CHAPTER XXX
THE PACKET IN THE SAFE
It was to a hastily called together gathering of high police officialsthat the three visitors told all they knew. One after another theyrelated their various stories--Chettle of his doings and discoveries atHull, Allerdyke of what had gone on at the hotel, Appleyard of themysterious double identity of the woman who was Miss Slade in one placeand Mrs. Marlow in another. The officials listened quietly andabsorbedly, rarely interrupting the narrators except to ask a searchingquestion. And in the end they talked together apart, after which all wentaway except the man who had kept his hands on the reins from thebeginning. He turned to his visitors with an air of decision.
"Well, of course, there's but one thing to be done, now," he said. "Wemust get a warrant for this woman's arrest at once. We must also get asearch warrant and examine her belongings at that private hotel you'vetold us of, Mr. Appleyard. All that shall be done immediately. But firstI want you to tell me one or two things. What are those two men you spokeof doing--the Gaffneys?"
"One of them, the chauffeur, is hanging about the Pompadour," repliedAppleyard. "The other--Albert--has gone down to Cannon Street to see ifhe can trace the driver of the taxi-cab in which Rayner and Miss Sladedrove away from there last night."
"He'll do no harm in trying to find that out," observed the chief. "ButI should like to see him--I want to ask some questions about the man whojoined those two after dinner at Cannon Street last night, and the otherman whom he saw them take up near Liverpool Street Station. Will he keephimself in touch with your warehouse in Gresham Street?"
"Sure to," answered Appleyard.
"Then just telephone to your people there, and tell them to tell him, ifhe comes in asking for you, to come along and seek you here," said thechief. "I'm afraid I can't spare either you or Mr. Allerdyke, for yourjoint information'll be wanted presently for these warrants, and whenwe've got them I want you to go with me--both of you--to the Pompadour."
"You're going to search?" asked Allerdyke when Appleyard had gone to thetelephone. "You think you may find something--there?"
"There's enough evidence to justify a search," answered the chief."Naturally we want to know all we can. But I should say that if she'smixed up with a gang, and if they've got those jewels through her--asseems uncommonly likely--she'll have been ready for a start at anyminute, and the probability is we'll find nothing to help us. The greatthing, of course, will be to get hold of the woman herself. It's a mostunfortunate thing that Albert Gaffney was stopped from following thatcab, last night--I've no opinion, Mr. Allerdyke, of your amateurdetective as a rule, but from Mr. Appleyard's account of him, this oneseems to have done very well. If we only knew where those two went--"
Appleyard presently came back from the telephone with a face alive withfresh news.
"Albert Gaffney's at the warehouse now," he announced. "I've just had aword with him. He found the taxi-cab driver an hour ago, and he got theinformation he wanted. And I'm afraid it's--nothing!"
"What is it, anyhow?" asked the chief, with a smile. "Perhaps AlbertGaffney doesn't know its value."
"The man drove them, all four, to the corner of Whitechapel Church," saidAppleyard. "There he set them down, and there he left them. That's all."
"Well, that's something, anyway," remarked the chief. "It carries thething on another stage. Now we'll leave that and attend to our ownbusiness."
The Pompadour Private Hotel, like most establishments of its class inBayswater, was a place of peace and of comparative solitude during thegreater part of the day. It was busy enough up to ten o'clock in themorning, and it began to be busy enough again by six o'clock in theevening, but from ten to six more than two-thirds of its denizens werenot to be found within its walls. The business man had gone to the City;the professional women had departed to their offices; nothing of humanitybut a few elderly widows and spinsters, and an old gentleman or two wereleft in the various rooms. Everything, therefore, was quiet enough whenthe chief, accompanied by Chettle, drove up, entered the hall, and askedto see the manager and manageress. As for Allerdyke and Appleyard, whonaturally felt considerable dislike to appearing on this particular sceneof operations, they were a few hundred yards away, walking about justwithin the confines of Kensington Gardens, and waiting with more or lesspatience until the police officials came to them with news of the resultof the search.
The manageress of the hotel, a smart lady who wore dignified black gownsall day long--stuff in the morning, and silk at night as if she were abarrister, gradually advancing in grandeur--gazed at the two callers withsome suspicion as she ushered them into a private room at the back of heroffice. The chief, an irreproachably attired man, might have been an armygentleman, she thought; an instinctive wonder rose in her mind as towhether he was not some elderly man of standing who, accompanied by hisvalet, desired to arrange about a suite of rooms. But his first wordsgave her an unpleasant shock--she felt for all the world as if somebodyhad suddenly turned a shower of ice-cold water on her.
"Now, ma'am," said the chief, "your husband the manager is out, and youare in sole and responsible charge, I understand? Pray don't bealarmed--this is nothing that concerns you or your affairs, personally,and we will endeavor to arrange everything so that you have no annoyance.The fact of the case is, we are police officers from the CriminalInvestigation Department at New Scotland Yard, and I hold two warrants,just granted by a justice of peace, which are in relation to an inmate ofyour hotel."
The manageress dropped into a chair and stared at her visitors.Police officers? Warrants? Justices? It was the first time in her highlyrespectable Bayswater existence that she had ever been brought intocontact with these dreadful things. And--an inmate of her establishment!
"Oh, you must be mistaken!" she exclaimed in horror-stricken accents. "Awarrant?--that means you want to arrest somebody. An inmate--surely noneof my servants--"
"Nothing to do with servants," interrupted the chief. "I said an inmate.Pray don't be alarmed. We want a young lady who is known to you as MissMary Slade."
The manageress got up as quickly as she had sat down. For one moment shegazed at her visitor as if he had demanded her very life--the next herlip curled in scorn.
"Miss Slade!" she exclaimed. "Impossible, sir! Miss Slade is a young ladyof the very highest respectability--she has resided in this hotel forthree years!"
"I am quite prepared to believe that a residence of three months underyour roof is enough to confer an irreproachable character on any one,ma'am," replied the chief with a polite smile. "But the fact remains, Ihave here a warrant for Miss Slade's arrest--never mind on whatcharge--and here another empowering me to search her room or rooms, hertrunk, any property she has in this house. And as time presses I must askyou to give us every facility in the performance of our unpleasant duty.But first a question or two. Miss Slade is not at home?"
"She is not!" replied the manageress emphatically.
"And I think she did not return home last night?" suggested the chief.
"No--she didn't," assented the much perplexed woman. "That's quite true."
"Was that unusual?" asked the chief.
The manageress bit her lip. She did not want to talk, but she had a vagueidea that the law compelled speech.
"Well, I don't know what it's all about," she said, "and I don't want tosay anything that would bring trouble to Miss Slade, but--it was unusual.For two reasons. I've never known Miss Slade to be away from here for anight except when she went for her usual month's holiday, and I'msurprised that she should stop away without giving me word or sending atelephone message."
"Then her absence was unusual," said the chief smiling. "Now, was thereanything else that was unusual, last night--in connection with it?"
The manageress started and looked at her visitor as if she half suspectedhim of possessing the power of seeing through brick walls.
"Well," she said, a little reluctantly, "there was certainly another ofour guests away last night, too--one who
scarcely ever is away, andcertainly never without letting us know that he's going away. And it'squite true he's a very great friend of Miss Slade's--somebody did say,jokingly, this morning, that perhaps they'd run away and got married."
"Ah!" said the chief, with another smile. "I scarcely think Miss Sladewould contract such an important engagement at this moment, she hasevidently much else to think about. But now let us see Miss Slade'sapartment, if you please, and I shall be obliged to you, ma'am, if youwill accompany us."
Not only did the manageress accompany them, but the manager also, whojust then arrived and was filled with proper horror to hear that suchthings were happening. But, being a man, he knew that it is everycitizen's duty to assist the police, and he accepted his fate cheerfully,and bade his wife give the gentlemen every help that lay in her power.After which both conducted the two visitors to Miss Slade's room, andbecame fascinated in acting as spectators.
Miss Slade's apartment was precisely that of any other young lady ofrefined taste. It was a good-sized, roomy apartment, half bedroom, halfsitting-room, and it was bright and gay with books and pictures, andevidences of literary and artistic fancies and leanings. And Chettle,taking a first comprehensive look round, went straight to the mantelpieceand pointed out a certain neatly framed photograph to his superior.
"That's it, sir," he said in a low voice. "That's what the other wastaken from. You know, sir--Mr. James A. Mr. Marshall A. said she said shewas going to have it framed. Odd, ain't it, sir?--if she really isimplicated."
The chief agreed with his man. It was certainly a very odd thing thatMiss Slade, alias Mrs. Marlow, if she really had any concern with themurder of James Allerdyke, should put his photograph in a fairlyexpensive silver frame, and hang it where she could look at it everyday. But, as Chettle sagely remarked, you never can tell, and you nevercan account, and you never know, and meanwhile there was the urgentbusiness on hand.
The business on hand came to nothing. Manager and manageress watched withinterested amazement while the two searchers went through everything inthat room with a thoroughness and rapidity produced by long practice.They were astounded at the deftness with which the heavy-looking Mr.Chettle explored drawers and trunks, and the military-looking chiefpeered into wardrobes and cupboards and examined desks and tables. Butthey were not so much astonished as the two detectives themselves were.For in all that room--always excepting the photograph of JamesAllerdyke--there was not a single object, a scrap of paper, anythingwhatever, which connected the Miss Slade of the Pompadour with the Mrs.Marlow of Fullaway's or bore reference to the matter in hand. Thesearchers finally retired utterly baffled.
"Drawn blank," murmured the chief good-humouredly. He turned to thelookers-on. "I suppose you have nothing of Miss Slade's?" he said."Nothing confined to your care, eh?"
The manageress glanced at her husband, with whom she had kept up awhispered conversation. The manager nodded.
"Better tell them," he said. "No good keeping anything back."
"Ah!" said the chief. "You have something?"
"A small parcel," admitted the manageress, "which she gave me a few daysago to lock up in our safe. She said it contained something valuable, andshe hadn't anything to lock it up in. It's in the safe now."
"I'm afraid we must see it," said the chief.
At the foot of the stairs the hall-porter accosted the party and lookedat the chief narrowly.
"Name of Chettle, sir?" he asked. "You're wanted at ourtelephone--urgent."
The chief motioned to Chettle, who went off with the hall-porter; hehimself followed the manageress into her office. She unlocked a safe,rummaged amongst its contents, and handed him a small square parcel, doneup in brown paper and sealed with black wax. Before he could open it,Chettle returned, serious and puzzled, and whispered to him. Then, withthe shortest of leave-takings, the two officers hurried away from thePompadour, the chief carrying the little parcel tightly grasped in hisright hand.