CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE MIRANDOLET THEORY
The silence that followed on this extraordinary exclamation wassuddenly broken: the mortuary keeper, who had been advancing towards adoor at the side of the room, dropped a bunch of keys. The strangemetallic sound of their falling roused Ayscough, who had started aside,and was staring, open-mouthed, at Mirandolet's waving hands. He caughtthe doctor by the arm.
"What on earth do you mean?" he growled. "Speak man--what is it?"
Mirandolet suddenly laughed.
"What is it?" he exclaimed. "Precisely what I said, in plain language!That fellow has, of course, gone off with the diamond--worth eightythousand pounds! Your card!--Oh, man, man, whatever have you beendoing? Be quick!--who is this Japanese?--how came he by your card?Quick, I say!--if you want to be after him!"
"Hanged if I know what this means!" muttered Ayscough. "As to who heis--if he's the fellow I gave a card to, he's a young Japanese medicalstudent, one Yada, that was a friend of those Chinese--I called on himtonight, with Rubinstein, to see if we could pick up a bit ofinformation. Of course, I sent in my professional card to him. But--wesaw him set off to the East End!"
"Bah!" laughed Mirandolet. "He has--what you call done you brown, myfriend! He came--here! And he has got away--got a good start--with thatdiamond in his pocket!"
"What the devil do you mean by that?" said Ayscough, hotly. "Diamond!Diamond! Where should he find the diamond--here? In a deadhouse? Whatare you talking about?"
Mirandolet laughed again, and giving the detective a look that was verylike one of pitying contempt, turned to the amazed mortuary keeper.
"Show us that dead man!" he said.
The mortuary keeper, who had allowed his keys to lie on the floorduring this strange scene, picked them up, and selecting one, opened,and threw back the door by which he was standing. He turned on thelight in the mortuary chamber, and Mirandolet strode in, with Ayscough,sullen and wondering, at his heels.
Chen Li lay where the detective had last seen him, still and rigid, thesheet drawn carefully over his yellow face. Without a word Mirandoletdrew that sheet aside, and motioning his companion to draw nearer,pointed to a skull-cap of thin blue silk which fitted over theChinaman's head.
"You see that!" he whispered. "You know what's beneath it!--somethingthat no true Chinaman ever parts with, even if he does come to Europe,and does wear English dress and English headgear--his pigtail! Lookhere!"
He quietly moved the skull-cap, and showed the two astonished men acarefully-coiled mass of black hair, wound round and round the back ofthe head. And into it he slipped his own long, thin fingers--to drawthem out again with an exclamation which indicated satisfaction withhis own convictions.
"Just as I said," he remarked. "Gone! Mr. Detective--that's where ChenLi hid the diamond--and that Japanese man has got it. And now--you'dbetter be after him--half-an-hour's start to him is as good as a week'swould be to you."
He drew the sheet over the dead face and strode out, and Ayscoughfollowed, angry, mystified, and by no means convinced.
"Look here!" he said, as they reached the ante-room; "that's all verywell, Dr. Mirandolet, but it's only supposition on your part!"
"Supposition that you'll find to be absolute truth, my good friend!"retorted Mirandolet, calmly. "I know the Chinese--better than youthink. As soon as I heard of this affair tonight, I came to you to putyou up to the Chinese trick of secreting things of value in theirpigtails--it did not occur to me that the diamond might be there inthis case, but I thought you would probably find something. But when wereached this mortuary, and I heard that a Japanese had been here,presenting your card when he had no business to present it, I guessedimmediately what had happened--and now that you tell me that you toldhim all about this affair, well--I am certain of my assertion. Mr.Detective--go after the diamond!"
He turned as if to leave the place, and Ayscough followed.
"He mayn't been after the diamond at all!" he said, still resentful andincredulous. "Is it very likely he'd think it to be in that dead chap'spigtail when the other man's missing? It's Chang that's got thatdiamond--not Chen."
"All right, my friend!" replied Mirandolet. "Your wisdom is superior tomine, no doubt. So--I wish you good-night!"
He strode out of the place and turned sharply up the street, andAyscough, after a growl or two, went back to the mortuary keeper.
"How long was that Jap in there?" he asked, nodding at the deathchamber.
"Not a minute, Mr. Ayscough!" replied the man. "In and out again, asyou might say."
"Did he say anything when he came out?" enquired the detective.
"He did--two words," answered the keeper. "He said, 'That's he!' andwalked straight out, and into his car."
"And when he came he told you I'd sent him?" demanded Ayscough.
"Just that--and showed me your card," assented the man. "Of course, I'dno reason to doubt his word."
"Look here, George!" said Ayscough, "you keep this to yourself! Don'tsay anything to any of our folks if they come in. I don't half believewhat that doctor said just now--but I'll make an enquiry or two. Mum'sthe word, meanwhile. You understand, George?"
George answered that he understood very well, and Ayscough presentlyleft him. Outside, in the light of the lamp set over the entrance tothe mortuary, he pulled out his watch. Twelve o'clock--midnight. Andsomewhere, that cursed young Jap was fleeing away through the Londonstreets--having cheated him, Ayscough, at his own game!
He had already reckoned things up in connection with Yada. Yada hadbeen having him--even as Melky Rubinstein had suspected andsuggested--all through that conversation at Gower Street. Probably,Yada, from his window in the drawing-room floor of his lodging-house,had watched him and Melky slip across the street and hide behind thehoarding opposite. And then Yada had gone out, knowing he was to befollowed, and had tricked them beautifully, getting into an undergroundtrain going east, and, in all certainty, getting out again at the nextstation, chartering a cab, and returning west--with Ayscough's card inhis pocket.
But Ayscough knew one useful thing--he had memorized the letters andnumbers of the taxi-cab in which Yada had sped by him and Mirandolet,L.C. 2571--he had kept repeating that over and over. Now he took outhis note-book and jotted it down--and that done he set off to thepolice-station, intent first of all on getting in touch with NewScotland Yard by means of the telephone.
Ayscough, like most men of his calling in London, had a considerableamount of general knowledge of things and affairs, and he summoned itto his aid in this instance. He knew that if the Japanese really hadbecome possessed of the orange and yellow diamond (of whichsupposition, in spite of Mirandolet's positive convictions, he was verysceptical) he would most certainly make for escape. He would be off tothe Continent, hot foot. Now, Ayscough had a good acquaintance with theContinental train services--some hours must elapse before Yada couldpossibly get a train for Dover, or Folkstone, or Newhaven, or theshortest way across, or to any other ports such as Harwich orSouthampton, by a longer route. Obviously, the first thing to do was tohave the stations at Victoria, and Charing Cross, and Holborn Viaduct,and London Bridge carefully watched for Yada. And for two weary hoursin the middle of the night he was continuously at work on thetelephone, giving instructions and descriptions, and makingarrangements to spread a net out of which the supposed fugitive couldnot escape.
And when all that was at last satisfactorily arranged, Ayscough wasconscious that it might be for nothing. He might be on a wrong trackaltogether--due to the suspicions and assertions of that queer man,Mirandolet. There might be some mystery--in Ayscough's opinion therealways was mystery wherever Chinese or Japanese or Hindus wereconcerned. Yada might have some good reason for wishing to see ChenLi's dead body, and have taken advantage of the detective's card tovisit it. This extraordinary conduct might be explained. But meanwhileAyscough could not afford to neglect a chance, and tired as he was, heset out to find the driver of the taxicab whose number he had carefullyset
down in his notebook.
There was little difficulty in this stage of the proceedings; it wasmerely a question of time, of visiting a central office and finding theman's name and address. By six o'clock in the morning Ayscough was at asmall house in a shabby street in Kentish Town, interviewing a womanwho had just risen to light her fire, and was surlily averse to callingup a husband, who, she said, had not been in bed until nearly four. Shewas not any more pleased when Ayscough informed her of his professionalstatus--but the man was fetched down.
"You drove a foreigner--a Japanese--to the mortuary in Paddington lastnight?" said Ayscough, plunging straight into business, after tellingthe man who he was. "I saw him--just a glimpse of him--in your cab, andI took your number. Now, where did you first pick him up?"
"Outside the Underground, at King's Cross," replied the driver promptly.
This was precisely what Ayscough had expected; so far, so good; his ownprescience was proving sure.
"Anything wrong, mister?" asked the driver.
"There may be," said Ayscough. "Well--you picked him up there, anddrove him straight to the mortuary?"
"No--I didn't," said the man. "We made a call first. Euston. He went inthere, and, I should say, went to the left luggage office, 'cause hecame back again with a small suit-case--just a little 'un. Then we wenton to that mortuary."
Euston! A small suit-case! More facts--Ayscough made notes of them.
"Well," he said, "and when you drove away from the mortuary, where didyou go then?"
"Oxford Circus," answered the driver, "set him down--his orders--rightopposite the Tube Station--t'other side of the street."
"Did you see which way he went--then?" enquired Ayscough.
"I did. Straight along Oxford Street--Tottenham Court Road way," saidthe driver, "carrying his suitcase--which it was, as I say, on'y alittle 'un--and walking very fast. Last I see of him was that, guv'nor."
Ayscough went away and got back to more pretentious regions. He wasdead tired and weary with his night's work, and glad to drop in at anearly-opened coffee-shop and get some breakfast. While he ate and dranka boy came in with the first editions of the newspapers. Ayscoughpicked one up--and immediately saw staring headlines:--
THE PADDINGTON MYSTERIES. NEW AND STARTLING FEATURES. DIAMOND WORTHL80,000 BEING LOOKED FOR MURDER IN MAIDA VALE
Ayscough laid down the paper and smiled. Levendale--if not dead--couldscarcely fail to see that!