Miss Duke and Mr. Harrington had left in Mr. Duke’s car shortly before eight. Manley, the chauffeur, had mentioned to Rachael that his young mistress had told him he need not wait for her, as she expected that Mr. Duke would want him later in the evening to take him home from his club. She had returned about ten in a taxi, and had come in quickly and gone to her room. So far as Rachael knew, she had received no caller, note or other message from then until Mr. Harrington arrived next day, other than those excepted in the question.
French was anxious to keep secret the fact that he was looking into Miss Duke’s doings, and he was therefore unwilling to question Manley on the matter. He had learned from Harrington the address of the girls’ club, and he thought inquiries there might give him his information. Accordingly an hour later saw him standing before a somewhat dilapidated church schoolhouse in a narrow street of drab and depressing houses in the Shadwell district. The school was closed, but inquiries next door produced the information that the caretaker lived in No. 47.
He betook himself to No. 47, and there found a pale, tired-looking young woman with a baby in her arms, who, when he asked for a few moments’ conversation, invited him into an untidy and not overclean kitchen. She told him, in reply to his questions, that the club was run by a number of ladies, headed by a Miss Amy Lestrange. It was open each evening, but she, the speaker, was not present, her duty being only to keep the rooms clean. But her husband, the caretaker, was there off and on every evening. He might have been there when the young lady in question arrived, she did not know. But he worked in the factory near by, and would be in for his dinner in half an hour, if the gentleman liked to wait.
French said he would call back presently, and strolled out through the depressing neighbourhood. In forty-five minutes he was back at No. 47, where the caretaker had just arrived. French told him to go on with his dinner, and sat beside him as he ate. The man, evidently hoping the affair would have its financial side, was anxious to tell everything he knew.
It seemed that he had been present at the club on the evening in question, and when French had described his young couple, he remembered their arrival. It was not usual for so fine a motor to penetrate the fastnesses of that dismal region, and its appearance had fixed the matter in his memory. The gentleman had got out first and asked him if this was the Curtis Street Club, and had then assisted his companion to alight. The lady had called to the chauffeur that he need not either wait or return for her. She had then gone into the club, leaving the gentleman standing on the pavement. About half-past nine a taxi had driven up, and the same gentleman had got out and sent him, the caretaker, in to say that Mr. Harrington was waiting for Miss Duke. The young lady had presently come down with Miss Lestrange, the head of the club. The three had talked for a few minutes, and then the strangers had got into the taxi and driven off.
“She’s a fine girl, Miss Duke,” French observed, as he offered the caretaker a fill from his pouch. “I never have seen her anything but smiling and pleasant all the years I’ve known her.”
“That’s right,” the man returned, gloatingly loading his pipe. “She’s a peach and no mistake.”
French nodded in a satisfied way.
“I should have laid a quid on it,” he declared, “that she would have been as smiling and pleasant going away as when she came. She always is.”
“Well, you’d ha’ pulled it off. But, lor, guv’nor, it’s easy for lydies as wot ’as lots o’ money to be pleasant. W’y shouldn’t they be?”
French rose.
“Ah, well, I expect they’ve their troubles like the rest of us,” he said, slipping half a crown into the man’s eager hand.
If the caretaker was correct and Miss Duke was in good spirits on leaving the club, it followed that the upset, whatever it had been, had not up to then taken place. The next step, therefore, was obviously to find the taxi in which the two young people had driven to Hampstead, so as to learn whether anything unusual had occurred during the journey.
He returned to the Yard, and sending for some members of his staff, explained the point at issue. But, as he would have been the first to admit, it was more by luck than good guidance that on the very first day of the inquiry he gained his information. Taximan James Tomkins had driven the young couple on the evening in question, and by five o’clock he was at the Yard awaiting French’s pleasure.
VIII
Sylvia and Harrington
Taximan Tomkins was a wizened-looking man with a surly manner and the air of having a constant grievance, but he was evidently overawed by the situation in which he found himself, and seemed anxious to do his best to answer the Inspector’s questions clearly.
He remembered the evening in question. He had been hailed by a gentleman near Liverpool Street, and told to drive to the Curtis Street Girls’ Club. There, after some delay, they had picked up a young lady.
“What address did you get?” French asked.
“I don’t just remember,” the man said slowly scratching his head. “Somewhere in Hampstead it was, but I’m blest if I could tell you where.”
“The Cedars, Hampstead, perhaps?”
“That’s right guv’nor. That was it.”
“And the two started off together?”
“Yes, the other young lydie just saw them off.”
“Now tell me, did they meet anyone else on the way home?”
“Not while they were in the keb, they didn’t.”
“Or buy a paper, or stop for any purpose whatever?”
“They stopped and got out for a ’arf a mo’,
