved this was the way whereby Jessop had reached the house.

“Either Jessop had been there before, or someone had told him,” was the general verdict.

Then came another discovery, heralded by a shout of triumph, for there, it seemed, was the missing necklace itself, dangling in the middle of a rose-bush on the south side of the house, almost in a line with the study window and not more than twenty yards or so distant. But the triumph and the excitement caused by the discovery soon faded when it quickly became apparent that this was only imitation jewellery – probably the copy made for Miss Fellows to wear on the sets.

T.T., when questioned, was quite open about it.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Gave a fellow a tenner for it two or three weeks back at the Cut and Come Again when I was there one night. Don't know who he was; said he had been in that swell picture of Fay Fellows's –
Rich Man's Baby
, was it? No, not that one.
Millionaire's Sweetie
I think it was called. Or was it
Big Business Boy's Kiddy
? Anyhow, he said he bought it in Hollywood when they were getting rid of some old props. I thought it was worth what he asked. It was in that old safe in my study. The murderer must have grabbed it and run, thinking it was genuine, and then he saw it wasn't and dropped it. Probably means he got away through the garden next door. Better ask them there if they heard anything.”

His explanation was not much believed, but had to be accepted, and the search continued with unabated energy. No other discovery was made on that, the southern side of the house, but on the north side, at the spot where the path from the entrance to the drive turned towards the house footsteps as of a man running, but from, not to, the house, were plainly visible in the soft, damp mould of a flower-bed, at just about the spot, indeed, where Lawson believed he had seen Wynne waiting. Other prints in a line with these could be traced leading towards the wall dividing the garden of The Towers from that of the unoccupied house next to it. Also on the flower-bed where the footsteps started there was a half-smoked cigarette of the Bulgar brand that apparently Wynne favoured. Ferris shook his head gloomily.

“Looks like letting Wynne out,” he said.

“Had the necklace in his pocket all the time,” declared Lawson. “Waited to see if we cleared off and it would be safe for him to carry on with T.T. When he heard the shots he cleared out himself as quick as he knew how.”

“No proof of all that,” Ferris said. “May have been someone else we haven't got track of yet. Nothing to show.”

On the hard gravel path the tracks disappeared, but were visible again on a border near the garden wall that was nothing like high enough to offer any obstacle to an active man.

“Got over there, whoever it was,” Ferris said, and, when they in their turn climbed over into the next garden, they found clear proof that the fugitive – Wynne or another – had in fact there scaled the wall. They even discovered a burnt match thrown down, as if, feeling himself there in safety, he had stopped for a moment to light another cigarette. On the overgrown lawn before the unoccupied house they lost the tracks, and made, in fact, no great effort to trace them, since it was plain enough that the fugitive had crossed the lawn and so reached the street beyond. But one of the searchers made another and unexpected discovery. In a summer-house, neglected and badly in need of repair, but with its roof still sound, standing not far from the point where the wall had been climbed, he found fresh cigarette-ends – though of a different and cheaper brand – a paper bag that had contained chocolates and that had printed on it the name of a local shop, and a woman's handkerchief without either name, initial, or laundry mark.

But what the significance of these discoveries might be none of them could decide.

Had Wynne – or someone else – had accomplices waiting for him here? And, if it was Wynne who had made his escape on this, the north side, who was it who had thrown away the imitation necklace on the south side?

Not till afternoon that Sunday was it decided that everything possible had been accomplished at The Towers. The house and grounds had been thoroughly searched, numberless photographs taken, sketches made, plans prepared, measurements recorded. Plaster casts of the footsteps found on the northern side of the house had been secured, and it had been established that no other tracks or signs of any kind were discoverable elsewhere, save those made by the police themselves and by the victim of the crime. If others had been that night in the house, or in the grounds surrounding it, they had escaped unseen during the confusion following the pistol shots, and probably along those flagged paths that retained no tracks. T.T. had been questioned and re-questioned without further result than a growing conviction that on this occasion, by exception, he was telling the truth when he declared he knew nothing of Jessop, had never seen him before, and that the discovery of his dead body in the study was as great a surprise to himself as it could have been to anyone else.