‘Nor that?’ The second photograph was a studio portrait with the name of a Strand firm at the bottom. It awoke some vague reminiscence in Silvervale. He held it closer to the light.
‘Wait a minute.’ Grant placed a sheet of paper over the bottom of the face, hiding the moustache and chin. Recollection came to Silvervale in a flash. It was Norman, the man with the lustreless blue eyes who had commented on Madeline Fulford in the smoking-room of the Columbia.
He explained. ‘The hair’s done differently,’ he added, ‘but I can recognise the upper part of the face, though he’s older now than when this photograph was taken. Do you think he’s mixed up in this?’
‘Maybe,’ answered Forrester enigmatically. ‘I’ll have a man motor down to the prison now’—he was speaking to Grant—‘and we’ll go on to the Palatial. If I’m any judge he’ll still be there. His room was No. 472, almost opposite her suite. I had him questioned, of course, but I never dreamed—’
Silvervale lit a cigarette resignedly. ‘It’s all Greek to me,’ he complained. ‘Still, I have no right to ask questions.’
‘You’ll understand in an hour or two,’ said Forrester. ‘It would take too long to explain now. Come on and you’ll see what you’ll see.’
It was back to the Palatial Hotel that he took the journalist and a couple of subordinates. There he remained closeted with the manager for five minutes. He reappeared with that functionary, a master-key dangling on his finger.
‘Our bird’s at home,’ he said. ‘Gone to roost, probably.’
Nothing more was said till they reached the third floor. The manager led the way until they came opposite a door facing the suite which Mrs de Reszke had occupied. ‘This is No. 472,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Shall I knock?’
Forrester made a gesture of dissent and his hand fell coaxingly on the door. He made no sound as he pushed a key in the lock and turned it. With a sharp push the door flew open, and a quick, angry question was succeeded by confused sounds of a struggle. The next Silvervale saw was a pyjama-clad man being held on the bed with Forrester and a colleague at either wrist.
‘I don’t know who you are or the meaning of this outrage,’ he protested angrily. ‘Someone will have to pay for this.’
‘Hold on to his hand a minute, Roker,’ said Forrester, and one of the other detectives seized the wrist he had been grasping.
The chief inspector thrust his hand beneath the pillow and produced a small automatic pistol. ‘I just grabbed him in time,’ he said a little breathlessly.
‘I want to know—’ persisted the prisoner.
Forrester turned sternly upon him. ‘I am a police officer,’ he said. ‘I am arresting you as an escaped convict, one John Crake.’
Something approaching a gleam of interest shot into Crake’s lifeless eyes. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ he said quietly. ‘I wonder how you got on to it. According to official reckoning, John Crake has still got five years to serve.’
It was impossible to doubt that the man knew the real reason of his arrest, but his manner gave no hint of perturbation. He smiled sardonically as a shiver swept over his slight frame. ‘I suppose you aren’t going to take me to the police station in my sleeping-suit? Will these gentlemen allow me to dress?’
At an order from Forrester his clothes were searched and passed to him. He was adjusting his tie with a steady hand when he next shot out a question: ‘You have something else to say?’
‘That can wait,’ returned Forrester. ‘Remember that anything you say—’
‘I know,’ interrupted Crake; ‘you’re bound to give that warning. What’s the good of all this finesse, Mr—er—er—Forrester—thank you? I know you want me for murder, and if you want me to say anything you’d better listen now while I’m in the mood. First of all, though, how did you get on to me?’
‘There was a finger-print, and we had yours in the records taken when you were on trial for the other thing.’
‘Look here.’ Crake spoke as though he were merely an interested observer with no personal concern in the affair. ‘You’d better tell me the full story, and if there are any gaps I’ll fill them in for you. Is that a bargain?’
Forrester reflected a moment. ‘All right,’ he agreed, with a glance at Silvervale. ‘There can be no harm in that if you want to know. In the first place, when the woman was found it was easy to penetrate the idea of a clumsy attempt to simulate suicide. We had little to guide us beyond the fact that she was a Mrs de Reszke who had come over from the States in the Columbia. Then Mr Silvervale, here, turned up with the story of the bother on board, and some of our men picked up the same story from other passengers we traced out. Of course, with de Reszke missing, we went off full cry on a false trail. There were scores of circumstances that pointed against him, and but for the accident of the finger-print it might have looked very ugly.’
‘I don’t understand about that finger-print,’ remarked Crake.
‘It was left on the book the woman had been reading when you placed it on the table. Well, anyway, we got de Reszke, and when I found that his finger-print did not agree with that on the book, I was at a dead loss. Of course, I had had your record looked up when Mr Silvervale identified the dead woman as Madeline Fulford, and I found you were supposed to be still in prison. Naturally, we had not considered you after that. But when I found myself right up against it I took a forlorn chance and compared the prints from the book with those we had of yours. Then Mr Silvervale identified a portrait of you as that of a passenger named Norman who came over on the Columbia. I remembered that a Mr Norman had been questioned here by our people, and we came on. That’s all.’
Crake’s thin lips curved into a sneer. ‘It was just the off-chance of your comparing the prints that did it,’ he said.
Forrester made a disclaiming gesture. ‘The records would have been searched sooner or later in any event, and we’d have hit on you. It would have taken a day or two though, and you’d have got a start.’
‘And you don’t know how it is I’m still not in prison, and no one knows I’ve been at large for a year?’
‘No, not altogether,’ admitted the chief detective carelessly. ‘There’s been a change of identity and big bribery somewhere. That’s for the prison people to explain.’ He was careful not to ask any questions.
‘Well,’ said Crake slowly, ‘I can help you out on that. This is what happened: When that Jezebel there’—he jerked his thumb towards the door—‘sold me at the trial, I swore I’d get quits with her, if I swung for it.’ He spat out the words in an even voice that made them ten times more venomous. ‘Mark you, in the time that I knew her she had bled me for thousands. Then when the other man turned up, she had to get rid of me—and the Old Bailey was the method she chose. I don’t know if any of you gentlemen know what hate is—real, white-hot, flaming hatred that eats a man’s vitals out,’—he choked a little—‘but never mind that. My first idea was to work an escape, for I knew my sentence would not be a light one. I had plenty of money—never mind how I kept it out of other people’s clutches.
‘There was a man sentenced the same day as myself to two
