Mystery of Mr. Jessop (20 page)

“How did you know where I lived?” Bobby asked.

“Cut and Come Again,” explained Charley. “Not much they don't know there.”

“There isn't,” agreed Bobby feelingly. “Do you know where they do their big gambling stunt? I don't mean the John Smith flat upstairs – we know all about that. I mean the place where the extra fat pigeons are plucked.”

“Wouldn't be quite cricket to tell if I did, would it?” Charley asked. “As a matter of fact, I don't. Some of the pigeons don't either; just whisked there in closed motors and haven't an idea where it is. I have heard they'll even buy an old house in the suburbs somewhere, use it once or twice, and then sell it again.”

“Yes, we know that,” Bobby said. “I suppose they can afford to drop a hundred or two on the re-sale if they've made a few thousands on the gambling.”

“Wish they would let me in on the racket,” said Charley, grinning. “Shouldn't have to worry then about jobs in film agencies in Hollywood or anywhere else. Look here, what's this about Miss May?”

“Who told you?” Bobby asked sharply.

“Half over London by now, I should think,” retorted Charley. “When I got away from Park Lane, I ran into a pal – Logan; Penny Logan, they call him; decent sort of chap, though Denis Chenery doesn't like him; says he's a wrong 'un. You ought to have seen how they glared at each other – ‘cut your throat for two pins' sort of a look on each side.”

“One moment,” interposed Bobby. “When was this?”

“Just outside the flats where Miss May lives,” Charley answered. “Penny Logan's rooms are in Soho, and so we had to pass there – Penny asked me to come along with him for a drink and a yarn. Chenery was just coming out – of the flats, I mean; in a deuce of a hurry, too. He and Penny looked blue murder at each other, and Chenery went off. I didn't stop long at Penny's – someone rang him up while I was there and wanted him to come along to them, so I cleared out. I went back to look up Miss May – don't see why Chenery should make all the running – and the porter told me there had been a burglary and she had been half murdered. He didn't seem to know much, and the bobby in the flat wouldn't say a word, so I thought I would ask you. Is she badly hurt?”

“Doctor says she'll be all right soon; only wants to be kept quiet a day or two. No thanks to whoever attacked her, though; she might easily have been killed. What time did you see Mr. Chenery?”

Charley was a bit vague. He hadn't noticed the time particularly. Presently, however, it was fixed as being about half an hour or so before Bobby's arrival at the flats, and Bobby reflected that the doctor had thought Hilda could not have been where he had found her more than about thirty minutes.

“Did the porter at the flats see you the first time?” Bobby asked.

“I don't know. Why? I shouldn't think so. When I've been there he's generally either busy answering the 'phone in that little cubby-hole of his at the back or else he's trying to work out a good double from the racing reports in the paper.”

“Do you know why Mr. Chenery and Mr. Logan don't like each other?”

Charley shrugged his shoulders.

“Chenery runs a small garage; deals in second-hand cars; says Logan tried to do him down. Logan says he didn't, and, anyway, if you can do down a dealer in secondhand cars – well, it's one up to you and that's all there's to it. You haven't told me what happened to Hilda.”

“Come in and have a drink,” Bobby said, “and I'll tell you.”

Charley accepted the invitation – Bobby, indeed, was inclined to think that an invitation to a drink was one the young gentleman seldom refused – and listened with close attention to the story of what had happened.

“Beastly for Hilda,” he said. “Lucky you found her in time or she might easily have suffocated. Poor old girl.” He seemed genuinely disturbed; even Bobby's offer of a second drink passed him by unheeded – sufficient testimony to his disturbed mind. “Poor old girl” he repeated. “Rotten experience. Suppose she hadn't time to use her gun?”

“Has she one?”

“I think so. So have I. Nice fat '45. Have to if you're private sec. to an old girl who is always wanting you to run round with her blasted crown jewels. I've had to pack off from Hastley Court to Park Lane with twenty thousand pounds' worth of stuff in my pocket, and I expect Miss May had to, too. I know she told me once she had a toy automatic just to make her feel safer. She knows how to use a gun, too.”

“Do you know what make it was?”

“No, I don't think she ever said. Why?”

“I was just wondering,” Bobby answered. “The flat was examined pretty carefully to see if any clue to the burglar could be found, or what was missing. There was no pistol.”

“Perhaps the johnny, whoever he was, took it off – thought it more suitable for a burglar than for anyone else,” observed Charley.

“I suppose you can't suggest anything – or anyone?” Bobby asked.

Charley shook his head.

“Can't understand it,” he said, frowning heavily. “Can't have been an ordinary burglary if nothing was taken. You say the flat had been turned upside down as if something was being looked for? Do you think the chap who shot poor old Jessop can have thought he might have left the Fellows necklace in her charge and was looking for it? It's Sunday, and all the banks and usual places are shut up. Jessop might have left it with her with the idea that no one would think of her having it.”

“It's an idea,” Bobby admitted, “but it assumes that the murderer didn't get it.”

“Well, he wouldn't, would he?” Charley asked.

“Jessop wouldn't have it in his pocket when he was calling on a chap like T.T., would he? Everyone knows T.T.'s reputation.”

“Well, what was Jessop doing there?”

Charley smiled and winked.

“At T.T.'s?” he asked. “Why shouldn't they have been doing a deal? Jessop bought stuff, didn't he? All jewellers do. And the general idea is that T.T. often had stuff to sell.”

“Risky for a respectable firm of jewellers to have dealings with a notorious receiver.”

“It's when you're respectable you're safe,” retorted Charley, winking again. “Mind, I'm only guessing. I don't know anything really. Only that's what struck me at once.”

Bobby was forced to agree that it was a possible though somewhat cynical explanation. But again it implied that Jessop and T.T. knew each other. If that were so, then T.T. was a remarkable actor, for certainly his astonishment had seemed genuine.

But it remained a possible theory that Wynne, T.T., and Jessop had all met in connection with some proposed deal; and that the murder had been committed by some fourth person of whom as yet no trace had been found, and who had escaped with whatever the others had met to bargain over. And that might very probably have been the Fellows necklace, but, then, also it might have been something else.

Charley broke in on Bobby's thoughts with a new question.

“What's this about T.T.'s moving?” he said. “He's going round asking everyone for a really trustworthy firm of removers.”

“Well, I suppose,” Bobby said cautiously, “it is a bit upsetting to have someone murdered in your house. Might get on your nerves a bit.”

“Fat lot T.T. knows about nerves,” scoffed Charley. “I'll tell you what struck me at once. He wants to know who you go to at the Yard when you use a van for police purposes, so he can get warning in time. But I expect you have your own, haven't you? Or else you just ring up one of the big firms?”

“To tell you the truth,” Bobby answered, “I think it'll be a long time before we try that game again, after Saturday's fiasco. Vans are a bit of a sore subject with us just now. I wouldn't mention them to any of our people for a year or two, if I were you.”

Charley laughed, and asked if it was as bad as that, and Bobby said it was even worse, and Charley said wouldn't the van-driver give the show away, and Bobby said he had been sworn to secrecy on crossed knives and a bottle of red ink, and Charley laughed again and said he was sorry if he had been trying to butt in on official secrets, and Bobby said it wasn't that at all and would Charley have another drink?

Charley accepted, and then got up to go.

“But I'm afraid you do think I've been nosy,” he said. “Because I notice you didn't say whether it was your own van or one of the big shops or what? I didn't mean, you know. Only I did wonder what T.T. was so keen on moving for all at once.”

“Oh, just that, I suppose,” said Bobby vaguely, and as he was opening the door for his visitor he paused. “By the way,” he said, “had you any special reason for wanting to see Miss May?”

“No, nothing special,” Charley answered, a little hurriedly. “I just thought I might ask her to come out somewhere for a spot of dinner.” He added gloomily: “I don't suppose it would have been any good, it's all that Chenery blighter; now she's got a down on me.”

“How's that?” Bobby asked.

“Well, I suppose I've got her job,” Charley admitted. “Had no idea, though; thought she was quitting on her own. Won't catch me stopping, if I get half a chance to clear. The old girl's not such a bad sort really, but she does keep you on the jump, Sundays and all.”

“I suppose she was really keen on the Fellows necklace?”

“Dreamed of it,” asserted Charley, “but she hadn't the coin and she knew hubby wouldn't come down, so what was the good? Jessop did his best to hook her, you know. Took it down to Hastley Court once to show her.”

“I suppose there's no doubt of that,” Bobby asked. “You arranged for Jessop to see her, didn't you?”

“No; never knew a thing about it till afterwards,” Charley asserted. “Too busy for one thing. Any idea what a poor devil of a private secretary has to do when there's a big show on? But Colonel Edwardes was there, and he knows Jessop and happened to catch sight of him, and wondered what he was up to. When he told me, I guessed at once it was the Fellows necklace again. Only on the q.t. Wouldn't have done to let hubby know; he would have gone in off the deep end if he had known she was still playing about with the thing after he had turned it down.” He repeated that he had known nothing of the jewellers' visit till later, accepted without comment Bobby's explanation of his questioning that it was necessary to check up Mr. Jessop's movements in the fullest detail, and returned to his grievance of Miss May's displeasure.

“Wouldn't do her any good if I chucked the job,” he complained. “She'll come round in time, but Chenery's making all the running just now, blast him! Thank the Lord, his garage will have to buck up a whole lot before he'll be able to marry.”

“Doing badly, is it?”

“May be sold up any minute almost – at least, that's what Penny Logan told me.”

“Bit prejudiced, perhaps?”

“There's that,” agreed Charley, “but I've heard from other people he's in pretty low water. He may come in for the title some day, but not for half a century or so. No one will take half a century as good security.”

“I suppose not,” said Bobby, and Charley departed, and Bobby went back and sat down at his typewriter, feeling that his chat had given him quite a remarkable amount of useful information, though how it all hung together was more than he could see for the present.

Slowly he typed:

QUESTIONS

A. DUKE AND DUCHESS OF WESTHAVEN

AA. DUKE OF WESTHAVEN

1. Why was duke interested in Fellows necklace, and why did he keep harping on the price, as if it were a personal grievance or disappointment?

(Theory that he intended it as a present to his wife apparently untenable.)

2. Where was he at the relevant time Saturday night?

3. How did he know Jessop gambled?

AB. DUCHESS OF WESTHAVEN

1. Is she telling the truth when she says she didn't see the necklace at Hastley Court?

2. If she is, what happened there?

3. If she is lying, why?

4. Was she seriously thinking of buying?

Purely hypothetical questions:

1. Are dukes and duchesses necessarily above suspicion? If so, why?

2. If a person dreams of a thing, how far will that person go to get possession of it?

General observations:

1. Dukes are kittle cattle.

2. Bobby, my boy, mind you don't make a damn fool of yourself.

B. MAGOTTY MEG

1. Why did she go out of her way to say she didn't hold with murder?

C. WYNNE

1. Had he the time to commit the murder?

2. Had he the nerve when he knew police were at hand?

3. Where is he?

4. What was he doing at T.T.'s?

5. Has he got the necklace?

D. T.T. MULLINS

1. Is it a fact Jessop was a complete stranger to him?

2. Why does he keep talking about moving?

3. Why did the disappearance of the football pages of the
Evening Announcer
scare him?

E. DENIS CHENERY

1. Is he identical with the “Denis” Mr. Wright says he knows of as mixed up in jewel thefts?

2. Is it pure coincidence he was leaving the flats where Miss May lives about the time of the attack on her?

3. Is it true he is pressed for money?

4. Is it possible he and Hilda May have been associated to secure the necklace?

5. Where was he at the relevant time Saturday night?

F. HILDA MAY

1. Are there real grounds for the doubts her employers seem to have entertained of her honesty?

2. Why didn't she say she had left Jessop and was consequently out of a job?

3. Was the necklace concealed in her flat, and is that why she was attacked? If so, by whom?

G. MESSRS. JESSOP, JACKS & Co., Mayfair Square,

Jewellers.