Frank Froest - The Rogues’ Syndicate - The Maelstrom

He commenced a string of question-marks across the paper. ‘I’ll see that liftman myself,’ he murmured, and continued:

‘It was the maid’s night out. Lift attendant does not remember having seen man before, but he knows Errol. Description vague. Think possible P. G.-S. alarmed. Must handle cautiously and keep under constant surveillance. If can induce Hallett to cultivate her, may learn something.’

A sharp tap at the door interrupted him. He snapped an irritable ‘Come in!’ and, pencil in hand, surveyed frowningly a young man with a badly bruised eye.

‘Well, Jakes,’ he demanded impatiently, ‘who’s been decorating you? What’s the trouble?’

‘I got this from Hallett, sir. He—’

Menzies’ feet dropped from the table with a crash.

‘What the blazes! Some muddle, I’ll be bound. Where’s Gordon?’

‘Down below, sir. We—’

‘Then you’ve lost the girl?’ He smacked an angry fist down on the table. ‘Oh, curse your explanations! I beg your pardon—you confounded idiot!’ He sprang to the door, and roared down the green-painted corridor: ‘Royal! Royal!’ That individual popped out of a door like a rabbit out of a hole. ‘Come here, Royal. These two cabbages have let Miss Greye-Stratton dodge ’em. Take Smithers and get along to her flat, No. 74, Palace Avenue, and see if you can pick her up. She may have gone straight home, or she may not. I’ve got to come there myself presently, but I’ll hear what this dough-witted jackass has got to say.’

Ordinarily Menzies was courteous to his underlings, but when anything like stupidity interfered with his plans, he let himself go.

‘They remember it, and it’s better than putting ’em on the M.R.,’ he explained once to a colleague, which was his way of saying that he preferred a few hot words to putting the culprits on the morning report for judgment and punishment. ‘Only I sometimes wish that I didn’t swear so much at them.’

Royal had slipped away to carry out his instructions with the swiftness of the well-trained man. Menzies turned with a snarl to the young detective, who was trembling nervously, and as ill at ease as any young clerk ‘carpeted’ before his departmental chief for the first time.

‘Let’s have it,’ he said shortly.

The young man squared his shoulders.

‘They lunched at the Duke’s, in Piccadilly, sir. I went in with them, but could not get near enough to hear what was said. The lady did most of the talking. When they came out they walked towards Regent Street. I was close behind. Gordon was almost twenty paces behind me. They turned into Regent Street, and then sharp back along Jermyn Street. When they reached St James’s Street he said something to her, and came back towards me. I would have passed him, but he caught me by the shoulder, and asked me what I meant by molesting a lady.

‘I pulled myself free, and told him I was a police officer. I would have gone on, but he pulled me back again, and Gordon came up—’

‘And stopped to see what the matter was, instead of going straight on,’ commented Menzies bitterly. ‘I know. Go on.’

‘He stopped to help me. Mr Hallett was giving me a fair rough time. It took the two of us to tackle him properly. He kept it up for about three minutes, and then gave in.’

‘And by that time the girl might have been in Timbuctoo. He laid a nice trap for you, and you both fell into it.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Did you arrest him?’

‘No. We thought it ought to be reported to you before we did anything.’

‘That’s the only gleam of common sense you showed in the whole business. Go away. I’ll think it over. And the next time you’re shadowing, young man, remember you’ve got to stick—if the heavens fall you’ve got to stick!’

He whistled softly to himself when the other was gone.

‘I thought as much. She’s got him on a bit of string—and Hallett is a brainy man.’

He revolved the matter steadily in his mind as he walked to Palace Avenue. Hallett, if he could be persuaded, would be a valuable ally in discovering what information Peggy Greye-Stratton had withheld. Menzies used the instruments to his hands; and there was no reason why he should have scruples. If he had troubled at all to formulate the ethics of the question, he might have argued that when a crime was committed a girl who deliberately withheld or evaded giving information could not fairly object to any means adopted to break her taciturnity. That the role he proposed allotting to Hallett was actually that of a spy did not concern him. That would be Hallett’s own affair, if he accepted the commission.

Royal appeared out of nowhere as he neared the corner of Palace Avenue.

‘Not come back yet,’ he reported, laconically.

‘Well, there’s plenty of time yet,’ said Menzies, with a resignation that had been conspicuously absent in his talk with the delinquent officer. ‘She’s bound to turn up. You’d better ’phone for Gould to relieve you, and get down to the court to charge Smith.’

He strolled on to the block of flats, sent his card in to the manager in a sealed envelope, briefly explained as much of his errand as was necessary, and was presently confronted with a weedy, pale-faced youth, who nervously twisted his cap in his hands as the detective questioned him. His story varied nothing from the statement Gould had made.

‘Now, don’t get flustered, old chap,’ said Menzies, with that naÏve, bluff air he knew so well how to assume. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t know the man again? Try and think for a moment. Was he tall or short, fat or thin?’

‘Just an ordinary-looking man,’ said the attendant. ‘I didn’t pay any notice.’

‘No, of course not. Do you remember if he had a beard, or moustache, or was he clean-shaven?’

The youth wrinkled his brows, and after a moment’s thought shook his head.

‘Couldn’t say, sir. I rather believe he was clean-shaven.’

It was hopeless to try to extract a description from him. Menzies had expected as much. Observation is not in most people a natural gift; it is a matter of the most meticulous training, and many and laborious are the hours spent in teaching recruits to the C.I.D. staff the art of noticing. He switched to another point.

‘When the man came out of her flat, did he seem in a hurry?’

‘No, sir; not particularly. He rang for the lift.’

‘Didn’t say anything?’

‘Not to me. At least, he had something in his hand. He dropped it, and when it rolled down the shaft he swore. I offered to go and get it, but he said it didn’t matter—it was only a halfpenny.’

‘H’m!’

Menzies stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and tapped his toe on the floor.

‘You went and made sure it was only a halfpenny afterwards, of course?’

The man’s eyes had hitherto not met his. Now they were fixed boldly on his face.

‘No,’ he declared; ‘I didn’t think it worthwhile.’

A man may fail to look one in the face and be perfectly honest and truthful. But when such a man does meet questioning with a steady eye it is because he has become conscious that an averted gaze may arouse suspicion. Menzies smiled under his moustache, and stretched out a hand.

‘Where is it?’ he added quietly. ‘Give it to me.’

The lift attendant flushed and drew back. The directness of the demand had disconcerted him.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got anything.’

‘That so?’ said Menzies, smilingly. And then, with a swift change of voice: ‘Now, sonny, don’t let’s have any monkey business. You can’t play with me.’

Reluctantly, as though hypnotised, the attendant thrust two fingers into his waistcoat pocket, slowly drew something out, and placed it in the detective’s hand.