Inspector French’s Greatest Case

her face pale and her hair dark. She spoke in an American voice, and seemed upset or excited. She said to me, breathless like, ‘Say, officer,’ she said, ‘I’ve just had my despatch case stolen.’ I asked her where, and how, and what was in it. She said right there where we were standing, and not three seconds before. She was carrying it in her hand, and it was snatched out of it. She turned round and saw a man juke away in the crowd. She shouted and made after him, but he was away before she could get near. I asked her what the case was like, and she said a small square brown morocco leather one with gold fittings. I went and told the two men on duty close by, and we kept a watch on the exits, but we never saw a sign of it.” Sergeant McAfee shook his head gloomily as he concluded. “She hadn’t any call to be carrying a gold fitted case in that crowd anyway.”

“That’s a fact, Sergeant,” the Superintendent agreed. “And you never came on any trace of it?”

“No, sir. I brought her up to the station, and took her name and all particulars. There’s the report.” He unfolded a paper and laid it on the Superintendent’s desk.

In the document was a detailed description of the lady, of the alleged despatch case and its contents, and of the means that had been taken to try to trace it. The pawnbrokers had been advised and a special watch kept on fences and other usual channels for the disposal of stolen goods.

When French had digested these particulars, he brought out once more his photographs and handed them to the Sergeant.

“Look at those, Sergeant, and tell me if you see the woman among them.”

Slowly the Sergeant turned them over, gazing at them in precisely the same puzzled way as had done Mr. Williams, Mr. Scarlett, and the other London men to whom they had been shown. And with the same doubt and hesitation he presently fixed on Mrs. Ward.

“That would have to be her,” he declared slowly, “that is, if she’s there at all. It isn’t a good likeness, but I believe it’s her all the same.”

“You wouldn’t swear to her?”

“I’d hardly. But I believe it’s her for all that.”

French nodded. The Sergeant’s statement, agreeing as it did with those of Messrs. Williams, Scarlett and Co., seemed capable of but one explanation. Mrs. X was Mrs. Ward all right, but before meeting these men she had made herself up to impersonate Mrs. Root. They saw a likeness to Mrs. Ward because it really was she, but they were doubtful because she was disguised.

The Inspector leaned forward and tapped the photograph.

“Put it this way, Sergeant,” he suggested. “Here is a picture of the lady as she really is. When you saw her she was made up to look like another woman. How’s that, do you think?”

In Sergeant McAfee’s lacklustre eye there shone a sudden gleam. “That’s just what it is, sir,” he answered with an approach to something almost like interest in his manner. “That’s it and no mistake. She’s like the photograph by her features, but not by her makeup.” He nodded his head several times in appreciation.

“Very good.” Inspector French invariably liked as many strings to his bow as he could get. “Now I want some hint from you that will help me trace her.”

But this was just what Sergeant McAfee could not supply. The woman had given two addresses, the Savoy in London and Mrs. Root’s home in Pittsburg. There was no help in either, and no other information was forthcoming.

He lunched with his friend the Superintendent, afterwards withdrawing to the lounge of his hotel to have a quiet smoke and to think things over.

While he sat there, a page appeared with a telegram. It was a reply from the police at York and read:

“Your wire. No one of that name or address known.”

French swore disgustedly. He had, of course, realised that the name might be false, but yet he had hoped against hope that he might really have reached the end of at least this portion of his quest. But here he was, as far from the truth as ever! He would now have to make a fresh start to trace this elusive lady⁠—he used another adjective in his mind⁠—and he couldn’t see that he was any better equipped for the search now than when he had started out from Mr. Williams’s office. It was a confoundedly exasperating case⁠—just bristling with promising clues which one after another petered out as he came to follow them up. Being on it was like trying to cross a stream on stepping-stones which invariably gave way when he came to place his weight on them. It was an annoying thought also that that would scarcely be the view his chief would take of the matter. The chief had not been over-complimentary already in his comments on his handling of the case, and French felt that he would view this new check in anything but a sympathetic spirit.

However, grousing about it wouldn’t lead anywhere, and with an effort he switched his thoughts back to his problem. As he thought it over a further point occurred to him.

Since his first visit to the Savoy he had wondered why the lady had turned up there so much later than the other passengers from the Olympic, and now he saw the reason. The episode of the handbag had taken place some four hours after the vessel’s arrival, long after the special boat train had left. Mrs. X⁠—for she was still Mrs. X⁠—must therefore have travelled up by an afternoon train, probably the 5:26 or 6:22 p.m. from the West Station, which got in 6:58 and 8:20 respectively. Now, why this delay? What had she done during these four hours?

The answer was not far to seek. Was it not to give her time and opportunity to assume her disguise?