The Grell Mystery. Frank Froest
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to shadow Fairfield he might have discovered the whereabouts of the missing diplomat. Now he had merely given notice as plainly as though he had shouted from the housetops that Fairfield was under observation. He had committed a blunder, and he did not forgive blunders easily, especially in himself.
Even a bath and a change into his normal clothing did not restore his equanimity. In his office he found Green, with a strange excitement in his usually stolid face.
‘Hello, Mr Green. What’s wrong?’ he demanded.
The veteran chief detective-inspector pulled at his moustache.
‘I don’t know, sir, yet. You’ve come just in time. Waverley is missing.’
‘Waverley missing! That’s nonsense. He was put on to relieve Norman in shadowing Ivan Abramovitch.’
‘He’s missing,’ repeated the other doggedly. ‘Ivan went into a shop with an entrance in two streets, and the man who was assisting Waverley slipped round to the other side. He waited there an hour, and then went to look for Waverley.’
The superintendent gave a short, contemptuous laugh.
‘Green, I guess you’ve been working too hard lately. You ought to apply for a fortnight’s leave. Can’t you see, Ivan came out and that Waverley never had time to give the tip to his man, but followed him straight away? There ought to have been three men on the job.’
Green drew himself up stiffly. Foyle had not recovered from the irritation caused by his own mistake, otherwise he would not have spoken as he did. Green was not the kind of man to hastily jump to conclusions.
‘A third was not available when Waverley left,’ he said. ‘Here is why I say Waverley is missing. It came by messenger five minutes ago, addressed to you. As senior officer I opened it.’
Foyle took a typewritten sheet of paper from the other’s hand. It read simply:
‘DEAR MR. FOYLE,—You had better call your men off. We have got one of them safe, and hold him as a hostage for our own safety. If your people go on trying to make things unpleasant for us, things will get unpleasant for him. This is not melodrama, but brutal fact.’
There was no signature. Foyle’s square jaw became set and grim. He had no doubt that the unknown writer fully meant the threat. He liked Waverley, yet the thought of the other’s peril did not sway him for a moment. The man had fallen a victim to one of the risks of his profession.
‘Do they expect us to back down?’ asked the superintendent harshly. ‘If Waverley has been fool enough to get himself in a fix, he must take his chance if we can’t get him out. Let’s have a look at this paper.’
He thrust his hand in a drawer, and, flinging a pinch of black powder on the letter, sifted it gingerly to and fro. In a few seconds four finger-prints stared out blackly from the white surface. They were at right angles to the type, and just beneath it. Foyle’s face relaxed in a pleased smile.
‘They’ve given us something that may help us, after all, Green,’ he cried. ‘Look here; these two middle ones are the prints on the dagger. Now let’s see if we can learn anything from the typing.’
Half an hour later three men stood in a tiny room, darkened, save for a vivid patch of white on a screen a yard and a half square. Foyle and Green watched the screen intently as the third man inserted the slide in the powerful magic lantern. Magnified enormously, the typewritten characters stood out vividly black against the white.
‘What do you make of it, Green?’ asked the superintendent after a pause.
‘Remington machine, latest pattern,’ answered the other briefly. ‘The letter “b” slightly battered, and the “o” out of alignment. Used by a beginner. There is double spacing between some of the lines and single in others. A capital “W” has been superimposed on a small one.’
‘That’s so,’ agreed his superior thoughtfully. ‘You might see if the Remington people can give us any help with that. If possible, get a list of all the people who have bought machines during this last six weeks. It’s a long shot, but long shots sometimes come off. And if you come into my room I’ll give you a pistol. It’ll be as well for you to carry one while you’re on this case. I was shot at myself, today.’
‘Thank you, sir, I think I’ll do without one,’ said the other quietly. ‘My two fists are good enough for me.’
‘As you like,’ agreed Foyle, and Green departed on his mission. When he returned, he walked into Foyle’s room and laid a long list before his chief. The superintendent cast his forefinger slowly down it.
‘October 14,’ he read, ‘Mr John Smith, c/o Israels, 404A Grave Street, Whitechapel.’ He looked up into the stolid face of Green. ‘That seems like it,’ he went on. ‘You and I will take a little trip this evening, Green. And I think you’d better have a pistol, after all.’
TO all callers, relatives, friends, newspaper men, alike, Eileen Meredith denied herself resolutely. ‘She has been rendered completely prostrate by the shock,’ said the Daily Wire in the course of a highly coloured character sketch. Other statements, more or less true, with double and treble column photographs of herself, crept into other papers. Night and day a little cluster of journalists hung about, watching the front door, scanning every caller and questioning them when they were turned away. Now and again one would go to the door and make a hopeless attempt to see some member of the household.
But Eileen was not prostrate, in spite of the Daily Wire. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Her gay vivacity had deserted her, and she had become a sombre woman, with mouth set in rigid lines, and with a fierce intensity for vengeance, none the less implacable because she felt her impotence. In such unreasoning moods some women become dangerous.
She had curtly rejected her father’s suggestion that she should see a doctor. Nor would she leave London to try and forget amid fresh surroundings.
‘Here I will stay until Bob’s murderer is punished,’ she had said, and her white teeth had come together viciously.
A night and a day had passed since her interview with Heldon Foyle. Reflection had not convinced her that his cold reason was right. She had made up her mind that Fairfield was the murderer. Nothing could shake her from that conviction. Scotland Yard, she thought, was afraid of him because he was a man of position. The square-faced superintendent who had spoken so smoothly was probably trying to shield him. But she knew. She was certain. Suppose she told all she knew? Her slim hands clenched till the nails cut her flesh, as she determined that he should pay the price of his crime. There was another justice than the law. If the law failed her—
A medical man or a student of psychology might have found an analysis of her feelings interesting. She had reached the border-line of monomania, yet he would have been a daring man who would have called her absolutely insane. Except to Foyle she had said nothing of the feeling that obsessed her.
With cool deliberation she unlocked a drawer of her escritoire and picked out a dainty little ivory-butted revolver with polished barrel. It was very small—almost a toy. She broke it apart and pushed five cartridges into the chambers. With a furtive glance over her shoulder she placed it in her bosom, and then hastily returned to her chair by the fire and picked up a book. Her eyes skimmed the lines of type mechanically. She read nothing, although she turned the pages.
Presently she flung the book aside and, without ringing for a maid, dressed in an unobtrusive walking costume of deep black. She selected a heavy fur muff and transferred the pistol to its interior. Her fingers closed tightly over the butt. On her way to the door she was stopped by an apologetic footman.
‘There’s a lot of persons from the newspapers waiting out in the streets, Lady Eileen,’ he said.
‘Indeed!’ Her voice was cold and