Inspector French's Greatest Case (19 page)

“Right you are,” French declared, delighted thus to get a free hand. “Don't you bother about me. I'll peg away, and come and ask you if I get into trouble.”

He “pegged away,” looking up the declaration of each of the eight women, noting the name, address, nationality, and other particulars, and then comparing the handwriting with the signatures on the Mrs. X cheques.

He was not a handwriting expert, but he knew enough about the science to recognise the characteristics which remain unchanged when the writing is disguised. He was, therefore, very patient and thorough in his search, never passing a signature because it looked unlike the model at first sight, but testing each by the rules he had learned, and satisfying himself that it really had been written by a different hand.

He went on without incident until he reached the eighth name on his list. But when he turned to the declaration of Mrs. Ward, the lady whom Mrs. Root had thought the most likely of the lot, he gave a sudden little chuckle of delight. There was the hand of the cheques, the same hand unquestionably, and written without any attempt at disguise! There it was! Mrs. Elizabeth Ward, aged 39, British subject, etc., etc., of Oaklands, Thirsk Road, York. He had reached his goal!

But immediately he was assailed by misgivings. Mrs. Root had thought of Mrs. Ward, but had ruled her out because of her nationality. Mrs. Ward, she had said, was English, while all the people who had seen Mrs. X, seventeen or eighteen persons at least, had agreed she was an American. He would have assumed that Mrs. Root had made a mistake, but for the fact that the declaration said English also. French was puzzled, and he decided that he would go back to the ship and ascertain the views of the staff on the point.

But they all supported Mrs. Root. Mrs. Ward was English; undoubtedly and unquestionably English. The stewards and the stewardesses had some experience on the point, and they guessed they knew. Also, he came across the doctor, who, it appeared, had spoken on several occasions to Mrs. Ward, and he was equally positive.

It chanced that as he was leaving the ship he encountered the woman to whom Mrs. Root had advised him to apply, the striking-looking stewardess with dark eyes and white hair, and he stopped and spoke to her.

Unfortunately, she could not tell him very much. She remembered Mrs. Ward, both by name and appearance, though she had not attended to her. But it chanced, nevertheless, that her attention had been specially directed to her because of a certain incident which had taken place towards the end of the voyage. Passing down the corridor while lunch was being served, she had seen the door of one of the cabins in her own charge open slightly, and a lady appear and glance quickly round, as if to see if she was unobserved. The cabin was occupied by a Mrs. Root, an American, but the lady was this Mrs. Ward. Something stealthy and furtive in her appearance had excited the stewardess's suspicion, and she had drawn back into another cabin to await developments. Mrs. Ward, evidently satisfied that she was unnoticed, had turned to the dining saloon and taken her place. The stewardess had kept her eye on her, and after the meal she had seen her go up to Mrs. Root and speak to her, as if reporting the result of her mission. This action had lulled the stewardess's suspicion, but she had returned to Mrs. Root's cabin and had had a look round to see if anything had been disturbed. So far as she could see, nothing had, nor had Mrs. Root made any complaint about her things having been interfered with.

If further confirmation of his suspicions were needed, French felt that this episode supplied it. Doubtless Mrs. Ward was amassing information as to the other's clothes and belongings to assist her in her impersonation. Perhaps also she was photographing envelopes or other documents of which to prepare forgeries in case of need.

There still remained the difficulty of her nationality. Obviously it is easy to mimic the accent and manner of a foreigner, but French found it hard to believe that such mimicry could be so perfect as to deceive a large number of persons, many of whom were experts on that particular point. This, however, was only a small part of the general problem, and did not affect his next business, to find Mrs. Elizabeth Ward, Thirsk Road, York.

He went ashore, and, turning into a telegraph office, sent a wire to the chief of police at York, asking him if a lady of that name lived at the address in question and, if so, to wire was she at home.

His next business was at police headquarters, and thither he was directing his steps when a thought struck him, and he turned aside to the sheds in which the Transatlantic luggage is examined. Several of the Customs officers were still there, and he went up and spoke to one of them.

“Now,” the young fellow answered in surprise, “it's a darned queer thing that you came to me about that. Quite a coincidence, that is. I know the man who went through those trunks. He told me about it at the time. It seemed a darned silly thing that any one should want to bring trunks of blankets from America. If you come along I'll find him for you. And so the lady's wanted, is she? Say, Jack!” he called a colleague, another clean, efficient young fellow of the same type, “here's some one wants you. He wants to know about those trunks of blankets you were telling me about two or three trips of the
Olympic
back. A darned queer coincidence that he should come to me about them. That's what I call it!”

“Yes, you've made a lucky shot, haven't you?” the second man said to French. “I remember the trunks and the lady they belonged to, because I couldn't understand why any one should want to bring trunks of blankets across the Atlantic. I've never known any one do it before.”

“You didn't make any remark about them,” French asked.

“No, but she did. She said she reckoned I hadn't often seen trunks of blankets brought over from America. You see, I was a bit suspicious at first, and was examining the things pretty carefully. I said that was so, and she said she was taking back a small but valuable collection of porcelain ornaments, which she would pack in the blankets, and that when she had to bring the trunks anyway, she thought she might as well bring the packing as well and so save buying new. I thought the whole business a bit off, but there was nothing dutiable in the case, and it wasn't my job to interfere. It there anything wrong about it?”

“I don't know,” French told him. “I think the woman was a crook, but I'm not on to the blanket stunt yet. By the way, is she in one of those groups?”

The young man identified Mrs. Ward without hesitation, and French, finding he had learned all that the Customs men could tell him, resumed his way to the police station.

He wondered what this blanket business really did mean. Then as he walked slowly along with head bent forward and eyes vacantly scanning the pavement, a possible explanation occurred to him. These trunks, apparently, were required solely as properties to assist in the fraud. Mrs. Root, the wife of a Pittsburg magnate, would scarcely arrive at the Savoy from America without American trunks. But when Mrs. Root came to disappear, the trunks would become an embarrassment. They would have to be got rid of, and, as a matter of fact, they were got rid of. They must therefore contain nothing of the lady's, no personal possession which might act as a clue to its owner. But they must contain something. Empty trunks would be too light, and might be observed by the chambermaid, and comments might be occasioned among the hotel staff which might reach the management, and which would become important if Mr. Williams rang up to make his inquiries. But blankets would exactly fill the bill; indeed, French could think of nothing more suitable for the purpose. They would give the trunks a moderate weight, they would not supply a clue to Mrs. Ward, and they would be cheap, while their presence could be accounted for sufficiently reasonably to the Customs officers. Yes, French thought, it was a probable enough explanation.

Arrived at the police station, he sent in his name with a request to see the officer in charge.

Superintendent Hayes had been stationed in London before he got his present appointment, and had come across French on more than one occasion. He therefore greeted the Inspector cordially, found him a comfortable chair, and supplied him with an excellent cigar.

“From Trinidad,” he explained. “I get them direct from a man I know out there. And what's the best news of you?”

They discussed old times for some minutes, then French turned to the business in hand.

“It's an interesting case,” he said as he gave the other the details, continuing: “The woman must be a pretty cool hand. She could easily invent that tale about losing her passport, for old Williams's edification, but under the circumstances her coming to you about it was a bit class.”

“She had a nerve, yes,” the Superintendent admitted. “But, you see, it was necessary. She must have known that the absence of the passport would strike Williams as suspicious, and it was necessary for her to remove that suspicion. She couldn't very well get a bag of that kind stolen without informing the police, so she had to inform them. She would see how easily Williams could check her statement, as indeed he did. No, I don't see how she could have avoided coming to us. It was an obvious precaution.”

“I quite agree with all you say,” French returned, “but it argues a cool customer for all that; not only, so to speak, putting her head into the lion's mouth, but at the same time calling her attention to its being there. Anyway, I've got to find her, and I wish you'd let me have details about her. I've got some from the
Olympic
people, but I want to pick up everything I can.”

The Superintendent telephoned to some one to “send up Sergeant McAfee,” and when a tall, cadaverous man entered, he introduced him as the man who had dealt with the business in question.

“Sergeant McAfee has just been transferred to us from Liverpool,” he explained. “Sit down, McAfee. Inspector French wants to know some details about that woman who lost her handbag coming off the
Olympic
some seven weeks ago. I think you handled the thing. Do you remember a Mrs. Root of Pittsburg?”

“I mind her rightly, sir,” the man answered in what French believed was a Belfast accent. “But it wasn't coming off the
Olympic
she lost it. It was later on that same day, though it was on the quays right enough.”

“Tell us all you can about it.”

The Sergeant pulled out his notebook. “I have it in me other book,” he announced. “If ye'll excuse me, I'll get it.”

In a moment he returned, sat down, and turning over the dog's-eared pages of a well-worn book, began as if reciting evidence in court:

“On the 24th November last at about 3.00 p.m., I was passing through the crowd on the outer quays when I heard a woman cry out. ‘Thief, thief,' she shouted, and she ran up and caught me by the arm. She was middling tall and thinnish, her face pale and her hair dark. She spoke in an American voice, and seemed upset or excited. She said to me, breathless like, ‘Say, officer,' she said, ‘I've just had my despatch case stolen.' I asked her where, and how, and what was in it. She said right there where we were standing, and not three seconds before. She was carrying it in her hand, and it was snatched out of it. She turned round and saw a man juke away in the crowd. She shouted and made after him, but he was away before she could get near. I asked her what the case was like, and she said a small square brown morocco leather one with gold fittings. I went and told the two men on duty close by, and we kept a watch on the exits, but we never saw a sign of it.” Sergeant McAfee shook his head gloomily as he concluded: “She hadn't any call to be carrying a gold-fitted case in that crowd anyway.”

“That's a fact, Sergeant,” the Superintendent agreed. “And you never came on any trace of it?”

“No, sir. I brought her up to the station, and took her name and all particulars. There's the report.” He unfolded a paper and laid it on the Superintendent's desk.

In the document was a detailed description of the lady, of the alleged despatch case and its contents, and of the means that had been taken to try to trace it. The pawnbrokers had been advised and a special watch kept on fences and other usual channels for the disposal of stolen goods.

When French had digested these particulars, he brought out once more his photographs and handed them to the Sergeant.

“Look at those, Sergeant, and tell me if you see the woman among them.”

Slowly the Sergeant turned them over, gazing at them in precisely the same puzzled way as had done Mr. Williams, Mr. Scarlett, and the other London men to whom they had been shown. And with the same doubt and hesitation he presently fixed on Mrs. Ward.

“That would be to be her,” he declared slowly, “that is, if she's there at all. It isn't a good likeness, but I believe it's her all the same.”

“You wouldn't swear to her?”

“I'd hardly. But I believe it's her for all that.”

French nodded. The Sergeant's statement, agreeing as it did with those of Messrs. Williams, Scarlett and Co., seemed capable of but one explanation. Mrs. X was Mrs. Ward all right, but before meeting these men she had made herself up to impersonate Mrs. Root. They saw a likeness to Mrs. Ward because it really was she, but they were doubtful because she was disguised.

The Inspector leaned forward and tapped the photograph.

“Put it this way, Sergeant,” he suggested. “Here is a picture of the lady as she really is. When you saw her she was made up to look like another woman. How's that, do you think?”

In Sergeant McAfee's lacklustre eye there shone a sudden gleam. “That's just what it is, sir,” he answered with an approach to something almost like interest in his manner. “That's it and no mistake. She's like the photograph by her features, but not by her make-up.” He nodded his head several times in appreciation.

“Very good.” Inspector French invariably liked as many strings to his bow as he could get. “Now I want some hint from you that will help me trace her.”