Read Elk 04 White Face for Free Online

doctor.
    “I’m always doing it,” said Sergeant Elk complacently. “You’re wasting your time and other people’s money, but I do it. That’s a pretty nurse you’ve got—Miss Harman. Quigley the reporter’s all goo-ey about her.”
    “Yes,” said Dr. Marford quietly.
    He rose and pulled down the blind, went to a cupboard, took out a whisky bottle, a siphon and two glasses, and looked inquiringly at the detective.
    “I’m off duty,” said Elk, “if a detective is ever off duty.”
    He pulled up a chair to the writing table. The doctor was already in his worn leather chair. “Ever read detective stories?” asked Elk.
    Dr. Marford shook his head.
    At that moment the telephone rang. He took up the instrument, listened for a while, asked a few questions, and put down the receiver.
    “That’s why I don’t read detective or any other kind of stories,” he said. “The population of Tidal Basin increases at a terrific rate, but not so rapidly as some people expect.”
    He jotted a note down on a little pad.
    “That’s a come-at-once call, but I don’t suppose they will require my attention till three o’clock to-morrow morning. Why detective stories?”
    Sergeant Elk sipped at his whisky. He was not a man to be rushed into explanation.
    “Because,” he said eventually, “I’d like some of these clever Mikes to take my patrol for a couple of months. I saw an American crook play up in the West End the other night. It was all about who-did-it. First of all they introduced you to about twenty characters, told you where they were born and who their fathers were, and what money they wanted and who they were in love with—you couldn’t help knowing that the fellow who did the murder was the red-nosed waiter. But that’s not police work, Dr. Marford. We’re not introduced to the characters in the story; we don’t know one. All we’ve got in a murder case is the dead man. What he is, who his relations are, where he came from, what was his private business—we’ve got to work all that out. We make inquiries here, there and everywhere, digging into slums, asking questions of people who’ve got something to hide.”
    “Something to hide?” repeated the doctor.
    Elk nodded.
    “Everybody’s got something to hide. Suppose you were a married man—”
    “Which I am not,” interrupted Marford.
    “We’ve got to suppose that,” insisted Elk. “Your wife is abroad. You take a girl into the country…”
    The doctor made faint noises of protest.
    “We’re supposin’ all this,” conceded Elk. “Such things have happened. And in the morning you look out of your window an’ see a feller cut another feller’s throat. You are a doctor and cannot afford to get your name into the papers. Are you going to the police and tell them what you saw? And are you going to stand up in court and tell them what you were doing out of town and the name of the lady you were with, and take the chance of it getting into all the papers? Or are you going to say nothing? Of course you are! That happens every day. In a murder case everybody has got something to hide, and that’s why it’s harder to get the truth about murder than any other kind of crime. Murder is a spot-light. You’ve got to take the stand and face a defending counsel who’s out to prove that you’re the sort of fellow that no decent jurywoman could ask to meet her young daughter.”
    The detective sucked at his cigar for a long time in silence. Then he asked:
    “Bit of a mystery, this woman Lorna Weston?”
    The doctor’s tired eyes surveyed him thoughtfully.
    “I suppose so. They’re all mysteries to me. I can’t remember their names. God, what names they’ve got! Like the patterns of a dull wallpaper—one running into the other. Jackson, Johnson, Thompson, Beckett, Dockett, Duckett, Roon, Doon, Boon…eh? And some without any names at all. I attended a young woman for three months—she was just ‘the young woman upstairs,’ or ‘Miss