Part 32 (1/2)
Allerd.y.k.e shook his head.
”Nay, nay!” he said incredulously. ”I can't think that James would send a quarter of a million pounds' worth of jewels in a brown paper parcel by train! Come, now!”
Chettle shook his head, too--but in contradiction, ”I've known of much stranger things than that, Mr. Allerd.y.k.e,” he said confidently. ”Very much stranger things. Your cousin, according to your account of him, was an uncommonly sharp man. He was quick at sizing up things and people. He was the sort--as you've represented him to me--that was what's termed fertile in resource. Now, I've been theorizing a bit as I came up in the train; one's got to in my line, you know. Supposing your cousin got an idea that thieves were on his track?--supposing he himself fancied that there was danger in that hotel at Hull? What would occur to him but to get rid of his valuable consignment, as we'll call it? And what particular danger was there in sending a very ordinary-looking parcel as he did? The thing's done every day--by train or post every day valuable parcels of diamonds, for instance, are sent between London and Paris. The chances of that parcel being lost between Hull and this hotel were--infinitesimal! I honestly believe, sir, that those jewels were in that parcel--sent to be safe.”
”In that case you'd have thought he'd have wired Fullaway of their dispatch,” said Allerd.y.k.e.
”How do we know that he didn't intend to, first thing in the morning?”
asked Chettle. ”He probably did intend to--but he wasn't there to do it in the morning, poor gentleman! No--and now the thing is, Mr.
Allerd.y.k.e--prompt action! What do you think, sir?”
”You mean--go and tell everything to your people at headquarters?” asked Allerd.y.k.e.
”I shall have to,” answered Chettle. ”There's no option for me--now. What I meant was--are you prepared to tell them all you know?”
”Yes!” replied Allerd.y.k.e. ”At least, I will be in the morning--first thing. I'll just tell you how things have gone to-day. Now,” he continued, when he had given Chettle a full account of the recent happenings, ”you stay here to-night--you can have my chauffeur's room, next to mine--and in the morning I'll telephone to Appleyard to meet us outside of New Scotland Yard, and after a word or two with him, we'll see your chief, and then--”
Chettle shook his head.
”If that woman got a night's start, Mr. Allerd.y.k.e--” he began.
”Can't help it now,” said Allerd.y.k.e decisively. ”Besides, you don't know what Appleyard mayn't have learned during the night.”
But when Appleyard met them in Whitehall next morning, in response to Allerd.y.k.e's telephone summons, his only news was that neither Rayner nor Miss Slade had returned to the Pompadour, and without another word Allerd.y.k.e motioned Chettle to lead the way to the man in authority.
CHAPTER x.x.x
THE PACKET IN THE SAFE
It was to a hastily called together gathering of high police officials that the three visitors told all they knew. One after another they related their various stories--Chettle of his doings and discoveries at Hull, Allerd.y.k.e of what had gone on at the hotel, Appleyard of the mysterious double ident.i.ty of the woman who was Miss Slade in one place and Mrs. Marlow in another. The officials listened quietly and absorbedly, rarely interrupting the narrators except to ask a searching question. And in the end they talked together apart, after which all went away except the man who had kept his hands on the reins from the beginning. He turned to his visitors with an air of decision.
”Well, of course, there's but one thing to be done, now,” he said. ”We must get a warrant for this woman's arrest at once. We must also get a search warrant and examine her belongings at that private hotel you've told us of, Mr. Appleyard. All that shall be done immediately. But first I want you to tell me one or two things. What are those two men you spoke of doing--the Gaffneys?”
”One of them, the chauffeur, is hanging about the Pompadour,” replied Appleyard. ”The other--Albert--has gone down to Cannon Street to see if he can trace the driver of the taxi-cab in which Rayner and Miss Slade drove away from there last night.”
”He'll do no harm in trying to find that out,” observed the chief. ”But I should like to see him--I want to ask some questions about the man who joined those two after dinner at Cannon Street last night, and the other man whom he saw them take up near Liverpool Street Station. Will he keep himself in touch with your warehouse in Gresham Street?”
”Sure to,” answered Appleyard.
”Then just telephone to your people there, and tell them to tell him, if he comes in asking for you, to come along and seek you here,” said the chief. ”I'm afraid I can't spare either you or Mr. Allerd.y.k.e, for your joint information'll be wanted presently for these warrants, and when we've got them I want you to go with me--both of you--to the Pompadour.”
”You're going to search?” asked Allerd.y.k.e when Appleyard had gone to the telephone. ”You think you may find something--there?”
”There's enough evidence to justify a search,” answered the chief.
”Naturally we want to know all we can. But I should say that if she's mixed up with a gang, and if they've got those jewels through her--as seems uncommonly likely--she'll have been ready for a start at any minute, and the probability is we'll find nothing to help us. The great thing, of course, will be to get hold of the woman herself. It's a most unfortunate thing that Albert Gaffney was stopped from following that cab, last night--I've no opinion, Mr. Allerd.y.k.e, of your amateur detective as a rule, but from Mr. Appleyard's account of him, this one seems to have done very well. If we only knew where those two went--”
Appleyard presently came back from the telephone with a face alive with fresh news.
”Albert Gaffney's at the warehouse now,” he announced. ”I've just had a word with him. He found the taxi-cab driver an hour ago, and he got the information he wanted. And I'm afraid it's--nothing!”