Читать книгу Charlie Chan Carries On - Earl Derr Biggers - Страница 7

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HEN they reached the ground floor, Duff directed his two assistants to return to the Yard at once with their findings, and then send the chauffeur back with the green car to await his own departure from Broome’s. He began a round of the corridors, and came presently upon Doctor Lofton, who still had an upset and worried air.

“The other five members of the party are here,” the doctor announced. “I’ve got them waiting in that same parlor. I hope you can see them now, as they are rather restless.”

“At once,” answered Duff amiably, and together with Lofton, entered the familiar room.

“You people know what has happened,” the conductor said. “This is Inspector Duff, of Scotland Yard. He wants to talk with you. Inspector, Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Benbow, Mr. and Mrs. Max Minchin and Mrs. Latimer Luce.”

The inspector stood regarding this oddly assorted group. Funny lot, these Americans, he was thinking: all types, all races, all classes of society, traveling together in apparent peace and amity. Well, that was the melting-pot for you. He was reaching for his note-book when the man named Elmer Benbow rushed up and pumped enthusiastically at his hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Inspector,” he cried. “Say, this will be something to tell when we get back to Akron. Mixed up in a murder—Scotland Yard and all that—just like I’ve been reading about in your English mystery novels. I read a lot of ’em. My wife tells me they won’t improve my mind, but when I get home from the factory every night, I’m just about done up, and I don’t want any of the heavy stuff——”

“Really?” broke in Duff. “Now, just a moment, Mr. Benbow.” Benbow waited, his flow of talk momentarily checked. He was a plump, genial soul; the naïve, unsophisticated sort the British so love to think of as a typical American. In his hand he carried a motion-picture camera. “What was the name of that place you expect to return to one day?” Duff asked.

“Akron. You’ve heard of Akron, haven’t you? Akron, Ohio.”

“I have now,” Duff smiled. “On a pleasure trip, I presume?”

“Sure. Been talking about it for years. Business wasn’t so good this winter, and my partner he says to me: ‘Elmer, why don’t you dig down into the old sock and take that trip around the world you’ve been boring me with for the past five years? That is,’ he says, ‘if there’s anything in the sock after this Wall Street crash.’ Well, there was plenty, for I’m no speculator. Good safe investment—that’s my motto. I wasn’t afraid to spend the money, because I knew that business was fundamentally sound and would turn the corner in time. I look for a return to normalcy—Harding came from Ohio, too—about the time we get back to Akron. You take the rediscount rate——”

Duff glanced at his watch. “I got you here, Mr. Benbow, to ask if you could throw any light on that unfortunate affair in room 28?”

“Unfortunate is right,” Benbow replied. “You said it. As nice an old gentleman as you’d want to meet. One of the big men of the country, rich as all get out, and somebody goes and murders him. I tell you, it’s a slap at American institutions——”

“You know nothing about it?”

“I didn’t do it, if that’s what you mean. We make too many tires in Akron to go round killing off our best customers, the automobile men. No, sir, this is all a big mystery to Nettie and me. You’ve met the wife?”

The detective bowed in the direction of Mrs. Benbow, a handsome, well-dressed woman who, not being needed at the factory, had evidently had more time for the refinements of life than had her husband.

“A great pleasure,” he said. “I take it that you have been out this morning for a walk about London?”

Mr. Benbow held up the camera. “Wanted to get a few more shots on the good old film,” he explained. “But say—the fog was terrible. I don’t know how some of these pictures will turn out. It’s my hobby, you might say. When I get back from this tour I expect to have enough movies to make a fool of contract bridge at our house for months to come. And that will be O. K. with me.”

“So you spent the morning taking pictures?”

“I sure did. The sun came out a while ago, and then I really went to it. Nettie, she says to me: ‘Elmer, we’ll be late for that train,’ so I finally tore myself away. I was out of film by that time, anyhow.”

Duff sat studying his notes. “This Akron,” he remarked. “Is it near a town called”—he flipped the pages of his note-book—“is it near Canton, Ohio?”

“Just a few miles between ’em,” Benbow answered. “McKinley came from Canton, you know. Mother of presidents—that’s what we call Ohio.”

“Indeed,” murmured Duff. He turned to Mrs. Latimer Luce, a keen-eyed old woman of indefinite age and cultivated bearing. “Mrs. Luce, have you anything to tell me about this murder?”

“I’m sorry, Inspector,” she replied, “but I can tell you nothing.” Her voice was low and pleasing. “I’ve been traveling most of my life, but this is a new experience.”

“Where is your home?”

“Well—Pasadena, California—if I have one. I keep a house there, but I’m never in it. I’m always on the go. At my age, it gives one something to think about. New scenes, new faces. I’m so shocked over this Drake affair. A charming man.”

“You’ve been out of the hotel this morning?”

“Yes—I breakfasted with an old friend in Curzon Street. An English woman I knew when I lived in Shanghai, some twenty years ago.”

Duff’s eyes were on Mr. Max Minchin, and they lighted with interest. Mr. Minchin was a dark stocky man with close-cropped hair and a protruding lower lip. He had shown no such enthusiasm as had Mr. Benbow at meeting a man from Scotland Yard. In fact, his manner was sullen, almost hostile.

“Where is your home, Mr. Minchin?” Duff inquired.

“What’s that got to do with the case?” Minchin inquired. With one hairy hand he fingered a big diamond in his tie.

“Oh, tell him, Maxy,” said his wife, who overflowed a red plush chair. “It ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, I guess.” She looked at Duff. “We’re from Chicago,” she explained.

“Well, Chicago, it is,” her husband remarked harshly. “And what of it, hey?”

“Have you any information about this murder?”

“I ain’t no dick,” said Maxy. “Do I look it? Dig up your own info. Me—I got nothing to say. My lawyers—well, they ain’t here. I ain’t talking. See what I mean?”

Duff glanced at Doctor Lofton. Some queer characters had certainly crept into Lofton’s Round the World Tour this year. The doctor looked the other way obviously embarrassed.

Mrs. Minchin also appeared rather uncomfortable. “Come on, Maxy,” she protested. “There’s no use nursing a grouch. Nobody’s accusing you.”

“Patrol your own beat,” he said. “I’ll handle this.”

“What have you been doing this morning?” Duff inquired.

“Buying,” answered Minchin tersely.

“Look at that sparkler.” Sadie held out a fat hand. “I seen it in a window, and I says to Maxy—if you want me to remember London, that’s what I remember it by. And he come across, Maxy did. A free spender—ask the boys in Chicago——”

Duff sighed, and stood up. “I won’t detain you any longer,” he remarked to the little group. He explained again that no one must leave Broome’s Hotel, and the five went out. Lofton turned to him.

“What’s to be the outcome of this, Mr. Duff?” he wanted to know. “My tour is on schedule, of course, and a delay is going to tangle things frightfully. Boats, you understand. Boats all along the line, Naples, Port Said, Calcutta, Singapore. Have you any information that will entitle you to hold any of my party here? If so, hold them, and let the rest of us go on.”

A puzzled frown was on Duff’s usually serene face. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I’ve never encountered a situation like this before. For the moment, I’m not quite certain about my future course of action. I must consult my superiors at the Yard. There’ll be a coroner’s inquest in the morning, which will no doubt be adjourned for a few weeks.”

“A few weeks!” cried Lofton, in dismay.

“I’m sorry. I’ll work as fast as I can, but I may tell you that until I’ve solved this thing, I’ll be very reluctant to see your tour resume.”

Lofton shrugged. “We shall see about that,” he remarked.

“No doubt,” Duff answered, and they parted.

Mark Kennaway was waiting in the hallway. “May I see you a moment, Inspector?” he said. They sat down on a near-by bench.

“You have information?” the detective inquired rather wearily.

“Of a sort—yes. It probably means nothing. But when I left Mr. Tait last night and went down to the second floor, I saw a man lurking about in the shadows opposite the lift.”

“What man?”

“Oh, don’t expect any big surprise, Inspector. It was no one but our old friend, Captain Keane.”

“Ah, yes. Hoping to borrow a book, perhaps.”

“Might have been. The night lift man is a great reader. I’ve caught him at it. But his library is not extensive.”

Duff studied the young man’s face. He rather liked Kennaway. “Tell me,” he said, “how long have you known Mr. Tait?”

“Only since we started on this tour. You see, I’d just left Harvard Law School last June, and there didn’t seem to be any great public clamor for my services. A friend told me about this job. I wanted to travel, and it seemed like a good chance to pick up pointers on the law—from a man like Tait.”

“Picking any up?”

“No. He doesn’t talk much. He demands a lot of attention, and if he’s going to have many more attacks like that this morning, I may wish I was back in Boston.”

“That was your first experience with one of Mr. Tait’s attacks?”

“Yes—he’s seemed perfectly all right up to now.”

Duff leaned back on the hard bench, and began to fill his pipe. “How about giving me a few of your impressions about this crowd?” he suggested.

“Well, I’m not sure that I’m a particularly bright-eyed boy,” Kennaway smiled. “I got to know a few of them on the boat. Variety seems to be the keynote of the expedition.”

“Take Keane, for example.”

“A four-flusher—and a snooper, too. I can’t figure out where he got the cash for this. It’s an expensive tour, you know.”

“Was the dead man—Drake—in evidence on the boat?”

“Very much so. A harmless old gentleman. Sociably inclined, too, which made it a little hard for the rest of us. His deafness, you understand. However, I used to be a cheer leader at college, so I didn’t mind.”

“What do you think of Lofton?”

“He’s a rather remote sort of person. An educated man—he knows his stuff. You should have heard his little talk on the Tower of London. He’s worried and distrait most of the time. No wonder. With this outfit on his hands.”

“And Honywood?” Duff lighted his pipe.

“Never saw him on the boat, until the last morning. I don’t believe he ever left his cabin.”

“He told me he got to know Mr. Drake quite well during the crossing.”

“He was kidding you. I stood between them when we were drawing up to the pier at Southampton, and introduced them. I’m certain they’d never spoken to each other before.”

“That’s interesting,” said Duff thoughtfully. “Did you take a good look at Honywood this morning?”

“I did,” nodded Kennaway. “Like a man who’d seen a ghost, wasn’t he? I was struck by it. Not well, I thought. But Lofton tells me these tours of his are very popular with the sick and the aged. I’m expecting to have a merry time of it.”

“Miss Potter’s a very charming girl,” Duff suggested.

“So she is—and this is where she gets off. That would happen to me. It’s the famous Kennaway luck.”

“How about this fellow Minchin?”

The young man’s face lighted. “Ah—the life of the party. Oozes money at every pore. He gave three champagne suppers on the way over. Nobody came but the Benbows, Keane and myself—and old Mrs. Luce. She’s a good sport—never misses anything, she tells me. That is, we all went to the first soirée. After that, it was just Keane, and some terrible passengers Maxy picked up in the smoking-room.”

“Party was too gay, eh?”

“Oh, not that. But after a good look at Maxy—well, even champagne can’t atone for some hosts.”

Duff laughed. “Thanks for the tip about Keane,” he said, rising.

“Don’t imagine it means anything,” Kennaway answered. “Personally, I don’t like to tell tales. But poor old Drake was so nice to everybody. Well—see you later, I imagine.”

“You can’t help yourself,” Duff told him.

After a few words with the managing director of the hotel, the detective went out to the street. The little green car was waiting. As he was about to step into it, a cheery voice sounded behind him.

“Say, listen, Inspector. Just turn around and face me, will you?” Duff turned. Mr. Elmer Benbow was on the sidewalk, smiling broadly, his motion picture camera leveled and ready for action.

“Atta-boy,” he cried. “Now, if you’ll just take off the benny—the hat, you know—the light isn’t so good——”

Cursing inwardly, Duff did as directed. The man from Akron held the machine before his eyes, and was turning a small crank.

“Let’s have the little old smile—great—just for the folks back in Akron, you understand—now, move about a little—one hand on the door of the car—I guess this won’t give them a kick back home—famous Scotland Yard inspector leaving Broome’s Hotel in London, England, after investigating mysterious murder in round the world party—now, get into the car—that’s the stuff—drive off—thanks!”

“Ass!” muttered Duff to his chauffeur. “Go around to Vine Street, please.”

In a few moments they drew up before the police station that is hidden away in the heart of the West End, on a street so brief and unimportant it is unknown to most Londoners. Duff dismissed the car, and went inside. Hayley was in his room.

“Finished, old man?” he inquired.

Duff gave him a weary look. “I’ll never be finished,” he remarked. “Not with this case.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s getting on toward twelve. Will you come have a spot of lunch with me, old chap?”

Hayley was willing, and presently they were seated at a table in the Monico Grill. After they had ordered, Duff sat for some moments staring into space.

“Cheerio!” said his friend at last.

“Cheerio, my hat!” Duff answered. “Was there ever a case like this before?”

“Why the gloom?” Hayley wanted to know. “A simple little matter of murder.”

“The crime itself—yes, that’s simple enough,” Duff agreed. “And under ordinary conditions, no doubt eventually solved. But consider this, if you will.” He took out his note-book. “I have here the names of some fifteen or more people, and among them is probably that of the man I want. So far, so good. But these people are traveling. Where? Around the world, if you please. All my neat list of suspects, in one compact party, and unless something unexpected happens at once, that party will be moving along. Paris, Naples, Port Said, Calcutta, Singapore—Lofton just told me all about it. Moving along, farther and farther away from the scene of the crime.”

“But you can hold them here.”

“Can I? I’m glad you think so. I don’t. I can hold the murderer here, the moment I have sufficient evidence of his guilt. But I’ll have to get that immediately, or there will be international complications—the American consulate—perhaps the Ambassador himself—a summons for me from the Home Office. On what grounds do you hold these people? Where is your evidence that one of them committed the crime? I tell you, Hayley, there’s no precedent for this situation. Such a thing has never happened before. And now that it’s decided to happen at last, I’m the lucky lad it has happened to. Before I forget it, I must thank you for that.”

Hayley laughed. “You were longing for another puzzle, last night,” he said.

Duff shook his head. “The calm man is the happy man,” he murmured, as his roast beef and bottle of stout were put before him.

“You got nothing from your examination of the party?” Hayley asked.

“Not a thing that’s definite. Nothing that links any one of them with the crime, even remotely. A few faint suspicions—yes. A few odd incidents. But nothing that I could hold anybody on—nothing that would convince the American Embassy—or even my own superintendent.”

“There’s an unholy lot of writing in that book of yours,” commented the Vine Street man. “Why not run over the list you talked with? You might get a flash—who knows?”

Duff took up the note-book. “You were with me when I interviewed the first of them. Miss Pamela Potter, a pretty American girl, determined to find out who killed her grandfather. Our friend Doctor Lofton, who had a bit of a row with the old man last evening, and with whose strap the murder was committed. Mrs. Spicer, clever, quick, and not to be trapped by unexpected questions. Mr. Honywood——”

“Ah, yes, Honywood,” put in Hayley. “From a look at his face, he’s my choice.”

“That’s the stuff to give a jury!” replied Duff sarcastically. “He looked guilty. I think he did, myself, but what of it? Does that get me anywhere?”

“You talked with the others down-stairs?”

“I did. I met the man in room 30—a Mr. Patrick Tait.” He told of Tait’s heart attack at the door of the parlor. Hayley looked grave.

“What do you make of that?” he inquired.

“I suspect he was startled by something—or some one—he saw in that room. But he’s a famous criminal lawyer on the other side—probably a past master of the art of cross-examination. Get something out of him that he doesn’t want to tell, and you’re a wonder. On the other hand, he may have nothing to tell. His attacks, he assured me, come with just that suddenness.”

“None the less, like Honywood, he should be kept in mind.”

“Yes, he should. And there is one other.” He explained about Captain Ronald Keane. “Up to something last night—heaven knows what. A fox in trousers, if I ever met one. Sly—and a self-confessed liar.”

“And the others?”

Duff shook his head. “Nothing there, so far. A nice young chap who is Tait’s companion. A polo player with a scar—a Mr. Vivian. Seems somehow connected with Mrs. Irene Spicer. A lame man named Ross, in the lumber trade on the West Coast. A brother and sister named Fenwick—the former a pompous little nobody who has been frightened to death, and seems determined to leave the tour.”

“Oh, he does, does he?”

“Yes, but don’t be deceived. It means nothing. He hasn’t nerve enough to kill a rabbit. There are just four, Hayley,—four to be watched. Honywood, Tait, Lofton and Keane.”

“Then you didn’t see the remaining members of the party?”

“Oh, yes I did. But they don’t matter. A Mr. and Mrs. Benbow from a town called Akron—he runs a factory and is quite insane about a motion picture camera he carries with him. Going to look at his tour around the world when he gets home, and not before. But stop a bit—he told me Akron was near Canton, Ohio.”

“Ah, yes—the address on the key?”

“Quite so. But he wasn’t in this, I’m sure—he’s not the type. Then there was a Mrs. Luce, an elderly woman who’s been everywhere. An inevitable feature, I fancy, of all tours like Lofton’s. And a pair from Chicago—quite terrible people, really—a Mr. and Mrs. Max Minchin——”

Hayley dropped his fork. “Minchin?” he repeated.

“Yes, that was the name. What about it?”

“Nothing, old chap, except that you have evidently overlooked a small item sent out from the Yard several days ago. This man Minchin, it seems, is one of Chicago’s leading racketeers, who has recently been persuaded to interrupt—perhaps only temporarily—a charming career of violence and crime.”

“That’s interesting,” nodded Duff.

“Yes, isn’t it? In the course of his activities he has been forced to remove from this world, either personally or through his lieutenants, a number of business rivals—’to put them on the spot,’ I believe the phrase goes. Recently, for some reason, he was moved to abdicate his throne and depart. The New York police suggested we keep a tender eye on him as he passes through. There are certain friends of his over here who, it was felt, might attempt to pay off old scores. Maxy Minchin, one of Chicago’s first citizens.”

Duff was thinking deeply. “I shall have another chat with him after lunch,” he said. “Poor old Drake’s body wasn’t riddled with machine-gun bullets—but then, I fancy the atmosphere of Broome’s might have its chastening effect even on a Maxy Minchin. Yes—I shall have a chat with the lad directly.”