Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 62, No. 2, October 3, 1931
- Автор: Энгланд Джордж Аллан, Philips Judson P.
- Год: 1931
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 62, No. 2, October 3, 1931». Краткое содержание книги:
For some reason Tom recoiled from Malliett, who was nodding his head and wetting his loose lips. Tom fancied that the man wished his two accomplices to be held for the crimes at the mill, and he looked at Firth significantly.
“Watch yourself,” Tom whispered. “And hold this man. He knows more than he’s told us.”
“Don’t worry,” said Firth. “This will make a fine stir-up. I’ll send some of the boys out right away.”
After the chief of police led his prisoner out the lane to the police car. Mugs Sorrel crept from the bushes, and wide-eyed and shaking, sat down at Tom’s feet where the latter had seated himself on the upturned flagstone at the opening of the hidden cave...
When Tom reached headquarters he found Malliett closeted with his chief in Firth’s private office. The prisoner did not seem to realize his position. He sat there in the stifling heat smoking cigarettes placidly and answering every question Firth put to him.
“We’ve notified the city police of Mr. Malliett’s capture and of the statements he has made regarding their prisoners, Morse and Brasson,” the chief told Tom as he entered the office and sank into a chair. “Farrell is coming out here right away. Those boys certainly do not sleep on the job. He says with our permission he will take Malliett back with him to face these two boys. And he didn’t talk quite so smart.”
Tom grinned wryly.
“They’ll respect us before we’re through. I want to know one thing. Malliett. Where were you last evening, the hours between eight and midnight?”
“I was at home,” said Malliett slowly.
“You were not,” said Tom. “Those lads will tell us the straight of it and then we can prove it. You had better be fair with us. Morse stole the Canbeck car at about nine o’clock. If they had nothing to do with the crime at the mill, they stole the pewter before Nicolay and Mrs. Cleet got there. Where were they during the time between nine and the theft? Darbyville is only twenty-five miles from the city and the way those birds drive they would make it in no time at all. Now, what did they do with their spare hours?”
“How do I know?” asked Malliett, but an apprehensive look flashed for a moment into his bulging eyes.
“You know,” said Tom. “And you better tell us about it.”
Malliett shook his head. “I don’t know anything about the boys last night,” he denied.
“And you can’t tell us how Morse got a key to the mill?”
Again the cunning look passed over Malliett’s dark face.
“Yes. I can tell you that,” he admitted. “I had one made myself from the key Walter Cleet had.”
“You what?”
“Yes. I knew Walter was making a model of the mill and the wheel for that place of Wilthams, and I heard somebody say there was a lot of old silver in the mill. Walter himself showed me the key he had made like the key to the mill. He never knew it when I took its impression in wax. I had done a dozen things like that since we had been in the business. I had entrance to houses that my boys could never enter, except at night through a window. I gave the key to Morse and told him about the silver. That’s all I know. I never had a hint that the silver was really pewter, and the boys don’t know anything about pewter. They just took it, I guess, because it shone.”
Tom shook his head. There was something here, too, which he could not reconcile with common sense. Malliett would, of course, know that the stuff in the old mill was pewter. Why, then, would he send those boys to the mill? And on the murder night?
“Something else,” he said after a moment. “If your boys were in the habit of taking their loot to the farmhouse, why were they captured with the pewter in the city?”
“You can ask me another,” said Malliett helplessly. “I’ve told you all I know. I didn’t know they were going after pewter.”
Tom and the chief got nothing more out of Malliett after that until Farrell drove up in a cloud of dust, having taken a short cut over a side road.
The city detective looked grim and annoyed. Tom guessed this was because of the big capture the Darbyville police had just made and which the Darbyville Needle, local paper, would make much of.
“This was very good work on somebody’s part,” Farrell said, looking about the office from the chief to Tom Grant. “I want to hand it to you. I was after Mr. Malliett myself to-night to get him to face those lads, and found he had left the house. And this was where he was. About the last place I’d ever think to look!”
“Oh, in a case like this you never know what will turn up,” said Tom.
Farrell gave him a suspicious look before he turned to Malliett and demanded his story.
Firth did not interfere while the prisoner again went over his story, but Tom had to admire the incisive way Farrell’s questions dug under all Malliett’s foundations and brought out the man’s guilt, far more guilt than he confessed to.
“A lie, Mr. Malliett!” snapped Farrell when he had got the story. “You knew it was pewter at the mill. You gave the key to those tools of yours and sent them there on the murder night for a purpose — a purpose of your own. You wanted them to be implicated in this crime, which you knew was going to take place. You knew it. How... we will find out. These boys are afraid of you because of that murder. They’re scared to death now. They think you planted the double killing on them somehow. You didn’t copy that key to the mill and give it to Morse for nothing, Malliett. Come, now, why did you do it? Why did you send those boys to the mill?”
“I’ve told you all I can,” said Malliett stubbornly. “And I’ll say nothing more until I see a lawyer.”
Farrell looked annoyed. He was about to fire one of his questions at Malliett when Tom broke in.
“Mr. Farrell, did you find a woman’s wrist watch set with diamonds on either of these boys, Brasson or Morse?”
“A wrist watch? No! Why?”
“Because Enid Cleet was wearing one just before she reached the mill last night.”
“She was? But you found two diamond rings on her that had not been touched!”
“Yes. We didn’t find any wrist watch, however. And she had worn one.”
“How do you know?” Farrell looked at Tom sharply.
Carefully then Tom related to him his work with the car of the murdered man while Firth looked on with a smile twitching at his lips. He was delighted to see his pet detective get a rise out of this smart aleck, as he called Farrell.
“That was clever of you, Grant,” said Farrell curtly when Tom finished. “But it doesn’t get us anywhere, does it?”
“It gets us two things,” said Tom. “First, that Enid Cleet wore a valuable wrist watch which was missing from her body; and second, that Nicolay and Enid had an appointment and were afraid they would be late. That appointment could not have been with Carson at the farmhouse— Oh, I forgot you didn’t know about that!”
Tom told Farrell about his discovery of the lawyer’s presence at the farmhouse the night before.
Farrell looked frankly bewildered.
“Good heavens, where are we going to get with all this!” he groaned. “Malliett, how much do you know?”
“Only what I told you,” insisted the prisoner dully.
“Who is Bill Brasson’s high-toned girl?”
Malliett brightened for a moment into sardonic satisfaction.
“Hah! I knew yesterday after I mentioned that that I had made a slip,” he nodded. “You were onto me then, Farrell. I don’t know who she is. Never heard her name. Never saw her. I know he has a girl he thinks a lot of — some society dame, from what Morse and I could get.”
Farrell and Tom noted how Malliett’s association with the two crooks had colored his speech.
“When Francine Yocum met you to-night, Malliett, she warned you that I had been to see her?” went on Farrell.