Skipper Morgan wanted to shoot it out, and was brought down in a flying tackle which broke his arm. But here the police met a snag: of £23,000 in cash, not one penny was found on the fugitives.
Chief Inspector Ames visited Skipper Morgan that night.
“You’re in bad, Skipper,” he said pleasantly. “One of those fellows you shot is likely to die. Even if he pulls through, you can reckon on a good long stretch.”
The other said nothing, though he looked murderous. It was Ames who had broken his arm.
“I don’t say it’d help you,” pursued the Chief Inspector, “if you told us what you did with that money. But it might, Skipper. It might. And you might tell us whether that young clerk at the bank, the one you said would get his cut, was really in it with you.”
“Dirty little rat,” said the Skipper, out of pure spite and malice. “Sure he was in it. But I want to see my lawyer; that’s what I want.”
So they detained John Parrish. To Marjorie Dawson he wrote: Don’t you believe a word of it. Cheer up.
A solicitor for Morgan was speedily produced. This was none other than Mr. Ireton Bowlder, that aloof gentleman with the aristocratic nose and the wide clientele. Scotland Yard regarded him with disfavor because he never failed to put their backs up.
True, there was little that even Mr. Ireton Bowlder could do for the prisoners; but he contrived to suggest, with a fishy smile and a sad shake of the head, that they would leave the court without a stain on their characters. Still the stolen money was not forthcoming.
“It’s one of two things, sir,” Chief Inspector Ames told the Assistant Commissioner. “They’ve hidden it, or they’ve turned it over to a fence.”
“A fence for stolen money?”
“And bonds,” said Ames. “Nothing easier. Of course we’ve got the numbers of the notes, fivers and above. But they can easily be disposed of abroad: people are always buying and hoarding English money, and they don’t necessarily inquire where it comes from. I know of two fences like that, and I hear there’s a third operating who’s the biggest in the business. Getting rid of ‘hot’ money used to be difficult; but it’s simple now. It’s more than a new kind of racket; it’s a new kind of big business. If we could get a line on who’s doing this—”
“Any suspicions?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Ames promptly. “Ireton Bowlder.”
The Assistant Commissioner whistled. “If it only could be!” he said with dreamy relish. “Lord, if it only could be! But be careful, Ames; he’s got a lot of influence. And what makes you think it’s Bowlder, anyway?”
“It’s all underground so far,” Ames admitted. “But that’s what the boys say. Now, we nabbed Morgan and his mob just outside a village called Crawleigh. Bowlder’s got a country house only a mile from there. Bowlder was at his country house on Tuesday night, though as a rule he only goes down week-ends. Skipper Morgan was down there twice the week before the robbery. It doesn’t prove anything, but taken with the rest of the rumors—”
“What about the boy Parrish?”
Ames grinned. “Had nothing to do with it, sir. It was Morgan’s idea of a joke. I’m convinced of it, and so is the bank. But Parrish might be useful.”
Just how useful Chief Inspector Ames did not realize until the following day, when Miss Marjorie Dawson came hurrying up to town.
She was a quiet, fair-haired girl, pretty yet unobtrusive, though now strung up to fighting pitch. Her hazel eyes had a directness of gaze which was as good as a handclasp; she had, even in this difficulty, a sense of humor.
She told the Chief Inspector things which made him swear. But after a half-hour interview it was not to the Assistant Commissioner that Ames took her. He took her to a door on the ground floor labeled: D3: Colonel March.
“Colonel March,” he said, “let me introduce Miss Marjorie Dawson. Miss Dawson is engaged to be married to young Parrish. She’s now employed as secretary to Ireton Bowlder’s aunt—”
“Not any longer,” said the girl, smiling faintly. “Sacked yesterday.”
“And she says Bowlder’s got the City and Provincial Bank money.”
Colonel March was a large amiable man with a speckled face, a bland eye, and a large-bowled pipe projecting from under a cropped mustache. He rocked on his heels before the fire, and seemed puzzled.
“I am delighted to hear it,” he said formally. “But why come to me? This, Miss Dawson, is the Department of Queer Complaints. Business has been bad lately and I should be very glad to tackle the problem of a blue pig or a ghost in the garden. But if you’ve landed Ireton, why come to me?”
“Because it’s a queer complaint, right enough,” said Ames grimly. “What Miss Dawson tells us is impossible.”
“Impossible?”
Marjorie Dawson looked from one to the other of them, and drew a deep breath of relief. Color had come back into her face.
“I hope you’re being frank with me,” she said. She appealed to Colonel March. “Inspector Ames tells me that you haven’t really got a case against John Parrish, and don’t mean to hold him—”
“No, no; you can have him whenever you want him,” said Ames with impatience.
“—but I came up here after somebody’s blood,” the girl admitted. “You see, the local police wouldn’t believe me; and yet it’s true, every word of it.”
“The money vanished in front of their eyes,” said Ames.
“One moment,” said Colonel March with an air of refreshed interest. He pushed out chairs for them. “Disappearing money. That is better; that is distinctly better. Tell me about it.”
“It was at Greenacres,” said the girl, “Mr. Bowlder’s country house. As Mr. Ames told you, I’m Miss Bowlder’s secretary; she keeps house for her nephew.
“I’m not going to tell you what I felt when I heard about the robbery. The first I knew of it was when I opened the newspaper at the breakfast table on Wednesday, and saw John’s name staring up at me — as though he’d committed a murder or something. I couldn’t believe it. I knew it was a mistake of some kind. But I thought Mr. Bowlder might know—”
“Might know?” prompted Colonel March.
She hesitated, her forehead puckered. “Well, not that, exactly. I thought he might be able to help me, being a solicitor. Or at least that he would know what to do.
“It was barely half-past eight in the morning. I was the only one up in the house, except servants — Miss Bowlder doesn’t get down until nine. Then I remembered that Mr. Bowlder had come to Greenacres the afternoon before, and I could go to him straight away.
“That’s how it happened. You see, when Mr. Bowlder is at Greenacres he always has nine-o’clock breakfast with his aunt — very dutiful and all that. Any letters that come for him in the morning are always put in his study — which is at the back of the house. Before he goes in to breakfast, he always goes to the study to see if there are any letters. So back I went to the study, to catch him alone before he went to breakfast. I didn’t knock; I just opened the door and walked in. And I got such a shock that I thought I must be seeing things.
“The study is a large, rather bare room, with two windows looking out over a terrace. It has recently been painted, by the way, which is rather important. It was a bright, cold, quiet morning; and the sun was pouring in. There is a bust of somebody or other on the mantelpiece, and a big flat-topped desk in the center of the room.
“Of course I hadn’t expected to find anybody there. But Mr. Bowlder was sitting at the table, fully dressed. And spread out in-rows on the table were at least twenty packets of banknotes of all denominations. Nearly every packet was fastened with a little paper band with City and Provincial Bank printed on it.