“The story of a major robbery told in masquerade,” said Gregson softly. “Then the receiver of the gold was not Mair Loftus, was he, Mr Holmes? He was our man James Mordaunt!”
To look at Maria Jessel just then was once again to know the answer.
Before Holmes could reply, there was a knock at the door. A uniformed constable entered and presented a blue police telegram to Tobias Gregson. The inspector read it and then looked across the table at the police matron.
“Remove the prisoner!”
When Maria Jessel rose, it was obvious that she was shaking. She lost her footing as she crossed to the door but the matron’s arm steadied her.
Gregson handed the form to Holmes. For my benefit, the inspector explained.
“When we arrived here, Dr Watson, I wired a request to the Royal Mail inspectors. Any communication sent to Major Mordaunt of Eaton Place to be delivered but its contents to be reported to me. After what she heard at the séance, I rather expected Miss Jessel would slip a message to her friend. She might care nothing for him, but his danger was just as much hers. This was despatched by telephone from Sambourne Avenue shortly before we detained her. To Major Mordaunt. ’The Fifth Stone is known. Cross at once. I will follow. Watch for me on the other side.’”
Holmes beamed at him.
“Cross at once, indeed!” Gregson said with satisfaction, “Watch for me on the other side! I shall wire every police-post at every cross-channel port. He fancies himself safe on the Continent, does Major Mordaunt. But not a man shall leave for France nor the Hook of Holland tonight without giving an account of himself. I fancy we shall have him, Mr Holmes!”
Holmes stared at him.
“Well done, Gregson! You are ahead of the game this time and no mistake. I prophesy there will be no stopping you!”
Even Gregson caught the irony in this. He looked as if he did not quite know how to reply.
“Of course, you do not know what your man looks like by now,” Holmes continued cheerfully, “but do not let that discourage you. Suppose him to be thick set with mutton-chop whiskers and piercing eyes, or something of that kind. You will have him the minute he tries to book his passage.”
Before I could intervene, there came a second knock at the door. It was the young uniformed constable again, looking far more flustered than before and short of breath.
“Telephone call to your office, Mr Gregson. Compliments of duty inspector, Belgravia. A gunshot was fired in Eaton Place five minutes ago. No report of injuries but no further information. A service revolver by the sound of it.”
10
Before Tom Rathbone returned the picnic hamper and its contents to Baker Street, Holmes had rescued his long grey travelling cloak and close-fitting cloth cap. The effect of these was to make him look taller and leaner than ever. We were now both dressed for the occasion as the footsteps of the CID officers clattered ahead of us like a troop of cavalry down the stone steps which led to the transport bay of Scotland Yard. For the benefit of Gregson, Holmes called out,
“You have the instinct of a marksman, Mr Gregson.”
“We don’t carry guns on duty, Mr Holmes. You know that.”
“You miss the point, my dear fellow. After Miss Jessel’s warning to him, we may take it that you now have Major Mordaunt as a target on the wing.”
“Or with a bullet through his brain,” I suggested, too quietly for the inspector to hear.
Gregson glanced over his shoulder. Here was my chance.
“Twenty years ago, Gregson, our man fought in a successful guerrilla war across Afghanistan, under Major-General Sir Frederick Roberts, as he was then. So did I. His regiment, the Queen’s Rifles, scouted over the most hostile terrain you can imagine. Leaving a dark house, hidden by shrubbery, on a moonless night would be child’s play.”
“Take no notice of Watson, inspector, you will have your man!”
Gregson withdrew into a suspicious silence, no doubt brooding over the interruption of his questions to Miss Jessel. We followed him to the Embankment Gate of Great Scotland Yard. The quarters of half-past ten droned through the air from Parliament and a light rain began to fall. The inspector hoisted his bulk into the black cab that had brought Maria Jessel from Kensington. It bore us past Westminster Abbey in the lamplight and into the dim reaches of Victoria Street, its shops and offices unlit. A scent of oranges and peaches from the greengrocers’ stalls of the South Coast Railway hung in the mild rainy air at Victoria Station.
Mordaunt had caught himself in a trap of his own making! Quint and Miss Jessel had certainly earned the reputation that Mrs Grose gave them. What the good housekeeper did not know was that with every arrival of Mordaunt at Bly, the young woman must slip from the embrace of a menial into the arms of her master. The vicious passion of Quint and the arrogance of Mordaunt were well matched. For a master to seduce a governess was a cliché of fiction. For the young woman to be the mistress of a valet at the same time—carrying that valet’s child!—foreshadowed catastrophe for all concerned.
Twice in my professional career I had encountered a man and woman drawn together by such animal attraction and held together by a crime. Yoked together in fear, passion grown cold, there was as much love then as between two ferrets confined in a sack. Mordaunt and Miss Jessel had nothing to hold them but a memory of Quint and a sick fear of the noose. The master hardly dared let the young woman out of his sight. He was secure only through Charles Alfred, held as an innocent ransom in the cruel confinement of William Shaw’s baby farm at Greta Bridge.
The conclusion was plain as a proof in geometry. There could now be no safety for either party except through the death of the other. But how might that be accomplished?
We crossed Buckingham Palace Road and came to the cream fronts and garden shrubberies of Eaton Place.
These villas and mansions seemed quiet enough, but I made out half a dozen helmeted figures among the bushes. Those who had been on observation earlier had no doubt dived for cover as soon as they heard the gunshot. There was still confusion. Several uniformed men were arguing as to whether there had been one shot or two—or possibly even three. A stationary cab on the adjoining side of the square contained two or three plain-clothes officers, no doubt issued with police pistols.
The disturbance had drawn residents and passers-by to their vantage points. On the next street corner a knot of sightseers had gathered from the saloon bar of the Royal Clarence Hotel. Several wore the brown-and-white-check overcoats of rat-catchers or racing tipsters.
Within its shrubbery, Mordaunt’s villa was immediately opposite us. Heavy curtains had been drawn across the tall ground-floor windows. There was no sign of light or movement.
“I never knew a suicide who bothered to turn the lights off before despatching himself,” Holmes said thoughtfully.
As a military man, I found the concealment of the police officers deplorable. An old soldier like Mordaunt with Indian service in his blood would spot their first movement from behind his darkened windows. Alerted by Miss Jessel, startled into action, he would not miss a single movement.