Chapter 19

COLONEL Matterson, seated alone in his private room, stared for a moment without comprehension at the name scribbled on the usual form for visitors brought him by his orderly.

“Pank,” he exclaimed. “Why, the little man whom we dismissed a few days ago.”

“The same, sir. I was surprised to see him but I thought I’d better bring in his name.”

“Show him up at once,” Matterson enjoined.

A moment or two later Ernest Pank was ushered into the Subcommissioner’s room. There was still some slight nervousness in his manner, but he seemed to have gained in dignity and confidence during his brief absence. He was no longer afraid to take the chair to which the Colonel pointed.

“Back again already, Pank,” the latter exclaimed. “Good! Have you brought us any news?”

“News of a sort, sir,” Pank admitted. “I believe I’m on the right track. At any rate, I can tell you at once the name and whereabouts of the chauffeur who drove Sir Humphrey in the hired car, and I can tell you the name of his employer. With regard to the other matter, as to where Sir Humphrey was taken and who was at the bottom of that affair, I think I can solve that within an hour, if we can find our man.”

Colonel Matterson’s somewhat querulous expression changed as though by magic.

“You will come back here, Pank, a full-blown inspector, if that’s true,” he promised him.

“You are very kind, sir,” was the grateful reply. “I must admit there is a great deal about the whole affair I cannot understand yet, but I honestly believe that before midday I can solve the mystery of Sir Humphrey’s first disappearance. I believe that ought to lead to the clearing up of the present situation. I have a kind of theory about that in my mind, but there is a great gap to be filled up yet.”

“If you do as much as you promise, Pank, you will have set the ball rolling, all right,” the Subcommissioner said cheerily.

“It’s the second phase that is going to set us thinking. However, we shall have to leave that alone for the moment. What I want from you now, sir, is the full weight of Scotland Yard behind me. I should like Chief Inspector Smithers or Simpson and a couple of plain-clothes policemen. I want to visit a man in Shaftesbury Avenue and ask him, with your permission, a few straight questions, with the law behind me to frighten him into telling the truth.”

“That’s easy enough,” Matterson assented. “Smithers is in this morning, I happen to know. I will give orders and have a car ready. I must just see if the Chief Commissioner is free.”

The Chief Commissioner was free and very glad to welcome the visitor whom Matterson presently took up to his room. He nodded to Pank in friendly fashion.

“Well, are you going to tell me the whole story?” he asked eagerly. “I hear that you have made some progress.”

“May I ask you a great favour, sir?” Pank begged earnestly. “I could tell you the name straight off of the man who was the employer of the chauffeur, but you might not believe me, and it would spoil your interest in the rest of the proceedings. By midday you shall know all that I know, if we find our man at home.”

The Chief Commissioner was disappointed but tolerant.

“Have it your own way, Pank,” he agreed. “I hear you are taking Smithers and two plain-clothes men with you. The Subcommissioner thought he would like to go along too. Any chance of a rough house?”

“Not the slightest, sir, I should say,” was the confident reply.

“You would not care to give me a hint?” the General asked, a little wistfully. “I have to telephone Downing Street this morning. I suppose you know that there is no news of Sir Humphrey.”

“So I understand, sir. You can go so far as this with Downing Street, at any rate, sir. You can tell them that you will be able to clear up the matter of Sir Humphrey’s first disappearance before midday, and if that does not give us a clue as to the second---well, I shall be very disappointed.”

“Are you sure that you will be able to find your man?” Matterson asked anxiously. “Why didn’t you wire us for help?”

“Because I didn’t want to scare him away. Even plain-clothes men are easily recognisable nowadays. I was walking the streets myself at eight o’clock this morning until I saw our man go where I believe he now is. I left a couple of friends of mine---nothing to do with the police---watching. If he goes out, one of them will follow him. The other will stay there to tell us.”

“Got your head on you still, I see, Pank,” the General remarked, smiling. “Well, be off then. Your escort will be ready for you by this time.”

The Subcommissioner fetched his hat and overcoat and descended with his companion to the courtyard, where they found two cars waiting. Pank gave the address to the chauffeurs and took his place in the car containing Colonel Matterson and Smithers. The latter was a little chilly.

“Think you’ve stumbled across something, eh, Pank?” he asked.

“I think so,” was the modest reply. “I could not have done it if I had not had relatives in Norwich, or if I had not been able to persuade people that I was a commercial traveller selling leather heels. Norfolk people are a bit queer about well-known detectives,” he added.

The car turned into Shaftesbury Avenue. A short distance along, on the left-hand side, they drew up before a block of offices. Pank looked eagerly up and down the pavement and smiled with relief.

“Our man’s still here, sir,” he announced. “Will you let me lead the way?”

Every one looked around curiously. It was an old-fashioned block of offices and flats, with a huge board of names stuck up inside the dingy hall. Pank studied it for a moment and turned to the others.

“Third floor,” he announced.

They followed him in single file. They met no one on the stairs, which seemed to indicate that business was not brisk in the neighbourhood. On the third floor Pank knocked at a door with a clouded glass top, on which was painted in black letters

NORWICH LIMITED

and underneath in smaller ones

CLARENCE H. EDWARDS

“Come in,” a masculine voice growled.

Pank obeyed the summons. He was followed by Colonel Matterson and Inspector Smithers, who was in uniform. The two plain-clothes men remained upon the landing. The occupant of the office, who was seated at a shabby roll-top desk, smoking a pipe and banging at a typewriter, gazed at his visitors in blank amazement. He was not a bad-looking person in his way and better dressed than his surroundings seemed to warrant. Of his surprise, however, there was no manner of doubt. He removed his pipe from between his teeth and waited for them to announce themselves.

“Mr. Edwards?” Pank enquired.

“That is my name,” the man assented. “Who on earth are you all, and what do you want?”

“This gentleman,” Pank indicated, “is Colonel Matterson, Subcommissioner of Scotland Yard. The other is Chief Inspector Smithers, also of Scotland Yard. I myself am simply Detective Pank, but I am acting in this matter instead of my superior officers because I happen to have had the case in hand.”

Mr. Edwards had still the appearance of a dazed man, but with his stupefaction there seemed to have become blended a measure of apprehension.

“What on earth,” he demanded, “do you want with me?”

“Nothing very complicated,” Pank assured him. “I want you to explain to the Subcommissioner who gave you the commission to build up that gallows scene in your cinema studio near Hellesdon, what was the object of it and who was your principal?”

The man Edwards began to tremble. He leaned back in his place. He was never a healthy-looking individual, but with every vestige of colour drained from his cheeks, his appearance was almost ghastly.

“The thing was a confidential commission,” he muttered.

“There is no such thing as a confidential commission where the law is concerned,” Colonel Matterson intervened sternly. “We will have that story if you please, Mr. Edwards.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the man faltered, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a very much overperfumed handkerchief. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I must think.”

“Perhaps you would think better,” the Subcommissioner suggested, “in a police cell. You can have your choice.”

The man expelled a long breath. Pank leaned over the desk towards him.

“Look here, Edwards,” he said. “Make the best of a bad job. You knew it was a risky commission when you took it on. You have been found out. You’re up against the law. The only way to avoid serious trouble now is to tell the truth.”

“I’ll tell the truth,” Edwards decided. “Give me just a minute. Let me get my breath again. I didn’t expect anything of this sort.”

“Criminals seldom do expect to be found out,” the Subcommissioner remarked.

The man battered the desk with his fist till the keys of his typewriter shook.

“I’m not a criminal,” he declared. “There was nothing wrong in what I did. I had sunk all my capital in building that studio and buying a lot of properties. We made our first film and everything went wrong. Our star was taken ill. The story was rotten. Anyway, when it was finished, our money was gone and the film was a flop. I didn’t know what to do with the place. It was like a white elephant upon my hands, for I hadn’t enough left even to think about making another film. I can tell you I came pretty near shooting myself. Then one day a gentleman drove up in a motor car. He asked to look around the place. He asked me whether I had a good head carpenter---whether I could build up scenes. Of course I had. Of course I could. He asked me to name a price for the place as it stood. Well, I did. ‘You can have the cash to-morrow morning,’ he promised, ‘if you will carry out a commission for me.’ Think of that, gentlemen, I ask you. What an escape! A new chance in life! I didn’t want to go bankrupt. Nothing of the sort had ever happened to me before. What do you suppose I did? Why, I sold out and we worked like slaves for his commission, and we worked with a seal upon our mouths.”

“And who was this benefactor?” Colonel Matterson asked.

The man Edwards took no notice. He continued to address himself to Pank.

“There were only six of us from the first. One---my brother---his son, the head carpenter named Humble, who had every reason to do as he was told, for no one liked his antecedents, and two apprentices. I called them together and I told them what had happened. I promised them all the money that was owing and a thundering good sum as well, and they swore before their God that they would never breathe a word to a soul of the work they were doing. You know what the commission was I accepted? We built up an imitation prison cell; then we had a paved courtyard outside, with rigged-up imitation redbrick walls and an iron gate, and finally---we built an execution shed.”

There was a brief, throbbing silence. Some part of the man’s emotion seemed to have its effect even upon his two questioners. He himself was in a bad way. He mopped his forehead and gasped for breath. Pank mercifully left him alone for a moment. As soon as he showed some signs of recovery, however, he continued.

“You built the real thing?” he demanded.

“We built the real thing,” Edwards admitted.

“And you were able to get the details right,” Pank continued, “because your head carpenter had served his apprenticeship to Prince, the hangman. The only reason he was not taken on when Prince died was because he couldn’t keep sober.”

Edwards shivered in his chair.

“I don’t know how you knew that,” he muttered. “I should have thought for his own sake Humble would have kept his mouth closed. He made it at first without the drop. My client came and he was not satisfied. He wanted the rope slung in the orthodox way and he wanted the drop. Well, Humble soon arranged that. It was all perfect one night about the middle of December---I’ve got the date in my book; he came over and took possession. He was satisfied and he paid down the money. Why, he paid marvellous. When it was all over, he gave fifty pounds each to every one who had worked, to swear once more that they would never tell a soul what they had been doing. They were an honest lot of chaps. With all their money back and a good bit over, what do you think they did? I should have sworn that there was not one of them would have breathed a word, and how you got to know about it I can’t imagine. We handed over the place and left. A few hours later, by arrangement, we were back again, and we burned and destroyed every one of the properties; we pulled the place to pieces so that there was not a yard of the stuff left. I have never seen the gentleman since, and what happened the night we all saw the place lit up, or who visited it, I don’t know. I banked my money, came up here, took this office, and I’m preparing to start business.”

“You are trying to make us believe then, I suppose,” Colonel Matterson said sternly, “that you never knew about the man who was very nearly hung in your infernal place?”

“Before God, I never knew it, sir,” Edwards declared. “Humble was the only one of us allowed there. We had no idea what took place. I never knew it, sir, and what’s more, I don’t believe there was anything wrong.”

“Tell me, then,” Pank asked, “why do you suppose your benefactor---we are going to talk about him directly---why do you suppose he insisted upon your making the drop the full twenty-five feet, with the trapdoor and the lever? If it was only to amuse himself, or for a practical joke, do you think he would have been so particular about the vital details?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Edwards muttered hoarsely. “He was a gentleman. I am sure he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You seem very confident about some things,” Colonel Matterson observed. “What did you think he wanted the place for?”

“To play a joke on some one, of course,” Edwards replied. “Or it might have been to get the idea for some sort of private theatricals.”

“You hadn’t even the curiosity to ask him?” the Subcommissioner demanded incredulously.

“The first condition of the bargain,” Edwards cried, striking the desk once more with his fist, “was that no questions were to be asked, and the second was---silence afterwards. We kept the first; now, my God, I’ve broken the second. I have broken my word and I have told everything, because you made me. I never reckoned about having the police in the matter at all.”

“But you have not told us everything yet,” Colonel Matterson reminded him ominously. “You have not told us what we must know---the name of your generous friend for whom you built this cinema scene.”

“And by God, I never will,” Edwards shouted. “I knew you would come to that. I’ve told you everything else. I am not going to give him away. If there is anything wrong with the business, he never meant it. He acted like a gentleman to me and I’m keeping my word.”

He sat upright in his chair again. There was a gleam of dogged obstinacy in his eyes. No one spoke. Edwards himself reached for his pipe, pressed down the tobacco with fumbling fingers, struck a match and relit it. He refused to be impressed by the silence of the three men who waited.

“You hear?” he went on. “A Norfolk man doesn’t often go back on his word and I am not going back on mine. How you found out about this job, I’m damned if I know. There’s not a yard of boarding remaining in the whole place, not a foot of the shed; even the rope’s burned. However, what you know you know, and much good may it do you. As for the name of the man---find it out if you can. You won’t know it from me.”

Colonel Matterson shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, Edwards,” he said, “we shall certainly not try to persuade you. You had better get on your coat. Smithers, call in your men. They can take Edwards to the Vine Street cells. He can be moved afterwards. I will go around and make the charge.”

There was a wild light in the man’s eyes as he stared at what was going on. Smithers opened the door. The two plain-clothes men entered. The Subcommissioner pointed to the occupant of the chair.

“Take this man to Vine Street Police Station,” he directed. “I will be along in a few minutes, I don’t think you need handcuff him.”

“Do you mean that you are sending me to prison?” Edwards called out, shrinking back in his chair.

“No alternative, my man,” was the Subcommissioner’s reply. “We have to know the name of your principal. It is possible---I won’t say certain---that we might have taken a lenient view of your situation if you had made a clean breast of it. You can’t defy the law, though. There are at least five different charges under which you can be dealt with---unless you change your mind.”

The plain-clothes men were standing on either side of him. There was authority in their poise and manner.

“Listen, Edwards,” Pank intervened. “I’ll tell you something. I’ll tell you something that the others don’t know yet. I could answer their question. I know to whom you sold your studio. I know for whom you built that horrible place. You are doing no good by keeping the name back. You are simply making a foolish effort to pit yourself against the law, and it can’t be done.”

“You don’t know his name,” Edwards cried stubbornly. “Not a soul knows it.”

“Indeed I do,” Pank assured him. “I know the chauffeur who drove the hired car in which his victim was brought there. I know who employed that chauffeur and even where he is at the present moment. It was the same man who found you that money and bought your studio.”

“You’re a liar,” Edwards declared.

“I’m nothing of the sort,” was the firm retort. “It was Lord Edward Keynsham and you don’t do him one ounce of good by denying it.”

The man in the chair collapsed, but the most astonished person in the room was Colonel Matterson. He was on the point of speech but a warning look from Pank stopped him. The little man was indeed in charge of the situation.

“God, how did you know?” Edwards muttered.

“Tell the Subcommissioner that I am speaking the truth,” Pank persisted. “He may be lenient with you.”

“It’s no good my holding out, if you know,” Edwards faltered, all the strength gone from his voice and manner. “Yes, you are right. It was Lord Edward Keynsham of Keynsham Hall.”