CHAPTER XVINSPECTOR KENLY FINDS A CLUE
Inspector Kenly had good cause for regretting the departure of the man whose arrival in his home had been the source of so much annoyance to him, for Cornelius Jessel had become possessed of professional interest to him. His enquiries into the leakage of information contained in the Foreign Office despatches had at last borne fruit. He had learned that Lynton Hora had been a large speculator for the fall which had taken place upon the publication of the stolen information, and that the Commandatore had netted at least one hundred thousand pounds as the result. It had been easy to identify the successful speculator with the pseudo-clergyman who had called upon Cornelius Jessel. The detective had counted a great deal upon obtaining useful information about Hora from his lodger.
But the part Hora played in the Stock Exchange panic was not the only item of information which had resulted from his investigations. He had found that a certain Guy Marven had also speculated successfully. The fact that the name was identical with that of the King's Messenger who had carried the de-coded despatch from London to Sandringham did not lead him to suspect that Captain Marven could be the culprit. To his mind the use of the name pointed in anotherdirection altogether. "If the Captain had been in it," he argued, "he would have taken precious good care that his name would never have appeared. It looks as if whoever did the job has used Marven's name in order to throw suspicion upon him."
Deprived of his hope of obtaining any information from Jessel, Inspector Kenly bethought himself of his old friend, the hall porter at Westminster Mansions. He began to haunt the place. Indeed, the revival of interest in his old comrade was quite touching. However, the old friend had lived long enough to understand that something more than interest in himself was at work, when a busy man like Inspector Kenly should happen to be passing twice in one day, and on each occasion have a whole hour to spend in gossip.
He told the Inspector so at last.
Kenly laughed. "You're quite right," he said, "there's not the slightest use in trying to hoodwink an old hand like you. Only, you know what it is in the Yard, we are not allowed to take our closest friends into our confidence. I only wish I could tell a man of your intelligence what I'm after." He sighed, as if such a conversation would have been a heartfelt relief.
The hall porter was flattered. "At least you can tell me who it is you are enquiring about?" he said.
"I don't know that I ought to do so," replied Kenly dubiously. "But," he added with the air of a man making up his mind to impart a tremendous secret, "I'll risk it, Dwyer. I know that you will treat anything I say as strictly confidential."
"Of course, you may. I hope you know me well enough for that," replied Dwyer.
"It's those Hora people on the top floor that I am anxious to find out something about," he remarked.
"The Horas," said the man, and a disappointed look spread over his face. "There can't be anything against them; they are just about the best tenants we've got in the place, been here ten years, too. Now, if you'd said the Lorimers, or that foxy little chap Griddle, I could have understood it."
"Still it is all about the Horas that I want to know," persisted Kenly. "Tell me all about them, Dwyer."
The hall porter did so, and was surprised himself to learn how little he knew about them. There was only one scrap of information which promised to be of any service to the detective. His ears caught the name of Guy. He remembered that Guy Marven had been the name of the other operator.
"The son is named Guy?" he asked. "Does he live at home?"
"Just left us," was the reply. "Gone to live in the Albany on his own account. Let me see; it was three—" He calculated the weeks on his fingers. "No, four weeks ago."
Inspector Kenly perceived that the date coincided with that of the speculation.
He thanked his old comrade, and strolled thoughtfully across the park and dropped into Vine Street Police Station, where he was cordially welcomed by the detective inspector on duty.
With him Kenly did not waste any time in preliminaries. When he had discussed one or two matters of official interest, he broached his object. "I want to find out something about one of the tenants in the Albany,"he remarked. "Are any of your people here friendly with the man at the gate?"
"Isn't your card enough?" suggested the local detective.
"No," said Kenly. "It's a very delicate matter. I don't want to appear to be making any especial enquiries."
"I had better come along with you myself, then," was the prompt response. "I know the old chap pretty well, and I don't think he will try to pull my leg, as he usually does when people ask him questions."
"That sort of man, is he?" asked Kenly, as they left the police station in company.
"Fly as they make 'em," was the response. "There are usually more than one or two young bloods living there, and when they don't pay up and the writ-men are after them, it takes a smart man to keep them out. Yet, since the present porter has been there, not a writ has been served in the place."
He proceeded to give divers illustrations of the gate-keeper's smartness until they arrived at the gate, where Kenly received the introduction he desired. The inspector retired with his new acquaintance into the little hutch with the big glass window where the gate-keeper kept watch during his hours of duty, and proceeded to put questions. He gave no hint of the object he had in view. In fact, he invented a purely fictitious reason to account for his enquiries, for, when professionally engaged, the detective had the very faintest respect for the truth, though in private life he would have felt horribly ashamed of the slightest deviation from exact fact. Hedeclared that he suspected a man in Hora's employ of being concerned in some undefined criminal practices.
"Which man? The old one or the new?" asked the gate-keeper promptly.
"The new one," answered Kenly boldly.
"Not surprised to hear it at all," was the answer. "But if you had said the last man, I could have soon told you you were on the wrong track, for, saving the fact that he would lift his elbow too frequently, there was not a scrap of vice in poor James Under."
"I suppose that's why he left?" hazarded Kenly.
"Yes," said the porter. "I wasn't on the gate that night, or I would have seen that he didn't make a fool of himself. He came home, so he told me, blind to the world, went up to Mr. Hora's chambers, and when, in answer to his ring, his boss opened the door, he tumbled down inside. So next morning off he went."
"Poor chap," said the Inspector. "Do you know where he's to be found. I might put something in his way."
The gate-keeper searched amongst a number of scraps of paper, unearthing one which had an address scribbled upon it. "He left it with me in case I should hear of a berth going," he explained.
"I'll look him up when I have time," said Kenly. He was copying the address into his note-book, when the gate-keeper nudged his arm.
"Here's the new man," he whispered.
Inspector Kenly looked up, and his surprise was expressed in his strongest exclamation.
"By Henry!" he remarked.
Cornelius Jessel glided through the gate, a model ofsmiling decorum. Inspector Kenly wheeled round promptly so that his back was towards the window, nor did he turn again until Jessel's footsteps were no longer audible.
"So he is your man?" remarked the gate-keeper curiously.
"He most certainly is my man," replied the detective emphatically.
"From the first time I set eyes on him," declared the porter, "I knew he was a criminal. What has he been doing? I shouldn't be surprised if it was murder. He walks for all the world like a poisoner."
Inspector Kenly laughed. "At present I cannot say that he is guilty of anything," he remarked. "But I am glad to know that he is somewhere handy when I want to lay my hand upon him. By the way," he added drily, "has your observation of the gait of poisoners been extensive?"
The porter seemed puzzled.
"That's the only gate I know anything about," he answered, nodding his head towards the entrance.
"Inspector Kenly smiled." "The gait—the walk of poisoners," he remarked.
"Oh," said the porter, and a hearty guffaw rolled up from beneath his capacious waistcoat. "If you'd have spoken in plain English I should have understood you. But these newfangled words——"
Inspector Kenly did not explain. He set himself to amuse his new acquaintance, and succeeded so well that, when an hour later he declared that he must depart, he received a cordial invitation to drop into the hutch whenever he might be passing. He had succeeded betterthan he had expected; not only had he discovered that his late lodger was in Guy Hora's employment, but he had also been favoured with the opportunity of making acquaintance with Guy's features, for, while he had been chatting with the porter, Guy had driven up to the gate and entered the building.
The detective began to feel that he had in his hands the threads which, when unravelled, might lead him to some important discovery. The unravelling might require infinite patience, but he was inured to that. There was no detail too small for him to overlook. He went straight from the Albany to the humble lodging in Soho, which was Under's address. He needed all his philosophy. Under was not at home. Kenly waited for him, waited for six hours until the valet came home, walking unsteadily, and with a vacant look in his eye. The detective did not speak to him. When the door closed on him he made his own way homewards to Woodbine Cottage.
He was very tired when he laid his head on the pillow, but at eight o'clock the next morning he was enquiring again for Under, and by aid of his most persuasive smile succeeded in winning his way to the room where the valet still lay, slumbering heavily.
"Here, wake up, old fellow," the detective shouted cheerily as he closed the door, for the benefit of the landlady who had shown him up to the room.
Under merely moved uneasily. A blind, with the grime of years upon it left the room shrouded in gloom. Kenly drew it up, and opened the window. It was a bare apartment. Grimy bed, a single chair, a cheap washstand in painted wood with a cracked basin standingupon it, a battered tin box, and a ragged strip of carpet formed the whole of the furniture.
Under stirred as the light of day fell on his face. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes drowsily. Then he caught sight of his visitor and rubbed his eyes again.
"I say, look here," he remarked, when he had come to the conclusion that he was not dreaming. "This is my room, you know."
"That's exactly the reason why I am here," remarked Kenly pleasantly.
Under stared more fixedly than before, and as Kenly seemed quite unmoved he remarked:
"Well, really, it is a most awful cheek to come into another man's room without being asked."
"Without being asked," said Kenly pleasantly. "You must have a very bad memory, old chap, for your very last words yesterday evening were, 'Don't be a minute later than eight o'clock.'"
"Good Lord!" said Under, "I must have been drunk."
"Not a bit of it," replied Kenly. "You looked as sober as if you had been drinking eight lemon-squashes one after the other."
"I swear I never did that in my life," said the valet fervently.
He was wide awake by this time, and he sat bolt upright on the bed.
"No, I don't suppose you did last night, or you would not have gone to bed in your boots," remarked Kenly. "But all the same, you promised to tell me some interesting facts about your late employer, Mr. Guy Hora, and here I am."
Under stared more than ever. His eyes looked as if they would pop out of his head.
"I—told—you—that I could tell you something about Mr. Hora?" he gasped.
"That's what I have come for," replied the detective. The valet's amazement found expression at last.
"Who the devil are you?" he asked, "for I'll be hanged if I ever saw you in my life before."
The Inspector was enjoying his game of bluff immensely; he played his best card.
"Detective Inspector Kenly of Scotland Yard," he answered.
At the information Under's mouth opened as wide as his eyes.
But the detective observed that there was no tinge of fear in his amazement.
"Well, that is a rum go," remarked the valet, when he recovered his speech.
"It most certainly is," replied Kenly. "You tell me that you are in a position to give me important information, you invite me to call, and then you declare that you have entirely forgotten not only your promise but the man you made it to."
"But, I couldn't have made any such promise," declared the valet earnestly, "for I have absolutely nothing to tell. A nicer gentleman I've never had anything to do with than Mr. Hora, and as for knowing anything which could be of interest to the police——" An idea came into his brain. "Look here," he said, "I suppose Mr. Hora hasn't sent you here to see if I took anything which doesn't belong to me, because, if so, he's mistaken. I admit I do take a drop too much now and again, thoughI have fought hard against my little failing, but nobody's ever said that James Under wasn't honest."
There was an emotional throb in the valet's voice, and Kenly hastened to reassure him.
"No," he said. "My call was not in consequence of any charge which has been made against you. It is entirely prompted by a desire to know something of Mr. Guy Hora."
"But I've nothing to tell," the valet asseverated again.
Kenly appeared not to hear him. "Look here, Under," he said, "your mind is wool-gathering this morning. You just have a wash to freshen you up, and then we'll go out and get some breakfast together, and have a quiet chat."
The valet found it impossible to combat Kenly's persistence. He did as he was bidden. He brushed his clothes, he arrayed himself in a clean collar, and he meekly preceded the detective down the stairs, and walked by his side until they arrived at a tea-shop. But there he paused. "Really, I couldn't look at food this morning," he said.
Kenly saw that he was speaking the truth; the man's shaking hands told their own tale.
"After you've had a pick-me-up, you will be able to look your grub in the face," he remarked.
He marched his man off to a chemist's shop, ordered the draught, saw that his patient swallowed it to the last drop, and brought him back again to the tea-shop. He was quite ready for his own breakfast by this time, and he brought a healthy appetite to the demolition of the eggs and bacon which he ordered. Under, also, after he had swallowed a couple of cups of tea, found that hisappetite had returned. He was morally and physically a better man when the meal was done.
But while it was in progress they talked, or, at least, Kenly asked questions and Under answered them. The detective learned a great deal during that conversation of Guy's habits and of Guy's friends. There was ample justification to his mind for the ruse he had employed, when he heard the one fact that Guy was a frequent visitor at the house of the Marvens. To his mind it seemed that the threads which he held in his hand were unravelling themselves. He was compelled to listen to a full account of the eventful evening which had led up to Under's dismissal. Though amused, he was not particularly attentive until the valet mentioned the name of his companion. When he heard that Cornelius Jessel had been the tempter, he could barely restrain his eagerness to obtain full particulars. Under was wax in his hands. Kenly learned everything that the valet could tell him of the companion of that disastrous evening. He made no comment. The threads which seemed almost to be coming loose had of a sudden twisted themselves into an inextricable knot. He took leave of Under shortly afterwards, and as he walked away he muttered to himself, "By Henry! if I can make head or tail of the confounded affair."
Still, he had learned enough to know that Lynton Hora and Guy Hora and Cornelius Jessel were all in some way concerned. Moreover, he began to suspect that a possibility which he had eliminated from his reckoning was within the bounds of credibility. He began to see that his enquiries must include the goings and the comings and the doings of Captain Marven.