The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime - Michael Sims [111]
A clean-shaven, youngish looking man, with grey hair at his temples, Peter took a philosophical view of crime and criminals, holding neither horror towards the former, nor malice towards the latter.
If he had a passion at all it was for the crime which contained within itself a problem. Anything out of the ordinary, or anything bizarre fascinated him, and it was one of the main regrets of his life that it had never once fallen to his lot to conduct an investigation into the many Four Square mysteries which came to the Metropolitan police.
It was after the affair at Lord Claythorpe’s that Peter Dawes was turned loose to discover and apprehend this girl criminal, and he welcomed the opportunity to take charge of a case which had always interested him. To the almost hysterical telephone message Scotland Yard had received from Lord Claythorpe Peter did not pay too much attention. He realized that it was of the greatest importance that he should keep his mind unhampered and unprejudiced by the many and often contradictory “clues” which everyone who had been affected by Four Square Jane’s robberies insisted on discussing with him.
He interviewed an agitated man at four o’clock in the morning, and Lord Claythorpe was frantic.
“It’s terrible, terrible,” he wailed, “what are you people at Scotland Yard doing that you allow these villainies to continue? It is monstrous!”
Peter Dawes, who was not unused to outbursts on the part of the victimized, listened to the squeal with equanimity.
“As I understand it, this woman came here with two men who pretended to have her in custody?”
“Two detectives!” moaned his lordship.
“If they called themselves detectives, then you were deceived,” said Peter with a smile. “They persuaded you to allow the prisoner and one of her captors to spend ten minutes in the library where your jewels are kept. Now tell me, when the crime occurred had your guests left?”
Lord Claythorpe nodded wearily.
“They had all gone,” he said, “except my friend Lewinstein.”
Peter made an examination of the room, and a gleam of interest came into his eyes when he saw the curious labels. He examined the door and the window-bars, and made as careful a search of the floor as possible.
“I can’t do much at this hour,” he said. “At daylight I will come back and have a good look through this room. Don’t allow anybody in to dust or to sweep it.”
He returned at nine o’clock, and to his surprise, Lord Claythorpe, whom he had expected would be in bed and asleep, was waiting for him in the library, and wearing a dressing-gown over his pyjamas.
“Look at this,” exclaimed the old man, and waved a letter wildly.
Dawes took the document and read:
You are very mean, old man! When you lost your Venetian armlet you offered a reward of ten thousand pounds. I sent that armlet to a hospital greatly in need of funds, and the doctor who presented my gift to the hospital was entitled to the full reward. I have taken your pearls because you swindled the hospital out of six thousand pounds. This time you will not get your property back.
There was no signature, but the familiar mark, roughly drawn, the four squares and the centred “J.”
“This was written on a Yost,” said Peter Dawes, looking at the document critically. “The paper is the common stuff you buy in penny packages—so is the envelope. How did it come?”
“It came by district messenger,” said Lord Claythorpe. “Now what do you think, officer? Is there any chance of my getting those pearls back?”
“There is a chance, but it is a pretty faint one,” said Peter.
He went back to Scotland Yard, and reported to his chief.
“So far as I can understand, the operations of this woman began about twelve months ago. She has been constantly robbing, not the ordinary people who are subjected to this kind of victimization but people with bloated bank balances, and so far as my investigations go, bank balances accumulated as a direct consequence of shady exploitation companies.”
“What does she do with the money?” asked the Commissioner curiously.