The Allingham Casebook Read online

  He examined the blank space very carefully and discovered that something had already been erased by some other craftsman. When at last, by some jeweller-ish method best known to himself, he found out what it was, it proved to be a date, 1888. Far too early to have anything to do with his customer or even his father before him.

  The little mystery nagged him all the morning and, because he was that sort of fussy little man, he put on his hat and stepped down to the library on the corner and looked up Roup in the medical register. The name was not there and indeed, the only trace of it which he could find anywhere was as the author of a long out-dated treatise on tropical medicine published at the end of the last century. He came back puzzled but, of course, not alarmed for, as he pointed out, the customer had done nothing but entrust him with a piece of plate. All the same it was a peculiar little incident and he felt bound to report it to somebody. Seeing Detective Constable Macfall walking down the road it had come to him that the easiest thing to do would be to mention it. What did Macfall think?

  It may have been the unfortunate insistence by Mr Mevagissy on this fatal word, or it may have been merely Macfall’s unlucky day but, at any rate, his narrow, deep-set eyes appeared to move a fraction closer together. His expression became wooden and he flushed as at some secret effort.

  “This day week at noon, eh?” he said. “He’s coming back, is he?” Mr Mevagissy intimated that indeed was so.

  “Then don’t worry,” said Macfall. “And don’t mention it to anybody else either. I’ll be along myself.”

  He went off even more pleased with himself than usual, and when he returned to the station he did not report the matter.

  To those unacquainted with the machinery of the Metropolitan Police this omission may seem, perhaps, to be of a trifling nature but that remarkable body has a rule, which is as hard and fast as those governing say, mathematics, or the laws of supply and demand, which decrees that when an officer receives an intimation from a responsible member of the public that something suspicious may have occurred he shall, forthwith, write it all down and pass it on to the man above him.

  It is important to make it clear here that Macfall knew perfectly well what he was doing. Moreover, the omission was the outcome of what was, for him, deep thought. He arrived at Mevagissy’s shop on the appointed day soon after the shutters were down. He had worked out a plan, and his mind was fully occupied with the difficulty which he foresaw in persuading the jeweller to fall in with it. He wanted to spend the morning behind the silver counter as a temporary assistant so that he could serve the doctor when he arrived. A little to his regret he discovered Mr Mevagissy not only perfectly willing to let him do anything he liked but also not particularly interested in the matter anymore. A new interest was absorbing him. He told Macfall about it hurriedly, between frenzied orders to his two regular assistants.

  He was expecting a highly important customer, he told the Detective Constable, “somebody, quite somebody, indeed”.

  Macfall gathered that the distinguished visitor was a foreigner, a senior member of the suite of a celebrated Indian Prince, who had arrived at the Lorraine Hotel in a blaze of publicity, earlier in the week. Along with other jewellers of repute, Mevagissy had sent in his trade card and had been delighted to get a telephone message the night before telling him that a royal representative would call to see his choicer stones on the stroke of ten in the morning.

  There was such an air of excitement in the place that in spite of himself Macfall was entertained. The minute premises which consisted of two showrooms, one leading out of the other, were positively seething. Macfall was in the outer room which was reserved for silver, but he could just see through the small doorway into the inner chamber, which was so protected it was virtually a large safe, and where, as Mr Mevagissy had just told him, there was one of the most interesting small collections of gems in London.

  Punctually at ten the representative arrived and was ushered into the fastness by Mr Mevagissy and his two bona fide assistants. All Macfall saw of him was a shock of white hair above a very dark neck.

  For the rest of the morning a deep and reverent hush spread over the little shop. The visitor was both knowledgeable and thorough and the whole of the more valuable part of Mr Mevagissy’s stock was considered.

  No one else who mattered came into the shop. The few customers were met at the doorway and all but hustled out by the junior assistant before he rushed back to re-join the seance round the table under the bright lights, where the little glasses were busy, and the talk was conducted in reverent murmurs.

  Macfall himself was almost carried away by the sense of drama which is always present when great deals are in progress but when, on the stroke of twelve, a car pulled up on the kerb and a man sprang out and strode into the shop, he was prepared for him.

  The newcomer was a large and powerful person with the sloping shoulders of a prize-fighter, but there was nothing hostile in his manner when he walked up to Macfall and made his request. His name was Dr Roup, he said, and was his salver waiting for him? The Detective Constable produced it and his eyes were sharp and his muscles ready, but there was no sudden movement, no stealthy dive for a weapon. Dr Roup took the silver dish in both hands, read the inscription with apparent satisfaction and inquired what he owed. While the police officer wrapped the parcel, he stood with both fists on the counter fidgeting with his feet like any other man in a hurry. Macfall had parted with the parcel and given the man his change with a growing sense of anticlimax before a sudden horrified cry came from the inner room.

  “A doctor! Get a doctor!”

  As Mr Mevagissy came scuttling out with what hair he possessed standing on end, the man with the salver under his arm turned in the doorway.

  “What’s the matter?” he demanded without any great enthusiasm.

  “I don’t know!” Mevagissy was ringing his hands. “He’s foaming. It’s horrible.” And then, as he recognised the customer, but forgot, in his anguish, all he knew about him, “Oh, Doctor, it’s you! Thank God for that. In here, sir. Quickly.”

  Reluctantly it seemed, the customer came back into the shop, set down his parcel and went into the smaller room. Macfall followed promptly.

  The distinguished visitor lay on the floor, his face congested, and his eyes tightly closed.

  One of Mevagissy’s assistants had undone his collar and the other, with commendable presence of mind was shovelling the jewels back into the safe.

  The doctor’s examination had a professional touch which shook Macfall’s confidence but only for an instant. When the pronouncement came he was ready for it.

  “This man is seriously ill. There is one chance in a thousand of saving his life. Help me to get him into my car and ring up St Bede’s Hospital, Extension Three, and warn them we’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Poor Mevagissy was so appalled by the disaster which had overtaken not only his client but his deal, that he might have fallen for the trick completely but the second assistant, who was the one with the brains, pointed out in a startled whisper that the Burma ruby, which was the star of the collection, was still clutched in the sick man’s hand. Nothing would open the clenched fingers and the doctor became angry.

  “Good heavens, we can’t help that,” he said. “Don’t you understand the man is dying? Look at him. If he’s holding something valuable of yours, come with us. Hurry. That’s the vital thing now!”

  Mr Mevagissy, an old man with the physique of a weakly hen, looked about him wildly and Macfall stepped forward only just able to keep the grin off his face.

  “Let me go, sir,” he murmured.

  The powerful man who called himself Dr Roup measured the young man with his eye and found the answer satisfactory. “Very well,” he said. “You’ll do. Now then, raise the patient very carefully by the shoulders, please. Oh, and somebody bring my salver.”

  Macfall sighed with deep satisfaction. His moment had come. He picked up the parcel and followed the little processi
on out of the shop.

  At first, he had all the luck in the world. He put his remarkable gift to the test and it stood up to it well. He waited until it became clear that wherever the self-styled “doctor” was driving it was not to the hospital, and then he went through the prescribed police drill for such an emergency with perfect confidence and, indeed, success.

  He chose a moment when the road was clear, revealed himself as a police officer, challenged the driver to stop, and then, on receiving unsatisfactory if commendably terse replies, went smartly into action.

  He overpowered the two men, relieved them of their guns and their loot, saved the car from destruction and drove his prisoners back to his own station in it, with all the speed and efficiency of a good gun dog retrieving a couple of birds.

  Only his ineffable smugness prevented several startled officers there from telling him that it was a very creditable performance.

  The blow fell on the following morning when he was summoned to the Divisional Detective Chief Inspector’s private office. He could hardly walk there he was so pleased with himself and he went stumbling in, lowered his eyes modestly and waited for the bouquet.

  A silence, which had something of the chill of the grave about it, went on so long that it became embarrassing. Macfall looked up and, for the first time, the wraith of a doubt crept unwillingly into his mind.

  The DDCI possessed many of the attributes of an elderly schoolmaster; he never blustered but there was acid in the man. At the moment he was not looking at Macfall but was sitting with his head down, his lazy, heavy-lidded glance fixed on the blotter on which he was making idle drawings.

  After a little he began to speak in the dry, precise voice his subordinates knew so well and imitated so accurately.

  “Ah, Macfall,” he said, with the hint of the Dublin accent which only appeared when he was deeply moved. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a gentleman by the name of Elroy Muspratt? Don’t tell me. I can see by the expression on your face – which I’m not even looking at – that the name is Greek to you. Let me tell you about the man. In the first place, he’s most intelligent, the most impudent and the most dangerous jewel thief in the continent of Europe; and in the second, he’s the man for whom the whole of the Criminal Investigation Department has had its eyes skinned ever since they learned that there was a chance he was coming to this country.” Macfall stood looking at his chief blankly and the dry voice continued without pause.

  “Unfortunately, the agents abroad lost sight of the fellow and, although all the usual precautions were taken, and the man was known to be audacious, somehow nobody guessed he’d have the calm effrontery to impersonate a famous Indian nobleman and come over with a retinue.”

  For the first time he raised his eyes which were as bleak as wet paving stones to survey the Detective Constable.

  “The Superintendent in charge at the central office did all he could,” he went on. “He arranged that every suspicious item, however trivial, which was reported by a jeweller should be passed to his desk. He got a great many and his men got a lot of useless work but the one item which would have paid for his attention didn’t come in, and so – what do you think happened?”

  He leaned forward and pulled a package of blue slips towards him. “Eighteen of them,” he continued calmly. “Eighteen jeweller’s shops in Greater London robbed of the finest stones in their safes. Each crime happened precisely at noon and each was worked in exactly the same way. Muspratt was still masquerading as the prince when he left the country by private plane at five minutes before one yesterday afternoon. Most of his ‘suite’ accompanied him. The Flying Squad is looking for the rest now.”

  He settled back in his chair and regarded the man in front of him steadily.

  “A week,” he said distinctly. “The police might have had a full week in which to circularise the jewellers – using the normal ‘missing articles list’, which is sent to them regularly – asking for details of any medical man who had left a piece of plate to be engraved or altered. It really would not have taken anybody long to notice that there was an unusual number of them who were going to collect the same day at the same hour.”

  “But why?” The startled question escaped Macfall involuntarily. “Why all at the same time?”

  The DDCI’s expression was pained. “Because it was a good, simple idea,” he said sadly, “and once it had been done in any place in the world which is served by a newspaper everybody who owned a jeweller’s shop would be on the lookout for it.”

  There was a long pause and when the DDCI spoke again he sounded depressed.

  “Macfall,” he said. “You’d go further in the uniformed branch, my lad. We don’t really need your gifts in this department. It’s that parlour trick of yours, you know – I should be very careful of it if I were you. It takes the blood from your head, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  The Border-Line Case

  It was so hot in London that night that we slept with the wide skylight in our city studio open and let the soot-blacks fall in on us willingly, so long as they brought with them a single stirring breath to move the stifling air. Heat hung on the dark horizons and beneath our particular bowl of sky the city fidgeted, breathless and uncomfortable.

  The early editions of the evening papers carried the story of the murder. I read it when they came along about three o’clock on the following afternoon. My mind took in the details lazily, for my eyelids were sticky and the printed words seemed remote and unrelated to reality.

  It was a straightforward little incident, or so I thought it, and when I had read the guarded half-column I threw the paper over to Albert Campion, who had drifted in to lunch and stayed to sit quietly in a corner, blinking behind his spectacles, existing merely, in the sweltering day.

  The newspapers called the murder the “Coal Court Shooting Case”, and the facts were simple.

  At one o’clock in the morning, when Vacation Street, NE, had been a deserted lane of odoriferous heat, a policeman on the beat had seen a man stumble and fall to the pavement. The intense discomfort of the night being uppermost in his mind, he had not unnaturally diagnosed a case of ordinary collapse and, after loosening the stranger’s collar, had summoned the ambulance.

  When the authorities arrived, however, the man was pronounced to be dead and the body was taken to the mortuary, where it was discovered that death had been due to a bullet wound neatly placed between the shoulder-blades. The bullet had made a small blue hole and, after perforating the left lung, had furrowed the heart itself, finally coming to rest in the body structure of the chest.

  Since this was so, and the fact that the police constable had heard no untoward sound, it had been reasonable to believe that the shot had been fired at some little distance from a gun with a silencer.

  Mr Campion was only politely interested. The afternoon certainly was hot and the story, as it then appeared, was hardly original or exciting. He sat on the floor reading it patiently, his long thin legs stretched out in front of him.

  “Someone died at any rate,” he remarked at last and added after a pause: “Poor chap! Out of the frying-pan… Dear me, I suppose it’s the locality which predisposes one to think of that. Ever seen Vacation Street, Margery?”

  I did not answer him. I was thinking how odd it was that a general irritant like the heat should make the dozens of situations arising all round one in the great city seem suddenly almost personal. I found I was desperately sorry for the man who had been shot, whoever he was.

  It was Stanislaus Oates who told us the real story behind the half-column in the evening paper. He came in just after four, looking for Campion. He was a Detective Inspector in those days and had just begun to develop the habit of chatting over his problems with the pale young man in the horn-rimmed spectacles. Theirs was an odd relationship. It was certainly not a case of the clever amateur and the humble policeman: rather the irritable and pugnacious policeman taking it out on the inoffensive, friendly representative of the general p
ublic.

  On this occasion Oates was rattled.

  “It’s a case right down your street,” he said briefly to Campion as he sat down. “Seems to be impossible, for one thing.”

  He explained after a while, having salved his conscience by pointing out that he had no business to discuss the case and excusing himself most illogically on grounds of the heat.

  “It’s ‘low-class’ crime,” he went on briskly. “Practically gang-shooting. And probably quite uninteresting to all of you who like romance in your crimes. However, it’s got me right down on two counts: the first because the man who shot the fellow who died couldn’t possibly have done so, and second because I was wrong about the girl. They’re so true to type, these girls, that you can’t even rely on the proverbial exception.”

  He sighed as if the discovery had really grieved him.

  We heard the story of Josephine as we sat round in the paralysingly hot studio and, although I never saw the girl then or afterwards, I shall not forget the scene; the three of us listening, breathing rather heavily, while the Inspector talked.

  She had been Donovan’s girl, so Oates said, and he painted a picture of her for us: slender and flat-chested, with black hair and eyes like a Russian madonna’s in a transparent face. She wore blouses, he said, with lace on them and gold ornaments, little chains and crosses and frail brooches whose security was reinforced by gilt safety-pins. She was only twenty, Oates said, and added enigmatically that he would have betted on her, but that it served him right and showed him there was no fool like an old one.

  He went on to talk about Donovan, who, it seemed, was thirty-five and had spent ten years of his life in gaol. The Inspector did not seem to think any the less of him for that. The fact seemed to put the man in a definite category in his mind and that was all.