“Well, I’ll have the body removed at once and the rug taken out. It is certainly unfortunate for you, sir, that you and your man have become mixed up in this. I can’t understand what the fellow was after.”
His worried gaze shifted from the stalwart figure of the Spanish grandee to the little figure of the valet, and Juan saw in it that he was asking himself what kind of game was afoot anyway.
This was the one thing which the detective wished to avoid, as the slightest identification of himself with mysterious events would be a great detriment to his work.
“You don’t suppose that some one who had this suite on some other voyage hid diamonds or something like that here, do you?” he asked, after seeming to reflect. “I’ve read of such things being done. It’s the only thing that I can think of. Perhaps you had better have us moved to another suite.”
The doctor’s face cleared, and Juan knew that his momentary suspicion had passed.
“It’s a case for the Yard, that’s what,” he said briskly, “and meanwhile, even for the short time that remains before we dock, I think it an excellent idea that you should change your suite.”
The head steward said he would arrange with the purser for the exchange of suites.
Chapter XI
Getting Down to Cases
The quiet man who came aboard just before the Aquitania docked at Southampton seemed more like a business man than a detective, but he was really, as Juan told Michael Strogoff, one of the Yard’s very good operatives.
“Inspector Hand,” he introduced himself to Captain Shelburne and Don Jaime who, with a number of others, were awaiting him in the captain’s room.
The body of the man who had been killed by his own knife lay in the mortuary, and there the inspector went first, his little stick under his arm, rolling his gloves into a ball, wiping his face with a fine silk handkerchief — everything about him seeming precise, reserved and poised.
Juan grinned after him and, standing where the rest of the party could not see him, said, soundlessly to Michaeclass="underline" “Some of our New York roughneck dicks ought to see this bird.”
When he came back and sat down at the desk with the captain he drew out a very prosaic notebook and took everybody’s names and pedigrees before another word was said. Then he invited them to tell what they knew.
To Don Jaime he gave just the degree of special consideration that the distinguished figure of that gentleman seemed to demand, and to Michael he gave a pleasant manner which was distinctly removed from the perfunctory way in which he addressed the stewards and other employees of the ship.
One and all, they declared that they had never seen the dead man before. The head steward stated that the most diligent search had not brought out any fact which would show how the steward’s uniform had been procured by the dead man.
The knife with which the man had sought to kill was from the meat department, and from a rack containing eleven others. It had been missed at eight the night before by the meat roast chef.
The inspector had also viewed the body of the girl who called herself Annette Taylor. He declared that neither she nor the other dead person were known to him by sight. He looked at the handwriting of Miss Taylor and at that of the note which had been left on her door, and agreed that they did not seem to be by the same hand.
Michael had already taken perfect tracings of these specimens, knowing well that they would be required by the police. What he had not surrendered was the paper with the girl’s name and the address which the stewardess had given her, which she had written for him.
Inspector Hand wrote everything down in his book, and then declared that he would now go through the dead girl’s effects, and was about to rise and dismiss the meeting when a steward brought him a note in an envelope. “Just came on board, sir,” he stated, “by public messenger.”
Inspector Hand opened the envelope and read rather a lengthy sheet of paper, which he then placed in his pocket. “Yes, yes,” he said, visibly coming back to the matter in hand, “the matter is most unusual. It shall be carefully looked into.
“I can assure you, Captain Shelburne, that as little will be said about it in the press as possible. It might be that we could suggest that the two deaths were part of some intrigue between the two persons involved — obscure persons, of little interest. Yes, yes.”
He turned to follow the steward who was to show him the girl’s room, and with a second thought turned back to Don Jaime and Michael.
“As your man was the only one to speak to the deceased, perhaps he had better come with me,” he said. “You may come, also, if you wish.”
“Why — thank you, inspector — I think I will,” said Don Jaime, who had been turning away indifferently. “I’ve never seen a detective of your standing at work, and it would interest me.”
So the four of them, the steward, Inspector Hand, and Juan and Michael, arrived at that door at the end of the corridor, and the steward unlocked the door, over which there were sheets of paper tacked and wads of paper on the knob, so that any prints might be preserved. This had also been done on the door of the suite which had been Don Jaime’s.
Inspector Hand took the key from the steward, thanked him, turned him out, and shut and locked the door on the inside. Then he looked at Juan appraisingly.
“I should never have known you, Mr. Murphey,” he said in a low voice. “I must congratulate you.”
“I did not meet you when I was last here as De Ventura,” said Juan also in a low voice. “Allow me to present my colleague, who is known as Michael Strogoff. You will know him better as Harvey Lettner.”
The inspector bowed. “Mr. Lettner, your brochures on crime are much in use over here,” he stated respectfully. “I have, myself, practiced a few of your tricks when, as rarely happens, I am obliged to resort to some kind of disguise. We don’t do a great deal of that sort of thing over here.”
“Nor over there, either,” said the man whom most of the world knew as Lettner, a writer on rare and erudite subjects, who had been for many years the “dresser” to a very great Shakespearean actor, a strange little figure in the literary, scholastic, and detective fields, and something of a legend to them all, for he was seldom seen in person.
“How did you get that note of yours off the boat and back here by messenger?” the inspector said to Juan. “You really astonished me.”
“I wrote it this morning, sealed it in an envelope addressed to you here, then resealed it in an envelope addressed to a messenger service near the docks here, of which I happened to know, telling them that the letter inside was to be sent as directed immediately. I sent the message ashore with a passenger, a Mrs. Mason, whom I knew I could trust.”
“Sounds simple, like all inspirations,” said the Yard man. “Of course, it is most necessary that your identity shall remain concealed. Are you coming to the Yard to see about the job you are on? And is this part of it?”
“I think it is,” said Juan, answering the last question first, “but Michael and I are very much in the dark as to what is really afoot. Yes, I’m coming to the Yard for a conference, but you had better call me for it in connection with this matter, so that it will seem natural for me to go. Now, if you will permit me, I will look on.”
Inspector Hand may have felt that he was somewhat on his mettle, working thus beneath the eyes of two transatlantic confreres of such fame; for not so much as a stray hairpin in that room escaped him. The net result was precisely nothing.