A Scream in Soho (8 page)

Follower and followed were about half way down Park Lane when a big car which showed practically no lights at all came swiftly up behind him, then pulled up with a scream of maltreated brakes. Before he could realize what was happening, three men jumped out of it and made a rush at him. The very swiftness of their attack was sufficient to tell him that they meant business and without hesitation he let fly a quick punch at the first to reach him. The blow was picked off with ease, and in the next instant a cast-iron fist descended upon the back of his neck, sending him reeling, half-dazed, back to the fence. In the next moment something, an iron bar he believed, came down upon his skull, and millions of lights danced before his eyes, then it seemed to him that he went sliding down a long, long tube of what seemed to be black velvet—into nothingness.

That was all he knew until he found himself being led by a “flattie” into a police station somewhere or other, and heard the man tell his inspector that he had picked him up wandering about on Hampstead Heath. In a dazed sort of way he gathered that the body of someone who had been murdered had been found close by him, and the idea seemed to be that he had had something to do with the crime. As well as he could, he endeavoured to explain that he had been doing a job for Detective Inspector McCarthy of Scotland Yard, and if somebody would ring up the telephone number he gave they would find that everything was O.K. as far as he was concerned. After that, he must have gone off into a faint or something, because he remembered nothing else until they were trying to pull him together to be brought back to the West End.

***

Such was the story that “Danny the Dip” had to tell to his patron, and that every word of it was truth and nothing but the truth, that experienced officer needed no telling. The evidence to that effect was seated in front of him.

Chapter X

McCarthy is Taken Off the Case!

Inspector McCarthy arrived again at the house in Soho Square a good half-hour before anyone else—with the exception of the men on duty, back and front, there. He found that the uniformed constables had been relieved by plain-clothes men from Vine Street, who had taken up certain positions in the square from which they could watch the front of the house without seeming to be in any way connected with it. The door itself had been carefully cleansed down by his own instructions after the fingerprint men had done with it, so that, save for the deep red stains of the blood which had sunk into the stone steps and the area, there was no exterior sign of the ghastly crime connected with it.

Making his way first to the rear, he went carefully over the ground in the hope of finding foot-spoor, but out of it all he could find only one thing which seemed to have any value, and that was that the man who had passed through the house—presumably the dual murderer—had worn shoes with an extremely light sole. He would have said dress shoes. The hall itself gave no results whatever when subjected to an intensified search. It was covered with linoleum which, had it been daily polished, might have shown a more detailed impression, but it obviously was washed down daily, and therefore had no impressionable surface.

His first job had been to draw the front door bolts, obviously shot by the murderer when he had made his entry into the house. Until that was done no one could gain entry.

The “dabs” men had reported that as far as the hall, banisters of the staircases, front and back doors were concerned, they could find no trace of prints likely to be of any use whatever in the case.

He was just finishing his examination when the first post delivery shot a mass of correspondence through into the wire basket fixed behind the letter slot in the front door. Taking it out, he carefully examined the names of the parties to whom they were addressed and checked them up with the board containing a list of office-renters which was affixed to the wall of the hall.

These were, for the greater part, agents in a small way for various forms of industrial requirements, a small typewriting and duplicating agency, and one firm to whose activities there was no clue at all. This was a certain Madame Rohner, a name which savoured strongly of German origin, though the “Madame” seemed to suggest a French connection. But the only one piece of correspondence there was for the lady—in an open envelope and bearing a halfpenny stamp—turned out to be from some firm of whom McCarthy had never heard, simply stating that the goods as ordered had already been despatched and should be delivered by the time she received this epistle. As to what those goods might be there was no indication whatever.

McCarthy's examination of this particular correspondence was broken in upon by the sound of a key in the front door Yale lock. In the next moment it was opened and a youth entered who, doubtless, was the one spoken of by the sergeant. His amazement at finding the inspector seated upon the lower step of the staircase, and by him the morning correspondence, was profound; it was in no degree lessened when he heard of the crime which had been perpetrated there since his leaving it the evening before.

But although the inspector questioned him steadily for a good half-hour, nothing in the slightest degree suspicious could be got from him concerning any of the individuals, or firms, renting the offices. They sounded to be very plain, straightforward business people, and not in the least likely to be in any way connected with the crime in any shape or form.

Going to the back door McCarthy called in the C.I.D. man who had been stationed at the back gate.

“Check up on everyone as they come in,” he ordered. “Go into the nature of their business and, in particular, who it's done with, and if they have any definitely foreign connections.” He turned again to the still staring youth.

“Have you a master-key to these offices?” he asked, to be informed that he had not. Each of the renters had his, or her, own key, which was given to them when they completed satisfactory arrangements for tenantry. If there was such a thing as a master-key he did not know of it. If it existed it would be in the hands of Mr. Morris Bavinsky, the owner of the place. That gentleman only put in appearance once weekly—on Saturday morning to collect his rents.

“Now, this lady, Madame Rohner?” McCarthy inquired. “What was her particular line of business?”

That also the youth, by name, Hubert Wilkins, could not tell him. Whatever it was, it took her away from her office a great deal, for at times days elapsed without her putting in an appearance there.

“Did she have a good amount of correspondence?” McCarthy asked.

He was told that the lady's correspondence was not heavy, and mostly seemed to come from the Continent. She had letters from France, Germany, Italy, and other still more remote countries. Upon this point Wilkins was very positive as, being an enthusiastic philatelist, he invariably cadged the stamps from the envelopes.

“Now, just let me understand this,” McCarthy pursued. “Each person renting offices here in this building is provided with a key to the front door?”

“Yes, sir; in case they want to come back and work in their offices after closing hours.”

“Therefore anyone holding such a key can come in at any hour of the day or night that pleases them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are there any other keys extant that you know of; keys not been returned by former tenants, for example? People giving up their offices in recent months who've forgotten, or neglected, to hand them in?”

There were not. That, it seemed, was a thing about which Mr. Bavinsky was very particular. He, Wilkins, had to collect them before the tenant departed.

“Check up on all these keys, as well,” he instructed the C.I.D. man.

In response to a question as to what manner of woman Madame Rohner was, he was informed that she was a very handsome lady, always particularly well dressed and seemed to be in no way short of money. For any little service done her she invariably tipped handsomely; in fact, in Wilkins' opinion, it was a pleasure to see her come into the place.

McCarthy's next question concerned the two ladies who, he understood, did the charing after the offices were closed. Had they keys?

They had not, it seemed. They arrived before the front door was shut for the night at six o'clock, did their work and left by the back door which, having a spring lock, they pulled to after them. They merely cleaned the hall and stairways and had nothing to do with the charing of the interior of the offices unless especially engaged to do so by the tenants themselves. In most cases, it was invariably done during the lunch hour or some other time of the day most convenient to the occupiers.

“Then if, for argument, Madame Rohner went away, or at any rate was absent for a few days, as you say she is in the habit of being, wouldn't it be possible for you or anyone else to get into her office without forcing an entrance?”

“No, sir.”

“In which case,” McCarthy said, “we'll just go upstairs to her offices and see if
we
can't get in without forcing an entry. You shall come in with me, just to see I don't pinch anything.”

Outside the door, upon which was a small plate which merely gave the name of the tenant and no indication of her business, he took a pick-lock from his pocket. In less time than it takes to tell, and certainly less than permitted Mr. Wilkins to see how it was done, McCarthy shot the tumbler, turned the handle and walked in. The first thing to strike him was that scent which had hung about the outer doorway hours before!

“Why, it's—everything's gone!” Wilkins exclaimed in astonishment.

“And just what d'ye mean by that?” McCarthy questioned.

“Why, when I brought letters up after the five o'clock delivery yesterday afternoon there were papers all over the table—letters, and things like that. They're all gone!”

McCarthy pointed to the grate in which there was nothing but a pile of black paper ash.

“Yes,” he said wearily, “they're all gone, right enough! Too far gone for us to ever be able to make anything out of them.”

A search of the cupboards in the room, and the drawers in the office table at which the “lady” had worked, revealed the fact that they were bare. Madame had evidently made a very thorough clearance of everything in that office, save the actual furniture and the typewriter, between five o'clock in the evening and the present moment. Between that time and one o'clock in the morning, McCarthy would have said—unless, of course, someone had done it for her.

Kneeling before the grate, he stirred the ashes gently with his finger in the hope of finding even the most minute solid fragment which might provide a lead as to Madame Rohner's business, or other connections. But the job had been done with such thoroughness that his search proved entirely futile.

“Then there's only one thing for it, Wilkins,” he said. “We've got to find this Madame Rohner, and you seem to be the only one who can assist us to do it. I suppose you're a pretty tough sort of person—go to the pictures and see all sorts of gruesome and hard-boiled things?”

“Who—me, sir?” Mr. Wilkins drew up his thin frame until it looked two inches taller than it was. “Yes, I don't mind anything. I've seen Frankenstein and Dracula and…”

“That's tough enough for anything,” McCarthy remarked and led him downstairs, first relocking the door with his pick-lock. Beckoning another of the plain-clothes men at the front of the place he gave him quiet instructions. “Grab the first taxi you can and take him along to the mortuary,” he said,
sotto voce
, “and see if he can identify a corpse found on Hampstead Heath last night as Madame Rohner.” From his pocket he took the small parcel which contained the wig. “See that that's put on before he views the body,” he instructed. “Phone me the moment he identifies, and bring me the wig back here as soon as possible.”

Exactly seven minutes later a call came through for him from the mortuary. Wilkins had identified the body as that of the mysterious tenant, Madame Rohner.

“How did he take it?” McCarthy asked.

“Just managed to get it out,” the C.I.D. man told him, “then fainted dead away. They're bringing him round with a drop of brandy.”

McCarthy grinned quietly. “Wonderful how tough they are—when the gore is on the screen. Hurry up with that wig.”

At ten minutes past nine, Inspector McCarthy found out by a search of the books of the wigmakers in question, that the late lamented Heinrich had made the wig some four years before, for one Oscar Schmidt, an actor who had come over from Berlin to play in a season of short German plays at the Little Theatre. The actor in question had not returned to Germany with the other members of the company, having contracted pneumonia. He died after a very short illness and was buried at Kensal Green within three weeks of his arrival here. What had become of the wig after his decease was more than anyone could say.

“And that's that!” McCarthy murmured as he left the shop. “We're up against a brick wall as far as that particular angle goes.”

A call to the Bloomsbury residence of Sir William Haynes, brought that most efficient person to the phone in what was unmistakably a state of considerable agitation.

“Meet me at the Yard in half an hour, Mac!” he ordered peremptorily, and before McCarthy could get in a word.

“With all the will in the world, it can't be done!” McCarthy told him bluntly. “As you know I've been on this Soho murder job since one o'clock this morning, and I'm just waiting for…”

“It doesn't matter what you're waiting for,” the A.C. snapped in a most unusually arbitrary manner. “The superintendent can handle that.”

“But he's out of town this morning,” McCarthy informed him, “and this case is developing big…”

“He'll be recalled,” the A.C. cut in sharply. “You be in my office in half an hour. Take that as positive orders. I don't care how the Soho case is developing. The job waiting for you is bigger. You be there.”

With a quite unstifled expletive, McCarthy hung up, then hailed the first taxi he could find and was driven to the Yard.