The Charing Cross Mystery

by J. S. Fletcher

CHAPTER V

THE POLICE RETURN

Hetherwick now began to arrive at something like an understanding of a matter that had puzzled him ever since and also at the time of the conversation between Hannaford and his companion in the train. He had noted then that whatever it was that Hannaford was telling, he was telling it as a man tells a story against himself; there had been signs of amused chagrin and discomfiture in his manner. Now he saw why.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "She was one too many for him. Then?"

"A good many times too many!" laughed Hollis. "She did Hannaford completely. He strove hard to find her, and did a great deal of the spade-work himself. And at last he ran her down—in a fashionable hotel in London. He had a Scotland Yard man with him, and a detective from our own police-office here, a man named Gandham, who is still in the force—I'll introduce you to him to-morrow. Hannaford, finding that Mrs. Whittingham had a suite of rooms in this hotel—a big West End place—left his two men downstairs, or outside, and went up to see her alone. According to his own account, she was highly indignant at any suspicions being cast upon her, and still more so, rose to a pitch of most virtuous indignation when he told her that he'd got a warrant for her arrest and that she'd have to go with him. During a brief interchange of remarks she declared that if her bankers at Manchester had returned her cheque unpaid it must have been merely because they hadn't realised certain valuable securities which she'd sent to them, and that if Malladale had presented his cheque a few days later it would have been all right. Now, that was all bosh!—Hannaford, of course, had been in communication with the bankers; all they knew of the lady was that she had opened an account with them while staying at some hotel in Manchester, and that she had drawn all but a few pounds of her balance the very day on which she had got the necklace from Malladale and fled with it from Sellithwaite. Naturally, Hannaford didn't tell her this—he merely reiterated his demand that she should go with him. She assented at once, only stipulating that there should be no fuss—she would walk out of the hotel with him, and he and his satellites could come back and search her belongings at their leisure. Then Hannaford—who, between you and me, Hetherwick, had an eye for a pretty woman!—made his mistake. Her bedroom opened out of the sitting-room in which he'd had his interview with her; he was fool enough to let her go into it alone, to get ready to go with him. She went—and that was the very last Hannaford ever saw of her!"

"Made a lightning exit, eh?" remarked Hetherwick.

"She must have gone instantly," asserted Hollis. "A door opened from the bedroom into a corridor—she must have picked up hat and coat and walked straight away, leaving everything she had there. Anyway, when Hannaford, tired of waiting, knocked at the door and looked in, his bird was flown. Then, of course, there was a hue-and-cry, and a fine revelation. But she'd got clear away, probably by some side door or other exit, and although Hannaford, according to his own account, raked London with a comb for her, she was never found. Vanished!"

"And the necklace?" inquired Hetherwick.

"That had vanished too," replied Hollis. "They searched her trunks and things, but they found nothing but clothing. Whatever she had in the way of money and valuables she'd carried off. And so Hannaford came home, considerably down in the mouth, and he had to stand a good deal of chaff. And if he found this woman's picture in a recent paper—well, small wonder that he did cut it out! I should say he was probably going to set Scotland Yard on her track!—for, of course, there's no time-limit to criminal proceedings."