The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation

  CHAPTER IV

  MR. FRANKLIN FULLAWAY

  Allerdyke carried his find away to his own room and carefully examinedit. The buckle was of real gold; the stones set in it were real diamonds,small though they were. He deduced two ideas from these facts--one, thatthe owner was a woman who loved pretty and expensive things; the other,that she must have a certain natural carelessness about her not to havenoticed that the buckle was loose on her shoe. But as he put the bucklesafely away in his own travelling bag, he began to speculate on mattersof deeper import--how did it come to be lying there in James Allerdyke'sroom? How long had it been lying there? Had its owner been into thatroom recently? Had she, in fact, been in the room since James Allerdyketook possession of it on his arrival at the hotel?

  He realized the possibility of various answers to these questions. Thebuckle might have been dropped by a former occupant of the room. But wasthat likely? Would an object sparkling with diamonds have escaped theeyes of even a careless chambermaid? Would it have escaped the keenereyes of James Allerdyke? Anyhow, that question could easily be settled byfinding out how long that particular room had been unoccupied beforeJames was put into it. A much more important question was--had the ownerof the buckle been in the room between nine o'clock of the previousevening and five o'clock that morning? Out of that, again, rose certainsupplementary questions: What had she been doing there? And mostimportant of all--who was she? That might possibly be solved by aninspection of the hotel register, and after he had drunk the coffee whichwas presently brought up to him, Allerdyke went down to the office to setabout that necessary, yet problematic, task.

  As he reached the big hall on the ground floor of the hotel, the managercame across to him, displaying a telegram.

  "For your cousin, sir," he announced, handing it over to Allerdyke."Just come in."

  Allerdyke slowly opened the envelope, and as he unfolded the message,caught the name Franklin Fullaway at its foot--

  "Let me know what time you arrive King's Cross to-day and I will meetyou, highly important we should both see my prospective client at once."

  This message bore the same address which Allerdyke had found in thetelegram discovered in James's pocket-book--Waldorf Hotel--and hedetermined to wire Mr. Franklin Fullaway immediately. He sat down at awriting-table in the hall and drew a sheaf of telegraph forms towardshim. But it was not easy to compose the message which he wished to send.He knew nothing of the man to whom he must address it, nothing of hisbusiness relations with James; he had no clear notion of what the presentparticular transaction was, nor how it might be connected with what hadjust happened. After considerable thought he wrote out a telegram of somelength, and carried it himself to the telegraph office in the stationoutside:--

  "To _Franklin Fullaway, Waldorf Hotel, London_.

  "Your wire to James Allerdyke opened by undersigned, his cousin. JamesAllerdyke died suddenly here during night. Circumstances somewhatmysterious. Investigation proceeding. Have found on body your telegram tohim of April 21. Glad if you can explain business referred to therein, orgive any other information about his recent doings abroad.

  "From MARSHALL ALLERDYKE, Station Hotel, Hull."

  It was by that time eight o'clock, and the railway station and the hotelhad started into the business of another day. There were signs thatpeople who had stayed in the hotel over-night were about to take theirdeparture by early trains, and Allerdyke hastened back to the office tolook over the register--he was anxious to know who and what the folk werewho had been near and about his cousin in his last hours. But a mereglance at the big pages showed him the uselessness of his task. Therewere some seventy or eighty entries, made during the previous twenty-fourhours; it was impossible to go into the circumstances of each. He turnedwith a look of despair to the manager at his elbow.

  "Nothing much to be made out of that!" he muttered. "Still--which are thepeople who came off the _Perisco_ last night?"

  The manager summoned a clerk; the clerk indicated a sequence of entries,amongst which Allerdyke at once noticed the name of Dr. Lydenberg. Therest were, of course, unfamiliar to him.

  "There was a lady here last night, who, according to your night-porter,changed her mind about staying, and set off in a motor-car aboutmidnight," observed Allerdyke. "Which is she, now, in this lot?"

  The clerk instantly pointed to an entry, made in a big, dashing,artistic-looking handwriting.

  "That," he answered. "Miss Celia Lennard--Number 265."

  Two numbers away from James Allerdyke's room--Number 263! The inquirerpricked his ears.

  "It was she who went off in the middle of the night," continued theclerk. "She pestered me with a lot of questions as to how she could getNorth--to Edinburgh. That would be about eleven o'clock. I told her shecouldn't get a train until morning. I saw her going upstairs just beforeI went off duty--soon after eleven. It seems, according to thenight-porter--"

  "I know--he told me," said Allerdyke, interrupting him. "He got her acar, she wanted to be driven to some station on the Great Northern mainline--I met her on the road at two-thirty. I suppose the driver of thatcar can be found?--he'll have returned by this, I should think."

  "Oh, you can find him all right," answered the clerk. "The car was gotfrom a garage close by."

  Allerdyke jotted down the name of the garage in his pocket-book, andproceeded to make further inquiries about his cousin's movements on theprevious night. He interviewed various hotel servants--waiters,chambermaids, porters, all could tell him something, and the sum total ofwhat they could tell amounted, for all practical purposes, to next tonothing. James Allerdyke had come to the hotel just as several otherpeople had come. He had been served with a light supper in thecoffee-room; he had been seen chatting with one or two people in thelounge and in the smoking-room; a chambermaid had seen him in his ownroom--according to all these people there was nothing in his appearanceor his behaviour that was out of the common, and all agreed that helooked very well.

  The manager, who accompanied Allerdyke in his round of these inquiries,glanced at him with a puzzled expression when they came to an end.

  "Of course, sir, if you would like the police to be summoned," hesuggested for the second time. "Perhaps--"

  "No--not yet!" answered Allerdyke. "I daresay they'll have to be calledin; indeed, I suppose it's absolutely necessary, because of the inquest,but I'll wait until I hear what these doctors have to say, and, besidesthat, I want to get some news from London. It's a queer businessaltogether, and if there has been any foul play, why"--he paused andlooked round at the people who were passing in and out of the hall, in acorner of which he and the manager were standing--"we can't hold up allthese folk and ask 'em if they know anything, you know," he added, with agrim smile.

  "That's the devil of it! If there has, as I say, been aughtwrong--murder, to put it plainly--why, the criminal or criminals mayalready be off or going off now, amongst these people, and I can'tstop them. In a few hours they may be where nobody can findthem--don't you see?"

  The manager did see, and shrugged his shoulders with a gesture ofhelplessness. Again he could only suggest expert help from thepolice--but this time he added to his suggestion the remark that heunderstood there was nothing for the police to take hold of--no clue, nosigns of foul play.

  "Not yet," agreed Allerdyke. "But--there may be. Well, I'm afraid thatregister is no good. It's meaningless. A list of names conveysnothing--except for future reference. For the present we must wait.But--in any way you can--keep your eyes open. There's one thing you cando--there was a lady in here last night who took Room 265 and left it atmidnight to go away in a motor-car which your night-porter got for her. Iparticularly want to see the chambermaid who attended that lady. Let mesee her privately--I've a question to ask her."

  "She shall be sent up to your sitting-room as soon as I've found her,"responded the manager. "This is the servants' breakfast-hour, but--"

  "Send her up there after nine o'clock," said Allerdyke. "In the meantimeI've another
inquiry to make elsewhere."

  He found Gaffney and sent him round to the garage from which Miss CeliaLennard had obtained her midnight car, with instructions to find thechauffeur who had driven her, and to get from him what information hecould as to her movements subsequent to the rencontre at Howden.

  "Don't excite his suspicions," said Allerdyke, "but pump him for any newshe can give you. I want to know what became of her."

  Gaffney speedily returned, fully informed of Miss Lennard's movements upto a certain point. The chauffeur had just got back, and was about toseek the bed from which he had been pulled at one o'clock in the morning.He had taken the lady to York--only to find that there was no trainthence to Edinburgh until after nine o'clock. So she had turned into theStation Hotel at York, to wait, and there he had left her.

  There was little of importance in this, but it seemed to indicate thatMiss Lennard was certainly about to travel North, and that her hurrieddeparture from the hotel was due to a genuine desire to reach herultimate destination as speedily as possible. While Allerdyke waswondering if it would be worth while to follow her up, merely because shehad been a fellow-passenger with his cousin, the manager came to him withanother telegram.

  "That lady we were talking about," he said, laying the telegram beforeAllerdyke, "has just sent me this. I thought you'd like to see it as youwere asking about her."

  Allerdyke saw that the message was addressed to the manager, and had beendispatched from York railway station three-quarters of a hour previously.

  "Please ask chambermaid to search for diamond shoe-buckle which I believeI lost in your hotel last night. If found send by registered post to MissLennard, 503_a_, Bedford Court Mansions, London."

  Allerdyke memorized that address while he secretly wondered whether heshould or should not tell the manager that the missing property was inhis possession. Finally he determined to keep silence for the moment, andhe handed back the message with an assumption of indifference.

  "I should think a thing of that sort will soon be found," he observed."Look here--never mind about sending that chambermaid to me just now;I'll see her later. I'm going to breakfast."

  He wondered as he sat in the coffee-room, eating and drinking, if any ofthe folk about him knew anything about the dead man whose body had beenquietly taken away by the doctors while the hotel routine went on in itsusual fashion. It seemed odd, strange, almost weird, to think that anyone of these people, eating fish or chops, chatting, reading theirpropped-up newspapers, might be in possession of some knowledge which hewould give a good deal to appropriate.

  Of one fact, however, he was certain--that diamond buckle belonged toMiss Celia Lennard, and she lived at an address in London which he had bythat time written down in his pocket-book. And now arose the big (and, inview of what had happened, the most important and serious) question--howhad Miss Celia Lennard's diamond buckle come to be in Room Number 263?That question had got to be answered, and he foresaw that he and MissLennard must very quickly meet again.

  But there were many matters to be dealt with first, and they began toarise and to demand attention at once. Before he had finished breakfastcame a wire from Mr. Franklin Fullaway, answering his own:--

  "Deeply grieved and astonished by your news. Am coming down at once, andshall arrive Hull two o'clock. In meantime keep strict guard on yourcousin's effects, especially on any sealed package. Most important thisshould be done."

  This message only added to the mass of mystery which had been thickeningever since the early hours of the morning. Strict guard on James'seffects--any sealed package--what did that mean? But a very littlereflection made Allerdyke come to the conclusion that all these vaguereferences and hints bore relation to the possible transaction mentionedin the various telegrams already exchanged between James Allerdyke andFranklin Fullaway, and that James had on him or in his possession when heleft Russia something which was certainly not discovered when Gaffneysearched the dead man.

  There was nothing to do but to wait: to wait for two things--the resultof the medical investigation, and the arrival of Mr. Franklin Fullaway.The second came first. At ten minutes past two a bustling,quick-mannered American strode into Marshall Allerdyke's privatesitting-room, and at the instant that the door was closed behind himasked a question which seemed to burst from every fibre of his being--

  "My dear sir! Are they safe?"