The Grell Mystery Part 7

"Oh. Is the man who says that to be relied on? He isn't just guessing?

We can do all the guessing we want ourselves."

"No, sir, we think he's all right. It's Marfield--one of the biggest men in the trade. By the way, sir, there's a lot of newspaper men been asking for you since you left. They want to know about Goldenburg."

"So do I," retorted the other. "You'd better be strictly truthful with 'em, Mainland. Tell 'em you know no more than is on the reward bill.

They won't believe you, anyway. You can say I've gone home to bed, and that there will be nothing more doing this evening. Good-bye."

"A Mexican dagger," he muttered to himself as he left the telephone-box.

"Now, if I were a story-book detective I should a.s.sume that the murderer was either a South American or had travelled in South America. It looked the kind of thing a woman might carry in her garter. And a veiled woman called on him that night"--he made a wry face. "Foyle, my lad, you're a.s.suming things. That way madness lies. The dagger might have been bought anywhere as a curiosity, and the veiled woman may have been a purely innocent caller."

His meditations had brought him to a great restaurant off the Strand. He pa.s.sed through the swing doors into the lavishly gilded dining-room, and selected a table somewhere near the centre. With the air of a man taking his ease after a strenuous day in the City, he ordered his dinner carefully, seeking the waiter's advice now and again. Then his eye roved carelessly over the throng of diners while he waited for his orders to be fulfilled. The apparently casual scrutiny lasted rather less than a minute. Then he s.h.i.+fted his seat so that he could see without effort the table where two men lingered over their liqueurs. A moment later one of the men noted the solitary figure of the detective.

He emptied his gla.s.s without haste and signalled to the waiter. Before that functionary had made out the bill Foyle had strolled over to the table, his face beaming, his hand outstretched.

"How are you, Eden?" he cried effusively. "Who'd have thought of seeing you here! Business good? Still picking flowers?"

An expression of annoyance crossed the face of the slighter built of the two men, yet he shook hands readily.

"Why, it's Mr. Foyle!" he exclaimed heartily. "How are you? We were just going. Let me introduce Mr. Maxwell."

They called him the Garden of Eden at Scotland Yard--probably because the unwary might have thought him full of innocence. His smooth, bronzed boyish face showed ingenuousness and candour in every line. A glittering diamond pin adorned his necktie, a ma.s.sive gold chain spanned his waistcoat, a gold ring with a single great ruby was on his finger. That was the only ostentation about him, and his quiet, well-cut clothes were in good taste.

Foyle acknowledged the introduction.

"From the colonies, I suppose, Mr. Maxwell? I suppose Eden has told you he's just come over." Eden surveyed the detective with wide-open, innocent blue eyes in which there dwelt hurt reproach. "I hate to separate you, but I've got important business with him. Perhaps you'll meet another time."

"Yes, you'll excuse me now, old man," chimed in Eden blandly. "Call for me at the Palatial at eleven to-morrow, and we'll make a day of it."

Maxwell had no sooner accepted his dismissal than Foyle led the other over to his table. Eden walked with the manner of one uncertain what was about to happen.

"It is all right, Mr. Foyle," he protested eagerly. "It is _all right_.

I haven't touched him for a sou."

Foyle began on the soup placidly.

"You're a joker, Jimmy," he smiled. "Don't get uneasy. I'm not going to carry you inside. Only you'll have to leave the Palatial to-night, Jimmy--to-night, do you understand? And if Maxwell turns up with a complaint against you there'll be pretty bad trouble. You'll be put out of temptation for good and all. There's such a thing as preventive detention in this country now, you know."

The Garden of Eden looked pained.

"Truth, Mr. Foyle, I haven't done a thing," he declared earnestly. "I'm trying the straight game now."

Heldon Foyle wagged his head.

"And staying at the Palatial," he smiled. "Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy! I believe you, of course." And he went on with his soup.

Suddenly he looked up. "When did you last see Goldenburg?" he demanded curtly. "No nonsense, mind, Jimmy."

Eden's face had cleared. "So that's the lay, is it?" he said with relief. "I saw the bills out for him, and I don't mind helping you if I can, Mr. Foyle. He was never what you'd call a proper pal, and I don't bear any malice, though you've just done me out of a cool five hundred.

That mug who's just gone"--he jerked his head towards the door--"was going to follow my tip and back a horse that won't win to-morrow. That's a bit hard, isn't it, Mr. Foyle?"

From his breast-pocket Foyle took a ten-pound note and slid it across the table. He followed Eden's meaning.

"Cough it up," he advised.

The Garden of Eden took the note and thrust it into his trousers pocket.

"He was in Victoria Station, talking to a foreign-looking chap, on Wednesday night." A look of astonishment crossed his face while he spoke. "By the living jingo, there's the very man he was talking to coming in now."

Foyle folded his serviette neatly and rose.

"Right, Jimmy. I'll talk to you later. Go to the Yard and wait till I come," he said, and, walking swiftly across the room, thrust his arm through that of the new arrival.

"You are the man who used to be Mr. Grell's valet," he said quietly in French. "I am a police officer, and you must come with me."

CHAPTER XI

The man tried to jerk himself free, but the detective's fingers closed tightly about his wrist.

"There is no use making a scene, my man," he said, still speaking in French, his voice stern, but pitched in a low key. "You are Ivan something-or-other, and you know of the murder of your master. So come along."

"It's a mistake," protested the other volubly in the same language. His words slurred into each other in his excitement. "I am not the man you take me for. I am Pierre Bazarre, a jeweller of Paris, and I have my credentials. I will not submit to this abominable outrage. I know nothing of M. Grell; you shall not arrest me----"

Heldon Foyle cut him short. He had, without the appearance of force, quietly forced his prisoner outside the restaurant and signalled to a pa.s.sing taxicab.

"I am not arresting you," he said, ignoring the protestations of the other. "I am going to detain you till you give a satisfactory explanation of your reason for leaving Mr. Grell's house on the night of the murder."

They were on the edge of the pavement close to the cab. Ivan with a quick oath wheeled inward, and struck savagely at the superintendent's face. Foyle's grip did not relax. He merely lowered his head, seemingly without haste, and, as the man swung forward with the momentum of the blow, jabbed with his own free hand at his body. So neatly was it done that pa.s.sers-by saw nothing but an apparently drunken man collapse on the pavement in spite of the endeavours of his friend to hold him up.

The whole breath had been knocked out of Ivan's body by those two swift body-blows. Before he could recover, Foyle had lifted him bodily into the cab.

"King Street," he said quietly to the driver, and sat down opposite to Ivan, alert and watchful.

"Sorry if I hurt you," he apologised. "It will be all right in a minute.

It has only upset your wind a little. That will pa.s.s off."

Ivan, his hands pressed tightly to the pit of his stomach, groaned.

Presently he straightened himself up, and Foyle, calmly ignoring the a.s.sault, produced a cigar-case.

"Have a cigar? I've no doubt you'll be able to make things all right when we get to the station. There's nothing to worry about. You will just have a little talk with me, and as soon as one or two points are cleared up you'll be able to go."

The case was struck angrily aside. Foyle smiled, and although his whole body was taut in antic.i.p.ation of any fresh attempt at violence, he quietly struck a match and lit one himself.

"As you like," he said imperturbably. "They're good cigars. I have them sent over to me by a friend direct from Havana."

All the while he was speaking he was scrutinising the man who had been Grell's valet with deliberate care. Ivan was sleek and well-groomed, with a dark face and prominent cheekbones that betrayed his Caucasian origin. The brows were drawn tightly in a surly frown; a heavy dark moustache hid the upper lip, and though the shoulders were sloping he was obviously a man of considerable physical strength.