Frank Froest - The Crime Club

‘Unfortunately for himself, Iles picked Sweeney’s pocket on the journey to London. Whether the latter discovered his loss before his death it is impossible to say with certainty. I believe not. Among the documents which Iles found was a letter in printed characters (which with others he burnt) demanding an appointment on the Albert Bridge, and conveying indirect threats. It is my belief that this letter was written by Sweeney himself with the idea that it would be found on his body and confirm the appearance of murder. I considered very fully the various means by which Sweeney might dispose of a pistol after he had shot himself. Only one practicable way occurred to me, and this was confirmed by an examination of the bridge rail, which had been newly painted. There were the paint stains on the dead man’s clothes, and Iles had said he noticed him looking over the rails.

‘It seemed to me that if the butt of a pistol were secured to a cord, and a heavy weight attached to the other end of the cord and dropped over the rail of the bridge before the fatal shot was fired, the grip on the pistol would relax and it would be automatically dragged into the water. The river was dragged at my request, and the discovery of an automatic pistol tied by a length of whipcord to a heavy leaden weight proved my theory right … With regard to Iles, I shall charge him with pocket-picking on his own confession, and ask that he shall be recommended for deportation as an undesirable alien … I have the honour to be your humble servant,

‘LIONEL WHIPPLE,

‘Divisional Detective-Inspector.’

‘All the same, sir,’ commented Detective-Sergeant Newton, ‘it looked like being that tough. He’s in luck that you tumbled to the gag.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Whipple smilingly. ‘It’s luck—just luck.’

A BLUE haze of smoke which even the electric fans could not entirely dispel overhung the smoking saloon of the S.S. Columbia . With the procrastination of confirmed poker players, they had lingered at the game till well after midnight. Silvervale cut off a remark to glance at his cards. He yawned as he flung them down.

‘She can call herself Eleanor de Reszke or anything else she likes on the passenger list,’ he declared languidly, ‘but she’s Madeline Fulford all right, all right. She’s come on a bit in the last two years, though she always was a bit of a high stepper. Wonder if de Reszke knows anything about Crake?’

Across the table a sallow-faced man, whose play had hitherto evinced no lack of nerve, threw in a full hand, aces up, on a moderate rise. No one save himself knew that he had wasted one of the best of average poker hands. His fingers, lean and tremulous, drummed mechanically on the table. For a second a pair of lustreless, frowning blue eyes rested on Silvervale’s face.

‘So that’s the woman who was in the Crake case? It was her evidence that got the poor devil seven years, wasn’t it? As I remember the newspaper reports, she was a kind of devil incarnate.’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ observed Silvervale dryly, ‘and I’m a newspaper man myself. I didn’t hear the trial, but I saw her afterwards. It never came out why she gave him away. There must have been some mighty strong motive, for he had spent thousands on her. I guess there was another woman at the bottom of it. Anyway, her reasons don’t matter. She cleared an unpleasant trickster out of the way and put him where he belongs. But for her he might have been carrying on that swindling bank of his now. I’ll take three cards.’

The man with the pale-blue eyes jerked his head abruptly. ‘Yes, he’s where he belongs,’ he asserted, ‘and she—why, she’s Mrs de Reszke and a deuced pretty woman … Hello!’ He broke off short, staring with fascinated eyes beyond Silvervale. The journalist swerved round in his chair, to meet a livid face and furious eyes within a foot of his own.

It was Richard de Reszke himself. He had not made himself popular on ship-board—indeed, it is doubtful if he could ever have been popular in any society. A New Yorker who had made himself a millionaire in the boot trade, he was ungracious both in manner and speech. He had entered the saloon unperceived, and now his tall, usually shambling figure was unwontedly erect. His left hand—big and gnarled it was—fell with an ape-like clutch on Silvervale’s shoulder.

‘You scandal-mongering little ape,’ he snarled, with a vicious tightening of the lips under his grey moustache. ‘By God, you’ll admit you’re a liar, or I’ll shake the life out of you.’

The chair fell with a crash as he pulled the journalist forward. Men sprang to intervene between the two. Cursing and struggling, de Reszke was forced back, but it took four men to do it. Suddenly his resistance relaxed.

‘That’s all right,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll let it go for now.’ A fresh access of passion shook him, and he shot out a malignant oath. ‘I’ll make you a sorry man yet for this, Mr Silvervale.’

The journalist had picked up the fallen chair. His face was flushed, but he answered coolly. ‘I apologise,’ he said quietly. ‘I had no business to talk of your wife.’

‘Then in front of these gentlemen you’ll admit you’re a liar.’

‘I guess not. I am sorry I said anything, but what I did say was the truth. Mrs de Reszke was Madeline Fulford, and she it was who gave evidence against Crake.’

The little group between the men stiffened in expectation of a new outburst. But none came. The stoop had come back to de Reszke’s shoulders, and he lifted one hand wearily to tug at his moustache. Then without another word he turned and shambled from the room.

There was a momentary silence, broken at last by the scratch of a match as someone lit a cigarette. The embarrassment was broken, and three or four men spoke at once.

‘Look out, Silvervale,’ said Bowen, a young New York banker. ‘Lucky for you we touch Southampton tomorrow. The old man is a-gunning for you, sure. His face meant murder.’

‘Thanks. I’ll look after my own corpse,’ drawled the journalist. He spoke with an ease he did not entirely feel. ‘I suppose the game’s broken up now. I’ve had enough excitement for one night. I’m going to turn in.’

The short remainder of the voyage, in spite of de Reszke’s threat and the prophecy of Bowen, passed without incident. It was not till he was back in London that the episode was recalled to Silvervale’s mind. The boat train had reached Waterloo in the early afternoon, and at six o’clock, Silvervale, for all that his two months’ vacation had yet three days to run, had been drawn into the stir and stress of Fleet Street.

The harrassed news editor of the Morning Wire was working at speed through a basket of accumulated copy. He paused long enough to shake hands and exchange a remark or two, and then resumed his labours with redoubled ardour, for he was eager to hand over the reins to his night assistant.

He snatched irritably at a piece of tape that was handed to him by a boy, and then, adjusting his pince-nez, glanced at Silvervale.

‘Here’s a funny thing, Silver. Didn’t you come back on the Columbia ? Read that.’

Silvervale took the thin strip and slowly read it through:

‘5.40: Mrs Eleanor de Reszke, the wife of an American millionaire, was this afternoon found shot dead in her sitting-room at the Palatial Hotel. She had been at the hotel only an hour or two, having arrived by the Columbia from New York this morning.’

Hardened journalist though he was, with a close acquaintance with many of the bizarre aspects of tragedy, Silvervale could not repress a little shudder. Here was a grim sequel for which he was in a degree responsible. He traced the sequence of events clearly in his imagination from the moment when de Reszke first heard that his wife had been the associate and betrayer of a swindler, to the ultimate gust of passion that must have led to the tragedy when it was borne upon him that the statement was the truth.