"I see. Now, I've put Cathercott on to his flat, but drugs aren't my line, and I'd be grateful for a tip or two. Would he be likely to keep the stuff there?"
"He'd probably keep it there, any time he had some to dispose of- though I once met a fellow that used to dump it in a safe-deposit. That's how I caught him: seemed an unnatural sort of thing for a chap to be going two and three times a week to his safe-deposit."
"Could he hide it in a small flat, so as his man wouldn't find it?"
"Easy. If he's been selling it to people like this Lady Nest of yours, it's white drugs he's handling - probably snow, might be heroin, might even be morphia, but that's unlikely. You don't want to go looking for a consignment of hemp, you know. The stuff's worth a blooming sight more than its weight in gold, and the amount he'd have on the premises he could hide pretty well anywhere. Take any cigarettes you find - but Cathercott knows the ropes! Probably handed it over to his customers in neat little packets of powder, anyway. One of the cleverest rogues I ever arrested used to paste chemist's labels on his packets, with Boric Acid written on 'em, and the ends sealed up with red sealing-wax. Life-like, they were."
"That 'ud be more in this bloke's line than handing out boxes of cigarettes," said Hemingway shrewdly. "If that was his trade, it's my belief he'd have done his handing over at all those parties he used to go to. There were no flies on him, and, unless I find he's got a secret deposit for his papers, he's been careful to destroy every last bit of written evidence. I wouldn't be surprised if that was your fault, Super. You went and frightened the poor fellow, and a nice mess that leaves me with!"
"Well," said Mr. Darliston, reaching out his hand for the beer jug, "I don't blame you for wanting to pinch the man that murdered him, Stanley, because that's your job; but I've seen something of the horrors him and vermin like him batten on, and what I say is that whoever did him in did a good job, and ought properly to be given a medal. In fact," he added, refilling the Chief Inspector's glass, "it's those bastards which make me believe in hell! If I didn't think they were roasting down there, I wouldn't be able to sleep o' nights!"
Chapter Twelve
The Chief Inspector, reaching London again shortly after nine o'clock, betook himself to Scotland Yard, and found Inspector Grant awaiting him patiently in his office. He was seated at the desk, studying a dossier, but he rose when his chief came in, and closed the file. "I thought maybe you would be looking in," he remarked.
"I will say this for you, Sandy: you're a conscientious bloke!" said Hemingway, hanging up his hat and overcoat. "Got anything for me?"
"Verra little, I am afraid. Cathercott was on the telephone a while back. He was wanting to know if you would have him continue searching, or if it was a mare's nest he was looking for. They found a safe, hidden in a verra unusual place, and it cost them a deal of trouble to open it. There was two or three hundred pounds in banknotes in it, and some bonds, and never a sniff of snow, nor a speck to show there had ever been any there. Och, the truaghan! What with the toothache he has had all day, and the pains he took to get the safe open; and then nothing to reward him, it's a fine temper he is in! There was a secret drawer in the desk, too, which Sergeant Cringleford found, and bare as the palm of your hand when they got that open!"