Murder in Wax by Peter Baron

Author:Peter Baron
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789128932
Publisher: Phocion Publishing
Published: 2019-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

XXIV. FREDDIE PLAYS BILLIARDS

Freddie sipped the excellent coffee and took up the paper. He was in excellent spirits that evening. His schemes were about to mature and friend William the Waxwork was about to receive the most paralyzing shock he had ever sustained. Furthermore...

Freddie’s meditations broke off abruptly, and he studied the front page with amazed attention. Flaming headlines told this story:

BARONET’S WARD ABDUCTED

Policeman Killed by Captors’ Car

Miss Leslie Richmond, the pretty twenty-five-year-old ward of Sir Marcus Loseley, was forcibly abducted last evening under mysterious and sensational circumstances and P.C. Essex, who made a gallant attempt to hold up the taxi-cab in which she was spirited away, was run down—deliberately, it is alleged—and killed. The taxi got clear away, and up to the time of going to press no arrest has been made.

A bogus telephone call and a false message, in which the handwriting of Sir Marcus Loseley was cleverly forged, played a vital part in this extraordinary drama, in which certain indications lead the police to suspect the hand of the notorious “Squid.”

The abduction was a piece of work which for cool daring has rarely been surpassed. Lured by a message purporting to be in the handwriting of her guardian, Miss Richmond prepared to visit the house of the Duke of Framlingham in Upper Berkeley Street, a taxi having arrived for the purpose at the residence of herself and Sir Marcus Loseley at Eaton Place. About to step into the taxi, Miss Richmond caught sight of a friend, Mr. James Craven, on his way to dine with her. She had scarcely paused to await him before someone secreted in the taxi suddenly seized her and lifted her bodily into the vehicle, which was promptly driven off.

Mr. Craven, who had witnessed the whole drama, raced after the taxi and leapt on to the footboard. A blow in the face, however, dislodged him and sent him sprawling into the road. Regaining his feet, he continued to pursue the fleeting taxi.

P.C. Essex, on duty at the corner of Cliveden Place, had seen some of the events and, blowing his whistle, placed himself in the taxi’s path. Eyewitnesses assert that the driver made no attempt to avoid him, but drove ruthlessly ahead, and the unfortunate constable was flung to the ground and died almost instantaneously from a broken neck.

All other efforts to stop the taxi failed. Police cordons were thrown across the main roads, and hundreds of cars were held up. But the wanted cab eluded all pursuers.

Now comes the astonishing sequel.

Sir Marcus Loseley declares that he sent no message to his ward, but that he himself was lured from his home by a bogus telephone message purporting to come from the Duke of Framlingham’s butler. That individual, Mr. Walter Masters, asserts that he did not telephone to Sir Marcus. Neither did the Duke, who was not at home at the time and had no knowledge of any of the incidents.

Sir Marcus, who drove to the Duke’s in his own car, found it missing when he left.

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