“Put him in No. 14,” said the inspector. Then Vinnis woke up, and the six men on duty in the charge room found their time fully occupied.
Vinnis was arrested, as Angel Esquire put it, “in the ordinary way of business.” Hundreds of little things happen daily at Scotland Yard in the ordinary way of business which, apparently unconnected one with the other, have an extraordinary knack of being in some remote fashion related. A burglary at Clapham was remarkable for the fact that a cumbersome mechanical toy was carried away in addition to other booty. A street accident in the Kingsland Road led to the arrest of a drunken carman. In the excitement of the moment a sneak-thief purloined a parcel from the van, was chased and captured. A weeping wife at the police station gave him a good character as husband and father. “Only last week he brought my boy a fine performin’ donkey.” An alert detective went home with her, recognized the mechanical toy from the description, and laid by the heels the notorious “Kingsland Road Lot.”
The arrest of Vinnis was totally unconnected with Angel’s investigations into the mystery of Reale’s millions. He knew him as a “Borough man,” but did not associate him with the search for the word.
None the less, there are certain formalities attached to the arrest of all bad criminals. Angel Esquire placed one or two minor matters in the hands of subordinates, and in two days one of these waited upon him in his office.
“The notes, sir,” said the man, “were issued to Mr. Spedding on his private account last Monday morning. Mr. Spedding is a lawyer, of the firm of Spedding, Mortimer and Larach.”
“Have you seen Mr. Spedding?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Spedding remembers drawing the money and paying it away to a gentleman who was sailing to America.”
“A client?”
“So far as I can gather,” said the subordinate, “the money was paid on behalf of a client for services. Mr. Spedding would not particularize.”