Dope

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

"H'm," mused the Assistant Commissioner. "This Cubanis Cigarette
Company, Chief Inspector?"

"Dummy goods!" rapped Kerry. "A blind. Just a back entrance to
Kazmah's office. Premises were leased on behalf of an agent. This
agent--a reputable man of business--paid the rent quarterly. I've seen
him."

"And who was his client?" asked the Assistant Commissioner, displaying
a faint trace of interest.

"A certain Mr. Isaacs!"

"Who can be traced?"

"Who can't be traced!"

"His checks?"

Chief Inspector Kerry smiled, so that his large white teeth gleamed
savagely.

"Mr. Isaacs represented himself as a dealer in Covent Garden who was
leasing the office for a lady friend, and who desired, for domestic
reasons, to cover his tracks. As ready money in large amounts changes
hands in the market, Mr. Isaacs paid ready money to the agent. Beyond
doubt the real source of the ready money was Kazmah's."

"But his address?"

"A hotel in Covent Garden."

"Where he lives?"

"Where he is known to the booking-clerk, a girl who allowed him to
have letters addressed there. A man of smoke, sir, acting on behalf of
someone in the background."

"Ah! and these Bond Street premises have been occupied by Kazmah for
the past eight years?"

"So I am told. I have yet to see representatives of the landlord. I
may add that Sir Lucien Pyne had lived in Albemarle Street for about
the same time."

Wearily raising his head:

"The point is certainly significant," said the Assistant Commissioner.
"Now we come to the drug traffic, Chief Inspector. You have found no
trace of drugs on the premises?"

"Not a grain, sir!"

"In the office of the cigarette firm?"

"No."

"By the way, was there no staff attached to the latter concern?"

Kerry chewed viciously.

"No business of any kind seems to have been done there," he replied.
"An office-boy employed by the solicitor on the same floor as Kazmah
has seen a man and also a woman, go up to the third floor on several
occasions, and he seems to think they went to the Cubanis office. But
he's not sure, and he can give no useful description of the parties,
anyway. Nobody in the building has ever seen the door open before this
morning."

The Assistant Commissioner sighed yet more wearily.

"Apart from the suspicions of Miss Margaret Halley, you have no sound
basis for supposing that Kazmah dealt in prohibited drugs?" he
inquired.

"The evidence of Miss Halley, the letter left for her by Mrs. Irvin,
and the fact that Mrs. Irvin said, in the presence of Mr. Quentin
Gray, that she had 'a particular reason' for seeing Kazmah, point to
it unmistakably, sir. Then, I have seen Mrs. Irvin's maid. (Mr. Monte
Irvin is still too unwell to be interrogated.) The girl was very
frightened, but she admitted outright that she had been in the habit
of going regularly to Kazmah for certain perfumes. She wouldn't admit
that she knew the flasks contained cocaine or veronal, but she did
admit that her mistress had been addicted to the drug habit for
several years. It began when she was on the stage."

"Ah, yes," murmured the Assistant Commissioner; "she was Rita Dresden,
was she not--'The Maid of the Masque' A very pretty and talented
actress. A pity--a great pity. So the girl, characteristically, is
trying to save herself?"

"She is," said Kerry grimly. "But it cuts no ice. There is another
point. After this report was made out, a message reached me from Miss
Halley, as a result of which I visited Mr. Quentin Gray early this
morning."

"Dear, dear," sighed the Assistant Commissioner, "your intense zeal
and activity are admirable, Chief Inspector, but appalling. And what
did you learn?"

From an inside pocket Chief Inspector Kerry took out a plain brown
paper packet containing several cigarettes and laid the packet on the
table.

"I got these, sir," he said grimly. "They were left at Mr. Gray's some
weeks ago by the late Sir Lucien. They are doped."

The Assistant Commissioner, his head resting upon his hand, gazed
abstractedly at the packet. "If only you could trace the source of
supply," he murmured.

"That brings me to my last point, sir. From Mrs. Irvin's maid I
learned that her mistress was acquainted with a certain Mrs. Sin."

"Mrs. Sin? Incredible name."

"She's a woman reputed to be married to a Chinaman. Inspector
Whiteleaf, of Vine Street, knows her by sight as one of the night-club
birds--a sort of mysterious fungus, sir, flowering in the dark and
fattening on gilded fools. Unless I'm greatly mistaken, Mrs. Sin is
the link between the doped cigarettes and the missing Kazmah."

"Does anyone know where she lives?"

"Lots of 'em know!" snapped Kerry. "But it's making them speak."

"To whom do you more particularly refer, Chief Inspector?"

"To the moneyed asses and the brainless women belonging to a certain
West End set, sir," said Kerry savagely. "They go in for every
monstrosity from Buenos Ayres, Port Said and Pekin. They get up dances
that would make a wooden horse blush. They eat hashish and they smoke
opium. They inject morphine, and they would have their hair dyed blue
if they heard it was 'being done.'"

"Ah," sighed the Assistant Commissioner, "a very delicate and complex
case, Chief Inspector. The agony of mind which Mr. Irvin must be
suffering is too horrible for one to contemplate. An admirable man,
too; honorable and generous. I can conceive no theory to account for
the disappearance of Mrs. Irvin other than that she was a party to the
murder."

"No, sir," said Kerry guardedly. "But we have the dope clue to work
on. That the Chinese receive stuff in the East End and that it's sold
in the West End every constable in the force is well aware. Leman
Street is getting busy, and every shady case in the Piccadilly area
will be beaten up within the next twenty-four hours, too. It's purely
departmental, sir, from now onwards, and merely a question of time.
Therefore I don't doubt the issue."

Kerry paused, cleared his throat, and produced a foolscap envelope
which he laid upon the table before the Assistant Commissioner.

"With very deep regret, sir," he said, "after a long and agreeable
association with the Criminal Investigation Department, I have to
tender you this."

The Assistant Commissioner took up the envelope and stared at it
vaguely.

"Ah, yes, Chief Inspector," he murmured. "Perhaps I fail entirely to
follow you; I am somewhat over-worked, as you know. What does this
envelope contain?"

"My resignation, sir," replied Kerry.

CHAPTER XXIV

TO INTRODUCE 719

Some moments of silence followed. Sounds of traffic from the
Embankment penetrated dimly to the room of the Assistant Commissioner;
ringing of tram bells and that vague sustained noise which is created
by the whirring of countless wheels along hard pavements. Finally:

"You have selected a curious moment to retire, Chief Inspector," said
the Assistant Commissioner. "Your prospects were never better. No
doubt you have considered the question of your pension?"

"I know what I'm giving up, sir," replied Kerry.

The Assistant Commissioner slowly revolved in his chair and gazed
sadly at the speaker. Chief Inspector Kerry met his glance with that
fearless, unflinching stare which lent him so formidable an
appearance.

"You might care to favor me with some explanation which I can lay
before the Chief Commissioner?"

Kerry snapped his white teeth together viciously.

"May I take it, sir, that you accept my resignation?"

"Certainly not. I will place it before the responsible authority. I
can do no more."

"Without disrespect, sir, I want to speak to you as man to man. As a
private citizen I could do it. As your subordinate I can't."

The Assistant Commissioner sighed, stroking his neatly brushed hair
with one large hand.

"Equally without disrespect, Chief Inspector," he murmured, "it is
news for me to learn that you have ever refrained from speaking your
mind either in my presence or in the presence of any man."

Kerry smiled, unable wholly to conceal a sense of gratified vanity.

"Well, sir," he said, "you have my resignation before you, and I'm
prepared to abide by the consequences. What I want to say is this: I'm
a man that has worked hard all his life to earn the respect and the
trust of his employers. I am supposed to be Chief Inspector of this
department, and as Chief Inspector I'll kow-tow to nothing on two legs
once I've been put in charge of a case. I work right in the sunshine.
There's no grafting about me. I draw my salary every week, and any man
that says I earn sixpence in the dark is at liberty to walk right in
here and deposit his funeral expenses. If I'm supposed to be under a
cloud--there's my reply. But I demand a public inquiry."

At ever increasing speed, succinctly, viciously he rapped out the
words. His red face grew more red, and his steel-blue eyes more
fierce. The Assistant Commissioner exhibited bewilderment. As the high
tones ceased:

"Really, Chief Inspector," he said, "you pain and surprise me. I do
not profess to be ignorant of the cause of your--annoyance. But
perhaps if I acquaint you with the facts of my own position in the
matter you will be open to reconsider your decision."

Kerry cleared his throat loudly.

"I won't work in the dark, sir," he declared truculently. "I'd rather
be a pavement artist and my own master than Chief Inspector with an
unknown spy following me about."

"Quite so--quite so." The Assistant Commissioner was wonderfully
patient. "Very well, Chief Inspector. It cannot enhance my personal
dignity to admit the fact, but I'm nearly as much in the dark as
yourself."

"What's that, sir?" Kerry sat bolt upright, staring at the speaker.

"At a late hour last night the Secretary of State communicated in
person with the Chief Commissioner--at the latter's town residence. He
instructed him to offer every facility to a newly appointed agent of
the Home office who was empowered to conduct an official inquiry into
the drug traffic. As a result Vine Street was advised that the Home
office investigator would proceed at once to Kazmah's premises, and
from thence wherever available clues might lead him. For some reason
which has not yet been explained to me, this investigator chooses to
preserve a strict anonymity."

Traces of irritation became perceptible in the weary voice. Kerry
staring, in silence, the Assistant Commissioner continued:

"I have been advised that this nameless agent is in a position to
establish his bona fides at any time, as he bears a number of these
cards. You see, Chief Inspector, I am frank with you."

From a table drawer the Assistant Commissioner took a visiting-card,
which he handed to Kerry. The latter stared at it as one stares at a
rare specimen. It was the card of Lord Wrexborough, His Majesty's
Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, and in the
cramped caligraphy of his lordship it bore a brief note, initialled,
thus:

Lord Wrexborough
Great Cumberland Place, V. 1
"To introduce 719. W."

Some moments of silence followed; then:

"Seven-one-nine," said Kerry in a high, strained voice. "Why
seven-one-nine? And why all this hocus-pocus? Am I to understand, sir,
that not only myself but all the Criminal Investigation Department is
under a cloud?"

The Assistant Commissioner stroked his hair.

"You are to understand, Chief Inspector, that for the first time
throughout my period of office I find myself out of touch with the
Chief Commissioner. It is not departmental for me to say so, but I
believe the Chief Commissioner finds himself similarly out of touch
with the Secretary of State. Apparently very powerful influences are
at work, and the line of conduct taken up by the Home office suggests
to my mind that collusion between the receivers and distributors of
drugs and the police is suspected by someone. That being so, possibly
out of a sense of fairness to all officially concerned, the committee
which I understand has been appointed to inquire into the traffic has
decided to treat us all alike, from myself down to the rawest
constable. It's highly irritating and preposterous, of course, but I
cannot disguise from you or from myself that we are on trial, Chief
Inspector!"

Kerry stood up and slowly moved his square shoulders in the manner of
an athlete about to attempt a feat of weight-lifting. From the
Assistant Commissioner's table he took the envelope which contained
his resignation, and tore it into several portions. These he deposited
in a waste-paper basket.

"That's that!" he said. "I am very deeply indebted to you, sir. I know
now what to tell the Press."

The Assistant Commissioner glanced up.

"Not a word about 719," he said, "of course, you understand this?"

"If we don't exist as far as 719 is concerned, sir," said Kerry in his
most snappy tones, "719 means nothing to me!"

"Quite so--quite so. Of course, I may be wrong in the motives which I
ascribe to this Whitehall agent, but misunderstanding is certain to
arise out of a system of such deliberate mystification, which can only
be compared to that employed by the Russian police under the Tsars."

Half an hour later Chief Inspector Kerry came out of New Scotland
Yard, and, walking down on to the Embankment, boarded a Norwood
tramcar. The weather remained damp and gloomy, but upon the red face
of Chief Inspector Kerry, as he mounted to the upper deck of the car,
rested an expression which might have been described as one of cheery
truculence. Where other passengers, coat collars upturned, gazed
gloomily from the windows at the yellow murk overhanging the river,
Kerry looked briskly about him, smiling pleasurably.

He was homeward bound, and when he presently alighted and went
swinging along Spenser Road towards his house, he was still smiling.
He regarded the case as having developed into a competition between
himself and the man appointed by Whitehall. And it was just such a
position, disconcerting to one of less aggressive temperament, which
stimulated Chief Inspector Kerry and put him in high good humor.

Mrs. Kerry, arrayed in a serviceable rain-coat, and wearing a plain
felt hat, was standing by the dining-room door as Kerry entered. She
had a basket on her arm. "I was waiting for ye, Dan," she said simply.

He kissed her affectionately, put his arm about her waist, and the two
entered the cosy little room. By no ordinary human means was it
possible that Mary Kerry should have known that her husband would come
home at that time, but he was so used to her prescience in this
respect that he offered no comment. She "kenned" his approach always,
and at times when his life had been in danger--and these were not of
infrequent occurrence--Mary Kerry, if sleeping, had awakened,
trembling, though the scene of peril were a hundred miles away, and if
awake had blanched and known a deadly sudden fear.

"Ye'll be goin' to bed?" she asked.

"For three hours, Mary. Don't fail to rouse me if I oversleep."

"Is it clear to ye yet?"

"Nearly clear. The dark thing you saw behind it all, Mary, was dope!
Kazmah's is a secret drug-syndicate. They've appointed a Home office
agent, and he's working independently of us, but . . ."

His teeth came together with a snap.

"Oh, Dan," said his wife, "it's a race? Drugs? A Home office agent?
Dan, they think the Force is in it?"

"They do!" rapped Kerry. "I'm for Leman Street in three hours. If
there's double-dealing behind it, then the mugs are in the East End,
and it's folly, not knavery, I'm looking for. It's a race, Mary, and
the credit of the Service is at stake! No, my dear, I'll have a snack
when I wake. You're going shopping?"

"I am, Dan. I'd ha' started, but I wanted to see ye when ye came hame.
If ye've only three hours go straight up the now. I'll ha' something
hot a' ready when ye waken."

Ten minutes later Kerry was in bed, his short clay pipe between his
teeth, and The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius in his hand. Such was
his customary sleeping-draught, and it had never been known to fail.
Half a pipe of Irish twist and three pages of the sad imperial author
invariably plunged Chief Inspector Kerry into healthy slumber.

CHAPTER XXV

NIGHT-LIFE OF SOHO

It was close upon midnight when Detective-Sergeant Coombes appeared in
a certain narrow West End thoroughfare, which was lined with taxicabs
and private cars. He wore a dark overcoat and a tweed cap, and
although his chin was buried in the genial folds of a woollen
comforter, and his cap was pulled down over his eyes, his sly smile
could easily be detected even in the dim light afforded by the car
lamps. He seemed to have business of a mysterious nature among the
cabmen; for with each of them in turn he conducted a brief
conversation, passing unobtrusively from cab to cab, and making
certain entries in a notebook. Finally he disappeared. No one actually
saw him go, and no one had actually seen him arrive. At one moment,
however, he was there; in the next he was gone.

Five minutes later Chief Inspector Kerry entered the street. His dark
overcoat and white silk muffler concealed a spruce dress suit, a fact
betrayed by black, braided trousers, unusually tight-fitting, and
boots which almost glittered. He carried the silver-headed malacca
cane, and had retained his narrow-brimmed howler at its customary
jaunty angle.

Passing the lines of waiting vehicles, he walked into the entrance of
a popular night-club which faced the narrow street. On a lounge
immediately inside the doorway a heated young man was sitting fanning
his dancing partner and gazing into her weakly pretty face in vacuous
adoration.

Kerry paused for a moment, staring at the pair. The man returned his
stare, looking him up and down in a manner meant to be contemptuous.
Kerry's fierce, intolerant gaze became transferred to the face and
then the figure of the woman. He tilted his hat further forward and
turned aside. The woman's glance followed him, to the marked disgust
of her companion.

"Oh," she whispered, "what a delightfully savage man! He looks
positively uncivilized. I have no doubt he drags women about by their
hair. I do hope he's a member!"

Mollie Gretna spoke loudly enough for Kerry to hear her, but unmoved
by her admiration he stepped up to the reception office. He was in
high good humor. He had spent the afternoon agreeably, interviewing
certain officials charged with policing the East End of London, and
had succeeded, to quote his own language, "in getting a gale up."
Despite the coldness of the weather, he had left two inspectors and a
speechlessly indignant superintendent bathed in perspiration.

"Are you a member, sir?" inquired the girl behind the desk.

Kerry smiled genially. A newsboy thrust open the swing-door, yelling:
"Bond Street murder! A fresh development. Late speshul!"

"Oh!" cried Mollie Gretna to her companion, "get me a paper. Be quick!
I am so excited!"

Kerry took up a pen, and in large bold hand-writing inscribed the
following across two pages of the visitors' book:

"Chief Inspector Kerry. Criminal Investigation Department."

He laid a card on the open book, and, thrusting his cane under his
arm, walked to the head of the stairs.

"Cloak-room on the right, sir," said an attendant.

Kerry paused, glancing over his shoulder and chewing audibly. Then he
settled his hat more firmly upon his red head and descended the
stairs. The attendant went to inspect the visitors' book, but Mollie
Gretna was at the desk before him, and:

"Oh, Bill!" she cried to her annoyed cavalier, "it's Inspector Kerry--
who is in charge of poor Lucy's murder! Oh, Bill! this is lovely!
Something is going to happen! Do come down!"

Followed by the obedient but reluctant "Bill," Mollie ran downstairs,
and almost into the arms of a tall dark girl, who, carrying a purple
opera cloak, was coming up.

"You're not going yet, Dickey?" said Mollie, throwing her arm around
the other's waist.

"Ssh!" whispered "Dickey." "Inspector Kerry is here! You don't want to
be called as a witness at nasty inquests and things, do you?"

"Good heavens, my dear, no! But why should I be?"

"Why should any of us? But don't you see they are looking for the
people who used to go to Kazmah's? It's in the paper tonight. We shall
all be served with subpoenas. I'm off!"

Escaping from Mollie's embrace, the tall girl ran up the stairs,
kissing her hand to Bill as she passed. Mollie hesitated, looking all
about the crowded room for Chief Inspector Kerry. Presently she saw
him, standing nearly opposite the stairway, his intolerant blue eyes
turning right and left, so that the fierce glance seemed to miss
nothing and no one in the room. Hands thrust in his overcoat pockets
and his cane held under his arm, he inspected the place and its
occupants as a very aggressive country cousin might inspect the
monkey-house at the Zoo. To Mollie's intense disappointment he
persistently avoided looking in her direction.

Although a popular dance was on the point of commencing, several
visitors had suddenly determined to leave. Kerry pretended to be
ignorant of the sensation which his appearance had created, passing
slowly along the room and submitting group after group to deliberate
scrutiny; but as news flies through an Eastern bazaar the name of the
celebrated detective, whose association with London's latest crime was
mentioned by every evening paper in the kingdom, sped now on magic
wings, so that there was a muted charivari out of which, in every key
from bass to soprano, arose ever and anon the words "Chief Inspector
Kerry."

"It's perfectly ridiculous but characteristically English," drawled
one young man, standing beside Mollie Gretna, "to send out a bally
red-headed policeman in preposterous glad-rags to look for a clever
criminal. Kerry is well known to all the crooks, and nobody could
mistake him. Damn silly--damn silly!"

As "damn silly" Kerry's open scrutiny of the members and visitors
must have appeared to others, but it was a deliberate policy very
popular with the Chief Inspector, and termed by him "beating."
Possessed of an undisguisable personality, Kerry had found a way of
employing his natural physical peculiarities to his professional
advantage. Where other investigators worked in the dark, secretly, Red
Kerry sought the limelight--at the right time. That every hour lost in
getting on the track of the mysterious Kazmah was a point gained by
the equally mysterious man from Whitehall he felt assured, and
although the elaborate but hidden mechanism of New Scotland Yard was
at work seeking out the patrons of the Bond Street drug-shop, Kerry
was indisposed to await the result.

He had been in the night club only about ten minutes, but during those
ten minutes fully a dozen people had more or less hurriedly departed.
Because of the arrangements already made by Sergeant Coombes, the
addresses of many of these departing visitors would be in Kerry's
possession ere the night was much older. And why should they have
fled, incontinent, if not for the reason that they feared to become
involved in the Kazmah affair? All the cabmen had been warned, and
those fugitives who had private cars would be followed.

It was a curious scene which Kerry surveyed, a scene to have
interested philosopher and politician alike. For here were
representatives of every stratum of society, although some of those
standing for the lower strata were suitably disguised. The peerage was
well represented, so was Judah; there were women entitled to wear
coronets dancing with men entitled to wear the broad arrow, and men
whose forefathers had signed Magna Charta dancing with chorus girls
from the revues and musical comedies.

Waiting until the dance was fully in progress, Inspector Kerry walked
slowly around the room in the direction of the stair. Parties seated
at tables were treated each to an intolerant stare, alcoves were
inspected, and more than one waiter meeting the gaze of the steely
eyes, felt a prickling of conscience and recalled past peccadilloes.

Bill had claimed Mollie Gretna for the dance, but:

"No, Bill," she had replied, watching Kerry as if enthralled; "I don't
want to dance. I am watching Chief Inspector Kerry."

"That's evident," complained the young man. "Perhaps you would like to
spend the rest of the night in Bow Street?"

"Oh," whispered Mollie, "I should love it! I have never been arrested,
but if ever I am I hope it will be by Chief Inspector Kerry. I am
positive he would haul me away in handcuffs!"

When Kerry came to the foot of the stairs, Mollie quite deliberately
got in his way, murmured an apology, and gave him a sidelong gaze
through lowered lashes, which was more eloquent than any thesis. He
smiled with fierce geniality, looked her up and down, and proceeded to
mount the stairs, with never a backward glance.

His genius for criminal investigation possessed definite limitations.
He could not perhaps have been expected in tactics so completely
opposed to those which he had anticipated to recognize the presence of
a valuable witness. Student of human nature though undoubtedly he was,
he had not solved the mystery of that outstanding exception which
seems to be involved in every rule.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21