One of those amazing things which so rarely happen, that fifty-thousand-to-one-against chance, had materialized, and the high chiefs of Scotland Yard grew apoplectic as they asked the why and the wherefore. A man wanted by the police on a charge of murder had walked through a most elaborate cordon. River police had shut off the waterway; detectives and uniform men had formed a circle through which it was impossible to escape; yet the wanted man had, by the oddest chance, passed between two detectives who had mistaken him for somebody they knew.
Whilst Reeder was waiting at Scotland Yard he explained in greater detail the genesis of his suspicion.
“The inquiries I made showed me that Attymar was never seen in daylight, except by his crew, and then only in the fading light. He had established buying agencies in a dozen continental cities, and for years he has been engaged in scientific smuggling. But he could only do that if he undertook the hardships incidental to a bargemaster’s life. He certainly reduced those hardships to a minimum, for, except to collect the contraband which was dumped near his barge, and bring it up to the wharf he had first hired and then bought in the early stages of his activity, he spent few nights out of his comfortable bed.
“I was puzzled to account for many curious happenings. If Clive Desboyne had not taken the trouble to appear in Brockley at almost the hour at which the crime would be discovered--he knew the time the policeman came down Shadwick Lane--my suspicions might not have been aroused. It was a blunder on his part, even with his clever assumption of frankness, to come along and tell me the story of what Ligsey had told him; for as soon as the crime was discovered and I examined the place, I was absolutely certain that Ligsey was dead, or Clive would never have dared to invent the story.
“Desboyne prides himself on being a clever criminal. Like all criminals who have that illusion, he made one or two stupid blunders. When I called at his flat I found the walls covered with photographs, some of which showed him in costume. It was the first intimation I had that he had been on the stage. There was also a photograph of the Zaira when it was going upstream, with the House of Commons in the background. Attached by the painter at the stern was a small canoe-shaped tender, which had been faithfully described to me that day by the boy Hobbs. Desboyne knew he had blundered, but hoped I saw no significance in those two photographs, especially the photograph of him dressed as a coster, with the identical make-up that Attymar wore.
“I started inquiries, and discovered that there had been a C. Desboyne who worked in music-halls, giving imitations of popular characters and making remarkably quick changes on the stage. I met people who remembered him, some who gave me the most intimate details about his beginnings. For ten years he masqueraded as Attymar, sunk all his savings in a barge, rented the wharf and house, and eventually purchased it. He is an extraordinary organizer, and there is no doubt that in the ten years he has been working he has accumulated a pretty large fortune. Nobody, of course, associated the bargemaster with this elegant young man who lived in Park Lane.
“What Ligsey knew about him I don’t know. Personally, I believe that Ligsey knew very little, and could have told us very little. Attymar discovered that Ligsey was communicating with me. Do you remember the letter he sent to me? I told you the envelope had been opened--and so it had, probably by ‘Attymar.’ From that moment Ligsey was doomed. Clive’s vanity was such that he thought he could plan a remarkable crime, throw the suspicion upon the man he hated, and at the same time remove Ligsey, the one danger, from his path. I should think that he had been planning Johnny Southers’ end for about three weeks before the murder. The money that was found in the tool house was planted there on the actual night of the murder, while the money in the garden----”
“Money in what garden?” asked Mason. “The garden was searched but none was found.”
Mr. Reeder coughed.
“At any rate, the money in the tool house was put there to support the suspicion. It was clumsily done. The message on the piece of paper, the old invoices, as well as the story that Desboyne told me with such charming effect, were designed with two objects. One was to cover the disappearance of Attymar and the other to ruin Southers.
“But perhaps his cleverest and most audacious trick was the one he performed this morning. He had me in his boat; he had been waiting for me; probably had watched me from the moment I arrived at Bourne End. Then, wearing his fantastic get-up, and jealous to the very last that I should suspect him, he planned his scheme for my--um--unpleasant exit. I give him credit for his resourcefulness. As a quick change artist he has probably few equals. He could go on to the bank and deceive the boat-builder from Bourne End. Who could believe that he was a little old man with a humped shoulder? He could equally come to my rescue when there was no other way of throwing suspicion from himself. Unfortunately for him, I saw not only that the car had been in the grounds all night, and that his story of having driven down from town was a lie, but--um--certain other things.”
The telephone bell rang, and Mason took up the instrument.
“He went out a quarter of an hour ago--you don’t know where?… It was Desboyne, was it? She didn’t say where she was meeting him?”
Reeder sighed and rose wearily.
“Do I understand that Miss Anna Welford has been allowed to leave her house?” There was a quality of exasperation in his tone, and Mr. Mason could not but agree that it was justified. For the first request that Reeder had made, and that by telephone from Rotherhithe, was that a special guard should be put over Anna Welford. Certain of Mr. Mason’s local subordinates, however, thought that the least likely thing that could happen would be that Desboyne would come into the neighbourhood, and here they were right. Matters had been further complicated by the fact that the girl had gone out that day, and was still out when the police officers called. She had rung up, however, a moment before Desboyne had telephoned, and had given her number, which was transferred to him. Later, when she was called up at the address she had given, it was discovered that she had gone out to meet him; nobody knew where.
“So really,” said Gaylor, “nobody is to blame.”
“Nobody ever is!” snapped Mr. Reeder.
It was Mr. Clive Desboyne’s little conceit that he should arrange to meet the girl at the corner of the Thames Embankment, within fifty yards of Scotland Yard. When she arrived in some hurry, she saw nothing that would suggest that anything unusual had happened, except the good news he had passed to her over the telephone.
“Where is Johnny?” she asked, almost before she was within talking distance, and he was amused.
“I really ought to be very jealous,” he bantered her.
He called a taxicab as he spoke, and ordered the man to drive him to an address in Chiswick.
“Reeder hasn’t been on to you, of course? I’m glad--I wanted to be the first to tell you.”
“Is he released?” she asked, a little impatiently.
“He will be released this evening. I think that is best. The authorities are very chary of demonstrations, and Scotland Yard have particularly asked that he should give no newspaper interviews, but shall spend the night, if possible, out of town. I have arranged with my cousin that he shall stay at his place till to-morrow.”
It all seemed very feasible, and when of his own accord he stopped the cab and, getting out to telephone, returned to tell her that he had ’phoned her father that she would not be back before eight, the thought of his disinterestedness aroused a warm little glow of friendship towards him.
“I have been besieged by reporters myself, and I’m rather anxious to avoid them. These damned papers will do anything for a sensation.”
The swift express van of one of these offending newspapers passed the taxi at that moment. On its back doors was posted a placard.
“ALLEGED MURDERER’S DARING ESCAPE.”
Later the girl saw another newspaper poster.
“POLICE OF METROPOLIS SEARCHING FOR MURDERER.”
The taxi drove up a side street, and, as he tapped on the window, stopped. There was a garage a little further along, and, leaving Anna, he went inside and came out in a few moments with a small closed coupe.
“I keep this here in case of emergency,” he explained to her. “One never knows when one might need a spare car.”
Exactly why he should need a spare car in Chiswick he did not attempt to explain.
Avoiding the Great West Road, he took the longer route through Brentford. Rain was falling heavily by the time they reached Hounslow.
She was so grateful to him for all the services he had rendered, and which, though she was unconscious of the fact, he had particularized, that she did not resist his suggestion that they should go on to Oxford. She wondered why until they were on the outskirts of the town, and then he explained with a little smile that Johnny had been transferred to Oxford Gaol that morning.
“I kept this as a surprise for you,” he said. “Only about three people in London know, and I was most anxious that you should not tell.”
They went into a teashop on the other side of the city, and she was puzzled why he should prefer this rather poverty-stricken little café to an hotel, but thought it was an act of consideration on his part--part of the general scheme for avoiding reporters. They lingered over tea until she grew a little restless.
“We’ll go to the prison and make inquiries,” he told her.
Actually they did go to the prison, and he descended and rang the bell. When he came back he was grinning ruefully.
“He was released half an hour ago. My cousin’s car picked him up. We can go on.”
It was getting dark now and the rain continued to fall steadily. They took another route towards London, passed through a little town which she thought she recognized as Marlow, turned abruptly from the main road, and as abruptly again up a dark and neglected carriage drive. She had a glimpse of the sheen of a stagnant backwater on her left, and then the car drew up before a forbidding looking door, and, stepping down, Clive Desboyne opened the door with his key.
“Here we are,” he said pleasantly, gave her his hand, and, before she realized what had happened, she was in a gloomy hall smelling of damp and decay.
The door thundered close behind her.
“Where are we… this isn’t the place,” she said tremulously, and at that moment all her old suspicions, all her old fears of the man returned.
“It is quite the place,” he said.
From the pocket of his mackintosh he took an electric lamp and switched it on. The house was furnished, if rotting carpets and dust-covered chairs meant anything. He held her firmly by the arm, walked her along the passage, then, opening a door, pushed her inside. She thought there was no window, but found afterwards that it was shuttered.
The room was fairly clean; there was a bed, a table and a small oil stove. On a sideboard were a number of packets of foodstuffs.
“Keep quiet and don’t make a fuss,” he said.
Striking a match, he lit a paraffin lamp that stood on the table.
“What does this mean?” she asked. Her face was white and haggard.
He did not answer immediately, and then:
“I’m very fond of you--that’s what it means. I shall probably be hanged in about six weeks’ time, and there’s a wise old saying that you might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb. You for the moment are the lamb.”
The bright, shining eyes were fixed on hers. She almost swooned with horror.
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to murder you or cut your throat or do any of the things I tried to do to Mr. Reeder this morning--oh, yes, I was the fantastical gentleman on the Zaira. The whole thing happened a few yards away from where you’re standing. Now, Anna, you’re going to be very sensible, my sweet--there’s nobody within five miles of here who is at all concerned----”
The hinges of the door were rusty: they squeaked when it was moved. They squeaked now. Clive Desboyne turned in a flash, fumbling under mackintosh and coat.
“Don’t move,” said Mr. Reeder gently.
It was his conventional admonition.
“And put up your hands. I shall certainly shoot if you do not. You’re a murderer--I could forgive you that. You’re a liar--that, to a man of my high moral code, is unpardonable.”
The dozen detectives who had been waiting for three hours in this dank house came crowding into the room, and snapped irons on the wrists of the white-faced man.
“See that they fit,” said Mr. Reeder pleasantly. “I had a pair this morning which were grossly over-size.”
