Bombay Mail, page 18
“You seem to have established alibis for everyone, Inspector,” said Luke-Patson casually.
“Your discernment is not quite perfect, Mr. Luke-Patson,” said Inspector Prike. “You are too modest.”
“You mean—you accuse me of the murder of Sir Anthony?”
“I do,” said Inspector Prike calmly.
Chapter Twenty-Five: A PLEA OF GUILTY
“That’s preposterous!” Luke-Patson’s florid face turned slowly crimson with indignation. “You haven’t a single clue—”
“Let me reconstruct the crime for you, Mr. Luke-Patson,” said the Inspector quietly. “First let me give a slightly different interpretation to the letter from Mr. Xavier which you tore up at about four-thirty o’clock yesterday morning. Instead of a shady transaction in horse racing, let me assume that Mr. Xavier was interested in securing the rights to an area of land in Bengal on which rubies had been discovered. Let me further assume that Mr. Xavier offered you a bribe of twenty thousand rupees, Mr. Luke-Patson, to prevent a young man named Hawley from speaking to the Governor in regard to an option on this land, which was about to expire, promising you further sums in case you could use your influence to insure the mining concession in question going to Mr. Xavier. Let me assume that Sir Anthony Daniels discovered the bribery of his private secretary—”
“That’s it!” Captain Worthing was on his feet. “That’s it, Inspector. I remember now that Thursday, when I came into Luke-Patson’s office to get Files D and E for the Governor, Luke-Patson had just received a bundle of bank notes. I didn’t notice it particularly at the time, but I remember now that he was trying to hide a letter. He slipped it into the files. I assumed it was a document which belonged there—”
“Let me go on from there,” interrupted Inspector Prike. “Mr. Luke-Patson had no further opportunity to extract his letter from the files. Sir Anthony himself came upon the letter. He was alone in this dining-saloon with Luke-Patson. He called for an explanation, doubtless suspecting there was corruption involved. The train was stopping at Gaya. Luke-Patson suggested they stroll outside. Unable to tell a convincing story, Luke-Patson, to regain the incriminating letter and save himself from disgrace that would have ruined his career on the eve of his advancement to a new post at Delhi, forced a phial of prussic acid between the Governor’s lips, killing him instantly. He disposed of the body as I have already described. Walking back to the car, he was about to tear up the letter, when he saw the Maharajah of Zunjore watching him from a window. He then decided to give the alarm to establish an alibi for himself. Only after the train started did he throw away the torn letter. The pieces were caught up in the eddies of wind made by the speeding train, and one of them was wedged in a shutter where I found it several hours later—”
“Ridiculous!” Luke-Patson exploded. “Pure hypothesis. You haven’t a single proof.”
“Haven’t I?” Inspector Prike’s eyebrows raised slightly. “Then let me work backward from the murder of the Maharajah of Zunjore. The shot that killed the Maharajah was very cleverly timed so that the report would be covered by the firing of the saluting cannon. However, since the shot was fired from within this very car, there was the chance that the flash from the revolver might catch someone’s eye. How was that to be remedied? By firing the revolver from a coat pocket—wasn’t it, Luke-Patson?”
“More theory!” Luke-Patson insisted.
“At first opportunity, you changed-your coat, Luke-Patson,” Inspector Prike continued, “but you didn’t have a chance to dispose of that incriminating coat unobserved. In sheer desperation, at one-thirty o’clock this morning, you brought the coat to be washed by your bearer, hoping that the telltale powder burns would disappear from the inside of the pocket. They didn’t, Luke-Patson, because I took the coat from the bearer before he had a chance to wash it. But for one oversight on your part, I might not have thought to look at that coat. Perhaps you don’t remember telling me at the time you took it to your bearer that you had no fresh whites for today? Yet when I returned from the luggage van this morning you were wearing a fresh suit. Whether it was an unintentional slip, or whether you were sure I would be unconscious—or dead-in the van, I don’t know. But it was the only clue I needed. I have the powder-marked coat under lock and key. Would you like to see it now or will you wait for the trial?”
Luke-Patson did not reply. The high color left his face until his cheeks were the color of wet chalk.
“Quite a nice thought, luring me to the luggage van last evening, really a master move. But in our little duel in the darkness, you showed your weakness, Luke-Patson—you don’t pay quite enough attention to detail for a good criminal; you wasted your shots. However, I congratulate you upon the strength of your arm. But for the well-known thickness of an Inspector’s skull, I should not be here now.”
The Bombay Mail was roaring across the Sion Causeway between Salsette and Bombay Island. The spires and domes of Bombay City loomed in the distance. Luke-Patson suddenly turned, pushed the shutter down from the window, dived—
Jack Hawley tackled him about the hips, pulled him back. Luke-Patson fought desperately. The butt of a guard’s rifle in the pit of Luke-Patson’s stomach subdued him.
“Before you go, Luke-Patson,” said Inspector Prike with quiet sarcasm, “I wish you’d clear up one point for me: How did you happen to have the phial of prussic acid handy? You must have been premeditating this murder.”
“I didn’t,” said Luke-Patson hopelessly. “I’d bought that prussic acid for myself. I’d been carrying it around with me, trying to summon up the courage to kill myself. It seemed the only way out. I’d been living far beyond my means. I’d lost heavily at racing. I had more debts than I could ever pay and my credit was gone. When Xavier came along with his offer of money, I saw new hope. Xavier talked in fabulous sums, offered me an income for life if I could swing the ruby concession to him. Then, when Sir Anthony discovered my deal with Xavier, when I saw these new hopes crumbling into worse ruin than before-well, I couldn’t face it. I gambled—for high stakes. I lost. That’s all.”
When he finished speaking, a feline expression came into his eyes. His mouth twitched. Without warning, he lunged forward and seized Lady Daniels’s cyanide bottle from the table. Captain Worthing sprang toward him, but Luke-Patson swept him aside, flung out the stopper, raised the bottle to his lips. Lady Daniels uttered a cry of horror as he swallowed.
Dropping the bottle to the floor, Luke-Patson suppressed a grimace, raised his head, and faced the Inspector defiantly. “That is my—plea of guilty—Inspector,” he gasped.
Prike had watched the drama with almost disinterested calm. He turned to his guard. “Take Mr. Luke-Patson to the Maharajah’s compartment, Anderson, and stay with him,” he ordered.
Doctor Lenoir had risen from his chair, a look of concern on his face. He started forward, saying, “Why do they all wish to die—”
Inspector Prike caught his arm, restraining him.
“Stay here, Doctor,” said Prike.
Every face in the room turned toward him. Incredulous astonishment was written plainly on each countenance at this instance of official cruelty.
“But he has poisoned himself!” cried Doctor Lenoir.
“He’ll die a horrible death, Inspector!”
But Inspector Prike was musing. “An almost brilliant man, that Luke-Patson,” he said, as if to himself.
Lady Daniels stood up. Her face was white. “Why don’t you let Doctor Lenoir go to him, Inspector? Even a dying animal is entitled to medical attention?”
Prike looked up at her calmly. “Mr. Luke-Patson’s suicide would save the Government the trouble and expense of prosecution,” he said slowly, “but I’m very much afraid he will live to stand trial.”
“But cyanide, Inspector—”
“There has been no cyanide in that bottle, Lady Daniels, since noon yesterday. Mr. Luke-Patson has tried to kill himself with common table salt.”
The Bombay Mail had come to a stop on Ballard Pier. The dock swarmed with baggage coolies. On the decks above the black steel flanks of the mail steamer excited passengers moved against a background of orange-brown paint work.
Bombay police officials had taken off two prisoners— William Luke-Patson, charged with murder; Xavier, charged with bribery.
In the dining-saloon of the private car sat Inspector Prike, Beatrice Jones, and Jack Hawley. Prike was writing telegrams. Hawley was looking disconsolately through the window. He saw Doctor Lenoir walking up the gangplank, carrying his black Gladstone bag. Miss Ursula Klink was fussing with baggage coolies, prodding them with the point of her white parasol when one did not carry her easel at the right angle. Edward J. Breeze was engaged in exuberant reunion with his wife. Lady Daniels was surrounded by a stiffly sympathetic group of Bombay Government officials. Pundit Garnath Chundra was moving off toward the third-class gangway, surrounded by a delegation of Poona students in Gandhi caps, going with him to a convention of educators in Edinburgh.
The door burst open for Cootie Neal, swinging his camera in one hand.
“Hey, Inspector!” Neal shouted. “Don’t forget I want a shot of you in the act of arrestin’ the lady spy.”
“Miss Jones is not a spy,” said Inspector Prike. “The name Smeganoff was assumed merely for use on the operatic stage.”
“Hell!” Neal exclaimed. “So it was just a publicity stunt, hey? And she wanted two thousand rupees for it— instead of payin’ me! You opera singers! Anythin’ to get in the papers. Well, here’s the only line you get outa me: ‘Hard-boiled photog fails to fall for ancient press agent wheeze.’ So long.”
The door slammed behind him.
Inspector Prike stood up.
“The reason I asked you to stay, Hawley,” he said, “was that a man in the guard’s van this morning asked me to give you this.”
He tossed a tobacco pouch across the table.
Hawley grabbed it eagerly, feverishly zipped the top open. His expression changed. The rubies were safe inside.
“So you caught Martini?” he asked.
“C.I.D. Agent F-691 told me you saved his life last night,” said Prike.
“C.I.D. agent?”
Prike nodded.
“F-691 was working on a case in Allahabad,” he said, “when circumstances unexpectedly attached him to Xavier. In order not to spoil his original case, he had to play up to Xavier in the matter of your rubies.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Hawley. “So Martini—?”
“He asked me how he could best express his gratitude to you,” Prike continued. “And I suggested that we might notify the proper authorities regarding the extension of your option. I’m sure the Government will be very glad to help in the development of these mineral resources you and your partner Burgess have discovered.”
Hawley pumped Inspector Prike’s hand for fully fifteen seconds before he turned to Beatrice Jones. The girl was beaming.
“Say, you’ll like Burgess,” he said to her. “He’s crazy about opera.”
Inspector Prike deliberately turned his back on Hawley and the girl. He took a telegram from among the papers on the table and spoke to the guard, who stood respectfully at attention.
“Anderson,” he said, “I want you to run up to Whiteway and Laidlaw’s and buy me some clean shirts. We’re leaving on the Punjab Mail for Delhi. Someone seems to have done away with the Honorable Member from Trich-inopoly.”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Inspector Prike Mysteries
Chapter One
TOO MANY FIANCEES
No one in Calcutta would think of writing a letter on any day of the week except Thursday. On Thursday the mail leaves for Europe and America via Bombay, and on Thursday only an insurance salesman would think of violating the warning This is mail day signs which go up in every office from Clive Street to the Maidan. Therefore the hubbub which boiled through the publicity offices of Harrison J. Hoyt on this particular Thursday in 1935 was, to say the least, unusual. And to tall, placid Lee Marvin, who had hurried away from his own mail at Calcutta headquarters of Orfèvre, Ltd., it was positively alarming.
As Marvin announced himself to Babu Gundranesh Dutt, the rotund Bengali clerk who guarded Hoyt’s outer portals, he heard tempestuous sounds of an altercation approaching a climax on the other side of the partition. One voice, which Marvin did not know, swelled and spluttered with rage; the other—Hoyt’s—answered in a sarcastic monotone. Marvin could not distinguish words. He sat down between two other men waiting in Hoyt’s outer office.
Marvin knew both the men by sight. One was Henry Kobayashi, a lynx-eyed. Hawaiian-born Japanese, with an aggressive American manner and a job of flooding India with the cheap product of Osaka cotton mills. The other, a light-skinned Hindu with an almond-green turban piled high on his scornful head, was Chitterji Rao, household officer for the Maharajah of Jharnpur.
Chitterji Rao was returning Marvin’s glance with cold disdain when the door to Hoyt’s inner office burst open and huge, sanguine-faced Kurt Julius stormed forth, choking with indignation. Julius Marvin knew, was a wild-animal merchant. He waddled past without a glance. With a savage tug he opened the collar of his high, Dutch-style white jacket, as though to make room for the choleric expansion of his florid throat. A small silver button popped off the jacket and rolled along the floor to Marvin’s feet. As Julius stamped from the room, Marvin picked up the button and examined it idly. It was of a common type of detachable button made in imitation of the old-time Siamese tical, but in execution it was decidedly uncommon. The convex surface of the silver was intricately carved in the shape of a tiger’s head. Marvin put the button in his pocket.
Harrison Hoyt appeared on the threshold of his office door. Henry Kobayashi and Chitterji Rao arose expectantly. Hoyt beckoned to Marvin. The Hindu and the Japanese glared at the late arrival who was being accorded special favors.
“I got your chit,” said Marvin, when the door closed behind him, “and I came right over. Is the Bosa pearl finally—?”
“No!” Hoyt interrupted with a quick, apprehensive gesture for silence. He looked uneasily toward the door to the outer office, then continued in a low voice: “As a matter of fact, I will have news for you on that matter some time today. But I can’t talk about it now. I sent for you because I want you to do me a personal favor.”
Hoyt tossed over a salmon-colored telegraph form.
“I want you to meet the Burma Mail steamer today,” he said, “and take care of a girl for me.”
Marvin’s expression changed as he read the signature on the radiogram:
Arriving Calcutta S.S. Bangalore Thursday Love. Evelyn.
He said nothing as he folded the paper and handed it back, but there was reluctance in the gesture with which he smoothed his red hair—a deep red, the color of polished mahogany. There was reluctance, too, in his frank blue eyes, the blueness of which was accentuated by the healthy tan of his face. It was a strong, clean-cut face, softened a little by the good-humor of his M-shaped mouth, but still virile—so virile that the vertical indentation in his chin could not be called a dimple.
“You’re going to do it for me, aren’t you, Lee?” said Hoyt, smiling across his desk. With that prop smile of his, Hoyt could be the most charmingly disagreeable person in Calcutta. Usually the sight of it made Lee Marvin contemplate doing violence to the gleaming octave of perfect Hoyt teeth. But today there was something tragic about the insincerity of the smile, something that reminded Marvin of the pitiful bravado of a condemned man afraid to die.
“Be reasonable, Harry,” said Marvin. “This is no job for anyone but yourself.”
“You used to say you owed me your life,” said Hoyt. His smile was more ingratiating than ever, yet Marvin could not rid himself of the impression that it was merely a futile mask for some great, unspoken fear. “Now you won’t even meet a boat for me.”
“Harry, I don’t like tears—and you’ll have to face them sooner or later. After all, this is your mess. The girl’s not engaged to me.”
“To me either,” said Harrison J. Hoyt.
“She must think she is,” protested Marvin. “You always said you were going to bring her to India when you had the money.”
“That was two years ago,” said Hoyt. “After two years you’d think any girl would have sense enough to know how things stood.”
Marvin gave a noncommittal shrug. “Then why is she coming to India—?”
“To make trouble,” Hoyt declared, tapping the telegraph form. “Why didn’t she write she was coming? Or at least send me a cable from Singapore, where she changed ships. Or from Penang. Instead she sends a last minute radiogram from the ship, figuring I won’t have time to hide out on her.”
“Listen, Harry, if there’s going to be any trouble—”
“You’ve got to do it, Lee.” Hoyt leaned across the desk to grasp Marvin’s wrists with tight, desperate fingers. “You’ve got to meet Evelyn—and keep her from coming up here. I can’t leave my office this afternoon, Lee. It’s a matter of life and death. If it weren’t so damned important I wouldn’t ask you to do this…. The Bangalore is due at three-thirty. You’d better start for the Kidderpore docks.”
The haggard despair in Hoyt’s face, despair that defied all his efforts to be gaily nonchalant, finally decided Marvin. With a tremendous sigh he capitulated.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll do the dirty work. What’s Evelyn’s last name?”
“Branch.”
“And what does Evelyn Branch look like?”
“Oh, she has gray-green eyes,” said Hoyt trying unsuccessfully to be casual. “That’s about all I remember.”
“Don’t be so damned offhand,” said Marvin, “or I’m liable to get a black eye for accosting the wrong woman. Where’s that picture you used to have on your desk until Antoinette came romping into your life last year?”
