They began to walk towards the police car.
CHAPTER XVII
THE constable driver, concealing his disappointment at being done out of the fun, departed with the keys of the Delage, and Mr. Tuke and the sergeant settled themselves in the driving seat. Through the windscreen they got the usual intermittent view of the blue Morris, as the traffic flowed by it, its two occupants dimly visible, waiting also, their eyes presumably on the door of the W.V.S. headquarters. As it was headed towards the police car, and was a hundred yards away, whether it eventually turned or came on there was no danger of losing it.
Sergeant Webley took out his watch. “Ten to three. That Morris has been parking too long,” he added with a grin. “But I think we’ll let it stay. Now, Mr. Tuke, I’ll tell you what I know about the man at Whipstead. Inspector Vance was on the phone last night, and he passed the news. It’s quite a story. But no use to us, I’m afraid, except that it clears some more dead wood away.”
“You’re a minute slow,” said Mr. Tuke, who had consulted his own French timepiece. “Carry on.”
“Well, it’s like this, sir. It seems that on that evening, the 28th, there was a Yard man doing a job at King’s Cross. I don’t know the details, and they don’t matter, but he was on the look-out for someone, and he was on the main line platform, that the booking office opens out of. Just after six he saw a man go by him to the booking office— a man he knew. This chap was carrying an attache case. Now the Yard man was interested in him, but he wasn’t the fellow he was after, and he daren’t leave the platform. What he did was to signal one of the railway police. He was just passing on the information when back came this fellow, and the railway man trailed him. He saw him get into a 3rd class coach on the 6.15 for Cambridge.”
Sergeant Webley drew on his cigar. A uniformed constable came in sight, glanced at the police car, caught the sergeant’s eye, and passed on.
“Now this man was a crook,” the sergeant continued. “At least, the Yard knows he’s one, but he’s never even been charged. They call him Holy Joe. His name’s Joseph Eady, and he’s a sort of con man in a small way who gets himself up to look religious, like a lay preacher or such. He’s got the face and the patter, and he wheedles money out of soft-hearted folk for cases of destitution and that. They’re real cases, and they get the money—or some of it. But some of it sticks to Joe’s fingers, and the Yard thinks there are more who never get a penny. But they’ve never been able to prove anything. This Eady’s in with one or two missions and charitable bodies, small affairs but quite O.K., and they won’t hear a word against him. Those sort of people mean well,” said the sergeant in parenthesis, with tolerant contempt, “but they’re just soft, often enough. Mostly old women . . . ” He shrugged. “Anyway, the Yard’s been watching Holy Joe for some time, and hoping to catch him out, and they like to keep tabs on him. So this officer I’m talking of, as soon as he heard Eady was on the Cambridge train, got the railway policeman to ring up Cambridge and one or two towns on the way, like Hitchin and Baldock, to ask the locals to have a man at the stations to pick him up and see where he went. Though Cambridge seemed the most likely, being a fair-sized place. It seems this Eady, when he does work outside London, keeps to the bigger towns, where he can lose himself better.”
The sergeant paused to peer through the traffic at the Morris. But it had not moved. Mr. Tuke adjusted his long legs, which found the car rather cramping after the roomy Delage.
“Cambridge it was,” said the sergeant. He chuckled. “But they never set eyes on him there. He slipped them very neat. Inspector Vance thinks he must have spotted the Yard man at King’s Cross—he knows him, all right— and instead of taking a ticket right through, bought one to Whipstead. The station master there hit him off to a T, clerical look, attache-case, and all. Well, when he went up that footpath from the station he’d turn off and get to the lane where young Mr. Shearsby lived, and then along by more lanes, that I spoke of, to the bus route. Anyhow, he hopped on the last bus to Cambridge at about 8.10, a couple of mile short of Stocking Corner. The conductor remembers him. And he hopped off again in Trumpington Road. And that was the last seen of him.”
“A quick-witted and ingenious gentleman,” Mr. Tuke commented. “So ingenious that some knowledge of the country is suggested. Or Mr. Eady had studied the map very carefully. Has it struck you, sergeant, that maps may have played quite a part in this case?”
“Maps, sir? No. I don’t quite get you.”
“Our ordnance survey maps,” said Mr. Tuke didactically, “are extremely good and full of fascinating detail. They must be a godsend to the intelligent criminal who operates in rural districts. If I contemplated a crime in the country, and did not wish to be observed reconnoitring the ground, I should buy the 6-inch sheets covering it. One could probably do well enough with the i-inch. It’s surprising, of course, how many educated people can’t read a map. But I fancy someone we know of has a well-used one of the Stocking area.”
Sergeant Webley was obviously thinking it over. As he sat leaning forward, his eyes on their quarry, he was frowning. His cigar smouldered, forgotten, drooping a little.
Then he said: “I think I see what you mean, sir. But who
