Behold Here's Poison Read online

  ‘That you are wasting your time, my dear Superintendent.’

  ‘And when I tell you that John Hyde has not been seen at his office since Tuesday, May 14th?’

  Randall had wandered over to where his cigarette-box stood, and his back was momentarily turned to Hannasyde. ‘Who says that he has not been seen since May 14th?’ he asked.

  ‘The man who runs the shop – and I don’t think he was lying.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to me a very valuable piece of information,’ Randall remarked, coming back to his chair. ‘He may conceivably be ill, or away.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Hannasyde. ‘But there is an elusive quality to Mr John Hyde which needs explaining. There is something more than a little odd about a man who has no home address, Mr Matthews.’ He got up. ‘I’m sorry you can’t help me.’

  ‘Looking for mares’ nests has never been one of my pastimes, Superintendent. May I know whether you have been favoured with a description of your quarry?’

  ‘A very vague one, which might possibly be false.’

  ‘How useful! And what was it?’

  ‘A middle-aged man, with an ordinary face. That’s all so far.’

  ‘I should give it up, if I were you,’ said Randall.

  ‘You can hardly expect me to follow that advice,’ said Hannasyde rather shortly, and took his leave.

  But the quest of John Hyde proved to be a singularly thankless task. No one knew him; nor, when Hannasyde and Sergeant Hemingway, armed with a search warrant, visited his office, could any clue to his identity be discovered. The office, a dingy room above the shop, contained nothing but a table, a chair, a typewriter, and a safe.

  ‘If this bird’s an agent, what’s become of his sample-goods?’ demanded Sergeant Hemingway.

  Mr Brown, still in his shirt-sleeves, looked round the bare apartment with vague disquiet. ‘I never known him go off like this before, and no word said,’ he muttered. ‘I seen him Tuesday before last, and I’ll take my dying oath he ain’t been near the place since.’

  This oft-reiterated statement was borne out to a certain extent by Foster’s Bank. On the 14th May a cheque of Hyde’s for £25 had been presented, made out to Bearer. Questioned, the cashier faithfully described Mr Brown, and added that he had been in the habit of cashing cheques made out by Hyde to Bearer. Mr Brown did not deny it. He stated that Mr Hyde had always employed him to cash his cheques for him, and that he had merely collected the money, and handed it over to Hyde. As it further transpired that he had very often paid in moneys for Hyde there seemed to be no reason for doubting this statement, but why he had been so employed or what his connection with Hyde was there was no getting out of him. He persisted in saying that he didn’t know, he was sure; and that Mr Hyde never told him nothing. When asked whether Hyde ever had visitors he replied sulkily that Hyde did sometimes see people in the way of business, but who they were or where they came from he couldn’t say.

  The safe, when opened, disclosed nothing but a half-used cheque-book, with every counterfoil blank, and a bundle of share-certificates.

  ‘Well, this is the queerest turn I ever saw in my life!’ said the Sergeant. ‘I’ve heard of people doing a bunk, but I never knew them leave their cheque-books and a tidy Bank balance behind till now. Looks almost as though this bloke had to clear out in the devil’s own hurry, Chief. Something happened after he left this place on the 14th which made him scared stiff to come back.’

  ‘But why did he keep his cheque-book in the safe?’ demanded Hannasyde. ‘We know from the Bank that it was the only one he possessed. Most men would carry it about with them, if they’d only got one. Or they’d keep it in a desk at home – not in an office they visit at irregular intervals!’

  ‘You can search me,’ said the Sergeant. ‘The point is, where is his home?’

  But this was something that the most rigorous inquiry failed to discover. An advertisement inserted in the papers asking for any information concerning Hyde produced no results, and an attempt to discover documents at his Bank which might give some clue to his identity also failed. He kept no documents at the Bank.

  Sergeant Hemingway, who had a genius for making his fellows confide in him, produced in triumph the châtelaine of No. 11 Gadsby Row, a corpulent lady with a slight beard, who remembered having seen Mr Hyde once when she had popped into Mr Brown’s to buy a paper. She hadn’t happened to look at him particular, for she was passing the time of day with Mr Brown, like anyone might, when in he walked, and without a word to no one went straight through the shop into the back-parlour. Well, that had struck her as being a funny thing to do, and she had said to Mr Brown, not thinking: ‘Who’s that?’ And she remembered as well as if it had been yesterday him saying: ‘Oh, that’s only Mr Hyde, that is!’ It was a bit hard to say what he’d looked like, because he’d had his hat on, and a pair of them dark spectacles, but he was dressed very gentlemanly, that she would say.

  It was not very helpful, but it was the best Sergeant Hemingway could do. No one else in the Row seemed ever to have noticed Hyde, and no shop in the vicinity had been patronised by him.

  A watch was set on No. 17 Gadsby Row, and an inquiry made into Mr Brown’s past history. It did not surprise either Hannasyde or the Sergeant to discover that Mr Brown was known to the police, and had done time for fraud seven years previously, but it did surprise them to find that since the date of his release from prison he seemed to have kept out of trouble. Mr Brown, searchingly interrogated by the sceptical Sergeant, assumed an air of outraged virtue, and said bitterly that he supposed the police had never heard of a man turning over a new leaf, and running straight.

  The plain-clothes detectives on the look-out for a middle-aged gentleman in dark spectacles found their task peculiarly dull, and although several middle-aged men visited the shop none of them wore spectacles, and none of them stayed longer than the time it took them to purchase their morning papers, or their packets of cigarettes. The shop was not patronised by men who dressed ‘very gentlemanly,’ a circumstance which made Mr Peel, the younger of the two detectives, take a good deal of interest in one of its customers, a young man whose attire was very gentlemanly indeed, and who came strolling down the street one early afternoon, and went into Mr Brown’s shop.

  Mr Brown, who was serving a navvy with a couple of ounces of shag, took a fleeting glance at the newcomer but paid no further heed to him until his first customer had pocketed his change, and was about to leave the shop. Then he leaned his hands on the counter, and asked what he might have the pleasure of doing for the foppish young gentleman.

  Mr Randall Matthews watched the navvy go out, and produced a shilling from his pocket. ‘Twenty Players, please,’ he said.

  Mr Brown pushed a packet across the counter, and picked up the shilling.

  Randall opened the packet, and drew out one of the cigarettes and lit it. Over the flame of his lighter his eyes sought Mr Brown’s. ‘Hyde in?’ he asked softly.

  The guarded look descended like a curtain over Mr Brown’s face. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Nor I don’t know when he will be.’

  Randall put his lighter away, and drew out an elegant notecase, and in a leisurely fashion extracted a Bank note that rustled agreeably. ‘That is a pity,’ he remarked. ‘It is important that I should see him.’

  ‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know,’ said Mr Brown, impelled by curiosity to try to see whether the note between Randall’s long fingers was for ten pounds or only five.

  ‘Perhaps I ought to tell you that I am not a policeman,’ sighed Randall. ‘Though I believe one of the plain-clothes fraternity is wandering about outside.’

  ‘Think I don’t know?’ said Mr Brown scornfully. ‘I could tell a busy half a mile off.’ It dawned on him that his visitor also appeared to possess this useful faculty, and he added with more respect in his voice: ‘You’d better clear off out of this. I don’t want no more trouble than what I’ve got already, and I tell you straight Mr Hyde ain’t here, nor he hasn�