Читать книгу The Carson Loan Mystery - Aidan de Brune - Страница 5

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RUGH THORNTON tilted his chair back and hoisted his feet on to his desk. Business was slack, and the afternoon's Star interesting.

Twelve month's previous Rugh had been a member of the Star's staff. Investigations he had made into the activities of certain assurance company-promoters had attracted the attention of leading men of the assurance world. He had received an offer from a syndicate of the leading assurance companies to enter their employ and carry on his investigation work, and had promptly accepted. His work was interesting. Every new assurance company came under his review, and his keen insight into their methods and objects, as well as into the history of the men behind them, had resulted in making New South Wales unsafe for the unscrupulous insurance company promoter, and wild-cat companies.

The Star's account of the finding of a woman's naked body on the sandhills around Little Bay was extremely brief and pointless. Rugh was puzzled, for the Star's criminal investigator, Harry Sutherland, was a keen and clever journalist, usually well ahead of official investigations.

In the matter of the Little Bay Mystery the Star had taken a scrupulously official viewpoint. No attempt had been made at an independent newspaper investigation, and the impression conveyed was that the Little Bay Murder was one of the sordid crimes common to large cities.

The well-trained brain of the assurance investigator refused to consider the murder in the aspect presented by the Star report. There were many unexplained points that puzzled him.

The woman's body had been stripped. It was not uncommon for murderers to strip their victims in the search for valuables of one kind or another. Yet the police were confident the woman was one of the "lost sisters" of the city, and unlikely to have anything of value on her person.

Again, while the body had been stripped, the clothes had not been thrown about haphazard, but had been carefully folded and placed on the body. This, alone, presented a problem of an original character. Few murderers are sufficiently cool-headed to spare time and thought for such actions.

The man seen by the police in the vicinity of the dead woman, almost immediately after the discovery of the body, presented another problem. If the woman was one of the "lost sisters" of the city, and had been murdered by this man, why should he hang around the spot. Murderers usually place a considerable distance between themselves and their crimes, as quickly as possible.

While the official report strove to show the Little Bay murder as a common, sordid crime, it could not conceal the unusual nature of the surroundings. The report laid great stress on the doctor's report that the woman had been kicked to death, as supporting their theory of thug-murder, but neglected to explain the stripping of the body, the careful disposal of the clothes, and the return of the supposed murderer to the scene of his crime.

Rugh laid the newspaper aside with an exclamation of displeasure. It was a mystery that would have appealed to him during his journalistic career. He would have thrown himself, heart and soul, into the hunt, combing Sydney's underworld from end to end.

Those days had passed. The greater tragedies of the city were not for him. He had his work in the protection of a branch of the city's commerce. In the hunt for the murderer in the Little Bay mystery he was now but one of the great public who stand and watch the passing show.

Not altogether. Harry Sutherland, the criminal investigator on the Star's staff, was his personal friend. Harry would willingly give him inside information and discuss the mystery with him.

Rugh caught up the telephone. The girl at the Star's switchboard recognised his voice, and under a minute he was speaking to his friend.

"Rugh Thornton, by the favour of the gods," ejaculated Harry, on listening in. "The one man I wanted. I was going to hunt you up this afternoon, old man."

"Hunt round my office, now," invited the assurance man. "I'm not running away. How long will you be?"

"Five minutes," replied Harry, reaching for his hat. "Dinkum."

Less than five minutes later the Star man entered Rugh's offices and deposited his long length in the most comfortable chair he could find. Then he took off the high-powered spectacles he wore and polished the lenses carefully.

"What's the trouble, Harry?" asked Rugh. The careful polishing of the glasses was an unfailing sign of worry with Harry Sutherland.

"Same inquiry from the Star man," retorted Harry. "As you beat me to the 'phone, suppose you spill first."

"All right," replied Rugh, indifferently. "I want the correct dope on the Little Bay Mystery."

"Read the Star. All the winners, spiced with political scandals, and the dinkum official dope on births, marriages, divorces, and sudden deaths."

"Since when has the Star assumed the role of official apologists for the N.S.W. Police Force?" asked Rugh, sarcastically.

Harry pulled out his watch and studied it. Then he gave his crop of unruly black hair a characteristic rake.

"A little over three and a half hours," he replied with a cheerful grin. "To be exact, since the noon edition, a copy of which I see on your desk."

"Well?"

"Are you interested, old man?"

"Intensely. I em interested to know when Harry Sutherland lost his punch."

"Your people expect you to take an interest in claims against them?" asked Harry, ignoring the assurance man's question.

"Occasionally. You know they run claim inspectors for that work."

"Yet, they are liable to call on you?"

"They might. In the event of their regular men falling down on it."

"They have called on you to investigate claims?"

"What are you driving at, Harry?" asked Rugh, impatiently. "Yes, if you want to know, they have called on my services. Twice."

"Thought so. And they'll call again?"

"Possibly. Get on with your beans, you ass."

"Say, in the event of a mysterious murder?"

Rugh was silent a minute. Then he got out of his chair and strode over to where Harry was seated. "There's something on your mind," he commanded. "Spill it."

"The Little Bay Murder."

"Do you suggest any of my companies are likely to be concerned in the matter?" Rugh asked, speaking deliberately. "Your account of the police investigations presumes the murder to be of an ordinary type and likely to be quickly solved by the authorities."

"Think so?" Harry pulled out a well-seasoned briar pipe and earnestly explored the interior. "Nothing in that account that strikes you as—well, strange?"

Rugh looked at his friend, closely. Harry was intent on his pipe.

"Only that you wrote it," he said at length.

"So." The journalist carefully pieced his pipe together. "There's a Chink, calling itself a Scot, in our office."

"Name McAdoo." The investigator returned to his seat. "What's his latest?"

"Damned if I know." Harry reached out a long arm and commandeered Rugh's tobacco pouch. "He called me on the carpet this morning. Informed me space was valuable, and that an experienced journalist would not require more than a half-column for so trite an affair as the Little Bay murder."

Rugh laughed.

"I guess the 'experienced journalist' had something to say?"

"Said a lot, and all to the point, but—"

"Was informed, somewhat brutally, that three-quarters of the journalists of the Commonwealth were eager to jump into the position of investigator to the Star newspaper. Eh?"

"You might have been behind the door." Harry pulled vigorously, and inquisitively, at his pipe.

"Interesting," commented Rugh.

"Damned interesting." Harry hit the arm of his chair with his open hand, angrily. "I'm coupling that up with a conversation I heard an hour or so previous. No, you old flathead, I wasn't snooping in the office. You know what the 'phone service is there. Wires all of a tangle, and when you cut in you're likely to get anything from the Governor-General to an electric shock. I got McAdoo."

"Well?"

"Heard two sentences before I realised I was snooping. They were: 'The police statements are all I require published.' That was a stranger speaking. Then McAdoo's sweet tones, super-oiled, replied: 'That will be difficult to arrange, Mr. Brene. But if you insist, of course I will do my best.'"

"Sam Brene!" Rugh whistled softly. "You are sure it was the murder they were discussing, Harry?"

"It links up." Harry blew out a cloud of thick evil-smelling smoke. "Story killed, on top of what I overheard. No other police matter in the paper of moment, and—"

"Well?"

"I didn't handle McAdoo any too gently when he called me off," confessed the journalist. "It got me on the raw, and—well, it's the best thing I've had since I took over your job on the Star. I asked McAdoo, straight, what Brene's interest in the matter was."

"Good. You've got a nerve, all right. What did he answer?"

"Stalled badly, of course. The old man can't keep a straight face when he's cornered. Asked what I meant, and looked as confused as a flapper when handed an ice-cream instead of a cocktail."

"Seems reasonable," remarked Rugh, after some minutes' reflection. "Now, where do I come in?"

"Sam Brene's not too far off when there's money floating around," answered the Star man, shortly. "You know his record. Boss of the Town Hall, jury fixer, and king of the grafters' brigade."

"You're guessing a lot, old man."

"I am." Harry abandoned his air of carelessness, and leaned forward earnestly. "I'm guessing it all. I'm guessing that within twenty-four hours you will be on the trail of the Little Bay murderer, with a stake in the game worth playing for."