PUNCTUALLY at seven o’clock the same evening Mr. Hardwell arrived at his favourite restaurant, accompanied by Mr. Carringford. The latter had recovered to some extent from the weariness of the previous night and looked more like the quiet detached person whom Macdonald had found interesting to talk to when he first met him. The two men seated themselves at the same table they had occupied on Thursday evening and were served with gin and lime while Mr. Hardwell studied the menu. Shortly afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Ross Lane came in and claimed a table which had been reserved for them a short distance from Mr. Hardwell’s. Farther down the restaurant, at a table well removed from the latter, Macdonald and Jenkins also considered the menu. Jenkins looked thoroughly pleased with life: it was not often that duty led him to a good dinner at a good restaurant and he was prepared to do full justice to whatever was set before him.
The restaurant was soon full up, every table occupied by cheerful diners: occasionally someone glanced in from the doors giving on to the lounge to ascertain if a friend had arrived and the waiters bustled around in a manner reminiscent of peace-time festivity. Shortly after half-past seven a dark bespectacled young man wearing a raincoat looked into the restaurant from the lounge and gazed rather anxiously down the rows of tables. Mr. Ross Lane saw him and studied him with amused unconcern. The young man asked a question of a waiter and then withdrew, but ten minutes later he reappeared and walked slowly between the tables to the angle of the L shaped restaurant. He was obviously looking for somebody, and the head waiter went and had a few words with him. As though unconvinced the young man shook his head and continued his inspection of the diners as he walked towards the Paddington Street entrance, and then returned by the way he had come.
Macdonald watched with some interest to see if the occupants of the various tables took much notice of the worried looking young man, (his name was Reeves, and he was a member of the C.I.D.) The majority of those dining were too much concerned with their own affairs to take much notice: the habitual ‘diners-out’ were concentrating on their food: those who had come with friends—especially the various couples—were concentrating on their conversation.
A few minutes after Reeves had disappeared Bruce Mallaig appeared at the door and stared down the restaurant. He looked nervous, and his hair had more of a tendency to stand on end than usual. After a deliberate scrutiny he withdrew. Certainly Mr. Ross Lane had observed him—the surgeon actually smiled encouragingly at Mallaig: undoubtedly Mr. Hardwell noticed him—he stared long and earnestly at the worried looking young man in the raincoat. Mr. Carringford turned round in his chair and stared also—and then appeared to ask a question of Mr. Hardwell.
Again the head waiter came forward—but Mallaig had withdrawn before that distinguished functionary reached him.
It was now ten minutes short of eight o’clock. Jenkins leaned forward and spoke softly to Macdonald. “Excellent jugged hare, this. I’m enjoying my dinner—but some of our friends are feeling the tension a bit. Mr. Ross Lane has knocked his glass over. Mr. Hardwell has helped himself to pepper three times. Mr. Carringford has just taken another glass of water. Ah, here he comes again . . . good timing. The head waiter’s busy, I see. . . .”
Mallaig had re-entered the restaurant, and this time he walked forward for a more thorough scrutiny of the diners. Macdonald watched the pale troubled face of the earnest-looking young man, re-enacting the scene of last Thursday evening. It was now eight o’clock, and Mallaig buttonholed an old waiter and put a question to him. The waiter, preoccupied with the dishes in his hands, shook his head. Bruce then went to the bureau and spoke to the cashier. He was handed a telegram which he opened and read, and then walked out, more quickly than he had come in. It was then five minutes past eight. Five minutes later a waiter went up to Mr. Carringford and told him that he was wanted on the telephone.
At that moment, Reeves, who had been holding ‘a watching brief,’ left the Paddington Street door of the restaurant and hurried to an alley way just beside the building and unchained a bicycle which leant against the wall and began to ride it through the blackout as though riding a race. A few hundred yards down Paddington Street, left turn into Marylebone High Street, left turn at the Marylebone Road, then up the straight to York Gate and the empty bridge. Three and a half minutes ride—he had timed it before: three minutes on the bridge, and then back the way he had come—the return journey was faster than the outward one. In nine and a half minutes from the time he had left Canuto’s, he was back at the door of the restaurant.
Inside the gaily lighted place, Mr. Ross Lane had left his table and moved over to Mr. Harwell’s, as the latter sat contemplating by himself.
“Forgive me intruding on your thoughts, sir,” said the surgeon pleasantly. “I have an idea we have met before—would it have been at the big sale at Dorrington House ? I was trying to get a dower chest which interested me, but you had me beat.”
Hardwell studied the other and replied: “I don’t remember you, but I remember the chest. 17th century, Spanish workmanship. An interesting piece.”
“Have you still got it?”
“I have. Yes. Do you want to bid again?”
“If it’s within my means. My wife was anxious to have that chest: curiously enough it’s got some armorial bearings on which resemble those of her own family, but with this difference. There was a bar sinister across the shield on the chest.”
“A bend sinister,” corrected Hardwell. “There’s no such thing in heraldry as a bar sinister. It just doesn’t make sense. Is your wife Spanish ?’’
“No. Irish—but there is Spanish blood in her family—a matter of generations ago.”
“Ah—she’s of an old family. I should like to meet her. I always try to get at the history of the pieces I buy. Perhaps she could help me to unravel the story of that chest.”
Ross Lane produced his card, and Mr. Hardwell sought for his glasses and set them on his nose. Macdonald, unseen, was watching this interview: five minutes had been taken up with the leisurely question and answer of the two men. Ross Lane continued:
“My wife’s people had a place near Dublin—a big ancient house—and the contents were sold when she was a child. I believe a lot of antiques went from that house to the sale room in the nineties. It would be curious if the chest was a relic from Kilboyne House. May I make an appointment with you to view the piece, Mr. . . . ?”
“Hardwell, sir.”
The dealer had taken out his pocket-book and handed a card to Ross Lane as he studied his diary. Nine minutes, observed Macdonald, and a moment later Mr. Carringford re-entered the restaurant. It was then that Macdonald got up and went to the door, leaving Jenkins to settle the bill and chat to the waiter. The big Inspector had very good ears, and he overheard Mr. Carringford’s first remark to Mr. Hardwell when the former returned to his table:
“I can’t make out who the devil it was on the phone: some chap who told me I was to go outside the restaurant into Paddington Street and wait for him—said he’d got something that it was essential I should see.”
“See, eh? in the blackout? He must be an optimist,” rejoined Hardwell. “Are you going? Tell you what, I’ll come with you and see fair play . . . In case of any rough stuff,, I’ll get that gentleman over there to accompany us. He’s just moving on . . . and you, sir,” turning to Ross Lane who was standing a step or two back from the table: “If you’re the sportsman I take you to be, would you care to stand-by and see if a mysterious bloke who’s giving visual demonstrations in the blackout is a scoundrel or not?”
“Count me in,” said Ross Lane cheerfully. “I’ll render first aid to the casualties, but for the love of Mike don’t present me with another corpse. People who find corpses in this country have a thin time with the coppers.”
Jenkins had come forward and beamed at Ross Lane with his happy smile.
“You will have your little joke, sir. If there’s going to be any hocus pocus I shall be glad to lend my support to the law-abiding.”
“You’re the sort of chap I like,” said Hardwell, speaking as though his good dinner had made him feel generally benevolent. “Well, gentlemen—we’ll go outside and interview Carringford’s mysterious informant, and I’ll ask you to come in for a round of drinks afterwards. I’ll lead the way just to give you others that feeling of confidence.”
When the door shut behind the four men and they stood on the pavement in the blackout not one of them could see any-thing at all. The darkness was like a pall, it seemed almost tangible. Ross Lane, who was generally good at finding his way in the dark, admitted afterwards that the sudden change from the bright lights and warm air of the restaurant to the black chill of the quiet street nearly made him dizzy. A voice beside him whispered: “Speak up, James. Say you’re here.”
It was Mr. Hardwell, encouraging his friend to action, for Mr. Hardwell was in that happy state when he had drunk just enough to feel vigorous and confident. Jenkins, as calm and collected as ever, was also unable to see anything yet, but his trained awareness made him conscious that there was more than one person close at hand, invisible in the darkness.
Mr. Hardwell’s whisper was answered in unexpected fashion.
A deep voice suddenly broke into declamation:
“ ‘Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. . . .’ ”
Jenkins admitted later that the sound of that amazing voice in the blackout gave him one of the most dramatic moments of a not unexciting career: instinctively he looked in the direction of the voice, and he knew that the men beside him were straining their eyes in the darkness, staring, nonplussed as that vibrant voice tore at their very nerves. Then, as though in climax, a match spluttered and shone in the darkness. Amazingly bright, it illumined a dark face bent over cupped hands—a heavily jowled, dark chinned face. A voice stuttered into breathless speech—Bruce Mallaig’s voice:
“There he is—there he is, I say,” and Mr. Carringford’s voice rose almost to a scream:
“It’s the murderer—the murderer at the bridge . . . catch him!”
“And how do you know that, you dirty blighter?” Corporal Nightingale had forgotten all his previous instructions and had broken into furious speech. “Take that, you bastard!” he exclaimed, switching on a torch and lunging towards Carringford.
“Stop it, George!” roared Mr. Rameses, “this isn’t your show,”—and the illusionist with the Chaliapin voice adroitly tripped up his aggressive offspring.
Mr. Carringford gave a scream that echoed shrilly down the street, for the sight of Mr. Rameses’ masked face seen in the torchlight was enough to shake any nerves. As George tripped over his father’s foot, Mr. Carringford broke into a run. Head down he bolted down Paddington Street as though furies were after him.
“Stop him, Reeves—he’ll be under that lorry. . . .”
It was Macdonald’s shout, but it came too late. Carringford, blind with terror, flung himself across the road and literally hit the front of the lorry before the astonished driver could pull up. There was a scream of brakes and another scream as well as the would-be fugitive went down like a ninepin before the weight of a three-ton lorry which could not stop in its own length.
Mr. Ross Lane’s voice spoke from the darkness: “This is another of the occasions when nothing I can do will be of any use . . . but no one can say this was my fault this time.”
Five minutes later an oddly assorted party returned to the restaurant for drinks. Mr. Rameses, dangling ‘Ananias ‘by his locks, chose plain soda water. The Commando asked for a Scotch—and got it. Mr. Hardwell joined George in a much-needed reviver. Bruce Mallaig accepted a gin and lime, looking as though he needed it. Jenkins and Macdonald were elsewhere on official duty connected with recent events. Mrs. Ross Lane was still drinking coffee.
“What happened?” she asked.
Hardwell swallowed his drink before replying.
“Carringford—the chap who dined with me—chucked himself under a lorry . . . A nasty business. I still can’t believe it. . . . He must have done it, though why he did it, God alone knows—and he was always the world’s worst funk.”
“That’s why,” said Ross Lane cryptically, pouring himself the remains of a bottle of Lager. “It’s because he was a funk and Timothy O’Farrel knew all about him.”
“Who was Timothy O’Farrel, anyway?” demanded Mallaig.
Ross Lane replied tersely: “Timothy O’Farrel was an undergraduate at Dublin University in 1918. So was Carringford. So was my wife—she recognised Carringford this evening. Think it out.”
His drink had done Bruce Mallaig good. His wits were working again.
“But that chap Carringford—I had a good look at him this evening—he was about sixty, wasn’t he? How could he have been an undergraduate in 1918? He’d have been . . . well about thirty-five then, wouldn’t he?”
“Carringford was the same age as Timothy O’Farrel—forty-four last year,” said Mrs. Ross Lane, and her husband added:
“That is, thirty-nine when war broke out. And he was a funk. And Timothy O’Farrel knew all about it.”
“But who was Timothy O’Farrel?” demanded Mallaig helplessly, and Ross Lane replied:
“He was your Irishman, John Ward. . . . You think it out. I’ve no doubt Macdonald will enlighten you if you can’t see daylight.”