20: The Riverside Hotel

THE detective hailed Crench’s advent with all the delight of a hound that after nosing about in copse or thicket for a patience-wearing period suddenly hits on the scent of a fox; at last he was on a trail, a definite, obvious trail! It was no mere coincidence that Crench should walk in there at that particular moment; he had come there, of course, by appointment, to meet Simpson. What would have surprised Liversedge would have been to see Simpson and Crench ignore each other---but he knew, as soon as even Crench crossed the entrance, that they wouldn’t. And he saw just what he was expecting to see when Crench walked straight up the room, nodded familiarly to Simpson at his table in an alcove, and after laying aside his bag and divesting himself of his overcoat and hat, slipped into a vacant chair at his side. They were going to dine together, these two, said Liversedge to himself---and not for the first time.

While the detective was seeing all this out of one eye, he was affecting to study the menu with the other, and presently he ordered a dinner which would take some little time to prepare. Then he called back the waiter as he was hurrying off.

“Have you a telephone here?” he asked.

The waiter pointed to the inner door of the entrance, through which Crench’s insignificant figure had just emerged.

“You find him in ze vestibule, sir---right hand,” he replied. “Ze portaire show you if you don’t see him.”

Liversedge was glad to hear that the telephone was outside; he wanted to use it; he didn’t want anybody to see him using it. He had been thinking at lightning speed, and his main thought was that this was not going to be a one-man job; he must have help. And he knew where to get it. One of his cleverest and smartest associates lived not far away---Pryke, in a flat in Hunter Street. Pryke was a superior sort of chap; he had some private means of his own, and his wife had more; they lived in some style and had electric light and a telephone in their flat; just at that hour, Liversedge knew from familiar acquaintanceship, Pryke would be at home, for he and his wife liked to live like gentlefolk, and dined at seven o’clock. Well, Pryke would have to go without his dinner, or swallow some of it in a hurry . . .

Pryke’s voice responded when Liversedge got into the telephone box and rang him up; Liversedge blessed him for that quick response. But he was urgent enough in his demands on Pryke’s services.

“Pryke!---this is Liversedge speaking! Urgent business---highest importance. Listen!---you know Muratori’s Restaurant, right opposite King’s Cross Station? Good!---I want you to come there at once, to join me. Just going to sit down to dinner?---can’t help it, you must come! Get something in a hurry and come on---get a taxi! Don’t come in!---be outside. Wait till I come out. Want you to help me in watching two men, now here---to track them when they leave---big business! Coming at once?---good man! Remember---outside, till I join you.”

Then he rang off, contented, and went back to his table. Pryke would come, and Pryke was the very man he wanted for this job. Pryke’s work usually lay in quite another quarter of the town; he would be unknown to either Crench or Simpson, if events so developed that he came in close contact with them. And he was a clever, ingenious fellow, and absolutely fearless, the very man to take on a job in which there might be an element of personal danger. So now there was nothing to do but to eat his dinner, affect to read the evening paper which a polite waiter handed to him---and keep an eye on Crench and Simpson at the other end of the room.

Crench and Simpson were in no hurry; it occurred to Liversedge presently that he might have asked Pryke, torn away from his own dinner, to come and share his. But Pryke’s presence inside the restaurant might not have suited Liversedge’s plans---no, Pryke must kick his heels outside. Still, he might have given Pryke a bit more time; the two suspects were taking theirs. From what the detective could gather by surreptitious glances, they were doing themselves very well, going steadily through course after course; they were drinking champagne too---a big bottle. And they talked ceaselessly, and apparently in terms of great amity and confidence. Liversedge laughed cynically at this display of friendship; he remembered what Simpson had said about Crench to Richard Marchmont and himself when the reward of ten thousand pounds had appeared in the papers with Crench’s name at the foot. He had sneered at Crench then---and now here he was hob-nobbing with him! But all that was immaterial---what was material was the question---what were Simpson and Crench doing together? Being a practical man, Liversedge made no attempt to answer it, but he felt assured, having already formed estimates of each, that these two were up to no good.

Things went on quietly and uneventfully until Crench and Simpson reached the concluding stage of their dinner. When they had got their coffee and liqueurs and had lighted cigars which Crench produced from a case and evidently recommended highly, Liversedge thought it time to move. He paid his bill, tipped his waiter, and marched out into the night. And there, overcoated and mufflered, stood Pryke; his attitude suggested patient endurance under affliction.

“You might have let me finish my own dinner in peace,” said Pryke sadly, when he had seen through and commented, ironically, on his friend’s disguise. “I’ve been hanging round here half an hour by that damned clock opposite!”

“Couldn’t help it, dear boy!” replied Liversedge. “Duty, you know!---couldn’t help myself. I’ve had to eat a dinner that I didn’t want. Look here!---you know I’m in charge of that Bedford Row affair---murder! Well, there are two men in there of whom I’m suspicious---always have been, though I’ve never quite joined them together. One of them is Simpson, Henry Marchmont’s managing clerk; the other is Crench, a solicitor in Chancery Lane.”

“I know Crench,” remarked Pryke. “Daniel Crench---miserable little beast!”

“What’s far more important is---does Crench know you?” suggested Liversedge.

“No!---not that I know of. I only know him by sight.”

“Does Simpson know you? No?---well, do you know him?”

“Not even to know he is Simpson! No---no knowledge of him.”

“Well, you know Crench, anyway, and Simpson will come out with Crench, presently. Now I want you to help me to track both men. If they separate, you’ll have to follow one, and I the other. If they go off together, then we hunt as a couple. They don’t know you, and I flatter myself they won’t know me. But---I want to know all about their movements, whether they go together or separately.”

“What’s the notion?” asked Pryke.

“Can’t tell you, exactly. But I can say this much---I’m so surprised at finding them together that I’m sure they’re up to something! Now, we’d better not stand here; they’ll be out soon. You keep a look-out for Crench and the man with him---I’ll hang round a few yards away.”

Pryke nodded, and Liversedge moved off beyond the glare of the lamps in front of the restaurant. Five minutes went by; then Crench and Simpson came out, talking earnestly. They took no notice of anything else at hand; together they moved across the road towards the station. And behind them on the right hand followed Pryke, and behind them on the left, Liversedge.

The two men thus followed made for the entrance to the Underground Railway, and arriving at it turned to the booking-office for trains going east. Liversedge, near enough to them to note this, was sorry to see it; at that hour of the evening passengers for the eastward route were few; the trend was all the other way. But he motioned to Pryke to go on, and Pryke getting within touch of the pursued heard Crench ask for tickets to Mark Lane. After that the first stages of pursuit were easy; Simpson and Crench got into one carriage of a circle train going east; Pryke and Liversedge got into the next, still keeping apart from each other. They kept apart, too, when they got out, moving cautiously after their quarry. But Simpson and Crench seemed to have no suspicion of being watched and followed; still in close conversation they climbed the stairway and emerged on Byward Street. It was by that time nearly nine o’clock, and the City was quiet as any country town; the pursuers instinctively waited until the two men in front had got some little distance ahead.

“Going east, eh?” remarked Pryke as Liversedge came up to him. “Got any notion where they may be going?”

“Not a notion!” answered Liversedge. “But wherever it is, we’re going too! You take the other side---I’ll stick to this. And keep your eyes skinned!---they may slip off into some side street.”

Simpson and Crench went ahead, walking more rapidly; Liversedge and Pryke followed, each twenty yards in the rear on opposite sides of the various streets. Across the north side of Tower Hill, down Tower Bridge Approach; into St. Katherine’s Way---the smell of the river and of the merchandise stored in the big warehouses of the neighbouring docks grew strong in the night air. Liversedge began to wonder what the two men wanted down here, amongst the shipping; then an idea came to him. From some of the wharves or quays in that quarter there were frequent sailings to the Continent; it might be that the two men he was following were leaving the country, for Antwerp or Rotterdam, or the Hook of Holland, or some other equally convenient and easily reached port. And this notion began to assume something like conviction when, after walking along Wapping High Street for some little distance, Crench and his companion turned into a dimly lighted building over the door of which the detective presently made out the faded letters of a sign: Albion & Minerva Hotel.

Sauntering slowly past the door of this shabby hostelry, a place that had evidently seen better days, and had at one time been of some pretensions as a riverside inn, Liversedge saw his two men standing in the hall. He crossed the street to where Pryke was now coming to a halt; Pryke nodded at the open door.

“I see ’em!” he said. “What do you make of this, now?”

“They may be putting up here for the night, to get a very early morning boat,” replied Liversedge. “Worn-out-looking house, but still doing business. Well!---they’re in there, that’s flat! Now----”

“Moving!” said Pryke, motioning towards the hotel.

A man in a shabby uniform was speaking to Crench and Simpson---presently he pointed to a door at the end of the hall; they moved off in its direction. One of them opened the door; they disappeared.

“What’re you going to do?” asked Pryke.

Liversedge hesitated---thinking.

“I wonder if either of these chaps does know you?” he said. “We’re often known to people who don’t know us---and of course solicitors are often in the police courts and see us. They both know me well enough!”

“Not in that rig-out!” remarked Pryke. “I’d have passed you in the street.”

“Still, they could hardly fail to notice me at the restaurant just now,” said Liversedge. “I don’t know that they actually did, but I guess I’d rouse some recollection in their minds if I walked into this hotel. I think you’d better go in, Pryke.”

“What must I do?” asked Pryke.

“It seems to be a licensed house,” said Liversedge. “There’s a bar there, at that corner, anyway. And as it’s an hotel where people stop, there’ll be a smoke-room. Go into that—get a drink, and hang round a bit, keeping your eyes open. I’ll wait round.”

“I’ve had scarcely any dinner, and I don’t like drinking on a nearly empty stomach!” replied Pryke grumblingly. “However---in the name of duty----”

“You needn’t drink,” said Liversedge. “Order a drink---and leave it. Anything for an excuse to get in. If you do see those fellows, and anything suspicious, don’t excite their suspicions by hurrying out. Take your time! There’s a devil of a cold wind off the river, but as you say, duty----”

Pryke crossed the road and entered the hotel; Liversedge watching him across the lighted hall saw him presently directed to the door through which Simpson and Crench had passed; within it, he, too, disappeared.

“I reckon that’s the smoking-room,” he muttered to himself. “Now, have those two come here to meet somebody, or are they going to stay here for the night, and slip off by an early morning steamer?”

Speculating on the respective chances of these propositions, Liversedge pulled out his pipe and tobacco and, strolling up and down under the gloomy shadow of the big warehouses, began to smoke. He had nearly smoked a big pipe out before Pryke emerged from the hotel and came towards him.

“Well?” demanded Liversedge.

“They’re in there, right enough,” said Pryke. “In the smoking-room. Biggish place that, when you’re once inside, and pretty full---I mean the smoking-room. Seafaring men, most of ’em---rum and tobacco going strong. Our two are in a corner, with a man they evidently came to meet---doing a close talk.”

“What sort of man?” asked Liversedge.

Pryke furnished a detailed description; before he had finished Liversedge stopped him.

“Garner!” he exclaimed. “Garner!---sure as fate! Oh, yes, that’s Garner!”

“Who’s Garner?” inquired Pryke.

“Another chap I suspect---mixed up with Crench. Lord!---I believe we’re striking oil! Crench and Simpson!---that’s significant---but Crench, Simpson, and Garner in combination---um!”

“What’re you going to do?” demanded Pryke.

Liversedge considered the situation hastily. It seemed to him that this was no time for half-measures. He suddenly took off and put away his tinted spectacles; with a deft movement of his fingers he divested himself of his side-whiskers; then he turned down the collar of his coat and shifted the angle of his hat.

“Going in!” he answered. “Have you got your card on you?”

“Of course!” replied Pryke. “And,” he added, with a laugh, “a pair of bracelets in one pocket and a revolver in another! That do?”

“Come on!” said Liversedge. “Show the way---straight to ’em!”

Pryke led him into the hotel, across the hall, and into a big room thickly clouded with tobacco-smoke. He let out a sharp, subdued exclamation as he opened the door, and Liversedge following his glance saw Garner sitting in a corner---alone.