Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927
- Автор: Alexander R. W., Ames John
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
He rose wearily. He vanished, he appeared again only to dine, he was between the sheets before nine.
But Superintendent Bell drawing up his blind in the morning saw the hireling car at the door and came down to find him already in the marmalade stage of breakfast.
“Had a good night, sir?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Going off somewhere?”
“Only round to the post office,” said Reggie and went.
A man stood yawning behind the clerks at the counter, surveyed him for a moment and came round to him. Did he want to see anybody?
Reggie was expecting a gentleman from London about the telephone service. He was taken upstairs to a meager room. “I thought I knew you, Mr. Fortune. My name’s Brock. Remember the Sinclair case? Now my instructions are to do anything I can for you. What’s the business?”
“Well, I shouldn’t wonder if you have one or two people coming in to complain their telephones are out of order. Useful things, wire nippers. Of course, you don’t know anything about that.” Mr. Brock winked. “Tell your people to be very civil and don’t do anything just yet.”
“I say, you didn’t bring me down from London for that,” Mr. Brock grinned. “That’s the routine.”
“No. I expect some of these people will want to make trunk calls. Take the numbers they ask for and then have ’em told the trunk wires are out of action. See? I want the numbers, but they mustn’t get through to-day.”
“That’s all right. It means nobody will be able to get a trunk call through Lythe till you say the word. But that don’t matter much. I dare say they don’t get three a day.”
Reggie gave him a cigar and they settled down to talk motor cars.
It was some time before a telephone bell disturbed them. Mr. Brock answered it and turned to Reggie. “Here we are. Man complaining his phone’s out of order. Name of Vereker.”
He sent down a soothing official answer. “They say he seems quite satisfied. Didn’t ask for any other number. You haven’t got much out of that, Mr. Fortune.”
Reggie Fortune smiled a slow benign smile. “You never know, you know,” he murmured. “We have to try everything.” And he began to talk cricket.
The telephone rang again. Mr. Brock listened to a long story. He purred out his official reply and turned to Reggie with lifted eyebrows.
“No. 2’s rather agitated. Vicar of Ashurst. Cannot understand why his phone should suddenly fail. Wants it put right at once.” Again the bell rang. Mr. Brock, whistled. “He’s asked for trunks. Embankment 1502. Want to know who that is? I can ask Embankment.”
“One moment.” Reggie turned the pages of the London telephone directory. “Fyle — Mr. Howard Fyle; yes, Embankment 1502. Thanks very much. Tell the vicar the trunk lines are out of order. Looking into it now. Everything will be all right by to-night.”
Mr. Brock winked and sent down those comfortable words. “Now get me Embankment 1502.” Mr. Brock did so and passed him the telephone. He spoke in a high, chirruping voice. “Is that Mr. Fyle’s office? Give me Mr. Fyle, please. Vicar of Ashurst speaking. Yes, Mr. Frant. Mr. David Frant, yes. Hallo! Yes, Frant speaking. I want you down here at once. Come at once.
“What? What? I can’t hear you. At once, man. Oh, I han’t hear.” He rang off. “I say, Brock, tell your people in London no other trunk call must get through to Embankment 1502 to-day. Good-by.”
IX
He came back to the inn and found Superintendent Bell surrounded by four large men. “Good. You fellows got a car? That’s all right.”
He looked into the office and required that lunch for six should be put in his tar. They were going to have a picnic. He returned to Bell and his party and took them upstairs to his room. With a map of large scale upon the bed he demonstrated—
The haze of evening stole over the marsh. Below Ashurst church Reggie and Bell lay in the shade of a clump of alder watching the track which curved round the hill past the vicarage gate.
The long shadows fell faintly, the western sky was lavender and gold. The last edge of the sun passed into a gray bank of darkening cloud and the horizon closed upon them, the world was smaller and dim.
They heard a car and Bell rose and walked away. A dosed car came into sight, swung round to the vicarage and stopped.
One man got out quickly and found the door open to receive him. There was a murmur of voices and the door slammed behind him. In the silence Reggie stood up and came to the cliff below the church. He thrust into the bushes at its base, waited a moment listening and strolled on.
Bell was knocking at the vicarage door. After awhile a manservant opened it. “I’m a police officer, Superintendent Bell,” he put in his foot. “I want to see Mr. Howard Fyle.”
“I don’t know the gentleman, sir.”
“The gentleman that’s just come.”
“I couldn’t say, I’m sure. I’ll ask the vicar. Will you come in, sir?”
Bell was shut into a little room which looked out upon the woods. He heard faint movements, he waited awhile, opened the door again and found the manservant just outside. “The vicar will be with you in a moment, sir.”
Bell flung open the hall door. Mr. Fyle’s car was still there. He saw two men vanish out of the gate into the dusk. He chuckled and blew his whistle and shouted: “Two. Two on foot,” and ran after them and bumped into Mr. Fortune. “Hello, sir. Both of them bolted. Left the car, too. That’s a queer start. Lost their heads, eh? Did you see ’em?”
“Yes. They went into the churchyard.”
Bell hurried on. He met a small man, gripped at him and gasped, for his hand closed on an armless side. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“And the same to you,” he was answered crisply.
“I’ve had this man under observation all the time, sir,” one of the detectives loomed up. “He’s been watching the house.”
“Now, my man, what’s your little game? We’re police officers. Out with it.”
“You’re after the vicar? Praise God. I’m with you. My name’s Vereker. Major Vereker. Come on. He cut off into the churchyard.”
“Run away, Bell,” said Reggie. “I want to talk to Major Vereker. My name’s Fortune, sir.”
X
Bell ran on with his satellite. Reggie took Major Vereker’s one arm and followed slowly.
“I say, Mr. Fortune, this parson is pretty hot stuff. We’d better be after him, too.”
“Don’t worry. There’s men all round us, major.”
“He’s for it, is he? I mean to say, you’ve got a line on him?”
“Yes. I think so. There’s only one thing that’s always beat me; and that’s where Major Vereker comes in.”
“Well, you see, I knew Landomere.”
“Yes. Yes. I thought you might.” Reggie sat down on the railing of the Landomere grave. “But how much did you know?”
“I’d known him off and on since he was a kid. My people knew his father in Jersey. Gerry wasn’t much of a chap, poor devil. Weak, you know. This damned parson was his tutor. Gerry’s father got the people who had the old Landomere estate to give the parson this living. Had to stop his mouth about some scandal with poor old Gerry.
“Well, Gerry had a good streak in him. He did have some decent pals once. A few weeks ago he wrote to me there was dirty work doing about a woman. It was the daughter of a pal of his who was killed in the war. She had a little bit of a past, she’s just got married and he said he heard some fellows were going to blackmail her. Well, I only knew one fellow besides Gerry who was wise to her affair and that was an old servant of his, George Akers.
“It looked to me like a plant of Gerry’s to draw a little safe blackmail himself. I warned her and nothing happened. Then I read about the inquest on George Akers and on top of that came Gerry cutting his throat. Well, that made me think.