The Lost Mr. Linthwaite/Chapter 32

was half-past six, and a fine and cheery May morning, when Brixey, having seen his two elderly companions safely off in a cab, bound first for Linthwaite's chambers in the Temple and thence to seek Mrs. Byfield and her party at their hotel, turned into a public telephone box at London Bridge Station and rang up New Scotland Yard.

The time had come, he had decided in the train, for calling in expert police assistance. He now knew enough to warrant him in taking action when he got to Trinity Square, if the people were there whom he firmly believed would be there. The folk at New Scotland Yard knew him, Brixey, well enough—he had been mixed up with them more than once.

As good luck would have it, the man who answered his telephone call was particularly well known to him, and was instantly eager to know what was afoot at that early hour of the morning.

"Tell you that when you meet me," said Brixey. "Come yourself, with the next best man you can get, and meet me as quickly as possible outside Mark Lane Station—going there straight, just now. Bye-bye. A nice job for you—and for me."

The voice at the other end of the wire said that its owner would be at the appointed rendezvous in half an hour, and Brixey rang off, left the station, and strolled lazily across London Bridge, looking about him with keen enjoyment of the rousing life of road and river, and feeling that if one has been out of London even for a few days there is a vast amount of enjoyment to be had in getting back to it.

He sauntered along, past the Monument, took a short cut into Great Tower Street, and was lounging outside Mark Lane Station when, at five minutes past seven, two men drove up in a taxicab, dismounted, and approached him. Quiet, soberly attired, eminently respectable persons these, who might have been taken for solid City men come very early to business, and Brixey looked them over with approving eyes.

"Good!" he said. "I think I've a nice little job for you. The actual doing of it is more in your particular line than mine."

"What's the game?" demanded the man whom Brixey had rung up. "Your last affair was murder! Same again?"

"Not this time, so far," replied Brixey. "Not but that there may be danger in it. Come into this corner."

He took the two detectives aside and rapidly put them in possession of the pertinent facts. Letwige had absconded with certain valuable negotiable securities, and there was little doubt that he had made off in the company of Lee and his daughter.

In Debbie Lee's purse Brixey had seen a certain address. Therefore, he concluded, there was at any rate a sporting chance of finding the missing birds at that address.

"And now why do you think they'd make for this place, Mr. Brixey?" asked one of the men. "You've some idea in your mind?"

Brixey pointed towards the dock district.

"It's an easy job to slip away from here to the Continent," he said. "Plenty of boats running to Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg, and so on. This would be a convenient spot for the woman and her father to be snug in for a few hours while Letwige deals with the securities, or some of 'em, in the City."

"Then the thing to do" said the first man, "is to take a look at this private hotel. But these people know you by sight."

"Nothing venture, nothing have!" replied Brixey. "The probability is that they won’t be stirring yet. Letwige, I understand, is an old Londoner, and he'll know that there’s no business to be done before ten o'clock. Come round the corner and let's take an observation of the exterior of this spot."

From the corner of Byward Street the three men looked out on Trinity Square, and one of the detectives at once pointed to a house at the north side, where a faded, gilt-lettered sign proclaimed the presence of Wolmark’s Private Hotel, evidently a sort of second-rate establishment, judging from its dingy blinds and general appearance. A man was polishing the brass bell-pull at its front door; a girl was washing the steps.

"There’s the cage!" said the first detective. "Now, then, how about finding if the birds are in it?"

"There'll be a register" remarked the other man.

"Aye, but it’s a hundred to one if they’ve given their real names," declared the first. "That’s not at all likely. How would it be now"

"Stop a bit!" said Brixey. "Here’s a new development, I think."

He had suddenly caught sight, across the road, lounging by the railings of the square, of a figure which somehow seemed strangely familiar—that of a man in a semi-nautical suit of blue serge cut in yachtsman fashion, topped by a peaked yachting cap.

Its wearer came across, at the same time pointing a warning finger towards the street which Brixey and the detectives had just quitted.

"Gaffkins [sic], by all that’s wonderful!" exclaimed Brixey, and drew his companions back into shelter. "This is the chap I told you of, just now. He’s evidently come up from Brighton. If he’s on the same job, then, indeed, we are going to know something!

"I shouldn’t have known you, Gaffkin," he went on, as the private inquiry agent came up, looking very mysterious. "Sacrificed moustache and whiskers, eh? Well, what’s brought you here?"

Gaffkin, motioning all three to retire a little farther along Byward Street, jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the hotel.

"Mesham!" he said. "He’s in there—Wolmark’s. I followed him here last night. I’ve a man in there, keeping an eye on him—a safe man. I’m expecting him out every minute, with a report."

"What have you been doing?" asked Brixey. He introduced the two detectives by name, and the professional eyes took stock of their amateur rival. "We’re all on the same job, Gaffkin," he continued. "Tell your tale!"

"I heard that Mesham had gone from Selchester to Brighton by the 9.41, yesterday," said Gaffkin. "I followed by the 12.13. I’ve friends at Brighton, living near the station. I went to their house at once, shaved whiskers and moustache off, and borrowed this wig.

"Then I set out to look for my gentleman. I know Brighton pretty well, and I'd an idea I'd run across him before long. I looked in at one or two spots, and eventually found him at the 'Bodega.' He'd another elderly man with him, very like himself."

"Cradock!" exclaimed Brixey.

"No doubt," agreed Gaffkin. "They were in very close conversation. Now, I wanted to test my disguise, so I took a seat nearby while I had a glass of sherry. I saw Mesham glance at me once or twice, and I knew he didn't know me from Adam.

"Well, I kept 'em in view, quietly. They went off to Booth's in East Street, to lunch, and when they'd got in there I got the help of a friend who's had a bit of experience in these matters, and between us we kept an eye on them all the afternoon. When they left Booth's they walked to the Margrave Hotel, and went in, and there they stopped until evening.

"Then they went to the station. Mesham booked for London Bridge, The other man stayed in Brighton. We followed Mesham, I took good care he never saw me again after the "Bodega" meeting, though I knew very well he hadn't recognised me there.

"When we got to London Bridge we followed him here, to Wolmark's Private Hotel. It was then half-past ten. As I was quite certain he'd never seen this friend of mine, I sent him in after him.

"He came out presently to tell me that Mesham had booked a room—No. 8—and that he'd booked No. 11, right opposite. I told him to keep a strict watch on Mesham all night—and he's a dependable fellow. I got a room at another hotel, just along here, and now I'm waiting for him. That's all."

"So," remarked the first detective, "there's two of 'em to look after, Mr. Brixey?"

"Four," said his companion. "There's the girl and her father."

"If they're here!" exclaimed the other. "We don't know that yet!"

"We don't know that Letwige is here, either," said Brixey. "We don't know"

"Here's my friend!" interrupted Gaffkin.

A man came round the corner—a man whom Brixey, had he been writing newspaper English, would have called a person of an an eminently watchful and noticing disposition, evidenced, in this instance, by the fact that when he saw Gaffkin in conversation with strangers, he immediately affected absolute non-knowledge of him, and made as if to cross the street.

Gaffkin laughed with satisfaction.

"Didn't I tell you he was a dependable fellow?" he remarked. "All right, Matsey—all friends here. Come on!"

Matsey turned slowly, and coming up to the group, took the three strangers in at one glance and Gaffkin with another.

"Well?" asked Gaffkin.

"He's there all right, Mr. G.," replied the auxiliary, "I saw him take in his hot water not ten minutes since. But, of course, I knew he was there before that. I've kept strict watch."

Brixey turned on Gaffkin's aide-de-camp with a sudden inspiration.

"Did you see anything of any people who, if they came in at all, would come in very late?" he demanded. "Two men, one woman?"

Matsey shook his head.

"No," he answered. "But there was one man, one woman—together—came in about one o'clock this morning. Only saw their backs as they went past my door. I had it a trifle open."

"One man, one woman—together?" said Brixey. "Then"

Before he could say one word more Gaffkin suddenly pushed him inside the mouth of a passage by which they were standing, and, as if by instinct, the other three men separated and scattered over the street.

"Mesham—and another man!" whispered Gaffkin. "Keep back; he'd know you!"

A moment later Mesham, turning to neither right nor left, walked past, in company with a man in a dark overcoat and top-hat, who wore large blue spectacles.