Chapter SEVENTEEN

Mike Hennessey looked very calm, almost majestic in death; most easily recognisable. Surefoot Smith came out of the sinister little building and waited while the police sergeant turned the key.

Dick was waiting at the station. He had had enough of horrors for one night, and had not attempted to join himself in the identification.

"It's Mike all right," said Surefoot. "The murder was committed at ten-seventeen--there or there-abouts. The time is fixed by the big car that found the body, and a motor-cyclist who lives in this village reported to the police that he saw a small saloon car standing by the side of the road near where the body was found. I make out the two times as being between ten-fifteen and ten-twenty, and, allowing for the fact that the big machine did not overtake any car on the Colnbrook by-pass, that puts the time at ten-seventeen. The murderer's car might have turned round and gone back. It could, of course, have gone right through the village of Colnbrook, avoiding the by-pass, and I should imagine that is what happened. And now, my friend," he said seriously, "you realise that this was the gentleman who called at your young lady's flat? His coat must have been covered with blood without his realising the fact until, in searching the bathroom, he touched the wall with his sleeve. He took off his coat, washed his hands, and that's that."

"But surely some garage keeper will be able to identify the car if there was so much blood lost? The interior must be like a shambles."

Surefoot nodded.

"Oh yes, we'll find the car all right. There were three stolen last night that answer the description. I've just been through to the Yard and found that a machine has been discovered abandoned in Sussex Gardens."

A swift police car took them back to Paddington, and Surefoot Smith's surmise was confirmed. The abandoned car was that which the murderer had used. There was grisly evidence enough that the man had met his death in its dark interior--of other evidence there was none.

"We'll test the wheel for finger-prints, but Mr. Wirth will have worn gloves."

"That lets out Moran, doesn't it?" said Dick.

Surefoot smiled.

"Where is Moran? In Germany, we say--he's as likely to be in London. You may get to Germany in a few hours and get back in a shorter time. It may not have been Moran who left at all."

"But why?"

Dick Allenby was bewildered, more than a little alarmed for Mary Lane's safety, and said as much. To his consternation, Surefoot agreed.

"I don't think she should stay in that flat. She may have other evidence, and now she's begun to theorise she might be dangerous to our friend."

He accompanied Smith to the police station whither the car had been taken, and found the usual scene of impersonal activity. There were photographers, finger-print experts, car mechanics examining the speedometer. The owner of the car, who had been found and brought to the station, was a methodical man: he knew exactly the amount of mileage that was on the dial before the car was stolen, and his information helped considerably.

It seemed to Dick Allenby that he had spent the past fortnight examining bloodstained cars in police yards. There was a touch of the familiar in the scene he witnessed: the staring electric globes at the ends of lengths of flex, the peering police detectives searching every inch of the interior.

There was blood on the seat and on the floor; a trace of it on the gear lever. One of the detectives pulled a cushion from the driver's seat....

"Hullo!" he said, and, looking over his shoulder, Dick saw a flat silver cigarette case that was passed to Surefoot's hand.

Smith opened the case. It was empty. There was an inscription on the inside, easy enough to read in the light of the bulb.

"To Mr. Leo Moran, from his colleagues in the Willesden branch,
May, 1920."

Surefoot turned it over and over in his hand. It was an old case; there were one or two dents in it, but it was polished bright, and either was frequently used or had been recently cleaned. Surefoot held it gingerly by the help of a sheet of paper, and had it carefully wrapped.

"We might get a finger-print on that, but I don't think it's likely," he said. "It's a little odd, isn't it--being under the cushion?"

"He might have put it there and forgotten all about it."

Surefoot shook his head.

"It's not his car, it was pinched. As I say--it's odd."

He did not speak again for some time.

"I mentioned the fact that the young lady has the bank statement. Mr. Hennessey passed the information on in the course of the ride, or before. The killer settled with Hennessey--by the way, he was supposed to be driving to Southampton to catch his boat. The car stopped at a filling station at the end of the Great West Road; Hennessey got out and telephoned to his flat--presumably to his housekeeper to send on his baggage. The murderer got rid of Hennessey as quickly as he could, rushed back to town and burgled the flat. Obviously he was somebody who had been there before----"

"Like Moran," suggested Dick.

Surefoot hesitated.

"He'll do as well as anybody else," he said. "He was looking for the bank statement. He couldn't have known that his coat was covered with blood, until he went into the bathroom, and saw either himself in the mirror or a stain on the wall. I'll tell you something more about him: he's lived in America. How's that for scientific deduction?"

"How on earth do you know that?"

"I don't," said the other calmly; "it's deduction--in other words, guesswork. It's a typical gang killing, though--taking a man for a ride and throwing him out of the car after he's been shot. Nobody seems to have heard the pistol go off, but if they did they'd think it was a motor-cyclist. They scorch down the by-pass."

He drove home with Dick, and was very voluble.

"Hennessey was in the swindle from the start. He knew who Wirth was, knew that Wirth was forging cheques, and took advantage of his knowledge to blackmail the other man." Then, abruptly: "I'm going to show Miss Lane the key and the cheque."

It was the first time Dick had heard about the key.

By the time Surefoot Smith reached Scotland Yard, all the grisly relics of the murdered man had been collected and laid on his table. There were a notebook, a few odd scraps of paper, about twenty pounds in cash, a watch and chain, and a key-ring, but nothing that was particularly illuminating--except the absence of any large sum of money. Obviously, Hennessey did not intend to make his jump for the Continent on a capital of twenty pounds. Surefoot guessed that the murderer, profiting by the previous discovery of money in Tickler's pocket, had relieved him of what might have been very incriminating evidence.

He looked over the papers. One was a page torn from a Bradshaw, with pencil markings against certain trains. Surefoot guessed that Hennessey's plan was to make his way to Vienna.

The second paper was the more interesting. It was a sheet torn from a notebook, and contained a number of figures. Surefoot had a remarkable memory, and he recognised at once that the figures represented those balances which had appeared in the statement. Evidently the paper had been handled many times.

Smith was puzzled. Why had Hennessey taken the trouble to jot these notes down in pencil and keep them? Obviously he knew of the bank statement, had possibly concocted it; but here he would have some other data than this scrap of paper. If the bank statement was an invention, as undoubtedly it was, there was no need to keep this note. Either the man would invent the figures on the spur of the moment, or else he had some book record of the defalcations and the amount that should have stood to old Lyne's account.

Early the next morning he telephoned to Mary Lane, who had spent an uneasy night. She was not even stimulated by the knowledge that there was a police officer in the corridor outside her flat, one at the foot of the fire escape, and another patrolling before the house.

"Come round by all means," she said, and was relieved to know that she was seeing him, for she wanted advice very badly.

The morning had brought no news to Surefoot. The enquiries he had made had drawn blank. A search of Mike Hennessey's flat gave him no clue that was of the least value. Of papers or documents there was none; an old bank book told him no more than that three years before Hennessey had been living from hand to mouth.

He was rather despondent when he came into Mary's flat.

"It almost looks as if science has got to be brought in," he said gloomily, as he produced a small packet from his pocket and laid it on the table. "Maybe you're it!"

He opened the wash-leather wrapper and disclosed the key. Then from his pocket-book he took out a cheque and laid it on the table. She examined the faint pencil marks carefully and nodded.

"That is Mr. Lyne's handwriting," she said. "I think I told you that when I was a girl I lived in the same house; in fact, I kept house for him, in a very inefficient way. He was rather trying to live with."

"In what way?" asked Surefoot.

She hesitated.

"Well, in many ways--domestically, I mean. For example, he had the same tradespeople for over forty years, and never changed them, although he was always quarrelling with them or disputing the amount he owed them."

She looked at the key, turning it over and over in her hand.

"Would you think I was terribly vain if I told you I thought I could find the man who killed Mr. Lyne?"

"I think you would be very silly if you tried to do it on your own," said Smith bluntly. "This fellow isn't one you can monkey about with."

She nodded.

"I realise that. Will you give me a week to make enquiries?"

"Don't you think you'd better tell me now what your suspicions are?"

She shook her head.

"No; I am probably making a fool of myself, and I have a very natural desire to avoid that."

Smith pursed his thick lips.

"You can't keep these----" he began.

"I don't want them," she said quickly. "You mean the cheque and the key? Would it be asking you too much to give me a replica of the key? If I find the lock it fits I'll telephone you."

He looked at her in surprise.

"Do you think you can find the lock?"

She nodded. Surefoot Smith sighed.

"This is like doing things in books," he said, "and I hate the way they do things in books. It's romantical, and romantical things make me sick. But I'll do this for you, young lady."

Two days later she received a brand-new, shining key, and set forth on her investigations, never suspecting that, day and night, she was shadowed by one of three detectives, whose instructions from Surefoot Smith had been short and not especially encouraging.

"Keep this lady in your sight. If you let her out of your sight, your chance of ever being promoted is practically nil."

It was the third day after the murder of Mike Hennessey that Cassari Oils moved. They had hovered between £1 3s. and £1 7s. for five years. They represented £40 shares, for in pre-war days they had been issued at 1,000 francs. The field was situated in Asia Minor, and had produced enough oil to prevent the company from collapsing, but insufficient to bring the shares back to their normal value.

Mary read the flaming headline on the City page, "Sensational Rise of Cassari Oils," and called up Mr. Smith.

"Those were the shares that you transferred to Moran, weren't they?" he asked, interested. "What did they stand at last night? I haven't seen the paper."

The stock had jumped from 25s. to 95s. overnight. When Surefoot Smith put a call through to the City he was staggered to learn that they stood at £30 and were rising every minute.

He drove up to an office in Old Broad Street which supplied him with particulars of financial phenomena, and discovered the reason from an unconcerned stock-jobber.

"They struck big oil about three months ago, and they've been sinking new wells. Apparently they found inexhaustible supplies, but managed to keep it quiet until they'd cleared the market of every floating share. The stock is certain to go to a hundred, and I can advise you to have a little flutter. There's no doubt about the oil being there."

Surefoot Smith had never had a flutter in his life, except that he invariably had half a crown on some horse in the Derby which he picked with the aid of a pin and a list of probable runners.

"Who is behind this move?" he asked.

The jobber shook his head.

"If I tried to pronounce their names I'd dislocate my jaw," he said. "They are mostly Turks--Effendi this and Pasha that. You'll find them in the Stock Exchange Year-book. They're a pretty solid crowd; millionaires, most of them. Oh no, there's nothing shady about them; they're as solid as the Bank of England, and this isn't a market rig. They haven't a London office; Jolman and Joyce are their agents."

To the office of Messrs. Jolman and Joyce Surefoot Smith went. He found the place besieged. He sent in his card and was admitted to the office of Mr. Joyce, the senior partner.

"I can't tell you very much, Mr. Smith, except what the newspapers can tell you. There are not a large number of shares on the market--I've just told a friend of mine who thought of running a bear that he's certain to burn his fingers. The only big holder I know is a man named Moran--Leo Moran."