The Grell Mystery Part 31

The paper trembled in Fairfield's hands, and it was only the reminder of the servant that the messenger was waiting that brought him sharply out of his daze.

"Yes, yes. Show him in. And, Roberts, while I am engaged I don't want to be disturbed by anybody or anything. Don't forget that."

If Roberts had not been so well trained it was possible that he might have shown surprise at his master's order. For through the door he held open there shambled an ungainly figure of a man, hunchbacked, with a week's growth of beard about his chin, and wearing heavy, patched boots, corduroys, a shabby jacket and a bright blue m.u.f.fler. His cap he twisted nervously in gnarled, dirty hands as he stood waiting just inside the room till he was certain that the servant had retired out of hearing.

Then, with a swift movement, he locked the door, straightened himself out, and strode with outstretched hand to where Fairfield stood, stony-faced and impa.s.sive. The baronet deliberately put his hands behind him, and the other halted suddenly.

"Fairfield!"

Then it was that the impa.s.sivity of Sir Ralph vanished. He gripped his visitor by the arm, almost shaking him in a gust of quick, nervous pa.s.sion.

"You fool--you d.a.m.ned fool! Why have you come here? If they catch you, you will be hanged. Do you know that? For all I know the place is watched. They may have seen you come in. Perhaps the place is surrounded now."

"I'll risk it," said the other coolly, drawing a chair up to the table.

"I've got to risk something. But I don't think they saw me come in. I don't think they'll catch me, and if they do I don't think they'll hang me. What do you think of that, Fairfield?"

There was the old languid mockery in his voice, but his friend, looking at him closely, could see that the face had become a trifle thinner, that beneath the dirt that begrimed it there were haggard traces that betrayed worry and sleeplessness. Fairfield had thought much of Robert Grell lately, but he had never dreamed that the hunted man would come to him--come to him in broad daylight, without a word of warning. Did Grell know that he was in touch with the police? Had he come, a driven, desperate man, to fling reproaches at the friend who had joined in the hunt? That was unlikely. Grell, murderer or not, was not that type. He did nothing without a reason. He was, Fairfield reflected, a murderer--a murderer who had not dared stay to face the consequences of his deed.

That surely severed all claims, whatever their old friendship might have been.

"What do you want?" he asked, with a hard note in his voice. "Why have you come to me?"

The man in the chair lifted his shoulders.

"That is fairly obvious. I want you to do what, if our situations were reversed, I would do for you. I want money. If you can get me a few hundreds I shall be all right."

A spasm contracted Fairfield's face for a second. He had not asked for explanations. Grell had volunteered none. It seemed as though he were taking for granted the a.s.sumption that he was guilty of the murder.

Surely an innocent man would have been eager to a.s.sert his innocence at the first opportunity. When Sir Ralph answered, it was slowly, as though he were weighing each word that he spoke. "I would be willing enough to help a friend--you know that, Grell. But why you should think I would lift a finger to help you evade justice I fail to see. I know enough of the law to know that I should become an accessory to the fact."

"You really think I killed that man?" The words came quick and sharp, like a pistol shot. "I thought you had known me long enough----"

"Words," interrupted Fairfield bitterly. "All words. You were the last man I should have thought capable of such a thing; but all the facts are against you. Need I go over them? Let me tell you that if ever a jury knows what Scotland Yard knows and you stand in the dock, no earthly power can save you. If that crime is on your conscience it seems to rest lightly enough."

Grell stood up and rested one hand lightly on the sleeve of his companion. "Fairfield, old chap," he said earnestly, "we have been through enough together to prove to you that I am not a coward. I swear on my honour that I had nothing to do with that man's death--though I have had reason enough to wish him dead, G.o.d knows. Do you think it is fear for myself that has driven me into hiding?"

Fairfield shook his head impatiently, and shaking himself clear paced quickly up and down the room. "That's all very well, Grell," he said more mildly, "but it is hardly convincing in the face of facts. You disappear immediately after the murder, having got me to lie to cover your retreat, and the next I hear from you is when you want money. It's too thin. If I were you I should go now. For the sake of old times I will say nothing about your visit here, but to help you by any other means--no. If you had no hand in that murder, come out like a man and make a fight for it. I will back you up."

"Thanks." There was a dry bitterness in Grell's tone that did not escape Sir Ralph. "I couldn't have got better advice if I'd gone to Scotland Yard itself." His voice changed to a certain quality of harshness. "Look here, Fairfield. Suppose I do know something about this business; suppose I know who Harry Goldenburg was, and how and why he was killed; suppose I had stayed while inquiries were being made, then I should either have to have betrayed a friend or taken the burden on my own shoulders; suppose I say I was honest that night when I asked you to conceal my absence from the St. Jermyn's Club; that I did nothing which I would not do over again"--he banged his fist on the table and his eyes glowed fiercely--"I tell you I have had no choice in this matter. Even you, who know me as well as any man, do not know what I had been through until that man lay dead. Since then I have suffered h.e.l.l. The police have been at my heels ever since. I carried little enough money away with me, and I dared not attempt to change a cheque while I was thought to be dead." He drew a gold watch from his pocket. "I dare not even p.a.w.n this, for even the p.a.w.nbrokers are watched. They stopped all my efforts to raise money in other directions, and have isolated me from my friends. I have fifteen shillings left, and yet since they routed me out of cover the day before yesterday I have not dared get a lodging for fear that I might arouse suspicion. I slept on the Embankment last night."

He paused, breathless from his own vehemence. Fairfield had seen him in moments of danger, yet never had he seen him so roused out of himself.

He could see one of the sinewy hands actually trembling, and that alone was proof enough of the violence of the hunted man's emotion. He went to a side table, and pouring out a generous dose of brandy from a decanter, squirted a little soda-water in it and handed it to Grell. But his face was still hard and set.

"Drink that," he said. And then, as the other obeyed: "It is no use fencing with the question, Grell. If you want me to help you you will have to give some explanation. I am not going to dip my hands in this business blindly. Don't think it's a matter of you and I simply. This concerns Eileen."

Grell put down his empty gla.s.s and stared into the other's eyes.

"Ah yes, Eileen," he said quietly. "What about her?"

"This," Fairfield spoke tensely, "that if you are guilty you have ruined her life; if you are innocent and cannot prove it you might as well be guilty. I'll not conceal from you that I have given Scotland Yard some measure of a.s.sistance in trying to find you. Do you know why? Because I judged you to be a man. Because I thought that if put to it you might prove your innocence or take the only course that could spare her the degradation of seeing the man she loved convicted as a murderer."

A grim unmirthful smile parted Robert Grell's lips. He understood well enough what was meant. "You always were a good friend, Fairfield," he retorted. "Perhaps you have a revolver you could lend me."

"Will you use it if I do?" burst impulsively from Fairfield's white lips. He was sincere in his suggestion. To his mind there was only one escape from the predicament in which his friend found himself. Anything was preferable, in his mind, to the open scandal of public trial.

"Don't be a fool," said Grell, making a gesture as though waving the subject aside. "I shall not commit suicide--at any rate, while I've got a fighting chance. Let's get to the point. Will you lend me some money?"

The clear-cut face of Fairfield had gone very pale. When he answered it was with dry lips and almost in a whisper.

"Not a farthing." And then with more emphasis--"Not a farthing."

A mist was before his eyes. The lock of the door clicked and Grell shambled out. For ten minutes or more Ralph Fairfield remained, his fingers twitching at the b.u.t.tons of his waistcoat. A revulsion of feeling had come. Had he done right? Was Grell's course the wisest, after all? How had his own feelings towards Eileen influenced him in his decision not to help the man who had been his friend?

He resolved to try to shake the matter from his mind, and his hand sought the bell-push. Twice he rang without receiving any reply, and he flung open the door and called imperatively--

"Roberts!"

Still his man failed to answer. He walked quickly through all the rooms that const.i.tuted his apartments. There was no trace of the missing servant. A quick suspicion tugged at his brain, and he wondered why he had not thought of it before. Of course, Roberts knew Grell, but the disguise of the explorer was not absolutely impenetrable. In spite of his clothes, his missing moustache, and his tousled hair dyed black, Fairfield had known him. Why not the servant? And if Roberts had recognised him and was missing--

Fairfield began to hurriedly put on an overcoat.

CHAPTER XLI

The police court proceedings in connection with the gambling-joint in Smike Street had opened satisfactorily so far as the police were concerned. All the prisoners but the princ.i.p.als and those involved in the attack on Heldon Foyle had been subjected to small fines, and were, as the legal phrase goes, "bound over." The remainder had been remanded for a week at the request of the prosecuting solicitor, a half-hearted request for bail being refused.

For the first time since he had attained the rank of superintendent, Foyle himself had gone into the witness-box. That was unavoidable, as he was the only man who could give direct evidence of the character of the house. Hitherto he had arranged so that the court work fell on his subordinates while he gave his attention to organisation and administrative detail; for the giving of evidence is only the end of the work of a detective. There are men behind the scenes in most cases that come into the criminal courts who are never told off, happenings never referred to. They are summed up in the phrase "Acting on information received, I----" The business of a detective is to secure his prisoner and give evidence, not to tell how it was done.

"Still no news from Liverpool," said the superintendent as he left the court with Green. "I begin to wish I'd sent you down there. That woman has got the knack of vanishing."

"Yes," agreed his lieutenant, producing a well-worn brier and pressing the tobacco down with a h.o.r.n.y thumb. "And yet people think we've got an easy job. Lola knows her business, and I'm open to bet she'll not be found before she wants to be found."

Foyle chuckled at this enunciation of rank heresy. Only a veteran of Green's experience would have dared question the ability of Scotland Yard to maintain a scent once picked up. The superintendent did not take the pessimism too seriously. In theory it is not difficult for one person to disappear among forty millions, but to remain hidden indefinitely, in the face of a vigorous, sustained search by men trained to their business is not so simple in practice.

"You've got a habit of looking on the worst side of things," he laughed.

"I've never known us want any one we knew badly but what we got 'em at last. Besides, Blake's down there, and he's a good man. He's got a personal interest in running her down now."

"H'm," commented Green, in the tone of one not entirely convinced, and lapsed into a stolid silence which would have irritated some men, but merely amused the superintendent.

They separated at the door of Foyle's room at headquarters, and an impatient detective-sergeant, whose duty it was to weed out callers, promptly headed Heldon Foyle off.

"A man's been waiting to see you, sir," he said. "He refused to give his name, but said he had some important information which he would only give to you personally. He wouldn't hear of seeing any one else."

"Yes, of course. They've all got important information, and they all want to see me personally--or else the Commissioner. Well, where is he, Shapton? Show him in."

"I can't. He's gone, sir. He'd been waiting here half an hour or so when he was taken away by Sir Ralph Fairfield."