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The Master Detective

P >> Percy James Brebner >> The Master Detective




Quarles was perplexed.

"I don't understand it, Wigan. That car looks to me as if it had been
purposely abandoned. Had they another car waiting, or was Hounslow their
destination? Of course you must warn the police here, but--well, I do not
understand it. I am going straight back to Chelsea."

"I will see the Hounslow police, and then go on to the Langham," I
returned.

"Of course, that's just ordinary detective work, and out of my line,"
Quarles said somewhat curtly, "but I don't suppose your inquiries will
lead anywhere."

In this surmise he was perfectly correct. No one of the name of Julius
Hoffman was known at the Langham. The Hounslow police made no discovery,
and the car was not claimed.

Later, the press circulated a description of Eva Wilkinson, with the
result that scores of letters were received, most of them obviously
written by amateur detectives, or by those peculiar kind of imbeciles
whose imagination is so vivid that any person seems to fit the
description of the person missing. The information in a few of these
letters seemed definite enough to follow up, but in every case I drew
blank. I gave my chief attention to learning the recent movements of
known gangs who might be concerned in an enterprise of this sort, and at
the end of two days this persistency brought a result. I received a
letter posted in the West-central district, written, or rather scrawled,
in printed letters. It was as follows:

"You may be on the right scent or you may not, but take warning. If you
got to know anything, it would be the worse for E.W. We are in earnest,
and our advice is, leave the job alone. No harm will come to the old
devil's daughter, if you mind your own business. She'll turn up again all
right. If you don't mind your own business you'll probably find her
presently, and can bury her. You'll find her dead,--THE LEAGUE."

With this letter I went to Chelsea, and the professor met me with a
letter in his hand. He had received a like communication--word for
word the same.

"An exact copy shows a barrenness of ideas," said I.

"But they have begun to move, Wigan. That is a great thing, and what I
have been waiting for. Come and talk it over. For once Zena is no help.
All she says is that this is not an ordinary case of kidnaping. Well, it
certainly is a little out of the ordinary. That car, Wigan, the tramp who
saw it, the stoppages it made, the handkerchief in it--does anything
strike you?"

"Since we picked up the trail so easily to begin with, I do not quite
understand the subsequent difficulty," I said. "From Hounslow a much more
astute person must have taken charge of the enterprise."

"A booby trap, Wigan. It was prepared for us, and we walked into it, I am
a trifle sick at having done so, but perhaps it will serve us a good turn
in the end. The tramp no doubt was in the business. His definite
information to the police started us. If that car had wanted to escape
notice, do you suppose it would have pulled up outside Reading, or at a
cottage, where it obligingly left its imprint on the roadside? Why should
the man explain the filling of a flask at a public house? Why should he
talk of a runaway match to the woman at that cottage? He was laying a
trail. Miss Wilkinson's handkerchief was found in that car, but I wager
she was never in the car herself."

"I think you are right, but it doesn't help us to the truth, does it?"

"Every possibility proved impossible helps us," Quarles answered. "This
is a case for negative argument, so we next ask whether Eva Wilkinson
left the terrace willingly. I think we must say 'no.'"

"Do not forget the missing coat and skirt," I said.

"That is one of the reasons why I say 'no,'" he returned. "If she had
intended to go away she would have arranged to take more than a coat and
skirt. Besides, Eva Wilkinson is evidently not a fool. The only person
one can imagine her going away with is Cayley, and why should she go away
with him? If she married him before she was twenty-one, she forfeited a
million of money; well, she knew the penalty. Even if she would not wait
until she was of age, there is still no conceivable reason why she should
run away. We are forced, therefore, to the assumption that she was
kidnaped."

"I have never doubted it," I answered.

"I confess to some uncertainty," said Quarles, "but these letters put a
new complexion on the affair, I admit. Some one is out for money, Wigan,
and that fact is--"

He stopped short as a servant entered the room saying that I was wanted
on the telephone. I had left word that I was going to Chelsea. I was
informed that Sir Michael Lavory had telephoned for me to go and see him
at once. He said he had received a letter which was of the gravest
importance.

"Similar to ours, no doubt," said the professor when I repeated the
message to him. "We will go at once, Wigan, but I do not think there is
anything to be done until the scoundrels have made a further move. It
won't be many hours before they do so."

In the taxi he did not continue his negative arguments, and he was not
restless, as he usually was when upon a keen scent. No doubt he had a
theory, but I was convinced he was not satisfied with it himself.

Sir Michael, who had a flat in Kensington, was not alone. A young man was
with him, and Sir Michael introduced Mr. Edward Cayley.

"He has just arrived--came in ten minutes after I had received
this letter."

Cayley's presence there was rather a surprise, but I noted that his
appearance did not correspond with the woman's description of the young
man who had asked for a box of matches.

"I came as soon as I heard the news about Miss Wilkinson," Cayley said in
explanation.

"How did you hear it?" Quarles asked.

"There was a paragraph in _Le Gaulois_. I left Paris at once and came to
Sir Michael, thinking it a time when any little disagreement between us
would be easily forgotten."

"You can quite understand that I agree with Mr. Cayley," Sir Michael
said, "especially in the face of this letter."

"I can guess the contents of it," I said. "We have had letters too."

But I was mistaken. This communication was scrawled in the same printed
letters, was signed in the same way, but its purport was entirely
different.

"Sir,--Your niece is in our hands, and you may be sure that she is
securely hidden. Every move you take on her behalf increases her danger.
There is only one means of rescue--ransom. Within forty-eight hours you
shall pay to the credit of James Franklin with the Credit Lyonnais,
Paris, the sum of a quarter of a million sterling, a small sum when
Wilkinson's wealth is considered, and the means he used to amass it. The
moment the money is in our hands, and you may be sure we have left open
no possibility of your tricking us, your niece shall be set at liberty.
Delay or refuse, and your niece dies. In case you should deceive yourself
and think this is not genuine, that we are powerless to carry out our
threat, your niece herself has endorsed this letter."

Quarles looked at the endorsement.

"Is that Miss Wilkinson's signature?" he asked.

"It is," Sir Michael answered.

"I could swear to it anywhere," said Cayley. "The money is a small matter
when Eva has to be considered. We may succeed in tricking the scoundrels
later, but the money must be paid."

"If it is, you may depend they will get clear off," said Quarles. "They
have made their arrangements cleverly enough for that."

"But you forget--"

"I forget nothing, Mr. Cayley."

"I feel that it must be paid," said Sir Michael. "If you can devise any
way of tripping up the villains, do, but Eva's signature--"

"Look at it, Sir Michael," said Quarles. "I do not doubt that it is her
signature, but I think it was scribbled on that piece of paper before the
letter was written, and certainly a different ink was used."

Sir Michael took the letter and looked at it carefully.

"Yes--yes, I think you are right," he said after a pause. "What do
you advise?"

"Delay," said the professor promptly. "They are out for money, for a
quarter of a million. They will not hurt Miss Wilkinson while there is
any chance of their getting the money."

"How long would you make the delay?" Cayley asked.

"At least until after Mr. Wigan and I have visited Whiteladies again. We
propose to go there to-morrow."

"I was going down to-morrow after seeing the solicitors about this
money," said Sir Michael.

"That will be excellent," said Quarles. "You will be able to assist us in
a little investigation we want to make at Whiteladies. May I suggest that
you should arrange preliminaries with the solicitors so as not to waste
time, but tell them to await your instructions before taking final steps?
There may be nothing in our idea, but there may be a great deal in it."

"You do not wish to tell me what it is?"

"Not until to-morrow evening."

I was watching Cayley. I saw the ghost of a smile on his lips for a
moment. He evidently saw through Quarles's reticence, and knew that the
professor would not speak before him.

"It will be evening before we reach Whiteladies," Quarles went on,
"because there is an important inquiry we must make in London first."

"Very well," said Sir Michael. "I will delay until to-morrow night."

"There can be no harm in that," Cayley said. "We are given forty-eight
hours. I should like to do the scoundrels, but I cannot forget that
revenge may be as much a motive as money."

"I am not losing sight of that fact," said Quarles, "but I have little
doubt it is the money."

As we drove back to Chelsea the professor was silent, but when we were in
the empty room he began to talk quickly.

"I am puzzled, Wigan. Before we went out I was saying some one was out
for money, and the letter Sir Michael has received proves it. We were
engaged upon a negative argument, and I should have gone on to show why
it was unlikely Cayley had had anything to do with the affair. I confess
that his sudden appearance to-night tends to knock holes in the argument
I should have used. He comes from Paris, the money is to be paid to the
Credit Lyonnais, Paris. He is keen that the money should be paid, had
evidently been persuading Sir Michael that it ought to be paid. This
tends to confuse me, and I cannot forget Zena's remark about the girl's
age and that this is not an ordinary kidnaping case. If Cayley had met
her on the terrace she would naturally stroll away with him if he asked
her to do so. At a safe distance from the house he, and a confederate,
perhaps, may have secured her."

"But why?" I asked.

"He may want a quarter of a million of money and yet have no desire to
marry. It is a theory, but unsatisfactory, I admit. One thing, however,
we may take as certain. Eva Wilkinson was not driven away in that car. We
have no news of any suspicious car being seen in any other direction, nor
of any suspicious people being seen about, and it seems obvious that a
false trail was laid for us. Wigan, it is quite possible that the girl
never left Whiteladies at all, that she is hidden there now, in fact.
Doesn't the disappearance of that coat and skirt tend to corroborate
this? She was in evening dress at the time. It would be natural to get
her another dress."

"That would mean confederates in the house," I said.

"Exactly. This girl Perry, perhaps, in league with her lover, the
gamekeeper; or it may be Mrs. Reville herself. We are going down to
Whiteladies to-morrow to try and find out, and we are going circumspectly
to work, Wigan. You shall go to the house in the ordinary way, while I
stroll across to the ruins. They are a likely hiding place. It will be
dark, and I may chance upon some one keeping watch. In a few words you
can explain our idea to Sir Michael, and then, without letting the
servants know, you can come and find me in the ruins."

It was nearly dark when we arrived at Whiteladies on the following day,
and as arranged, I left Quarles before we reached the lodge gates--in
fact, helped him over a fence into the park before I went on to the house
alone. Near the front door I found Mrs. Reville giving a couple of pug
dogs a run. She told me Sir Michael was expecting me, and led the way
into the hall.

"I think he is in the library," she said, and opened a door. "Oh, I am
sorry, I thought you were alone, Sir Michael. It is Mr. Wigan."

He called out for me to enter. He was standing by a writing table,
talking to a young farmer, apparently a tenant on the estate because Sir
Michael was dismissing him with a promise to consider certain repairs to
some outbuildings. As the farmer passed me on his way to the door Sir
Michael held out his hand.

"You are later than I expected, and I thought Mr. Quarles--"

Then he laughed. I had been seized from behind, a rope was round me,
binding my arms to my side, a sudden jerk had me on my back. In that
instant Sir Michael was upon me, and I was gagged and trussed almost
before I realized what had happened. Never did the veriest tyro walk more
innocently into a trap.

"That's well done," said Sir Michael to the farmer. "You had better go
and see that the other has been taken as successfully."

Alone with me, he removed the revolver from my hip pocket and placed it
in a drawer, which he locked.

"Rather a surprise for you, Mr. Wigan. I am afraid Scotland Yard is
likely to lose an officer, and your friend Quarles is an old man who has
had a very good inning. I do not know exactly where he is at the present
moment, but somewhere about the grounds he has been caught and is in a
similar condition to yourself. You have both been very carefully shadowed
to-day. The quarter of a million will be paid, Mr. Wigan, and my niece
will reappear. She will be none the worse for her adventure--will thank
me for all the trouble I have taken to rescue her from the kidnapers her
father dreaded so much--and she will never suspect that the bulk of the
ransom money has gone into my pocket. It is money sorely needed, I can
assure you. I shall probably give my consent to her marriage with Cayley;
her marriage will make my guardianship less irksome. He will be as
unsuspicious of me as Eva. I prevailed upon him not to come to
Whiteladies until to-morrow by suggesting that you were foolish enough to
suspect him. I think it has all been rather cleverly managed. The only
regrettable thing will be the death of two--two brilliant detectives. It
may interest you to know that you will be found dead--shot--which will
account for my having waited for you in vain at Whiteladies to-night. You
have helped me greatly by being secretive to-day and not arriving here
until after dark. Your death will be a nine days' wonder, but it will be
a mystery which will not be solved, I fancy."

His cold-blooded manner left no doubt of his sinister intention, and I
felt convinced that Quarles had been trapped just as I had been. Sir
Michael laughed again as he bent over me to make sure that my bonds were
secure. Then he stood erect suddenly.

"Don't move," said a voice, "or I shall fire."

He did move, and a bullet ripped into a picture just behind him. With an
oath he stood perfectly still. A door had opened across the room and a
girl stood there. It was Joan Perry.

"I missed you on purpose," she said. "I shall not miss a second time. Cut
those ropes."

For a moment he stood still, then he moved again, but not with the
intention of setting me free; the next instant he stumbled, as if his leg
had suddenly given way, and he let out a savage oath.

"To show you I do not miss," said the girl. "Cut those ropes, or the
third bullet finds your heart."

Sir Michael took a knife from his pocket, and the girl came a little
closer, but not near enough to give him a chance of grabbing at her. Her
calm deliberation was wonderful.

"Do more than cut the ropes and you are a dead man," she said.

The instant my arms were free I had the gag from my mouth and could do
something in my own defense. I was quickly on my feet.

"Keep him covered," I said to Perry. "I think we change places,
Sir Michael."

Physically he was not a powerful man, and with Joan Perry near him he
seemed to have lost his nerve. Her courage had shaken him badly, and he
made no resistance. I was not long in having him bound and handcuffed.

"I have to thank you," I said, turning to the girl.

"Not yet. There is more to do. Mrs. Reville is in it, and Mr. Quarles has
no doubt been caught in the grounds, as he said. I will ring. The
servants are honest, and I expect Mr. Saunders is in the house by now. He
usually comes up in the evening."

Fortunately Mrs. Reville had not heard the revolver shots, or she might
have given the alarm to the two men who had secured the professor in the
ruins, and they would very probably have killed him. I took the lady by
strategy. I sent a servant to tell her that Sir Michael wished to speak
to her, a summons which she had evidently been expecting, and I secured
her as she came down the stairs. Then, leaving her and Sir Michael in
charge of Perry and Saunders and a footman, I went with other servants to
rescue Quarles. We took the confederates in the ruins by surprise, but in
my anxiety that no harm should come to the professor, who was bound just
as I had been, they managed to get away.

Now that he was captured, Sir Michael Lavory's pluck entirely deserted
him, and he told us where to find his niece. She was in a secret chamber
under a tower in the ruins. She had been caught that night at the end of
the terrace by Sir Michael's accomplices, had been rendered unconscious
by chloroform, and taken to the tower.

Quarles's deductions so far as they went were right, but they had not
gone nearly far enough. Neither of us had thought of Sir Michael as the
criminal, and had it not been for the maid Perry I have little doubt that
this would have been our last case. Perry herself had not suspected Sir
Michael until that day, but she had always been suspicious of Mrs.
Reville. That morning, however, when Sir Michael arrived at Whiteladies,
she had chanced to overhear a conversation. She heard Sir Michael tell
Mrs. Reville there would be visitors that evening, and suggested that she
should be near the front door at the time to admit them, as it would be
well if they were not seen by the servants. Perry did not understand who
the visitors were to be, but she thought such secrecy might be connected
with her young mistress, and she had hidden herself earlier in the
evening in the small room adjoining the library.

"It is fortunate Saunders taught me how to use a revolver," she said,
when Quarles thanked and complimented her.

"A narrow escape, Wigan," the professor said to me. "One of our failures,
eh? The fear expressed in the will, the fact that Sir Michael could not
benefit by the death of his niece, confused me. He is a very clever
scoundrel, making no mistake, making no attempt to implicate any one. His
treatment of Cayley on his sudden return from Paris was a masterpiece of
diplomacy; so was his handling of us from the first. He concocted no
complicated story, so ran no risk of contradicting himself. He was simple
and straightforward, and when a villain is that a detective is
practically helpless. I was thoroughly deceived, Wigan, I admit it, and
it is certain that had it not been for Joan Perry I should not be alive
to say so, and you would not be here to listen. Do you know, I should not
be surprised if it was the fear expressed in the will which gave Sir
Michael the idea of kidnaping his niece and putting the ransom into his
own pocket."

At his trial Sir Michael confessed that the will had given him the idea.
Personally I think he got far too light a sentence.

As I hear that Cayley and Miss Wilkinson are to be married shortly, I
suppose her guardian's consent to her marriage has been obtained; at any
rate, it will be a good thing for her to have a husband to protect her
from such a guardian. I hear, too, that Saunders and Perry are to be
married on the same day as their mistress, and I am quite sure of one
thing, two of the handsomest wedding presents Joan Perry receives will
come from Christopher Quarles and myself.




CHAPTER III

THE DELVERTON AFFAIR


After our experience at Whiteladies Christopher Quarles went into
Devonshire. He declared that excitement of that kind was a little too
much for a man of his years and he must take a long rest to recuperate
and get his nerves in order. Under no circumstances whatever was I to
bother him with any problems. Had I been able to do so I should have gone
away too. Sir Michael Lavory had succeeded in giving me the jumps. In her
letters Zena told me the professor was playing golf, and knowing
something of him as a golfer, I rather pitied the men he induced to play
with him. It was not so much that he was a very bad player, it was the
peculiar twist in his brain which convinced him that he was a good one.
To give him a hint was to raise his anger at once.

One morning I received a letter from him, two pages of golf talk, in
which he opined he was playing at about five handicap--pure imagination,
of course, because he never kept a card and didn't count his foozled
shots--and then he came to the _raison d'être_ of his letter.

"I want you to look up a case," he wrote. "It happened about three years
ago. A man named Farrell, partner in the firm of Delverton Brothers of
Austin Friars, was found dead in his office. An open verdict was
returned. It may have been a case of suicide. Get all the facts you can.
If you can obtain any information from some who were interested in the
tragedy, do. I am not sure that the result of your inquiries will
interest me, but it may. Send me along a full report, it may bring me
back to Chelsea, but I am so keen to put another fifty yards on to my
drive that I may remain here for three months. Why live in Chelsea when
there is such a place as Devonshire?"

I remembered that the Delverton case had caused a considerable amount of
excitement at the time, and had remained an unsolved mystery, but I knew
no more than this. Three years ago I had been away from London engaged on
an intricate investigation, with neither time nor inclination to think of
anything else.

As it happened there was little difficulty in getting a very full account
of the affair. It had been in the hands of Detective Southey, since
retired, and it was a persistent grievance with him that this case had
beaten him. He was delighted to talk about it when I went to see him in
his little riverside cottage at Twickenham.

Delverton Brothers were foreign bankers, and at the time of the tragedy
consisted of three partners, John and Martin Delverton, who were
brothers, and Thomas Farrell, their nephew. John Delverton was an
invalid, and for a year past had only come to the office for an hour once
or twice a week. He had died about six months after the tragedy.

One day during a Stock Exchange settlement Thomas Farrell left the office
early, and Martin Delverton was there until seven o'clock. When he left
the only clerks remaining in the outer office were Kellner, the second in
seniority on the staff, and a junior named Small.

These two left the office together ten minutes after Mr. Delverton had
gone. Next morning when the housekeeper went to the offices he found
Thomas Farrell sitting at the table in his private room, his head fallen
on his arms, which were stretched across the table. He had died from the
effects of poison, yet the tumbler beside him showed no traces of poison.

Medical evidence proved that he had been dead some hours, but there was
nothing to show at what time he had returned to the office.

"In view of the doctor's statement it must have been between ten minutes
past seven and midnight," Southey told me. "The poison would produce
intense drowsiness, then sleep from which there was no waking. The time
of its action would vary in different individuals. I am inclined to think
it was late when he returned. He was a well-known figure in Austin Friars
and Throgmorton Street, and had he been about earlier in the evening some
one would almost certainly have seen him. That part of the world is alive
to a late hour during a Stock Exchange settlement. The offices consist of
a large outer room, which accommodates seven or eight clerks, and two
private rooms opening into one another, but opening into the outer office
only from the first room. This first room, which is the larger of the
two, the brothers Delverton occupied, Farrell having the smaller inner
room. From this there is a side door which gives on to a short passage
leading into Austin Friars. The partners used this side door constantly,
each of them having a key to the Yale lock, and we know from Mr.
Delverton that Farrell went out by the side door that afternoon.
Presumably he returned by it. Everything seemed to point to suicide, and
possibly had there been a shadow of a motive for Farrell taking his own
life, a verdict of suicide would have been returned. Apparently there was
no motive. His affairs were in perfect order, he was shortly to be
married, and the only person who suggested that he had looked in any way
worried recently was the junior clerk, Small."

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