CHAPTER IX.
"DEAD MAN'S POINT."
Asthe murder of Black Sam plays no further part in this story, I do not propose to describe in detail the ghastly scene which presented itself when, in company with the police officer, I entered the death chamber.
Sensational enough, and more than enough, this narrative of the hunting down of a master-criminal must necessarily be, without the gratuitous description of scenes—no matter how impressive—which have no direct bearing upon my story. Of the murder of Black Sam it was necessary to tell as much as I have told, if the reader is to follow, step by step, my first meeting, and my final struggle with, the man around whom the narrative centres. When to what I have already related, I add that, whatever the motive for the crime, the subsequent investigation established the fact that the motive was at least not robbery, we may dismiss the murder of Black Sam from memory, and pass on to my efforts to getupon the trail of the man who was the instigator of the crime—the man whose acquaintance I had so eventfully, if casually, made on the occasion of my visit to the opium den.
My first step must, of course, be to get into communication with Grant. Until I had seen him, and learnt his views, I did not feel free seriously to enter upon the case at all. That he already had it in hand, I had been told by New Scotland Yard, and that he was making progress was clear from the fact that, disguised as a Chinaman, he had contrived to enter the meeting-place of the gang, possibly even to overhear some of their plans. It is not likely that, without very strong actual or presumptive evidence of their guilt, he would have bidden me make my way to the nearest police station, and ask, in his name, that a body of men be sent to make prisoners of the entire gang. Grant was a private detective, not a New Scotland Yard man; but he was perhaps the only private detective whom New Scotland Yard can be said to have recognised. He had been of such frequent assistance to the chiefs of the Criminal Investigation Department, and his relationswith them were so friendly, that his standing had come to be in a sense semi-official, and no reasonable request by him was likely to be refused.
If, on communicating with him, I found that he had, as seemed probable, the case more or less complete, I should, of course, recognise that his was the prior right, and that any interference on my part, except by his invitation or his permission, would be an impertinence. If, however, as I hoped, he had still links to fill in, before completing the chain, my intention was to ask him to allow me to work in connection with him. It has been said by a great thinker that "the things that are for you, gravitate towards you," and judging by the way in which the Fates had involved me—as by some law of gravitation—into the matter of the opium den mystery, the working out of that mystery to its unravelment seemed to be my destiny.
In the meantime, where was Grant? I had left him in the den, disguised as a Chinaman, his identity apparently unsuspected even by the Dumpling.
It is, of course, within the bounds of possibility that the Dumpling had all thetime known perfectly well that my story of having come to the den merely in search of "copy" was likely to be true, and that the supposed Chinaman upstairs, smoking opium, was in reality Detective Grant. I say, it is within the bounds of possibility that it is so, but in my own mind I was entirely convinced that the identity of Grant with the Chinaman was quite unsuspected. If that were so, the fact that I had made good my escape from the den would cause—and evidently had caused—something like a panic among the members of the gang. It was no doubt because they believed me to be Grant, and knew me to be uninjured and at large, that, within an hour or two of my escape, they had cleared out of the den, taking all their effects with them.
In the meantime—to repeat the question I have already put—where was Grant? Had he, after I had gone that evening, said or done anything to arouse suspicion, and been murdered by the Dumpling's orders? Or had he been allowed to depart, unsuspected and unharmed? And was his present mysterious disappearance due to the fact that he had followed up the gang after the flight, and was still engaged in watchingtheir movements and in completing the chain of evidence against them? For that he had—either of his own, or of somebody else's choosing—vanished, and left no trace behind, was absolutely certain. I had gone straight from the scene of the negro's murder to the nearest post office, and had wired to Grant's chambers in Adelphi Terrace, asking for an appointment, and that a reply be sent immediately to the Savage Club, where I intended to lunch. Arrived at the club I found Grant's man-servant awaiting me. He said that his master had gone out the previous morning, and had neither returned nor sent a message. There was, of course, nothing unusual in this, for a detective's goings and comings are necessarily uncertain; but, remembering the circumstances under which I had last seen my friend, I could not help feeling uneasy.
In a restless mood I strolled out of the club and walked City-wards, along the Embankment. From the headquarters of an evening newspaper, in the neighbourhood of Tudor Street, the newsboys were rushing, shouting as they ran, and making of the place a very Babel with their bellowings.
"'Ere y'are, sir! Terrible river tragedy! Three bodies found in the Thames this morning!"
Purchasing a paper from the nearest boy, I scanned it eagerly, anxiously. Beyond a paragraph recording the bare fact that the bodies of three men, supposed to be sailors, had been found at Dead Man's Point, Canvey Island, the spot where the corpses of those drowned in the Thames are sometimes washed ashore, there was little to satisfy my curiosity. I had not walked a score of yards before a fresh bevy of newsboys burst from another newspaper distributing centre.
"Spesh'l!" they yelled. "Great river mystery! Three persons drowned in the Thames! Mysterious circumstances! Suspected murder! 'Ere y'are, Sir! Spesh'l! Latest particulars!"
Again I purchased a paper, to find, in the stop-press portion of the print, the following paragraph:
"THE GREAT RIVER MYSTERY."The bodies have been removed to 'The Lobster Smack Inn,' Hole Haven, Canvey Island, to await identification."
"THE GREAT RIVER MYSTERY.
"The bodies have been removed to 'The Lobster Smack Inn,' Hole Haven, Canvey Island, to await identification."
In my present mood, action of some sortwas imperative, and as a cab was passing, I hailed it, and calling out "Fenchurch Street Station—fast as you can," jumped in.
At Fenchurch I took the first train to Benfleet, ferrying over the creek which at high tide separates Canvey from the mainland, and making my way across the island to the "Lobster Smack" at Hole Haven, where I asked to be allowed to see the bodies.
They were lying in an outhouse, side by side, each figure decently covered by a cloth. The first to be exposed I recognised without surprise, and at a glance, as that of the hapless Parker. He was dressed just as he had been when I last saw him, and with the handcuffs still on his wrists.
The second body was, to the best of my belief, that of his late associate, Smudgy. I could not swear to the features, for Smudgy had been stationed at the top of the staircase while I was in the opium den, and I had kept too close an eye upon the Dumpling, and the man who had remained with him in the room, to pay much attention to what was going on outside. Unless I was very much mistaken, however, the shabby greeny-fawn dust coat and the frayed shepherds' plaid trousers were the same which I hadseen upon one of the two men who had remained on guard at the head of the stairs, and had afterwards been despatched, in company with Parker, to cut off my retreat at the back of the house. When I had last seen him, he had been in full flight across the moon-lit space of waste land, and in a direction away from the river. Whether he was dead or alive when he got into the water, or how he came to be there at all, I had no means of knowing, and could only conjecture that, finding he had been duped, and fearing the Dumpling's anger on hearing of my escape, Smudgy had returned to the river in search of myself and Parker, and had been accidentally drowned. The third body was next uncovered. Apparently the corpse, in its passage down the river, had been caught by the screw of a passing steamer, and so cut and crushed as to be unrecognisable. The bones of all the limbs were twisted and broken, the body beaten almost into a pulp, and the whole of the face sliced off, as if by a stroke of the steamer's swiftly revolving screw.
Then, for the first and, I hope, last time in my life, I fainted—fainted from sheer horror, for around the otherwise naked bodywas a leather belt from which a ragged inch of what had once been trousering still clung. Looking more closely, I saw that it was of blue silk, with tiny zigzagged threads of silver interwoven. Not many hours ago I had seen a man who, to my positive knowledge, always wore a leather belt (he had at one time been a sailor) around his waist. He had then been clad in Chinese trousering of the identical pattern—blue silk with a tiny zigzagged thread of interwoven silver. That man was my unhappy friend, Robert Grant, and, looking again at the body, I saw that some sort of yellow dye had recently been used to stain the face and hands and neck.