man.
“Are we to understand, madam,” said the coroner, “that you stood for nearly two hours in close proximity to this man and yet have no recollection of him or of his companions, if any?”
“But I wasn’t next to him all that time! I tell you I didn’t see him until he fell over at my feet.”
“Then who was next in front of you most of the time?”
“I don’t remember. I think it was a boy—a young man.”
“And what became of the young man?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see him leave the queue?”
“No.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Yes; he was dark and foreign-looking, rather.”
“Was he alone?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, somehow. I think he was talking to some one.”
“How is it that you do not remember more distinctly what occurred when it is only three nights ago?”
The shock had put everything out of her head, she said. “Besides,” she added, her gelatinous backbone ossified suddenly by the coroner’s ill-hidden scorn, “in a queue one doesn’t notice the people next one. Both I and my husband were reading most of the time.” And she dissolved into hysterical weeping.
Then there was the fat woman, shiny with satin and soap-and-water, recovered now from the shock and reluctance she had displayed at the crowded moment of the murder, and more than willing to tell her tale. Her plump red face and boot-button brown eyes radiated a grim satisfaction with her rôle. She seemed disappointed when the coroner thanked her and dismissed her in the middle of a sentence.
There was a meek little man, as precise in manner as the constable had been, but evidently convinced that the coroner was a man of little intelligence. When that long-suffering official said, “Yes, I was aware that queues usually go two by two,” the jury allowed themselves to snigger and the meek little man looked pained. As neither he nor the other three witnesses from the queue could recall the murdered man, or throw any light on any departure from the queue, they were dismissed with scant attention.
The doorkeeper, incoherent with pleasure at being so helpful, informed the coroner that he had seen the dead man before—several times. He had come quite often to the Woffington. But he knew nothing about him. He had always been well dressed. No, the doorkeeper could not recall any companion, though he was sure that the man had not habitually been alone.
The atmosphere of futility that characterized the inquest discouraged Grant. A man whom no one professed to know, stuck in the back by some one whom no one had seen. It was a sweet prospect. No clue to the murderer except the dagger, and that told nothing except that the man was scarred on a finger or thumb. No clue to the murdered man except the hope that a Faith Brothers employee might have known the person to whom he sold a fawn patterned tie with faint pink splashes. When the inevitable verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown had been given, Grant went to a telephone revolving in his mind the Ratcliffe woman’s tale of a young foreigner. Was that impression a mere figment of her imagination, brought into being by the suggestion of the dagger? Or was it a genuine corroboration of his Levantine theory? Mrs. Ratcliffe’s young foreigner had not been there when the murder was discovered. He was the one who had disappeared from the queue, and the one who had disappeared from the queue had most certainly murdered the dead man.
Well, he would find out from the Yard if there was anything new, and if not he would fortify himself with tea. He needed it. And the slow sipping of tea conduced to thought. Not the painful tabulations of Barker, that prince of superintendents, but the speculative revolving of things which he, Grant, found more productive. He numbered among his acquaintances a poet and essayist, who sipped tea in a steady monotonous rhythm, the while he brought to birth his masterpieces. His digestive system was in a shocking condition, but he had a very fine reputation among the more precious of the modern littérateurs.
Chapter 4.
RAOUL LEGARDE
But over the telephone Grant heard something which put all thoughts of tea out of his head. There was waiting for him a letter addressed in capitals. Grant knew very well what that meant. Scotland Yard has a wide experience of letters addressed in capitals. He smiled to himself as he hailed a taxi. If people only realized that writing in capitals didn’t disguise a hand at all! But he sincerely hoped they never would.
Before he opened the letter that awaited him he dusted it with powder and found it covered with fingerprints. He slit the top delicately, holding the letter, which was fat and softish, in a pair of forceps, and drew out a wad of Bank of England five-pound notes and a half-sheet of notepaper. On the notepaper was printed: “To bury the man who was found in the queue.”
There were five notes. Twenty-five pounds.
Grant sat down and stared. In all his time in the C.I.D. a more unexpected thing had not happened. Somewhere in London tonight was some one who cared sufficiently for the dead man to spend twenty-five pounds to keep him from a pauper’s grave, but who would not claim him. Was this corroboration of his intimidation theory? Or was it conscience money? Had the murderer a superstitious desire to do the right thing by his victim’s body? Grant thought not. The man who stuck another in the back didn’t care a hoot what became of the body. The man had a pal—man or woman—in London tonight, a pal who cared to the tune of twenty-five pounds.
Grant called in Williams, and together they considered the plain, cheap, white envelope and the strong, plain capitals.
“Well,” said Grant, “what do you know?”
“A man,” said Williams. “Not well off. Not used to writing much. Clean. Smokes. Depressed.”
“Excellent!” said Grant. “You’re no good as a Watson, Williams. You get away with all the kudos.”
Williams, who knew all about Watson—at the age of eleven he had spent hunted moments in a hayloft in Worcestershire trying to read The Speckled Band without being discovered by Authority, who had banned it—smiled and said, “I expect you have got far more out of it, sir.”
But Grant had not. “Except that he’s a poor hand at the business. Fancy sending anything as easily traced as English five-pound notes!” He blew the light, soft powder over the half-sheet of notepaper, but found no fingerprints. He summoned a constable and sent the precious envelope and the bundle of notes to have all fingerprints photographed. The sheet of notepaper bearing the printed message, he sent to the handwriting expert.
“Well, the banks are shut now, worse luck. Are you in a hurry to get back to the missus, Williams?”
No, Williams was in no hurry. His missus and the baby were in Southend with his mother-in-law for a week.
“In that case,” Grant said, “we’ll dine together and you can give me the benefit of your ideas on the subject of murders in queues.”
Some years before, Grant had inherited
