The Rayner-Slade AmalgamationFletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith)
General
The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation
Fletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith)
Detective and mystery stories
It was to a hastily called together gathering of high police officials
that the three visitors told all they knew. One after another they
related their various stories--Chettle of his doings and discoveries at
Hull, Allerdyke of what had gone on at the hotel, Appleyard of the
mysterious double identity of the woman who was Miss Slade in one place
and Mrs. Marlow in another. The officials listened quietly and
absorbedly, rarely interrupting the narrators except to ask a searching
question. And in the end they talked together apart, after which all went
away except the man who had kept his hands on the reins from the
beginning. He turned to his visitors with an air of decision.
"Well, of course, there's but one thing to be done, now," he said. "We
must get a warrant for this woman's arrest at once. We must also get a
search warrant and examine her belongings at that private hotel you've
told us of, Mr. Appleyard. All that shall be done immediately. But first
I want you to tell me one or two things. What are those two men you spoke
of doing--the Gaffneys?"
"One of them, the chauffeur, is hanging about the Pompadour," replied
Appleyard. "The other--Albert--has gone down to Cannon Street to see if
he can trace the driver of the taxi-cab in which Rayner and Miss Slade
drove away from there last night."
"He'll do no harm in trying to find that out," observed the chief. "But
I should like to see him--I want to ask some questions about the man who
joined those two after dinner at Cannon Street last night, and the other
man whom he saw them take up near Liverpool Street Station. Will he keep
himself in touch with your warehouse in Gresham Street?"
"Sure to," answered Appleyard.
"Then just telephone to your people there, and tell them to tell him, if
he comes in asking for you, to come along and seek you here," said the
chief. "I'm afraid I can't spare either you or Mr. Allerdyke, for your
joint information'll be wanted presently for these warrants, and when
we've got them I want you to go with me--both of you--to the Pompadour."
"You're going to search?" asked Allerdyke when Appleyard had gone to the
telephone. "You think you may find something--there?"
"There's enough evidence to justify a search," answered the chief.
"Naturally we want to know all we can. But I should say that if she's
mixed up with a gang, and if they've got those jewels through her--as
seems uncommonly likely--she'll have been ready for a start at any
minute, and the probability is we'll find nothing to help us. The great
thing, of course, will be to get hold of the woman herself. It's a most
unfortunate thing that Albert Gaffney was stopped from following that
cab, last night--I've no opinion, Mr. Allerdyke, of your amateur
detective as a rule, but from Mr. Appleyard's account of him, this one
seems to have done very well. If we only knew where those two went--"
Appleyard presently came back from the telephone with a face alive with
fresh news.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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