The Yellow Face

by Fred M. White

"Evidently a new development of the case," Jack said, glancing once more at his friend. "As a matter of fact, inspector, I have just been telling Mr. Rigby all about last night's ghastly business. By the way, you will recollect, of course, that Mr. Rigby is my friend whom we met at Mr. Carrington's last night. Not to make too long a story of it, there are sidelights of this business of which you are not at present aware--but all that is beside the point. What I want you to tell me is about this disappearance of the body of Nostalgo. Seriously, do you want my friend and me to believe that the body of a dead man has disappeared from Shannon Street police station right under the eyes of the authorities?"

"Well, that is about the size of it," Bates admitted ruefully. "Naturally enough, we look forward to important developments at the official inquiry. I had a chat late last night with the doctor, who seemed to be of the opinion that the dead man had been shot with something quite new in the way of a weapon."

"What, do you mean a new projectile or a new sort of small arm?" Masefield asked.

"Well, not exactly that," the inspector replied; "but something quite new in the way of a missile. There were marks on the breast of our unfortunate friend which indicated the presence of a shot of some kind that did mortal damage without leaving traces of anything material behind."

"Oh, that is all very well, so far as it goes; but what I want to get at chiefly is the cause of the disappearance of the body," Rigby put in impatiently. "What is the good of trying to establish all sorts of new theories when you have not so much as a dead body of the deceased man before you? It seems incredible to me that this outrage could have been committed in a police station. Was no one about--was the whole place deserted, whereby some stranger could have coolly stepped in and walked off with the body of a powerful man?"

"Well, that is not so difficult as it might seem," Bates said eagerly. "As a matter of fact, our mortuary is merely an outside room which at one time had been used as a kitchen. Mr. Masefield will recollect last night noticing that the light of the room consisted entirely of a kind of skylight. The ceiling is exceedingly low, so that it would be quite possible for a tall man to lift the body through and carry it away without the least trouble, provided, of course, that he had sufficient strength. At any rate, there it is, and we have to make the best of it."

"I hope that you have managed to keep this matter from the public so far," Masefield said. "I don't think anything will be gained by allowing this new sensation to get into the papers. The best thing we can do is to come round to Shannon Street with you and see if we can lay our hands upon anything in the way of a clue. My friend Mr. Rigby has had a lot of experience in amateur detective work; I dare say you recollect his success in the matter of the Mortlake coiners, on behalf of the Planet."

Bates expressed his willingness to fall in with this arrangement. Not that he had any particular confidence in amateur detectives generally; but he was so bewildered and disheartened at present that anything was preferable to his own painful thoughts. The police station was reached at length, and a thorough search of the shabby little apartment at the back of the office made. But no amount of investigation served to throw any light on this new phase of the mystery. It was even as Bates had said: with the darkness of the night, and expecting no developments of this kind, a bold and unscrupulous character might easily have entered the room and taken away anything, however bulky, without much chance of detection.

Nothing daunted by the want of success attending his efforts, Rigby climbed on to the roof and looked around him. He was particularly struck by the deserted area at the back of the police station. It was some distance from his coign of vantage to the nearest house. No doubt at one time the open space had consisted of fertile gardens, but the same space was now given over to arid grass and a few stunted trees--a scene of desolation indeed. On the opposite side, some two hundred yards away, the backs of a terrace of large houses looked blankly on the scene. Rigby, with a new idea entirely in his mind, inquired the name of the terrace. Bates smiled with the superior air of the professional, and replied that it was Montrose Place.

"And what class of people live there?" Rigby asked.