Chapter TWENTY-TWO

Surefoot knelt and brought his face close to the floor. The smell of gas was overpowering. He tried the handle. The door was fastened on the inside. Repeated knocking produced no response. Stepping back he threw the whole weight of his body against the frame. There was a crash and he fell headlong into the room. The place was so full of gas that he was almost asphyxiated and only staggered out with difficulty. Going into the girl's room, he soaked a towel in water and clapping it over his face ran through to the room and flung open the window. Then, turning his attention to the man who lay on the bed, he put his arm round him and dragged him into the passage.

The man was still breathing. One glance he took at the purple face, and in his astonishment almost dropped the inanimate figure. Leo Moran!

By this time the hotel was aroused. A doctor, who lived on the same floor, came out in pyjamas and an overcoat, and rendered first aid, whilst Surefoot went back into the room.

He switched on the electric light. The gas was still hissing from the burner on the hearth and he turned this off before he opened the window wider. He saw now that elaborate preparations had been made for this near tragedy. There was sticking-plaster down each side of the window. He found it also over the keyhole, and the space between the bottom of the door leading into the bathroom had been stuffed with a towel. Near the bed was a half-glass of whisky and soda. Evidently Moran had been writing. Surefoot took up a half-finished letter. He saw it was addressed to the general manager of the bank for which he had worked.

"DEAR SIR,

"I am back in London, and for reasons which I will explain to you,
I am living under an assumed name at this hotel. The explanation
which I will give I think will satisfy ..."

Here the writing ended in a scrawl, as though Moran had been suddenly overcome.

There was a closely typed foolscap sheet on the table, but this Surefoot did not see immediately.

He looked round the room; the first thing that struck him was that the door of a large cupboard stood wide open and on the floor of the cupboard, which was empty, were two muddy foot-prints. They were unmistakably the prints of goloshes, and he remembered the old pair of goloshes which had been found in the car where Mike Hennessey's body had been discovered. Somebody had been hiding there. Outside it had been raining heavily; the prints were still wet.

He went outside and found that Moran had been carried into another bedroom, where the doctor and the porter were engaged in applying artificial resuscitation. Returning to Moran's room, he remembered the typewritten sheet which lay on the top of other documents and picked it up. He had not read half a dozen words when his jaw dropped in amazement, and he sat down heavily in a chair: for this typewritten statement was a murder confession.

"I, Leopold Moran, am about to say farewell to life, and, before
going, I want to make a full statement concerning the killing of
three men. The first of these is a man named Tickler.

"In some way he had discovered that I was robbing the bank. He had
been blackmailing me for months. He knew that under the name of Mr.
Washington Wirth I was giving parties, and traced me back to a room
over a garage which I used to change my clothes and have used on
other occasions as a hiding place. He came into this room and
demanded a thousand pounds. I gave him a hundred in treasury notes
and then persuaded him to let me drive him down to the West End in
a cab that was standing in the mews. As he got into the cab I shot
him, closed the door, and, driving him down into Regent Street,
left the cab on the rank.

"The next day I had an interview with Hervey Lyne. He was growing
suspicious. I had forged his name to large sums of money and when,
at his request, I called on him, I knew that the game was up. I had
tried to bribe Binny--his servant--into helping me to keep the old
man in the dark, but Binny was either too honest or too foolish to
fall in with my suggestions. Binny is one of the straightest men I
have ever met. I think he was a fool to himself, but that is
neither here nor there.

"I knew Hervey Lyne was in the habit of going into Regent's Park
every afternoon and he always chose a spot where I could see him.
On the afternoon in question, realising that I could see my finish,
I shot him from the window with a rifle to which I had fastened a
silencer. What made it so easy was that a noisy car was passing at
the time. Afterwards I sent a man to Germany under my name and
myself stayed in England.

"I was afraid of Hennessey, who was also blackmailing me, and I had
to silence him. I drove him into the country, and killed him on the
Colnbrook By-pass. Before he died he told me that Miss Lane had the
bank statement. That night I entered her house and made a search
for it, but found nothing.

"All the above is true. I am tired of life and am going out with no
regret."

It was signed "Leo Moran."

Surefoot read the confession carefully and then began a search of the room for the goloshes. There was no sign of them.

He found Mary Lane in her room, fully dressed.

"You didn't see the face of the man who tried to get into the room?"

She shook her head.

"Did you recognise him in any other way?"

She thought she had and told him.

As far as he could judge, there was a quarter of an hour between the appearance of the man and the arrival of Surefoot: time enough, if it were Moran, to lock himself in his room. He was reaching this conclusion when he saw something on the floor that glistened. Stooping, he picked up a key. It lay very near to the open window. Going back to Moran's room, he scraped away the plaster that covered the keyhole, put in the key, and turned it. There was no doubt now in his mind.

Moran was still unconscious, though the doctor said he was out of danger. Surefoot had sent for two detectives, and, leaving the banker in their charge, he went back to the Yard.

At one o'clock in the morning three Scotland Yard chiefs were called from their beds and hurried to headquarters. To these Surefoot showed the confession.

"It is as clear as daylight," said his immediate chief. "As soon as he is conscious, shoot him into Cannon Row and charge him."

Surefoot said nothing for a moment, but again examined the foolscap sheet.

"It wasn't typewritten in the room, was it?" he asked. "Perhaps there is such a thing as an invisible typewriter, but I've never seen one. And there was no typewriter in the room. And the door was locked on the inside and the key was on the floor in Miss Lane's room. And the tape over the window was on the outside, not on the inside. That was a little error on somebody's part."

He put his hand in his pocket and took out a small bottle containing an amber liquid.

"That's the whisky that I found in the glass on his writing table--I want it analysed."

"How was Moran dressed when you found him?" asked one of the chief inspectors.

"He had everything on--including his boots," said Surefoot. "And what is more, he was lying with his feet on the pillow--it is not the position I should choose if I were committing suicide. All very rum and mysterious and scientific, but it doesn't impress _me_!"

The Chief Inspector sniffed.

"Nothing impresses you, Surefoot, except good beer. What is your suggestion?"

Surefoot thought for a while.

"Moran's been out this evening--the hall porter saw him come in an hour before he was discovered. The whisky and soda was sent up to his room--the whisky in a glass and the bottle unopened--an hour before that, on his instructions. I've been through the documents I found on his table, and if there's one thing more certain than another, it is that he had no intention of committing suicide. He has come back to buy a lot of outstanding shares in Cassari Oils and to open a London office for the company. He didn't want to call attention to the fact that he was back--it might have upset his plans for getting the shares he wanted. I found all that in a letter he has written to a Turk in Constantinople. I took the liberty of opening it. And he was seeing the general manager of the bank tomorrow--that doesn't look like suicide."

"Well?" asked the three men together when he paused.

"He didn't try to commit suicide. Somebody got into his room whilst he was out--it was easy, for there are two empty rooms that open on to the balcony--and after getting in he hocussed the whisky and hid himself in the cupboard. When the dope took effect he came out, picked up Moran from the floor, and laid him on the bed. He then stuffed up the ventilation of the room and turned on the gas. Then he got out of the window on to the balcony and made the door air-tight and went out through Miss Lane's room--he probably mistook the room for the one through which he had gained admission to Moran's. He must have dropped the key and was coming back for it, when Miss Lane screamed."

"How did he get out of the hotel without the night porter seeing him?"

Surefoot smiled pityingly.

"There are three ways out, but the easiest is down the service stairs and through the kitchen. There is a coffee cook on duty, but it would be easy to avoid him."

He underlined with his thumb nail a few lines of the confession.

"Notice what a good character he gives to Binny. That was a silly thing to do--a child in arms would know that only Binny could have written that statement."

"Binny--the servant!"

Surefoot nodded.

"He's got several other names," he said. "One of them is Washington Wirth. There's the murderer!"