Читать книгу The Little Grey Woman - Aidan de Brune - Страница 3

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"HERDIN' the little devils tonight, Houston?" Inspector Robert Knox came up behind Detective-Sergeant Houston, standing under the portico of the Alamanza Rooms, watching the guests gather for the annual Artists' Ball. A couple of hilarious young men had just passed, dressed in strange costumes.

"Seem to get a kick out of it, don't they?" Houston, a middle-aged, stolid officer, grinned as he turned to welcome his young chief. "Can't say I see the fun of it, m'self; staying out of a nice warm bed till all hours of the morning. But—well, the Chief asked me to give an eye here for a few hours. A queer gang get in at these affairs, y'know."

"Just the impression I formed," Knox took out his cigarette-case and held it towards his companion. "Thought I'd saunter down for an hour or so and see if any of our particular friends are in a festive or working mood, this evening. Got the glad rags on, I see."

"May have to go inside." Houston grinned, self-consciously, wriggling his shoulders under the stiff linen. "You're in full regalia, too."

"'Course!" The Inspector drew away from the edge of the pavement as a well-appointed car drew to the curb. "Hello! Thought fancy was compulsory at these affairs. This couple—"

He watched curiously as a tall, military-looking man, about forty years of age, backed from the car and went forward to speak to the driver. He wore a light overcoat, open, over his immaculate evening clothes. A moment, and he turned to the car and assisted a woman to alight. She, also, was in evening dress, a light, gauzy wrap streaming back from her bare shoulders. Neither of them carried costumes, the woman swinging from her fingers a small vanity bag.

The couple slowly ascended the steps, the man talking earnestly to his companion. Knox, turning to speak to his brother-officer, saw him move quickly forward and bend to pick up a small object from the steps, almost under the man's feet.

"Excuse me, sir." Houston held, his open hand out towards the man. "You; dropped this."

"What?" The man halted, speaking slowly. "Dropped what? That?" His face flushed and unconsciously he drew himself more erect. "No, that's not mine."

Brusquely, he caught his companion by her elbow, urging her up the steps. As they disappeared into the vestibule, Houston turned to his brother-officer, a quizzical look on his face.

"Seems upset." He opened his hand again. "And, all I did was to offer him this fountain-pen he dropped. Why, what's the matter; Inspector?"

Knox had moved forward, and was bending down, keenly examining something on one of the steps. He beckoned the sergeant to come to his side.

"What's that, Houston?" He pointed to a few grains of white, glistening powder, lying, on the step. "You picked up that pen from about there, didn't you?"

"That? Looks like powder."

"Marvellous!" Knox laughed, sarcastically. "But the lady didn't drop her vanity bag. It was the man who dropped his fountain-pen."

"He says it wasn't his."

"Perhaps he was right." The Inspector took a scrap of paper from, his pocket and, gathering up the grains on the tips of his fingers, transferred them, to the paper. "When he turned to speak to you his coat flew open and I noticed that he had a pen, very, similar to that one, clipped to his breast-pocket. A busy man doesn't carry two pens, even when in evening dress."

"But—damn it—I saw it fall!" Houston pushed his hat to the back of his head, rubbing his forehead perplexedly. "There's nothing in a man carrying two fountain-pens."

"Not ordinarily." Knox had collected all the grains of powder he could find and stood examining them. "But the average man carries ink in his pen, not—"

"Snow!" The Sergeant barely breathed the word. He bent eagerly over the paper Knox held, "Do you think—"

"Mustn't think!" The Inspector folded the paper carefully and, taking an envelope from his pocket, enclosed it. "Come on, Sergeant. That fellow is worth watching. Usual costumes in the dressing-room, I suppose?"

"'Course!" Houston passed his superior-officer, into the vestibule. A quick glance round showed him that the couple had disappeared. He led into the men's dressing-rooms. Only the two young men they had seen entering the rooms were there. As the police officers entered they completed their toilets and moved to the door.

"That fountain-pen, man!" Knox turned abruptly to his companion. He almost snatched it from Houston's hand.

It was a cheap-looking, full-barrelled pen, made of common vulcanite and bare of ornamentation. It had not even a safety-clip attached; it was the kind of a pen sold in low class shops for a few shillings. Knox examined it for cracks. There were none. He tried the nib. There was no ink in the barrel. He let the pen fall, carelessly, on the table. No powder came from it.

"Queer sort of fountain-pen for that class of a man to carry!" Houston observed. "You're certain you saw him drop it?"

"Not the slightest doubt." The sergeant answered, promptly. "I saw it fall. 'Fact, I almost reached it before it touched the step."

Houston was certain and Knox could not doubt him. The sergeant was not a brilliant officer, but sound in his work. If he was certain that the pen had dropped from the man's pocket, it had—in spite of his denials. Yet, why had a man, evidently well off carried a cheap pen? Why was he carrying two pens—for Knox was certain he had noticed a pen in the man's breast-pocket. If he had possessed two pens, why had he denied this pen belonged to him?

The man intrigued Knox. From the moment he had descended from the limousine, his carriage and figure had caught the Inspector's attention. Knox prided himself that he knew the Sydney crooks, and a fair number of other States' crooks, by sight. In the department he was spoken of as the man with the "camera eye." His comrades boasted that he had only to glance at a suspect and place him, definitely. If the man had passed through the hands of the police, he could recount his aliases, his sentences, and frequently describe his fingerprints and body-markings.

The Inspector shook himself, angrily. If the man had, at any time, passed through the hands of the police he should be a memory. He made a mental note of that, when he returned to Headquarters, he would satisfy himself about him.

Then there was the woman. In some ways she fitted well with the man. About twenty-five to thirty years of age; slender and finely-formed, dark hair and grey eyes, she complemented his tall, spare, yet square figure. Knox knew that her portrait was not in his mental registry. If she had ever come under suspicion he would have remembered. But, because she had not before come under his notice, that did not say she was an honest member of society. He knew that, extensive as was his knowledge of criminals, there were men and women, then free, who should be under restraint. Impatiently, he rose from his seat and paced the room.

His thoughts went back to the few grains of white powder he had picked up from the steps of the Alamanza Rooms. In them he had a clue. If, as he suspected, the powder was cocaine, then he had chanced on a couple of the many new criminals in the city, who had blossomed with its recent growth. They belonged to one or other of the dope-gangs that were poisoning young and old on the continent. They were operators in this era of tense superficial excitement; these times of weird, semi-barbaric music; of wild, grotesque dances; of frenzied gaieties, demanding dangerous drugs to feed and keep alive a nervous tension which, if allowed to relax, would bring to the sufferers almost the tortures of the damned.

The dope-ring! Knox was again on familiar ground. Although not attached to the Dope Squad he knew much of their work; of the growing trade in cocaine, hasheesh, opium—a few only of the numerous drugs that fed tangled nerves. The trade had grown enormously, of recent years. Its operations were nationwide. Its operators penetrated all stages of Australian society. Almost daily memoranda and reminders came from the Headquarters' offices relating to the evil—to rank and file of the Police Department, as well as to the special members of the Dope Squad. So alarmingly had the trade grown that a large special branch of the service had been formed to deal with it. He turned abruptly to the table.

"Where's that pen, Houston?" The Inspector's voice had grown hard.

He almost snatched it from the man's hands and placed it on a sheet of newspaper. Again he examined it, using a powerful magnifying glass. The vulcanite was not cracked. Again he tried the nib. The pen would not write. He held the nib under the glass. No ink had passed over it. Then—

Then with a wrench of his powerful fingers he unscrewed the nib-holder from the barrel and drew out the ink-container. He smiled slightly as a little bag came into view. He had not been wrong in his surmises. Instead of the usual, ink-bag of soft, thin rubber, there was a larger bag of fine, closely-woven silk—and that bag was full of some soft substance.

Again the powerful glass was brought into use. Where the bag of silk joined the nib-bolder a minute rubber-band held the connection, Again Knox smiled. He was beginning to understand. If he was right then the man had obtained, with the pen, another bag—not of silk—but of rubber. The silk bag withdrawn and the rubber bag substituted, the pen would be, once more, a cheap fountain pen, such as children buy in small stationer's shops.

Tearing from the news sheet a square of paper, Knox drew off the silk bag and emptied it. The bag held quite an amount of fine, crystallised powder. He took from his pocket the fold of paper in which he had enclosed the few grains he had found on the Alamanza steps. Under the glass they matched, exactly.

The powder in the bag was cocaine. Then, the powder he had gathered from the steps was also cocaine. Again Knox brought the magnifying grass into use, scanning nib and holder. Down the vent through which ink should flow were traces of powder. The pen had, by some mischance, been carried nib downwards. The finer grains of powder had sifted through to the nib. He picked up the cap. It fitted loosely on the barrel—so loosely that it was strange it had not been lost.

"End off, when you picked up the pen, Houston?" Knox inquired abruptly.

"Very loose, sir. I jammed it back before I handed the pen to the man."

"And—you jammed it back! Yes! So! That's how the powder escaped. Well, we'll have a look for our friend, now. Get the costumes, man. We'll have to make ourselves pretty, to join in with this gay throng."

"Dope runners, sir?"

"As you say, Sergeant. Dope runners. Just the place for them to operate. The Artists' Ball. A night of revelry and excitement! 'Course! Wonder why the wise-heads at Headquarters never thought to detail some of the Dope Squad to it. Humph! Crowds of flappers, brimming with excitement. Pocket flasks empty—and rawed, jagged nerves. Giddy whirl and fascinating strange partner—'Have a sniff at this, honey. Put you straight for the night'—can't you imagine it, man! The dammed curs! Come on! I want some glad rags to hide in. I want that man and woman. Curse it, Houston, hurry up! You've got boys and girls of your own, you tell me. Think of them, man! Think of them in some such place as this—and those fiends teasing and luring them on! Oh, damn—damn!"