“No, I’m not in bed,” said Martineau. “Why? What’s up?”
19
It was Detective Constable Ducklin on the phone. “It’s a queer affair at the Royal Lancaster Hotel,” he said, with the unction of one who knows he is doing himself a bit of good. “On account of the connection with Don Starling and the Underdown job, I thought I’d better tell you about it.”
“You did right to tell me. Go on.”
“Well, it seems they keep a cellarman on duty till eleven o’clock. He signs off at the same time as the wine waiters. At half past ten a guest who was throwing a little party asked for some particular sort of wine; some sort of champagne. The waiter phoned the cellar, and got no reply. He thought the cellarman had dodged off home before his time, so he went looking for the wine himself. He found the cellarman trussed up. He’d been hit on the head. He doesn’t know who hit him, or what with. We can’t tell yet if there’s anything missing. The manager has sent for the head cellarman, the old Frenchman, whatsisname, François.”
“Very good,” said Martineau. “I’ll be with you as soon as I can. I want a car. At once.”
“I took the liberty of sending a car, sir,” said Ducklin, obviously taking great pleasure in his own forethought. “It should be there any minute.”
“Right,” said Martineau, and rang off. He was waiting at the gate when the car arrived.
When he walked into the Royal Lancaster Hotel he found Ducklin making much of what he called “the mystery.” The detective’s mystification was supported by François and the manager, a Swiss called Weiss, both of whom raised their hands, shoulders and eyebrows in complete lack of understanding.
“If it was Starling, looking for something, nobody knows how he got in, sir,” said Ducklin.
“He could walk into the lounge or the bar, couldn’t he?” Martineau queried. “There are several ways.”
“Without being seen, sir? He once worked here. The doormen and the porters know him. And so do the waiters and the barmen, and the pages and the reception staff. The storekeepers and kitchen hands know him even better. It’s reasonable to suppose he didn’t come in at any door, and all the cellar windows are still secure.”
“In a place like this there are bound to be ways of getting in. Anyway, we mustn’t assume it was Starling. It could have been somebody else. Where is the man who was attacked?”
“I had a few words with him and sent him off to the hospital. He got a pretty bad crack on the head. The person who hit him wasn’t worried about breaking his skull.”
“That sounds like our Don. It’s getting to be a habit with him. Didn’t the man see or hear anything?”
“Nothing, sir. He says he was working at a little desk they have down there. He must have been attacked from behind.”
“Obviously,” said Martineau. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“I had the hotel surrounded, sir,” said Ducklin helpfully. “There’s just a chance he might still be with us.”
“You’ve done very well,” the inspector conceded. He turned to the head cellarman: “Shall we take another look downstairs?”
“Certainly,” François replied. He led the way. Martineau, Ducklin and Weiss followed.
“We turned this place upside down two years ago,” the inspector commented as he looked around the wine cellar.
François smiled. “I remember thinking that you would impair the foundations,” he said.
“We found nothing, anyway. Are you sure there’s nothing missing now?”
“Without taking stock I cannot tell,” the old Frenchman admitted. “But I cannot see anything missing.”
They went on, into a portion of the cellar where there was no wine. He looked into a disused, ill-lit chamber which contained a few broken cases, some old dusty bottles, some empty kegs and three huge casks which loomed shadowy in the background.
“I’ve looked in there, sir,” said Ducklin.
“Of course,” said Martineau absently, staring around.
His gaze lingered on the casks. He remembered them from the previous search. They were immense, taller than a tall man, and of tremendous girth. Even when empty they were much too heavy for one man to handle. Francois had declared that they were two hundred years old: storage casks for rum of brandy. Nowadays, who ever had that much liquor to store?
Two of the casks were equal in size; the third one was slightly smaller. Its outline seemed to be proportionately narrower, too. Martineau stepped forward and peered, at the same time feeling in his pocket for his flashlight.
“What’s the matter with that end cask?” he asked.
“The smaller one?” Ducklin asked quickly. “There are a couple of staves missing.”
“What?” cried François, fairly leaping forward. “The old casks? Who has done that?”
All four men made their ways around kegs and cases to the big casks. Ducklin did a balancing act and nearly fell when he put his foot on an empty bottle, but he was there first. He hesitated only when he was quite close to the broken cask, and he made the final approach as if he expected Don Starling to be lurking inside. Reassured, he stood at the long opening and looked right into the cask.
“There’s nothing-” he began, and then an object glittering in reflected light made him draw back so quickly that he collided with François.
“There’s a one-eyed rat in there!” he exclaimed, and the tone of his voice indicated that he definitely did not like rats.
Martineau was there with his torch. “Let’s look,” he said. He stooped cautiously, exploring the cask with his light, for he also did not like rats.
There was no small rodent, but still the red eye glittered from the floor of the cask. Martineau squatted on his heels, and reached, and picked up a small ruby.
“So now we know,” he said, turning the stone in his fingers. “He’s got the stuff, and he’s on his way.”
“Weren’t these casks examined just after the Underdown job, sir?” Ducklin wanted to know.
“We looked on top,” the inspector said, “then we tilted ’em up and looked underneath. It’s obvious we didn’t tilt ’em enough, else we’d have heard the stuff sliding about.” He smiled wryly. “These casks are a bit too big to pick up and shake, you know.”
He reached up and tried to pull out the bung. It was firm. “Starling hammered it in after he dropped the stuff piece by piece through the bung-hole,” he said. “He didn’t even disturb the dust on top of the cask. Very crafty. Very crafty indeed.”
Ducklin picked up a stave and looked at it closely. “He used a jimmy, inch-and-a-quarter,” he announced. “Would he find it down here?”
François led the way back to the cellarmen’s desk. In the desk there was an inch-and-a-quarter case opener. But, he insisted, there should have been two.
Martineau nodded. “All right, we can assume that Starling now has a case opener.”
They went upstairs to the kitchen level. There, on a little landing, was the door giving access to the cellar steps, the big swing doors leading to the kitchen, the service stairs, and a service lift.
Martineau looked from the narrow service stairs to the cellar door. “Four strides,” he said. And the cellar door wasn’t locked. It’s a piece of cake.”
He stepped to the foot of the stairs and looked up. “They used much?” he asked.
“In emergencies,” the manager replied. “When the lift is out of order.”
“How far do they go?”
“Past every floor, right to the roof.”
“Evening, sir, evening, all,” said a newcomer. It was Devery. “I was passing. Saw the place surrounded. Thought I’d see if I could be of help.”
Martineau looked at his watch. “Have you been courting till this time? Well well, you’ll get no sleep now.”
Devery grinned. “I said I could do it, sir.”
Martineau’s own grin was slightly mischievous. “So you did,” he said. “You and Ducklin had better tackle those stairs, as far as the roof. Mr. Weiss and I will go up in the lift.”