Читать книгу The Clue of the New Pin - Edgar Wallace - Страница 9

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FROM where he stood the light caught it and sent up a thread of silvery reflection. He stooped mechanically and picked it up.

"What is that?" asked the detective curiously.

"It looks to me like a pin," said Tab.

It was a very ordinary pin, silvery bright and about an inch and a half in length. In that sense it was of an unusual size, though it was the kind that is commonly used by bankers, who delight in fastening large documents together by this barbarous method. It was not straight, there was a slight bend in it, but otherwise it had no remarkable features. Tab looked at it stupidly.

"Give it to me," said Carver. He took it in his white-gloved hand and walked to a position under one of the lights. "I don't suppose it has any significance," he said, "but I'll keep it." He put the pin carefully away in the match-box where he had put the key. "Now, Tab," he said more briskly as they went out of the house together into the bright sunlight, two unshaven, weary-looking men, "you have the story of your life, but go easy on any clues we have found."

"I didn't know we had found any," said Tab, "unless the pin is a clue."

"Even that I should not mention," said Carver gravely.

When he got back to his flat Tab found the lights of the sitting-room blazing and Rex Lander, fully dressed, asleep on the settee.

"I waited up till three," yawned Rex. "Have they caught Walters, or whoever it was?"

"Not when I left Carver, which was ten minutes ago," replied Tab. "They suspect that man Brown. His gloves were found in the passage."

"Brown, the man from China?...it was pretty awful, wasn't it?" asked Babe in a hushed voice, as though the fearfulness of those moments through which he had passed were only now appealing to him in their sheer terror. "My God, what an awful thing! I've tried not to think about it all night; that horrible memory persisted so that it nearly drove me mad."

"I have one bit of good news for you, Rex," said the other as he began to prepare for bed. "We found your uncle's will. That is unofficial."

"You found the will, did you?" said the other listlessly. "I am afraid I am not interested in his will just now. Who gets the money--the Dogs' Home or the Cats' Creche?"

"It goes to a stout young architect," said Tab with a grin, "and I can see our little home breaking up. Maybe I'll come and see you when you are rich, Babe, if you'll know me."

Rex's impatient gesture silenced him.

"I'm not thinking about money--I'm thinking about other things," he said.

Tab slept for four hours, and woke to find that Rex had gone out.

When he came into the street the special editions of the Sunday newspaper were selling, with stories of the murder.

The news-editor had not arrived when Tab reached the office, but he turned in the rough narrative of the tragedy to guide the office in its general search for Walters and Brown.

He went on to Mayfield, but Carver was not there, and the police-sergeant in charge of the house was indisposed to admit him. Carver, being a single man, lived in lodgings. Tab surprised him in the act of shaving.

"No, there is no news of Felling, and Brown, who is a much more difficult proposition, has disappeared from view. Why is he more difficult? Because he is unknown. In comparison tracing Walters is child's play. Yet we haven't even found him," said the Inspector, wiping his face, "which is rather surprising, considering that we know his usual haunts and acquaintances. None of these say they have seen him. The cab-driver has come forward in answer to our hurry-up call, and says he set down Felling at the Central Station. They stopped on the way to buy a hat, apparently."

Carver had not been to the station that morning, and even if he had he could not have given the news which was to startle Tab later in the day.

"Have you formed any fresh theory, Carver?"

Carver looked out of the window and pulled his long nose thoughtfully.

He was a tall thin man, with a lean face that was all lines and furrows. In repose it was melancholy in the extreme, and his gentle apologetic tone seemed somehow in keeping with his appearance.

"There are several theories, all more or less fluid," he said.

"Has it occurred to you," asked Tab, "that the shot might have been fired through one of the ventilator holes?"

Carver nodded several times before he answered.

"It occurred to me after I left you and I went back to make sure, but there is no blackening of the grating such as there would be if a pistol of sufficiently small calibre had been pressed against one of the holes and fired, added to which there is this important fact: that the bullet of the size the doctors found in Trasmere's body would not go through any such hole." Carver shook his head. "No, the murder was committed actually in the vault, either by Brown, by Walters, or by some third person."

Tab had a few independent inquiries to pursue, one of which related to the cook. She had already been questioned by the police, he discovered, when he reached her little suburban home. A quiet, motherly, and unimaginative woman, there was little she could tell.

"It was my day off," she said. "Mr. Trasmere said he was going into the country, though I don't suppose he was. He had said that before, but Walters told me to take no notice. I have never seen Mr. Trasmere," she said, to Tab's surprise.

"All my orders came through Mr. Walters, and practically I was never inside the house except once, when the cleaning woman did not turn up in the morning and I helped Walters to tidy the master's sitting-room. I remember that morning because I found a little black lid--well it was hardly a lid--I have got it here if you would like to see it. I have often wondered what it was for."

"Lid," said Tab. "What kind of a lid?"

"It was like the lid of a small pill-box," explained the woman, "about the size of a threepenny-piece. I picked it up and asked Mr. Walters what it was for, and he said he didn't know. It was on the floor near the table and I brought it home, meaning to ask my husband what it was."

She went out of the room and returned with the "lid," which proved on examination to be a celluloid cap such as typists use to cover their keys.

"Had Mr. Trasmere a typewriter?"

"No, sir," she answered, shaking her head, "not so far as I know. I have never seen one. As I say, I have only been that once into the house. The kitchen is built away from the living rooms, although it is connected; Mr. Trasmere gave strict orders that I was to keep to my kitchen."

Tab looked at the little cap which he held between his finger and thumb. It was undoubtedly part of a typist's equipment, and yet Mr. Trasmere had never employed a typist. He always wrote to Rex in his own hand.

"Are you sure nobody came during the day to take your master's correspondence?" he asked.

"No; I am perfectly sure Mr. Walters would have told me. He used to complain how dull it was because nobody came to the house at all, and he was rather partial to young women, so I am sure I should have heard. Have they found Mr. Walters? I'm certain he didn't do it."

Tab satisfied her on that point.

"Do you remember the Greens?" he asked, remembering just as he was on the point of leaving the house the witnesses to the old man's will.

"No, sir, not really," she said. "Mrs. Green was cook before me and I saw her once, the day I came, and Mr. Green too. They were a very nice couple and I don't think the master treated them very well."

"Where are they now?"

"I don't know, sir," she said. "I did hear that they had gone to Australia. They were middle-aged people, but very strong and healthy, and Mr. Green was always talking about going to Australia, where he was born, and settling down there."

"Did Green or his wife have any hard feeling against Mr. Trasmere?"

She hesitated. "Well, they naturally felt sore because they had been accused of thieving, and Mr. Green seemed to feel the disgrace terribly, especially when the master had their boxes searched because he had lost some valuable silver and a gold watch."

This was news to Tab. He had heard of the food pilfering, but he had not heard of the other losses.

She could tell him very little more, except that Green had acted as a sort of butler.

"Was Walters there at the time?" asked Tab.

"Yes, sir; he was Mr. Trasmere's valet. After Mr. Green went Mr. Walters was butler and valet, too."

Tab went straight to the office to write the story up to date, but he knew that it was a waste of labour, since some news was certain to come in before nightfall.

The news-editor was at his desk when he pushed open the big swing doors and came into the news-room to report.

"These front page crimes always come together in shoals," complained the news-editor bitterly. "I have another very good story--"

"Well, give it to a good story writer," said Tab. "This case is going to occupy not only my time, but the time of half a dozen men very fully indeed."

"What is the new sensation?" he asked sarcastically.

"An actress has lost her jewels, which does not sound tremendously exciting," said the news-editor, fishing for two slips of paper on which he had made a rough note of the case, "but you needn't bother about that. I'll put another man on the story as soon as I can get one."

"Who is the actress?"

"Ursula Ardfern," replied the editor, and Tab's jaw dropped.