The Rogues’ Syndicate: The Maelstrom. Frank Froest

I don’t know that I’m far wrong. She wouldn’t be too quick. So she talked, did she? What did she say?’

      The young man was not to be caught off his guard a second time.

      ‘It will all be stale to you. She repeated what she said she had already told you.’

      ‘All the same there may be something new,’ persisted the detective. ‘Let’s have it.’

      ‘If you like to let me have a look at her statement, I’ll tell you if there’s anything fresh I can add,’ parried Jimmie.

      Menzies raised his eyebrows.

      ‘I think I see,’ he said. ‘I’d consider this a lot, if I were you. Why, man, can’t you see she’s playing with you? Confidence for confidence is an old trick. She has known you a matter of hours, and here she is pitching a tale to you as though you were an intimate friend. I trust you—you trust me! That’s what it comes to. Now, why not play our game instead of hers? If she’s innocent you won’t hurt her, but if she’s got her pretty fingers in the tar—’

      Hallett became conscious of a smouldering rage at the innuendo of the comfortable, ruddy-faced detective. He did not realise that he was being deliberately provoked for a purpose. Menzies wanted to discover without doubt his attitude towards the girl.

      ‘Cut it out,’ he advised curtly. And then more quietly: ‘I think you entirely misjudge the lady. If I’ve only known her for a few hours, I guess I’m a better judge of her type than you.’

      ‘Bearings a bit hot, eh?’ smiled Menzies. ‘It’s no good getting angry with me. I’m clumsy, but I mean well. I hate to see a man stepping into trouble. And you’ll find trouble on your hands pretty soon, believe me. If I were you, I think I’d carry a life preserver or advertise that you didn’t see the man who killed Greye-Stratton.’

      Hallett had taken a quick turn or two about the room, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. He came to a sudden halt.

      ‘What do you mean by that?’

      Weir Menzies had a well-worn briar pipe in one hand and tobacco-pouch in the other. He methodically filled the pipe before answering.

      ‘Only from what I have gathered the lady’s in with a tough mob. I’ll know more about ’em by tomorrow, but I don’t want you laid out before I’ve picked up all the ends. I’ve warned you. You must do as you like. Only don’t go believing she’s a little blue-eyed saint, that’s all.’

      Jimmie’s temper, held in till now, continued to rise. Whether it was the implication that he was being made Miss Greye-Stratton’s catspaw, or whether it was the suggestion that the radiant girl was the willing accomplice of a gang of criminals, he did not stop to analyse. He was angry with Menzies because he did not know by intuition what was plain to him—that if she were acting a part it was for the sake of someone else. He regretted now that he was bound not to divulge anything she had told him.

      ‘I guess you’re a fool, Menzies!’ he sneered. You’re making a mistake this time.’

      Menzies took the handle of the door.

      ‘You think so, do you? Well, we’ll let it go at that.’ He swung the door open. ‘I suppose the lady told you she was—married?’

      He spoke casually, as though by an after-thought, but he was quick to observe the change that passed over Jimmie’s face.

      ‘That’s a lie!’ he blurted out. ‘You’ve got something at the back of your head.’

      The detective swung the door to again, and took something from his pocket.

      ‘Look at that!’ he said; and smoothed a sheet of paper before Hallett’s eyes.

      Jimmie read it over twice, unable at first to completely grasp its significance. It was an attested copy of a marriage certificate between Peggy Greye-Stratton and Stewart Reader Ling.

      ‘She didn’t tell you about this?’ went on the detective, levelly. ‘That may alter your idea that she intends to play straight with you.’

      Jimmie was struggling with a tangle of thoughts.

      ‘Who is Ling?’ he demanded.

      ‘A crook of the crookedest. He ran a wholesale factory for forged currency notes in the United States ten years ago. That was broken up, and he did five years in Sing Sing. He has been at the back of a lottery swindle since he came out, and Lord knows what else. We’d lost sight of him till I happened to get hold of this copy. That’s the kind of man who’s the husband of Miss Greye-Stratton.’

      ‘How did you find out?’

      Menzies puffed reflectively. He had no intention of completely exposing his hand. He was certain that Peggy Greye-Stratton was the woman who had given Hallett the cheques, and that the latter had deliberately refrained from identifying her. Moreover, he was also convinced that she had told the young man something at lunch, though whether she was, as he affected to believe, using him as a tool, he was not in his own mind certain. The more he considered, the more he felt that she held the key to the mystery, if only she could be induced to speak. With him—with any official of police—she would be on her guard. Hallett, if he could be persuaded, was the one man who might win her confidence without exciting suspicion. So long as his sympathies remained with her, he was unlikely to be persauded. Therefore, if possible, his sympathies had to be alienated.

      ‘Just common sense,’ growled Menzies—‘ordinary common sense. I learned that she had a wedding ring—though she didn’t wear it. Sent up to Somerset House to inspect the registry of marriages, and got this half an hour ago.’ He laid a hand gently on the the young man’s shoulder. ‘Better do as I advise. Anyway, take care of yourself.’

      He did not wait for an answer, but moved softly out of the room. He was wise enough to know when to stop. To say more might be to spoil things. Hallett might safely be left to his own reflections.

      Hallett was a man whose brain, as a rule, worked very clearly. But now he was confused, and he strove vainly to reconcile reason with inclination. It seemed ages since the episode of the fog—years since he had looked into the pale, oval face of Peggy Greye-Stratton at lunch. Despite the convincing proof of the marriage certificate, he could not think of her as a married woman. Anyway, he told himself, if Menzies was right in that, it did not follow that all his inferences were right. He had left the ring of honesty in the story she had told him. And yet the idea of the detective was plausible enough. He could see where things dove-tailed. If she were deceiving him, she had been acute enough to tell him a series of half-truths. If she were a willing accomplice, as Menzies supposed, there was reason enough why she should mislead him. He had met female adventuresses before—pretty, cultivated women, some of them—but he had not been impressed by them as he had been by her. But then the circumstances were different.