Charlie Chan - Charlie Chan Carries On Part 6

"Very much so. A harmless old gentleman. Sociably inclined, too, which made it a little hard for the rest of us. His deafness, you understand. However, I used to be a cheer leader at college, so I didn't mind."

"What do you think of Lofton?"

"He's a rather remote sort of person, an educated man - he knows his stuff. You should have heard his little talk on the Tower of London. He's worried and distrait most of the time. No wonder. With this outfit on his hands."

"And Honywood?" Duff lighted his pipe.

"Never saw him on the boat, until the last morning. I don't believe he ever left his cabin."

"He told me he got to know Mr. Drake quite well during the crossing."

"He was kidding you. I stood between them when we were drawing up to the pier at Southampton, and introduced them. I'm certain they'd never spoken to each other before."

"That's interesting," said Duff thoughtfully. "Did you take a good look at Honywood this morning?"

"I did," nodded Kennaway. "Like a man who'd seen a ghost, wasn't he? I was struck by it. Not well, I thought. But Lofton tells me these tours of his are very popular with the sick and the aged. I'm expecting to have a merry time of it."

"Miss Potter's a very charming girl," Duff suggested.

"So she is - and this is where she gets off. That would happen to me. It's the famous Kennaway luck."

"How about this fellow Minchin?"

The young man's face lighted. "Ah - the life of the party. Oozes money at every pore. He gave three champagne suppers on the way over. n.o.body came but the Benbows, Keane and myself - and old Mrs. Luce. She's a good sport - never misses anything, she tells me. That is, we all went to the first soiree. After that, it was just Keane, and some terrible pa.s.sengers Maxy picked up in the smoking-room."

"Party was too gay, eh?"

"Oh, not that. But after a good look at Maxy - well, even champagne can't atone for some hosts."

Duff laughed. "Thanks for the tip about Keane," he said, rising.

"Don't imagine it means anything," Kennaway answered. "Personally, I don't like to tell tales. But poor old Drake was so nice to everybody. Well - see you later, I imagine."

"You can't help yourself," Duff told him.

After a few words with the managing director of the hotel, the detective went out to the street. The little green car was waiting. As he was about to step into it, a cheery voice sounded behind him.

"Say, listen, Inspector. Just turn around and face me, will you?" Duff turned. Mr. Elmer Benbow was on the sidewalk, smiling broadly, his motion picture camera leveled and ready for action.

"Atta-boy," he cried. "Now, if you'll just take off the benny - the hat, you know - the light isn't so good -"

Cursing inwardly, Duff did as directed. The man from Akron held the machine before his eyes, and was turning a small crank.

"Let's have the little old smile - great - just for the folks back in Akron, you understand - now, move about a little - one hand on the door of the car - I guess this won't give them a kick back home - famous Scotland Yard inspector leaving Broome's Hotel in London, England, after investigating mysterious murder in round the world party - now, get into the car - that's the stuff - drive off - thanks!"

"a.s.s!" muttered Duff to his chauffeur. "Go around to Vine Street, please."

In a few moments they drew up before the police station that is hidden away in the heart of the West End, on a street so brief and unimportant it is unknown to most Londoners. Duff dismissed the car, and went inside. Hayley was in his room.

"Finished, old man?" he inquired.

Duff gave him a weary look. "I'll never be finished," he remarked. "Not with this case." He glanced at his watch. "It's getting on toward twelve. Will you come have a spot of lunch with me, old chap?"

Hayley was willing, and presently they were seated at a table in the Monico Grill. After they had ordered, Duff sat for some moments staring into s.p.a.ce.

"Cheerio!" said his friend at last.

"Cheerio, my hat!" Duff answered. "Was there ever a case like this before?"

"Why the gloom?" Hayley wanted to know. "A simple little matter of murder."

"The crime itself - yes, that's simple enough," Duff agreed. "And under ordinary conditions, no doubt eventually solved. But consider this, if you will." He took out his notebook. "I have here the names of some fifteen or more people, and among them is probably that of the man I want. So far, so good. But these people are traveling. Where? Around the world, if you please. All my neat list of suspects, in one compact party, and unless something unexpected happens at once, that party will be moving along. Paris, Naples, Port Said, Calcutta, Singapore - Lofton just told me all about it. Moving along, farther and farther away from the scene of the crime."

"But you can hold them here."

"Can I? I'm glad you think so. I don't. I can hold the murderer here, the moment I have sufficient evidence of his guilt. But I'll have to get that immediately, or there will be international complications - the American consulate - perhaps the Amba.s.sador himself - a summons for me from the Home Office. On what grounds do you hold these people? Where is your evidence that one of them committed the crime? I tell you, Hayley, there's no precedent for this situation. Such a thing has never happened before. And now that it's decided to happen at last, I'm the lucky lad it has happened to. Before I forget it, I must thank you for that."

Hayley laughed. "You were longing for another puzzle, last night," he said.

Duff shook his head. "The calm man is the happy man," he murmured, as his roast beef and bottle of stout were put before him.

"You got nothing from your examination of the party?" Hayley asked.

"Not a thing that's definite. Nothing that links any one of them with the crime, even remotely. A few faint suspicions yes. A few odd incidents. But nothing that I could hold anybody on - nothing that would convince the American Emba.s.sy - or even my own superintendent."

"There's an unholy lot of writing in that book of yours," commented the Vine Street man. "Why not run over the list you talked with? You might get a flash - who knows?"

Duff took up the notebook. "You were with me when I interviewed the first of them. Miss Pamela Potter, a pretty American girl, determined to find out who killed her grandfather. Our friend Doctor Lofton, who had a bit of a row with the old man last evening, and with whose strap the murder was committed. Mrs. Spicer, clever, quick, and not to be trapped by unexpected questions. Mr. Honywood -"

"Ah, yes, Honywood," put in Hayley. "From a look at his face, he's my choice."

"That's the stuff to give a jury!" replied Duff sarcastically. "He looked guilty. I think he did, myself, but what of it? Does that get me anywhere?"

"You talked with the others downstairs?"

"I did. I met the man in room 30 - a Mr. Patrick Tait." He told of Tait's heart attack at the door of the parlor. Hayley looked grave.

"What do you make of that?" he inquired.

"I suspect he was startled by something - or some one - he saw in that room. But he's a famous criminal lawyer on the other side - probably a past master of the art of cross-examination. Get something out of him that he doesn't want to tell, and you're a wonder. On the other hand, he may have nothing to tell. His attacks, he a.s.sured me, come with just that suddenness."

"None the less, like Honywood, he should be kept in mind."

"Yes, he should. And there is one other." He explained about Captain Ronald Keane. "Up to something last night - heaven knows what. A fox in trousers, if I ever met one. Sly - and a self-confessed liar."

"And the others?"

Duff shook his head. "Nothing there, so far. A nice young chap who is Tait's companion. A polo player with a scar - a Mr. Vivian. Seems somehow connected with Mrs. Irene Spicer. A lame man named Ross, in the lumber trade on the West Coast. A brother and sister named Fenwick the former a pompous little n.o.body who has been frightened to death, and seems determined to leave the tour."

"Oh, he does, does he?"

"Yes, but don't be deceived. It means nothing. He hasn't nerve enough to kill a rabbit. There are just four, Hayley - four to be watched. Honywood, Tait, Lofton and Keane."

"Then you didn't see the remaining members of the party?"

"Oh, yes I did. But they don't matter. A Mr. and Mrs. Benbow from a town called Akron - he runs a factory and is quite insane about a motion picture camera he carries with him. Going to look at his tour around the world when he gets home, and not before. But stop a bit - he told me Akron was near Canton, Ohio."

"Ah, yes - the address on the key?"

"Quite so. But he wasn't in this, I'm sure - he's not the type. Then there was a Mrs. Luce, an elderly woman who's been everywhere. An inevitable feature, I fancy, of all tours like Lofton's. And a pair from Chicago - quite terrible people, really - a Mr. and Mrs. Max Minchin -"

Hayley dropped his fork. "Minchin?" he repeated.

"Yes, that was the name. What about it?"

"Nothing, old chap, except that you have evidently overlooked a small item sent out from the Yard several days ago. This man Minchin, it seems, is one of Chicago's leading racketeers, who has recently been persuaded to interrupt - perhaps only temporarily - a charming career of violence and crime."

"That's interesting," nodded Duff.

"Yes, isn't it? In the course of his activities he has been forced to remove from this world, either personally or through his lieutenants, a number of business rivals - *to put them on the spot,' I believe the phrase goes. Recently, for some reason, he was moved to abdicate his throne and depart. The New York police suggested we keep a tender eye on him as he pa.s.ses through. There are certain friends of his over here who, it was felt, might attempt to pay off old scores. Maxy Minchin, one of Chicago's first citizens."

Duff was thinking deeply. "I shall have another chat with him after lunch," he said. "Poor old Drake's body wasn't riddled with machine-gun bullets - but then, I fancy the atmosphere of Broome's might have its chastening effect even on a Maxy Minchin. Yes - I shall have a chat with the lad directly."

Chapter VI.

TEN-FORTY-FIVE FROM VICTORIA.

When they had finished luncheon, Duff went with Hayley back to the Vine Street station. Together they unearthed a dusty and forgotten atlas of the world, and Duff turned at once to the map of the United States.

"Good lord," he exclaimed, "what a country! Too big for comfort, Hayley, if you ask me. Ah - I've found Chicago. Max Minchin's city. Now, where the deuce is Detroit?"

Hayley bent over his shoulder, and in a moment laid a finger on the Michigan city. "There you are," he remarked. "No distance at all, in a country the size of that. Well?"

Duff leaned back in his chair. "I wonder," he said slowly. "The two cities are close together, and that's a fact. Was there some connection between the Chicago gangster and the Detroit millionaire? Drake was an eminently respectable man - but you never can tell. Liquor, you know, Hayley - liquor comes over the border at Detroit. I learned that when I visited the States. And liquor has been, no doubt, at least a side-line with Mr. Minchin. Was there some feud - some ancient grudge? How could the pebbles figure in it? They may have been picked up from a lake sh.o.r.e. Oh, it all sounds devilish fantastic, I know - but in America, anything is possible. This angle will bear looking into, old chap."

With Hayley's encouragement, Duff set out for Broome's Hotel to look into it. Mr. Max Minchin sent down word that he would receive the inspector in his suite. The detective found the celebrated racketeer in s.h.i.+rt sleeves and slippers. His hair was rumpled, and he explained that he had been taking his afternoon siesta.

"Keeps me fresh - see what I mean?" he remarked. His manner was more friendly than it had been earlier in the day.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," Duff said. "But there are one or two matters -"

"I get you. The third degree for Maxy, hey?"

"Something which is not practiced over here," Duff told him.

"Yeah?" remarked Maxy, shrugging. "Well, if it ain't, that's another thing you got on us Americans. Oh, we think we're on the up and up in our country, but I guess we got a few things to learn. Well, what's the dope, Officer? Make it snappy. We was just talking about going to a pitcher."

"There was a murder in this hotel last night," the detective began.

Maxy smiled. "And who do you think I am? Some hick that just got in from Cicero? I know they was a murder."

"From information received, I believe that murder is one of your avocations, Mr. Minchin."

"Try that again."

"One of your pastimes, if I may put it that way."

"Oh, I get you. Well, maybe I have had to rub out a few guys now and then. But they had it coming, get me? And them things don't concern you. They happened in the good old U.S.A."

"I know that. But now that there has been a killing in your immediate vicinity, I am - er - forced to -"

"You gotta prowl around me a little, hey? Well, go ahead. But you're wasting your breath."

"Had you ever met Mr. Drake before you took this journey?"

"Now, I useta hear about him in Detroit - I went over there now and then. But I never had the pleasure of his acquaintance. I talked with him on the boat - a nice old guy. If you think I put that necktie on him, you're all wet."

"Kindest man in the world, Maxy is," his wife interposed. She was slowly unpacking a suitcase. "Maybe he has had to pa.s.s the word that put a few gorillas on the spot in his day, but they wasn't fit to live. He's out of the racket now, ain't you, Maxy?"

"Yeah - I'm out," her husband agreed. "Can you beat it, Officer? Here I am, retired from business, trying to get away from it all, just taking a pleasure trip like any other gentleman. And right off the bat a bird is b.u.mped off in my lap, you might say." He sighed. "It just seems a guy can't get away from business, no matter where he goes," he added gloomily.

"At what time did you retire last night?" Duff inquired.

"When did we go to bed? Well - we went to a show. Real actors, get me? But slow - boy, I couldn't keep awake. When I take a chance and go to a theater, I want action. This bunch was dead in their tracks. But we didn't have nothing else on, so we stuck it out. Come back here about eleven-thirty, and hit the hay at twelve. I don't know what happened in this hotel after that."

"Out of the racket, like he told you," added Sadie Minchin. "He got out for little Maxy's sake. That's our boy. He's at a military school, and doing fine. Just seemed to take naturally to guns."

Despite the fact that he was getting nowhere, Duff laughed. "I'm sorry to have troubled you," he said, rising. "But it's my duty to explore every path, you know."

"Sure," agreed Maxy affably. He stood up too. "You got your racket, just like I got mine - or did have. And say listen. If I can help you any way, just hoist the signal. I can work with the bulls, or against *em. This time I'm willing to work with *em, get me? There don't seem no sense to this kick-off, and I ain't for that sort of thing when it don't mean nothing. Yes, sir." He patted Duff's broad back. "You want a hand on this, you call on Maxy Minchin."

Duff said good-by, and went out into the corridor. He was not precisely thrilled over this offer of a.s.sistance from Mr. Minchin, but he reflected that indeed he seemed to need help from some quarter.

On the ground floor he encountered Doctor Lofton. With the conductor was a strikingly elegant young man, who carried a walking-stick and wore a gardenia in the b.u.t.tonhole of his perfectly fitting coat.

"Oh, Mr. Duff," Lofton greeted him. "Just the man we want to see. This is Mr. Gillow, an under-secretary at the American Emba.s.sy. He has called about last night's affair. Inspector Duff, of Scotland Yard."

Mr. Gillow was one of those youthful exquisites who are the pride of the emba.s.sies. They usually sleep all day, then change from pajamas to evening clothes and dance all night for their country. He gave Duff a haughty nod.

"When is the inquest, Inspector?" he inquired.