P.-C. Lee: Complete Series (ALL 24 Detective Stories in One Volume). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
was standin’ on the arrival platform at Euston, an’ he sees Simmons get out of the Manchester train. Peter was a bag-claimer an’ used to do quite an extensive line of business at big railway stations, pickin’ up other people’s bags beggin’ pardon if they found him at it, an’ he was too busy to think much about Simmons till that night when he was talking things over to Nick at the little pub.
“‘Manchester!’ says Nick, quite upset. ‘Lord love a duck! Why, ain’t you heard the news?’
“‘No,’ says Peter.
“‘The Manchester an’ Salisbury Bank was cleared out last night — eight thousand pounds taken an’ the chap got clear away.’
“Peter whistled.
“‘He’s one of the swell mob, that’s what he is.’ Says Nick excited, ‘an’ if I don’t put him away my name’s not Nick Moss.’ Which as a matter of fact,” commented P.C. Lee thoughtfully, “it wasn’t.
“‘Go out an’ get a late paper,’ says Nick, tremblin’ with excitement; ‘perhaps there’ll be a description of the feller that did it.’
“So Peter went out an’ bought one, an’ together they read it over.
“‘Here it is,’ says Nick, who ain’t much of a reader. “Thomas Cadaver was executed this mornin’ at Manchester for — no, that ain’t it — here we are—’ an’ he read in the late news: ‘“Description of the suspected man: short, strongly built, clean shaven, wearing a black bowler hat—”
‘That’s him for a dollar,’ says Nick, an’ round they came to me with the paper. I was just goin’ on duty at time.
“‘Mr. Lee,’ says Nick, ‘we’ve got a good thing for you.’
“Good,’ I says. ‘Did you buy it or find it?’
“‘It’s the Manchester Bank bloke,’ says Nick, very solemn, an’ handed me the paper. I read it carefully.
“‘I’ll take it down to the station,’ I says.
“There was a lot of news in the paper that night, but the news that mostly interested the boys was that Crawley Hopper had been found not guilty. There was some technical mistake in framin’ the indictment, an’ the evidence was a bit contradictory an’ between the two Crawley got off.
He was discharged at six o’clock, an’ I met him at eight. He come up to me, an’ I could see he’d been celebratin’ the occasion, for he was what I’d call ‘nasty drunk’.
“‘Hullo, P.C. Lee,’ he says, ‘seen my missis?’
“‘Which one’?’ I says.
“‘You know which one, he says with an ugly look, ‘the one that gave me away.’
“‘Don’t talk foolish,’ I says, ‘nobody gave you away,’
“‘All right,’ he says, turnin’ to go, ‘I’ll know all about it very soon.’
“There are instincts that come to a man,” said P.C. Lee gravely, “that oughtn’t to be suppressed. My instinct told me to arrest him — on any charge. To give him a night at the station. But I hesitated. He’d just been released from prison an’ was naturally excited. I didn’t want to kick a man who was down, so I let him go.
“At eleven thirty I was in Pointer Street, when I saw him comin’ towards me. There was somethin’ in his air that I didn’t like, an’ I stopped him.
“‘Where are you goin’, Crawley?’ I says.
“He sort of hesitated before he answered; then he ran. But I caught him in a dozen yards.
“‘Let go!’ he hissed an’ he struck at me.
“It was a stingin’ blow in the face, an’ I felt somethin’ warm an’ sticky. I thought he must have used a knife me, so I took my stick to him an’ that quietened him.
“With the help of another constable I got him to the station.
“My face was covered with blood, but I couldn’t feel the cut, an’ as soon as I got him into the steel pen the Station Inspector ordered one of the men to go for the divisional surgeon.
“Then Crawley spoke.
“‘It’s all right,’ he says in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘he not wounded.’
“‘Where did the blood come from?’ says the Inspector.
‘Off my hands,’ says Crawley, and showed us.
“‘I’ve done in my missis,’ he says simply.
“An’ it was the truth, for we found the poor creature stone dead in her mother’s house. It was one of the most dreadful things that had ever happened in our division for a long time, but it wasn’t what you’d call a paper murder, for there was no mystery about it. It was just a low down, sordid wicked murder, an’ Crawley’s trial lasted two hours, an’ he was sentenced to death. There’s always a lot of mad people who’ll sign a petition to get a brute like Crawley reprieved an’ there was the usual procession of old ladies walkin’ about askin’ people to sign papers to save the life of this ‘poor creature’.
“All the boys did their best in the way of gettin’ mouthpieces but when it came to signin’ petitions they wouldn’t.
“Nick put the situation to me.
“‘I’m a thief, Mr. Lee.’ he says, quite serious; ‘you know all about me. I was born a thief, an’ will die a thief ‘ — but I’ve got no use for a man who does a thing like Crawley did. We did our best to prove him innercent, but now there’s no doubt about his bein’ guilty he’s got to go through it.’
“I hadn’t much bother with ’em on my beat durin’ the weeks followin’ the trial. Everybody was subdued an’ upset, an’ I had time to keep my eye on Simmons. I’d got a fuller account of the wanted man from the Manchester police, an’ I must confess that it filled the bill so far as appearances went. We reported the matter to Scotland Yard, an’ they sent one of their best men down to have a look at him.
“But he poured cold water on the idea — in fact, he was very much amused.
“‘Him!’ he said. ‘Don’t you know who he is?’
“‘No, sir,’ I says, an’ I waited for him to tell me, but he didn’t.
“I missed Simmons for a bit. With the Crawley business finished, an’ almost forgotten, things began to liven up in our quarter, an’ what with one thing an’ another I didn’t trouble about Simmons.
“I saw him one night. He was walkin’ home briskly an’ nodded to me. He passed me when suddenly he stopped an’ walked back.
“‘I’ve got a message for you,’ he says. ‘Crawley told me to tell you that if he’d taken your advice he wouldn’t have been where he was.’
“‘Crawley,’ I says puzzled, ‘Crawley’s dead.’
““I know that,’ he says quietly, ‘but he told me just before he dies.’
“‘How could you see him?’ I says.
“‘Oh, I saw him all right,’ he says, turnin’ away, ‘I’m the hangman!’”
A Man of Note
Once I hinted delicately to P.C. Lee that it was remarkable, considering his popularity not only with his superiors but with the man in the street equally with the man on the bench, that he had never achieved promotion. I did this with some trepidation