Читать книгу The Magnificent Hoax - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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The saloon bar of the Green Man, the nearest place of refreshment to Bunter’s Wharf, was having one of its gala evenings. The mate of the Henrietta Anne, trading chiefly between Amsterdam and the port of London, had arrived home earlier in the day to find his full master’s certificate awaiting him, and he was celebrating this auspicious epoch of his life in true riverside fashion. There were half a dozen men from his own ship: Joe Havers, the Customs House officer, Tom Bowles, the motor-boat agent, and a few more habitués of the place crowded together. There was a jar of tobacco at anyone’s disposal and drinks were free. Captain Jan Henderson—his mother had been a Dutchwoman—was a powerful-looking, burly fellow and, though his face was flushed and his speech somewhat thick, he was still coherent enough.

“Come on, lads, and help yourselves,” he shouted. “I’m half a Dutchman but this is no Dutch treat! Keep your money in your pockets. The captain pays! That’s the motto to-day.”

“The captain pays!” they all echoed. “Here’s your health, sir.”

“And may you bring the Henrietta Anne up to the wharf many a time as slick as you brought her yesterday afternoon,” a youngster in the uniform 14 of a petty officer shouted. “A real treat it was—not an inch to spare.”

The captain looked around.

“Judy, my lass,” he called out. “One more of those dances and a trifle more leg and less skirt about it! Give the young lady another glass of port,” he roared out to the barman. “Have a look at the tumblers here, Fred.”

Judy, who had removed her hat and revealed a really magnificent head of silky chestnut-coloured hair only a trifle spoilt by rough usage, turned on the gramophone, picked up her skirts and began to dance to the music. It was a popular music hall song of years ago and they all joined in the chorus. Round and round she swung and a murmur of mild applause became almost a furore. Her wickedly shaded eyes sparkled. A streak of natural colour triumphed over the clumsy patches of rouge. The barman, in response to a wink from the captain, pushed on the switch of the gramophone and increased the pace. The girl seemed to become a whirl of gaudy and voluminous, but in their way provocative, underclothes. She sprang onto a chair and the applause grew louder. There was something almost Rubens-like in the bacchanalian swing of her arms, the twistings of her body, the coarse but apparently honest joy in her own abandon. The small audience roared out the chorus at the tops of their voices. The glasses shook upon the mirrored shelves. . . . And then quite suddenly there was a paralysing chaos, a strangled, 15 unnatural silence. All eyes were turned towards the swing door which had been gently pushed open. They remained fixed in consternation upon the neatly dressed, broad-shouldered man who had suddenly entered. He looked around quickly and his eyes seemed to take in everyone. There was nothing in his appearance, however, to justify the commotion which his arrival had excited.

“Well, well, well,” he exclaimed. “Quite a pleasant little evening you’re having, I see. Some dance, that, Judy, eh? If you had lifted your skirts a few inches higher I should have had to hold my hat over my face. Duty, you know! Hard thing, duty, and very disagreeable at times. No need to look so scared, gentlemen—nor you, Fred,” he went on, nodding genially to the barman. “You’re well within time and everyone seems to be thoroughly good-humoured, I’m glad to see. I’m not on the rampage, I can assure you. So long as there’s no brawling I like to see you all having a glass or two. What’s this little celebration for?”

They all began to tell him, but the captain roared them down.

“Master’s certificate, sir, waiting for me when I got into port—and God knows I’ve earned it! The old pals are having a drink with me. Honour us by taking just one, Sergeant.”

“I’m hanged if I won’t,” was the pleasant reply. “I’m not much of a seaman myself, but they tell me there’s no one knows the river like you, Captain, and no one can bring a steamer of the tonnage of 16 the Henrietta Anne into dock as you do. Mine’s whisky, barman, out of the special bottle.”

“I’ll see to that, sir,” Sam Martin, the proprietor of the public house, declared. “You leave it to me.”

He himself brought over a tumbler filled from a mysterious bottle. The newcomer divided it into two and filled his own up with soda water.

“Well, here’s the best to all of you,” he said. “Yes, I’ll smoke a cigar, too, since you’re so kind, Captain. I’m sorry to break into a party like this but you can start again as soon as I’ve had a word or two with the young lady there. Get clear away before closing time and all keep as good-humoured as you are now and there won’t be any trouble looking for you round the corner.”

There was a hearty murmur of good-healths and approval. Sergeant Sanders was a hard man at times, but on the whole he was a popular officer. Judy, who had clambered down from the chair, was busy with her coiffure. She swung round. There was nothing but indifference in her face.

“What do you want with me, Sergeant?” she asked.

“Nothing that will do you any harm, my dear,” was the pleasant reply. “Just a question or two. We have to get inquisitive now and then, you know. What about asking Mr. Martin here to let us step into his room for a moment, then we shan’t interfere with the party. You will be able to come back 17 and finish your little song and dance. I shan’t say that I won’t stop and see it—so long as you all promise not to tell the Missus!”

Preceded by the landlord, he led the girl away to the small room at the back of the saloon bar. The captain ordered fresh drinks all round. Nevertheless there was restraint. They wanted Judy back again. They wanted to know what the sergeant had to say to her, and why the door leading into the bar parlour was fast closed.

“What is it you want, Sergeant?” the girl asked, flinging herself into a horsehair easy chair and crossing her legs. “I’ve done nothing wrong that I know of.”

“I’m pretty sure of that, my dear,” the sergeant assured her soothingly. “Somehow I don’t think you’re the sort that are out for the ordinary peccadilloes.”

She looked at him with expressionless face. The rouge had cracked a little on her cheeks and the darkening around her eyes made them seem of an abnormal size.

“I see they didn’t make you a detective for nothing,” she observed. “Well, come on, what is it?”

“I was called to Bunter’s Buildings this evening,” he began. “Been a bit of a tragedy there. Someone—we can’t tell whether it was a lodger, or a visitor, or a stranger—seems to have fallen off the outside fire escape from the top floor. Fell clean 18 down into Bunter’s Alley. We won’t talk about that too much. You were up on the top floor this evening, weren’t you?”

“I was,” Judy assented. “Don’t tell me that it was the poor gentleman I helped into his room?”

The sergeant sighed.

“There’s no one in this world will ever be able to tell who it was unless the searchers are able to do something about his clothes, or they find something amongst his belongings,” he announced gravely. “Twelve storeys onto a cobbled pavement is a big fall, and what they found in the Alley is best not thought of. We just want to know why you were up there and whom you saw?”

“That’s easy enough,” Judy declared. “I came out of my room about the usual time—something like seven o’clock—and I saw that poor loony who has a room in the attic—only he’s nearly always away—leaning against the balustrade. He’s been ill, they say, away in hospital somewhere. Anyway he was as nervous as a kitten. He didn’t want to pass that place where the rail’s broken. I went and helped him, took his arm and got him into his room. He wasn’t fit to be left, but what could one do? I offered to get him some tea or even something to eat, but he almost pushed me out.”

“Well, you played the good Samaritan so far as you could,” the sergeant remarked. “There was no one else in the room, I suppose?”

“There was no one there and no place for anyone to hide,” she assured him. “I turned on the light 19 myself. It was not very good but it was enough for me to see that.”

“Just so,” the sergeant nodded. “I wonder—you’re a pretty observant young lady, Miss Judy—I wonder if, looking round, you happened to notice anything that might have been there? A telegram or letter or anything of that sort?”

“Why, of course I did,” she acknowledged. “When we got up there was a telegram pinned onto his door. I left him with it in his hand.”

“He didn’t open it whilst you were there, then?”

“He did not,” she replied. “To tell you the truth—it’s only natural, I imagine—I was a trifle curious. He didn’t seem to me to be the sort of person to have telegrams. I hoped he would open it whilst I was in the room, but he didn’t. He just waited for me to go, getting more and more nervous. I could see that there was no chance, so I came away.”

The sergeant stroked his stubbly moustache.

“That seems all right,” he said. “You helped him up to his room like a kindly young lady would. He found a telegram there which he wouldn’t open until you left him. When you went away it was there in his hand.”

“That is the precise truth,” Judy agreed. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“The fire escape door, now,” the sergeant continued, nodding his assent. “You didn’t happen to notice whether it was bolted or locked or anything of that sort?”

She threw away the match with which she had lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply for a moment.

“It never is,” she replied, waving the smoke away. “It wouldn’t be much good to anyone in a crisis if one had to fumble about with keys or a bolt. It just opens naturally with a handle and you can step out if you want to. I’ve not a very good head myself, but when I took my room the caretaker opened it and made me see where the iron steps began.”

“Rather a dangerous arrangement,” the police officer reflected. “Supposing that poor fellow, for instance, who you say was so ill, had any suicidal intentions, he had only to open the door and walk out.”

“That’s quite true,” she agreed with a shudder. “It isn’t the way I should choose, myself, though.”

The sergeant sighed.

“Well, it all seems clear enough,” he concluded, rising slowly to his feet. “I suppose the poor devil was expecting something from that telegram, he was disappointed and he just did what dozens of these poor down-and-outs do in this part of the world. I should like to have seen the telegram, though.”

“Have your men looked for it?” Judy asked.

“Well, in a sense they have,” the other admitted. “It certainly wasn’t in the room—or any traces of it. It’s very hard to say what was in his pockets when he was picked up. They may be able to judge better later on. On the other hand he may 21 have torn it up and thrown the pieces away just as he took the leap. What kind of age did he seem to you, Judy?”

“I don’t think he could have been old—not even middle-aged,” she reflected, “but he was wasted as though with fever. He was shaking all over just as though he had D.T. It’s my belief he’d been in hospital somewhere and they’d let him out too soon.”

The sergeant moved towards the door.

“Well, I’m sorry to have broken in upon your evening, Judy. You can get back to it now as soon as you like. I’m going to slip out the other way. Same address if we want you for the inquest, I suppose?”

“Same address, and thank you,” she replied. “I did my best for that poor fellow,” she added a little wistfully. “I’m sorry.”

“Maybe he’s better off,” Sanders reflected.