Two Against Scotland Yard

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONEOn the evening of Wednesday, February 25th, 1931, a man stood in the shadow of the entrance to the grounds of a large house on the Colnbrook Road, about a quarter of a mile from the London end of the by-pass. Beside him, turned towards town, was a motorcycle. Its engine was running quietly, but the rider made no move towards leaving. Several times he glanced over his shoulder at the white “For Sale” placards on the gate posts, or looked nervously at the watch on his wrist. Now and then his hand stole to the packet of cigarettes in his coat pocket, but he changed his mind each time.

The illuminated hands of his watch showed exactly nine-twenty-two o’clock when he heard the purr of a motor car coming from his right. He stepped into the middle of the road. As the big Daimler came into view he held up his hand. The car stopped a few feet from him. The chauffeur lowered the window, leaned out to see what was wanted, and found himself staring into the cold steel circle of a revolver muzzle. Another was pointed steadily at the two people in the back of the car.

“Get out,” said the man. “Keep your hands up.”

The chauffeur got out, holding his hands over his head.

“Stand over there.”

The chauffeur stepped promptly over to the side of the road.

“Now you get out and put that satchel on the ground.”

The heavily built man, grey-haired, in evening clothes, moved clumsily towards the door of the car. The woman with him started to follow.

“You stay where you are.”

The man took one step back from the car, his revolvers pointing steadily at the two men. The elderly man still held the small black satchel in his hands.

“Put that down, or I’ll shoot you,” the man said calmly.

“Give it to him, for God’s sake, George!” the woman cried.

As the man stooped to put the satchel down her hand moved stealthily to the side pocket of the car. Without moving her shoulders she whipped a small automatic out of it and brought it to a level with her knees. As the bandit with a sharp movement of his foot brought the satchel near him she fired through the open door and sank back into the cushions.

Instantly two shots rang out, so close to hers that the reports could almost have been one drawn-out sound rather than three. The heavy man in evening clothes pitched forward without a word. There was the rush of feet, the roar of an engine, and the cyclist disappeared in the darkness towards London.

The chauffeur ducked forward, his face grey in the glare of the headlights. He bent over his employer. The woman, white and shaking, stumbled out of the car.

“What made you shoot, madam?” the chauffeur asked in a hushed voice. “You nearly caught me.”

The woman stared at him in terror.

“The diamonds!” she gasped.

“Lord! did he have diamonds with him?” The chauffeur whistled, and glanced about.

“I’d better go for a constable,” he said after a moment’s thought

“No. I can’t stay here alone with him. I’ll go.”

“Here comes somebody now, madam.”

A man came running awkwardly towards them along the road.

“Hi there,” the chauffeur said. “There’s a man dead. Run and get the police, will you?”

The man gave a long stare at the scene. “Right you are,” he said. “I’ll get my push-bike.” He turned and ran back into the darkness.

The woman sank to the running board and stared blindly at the prostrate figure on the ground. She scarcely noticed the small crowd of sleepy villagers that had gathered. They stood whispering at a respectful distance, staring at the great car, the woman in the ermine cloak, and the figure lying motionless on the ground. The chauffeur moved back and forth trying to light a cigarette. His hands shook and he dropped the match.

The woman suddenly got up and started pacing the road. “Oh, why don’t they hurry?” she cried in an agony of despair.

“’Obbs is off on ’is push-bike, miss,” one of the bystanders volunteered. “’E cahn’t make it short of five minutes.”

“More like ten, as I’d say,” said another. There was a muttered altercation.

It was a good ten minutes before a murmur broke from the little knot of watchers.

“Ay, there ’e is, and Jock Gibney with him.”

The young constable got off his bicycle and propped it against the hedge on the other side of the road. The woman came quickly forward to meet him.

“My husband’s been robbed and killed,” she said quickly. “Heaven knows how far the man has got already.”

The constable was more used to arresting cyclists without lights than comforting London ladies in ermine wraps. He cleared his throat and looked about in some embarrassment. Then he set about his work with dogged determination.

“Just tell me what happened, madam,” he said, “and I’ll get at it as quick as I can.”

“We were held up right here by a man on a motorcycle. He made my husband give him a satchel we had. I thought I could frighten him, I shot at him and he shot my husband. Oh, it’s all my fault!”

She began to sob convulsively.

“It won’t help none to let yourself get in a state, ma’am,” the constable said stolidly. He knelt down over the dead man and flashed his lamp into his face.

“He was your husband?”

“Yes.”

“Could you describe the man? He was on a motorcycle?”

She nodded.

“You didn’t see the number?”

She shook her head. The constable turned to the chauffeur. “I didn’t see it,” he said. “He must haye had the plates covered. I looked.”

The constable scratched his head, then brightened as there was another murmur from the group of bystanders.

“That’ll be the sergeant,” he said cheerfully.

The circle opened; a small car drove up and the division sergeant stepped out.

“What’s up?” he said. When the constable had given the meagre details he knelt over the silent figure.

He straightened up after a short examination.

“Shot twice,” he said laconically. “Once through the heart. Instantaneous death. What was the man like?”

Neither the woman nor the chauffeur could give anything but a vague description. The murderer had worn a cyclist’s leather cap and large goggles, with a black mask over the lower part of his face. He was taller than the dead man but slenderer, the chauffeur thought; the woman thought he was the same height.

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders. “Just like everybody else riding a motorcycle, and he’s been gone fifteen minutes. Gibney, you go back with the lady and the driver to the station. Drive back in their car. Put in a call to Scotland Yard and tell them exactly what’s happened. Tell them the motorcycle left here at 9.24 or 9.25, headed towards town.”

He turned to the woman.

“I’ll have to ask you to go back to Colnbrook for a bit, madam. If there’s anybody you’d like to have come, the constable will give them a ring.”

She shook her head, and taking a last agonised look at the figure on the ground got into the car. The chauffeur took his place. The young constable got in beside him, and they drove off slowly into the little village.

At the tiny police station the constable reported the night’s event to Scotland Yard. The woman again declined to have anyone sent for. In a few minutes the sergeant returned and proceeded to take formal depositions from the two witnesses of the murder.

“My name is Colton,” the woman said. “My husband’s name was George Colton; he is a jeweller off Bond-street.”

The sergeant looked quickly at her. He recognised the name as that of one of the oldest and most reputable firms in London.

“We live at 82 Cadogan-square, Kensington. Tonight we dined with Mrs. Martha Royce in Windsor. She is an old friend of my husband’s and wanted him to take some jewels of hers to town for appraisal and I believe for sale. I begged him not to take them, to have a guard sent for them, but he laughed at me. He had often carried large amounts in jewels. Now they’re gone, and he’s gone.”

She shivered and drew her ermine wrap closer about her slender shoulders. The sergeant’s pen scratched slowly along the paper. He turned to the chauffeur.

“Your name.”

“Oliver Peskett. Driver for Mr. George Colton, 82 Cadogan-square, Kensington.”

“Age?”

“Thirty-one.”

“How long in present employ?”

“Two years Michaelmas.”

The sergeant grunted as he noted these facts down.

“Now tell me again exactly what happened,” he went on. After Mrs. Colton and the chauffeur had slowly repeated the story of the robbery and murder, and the sergeant had carefully blotted his record, he said, “There’s one thing more I’d like to ask you. Your husband carried jewels belonging to Mrs. Royce of Windsor, and they were stolen. Can you tell me the value, or the approximate value, of the jewels? And what were they like?”

“I can’t describe them.”

“You hadn’t seen them?”

“No.”

“But you’re sure he had them? They were talked about at dinner?”

“Yes. They talked about them then and I know he had them in the black satchel. I think they were all diamonds, and I think they said the value was something like twenty or thirty thousand pounds.”

The sergeant looked at the chauffeur. “You knew about them?” he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Not I,” the chauffeur said promptly. “Hadn’t the foggiest. I knew he had the bag. I didn’t know what he had in it.”

“All right,”

The sergeant hesitated a moment. Then he said, “I won’t keep you any longer. We’ll take care of your husband’s remains, Mrs. Colton. Will you be in your home in the morning, please. We’ll want to see you again. You’re sure you don’t want me to send for some relative, or friend?”

She shook her head.

“No, thanks. I have no one.”

The chauffeur held the door open for her. As he closed it his eyes met the steady gaze of the sergeant for an instant and quickly shifted away.