“Wot do you tyke me for, mister? Do you think the shop would run itself while I was away? You don’t need to worry. You pay your bob and you’ll get your message all right.”
“Not good enough for me. I want to know what kind of messenger you’d send before I trust my business to you.”
“See ’ere,” the man declared, “I’ve been doing this business for long enough to know all about ’ow it’s done. I’ve a good boy, if you must know. You give ’im a penny or two a time if you’re nervous, and you needn’t be afryde but you’ll get all there’s for you.”
French laid five shillings on the counter.
“Right,” he said. “There’s for the first five messages. Send to Mr. James Hurley, care of Mr. William Wright, tobacconist, corner of Bedford Place and Ivy Street.”
“I know it,” declared Ganope, pocketing the money.
Mr. William Wright was a distant connection of Mrs. French’s and French knew that he would help him in the matter. He nodded to Ganope and walked across to Ivy Street.
“Hullo, Joe! Some time since we’ve seen you here,” was Mr. Wright’s greeting. “Come in behind and let’s hear the news.”
“I want you to do me a good turn, William,” French answered. “There’s a boy I want to get hold of and I’ve fixed it that he’ll come here asking for Mr. Hurley. Will you put him on to me when he turns up? That’s all.”
“Surely, Joe,” and Mr. Wright turned the conversation to more intimate matters.
“Just let me use your phone,” French asked, presently. “Something I forgot.”
“Surely, Joe.”
Going into the little office at the back of the shop, French rang up Ganope.
“Message for Hurley,” he explained in falsetto tones. “Mr. James Hurley.”
“Right,” came from the other end.
“ ‘Cargo will be in at tomorrow.’ That’s all. Repeat, please.”
Mr. Ganope repeated slowly, evidently as he wrote, and French settled down with his pipe to await the advent of the messenger.
In less than half an hour a sharp, foxy-looking boy turned up and Mr. Wright sent him into the sitting-room to French.
“Hullo, sonny! You from Ganope’s?”
“Huh-huh,” said the boy. “Name of Hurley?”
“That’s right. You have a message for me?”
“Huh-huh.” He slowly produced an envelope, watching French expectantly.
French produced sixpence.
“There you are, sonny. Wait half a sec till I read this. There may be an answer.”
He tore open the envelope and glanced at its contents.
“No, there’s nothing,” he went on. “You’re kept busy, I’m sure?”
“Huh-huh.”
“And maybe you don’t get too much money for it, either?”
The boy indicated that this was a true summary of his case.
“Well, how would half a crown for a little job for me suit you?”
The gleam in the boy’s eyes was sufficient answer.
“It’s just a little bit of information between you and me. No one else would know anything about it. It wouldn’t take you two minutes to give it to me. Are you on?”
“Ain’t I, gov’nor? You just try me.”
French took some money out of his pocket and slowly counted out two single shillings and a sixpence. These he laid on the table in a little pile.
“Tell me, sonny,” he said. “You had to take a message out this morning shortly after ?”
“Huh-huh.”
“Where did you take it to?”
“You won’t tell the old man?”
“I’ll not, sonny. I give you my word.”
“Name o’ Pyke, seventeen Kepple Street.”
In spite of his training as an officer of the Yard, French started. Pyke! He remained for a moment lost in thought. Pyke! Could this be the solution at last? Could Mrs. Berlyn have transferred her somewhat facile affections to Jefferson Pyke? Could these two be guilty of the murder of both Stanley and Berlyn?
Here was a promising idea! In the first place, it was the solution to the dilemma which had so greatly puzzled him. The crime had been committed to enable the murderer to live with Phyllis in good social standing. Therefore, the murderer could not have disappeared. Therefore, it could not have been either Berlyn or Pyke. There had been French’s problem.
But if Jefferson Pyke and Phyllis had been accomplices, all these difficulties vanished. Berlyn and Pyke had disappeared because they were dead. The murderer had survived to enjoy the fruits of his crime. All the facts seemed to be met.
In itself, also, this new theory was likely enough. Jefferson and Phyllis had been playmates and an old attachment might easily have flamed up anew on their meeting at Ashburton. If so, there was the motive for Berlyn’s murder. Stanley Pyke might also have been in the way. Possibly Phyllis was so far entangled with him that to break loose would have turned him into a dangerous enemy. Possibly the accomplices feared that he might guess their crime. Under the circumstances it was easy to see that their only safe scheme might well have been to remove both men.
The details also worked in. Phyllis could have obtained the information about the works necessary for the disposal of the body. Jefferson was of the size and build of the man who had called for the lorry and crate at Swansea, and though his colouring was different, this could have been altered artificially. He could be biding his time until he was sure the affair had blown over to take Phyllis out to his estancia in the Argentine.
Another point occurred to French. Alfred Beer had stated, no doubt in all good faith, that the conversation he had overheard in the Berlyn’s shrubbery was between Mrs. Berlyn and Stanley Pyke, and French had naturally assumed that the “ ’e” referred to was Berlyn. But were he and Beer correct? Might the scene not equally well have been between the lady and Jefferson and might “ ’e” not have been Stanley? French decided to look up his notes of the matter at the earliest opportunity.
He had little doubt that at long last he was on to the truth.
