Читать книгу The Turn of the Tide - Fred M. White - Страница 8

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Though Jack Ellis would have smiled at any friend who called him a business man, he was quite thorough in his methods, and, once he had set his mind upon a thing, had the true bulldog grip. Whilst waiting for his chance at the Bar he had taken up journalism with all the cheery enthusiasm of his nature and, having some gift of expression and a natural nose for the essentials, had been more than successful from the start. He belonged naturally to the gregarious type of animal, and crowds, especially plebeian crowds, appealed to him irresistibly. So in search of "copy" he had gravitated to the East End, and when he had read of those impudent depredations along Thames-side he had started to investigate.

Luck had helped him from the first. He was utterly fearless; he had a fine knowledge of what was once called "the noble art of self-defence"; he was quite at home wherever a boat was to be found, and before many weeks had elapsed he knew as much about the lower reaches of the Thames as many a waterman who had spent all his life there. Before long his river-side sketches were quite a feature in the Daily Telephone, and after he had been of service to the river police on a certain memorable occasion he had enjoyed the confidence of the authorities, and a launch had been placed at his disposal by the pleased proprietors of his own paper.

He was doing good work for that enterprising journal, beyond the shadow of a doubt. To further his investigations he took rooms in the neighbourhood of Wapping, and mixed freely with the people who frequented the public houses and drinking shops there, often enough in disguise, and by this means and a judicious outlay in the way of liquid refreshments made friends in the best local quarters. It was in this way that he came in contact with the man called Bill Avory, an old naval man now engaged as a minder of barges.

Early on the afternoon of the day of the birthday dinner Ellis and the man Avory were seated in the bar parlour of the Green Bay, which was situated in a slum off Wapping High Street, peacefully engaged in drinking beer. In his thick pilot clothes and sea boots and with a short clay pipe in his mouth Ellis looked quite as disreputable and undesirable as his companion. But he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was not wasting his time.

"It's me and old Joe on the Stella to-night, guv'nor," Avory was saying. "We're taking a load o' stuff from the steamer Mark Henry above the Tower Bridge, an' we're a-watchin' of it to-night till the consignees can take it off in the mornin'. Machinery, it is, in packing-cases small an' 'andy for them chaps as is allus on the look-out for the right stuff. Motor parts mostly, I'm told. An' 'ere's wishin' I were well out of it. Wi' valuable stuff like that 'ere about, two on us ain't enough on the barge. If as 'ow you're out in your boat tonight you might give us a look-up, guv'nor."

"I'll do that with pleasure, Bill," Ellis replied. "So you think that the stuff is marked."

"Aye, I do that. You pipe that bloke over there with the red beard. Ah, 'e could tell yer somethin' if he'd a mind. Never done a day's work in 'is life, an' yet 'e's got a week-end cottage at 'Earn Bay, bless yer. Ony 'e don't think as anyone knows it."

Ellis glanced under his brows at the man with the red beard. He was drinking with half a dozen other men of a like kidney, and evidently carried weight with them. The bar was full of loafers and sodden-looking derelicts, all of them obviously work shy. The whole place reeked of stale beer and the sweet warm odour of gin. Outside in the dull leaden atmosphere of the lane the neglected child-life of the place played and fought and wept in the unsavoury gutters. But Ellis did not notice it.

"He doesn't look like a millionaire, Bill," Ellis smiled.

"An' 'e ain't, neither," Avory grinned. "Not but what 'e makes a goodish bit all the same. This 'ere is a big thing, guv'nor. It's my belief as there's 'eavy money behind the game, found by them wot lives in the country and drives their thousand-guinea moty-cars. Gents as drinks their wine regular and plays that Scotch crokay as they calls it on Sunday. I 'ears things, mind you, and I'll 'ave something good for you yet."

"I shouldn't wonder if you were right, Bill," Ellis said as he knocked out his pipe and strolled towards the door. "I shall be out in the boat to-night, and will give you a look up."

It was after seven o'clock before Ellis got back from the West and ate his simple supper in the dingy lodgings where he had elected to put up for the present. Then in the driving rain and mist he went down to the wharf where his motor-launch was moored, and a little later he was out on the bosom of the river. Not that he had any particular object in view except the chance of some adventure which might turn out useful from a journalistic point of view. It was a thick black night with a fine rain falling, and something in the nature of a fog hanging over the water. And so in the course of time Ellis drifted into the vicinity of the barge called the Stella, on board of which was Bill Avory and his mate. It would be just as well perhaps to give them a call and see how they were getting on.

He ran the motor-boat under the counter of the barge, and as he did so his nerves tightened up and his senses grew alert, for from the tiny cabin of the barge came a clear cry for help. In a few seconds Ellis had scrambled on to the deck. He shouted encouragement as if he were merely the advance guard of a party, and as he made out his bearings two figures shot by him and dropped into a boat on the far side of the barge and opposite to the quarter from whence he himself had come. Before he could interfere the boat was pushed off and had vanished into the fog. Out of the mists Ellis could see the faint outline of a police launch.

"All right," he shouted, "I'm Ellis. I'll see what is wrong here—you leg it after those chaps."

There came an answering cry, and Ellis dived into the cabin as Avory scrambled to his feet and began to have some hazy idea as to what had happened to himself.

"Mean to say that you are alone here?" Ellis asked.

"Looks like it, don't it?" Avory growled. "My mate went off to get some beer an hour ago, and 'e ain't back yet. Some of the gang got 'old of 'im most likely and nobbled 'im. But I tumbled to one of the rotten blighters any'ow."

"You mean to say that you recognized one of the gang?"

"Aye, that I did, guv'nor. Two of 'em comes creepin' down 'ere an' drops on the top of me before I knows as they are about. When I yells out an' I 'ears your voice the first chap catches me a clip on the jaw that knocks me out, but not afore I calls 'im by name an' I see as 'e pipes me. An' 'im a regular toff."

"Oh, indeed. Who might he be? Do I know him?"

"Very like. 'E's a sort of boss in one of the big offices in Great Bower Street, manager 'e calls hisself to Verity & Co. Name o' Gilmour they tells me. But that worn't the name I knowed 'im by when I were in the Navy. I spotted 'im ages ago as an old enemy, but I didn't say nothink, because I allus believe in letting bygones be bygones, and if the bloke likes to call hisself by another name it don't concern me. But the bloke what copped me on the jaw is the same as calls hisself Mr. Mark Gilmour."

Ellis sat there without comment, but seeing a deal of light in what hitherto had been a very dark place to him. A score of little things began to assume large proportions. But it was no part of his policy just then to say anything about this to his companion. He would know what to do when the time came.

"Perhaps I had better hail the next police boat and send off to find your mate," he suggested. "If the man has been got at it would be just as well to find out."

A little later Avory was relieved by a police patrol, and Ellis was getting Inspector Lock on the telephone.

Lock had quite a lot to say. A police patrol had very nearly caught the raiders and was under the impression that they had sunk their boat. If that was so, then the thieves must have been drowned, a solution that did not altogether satisfy Ellis. He had a suggestion to make.

"They were probably prepared for that," he said. "If you don't mind, it would be as well to find out at once where Gilmour is to be found. I know the man personally; I have met him more than once at his employer's house at Cray, and the more I see of him the less I like him. He may try to get to Cray to-night to establish an alibi. If he isn't at his fiat, and his housekeeper doesn't know where he is, wouldn't it be worth while to rush off to Mr. Croot's house at Cray and make inquiries?"

"Not at all a bad suggestion," Lock replied. "If Mr. Croot is in this business himself—"

"But that's all nonsense, you know, Lock."

"Probably, but you never can tell. Anyhow, there are both brains and unlimited money behind this business. I'll run down to Cray at once, and you can come and see me in the morning."

But there was nothing very definite for Ellis when he called on Lock the following day. He listened attentively to what the inspector had to say, and was forced to agree with him that Bill Avory had made a mistake in the identity of his man.

"He must have done," Lock said. "Gilmour was in the house when I got there not so long after the affray, and he was in evening dress and quite calm and collected. He was very frank as to his movements, and volunteered the information that he had come there too late for dinner by the train reaching Cray from Charing Cross at 8.30. He couldn't have got from the river in his wet clothes and changed and bathed and got to Cray in full rig before my arrival unless, of course, Croot was in the conspiracy. And that is a thing I am not suggesting. But the big point in Gilmour's favour is that railway ticket. I mean the return half of a first-class between Charing Cross and Cray. Only one first-class ticket was issued at Charing Cross to Cray by that particular train, and the outward half was duly delivered up at Cray, and, according to the number, the inward half was in Gilmour's possession. We can't get over that."

Jack Ellis was duly impressed by this statement. There was no getting away from the simple facts that went to prove that Gilmour was not the man who had raided the barge. And yet Bill Avory had been very positive in his statement. Was it possible that Avory himself was playing a trick on him. Lock voiced this suspicion in the next thing that he said.

"What do you know about this man Avory?" he asked.

"Well, not much," Jack confessed. "He has a daughter who is a housemaid at the Moat House, Cray, which is Mr. Croot's place, as you know. I happened on Avory one day when I was there, and he came to see the girl, and we began to talk on the way to the station. We became more or less friendly after that. But I will have another chat with Avory on the matter. He lives in lodgings not far from my temporary slum in Wapping, and as he is generally engaged on night work, I shall have plenty of chances. But I am afraid, after what you have said, that he has made a big mistake."

"Looks like it," Lock agreed, "very much like it. Did Avory happen to mention the name under which he had known, or believed he had known, this man Gilmour?"

"No, I don't think he did. If so, it escaped me in the excitement of the moment. But I can easily find that out."

"I wish you would, not that it will make much difference. I am afraid that we are on the wrong track this time, though I entirely agree with you that this business is not the work of the usual gang of river thieves. It's too big to begin with, and the scheme is too thorough. I can't see a common or garden receiver of stolen goods financing this problem. To begin with, they never do that on a big scale because the risks are too great. The master brain behind this scheme is getting away with thousands. The stolen stuff is smuggled away in some warehouse rented by somebody who has a reputation for high integrity, and from thence shipped abroad again through some firm or firms of innocent brokers who are handling the stuff in all good faith. And there is another thing which is still more important from our point of view. You must have noticed how these chaps invariably go for the really valuable cargoes. There is no wild raid, picking up anything that comes along. Oh dear, no. Nothing but the very best. In the office of some great outstanding firm of importers is a confidential clerk who has the privilege of knowing most of the valuable cargoes that come into the port of London, and how they are handled. This information is conveyed by some underground channel to the actual marauders themselves, and when the stuff is raided it is conveyed to some secret hiding-place for re-shipment abroad. I feel quite certain I am right so far."

"Then there are thieves on the other side of the water as well. A sort of international bureau, so to speak?"

"Not necessarily. It is difficult to earmark goods, especially after they have been repacked as these must be. I am afraid that you will have to wait a long time yet, Mr. Ellis, before you can give your paper a scoop over the river robberies. Anyhow, see Avory again, and try and get something more definite."

There was no more to be said for the moment, and Jack Ellis went on his way thoughtfully. For the moment at any rate his dream of a fine newspaper sensation was exploded. It had seemed to him that he had Gilmour in the hollow of his hand, and, moreover, everything had tallied with the theory he had formed. He had always disliked Gilmour from the first, and a fine instinct had told him that the latter was a dangerous rival so far as Vera Croot was concerned. Not that there were any outward signs that Croot was disposed to regard Gilmour as a prospective son-in-law, but from one or two little things Jack deduced the worst. And, moreover, since he had allowed Croot to know what his aspirations were, he had been quite courteously asked not to show his face at the Moat House again.

Vera had seemed to concur in this drastic ultimatum, but she was not taking it as quietly as her adopted father imagined; in fact, she was regarding herself as something of a martyr. That she was in correspondence with Ellis, Croot did not dream for a moment.

But there were other things to occupy Jack's attention for the moment. He had his more or less regular work on the Telephone, for one thing, so that he had no opportunity of seeing Bill Avory for the next day or two. Meanwhile, he heard nothing from Lock, and he was forced to the conclusion that he would have to look in other directions if he were to do anything big in the way of unearthing the gang responsible for those amazing robberies on the river. That they were still flourishing he could see by the daily papers.

Three days had elapsed before he found half an hour to spare, and dropped in at Scotland Yard to have a few minutes' chat with Lock, who, fortunately, was not busy at the time. He seemed rather grave and preoccupied as Ellis came in and dropped into a chair.

"You are just the man I wanted to see," he said. "Did you look up the night watchman Avory as you suggested?"

Ellis explained that he had not had the time. Lock looked more grave and disappointed than ever.

"Then you will never know now what was the name of the man in the Navy whom Avory took Gilmour for. Late last night Avory's body was found floating in one of the ponds at Hampstead—drowned. There were no marks on the body, and it looks like a case of suicide. His watch and his money were intact. Still, it's a very sinister happening in the face of what we know. He has just been identified by the woman with whom he lodged. What do you make of it?"