“Dear Commissioner,
I’m taking a leaf out of the book of a man I’ve a great admiration for—the man who killed Sir John Smethrust. After he got clear he wrote to Scotland Yard and explained how he’d done it—said he liked to tidy things up. So do I. By the time you get this—it will be posted ten days from now—Miriam and I will be absolutely clear—not only across the water but across half a continent—start looking for us if you like. If you find us you’re smarter than I give you credit for—but you won’t take us alive—and one or two of you’ll get hurt.
There are a few details I’d like to make clear. I take it, as a basis, that you know how the killing was done and the alibis arranged—your Mr. Poole seemed fairly sharp on that, though I don’t quite know how he turned up at Ald House when he did on Tuesday night.”
(“By the way, Mr. Fratten, I was following you. Fallows rang up that you slipped him and we traced you there. I was looking for Mrs. Wraile’s way out too—after finding that her husband had left his club by a back window I guessed that they’d repeated the trick at Ald House.”)
“After Poole disturbed us, we cut down the escape. Poor Lessingham didn’t know the rail was missing at one turn—he went over—quite accidentally, I needn’t assure, Mr. Commissioner. We slipped your not very vigorous watch-dogs, got a taxi, and so—by stages that I won’t mention—to the beginning of our long journey.
Now about earlier times. Lessingham—Hessel—struck on me when I was on my beam ends, like many other soldiers. He was on them too—psychologically, and for a different reason. He had had a devilish time in the war—‘German Jew’ and all the rest of it. His one idea was to get his own back—he was quite unscrupulous—and unreasonable as to how he did it and who he did it to, though he probably wouldn’t have picked on his own friend, Fratten, if Fratten hadn’t stumbled across our path—might have, though—complexes are funny things.
You’ve got to the bottom of the Rotunda game by now—I needn’t bother you with that. By the way, my poor old General was quite innocent of what was happening—as he has been all his life—don’t run him in. Resston, too, of course. Lessingham’s official letters were sent by the clerks to the Hotel Antwerp and by them to Mme. Pintole, who destroyed them. But another set, and anything of importance, was sent privately by Miriam to his own home address—as Hessel. In that way he was kept absolutely up to date all the time though he only came near us about once a month. In the same way, he wrote to her or to me. It all went swimmingly till Fratten blew in.
The idea of how to kill him was Hessel’s—I wish I could claim the credit for it. On the very day that Fratten told him about having been invited to join our Board he also told him about having a thorasic aneurism. By the merest chance, Hessel knew what a thorasic aneurism was—and where it was—he’d had a relation or someone with it. What’s more, just after he heard about it, Fratten was nearly run over by a motor and the shock nearly did him in—that gave Hessel the idea. The affair on the Steps of course, we staged to distract attention from the actual attack. It would probably be put down to an accident and it was a million to one against my being traced. I don’t know now how you got on to it. After the ‘accident’ I made for the car and Hessel led Fratten exactly where we wanted him, waving a bright cigar end to mark his course. The shooting was easy, but the damn slug caught somewhere and the cord broke. I went back to look for it but couldn’t find it—perhaps you did.
My own disguise for the part, of course, was very slight—moustache darkened with grease stick—easily wiped off—and a clerk’s voice. My overcoat and hat I’d hung on the visitors’ peg in the passage outside the small library—the coat was a shabby one, so I’d walked in with it over my arm. My appointment with Lukescu was made officially by my office for 6.30—no doubt you checked that—but I telephoned to him privately not to come till 7. Of course the times were very carefully worked out and Hessel neatly steered Fratten into them.
Just two small points to interest the good Inspector. When he and Miss Fratten sleuthed us on the Underground that evening and we slipped out at Charing Cross Station, we took the only taxi on the rank—pure luck that—we’d had no time to plan—and then slipped down into the tube at Piccadilly Circus. When he came to interview Blagge and ‘Miss Saverel’ at the Conservative office, she sent a note to me from under his very nose, telling me he was there and asking me to cut her out. I did.
Anything more you want to know, you must ask—but you’ll probably be blue in the face before you get an answer.
Adieu, cher Commissionaire,
James Wraile.
P. S. I dedicate the identical cross-bow—it’s killed Boches as well as bankers—to the Black Museum—you’ll find it in the cloak-room at King’s Cross.”
“That’s the letter, Miss Fratten.”
“Well I’m dashed, he’s got a nerve,” said Ryland.
“So they’ve slipped you after all, Mr. Poole,” said Inez—her voice poised half-way between relief and disappointment.
Poole shook his head.
“Four days ago,” he said, “a bus conductor recovered from an attack of influenza—and saw our appeal. He came to me and told me that the Wrailes had boarded his bus in Leadenhall Street and got off at King’s Cross. He probably wouldn’t have noticed where they got off if they’d got off in the crowd at the King’s Cross stop—but (as I found on pressing him) they got off one street short of it, by pulling the cord—and he noticed them. They took that turn to the left—they didn’t go to King’s Cross or St. Pancras.
“I searched the neighbourhood and found a garage from which they took their other car. They were already slightly disguised—in their walk from the bus to the garage—evidently they always carried small sticks of make-up in case a bolt was necessary. They had bought that car months ago and kept it in that garage—for the bolt and for one other purpose. That evening they drove quietly out of London, stopping somewhere to change their appearance properly—no doubt a make-up box was part of the car’s equipment. They drove through the night—no one was looking out for a Morris saloon with a middle-aged couple in it—down to their cottage in North Wales—near Ruthin. From there, of course, it was a simple matter to run up to Liverpool—yesterday—and post that letter. They’d taken that cottage last spring and been there for very occasional week-ends—as the middle-aged Mr. and Mrs. Waterford—in that Morris car. [‘That’s the car she drove me in,’ thought Ryland.] Nobody had paid any attention to them—nobody does now—except the police. The last link in the story that I’ve been telling you was completed by us this morning; their place will be surrounded as soon as it’s dark—it is already. I’m going down now to take them.”
Poole rose to his feet.