Frank Froest - The Grell Mystery

‘Not a word, or it will be the worse for you. Let’s have a light, Green.’

The prisoner kept very still, and Green flashed a light on his face. It was that of a man of forty or so, with pronounced Hebrew features. His greasy black hair was tangled in coarse curls, and a smooth black moustache ran across his upper lip. A pair of shifty eyes were fixed fearfully on Foyle, and the man murmured something in a guttural tongue.

‘We are police officers. How many people are there in this house?’ demanded Foyle sternly, in a low voice. ‘You may as well answer in English. Quietly, now.’

He had released his hold round the Jew’s waist, but stood with the jemmy dangling by his side and with ears cocked ready for any sound. Green had climbed the stairs and stood by his side.

Domiciliary visits are unfrequent in England, but the Jew was not certain enough to stand upon a legal technicality. As a matter of fact, the search warrant would have met the difficulty. He cringed before the two men, whose faces he could not see, for Green had thrown his wedge of light so that it showed up the man’s sallow face and left all else in darkness.

‘I do not know why you have come,’ he answered, forming each word precisely. ‘I have done nothing wrong. I am an honest newsagent. There is only my wife, daughter, son, lodger in house.’

‘You are a receiver of stolen goods,’ answered Foyle, something, it must be confessed, at a venture. ‘Don’t trouble to deny it, Mr Israels. We’re not after you this time—not if you treat us fairly. What about this lodger of yours? Have you bought him a typewriter lately?’

‘Yes—yes. I help you all I can,’ protested the Jew, with an eagerness that deceived neither of the detectives. There is no class of liar so abysmal as the East-end criminal Jew. They will hold to a glib falsehood with a temerity that nothing can shake. If there is no necessity to lie, they lie—for practice, it is to be presumed. The best way to extract a truth is to make a direct assertion by the light of apparent knowledge and so sometimes obtain assent. Foyle knew the idiosyncrasies of the breed. Hence the threat in his demand.

‘I bought a typewriter—yes,’ went on Israels. ‘I think he was honest. Didn’t seem as though police after him.’

‘Which room is he in?’

Israels jerked a thumb upwards. ‘Next landing. Door on left,’ he ejaculated nervously.

The superintendent pushed by the man. He knew that the critical moment had come. With his quick judgment of men he had summed up Mr Israels. Whatever the Jew’s morals, it was evident that he had a wholesome respect for his own oily skin. He would not risk himself to save the neck of another man. Foyle’s intentions were simple. He would steal quietly up the second flight of stairs, burst the door open if it were locked, and seize the man he was in search of in his sleep. But his plans were frustrated.

He had not taken two steps when a woman peeped from an adjoining room. He caught one glimpse of her in the semi-darkness with a police whistle at her lips. He sprang forward, and as he did so a shrill, ear-piercing blast rang out. Green was close behind him.

She shrieked as the detective tore the whistle from her, and he felt her slender figure entwine itself about him. Down he went, with his companion on top of him, and another woman’s loud hysterical cries added to the pandemonium. Foyle picked himself up and, lifting the girl bodily, flung her without ceremony into the room from which she had emerged. From above a voice shouted something, and a knife whizzed downwards and struck quivering in the bare boards of the landing, grazing Green’s shoulders.

All need for caution was gone now. Foyle had dropped his jemmy and his hand closed over his pistol. Only as a last resource would he use it, but if he had to—well, there could be no harm in having it handy. A door slammed as the two detectives climbed the second flight of stairs. Green flung himself against the one that had been indicated by Israels, and the flimsy fastening gave way under the shock of his thirteen stone. There was no one in the room. Savagely Heldon Foyle turned and caught the handle of a second door. It turned, and they entered the room, empty like the first, but with an open window looking out on a series of low roofs a dozen feet below. And over the roofs a shadowy figure of a man was clambering hurriedly. He could only dimly be seen.

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