Chapter XVII

There was no mistaking the certainty in McNab's voice. And the suddenness with which I perceived he felt assured that the disguised man was Kinloch left me breathless. All the way along Bayswater Road I kept trying to get a grasp of this fact and what it would mean in the development of the case. For, if McNab were right, we were on the eve of many discoveries.

How he had penetrated the man's disguise I could not imagine. The man's voice sounded, as I have said, genuine Cockney to my ear. And the comparison of his hair with the wisp found in the room at Ealing, exactly alike in shade as McNab may have found it, was far from conclusive evidence. Dark hair is not so uncommon as all that. And the finger-prints could not be the basis of his certainty, for he had not had time to examine them, much less to compare them with those left on the broken glass found in the room after the murder. To make the comparison McNab would have to visit the finger-print bureau at Scotland Yard.

It will be recalled that McNab considered the finger-prints on the broken glass might possibly be those of Kinloch and not--as Inspector Snargrove held--those of the murderer. On this question I found myself, to my regret, again forced to agree with Snargrove's view, though for other reasons than those which had weighed with him. My argument was that Kinloch being blind would be ever so much less likely to find the tumbler on Ponsonby Paget's table than the murderer, who had eyes to see it. But this quite rational view McNab brushed aside by saying that though he could not see the whisky or the glass I must remember Kinloch was a Scotchman and still had a nose. This, of course, was mere jesting, the sort of thing he said when he for some reason wished to conceal from me the real grounds which had forced him to a specific conclusion. All the same I saw that, if McNab now went to Scotland Yard with a set of finger-prints the duplicates of those already on their books in connection with this case, he was likely to be met by questions which could not be turned aside by a jest. Where had he got those prints which were those of a man wanted for the Ealing murder? Why, it would set Scotland Yard buzzing like a wasp's nest. But if the two sets did not coincide, what had McNab to gain from those finger-prints? Nothing that I could see. For, if no separate set of Kinloch's impressions existed, those taken from the ostensible Dick Hollins that day were useless: they could not prove that Dick Hollins and Alexander David Kinloch were one and the same person. And it mystified me more than ever to remember that McNab was sure the two were one even before he took the finger-prints.

But I was not yet convinced Hollins was a fraud. So, as the taxi pulled up in a traffic block at Marble Arch I said as much to McNab, bluntly too, to draw him out of his contented silence. He turned to me, laying a hand on my knee.

"You must learn to be a better observer, my son. It's almost as essential in your own profession as in mine. An observer is what few are. The most of folk have sight but few have insight." He paused before adding, as if quoting from some one: "'They look on what I look on but they see not what I see.' That is why they need such aids to apprehension as journalists and detectives."

He spoke with seriousness, but his adroit double use of the word apprehension made me smile.

"You've been a first-rate jackal to me this day," he resumed. "I was anxious the man should not hear my voice just yet, nor even know another person was there. But you kept all his wits riveted on yourself. And you showed him you believed he was what he affected to be."

"Because I did believe it. His Cockney accent appeared perfect."

"Oh, but the Cockney accent is easy--a mere matter of changing 'a' into 'y' and saying fyce for face--that sort of thing. But behind the Cockney accent is the Cockney idiom, a very different matter. And this man's idioms were all wrong."

"Give me an example," I said as the policeman's extended arm was lowered and we began to move again.

"Take this one, then. You remember his saying to you that he never forgets voices when they come into his ears along o' 'arf a crown? That 'along o'' was wrong. He used it in the sense of 'together with.' But in the East End you will find 'along o'' means 'because of.' A wife beater will tell the magistrate it was 'all along of her tongue' as an excuse. So this fellow I was certain was no true Cockney.

"And this matter of the idiom did not stand alone. There was, again, his rendering of that passage from his book. Yes, it was well done. As Cockney English you might think it perfect unless you were, like myself, very suspicious. But for all that he blundered badly."

"Will you tell me where? I, too, was on the watch and detected nothing."

"It was very obvious. He put in the r in reading the word 'Lord.'"

"But," I objected, "there _is_ an r in the word 'Lord.'"

"True. But no Cockney sounds it." McNab laughed. "All you English now treat that letter r as if it were an intruder from Scotland. You try to cold-shoulder it out. You deny it? Very well, take this same word 'Lord.' You attend the Law Courts, don't you? Tell me, did you ever hear Counsel address the judge otherwise than 'm'lud'? And you go to church too."

"Not so often."

"Often enough to know that the parson, like the generality of you, says 'Laud' for 'Lo-r-rd,'" McNab snapped. And as I turned to protest he added with a laugh: "Oh, I dare say you _think_ you sound the r, but it is an illusion on your par-rt. But there was no illusion about the blind man's r, which you heard yourself, no doubt."

"Yes, he put in about three in the one word," I said mischievously.

"So you would think. But he did nothing of the sort. He put in one with just the right distinctness and precision to prove to me that he was not only no Cockney but also that he was no Englishman."

"And the colour of the hair convinced you he was Kinloch?"

"The texture more than the colour; there's more variation in texture than in colour. I put that wisp found in the room at Ealing close to his head and found a perfect match both in colour and texture. But that wasn't all. While you had his hat in your hands it was possible for me to examine the man's head. You remember the photograph of Kinloch in uniform? It showed him wearing the glengarry bonnet which, more than any other headgear, allows one to see the wearer's forehead. This was very fortunate, for the forehead is the most changeless feature in the human face, more so even than the eyes, which of course I could not see. Then as I looked at his forehead I regarded the identity as established. In configuration, shape, in the way in which the hair followed the contour of the temples and arched up to the broad straight forehead I knew the truth--this was my man at last!"

There was a glow in his eyes as he finished, and a hint of colour in his usually pale face. His feeling of triumph was stronger than he usually permitted it to be; and I did not wonder, for he had met with many checks in this most baffling case.

As we neared the _Record_ office where he was to drop me I asked about his next move.

"What are you going to do about him?"

"Kinloch?"

"Yes. He may refuse to tell you anything, or he may tell you a faked up story."

"I'm not going to ask him anything. I'll leave him unquestioned where he is, roosting on that stool. He knows his chances of making contact with those he wishes to meet better than we do. He isn't sitting there for the fun of the thing. So we'll let him sit, and see what comes of it. He will serve admirably as bait, the unconscious bait, for the bigger fish we have yet to land."

"But you intend to have him watched?"

"Of course. That will be fixed up inside the next hour. Two gardeners will be hoeing and weeding the beds behind him, a painter will be at work on the gate close up on his right, and if you happen to pass that way before five to-night you will find a match-seller has stationed himself under the overhanging tree five yards to the left. Come, here you are," he said, throwing open the door as the taxi drew up at the office.

Reluctantly I got out. There was so much more I wanted to learn.

But Matheson saw to it that I did not learn more that night. Matheson had lately become rather soured over the case. It had been of little value to the paper so far. "The blind looking for the blind," he muttered one day after questioning me about our progress. I could have told him enough to whet his keenness, but my lips were sealed, since the secrets were not mine but McNab's, at whose service Matheson himself had placed me. Indeed, towards the end of the case, I felt that to be between Matheson and McNab was like being between the devil and the deep sea. Matheson naturally was all for publicity while McNab's instincts inclined him to closeness. So it was pull devil, pull baker, with myself between the pair. And that night Matheson had the pull, for as soon as my news job was complete he gave me, before he himself left, enough other work to tie me up till after midnight. And all the time McNab, I knew, was out there, putting the last touches to the trap by which he meant to make his big capture.

But about nine o'clock, a few minutes after I had resigned myself to go on with work our most inexpert junior could have done equally well, I was called to the telephone. It _was_ McNab. And the moment I heard his voice it was apparent that something fresh was in the wind.

"That you, Chance? Come round at once. Something has happened."

"What?" I asked involuntarily, forgetting that he would not tell me over the telephone. But to my surprise he breathed the words:

"_She has seen him._"

For the moment I did not realize what this meant.

"Do you mean Kin--"

"Yes. Come now. I'm expecting Howley every minute."

Promptly I handed over my work to the inexpert junior. As I hurried round to the Adelphi I remembered that Howley was the name of the smart constable who had spoken to McNab over the telephone about the blind reader he had noticed in Enderby Gardens.

He had not come when I arrived, but McNab soon told me as much as he himself knew. He had, it appeared, just come in when Howley rang him up from the police station. Almost apologetically the officer said that as we had questioned him about the blind man in Enderby Gardens we might perhaps care to know that some others seemed also interested in him. At first McNab thought Inspector Snargrove had got on the right clue at last, or that his own watchers had been clumsy; but, when Howley informed him a lady seemed to be in it, the startling truth came out. There had been an incident, a very curious incident close to the blind man's pitch, which had called for the constable's intervention. Howley said he was approaching the Gardens from the west about 12.30 when he heard a cry, a woman's cry, and coming nearer, saw a lady leaning against the garden railings half supported by a man who appeared to have been accompanying her. A few people had gathered round the couple. Howley assisted the man to get her into a passing taxi, in which they drove off, the lady in a state of collapse.

"But where does the blind man come in?" I asked.

"I couldn't quite follow Howley there. That's chiefly why I asked him to come along. But notice the time the incident happened--12.30, about two hours _before_ we ourselves saw him and took his finger-prints. That's the curious feature. Of course it's possible it was merely a coincidence that the lady took a faint turn just there. And I gathered from Howley that no sort of communication passed between the blind man and the pair. Kinloch certainly would not see what was happening. Still, that is all the more reason why we must ascertain what led Howley to associate the lady's faint with the blind man. There's this other circumstance. At 8.35 Jenkins--he's the match-seller--rang me up to say he'd just returned from shadowing the blind man to his lodgings in Hollis Street. Jenkins was inclined to be sore about it. I had led him to believe his job would be finished by five, whereas the man had stayed on his pitch till almost eight. That is another fact that makes it necessary for us to see Howley. For, if this extension of time from five to eight is exceptional, it is highly significant when taken in conjunction with the incident earlier in the day."

"Looks as if he expected her to come back."

"Certainly, if this extra long stay of his turns out to be exceptional. And it looks as if we had got at Kinloch in the nick of time. Another day and it might have been too late. We have got him all right though. He cannot escape. Day and night he will be under perpetual surveillance; and his blindness makes that an easy job."

"You have set an all-night watch on his lodgings?"

"Better than that--something less conspicuous. My match-seller in the same lodging house, probably in the next bed to his."

Just when I was thinking how easy it all was and how impossible for a blind man to escape in such circumstances, or even to be aware he was under observation, there came a knock at the door, and Howley was ushered in.

The constable was a fresh-complexioned, clear eyed fellow, of the usual well set up build and, though now in his off duty clothes, there was no mistaking what his duty was. Sitting bolt upright on the extreme edge of a chair he retailed the facts already given, and it was not till McNab began to question him that anything fresh was elicited.

"What made you suppose the lady had any interest in the blind man?" McNab asked.

"Well, chiefly it was the way she kept looking at him over the gentleman's shoulder while I was helping to get her into the taxi."

"She seemed unwilling to go?"

"Yes. And yet she kept staring at the man as if he had been a ghost, as you might say. So I asked the gentleman if he had any complaint to lodge against the man."

"What did he reply?"

"He did not reply--he just smiled."

"Did you form any idea as to the relationship of the lady and gentleman? Did you think they were, for instance, husband and wife?"

Howley fidgeted momentarily.

"Well, sir, at the time questions like that didn't enter my mind; but I can say they were on intimate terms, for she used his Christian name."

"Oh! What was it?" McNab enquired.

"She addressed him as Sandy. Several times she said quite low, 'Oh, Sandy,' like that; almost into his ear, as she looked along at the blind man as if she was frightened."

Swiftly McNab exchanged a glance with me.

"Ah, I see." There was disappointment in his tone. Then he added: "And the blind man, do you think he overheard her?"

Howley was surprised.

"Oh, no, the name wasn't more than whispered. And, although my attention was given to the lady, I had my eye on the blind man just then, thinking he might have annoyed them as they passed him. The man had stopped reading and had turned his face our way. Though of course he could not see he was no doubt aware from the noise of feet on the pavement that something was happening close to him, for he seemed to be listening hard too."

"A dramatic moment that, eh, Chance?" McNab nodded meaningly to me.

And if, as now seemed proved, he was right about the blind man being Kinloch in search of the lady, it certainly was a thrilling situation.

"Tell me, constable," McNab said after a long pause, "are you certain no communication passed between the blind man and the lady?"

The question obviously amazed Howley.

"Not after I arrived. What happened before I cannot say. The incident lasted no more than a couple of minutes or so before they went off in the taxi."

"Did you hear what address the gentleman gave to the driver?"

"I did, sir. It was 3 Brook Street, Belgravia."

McNab drew the writing-pad towards him as he sat down at the table. Howley seemed to be developing increasing surprise and some uneasiness at the minuteness with which he was being questioned. But, from the almost nonchalant way in which McNab pulled the writing-pad across, not even I could have guessed that he was writing down the first definite address obtained in connection with the Ealing murder.

"And the taxi's number?" he enquired.

But this Howley had not observed. In response to McNab's lifted eyebrows he explained that he had been too busy in getting the lady into the taxi and in keeping back the inquisitive onlookers to notice the number. This looked like one of our old checks till Howley, looking up from the contemplation of his boots, hesitated the suggestion that he could obtain the number since he knew from a recent case in which he had been concerned the driver belonged to a rank at the top of Campden Hill Road. McNab picked up his pencil again, and down went the particulars the officer supplied. While these were being taken I got hold of the London Directory and turned up Brook Street, Belgravia. It was, I discovered, a short residential street behind Grosvenor Place, and the occupier of number three was given as Christopher Agate, M.D. Accepting the hint I next opened McNab's copy of the Medical Directory and learnt that Agate, after studying in London, had graduated M. B. at Cambridge in 1903, joined the R.A.M.C., served in India, in 1909 contributing to the _B.M.F._ a series of articles on military hygiene.

But I pulled up in the act of transcribing all this information on hearing McNab say:

"And now, constable, I am sure you can supply a pretty accurate description of the gentleman and the lady?"

Howley could. There had been nothing to distract his attention from them. And he had got the particulars entered in his notebook. As his big hand went to his pocket, and fishing out the book he began to turn the pages, my pulse suddenly quickened. Now, at last, we were to have a glimpse of the hidden man, the actual criminal. Howley found the page and cleared his throat.

"Height about 5 feet 11 inches. Age between 35 and 40; pale complexion, dark, quick-moving eyes, and dark hair with close clipped moustache; features regular, small tight-lipped mouth; figure upright, looks like soldier in mufti; wearing smartly cut brown suit and soft hat to match."

As Howley looked up from his book to see, I suppose, if this conveyed anything to us, I was sure McNab was silently visualizing the man. On that there came back to my memory a thing McNab had said to Matheson in the office--that he had no doubt the murderer was a man in a high social position and that probably his portrait had more than once appeared in our columns. But if McNab made any identification from the officer's description it was more than I could do. The description failed to be sufficiently individual. It would have fitted hundreds, and if helpful at all it was so more from those it excluded than from any one at whom it definitely pointed. McNab himself did not appear to find much help from the description to judge from the way he sat, hunched up in thought, frowning, elbows on knees, and with his long, thin fingers thrust into his much ruffled hair.

"And the woman?" he said at length.

Howley hesitated, rubbing his square chin as he eyed his notebook doubtfully.

"I had a good look at her of course," he said, "but I've made no entry. In her excited state it's difficult to say what she is usually like. Even her height, for example, sir--it's hard to judge a female's height when she is half-leaning against another person."

McNab nodded.

"Just shut your eyes, and describe her as you see her."

Howley at least contemplated the toes of his boots through lowered lids.

"Young," he pronounced, "tallish but of slender build, wearing a navy blue costume and small hat with light stockings."

"And her looks?"

"She looked ill--like what I've already said, as if she had seen a ghost."

"Yes, but normally would she be considered, well, fine looking?"

"Oh, she was certainly of prepossessing appearance."

McNab smiled at this.

"That tells us little--prepossessing appearance. I've often wondered whether the police got that phrase from the reporters or the reporters got it from the police. Just tell me what her points were: eyes, nose, mouth, hair, voice, anything distinctive or peculiar."

Howley did not take long over that.

"She had fine eyes. Yes, I remember that, as she stared--brown eyes, very big at that moment, anyhow; and the eyebrows dark. That is why I was surprised at the colour of her hair."

"What surprised you?"

"Well, sir, in that close-fitting hat you couldn't see her hair. But in getting her into the taxi the hat was displaced, her hair showed, and it was fair hair which she wore long, in coils about her ears, with a square-cut fringe that came almost to her eyebrows."

"Would you say then that these were her most distinctive characteristics?"

"The colour of her hair and her eyes, yes," Howley replied with conviction.

"Good. That is all we need, I think."

McNab rose and Howley heaved himself up, pocketing his notebook.

"I can take it, I suppose, that something lies behind this?" he asked doubtfully.

McNab preceded him to the door.

"Something very serious may lie behind it," he replied, taking him by the arm. "If it does, you can take it that your work will not go unmentioned nor unrewarded."

When the door closed on P.C. Howley McNab flung himself into the big wicker chair. He seemed tired. I passed him the note I had made on Dr. Agate.

"Ah, that will keep," he said with a yawn of weariness. "It may be useful, but I doubt if that taxi ever reached this address. The man who carried out the murder with such foresight was not likely to give away such a clue at such an awkward moment in the hearing of a policeman and almost in the presence of Kinloch. That, you'll allow, was hardly the moment for such a man to make a slip. Still"--he glided the paper into his pocket--"I'll see the taxi man in the morning and verify that."

"And those finger-prints--have you verified them yet?"

"I have. Those I took from Kinloch do not coincide with those found on the glass." Lying back he put his hands lazily behind his head. "Queer how the value of a thing changes with a change in a situation. Once I hoped the two sets of impressions would coincide. But when I had no need to be certain Hollins is Kinloch, my hope was that the two sets would _not_ coincide. For if those at the Yard were not Kinloch's finger-prints they must be those of the murderer, and in themselves they will be enough to hang him. Yes, our work is nearly over. Anyway, there's nothing more you can do to-night, laddie."

Seeing what he meant I got to my feet, picking up my hat.

"And--to-morrow?" I asked.

"To-morrow," he said, "the teeth of the trap will close on him."

The grim certainty in the quietly uttered word arrested me. That McNab regarded to-morrow as the end of his work on the Ealing murder was clear. And my thoughts flew back to the beginning. For the man on whom the trap would close to-morrow would go to his doom merely because this other man now lying with legs crossed in that chair had happened to observe the unusual manner in which the end of a walking-stick had been worn away. It staggered me to think of it. Everything that had followed, and that which was to follow to-morrow, would have, as it were, _emerged_ from the end of a blind man's stick!

So seeing this miracle in the art of observation, I had not the least shadow of doubt as to what would happen to-morrow. The woman, as McNab counted on, would undoubtedly come back to rescue Kinloch from the wretched plight in which she had unexpectedly found him. For obviously Howley's account supported McNab's inference that the woman had at least pity if not a warmer feeling for the blind man with whom she had lived. She would come back--alone, next time. All Howley had reported was the warrant for that. She would come. Kinloch had all along counted on her coming; and he had been right. And she would walk straight into the open trap. But another thought came as I turned to go, and I addressed the back of McNab's head.

"At what hour will the arrest be made?"

"That is not in my hands," he replied. "The lady will doubtless choose her own time for visiting Enderby Gardens." He broke off with a laugh. "Oh, I see what you mean. You want another 'exclusive' for the Friday _Record_, and so you would prefer the arrest to be rather late at night."

"If possible. Matheson has spent a lot on the case."

"Well, I'm not likely to be in a position to swear an information before to-morrow evening, if that's any comfort to you. So at least the evening papers will get nothing. But after that the control will be in Snargrove's hands."

"Snargrove?" I cried.

"Of course. I have no power to arrest the man. When I have sworn my information and led the inspector and his men to the door with the warrant in his pocket my work is finished."

"And Snargrove steps into the limelight!"

"Yes. He takes that notoriety off me. A sore handicap for a detective it is to be well known. To be able to remain unknown is almost the one asset the private agent has over the official. But keep your mind easy about the other newspapers. No other paper will contain more than a mention of the arrest, if as much." He waved me away. "So go home and get to work on those columns for your Friday's issue. That will provide England with another sensation."

And that is what I set about doing the moment I got home. It was somewhere about three in the morning when I dropped into bed.

* * * * *

But I had no mind to miss getting the full story of the actual arrest. Therefore I was on McNab's doorstep by 10.30 that morning. We went out to Enderby Gardens together. Alighting at the Campden Hill Road corner we walked along towards the square, the centre of which was occupied by the Gardens. McNab was quietly elated, but I fancy my own excitement was not equally well controlled. He pointed out how admirably the place adapted itself to our purpose--a quiet, smallish square with just one rather narrow road leading into it and another leading out into the road beyond.

"We may have to wait for hours, you know," he said. "But there's a seat inside the garden gate where we can sit and smoke at our ease without attracting attention. And," he added with a chuckle, "if we run out of matches there will be a match-seller at our elbow just outside the gate."

"You seem very sure she will come."

"Very sure. So, it would appear, was Kinloch when he chose his pitch. And who could doubt it after hearing Howley's account of the incident yesterday? Evidently she wanted to speak to Kinloch then when she saw him sitting there as a blind beggar. As evidently the man bustled her into the taxi to prevent that. Howley described him as pale. I bet the gentleman was--at that moment. Think of it! He found himself unexpectedly within ten feet of the man who could denounce him as the murderer, an excited woman on his hands, and a policeman at his elbow. Nerve? Yes, the fellow must have nerves of steel. Lucky for him that Kinloch, though a fraud as Dick Hollins, was no fraud as a blind man."

"So he could not know either of them by sight," I interjected.

"Quite true, but Kinloch counted on her speaking to him when she was startled to see him sitting there as a beggar. He had, no doubt, his own reasons for that belief, and what happened yesterday proves that his belief was well founded." He looked at me quizzically as we walked on. "You don't know much about the ways of women yet. When a woman has made up what she would call her mind to do a thing, do it she will. You might stop her once, you might stop her twice, but sooner or later when you have to think of something else, or are only looking the other way--"

The words ended in a sudden, queer gasp, and he pulled up short, catching at my arm. As I looked round he pointed with the other hand. We had by this time advanced sufficiently far along the road to open out a view of the gardens in the square. As usual the south pavement showed a fair number of pedestrians coming and going, but the north, next the gardens, was empty enough to let us see even at that distance that Kinloch was not there.

"I don't see Jenkins, either," McNab said, "nor Peters," he added as he began running towards the gardens.

McNab reached the spot ahead of me. I had no idea he could sprint so fast. But a closer inspection of the spot yielded some information. Of Jenkins and his matches there was indeed no trace, nor of Roberts and Pilcher, the two who should have been weeding and hoeing inside the railings. And of Peters' presence there was just the evidence given by the green paint on a length of these same railings. We could see where he had left off--half-way down one of the bars, the upper being a brilliant fresh green, the lower colourless and rusty, with the half-filled paint pot at its foot. But all that we saw afterwards. What took the eye first was the blind man's three-legged stool standing there unoccupied, with the blind man's big book lying face downward on the pavement. McNab's four men had vanished, and the man they were watching.

After surveying the scene for a moment with narrowed eyes McNab stepped up to the railings and, touching the paint, regarded his finger-tips.

"Still quite fluid," he murmured. "It can only just have happened." Then, indicating how close the stool was to the point at which the painting had stopped, he said: "Peters got his chance, anyhow."

But I could see McNab was gravely perturbed.