Grey Face/Chapter 14

IR JOHN NEVINSON had "the Service spot," that curious bald patch on the crown said to be the penalty of wearing a tightly fitting cap, flat-topped, for the greater part of each day, year in, year out. Otherwise, he was still young in appearance, a handsome man of that distinctive military type which Great Britain alone produces to perfection.

In India, his record had been excellent; in the field, during the war with Germany, his work had been efficient but not brilliant. Later, in Whitehall, where he had raised the Military Intelligence Department to a state of perfection which at last had baffled the cunning espionage of the enemy, he had come again into his own.

Essentially an administrator, an organizer, General Sir John Nevinson had been clearly marked out for New Scotland Yard. Largely due to this wise appointment was the fact that visiting committees from the famous police of Paris, and from the more distant crime specialists of New York, had come to London to study the flawless machinery installed at the Yard by this masterly placer of the right man in the right job.

One who had known him well (and there were few who did) must have recognized that this morning he was both puzzled and concerned. He read carefully through a document which lay upon his table, closing his left eye and reading with his right, into which was screwed a powerful monocle. Coming to the last page, he pressed a bell and a man entered waiting for orders.

"Send Mr. Carey in," said the Commissioner.

A few moments later Douglas Carey entered, and:

"Good morning, Carey," said Sir John. "Sit down. Frankly, you have alarmed me. Have you been to Limehouse this morning?"

"I have, Sir John," Carey replied.

"Found anything?"

"No. An autopsy may reveal something, but I have drawn blank."

"I trust your judgment," the Commissioner continued; "otherwise I shouldn't have put you on the job. I acted on your message. Did they all jump to it?"

"Everybody," Carey replied. "Particularly Whiteleaf, a most efficient officer."

"Good," said the Commissioner. "I had marked him, too. But why Limehouse? What's the point? Who is this woman? What has she got to do with the case? And—er" he hesitated, adjusted his monocle, and turning back to the second page of the manuscript upon the table, said: "What is the meaning of this?" He read aloud: "'I fear that my detailed report to you has fallen into the hands of the criminal we are looking for. I shall make no further report until I have seen you personally.' Eh?" He looked up. "I was right, then? There is a head centre to this business, and he has moved?"

"He has," Carey replied grimly. "He knows all that I know and all that you know. He knows that we suspect his existence."

"Carry on," said Sir John. "Tell me the worst."

"I will," Carey continued. "I spent a week on the material which you supplied to me, Sir John, and I came to the conclusion that the loss of the Moscow-Berlin correspondence from Downing Street, and the theft from Ewart Stephens of his despatches on the Calais-Dover boat, were part of a single plan. I realized, of course, that neither Ewart Stephens nor Lord Brankforth was in any way to blame."

"Yes," Sir John jerked in his rapid fashion; "go ahead."

"I had nothing more accurate than press reports to go upon," Carey continued, "in regard to the Hatton Garden diamond robbery. I took the matter up, as you know—you offered me facilities—and I came to the conclusion that the person responsible for this robbery was also the culprit in these purely political cases."

"Really," Sir John murmured, "this is baffling."

"It is baffling," Carey admitted, "but I think I can prove that I am right, and I think, although I am not sure yet, that I can prove the death of this half-caste woman at Limehouse to be due to the same agency."

"Eh?" the Commissioner exclaimed. "A murder! With what object?"

"God knows with what object," said Carey. "I believe, Sir John, we have a long task before us. It is dreadfully difficult to link these episodes."

"I should call it impossible!" declared the Commissioner. "I believe in you tremendously, Carey, but at the moment I can't follow you. What has the work of jewel thieves to do with the activities of political agents, clearly indicated in the Downing Street matter and in the theft from Ewart Stephens? Finally, why this midnight rumpus in Limehouse? In what way can the death of the wife of a Chinese sailor—for this is the description which I have" (he tapped the document) "of the dead woman—concern this leakage of political secrets? These things belong to different departments. They have no common denominator."

"So I should have thought, Sir John," Carey confessed. "To return to my own case. I had made a detailed report in which, I believe, I had justified my theory that there was a link between each of these seemingly disconnected episodes."

"Your report has not reached me," said Sir John drily.

"No!" Carey stood up. "But it has reached the enemy."

"What!" Sir John exclaimed, and directed upon his visitor that piercing gaze for which he was celebrated and for which he was feared. "Really!"

Carey sat down in the chair again. "I don't know how to begin. It will take me some time to explain, but I think it may be worth your while to hear me out."

"Oh!" Sir John glanced at his table clock. "Fifteen minutes?"

"I will try, Sir John."

Sir John raised the receiver of one of the three telephones upon his table, and:

"I am engaged until eleven," he said. "No one is to interrupt me." He replaced the receiver. "Carry on," he directed; "I am listening."

He lay back in his padded armchair and closed his eyes, allowing the monocle to drop down upon its ribbon. Douglas Carey paused for a moment in order to collect his thoughts, and then began to relate to the Commissioner, striving to be brief, those inexplicable occurrences which latterly had disturbed the tenor of his existence.

Sir John Nevinson did not interrupt him, indeed, did not move, but lay back as if sleeping, whilst Carey told of his careful inquiries, of his analysis of the evidence; of how, at last, he had addressed himself to the task of making a report. The phantasmal part of the affair, or that part which he counted phantasmal, Carey had hesitated to mention, until, coming to his awakening on the night when Ecko, his Japanese servant, had been discovered upon the stair and had made his singular statement, he spoke reluctantly of his impressions. He recounted all he could recall of this singular night during which the detailed report had been stolen from his table.

"The truth, Sir John, when we reach it, will be something outside your experience and mine; something new and terrible. Yet I believe we shall know the truth in the end. The reason of my journey to Limehouse this morning you will hear in a moment, as well as the name of the man who gave information of this woman's death—a question very shrewdly put to me by Detective Inspector Whiteleaf. When I awoke that night I could remember nothing, absolutely nothing, of my thoughts or my actions during some two hours preceding. I could only remember one thing: a ghostly grey face—the face of a dead man—floating somewhere in space and watching me."

He ceased speaking, silenced by a swift movement on the part of Sir John Nevinson.

The latter sat suddenly upright, clutching the arms of his chair. Then, more slowly, he opened his eyes, as one upon whose mind a great and horrible truth has dawned. He fixed his gaze on Carey, and:

"Stop!" he said. "Stop!" The tone of his voice was harsh, unnatural. "Let me think—let me think."