THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson
crime. Points would arise, actions be revealed that would look black against her by the very reason that she had carefully concealed them.
"Miss Greye-Stratton," he said gravely, "forgive me for what I am going to say. I believe it is a crime here to be an accessory after the fact. Do you realise that? Don't you think it would be wiser for your sake for your brother's sake to be candid with the police? Believe me, all that you have told me is sure to be known sooner or later."
Her face was irresolute. "You think they will find out? That it will be worse because I tried to conceal it?"
"I do. If you will take my advice you will come with me to Menzies now. Understand me. I shall not betray a word of our conversation without your permission."
She placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her cupped hands, staring across the room in reverie. Presently she stood up.
"I will think of it," she said. "I will think of it."
Chapter VIII
No effective detective organisation is dependent on one man. Co-operation is the essence of all successful detective work exactly as it is in the carrying on of any great business. Scotland Yard will throw a score, a hundred, ten thousand men into an enterprise, if need be, and everyone of them from the supreme brain downwards will have an understudy ready at any moment to pick up a duty abandoned from any cause. No individual is vital, though some may be valuable. Every fact, every definite conclusion arrived at is on record.
That is why Weir Menzies found time to cover the case against the pickpockets he had captured the preceding evening and to return to headquarters to smoke a quiet pipe and consider things in general. He stuck his feet on a desk, leaned back in his chair, and began serenely to go through the reports that had accumulated from every point where information, however remote, might have been gathered on the Greye-Stratton affair.
He liked to have the salient facts of an investigation clear-cut in his mind. That often saved time in an emergency, as well as being an aid to definite thinking. Presently he began to make his Greek notes with a stubby pencil on the back of an envelope. Some of them would have surprised Hallett had he chanced to see them :
"Statement of P. Greye-Stratton clearly incomplete. Knows much more than she says. Certain that Errol has been for many months constant visitor at her flat in Palace Avenue. (Goulds report interview with maid at her flat.) Yet she denies that she has spoken to or been in communication with her brother for nearly a year. Lift attendant remembers man calling on her the evening of the murder. Left after short interview and immediately after she went out hatless in a hurry."
He commenced a string of question marks across the paper. "I'll see that lift man myself," he murmured, and continued:
"It was the maid's night out. Lift attendant does not remember having seen man before, but he knows Errol. Description vague. Think possible P. G.-S. alarmed. Must handle cautiously and keep under constant surveillance. If can induce Hallett to cultivate her may learn something."
A sharp tap at the door interrupted him. He snapped an irritable "come in," and, pencil in hand, surveyed frowningly a young man with a badly bruised eye.
"Well, Jakes," he demanded impatiently; "who's been decorating you? What's the trouble?"
"I got this from Hallett, sir. He--"
Menzies' feet dropped from the table with a crash. "What the blazes! Some muddle, I'll be bound. Where's Gordon?"
"Down below, sir. We--"
"Then you've lost the girl?" He smacked an angry fist down on the table. "Oh, damn your explanations. I beg your pardon you confounded idiot." He sprang to the door and roared down the green-painted corridor :" Royal! Royal!"
That individual popped out of a door like a rabbit out of a hole. "Come here, Royal. These two cabbages have let Miss Greye-Stratton dodge 'em. Take Smithers and get along to her flat, No. 74 Palace Avenue, and see if you can pick her up. She may have gone straight home, or she may not. I've got to come there myself presently, but I'll hear what this doughwitted jackass has got to say."
Ordinarily Menzies was courteous to his underlings, but when anything like stupidity interfered with his plans he let himself go. "They remembered it and it's better than putting 'em on the M. R.," he explained once to a colleague, which was his way of saying that he preferred a few hot words to putting the culprits on the morning report for judgment and punishment. "Only I sometimes wish that I didn't swear so much at them."
Royal had slipped away to carry out his instructions with the swiftness of the well-trained man. Menzies turned with a snarl to the young detective, who was trembling nervously and as ill at ease- as any young clerk "carpeted "before his departmental chief for the first time.
"Let's have it," he said shortly.
The young man squared his shoulders. "They lunched at Duke's in Piccadilly, sir. I went in with them but could not get near enough to hear what was said. The lady did most of the talking. When they came out they walked towards Regent Street. I was close behind. Gordon about twenty paces behind me. They turned into Regent Street and then sharp back along Jermyn Street. When they reached St. James Street he said something to her and came back towards me. I would have passed him, but he caught me by the shoulder and asked what I meant by molesting a lady.
"I pulled myself free and told him I was a police officer. She had turned the corner by this time. I would have gone on, but he pulled me back again, and Gordon came up--"
"And stopped to see what the matter was instead of going straight on," commented Menzies bitterly. "I know. Go on."
"He stopped to help me. Mr. Hallett was giving me a fair rough house. It took the two of us to tackle him properly. He kept it up for about three minutes and then gave in."
"And by that time the girl might have been in Timbuctoo. He put up a plant on you and you both fell into it."
"Yes, sir."
"Did you arrest him?"
"No. We thought it ought to be reported to you before we did anything."
"That's the only gleam of common sense you showed in the whole business. Go away. I'll think it over. And the next time you're shadowing, young man, remember you've got to stick if the heavens fall you've got to stick."
He whistled softly to himself when the other had gone. "I thought as much. She's put the comether on him and Hallett is a brainy man."
He revolved the matter steadily in his mind as he walked to Palace Avenue. Hallett, if he could be persuaded, would be a valuable ally in discovering what information Peggy Greye-Stratton had withheld. Menzies used the instruments to his hands; and there was no reason why he should have scruples. If he had troubled at all to formulate the ethics of the question he might have argued that when a crime was committed a person who deliberately withheld or evaded giving information could not fairly object to any means adopted to break her taciturnity. That the role he proposed allotting to Hallett was actually that of a spy did not concern him. That would be Hallett's own affair if he accepted the commission.
Royal appeared out of nowhere as he neared the corner of Palace Avenue. "Not come back yet," he reported laconically.
"Well, there's plenty of time yet," said Menzies with a resignation that had been conspicuously absent in his talk with the delinquent officer. "She's bound to turn up. You'd better 'phone for Gould to relieve you and get down to the court to charge Smith."
He strolled on to the block of flats, sent his card in to the manager in a sealed envelope, briefly explained as much of his errand as was necessary, and was presently confronted with a weedy, pale-faced youth who nervously twisted his cap in his hands as the detective questioned him. His story varied nothing from the statement Gould had put in.
"Now don't get flustered, old chap,"