Читать книгу The Riddle of the Rail - Fred M. White - Страница 6

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"I am inclined to agree with you," Norcliff said. "Of course, you will keep your eyes open in case anything should turn up, though I am not in the least sanguine. Out there are one or two little points to which I want to call your attention before we go any further. Now we have got rid of the possibility of inquisitive jurymen, I want to point out to you certain peculiarities in the clothing of the deceased. Of course, it is a common thing for a man, especially if he happens to be a single man, as the deceased might have been, to have his underclothing and linen unmarked. Your average bachelor buys just what he wants from time to time and sends it to his laundry without any means of identification, because he does not know any better. Whereas, if he were a married man, with women about him, then the articles I speak of would be branded with his name, or at least his initials. And this, I conclude, tends to prove that deceased was single. Quite a minor point, but it may turn out to be important later on. And, another thing. Did you notice anything peculiar about the clothing?"

"I can't say I did," the superintendent admitted.

"Well, first of all, he was wearing American shoes. No mistake about them. You know those brown shoes with knobby toes that the well-dressed Yankee always affects."

"Perfectly right," the superintendent admitted. "I ought to have noticed that, but I am afraid I didn't."

"Very well, then. Let us go a step further. The cut of the coat, very broad across the shoulder, and loose fitting. American again. Both the shoes and the suit of clothes were made in the United States. So probably, was the underclothing. Let us suppose, for a moment, that this man was a tourist, travelling about England, as so many Americans do, and getting into bad hands. He might have had thousands of pounds on him. This being the case, it would be an artful move on the part of the murderer or murderers to leave him his watch and chain and note-case, to say nothing of the diamond pin in his tie. If I am right in this surmise, then that accounts for the fact that nobody has come forward to claim the body. The man might have been in England a week, he might have been here six months. But somebody must have known him. I mean such people as hotel-keepers and bank cashiers. We can't get any sort of move on until we can lay hands upon somebody who can say who the man was or, at any rate, what he called himself. And yet, there is nothing by which we could identify him."

"Oh, yes, there is," a little squeaky voice broke in from the background. "I have an idea."

Norcliff turned somewhat angrily in the direction of the speaker. Then he saw, to his great annoyance, that he was face to face with the little lame journalist who had been responsible for the flaring article in the 'Daily Bulletin.'

"What the deuce are you doing here?" he demanded. "Now, tell me exactly what you came back for."

"I didn't come back at all," the little man smiled. "I haven't been away yet. I sat in a corner there, writing my report, and I suppose you didn't notice me. All the same, I shouldn't have butted in like this if I hadn't heard what you said and if I hadn't had something in the nature of a brain wave."

"Well, what is it?" Norcliff said more good-naturedly.

"Well, it's just this, Inspector. I am interested in this case. I was the first to get on to it, and the first to publish the facts. It was a bit of a scoop for me, and it ought to do me a spot of good. I am a bit ambitious, I am, and I think I am a cut above the country reporting job that keeps me down here. Now, I have been over that man's wardrobe as carefully as you have. And, if I am not greatly mistaken, I have discovered something like a clue."

"Out with it, then," Norcliff said encouragingly.

"Oh, half a mo'," the little man grinned. "Not quite so fast as all that. I've got to get a bit out of this, as well as you, and the 'Daily Bulletin' is going to know it. All I want is that my paper should come first. There is a job going in Fleet-street, and if I make good over this business, I stand a thundering good chance of getting it. You help me and I will help you."

"Quite fair," Norcliff said. "It wouldn't be the first time I got a tip from the press, and I am always ready to acknowledge it. I shall know where to put in a good word for you."

"O.K.," the little man smiled serenely. "Now, perhaps you will send somebody round to the police station and ask them to look among the dead man's effects and bring his collar back."

A few minutes later, and the little man stood before what he felt to be an interested group, with the double linen collar in his hand. He pointed to the inside of the neck-band.

"There you are," he said. "No maker's name on that collar, and, no sort of trade mark, I mean, it isn't called anything, like the 'Burlington' or the 'Acme,' or anything of that sort. But there is a mark on it, as you can see for yourself."

He handed over the strip of linen to Norcliff, who saw, in blurred marking-ink by the side of the button-hole, the letters XX.L. roughly scrawled and somewhat faint from constant washings.

"There you are," Jagger went on. "That's a laundry mark, that is. Wonder you didn't tumble to it before, Inspector."

"Well, I didn't," the Inspector said shortly. "Go on."

"Why, certainly. It's a laundry mark all right, and, moreover, a laundry of which the deceased was in the habit of making regular use, or the letters wouldn't have run and faded as they have."

"I don't quite see it," the Inspector said.

"Oh, can't you?" the little man jeered. "Must have been the same laundry, because if he had been in the habit of changing from one washing establishment to another, then there would be other marks. Now do you see what I mean?"

"Very smart, very smart indeed," Norcliff smiled encouragingly. "Certainly one to you, my friend. But it means a good deal of spade work to be done yet."

"Ah, that is where the press comes in and saves you all the trouble," the man Jagger grinned. "I am making up quite a good column for the 'Daily Bulletin,' and if I can work this bit in, it will round up my article very nicely. Now, what I want you to do, Inspector, is this. I want you to let me make an exact copy of that laundry mark and have it reproduced in the 'Bulletin'—exclusive to the 'Bulletin,' and all that sort of thing. With our million odd circulation that mark would be seen by at least five times as many people. It will be a very strange thing if amongst all that lot somebody doesn't come forward who knows all about the laundry mark."

"Really, Mr. Jagger, you ought to be one of ourselves," Norcliff smiled. "A most excellent idea. I suppose you will telephone your article presently in the ordinary way?"

"You bet I will," Jagger responded promptly.

"Very well, then. You send your article and allude to some mysterious clue that is coming along in time for the 'Bulletin,' not to-morrow, but the day after. Then I will have the mark photographed and printed this afternoon, and let you have a copy of it. A clever journalist like you will be able to make a second sensational article instead of one for your enterprising paper."

Jagger vanished, perfectly satisfied with what he regarded as a good morning's work, and, after that, Norcliff and Trumble went off in the direction of the station to make their inquiries there with regard to the movements of the fruit train between the time it left Brendham and the moment when the body was found at Westport.

"It will take some time gentlemen," the man in charge of the proper department told his visitors. "You see, for the greater part of last week, the whole of the traffic on our, and, indeed, every other line was disturbed by excursion work. It was heavier than usual, because Whitsuntide this year has been more than usually fine and warm, and practically everybody in the country was on the move. If it hadn't been for so many cars on the road, I don't know what we should have done. At any rate, the train in which the body was found ought to have reached us two or three days before it did. You see, the goods were perishable, and I daresay we shall have to pay a good deal out in damage, for the delay. But there it is, and I am quite sure that when I come to make the inquiries you want, I shall find that that fruit train was shunted at all sorts of places to make way for mainline and excursion traffic."

"Yes, I can quite see the point," Norcliff said. "But I want something more definite than that. I want to know the exact spot at which the fruit waggons were first shunted, the time of day or night, and how long they were detained in the various places where they had to remain. A sort of time-table, if you understand what I mean. If you tell your people that this information is needed by Scotland Yard, you ought to get it almost at once."

The traffic inspector smiled just a little pityingly.

"Oh, it isn't going to be as easy as all that," he said. "We are all still busy, making up for the time we lost last week, and every man is up to his eyes in it. If you get all that you want within the next three days, you will have to be satisfied."

There was apparently no help for it, and so Norcliff and his companion went off to kill time as best they could till they had something definite to go upon from the railway company.

"It is a most infernal nuisance," Norcliff said. "But I don't see how we can make the slightest move until these railway people stir themselves sufficiently to provide the information we want. Meanwhile, I suppose we must loaf about and wait."

It was four full days before anything definite transpired. Then it came, not at the hands of the railway company, but through the man Jagger who burst unceremoniously into the sitting room of the hotel where the investigators were located, waving a telegram triumphantly in his claw-like fingers.

"Got it," he cried excitedly. "Just received this from the office. The mark on the collar has been identified by a laundryman who called on the 'Bulletin' people about an hour ago."