The Mystery of the Moor

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 438, 21 August 1928, Page 5

The Mystery of the Moor

- By

J. S. Fletcher

CHAPTER XVI. —THE KNOCK AT MY DOOR. “Any talk of diamor«is that time,” inquired Maythorne. “No—l don’t remember that they were mentioned that time at all,” said Sir Samuel. “The arrangement was made, d'ye see. We were to inspect the pair when Mazaroff came back from his jaunt.” "And you never saw him again after that dinner at the Cecil?” asked Maythorne. “Never met him anywhere about London?” “No, never saw or heard of him again,” replied Sir Samuel. “Until we saw all this in the papers.” “Your nephew', Mr. James Mallison, 1 think you said,” remarked Maythorne. “Did you ever hear him mention seeing Marazoff in town — after that dinner?” Sir Samuel looked at his wife. “I never heard Jim mention that,” he answered. “To be sure, Jim knocks about a good deal in fashionable places and so on—he’s away just now, or he could tell you himself. But I never heard him speak of meeting Mazaroff again—did you, Maria?” “No, I never heard him say anything of that,” replied Lady Leeke. . “Besides, I think Mr. Mazaroff was lust going away when we dined with him at the Cecil.” We had a little more conversation *ith this worthy couple, and then left them. i W as anxious to get out of 'he house I had an announcement to make which I could not make before. * made it as soon as we got clear of the gorgeous footman. “I say!” I exclaimed, seizing my companion’s elbows. “You remember that, this morning, I spoke of seems Mazaroff in conversation with a man, first at Huntingdon, then at fork? A man who was a stranger to me, hut whom Mazaroff evidently Knew? Well, there’s a photograph of that man—the very man! —on Lady Leeks' mantelpiece’” The tw r o men stopped, staring at me—Crole with an ordinary glare of surprise, but Maythorne with a sudden flash of the eye and an alertness j}at I bad never noticed before in lEa: it was as if my remark had acted as an illumination. Just as suddenly his quick look shifted back, Sl< ?.^ vise> to tlle house we had left. There were two photographs of jden on Lady Leeke’s mantelpiece,” e said. “One on each side of that gently thousand-guinea clock. are you referring to?” The man in the rather loud check Jacket and soft collar,” I answered. head and shoulder photograph.” , That was the chap on the rightside of the clock,” he went on.

musingly. “A youngisli man, evidently fair-haired, fair-moustached. That it?” “That’s the man I saw talking to Mazaroff at Huntingdon and again at York, anyway," I asserted. “I recognised the photograph instantly.” We stood for another moment in silence, Crole and I watching Maythorne. Suddenly he moved; we walked along Park Lane a little. “The probability is that that’s the nephew we heard about —Mallison,” said Maythorne, as if waking out of a reverie. “Let’s see—he was referred to as Lady Leeke’s nephew, and Sir Samuel spoke of him as knowing his way about town pretty well. Now then, where are we? Mallison, according to what we’ve just heard, twice met Mazaroff —once here at Leeke’s house, again when Mazaroff entertained the three at the Cecil. Mallison heard about, and saw, one of the blue diamonds. If the photograph is that of Mallison, as you assert, Holt, Mallison is the man to whom you saw Mazaroff talking to first at Huntingdon and then at York. So —does Mallison know anything about this affair? That’s to find out —when we can come across Mallison.” “Ought to be no great difficulty about that,” muttered Crole. “They said that Mallison was away just now,” observed Maythorne. “Away North, of course, if Holt’s correct about the identification. But —l’m not thinking so much about that. What I am thinking about is that the name Mallison is somehow familial- —I’ve some recollection of it in connection with something or other that happened here in London, in the West End, comparatively recently. It’s in my mind—though I can’t fix it at the minute. Mallison?” He paused for a moment in the middle ol’ the sidewalk, hands plunged in his trousers pockets eyes staring at the pavement. Suddenly he looked up, signalled to a passing taxicab, and motioned us to follow him into it. “Come to my office,” he said. “I’ve a chap there —my confidential clerk —who possesses one of the sharpest brains and most retentive memories in Europe. He’ll know!” Maythorne’s office was in Conduit

Street, so we were there in a few minutes. I was anxious to see what sort of place it might be, naturally associating private inquiry work with a drabness and a suggestion of gloom. I found the exact opposite; the place was almost palatial. There was a front office wherein two smart-look-ing girls were busy with typewriters, and a sharp hoy evidently acted as janitor; beyond that was an inner apartment, very elegantly furnished, in which sat a youthful gentleman who, when we entered, was leisurely reading the “Sporting Times,” and did not relinquish it as he rose and made his bow; beyond that, again, evidently the strictly private part of the premises, was a room rendered utterly luxurious by Turkey carpets, deep chairs, a few fine pictures, and the very latest things in office fittings. There were doubtless dark secrets told in that room from time to time, but it was to the accompaniment of everything pleasant to the senses. At each end of this room stood a table-desk; at that at the further end sat, when we Avalked in, a young man who would have attracted my attention wherever I had met him. He was a smallish sized chap, almost a ban-tam-weight, to use the language of the prize-ring, and his thinnish person was arrayed in a tweed svit of very large checks; he wore a hunting stock instead of an ordinary collar, and its folds were gathered together by a gold horse shoe pin he might, indeed, have been a head stableboy as far as this sort of thing went. But there were more noticeable things about him—seen as soon as he rose and turned toward his employer. He had the sharpest and queerest pair of blue eyes I have ever seen; the most inquisitive nose, and the straightest line of lip above the squarest and most obstinate of chins —and yet even these things were not, severally or collectively, the most remarkable of his features. The thing that one’s eye went to first was the fellow’s red hair —absolutely, genuinely red, a veritable flame of colour against the delicate shading of the walls—and this in spite of the fact that he wore it close-cropped, thereby accentuating a pair of unduly large, rather pointed ears. I don’t know what Crole thought of him—he had doubtless seen him before, perhaps often—but my own mind immediately crystallised its impressions into a word at sight of the sharp nose, the general aspect of ready watchfulness. Ferret! Maythorne motioned us into two big chairs that flanked a cheery fire, threw aside his stick and gloves, and turned on his clerk, who, after rising from his desk, stood—watching. “Cottingley! ” he said, going straight into the subject without preface. “Do we know the name Mallison?” “XAZOL” for coughs and colds, etc., acts like a charm. GO doses, Is 6d:

I saw a swift flash of light in the red-headed one’s queer eyes—it was as if a lamp had suddenly been lighted somewhere behind them. The thin, straight line of the lips relaxed, tlie close-cropped head nodded. “We do! Mallison. James Mallison.” The creature’s voice was as odd as his appearance. It was a sort of subdued falsetto-piping. He remained staring at Maythorne, and Maythorne nodded. “I thought you’d remember, Cottingley. In what connection, now?” “Welminster Square affair. No direct connection—with him. One of our clients was in it, though. Mallison—his name was in the list. Memorised it. James Mallison, no occupation. Address, Park Lane. Lady Leeke’s nephewt—hat’s who Mallison is. “And that Welminster Square affair, Cottingley? Gambling business, wasn’t it?” “Police raid in a private gambling house in Welminster Square. About three or four months ago. Thirty or forty arrests. Mallison was one of the men on the premises.. There were women, too. Fashionable women. Men who kept the place heavily fined—very heavily. Rest—frequenters—usual thing— got off lightly. If you remember, one of our clients was there —came to you In a blue funk. Nothing! Like the scrap-book?” Maythorne nodded his head and held out his hand, and the clerk, turning to a big table that stood in the centre of the room, took up a solidlybound volume which proved to contain newspaper cuttings, and with almost uncanny celerity found a page and handed the book over. Maythorne glanced at the extract, and then twisted the volume round toward Crole and me. “There you are,” he said. "We cut out all sorts of stuff and things from the current newspapers and paste ’em up for future reference—you never know when they’ll come in handy. I find that system very useful—l haven't such a retentive memory as Cottingley there. This, you see, is a newspaper account of a police raid on a private gambling hell in the West End —house kept by an amiable gentleman who had such troops of friends, male and female, to visit him of an evening that the police grew suspicious and decided to visit him themselves—uninvited. There’s ail about it, and what happened, and there are the names of the folk found on the premises, and among them, you see, that of James Mallison, no occupation, Park Lane, which seems to argue that Mr. Mallison lives with his aunt and uncle-in-law. But perhaps Cottingley knows—Cottingley knows a lot Do you know anything about Mallison. Cottingley?” The clerk pursed his lips and made a slight gesture of his shoulders —his action seemed to indicate that Mallison was scarcely worth his attention.

“Very little! Young man about town. A bit foppish. Sporty, in a way. Lives with Sir Samuel and Lady Leeke. You can see him sometimes with them —and more often by himself in one of Sir Samuel’s motors. Chucks his money about fairly freely—they’ve no children, those Leekes. Newlyrich—war profiteers—that sort. They say this Mallison will come in for Sir Samuel’s money.” “And that’s all you know, Cottingley?” “All!” Maythorne threw the scrap-book back on the table. “Well, that’s that!” he said. “We know a bit more now about Mallison. Doubtless he’s the man Mazaroff spoke to at Huntingdon and at York. Now, there’s nothing much in that, but it seems to show that Malliion was going North. And what I’d like to know is this—did he and Mazaroff ever meet again?” “Why?” asked Crole, with a look of surprise. “And—where?” “The second part of your question is more pertinent than the first,” answered Maythorne, “It’s the whereabouts of such a meeting that is important. What we want to get at is the relationship of Mazaroffi’s murder to the fact that Mazaroff had Blue Diamond number two on him when he was murdered. How many people knew that he had? Well, from all we can make out, here was a man—Mallison—who certainly knew it. Mallison had seen the blue diamond —number two —in Mazaroff’s possession, twice. Probably, when they encountered at Huntingdon and at York, the blue diamond deal with Sir Samuel Leeke was the subject of their conversation. We’ll have to get and talk with Mallison, certainly. I’ll contrive to find out. this evening when he’s likely to return to town, or where he can be found at present—l’ll get that out of the Leekes, myself. But now—Armintrade? That man has got to be seen, too—he knows more than he’s told; in fact, he’s told nothing. And in the meantime, he must be carefully watched. Holt!—is that man you left at the Woodcock, the chauffeur, Webster, a man of good intelligence?” “Webster’s a sharp, clever chap,” I answered. “Smart—trusty.” “Give me some telegraph forms, Cottingley,” said Maythorne. “Holt, I’m going to send Webster a wire in your name, telling him of certain things I want him to do there as regards keeping an eye on High Cap Lodge. We shall have to go back there, I expect, but it mayn’t be tomorrow. As for to-morrow, will you come here at ten o’clock in the morning?”

Crole and I presently went away, i leaving Maythorne concocting his tele- 1 gram to Webster - . Outside, Crole 1 yawned. 1 “I’m going borne, Holt,” he said. 1 “Home to Wimbledon —dinner and 1 bed, my boy!—that’s what I want after : all this. Yourself, now—what’re you 1 going to do?” “Just about the same thing.” 1 1 answered. “I shall dine somewhere, ] and then go to my rooms. I’m tired, - too. And —I suppose we’ve got to get 1 on the trail again to-morrow morn- ; ing?" “Meet at ten o’clock at Maythorne’s,” he assented with a nod. ' “Cm! I wonder if we have made any headway to-day? Who killed Salim Mazaroff? I hope I shan’t be asking myself that in my dreams all night. Well—till the morning, then.” He yawned once more, smiled apologetically, shook my hand, and hurried off in the direction of the nearest tube station. And when he had gone I discovered that I was weary—more weary than I had realised. The anxiety of the last few days, the rushing about, the mental confusion —all these things were exerting their inI fiuence. I looked at my watch—it was just six o’clock. I determined to dine at once, and then to go to my rooms in Jermyn Street and fall into bed. I dined at a certain restaurant where quietude is obtainable even in these days, and I took care to dine well, and to spend plenty of time over my dinner. That, and the resultant rest, revived me. I began to have Once tried—always used—Radium j Boot, Floor, or Metal Polish. Why? | Because they give a better and more j lasting shine. 24. j

notions of seeking out my friend, Har- 1 ker, and telling him of my adven- ! tures. But on reflection I decided ! that it would be far wiser to go home, for anything that I knew we should : have an even busier day on the nor- 1 row, and possibly a return Lo Marrasdale. So I bought the evening newspapers, and went off to Jermyn Street, resolved on going to bed at exactly nine o’clock. I was nodding over the papers before that arrived, and I ; should have kept my resolution if, just as I was about to make the definite move bedwards, Maythorne had not turned up. I saw as soon as I opened my outer door to him that he had news. “I’ve seen Sir Samuel Leeke again, Holt,” he said when I had got him inside and installed him in an easy chair, with a whisky-and-soda and a cigar. “I made a plausible excuse, j and called there once more. I’ve found out a certain fact that may or may not be relevant. About this chap Mallison, of course.” “Yes?” I said. “Mallison,” continued Maythorne, “went up North just about the time you and Mazaroff did. He went in one of Leeke’s automobiles —they seem to possess a fleet!—and for a deSnite purpose. Old Leeke wants to rent a shooting next year—grouse moor, you know—and he thought it would be j a good notion if Mallison went and J inspected some shootings whiie guns ; were actually at work. From what ; he told me. I’m pretty dead certain ! that Mallison was in the immediate j neighbourhood of Marrasdale at the , j very time you and Mazaroff reached \ I the Woodcock inn. Eh?” ! He was watching me closely, and I i ! saw that he expected me to make l | some comment. I had no comment ;

to make. All I could say was that I had never seen anything of Maiiison in those regions. He smiled. “Why, no,” he answered, “of course you didn’t—or I might say wouldn’t, if —but still, that’s all In the clouds. Yet Mallison was certainly there, or thereabouts. And—” He paused at that, and remained silent so long that I spoke what was in my mind. “I wonder if we shall ever find out all about it?” I said. He gave me a queer, knowing look. (To be Continued.)