Читать книгу Big Foot - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

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THE young officer listened with admirable patience.

"I took Sullivan because he was sleeping in the neighbourhood last night—and he has now practically admitted that he 'felt' the house for an entry."

"Go get his ear marks," murmured Sooper, taking up his pen. "Ever notice how crim'nals an' paranoiacs have windscreen ears? It's in the book. And the book can't lie. Detectivizin' is not what it was, Sergeant. We want more physiognomists an' more chemists. My idea of a real detective is a feller who sits in a high-class fam'ly mansion with a microscope an' a blood stain an' a bit of London mud, an' putting the three together can tell you that the jewels were pinched by a left-handed man who drove a Patchard coupe ('21 model) painted green. Ever meet a man called Ferraby?"

"Mr. Ferraby from the Public Prosecutor's office?" asked the sergeant, momentarily interested. "Yes, sir: I saw him the day he called here."

Sooper nodded; his jaws closed like a rat-trap and he showed two rows of teeth. He was smiling.

"He's not a detective," he said emphatically; "he only understands fac's. If that feller was called in to unravel the myst'ry of the Rajah of Bong's lost wrist-watch an' he found that the Grand Vizzer or Visher or whatever they call him, had pawned a wrist-watch at Veltheim's Day an' Night Loan Office, he'd go and pinch the Grand—whatever he is. A real detective wouldn't be that foolish. He's just deduce at once that the clock was torn off in a struggle with the young and beautiful stenographer who's hidden behind a secret panel gagged 'n' bound an' ready to be freighted to the loathsome Injun palace built of lapsus laz—whatever it is. Now, old man Cardew is a detective! There's a man you might model yourself on, Sergeant."

Sooper pointed the end of his pen impressively at his subordinate.

"That man's studied crime from all angles; he's got the psycho—whatever the word may be—psychology, is it? Well, he's got that. And he's strong for ears an' prognathic jaws and assymmetrical faces an' the weight of brains an' all that. Got a library up at Barley Stack full of stuff about crime."

When Sooper started on the subject of that excellent amateur, Mr. Gordon Cardew, he was a difficult man to turn, and the sergeant sighed lightly and respectfully.

"The point is, sir, would you care to see this man Sullivan? He has practically confessed that he went to Hill Brow to commit a burglary."

Sooper stared menacingly, and then, to Lattimer's surprise, nodded. "I'll see this Sullivan—shoot him in."

The sergeant rose with alacrity and disappeared into the small charge-room. He returned in a few minutes accompanied by a very big, a very unprepossessing, and an altogether embarrassed tramp.

"This is Sullivan, sir," reported the officer, and Sooper put down his pen, wrenched off his pince-nez and glared up at the prisoner. "What's this stuff you've been giving us about the hobo who wouldn't let you go into Hill Brow?" he asked unexpectedly. "And if you're lyin', tramp, lie plausibly!"

"It's true, Sooper," said the tramp huskily. "If I die this minute, this crazy fellow nearly killed me when I tried to open the window. And we had it all fixed—he told me about the place an' where this American kept his 'stuff'. If I die this very second—"

"You won't: hobos never die," snapped Sooper. "Sullivan? Got you! You went down for three at the London Sessions for robbery—Luke Mark Sullivan, I remember your holy names!"

Mr. Luke Mark Sullivan shuffled uneasily, but before he could protest himself an injured and innocent convict, Sooper went on: "What do you know about this crazy tramp?"

Sullivan knew very little. He had met the man in Devonshire, and had heard something about him from other knights of the road.

"He's plumb nutty, Sooper: all the fellers say so. Goes about the country singing to himself. Doesn't run with any gang, and talks queer—swell stuff and foreign languages."

Sooper leaned back in his chair. "You couldn't invent that. You haven't the weight of brain. Where's his pitch?"

"Everywhere, but I got an idea he's got a real pitch near the sea. He used to ask me—I've been on the road with him for a week—if I liked ships. He said he looked at 'em for days passin' on the sea, and got to wonderin' what kind of ships couldn't sink. He's crazy! An' after we'd fixed to go into this house, what do you think he said? He turned on me like a dog and said, 'Away!'—just like that, Sooper—'Away! Your hands are not clean enough to be the...' well, sump'n about 'Justice'...he's mad!"

The superintendent stared at the uncomfortable man for a long time without speaking.

"You lie in your throat, Sullivan," he said at last. "You couldn't tell the truth: you've got odd eyes! Put him in the cooler, Sergeant—we'll get him hung!"

Mr. Sullivan was back in his cell, and the sergeant was half-way through his lunch, before Sooper moved from his chair. He sat glowering at the office inkpot, motionless, his dry pen still in his hand. At last he moved with a grimace, as though the effort pained him, kicked off the slippers he invariably wore in office hours and pulled on his worn boots with a grunt.

Lattimer had reached the apple pie stage of his feast when the old man shuffled into the officers' mess-room.

"Know anything about this American feller Elson?" asked Sooper. "Don't stand up, man—eat your pie."

"No, sir—except that he's a bit of a rough diamond. They say he's very rich."

"That's my deduction too," said Sooper. "When a man lives in a big house an' has three cars an' twenty servants I put two an' two together and deduce that he's well off. I'm goin' up to see him."

Sooper had a motor-cycle that was frankly disreputable. It bore the same relationship to an ordinary motor-cycle that a slum bears to Buckingham Palace. Every spring, Sooper took his machine to pieces, and, under the dazed eye of Sergeant Lattimer, put it together again in such a manner as to give it an entirely different appearance. This illusion may have had its cause in his passion for changing the colour of the weird contrivance. One year it was a vivid green, another year it was a flaming scarlet. Once he painted it white and picked out the spokes in sky-blue. Sooper was so constituted that he could not pass a hardware shop that displayed bicycle enamel without falling. In the little hut behind his cottage were shelves covered with tiny paint pots, and the year when, yielding to the influence of the war, he employed a dozen sample cans in camouflaging his machine, is one remembered by the whole of the Metropolitan Police force.

Yet it was a good motor-bicycle. By some miracle its two cylinders were capable of developing tremendous energies. Its once silvery handlebar had long since been painted over; its saddle seat was held in position by string, and its tyres were so patched that even the least observant village child could tell, from an examination of the dustprints, not only that Sooper had passed, but in what direction he was moving; but it 'went'.

He chug-chugged his way up Dewlap Hill, skirted the high red wall of Hill Brow, and, dismounting, pushed open the gate and passed between the elms that bordered Mr. Elson's drive. Leaning his bicycle against a tree, he walked slowly towards the big house, up the broad steps, and halted in the open doorway.

The hall was empty, but he heard voices, a woman's and a man's. The sound came from a room that opened from the hall. The door was ajar; he saw four plump fingers at the edge as though somebody had paused in the act of pulling it open.

Sooper looked round for a bell-push and then saw that it was in the centre of the front door. He was stepping into the hall to reach the push when...

"Marriage or nothing, Steve! I've been kept fooling around too long. Promises, promises, promises!...I'm sick of 'em!...Money? What's the use of money to me? I'm as rich as you..."

At that moment the door opened and the speaker came into view, and though her back was towards him, Sooper recognized her. It was Hannah Shaw, the ungenial housekeeper of Barley Stack.

For a second he stood looking at the figure, and then noiselessly stepped back to the angle of the wall, dropped lightly over the balustrade of the steps and melted out of sight.

Hannah did not even see the shadow of him as he passed. To make doubly sure that his presence should escape notice, Sooper wheeled his bicycle a mile before he mounted.