The Pit-Prop Syndicate - Freeman Wills Crofts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📗

he said pleasantly. “We shall be very pleased to get any information you can give us. What was your friend like?”

His quiet, conversational manner calmed the other.

“Rather tall,” he answered anxiously, “with a long pale face, and small, black, pointed mustache.”

“I’m afraid, sir, that’s the man. I think if you don’t mind you had better see if you can identify him.”

“I want to,” Merriman cried, leaping to his feet. “I must know at once.”

Willis rose also.

“Then come this way.”

They drove quickly across town. A glance was sufficient to tell Merriman that the body was indeed that of his former acquaintance. His agitation became painful.

“You’re right!” he cried. “It is he! And it’s my fault. Oh, if I had only done what she said! If I had only kept out of it!”

He wrung his hands in his anguish.

Willis was much interested. Though this man could not be personally guilty⁠—he was not tall enough, for one thing⁠—he must surely know enough about the affair to put the inspector on the right track. The latter began eagerly to await his story.

Merriman for his part was anxious for nothing so much as to tell it. He was sick to death of plots and investigations and machinations, and while driving to the Yard he had made up his mind that if the dead man were indeed Madeleine’s father, he would tell the whole story of his and Hilliard’s investigations into the doings of the syndicate. When, therefore, they were back in the inspector’s room, he made a determined effort to pull himself together and speak calmly.

“Yes,” he said, “I know him. He lived near Bordeaux with his daughter. She will be absolutely alone. You will understand that I must go out to her by the first train, but until then I am at your service.”

“You are a relation perhaps?”

“No, only an acquaintance, but⁠—I’m going to tell you the whole story, and I may as well say, once for all, that it is my earnest hope some day to marry Miss Coburn.”

Willis bowed and inquired, “Is Miss Coburn’s name Madeleine?”

“Yes,” Merriman answered, surprise and eagerness growing in his face.

“Then,” Willis went on, “you will be pleased to learn that she is not in France⁠—at least, I think not. She left the Peveril Hotel in Russell Square about eleven o’clock yesterday morning.”

Merriman sprang to his feet.

“In London?” he queried excitedly. “Where? What address?”

“We don’t know yet, but we shall soon find her. Now, sir, you can’t do anything for the moment, and I am anxious to hear your story. Take your own time, and the more details you can give me the better.”

Merriman controlled himself with an effort.

“Well,” he said slowly, sitting down again, “I have something to tell you, inspector. My friend Hilliard⁠—Claud Hilliard of the Customs Department⁠—and I have made a discovery. We have accidentally come on what we believe is a criminal conspiracy, we don’t know for what purpose, except that it is something big and fraudulent. We were coming to the Yard in any case to tell what we had learned, but this murder has precipitated things. We can no longer delay giving our information. The only thing is that I should have liked Hilliard to be here to tell it instead of me, for our discovery is really due to him.”

“I can see Mr. Hilliard afterwards. Meantime tell me the story yourself.”

Merriman thereupon related his and Hilliard’s adventures and experiences from his own first accidental visit to the clearing when he noticed the changing of the lorry number, right up to his last meeting with Mr. Coburn, when the latter expressed his intention of breaking away from the gang. He hid nothing, explaining without hesitation his reasons for urging the delay in informing the authorities, even though he quite realised his action made him to some extent an accomplice in the conspiracy.

Willis was much more impressed by the story than he would have admitted. Though it sounded wild and unlikely, there was a ring of truth in Merriman’s manner which went far to convince the other of its accuracy. He did not believe either that anyone could have invented such a story. Its very improbability was an argument for its truth.

And if it were true, what a vista it opened up to himself! The solution of the murder problem would be gratifying enough but it was a mere nothing compared to the other. If he could search out and bring to naught such a conspiracy as Merriman’s story indicated, he would be a made man. It would be the crowning point of his career, and would bring him measurably nearer to that cottage and garden in the country to which for years past he had been looking forward. Therefore no care and trouble would be too great to spend on the matter.

Putting away thoughts of self, therefore, and deliberately concentrating on the matter in hand, he set himself to consider in detail what his visitor had told him and get the story clear in his mind. Then slowly and painstakingly he began to ask questions.

“I take it, Mr. Merriman, that your idea is that Mr. Coburn was murdered by a member of the syndicate?”

“Yes, and I think he foresaw his fate. I think when he told them he was going to break with them they feared he might betray them, and wanted to be on the safe side.”

“Any of them a tall, stoutly built man?”

“Captain Beamish is tall and strongly built, but I should not say he was stout.”

“Describe him.”

“He stooped and was a little round-shouldered, but even then he was tall. If he had held himself up he would have been a big man. He had a heavy face with a big jaw, thin lips, and a vindictive expression.”

Willis, though not given to jumping to conclusions, felt suddenly thrilled, and he made up his mind that an early development in the case would be the taking of the impressions of Captain Beamish’s right thumb and forefinger.

He asked several more questions and, going over the story