The Rogues’ Syndicate: The Maelstrom. Frank Froest

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       CHAPTER IV

      WEIR MENZIES fitted his form to the big armchair that flanked Foyle’s desk, and dragged a handful of reports, secured by an elastic band, from his breast-pocket. Foyle snipped the end off a cigar, and, leaning back, puffed out a blue cloud of smoke.

      ‘It’s been quick work, though I say it myself,’ observed Menzies complacently, ‘especially considering it’s a night job. This night work is poisonous—no way of getting about, no certainty of finding the witnesses you want, everyone angry at being dragged out of bed, and all your people knocked up the next day when they ought to be fresh.’

      Foyle flicked the ash from his cigar, and a mischievous glimmer shone in his blue eyes.

      ‘It’s tough luck, Menzies. I know you hate this kind of thing. Now, there’s Forrester—he’s got nothing in particular on. If you like—’

      Menzies’ heavy eyebrows contracted as he scrutinised his chief suspiciously. Untold gold would not have induced him to relax willingly his hold of a case that interested him.

      ‘I’m not shifting any job of mine on to anyone else’s shoulders, Mr Foyle,’ he said acidly.

      ‘That’s all right,’ said Foyle imperturbably. ‘Go ahead.’

      Menzies tapped his pile of statements.

      ‘As far as I can boil down what we’ve got, this is how it stands. Old Greye-Stratton was a retired West Indian merchant—dropped out of harness fifteen years ago, and has lived like a hermit by himself in Linstone Terrace Gardens ever since. It seems there was some trouble about his wife—she was a widow named Errol when he married her, and she had one son. Five years before the crash there was a daughter born. Anyway, as I was saying, trouble arose, and he kicked his wife out, sent the baby girl abroad to be educated, and the boy—he would then be about twenty—with his mother. Well, the woman died a few years after. Young Errol came down to Greye-Stratton, kicked up a bit of a shindy, and was given an allowance on condition that he left the country. He went to Canada, and thence on to the States, and must have been a bit of a waster. A year ago he returned to England, and turned up at Linstone Terrace Gardens. There was a row, and he went away swearing revenge. Old Greye-Stratton stopped supplies, and neither the lawyers nor anyone else have seen anything of Errol since.’

      Foyle rolled a pencil to and fro across his blotting-pad with the palm of his hand. He interrupted with no question. What Menzies stated as facts he knew the chief-inspector would be able to prove by sworn evidence if necessary. He was merely summarising evidence. The inference he allowed to be drawn, and so far it seemed an inference that bade fair to place a noose round young Errol’s neck.

      ‘We have got this,’ went on Menzies, ‘from people in Linstone Terrace Gardens, from Greye-Stratton’s old servants, from the house-agents from whom he rented his house, and from Pembroke, of Pembroke and Stephens, who used to be his solicitors. Greye-Stratton was seventy years old, as deaf as a beetle and as eccentric as a monkey. I don’t believe he has kept any servant for more than three months at a stretch; we have traced out a dozen, and there must be scores more. But it is only lately that he has taken to accusing them of being in a plot to murder him. The last cook he had he made taste everything she prepared in his presence.

      He had no friends in the ordinary way, and few visitors. Twice within the last year he has been visited by a woman, but whom or what she was, no one knows. She came evidently by appointment, and was let in by the old man himself, remained half an hour, and went away. Practically all his business affairs had been carried on by correspondence, and he was never known to destroy a letter. Yet we have found few documents in the house that can have any bearing on the case, except possibly this, which was found in the fire-grate of the little bedroom he habitually used.’

      He extracted from the pile of statements a square of doubled glass, which he passed to Foyle. It contained several charred fragments of writing-paper, with a few detached words and letters discernible.

      ‘J. E. Gre … will see … ld you … ues … mother to her death … ous swine … let me hea …’

      ‘Errol’s writing?’ queried Foyle.

      ‘I haven’t got a sample yet, but I’ve little doubt of it. Now, here’s another thing. It was Greye-Stratton’s custom to lock up the house every night at dusk himself. He would go round with a revolver and see to every one of the bolts and fastenings, and no one was alowed in or out afterwards. It was one of the grievances of the servants that they were prisoners soon after four o’clock each day in winter. And though he always slept with that revolver under his pillow, we can’t find it.

      ‘There’s another thing. Greye-Stratton had a little study where he spent most of the day, and there was a safe built into the wall. It may mean nothing, or anything, but the safe was open and there was not a thing in it. Now, we have been able to discover no one who has ever seen that safe open before. It’s curious, too, in view of Hallett’s story about the cheques, that we have not been able to lay our hands on a single thing that refers to a banking transaction—not so much as a paying-in book or a bunch of counterfoils.

      ‘The doctors say the old man was shot about three hours before we got there; that would be about half-past nine. I don’t know how Hallett struck you, Mr Foyle, but, according to his own account, he must have arrived at Linstone Terrace Gardens at nine.’

      Foyle rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

      ‘You mean, he may have been there when the shot was fired?’

      Menzies made an impatient gesture.

      ‘I don’t know. I own freely I don’t quite take in this yarn, and yet the man struck me as genuine. He’s got good credentials, and if he’s mixed up with the murder, why did he ’phone to me?’

      ‘Search me,’ said Foyle. ‘What about the daughter? You said there was a girl.’

      Menzies stuck his thumbs in the sleeve holes of his waistcoat.

      ‘That’s another queer point. She was brought up abroad, and scarcely ever saw the old man. Pembroke says she spent her holidays with an old couple down in Sussex, to whom he had instructions to pay three hundred pounds a year. When she left school, he paid the allowance to her direct, but for two years she has not called or given any instructions about it. He wrote to Grey-Stratton, who retorted that it was none of his business—that the allowance would be paid over to his firm, and that if the girl did not choose to ask for it, it could accumulate. He did not seem at all concerned at her disappearance. Take it from me, Mr Foyle, we shall run across some more deuced funny business before we get to the bottom of this. There’s not even a ghost of a finger-print. If only we can find Errol—’

      Foyle was too old a hand to offer conjecture at so early a stage of the case; nor did Menzies seem to expect any advice. Hard as he had driven the investigation during the night, the ground was not СКАЧАТЬ