Four Square Jane Read online

“The pearls were faked,” said the calm Remington. “Your fifty thousand pound necklace was worth little more than fifty pounds!”

  “Hush! for heavens’ sake,” said Claythorpe. “Don’t talk so loud.” He mopped his brow. “You seem to know a devil of a lot,” he said suspiciously. “In fact, there are moments, Remington, when I think you know a damn sight too much for my comfort.”

  Remington smiled for the first time – a thin hard smile that gave his face a sinister appearance.

  “All the more reason why your lordship should get rid of me as soon as possible,” he said. “I have no ambition except to own a little cottage in Cornwall, where I can fish, ride a horse, and idle away

  my time.”

  His lordship rose hurriedly and took off his coat, preparatory to washing his hands in a small wash-place leading from the office.

  “It’s getting late,” he said. “I had forgotten I have to lunch with somebody. Your ambition shall be gratified – be sure of that, Remington,” he said, passing into the smaller room.

  “I hope so,” said Remington. His eyes were fixed on the floor. In throwing down his coat a letter had dropped from Claythorpe’s pocket, and Remington stooped to pick it up. He saw the postmark and the handwriting, and recognized it as that of Mrs Wilberforce. He heard the splash of the water in the bowl and Lord Claythorpe’s voice humming a little tune. Without a moment’s hesitation he took it out and read it. The letter was short.

  “My dear Lord Claythorpe,” it ran, “Joyce is adamant on the point of the marriage, and says she will not go through with it for another twelve months.”

  He replaced the letter in the envelope, and put it back in the inside pocket of the coat.

  Twelve months! Claythorpe had lied when he said a month, and was obviously lying with a purpose.

  When his lordship emerged, wiping his hands on a towel, and still humming a little tune, Remington was gazing out of the window upon the chimney tops of Jermyn Street.

  “I shall be back at half-past two,” said Lord Claythorpe, perfunctorily examining a small heap of letters which lay on his desk. “The bank people will be here by then?”

  Remington nodded.

  “I am worried about this transfer of Miss Joyce’s securities,” he said. “They are safe enough in the bank. I do not think they will be safe with you.”

  “Rubbish,” said his lordship. “I think I know how to deal with Four Square Jane. And besides, I am going to ensure the safety of the securities. Four Square Jane isn’t the kind of person who would steal paper security. It wouldn’t be any good to her, anyway.”

  “But suppose these documents disappear?” persisted Remington. “Though it might not assist Four Square Jane, it would considerably embarrass you and Miss Joyce. It would not be a gain, perhaps, to the burglar, but it would be a distinct loss to the young lady.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Claythorpe, “neither Four Square Jane nor her confederate, Mr Jamieson Steele–”

  “Jamieson Steele?” repeated Remington. “What has he to do

  with it?”

  Lord Claythorpe chuckled.

  “It is my theory – and it is a theory, I think; which is also held by the police – that Jamieson Steele is the gentleman who assists Miss Four Square Jane in her robberies.”

  “I’ll never believe it,” said Remington. Lord Claythorpe had his hand on the door, preparatory to departing, and he turned at these words.

  “Perhaps you do not believe that he forged my name to a cheque in this very office?” he said.

  “I certainly do not believe that,” said Remington. “In fact I know that that story is a lie.”

  Claythorpe’s face went red.

  “That is an ugly word to use to me, Remington,” he said. “I think the sooner you go the better.”

  “I quite agree with your lordship,” said Remington, and smiled as the door slammed behind his irate master.

  When Claythorpe returned he was in a more amicable frame of mind, and greeted the two bank officials with geniality. On the big table was a black japanned box, heavily sealed. The business of transferring the sealed packages which constituted the contents of the box was not a long process. Lord Claythorpe checked them with a list he took from his case, and signed a receipt.

  “I suppose your lordship would not like to break the seals of these envelopes?” said the assistant bank manager. “Of course, we are not responsible for their contents, but it would be more satisfactory to us, as I am sure it would be to your lordship, if you were able to verify the contents.”

  “It is not necessary,” said Claythorpe, with a wave of his hand. “I’ll just reseal the box and put it in my safe.”

  This he did in the presence of the manager, locking away the box in an old-fashioned steel safe – a proceeding which the bankers witnessed without enthusiasm.

  “That doesn’t seem very secure,” said one, “I wish your lordship–”

  “I wish you would mind your own business,” said Lord Claythorpe, and the bankers left, “blessing” the truculent man under their breath.

  At six o’clock that afternoon Claythorpe finished the work on which he had been engaged, closed and locked his desk, tried the safe, and put on his hat. He glanced through the front window and saw that his car was waiting, and that it was pelting with rain.

  “Which way are you going, Remington?” he asked. “I can give you a lift as far as Park Lane.”

  “No, thank you, my lord,” said Remington, struggling into his mackintosh. “I am going by tube, and I have not far to walk.”

  They went out of the office together, double-locking the stout door. Before leaving, Remington attached a burglar alarm which communicated with a large bell outside the building, and he repeated this process before the door was actually closed and double-locked.

  “I want you to be here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” said Claythorpe to his subordinate. “Good-night.”

  The inclemency of the weather increased as the evening advanced. A howling south-west gale swept over London, clearing the streets of idlers and limiting to some extent the activities of the police patrols. The police officer who was on duty within a few yards of the building, and who was relieved at eleven o’clock that night, stated that he saw or heard nothing of a suspicious character. In the course of his tour of duty, he tried the door which led to Lord Claythorpe’s office but found it fastened. His relief, a man named Tomms, made an examination of the door at a quarter past eleven – it was his business to examine every door in the street to see that they were securely fastened – and, in addition, acting upon instructions received from Scotland Yard, “pegged” the door. That is to say, he inserted two small wedges of the size of match sticks, one in each door-post, and tied a piece of black cotton from one to the other.

  At one o’clock he tried the door again, and flashed his lamp upon the black thread, and found that it had been broken. This could only mean that someone had passed into the office between eleven and one. He summoned assistance, and roused the caretaker, who lived in adjoining premises, and together they went into the darkened building, and mounted the stairs.

  Lord Claythorpe’s office door was apparently closed. It led, as the caretaker explained, directly into the main office. There was no sign of jemmy work, and the officers might have given up their investigations and found a simple explanation for the broken thread in the wildness of the night, when, flashing his lamp on the floor, one of the policemen saw a thin trickle of red coming from beneath. It was blood!

  The police did not hesitate, but smashed open the door, and entered with some difficulty, for immediately behind the door was lying the body of a man. Tomms switched on the light and knelt down by the side of the body.

  “He’s dead,” he said. “Do you know this man?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the white-faced caretaker, “that’s Mr Remington.”

  The police made a perfunctory examination.

  “You’d better get the divisional surgeon, J
im,” he said to his comrade. “But I’m afraid it’s no use. This poor fellow has been shot through the heart.”

  He looked round the apartment. The safe door was wide open and empty.

  Half-an-hour later Peter Dawes arrived on the scene of the murder and made a brief examination. He looked at the body.

  “Was he like this,” he asked, “when you found him?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the officer.

  “He has a knife in his hand.”

  Peter bent down and looked at the thin bladed weapon, tightly clenched in the dead man’s hand.

  “What’s that, sir?” said Tomms, pointing to the other hand. “It looks like a paper there.”

  The card in Remington’s half-clenched fist was loosely held, and the detective gently withdrew it. It was a visiting-card, and the name inscribed thereon was, “Mr Jamieson Steele, Civil Engineer.” Peter Dawes whistled, and then walked across to the safe.

  “That’s queer,” he said, and swung the door of the safe closed in the hope of finding something behind it.

  He found something, but not what he had expected. In the centre of the green steel door was a small label. It was a label bearing the mark of Four Square Jane.

  6

  Four Square Jane had committed a murder! It was incredible. All Peter Dawes’ fine theories went by the board in that discovery. This was not the work of a society crook; it was not the work of a criminal philanthropist; there was evidence here of the most cold-blooded murder that it had been his business to investigate.

  Summoned from his bed at three o’clock in the morning, Lord Claythorpe came to his office a greatly distressed man. He was shivering from sheer terror when he told the story of the securities which had been in the safe when he had left the office.

  “And I was warned. I was warned!” he cried. “Poor Remington himself begged me not to do it. What a fool I am!”

  “What was Remington doing here?” asked Peter.

  The body of the murdered man had long since been removed to the mortuary, and only the dark stain on the floor spoke eloquently of tragedy.

  “I haven’t any idea,” said his lordship. “I simply dare not let myself think. Poor fellow! It is a tragedy, an appalling tragedy!”

  “I know all about that,” said Peter dryly. “Murders usually are. But what was Remington doing in this office between eleven at night and one o’clock in the morning?”

  Lord Claythorpe shook his head.

  “I can only offer you my theory,” he said, “for what it is worth. Poor Remington was greatly worried about the securities being in this office at all, and he begged me to get a caretaker, a commissionaire or somebody, to sit in the office during the night. Very foolishly I rejected this excellent suggestion. I can only surmise that, worried by the knowledge that so many valuable securities were in this inadequate safe, Remington came in the middle of the night, intending to remain on guard himself.”

  Peter nodded. It was a theory which had the appearance of being a feasible one.

  “Then you think that he was surprised by the burglar?”

  “Or burglars,” said Lord Claythorpe. “Yes, I do.”

  Peter sat at his lordship’s desk, tapping at the blotting-pad with his fingers.

  “There is a lot to support your theory,” he said. “From the appearance of the body and the weapon in his hand, it is a likely suggestion that he was defending himself. On the other hand, look at this.”

  He took a crumpled envelope from his pocket and laid it on the table. It was stained with blood and the flap was heavily sealed.

  “We found this under his body,” said the detective. “You will note that the envelope has been slit open by some sharp instrument – in fact, such an instrument as was found in Remington’s hand when the body was discovered.”

  His lordship pondered this.

  “Possibly he surprised them in the act of opening the envelope, and snatched it away,” he said, and again the detective nodded.

  “I agree with you that that is also a plausible theory,” he said. “Had he a key of the safe?”

  Lord Claythorpe hesitated.

  “Not that I know,” he said. “Why, yes, of course, he had! I did not realize it. Yes, Remington had a key.”

  “And is this the key?” Peter Dawes handed his lordship a long steel key which he had taken from his pocket, and Lord Claythorpe examined it intently.

  “Yes,” he said, “that is undoubtedly one of the keys of the safe. Where did you find it?”

  “Under the table,” said the detective.

  “Are there any other clues?” asked his lordship after a pause, and this time Peter did not immediately answer.

  “Yes, there is one,” he said. “We found in the dead man’s hand a small visiting-card.”

  “What was the name?” asked the other quickly.

  “The name was Mr Jamieson Steele, who, I believe, was a former employee of yours.”

  “Steele! By heaven! That fits in with what I have been saying all along!” cried Claythorpe. “So Steele was in it!”

  “It doesn’t follow because this card was found in Remington’s hand that the card belonged to the burglar,” said Peter quietly. “It is not customary in criminal circles for murderers to leave their cards upon their victims, as I daresay your lordship knows.”

  Claythorpe looked at him sharply.

  “This does not seem to me to be a moment when you can exercise your sarcasm at my expense,” he growled. “I tell you Steele is a blackguard, and is the kind of man who would assist this notorious woman in her undertakings. Of course, if you’re going to shield him–”

  “I shield nobody,” said Peter coldly. “I would not even shield your lordship if I had the slightest evidence against you. Of that you may be sure.”

  Lord Claythorpe winced.

  “This is a heavy loss for you,” said Peter, who was ignorant of the contents of the safe. Then, noticing the other’s silence, he asked quickly: “You will, of course, give me the fullest information as to what the safe contained. And you can’t do better than tell me now. Was it ready money?”

  Lord Claythorpe shook his head. “Nothing but securities,” he said, “and those not of a negotiable character.”

  “Your securities?” asked Peter. “What was their value?”

  “About a quarter of a million,” said his lordship, and Peter gasped.

  “Your money?” he asked again.

  “No,” hesitated Lord Claythorpe. “Not my money, but a trust fund–”

  Peter sprang up from the table.

  “You don’t mean to say that this was the fortune of Miss Joyce Wilberforce about which we were talking this morning?”

  His lordship nodded.

  “It is,” he said briefly. “It is a great tragedy, and I don’t know how I shall excuse myself to the poor girl.”

  “You, of course, know what the securities were?” said Peter in a dry, matter-of-fact voice, as he sat down once more at the table.

  In that moment he betrayed no more emotion than if he had been investigating the most commonplace of shop robberies.

  “I have a list,” said Claythorpe, and for nearly an hour he was detailing particulars of the bonds which had been stolen.

  Peter finished his inquiry at four in the morning, and went to his office to send out an all-Britain message.

  It was not like Jane, this latest crime. It was certainly not like Jane or her assistant – if she had an assistant – to leave an incriminating visiting-card in poor Remington’s hand.

  Peter Dawes was wise in the ways of criminals, both habitual and involuntary. He had seen a great deal of the grim side of his profession, and had made a careful study of anatomy, particularly in relation to murdered people. He was satisfied in his own mind that the card that was held in the lightly clenched fist of the dead man had been placed there after he had been shot.

  He expressed himself frankly to his chief. “The card is evidently a plant to lead us off the t
rack; and if it was put there by Four Square Jane it was designed with the object of switching suspicion from her on to the unfortunate Steele.”

  “Do you think you’ll catch Steele?” asked the chief.

  Peter nodded.

  “Yes, sir, I can catch him just when I want him, I think,” he said. “It was only because we didn’t want to take this man that we have let him go loose so long. He was a fool to run away, because the evidence against him was pretty paltry.”

  Dawes had a large number of calls to make the following morning, and the first of these was on a firm of safe-makers in Queen Victoria Avenue. He had the good fortune to find that the sales manager had been in control of the store for the past twenty years, and that he remembered distinctly selling the safe to Lord Claythorpe.

  “That’s a relief,” smiled the detective. “I was afraid I should have to go all over London to find the seller. How many keys did you supply?”

  “Two” said the man. “One for his lordship, and one for Mr Remington.”

  “Was there any difference in the two keys?”

  “None except the marking. Have you one of the keys here?”

  The detective produced it from his pocket, but when the salesman put out his hand for it he shook his head, with a smile.

  “No, I’ll keep it in my own hand, if you don’t mind. I have a special reason,” he said. “Perhaps you will describe the marking.”

  “It’s inside the loop of the handle,” explained the salesman. “You will find a small number engraved there – No. 1 or No. 2. No. 1 was intended for his lordship, No. 2 for Mr Remington. The numbers were put there at Lord Claythorpe’s suggestion in order to avoid confusion. It sometimes happens that both keys are in use together, and it is obviously desirable that they should not be mixed.”

  Peter looked at the inside of the loop and saw the number, then placed the key in his pocket with a little smile.

  “Thank you; I think you have told me all that I want to know,” he said. “You are sure that there are not three keys?”

  “Perfectly certain,” said the man emphatically. “And what is more, it would have been impossible to have got these keys cut, except by our firm.”