Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

Kitty looked contemptuous. “I’m not talking about murder. It may surprise you, but I don’t believe in killing. But Pink is a murderer. He has killed Lord Bordington. I think my evidence might hang him.

“If the police had only taken the trouble to accept my theory as correct, and had made inquiries in the district, they would have found that a man answering to Pink’s description came down to Bordington by train. However, that’s neither here nor there. What we know is that Pink did it. We don’t want trouble with Pink.

“I suggest that we get hold of him and threaten him with exposure regarding the killing of Bordington. We might pay him a certain sum to clear, on condition that he signs a confession — some such arrangement as will absolutely tie his hands. And then we’ll book him a passage to the other side of the earth and see him on the ship. Is that all right?”

“It sounds fairish,” agreed Smith. “Who’s to find him?”

“I reckon you can do that. You’ve got a gang. I haven’t. It’s easy to get into touch with a man like Pink if you want to. By the way, I’d be present at the Interview, eh?”

Smith grinned. “Protection?”

“Well, two to one is better I think. Pink might be awkward.”

“You’re right. I’ll fix an appointment with him — not here, of course — and let you know. We’ll go along separately. We’ll both get there within five minutes of each other. Is it understood?”

“Right.”

Twenty-four hours later Kitty was notified by Bill Smith that if she presented herself at No. 14a Danden Street, Rotherhithe, London, S. E. at 8 P.M. on the following night and asked for Mr. Pink, she would please Mr. William Smith. Pink was found, and all that remained was to dispose of him. Evidently he was willing to discuss terms.

It is now necessary briefly to chronicle two occurences of some importance to the people concerned in the affairs of Bill Smith.

At eleven o’clock in the morning of that day when Kitty was due to meet Messrs. Pink and Smith in conclave, Jim Lansdale was brought before an extremely altered superintendent. The man had lost his bluster and his official manner.

Jim, surveying him, realized by the outward and visible signs that he had been not rapped over the knuckles, but heavily banged. As a matter of fact, the superintendent was perilously near to reduction in rank.

A certain somebody had told him that while he was an expert at trapping speeding motorists he was apparently useless for the investigation of the lesser crimes, such as murder. He had overlooked a vital point in the investigations — and overlooked it because it was supplied by a woman crook, whom he had made up his mind to suspect.

Jim Lansdale was released unconditionally. As he turned to go he said: “There was a girl gave you her address. I’ve never bad it, but I’d rather like it, if it isn’t asking for something that’s not permissible.”

The superintendent looked him over. “If you take my advice, young man, you’ll keep away from her,” he said. “She’s dangerous.” And then: “All right. I’ll give you her address.” He did so. He was probably wrong in acting thus, but he was a rattled man.

Jim read the address three times in ten minutes, as he walked toward the manor. At the end of fifteen minutes he had come to a decision.

He would go to London by the first available train and ask Kitty whether it was all true.

The second event of importance was that within an hour or so of Jim’s release Bill Smith had an urgent call from a certain shady solicitor, a call which took him straight to that solicitor’s office in the city. He found that the man was acting for Trevelyan who, curiously enough, had, since Smith received the note in code, been moved from his original prison to another.

Smith was with the solicitor for an hour. When he left there was a hint of a pallor beneath his bronze. He had used the telephone at the solicitor’s office, and the number for which he asked was a Surrey number.

He did not return to the Hotel Magnificent for the rest of that day.

Chapter XV These Was a Slip

Kitty reached Danden Street, Rotherhithe, at eight o’clock exactly. She found it a short thoroughfare, joining two others of similar aspect, a street composed of two parallel brick walls of uniform ugliness, in which, at regular intervals, had been knocked large and small holes for doorways and windows. The houses had minute cemented forecourts, fronted by iron railings.

Some of the iron gates were useless, because the progeny of the district appeared to spend their time in swinging on them, to the detriment of their hinges. Danden Street was not slum. But it was desperately, perilously poor — the kind of street one finds by hundreds in our big cities, where folk hang to life’s edge by their finger tips.