Chapter XX

IN WHICH A FRIENDSHIP PROCEEDS VERY RAPIDLY, BUT SUPERINTENDENT
WILSON HAS TO BE COMFORTED BY HIS WIFE

Arthur Wharton renewed his friendship with John Pasquett during the few days following his return to London. Pasquett hardly knew England, and it was Arthur's turn to act as guide. But Pasquett was, for the most part, in no mood to amuse himself. He liked Arthur's company, and they discussed many things together. Arthur knew that his friend--for so he had already learnt to think of Pasquett--was hard at work on the case, and once or twice he attempted to discuss with him the circumstances of Hugh Radlett's murder. But he found that Pasquett, though he would talk of nothing but the case to Wilson or Lord Ealing, was reluctant to discuss it with him. "No, Arthur," he said (they slipped quickly into calling each other by their Christian names), "don't talk to me about this horrible affair. I want to talk with you about other things. It helps my mind somehow." So they talked of all manner of things--of everything in heaven and earth--except the Radlett affair.

That was till Pasquett, in pursuit of a clue which he told Arthur he had picked up from a "comrade" in King Street, went to Glasgow. He believed, he said, that the mysterious Rosenbaum was, or had been, there. Arthur missed him when he was gone. Lord Ealing, who had done all he could to encourage his nephew's friendship with Pasquett, laughed at him for mooning about like a girl that has lost her lover. Arthur first blushed, and then said that really he did feel a bit like that. "All the better, my boy," said Lord Ealing. "I only hope John Pasquett feels the same."

Time sped. A week had passed since Pasquett had turned detective, and beyond the fact that he had gone to Glasgow and was staying at the Central Hotel, following, as he told the police, a faint clue, the case had practically stood still. Further bills had been posted offering increased rewards to any person who could throw light on Rosenbaum's movements after he left Charing Cross Station, or offer any information that might lead to his apprehension. For several days these produced no result, save a further crop of persons whose evidence proved to be utterly worthless and untrustworthy. The police were quite in despair of getting any further clue, when at last two men came forward to say that to the best of their belief they had seen Rosenbaum--at least, a man of similar appearance--alight from a taxi at the door of 99 Grosvenor Walk, Chelsea, and, with the driver's help, carry a heavy trunk, answering the right description, into the house. The police then searched the house, which was empty, though furnished, and found marks in the thick dining-room carpet as if a trunk had been dragged in or out. But Blaikie could discover no other trace; nor could any one be found who had seen Rosenbaum or the trunk leave the house. An agent's board outside announced that it was to be let furnished for a few months. Inquiries at the agent's office brought a surprising fact to light. On the afternoon before the crime, Hugh Radlett himself, giving the name of Restington, and Lord Ealing as a reference, had borrowed the keys, in order to look over the house on the following morning. He wanted, he said, a furnished house for a temporary residence in London. The keys had been returned through the post on the following day, and no more had been heard of Mr. Restington. The agent admitted that he ought to have informed the police of this, but the matter had seemed to him of no importance. He had not connected it in any way with Rosenbaum or with the murder.

So far the affair seemed clear enough. Radlett had meant to look over the house, and had told his secretary of his intention. Rosenbaum had then conceived the idea of taking his incriminating burden to the empty building. But what had he then done with it? Very likely he had taken advantage of being alone to disguise himself, and had left the house with a different appearance. But the trunk could not be discovered anywhere in the house; it must therefore have been taken away. But how? The trunk, rather than Rosenbaum's personal description, was now the clue to follow. But all inquiries failed to bring news of any one who had seen a man with a trunk, or indeed a man without one, leaving the house. There was, indeed, a back entrance into a little-frequented alley behind, and Rosenbaum could easily have slipped out unnoticed by that way. But he could not possibly have carried the trunk with him. It was too heavy to carry any distance without a vehicle, and the alley was only a footpath. Even if he had an accomplice, it would have been highly dangerous to carry it openly down the alley to the street. He must, therefore, have left by the front way, but by bad luck the police could not get on his track. This was Blaikie's conclusion, and Superintendent Wilson had to admit that he was probably right.

But Wilson was not satisfied. He made up his mind to see for himself. The whole house had already been turned topsy-turvy by the police in their search for the trunk, but still it was just possible they might have missed it. There was a curious piece of evidence which made him suspect that somewhere the trunk, with its gruesome contents, must be still in the house. A firm of furniture warehousers--Hollis's in King's Cross Road--came forward and stated that, on the day before the crime, they had received a letter, typewritten and signed "John Smith," asking them to call at ten o'clock on the following morning at 99 Grosvenor Walk, in order to fetch away a package to be warehoused. John Smith, who gave his address as 99 Grosvenor Walk, said that they must call punctually at ten o'clock, as he was leaving town and the house was being locked up at that hour. He enclosed £3 in Treasury notes to cover warehousing expenses for a year, and asked that any balance should be retained to cover future charges. Hollis's carman had duly called, but there had been no reply to his knocks, and he had gone away. A letter written by the firm to John Smith had been returned through the post marked "not known." John Smith's letter, Wilson found, had undoubtedly been typed on the typewriter found in Radlett's rooms.

This was a curious circumstance. It looked to the Superintendent as if Rosenbaum had meant to put the trunk and its contents away, for the time--at least, until he had got securely away--in Hollis's depository. But, as he had not done this, he must have found some better way of disposing of it. What if he had, after all, hidden it somewhere in the house?

Wilson went to Grosvenor Walk. Where could a man hide a trunk in a furnished house so that it would escape the expert searching of the police? Under the floor? The floorboards had already been taken up. He might have chopped it up small and hidden it somewhere; but then what had become of its contents? It was a bulky and a heavy object that needed hiding.

He searched long from roof to cellar before he hit on Rosenbaum's plan. At last he noticed a possible hiding-place. The stairs came down in a curve from the first landing to the ground floor, and the basement stairs ran under these in an opposite curve. Cupboards occupied the space under the basement stairs, full of household crockery; but the space under the lower stairs of the flight leading to the first landing was boarded over. It was a useless space, well over Wilson's head as he descended the basement stairs. The boarding looked quite natural, corresponding to the panelling which lined the walls all the way down. But, on climbing up, Wilson saw that some of the boards had been recently removed and replaced. The marks of recent, and hasty, nailing were plainly to be seen.

Within a few minutes he had the boards down, and was rewarded by a sight he had hardly dared to expect. Inside was the trunk, wedged into a space just big enough to hold it. With some difficulty he drew it out, but, as he did so, a sharp feeling of disappointment swept over him. It was too light: it was empty.

Carrying it up to the ground floor, he opened it. There was nothing at all inside. But on the bottom was a biggish bloodstain, and there were spots of dry blood on other parts of the lining. The body, then, had been in the trunk. But where was the body, now? And how, in heaven's name, had Rosenbaum managed to walk off in broad daylight with a dead body, leaving behind the trunk which had concealed it from view?

"Worse and worse," thought Wilson. The more one discovered, the worse became the confusion of the case. But suppose Radlett had not been dead, after all. Suppose Rosenbaum had packed him up in the trunk, alive and drugged. And suppose he had got him to the house, and there revived him. Bah! That didn't make sense either. For in that case it meant that Radlett had quietly walked off with the man who had wounded and drugged him, and had then completely disappeared. Such an idea was merely fantastic.

No. The body, like the trunk, must surely be hidden somewhere in the house. Wilson 'phoned to Scotland Yard for help, and an even more energetic search began. There would be a pretty bill for compensation to the absent owners by the time the police had done pulling the place about. The search was now even extended to the neighbouring houses on each side, in case Rosenbaum might have been aided by an accomplice in disposing of the body. But the outraged house-holders of 101 and 97 Grosvenor Walk seemed to be quite above suspicion. The most meticulous search revealed nothing further at all.

Superintendent Wilson returned to Scotland Yard from this abortive body-hunt to find a wire from Pasquett awaiting him. "On R.'s track," it ran. "Has been here. Leaving for Aberdeen after him. Pasquett." He at once put through a trunk call to the Aberdeen police, telling them to be on the look-out for Rosenbaum, and to give Pasquett any help he wanted. And he determined to send Inspector Blaikie at once to Aberdeen with orders to get directly into touch with Pasquett and bring Rosenbaum to London if he could be found. Then he waited for news with what patience he could muster.

It came on the following day, in the form of a wire from Blaikie. "R. escaped. Returning at once with P. to report." And, on the next morning, Pasquett and Inspector Blaikie told him their story.

"I began," said Pasquett, "as you know, by getting myself into the confidence of the Bolshevik fellows down here. That was easy enough, I found, where I showed them letters from Lenin, and a few other things like that. Then I told them I was going to Glasgow, offered to do some speaking up there, and got introductions to the local 'comrades.' In Glasgow I got on Rosenbaum's track by a pure stroke of luck. The fellows there, seeing my introductions, thought I was a real 'comrade,' on a secret mission from Russia--I made them think that--and I told them I had to get in touch with a man from the Third International who was also in this country. They said, did I mean Hetherington? I drew a bow at a venture, and said I did, though, of course, that wasn't his real name. In conversation, I soon made sure he was our man. They said he had gone to Aberdeen, on his way back to Russia. You can be sure I scuttled after him at full speed, and got the Aberdeen police on his track. They had just had your message, and did all they could to help. Well, to cut a long story short, we found this chap had started, a week before I got there, on a Russian timber ship belonging to the Soviet Government. He was shipped as a member of the crew--the ship had gone straight to Cronstadt. Of course, we made inquiries about where she was; but it seems that, barring accidents, she's in port by now, and Rosenbaum's safe back somewhere in Russia. Not much chance of getting at him there, I'm afraid?"

"Very little, I fear. You see, Russia's not recognised. Of course, we can make unofficial representations, but they will only swear they've never heard of him, I expect."

"So that's that, is it?" Pasquett sighed. "If only I'd been here sooner," he said. "But, you see, I knew nothing about it. I came at once when I knew."

"It's not your fault, Mr. Pasquett. You have done wonders in getting on his track. It is our people who have let him slip through their fingers. And what we've found out while you've been away doesn't help us now the fellow's gone."

Wilson then gave Pasquett an account of the discovery of the trunk, and of the careful search they had made for the body. Pasquett listened, clutching the table before him. "My God," he said, "does it mean Hugh's alive? It must mean that. This villain's carried him off."

Wilson explained the strong objection to such a view of the case. "No," he said, "I fear it means that Rosenbaum somehow got out of the house with the body, and disposed of it. How, I confess I don't know. It's not in the house. Our search has been absolutely exhaustive."

"It can't rest there, Superintendent. Look here. I offer a reward of £10,000, or more, if you like, for the discovery of the body, or of Hugh Radlett himself, if he's still alive. I can't bear not knowing. You've got so far, you must be able to find out more."

* * * * *

But there the case ended. Pasquett's offer of £10,000 reward was given the widest publicity, and brought in many people who thought they had information to offer. Rosenbaum was reported to have been seen in a dozen places: half a dozen persons were detained on false suspicions, and had to be released. Unofficial representations were made in Moscow, but the Soviet authorities blandly denied that any such person as Rosenbaum had been on a mission to England with their knowledge, or that they had any means of laying hands on the man, if he existed at all. Pasquett, after an attempt, through Lord Ealing, to stir the Foreign Office to action, finally gave up the struggle, and consented to talk business again with Lord Ealing and with a member of the firm of lawyers who were Radlett's agents. The lawyer had come over on purpose from New York, and he and Mr. Franklin were closeted for long hours with Pasquett, who spent other busy hours in the offices of the Anglo-Asiatic Corporation. The business of the concession was seriously resumed, with no change of plan, except that John Pasquett had stepped into Radlett's shoes.

* * * * *

"The most bothersome case I ever had in my life," said Wilson to Mrs. Wilson on the evening of the day when he had finally given up hope, and sent the papers away to be filed.

"Yes, dear," said his wife. "Would you like to tell me about it?"

"Oh, it's no use, I'm afraid. Even you can't help me this time. All the same, I should like to try to sort it out in my mind before I put it away for good.

"It's like this, my dear. This man Radlett came to stay with his secretary at Sugden's Hotel. Early in the morning, the secretary, who had ordered a taxi the night before, went away with a large trunk. Lord Ealing arrived to breakfast with Radlett, but when they went to find him all they found at first was an empty room with bloodstains and traces of a struggle all over the place."

"Did they never find the body?"

"No; but when they searched the secretary's bedroom they found an absurd little man called Culpepper bound and gagged in a cupboard. He said he had seen the murderer actually with the body in his arms, when he was carrying it so as to pack it up in the trunk. Rosenbaum threatened Culpepper with a revolver, and made him--he's a miserable little creature--help him pack up the body. Then he drugged Culpepper and tied him up."

"How did this man Culpepper come to be there in the middle of the night, dear?"

"Oh, he was a friend of Radlett's who had been there in the evening. He had missed his last train home, and Radlett had given him a shake-down on the sofa. That was after Rosenbaum had gone to bed, so that he had no idea Culpepper was there."

"Who was Culpepper? What sort of man, I mean?"

"He's a merchant in a middling way of business. He lives in Paris. He's a friend of Pasquett's, too. Pasquett was staying in France with his wife and daughter when it happened. He was in London on business. Fine girl, his daughter. I went over and saw her."

"Then this man Culpepper actually saw the murderer pack the body in the trunk."

"Yes, helped him do it. Then this Rosenbaum--who turned out, by the way, to be a notorious Bolshevik agitator, who had somehow got into Radlett's confidence, having murdered his employer----"

"I suppose Culpepper was sure the man was dead."

"He said he was sure. But, of course, it's not absolutely certain. It's just possible this Rosenbaum drugged Radlett, and carried him off alive. But I don't think so. He'd have turned up by now in that case, unless he killed him afterwards. What I want to know is why on earth the fellow ever took the body away. It doesn't make sense."

"Could he have wanted the body for anything?"

"Nothing I can conceive. If you can think of a plausible reason I won't despair of the case. I just can't think of one."

"Perhaps he meant you to believe Radlett had only disappeared."

"In that case, he ought to have removed the other traces of the crime. But he didn't. However, he may have meant to do so, and not had time. Well, then we had the devil of a job tracing Rosenbaum and his infernal trunk all over London. At last, we tracked him to a house in Chelsea, and there, in the end, I found the trunk, with bloodstains in it, but empty."

"You didn't find the body?"

"No. It had clean vanished, and so had the man. Then this chap Pasquett, who was Radlett's partner and was in France at the time of the murder--I've confirmed that; been out myself to make sure--did a bit of private detecting on his own, and got on Rosenbaum's track, only to find that he had sailed for Russia from Aberdeen in a Russian vessel."

"What a pity. But wasn't it very clever of Mr. Pasquett to find him out at all?"

"Yes; he did very well, but, unfortunately, he was too late. The fellow had got clean away."

"Mr. Radlett was very rich, was he not?"

"Immensely--he was a millionaire a good many times over."

"Who gets his money, my dear?"

"Oh, Pasquett gets pretty nearly all of it. You mean, I suppose, that he had the motive."

"Well, hadn't he?"

"Certainly; but he was in France when it happened; and, besides, there's no reasonable doubt this fellow Rosenbaum did it."

"I suppose Mr. Pasquett did really trace Rosenbaum to Aberdeen. Could he not have just pretended to trace him? So as to put you off the track?"

"No, that's impossible. We have proved positively that Rosenbaum was in Aberdeen. Quite apart, I mean, from Pasquett's evidence. At least, there was a Bolshie agitator there who got away clean to Russia, and we proved he had used the name Rosenbaum and been in London before he went to Scotland. He called himself 'Hetherington' after the crime."

"Could Mr. Pasquett have bribed Rosenbaum to kill Mr. Radlett, and then have helped him to get out of the country?"

"No. Impossible. He didn't get to Aberdeen till a week after Rosenbaum had left. No, my dear, I've given all possible weight to the suggestion that, since Pasquett profits by the crime, he may have instigated it. But there's not a shadow of an imputation that points to Pasquett. Besides, I've seen the man, and I'll stake my reputation he's no murderer--directly or indirectly. He was really fond of Radlett. No, if you had met Pasquett, you would be as sure as I am."

"Then, dear, I suppose you're quite right to give the case up. This man Rosenbaum did it, and he's got away."

"Yes; but how the devil did he get rid of the body? He didn't leave it at that house in Chelsea, and I don't see how he could have taken it away from there. Of course, we didn't trace him there directly, so he may have got rid of it before that. But how? And why did he keep the trunk after he got rid of the body? There's a mystery there, and we haven't got to the bottom of it. I suppose we never shall."

"I'm sorry, dear. I know you don't like being beaten. But it's time for bed. You must try to put the whole thing out of your mind."

Wilson obediently tried, but he lay long awake, turning the case over and trying to make the parts fit. Blaikie, on the other hand, slept peacefully enough. Unsolved riddles of justice annoyed him, and he did not like being beaten any better than his superior. But he did not lose sleep over it.