So saying, this admirable woman picked up the tray, and sailed off with it to the scullery.
"You can't fool Mother," observed Mr. Darliston. He pushed his pouch across the table. "Here, have a fill of mine! Now, what's eating you, young fellow?"
"Come to pick your brains, Super," said Hemingway.
"Ah!" said Mr. Darliston, leaning back at his ease. "I daresay I've forgotten more than you'll ever know."
"Well, have a shot at remembering, will you, granddad?" retorted Hemingway disrespectfully. "Going on as if you were Methuselah, and me in my first pair of long trousers!"
Mr. Darliston's bulk quivered slightly as he chuckled. He jerked his thumb suggestively towards the beer jug, and invited his guest to unburden himself. He heard the Chief Inspector out in silence, remarking at the end of his discourse: "Yes, I remember young Grant. A good lad: how's he getting on?"
"Fine, for a toddler like him!" said Hemingway. "I'll tell him you remembered him. That'll please him a lot more than it does me. What 1 want you to remember -"
"Slow, but careful," pursued the Ex-Superintendent. "Of course, he owed a lot to the training he had under me. Get on with him all right?"
"I've known worse. In fact, if it wasn't for him breathing that Gaelic of his all over me, I wouldn't have a thing against him."
"Garlic?" repeated Mr. Darliston, staring. "What's he want to eat garlic for? Tell him to stop it!"
"He doesn't eat it: he talks it. At least, that's what he says it is. He's got a shocking outbreak at the moment. They went and gave him Christmas leave, and he jumped on to the first train up to Inverness. By what I can make out, it took him the best part of twenty-four hours to get to this village of his, but he seems to think it was worth it. Never mind him! Do you remember this Seaton-Carew, alias Plain-Carew?"
"Yes, I remember the chap, and I'll tell you this, Stanley: you've got a real slippery customer in him!"
"Well, if he slips out of the mortuary, I'll know you were right. Meanwhile, I'd be glad if you'd tell me if you were playing a hunch when you tailed him, or whether you had any tabs on him?"
"Not to say tabs. Call it a lot of leads. Not one of them led me to his front-door. I could look out my old casebooks, if you like, but they wouldn't tell you much."
"No, that's all right. When you cleared up that particular gang, what became of friend Carew?"
"I don't know. He faded out, and I was under the impression that he skipped over to France."
"Never had any enquiries about him from the Surete?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"I see. Now, I've put Cathercott on to his flat, but drugs aren't my line, and I'd be grateful for a tip or two. Would he be likely to keep the stuff there?"
"He'd probably keep it there, any time he had some to dispose of- though I once met a fellow that used to dump it in a safe-deposit. That's how I caught him: seemed an unnatural sort of thing for a chap to be going two and three times a week to his safe-deposit."
"Could he hide it in a small flat, so as his man wouldn't find it?"
"Easy. If he's been selling it to people like this Lady Nest of yours, it's white drugs he's handling - probably snow, might be heroin, might even be morphia, but that's unlikely. You don't want to go looking for a consignment of hemp, you know. The stuff's worth a blooming sight more than its weight in gold, and the amount he'd have on the premises he could hide pretty well anywhere. Take any cigarettes you find - but Cathercott knows the ropes! Probably handed it over to his customers in neat little packets of powder, anyway. One of the cleverest rogues I ever arrested used to paste chemist's labels on his packets, with Boric Acid written on 'em, and the ends sealed up with red sealing-wax. Life-like, they were."
"That 'ud be more in this bloke's line than handing out boxes of cigarettes," said Hemingway shrewdly. "If that was his trade, it's my belief he'd have done his handing over at all those parties he used to go to. There were no flies on him, and, unless I find he's got a secret deposit for his papers, he's been careful to destroy every last bit of written evidence. I wouldn't be surprised if that was your fault, Super. You went and frightened the poor fellow, and a nice mess that leaves me with!"
"Well," said Mr. Darliston, reaching out his hand for the beer jug, "I don't blame you for wanting to pinch the man that murdered him, Stanley, because that's your job; but I've seen something of the horrors him and vermin like him batten on, and what I say is that whoever did him in did a good job, and ought properly to be given a medal. In fact," he added, refilling the Chief Inspector's glass, "it's those bastards which make me believe in hell! If I didn't think they were roasting down there, I wouldn't be able to sleep o' nights!"
Chapter Twelve
The Chief Inspector, reaching London again shortly after nine o'clock, betook himself to Scotland Yard, and found Inspector Grant awaiting him patiently in his office. He was seated at the desk, studying a dossier, but he rose when his chief came in, and closed the file. "I thought maybe you would be looking in," he remarked.
"I will say this for you, Sandy: you're a conscientious bloke!" said Hemingway, hanging up his hat and overcoat. "Got anything for me?"
"Verra little, I am afraid. Cathercott was on the telephone a while back. He was wanting to know if you would have him continue searching, or if it was a mare's nest he was looking for. They found a safe, hidden in a verra unusual place, and it cost them a deal of trouble to open it. There was two or three hundred pounds in banknotes in it, and some bonds, and never a sniff of snow, nor a speck to show there had ever been any there. Och, the truaghan! What with the toothache he has had all day, and the pains he took to get the safe open; and then nothing to reward him, it's a fine temper he is in! There was a secret drawer in the desk, too, which Sergeant Cringleford found, and bare as the palm of your hand when they got that open!"
Hemingway grinned, but he said: "Did you tell him to keep on at it?"
"I did, the duine bochd, but it went to my heart! If he had had it, would Seaton-Carew not have kept the stuff in the hidden safe?"
"I don't know. You'd think so, but old Darliston's just been warning me he was a damned slippery customer. It would be a smart trick to install a secret safe, just to put chaps like Cathercott off the scent. Did you say there were two or three hundred pounds in it? I suppose Cathercott was so busy sniffing for drugs he never noticed a nasty smell of rat. I would have. What did the fellow want with all that amount of money in the flat? Planning a midnight flit, in case we got after him?"
"Well," said the Inspector mildly, "it is not an offence to keep money by you!"
"No, and if he ran a big estate, no doubt he would have a lot of cash in his safe from time to time, so as he could pay wages, and such-like. If you can tell me what he should want with a great wad of bank-notes in a small flat in town, you'll be clever! Did you check up on what the Birtley girl said about Mrs. Haddington having kicked up a row because of some towel or other in that cloakroom?"
"I was not able. The girl she would have spoken to, if she spoke at all, is the head housemaid, and she has been ill with the influenza since two days. You would not have me push my way into the lassie's bedroom!"
"Quite right! You can't be too careful," agreed his incorrigible superior. "Nice thing it would be if we had members of the Department getting compromised!"
"I am susceptible to the influenza," said Inspector Grant austerely. "Not but what I would have taken the risk, if I had thought it proper."