Читать книгу The Face in the Night - Edgar Wallace - Страница 13

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Dick Shannon had a flat in the Haymarket, an apartment which served as home and office, for, in the room overlooking one of London's busiest thoroughfares, he got through a considerably larger volume of work than he disposed of in his uninspiring bureau on the Thames Embankment.

Steel, his assistant, christened the flat "Newest Scotland Yard", and certainly had justification, for here, more often than not, were held the conferences which brought the Big Five—an ever-changing quantity—about the council board.

Something in the nature of a sub-committee was sitting on the day that Audrey Bedford was released from prison. Sergeant Steel, who specialized in society cases—it was the Yard's boast that he was the best-dressed man in London—and Inspector Lane, late of Bow Street, now of Marylebone, was the third.

"You didn't see her?" asked the inspector.

Dick Shannon shook his head.

"By the time I got to the Governor and discovered she had been released, it was useless looking for her. I've given instructions to the stations that the moment she reports—she hasn't completed the whole of her sentence—they are to report to me."

He suppressed a sigh.

"There was a miscarriage of justice, if ever there was one!" he said. "And yet, for the life of me, I can't see what other verdict the jury could return."

"But if she was innocent," said Steel, puzzled, "what was easier than for her to speak? It is not innocent to hide the guilty."

"Let us lift this discussion out of the base realm of metaphysics," said Dick testily. "What about Mr. Malpas?"

"He's a mystery," said Lane unnecessarily, "and the house is more so. So far as I can find, he has been in occupation of 551 Portman Square since January 1917, and has been there most of the time. Nobody has seen him. We had a complaint last year from Mr. Lacy Marshalt, who lives next door, that he was disturbed by knocking at nights, but we could only advise him to take a summons. He pays his bills regularly, and when he came into the house (which is his own property, by the way) he spent a considerable sum in renovations. A big Italian firm of Turin fitted the house with electric lighting, burglar alarms and various other gadgets, though I can't trace any furniture going in."

"Are there any servants?"

"None: that's the strangest thing. No food goes into the house, which means that he must eat outside or starve. I've had men to watch the back and front of the house, but he has slipped them every time, though they've seen a few interesting things."

Dick Shannon smoothed his chin. "It isn't an offence to be a recluse," he said, "but it is an offence to engage in a conspiracy. Bring in the girl, Steel."

Steel went out, to return with an over-powdered young lady, who nodded coolly to the company, and took the chair which Steel, with an air, pushed up to her.

"Miss Neilson, you are a professional dancer—disengaged?"

"I'm that," she said laconically.

"I want you to tell us about your visit to 551 Portman Square."

She was not particularly anxious or willing to talk.

"If I had known I was speaking to a detective when I got so talkative the other night, I wouldn't have said so much." she admitted frankly. "You haven't any right to question me."

"You practically accused a gentleman who holds a responsible position of attempting to engage you in a conspiracy," said Dick. "That is a very serious accusation to make."

"I didn't say it was a conspiracy," she denied quickly. "All I said was that the old gentleman, who was a perfect stranger to me, asked me if I would start something at Mr. Marshalt's house—that's next door. He wanted me to go to there one evening and make a fuss—to start screaming that Mr. Marshalt was a scoundrel, break a window, and get arrested."

"He didn't tell you why?"

She shook her head.

"No. It wasn't my job, anyhow. And I was only too glad to get out —the man gave me the creeps." She shivered. "You've heard of ugly men? Well, you don't know what ugliness is. And scared! You have to sit at a table one end of the room whilst he sits at the other. And the room is all dark except for little light on the desk where he sits. The house is full of ghosts—that's how it seemed to me. Doors open by themselves and voices talk to you from nowhere. When I got out on to the street again I could have gone down on my knees and said a prayer of thanksgiving."

"If you were a stranger to him, how did he come to know you?" asked Dick, puzzled and suspicious.

Her explanation was logical. "He got my name out of a theatrical newspaper—I'm in the 'want engagement' columns," she said.

Lane questioned her closely, but her story held, and presently they let her go. "Queer," said Dick Shannon thoughtfully. "I should like to see Mr. Malpas. You have had other complaints?"

Lane hesitated.

"I wouldn't call them complaints. The inspector of income tax made a little trouble about not being able to see the man. He returned his income at what Inland Revenue thought was too low a figure, and he was summoned to appear before the inspector. And, of course, he did not appear, sending, instead, permission to inspect his banking account. I happened to know of this and took the opportunity of sharing the inspection. It is the simplest account I have ever seen: a thousand five hundred a year paid in —by cash; a thousand five hundred a year paid out. No tradesmen's cheques. Nothing but taxes, ground rent, and substantial sums for his current expenses."

"You say he has had visitors?" asked Dick.

"Yes, I was going to tell you about these. At intervals, never longer than two weeks, he has a visitor, sometimes two in the course of the day. Generally it is on a Saturday. The caller never comes until it is dark, and doesn't remain longer than half an hour. So far as we have been able to learn, the same man never comes twice. It was only by accident that we discovered this: one of our officers saw a man go in and come out. The next Saturday, at precisely the same hour, he saw a visitor arrive and, after an interval, take his departure. This was seen again a few weeks later, the caller being a negro. Our man 'tailed him up', but could get nothing out of him."

"Malpas must be placed under closer observation," said Dick, and the inspector made a note. "Pull in one of his visitors on some pretext or other—see what he has in his possession. You may find that the old man is nothing more alarming than a dispenser of charity—on the other hand, you may not!"

That almost exhausted the subject of the mysterious Mr. Malpas, and they passed to the matter of a providential fire that had saved an insolvent cabinet-maker from bankruptcy.

Mr. Malpas might not have come up for discussion at all but for the story that the dancer had told to a sympathetic and official listener. That this sinister figure should be associated with the events which, under his eyes, were moving to a climax, that the ragged princess whose image had not left his mind for nine months would shortly come into the old man's ken and find her fate and future linked with his, Dick Shannon could not dream. Mr. Malpas was "an inquiry", an arresting circumstance to be questioned and probed. Soon he was to loom upon the scene, blotting out all other objects in Captain Shannon's view.

Audrey Bedford had made an interesting discovery. There was an essential thing in life about which she had never heard. It was a mysterious something called "a character"; some-times it was more genteelly styled "references".

Without one or the other (and they were really one and the same thing) it was impossible to secure employment. There were leering men who said, "Never mind, little woman, we'll get along without that"; other men who did not leer and were apparently shocked when she told them she had just come from prison, but who bore up well enough to engage her and ask her to come to dinner with them; and there were others (and she liked these best) who said curtly, "We have no opening for you."

Her little stock of money was dwindling. There dawned a Christmas Day when she woke with a healthy appetite to breakfast on water and one very stale slice of bread that she had saved from the night before. And this was to be her luncheon, and would have been her supper too, only there occurred that night, in a little street off Gray's Inn Road, a light between two viragos, one of whom thrust a small and greasy package into the girl's hand that she might deal more effectively with her rival. The police came instantly, there was a wild scrimmage, the battlers were haled off to Theobalds Road Police Station, and Audrey carried the parcel home and supped royally on fried fish and potatoes. It was heavenly.

On Tuesday morning her landlady came up the stairs and Audrey heard the heavy foot of the woman with a sense of blind panic.

"Good morning, miss. There's a letter for you."

Audrey stared. Nobody knew her address—she had never reached the address stage in any of her essays at finding employment.

"I hope it's good news," said the landlady ominously. "I don't charge much for my apartments, but I like it regular, We've all got to live, and I've had a party after this very room this very morning. Not that I'm going to turn you out. I'd sooner make up a bed for you on the sofa," she added.

Audrey was not listening. She was turning the letter over in her hand. Tearing it open, she found an address and a few lines of pencilled writing. She read the message in bewilderment.

Come at 5 o'clock this evening. I have work for you.

The note was signed "Malpas".

She knit her forehead. Who was "Malpas", and how had he discovered her whereabouts?