The Ringer & Again the Ringer - Complete Series: 18 Thriller Classics in One Volume. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
uncomfortable and uneasy, but he allowed his arm to drop as though his gesture had been born in a momentary mood of protection, and apparently did not notice the movement by which she had freed herself.
“Can’t you do something for him? He would listen to you,” she pleaded.
But he was not thinking of Johnny. All his thoughts and eyes were for the girl. She was holding his arms now, looking up into his face, and he felt his pulses beating a little faster. Suppose Johnny took the detective’s advice and went off to the Continent with the pearls — and Mary! He would find no difficulty in disposing of the necklace and would secure a sum sufficient to keep him for years. This was the thought that ran through Meister’s mind as he patted the girl’s cheek softly.
“I will see what can be done about Johnny,” he said. “Don’t worry your pretty head any more.”
In his private office Meister had a small portable typewriter. Throughout the afternoon she heard the click-click of it as he laboriously wrote his message of betrayal.
That evening, when Inspector Wembury came back to Flanders Lane Police Station, he found a letter awaiting him. It was typewritten and unsigned and had been delivered by a district messenger from a West Central office. The message ran:
‘The Countess of Darnleigh’s pearl necklace was stolen by John Lenley of 37, Malpas Mansions. It is at present in a cardboard carton in a box under his bed.’
Alan Wembury read the message and his heart sank within, him, for only one course was open to him, the course of duty.
Chapter 12
Wembury knew that he would be well within his rights if he ignored this typewritten message, for anonymous letters are a daily feature of police life. Yet he realised that it was the practice that, if the information which came thus surreptitiously to a police station coincided with news already in the possession of the police, or if it supported a definite suspicion, inquiries must be set afoot.
He went to his little room to work out the problem alone. It would be a simple matter to hand over the inquiry to another police officer, or even to refer it to…But that would be an act of moral cowardice.
There was a small sliding window in the door of his office which gave him a view of the charge room, and as he pondered his problem a bent figure came into his line of vision and, acting on an impulse, he jumped up from the table, and, opening the door beckoned Dr. Lomond. Why he should make a confidant of this old man who was ignorant of police routine he could not for the life of him explain. But between the two men in the very short period of their acquaintance there had grown a queer understanding.
Lomond looked round the little room from under his shaggy brows.
“I have a feeling that you’re in trouble, Mr. Wembury,” he said, his eyes twinkling.
“If that’s a guess, it’s a good one,” said Alan.
He closed the door behind the police surgeon and pushed forward a chair for him. In a few words he revealed the problem which was exercising his mind, and Lomond listened attentively.
“It’s verra awkward.” He shook his head. “Man, that’s almost like a drama! It seems to me there’s only one thing for you to do, Mr. Wembury — you’ll have to treat John Lenley as though he were John Smith or Thomas Brown. Forget he’s the brother of Miss Lenley, and I think,” he said shrewdly, “that is what is worrying you most — and deal with this case as though it were somebody you had never heard of.”
Alan nodded slowly.
“That, I’m afraid, is the counsel I should give myself, if I were entirely unprejudiced in the matter.”
The old man took a silver tobacco box from his pocket and began slowly to roll a cigarette.
“John Lenley, eh?” he mused. “A friend of Meister’s!”
Alan stared at him. The doctor laid significant emphasis on the lawyer’s name.
“Do you know him?”
Lomond shook his head.
“Through my career,” he said, “I have followed one practice when I come to a strange land — I acquire the local legends. Meister is a legend. To me he is the most interesting man in Deptford, and I’m looking forward to meeting him.”
“But why should Johnny Lenley’s friendship with Meister—” began Alan, and stopped. He knew full well the sinister importance of that friendship.
Maurice Meister was something more than a legend: he was a sinister fact. His acquaintance with the criminal law was complete. The loopholes which exist in the best drawn statutes were so familiar to him that not once, but half a dozen times, he had cleared his clients of serious charges. There were suspicious people who wondered how the poor thieves who employed him raised the money to pay his fees. There were ill-natured persons who suggested that Meister paid himself out of the proceeds of the robbery and utilised the opportunities he had as a lawyer to obtain from his clients the exact location of the property they had stolen. Many a jewel thief on the run had paused in his flight to visit the house in Flanders Lane, and had gone on his way, leaving in the lawyer’s hands the evidence which would have incriminated him. He acted as a sort of banker to the larger fry, and exacted his tribute from the smaller.
“Let me see your anonymous letter,” said the doctor.
He carried the paper to the light and examined the typewritten characters carefully.
“Written by an amateur,” he said. “You can always tell amateur typists, they forget to put the spaces between the words; but, more important, they vary the spaces between the lines.”
He pursed his lips as though he were about to whistle.
“Hum!” he said at last. “Do you rule out the possibility that this letter was written by Meister himself?”
“By Meister?” That idea had not occurred to Alan Wembury. “But why? He’s a good friend of Johnny’s. Suppose he were in this robbery, do you imagine he would trust John Lenley with the pearls and draw attention to the fact that a friend of his was a thief?”
The doctor was still frowning down at the paper.
“Is there any reason why Meister should want John Lenley out of the way?” he asked.
Alan shook his head.
“I can’t imagine any,” he said, and then, with a laugh: “You’re taking rather a melodramatic view, doctor. Probably this note was written by some enemy of Lenley’s — he makes enemies quicker than any man I know.”
“Meister,” murmured the doctor, and held the paper up to the light to examine the watermark. “Maybe one day you’ll have an opportunity, inspector, of getting a little of Mr. Meister’s typewriting paper and a specimen of lettering.”
“But why on earth should he want Johnny Lenley out of the way?” insisted Alan. “There’s no reason why he should. He’s an old friend of the family, and although it’s possible that Johnny has insulted him, that’s one of Johnny’s unpleasant little habits. That’s no excuse for a civilised man wanting to send another to penal servitude—”
“He wishes Mr. John Lenley out of the way” — Lomond nodded emphatically. “That is my eccentric view. Inspector Wembury, and if I am an eccentric, I am also a fairly accurate man!”
After the doctor left, Alan puzzled the matter over without getting nearer to the solution. Yet he had already discovered that Dr. Lomond’s conclusions were not lightly to be dismissed. The old man was as shrewd as he was brilliant. Alan had read a portion of his book, and although twenty years old, this treatise on the criminal might have been written a few weeks before.