“And you’re sure it was money you got at the races? I want a serious answer, Gus. It’s important.”
“Every cent that went to the bank was won at the races. It came out of my bag all scrumpled up anyhow, just as I’d stuffed it in. My own money was still in bundles. I’d never had to use any of it, see? I set off to Doncaster with it today, and brought it back.”
“And it’s Saturday. The banks closed at noon.”
“It’ll go in the night safe. I’m sending Bill and old Purchas with it right away.”
Martineau reflected that everybody called Purchas “old,” though he was only in his middle forties. Probably it was because of the man’s sunken, characterless face and his tendency to worry about broken routine.
“How was the stolen money made up?” he asked.
“Three thousand ones and two hundred fivers,” Gus replied promptly. “And I hope it chokes ’em.”
“Maybe it will,” said Martineau.
“What a mess it all is,” the bookmaker said. “Poor Cicely! Have her parents been told?”
The inspector nodded.
“I suppose I’d better go and see ’em,” said Gus. “I don’t know how I’ll face ’em.”
3
From a public telephone in Gaunt Street Martineau contacted the C.I.D. office and spoke to Superintendent Clay.
“I’ve seen Gus Hawkins,” he said, “and his fingers are bright green. I think we’ve really got something there. Gus counted the money this morning, before the girl did. It was all cash he got at the races yesterday.”
“Good,” said Clay. “I’ve got something too. I sent out an Express Message and I’ve got a reply already, from Hallam City. Hallam are very interested. They’re interested to the extent of two hundred pounds.”
“Not all in dusted notes, surely,” said Martineau.
“Yes. Two hundred one-pound notes, all dusted. That shakes you, doesn’t it?”
Martineau listened carefully to the story. When Granchester City wanted to know if any officer in any force had recently been dusting one-pound notes with malachite green, the Hallam police answered immediately. When they learned how serious was the Granchester case, their sharply inquiring tone changed, and they were ready with information. Their use of malachite green had ended a series of larcenies from the Hallam City Treasurer’s department. Some sly person had been pilfering, in amounts rising from £2 to £10, from stacked money in the main collector’s office.
The thief was clever, or lucky. He was never seen taking the money, nor did he leave fingerprints. He was fortunate in avoiding traps until an angry and determined detective took a camel’s hair brush and a quantity of powdered malachite green, and painstakingly brushed the dry dye onto all the notes in two bundles of one hundred pounds. Until they could be carefully distributed as bait, the two hundred dusted notes were put in a safe place in a cashier’s office, but the place was not safe enough. The thief-an elderly, unsuspected janitor-came upon the money while the cashier was out of the room for a moment, and in an access of greed he pocketed the lot. He immediately left the premises, telling a doorman that he was going home because he was ill. But he did not go home.
That was on Friday, the day before Cicely Wainwright was murdered. The police were waiting for the janitor when he returned home, morosely inebriated, late on Friday night. He had none of the stolen money in his possession, but the police knew that he was their man. He was betrayed by his green fingers. Without moisture the dye known as malachite green would not stain, but perspiration caused it to color the fingers faintly but indelibly. Washing the hands in water made the stain much brighter. The janitor had been washing his hands, and to the expectant policemen they fairly shouted “Thief!”
Under pressure, the janitor said that he had taken the marked money to Doncaster, and lost it all at the races. The police were not inclined to believe him. They suspected that he had got drunk with a little of it, and “sided” the rest.
“Well well!” said Martineau, when he had heard the story. “Aren’t we lucky?”
“It seems so,” Clay agreed. “But we’d better get weaving, before that dye starts to fade.”
“Too true,” said the inspector, making for the door. “Hallam first, to verify.”
He rounded up Gus Hawkins, Stan Lomax and Bill Bragg, and took them forty miles over the hills to Hallam. There, at his request, the police conducted an identification parade in reverse. The green-handed thief was brought out and introduced to Martineau. “Now,” said the inspector. “Do you recognize any of these gentlemen?”
“Sure,” said the prisoner. He turned indignantly to the Hallam detectives. “Happen you’ll believe me now. That’s the bookies I backed with yesterday. And that’s his clerk. And that’s his private bruiser.”
To corroborate the statement, Gus himself remembered the prisoner as a man who had betted persistently and unsuccessfully at his stand on the previous day. He had even commented upon the man’s ill luck.
“So the money went into a bookie’s pocket,” a Hallam detective bluntly commented.
“You can have it back,” said Gus, “when you find the three thousand eight hundred that goes with it.”
The bookmaker’s attention had not been drawn to the prisoner’s green fingers, but he had noticed them. On the way home he referred to them. “Is that the bloke who’s been passing the snide?” he wanted to know.
“It’s just possible,” was Martineau’s noncommittal answer.
“It’s poor stuff, if the ink comes off.”
“It is, if that’s the case,” said the inspector with marked disinterest. That, he thought, was as much as Gus and his henchmen needed to know about malachite green. And the sooner they forgot about the “snide,” the better.
With the Granchester police, of course, it was different. They were conducting a strictly secret search for green fingers in the city. Only the chemists in their shops would be informed, and they would not be told any more than they needed to know: that there had been a larceny, and that any person seeking a solvent for a green stain on the hands should be kept waiting until the police were called. There would be men standing by in readiness for such a call. They would be on their way almost as soon as the chemist who called them had put down his telephone.
4
Gus Hawkins and Harry Martineau had two things in common: they were both married to handsome women and they were both unhappy about it. Gus’s wife was, he suspected, occasionally unfaithful. Certainly she was far too gay for a normal married woman. He sometimes wondered if he gave her too much money.
It wasn’t as if Chloe was accustomed to money. She had never had much of her own, and she was rather down on her luck when Gus met her. At least, he thought so. She had no money and no job, and she was running around with a shady crowd. Gus was attracted by her, and he was sorry for her. Nowadays, though he still found her attractive, he sometimes wondered how he had been induced to marry her.
At the time of the marriage, many people had remarked that it was strange how a wise guy like Gus could be snared and deluded by a dumb dame like Chloe.
As he left his office on the evening of that unhappy St. Leger day, Gus glumly remembered the night before. Last night was typical, he thought. Though he was late, she-depend on it-was later. It was annoyance and uncertainty about that which had made him forget about the four thousand pounds in the unlocked garage. When he arrived home, his comfortable suburban house was in darkness. When he saw it he swore, in a gust of helpless anger. He knew that Chloe would not yet be in bed. Not at home, anyway. She was out somewhere. Doing what? With whom?
He unlocked the front door and went into the house, and put the light on successively in every room while he looked around. He searched with conscious suspicion, seeing everything. But there was nothing out of the ordinary: the house was in its normal state of moderately clean untidiness. Having switched off all the lights, he went into the front room. He knelt on the settee beside the window, with his arms on the sill. In front of the window was the short drive. The posts of the open gateway were silhouetted against the lighted road outside.