Crow's Inn Tragedy (23 page)

“Yes.” Mrs. Carnthwacke glanced up again at her husband and seemed to gather strength from his smile. “I just looked at his hands mechanically while we were talking, and I saw that though they were nice hands, well shaped and carefully manicured, they had one curious defect, if you can call it a defect. The thumb was unusually long, and the first—don't you call it the index finger?—was very short, so that the two looked almost the same length. It was an odd fault, and I never noticed it in any hand before, until—”

“Yes, madam, until?” the inspector prompted as she paused with a shiver.

“Until this morning in the car,” she went on, steadying her voice with an effort. “Just as he caught my hands, I saw his and I knew—I knew beyond the possibility of a doubt that my assailant was the man who stole my diamonds, and murdered Mr. Bechcombe.”

“Well, that is definite enough, anyhow,” John Steadman remarked thoughtfully. “Were both hands alike, do you know, Mrs. Carnthwacke?”

“Yes, they were,” she returned in a more positive tone than she had yet used. “I noticed that particularly.”

“Did you recognize him in any other way?” the inspector asked with his eye on his notebook.

“No, not really. I can't say I did,” Mrs. Carnthwacke said hesitatingly. “That is, I did think there was something about the eyes, though the Crow's Inn man had his hidden by smoked horn-rimmed glasses, so I couldn't have seen much of them. But there was something about his eyebrows and the way his eyes were set that I certainly thought I recognized.”

John Steadman was drawing his brows together.

“Yes, it is a curious defect and I should think as you say an uncommon one, yet I cannot help feeling that I have noticed the same thing in some hands I have seen—fairly lately too, but I cannot remember where,” he said in a puzzled tone. “Probably I shall recollect presently.”

Was it a warning glance the inspector shot at him? Steadman could not be quite certain, but at any rate there was no misinterpreting Cyril B. Carnthwacke's gesture as he got up from his seat on the arm of his wife's chair.

“She can't tell you any more, gentlemen, and that's a fact. What became of that guy is what we want to know and what we reckon your clever police are going to find out. Now you can't be half murdered and left for dead in the morning without being a wee trifle exhausted in the afternoon, so if you could come to my study—”

“You—you won't be long? I don't feel as if I should ever be safe away from you again,” his wife pleaded.

Cyril B. Carnthwacke's reply was to pat her shoulders.

“Sure thing I shan't leave you long, honey. And you just figure to yourself you are as safe as a rock with these gentlemen in the study with me, and these female guys in the dressing-room.”

Once more in his study the American's face hardened again as he invited the other men to sit down, and put a big box of cigars on the table before them.

“There's nothing like a smoke to clear the brain, gentlemen,” he said as he lighted one himself. “And what do you make of the affair now that you have seen Mrs. Carnthwacke?”

John Steadman took the answer upon himself.

“As brutal and deliberate an attempt to murder as I ever heard of.”

“There I am with you,” Cyril B. Carnthwacke said grimly. “How did that guy find out where Mrs. Carnthwacke was journeying and when? There's where I should like you to put me wise.”

“He may not have arranged anything beforehand. It may have been a sudden thing when he saw the carriage,” Inspector Furnival hazarded.

“Don't you bet your bottom dollar on that, old chap!” Cyril B. Carnthwacke admonished, puffing away at his big cigar. “He don't go about with a drop of chloroform and a nice long piece of ribbon handy in his pocket any more than other folks, I reckon. It just figures out around this—some of our folks here must be acquainted with this guy, and put him wise about Mrs. Cyril B. Carnthwacke's movements.”

“Yes, I think there can be no doubt you are right about that,” John Steadman assented deliberately. “What of Mrs. Carnthwacke's maid?”

“Came over with us from the States,” the American told him. “And she is devoted to Mrs. Carnthwacke. No flies on her.”

“No young man?” the inspector questioned.

“Not the shadow of one,” Cyril B. Carnthwacke told him, leaning back in his chair and watching his cigar smoke curl up to the ceiling.

“No great friend?”

“Never heard of one. Of course I don't say she has no acquaintance, but she is one of the sort that keeps herself to herself, as you say over here.”

“Next thing is the chauffeur and footman,” the inspector went on. “I should like a talk with them. It seems inconceivable that they should not have seen this man get in or out.”

“I don't know that it does,” said Cyril B. Carnthwacke thoughtfully. “They are taught to keep their heads straight in front of them—the footman one; and the chauffeur has enough to do in the traffic of London streets, I reckon, to look after himself and his car. However, you can have them as long as you like, but you won't get anything out of them. They swear they saw nothing and heard nothing, and that is all they will say. They were very bothered with the traffic being diverted on all sides, and continually having to slow down, and of course it was this slowing down that gave the guy his chance. He must be a cool hand, that. Say, inspector, do you think it was this Yellow Dog the newspapers have a stunt about?”

“When we have caught the Yellow Dog I shall be able to tell you more about it,” the inspector replied evasively. “I will see your men, please, Mr. Carnthwacke. But before they come let me warn you again to be most careful not to allow it to be known that Mrs. Carnthwacke escaped with comparatively so little injury. Continue to represent her as lying at death's door, and let nobody but the doctor and nurses see her. I cannot exaggerate the importance of not allowing it to reach the ears of her would-be murderer that he has failed. We must look to it that not a breath as to her condition leaks out from us, Mr. Steadman.”

John Steadman was looking out of the window.

“I quite see your point, inspector. It is most important that we should not allow the faintest suspicion of the truth to leak out among our friends, especially—”

“Especially—?” Cyril B. Carnthwacke prompted.

John Steadman did not speak, but he turned his head and looked at the inspector.

“From the widow, Mrs. Bechcombe,” the detective finished.

Cyril B. Carnthwacke stared at him.

“Why Mrs. Bechcombe?”

“Because,” said the inspector very slowly and emphatically, “she might tell Miss Cecily Hoyle and—”

The eyes of the three men met and then the pursed up lips of Cyril B. Carnthwacke emitted a low whistle.

“Sakes alive! Sits the wind in that quarter?”

“Samuel Horsingforth passenger to Lisbon by the
Atlantic
starting from Southampton seventeenth instant.”

Inspector Furnival read the telegram over again aloud and then handed it to Steadman.

“Better get there before the boat train, I think, sir.”

Steadman nodded. “I'll guarantee my touring car to do it in less time than anything else you can get.”

“Y—es. Perhaps it may, but—” the inspector said uncertainly.

“But what?” Steadman questioned in surprise.

The inspector cleared his throat apparently in some embarrassment.

“I should like nothing better than the car, but that I am afraid that the fact that we are going down to Southampton in her might leak out—and then the journey might be in vain.”

John Steadman drew in his lips.

“Trust me for that. My chauffeur can keep a still tongue in his head; and you ought to know me by now, Furnival.”

“I ought, sir, that's a fact,” the inspector acquiesced. “It is the chauffeur I am doubtful of. Never was there a case in which servants' gossip has been more concerned and done more harm than this one of Luke Bechcombe's death.”

“I will take care that he knows nothing of our destination until after we have started,” Steadman promised, “but these cold winds of late have given me a stiff arm, and I am afraid rheumatism is setting in. It is the right arm too, confound it! Of course it might last the journey to Southampton all right, but it might not; and it wouldn't do to risk a failure.”

“No, we can't afford a failure,” the inspector said briskly. “The car then, sir, and you will take all precautions. Have you heard anything of Mrs. Carnthwacke?”

“Lying at death's door. Mrs. Bechcombe has inquired,” Steadman said laconically.

The inspector smiled warily.

“We shall have all our time to keep Cyril B. quiet till we want him to speak. Their American detective is here too, butting in, as they phrase it. Ten o'clock then.”

“Ten o'clock,” Steadman assented.

He was round at Scotland Yard in his luxurious touring car punctually at the appointed hour. Punctual as he was, though, the inspector was waiting on the step for him.

“Got off all right, inspector,” the barrister remarked as the detective took his seat and the car started. “Only filled up with petrol at a garage after we left my flat, and I told Mrs. Bechcombe that I might be back to lunch. Chauffeur doesn't know where we are going yet. You direct him to the Southampton Road and then I will tell him to put all speed on.”

The day was perfect, no head wind, just a touch of frost in the air. Both men would have enjoyed the long smooth spin if their minds had been free, if their thoughts had not been busy all the time with their journey's end. To the inspector, if all went well, it would spell success, when success had at first seemed hopeless and a long step forward in the great campaign on which he had embarked.

To Steadman it would mean that a certain theory he had held all along was justified.

As they reached Southampton the inspector looked at his watch. “Plenty of time—half an hour to spare!”

They drove straight to the docks and went alongside. The inspector had good reason to expect his prey by the boat train. They had left the car higher up. Steadman waited out of sight. The inspector went on board and ascertained that Mr. Samuel Horsingforth had not so far arrived.

As the boat train drew up, keeping himself well out of sight, Steadman peered forth eagerly. The train was not as crowded as usual, but so far as Steadman could see no Mr. Horsingforth was visible. Then just at the last moment a man of middle height strolled to the gangway—a man, who, though his face and figure were absolutely unknown to the barrister, seemed to have something vaguely, intangibly familiar about him. Steadman was looking out for a slight, spare-looking man, shorter than this one, with the rounded shoulders of a student, pale too, with a short straggling beard and big horn-rimmed glasses. The man at whom he was looking must be at least a couple of inches taller than the one they were in search of, and he was distinctly stout, and his shoulders were square, and he carried himself well. He was clean-shaven too. He had the ruddy complexion of one leading an outdoor life. He smiled as he spoke to a porter about his luggage and Steadman could see his white even teeth and his twinkling grey eyes. Yet, after a momentary pause, the barrister came out into the open and followed up the gangway. Suddenly Steadman saw Inspector Furnival moving forward. The man in front saw too, and came to a sudden stop; stopped and faced round just as he was about to put his foot on deck, and then seeing Steadman stopped again and looked first one way and then the other and finally stepped on deck with an air of jaunty determination.

Inspector Furnival came up to him.

“Samuel Horsingforth,
alias
John Frederick Hoyle,
alias
Amos Thompson, I hold a warrant for your arrest on a charge of fraud and embezzlement. It is my duty to warn you that anything you may say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence against you.”

For a minute Steadman thought that the man whose arm the inspector was now holding firmly was about to collapse. His ruddy colour had faded and he seemed to shrink visibly. But he rallied with a marvellous effort of self-control.

“You are making some strange mistake,” he said coolly. “Samuel Horsingforth is my name. Of the others you mention I know nothing. I have been backwards and forwards several times on this line and more than one of the officers and stewards know me, and can vouch for my good faith.”

The inspector's grip did not relax.

“No use, Thompson, the game is up,” he said confidently. “You have made yourself a clever
alias
, I admit; but it is no use trying to go on with it now. You don't want any disturbance here.”

Horsingforth,
alias
Thompson, made no further resistance. He allowed the inspector to lead him down the gangway and down to the quay to Steadman's car. Only when the inspector opened the door did he hold back.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Town,” the inspector answered laconically. “You will be able to consult a solicitor when you get there—if you want to,” he added.

Thompson said no more. He seated himself by Steadman, the inspector opposite.

As they started, another car, which had quietly followed the first from Scotland Yard, at a sign from the inspector fell in behind.

Until they had left Southampton and its environs far behind none of the three men spoke, then Thompson, who had been sitting apparently in a species of stupor, roused himself.

“How did you find out?” he asked. “What made you suspect?”

“A photograph of your daughter, that you had overlooked,” the inspector answered. “You had provided yourself with a second identity very cleverly, Mr. Thompson. If it had not been for Mr. Bechcombe's murder you would probably have succeeded.”