SOME PERSON UNKNOWN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21861, 25 July 1934, Page 21

SOME PERSON UNKNOWN

By RALPH TREVOR Author of "The Jade Token," "The Eyes Through the Mask." etc.

■ A GLAMOROUS TALE OF MYSTERY AND ROMANCE

CHAPTER Vl.—(Continued) After breakfast Gilfont found Sergeant Birtwistle waiting to see him. "Good morning, sergeant," greeted the young man, " have you found the murderer yet ?"

The sergeant had been shown into a little private parlour at the back of the premises—a parlour which the considerate ,Mr. Turner had placed unreservedly at the use of Mr. Gilfont. '• That we haven't, sir. The superintendent's gone over to see the Chief about calling in the assistance of the Yard. We'v.e notified all the county police and you may be sure, Mr. Gilfont, that .if anyone is trying to make a getavray, they'll find it darn difficult."'

" Your optimism does you credit, sergeant,"' smiled Gilfont. " Now what can I do for you? I'd like you to know that I can't stay down here indefinitely. I've already wired to my friend in Scotland" telling him I'm held up as a suspected murderer, but really, that jokt> will begin to wear a trifle thin befibre very long." The sergeant smiled. " It's this way, sir. The Super, is fixing up the inquest for this afternoon. There'll only be formal evidence, of course . identification and all that. The trouble is Middleton doesn't appear to have any relatives, and we've had to fall back on Martha Drew—she's tho girl who ' did ' for him, if you understand, Brr."

Gilfont nodded. " 1 suppose you've considered the possibility of this girl Drew being responsible lor the murder, sergeant?" ,

Sergeant Birtwistle looked startled. " That we have not, sir. The suggestion's ridiculous." " I don't see that it's so ridiculous if you look at in in the right way," persisted Gilfont. " How do you know that their relations were not all that they might have been ? How do you know, for instance " —a new idea, this one —" that she might have been walking out with someone in the village, and that ' someone ' took it into his head that /Mr. Middleton might want to marry the girl himself? She's goodlooking, I suppose, and middle-aged men are quite susceptible to youth and beauty. And having got ideas oi; that sort into his rustic head he might have decided that Mr. Middleton would be less of a, rival if he were dead than if he were alive."

" Bless my soul, sir," spluttered the astonished officer, " I don't believe the Super, ever thought oi: that. You're one up on him there, even though it do sound a bit fantastic —like a bit from the talkies." Just then Bob Turner knocked at the parlour door and intimated that Mr. Gilfont was " wanted on the telephone."

Gilfont recognised his uncle's highpitched'tenor instantly. It said: "What the devil have you been doing getting into this extraordinary mess? Don't say a word to the local police until you've seen me. I'm leaving immediately with Challenor. We're flying." ' That was all, and as Gilfont replaced the receiver on its hook he smiled to himself. Life was becoming positively exciting. CHAPTER VII Jimmie Challenor was fueling rather peeved with life in general. He felt that it was no job for.- a Chief Inspector of Police at Scotland Yard to be put 011 " to investi ition of a succession of burglaiies in Hammersmith. /After all, he argued, that sort of tl'iliig was all right for a " cub V detectiy6, but when you've been in the sorce for thirty-five years, it was rather " below " one's mentality. _ The Chief Inspector had a reputation for/ being a regular glutton for work, and more so if that particular work' happened to be the kind that the Fleet 'Street men were so fond of describing as "baffling." The less obvious a case was, the more Jimmie liked it. He always felt that to live one's life in a simple, straightforward manner was the sort of thing any poor boob could do. It didn't need brains; it didn't need intelligence. All it demanded was the capacity for drifting with the stream of life: and one did not need to be any particular type of fool to do that—and successfully.

Jimmie was a big man. He had occasionally been referred to as one of the " Bix Six," which rather amused him because his thirteen stone of good, honest West Country flesh and bone were a prominent feature of his physical landscape. But like most big men, Jimmie Challenor was far from being either physically or mentally sluggish; in fact there was one occasion on record during his conduct of the Melfont case, when he had actually chased a crook who was known to tie a sprinter of repute, and caught him in six hundred yards. Yet to those Avho were not intimately acquainted with him, his bulk was apt to be misleading, and there had been occasions when it had come to his aid. It put those who did not know him right off their guard, and when he went out on a case rigged in his voluminous suit of Harris tweed plus fours he looked as unlike a Scotland Yard expert as anyone could do. Jimfnie was sitting at his desk 011 this bleak January morning, alternately cursing and answering tomfool questions oh his telephone. Harkness, in charge of the Hammersmith affair, seemed to imagine that Mr. Edison and Mr. Bell had invented the telephone simply and solely for the purpose of harassing Chief Inspectors at Scotland Yard.

" 1 toll you you'll have to tackle the job yourself, you dolt," he concluded, 'imcomplimentarily. " I'm not coming,, out, to Hammersmith again this morning. I. was there at six o'clock and gave you a line to worn; if Inspectors can't see the wood for the trees, Providence never intended me to he an oculist." With that •linnnie" slammed down the receiver, knowing that Harkness, having apparently been begotten by- a mule, would be bothering him again in less than an hour. " Oh'for a real case; something. to bite on," he sighed, wearily. •limrnie Challenor had always been a firm believer in soft supplication. He felt that somewhere in that ositer strata of'the universe ho had a friend whose special job in life was to look after Jimmie Challenor's destiny, and when tilings were getting flat he could ah-ays rp:y 011 his Guardian Angel to supply the deficiency that was making his lifp a leisurely hell. At that moment Mason, the messenger constable, knocked discreetly but with a certain hint of finality and determination 011 Chief Inspector Cliallfnor's (loor. " The Deputy Commissioner would like a word with you, sir," he saluted briskly., " Looks like a bit of business, sir," ho added informatively. jimmie Challenor sprang from the chair at; his desk, and in less time than it takes to write this he was inside the sanctum of the Deputy Commissioner. •' •Sir Bertram! Knowles, a brisk little inn 11 in,the late fifties, turned quickly from the window where he had been contemplating the... beauties of the embankment and the river beyond.

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What s the weather report this morning, Challenor ?" he asked quickly. I hero s an auti-cyclono spreading slowly across North-West . . " Damn the anti-cyclone," interrupted the Deputy Commissioner. " Is visibility good? "

\\ good, sir." ,y° u, re going to fly with me to Yorkshire," he intimated. " I've got a job for you. I'll give vou the details on the way to Croydon. We'll have the sejvitc plane with the cabin. You d telephone." Chajjrfenor whisked himself from the Deputy Commissioner's room in a trice. xno blood was tingling in his veins. Quickly he told himself that it must be a deuced important job if the Deputy Commissioner was going on it himself. He never remembered that happening before. Perhaps it was a Government job . . . that looked good, very good indeed. In less than ten minutes from the time he had been summoned to the Deputy Commissioner's room, Chief Inspector Challenor was seated in the back of one of the police cars with Sir Bertrand Knowles beside him heading for Croydon aerodrome.

" Perhaps you should have packed a bag," mentioned the Deputy Commissioner by way of opening the conversation. "We may be away for a few days. However, that's no matter; you can sleep in your shirt. It won't be tho first time, Challenor. Oh, I was forgetting, it's a murder case we're on. Surprises you, eh? Not half so much as it surprised me when I got tho message at home half an hour ago. You're wondering why I'm going to the seat of the crime myself, I suppose? Well, Challenor, I felt that I must. You see I believe that young scoundrel of a nephew of mine is about to be charged with the murder of a retired Leeds' solicitor, name of Middleton." "You mean Mr. Gilfont, sir?" asked Challenor, surprised. " Who else? " snapped the Deputy Commissioner. " That young fool has no brains. I might have known something like this would happen. But if he's guilty, Challenor, there's to be no monkey tricks; 110 hushing the thing up. I shall probably have ■to resign, of course, but what's resignation to the gallows? " "Aren't you being unduly pessimistic, sir? " ventured the'chief inspector.

"Ah, here we are," was the response, as the car drove through 011 to the flying ground right up to the hangars. " What time is it? Nine fiftyfive. We ought to do it in two hours."

The machine was waiting for them; the engine turning over slowly, warming up in readiness. The pilot—a sergeant instructor from the Yard —was waiting by the machine. He saluted gravely as the Deputy Commissioner alighted from the car.

" How soon can you get us to Ringdale . . . somewhere in the North Riding of Yorkshire, I believe? " asked the Deputy Commissioner. The pilot pulled out his flying maps and consulted them for a moment. " Under two hours, sir."

"Good! There's no need to dress, Challenor, the cabin will be warm enough."

" There are two thermos inside, sir —hot coffee," explained the pilot. " You think of everything, Jenkins," announced Challenor smilingly. "All correct? " "All correct, sir."

The machine zoomed away with a roar, and the Deputy Commissioner and his chief inspector made themselves as comfortable as the limited cabin space permitted them. During the journey, Sir Bertrand Knowles amplified the information he had given to Challenor in tho car. " You see," he explained. " the chief constable who 'phoned me at breakfast said he felt it was a Yard job, and more particularly so as the young man who discovered the body claimed kinship with me, and also the fact that the Yorkshire police had not apprehended the criminal." He paused and watched Challenor's face intently. " Oh, and I was forgetting," he proceeded. "I understand that my nephew had with him kt the time of his skirmish with the local police a revolver fully loaded with the exception of one chamber. That's all I know about it, but you'll agree with me, Challenor, that it's more than enough. I'll give that young man a largo slice of my official as well as my private mind when we get there. What do you make of it? " Jimmie Challenor had for years had a sneaking regard for the efficiency of his Deputy Commissioner. He yam so thorough—immensely thorough; flagrantly honest in everything lie did; fair .to the nth. degree; a man any man'could respect. " You know I never evolve theories, sir,!' intimated Challenor seriously. "After all we know very little of this affair yet. Perhaps by this afternoon tho air will be a little clearer." " That's just what I thought, Challenor. Perhaps I was a little hasty in my observations in the car. Perhaps there will be no need for me to hand in my resignation at the Home Office." " I, am confident that will not bo necessary, sir." The Deputy Commissioner looked at his companion sharply. " I thought you said you never evolved theories, Challenor," he smiled.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Haythorne had been making a further and more thorough investigation of the house 011 the ' moor. He had had the body removed to Ringdale where it lay in an ante-room of the Parish Hall, which had been commandeered for the purpose! of the inquest. But not before lie had had photographs taken and a finger-print expert over from Leeds to assist him.

The contents of the safe in the room where the body of Mr. Carfax Middletoil had lately lain, had provided him with no clue to the ]x;rpetrator of the crime. It contained a number of documents relating to property leases; a will made out in favour of no one at all —tlic space for the insertion of tho legatee's name being left blank —a number of unpaid bills mainly contracted in Leeds, and the acknowledgements of five hundred pounds of Converted War Loan.

He had gone over the house with a fine-toothed comb and had found nothing. Down below in the kitchen was Martha Drew. She had arrived as usual, having been unaware of the murder, only to find the police in possession. iShe was a comely young woman, healthy-looking with sparkling grey eyes and a clear complexion. To Superintendent Haythorne Martha Drew was something of an enigma. After the first shock of surprise at being told that her employer was dead —murdered —she had sunk into, for her, an unaccustomed coma of stupidity. She seemed at one moment sullen and at others defensively sb.rowd. She answered most of his questions readily enough, but in monosyllables. " Well, Martha," smiled the superintendent, " have you thought about anything else you would like to tell me? " The officer seated himself in an oldfashioned rocking chair before the cheerfully blazing fire and stretched out his half-numbed hands to the blaze. " What else should I bo telling you? she replied, question for question. (To be continued daily)