“Of course. I should have done the same.”
“I waited up until I had put the probables in location order, and here is the list ready for you.”
“Jolly good, Willis. I’m sorry you had so much trouble. I’ll carry on and hope for the best.”
“You’ll get it all right,” Willis opined as he settled down again to his work.
All and French, armed with the list and with Roper’s photograph and description, went from place to place interviewing managers and assistants in shops and business firms. But all to no purpose. Nowhere could he obtain any trace of the elusive twenty-pound notes, nor had any man answering to the description been seen. And then to his amazement he was taken off the inquiry.
Like other officers of the C.I.D., it was his habit to keep in as close touch with headquarters as possible while pursuing his investigations. At intervals therefore during these two days he called up the Yard and reported his whereabouts. It was during one of these communications that for the second time in two days he received an urgent recall.
In this case it was a summons which he could obey promptly, and twenty minutes after receiving the message he was knocking at the door of Chief Inspector Mitchell’s room.
One glance at the Chief’s face showed him that at least there was no trouble brewing, Mitchell greeting him with a half smile.
“Sit down, French,” he said, “and listen to me. I want to tell you a story.”
After glancing at a few papers which he took from a drawer, he began to speak.
XVII
Concerning Wedding Rings
“,” said the Chief Inspector, “we had a phone from Inspector Marshall of the Whitechapel District. He wanted to know whether we had had any recent reports of thefts of small jewellery, as he had come across some in connection with a scrap between two lightermen. It seems that about a constable on patrol heard cries coming from an entry off Cable Street, as if someone was being murdered. He ran down and found a man on the ground with another belabouring him furiously with his fists. The constable pulled the victor off, to find his opponent was little the worse. The fellow was really more frightened than hurt. The constable would have dismissed the affair with a good-humoured caution to both, had it not been that in the heat of the explanations the cause of the quarrel came out. The men had obtained some jewellery, which both claimed, and when the constable saw the stuff he didn’t wait for further discussion, but marched them both off to Divisional Headquarters. Marshall questioned them and reported their statements with his inquiry.
“The whole thing so far was purely commonplace, and if the jewellery had consisted of ordinary trinkets I should have thought no more about it. But the nature of the stuff tickled my fancy and I grew interested. You would hardly guess what they had. Wedding rings!”
“I certainly shouldn’t have guessed that, sir.”
“I don’t suppose you would. Well, that’s what they had. Thirty-nine wedding rings on a cord. They were all much of the same size and value. And there was not another ring. They were searched, but nothing else was found on them.
“Marshall, of course, asked them where they got them, and their answer was more interesting still. It appeared that the victor, James Gray, was the skipper of a Thames lighter and the vanquished, William Fuller, was his ‘crew.’ A third man was on board who looked after the engine, but he didn’t come into the affair. Gray stated that about they were working empty down the river. They had left a cargo of Belgian coal at an upriver works and were running down to their moorings for the night. They usually stopped about , but trouble with their engine had delayed them on this occasion. It was rather a dirty night, raining and very dark and blowing a little. Gray, the skipper, was at the helm and Fuller was forward acting as lookout. The third man was below at the engines. Just as they began to emerge from beneath the Tower Bridge Fuller heard a smack on the deck beside him. He looked down and in the light of some of the shore lamps saw some bright objects rolling about on the planks. On picking one up he was astonished to find it was a wedding ring. He began to search and found several others, but the skipper swore at him for not minding his job, and he had to let the remainder lie. When they reached their moorings he tried again, but Gray was curious and came forward and found a ring himself. Then they had a proper look with lanterns and recovered the thirty-nine. Immediately, as might be expected, a
