WINGS OF ROMANCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21983, 14 December 1934, Page 22

WINGS OF ROMANCE

(COPYRIGHT)

By ANTONY MARSDEN Author of " The Six-Hour Mystery," " Thieves' Justice." " Man In the Sandhills." etc.

SWIFTLY-MOVING STORY OF LOVE, MYSTERY AND ADVENTURE

CHAPTER VIII HUE AND CRY

Inspector Wade spent very little time in searching for Mycroft's hat by the pool—perhaps because he had no expectation of finding it—and even while he searched, seemed much more interested in the plan of campaign which his chief was sketching out for him, as ho paced by his side. In the upshot no hat was found but Wade, driving his own car at a most reprehensible speed, just managed to catch the Salisbury —London express. This would get him to before eleven, ho learned. He sat back in his corner seat, and fell to studying his accumulation of shorthand notes.

Meanwhile, at the nearest call-oflico, the superintendent got to work on his end of the plan. He, too, proved no respecter of the law which ho represented, for he 'remained inside the box for tho best part of an houx*, deaf to .ill lay entreaties. First bo called up his deputy at Southampton, with instructions respecting Greer. Then Jerry's London club, from which he learned that Jerry had just had breakfast and gone out, and that his whereabouts were unknown. Then —another London C all—the Motor Registration Department, to trace the ownership of tho car in the pool. Last, a long talk with one Inspector Buck, C.I.D. a sometime colleague of his and Wade s at Southampton, now promoted to tho Yard. This final call resulted in Buck's greeting Wade at Paddington, primed with the salient facts of the Mycroft case, and prepared to co-operate. The two men shook hands warmly—they were old friends, as well as excolleagues; and there wa? no one whom Wade would sooner have had chosen to partner him while he must act so far outside his own radius. " The chief's put you wise to it? " was the first thing Wade asked. " Pretty well. Let's take a turn along the platform and back. I've some news." He let Wade have it in brief. " First, this young Winthrop isn't available; he went out after breakfast —destination unknown." " He's no loss," said Wade cheerfully. " Mycroft's girl is with him, presumably. Your superintendent; sent to have her notified of her father's death, but was informed she left Southampton with young Winthrop last night." Wade passed no comment on that. " Next," Buck resumed, " the stolen car has been traced —" " The Canute Road car? " Wade turned on him eagerly. " Yes. A young fellow garaged it in Notting Hill at eight fifteen last night —less than an hour before we notified the place that the car was wanted. I've his description here; it tallies with what your superintendent tells me. I've a man under orders to patrol within call of the garage; so if your friend returns to claipa the car, he'll be for it! Lastly, the car that crashed with Mycroft has been traced. It belongs to a Miss May Brenda Gower —"

Wade uttered a cry, "Of Three Breen Mews, Bays water." " That's right. Your chief has explained the connection! The car is registered as being kept at the same address.' . . • D'you know London, Wade? " " Not well." " Then you'll be interested to hoar, Breen Mews is only a few streets away from that Notting Hill garage. That looks like meaning something, to me! Their few minutes' conference had brought them back to their starting point, when Buck steered his companion toward a taxi drawn up in the carriageway with its flag down. " I've brought some more friends of yours to meet you," he said. As Buck Bpoke to the taximan, Wade glanced inside and recognised to his astonishment, one of the plain-clothes men from his own station and Greer. The taxi moved forward then. Buck motioned Wade to enter a second car, in which sat a uniformed constable of the F Division. " But —Greer? " Wade Buck grinned. "So I understand, I've just met him, at Waterloo. Your superintendent 'phoned Southampton to pack him along right away. Thought we might find him useful at the inquiry I guess." He let in his clutch, and followed in the wake of the taxi; but outside the station, as by prearrange-, ment, the taxi slowed and fell in behind Buck as he took the lead. " But on what charge? " pursued Wade. If Greer knew the ropes, he would know that his transference to London argued bigger issues than the mere matter of assault; and it was part of his chief's plan, as Wade understood it, that for the present Greer should not know too much. " On the original—assaulting somebody—your patrol-man, wasn't it? And now on a second charge, of being in unauthorised possession of Mycroft's dispatch-Case. . . . That gave your chief the excuse to send Greer along; Mycroft being dead, and the presumptive owner of the case —his daughter—now in London. Your chief's a downy old bird." " But thero's no murder charge? " No, no. It's still ' accidental death ' —pending doctor's evidence." " And Greer hasn't boon told—" "No fear! The line your chief suggests," Buck went on carefully, "is that we should interrogate this woman at Breen Mews to check Mycroft's movements yesterday; and in particular to find how the dispatch-case—which Mycroft left behind, apparently—could have been handed to old Greer by Mycroft himself." " That's what I want to know," Wade nodded. " The whole show turns on it." " Agreed. It looks to me like a gang job—this woman one of them; old Greer as go-between; besides the two fellows down at the Surrey house. We ought to pick up something, when we've compared her story with that Greer has already told." " Confronting them? " " Not at first, I think. Best keep old Greer outside in the offing, until we hear what she has to say. That suit you?" " I'm in your hands," said Wade. " Where aro wo going, by the way? " " We're there." Buck had pulled in beside the kerb of the Bayswater Road, and stopped with the attendent taxi close behind them. He pointed, and Wade saw, just ahead, the arched entrance of a iittlo alley leading down from the street, with " Breen Mews painted on it. " One more point," he added. " If this woman's in the gang, there's a fair chance that she may bo rung up by one or other of them during the day. When your chief finished giving mc the facts, I got through to the 'phone exchange; they're keeping record of all calls that are made to her, with the times and addresses. What's more, this inquiry will tako time, so I suggest we talk to her at the flat, instead of asking her to come round to tho Ladbroko Road Police Station; then, if thero's any interesting ring while we're with her wo shall be on the spot."

Wade nodded, more than over glad that his chief had arranged for such a coadjutor. Buck restarted the car, and with the taxi still following, turned into the Mews. The big clock above the jeweller's, farther down the road, stood at eleven-sixteen. Just before reaching Number three they stopped and alighted. Buck turned to his constable. " Ring Ladbroke Road. lell them we'll be here for a while—Number three; here's the 'phone number — and if they have any news for us, to ring through at once." Thus it befell that Brenda Gower. not 20 minutes after Larsen's 'phone call, was interrupted in a last desperate search by a ring at her door, and, .peering from her window, saw the two plain-clothes men on the cobbles below. Nervous, expecting she knew not what, she went down to fidmit them. "Miss May Brenda Gower?" the shorter asked her, raising his hat. " Yes. What do you want? "

" Wo are police officers, and have called here to ascertain the movements of Professor Philip Laidlaw Mycroft." The woman turned pale. " Has anything—happened to him? " " That's more than I can say at present, Miss Gower, only ho seems to have disappeared from London yesterday, in somewhat peculiar circumstances. If we may ask you a few questions —"

" You had better come in," she said, faintly. Upstairs, when they were seated and his restless eyes had taken stock of the living room, Buck began point-blank: , " Mr. Mycroft's a friend of yours, Miss Gower, I think? " " Ho was," she said quietly.

Buck stared. But his first thought—that by some means she had already heard of Mycroft's death —was not verified. " He came here fairly often," she went on in a steady even tone, " but yesterday we quarrelled. I—l hardly know whether to expect him back—" She paused.

Deep down, she was scared—more scared than even Buck or Wade could have guessed from her manner. But their visit, awkward though it was, had not been quite unexpected. She had had time to think the situation out, and had resolved, that if inquiries Bhould result from the abduction of Mycroft's girl, she could best keep herself aloof by knowing nothing at all of the event that had led to it. Frankness, regarding facts within her knowledge—for these the police might know; but total ignorance of Mycroft's private affairs, of his work, above all of Larsen and the formula—such, she had settled long before Buck came, was her safest line. And in this she had settled wisely, having enough acquaintance with the Yard's reputation to know, that lies concerning ascertainable fact were a two-edged weapon of defence. Yet already, she found herself at a loss—so easy is it to plan a line of defence, so much more hard to follow it in the face of examination. Her no-lie policy had led her to volunteer the fact that she and Mycroft had quarrelled; too late, she foresaw Buck's obvious next question—" Whj r ? " But that question did not come. Inspector Buck, as many clever people found to their cost, had a most disconcerting knack of ignoring the obvious and of confounding clever people's foresight by an unexpected line of attack. It was one of the qualities to which Buck owed his high place at the Yard. Smiling, he used it now. " At all events, the quarrel was not serious enough to prevent him borrowing your car? " "Oh, he —he often used it," she replied; somehow, that cheery smile disconcerted her more than any question could have done. "You have known each other for some time, then ? " " Yes." " If. you lent him your car, even after quarrelling, I take it his need was urgent? " , " He had some pressing business." " Did he say what it was? " The woman hesitated for an instant, before answering " No." Buck's glance just flickered toward Wade; and "Here's where the lies begin!" the faint cock of his eyebrows signalled. " Can you recall how he was dressed when he left? " he inquired. " Yes. He was wearing a light dustcoat, and a Donegal tweed hat." " The sort that fishermen fancy? " " Yes, a Rporting hat." Buck nodded. " I ask, because such a hat is uncommon enough to be fairly conspicuous. Thanks to it, I think we have traced Mr. Mycroft as far as Southampton, but we want to establish where he went after that. He didn't come back here? " " No." Buck leaned forward. " Not late last night, for instance? " " Not to my knowledge. I dined out." " But you were home—by midnight, anyway? " The woman hesitated again. She looked scared, suspicious. Wade, as he watched the pair of them, felt that same question was impending to which he had not yet the clue. " I came in just after 12," she answered, guardedly. " I have a certain reason for asking that," Buck resumed. " I am told, by a policeman on patrol \in the main road last night, that about 12.45 a tall man, wearing just such a hat, turned out of Breen Mews —" Wade listened tensely. This was news to him.

" The policeman noticed him," went on Buck, " because the Mews not being a thoroughfare, it is unusual for anyone to come through that archway so late. Moreover, he fancied he had seen him enter or leave the Mews on other occasions."

"I —I don't quite follow you," the woman said.

" If it were Mr. Mycroft, for example —you are quite sure about the time you, yourself, got home? " She shrugged. " Not to the miriMte precisely. But I'm quite sure I was asleep by 12.45. Even so, if Mr. Mycroft had called then—that's what you're suggesting, isn't it —I should have heard his ring." " And you have had no news of him this morning—from any quarter? " " No." Buck sat back. " Thank you, Miss Gower; that's what I wanted to know." The relief on the woman's face was obvious, as the inspector's catechism seemed to have reached its end. But her respite was short. Buck nodded toward his companion. " This is Inspector Wade, of the Southampton police," he said. " I think he'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind? " "Yes?" Brenda Gower turned to Wade. " When Mr. Mycroft left," the Southampton man began, " did he take with him a small leather dispatchcase with tho initials ' P.L.M.' ? " " No." Her answer slipped out promptly—too promptly, Buck guessed, for as he watched he fancied she reddened slightly, biting her lip as though she would have liked to recall her last word. "You know the case I mean?" asked Wade, and as she nodded, resumed: " Tt is suggested that it has been stolen from Mr. Mycroft, at Rome time since noon yesterday. If so, it is important to find out when the case was last in his hands." (To be continued daily)