Читать книгу The Carson Loan Mystery - Aidan de Brune - Страница 10

CHAPTER VII.

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"YOU say the woman was murdered with a blunt, cutting knife?" said Rugh, slowly. "Are you certain of your facts, Harry. If you are correct you are bringing a grave charge against the police force."

"I know what I am saying," replied Harry, testily, "I'm not stating she was not kicked, brutally, nor that her death was not the result of being kicked. I am saying that a knife, or some similar instrument was used on the body, prior to it being conveyed to Little Bay."

Rugh sat silent for some minutes, conning over the fact Harry Sutherland had placed before him. If the Star man had not made a mistake, the police were withholding valuable information. Were they doing so for a definite purpose?

"I had a talk with Richards this morning," said Rugh at length. "He told me the only information the police had related to identification. Where did you get your information, Harry?"

"Constable Nicholls." Harry searched his pockets for his pipe. "An interesting member of the police force, my son. An officer of diligence, and activity, With a fixed conviction the detective department is composed of incompetents."

"In which theory he is ably and consistently supported by a well-known member of the Australian Journalists' Association," added Rugh.

Harry grinned.

"Got any 'bacca, Rugh. You used to keep your pouch on the desk. I hate suspiciously mean people. Where was I? Oh, Nicholls. Owing to this well-known incompetence, an intelligent member of the road-levelling brigade has taken the lonesome trail."

"Nicholls, on his own."

"Exactly. Theories are worrying things, and induce a desire for a sympathetic friend."

"Harry Sutherland, the sympathetic friend! By the little gods, Harry, you and Nicholls make a great team."

"Don't we?" Harry ran a hand through his mop of unruly black hair. "Damn this pipe. Won't draw. Pass over that spike, old man. Never mind the papers, they won't get in my way. Oh, take them off if you want to. I don't mind. Yes, sir. The new firm of Nicholls and Sutherland is on the trail. The senior partner forms the theories, and states facts. The junior partner listens. Both satisfied. Say, Rugh—"

Harry put down his pipe, and sat up, intent on a new idea that had occurred to him.

"How about a jape on the most clever, intelligent, and dignified police department of N.S.W. You've not met Nicholls. He's great. The real, dinkum, musical-comedy policeman, with more than a hint of old time melodrama."

"Something's going to break now," Rugh looked at his friend in mock alarm.

"Quit your kidding. This is serious. You can't acquire any kudos over the affair, even if you solve it—with my help, of course. 'Chink' McAdoo bars my way to fame, as the solver of the great 'Little Bay Mystery.' What about boosting Constable Robert Nicholls, as the great sleuth?"

Harry leaned back in his chair and shouted with laughter.

"Oh, it's great. All the big-wigs at Headquarters outguessed by a constable they despise and snub. Nicholls says the mighty Richards gave him an awful dressing down the morning the body was found. He's still sore over it."

"You're going too fast, young man." Rugh's eyes sparkled at the idea of the joke. In his journalistic days he had suffered, in common with other pressmen, by the cock-sure attitude of certain members of the police department. "First we've got to find the murderer, and build up the proof against him, before we can hand over a ready-made reputation to your new friend."

"The firm now is Nicholls, Thornton and Sutherland," chuckled Harry, irrepressibly. "Lord, what a mouthful. We'll succeed, all right, old man. By the way, there's a chap coming to see us here. He was coming to the Star office, but when I got your message I left word for him to follow me here."

"About the murder?"

"Sure thing. Name's Smith, Joseph Smith, Calls himself a bushman. Says he has information about the Little Bay murder."

"Why doesn't he take it to the police?"

"Says he did and they turned him down cold. That's believable."

A knock came at the door, and Teddy Marlow entered.

"The paper you required, Mr. Thornton." Teddy was always mysterious over business.

"Hullo, Teddy," greeted Harry. "How's Sexton Blake, and all his merry crew?"

Teddy grinned. A well-set youth of fifteen, he thought he had attained the ideal situation when he became clerk to the investigator. His chief study was detective literature of all kinds, and his ambition wavered between a private detective agency and journalism.

"I'm studying the Star lately," he answered, turning at the door to grin broadly at the journalist.

"I bought that," Harry shouted with laughter. "Never mind, I'll chalk it up to McAdoo's account. What have you there, Rugh?"

The assurance investigator spread a sheet of foolscap paper on the desk.

"I asked 'Information' for a list of calls made to the Balmain and South this morning, early. Here it is."

"Some list," commented the journalist. "I suppose we can leave out of account all calls from reputable firms and people'?"

This reduced the list considerably. At the end of five minutes Rugh had pencilled on a pad five numbers that appeared to require investigation.

"One of these should represent Wilbur Orchard's unknown caller," he said. "We'll ask the Balmain and South if they can identify any of them."

"Balmain and South?" he asked when be obtained the connection. "No, young lady. I want a word with you. Rugh Thornton speaking. I'm going to give you five numbers—telephone numbers. I want to know if you have had calls through them from people you know. Yes? Well, ask Mr. Orchard. He will tell you to give me the information I ask for."

Rugh turned to the journalist with a broad smile on his lips.

"The young lady is discreet. Says she cannot give me information without authority, and—"

"Yes," he spoke into the instrument. "All right? Well, listen, Y00407."

The investigator paused and wrote a few words on his pad. Then he gave the other telephone numbers in succession, pausing after each number for the switch operator's comments.

"That reduces our investigations to three," he commented, as he hung up the receiver. "The lady says W0449 and Y507 are telephones used frequently by B and S agents."

"The city numbers will give us some trouble," remarked Harry thoughtfully. "Probably both these city number, are at the G.P.O. or at city post offices."

"That leaves F3111 to be considered." Rugh lit a cigarette. "That number belongs to the Waverley district and would suit a man bent on the errand we are tracing."

"A man to see you, Mr. Thornton. Says his name's Smith, Joseph Smith," announced Teddy, putting his head in at the door.

"Bring him in, Teddy." Hurry Sutherland shifted his chair back from the desk "We're going to hear something now Rugh."

The door opened and Teddy ushered in a tall thin man, well bronzed by northern suns. For a moment he stood in the doorway, looking from Rugh to Harry. At length he advanced to Harry.

"Guess you're Mr. Sutherland," he said, holding out his hand. "Got your message at your office to come 'ere."

"Good guess," laughed Harry. "How did you do it?"

"You don't fit th' place. Leastways, not as 'e does. 'Sides, th' boy looked at 'im as if 'e was boss, when 'e opened th' door."

"Sit down, Smith," said Harry. "Let me introduce you to Mr. Thornton, whose offices we have taken possession of. Mr. Thornton is interested in what you have to tell me. That is, if it's in connection with the Little Bay murder."

"Pleased to meet you." Smith shook hands, solemnly with Rugh. "It's about th' murder I came t' speak t' you."

"Why did you come to me?" asked Harry, curiously.

"I asked a chap at t' coffee Palace, an' 'e ses I'd better go to the th' Star. So I 'phoned an' th' young lady as answered sed I'd better see Mr. Sutherland."

"What do you know about the murder, Mr. Smith?" asked Rugh.

"I knows a lot," drawled Smith, in his peculiar clipped bush speech. "I guess I can put you on to th' bloke as did it."

"You know the murderer?" asked Harry, eagerly.

"I don't know 'is name," replied the bushman. "But I guess I can give you a line on 'im as'll 'elp you t' find 'im. 'E's a tall man as weighs a good bit, an' e's lame ov th' left foot."

"A lame man!" Harry looked incredulous.

"W-e-l-1 not ter say exactly lame. But 'e's got a bad limp, all th' same. It may be natural, or it may be 'cos ov a blister, or summat on 'is 'eel."

The Carson Loan Mystery

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