Buch lesen: «Paul Temple and the Front Page Men»

CHAPTER II
Mr. Andrew Brightman

Once inside the unpretentious office that has been described as the nerve centre of Scotland Yard, Sir Norman’s overbearing manner fell from him, and he began to tremble in patent distress.

Sir Graham Forbes looked up from his desk, and at once appreciated the situation. He took his visitor’s arm and led him to a comfortable chair, then went across to a cupboard and poured out a glass of whisky.

‘Drink this first,’ he ordered, and made a pretence of carrying on with some work while Sir Norman gulped down the mellow liquid.

‘Now,’ said Sir Graham, carefully blotting his signature to a letter, ‘any news?’

‘Yes,’ answered Blakeley, in a voice that had sunk almost to a whisper. ‘I heard this morning.’

‘Tell me exactly what happened.’ The manner in which he fidgeted with his paper-knife betrayed that Sir Graham had caught some of his visitor’s nervousness.

Blakeley set down his glass. His hand still shook appreciably, but he appeared to make an effort.

‘At about a quarter past ten, the telephone rang. A girl’s voice said: “We want nine thousand pounds. We want it in twenties. The notes must not be numbered consecutively. Put the money in a brown leather suitcase, and leave it in the telephone-booth at the corner of Eastwood Avenue, Mayfair. The money must be there by four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”’

‘Is that all?’ asked Forbes, who had been making rapid notes on a scribbling-pad.

‘Not quite. After that, she said, “Don’t worry. The child is safe.” Then she rang off.’ The visitor leaned forward in great agitation.

‘Sir Graham, do you think he is safe? Because if anything’s happened to him, I’ll …’

The Chief Commissioner leaned back in his chair.

‘You can rest assured, Sir Norman, that we shall do everything in our power, but please remember that this is a far more serious business than a mere case of kidnapping. There’s a lot more at stake than just getting back your boy for you.’

‘He’s my only son, Sir Graham, the only son I’m likely to have,’ said Blakeley, quietly.

‘Believe me, I sympathise,’ replied Forbes. ‘I am merely trying to impress upon you the fact that we are doing our utmost to track down the organisation that’s responsible.’

‘Then you really think it’s a big organisation?’

Sir Graham shrugged non-committally. ‘I suspect … but I’m not certain.’ He went across to the cupboard. ‘Another whisky?’

‘No, thanks.’

Sir Graham poured himself one.

‘Your men were at the house yesterday,’ pursued Sir Norman. ‘Did they discover anything?’

The Chief Commissioner consulted a sheaf of papers.

‘Inspector Nelson inclines to the opinion that the boy was snatched out of his bed at four in the morning. All the same, it’s difficult to see how they got him out of the house.’

‘It is, indeed. I have the room next door, and I’m a very light sleeper.’

‘Who was the first to discover that the boy was missing?’

‘I did. I went into his room about half past seven. The little chap is usually awake by then, and pretty frisky with himself.’

‘And on this particular morning?’

‘The room was very untidy – bed-clothes all over the place.’

‘Was it shortly after that you received the message warning you not to communicate with the police?’

Sir Norman nodded. By this time he had recovered some of his old assurance, probably due to the influence of Sir Graham’s old Scotch whisky. But he was still considerably agitated, and his face twitched with emotion as he answered Sir Graham’s questions. The Chief Commissioner was lost in thought for a while; once he made a move to telephone, then changed his mind, and decided to continue with the questioning. He picked up a typewritten list, and looked across at Sir Norman.

‘You gave Inspector Nelson full details of all the visitors to your home during the week. Now this list looks surprisingly short to me. Are you quite sure there’s no one you’ve overlooked?’

‘Absolutely certain,’ said Blakeley, with a trace of his City aggressiveness.

‘On Tuesday, for instance,’ pursued Sir Graham, ‘apart from the usual tradespeople, a Mr. Andrew Brightman called, and also a Mr. J. P. Goldie.’

For a moment Blakeley was nonplussed. ‘Goldie? I don’t remember saying anything about a Mr. Goldie?’

‘I understand that he came to tune the piano.’

‘Oh yes, of course! The piano-tuner! I never knew his name.’

Sir Graham was toying with his paper-knife again. ‘Is Mr. Andrew Brightman a friend of yours?’ he asked at length.

‘Hardly a friend. I’ve known him about two years. We met at a City banquet, and I gave him a lift back to Hampstead. After that we became quite friendly – we’re both interested in old china – but we don’t see a great deal of each other.’

‘Then why did he come round on that particular evening?’

‘He’d brought a piece of china he’d had repaired for me by a relative of his. Suddenly, in a fit of desperation, I poured out the whole story to him. As you can imagine, I was very cut up, and to console me, I suppose, he started to tell me about his daughter.’

‘His daughter? What about her?’

Sir Norman Blakeley hesitated.

She was kidnapped too – by the Front Page Men.’

The paper-knife fell with a clatter.

For a moment, the Chief Commissioner seemed too astounded to speak. Then he recovered abruptly. ‘Are you sure of this? What happened to the girl?’

‘He got her back.’

‘The devil he did! How? He never informed us—’

‘No. It cost him eight thousand pounds, Sir Graham.’

The Chief Commissioner was obviously staggered.

‘Eight thousand! How soon can I get hold of Andrew Brightman?’ he asked.

‘He’s outside in a taxi,’ said Sir Norman. ‘I thought you would probably want to interview him, so I persuaded him to come along.’

‘I’m very grateful to you,’ acknowledged Sir Graham, pressing a button at the side of his desk. As if by magic, the door opened, and Sergeant Leopold stood waiting for instructions.

‘There’s a gentleman in a taxi outside, a Mr. Brightman. Ask him to come up, Sergeant.’

When the door had closed, Sir Graham turned to Blakeley again. ‘I suppose you’ve seen the papers today?’

Sir Norman started in alarm. ‘You don’t mean it’s got into the papers?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

The colour rushed to Sir Norman’s face.

‘They warned me not to get in touch with the police,’ he almost shouted, ‘and you promised to keep it out of the papers!’

Sir Graham clasped his shoulder. ‘Don’t alarm yourself, Sir Norman. They must have seen the papers before you had the message this morning. Now, tomorrow morning, take a taxi and go straight to your bank. Arrange for the nine thousand pounds exactly as the girl instructed you. Tomorrow afternoon, take the money yourself and deposit it in the telephone-box at the corner of Eastwood Avenue. As soon as you’ve deposited the money, leave the telephone-booth and return home. Is that clear?’

‘Then you want me to give in to these swine?’ stammered Sir Norman.

‘I want you to do as I tell you and leave the rest to us,’ answered the Chief Commissioner. ‘Now I’d like to see Mr. Brightman alone, if you don’t mind waiting.’

‘Yes, yes, I’ll wait,’ agreed Sir Norman, collecting his hat and umbrella.

Sir Graham ushered out his guest, and returned to telephone for a map of the Mayfair district. He had just replaced the receiver when Mr. Andrew Brightman was shown in.

The Chief Commissioner surveyed him shrewdly. ‘Please sit down, Mr. Brightman,’ he murmured politely, and his visitor complied. He was a fairly stout individual in the middle fifties. A man who was obviously the life and soul of the party. He reeked with self-assurance, and was never at a loss for a reply of some sort, whatever the situation might be.

His hail-fellow, well-met attitude was calculated to disarm most people, and doubtless accounted, in no small measure, for his prosperous appearance. He did not seem in the least overawed by his surroundings, and faced Sir Graham with a pleasant smile, as if they were about to discuss a business proposition.

‘I have just been having a chat with Sir Norman Blakeley,’ began the Commissioner. ‘He tells me that your daughter disappeared under rather mysterious circumstances, and that you paid a certain sum of money for her return.’

‘That is so,’ asserted Brightman. For a second or two, Sir Graham appeared to be puzzled.

‘When did this happen?’

‘March of this year. The eighth to be precise, a date I shan’t easily forget,’ Brightman assured him.

‘Why didn’t you consult us about this matter, Mr. Brightman?’ suddenly demanded the Commissioner, with a hint of anger in his tone. But his visitor was not in the least perturbed.

‘To perfectly honest, Sir Graham, because I didn’t wish to take any risk.’

Forbes’ anger was obviously rising. ‘It seems to me that you took a very grave risk.’

That,’ murmured Andrew Brightman politely, ‘like so many things, Sir Graham, is a matter of opinion.’

Once again the Chief Commissioner was at a loss, finally he asked, ‘Is your daughter in town at the moment?’

‘She’s at school in France. A small place near St. Raphael. She’s been there six months. I thought was advisable to send her away after that business.’

Sir Graham gave a nod of understanding. ‘Now, Mr. Brightman, when you handed over this money, did you retain the numbers of the notes?’

Brightman shook his head. ‘I was told to deliver it in twenties – I remember that rather surprised me. However, I cashed a cheque at Floyds, in Manchester Street, my private bankers. I daresay they could tell you the numbers. I understand it’s usual to keep a record.’

Sir Graham waved aside the suggestion. ‘How did you receive your instructions about delivering the money?’ he asked.

‘By telephone. It was the Monday after Margaret had disappeared. I didn’t feel like going to the office in case something should turn up, and I was wandering round the library when the phone rang.’

Sir Graham seemed incredulous. ‘Do you mean to tell me you waited two days without making any move?’

Mr. Andrew Brightman was still very sure of himself, however. ‘I had a reason for waiting,’ he answered quietly.

‘Then I should very much like to hear that reason.’

‘When Margaret vanished,’ continued Brightman, ‘naturally my first thought was to get in touch with the police. I was actually on the point of doing so when my butler brought me a small card. There was nothing unusual about it, except that it had no address and had obviously been delivered by hand. Morgan, my butler, thinks it must have been left in the letterbox while we were all rushing over the house looking for Margaret. This must be true, because he had already cleared the first delivery of letters out of the box and put them on my desk.’

‘H’m, very interesting. Now tell me, who was the first person to discover your daughter was missing?’

‘The maid. She used to take Margaret a glass of milk at about eight o’clock every morning. On this particular day she was surprised to find Margaret was not in her room, and that apparently the bed had not been slept in. Naturally, the poor girl was quite bewildered, so she called Morgan.’

‘And you were about to phone the police when Morgan brought you this card?’

Brightman nodded. ‘Yes. We’d searched the house from cellar to attic, and I was getting more and more alarmed. By the way, I thought perhaps you’d be interested to see the card.’

He handed over a slip of pasteboard, which Sir Graham examined carefully through a small but powerful magnifying glass. It bore the simple message:

Don’t call the police. Wait 48 hours. The child is safe.

The Front Page Men.

‘Thank you,’ said Sir Graham at length. ‘I should like to keep this for the time being, if I may.’

‘Of course, sir,’ agreed Brightman, who now appeared to be more at ease than ever, and spoke in the slightly pompous manner of the chairman of a company who is about to disclose the payment of an extraordinary dividend. ‘You can imagine,’ he went on, ‘what a state I was in when I received that note. I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly I made up my mind to wait.’ Brightman paused. ‘I needn’t tell you what that week-end was like, Sir Graham. Every minute seemed an eternity. I wouldn’t go through it again – not for a million!’

Suddenly the recollection of this experience seemed to upset his urbanity for the first time. He swallowed hard, shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and ran a finger round the edge of his collar before continuing. ‘Both Morgan and the maid wanted me to send for the police. In fact, Morgan threatened to go over my head and get in touch with Scotland Yard himself. The poor devil is devoted to Margaret, and he was completely unnerved. Then, at about half past nine, another note was delivered.’

He handed over the second card, which read:

Be near the telephone tomorrow morning. The child is safe.

The Front Page Men.

Forbes examined it carefully, but it appeared to offer no clue.

‘How long have Morgan and the maid been in your employment?’

‘Oh, quite a while – long before my wife and I parted. Morgan was with my father for some years. They both worship Margaret, if that’s what you’re thinking, Sir Graham.’

‘What time did you receive the phone call?’

‘At about 10.15. Naturally I answered the phone myself. A woman was at the other end. She sounded young and quite pleasant. “We want eight thousand pounds,’ she said, ‘we want it in twenties. The notes must not be numbered consecutively. Put the money in a brown leather suitcase, and deposit it in the cloakroom of the Regal Palace Hotel. The case must be there by 12.30 tomorrow morning.” ’

Sir Graham snatched up his pencil and made several notes. Then he nodded to his visitor to continue.

‘The next morning, I turned up at the Regal Palace Hotel complete with suitcase and money. At the cloak-room they gave me a ticket for the suitcase, which rather worried me. I couldn’t quite see how anybody could get the suitcase out without the ticket – and so far, at any rate, I’d received no instructions about sending the ticket on anywhere. I was still thinking about this when I arrived home.’

He paused, took out a handkerchief, and rather nervously wiped his lips.

‘I opened the front door, and the first thing I heard, was Margaret’s voice. She had arrived just after I left the house with the money.’

If this mystified Sir Graham, he did not betray the fact. He inquired if the child was in good health.

‘Perfectly normal, except for one thing,’ replied Brightman. ‘She couldn’t remember anything that had happened. I talked to her for hours, trying to bring back her memory, but it was no use at all. That weekend had just been erased from her consciousness.’

‘You made no attempt to retrieve the money?’

‘I did consider that point, I admit. I even got as far as starting out for the hotel, but at the last moment I turned back. It struck me that even if I did get the money, something terrible might happen to Margaret again.’

Sir Graham re-read his notes with a worried frown before asking Brightman if there had been any callers at the house on the day his daughter disappeared, Brightman thought for a while, appeared to be about to reply in the negative, then recalled that the only visitor was a piano-tuner.

Sir Graham looked up quickly.

‘A piano-tuner?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know his name?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ confessed Brightman. ‘Morgan did mention it, but—’