IT was all done very nicely and politely, but the Brigade de Sûreté left no doubt of its opinion of Mulberry Street, and Mulberry Street, justly hurt, neatly paraphrased into smooth official terms the retort that the whole of the French detective service was not worth a hill of beans.
Now this regrettable interchange of amenities between two great criminal investigation bureaux could not have arisen had they not both been a little strained by outside influences. It was a little matter of forgery. There had been an import of forged French notes of exquisite workmanship, and the Brigade de Sûreté had convinced themselves that the point of origination was in the United States. Mulberry Street was approached in form to ‘see to it.’
It so happened that Mulberry Street was very busy. It pointed out to its French confrère that New York was a big place, and the United States a bigger. Wouldn’t it be as well for the Brigade de Sûreté to catch the swindlers who were actually passing the notes? The Brigade de Sûreté replied that this had been attempted—vainly. ‘The matter shall have our attention,’ said Mulberry Street, and detailed two men who, for a time, made things extremely uncomfortable for persons who might reasonably be supposed to have leanings towards syndicated crime.
The Chef de Sûreté, stirred thereto by reports that notes were still being negotiated and longing for someone to kick, dictated the note already referred to, and the Assistant Commissioner of New York’s police, also pleased to kick, made his reply. So a stimulant to efforts on both sides of the Atlantic was afforded.
Then it was that Grenfell of New Scotland Yard, London, who had been sent over to arrange the extradition of an embezzler, happened into Mulberry Street, and to him as an unprejudiced and sympathetic outsider many people opened their souls.
The kick administered by the Brigade de Sûreté had been passed on after due reflection to Detective-Sergeant McFall, who, pining for a kind word, met Grenfell as he was coming down the steps from the Assistant Commissioner’s office.
‘Hello, you?’ he exclaimed, thrusting out a heavy fist. ‘How’d you find the boss? Did y’ mention forgery to him?’
‘No. He did all the mentioning,’ said Grenfell.
McFall fell into step with him and spat viciously. ‘Hell’s an ice-box to the chief when he gets going,’ he said, with a touch of admiration. ‘He had Gann and me up this morning, and you may have noticed the scorch marks on the carpet where he frizzled us. Yes, we were burnt-offerings all right by the time he was through. He told you that someone was handing out bad paper in France, I suppose?’
Grenfell slapped him on the back. ‘Come and have a tonic,’ he said.
They had a tonic. They had two. And on the second McFall spoke more freely. He was feeling bitter because he had been unjustly blamed. He was an able man, and it was because of his ability that he had been one of the two selected to unearth the forgers. ‘’Tisn’t as if we had anything to work on,’ he declared. ‘We’ve had a line on every crook in little old New York, and we’ve pulled down a dozen if we’ve pulled one. The stuff goes over by mail, but we’ve kept our eye on the letters sent out by every likely bird. None of the boys is in it—that I’ll swear.’
‘How do you know they go out by mail?’ asked Grenfell.
McFall lifted his shoulders. ‘Same way as the French people know the stuff comes from here. There was a package at Rennes—R. J. Tupper, Poste Restante—New York postmark—typewritten address—fifty one-hundred franc notes inside and nothing else. No one ever called for them, and they were handed over to the police. That’s how. Now’—he smashed a fist down on the counter—‘the chief, he says, “I want you to find out who’s marketing the dope, and to find out quick.” And because I can’t work miracles I get it in the neck—some,’ he concluded bitterly.
The Central Detective Bureau of New York is a wonderfully efficient body, and it expects its men to be efficient. It does not like excuses. Like all police bodies it has a keen esprit de corps. It considers itself without peer in the wide, wide world—again like every detective organisation that ever existed. Grenfell could understand. If it had been merely a matter of internal crime, McFall’s failure would not have mattered. No detective outside fiction can work miracles. This, however, was an international matter—a question, in a sense, of rivalry.
‘Hard lines, old son,’ condoled Grenfell. ‘Cheer up, there’s worse troubles at sea. Get a week’s leave and come with me fishing somewhere. I’ve got to hang about for that time before my extradition case comes on again.’
‘I wish I could,’ said McFall dolefully. ‘I wish I could. I can see the boss’s face if I asked for leave just now. No, I’ve got to keep busy.’
Detective-Inspector Grenfell made his fishing excursion alone. The place he selected was a flourishing little seaside town, which as yet had scarcely realised that it had the making of a ‘resort’. He gave his holiday feeling full bent. London was many hundred miles away; the whole of it might be blown up, the Crown jewels stolen, the Cabinet assassinated—and he could not be recalled. His mission was almost automatic. There was nothing on earth that could prevent him throwing off the cares of his profession and forgetting that such a place as Scotland Yard existed.
It is at such self-congratulatory moments as this that fate loves to interfere—fate in this instance in the shape of a sportive puppy dog, of no particular pedigree, and a woman’s handbag.
Grenfell had noticed the young woman, an oval-featured, fair-haired girl in white, as he strolled on the beach. She was reclining in a deck-chair, sunning herself, the hand with the bag listlessly dangling. The puppy arrived at a gallop, and in the next few moments was a hundred yards along the shore, growling ferociously as he strove to tear his loot to pieces.
The detective and the dog’s owner raced to the rescue, but it was the latter who retrieved the handbag, now chewed to almost unrecognisable pulp, and returned it to its owner. Grenfell slackened his pace and the breeze blew a scrap of paper to his feet—a relic of the ruin the puppy had wrought. He stooped, picked it up, and mechanically crumpled it in his hand to throw away again. Then something about the pellet he had fashioned caught his attention. He straightened it out and examined it and looked round for the girl. She had vanished.
‘May I be dodgasted!’ exclaimed Grenfell, and with long, quick strides, returned to his hotel and wrote a short letter, in which he enclosed the scrap of paper.
Thus far he was only acting with the courtesy of the man who, having stumbled across a piece of information, passes it on to the one more immediately concerned. But morning brought with it a wire from McFall which might have seemed incoherent to any but a student of Kipling.
‘The bleating of the lamb excites the tiger. Ten thousand dollars reward now offered. Coming first train.—MCFALL.’
By eleven o’clock the burly Central Office man had reached the English detective. He was chuckling with glee. The despondency of the previous meeting was all gone. ‘We’re on to it, old fellow!’ he cried. ‘You lucky dog! That was the corner of a five-thousand franc note that you got hold of, and it’s turned out by a workman. Some folks are born lucky. I’ve been sweltering for weeks to get a line on the case, and you, without any interest in it, come over, and an end falls in your lap. Where’s the lady?’
The Englishman shook his head. ‘Never saw the going of her, Mac. To tell the truth, I haven’t worried much about it. I thought I’d give you a tip. Now it’s your funeral.’
McFall’s lower jaw dropped and he whirled furiously on his friend. ‘None of that,’ he snarled. ‘I ain’t expecting no presents, and don’t you forget it. There’s ten thousand dollars that the French banks are offering hanging to this case, my son, and you’ll dip your fingers in it, or I’ll know why. You can’t shunt out of it. Now, will you be good?’
‘I’ll be good,’ smiled Grenfell. ‘Where do we stand?’
McFall became serious. He unlocked his suitcase and took out a dozen photographs. ‘I brought these on the off-chance,’ he explained. ‘There’s no one in the gallery that answers your description, but I guess these are all the young women likely to be in a big job.’
Although he had only a few moments’ view of the girl on the beach, Grenfell was a trained observer, and what he remembered of her features he remembered accurately. He shook his head over the photographs. ‘She’s not here.’
‘May be a raw hand,’ he reflected.
‘She may be,’ agreed McFall; ‘but it’s no beginner who is turning out the dope. See here, Grenfell, this show isn’t being run single-handed. It needs appliances and skill to run a show like this. A pickpocket or a burglar can shift around as he wants to. A forger wants definite headquarters. He’s got to be fixed somewhere. Now I don’t admire this town for a residence, but if I were turning out phony paper I wouldn’t ask for a better place. It’s out of the way, and it’s handy to New York—what?’
‘That’s so,’ agreed Grenfell. ‘How do you propose to locate them? I’m in your hands.’
McFall wiped the perspiration from his broad forehead. ‘We’ll get them,’ he declared. ‘We’ll get them if we have to go through the State with a fine-tooth comb. Gann and Wills are coming this afternoon. Meanwhile we might go and have a chat with the chief of police here. We might want his help yet.’
If Grenfell had not had some knowledge of the free-and-easy ways of the American police he might have been a little astonished to meet an important functionary on duty in his shirt-sleeves, with his chair tilted back, his heels on his desk, and a cigar between his teeth. The chief paid them the compliment of bringing his feet to the floor and passing the cigar box.
He readily promised his assistance in searching the district, but scratched his head with a pen-holder as Grenfell described the girl. She could, he declared, be duplicated fifty times in the town. ‘Might be anyone,’ he added, a fact which the two detectives had reached for themselves long before. And then the door opened wide enough to admit a head and shoulders and Grenfell found himself looking into the face of a girl—the girl.
He half rose from his seat and then sank back again.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said hastily. ‘I am looking for father, Mr Burchnall. I thought he might be with you.’ She withdrew her head, and the door closed with a click.
‘Our mayor’s daughter,’ said the chief. ‘Isn’t she a peach?’
Grenfell was doing some quick thinking. A more impulsive or less ready man might have blurted out something. But it had flashed across him that the mayor of an American city holds a considerable influence in police matters—extending to the appointment of even chiefs of police—and he had no wish to be laughed at. Even in a land where politics is a profession, the daughter of a high municipal official is unlikely to be concerned in a syndicated crime.
The point, however, was gained that the girl was known. That, nevertheless, was far from simplifying the problem. In view of her position it was extremely unlikely that she had anything to do with a gang of forgers. On the other hand, why on earth should she have been carrying a French bank-note of high denomination?
‘Mac,’ he said, when they got outside, ‘the local police can’t help us.’
‘Never expected much,’ agreed McFall. ‘Still, it’s as well to get ’em interested.’
‘I don’t mean that. I’ve found the woman.’
McFall was quick on the uptake. ‘The Mayor’s daughter?’ he inquired. And as Grenfell nodded, he gave a long, low whistle.
Now that a scent had been defined, McFall took the lead. He was a busy man for a couple of hours, though his labours were more real than apparent. He lounged through the little town, visited the barber, and chatted as an inquisitive stranger on local affairs while he was being shaved. He also displayed the little shield under the lapel of his jacket to a big policeman, swinging his stick by the loop on a side-walk, and the policeman, flattered by the attention of the sleuth from New York, also talked.
So did the editor of the local newspaper to whom McFall introduced hinself. None of these persons was aware that he was affording anything more than idle conversation.
Yet McFall, when he returned to his friend at the hotel, had a budget of information. He dropped into a lounge wearily. ‘That kid’s name’s Prudence Fastlet,’ he said. ‘Playing the popularity game with a big “P” for her old man. He’s been here for seven years, and mayor three, and I guess wants to keep on the Dick Whittington act. Retired theatre manager from Columbus, Ohio. The villagers swear by him. Can’t see any fun in being mayor of a show like this myself.’
Grenfell mentioned a word. The other man rubbed a shiny cheek with his knuckles. ‘Nope. He ain’t grafting, and that’s the funny part of it. He’s straight. Working the popularity racket for all he’s worth—father of the city, and all that sort of thing. Where does he come in?’
‘Girl engaged?’
‘No. Say, Gann and Wills are about due. I’ll have a quick lunch and get a smart boy to slip ’em a note at the depot. We don’t want to know ’em if we see ’em.’ The eyelid nearest to Grenfell closed and opened again quickly. ‘The police chief here is sweet on the kid—see?’
‘I see,’ said Grenfell. He had gathered McFall’s idea. Burchnall would probably mention their visit either to the girl or her father, and the news of their presence in the town would certainly spread. It might be as well that any attention should be concentrated on them.
Within an hour, two drummers had arrived in town and registered themselves at an hotel. The two detectives, lounging in deck-chairs on the veranda, paid them not the slightest attention. In about half an hour they emerged again, and Grenfell rose lazily. ‘Think I’ll go for a stroll,’ he said, and McFall grunted an indifferent assent.
Grenfell’s sauntering took him by the mayor’s house on the front, and curiously enough, the two commercial travellers strolled at much about the same pace in the same direction, but fifty yards behind. The Scotland Yard man dropped on a patch of grass, and extracting a magazine from his pocket began to read. His face was in the direction of the house. Fifty yards away the commercial travellers also sat down. One of them found a piece of rock which he stuck up on end, and the pair amused themselves by shying pebbles at it.
Half an hour or more elapsed. Then from the house there emerged a figure in white. Grenfell took off his hat and fanned himself. A glance sideways showed him one of the commercial travellers fumbling with a boot lace. He finished, and the pair strode away in the direction taken by the girl.
‘That’s all right,’ muttered Grenfell to himself. ‘They’ll hang on to her now till all’s blue.’ He knew the competence of the Central Office men, and renewed his story with an eye on the white-painted house. He registered in his mind all the comings and goings of visitors during the afternoon, but that may have been merely a matter of habit. He had not intended to watch the house after he had pointed out Miss Fastlet to her shadowers. Indeed, though McFall insisted that he should share the reward if the forgers were run to earth, the case was no concern of his. He had no official standing in the United States, and he doubted if he could even legally effect an arrest.
But he hated the feeling of being a spectator, and presently he closed his magazine. There was no one in sight—no sign of life about the white house. The temptation overcame him. Rapidly he took a survey, decided the servants’ quarters were probably located in the east wing, opened the gate, and moved into the shrubbery. It was indiscreet. It was probably criminal. But the lust of a chase was in his blood, and he coolly took his risk. He wanted to know more about the inside of the house, and this seemed an opportunity.
Fortune favoured him, for he found an open window on the ground floor which led into a small sitting-room. He moved quietly and quickly across it and into the passage. He wanted to waste no time in his investigation.
The ground-floor rooms were of a perfectly innocent character, though Grenfell raised his eyebrows at what he recognised must be expensive furnishings. For a retired theatrical manager and a mayor who did no grafting, Fastlet certainly had ideas of comfort.
Once Grenfell slipped behind a portière, and a servant brushed past him almost within an inch. He waited perfectly still for five minutes and then resumed his survey. If there had been nothing suspicious downstairs there was still less upstairs. He pushed his head in bedroom after bedroom, and the feeling that he was making a fool of himself became more convincing every moment.
There was one room, entered through a sort of sitting-room. The door refused to give as he twisted the handle. He swore softly to himself. ‘I might have known!’ he exclaimed. ‘Bound to be locked.’
He remained standing in thought for a moment or so and then tried to peer through the keyhole. A flap on the other side defeated him. He sniffed inquiringly. Then he straightened himself up and found himself looking down the muzzles of a 12-bore shot-gun.
‘Make yourself at home,’ invited the man at the other end of the gun. ‘Don’t mind me.’ He was a tall, awkward man of fifty or thereabouts, square-faced, clean-shaven, with thin grey hair, and a mouth like a rat-trap. He wore a light lounge suit, and the noiselessness of his approach was accounted for by the fact that he was in woollen slippers.
Grenfell stood stock-still. He knew that it would be very difficult to miss with a shot-gun at three yards. Had the weapon been a pistol he might have chanced a dash. He was wise enough to recognise that that was out of the question.
‘Mr Fastlet, I presume,’ he said politely. He was in a tight place, and he knew it. There was nothing to be gained by losing his head.
‘That’s me,’ agreed the other grimly. ‘Don’t you be too fresh, Mr Man, and keep your hands away from your pockets. That’s better.’ He walked across the room, selected an arm-chair, and sat down, the gun still trained on Grenfell. It ran swiftly across the mind of the detective that an ordinary householder who had surprised a burglar would have summoned help. ‘You can sit down if you like,’ said Fastlet. ‘Only move smoothly, because my nerves are rather out of order. I’d just hate to have a corpse on my hands.’
Grenfell leaned against the wall. ‘I’d rather stand, thanks,’ he said languidly.
‘That’s all right,’ agreed the other, ‘so long as you don’t try any monkey tricks. Well, what do you think you’re going to do about it?’
‘It’s up to you,’ pointed out Grenfell. He was philosopher enough to accept things as they happened, and he judged that if he was in a dilemma his captor was no less so.
Fastlet studied him silently for a minute or so.
‘So it’s up to me,’ he repeated slowly. ‘You know that a man is justified in shooting a burglar whom he finds searching his house. Any jury would call that justifiable homicide.’ He raised the gun and glanced along the barrels. Grenfell read murder in his eyes.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘I don’t think you’ll do that, Mr Fastlet,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you. You see, there is a Central Office man staying in the town, and he knows where I am. If I’m any judge he’ll stir around pretty soon, and a dead body won’t be easy for you to explain away.’
The mayor’s face was expressionless as he lowered the gun. ‘And who in Hades are you?’ he demanded doubtfully.
‘My name is Grenfell, detective-inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard.’
Fastlet dropped the gun and, standing up, broke into a thunderous roar of laughter as he extended a hand. ‘Well, I’m jiggered. The joke’s on you this time. Burchnall told me that you and McFall were here, but I didn’t expect to catch you burgling my house. D’you think I’m a forger? Ha, ha! That’s good. What the dickens are you doing, anyway?’
It was a question that was difficult to answer. Grenfell had no excuse, no explanation to offer. If he had held any authority he might possibly have taken action. He really believed that Fastlet would have murdered him had he not bluffed about McFall. There was only one course for him to adopt. He smiled blandly into the mayor’s face.
‘Come and have dinner with me tonight,’ he said, ‘and I’ll put you wise to the whole thing. As you say, the joke’s on me. Now let me hurry away, there’s a good man, or McFall will be making trouble. See you later.’
Grenfell had run his hardest for ten minutes before he found a very fat and very dignified policeman. He seized that official’s sleeve and dragged him along for a dozen yards in his headlong career. ‘Get on to the fire-brigade,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Turn ’em out to the mayor’s house. Don’t ask questions. Get busy.’
The intelligent officer gave a guttural and indistinct sound which Grenfell took for assent, and his sleeve now released, plodded at a slower but no less breathless pace in the wake of the detective.
Grenfell raced into the hotel, threw an inquiry and an order at the clerk in the hall in the same breath, and found McFall at the telephone with Wills at his elbow. His hand fell on the sergeant’s shoulder, and he tore him away in the middle of a sentence.
‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘There’s no time to waste. I’ve ordered a car.’
A bell clanged noisily and a motor fire-engine raced by in the street below. Grenfell was too out of breath for lengthy explanations, but luckily the Central Office men were people of action.
‘Garage end of first block on the right,’ said the clerk as they dashed once more into the hall. ‘I’ve phoned ’em to get their best car ready.’
Nevertheless there was a wait of a few moments at the garage. Grenfell in short staccato sentences jerked out some of the conclusions he had arrived at. ‘Yes. We’ve got to be quick if that’s the case,’ said McFall. ‘We’ll drop Wills at the house.’ The car was ready by this time, and they jumped aboard. ‘Now cut loose for all she’s worth,’ ordered McFall.
It had taken Grenfell a quarter of an hour to get from the mayor’s house to the hotel. It took the car barely three minutes to cover the distance. A small crowd was gathered about the gates, and a thin, almost undiscernible wreath of vapour was circling from a window. The firemen had a hose out, and even in the roadway they could hear the smashing of axes on woodwork.
Wills jumped to the ground as the car slackened pace, and ran forward. They could see him making eager inquiries, and presently he came running back. ‘Been gone ten minutes!’ he shouted. ‘Car a little old-fashioned, green-painted two-seater. You’ll pick him up easy.’
The chauffeur pressed over a lever and the car slid smoothly forward. McFall took from his pocket a 44-automatic, took out a clip of cartridges, and pushed it back again. ‘You got a gun?’ he asked.
Grenfell shook his head.
‘You never know,’ said McFall, dropping the weapon in his jacket pocket and fixing his eyes ahead on the blinding white road as it whirled towards them. Twice they slackened speed to make inquiries. It was on the second occasion that they learned the green-painted car was but a mile ahead of them, and a few minutes later a little cloud of dust in front showed that they were rapidly overhauling their quarry.
‘Keep straight on,’ McFall advised the chauffeur. ‘We’ll run ahead of them and hold them up.’
In a little they were near enough to see a face peering over the back of the leading car. ‘Look out,’ cried Grenfell, and dropped without shame into the bottom of the car. The glass wind-screen shattered, and they could hear the shriek of a bullet as it tore overhead.
McFall was holding the barrel of his automatic balanced on the palm of his left hand. The thud of his answering shot was almost simultaneous. But a fragment of glass from the broken wind-screen had caught their chauffeur on the cheek. The car swerved, righted again, and then the brakes were on.
‘I’m done,’ said the chauffeur; ‘he’s got me.’
McFall swore. Grenfell was making a hasty examination of the man. ‘You’re all right,’ he told him. ‘That’s only a bit of glass. That won’t hurt you.’
The chauffeur looked relieved. ‘Get on,’ ordered McFall. ‘Let her loose.’
‘Not me,’ said the man doggedly. ‘This car isn’t hired for gun-play. Count me out.’
It was no moment to waste time in argument. McFall stuck the muzzle of his weapon against the back of the chauffeur’s neck. ‘Get on with it,’ he ordered curtly.
Sullenly the chauffeur started up again. It was a choice of evils, but the man in front might miss if he started shooting again, the detective certainly would not. In a matter of five minutes they were again within fifty yards of the green car. McFall commenced to fire. He was taking no chances. Once only was a shot returned, and as they drew nearer Grenfell, who was peering over the top of the seat, perceived the reason. Fastlet’s chauffeur had also needed persuading with a pistol. He laughed as the situation became clear to him.
‘Make him slack up as we come alongside the other car,’ he told McFall. ‘I’m going to jump for it.’
McFall nodded. The Scotland Yard man braced himself for a leap. Inch by inch they drew near the other car, and Fastlet, facing around, fired twice. Both shots went wide.
Then Grenfell jumped. He heard the wooden thud of McFall’s automatic again, and as he landed, his face was scorched by the explosion of the mayor’s pistol. Then his strong, wiry arms were around Fastlet, and he dragged him down backwards. Both cars slid to a halt just as the two struggling men fell heavily to the ground.
The mayor was a powerful man, but he had been taken at a disadvantage. Moreover, Grenfell was as physically fit as it is possible for a man of forty to be. By the time McFall had come running to his assistance he had the mayor pinned. The Central Office man put away his weapon and dragged out a shiny pair of self-adjusting, nickel-plated handcuffs, which he clipped round the prisoner’s wrists.
‘Now we’re all hunky,’ he said, and they assisted the prisoner to rise.
‘This is you,’ said Fastlet, glaring menacingly at Grenfell. ‘If you hadn’t been so darned quick—’ He checked himself. ‘What’s the charge, anyway? You’ve got nothing you can bring against me. This means an action for damages.’
‘Cut out the bluff,’ said McFall sharply. ‘You’ll be held for forgery, and that’s all there is to it. Let’s get aboard.’
Far away, back in the Central Office records, long before the days of finger-prints, McFall came across the portrait of a young man. He pointed it out to Grenfell. ‘That finishes it. Here he is ’way back in the nineties. Soapy Smith he is—he was in the green goods trade at one time—but he’s an expert forger. Got ten years in ninety-two and has dropped out of sight since.’
‘Let it alone,’ growled Wills. ‘Grenfell’s going to tell us how he got on to the old man—not but what we’ve got him anyway,’ he added, with a touch of esprit de corps. ‘Once we nailed the girl it was plain enough.’
‘I was lucky,’ admitted Grenfell modestly. ‘You people have been too long in the game not to know that luck counts a lot. But I’d have been nowhere without your backing. I couldn’t have told for sure on my own that that piece of paper I picked up on the beach was from a forged note without your experts behind me. Still, that was luck to start with. Then when McFall here found out that the mayor was no grafter, we both got to thinking on the same lines.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed McFall. ‘A man who’s all for purity in municipal affairs and lives in the way he did has got a reason, you bet.’
‘Yes. Soapy must have had it all worked out when he went into politics. If the French police hadn’t tumbled that the stuff was drifting in from the States he might have kept on for ever. Who was going to get suspicious of the high-souled mayor of a seaside town? Besides, he had the local police in his pocket, though I suppose they knew nothing of what he was doing. He kept clear of political graft because he didn’t want Pinkertons or any outside people called in by a purity committee. Then he was handy to New York.
‘I figured this out while I was waiting to put you on to the girl. I gave McFall credit for having the same line. But I wanted to get the thing done with quickly, and it didn’t seem to me likely to work out in a hurry on soft lines. That was how it came into my head to break into the house on the off-chance of picking up something. I’d have waited to put you boys up to it, but after all, only one man could go in. There wasn’t anything to be gained by sharing the risk among four.
‘I’ll own freely it looked as if I was on a dead end till I got upstairs. There was a room there—a sort of study—with another room leading out of it. The door of the second room was locked, but I got a kind of mixed smell of chemicals. I knew then that I was right, and that I had happened on the private laboratory. It was then that the old man happened on me with a shotgun.
‘He knew who I was—he’d been talking to Burchnall—and at first I looked like qualifying for a funeral. I bluffed that McFall was lying in wait, and we called a truce. We shook hands and I came away.
‘It was pretty obvious he wasn’t going to sit around once he’d got me out of the house, and if he made a get-away he wouldn’t want to leave any evidence behind him either. That was how I came to think of a fire-call.’
‘Lucky you did,’ observed Wills. ‘The firemen had just broken into the laboratory when I got there. He’d simply piled the place with junk, emptied a can of kerosene over it, chucked in a match, and locked the door again. We saved enough out of the ruins to get hold of the whereabouts of their crooks in France. We’ve cabled the address over. He was supplying them with phony paper at 50 per cent discount.’
‘You haven’t told me about the girl,’ said Grenfell. ‘What’s happened to her?’
‘She’s safe enough,’ said Gann. ‘The old man seems to have got somewhat disturbed when he heard that McFall and you were on the warpath. He is a wary bird, and had no dealings direct with those who were handling the paper. He had a little cigar store in the Bronx under the name of George James, with a manager in charge. The manager had no knowledge of anything wrong—he didn’t even know where his employer lived. Soapy never came to the town himself. He always sent the girl, and she collected letters off the manager, and posted every mail that was to go out. Well, as I say, he smelt something and sent her off to New York to destroy any mail she found there, I pulled her actually in the store. She’s his daughter, but I think she’ll clear herself. He didn’t trust even her. She never knew what was in the letters coming or going. By the way, she had in her bag the rest of the fragments of the note. It was a sample included in a letter to a crook named Wilson.’
McFall yawned and stretched himself. ‘The chief’s so pleased he’ll eat out of your hand. Say, it’s getting near hungry-time. I put it to the meeting that it’s on to us to show Grenfell what little old New York can do in the way of dinners. As many as are in favour of the resolution will—’
‘Ay,’ interrupted Gann and Wills together.
‘Carried unanimously,’ said McFall.