Читать книгу The Shadow Crook - Aidan de Brune - Страница 6

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"I don't understand." Cranford Hughes looked across at the Inspector, a puzzled frown on his face. "Do you think this man, Samuel Keene, had anything to do with the theft of the Kynaston sapphires and the White Trinity?"

"There is more than a possibility." The detective was, carefully examining the tips of his fingers. "You state Samuel Keene was not tested in any manner, yet he acknowledged to have hung about Stacey Carr's shop for many days. On your own showing, Mr. Hughes, he had excellent opportunities to learn where Stacey Carr kept his valuables."

The barrister nodded. On the few occasions be had reviewed the Stacey Carr trial he had seen this loophole in his defence. Now this police Inspector had placed his finger on the point. Quickly, he reviewed the persons connected with the old trial. Samuel Keene alone stood out as the one who could have wrest from the old jeweller the secret of the hidden safe.

"How is all this going to help you, Inspector?" he asked suddenly. "Do you propose to re-open the Stacey Carr case? In that event—"

"Stacey Carr is dead, Mr. Hughes," the detective interrupted.

"And you are mainly interested in the raid on Headquarters by this mysterious person, the Shadow Crook." The barrister leaned forward and took a fresh cigar from the box on the table. "I don't see how you are going to connect Stacey Carr with the Shadow Crook."

"The jewels have never been found, Mr. Hughes?"

"No, so far as I am aware." Cranford looked up with some surprise in his eyes. "Of course—No. The jewels were never found. There was a reference to them in a magazine a month or so ago. It spoke of them among famous lost jewels—the Kynaston sapphires and the White Trinity."

"Then, where are they?" Mason rose from his chair and walked up and down the room. "They cannot have vanished into thin air. Carr was in prison and could not get them. From what you have told me, it does not seem probable he disposed of them before his arrest. Remember, the White Trinity would be a most difficult jewel to sell."

"The pearls might have been separated and sold singly," said the barrister.

"Yet you stated the pearls were diseased when Stacey Carr took charge of them. You stated that Stacey Carr was arrested but a couple of days after the jewels were handed to him. He would not have had time to cure the pearls and dispose Of them. Further, you have just stated that only within the past two months a reference has been made to them in an article referring to 'mysteriously lost' jewels. No, Mr. Hughes, I believe the jewels are still hidden. Stacey Carr placed them in some secret safe and the blow on the head affected his memory of their hiding-place."

"In that case you will have to start your search at 5 Carew Lane," laughed the barrister. "I am afraid you will have a hopeless task. The police almost pulled the house to pieces in their search for the jewels before the trial. Another peculiar thing, and it bears out somewhat your theory of the lost jewels; at no time has Stacey Carr's safe been discovered. No one could even state positively he had one."

"And since the date of the police search the house has been let to half a dozen different tenants?" suggested the detective, ruefully. "I suppose now it is a ham and beef shop and the jeweller's fittings dispersed to the four winds of heaven."

"There's one point in your favour." Cranford rose to his feet and sought his hat. "You'll have to excuse me for an Interview with a firm of solicitors regarding another poor devil in the clutches of the law. If you go to Carew Lane you will, find Stacey Carr's shop practically as he left it. It is still a jeweller's shop and I believe most of the old fittings are in place."

"What do you mean?"

"I can tell you no more than that." Cranford halted on the entrance steps and held out his hand. "Only a few days ago I learned Stacey Carr's shop was still in existence. More, that it is practically in the condition it was when the old man was carried out of it. I was curious and wandered down there to verify my information."

Mason walked into Phillip-street, very perplexed. It seemed incredible that after five years Stacey Carr's old shop should still be in existence. More, that it was practically in the same condition as on the day the old man left it for gaol.

For some time he stood on the pavement before Risdon Court trying to co-ordinate the information he had received from the barrister, into a coherent story. There was something behind these facts. He could swear to that, but for his life he could not piece the story together without big improbabilities creeping in.

Stacey Carr had taken the Kynaston sapphires and the While Trinity pearls into his charge. A few days later he had been found on the floor of his shop, by a patrolling constable, insensible. He had been carried to the hospital, to awaken to a darkened memory; He could not remember where he had placed the sapphires and the pearls—he could not even remember the jewels. A careful search by the police had failed to discover the hiding place. He had been arrested and charged with their theft. Finally, he had stood in the dock at Darlinghurst, a broken, disgraced old man.

From the dock he had passed to the grim portals of the prison, sentenced to be set apart from his fellows for a term of ten years. Nearly five of those years had passed and, assuming ordinary good conduct, the old man might expect to regain his freedom within the next three years or so. Then, death had intervened.

Immediately following the death of Stacey Carr had come the strange raid on Police Headquarters by the Shadow Crook. So far as the detective could read the riddle, that raid had been for the sole purpose of examining some clue to the jewels in the records of the dead man.

In the story of Stacey Carr, convict, as recounted by his barrister, had lurked one sinister figure—the man, Samuel Keene. Stacey Carr had been convicted of the theft of the Kynaston sapphires and the White Trinity. Samuel Keene had, in the witness box, acknowledged to a mania for gems and pearls. He had acknowledged hanging around the old jeweller's shop. Had he done so to obtain the secret of the hidden safe? That was probable. Yet he had not discovered it, for the jewels were generally acknowledged to be still missing.

Where had Samuel Keene come from? The only clues were that ho professed to be a gentleman of independent means, permanently resident in Victoria. Where had he gone to?

A sudden gust of anger shook the detective. What fools had ruled in the Police Department five years ago. Taking into consideration the attack on Stacey Carr, affecting his memory, there was only one improbability in his story and the police had passed it by as of little account. They had concentrated on the dazed old jeweller and had let the man who might have solved their problem pass from under their hands, unquestioned.

Mason recognised that the theory he was building bristled with improbabilities. He had not one iota of proof to connect this Samuel Keene with the theft of the jewels. He could not show that the man had any knowledge of where Stacey Carr had hidden the jewels. All he had was a suspicion, growing stronger with every fresh fact he uncovered.

"Pondering over the Shadow Crook's raid on Police Headquarters, Mason?" A cheerful voice at his elbow caused him to turn, to face Alec Branston.

"You're out early this morning." Mason glanced from his watch to the journalist's face. "If I am correctly informed night-roundsmen get to bed somewhere between four, and five o'clock in the morning—and it is barely noon, now. Why this restlessness?"

"Couldn't' sleep." Branston laughed, slightly. "Got the Shadow Crook, on my brain and tossed and turned in bed, until in desperation I rolled out. Time off to-night, so I can make up for my lost sleep.

"What do you know of Stacey Carr and the Kynaston sapphires?" the detective asked abruptly.

"Lor'! You're not on that?" The journalist stopped in his tracks, looking at the detective in amazement. "Why, it's five years old, if it's a day."

"That doesn't answer my question," replied Mason.

"That's so." The reporter fell into step again. "If you care to come up to the Mirror library, I'll drag out the files of the case and you can read them at your leisure. I had a go at it some weeks back. There's columns and columns of it."

"You read it up!" The Inspector glanced sharply at his companion. "Any special idea? How old were you when it happened?"

"Twenty-seven now." The newspaper-man laughed at the slightly astonished look on the detective's face. "I'm older than I look. Suppose it's this unruly black mop of mine, but everyone takes me for twenty-one, or twenty-two. Fact, I was twenty-two when old man Carr went to trial."

"Newspaper-man then?"

"Thank the Lord, no!" Branston took off his hat with a comical gesture. "That madness occurred afterwards."

"Then all you know of the Stacey Carr trial is what you've read?"

"That's so." There was a fair pause before the journalist continued. "What do you want to know, particularly?"

"There was a man mixed up in the Stacey Carr trial, name Samuel Keene. What do you know of him?"

"Samuel Keene!" Branston halted abruptly. "Samuel Keene! Now where have I come across that name?

"Yes, I remember. The name stuck in my mind. He made quite a speech for the defence, didn't he?"

"Heard so." Something in the newspaper-man's tones caused Mason to retreat into his shell. "Remember, all I've heard of the case is hearsay. When I have a few minutes to spare I'll avail myself of your offer and read up the account of the trial in the Mirror's files."

"Welcome." Branston paused at the glass doors of the newspaper offices. "If I'm not about, and I don't usually come on until eight o'clock in the evening, go up to the second floor and follow the corridor round to the library. Tell Olson what you want and he'll get it for you."

"Thanks." The Inspector paused and watched the newspaper-man push through the doors into the vestibule. Then he turned and walked up to Police Headquarters. A summons was awaiting him in his room to attend the Detective Superintendent.

"What the devil did he want in the Fingerprints Department?" exclaimed Superintendent Tomlin when Mason had again detailed the happenings of the previous night.

"On the face of it, to have a look at the fingerprints of Stacey Carr." Mason spoke with a grin on his face. "The fingerprints of a dead man!"

Superintendent Tomlin, a stout, red-faced, thick-set man, snorted with disgust. "Can't you think of some thing more original than that, Mason?"

"Can you?" The Inspector laughed outright. "There's one theory in my mind, and that doesn't take account of fingerprints."

Superintendent Tomlin looked the question his lips did not frame, and Detective-Inspector Mason replied:

"Stacey Carr died yesterday afternoon, in gaol. He would have been due for release in about three years, on ticket of leave. Now, neither the Kynaston sapphires nor the White Trinity have been discovered. Carr, before and since his imprisonment, has professed entire ignorance of the hiding-place of the jewels. I believe there is a connection between those jewels, Stacey Carr's death, and the Shadow Crook's raid on our finger-print records, last night."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Tomlin became purple in the face as he stared hard across his desk at the detective. "How's Stacey Carr's fingerprints going to lead any confederate—the Shadow Crook or anyone else—to the hiding place of the jewels? That is, if they are still hidden."

"You remember the Stacey Carr trial, Superintendent?"

"Very well." Tomlin threw himself hack in his chair. "My opinion is that Carr got rid of them before, he was found insensible in his shop. He shipped them off to some confederate and was arrested before he could lay his hands on the proceeds of the robbery. Pity he died. I was going to have him watched when he came out. We might have struck on some clue to where the jewels went to."

"Who was, or is, Samuel Keene, Superintendent?"

"Samuel Keene? Oh, I remember!" Tomlin frowned thoughtfully. "Gave evidence for Carr. Said he was of independent means; came from Victoria; interested in jewels."

"Interested in jewels." Mason repeated the phrase, significantly. "Did you put the acid on him?"

"Don't think so." The Superintendent hesitated. "No, the defence brought him forward at the last moment. Seems he was interested in Stacey Carr's work of curing jewels. Used to hang about the old man's shop. Nothing against him."

"N-o." Mason drawled the word. "Now, I've got quite a hunch that if the police had been interested in Samuel Keene they would have come a damned sight closer to the missing jewels."

"You think ho was a confederate?"

"I think Stacey Carr was a victim of circumstances, and a well-delivered blow to his memory."

"Whew!" Tomlin leaned forward. "So, that's it. Where have you been hunting?"

"First, with Cranford Hughes, the barrister who defended Stacey Carr. Second with Alec Branston, the night roundsman of the Mirror."

There was a long pause. Mason was tracing diagrams with his finger on the desk-top. Superintendent Tomlin sat well forward in his chair, staring at his fellow-officer.

"What do you want, Mason?"

"Just the history of Samuel Keene, from the day he was born to the present date. You know the Commissioner instructed me to round up the Shadow Crook, pronto?"

"Samuel Keene's history! Well, it will want a bit of doing, but I'll put it up to the Commissioner. Think he will decide it's worth while. Second step good, if you can get what you're after. But the Shadow Crook will want some finding. Got any ideas?"

"Plenty, but no clues. There's just one thing in my favour. If what I'm told is correct I'm one of the few persons who have seen and spoken to the Shadow Crook. That's an advantage. I'm game to bet I'll pick him out of fifty men first shot, even if I have to wait ten years for the chance. Anything more, Superintendent? No, then—"

Mason's hand was on the door-knob when Tomlin called him back to the desk.

"Say, Mason. You've put a puzzler to me. You've made statements that don't seem to connect together. You talk as if Stacey Carr was an innocent man, and the judge was so convinced of his guilt that he gave him all there was in the bag. You ask me to hunt up people who've disappeared for the past five years. What'll it all lead to?"

"Just one thing." The Inspector leaned his hands on the desk, laughing slightly. "I'm trading on one hunch—that the Shadow Crook who held a surprise party at Police Headquarters last night and Samuel Keene, the friend and champion of Stacey Carr five years ago, are one and the same person."