A Scream in Soho (10 page)

“Isn't there
anything
you can suggest that I can be doing to help?” Haynes asked almost pleadingly.

McCarthy ran his hand over his glossy black hair a moment while he thought.

“Yes,” he said. “Try and have the call traced that was put in at the Marylebone Lane box at almost one-twenty this morning. In the old days it would have been easy, but since the automatic dial it's a well-nigh hopeless job. But have a go at it all the same.”

“And if I fail?”

McCarthy shrugged his shoulders.

“Just sit down and twiddle your fingers until you hear from me. It's all you
can
do, Bill, whether you like it or not.”

“I can't say that I fancy the prospect,” Haynes groaned.

“While you're at it make very sure that all the air and sea ports are closely watched for anything like our icy-eyed friend getting away to one of the neutral countries open to travellers from here. Mail to Germany is out of the question but a tip to the Post Office people to closely watch any Continental stuff won't do any harm.”

“Pure routine in the last case, and done long ago,” Haynes said. “But I'll put through an urgent order for all officials at the ports to keep a keen look-out for anything answering the description of our blind-looking friend of last night. I think I can remember him well enough to set him out fairly accurately. After that,” he added, “I think I'll get out of the way for a while—on the same urgent business, of course. I don't fancy frantic calls every five minutes or so to know what's fresh in the case.”

“I don't blame you,” McCarthy said.

“What about Verrey's in Regent Street at about one o'clock for a spot of lunch?” the A.C. put insidiously. “You may have something fresh to report by then.”

“As it's just after twelve now,” the inspector said, with a glance at his wrist-watch, “I very much doubt it. The well-known Luck of the McCarthys is good, but it's not as good as all
that
. Anyhow,” he added whimsically, “I've eaten twice in the twenty-four hours, and that's as much, and more, as any C.I.D. man can expect these strenuous days and black-out nights. However, as I see ye've the urge on y' to buy me a really tip-top lunch I'll not turn the offer down altogether, but if I'm not at Verrey's by half-past one you'll know that I've got my nose to the ground on the job—probably interviewing Signor Floriello Mascagni.”

“Mascagni!” Haynes exclaimed in considerable surprise. “That's the fellow who came into Signora Spadoglia's last night and dropped you some information, isn't it?”

“The same,” McCarthy informed him.

“What's he got to do with it?”

“That's what I want to know,” McCarthy answered equably. “On your way, Bill. On your way. You're holding up the processes of the Law!”

Chapter XII

A Chance Encounter

For a solid hour now McCarthy had been cruising the environs of Soho in Withers' taxi-cab, but without picking up the slightest trace of the man he wanted. In and out of wine shops and small Italian restaurants favoured by the tough brotherhood of whom Flo. Mascagni was the undisputed head, he drifted, but never a word of the Soho-Italian could he pick up. Whether Mascagni had deemed it wise to hop out of town, or otherwise lie low after the attempt upon him that morning, McCarthy did not know, but he doubted it, since the gangster had no reason for thinking that he had been spotted by either of the intended victims. Knowing Inspector McCarthy as he did, he would have been quite certain in his own mind that a police “drag” would have been out for him within half an hour of the occurrence, and as nothing of the kind had happened he would see no reason for flight, or even temporarily absenting himself from his usual haunts.

“'Ow'd it be if I was to leave you up the street a bit and take a mike into that dive of Fasoli's, guv'nor?” Withers suggested. “That there bugpit as is called the
Circolo Venezia
. That's the main 'ang-out of Mascagni's mob, though it's kept pretty dark, and they don't go near there much before night.”

McCarthy nodded his agreement. “Good idea, Withers,” he said. “I hadn't forgotten that hole, but I knew dashed well I, personally, should get no information out of it. But it might be different with you. Hop along and see what you can find out.”

In five minutes he was back again. “There's a race meetin' at Cheltenham to-day, guv'nor,” he reported, “and 'im an' 'is gang is away at it. At any rate, the mob's gorn, and Fasoli thinks 'e's wiv 'em, which is most likely.”

“More than likely, Withers,” McCarthy agreed. “They wouldn't have to take a train up there before ten in the morning. That would have left plenty of time for Mascagni to have caught it after—after I saw him early this morning. In which case,” he continued, “luncheon at Verrey's seems to be indicated. While I'm at it you'd better park your car around in Marlborough Street and get something to eat yourself. Don't get too near to the police court, though, or they may have you inside.”

“Don't worry, guv'nor, I've been there twice and that was any amount and too damn much,” Mr. Withers rejoined, grinning hugely. “An' as far as lunch goes, mine's allus ready at any hour durin' openin' times. A couple o' good pulls on the beer pump, an' it's all cooked and served.”

“Don't overdo it, Withers,” McCarthy warned. “The ways of motor transgressors are not easy these times.”

“You're tellin'
me
, guv'nor!” Mr. Withers exclaimed. “Not 'arf they ain't! Fair persecutin', I call 'em.”

Arrived in Regent Street McCarthy proceeded to that famous restaurant, sacred to the rich and fashionable, and found Haynes already installed at a table and waiting for him. Quite a number of Continentals of note were, he saw, taking their accustomed late
déjeuner
. It was a favourite house for that.

Among them, seated alone at a table in one of the windows, was one of the most beautiful women McCarthy remembered to have seen in many a long day. She was simply, but most expensively gowned and, taken all in all, was indeed a pleasurable sight for any eye. As he took his seat she turned and, apparently noticing Haynes for the first time, bowed to him. He promptly responded with an obeisance of the deepest respect. For a moment McCarthy thought that Haynes was going to cross to the window and have a word with her, but he gave his attention to the waiter who came forward with a menu card.

“Who is that lady?” he asked, when the ordering of the lunch was completed.

“The Baroness Lena Eberhardt,” Haynes told him in a confidential whisper. “Quite an old friend of mine—by which I mean I've met her dozens of times at different social functions.”

“German?” McCarthy asked casually. She looked it to him, very definitely.

“Good heavens, no—Austrian. Hates the Nazi gang like poison. Viennese—one of the real old Austrian nobility. She's lived here for some years now—two or three at least. Has a fine old house in Grosvenor Square.”

“Has she, begad,” McCarthy said. “Then she's a dashed sight luckier than most of the old Austrian nobility. They haven't any houses anywhere at the moment—or money, either.”

“She was lucky enough to get all hers out long before Hitler ever thought of the
anschluss
,” Haynes said. “And it was no little, I can assure you. The baroness is a really wealthy woman.”

“I could find it in my heart to wish I was something similar,” McCarthy said, helping himself to sole. “I notice,” he said quietly, “that the lady is still eyeing you covertly, Bill. Almost as if she thinks you ought to go over and have a word with her.”

“Which p'raps I should,” the A.C. said. “I've been her guest a good many times. Excuse me for a moment.”

He crossed to the table and, for some three or four minutes spoke to the lady, who, while conversing with him animatedly, somehow seemed to have her very beautiful eyes fixed upon McCarthy. This was so to such an extent that it made that extremely good-looking gentleman somewhat self-conscious. Presently Haynes returned.

“Mac,” he said, “I'm requested to bring you over for introduction. The baroness has heard of you and read in the Press of some of your exploits, and she's most anxious to meet you.”

“Meet me!” McCarthy gasped. “My hat, Bill, I'm too shy to talk to anyone, let alone a society woman who I'd have to mind my P's and Q's in front of. And too hungry as well.”

“After you've finished lunch, of course. The baroness is in no hurry—she's really killing time till she meets a friend. Come on,” he urged. “You can't get out of it and you need only stay a few minutes. Just do the pleasant for a minute or two—she's really a most charming woman.”

The meal over and the bill settled, Haynes got up and moved to the lady's table. Reluctantly McCarthy followed and, while inwardly wishing her at the other end of the earth at the moment, permitted no sign of his true feelings to show upon his countenance. In a moment or two he was chatting as gaily with her as though he had known her all his life.

“You will never guess what I have been doing this morning,” she remarked with an extraordinarily soft, musical laugh which McCarthy found extremely fascinating. “It is perhaps unwise that I should tell it to you two gentlemen of the police, since I understand that according to your foolish, so funny laws, it is quite illegal. I am therefore a criminal.”

“A very beautiful one!” McCarthy murmured gallantly. “What is the crime, Baroness?”

“I have been having my fortune told,” she answered. “Once every month, if not more often, I go to my favourite soothsayer to read me the crystal, and that, I understand, is a crime in this country. Is it not so?”

“Pure charlatanism,” Haynes laughed, but she shook her head in a very decided negative. The Baroness Eberhardt could be unshakably determined if she chose, McCarthy thought.

“Not my woman,” she said. “I knew her in Vienna before she came here. My Madame Rohner, as she calls herself in London, is no charlatan—far from it.”

At the mention of that name the inspector felt himself go rigid, yet not by the quiver of a muscle did he permit the smile upon his face to alter. It seemed to him, though he would have freely admitted that it might be pure imagination on his part, that the baroness had been watching him covertly as she had uttered the name; at any rate she had turned fully in his direction. It struck him as an extraordinary coincidence that that name, which he, personally, with all his knowledge of London and its West End, had never encountered before, should come so fluently from this lady's lips at just this particular moment.

Haynes, smiling almost fatuously at the lady, appeared to have noticed nothing; the name was not engraved upon his mind as it was upon McCarthy's. Some instinctive warning shot through the inspector's brain as he listened, to make no mention of the fact that it had any significance for him whatever; to just keep on smirking like a grinning idiot and see in what way this strange situation would develop.

But one thing came back instantly to his memory. In the house at Soho Square he had searched the telephone book to find only one subscriber of that name in it—the man masquerading as a woman who had been so brutally murdered the night before. He determined to lay a little trap.

“'Tis a marvel to me how these people keep going, Baroness, when you think of all the little pitfalls the Metropolitan Police, and the Yard, for that matter, set for them. I suppose you have to make your appointments in advance by telephone, and they get you to nip in and out again as quickly and covertly as maybe.”

“Oh, yes, I always call her up by phone, of course; one has to give her plenty of notice one's coming. She has a large clientele of us believers in the occult—despite your foolish official opinions.”

“I can see that we shall have to tighten up our Post Office connections in that respect,” Haynes said smilingly. “Can't allow our friends to put themselves in the position of being pounced upon while they're having their futures unfolded to them. The omens were happy in your case, I hope?”

The baroness smiled. “Oh, quite,” she answered. “At least,” she amended, “as good as I can reasonably expect them to be in these dreadful times. Yes, this morning's revelations were quite pro—how do you say the word?—propitious.”

“A lie!” were the two words that snapped through McCarthy's brain with the sharpness of a physical blow, though the engaging smile never for an instant left his lips. Since he knew positively that there was but one Madame Rohner listed in the telephone book, it was a manifest impossibility for this woman to have communicated with her by telephone that morning, and still less to have visited her. Somewhere behind this mention of the pseudo woman there was a definite meaning, one not in any way clear to him. Haynes, as far as he knew and that was almost certainty, had not mentioned the Soho Square murder; he had not had the time to have done so, for one thing, and, as far as that went, no man in the world more secretive concerning Departmental business than its second in command. More than ever would that be so since the case had linked up with the Whitehall business.

That this woman, Austrian baroness, or whatever she might be, knew
something
of that crime, was the thought that was beginning to creep into his mind. In some way or other she must also have learned that he was handling it, otherwise the mention of the name had no significance at all. Either she had brought that in as a deliberate feeler to find out something, and that something whether he had so far been able to get at the real identity of the “woman” who had been murdered, or it was meaningless. The possibility was that she had expected him to seize avidly upon the mention of the name and commence bombarding her with questions, out of which she would have extracted information she would not dare to ask openly. It was a point on which he must make himself exceedingly sure before going much further.

He was about to get up and excuse himself upon the grounds of work to be done, when, glancing through the wire blinds which gave privacy to the café, and with which all windows opening on to the street were fitted, he saw something which stopped him most effectually. Crossing Regent Street towards the place, and at an angle which suggested that he was coming from the direction of Oxford Street, was the man he had been seeking—Floriello Mascagni. Reaching the pavement, he took a glance at his wrist watch, then moved directly for the corner of the window behind which the table occupied by the baroness was set. He passed as close to it as it was possible, and, as he did so, McCarthy both saw and heard him give a distinct knock upon the glass pane.

That knock was not only distinct, but peculiarly
distinctive
; a quick double, then two single taps. To the inspector, watching Mascagni who he knew could not possibly see him, or any one else at that table through the wire blind, it was as intriguing a business as anything else which had to do with this extraordinary case.

That it was a signal of some sort or other he was as positive as he could well be, but who to? Certainly not himself, or Haynes, who could not be seen, and it seemed ridiculous to suppose that it could be to the wealthy Austrian aristocrat, the Baroness Eberhardt. As it happened, she had been right in his line of sight the moment Mascagni had knocked; as a matter of fact she had been the nearest to the Soho-Italian at that moment; indeed, nothing but the thick pane of glass had actually separated the two. Entirely without intent McCarthy's eyes had been as much upon her as they had been upon Mascagni. But not a muscle of her beautiful face had moved at the sound. Indeed, she appeared to have been perfectly unconscious of it. It was a queer business altogether, for that it had been no idle drumming of the fingers against the windows in passing he was quite certain. The whole thing had McCarthy guessing—and thinking.

Another thing also McCarthy saw through the wire blinds, and that was the appearance of Mr. William Withers, minus his vehicle, at the corner of the street almost opposite. He saw the huge taxi-man light a cigarette, and look about him in a manner which suggested filling up time until his patron was ready to appear, then suddenly the Withers' orbs fixed upon something upon the same side of the street as Verrey's, though, of course, out of the range of McCarthy's vision. He had little doubt as to what, or rather who it was, gripping “Big Bill's” attention—the gangster, Mascagni. And as Withers remained where he was, it told McCarthy that Mascagni was hanging about somewhere in immediate proximity to the café.

“Do you often patronize this place, Baroness?” he asked with that engaging, white-toothed smile of his.