Читать книгу THE MAELSTROM & THE GRELL MYSTERY (British Mystery Classics) - Frank Froest - Страница 14

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Gwennie Lyne was a lady with a reputation or without one. It depended on the point of view. As far back as Menzies could remember she had been a notable figure in the little coterie of master criminals who know no nation and to whom the world is a hunting ground. Long, long ago, in the days when bank robbery in the United States had been a profitable pastime, she had organised and even played an executive part in exploits any one of which ought to have made her fortune.

Menzies knew her record almost by heart, for she was one of the very few "Classic "criminals who brought to bear on an undertaking an ingenuity, enterprise, and audacity that had won her through in a score of tight places. At ten years of age she had assisted her mother to pick pockets in Philadelphia. At twenty she had married Jim Lyne, bank burglar and gunman. At twenty-one she had effected a particularly daring escape from Sing Sing. At twenty-five she had held a pistol to a watchman's head at a bank in New Jersey while her companions ransacked the vaults. At thirty she had probably more experience in every grade of professional crime short of murder, which is not professional crime than any person of her own age, male or female. Opportunely enough, her husband, always too much of a swashbuckler for his trade, was shot in a drunken brawl in Wisconsin at this time. Thereafter she held her way undisputed, always ready to become a partner in any department of the higher walks of crime, from receiving, to organising a bogus bank.

She had of course met with checks. There were few civilised countries where she had not tasted prison for longer or shorter periods. All that was in the day's work.

It is a myth that there is a distinctive criminal physiognomy. Fifty years or more of crime had left Gwennie Lyne untouched by any outward mark. Hers was a face which none could dream of distrusting on sight she had been a handsome and was still a comely woman. The mouth was perhaps a trifle wide and it curved downwards at the edges. Her hazel eyes were shrewd, but with the apparent shrewdness of years, not the cunning of the outcast. She spoke softly, with a slight drawl, but her voice was the voice of a cultivated woman.

Menzies had recognised her with something of a thrill. Her presence in the combination against him was singularly unwelcome, for he knew her fertility of resource and her daring. On the other hand, the mere fact that he knew she was with the other side was something gained.

His right hand dropped to his trousers pocket as he followed her, to make sure that the little baton he had placed there before leaving home was in place. He rarely carried a pistol for fear that he might be tempted to use it before it was absolutely necessary.

She took him into one of the two small front rooms of the house and pulled up the blinds to admit the now growing daylight. He observed "The Stag at Bay" and a "View of Naples "on the vivid yellowish-green wall-paper, and it needed not the faded, worn horsehair Victorian furniture, the pile of books on a table in the window, to tell him that Gwennie had had no hand in furnishing the house. She had the virtue of taste, at any rate, and probably the place had been taken already furnished and for a purpose. He wondered whether its purpose had been entirely fulfilled or not.

"Sit you down, Mr. Menzies," she said briskly. "It's early hours for a call, but I guess you've got some reason at the back of your head. You'll have some breakfast. I'll go and see about it and make myself tidy."

The detective's broad figure blocked the doorway. He smilingly shook his head and with one hand behind him felt for the key. There was none in the lock. He jerked a chair towards him with his foot, placed it against the door, and sat down.

"No breakfast for me, Gwennie, thank you. And you look very charming as you are. Suppose we talk."

She made a graceful gesture of resignation and sat down, her hands in her lap. "I guess I wouldn't poison you," she said.

"Aren't you a deportee, Gwennie?" countered the man. "Surely my memory isn't playing me tricks. Wasn't an order of deportation made against you let me see six years ago now? You will remember a diamond tiara in Bond Street."

She faced him placidly. "You've got a good memory. What are you going to do about it?"

"Mind if I smoke?" he asked. "Oh, nothing much. I needn't tell a lady of your experience it would have been wiser to stay where you belong."

"See Section 4, Vagrancy Act, 1824," she laughed. "That's it, isn't it. Oh, I've been there before. You can't alarm me any by talking." And Menzies knew the astute old lady was trying to make him lose his temper.

He lifted his clay pipe from his lips. "I've always admired your talents, Gwennie "she rose and swept him a mo'cking curtesy "and we've been pretty good pals business apart."

"Lord bless the man," she cried. "Is this a proposal. I do believe he's making love to me." She shook a well-manicured finger at him. "I warn you I might accept you."

He grinned appreciatively at the thrust but shook his head reprovingly. "I'm out for business, Gwennie. Let's cut out the funny business and get down to hard tacks. If you won't listen I'll have to take you along, that's all."

"And if I do?" she interpolated quickly.

"I'm making no bargains. Will you sit tight?"

"I'll be as good as gold," she promised, a demure half smile still lurking about her lips.

Menzies was too old a hand to make the mistake of despising such an antagonist. The woman knew every trick in the game as well as he did. An experience that went back to the cradle, and a cunning and brain power by which the organised detective forces of the world had often been defeated, had placed her chief among the very few criminals who can plan and successfully carry out great coups. On his side, however, Menzies had one factor on which he placed hopes. There is no such thing as honour among thieves. Sometimes there is a community of interest which forces them to keep faith one with another, but very rarely will one run a risk to save another. The detective had to stir Gwennie to alarm for her own safety but whether she would allow herself to be alarmed or not was a doubt in his mind.

"Where is Mr. Hallett?" he asked bluntly.

If a person, ignorant of the elementary principles of arithmetic, was suddenly asked to solve a problem in algebra he might have looked as Gwennie did then. Her air of bewilderment was an education. Had Menzies been less sure of his ground even he might have been deluded. She stared at him blankly. "Mr. Hallett?" she repeated. "I never heard of him."

The man's face set grimly and his eyes grew hard.

"Or of Reader Ling, or of Errol, or Miss Greye- Stratton, or William Smith?" he demanded.

"I know Ling some," she said artlessly. "But I haven't seen him for two or three years. Why don't you tell me straight what you're driving at, Mr. Menzies? I'm always willing to help you if I can."

"I aim to take you to pieces and see what makes you tick if you're not careful, Gwennie," he said. "You'd better listen. You know of the murder at Linstone Terrace Gardens." He tapped out the bowl of his pipe against the heel of his boot and menaced her with the stem. "I'm not saying you had anything to do with it but you know something." She met his eyes steadily. "You're going down, Gwennie, don't make any error about it. But I'd hate to be hard on you. I know you've never liked gun-play and I'm willing to believe that it was an accident, so far as you were concerned that someone got out of hand. You know we've got this chap Smith he calls himself. He's likely to get loose-lipped, you know."

The last hint was sheer bluff, and Menzies saw it was of no avail even before she replied. She was not to be bamboozled into an acknowledgment that she knew anything of Smith. "You believe I've had something to do with the Greye-Stratton murder," she answered. "If you've made up your mind I'll not argue. You'll have to find a better fairy-story than that to get me down to the Old Bailey." She rose and walked over to a seat nearer to the window.

"I should have thought a lady of your penetration could have put two and two together from seeing me here," he remarked.

She looked through the window. "I want to know," she said indifferently.

"There was a note sent to Mr. Hallett, you know. It asked him to come to this address. We have got the note, which is quite enough for me to act on if I want to charge you on suspicion of being concerned in this murder."

He thought that her cheek went a trifle paler but he could not be certain. Mrs. Lyne was not a lady who was likely to show her emotions by any physical change. She seemed deep in thought. She watched through the window for two or three minutes before replying. Her white fingers played an imaginary piano on her lap. Then she jerked her head abruptly as though she had come to some decision. "Where do I come in?" she asked. "I'm not, admitting that I know anything, but if I did, would it be worth my while to tell you? What should I stand to gain, anyway? Let's talk plain business. You don't expect something for nothing. As far as I can see all you promise is your best thanks if I'll kindly supply you with evidence to get. myself convicted."

There was reason in her point of view. There are countries where a certain amount of elasticity is allowed to detectives in the matter of bargaining with guilty persons. But Scotland Yard holds very strict views on that point. The slightest resemblance of partiality in its men is rigorously condemned. Menzies was in a difficulty and knew it.

"There's something in what you say, Gwennie," he argued easily. "Only don't lose sight of this I've got enough to act on in regard to you." He placed his hands on his knees and leaned forward. "It isn't as if we weren't bound to get the rest of our evidence sooner or later. You would be only saving time. You know if I put in a word for you at a trial--"

She interrupted him. "I'll climb down," she said. "You've got me docketed and I know when I'm beat." Her bright face relapsed into a momentary scowl. "I was foolish to send Hallett that note. I thought he might not take any notice of a verbal message. After all I guess you'll search this house, and you'll be bound to find him."

"He's here?"

She nodded. "He's here. He's had a tiring night if I'm any judge. If you'll stand out of the doorway we'll get along and drag him up. We stowed him in the cellar."

He had too much knowledge of Miss Lyne's resourcefulness to take any chances. She had the reputation of being a bitter fighter when hardest pressed and he was alert for any indication that she meant to throw him off his guard. He gripped her wrist as he opened the door. "I'm going to hold tight," he warned.

"Oh, if you like it," she retorted, and they passed side by side into the passage.

In the semi-darkness by the kitchen door she stopped and pushed open a cupboard under the stairs. "It's here," she said. "Have you got a match? There's a trap-door."

"We'll have to do without a match," he remarked. "I like clinging to you, Gwennie."

She made no answer, but he felt her stoop, and himself bent and groped on the floor. The fingers of his right hand came in contact with a heavy bolt, which he withdrew. She in turn flung back the trap-door and both peered down into the square of blackness which marked the opening.

"You there, Mr. Hallett?" he cried.

A muffled, inarticulate sound reached him. The woman raised herself almost upright. "He's tied and gagged. We'll need that match, after all, Mr. Menzies. There's a ladder somewhere."

He felt in his pocket with his free right hand and passed her a box of matches. "You'd better strike it, then. Hurry up."

She fumbled with the matches clumsily enough, which was only natural. There was a quick burst of flame as the whole box flared up, and then Menzies gave a cry as she brought round the flaming box with all the force of her left hand full in his face. His grip on her wrist involuntarily relaxed and the moment she had been waiting for arrived. She flung her full weight sideways upon him and he collapsed down the open trap-door.

She flung the door swiftly to, pushed home the bolt, and daintily brushing the dirt from her dressing-gown, withdrew, closing the cupboard door behind her.