The Joker ds(e-3 Page 6

‘Yes, I’ll be there—ten o’clock,’ he said.

  He had two hours to wait. The charwoman did not arrive till nine. He gave her instructions, made arrangements for the following day; and went back to the dining-room to think out the extraordinary request which Stratford Harlow had made of him. And the more he thought, the less inclined he as to keep the appointment. At last he turned to his writing table, took out a sheet of paper and scrawled a note.

  “DEAR MR HARLOW,

  “I am afraid I must disappoint you. I am in such a position, being an ex-convict, that I cannot afford to take the slightest risk. I will tell you I frankly that what I have in my mind is that this may be a frame-up organised by my friends the police, and I think that it would be, to say the least, foolish on my part to go any farther until I know your requirements, or at least have written proof that you have approached me.

  “Yours sincerely,

  “ARTHUR INGLE.”

  He put the letter in an envelope, addressed it, and marked in the corner in bold letters ‘By hand. Urgent.’ Even now he was not satisfied. He went to the telephone to call a district messenger, but he did not lift the receiver. His curiosity was piqued. He felt he must know, with the least possible delay, just why Stratford Harlow had summoned Arthur Ingle, late of Dartmoor convict establishment. And why should the meeting be secret? A man of Harlow’s standing would not lose caste, even if he sent for him to go to his house. He came to a sudden resolve, pitched the letter on to the table, went into his bedroom and changed into a dark suit.

  By the time he had climbed into his overcoat he was satisfied that he was taking the wisest course. The charwoman was in the kitchen and he opened the door to pass his last admonition. She was on her knees, scrubbing-brush in hand, and he looked down into a long, weak face over which strayed lank wisps of grey-black hair.

  ‘I’m going out. You needn’t wait. Finish your work and be here in the morning before eight,’ he barked and slammed the door on this inconsiderable member of the proletariat and went down the stairs in a spirit of adventure that made him feel almost young.

  As the Horse Guards clock was chiming the three-quarters he came into Birdcage Walk and turned along the lonely footpath that runs parallel with the House Guards and flanks the broad parade ground. There was no hurry; he fell into a gentle stroll, fast enough to keep him warm and to avoid any suspicion of loitering within the meaning of the act.

  It could not be a frame-up, he had decided. A man of Harlow’s character would hardly lend himself to such a plot; and in his heart of hearts, for all his bitter gibes at the police, he did not believe seriously in the prison legend of innocent men being trapped by cunning police plots.

  He looked at his watch under a street standard; it was five minutes to ten, and he strolled back the way he had come, and stopped immediately in a line with the gates that closed the arch of the Horse Guards. As he did so a car came noiselessly along the sidewalk from the direction of Westminster.

  It stopped in front of him and the door opened.

  ‘Will you come in, Mr Ingle?’ said a low voice; and without a word he stepped inside, pulling the door close after him and sank down on a soft seat by the side of a man who, he at once recognised, was that Splendid Harlow, whose name, even in Dartmoor, symbolised wealth beyond dreams.

  The car, gathering speed, turned into the Mall, swung round towards Buckingham Palace and across the Corner into Hyde Park. It slackened speed now, and Stratford Harlow began to talk…

  For an hour the car moved at a leisurely pace round the Circle. Sleet was falling. Ingle listened like a man in a dream to the amazing proposition which his companion advanced.

  He, at any rate, sat in comfort. Inspector Jim Carlton, following in an aged convertible was chilled and wet, and the highly sensitive microphone which he had placed in Harlow’s car failed to transmit the talk it was so vital he should hear.

  Arthur Ingle arrived home at his flat soon after eleven. The cleaner had gone and he was glad; dull clod and unimaginative as she was she yet might have read and interpreted the light that shone in his eyes or have sensed the exultation of his heart.

  Brewing himself some coffee, he sat down at his desk and in to make notes. Once he rose and, entering his bedroom, turned on the light above his dressing-table and stared at himself for five minutes in the glass. The scrutiny seemed to afford him a certain amount of satisfaction, for he; smiled and returned to his notemaking.

  That smile did not leave his lips; and once he laughed out loud. Evidently something had happened that afforded him the most exquisite happiness.

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘Could you please come and see me in the lunch hour?—A.R.’

  JIM CARLTON looked at the ‘A.R.’ blankly before he placed ‘A’ as indicating Aileen—he was under the impression that she spelt her name with an ‘E’. It had been delivered at Scotland Yard by a messenger half an hour before he arrived. Literally he was waiting on the mat when she came out; and she seemed very glad to see him.

  ‘You will probably be very angry that I’ve sent for you about such a little thing,’ she said, ‘and you’re so busy—’

  ‘I won’t tell you how I feel about it,’ he interrupted, ‘or you’ll think I’m not sincere.’

  ‘You see, you are the only policeman I know and I don’t know you very well, but I thought you wouldn’t mind. Mrs Gibbins has disappeared; she didn’t go home last night nor the night before.’

  ‘I’m thrilled,’ he said. ‘And her husband fears the worst?’

  ‘She hasn’t a husband; she’s a widow. Her landlady came in to see me this morning. She’s dreadfully upset.’

  ‘But who’s Mrs Gibbins?’

  ‘Mrs Gibbins is the charwoman at Uncle’s flat. Rather a wretched-looking lady with untidy hair. I’m rather worried about it because she’s a woman without friends. I called up my Uncle’s flat this morning and he was almost polite, and told me that she didn’t arrive yesterday morning and she hasn’t been there today.’

  ‘She may have met with an accident,’ was his natural suggestion.

  ‘I’ve telephoned to the big hospitals, but nothing has been heard of her. I want you to tell me what I can do next. It’s such a little matter that I’ll listen meekly to any rude comment you care to think up!’

  He was not interested in Mrs Gibbins; the case of a lonely woman who disappears as from the face of the earth was so common a phenomenon in the life of any great city that he could hardly work up enthusiasm for the search. But Aileen was so concerned that he would have been a brute to have treated her request lightly; and after lunch, the day being his own, he went to Stanmore Rents in Lambeth, a little riverside slum and made a few inquiries at first hand.

  Mrs Gibbins had lived there, the slatternly landlady told him, for five years. She was a good, sober, honest woman, never went out, had no friends, and subsisted on what she earned and a pound a week which was paid to her quarterly by some distant relation. In fact, she was due to receive the money on the following Monday. Her chief virtue was that she paid her rent every Monday morning and gave no trouble.

  ‘Do you mind if I search her room?’

  The landlady wished that and showed him the way; it gave her a nice feeling of authority to be present during the operation.

  Jim was shown into a small back room, scrupulously clean, with a bed and a sort of home-made hanging cupboard that had been fixed in one corner and was shrouded by a cheap curtain. Here was the meagre wardrobe of the missing charwoman: a skirt or two, a light summer coat that had seen its brightest days, and a best hat. He tried the chest of drawers and found one drawer locked. This he opened with the first key on his own bunch, to the awe and admiration of the landlady. Here was proof of the woman’s affluence—a post office bank-book showing Ł87 to her credit, four new Ł1 Treasury notes, and a threadbare bag with a broken catch.

  Inside this were one or two proofs of the vanity of the eternal feminine—a greasy powder-puff, a cheap trinket or two, and bet
ween lining and outer cover a folded paper of some sort.

  It had not got there by accident, he saw, when he carried the bag to the light, for it was carefully sewn into the lining. He took out his pocket knife and, picking the stitches, extracted what he thought was one sheet of paper, lightly folded. When he opened the paper out he found there were two sheets.

  The landlady ducked her head sideways in an effort to catch a glimpse of the writing, but Jim was aware of this manoeuvre.

  ‘Do you mind going downstairs,’ he asked politely, ‘and seeing if you can find in your ash-can—’

  ‘Dustbin,’ corrected the lady.

  ‘Whatever it is, the envelope of any letter addressed to Mrs Gibbins?’

  By the time she returned from her profitless task the papers had disappeared, and Jim Carlton was sitting on the narrow window ledge, a cigar between his teeth and he was examining the threadbare carpet with such intentness that the landlady was certain that he had discovered some blood-stains.

  ‘Eh?’ He woke from his dream with a start. ‘You can’t find it? I’m sorry. What was it I asked you to get? Oh, yes, an envelope. Thank you. I found it in the bag.’

  He relocked the drawer, and with another glance round the apartment came down the treacherous stairs.

  ‘You don’t think she’s drownded herself, sir?’ asked the landlady tremulously.

  ‘No. Why? Did she ever threaten to commit suicide?’

  ‘She’s been pretty miserable for some time, poor dear!’ The woman wiped a tear from her cheek, and the fascinated Jim observed that the spot where the apron had been rubbed was perceptibly cleaner.

  ‘No, I don’t think she has—committed suicide,’ he said. ‘She may turn up. If she does, will you send me a telegram?’

  He scribbled his name and address on a blank that he found in his pocket and gave her the money for its dispatch.

  ‘I know there’s something wrong,’ insisted the tearful lady. ‘Foul play or something. She bought some stuff to make up into a dress; I’ve got it in my kitchen—it only came the night before last.’

  She showed him the package, which was unopened.

  ‘My niece was coming in yesterday morning to show her how to cut it out,’ continued the woman, ‘but, of course, Mrs Gibbins didn’t come home, and my niece lives over in Peckham, and it’s a long drag here—’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so,’ said Jim absently.

  He walked down the noisome street, got into the car that was waiting at the end, and went slowly back across Westminster Bridge to his room.

  Elk was not in and, even if he had been, Jim was not in the mood for consultation. He spread out on the table the papers he had taken from Mrs Gibbins’s bag and read them carefully, jotted down a few particulars and, refolding them, put them in his pocket-book. He passed the next hour dictating letters to the last people in the world one would have imagined would be interested in the disappearance of a charwoman.

  Aileen did not expect to see him again that day and was surprised, almost pleasurably, when he walked into the outer office and sent in his name. She was on the point of leaving and the office boy, impatient to be gone, misinterpreted the colour that came to her cheeks.

  ‘You’ll be getting me a very bad name, Mr Carlton,’ she said as they went into the street together.

  ‘Did I tell you that my front name was Jim, or James, as the case may be?’ he asked. ‘Shall we try something more snappy in the restaurant line? I know a place in Soho—’

  ‘No, I think I’ll go home now.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about our Mrs Gibbins,’ he said flippantly, though he was not feeling at all flippant. ‘And I told our people that I can be found there if I am wanted.’

  ‘Have you had any news?’ she asked; and he guessed by her penitent tone that she had altogether forgotten the existence of the charwoman. At any rate she did not demur when he handed her into the car and she accepted his restaurant, dingy though it was, without protest.

  They were passing from the street when Jim heard his name called and, looking round, saw a headquarters man.

  ‘Came through just after you left, sir.’

  Jim read the hastily-written phone message.

  ‘I’ll be back in an hour,’ he said, and followed the girl who was waiting for him in the vestibule.

  When they were seated: ‘I want to ask you: was Mrs Gibbins in the flat that night your uncle’s safe was burgled?’

  She considered. ‘No, she wasn’t there; at least, she oughtn’t to have been there. She came later, you remember. I opened the door to her.’

  ‘Oh!’ he said, and she smiled.

  ‘What does “Oh!” mean?’ And then quickly: ‘You don’t think she was the burglar, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t think that,’ he said; his tone was very grave—she wondered why. ‘Tell me something about her; was she well educated?’

  Aileen shook her head.

  ‘No, she was rather illiterate. I’ve had many of her notes, and they were scarcely decipherable. The spelling was—well, very original.’

  ‘Oh!’ he said again, and she could have boxed his ears.

  ‘Well, that’s that!’ he said at last. ‘I don’t think that even your uncle, with his well-known passion for humanity, will so much as shed a silent tear. She was just nothing, nobody—a wisp of straw caught up in the wind and deposited God knows where! Stale fruit under the dustman’s broom. Horrible, isn’t it? Think of it! All the theatres will soon be crowded and people will be screaming with laughter at the antics and clowning of the comedians! There will be a State ball at the Palace and tonight happy men and women will I be dancing on a hundred floors. Who cares about Mrs Gibbins?’

  He was very serious, and a minute before he had been almost gay.

  ‘The passing of a friendless woman is a small thing.’ He rubbed his nose irritably. ‘And now it is a big thing!’ he said, raising a warning finger and looking at her. ‘Mrs Gibbins is stirring the minds of eighteen thousand London policemen, who if need be would have the support of the whole Brigade of Guards and every one of these dancers, diners and theatregoers would move with one accord and not rest day or night till they found the man who struck her down and dropped her poor, wasted body in the waters of the Regent’s Canal!’ She half rose, but he motioned her down. ‘I’ve spoilt your dinner and I’ve spoilt my own, too,’ he said.

  ‘Dead?’ she whispered. He nodded. ‘Murdered?’

  ‘Yes…I think so. They took her out of the canal a few minutes before I left the office, and there were marks to show that she’d been bludgeoned. I had the news just before I came in. What was she doing near the Edgware Road—in Regent’s Park, let us say? Give her two days to drift as far.’

  The waiter came and stood at his elbow in an attitude of expectancy. The girl shook her head. ‘I can’t eat.’

  ‘Omelettes,’ said Jim. ‘That isn’t eating; it’s just nourishment.’

  Arthur Ingle had the discomfort of a police visitation, but he knew nothing of Mrs Gibbins, knew much less indeed than his niece.

  ‘I have seen the woman, but I shouldn’t recognise her.’

  This accorded with the information already in their possession, and the two detectives who called had a whisky-and-soda with him and departed.

  The landlady of the Rents could say no more than she had said on the previous afternoon to Sub-Inspector Carlton.

  Jim went down himself to see this worthy soul; and he had a particular reason, because on that morning, ‘regular as clockwork,’ came the envelope which contained Mrs Gibbins’s quarterly allowance; and that lady was rather in a fluster, because the letter had not arrived.

  ‘No, sir, it was never registered, that’s why I feel so awkward about it. People might think…but you can ask the postman yourself, sir.’

  ‘I’ve asked him,’ smiled Jim. ‘Tell me, where were those letters posted? You must have seen the date-stamp at some time or other.’

  But she swore she hadn’t; sh
e was not inquisitive, indeed regarded inquisitiveness as one of the vices which had come into existence with reading newspapers. She did not explain the connection between the popular press and the inquiring mind, though it was there plain to be seen.

  The local police inspector had cleared the wardrobe and drawers of all portable articles, including the bag.

  ‘I told him you found a paper in the bag, but he couldn’t see it, sir, though he searched high and low for it.’

  ‘There wasn’t a paper to find,’ said Jim untruthfully.

  His position was a delicate one. He had withdrawn important evidence from what might perhaps be a very serious case. There was only one course to take and this he followed.

  Returning to Scotland Yard, he requested an interview with the Commissioners, explained what he had done, told them frankly his suspicions and asked for the suppression of the evidence he held. The consultation was postponed for the attendance of a representative of the Public Prosecutor, but in the end he had his way, and when the inquest was held on Annie Maud Gibbins the jury returned an open verdict, which meant that they were content with the statement that the deceased woman had been ‘found dead’, and expressed no opinion as to how she met her fate—a laudable verdict, since no member of the jury, not even the coroner, nor the doctors who testified with so many reservations, had the slightest idea how the life of Mrs Gibbins, the charlady, had gone out.

  CHAPTER 9

  AILEEN RIVERS was annoyed, and since the object of her annoyance lived in the same room, and to use a vulgar idiom, under the same hat as herself, a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs was produced. She was annoyed because she had not seen Mr James Carlton for a week. But she was furious with herself that she was annoyed at all. Mr Stebbings, that stout lawyer, had reached an age when he was no longer susceptible to atmosphere, yet even he was conscious that his favourite employee had departed in some degree from the normal. He asked her if she was not well; and suggested that she should take a week off and go to Margate. The suggestion of Margate was purely mechanical; he invariably prescribed Margate for all disorders of body and mind, having been once in the remote past cured of the whooping cough in that delightful town. It was not Margate weather, and Aileen was not Margate-minded.