The Shadow Crook

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 590, 16 February 1929, Page 23

The Shadow Crook

By

Aidan de Brune

(Author of “Dr Night,” “The Carson Loan Mystery, ” “ The Dagger and the Cord,” etc.) - (COPYRIGHT.)

CHAPTER XX.—Continued The inspector watched Anderson ; lock up the suitcase and the negatives in a big safe iu the corner of the \ laboratory. In silence he accompanied the sergeant up to the ground floor of the building and to the door iof the building. Again he had come ; on a fact that would jiot fit ,nto the | theories he had striven to weave ; around the dead man and the missing | jewels. Somewhere iu Sydney -was a boy who wore the fingerprints of Frederick I Mayne. That boy had been in the | Caretv Lane shop the night Mayne i was stabbed. That boy had recently i visited “Avonlea.” and the room | Abel Mintos had occupied after the ' assault on him by the Shadow Crook, i Where was he to seek that boy? He ! had hardly glimpsed him as he ran : out of the shop door the night they i had found the dead man. | Mason shook himself impatiently. IHe was continually arguing wrongly, j Every new problem that occurred he i had come to place to the credit of the ! Shadow Crook. Now he knew he had j to consider other factors In his prob- ! lem. | That morning he had stated to j Etherlngham’s solicitor that he held the belief that Abel Mintos was the j Shadow Crook. Yesterday evening | he had believed the Man in the Black | Mask, who had imprisoned him in Abel Mintos’s flat, to be the Shadow j Crook in a new disguise. That afternoon he had found the fingerprints on Abel Mintos’s suitcase and had immediately concluded they had I been made by the Shadow Crook. All j three hypotheses were wrong. He had to look for another identity to fit i these facts on to.

| With a groan, almost of despair, ■ Mason turned at the door and walked toward his office. At the swingdoors he bumped into Wilbrahams, the plain-clothes constable detailed to shadow Sydney Warton. "How’s the old jeweller?” Mason faced his junior officer abruptly. "Grumpy!” Wilbrahams laughed. “Curses me every time I go near him. Curses the unknown owner of the shop and his solicitors. Asks me every day when he can go back there and get to work again; and that in spite of the letter he received a few days ago sacking him with three months’ salary. “Warton got the sack!” Mason whistled. "Now, what does that mean? Does the owner intend to give up the shop?” “Looks like it.” Wilbrahams spoke thoughtfully. "Do you know, Inspector, more than once I’ve thought the shop was only kept on with the idea that one day Stacey Carr would come back to it.” “Seems feasible,” the inspector hesitated. “Been to see the solicitors for the owner?’ “They’re as dumb as oysters.” The officer shrugged his shoulders. “Say they will communicate any questions I ask to the owner —and let it go at that. One thing they’re definite about. That is, old Warton is not to go back to work at the shop. He can go there for anything he considers belongs to him, under my supervision, or if he likes to make out a list of things be-

longing to him they will b.e collected together and delivered to him. But he is not to go to the shop alone.” “Looks queer. What does Warton say ?’

“Heaps, mostly in had language,” the constable grinned. “I should say he’s not out of the wood by any means. He says he was at home on the night of the murder of Frederick Mayne, but his alibi is not too good. There’s quite an hour and a-half I can’t account for out of a total of four hours. He says he was in his room during that time, reading.” “What’s he got there?” “Clothes, tools, a lot of junk—letters and old newspapers—a Bible, with all the denunciatory passages in the Old Testament heavily underlined, and a dilapidated copy of Shakespeare’s works.”

“That all? Books much read?” “Bible well thumbed. Shakespeare not so much, but it was not his originally. Should say he purchased it second-hand. There’s notes in it not in his handwriting.” Mason thought quickly. It was late and he had intended to go home, but there he would only sit and think of the many sides of the problems facing him. Far better to stay in town and get something on this new angle of the case. Peculiarly, for some time he had neglected the Sydney Warton side of the case. "‘Come along, Wilbrahams. We’ll have a few words with Mr. Sydney Warton. S’pose he’s at home?” “Was half an hour ago.” The officer fell into step beside his inspector. “He's got a grouch as long as your arm.”

A quarter of an hour later the two officers entered the narrow hall of Kay Chambers, a middle-class residential squeezed in between two shops, close to Central Square. Ouce past the narrow passage and up the few stairs to the offices, Mason was surprised at the extent of the place. Stairways and corridors radiated in all directions. The house, he estimated, must contain over two hundred rooms. Wilbrahams led the way, pausing at the office window to inquire If Warton was still within the building. Receiving an answer in the affirmative he led up a long flight of stairs and down a corridor to a room almost at the end. He knocked at the door. For a few seconds there was silence, then from within the room came the shuffle j of soft slippers and the door opened revealing the gaunt figure of the old I watchmaker. “Oh, you! What do you want now?” the man’s lips drew back in a snarl at the sight of the officer. “What do you keep cornin’ nosin’ about me for? Ain’t I told you often enough 1 don’t know nothing about Stacey Carr, nor the man you found dead in my shop. Can’t you leave me alone?” “Good evening, Mr. Warton,” Mason stepped from the shadows into the light that streamed through the door. “I’ve been wanting a word with you for some time, but I have been too busy to get round before.” “Who’re you?” Warton peered forward at the detective. “Oh, you’re th’ chap as asked ail the damn-fool questions down at the shop. You’re this man’s boss?” “Take it that way if you wish.” Mason’s foot pressed the door open. “May we come in? I want a word with you.” “What’ll it lead to?” the old jeweller gave ground. “You’ll have to stand for a minute while f get another chair. I've only one.” The inspector remained outside the door watching the old man shuffle down the corridor, and enter a room. In a. few seconds he came back carrying a chair. He pushed past the men and placed it in the centre of the room, seating himself on the edge of the bed. "Sit down, if you must talk,” he looked suspiciously at Mason, who was ! standing by a small table under th' window of which rested a Bible and a j Shakespeare, stacked on top of a few old journals. “What’re staring about | for?”

“What do you do of an evening, Warton?” the inspector turned suddenly toward the man. “You’ve been lyingdown this evening; that’s plain to be seen.”

“Read, mostly.” “What?” “There’s the only two books worth reading.” The old man pointed to the table. “They’re readia’ enough for me.” “Yet you haven’t opened them for a couple of days,” Mason leaned sideways and drew his finger across the top of the pile of books. “Look at the dust.” “I've been worried." Warton spoke sullenly. “This ’ere chap of yours ’as worried me, always pokin’ an’ pryin’ about. He’s up here on and off, all the time. Peeping in to see if I’m iu my room; wanting to come in and talk. Take ’im away. I’ve got no time for him.” “No friends?” the Inspector was sympathetic. “What do you do with yourself? Lie ou the bed and dream?” “I work.” The man refused to meet the inspector’s eyes. “That’s when I'm allowed to.” “So.” Mason rose from his seat and wandered round the little room. “You can’t work now. The police are in possession of the shop.” “When’ll they go?” “When they go the owner will surrender the lease, sell the fittings and close the shop.” “Then what’ll I do?” For the first time the old man looked direct at the inspector. “Get a job. You know well you’ve had notice of dismissal from your employment.” “By them lawyers. Who’re they?” “They engaged you. Now they sack you.” Mason was trying to anger the man. He was too calm and collected, In spite of his gruff way, to question. “Damn them! What have they to do with it? They don’t own the place.” “They act for the owner.” Mason laughed ting your head against a brick wall, old fellow.” "I’ll go to the owner.” “Who is the owner?” the detective spoke unbelievingly. “Oh, I know.” The old man leaned back, laughing in a high, cracked voice. “They think I don’t know, but I do, and . . .” “And?” Mason feared this man knew too much. If he went to Norma Etheringham;- if he started to make a fuss over his dismissal, he might seriously hamper police investigations. (To be Continued).