Chapter XVI

On going round to the Adelphi next day I found McNab busy with the telephone. When I entered he turned with the receiver at his ear and motioned me to take a seat. He did a lot of listening after that; but occasionally his voice responded to some one.

"Yes, sergeant. That's exactly what I mean--any peculiarity about the man. Eh?... No, anything that would make him seem in any way different from the usual blind man, anything exceptional about him that would catch the eye of an attentive constable."

A long pause followed.

"Oh.... He noticed that. Howley is the constable's name. Sharp fellow, yes. All right. Is he on duty now?... Comes off for dinner at one? Ring me up when he comes in."

He hung up the receiver and turned to me.

"That means we have a whole hour to wait. More time lost. And it took longer than I thought," he remarked, offering me a cigarette.

"What did?"

"Getting round all the stations."

I was astounded.

"Mean to say you're going to look up all the blind men in London?"

"No; only those who have a pitch for reading, and even among them only those who have appeared inside the last month." He took so deep a pull at his cigarette that I saw the little red ring run along the paper. "Seen three already. None of them the man we're looking for. But several possibles remain."

That reminded me and gave me an opening.

"McNab, how did you come to know about Kinloch? Remember, so far I've heard nothing of that."

He regarded me almost with reproach in silence.

"Do you know what Matheson calls you, Chance?" he asked.

"No."

"Matheson calls you my jackal."

"Like his rotten cheek!"

"It is, my son, for as a jackal you're a rotten failure."

The unexpected sledge-hammer blow knocked me speechless. As I sat there tingling McNab, producing his pocket-book, extracted a press cutting.

"Didn't I trust you to bring me all advertisements for men missing since the 15th of January?" he demanded. "How did you come to overlook this?" As he spoke the telephone rang, and laying the slip on my knee he jumped to his feet and crossed the room.

At first as I read the slip I was quite sure I had passed it on to him. It was headed Alexander David Kinloch, which explained why the name had seemed vaguely familiar to me when McNab had startled the doctor with it the previous day. But as I read my heart fell again, for in it were the words, "last seen at Ealing on the night of Monday, 15th January." And these were words I could never have forgotten. Yet I felt certain I had given McNab a cutting headed with Kinloch's name. Then I saw just what had caused me to miss this advertisement for Kinloch. I had read no further than the man's name and, knowing that I had already passed the thing on, assumed that its terms remained unchanged.

When I had finished my fervent excuses McNab emitted a grunt of indignation.

"Fortunately I didn't entirely trust to you, and had a look at the papers myself. But possibly you can now see something I did get out of Dunn yesterday. Of course after seeing that advertisement you missed, I had the office of that firm kept under observation. And we were soon able to establish the identity of the professional looking man who called there more often than any one else. The discovery that he was an Ealing doctor formed a coincidence. But it might well be no more than a coincidence, just as it might be a mere coincidence that this man Kinloch was last seen in Ealing on the night of the Ealing murder. For, after all, a man who intended to disappear on some particular date would not be likely to postpone his purpose just because a murder chanced to happen on the day he had chosen. And of course I had no means of compelling this firm, Selwyn & Smith, to disclose the nature of their business with either Kinloch or Dr. Dunn. Therefore what I had to ascertain was, first, whether Dunn's repeated visits to that office had any relation to Kinloch, and, secondly, whether this Kinloch had any connection with the murder. As it happened the second point got settled first, in my own mind anyway."

McNab produced from his pocket-book the two advertisements for Kinloch, the one I had seen and the one I had missed. Passing them to me he said:

"Look at them and observe the difference. Read together they are significant."

Alexander David Kinloch will hear something to his advantage by communicating with....

Alexander David Kinloch, last seen at Ealing on the night of Monday, 15th January. Will any person in a position to supply information....

* * * * *

The difference was obvious, the second being much fuller. But when I indicated this McNab showed impatience.

"The significant difference is that the first is addressed directly to Kinloch and the second is not," he said. "The second also offers a reward!"

"Well, they would hardly offer him a reward for reporting himself so that he might hear of something to his own advantage," I objected.

McNab glanced imploringly up at the ceiling.

"In the first the advertisers address Kinloch himself. They hope he will see and read the notice. In the second they no longer expect him to read it. Isn't it quite clear that after the publication of the first advertisement some information has reached them about Kinloch? There's the 'last seen in Ealing' to prove that. But what else reached them? Have they now learned either that Kinloch was never taught to read or that he cannot read _for some other reason_?"

"Because he was blind!" I cried.

"Ah, that possibility is what seemed to bring this Kinloch into closer contact with the murder. If so, all the chances were that I had got the name of the blind man for whom we had been seeking. Then I turned to the first point, which was to ascertain if Dunn's visits to Selwyn & Smith had any connection with Kinloch. This was less easy, for I had absolutely nothing to go on. So I took a shot in the dark, by assuming that what is true of nine-tenths of the blind _men_ in England at this moment would be also true of Kinloch, namely, that his blindness was contracted during war service. Furnished with his full name I went to the War Record Office. Inside half an hour we had traced Kinloch to the seventh battalion of a Scottish regiment in whose ranks he had been thrice wounded. I also got a note of Dr. Dunn's war record which showed that his time had been spent in the General Hospital at Boulogne. Here was a possible point of contact between the two men--the thrice-wounded soldier and the hospital doctor. Slender as this was, I pushed on with it, ultimately securing the group photograph taken at Hamilton before the battalion left for the Front. And yesterday you saw what happened to Dunn when his eyes fell on Kinloch's face----"

A sharp ring of the telephone interrupted McNab, and in a moment he had the receiver at his ear.

"Yes, it's me, sergeant.... All right. Yes, Howley had better speak with me himself.... Enderby Gardens you say? Where's that? Kensington? Off Campden Hill Road? Yes ... against the garden railings on the north side under an overhanging tree--that right? Good! Now when did you first notice him?... Not more than three weeks ago--you are sure?... Right! Now how does he differ from the usual type?... Ah! ... only sits there from eleven to one and from three to five.... Yes, that's odd. Eh?... No, thank you, constable. No questions to him till I turn up, please."

Ringing off, McNab turned, rubbing his hands.

"I've a notion," he said softly, "that you and I will be looking at this Kinloch inside the next thirty minutes."

* * * * *

On our way out to Enderby Gardens McNab explained the part he had assigned to me. While I listened I saw he had chosen the one part most easy for me to play. As a journalist I was to interview the man suspected of being Kinloch, getting him to tell his story for my newspaper--the sort of thing I could naturally do to the life. By the time we had settled the details our taxi was turning into Campden Hill Road. Dismissing it at the corner we walked along into Enderby Gardens. And at once we saw our man. He was sitting against the railings on a short three-legged camp-stool, the usual large volume on his knees. He was visible at quite a distance because the garden side of the square seemed less used than the other which carried the main stream of pedestrians. With a blind man there was less need to take precautions about examining him. So we passed slowly and had as good a look as his bent head permitted. On reaching the far corner McNab stopped.

"That man," he said, "is not impossible at least, as the others I saw certainly were."

"Seems older, more worn than the photograph."

"He would be. It's eight years since that was taken, and pretty bad years for him. There's his shabby clothes to be discounted too. Go and talk to him. I'll observe from here, for the blind have abnormal hearing and we must raise no suspicion."

So I sauntered back to him.

"Afternoon. Doing well to-day?" I asked affably.

His head jerked round. The face was not unlike Kinloch's--harder and thinner certainly. The eyes I could not see, for he never raised them towards me, though I saw they were shut.

"Not particular," he replied, beginning to rub his fingers as if they were stiff.

"Been at this long?"

"Goodish bit. Five years since I got myself blinded over there in France."

"What were you before the war?"

He stopped his rubbing.

"Here, is this a game? What you gettin' at?"

It didn't seem worth while pushing things further, for Kinloch certainly did not belong to this poor fellow's class. And it was more from pity that I explained the questions were put on behalf of a newspaper interested in disabled soldiers.

"If you could read my card," I said gently, "you would see I am on the staff of the _Record_ and that my name is Chance."

A sudden, queer, startled cry came from him. The book on his knees fell to the ground.

Stooping forward I picked it up.

"No harm done," I reassured him.

"You'll--you'll excuse me a-hollerin' out so," he stammered breathlessly. "We--we--have to be very careful with them raised letters. They've only to get a little damp for the fingers to push 'em flat, and then there's no readin' of 'em."

The explanation seemed natural. And yet I was puzzled. For I could have sworn the cry came before, not after, the book fell. Of course he may have cried out because he felt the book slipping from his knees. Besides, why should the mention of my name startle him: he never could have heard of me before.

"What were you before the war?" I repeated.

"What was I before the war? Why, a bricklayer is what I was. And a good un, mister, sure as me name is Dick 'Ollins."

"You seem to be quite good at the Braille too."

"That ain't no catch. Good or bad, nobody listens, really. And you just think, mister, on the wages what bricklayers is getting these days, now I'm out of it. But, there, I never 'ad much in the way of luck--not what you'd call luck."

His tone had turned lachrymose, almost a whine. I could tell what was coming. Hastily I planked down half a crown on his book and with a mumbled wish for better luck soon went off to rejoin McNab. I felt sorry for McNab. Once more his hopes were doomed. And great was his disappointment as he listened to my report of the interview. For he stood regarding Dick 'Ollins, whose monotonous reading was again audible, regarding him with an expression of misery mingled with despair.

* * * * *

That night to cheer him up and divert his mind I took him round to the Little Theatre. It was the Grand Guignol season, but for all that my effort failed. When we got back to his flat, his spirits still clouded, he sat staring in silence at the large woodcut of one John Knox by name, which hung over the fireplace. McNab's walls were hung with old prints of criminal trials and criminals, but the place of honour went to this one, which depicted a long-bearded man with terrible eyes and a Scotch cap on his head.

But it was a thinking cap McNab had on his own head that night. At last he broke the long silence:

"Chance, I'm not at all satisfied about that man."

"John Knox?" I said, for lying back in his chair he still stared up at the portrait.

"No, Dick Hollins. I'm not satisfied that is his name, and still less that he ever was a bricklayer. Why does he sit there from eleven to one and from three to five only? That's a peculiarity that even the constable on the beat noticed; and it hasn't yet been explained. It may be he moves to another pitch, but that is not the custom. And a bricklayer! Did you observe his hands? Oh, yes, I know; it must be years since he laid a brick, no doubt. But I'm not thinking of the whiteness of his hands, but of the slenderness of his fingers. A pickpocket, perhaps. A bricklayer--no!"

"He doesn't seem to be the man we're looking for, anyhow."

"No, he does not seem to be," McNab agreed. "But then if he were Kinloch he would hardly want to seem that. Anyway," he nodded, "we'll try to make quite certain about him to-morrow."

And the next morning McNab assuredly did his best. When I called for him about ten I was told by the housekeeper he had left word that I was to wait his return.

"He's had to go round to the Yard," Janet confided, in admitting me.

"Scotland Yard?" I said in surprise, wondering if something fresh had suddenly developed.

"Ay, Scotland Yard," Janet assented, flicking imaginary dust off a chair before I occupied it. "It's a verra queer name to give to a place in the heart o' London."

"Your master told me once it's because there's more brains to the yard there than in any other English mile."

"Did he so, Mr. Chance? Well, that's no what he tell't me when I asked him."

"What did he tell you?"

"He said it was called Scotland Yard because it was so full of inquisitive old women."

"That would be when he was annoyed with the Yard."

"Or with me," she grinned, shutting the door.

Left alone I began to wonder what had taken McNab to the Yard that morning, and whether he would return satisfied or annoyed with them. But I had not long to wait before hearing the metallic click of his latch-key in the outer door. And a glance at his face revealed his satisfaction. He only thrust his head inside the room, but I saw he was pleased with the Yard that morning.

"Ah!" he greeted me. "You've come. Good! Taxi at the door. Come on; I can explain on the way."

And before we reached the corner where Enderby Gardens joins Campden Hill Road he had made me familiar with my part.

"We have a trick to play on him. But if he turns out to be Kinloch he must suspect nothing or the game is up."

"And what if he turns out to be Dick Hollins?"

"Then it won't matter what he thinks. If you are convinced he is Dick Hollins that is all the better, for you are to talk to him as if you had no doubts. You talk to him as you did yesterday, like a press man. The only difference this time is that I am coming close up to inspect him. That's all, I think."

We left the taxi at the corner and walked along the short bottle-neck entrance that brought us opposite the gardens. From the pavement on the south side, much the more frequented, we could see the suspected Dick Hollins crouching on his three-legged stool, his book on his knees. He was, indeed, visible for a considerable distance, for the other pavement had but few pedestrians, mostly nursemaids and their charges strolling towards the entrance to the gardens to which our man had his back.

For perhaps twenty minutes McNab studied the man from every angle, as we passed up and down, and if he detected anything strange or unusual in him it was more than I did. When we paused finally exactly opposite him, his voice came quite audibly across the road, and McNab stood with his ear turned to the voice, closing his eyes, as I noted, like some one striving to hear a distant melody. Whether he detected any falsity in the man's voice, or a pronunciation of a word that was too refined to belong to a genuine bricklayer I could not tell. It all sounded just right to my ear.

Hollins was reading from the book of Psalms, awkward pauses in his voice, as he fingered away at his raised letters. Here is a passage exactly reproduced as he read it:

Wy ... 'op ... ye so ... ye 'igh 'ills?

This ... is ... th' Lord's ... 'ill ... in wich ... it ... pleas ... eth ... 'im ... ter ... dwell.

To me it seemed all plain, straightforward Cockney. And yet as I watched McNab listening I saw something like the ghost of a smile appear on his face. And since I could not suppose him likely to be pleased to discover that Hollins was as genuine as he looked, I felt certain McNab's ear had taken in something suspicious to which I had been deaf. My eye went again to Hollins. A queer figure he made, sitting hunched up on his stool, his chin elevated so grotesquely while he read that I might have thought him impudently regarding us through half-closed eyes, had I not known he was sightless.

Quietly McNab took my arm.

"Now for the 'close up.' Talk as yesterday. But mark this: when I go behind him you are to get his hat off somehow. Knock it off if you can't think of some pretence. You can be clumsy enough. Then till I am finished with his head, retain the hat, pretending to brush off the dust. When I am done, get him to read aloud. But above all he must have no suspicion of my presence. Got that?"

McNab finished by a gentle push, and I stepped across the road to where the blind man sat.

"'Morning, Mr. Hollins. You don't remember me perhaps," I added as he hesitated over my greeting.

"Yes, I do. You're the newspaper gentleman again."

"You don't forget voices then?"

Mr. Hollins chuckled.

"Not when they comes into me ears along o' 'arf a crown as yours done yesterday."

McNab stepped behind him like a cat.

"And your fingers are as good as eyes, aren't they? I'd like to try what my fingers make of those letters. May I?" Giving him no time to reply I bent forward and with the hand I did not lay on his book, lightly swept off his hat. With an apology for my clumsiness I stooped to pick it up. And then while pretending to flick the dust off I watched McNab. He was holding something close to the man's head. I saw what it was--a small wisp of dark hair. Then I understood why he had been to Scotland Yard. This was part, at least, of the hair found in the room at Ealing. The comparison lasted but a second. Almost as soon as I realized McNab's purpose he had the wisp back into its glass tube and out of sight. I replaced the hat. McNab gave me a curt nod.

"Better let me see your own fingers at work," I said. "Do you mind?"

"Mind? Of course not. I'm often asked to do it," Hollins replied, putting up his hands to readjust the position of his hat. The act made me smile, for every man has to do that when another puts a hat on his head, even when that other is his wife. This act McNab had apparently counted on, for in a flash he had placed a sheet of paper, taken from where I never saw, upon the volume on Hollins' knees. But the moment the blind man's fingers went back to his book he instantly detected the interposed paper, drew his hands away as if he had been stung, and his sightless eyelids lifted.

"What's that?" he whispered, lowering his hands, gingerly, to feel. McNab, however, had already flicked away his sheet of paper.

"Felt queer it did--all spongy like. Ain't been no water dropping on the book, 'as there?" Hollins queried, bewildered.

"Must have been something on your fingers," I said. "There's nothing on your book."

"It certainly feels all right now," he admitted.

What Hollins read to me I do not know. My eyes followed McNab, who was walking lightly away. But I had to wait till the reader stopped, for he must have no suspicions. Somehow or other I took leave of Hollins, his blessings following me after I slipped another half-crown into his hand.

McNab was waiting round the corner. He seemed pleased with himself.

"That, I should think," he said, "is the first time a man's finger-prints have been _taken_ from him without his knowledge."

But adroitly as the trick had been worked I knew McNab's quiet elation must spring from something other than a sense of his own cleverness. To have taken the finger-prints of Dick Hollins without Dick Hollins being aware of what had happened would never have brought that gleam into McNab's eyes. Only a very decided advance achieved in a troublesome case could have done that, I reflected as we hurried away. At the corner of Bayswater Road McNab hailed a passing taxi. While we stood waiting I found my voice.

"So the blind man isn't Dick Hollins?"

"No, no more Hollins than you are Holofernes," McNab said.

"But if he is--"

"Hush!" He cut me short as the taxi swung in to the kerb.