Chapter VIII.
At No. 407, Praed Street
Although the unexplained murders which had taken place in Praed Street were soon forgotten by the general public, their shadow hung heavily over the neighbourhood in which they had been committed. The fact that the three deaths had taken place within comparatively few hundred yards of one another could not fail to have its effect upon the local imagination. A very noticeable change came over the usual cheerful and careless life of Praed Street. The evening pavements were no longer blocked by a strolling, noisy crowd. Women and children were rarely to be seen abroad after dark. Even men, traversing the street upon their lawful occasions, had a way of keeping close to the inner side of the pavements, and crossing the road upon the approach of any unfamiliar form.
Christmas passed in this atmosphere of intangible fear; the old year died and the new year came in with a welcome spell of clear and frosty weather. But, in spite of the fact that no further tragedies occurred, the shadow still lay heavily upon the district. Ludgrove, listening to the whispered and entangled stories of his clients, became more and more certain that, even in the hidden depths of the underworld, there was no knowledge of the agency by which the crimes had been committed.
Had such knowledge existed, it must inevitably have been divulged to him. The police, under the direction of Inspector Whyland, were engaged in passing a fine-toothed comb through the Paddington district, and the minor offenders disturbed in this process were as concerned as a colony of ants unearthed by a spade. Mr. Ludgrove was visited furtively late at night by anxious people seeking advice how to conceal the evidence of their misdemeanours from the prying eyes of the police. He questioned each of these closely, but the more he did so the more he became convinced that none of them had the slightest inkling of the perpetrator of the murders.
Another section of his clients, however, equally furtive and mysterious, had clues in plenty, which they seemed to think entitled them to some reward. These, after assuring themselves that no one could overhear them, would produce an incoherent story of how one of their neighbours must be the criminal. He had been heard to utter threats that he would do some one in some day, he had been in Praed Street on the night when Mr. Tovey was murdered, in the neighbourhood of Paddington station when Mr. Pargent was killed. Others, again, had met a muffled figure brandishing a knife, or had seen a dark man with a beard standing in the shadow thrown by a projecting wall. Two or three searching questions were always sufficient to prove that their suspicions were baseless.
The murders in Praed Street were thus peculiar in the annals of crime. In nearly every case of a crime being committed, there are others besides the criminal who know all the facts. The police know this, but their great difficulty is to secure evidence sufficiently convincing to lead to a conviction. There is a certain esprit de corps in the constant strife between the professional criminal and the police, and those who know are careful to keep their knowledge to themselves. But in this case, had there been any of the inhabitants of the district in the secret, Mr. Ludgrove would have obtained some hint of it. It seemed conclusive that the criminal was either working alone and independently, or came from some other district.
This was the state of affairs towards the end of January. The police were completely baffled; Inspector Whyland, although he still favoured the theory he had evolved in the picture-house, had failed to find any evidence upon which he could act. He hardly knew whether to attribute Mr. Copperdock’s story of his meeting with the black sailor to pure hallucination, or to an attempt to divert suspicion from himself. In either case, it could be made to fit in with the theory that he had murdered Richard Pargent under the influence of what the psychologists called an imitative complex. Whyland redoubled his activities, and a most accurate watch was kept upon Mr. Copperdock’s movements. A month had elapsed since the murder of Richard Pargent when Mr. Jacob Martin, the prosperous wine merchant of the Barbican, opening his morning post in his comfortable office, came upon a typewritten envelope, marked “Private and Confidential.” He ripped it open with the paper cutter which lay upon his desk, and unfolded the letter it contained. It also was typewritten, on plain paper. Only the signature “John Lacey” was in ink.
Mr. Martin, a portly, grey-haired man of between fifty and sixty, read the letter through twice, with a gathering frown upon his face. He had prospered exceedingly since the day when he had first set up in business for himself as a wine merchant, so much so that his competitors wondered at his success. There had, from time to time been rumours, quickly suppressed, to the effect that Mr. Martin had other means of livelihood than his ostensible business. But Mr. Martin was a remarkably astute man, and had hitherto managed to avoid undue inquisitiveness.
And now, like a bolt from the blue, came this extraordinary letter. Confound John Lacey, and his prying habits, whoever he might be. That little cellar under the back office! How well he remembered it. It had been the scene of many most profitable transactions, had harboured treasures for which the police of two continents had searched in vain. For Mr. Martin was a receiver of stolen goods, not a mere general practitioner of the art, but a specialist whose services were utilized only by the aristocracy of thieves, and whose particular function was turning into cash only the most valuable jewellery.
With an exclamation of annoyance Mr. Martin turned once more to the letter. “Dear Sir, I venture to address you upon a subject which will no doubt interest you,” it ran. “I have recently acquired a lease of the premises No. 407, Praed Street, which I understand, were in your occupation up till some fifteen years ago. Since you vacated them, these premises have been occupied by a clothier, who did not require the extensive cellarage, which was boarded up. In the course of certain alterations which I am having made to the premises, the entrance to the cellars has once again been opened. In the course of my investigations I have made a most interesting discovery in the small cellar beneath the back office.