Chronicles of the Secret Service Read Free

of making a charge. The Jap was only arrested to allow him to sober up. He’d been making a nuisance of himself. His belongings, with the exception of the letter, had been placed on the desk ready to be handed back to him. Nobody anticipated his taking the action he did.’
    ‘Of course not,’ agreed Wallace. ‘I think you are being rather unfair to the inspector in calling him stupid. And, in any case, if the Jap had been stopped from committing hara kiri , I don’t suppose we’d ever have obtained any useful information out of him.’
    ‘I’m pretty certain you would have done,’ replied Sir Masterson. ‘I haven’t forgotten how you made Yumasaki speak!’
    ‘H’m,’ grunted Sir Leonard. ‘It appears I failed to get him to say anything. The fellow was cleverer than I thought. Tell me exactly what happened at the police station.’
    ‘Superintendent Ransome was sitting at the desk, theJapanese letter before him with its decoded translation. The inspector was standing by his side, a European sergeant a couple of yards away, and two Indian constables behind the seaman, who was, of course, standing facing Ransome. The fellow got into a terrible state of panic when he realised the letter was in the hands of the police. Then as soon as Ransome made him aware he knew the contents, and began questioning him, he suddenly sprang forward, grasped the knife and, before hands could be laid on him, had plunged it to the hilt into his abdomen. Ransome tells me it was a ghastly sight.’
    ‘It must have been. And was nothing of any significance discovered at all while the superintendent’s detectives were engaged in tracing the fellow’s movements?’
    Winstanley shook his head, his stern, dark face expressing his regret.
    ‘You have seen the report, sir,’ he remarked. ‘Nothing has been left out.’
    ‘I realise that. I was merely anxious to know if there was some little action, a movement, anything in fact, that may have been remarked by those who saw the sailor, mentioned to your men but thought too insignificant to note.’
    Again the IG shook his head.
    ‘The detectives spent the whole night at the job,’ he declared, ‘and you have read of the success that attended their efforts. As far as we know, everything he did and everywhere he went from the time he left his ship until his arrest, was discovered and noted.’
    ‘Splendidly efficient work that, Winstanley,’ approved Sir Leonard. ‘It couldn’t have been easy especially as he seemed always on his own.’
    ‘Those men of Ransome’s are efficient, sir. I take a great deal of pride in them.’
    ‘And in him,’ smiled the governor. ‘Well, there is to my mind one very significant fact which you have all apparently overlooked.’
    ‘What is that?’
    ‘The seaman went from one drinking den to another, and he was always alone! It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone that there was anything curious in that. And yet it strikes me as being most interesting. Sailors all the world over are congenial souls and fond of company. If they don’t go ashore in port with their mates, they very soon pick up companions. This man did neither. He was all the time by himself, as far as your men have been able to ascertain.’
    ‘He was probably acting under orders.’
    ‘Of course he was. That’s obvious. But don’t you see my point? His instructions were that he was to meet someone who would give him a communication. Now a man entrusted with a mission of such importance would not ordinarily go and get drunk. In fact, he would be chosen for his reliability, wouldn’t he?’ Winstanley nodded, wondering what was coming. ‘The last thing,’ went on Sir Leonard, ‘he would do, one would imagine, would be to make a round of drinking dens. Now a sailor on his own, without any mission but to enjoy himself, who went pub crawling would pick up companions. This fellow did not – we presume his orders debarred that – but apparently his orders did not prohibit