Murder in the Museum, A British Library Crime Classic by John Rowland Page A

Lane.
    Sally’s Club was not far from the London Coliseum, and was reached by some dark and winding stairs. The club was at the top of a high and ramshackle building, and when Cunningham tapped on the door a grille opened, and a female face peered out at him suspiciously.
    â€œYes?” snapped the owner of the face, frowning at the intruder portentously, as if trying to remember under what unpleasant conditions she had formerly seen him.
    â€œI want to see Mr. Moss,” said Cunningham in as coaxing a tone as he could command.
    â€œWell, he’s not here,” she snapped and banged the grille to with an emphatic gesture.
    Cunningham tapped again and the grille opened.
    â€œI’ll come in and wait,” he announced.
    â€œYou’ll do nothing of the kind. This is a private club, and only members and their friends are admitted.”
    â€œWell, I’m Mr. Moss’s friend, and I’ll wait and see him.”
    â€œThen you can wait on the stairs.”
    â€œWait a moment,” said Cunningham, and produced his warrant card. “How does that strike you?” he asked. “Now, perhaps you’ll let me in.”
    The hard, unfeminine face, glaringly white with powder, the lips a vivid slash of red across its clear whiteness, seemed to relent. “Very well, Sergeant,” said Sally—for she it was—“I’ll let you in. Can’t do anything else, I suppose. But you’ll realise, I hope, that I can’t go having any damned stranger who says he’s a friend of a member wandering in without as much as a ‘by your leave.’”
    â€œI understand. That’s all right,” said Cunningham, and was forthwith admitted.
    The club was quite a small place. At one end of it was a bar around which a few men were standing, glasses of beer in hands. Behind the bar were bottles of wine and spirits and two barrels of beer. In the room itself were a few wicker chairs, occupied by languid-looking women, and a table on which their glasses were resting. In one corner was a mechanical “pintable” at which two or three people were playing. On the wall was a dart-board. And that was all. The place was obviously merely a drinking-den, a place by which a group of people were enabled to get drinks at hours during which a benevolent government had seen fit to close the public houses, and Cunningham, knowing the habits of such places, was vaguely surprised to think that there had been difficulty in getting in. Usually, he reflected, a place of this type would make anyone a member without further argument. But possibly the woman had realised that he was a police officer, and so paraded this ridiculous show of caution to impress him. Anyhow, whatever the reason for the difficulty, he had now overcome it, and, ordering a glass of beer at the bar, he sat down on a vacant chair to await the arrival of Moses Moss.
    He had not long to wait, as it happened, for, long before he had finished his glass of beer—incidentally finding it of an inferior brew—a young man came in.
    â€œSomeone here to see you, Mr. Moss,” said Sally, and made a mute gesture in Cunningham’s direction. Moss looked at him with a puzzled expression on his face.
    â€œWant to see me?” he asked, approaching Cunningham, his countenance still screwed up in an air of bewilderment.
    â€œBut who are you? I don’t know you,” Moss objected. “And what do you want with me?”
    â€œInformation,” answered Cunningham, and lowered his voice to a tactful murmur. “I’m an officer from Scotland Yard and I want to have a chat.”
    â€œScotland Yard?” Was it mere fancy, Cunningham asked himself, or did this young man definitely wince at the mention of police headquarters?
    â€œYes,” he answered aloud. “I am investigating the death of the late Professor Arnell.”
    â€œI saw he was dead,” answered Moss. “Saw it in the