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Title: Angel Esquire
Author: Edgar Wallace
Release date: December 4, 2023 [eBook #72316]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1908
Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGEL ESQUIRE ***
A Superlatively Good Mystery Story by a Writer of Thrillers.
Angel Esquire
By EDGAR WALLACE
Angel Esquire, of Scotland Yard, has his hands full in helping Jimmy
Stannard, as he is known to the criminal element of London, solve
the puzzle of the great safe which held the fortune of Old Reale who
had placed it there, and who had taken the precaution to hide the
combination in a bit of doggerel verse that served as a cryptogram.
When Old Reale’s Will was read it was found that four people might
benefit by it. Two of them, known as members of the famous “Borough
Lots” gang would stop at nothing to gain possession of the fortune.
Jimmy and his friend are pitted against them in a story that
constitutes the finest entertainment for the person liking excitement,
love and mystery combined.
OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR:
THE BLACK ABBOT
THE CLUE OF THE NEW PIN
THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS
THE MELODY OF DEATH
A KING BY NIGHT
THE RINGER
THE SINISTER MAN
THE TERRIBLE PEOPLE
TERROR KEEP
TRAITOR’S GATE
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers · New York
_See Reverse Side of Jacket for Complete
List of 75c Fiction_
ANGEL ESQUIRE
BY EDGAR WALLACE
AUTHOR OF
“The Girl from Scotland Yard,” “The Traitors’ Gate,”
“The Clue of the New Pin,” “The Green Archer,”
“The Hairy Arm,” “Blue Hand,” “The Black
Abbott,” “The Sinister Man,” “Terror
Keep,” “The Ringer,” “The Door with
Seven Locks,” “A King by Night,”
“The Melody of Death,” “The
Four Just Men,” “Jack
O’Judgment,” etc.
[Illustration]
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with
Lincoln Mac Veagh, The Dial Press
Printed in U. S. A.
COPYRIGHT, 1908,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1927,
BY
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_Printed in the United States of America_
ANGEL ESQUIRE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. PAGE
THE LOMBARD STREET DEPOSIT 1
CHAPTER II.
THE HOUSE IN TERRINGTON SQUARE 10
CHAPTER III.
ANGEL ESQUIRE 35
CHAPTER IV.
THE “BOROUGH LOT” 59
CHAPTER V.
THE CRYPTOGRAM 85
CHAPTER VI.
THE RED ENVELOPE 107
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT THE RED ENVELOPE HELD 129
CHAPTER VIII.
OLD GEORGE 149
CHAPTER IX.
THE GREAT ATTEMPT 172
CHAPTER X.
SOME BAD CHARACTERS 202
CHAPTER XI.
THE QUEST OF THE BOOK 223
CHAPTER XII.
WHAT HAPPENED AT FLAIRBY MILL 238
CHAPTER XIII.
CONNOR TAKES A HAND 260
CHAPTER XIV.
OPENING THE SAFE 283
CHAPTER XV.
THE SOLUTION 306
ANGEL ESQUIRE
CHAPTER I
THE LOMBARD STREET DEPOSIT
Mr. William Spedding, of the firm of Spedding, Mortimer and Larach,
Solicitors, bought the site in Lombard Street in the conventional way.
The property came into the market on the death of an old lady who lived
at Market Harborough, who has nothing to do with this story, and it was
put up to auction in the orthodox fashion.
Mr. William Spedding secured the site at £106,000, a sum sufficiently
large to excite the interest of all the evening papers and a great
number of the morning journals as well.
As a matter of exact detail, I may add that plans were produced
and approved by the city surveyor for the erection of a building
of a peculiar type. The city surveyor was a little puzzled by the
interior arrangement of the new edifice, but as it fulfilled all
the requirements of the regulations governing buildings in the City
of London, and no fault could be found either with the external
appearance--its façade had been so artfully designed that you might
pass a dozen times a day without the thought occurring that this new
building was anything out of the common ruck--and as the systems of
ventilation and light were beyond reproach, he passed the plans with a
shrug of his shoulders.
“I cannot understand, Mr. Spedding,” he said, laying his forefinger on
the blue print, “how your client intends securing privacy. There is a
lobby and one big hall. Where are the private offices, and what is the
idea of this huge safe in the middle of the hall, and where are the
clerks to sit? I suppose he will have clerks? Why, man, he won’t have a
minute’s peace!”
Mr. Spedding smiled grimly.
“He will have all the peace he wants,” he said.
“And the vaults--I should have thought that vaults would be the very
thing you wanted for this.” He tapped the corner of the sheet where was
inscribed decorously: “Plan for the erection of a New Safe Deposit.”
“There is the safe,” said Mr. Spedding, and smiled again.
This William Spedding, now unhappily no longer with us--he died
suddenly, as I will relate--was a large, smooth man with a suave
manner. He smoked good cigars, the ends of which he snipped off with a
gold cigar-cutter, and his smile came readily, as from a man who had no
fault to find with life.
To continue the possibly unnecessary details, I may add further that
whilst tenders were requested for the erection of the New Safe Deposit,
the provision of the advertisement that the lowest tender would not
necessarily be accepted was justified by the fact that the offer of
Potham and Holloway was approved, and it is an open secret that their
tender was the highest of all.
“My client requires the very best work; he desires a building that will
stand shocks.” Mr. Spedding shot a swift glance at the contractor, who
sat at the other side of the desk. “Something that a footling little
dynamite explosion would not scatter to the four winds.”
The contractor nodded.
“You have read the specification,” the solicitor went on--he was
cutting a new cigar, “and in regard to the pedestal--ah--the pedestal,
you know----?”
He stopped and looked at the contractor.
“It seems all very clear,” said the great builder. He took a bundle of
papers from an open bag by his side and read, “The foundation to be of
concrete to the depth of twenty feet.... The pedestal to be alternate
layers of dressed granite and steel ... in the center a steel-lined
compartment, ten inches by five, and half the depth of the pedestal
itself.”
The solicitor inclined his head.
“That pedestal is to be the most important thing in the whole
structure. The steel-lined recess--I don’t know the technical
phrase--which one of these days your men will have to fill in, is the
second most important; but the safe that is to stand fifty feet above
the floor of the building is to be--but the safe is arranged for.”
An army of workmen, if the hackneyed phrase be permitted, descended
upon Lombard Street and pulled down the old buildings. They pulled them
down, and broke them down, and levered them down, and Lombard Street
grew gray with dust. The interiors of quaint old rooms with grimy oak
paneling were indecently exposed to a passing public. Clumsy, earthy
carts blocked Lombard Street, and by night flaring Wells’ lights roared
amidst the chaos.
And bare-armed men sweated and delved by night and by day; and one
morning Mr. Spedding stood in a drizzle of rain, with a silk umbrella
over his head, and expressed, on behalf of his client, his intense
satisfaction at the progress made. He stood on a slippery plank that
formed a barrow road, and workmen, roused to unusual activity by the
presence of “The Firm”--Mr. Spedding’s cicerone--moved to and fro at a
feverish rate of speed.
“They don’t mind the rain,” said the lawyer, sticking out his chin in
the direction of the toiling gangs.
“The Firm” shook his head.
“Extra pay,” he said laconically, “we provided for that in the tender,”
he hastened to add in justification of his munificence.
So in rain and sunshine, by day and by night, the New Safe Deposit came
into existence.
Once--it was during a night shift, a brougham drove up the deserted
city street, and a footman helped from the dark interior of the
carriage a shivering old man with a white, drawn face. He showed a
written order to the foreman, and was allowed inside the unpainted gate
of the “works.”
He walked gingerly amidst the debris of construction, asked no
questions, made no replies to the explanations of the bewildered
foreman, who wondered what fascination there was in a building job
to bring an old man from his bed at three o’clock on a chill spring
morning.
Only once the old man spoke.
“Where will that there pedestal be?” he asked in a harsh, cracked
cockney voice; and when the foreman pointed out the spot, and the men
even then busily filling in the foundation, the old man’s lips curled
back in an ugly smile that showed teeth too white and regular for a man
of his age. He said no more, but pulled the collar of his fur coat the
tighter about his lean neck and walked wearily back to his carriage.
The building saw Mr. Spedding’s client no more--if, indeed, it was
Mr. Spedding’s client. So far as is known, he did not again visit
Lombard Street before its completion--even when the last pane of glass
had been fixed in the high gilded dome, when the last slab of marble
had been placed in the ornate walls of the great hall, even when the
solicitor came and stood in silent contemplation before the great
granite pedestal that rose amidst a scaffolding of slim steel girders
supporting a staircase that wound upward to the gigantic mid-air safe.
Not quite alone, for with him was the contractor, awed to silence by
the immensity of his creation.
“Finished!” said the contractor, and his voice came echoing back from
the dim spaces of the building.
The solicitor did not answer.
“Your client may commence business to-morrow if he wishes.”
The solicitor turned from the pedestal.
“He is not ready yet,” he said softly, as though afraid of the echoes.
He walked to where the big steel doors of the hall stood ajar, the
contractor following.
In the vestibule he took two keys from his pocket. The heavy doors
swung noiselessly across the entrance, and Mr. Spedding locked them.
Through the vestibule and out into the busy street the two men walked,
and the solicitor fastened behind him the outer doors.
“My client asks me to convey his thanks to you for your expedition,”
the lawyer said.
The builder rubbed his hands with some satisfaction.
“You have taken two days less than we expected,” Mr. Spedding went on.
The builder was a man of few ideas outside his trade. He said again--
“Yes, your client may start business to-morrow.”
The solicitor smiled.
“My client, Mr. Potham, may not--er--start business--for ten years,” he
said. “In fact, until--well, until he dies, Mr. Potham.”
CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE IN TERRINGTON SQUARE
A man turned into Terrington Square from Seymour Street and walked
leisurely past the policeman on point duty, bidding him a curt
“good night.” The officer subsequently described the passer, as a
foreign-looking gentleman with a short pointed beard. Under the light
overcoat he was apparently in evening dress, for the officer observed
the shoes with the plain black bow, and the white silk muffler and
the crush hat supported that view. The man crossed the road, and
disappeared round the corner of the railed garden that forms the center
of the square. A belated hansom came jingling past, and an early
newspaper cart, taking a short cut to Paddington, followed; then the
square was deserted save for the man and the policeman.
The grim, oppressive houses of the square were wrapped in sleep--drawn
blinds and shuttered windows and silence.
The man continued his stroll until he came abreast of No. 43. Here
he stopped for a second, gave one swift glance up and down the
thoroughfare, and mounted the three steps of the house. He fumbled a
little with the key, turned it, and entered. Inside he stood for a
moment, then taking a small electric lamp from his pocket he switched
on the current.
He did not trouble to survey the wide entrance hall, but flashed the
tiny beam of light on the inside face of the door. Two thin wires and a
small coil fastened to the lintel called forth no comment. One of the
wires had been snapped by the opening of the door.
“Burglar-alarm, of course,” he murmured approvingly. “All the windows
similarly treated, and goodness knows what pitfalls waiting for the
unwary.”
He flashed the lamp round the hall. A heavy Turkish rug at the foot of
the winding staircase secured his attention. He took from his pocket
a telescopic stick, extended it, and fixed it rigid. Then he walked
carefully towards the rug. With his stick he lifted the corner, and
what he saw evidently satisfied him, for he returned to the door,
where in a recess stood a small marble statue. All his strength was
required to lift this, but he staggered back with it, and rolling it
on its circular base, as railway porters roll milk churns, he brought
it to the edge of the rug. With a quick push he planted it square in
the center of the carpet. For a second only it stood, oscillating, then
like a flash it disappeared, and where the carpet had lain was a black,
gaping hole. He waited. Somewhere from the depths came a crash, and
the carpet came slowly up again and filled the space. The unperturbed
visitor nodded his head, as though again approving the householder’s
caution.
“I don’t suppose he has learnt any new ones,” he murmured regretfully,
“he is getting very old.” He took stock of the walls. They were
covered with paintings and engravings. “He could not have fixed the
cross fire in a modern house,” he continued, and taking a little run,
leapt the rug and rested for a moment on the bottom stair. A suit
of half armor on the first landing held him in thoughtful attention
for a moment. “Elizabethan body, with a Spanish bayonet,” he said
regretfully; “that doesn’t look like a collector’s masterpiece.” He
flashed the lamp up and down the silent figure that stood in menacing
attitude with a raised battle-ax. “I don’t like that ax,” he murmured,
and measured the distance.
Then he saw the fine wire that stretched across the landing. He stepped
across carefully, and ranged himself alongside the steel knight.
Slipping off his coat, he reached up and caught the figure by the
wrist. Then with a quick jerk of his foot he snapped the wire.
He had been prepared for the mechanical downfall of the ax; but as the
wire broke the figure turned to the right, and swish! came the ax in a
semicircular cut. He had thought to hold the arm as it descended, but
he might as well have tried to hold the piston-rod of an engine. His
hand was wrenched away, and the razor-like blade of the ax missed his
head by the fraction of a second. Then with a whir the arm rose stiffly
again to its original position and remained rigid.
The visitor moistened his lips and sighed.
“That’s a new one, a very new one,” he said under his breath, and the
admiration in his tone was evident. He picked up his overcoat, flung it
over his arm, and mounted half a dozen steps to the next landing. The
inspection of the Chinese cabinet was satisfactory.
The white beam of his lamp flashed into corners and crevices and showed
nothing. He shook the curtain of a window and listened, holding his
breath.
“Not here,” he muttered decisively, “the old man wouldn’t try _that_
game. Snakes turned loose in a house in London, S.W., take a deal of
collecting in the morning.”
He looked round. From the landing access was gained to three rooms.
That which from its position he surmised faced the street he did not
attempt to enter. The second, covered by a heavy curtain, he looked at
for a time in thought. To the third he walked, and carefully swathing
the door-handle with his silk muffler, he turned it. The door yielded.
He hesitated another moment, and jerking the door wide open, sprang
backward.
The interior of the room was for a second only in pitch darkness, save
for the flicker of light that told of an open fireplace. Then the
visitor heard a click, and the room was flooded with light. In the
darkness on the landing the man waited; then a voice, a cracked old
voice, said grumblingly--
“Come in.”
Still the man on the landing waited.
“Oh, come in, Jimmy--I know ye.”
Cautiously the man outside stepped through the entry into the light
and faced the old man, who, arrayed in a wadded dressing-gown, sat in
a big chair by the fire--an old man, with white face and a sneering
grin, who sat with his lap full of papers.
The visitor nodded a friendly greeting.
“As far as I can gather,” he said deliberately, “we are just above your
dressing-room, and if you dropped me through one of your patent traps,
Reale, I should fetch up amongst your priceless china.”
Save for a momentary look of alarm on the old man’s face at the mention
of the china, he preserved an imperturbable calm, never moving his eyes
from his visitor’s face. Then his grin returned, and he motioned the
other to a chair on the other side of the fireplace.
Jimmy turned the cushion over with the point of his stick and sat down.
“Suspicious?”--the grin broadened--“suspicious of your old friend,
Jimmy? The old governor, eh?”
Jimmy made no reply for a moment, then--
“You’re a wonder, governor, upon my word you are a wonder. That man in
armor--your idea?”
The old man shook his head regretfully.
“Not mine entirely, Jimmy. Ye see, there’s electricity in it, and I
don’t know much about electricity. I never did, except----”
“Except?” suggested the visitor.
“Oh, that roulette board, that was my own idea; but that was magnetism,
which is different to electricity, by my way of looking.”
Jimmy nodded.
“Ye got past the trap?” The old man had just a glint of admiration in
his eye.
“Yes, jumped it.”
The old man nodded approvingly.
“You always was a one for thinkin’ things out. I’ve known lots of
’em who would never have thought of jumping it. Connor, and that pig
Massey, they’d have walked right on to it. You didn’t damage anything?”
he demanded suddenly and fiercely. “I heard somethin’ break, an’ I was
hoping that it was you.”
Jimmy thought of the marble statue, and remembered that it had looked
valuable.
“Nothing at all,” he lied easily, and the old man’s tense look relaxed.
The pair sat on opposite sides of the fireplace, neither speaking for
fully ten minutes; then Jimmy leant forward.
“Reale,” he said quietly, “how much are you worth?”
In no manner disturbed by this leading question, but rather indicating
a lively satisfaction, the other replied instantly--
“Two millions an’ a bit over, Jimmy. I’ve got the figures in my
head. Reckonin’ furniture and the things in this house at their
proper value, two millions, and forty-seven thousand and forty-three
pounds--floatin’, Jimmy, absolute cash, the same as you might put your
hand in your pocket an’ spend--a million an’ three-quarters exact.”
He leant back in his chair with a triumphant grin and watched his
visitor.
Jimmy had taken a cigarette from his pocket and was lighting it,
looking at the slowly burning match reflectively.
“A million and three-quarters,” he repeated calmly, “is a lot of money.”
Old Reale chuckled softly.
“All made out of the confiding public, with the aid of me--and Connor
and Massey----”
“Massey is a pig!” the old man interjected spitefully.
Jimmy puffed a cloud of tobacco smoke.
“Wrung with sweat and sorrow from foolish young men who backed the
tiger and played high at Reale’s Unrivaled Temple of Chance, Cairo,
Egypt--with branches at Alexandria, Port Said, and Suez.”
The figure in the wadded gown writhed in a paroxysm of silent merriment.
“How many men have you ruined, Reale?” asked Jimmy.
“The Lord knows!” the old man answered cheerfully; “only three as I
knows of--two of ’em’s dead, one of ’em’s dying. The two that’s dead
left neither chick nor child; the dying one’s got a daughter.”
Jimmy eyed him through narrowed lids.
“Why this solicitude for the relatives--you’re not going----?”
As he spoke, as if anticipating a question, the old man was nodding his
head with feverish energy, and all the while his grin broadened.
“What a one you are for long words, Jimmy! You always was. That’s how
you managed to persuade your swell pals to come an’ try their luck.
Solicitude! What’s that mean? Frettin’ about ’em, d’ye mean? Yes,
that’s what I’m doin’--frettin’ about ’em. And I’m going to make, what
d’ye call it--you had it on the tip of your tongue a minute or two ago?”
“Reparation?” suggested Jimmy.
Old Reale nodded delightedly.
“How?”
“Don’t you ask questions!” bullied the old man, his harsh voice rising.
“I ain’t asked you why you broke into my house in the middle of the
night, though I knew it was you who came the other day to check the
electric meter. I saw you, an’ I’ve been waitin’ for you ever since.”
“I knew all about that,” said Jimmy calmly, and flicked the ash of his
cigarette away with his little finger, “and I thought you would----”
Suddenly he stopped speaking and listened.
“Who’s in the house beside us?” he asked quickly, but the look on the
old man’s face reassured him.
“Nobody,” said Reale testily. “I’ve got a special house for the
servants, and they come in every morning after I’ve unfixed
my--burglar-alarms.” He grinned, and then a look of alarm came into his
face.
“The alarms!” he whispered; “you broke them when you came in, Jimmy. I
heard the signal. If there’s some one in the house we shouldn’t know it
now.”
They listened.
Down below in the hall something creaked, then the sound of a soft thud
came up.
“He’s skipped the rug,” whispered Jimmy, and switched out the light.
The two men heard a stealthy footstep on the stair, and waited. There
was the momentary glint of a light, and the sound of some one breathing
heavily. Jimmy leant over and whispered in the old man’s ear.
Then, as the handle of the door was turned and the door pushed open,
Jimmy switched on the light.
The newcomer was a short, thick-set man with a broad, red face. He
wore a check suit of a particularly glaring pattern, and on the back
of his head was stuck a bowler hat, the narrow brim of which seemed to
emphasize the breadth of his face. A casual observer might have placed
him for a coarse, good-natured man of rude but boisterous humor. The
ethnological student would have known him at once for what he was--a
cruel man-beast without capacity for pity.
He started back as the lights went on, blinking a little, but his hand
held an automatic pistol that covered the occupants of the room.
“Put up your hands,” he growled. “Put ’em up!”
Neither man obeyed him. Jimmy was amused and looked it, stroking his
short beard with his white tapering fingers. The old man was fury
incarnate.
He it was that turned to Jimmy and croaked--
“What did I tell ye, Jimmy? What’ve I always said, Jimmy? Massey is a
pig--he’s got the manners of a pig. Faugh!”
“Put up your hands!” hissed the man with the pistol. “Put ’em up, or
I’ll put you both out!”
“If he’d come first, Jimmy!” Old Reale wrung his hands in his regret.
“S’pose he’d jumped the rug--any sneak-thief could have done that--d’ye
think he’d have spotted the man in armor? If you’d only get the man in
armor ready again.”
“Put your pistol down, Massey,” said Jimmy coolly, “unless you want
something to play with. Old man Reale’s too ill for the gymnastics you
suggest, and I’m not inclined to oblige you.”
The man blustered.
“By God, if you try any of your monkey tricks with me, either of
you----”
“Oh, I’m only a visitor like yourself,” said Jimmy, with a wave of his
hand; “and as to monkey tricks, why, I could have shot you before you
entered the room.”
Massey frowned, and stood twiddling his pistol.
“You will find a safety catch on the left side of the barrel,”
continued Jimmy, pointing to the pistol; “snick it up--you can always
push it down again with your thumb if you really mean business. You are
not my idea of a burglar. You breathe too noisily, and you are built
too clumsily; why, I heard you open the front door!”
The quiet contempt in the tone brought a deeper red into the man’s face.
“Oh, you are a clever ’un, we know!” he began, and the old man, who
had recovered his self-command, motioned him to a chair.
“Sit down, Mister Massey,” he snapped; “sit down, my fine fellow, an’
tell us all the news. Jimmy an’ me was just speakin’ about you, me an’
Jimmy was. We was saying what a fine gentleman you was”--his voice grew
shrill--“what a swine, what an overfed, lumbering fool of a pig you
was, Mister Massey!”
He sank back into the depths of his chair exhausted.
“Look here, governor,” began Massey again--he had laid his pistol on
a table by his side, and waved a large red hand to give point to his
remarks--“we don’t want any unpleasantness. I’ve been a good friend to
you, an’ so has Jimmy. We’ve done your dirty work for years, me an’
Jimmy have, and Jimmy knows it”--turning with an ingratiating smirk to
the subject of his remarks--“and now we want a bit of our own--that is
all it amounts to, our own.”
Old Reale looked under his shaggy eyebrows to where Jimmy sat with
brooding eyes watching the fire.
“So it’s a plant, eh? You’re both in it. Jimmy comes first, he being
the clever one, an’ puts the lay nice an’ snug for the other feller.”
Jimmy shook his head.
“Wrong,” he said. He turned his head and took a long scrutiny of the
newcomer, and the amused contempt of his gaze was too apparent.
“Look at him!” he said at last. “Our dear Massey! Does he look the sort
of person I am likely to share confidence with?”
A cold passion seemed suddenly to possess him.
“It’s a coincidence that brought us both together.”
He rose and walked to where Massey sat, and stared down at him. There
was something in the look that sent Massey’s hand wandering to his
pistol.
“Massey, you dog!” he began, then checked himself with a laugh and
walked to the other end of the room. There was a tantalus with a
soda siphon, and he poured himself a stiff portion and sent the soda
fizzling into the tumbler. He held the glass to the light and looked at
the old man. There was a look on the old man’s face that he remembered
to have seen before. He drank his whisky and gave utterance to old
Reale’s thoughts.
“It’s no good, Reale, you’ve got to settle with Massey, but not the
way you’re thinking. We could put him away, but we should have to put
ourselves away too.” He paused. “And there’s me,” he added.
“And Connor,” said Massey thickly, “and Connor’s worse than me. I’m
reasonable, Reale; I’d take a fair share----”
“You would, would you?”
The old man was grinning again.
“Well, your share’s exactly a million an’ three-quarters in solid cash,
an’ a bit over two millions--all in.”
He paused to notice the effect of his words.
Jimmy’s calm annoyed him; Massey’s indifference was outrageous.
“An’ it’s Jimmy’s share, an’ Connor’s share, an’ it’s Miss Kathleen
Kent’s share.”
This time the effect was better. Into Jimmy’s inexpressive face had
crept a gleam of interest.
“Kent?” he asked quickly. “Wasn’t that the name of the man----?”
Old Reale chuckled.
“The very feller, Jimmy--the man who came in to lose a tenner, an’ lost
ten thousand; who came in next night to get it back, and left his lot.
That’s the feller!”
He rubbed his lean hands, as at the memory of some pleasant happening.
“Open that cupboard, Jimmy.” He pointed to an old-fashioned walnut
cabinet that stood near the door. “D’ye see anything--a thing that
looks like a windmill?”
Jimmy drew out a cardboard structure that was apparently a toy
working-model. He handled it carefully, and deposited it on the table
by the old man’s side. Old Reale touched it caressingly. With his
little finger he set a fly-wheel spinning, and tiny little pasteboard
rods ran to and fro, and little wooden wheels spun easily.
“That’s what I did with _his_ money, invented a noo machine that went
by itself--perpetual motion. You can grin, Massey, but that’s what I
did with it. Five years’ work an’ a quarter of a million, that’s what
that little model means. I never found the secret out. I could always
make a machine that would go for hours with a little push, but it
always wanted the push. I’ve been a chap that went in for inventions
and puzzles. D’ye remember the table at Suez?”
He shot a sly glance at the men.
Massey was growing impatient as the reminiscences proceeded. He had
come that night with an object; he had taken a big risk, and had not
lost sight of the fact. Now he broke in--
“Damn your puzzles, Reale. What about me; never mind about Jimmy.
What’s all this rotten talk about two millions for each of us, and this
girl? When you broke up the place in Egypt you said we should stand in
when the time came. Well, the time’s come!”
“Nearly, nearly,” said Reale, with his death’s-head grin. “It’s nearly
come. You needn’t have troubled to see me. My lawyer’s got your
addresses. I’m nearly through,” he went on cheerfully; “dead I’ll be
in six months, as sure as--as death. Then you fellers will get the
money”--he spoke slowly to give effect to his words--“you Jimmy, _or_
Massey or Connor _or_ the young lady. You say you don’t like puzzles,
Massey? Well, it’s a bad look out for you. Jimmy’s the clever un, an’
most likely he’ll get it; Connor’s artful, and he might get it from
Jimmy; but the young lady’s got the best chance, because women are good
at puzzles.”
“What in hell!” roared Massey, springing to his feet.
“Sit down!” It was Jimmy that spoke, and Massey obeyed.
“There’s a puzzle about these two millions,” Reale went on, and his
croaky voice, with its harsh cockney accent, grew raucous in his
enjoyment of Massey’s perplexity and Jimmy’s knit brows. “An’ the one
that finds the puzzle out, gets the money.”
Had he been less engrossed in his own amusement he would have seen a
change in Massey’s brute face that would have warned him.
“It’s in my will,” he went on. “I’m goin’ to set the sharps against the
flats; the touts of the gamblin’ hell--that’s you two fellers--against
the pigeons. Two of the biggest pigeons is dead, an’ one’s dying. Well,
he’s got a daughter; let’s see what _she_ can do. When I’m dead----”
“That’s now!” bellowed Massey, and leant over and struck the old man.
Jimmy, on his feet, saw the gush of blood and the knife in Massey’s
hand, and reached for his pocket.
Massey’s pistol covered him, and the man’s face was a dreadful thing to
look upon.
“Hands up! It’s God’s truth I’ll kill you if you don’t!”
Jimmy’s hands went up.
“He’s got the money here,” breathed Massey, “somewhere in this house.”
“You’re mad,” said the other contemptuously. “Why did you hit him?”
“He sat there makin’ a fool of me.” The murderer gave a vicious glance
at the inert figure on the floor. “I want something more than his
puzzle-talk. He asked for it.”
He backed to the table where the decanter stood, and drank a tumbler
half-filled with raw spirit.
“We’re both in this, Jimmy,” he said, still keeping his man covered.
“You can put down your hands; no monkey tricks. Give me your pistol.”
Jimmy slipped the weapon from his pocket, and handed it butt foremost
to the man. Then Massey bent over the fallen man and searched his
pockets.
“Here are the keys. You stay here,” said Massey, and went out, closing
the door after him.
Jimmy heard the grate of the key, and knew he was a prisoner. He bent
over the old man. He lay motionless. Jimmy tried the pulse, and felt a
faint flutter. Through the clenched teeth he forced a little whisky,
and after a minute the old man’s eyes opened.
“Jimmy!” he whispered; then remembering, “Where’s Massey?” he asked.
There was no need to inquire the whereabouts of Massey. His blundering
footfalls sounded in the room above.
“Lookin’ for money?” gasped the old man, and something like a smile
crossed his face. “Safe’s up there,” he whispered, and smiled again.
“Got the keys?”
Jimmy nodded.
The old man’s eyes wandered round the room till they rested on what
looked like a switchboard.
“See that handle marked ‘seven’?” he whispered.
Jimmy nodded again.
“Pull it down, Jimmy boy.” His voice was growing fainter. “This is a
new one that I read in a book. Pull it down.”
“Why?”
“Do as I tell you,” the lips motioned, and Jimmy walked across the room
and pulled over the insulated lever.
As he did there was a heavy thud overhead that shook the room, and then
silence.
“What’s that?” he asked sharply.
The dying man smiled.
“That’s Massey!” said the lips.
* * * * *
Half an hour later Jimmy left the house with a soiled slip of paper in
his waistcoat pocket, on which was written the most precious verse of
doggerel that the world has known.
And the discovery of the two dead men in the upper chambers the next
morning afforded the evening press the sensation of the year.
CHAPTER III
ANGEL ESQUIRE
Nobody quite knows how Angel Esquire came to occupy the position he
does at Scotland Yard. On his appointment, “An Officer of Twenty Years’
Standing” wrote to the _Police Review_ and characterized the whole
thing as “a job.” Probably it was. For Angel Esquire had been many
things in his short but useful career, but never a policeman. He had
been a big game shot, a special correspondent, a “scratch” magistrate,
and his nearest approach to occupying a responsible position in any
police force in the world was when he was appointed a J.P. of Rhodesia,
and, serving on the Tuli Commission, he hanged M’Linchwe and six of
that black desperado’s companions.
His circle of acquaintances extended to the suburbs of London, and the
suburbanites, who love you to make their flesh creep, would sit in
shivering but pleasurable horror whilst Angel Esquire elaborated the
story of the execution.
In Mayfair Angel Esquire was best known as a successful mediator.
“Who is that old-looking young man with the wicked eye?” asked the
Dowager Duchess of Hoeburn; and her _vis-à-vis_ at the Honorable Mrs.
Carter-Walker’s “sit-down tea”--it was in the days when Mayfair was
aping suburbia--put up his altogether unnecessary eyeglass.
“Oh, that’s Angel Esquire!” he said carelessly.
“What is he?” asked the Duchess.
“A policeman.”
“India?”
“Oh, no, Scotland Yard.”
“Good Heavens!” said Her Grace in a shocked voice. “How very dreadful!
What is he doing? Watching the guests, or keeping a friendly eye on the
Carter woman’s spoons?”
The young man guffawed.
“Don’t despise old Angel, Duchess,” he said. “He’s a man to know.
Great fellow for putting things right. If you have a row with your
governor, or get into the hands of--er--undesirables, or generally, if
you’re in a mess of any kind, Angel’s the chap to pull you out.”
Her Grace surveyed the admirable man with a new interest.
Angel Esquire, with a cup of tea in one hand and a thin grass sandwich
in the other, was the center of a group of men, including the husband
of the hostess. He was talking with some animation.
“I held three aces pat, and opened the pot light to let ’em in. Young
Saville raised the opening to a tenner, and the dealer went ten better.
George Manfred, who had passed, came in for a pony, and took one card.
I took two, and drew another ace. Saville took one, and the dealer
stood pat. I thought it was my money, and bet a pony. Saville raised it
to fifty, the dealer made it a hundred, and George Manfred doubled the
bet. It was up to me. I had four aces; I put Saville with a ‘full,’
and the dealer with a ‘flush.’ I had the beating of that lot; but what
about Manfred? Manfred is a feller with all the sense going. He knew
what the others had. If he bet, he had the goods, so I chucked my four
aces into the discard. George had a straight flush.”
A chorus of approval came from the group.
If “An Officer of Twenty Years’ Standing” had been a listener, he might
well have been further strengthened in his opinion that of all persons
Mr. Angel was least fitted to fill the responsible position he did.
If the truth be told, nobody quite knew exactly what position Angel
did hold. If you turn into New Scotland Yard and ask the janitor at
the door for Mr. Christopher Angel--Angel Esquire by the way was a
nickname affixed by a pert little girl--the constable, having satisfied
himself as to your _bona-fides_, would take you up a flight of stairs
and hand you over to yet another officer, who would conduct you through
innumerable swing doors, and along uncounted corridors till he stopped
before a portal inscribed “647.” Within, you would find Angel Esquire
sitting at his desk, doing nothing, with the aid of a _Sporting Life_
and a small weekly guide to the Turf.
Once Mr. Commissioner himself walked into the room unannounced, and
found Angel so immersed in an elaborate calculation, with big sheets of
paper closely filled with figures, and open books on either hand, that
he did not hear his visitor.
“What is the problem?” asked Mr. Commissioner, and Angel looked up with
his sweetest smile, and recognizing his visitor, rose.
“What’s the problem?” asked Mr. Commissioner again.
“A serious flaw, sir,” said Angel, with all gravity. “Here’s Mimosa
handicapped at seven stone nine in the Friary Nursery, when, according
to my calculations, she can give the field a stone, and beat any one of
’em.”
The Commissioner gasped.
“My dear fellow,” he expostulated, “I thought you were working on the
Lagos Bank business.”
Angel had a far-away look in his eyes when he answered--
“Oh, that is all finished. Old Carby was poisoned by a man
named--forget his name now, but he was a Monrovian. I wired the Lagos
police, and we caught the chap this morning at Liverpool--took him off
an Elder, Dempster boat.”
The Police Commissioner beamed.
“My congratulations, Angel. By Jove, I thought we shouldn’t have a
chance of helping the people in Africa. Is there a white man in it?”
“We don’t know,” said Angel absently; his eye was wandering up and down
a column of figures on the paper before him.
“I am inclined to fancy there is--man named Connor, who used to be a
croupier or something to old Reale.”
He frowned at the paper, and picking up a pencil from the desk, made a
rapid little calculation. “Seven stone thirteen,” he muttered.
The Commissioner tapped the table impatiently. He had sunk into a seat
opposite Angel.
“My dear man, who is old Reale? You forget that you are our tame
foreign specialist. Lord, Angel, if you heard half the horrid things
that people say about your appointment you would die of shame!”
Angel pushed aside the papers with a little laugh.
“I’m beyond shame,” he said lightheartedly; “and, besides, I’ve heard.
You were asking about Reale. Reale is a character. For twenty years
proprietor of one of the most delightful gambling plants in Egypt,
Rome--goodness knows where. Education--none. Hobbies--invention. That’s
the ‘bee in his bonnet’--invention. If he’s got another, it is the
common or garden puzzle. Pigs in clover, missing words, all the fake
competitions that cheap little papers run--he goes in for them all.
Lives at 43 Terrington Square.”
“Where?” The Commissioner’s eyebrows rose. “Reale? 43 Terrington
Square? Why, of course.” He looked at Angel queerly. “You know all
about Reale?”
Angel shrugged his shoulders.
“As much as anybody knows,” he said.
The Commissioner nodded.
“Well, take a cab and get down at once to 43 Terrington Square. Your
old Reale was murdered last night.”
It was peculiar of Angel Esquire that nothing surprised him. He
received the most tremendous tidings with polite interest, and now he
merely said, “Dear me!” Later, as a swift hansom carried him along
Whitehall he permitted himself to be “blessed.”
Outside No. 43 Terrington Square a small crowd of morbid sightseers
stood in gloomy anticipation of some gruesome experience or other.
A policeman admitted him, and the local inspector stopped in his
interrogation of a white-faced butler to bid him a curt “Good morning.”
Angel’s preliminary inspection did not take any time. He saw the
bodies, which had not yet been removed. He examined the pockets of both
men, and ran his eye through the scattered papers on the floor of the
room in which the tragedy had occurred. Then he came back to the big
drawing-room and saw the inspector, who was sitting at a table writing
his report.
“The chap on the top floor committed the murder, of course,” said Angel.
“I know that,” said Inspector Boyden brusquely.
“And was electrocuted by a current passing through the handle of the
safe.”
“I gathered that,” the inspector replied as before, and went on with
his work.
“The murderer’s name is Massey,” continued Angel patiently--“George
Charles Massey.”
The inspector turned in his seat with a sarcastic smile.
“I _also_,” he said pointedly, “have seen the envelopes addressed in
that name, which were found in his pocket.”
Angel’s face was preternaturally solemn as he continued--
“The third man I am not so sure about.”
The inspector looked up suspiciously.
“Third man--which third man?”
Well-simulated astonishment sent Angel’s eyebrows to the shape of
inverted V’s.
“There was another man in it. Didn’t you know _that_, Mr. Inspector?”
“I have found no evidence of the presence of a third party,” he said
stiffly; “but I have not yet concluded my investigations.”
“Good!” said Angel cheerfully. “When you have, you will find the ends
of three cigarettes--two in the room where the old man was killed,
and one in the safe room. They are marked ‘Al Kam,’ and are a fairly
expensive variety of Egyptian cigarettes. Massey smoked cigars; old
Reale did not smoke at all. The question is”--he went on speaking
aloud to himself, and ignoring the perplexed police official--“was it
Connor or was it Jimmy?”
The inspector struggled with a desire to satisfy his curiosity at
the expense of his dignity, and resolved to maintain an attitude of
superior incredulity. He turned back to his work.
“It would be jolly difficult to implicate either of them,” Angel went
on reflectively, addressing the back of the inspector. “They would
produce fifty unimpeachable alibis, and bring an action for wrongful
arrest in addition,” he added artfully.
“They can’t do that,” said the inspector gruffly.
“Can’t they?” asked the innocent Angel. “Well, at any rate, it’s not
advisable to arrest them. Jimmy would----”
Inspector Boyden swung round in his chair.
“I don’t know whether you’re ‘pulling my leg,’ Mr. Angel. You are
perhaps unused to the procedure in criminal cases in London, and I must
now inform you that at present I am in charge of the case, and must
request that if you have any information bearing upon this crime to
give it to me at once.”
“With all the pleasure in life,” said Angel heartily. “In the first
place, Jimmy----”
“Full name, please.” The inspector dipped his pen in ink.
“Haven’t the slightest idea,” said the other carelessly. “Everybody
knows Jimmy. He was old Reale’s most successful decoy duck. Had the
presence and the plumage and looked alive, so that all the other
little ducks used to come flying down and settle about him, and long
before they could discover that the beautiful bird that attracted them
was only painted wood and feathers, ‘Bang! bang!’ went old Reale’s
double-barrel, and roast duck was on the menu for days on end.”
Inspector Boyden threw down his pen with a grunt.
“I’m afraid,” he said in despair, “that I cannot include your parable
in my report. When you have any definite information to give, I shall
be pleased to receive it.”
Later, at Scotland Yard, Angel interviewed the Commissioner.
“What sort of a man is Boyden to work with?” asked Mr. Commissioner.
“A most excellent chap--good-natured, obliging, and as zealous as the
best of ’em,” said Angel, which was his way.
“I shall leave him in charge of the case,” said the Chief.
“You couldn’t do better,” said Angel decisively.
Then he went home to his flat in Jermyn Street to dress for dinner.
It was an immaculate Angel Esquire who pushed through the plate-glass,
turn-table door of the Heinz, and, walking into the magnificent old
rose dining-room, selected a table near a window looking out on to
Piccadilly.
The other occupant of the table looked up and nodded.
“Hullo, Angel!” he said easily.
“Hullo, Jimmy!” greeted the unconventional detective.
He took up the card and chose his dishes with elaborate care. A
half-bottle of Beaujolais completed his order.
“The ridiculous thing is that one has got to pay 7s. 6d. for a small
bottle of wine that any respectable grocer will sell you for tenpence
ha’-penny net.”
“You must pay for the magnificence,” said the other, quietly amused.
Then, after the briefest pause, “What do you want?”
“Not you, Jimmy,” said the amiable Angel, “though my young friend,
Boyden, Inspector of Police, and a Past Chief Templar to boot, will be
looking for you shortly.”
Jimmy carefully chose a toothpick and stripped it of its tissue
covering.
“Of course,” he said quietly, “I wasn’t in it--the killing, I mean. I
was there.”
“I know all about that,” said Angel; “saw your foolish cigarettes.
I didn’t think you had any hand in the killing. You are a property
criminal, not a personal criminal.”
“By which I gather you convey the nice distinction as between crimes
against property and crimes against the person,” said the other.
“Exactly.”
A pause.
“Well?” said Jimmy.
“What I want to see you about is the verse,” said Angel, stirring his
soup.
Jimmy laughed aloud.
“What a clever little devil you are, Angel,” he said admiringly; “and
not so little either, in inches or devilishness.”
He relapsed into silence, and the wrinkled forehead was eloquent.
“Think hard,” taunted Angel.
“I’m thinking,” said Jimmy slowly. “I used a pencil, as there was no
blotting paper. I only made one copy, just as the old man dictated it,
and----”
“You used a block,” said Angel obligingly, “and only tore off the top
sheet. And you pressed rather heavily on that, so that the next sheet
bore a legible impression.”
Jimmy looked annoyed.
“What an ass I am!” he said, and was again silent.
“The verse?” said Angel. “Can you make head or tail of it?”
“No”--Jimmy shook his head--“can you?”
“Not a blessed thing,” Angel frankly confessed.
Through the next three courses neither man spoke. When coffee had been
placed on the table, Jimmy broke the silence--
“You need not worry about the verse. I have only stolen a march of a
few days. Then Connor will have it; and some girl or other will have
it. Massey would have had it too.” He smiled grimly.
“What is it all about?”
Jimmy looked at his questioner with some suspicion.
“Don’t you know?” he demanded.
“Haven’t got the slightest notion. That is why I came to see you.”
“Curious!” mused Jimmy. “I thought of looking _you_ up for the very
same purpose. We shall know in a day or two,” he went on, beckoning the
waiter. “The old man said it was all in the will. He just told me the
verse before he died. The ruling passion, don’t you know. ‘Learn it
by heart, Jimmy,’ he croaked; ‘it’s two millions for you if you guess
it’--and that’s how he died. My bill, waiter. Which way do you go?” he
asked as they turned into Piccadilly.
“To the ‘Plait’ for an hour,” said Angel.
“Business?”
“Partly; I’m looking for a man who might be there.”
They crossed Piccadilly, and entered a side turning. The second on the
left and the first on the right brought them opposite a brightly-lit
hotel. From within came the sound of violins. At the little tables with
which the spacious bar-room was set about sat laughing women and young
men in evening dress. A haze of cigarette smoke clouded the atmosphere,
and the music made itself heard above a babel of laughter and talk.
They found a corner, and seated themselves.
“You seem to be fairly well known here,” said Jimmy.
“Yes,” replied Angel ruefully, “a jolly sight too well known. You’re
not quite a stranger, Jimmy,” he added.
“No,” said the other a little bitterly; “but we’re on different sides
of the House, Angel. You’re in the Cabinet, and I’m in the everlasting
Opposition.”
“Muffled sobs!” said Angel flippantly. “Pity poor Ishmael who ‘ishes’
for his own pleasure! Pathos for a fallen brother! A silent tear for
this magnificent wreck who’d rather be on the rocks than floating any
day of the week. Don’t humbug yourself, Jimmy, or I shall be falling
on your neck and appealing to your better nature. You’re a thief just
as another man is a stamp collector or a hunter. It’s your blooming
_forte_. Hi, Charles, do you ever intend serving me?”
“Yessir; d’reckly, sir.”
Charles bustled up.
“What is it to be, gentlemen? Good evening, Mr. Angel!”
“I’ll take what my friend Dooley calls a keg of obscenth; and you?”
Jimmy’s face struggled to preserve its gravity.
“Lemonade,” he said soberly.
The waiter brought him a whisky.
If you do not know the “Plait” you do not know your London. It is one
of the queer hostels which in a Continental city would be noted as a
place to which the “young person” might not be taken. Being in London,
neither Baedeker nor any of the infallible guides to the metropolis so
much as mention its name. For there is a law of libel.
“There’s ‘Snatch’ Walker,” said Angel idly. “Snatch isn’t wanted just
now--in this country. There’s ‘Frisco Kate,’ who’ll get a lifer one of
these days. D’ye know the boy in the mustard suit, Jimmy?”
Jimmy took a sidelong glance at the young man.
“No; he’s new.”
“Not so new either,” said Angel. “Budapest in the racing season,
Jerusalem in the tourist season; a wealthy Hungarian nobleman traveling
for his health all the time--that’s him.”
“Ambiguous, ungrammatical, but convincing,” murmured Jimmy.
“I want him, by the way!” Angel had suddenly become alert.
“If you’re going to have a row, I’m off,” said Jimmy, finishing his
drink.
Angel caught his arm. A man had entered the saloon, and was looking
round as though in search of somebody. He caught Jimmy’s eye and
started. Then he threaded his way through the crowded room.
“Hullo, Jim----” He stopped dead as he saw Jimmy’s companion, and his
hand went into his pocket.
“Hullo, Connor!”--Angel’s smile was particularly disarming--“you’re the
man I want to see.”
“What’s the game?” the other snarled. He was a big, heavily-built man,
with a drooping mustache.
“Nothing, nothing,” smiled Angel. “I want you for the Lagos job, but
there’s not enough evidence to convict you. Make your mind easy.”
The man went white under his tan; his hand caught the edge of the table
before him.
“Lagos!” he stammered. “What--what----”
“Oh, never mind about that.” Angel airily waved the matter aside. “Sit
down here.”
The man hesitated, then obeyed, and dropped into a seat between the two.
Angel looked round. So far as any danger of being overheard went, they
were as much alone as though they sat in the center of a desert.
“Jimmy”--Angel held him by the arm--“you said just now you’d got a
march when you admitted you’d seen old Reale’s puzzle-verse. It wasn’t
the march you thought it was, for I had seen the will--and so has
Connor here.”
He looked the heavy man straight in the eye.
“There is somebody else that benefits under that will besides you two.
It is a girl.” He did not take his eyes from Connor. “I was curious to
see that young lady,” Angel went on, “and this afternoon I drove to
Clapham to interview her.”
He stopped again. Connor made no reply, but kept his eyes fixed on the
floor.
“I went to interview her, and found that she had mysteriously
disappeared this very afternoon.”
Again he stopped.
“A gentleman called to see her, with a message from--who do you think,
Connor?” he asked.
The easy, flippant manner was gone, and Connor, looking up, caught the
steady stare of two cold blue eyes, and shivered.
“Why,” Angel went on slowly, “it was a message from Inspector
Angel--which is a damned piece of impudence, Connor, for I’m not
an inspector--and the young lady drove away to Scotland Yard. And
now, Connor, I want to ask you, _What have you done with old Reale’s
heiress?_”
Connor licked his lips and said nothing.
Angel beckoned to a waiter and paid his score, then rose to go.
“You will go at once and drive Miss Kathleen Kent back to the place you
took her from. I shall call to-morrow and see her, and if one hair of
her head is harmed, Connor----”
“Well?” said Connor defiantly.
“I’ll chance your alibis, and take you for the Lagos business,” and
with a curt nod to Jimmy, he left the saloon.
Connor turned in a fret of fury to the man at his side.
“D’ye hear him, Jimmy? D’ye hear the dog----”
“My advice to you,” interrupted the other, “is--do as Angel tells you.”
“D’ye think I’m frightened by----”
“Oh, no,” was the quiet response, “you are not frightened at what Angel
may do. What he does won’t matter very much. What I will do is the
trouble.”
CHAPTER IV
THE “BOROUGH LOT”
It was not a bit like Scotland Yard as Kathleen Kent had pictured it.
It was a kind of a yard certainly, for the grimy little street, flanked
on either side with the blank faces of dirty little houses, ended
abruptly in a high wall, over which were the gray hulls and fat scarlet
funnels of ocean-going steamers.
The driver of the cab had pulled up before one of the houses near the
wall, and a door had opened. Then the man who had sat with her in
glum silence, answering her questions in mono-syllables, grasped her
arm and hurried her into the house. The door slammed behind, and she
realized her deadly peril. She had had a foreboding, an instinctive
premonition that all was not well when the cab had turned from the
broad thoroughfare that led to where she had imagined Scotland Yard
would be, and had, taking short cuts through innumerable mean streets,
moved at a sharp pace eastward. Ignorant of that London which begins at
Trafalgar Square and runs eastward to Walthamstow, ignorant, indeed,
of that practical suburb to which the modesty of an income produced by
£4,000 worth of Consols had relegated her, she felt without knowing,
that Scotland Yard did not lay at the eastern end of Commercial Road.
Then when the door of the little house slammed and a hand grasped
her arm tightly, and a thick voice whispered in her ear that if she
screamed the owner of the voice would “out” her, she gathered, without
exactly knowing what an “outing” was, that it would be wiser for her
not to scream, so she quietly accompanied her captor up the stairs. He
stopped for a moment on the rickety landing, then pushed open a door.
Before the window that would in the ordinary course of events admit
the light of day hung a heavy green curtain; behind this, though she
did not know it, three army blankets, judiciously fixed, effectively
excluded the sunlight, and as effectually veiled the rays of a
swing-lamp from outside observation.
The girl made a pathetically incongruous figure, as she stood white but
resolute before the occupants of the room.
Kathleen Kent was something more than pretty, something less than
beautiful. An oval face with gray, steadfast eyes, a straight nose and
the narrow upper lip of the aristocrat, her lips were, perhaps, too
full and too human for your connoisseur of beauty.
She looked from face to face, and but for her pallor she exhibited no
sign of fear.
Although she was unaware of the fact, she had been afforded an
extraordinary privilege. By the merest accident, she had been ushered
into the presence of the “Borough Lot.” Not a very heroic title for
an organized band of criminals, but, then, organized criminals never
take unto themselves generic and high-falutin’ titles. Our “Silver
Hatchets” and “Red Knives” are boy hooligans who shoot off toy pistols.
The police referred to them vaguely as the “Borough Lot.” Lesser lights
in the criminal world have been known to boast that they were not
unconnected with that combination; and when some desperate piece of
villainy startled the world, the police investigating the crime started
from this point: Was it committed by one of the Borough Lot, or was it
not?
As Kathleen was pushed into the room by her captor, a hum of subdued
conversation ended abruptly, and she was the focus of nine pairs of
passionless eyes that looked at her unsmilingly.
When she had heard the voices, when she took her first swift glance at
the room, and had seen the type of face that met hers, she had steeled
herself for an outburst of coarse amusement. She feared--she did not
know what she feared. Strangely enough, the dead silence that greeted
her gave her courage, the cold stare of the men nerved her. Only one
of the men lost his composure. The tall, heavy-looking man who sat at
one end of the room with bowed, attentive head listening to a little
clean-shaven man with side-whiskers, who looked for all the world like
an old-fashioned jockey, started with a muttered oath.
“Upstairs!” he roared, and said something rapidly in a foreign tongue
that sent the man who held the girl’s arm staggering back with a
blanched face.
“I--I,” he stammered appealingly, “I didn’t understand.”
The tall man, his face flushed with rage, pointed to the door, and
hastily opening the door, her captor half dragged the bewildered girl
to the darkness of the landing.
“This way,” he muttered, and she could feel his hand trembling as he
stumbled up yet another flight of stairs, never once relinquishing his
hold of her. “Don’t you scream nor nothing, or you’ll get into trouble.
You see what happened to me for takin’ you into the wrong room. Oh,
he’s a devil is Connor--Smith, I mean. Smith’s his name, d’ye hear?”
He shook her arm roughly. Evidently the man was beside himself with
terror. What dreadful thing the tall man had said, Kathleen could only
judge. She herself was half dead with fright. The sinister faces of
these men, the mystery of this assembly in the shuttered room, her
abduction, all combined to add terror to her position.
Her conductor unlocked a door and pushed her in. This had evidently
been prepared for her reception, for a table had been laid, and food
and drink stood ready.
The door was closed behind her, and a bolt was slipped. Like the
chamber below, all daylight was kept out by a curtain. Her first
thoughts were of escape. She waited till the footsteps on the rickety
stairs had died away, then crossed the room swiftly. The drop from the
window could not be very far; she would risk it. She drew aside the
curtain. Where the window should have been was a sheet of steel plate.
It was screwed to the joists. Somebody had anticipated her resolve to
escape by the window. In chalk, written in an illiterate hand, was the
sentence:--
“You wont be hert if your senserble.
We want to know some questions
then well let you go. Dont make
a fuss or it will be bad for you.
Keep quite and tell us these questions
and well let you go.”
What had they to ask, or she to answer? She knew of nothing that she
could inform them upon. Who were these men who were detaining her?
During the next hours she asked herself these questions over and
over again. She grew faint with hunger and thirst, but the viands
spread upon the table she did not touch. The mystery of her capture
bewildered her. Of what value was she to these men? All the time the
murmur of voices in the room below was continuous. Once or twice she
heard a voice raised in anger. Once a door slammed, and somebody went
clattering down the stairs. There was a door-keeper, she could hear
him speak with the outgoer.
Did she but know it, the question that perplexed her was an equal
matter of perplexity with others in the house that evening.
The notorious men upon whom she had looked, all innocent of their claim
to notoriety, were themselves puzzled.
Bat Sands, the man who looked so ill--he had the unhealthy appearance
of one who had just come through a long sickness--was an inquirer.
Vennis--nobody knew his Christian name--was another, and they were two
men whose inquiries were not to be put off.
Vennis turned his dull fish eyes upon big Connor, and spoke with
deliberation.
“Connor, what’s this girl business? Are we in it?”
Connor knew his men too well to temporize.
“You’re in it, if it’s worth anything,” he said slowly.
Bat’s close-cropped red head was thrust forward.
“Is there money in it?” he demanded.
Connor nodded his head.
“Much?”
Connor drew a deep breath. If the truth be told, that the “Lot” should
share, was the last thing he had intended. But for the blundering of
his agent, they would have remained in ignorance of the girl’s presence
in the house. But the very suspicion of disloyalty was dangerous. He
knew his men, and they knew him. There was not a man there who would
hesitate to destroy him at the merest hint of treachery. Candor was the
best and safest course.
“It’s pretty hard to give you any idea what I’ve got the girl here for,
but there’s a million in it,” he began.
He knew they believed him. He did not expect to be disbelieved.
Criminals of the class these men represented flew high. They were out
of the ruck of petty, boasting sneak-thieves who lied to one another,
knowing they lied, and knowing that their hearers knew they lied.
Only the strained, intent look on their faces gave any indication of
how the news had been received.
“It’s old Reale’s money,” he continued; “he’s left the lot to four of
us. Massey’s dead, so that makes three.”
There was no need to explain who was Reale, who Massey. A week ago
Massey had himself sat in that room and discussed with Connor the
cryptic verse that played so strange a part in the old man’s will. He
had been, in a way, an honorary member of the “Borough Lot.”
Connor continued. He spoke slowly, waiting for inspiration. A judicious
lie might save the situation. But no inspiration came, and he found his
reluctant tongue speaking the truth.
“The money is stored in one safe. Oh, it’s no use looking like that,
Tony, you might just as well try to crack the Bank of England as that
crib. Yes, he converted every cent of a million and three-quarters
into hard, solid cash--banknotes and gold. This he put into his damned
safe, and locked. And he has left by the terms of his will a key.”
Connor was a man who did not find speaking an easy matter. Every word
came slowly and hesitatingly, as though the speaker of the story were
loth to part with it.
“The key is here,” he said slowly.
There was a rustle of eager anticipation as he dipped his hand in his
waistcoat pocket. When he withdrew his fingers, they contained only a
slip of paper carefully folded.
“The lock of the safe is one of Reale’s inventions; it opens to no key
save this.” He shook the paper before them, then lapsed into silence.
“Well,” broke in Bat impatiently, “why don’t you open the safe? And
what has the girl to do with it?”
“She also has a key, or will have to-morrow. And Jimmy----”
A laugh interrupted him. “Curt” Goyle had been an attentive listener
till Jimmy’s name was mentioned, then his harsh, mirthless laugh broke
the tense silence.
“Oh, Lord James is in it, is he? I’m one that’s for ruling Jimmy out.”
He got up on his feet and stretched himself, keeping his eye fixed
on Connor. “If you want to know why, I’ll tell ye. Jimmy’s a bit too
finicking for my taste, too fond of the police for my taste. If we’re
in this, Jimmy’s out of it,” and a mutter of approval broke from the
men.
Connor’s mind was working quickly. He could do without Jimmy, he could
not dispense with the help of the “Lot.” He was just a little afraid of
Jimmy. The man was a type of criminal he could not understand. If he
was a rival claimant for Reale’s millions, the gang would “out” Jimmy;
so much the better. Massey’s removal had limited the legatees to three.
Jimmy out of the way would narrow the chance of his losing the money
still further; and the other legatee was in the room upstairs. Goyle’s
declaration had set loose the tongues of the men, and he could hear no
voice that spoke for Jimmy. And then a dozen voices demanded the rest
of the story, and amid a dead silence Connor told the story of the will
and the puzzle-verse, the solving of which meant fortune to every man.
“And the girl has got to stand in and take her share. She’s too
dangerous to be let loose. There’s nigh on two millions at stake and
I’m taking no risks. She shall remain here till the word is found.
We’re not going to see her carry off the money under our very noses.”
“And Jimmy?” Goyle asked.
Connor fingered a lapel of his coat nervously. He knew what answer the
gang had already framed to the question Goyle put. He knew he would be
asked to acquiesce in the blackest piece of treachery that had ever
disfigured his evil life; but he knew, too, that Jimmy was hated by the
men who formed this strange fraternity. Jimmy worked alone; he shared
neither risk nor reward. His cold cynicism was above their heads. They
too feared him.
Connor cleared his throat
“Perhaps if we reasoned----”
Goyle and Bat exchanged swift glances.
“Ask him to come and talk it over to-night,” said Goyle carelessly.
* * * * *
“Connor is a long time gone.”
Sands turned his unhealthy face to the company as he spoke.
Three hours had passed since Connor had left the gang in his search for
Jimmy.
“He’ll be back soon,” said Goyle confidently. He looked over the
assembly of men. “Any of you fellers who don’t want to be in this
business can go.” Then he added significantly, “We’re going to settle
with Jimmy.”
Nobody moved; no man shuddered at the dreadful suggestion his words
conveyed.
“A million an’ three-quarters--it’s worth hanging for!” he said
callously. He walked to a tall, narrow cupboard that ran up by the
side of the fireplace and pulled open the door. There was room for
a man to stand inside. The scrutiny of the interior gave him some
satisfaction.
“This is where some one stood”--he looked meaningly at Bat Sands--“when
he koshed Ike Steen--Ike with the police money in his pocket, and ready
to sell every man jack of you.”
“Who’s in the next house?” a voice asked suddenly.
Goyle laughed. He was the virtual landlord so far as the hiring of the
house was concerned. He closed the cupboard door.
“Not counting old George, it’s empty,” he said. “Listen!”
In the deep silence there came the faint murmur of a voice through the
thin walls.
“Talkin’ to himself,” said Goyle with a grin; “he’s daft, and he’s as
good as a watchman for us, for he scares away the children and women
who would come prying about here. He’s----”
They heard the front door shut quickly and the voices of two men in the
passage below.
Goyle sprang to his feet, an evil look on his face.
“That’s Jimmy!” he whispered hurriedly.
As the feet sounded on the stairs he walked to where his coat hung and
took something from his pocket, then, almost as the newcomers entered
the room, he slipped into the cupboard and drew the door close after
him.
Jimmy, entering the room in Connor’s wake, felt the chill of his
reception. He felt, too, some indefinable sensation of danger. There
was an ominous quiet. Bat Sands was polite, even servile. Jimmy noticed
that, and his every sense became alert. Bat thrust forward a chair and
placed it with its back toward the cupboard.
“Sit down, Jimmy,” he said with forced heartiness. “We want a bit of a
talk.”
Jimmy sat down.
“I also want a bit of a talk,” he said calmly. “There is a young lady
in this house, brought here against her will. You’ve got to let her go.”
The angry mutter of protest that he had expected did not come, rather
was his dictum received in complete silence. This was bad, and he
looked round for the danger. Then he missed a face.
“Where is our friend Goyle, our dear landlord?” he asked with pleasant
irony.
“He hasn’t been here to-day,” Bat hastened to say.
Jimmy looked at Connor standing by the door biting his nails, and
Connor avoided his eye.
“Ah!” Jimmy’s unconcern was perfectly simulated.
“Jimmy wants us to send the girl back.” Connor was speaking hurriedly.
“He thinks there’ll be trouble, and his friend the ’tec thinks there
will be trouble too.”
Jimmy heard the artfully-worded indictment unmoved. Again he noticed,
with some concern, that what was tantamount to a charge of treachery
was received without a word.
“It isn’t what others think, it is what I think, Connor,” he said
dryly. “The girl has got to go back. I want Reale’s money as much as
you, but I have a fancy to play fair this journey.”
“Oh, you have, _have_ you,” sneered Connor. He had seen the cupboard
door behind Jimmy move ever so slightly.
Jimmy sat with his legs crossed on the chair that had been placed for
him. The light overcoat he had worn over his evening dress lay across
his knees. Connor knew the moment was at hand, and concentrated his
efforts to keep his former comrade’s attentions engaged. He had guessed
the meaning of Goyle’s absence from the room and the moving cupboard
door. In his present position Jimmy was helpless.
Connor had been nervous to a point of incoherence on the way to the
house. Now his voice rose to a strident pitch.
“You’re too clever, Jimmy,” he said, “and there are too many ‘musts’
about you to please us. We say that the girl has got to stay, and by
---- we mean it!”
Jimmy’s wits were at work. The danger was very close at hand, he felt
that. He must change his tactics. He had depended too implicitly upon
Connor’s fear of him, and had reckoned without the “Borough Lot.” From
which of these men did danger threaten? He took their faces in in one
comprehensive glance. He knew them--he had their black histories at his
finger-tips. Then he saw a coat hanging on the wall at the farther end
of the room. He recognized the garment instantly. It was Goyle’s. Where
was the owner? He temporized.
“I haven’t the slightest desire to upset anybody’s plans,” he drawled,
and started drawing on a white glove, as though about to depart. “I am
willing to hear your views, but I would point out that I have an equal
interest in the young lady, Connor.”
He gazed reflectively into the palm of his gloved hand as if admiring
the fit. There was something so peculiar in this apparently innocent
action, that Connor started forward with an oath.
“Quick, Goyle!” he shouted; but Jimmy was out of his chair and was
standing with his back against the cupboard, and in Jimmy’s ungloved
hand was an ugly black weapon that was all butt and barrel.
He waved them back, and they shrank away from him.
“Let me see you all,” he commanded, “none of your getting behind one
another. I want to see what you are doing. Get away from that coat of
yours, Bat, or I’ll put a bullet in your stomach.”
He had braced himself against the door in anticipation of the thrust of
the man, but it seemed as though the prisoner inside had accepted the
situation, for he made no sign.
“So you are all wondering how I knew about the cupboard,” he jeered. He
held up the gloved hand, and in the palm something flashed back the
light of the lamp.
Connor knew. The tiny mirror sewn in the palm of the sharper’s glove
was recognized equipment.
“Now, gentlemen,” said Jimmy with a mocking laugh, “I must insist
on having my way. Connor, you will please bring to me the lady you
abducted this afternoon.”
Connor hesitated; then he intercepted a glance from Bat Sands, and
sullenly withdrew from the room.
Jimmy did not speak till Connor had returned ushering in the
white-faced girl. He saw that she looked faint and ill, and motioned
one of the men to place a chair for her. What she saw amidst that
forbidding group was a young man with a little Vandyke beard, who
looked at her with grave, thoughtful eyes. He was a gentleman, she
could see that, and her heart leapt within her as she realized that
the presence of this man in the fashionably-cut clothes and the most
unfashionable pistol meant deliverance from this horrible place.
“Miss Kent,” he said kindly.
She nodded, she could not trust herself to speak. The experience of the
past few hours had almost reduced her to a state of collapse.
Jimmy saw the girl was on the verge of a breakdown.
“I am going to take you home,” he said, and added whimsically, “and
cannot but feel that you have underrated your opportunities. Not
often will you see gathered together so splendid a collection of our
profession.” He waved his hand in introduction. “Bat Sands, Miss
Kent, a most lowly thief, possibly worse. George Collroy, coiner and
a ferocious villain. Vennis, who follows the lowest of all grades of
dishonest livelihood--blackmailer. Here,” Jimmy went on, as he stepped
aside from the cupboard, “is the gem of the collection. I will show you
our friend who has so coyly effaced himself.” He addressed the occupant
of the cupboard.
“Come out, Goyle,” he said sharply.
There was no response.
Jimmy pointed to one of the ruffians in the room.
“Open that door,” he commanded.
The man slunk forward and pulled the door open.
“Come out, Goyle,” he growled, then stepped back with blank
astonishment stamped upon his face. “Why--why,” he gasped, “there’s
nobody there!”
With a cry, Jimmy started forward. One glance convinced him that the
man spoke the truth, and then----
There were keen wits in that crowd--men used to crises and quick to
act. Bat Sands saw Jimmy’s attention diverted for a moment, and Jimmy’s
pistol hand momentarily lowered. To think with Bat Sands was to act.
Jimmy, turning back upon the “Lot,” saw the life-preserver descending,
and leapt on one side; then, as he recovered, somebody threw a coat at
the lamp, and the room was in darkness.
Jimmy reached out his hand and caught the girl by the arm. “Into that
cupboard,” he whispered, pushing her into the recess from which Goyle
had so mysteriously vanished. Then, with one hand on the edge of the
door, he groped around with his pistol for his assailants. He could
hear their breathing and the creak of the floorboards as they came
toward him. He crouched down by the door, judging that the “kosh” would
be aimed in a line with his head. By and by he heard the swish of the
descending stick, and “crash!” the preserver struck the wall above him.
He was confronted with a difficulty; to fire would be to invite
trouble. He had no desire to attract the attention of the police for
many reasons. Unless the life of the girl was in danger he resolved to
hold his fire, and when Ike Josephs, feeling cautiously forward with
his stick, blundered into Jimmy, Ike suddenly dropped to the floor
without a cry, because he had been hit a fairly vicious blow in that
portion of the anatomy which is dignified with the title “solar plexus.”
It was just after this that he heard a startled little cry from the
girl behind him, and then a voice that sent his heart into his mouth.
“All right! All right! All right!”
There was only one man who used that tag, and Jimmy’s heart rose up to
bless his name in thankfulness.
“This way, Miss Kent,” said the voice, “mind the little step. Don’t be
afraid of the gentleman on the floor, he’s handcuffed and strapped and
gagged, and is perfectly harmless.”
Jimmy chuckled. The mystery of Angel’s intimate knowledge of the
“Lot’s” plans and of Connor’s movements, the disappearance of Goyle,
were all explained. He did not know for certain that the occupant of
the “empty” house next door had industriously cut through the thin
party-walls that separated the two houses, and had rigged up a “back”
to the cupboard that was really a door, but he guessed it.
Then a blinding ray of light shot into the room where the “Borough Lot”
still groped for its enemy, and a gentle voice said--
“Gentlemen, you may make your choice which way you go--out by the front
door, where my friend, Inspector Collyer, with quite a large number of
men, is waiting; or by the back door, where Sergeant Murtle and exactly
seven plain-clothes men are impatiently expecting you.”
Bat recognized the voice.
“Angel Esquire!” he cried in consternation.
From the darkness behind the dazzling electric lamp that threw a narrow
lane of light into the apartment came an amused chuckle.
“What is it,” asked Angel’s persuasive voice, “a cop?”
“It’s a fair cop,” said Bat truthfully.
CHAPTER V
THE CRYPTOGRAM
Mr. Spedding looked at his watch. He stood upon the marble-tiled
floor of the Great Deposit. High above his head, suspended from the
beautiful dome, blazed a hundred lights from an ornate electrolier. He
paced before the great pedestal that towered up from the center of the
building, and the floor was criss-crossed with the shadows of the steel
framework that encased it. But for the dozen chairs that were placed in
a semicircle before the great granite base, the big hall was bare and
unfurnished.
Mr. Spedding walked up and down, and his footsteps rang hollow; when he
spoke the misty space of the building caught up his voice and sent down
droning echoes.
“There is only the lady to come,” he said, looking at his watch again.
He spoke to the two men who sat at either extreme of the crescent of
chairs. The one was Jimmy, a brooding, thoughtful figure; the other was
Connor, ill at ease and subdued. Behind the chairs, at some distance,
stood two men who looked like artisans, as indeed they were: at their
feet lay a bag of tools, and on a small board a heap that looked like
sand. At the door a stolid-looking commissionaire waited, his breast
glittering with medals.
Footsteps sounded in the vestibule, the rustle of a woman’s dress, and
Kathleen Kent entered, closely followed by Angel Esquire. At him the
lawyer looked questioningly as he walked forward to greet the girl.
“Mr. Angel has kindly offered me his help,” she said timidly--then,
recognizing Connor, her face flushed--“and if necessary, his
protection.”
Mr. Spedding bowed.
“I hope you will not find this part of the ceremony trying,” he said in
a low voice, and led the girl to a chair. Then he made a signal to the
commissionaire.
“What is going to happen?” Kathleen whispered to her companion, and
Angel shook his head.
“I can only guess,” he replied in the same tone.
He was looking up at the great safe wherein he knew was stored the
wealth of the dead gambler, and wondering at the freakish ingenuity
that planned and foresaw this strange scene. The creak of footsteps in
the doorway made him turn his head. He saw a white-robed figure, and
behind him a black-coated man in attendance, holding on a cushion a
golden casket. Then the dread, familiar words brought him to his feet
with a shiver:--
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die.”
The clergyman’s solemn voice resounded through the building, and the
detective realized that the ashes of the dead man were coming to their
last abiding-place. The slow procession moved toward the silent party.
Slowly it paced toward the column; then, as the clergyman’s feet rang
on the steel stairway that wound upward, he began the Psalm which of
all others perhaps most fitted the passing of old Reale:--
“Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness.... Wash me
thoroughly from my wickedness: and cleanse me from my sin.... Behold, I
was shapen in wickedness.... Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God....”
Half-way up the column a small gap yawned in the unbroken granite face,
and into this the golden cabinet was pushed; then the workman, who had
formed one of the little party that wound upward, lifted a smooth cube
of polished granite.
“Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take
unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed....”
The mason’s trowel grated on the edges of the cavity, the block of
stone was thrust in until it was flush with the surface of the
pedestal. Carved on the end of the stone were four words:--
Pulvis
Cinis
et
Nihil.
It was when the workmen had been dismissed, and the lawyer was at the
door bidding adieu to the priest whose strange duty had been performed,
that Angel crossed to where Jimmy sat.
He caught Jimmy’s grim smile, and raised his eyes to where all that was
mortal of Reale had been placed.
“The Latin?” asked Angel.
“Surprising, isn’t it?” said the other quietly. “Reale had seen things,
you know. A man who travels picks up information.” He nodded toward the
epitaph. “He got that idea at Toledo, in the cathedral there. Do you
know it? A slab of brass over a dead king-maker, Portocarrero, ‘Hic
jacet pulvis cinis et nihil.’ I translated it for him; the conceit
pleased him. Sitting here, watching his strange funeral, I wondered if
‘pulvis cinis et nihil’ would come into it.”
And now Spedding came creaking back. The workmen had disappeared, the
outer door was closed, and the commissionaire had retired to his room
leading from the vestibule. In Spedding’s hand was a bundle of papers.
He took his place with his back to the granite pedestal and lost no
time in preliminaries.
“I have here the will of the late James Ryan Reale,” he began. “The
contents of this will are known to every person here except Miss Kent.”
He had a dry humor of his own, this lawyer, as his next words proved.
“A week ago a very clever burglary was committed in my office: the safe
was opened, a private dispatch box forced, and my papers ransacked. I
must do my visitor justice”--he bowed slightly, first in the direction
of Connor, then toward Jimmy--“and say that nothing was taken and
practically nothing disturbed. There was plenty of evidence that the
object of the burglary was to secure a sight of this will.”
Jimmy was unperturbed at the scarcely-veiled charge, and if he moved it
was only with the object of taking up an easier position in the chair.
Not even the shocked eyes of the girl that looked appealingly toward
him caused him any apparent uneasiness.
“Go on,” he said, as the lawyer paused as though waiting for an
admission. He was quietly amused. He knew very well now who this
considerate burglar was.
“By copying this will the burglar or burglars obtained an unfair
advantage over the other legatee or legatees.”
The stiff paper crackled noisily as he unfolded the document in his
hand.
“I will formally read the will and afterwards explain it to such of you
as need the explanation,” Spedding resumed.
The girl listened as the lawyer began to read. Confused by the legal
terminology, the endless repetitions, and the chaotic verbiage of the
instrument, she yet realized as the reading went on that this last
will and testament of old Reale was something extraordinary. There was
mention of houses and estates, freeholds and bonds ... “... and all
the residue of any property whatsoever and wheresoever absolutely”
that went to somebody. To whom she could not gather. Once she thought
it was to herself, “to Francis Corydon Kent, Esquire, or the heirs
of his body;” once it sounded as though this huge fortune was to be
inherited by “James Cavendish Fairfax Stannard, Baronet of the United
Kingdom.” She wondered if this was Jimmy, and remembered in a vague way
that she had heard that the ninth baronet of that name was a person
of questionable character. Then again it seemed as if the legatee was
to be “Patrick George Connor.” There was a doggerel verse in the will
that the lawyer gabbled through, and something about the great safe,
then the lawyer came to an end. In the conventional declaration of the
witnesses lay a sting that sent a dull red flush to Connor’s cheek and
again provoked Jimmy’s grim smile.
The lawyer read:--
“Signed by the above James Ryan Reale as his last will and testament
(the word ‘thief’ after ‘James Cavendish Fairfax Stannard, Baronet
of the United Kingdom,’ and the word ‘thief’ after ‘Patrick George
Connor,’ in the twentieth and twenty-third lines from the top hereof,
having been deleted), in the presence of us....”
The lawyer folded the will perversely and put it in his pocket. Then he
took four slips of paper from an envelope.
“It is quite clear to you gentlemen.” He did not wait for the men’s
reply, but went on addressing the bewildered girl.
“To you, Miss Kent, I am afraid the will is not so clear. I will
explain it in a few words. My late client was the owner of a gambling
establishment. Thus he amassed a huge fortune, which he has left to
form, if I may so put it, a large prize fund. The competitors are
yourselves. Frankly, it is a competition between the dupes, or the
heirs of the dupes, who were ruined by my late client, and the men who
helped in the fleecing.”
The lawyer spoke dispassionately, as though expounding some hypothesis,
but there was that in his tone which made Connor wince.
“Your father, my dear young lady, was one of these dupes many years
ago--you must have been at school at the time. He became suddenly a
poor man.”
The girl’s face grew hard.
“So that was how it happened,” she said slowly.
“That is how it happened,” the lawyer repeated gravely. “Your father’s
fortune was one of four great fortunes that went into the coffers
of my late client.” The formal description of Reale seemed to lend
him an air of respectability. “The other three have long since died,
neither of them leaving issue. You are the sole representative of the
victims. These gentlemen are--let us say--in opposition. This safe,”
he waved his hand toward the great steel room that crowned the granite
column, “contains the fortune. The safe itself is the invention of my
late client. Where the lock should be are six dials, on each of which
are the letters of the alphabet. The dials are ranged one inside the
other, and on one side is a steel pointer. A word of six letters opens
the safe. By turning the dials so that the letters come opposite the
pointer, and form this word, the door is opened.”
He stopped to wipe his forehead, for in the energy of his explanation
he had become hot. Then he resumed--
“What that word is, is for you to discover. My late client, who had a
passion for acrostics and puzzles and inventions of every kind, has
left a doggerel verse which he most earnestly assured me contained the
solution.”
He handed a slip first to the girl and then to the others. For a moment
the world swam before Kathleen’s eyes. All that hinged upon that
little verse came home to her. Carefully conning each word, as if in
fear of its significance escaping her, she read:--
“Here’s a puzzle in language old,
Find my meaning and get my gold.
Take one Bolt--just one, no more--
Fix it on behind a Door.
Place it at a river’s Mouth
East or west or north or south.
Take some Leaves and put them whole
In some water in a Bowl.
I found this puzzle in a book
From which some mighty truths were took.”
She read again and yet again, the others watching her. With every
reading she seemed to get further from the solution of the mystery, and
she turned in despair to Angel.
“I can make nothing of it,” she cried helplessly, “nothing, nothing,
nothing.”
“It is, with due respect to my late client, the veriest doggerel,” said
the lawyer frankly, “and yet upon that the inheritance of the whole of
his fortune depends.”
He had noticed that neither Connor nor Jimmy had read the slips he had
handed to them.
“The paper I have given you is a facsimile reproduction of the original
copy, and that may be inspected at any time at my office.”
The girl was scanning the rhyme in an agony of perplexity.
“I shall never do it,” she said in despair.
Angel took the paper gently from her hand.
“Don’t attempt it,” he said kindly. “There is plenty of time. I do not
think that either of your rival competitors have gained anything by the
advantage they have secured. I also have had in my possession a copy of
the rhyme for the past week.”
The girl’s eyes opened wide in astonishment.
“You?” she said.
Angel’s explanation was arrested by a singular occurrence.
Connor sat at one end of the row of chairs moodily eying the paper.
Jimmy, thoughtfully stroking his beard at the other end, suddenly
rose and walked to where his brooding confederate sat. The man shrunk
back as he approached, and Jimmy, seating himself by his side, bent
forward and said something in a low voice. He spoke rapidly, and Angel,
watching them closely, saw a look of incredulous surprise come into
Connor’s face. Then wrath and incredulity mingled, and Connor sprang
up, striking the back of the chair with his fist.
“What?” he roared. “Give up a chance of a fortune? I’ll see you----”
Jimmy’s voice never rose, but he gripped Connor’s arm and pulled him
down into his chair.
“I won’t! I won’t! D’ye think I’m going to throw away----”
Jimmy released the man’s arm and rose with a shrug of his shoulders.
He walked to where Kathleen was standing.
“Miss Kent,” he said, and hesitated. “It is difficult for me to
say what I have to say; but I want to tell you that so far as I am
concerned the fortune is yours. I shall make no claim to it, and I
will afford you every assistance that lies in my power to discover the
word that is hidden in the verse.”
The girl made no reply. Her lips were set tight, and the hard look that
Angel had noticed when the lawyer had referred to her father came back
again.
Jimmy waited a moment for her to speak, but she made no sign, and with
a slight bow he walked toward the door.
“Stop!”
It was Kathleen that spoke, and Jimmy turned and waited.
“As I understand this will,” she said slowly, “you are one of the men
to whom my father owed his ruin.”
His eyes met hers unfalteringly.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“One of the men that I have to thank for years of misery and sorrow,”
she continued. “When I saw my father slowly sinking, a broken-hearted
man, weighed down with the knowledge of the folly that had brought
his wife and child to comparative poverty; when I saw my father die,
crushed in spirit by his misfortunes, I never thought I should meet the
man who brought his ruin about.”
Still Jimmy’s gaze did not waver. Impassive, calm and imperturbable, he
listened unmoved to the bitter indictment.
“This will says you were a man of my father’s own class, one who knew
the tricks by which a gentle, simple man, with a childish faith in such
men as you, might be lured into temptation.”
Jimmy made no reply, and the girl went on in biting tones--
“A few days ago you helped me to escape from men whom you introduced
with an air of superiority as thieves and blackmailers. That it was you
who rendered me this service I shall regret to the end of my days. You!
You! You!” She flung out her hand scornfully. “If they were thieves,
what are you? A gambler’s tout? A decoy? A harpy preying on the
weakness of your unfortunate fellows?”
She turned to Connor.
“Had this man offered me his help I might have accepted it. Had he
offered to forego his claim to this fortune I might have been impressed
by his generosity. From you, whom God gave advantages of birth and
education, and who utilized them to bring ruin and disaster on such men
as my father, the offer is an insult!”
Jimmy’s face was deadly pale, but he made no sign. Only his eyes shone
brighter, and the hand that twisted the point of his beard twitched
nervously.
The girl turned to Angel wearily. Her outburst and the tension of the
evening had exhausted her.
“Will you take me home, Mr. Angel?” she said.
She offered her hand to the lawyer, who had been an interested observer
of the scene, and ignoring the two men, she turned to go.
Then Jimmy spoke.
“I do not attempt to excuse myself, Miss Kent,” he said evenly; “for my
life and my acts I am unaccountable to man or woman. Your condemnation
makes it neither easier nor harder to live my life. Your charity might
have made a difference.”
He held out a detaining hand, for Kathleen had gathered up her skirts
to move away.
“I have considered your question fairly. I am one of the men to whom
your father owed his ruin, insomuch as I was one of Reale’s associates.
I am _not_ one of the men, insomuch as I used my every endeavor to
dissuade your father from taking the risks he took.”
The humor of some recollection took hold of him, and a grim little
smile came into his face.
“You say I betrayed your father,” he said in the same quiet tone. “As a
fact I betrayed Reale. I was at trouble to explain to your father the
secret of Reale’s electric roulette table; I demonstrated the futility
of risking another farthing.” He laughed. “I have said I would not
excuse myself, and here I am pleading like a small boy, ‘If you please,
it wasn’t me,’” he said a little impatiently; and then he added
abruptly, “I will not detain you,” and walked away.
He knew instinctively that she waited a moment hesitating for a reply,
then he heard the rustle of her dress and knew she had gone. He stood
looking upward to where the graven granite set marked the ashes of
Reale, until her footsteps had died away and the lawyer’s voice broke
the silence.
“Now, Sir James----” he began, and Jimmy spun round with an oath, his
face white with passion.
“Jimmy,” he said in a harsh voice, “Jimmy is my name, and I want to
hear no other, if you please.”
Mr. Spedding, used as he was to the wayward phases of men, was a little
startled at the effect of his words, and hastened to atone for his
blunder.
“I--I beg your pardon,” he said quickly. “I merely wished to say----”
Jimmy did not wait to hear what he said, but turned upon Connor.
“I’ve got a few words to say to you,” he said. His voice had gone back
to its calm level, but there was a menace in its quietness.
“When I persuaded Angel to give you a chance to get away on the night
the ‘Borough Lot’ was arrested, I hoped I could get you to agree with
me that the money should be handed to Miss Kent when the word was
found. I knew in my inmost heart that this was a forlorn hope,” he went
on, “that there is no gold in the quartz of your composition. You are
just beast all through.”
He paced the floor of the hall for a minute or two, then he stopped.
“Connor,” he said suddenly, “you tried to take my life the other night.
I have a mind to retaliate. You may go ahead and puzzle out the word
that unlocks that safe. Get it by any means that suggest themselves to
you. Steal it, buy it--do anything you wish. The day you secure the key
to Reale’s treasure I shall kill you.”
He talked like a man propounding a simple business proposition, and the
lawyer, who in his early youth had written a heavy little paper on “The
Congenital Criminal,” listened and watched, and, in quite a respectable
way, gloated.
Jimmy picked up his hat and coat from a chair, and nodding to the
lawyer, strolled out of the hall.
In the vestibule where the one commissionaire had been were six. Every
man was a non-commissioned officer, and, as was apparent from his
medals, had seen war service. Jimmy noted the belt about each man and
the dangling revolver holster, and approved of the lawyer’s precaution.
“Night guard, sergeant-major?” he asked, addressing one whose crowned
sleeve showed his rank.
“Day and night guard, sir,” replied the officer quietly.
“Good,” said Jimmy, and passed out into the street.
And now only the lawyer and Connor remained, and as Jimmy left, they
too prepared for departure.
The lawyer was mildly interested in the big, heavy criminal who walked
by his side. He was a fairly familiar type of the bull-headed desperado.
“There is nothing I can explain?” asked Spedding, as they stood
together in the vestibule.
Connor’s eyes were on the guard, and he frowned a little.
“You don’t trust us very much,” he said.
“I don’t trust you at all,” said the lawyer.
CHAPTER VI
THE RED ENVELOPE
Mr. Spedding, the admirable lawyer, lived on Clapham Common, where he
owned the freehold of that desirable residence, “High Holly Lodge.”
He was a bachelor, with a taste for bridge parties and Madeira.
Curious neighbors would have been mystified if they had known that Mr.
Spedding’s repair bill during the first two years of his residence was
something well over three thousand pounds. What they _did_ know was
that Mr. Spedding “had the builders in” for an unconscionable time,
that they were men who spoke in a language entirely foreign to Clapham,
and that they were housed during the period of renovation in a little
galvanized iron bungalow erected for the purpose in the grounds.
A neighbor on visiting terms expressed his opinion that for all
the workmen had done he could discern no material difference in the
structure of the house, and from his point of view the house presented
the same appearance after the foreign builders left, as it did before
their advent. Mr. Spedding met all carelessly-applied questions
concerning the extent of the structural alterations with supreme
discretion. He spoke vaguely about a new system of ventilation, and
hinted at warmth by radiation.
Suburbia loves to show off its privately conceived improvements to
property, but Mr. Spedding met veiled hints of a desire to inspect his
work with that comfortable smile which was so valuable an asset of his
business.
It was a few evenings after the scene in the Lombard Street Deposit
that Mr. Spedding sat in solitude before his modest dinner at Clapham.
An evening newspaper lay by the side of his chair, and he picked it up
at intervals to read again the paragraph which told of the release of
the “Borough Lot.” The paragraph read:--
“The men arrested in connection with the gambling raid at Poplar were
discharged to-day, the police, it is understood, failing to secure
sufficient evidence to justify a prosecution.”
The lawyer shook his head doubtfully.
“I rather like Angel Esquire’s definition,” he said with a wry smile.
“It is a neat method of saving the face of the police, but I could wish
that the ‘Borough Lot’ were out of the way.”
Later he had occasion to change his opinion.
A tap at the door preceded the entry of a sedate butler. The lawyer
looked at the card on the tray, and hesitated; then, “Show him in,” he
said.
Jimmy came into the room, and bowed slightly to the elder man, who rose
at his entrance.
They waited in silence till the servant had closed the door behind him.
“To what am I indebted?” began the lawyer, and motioned his visitor to
a seat.
“May I smoke?” asked Jimmy, and Mr. Spedding nodded.
“It is in the matter of Reale’s millions,” said Jimmy, and allowed his
eyes to follow the cloud of smoke he blew.
“I thought it was understood that this was a subject which might only
be discussed at my office and in business hours?” said the lawyer
sharply, and Jimmy nodded again.
“You will confess, Mr. Spedding,” he said easily, “that the Reale
will is sufficiently unconventional to justify any departure from
established custom on the part of the fortunate or unfortunate
legatees.”
Mr. Spedding made an impatient movement of his hand.
“I do not inquire into your business,” Jimmy went on smoothly
enough, “and I am wholly incurious as to in what strange manner you
became acquainted with your late client, or what fees you received
to undertake so extraordinary a commission; but I am satisfied that
you are recompensed for such trifling inconveniences as--say an
after-dinner visit from myself.”
Jimmy had a way of choosing his words, hesitating for the exact
expression that would best convey every shade of his meaning. The
lawyer, too, recognized the logic of the speech, and contented himself
with a shrug which meant nothing.
“I do not inquire into your motives,” Jimmy resumed; “it pleases me to
believe that they are entirely disinterested, that your attitude is the
ideal one as between client and agent.”
His pause was longer this time, and the lawyer was piqued into
interjecting an impatient--
“Well?”
“Well,” said Jimmy slowly, “believing all this, let us say, I am at a
loss to know why at the reading of the will you gave us no indication
of the existence of a key to this mysterious verse.”
“There is no key,” said the lawyer quickly, and added, “so far as I
know.”
“That you did not tell us,” Jimmy went on, as though unconscious of
any interruption, “of the big red envelope----”
Spedding sprang to his feet white as death.
“The envelope,” he stammered angrily, “what do you know--what envelope?”
Jimmy’s hand waved him to his seat.
“Let us have no emotions, no flights, no outraged honor, I beg of you,
dear Mr. Spedding. I do not suggest that you have any sinister reasons
for withholding information concerning what my friend Angel would call
the ‘surprise packet.’ In good time I do not doubt you would have
disclosed its existence.”
“I know of no red envelope,” said the lawyer doggedly.
“I rather fancied you would say that,” said Jimmy, with a touch
of admiration in his tone. “You are not the sort of fox to curl
up and howl at the first bay of the hound--if you will permit the
simile--indeed, you would have disappointed me if you had.”
The lawyer paced the room.
“Look here,” he said, coming to a halt before the semi-recumbent form
that lay behind a haze of cigarette smoke in the arm-chair, “you’ve
spent a great deal of your time telling me what I am, describing my
many doubtful qualities, and hinting more or less broadly that I am
a fairly representative scoundrel. May I ask what is your ultimate
object? Is it blackmail?” he demanded harshly.
“No,” said Jimmy, by no means disconcerted by the brutality of the
question.
“Are you begging, or borrowing, or----”
“Stealing?” murmured Jimmy lazily.
“All that I have to say to you is, finish your business and go.
Furthermore, you are at liberty to come with me to-morrow morning and
search my office and question my clerks. I will accompany you to my
banks, and to the strong-room I rent at the deposit. Search for this
red envelope you speak about, and if you find it, you are at liberty to
draw the worst deductions you will.”
Jimmy pulled gently at his cigarette with reflective eyes cast upward
to the ceiling.
“Do you speak Spanish?” he asked.
“No,” said the other impatiently.
“It’s a pity,” said Jimmy, with a note of genuine regret. “Spanish is a
very useful language--especially in the Argentine, for which delightful
country, I understand, lawyers who betray their trust have an especial
predilection. My Spanish needs a little furbishing, and only the other
day I was practising with a man whose name, I believe, is Murrello. Do
you know him?”
“If you have completed your business, I will ring for the servant,”
said the lawyer.
“He told me--my Spaniard, I mean--a curious story. He comes from
Barcelona, and by way of being a mason or something of the sort, was
brought to England with some other of his fellow-countrymen to make
some curious alterations to the house of a Señor in--er--Clapham of all
places in the world.”
The lawyer’s breath came short and fast.
“From what I was able to gather,” Jimmy went on languidly, “and my
Spanish is Andalusian rather than Catalonian, so that I missed some
of his interesting narrative, these alterations partook of the nature
of wonderfully concealed strong-rooms--steel doors artfully covered
with cheap wood carving, vaults cunningly constructed beneath innocent
basement kitchens, little stairways in apparently solid walls and the
like.”
The levity went out of his voice, and he straightened himself in his
chair.
“I have no desire to search your office,” he said quietly, “or perhaps
I should say no further desire, for I have already methodically
examined every hole and corner. No,” he checked the words on Spedding’s
lips, “no, it was not I who committed the blundering burglary you spoke
of. You never found traces of me, I’ll swear. You may keep the keys of
your strong-room, and I shall not trouble your bankers.”
“What do you want?” demanded the lawyer shortly.
“I want to see what you have got downstairs,” was the reply, and there
was no doubting its earnestness, “and more especially do I want to see
the red envelope.”
The lawyer bent his brows in thought. His eyes were fixed unwaveringly
on Jimmy’s.
“Suppose,” he said slowly, “suppose that such an envelope did exist,
suppose for the sake of argument these mysterious vaults and secret
chambers are, as you suggest, in existence, what right have you, more
than any other one of the beneficiaries under the will, to demand a
private examination? Why should I give you an unfair advantage over
them?”
Jimmy rose to his feet and stretched himself before replying.
“There is only one legatee whom I recognize,” he said briefly, “that
is the girl. The money is hers. I do not want a farthing. I am equally
determined that nobody else shall touch a penny--neither my young
friend Connor”--he stopped to give emphasis to the next two words--“nor
yourself.”
“Sir!” said the outraged Mr. Spedding.
“Nor yourself, Mr. Spedding,” repeated Jimmy with conviction. “Let us
understand each other thoroughly. You are, as I read you, a fairly
respectable citizen. I would trust you with ten or a hundred thousand
pounds without experiencing the slightest anxiety. I would not trust
you with two millions in solid cash, nor would I trust any man. The
magnitude of the sum is calculated to overwhelm your moral sense. The
sooner the red envelope is in the possession of Angel Esquire the
better for us all.”
Spedding stood with bent head, his fingers nervously stroking his jaw,
thinking.
“An agile mind this,” thought Jimmy; “if I am not careful there will be
trouble here.”
He watched the lawyer’s face, and noticed the lines suddenly disappear
from the troubled face, and the placid smile returning.
“Conciliation and partial confession,” judged Jimmy, and his diagnosis
was correct.
“Well, Mr. Jimmy,” said Spedding, with some show of heartiness, “since
you know so much, it may be as well to tell you more. As you have so
cleverly discovered, my house to a great extent is a strong-room.
There are many valuable documents that I could not with any confidence
leave deposited at my office. They are safer here under my eye, so to
speak. The papers of the late Mr. Reale are, I confess, in this house;
but--now mark me--whether the red envelope you speak of is amongst
these I do not know. There is a multitude of documents in connection
with the case, all of which I have had no time to go through. The hour
is late, but----”
He paused irresolutely.
“----If you would care to inspect the mysteries of the basement”--he
smiled benevolently, and was his old self--“I shall be happy to have
your assistance in a cursory search.”
Jimmy was alert and watchful and to the point.
“Lead the way,” he said shortly, and Spedding, after a moment’s
hesitation, opened the door and Jimmy followed him into the hall.
Contrary to his expectations, the lawyer led him upstairs, and through
a plainly furnished bedroom to a small dressing-room that opened off.
There was a conventional wardrobe against the wall, and this Spedding
opened. A dozen suits hung from hooks and stretchers, and the lawyer
groped amongst these for a moment. Then there was a soft click, and the
back of the wardrobe swung back.
Spedding turned to his visitor with a quizzical smile.
“Your friend Angel’s method of gaining admittance to the haunt of the
‘Borough Lot’ was not original. Come.”
Jimmy stepped gingerly through into the darkness. He heard the snap of
a button, and a soft glow of light revealed a tiny chamber, in which
two men might comfortably stand upright. The back of the wardrobe
closed, and they were alone in a little room about as large as an
average cupboard.
There was a steel lever on one side of the walls, and this the lawyer
pulled cautiously. Jimmy felt a sinking sensation, and heard a faint,
far-off buzzing of machinery.
“An electric lift, I take it,” he said quietly.
“An electric lift,” repeated the lawyer.
Down, down, down they sank, till Jimmy calculated that they must be at
least twenty feet below the street level. Then the lift slowed down and
stopped at a door. Spedding opened this with a key he took from his
pocket, and they stepped out into a chill, earthy darkness.
“There’s a light here,” said the lawyer, and groped for the switch.
They were in a large vaulted apartment lit from the roof. At one end
a steel door faced them, and ranged about the vault on iron racks a
number of black japanned boxes.
Jimmy noted the inscriptions, and was a little surprised at the extent
and importance of the solicitor’s practice. Spedding must have read
his thoughts, for he turned with a smile.
“Not particularly suggestive of a defaulting solicitor,” he said
ironically.
“Two million pounds,” replied Jimmy immediately, “that is my answer to
you, Mr. Spedding. An enormous fortune for the reaching. I wouldn’t
trust the Governors of the Bank of England.”
Spedding may have been annoyed as he walked to the door in the wall and
opened it, but he effectively concealed his annoyance.
As the door fell backward, Jimmy saw a little apartment, four feet by
six feet, with a roof he could touch with his hand. There was a fresh
current of air, but from whence it came he could not discover. The only
articles of furniture in the little cell were a writing table and a
swing chair placed exactly beneath the electric lamp in the roof.
Spedding pulled open a drawer in the desk.
“I do not keep my desks locked here,” he said pleasantly enough.
It was characteristic of him that he indulged in no preamble, no
apologetic preliminaries, and that he showed no sign of embarrassment
as he slipped his hand into the drawer, and drawing forth a bulky red
envelope, threw it on to the desk.
You might have forgotten that his last words were denials that the red
envelope had existed. Jimmy looked at him curiously, and the lawyer
returned his gaze.
“A new type?” he asked.
“Hardly,” said Jimmy cheerfully. “I once knew a man like you in the
Argentine--he was hanged eventually.”
“Curious,” mused the lawyer, “I have often thought I might be hanged,
but have never quite seen why----” He nearly added something else, but
checked himself.
Jimmy had the red envelope in his hand and was examining it closely.
It was heavily sealed with the lawyer’s own seal, and bore the
inscription in Reale’s crabbed, illiterate handwriting, “Puzzle
Ideas.” He weighed it and pinched it. There was a little compact packet
inside.
“I shall open this,” said Jimmy decisively. “You, of course, have
already examined it.”
The lawyer made no reply.
Jimmy broke the seal of the envelope. Half his mind was busy in
speculation as to its contents, the other half was engaged with the
lawyer’s plans. Jimmy was too experienced a man to be deceived by the
complaisance of the smooth Mr. Spedding. He watched his every move.
All the while he was engaged in what appeared to be a concentrated
examination of the packet his eyes never left the lawyer. That Spedding
made no sign was a further proof in Jimmy’s eyes that the coup was to
come.
“We might as well examine the envelope upstairs as here,” said the
lawyer. The other man nodded, and followed him from the cell. Spedding
closed the steel door and locked it, then turned to Jimmy.
“Do you notice,” he said with some satisfaction, “how skilfully this
chamber is constructed?” He waved his hand round the larger vault, at
the iron racks and the shiny black boxes.
Jimmy was alert now. The lawyer’s geniality was too gratuitous, his
remarks a trifle inapropos. It was like the lame introduction to a
story which the teller was anxious to drag in at all hazards.
“Here, for instance,” said the lawyer, tapping one of the boxes, “is
what appears to be an ordinary deed box. As a matter of fact, it is an
ingenious device for trapping burglars, if they should by any chance
reach the vault. It is not opened by an ordinary key, but by the
pressure of a button, either in my room or here.”
He walked leisurely to the end of the vault, Jimmy following.
For a man of his build Spedding was a remarkably agile man. Jimmy had
underrated his agility.
He realized this when suddenly the lights went out. Jimmy sprang for
the lawyer, and struck the rough stone wall of the vault. He groped
quickly left and right, and grasped only the air.
“Keep quiet,” commanded Spedding’s calm voice from the other end of the
chamber, “and keep cool. I am going to show you my burglar catcher.”
Jimmy’s fingers were feeling along the wall for the switch that
controlled the lights. As if divining his intention, the lawyer’s voice
said--
“The lights are out of control, Jimmy, and I am fairly well out of your
reach.”
“We shall see,” was Jimmy’s even reply.
“And if you start shooting you will only make the atmosphere of this
place a little more unbreathable than it is at present,” Spedding went
on.
Jimmy smiled in the darkness, and the lawyer heard the snap of a Colt
pistol as his captive loaded.
“Did you notice the little ventilator?” asked the lawyer’s voice again.
“Well, I am behind that. Between my unworthy body and your nickel
bullets there are two feet of solid masonry.”
Jimmy made no reply, his pistol went back to his hip again. He had his
electric lamp in his pocket, but prudently kept it there.
“Before we go any further,” he said slowly, “will you be good enough to
inform me as to your intentions?”
He wanted three minutes, he wanted them very badly; perhaps two minutes
would be enough. All the time the lawyer was speaking he was actively
employed. He had kicked off his shoes when the lights went out, and
now he stole round the room, his sensitive hands flying over the stony
walls.
“As to my intentions,” the lawyer was saying, “it must be fairly
obvious to you that I am not going to hand you over to the police.
Rather, my young friend, in the vulgar parlance of the criminal
classes, I am going to ‘do you in,’ meaning thereby, if you will
forgive the legal terminology, that I shall assist you to another and,
I hope, though I am not sanguine, a better world.”
He heard Jimmy’s insolent laugh in the blackness.
“You are a man after my own heart, Jimmy,” he went on regretfully. “I
could have wished that I might have been spared this painful duty; but
it is a duty, one that I owe to society and myself.”
“You are an amusing person,” said Jimmy’s voice.
“I am glad you think so. Jimmy, my young friend, I am afraid our
conversation must end here. Do you know anything of chemistry?”
“A little.”
“Then you will appreciate my burglar catcher,” said Spedding, with
uncanny satisfaction. “You, perhaps, noticed the japanned box with the
perforated lid? You did? Good! There are two compartments, and two
chemicals in certain quantities kept apart. My hand is on the key now
that will combine them. When cyanide of potassium is combined with
sulphuric acid, do you know what gas is formed?”
Jimmy did not reply. He had found what he had been searching for.
His talk with the Spanish builder had been to some purpose. It was a
little stony projection from the wall. He pressed it downward, and was
sensible of a sensation of coldness. He reached out his hand, and found
where solid wall had been a blank space.
“Do you hear, Jimmy?” asked the lawyer’s voice.
“I hear,” replied Jimmy, and felt for the edge of the secret door. His
fingers sliding down the smooth surface of the flange encountered the
two catches.
“It is hydrocyanic acid,” said the lawyer’s smooth voice, and Jimmy
heard the snap of the button.
“Good-by,” said the lawyer’s voice again, and Jimmy reeled back through
the open doorway swinging the door behind him, and carrying with him a
whiff of air heavily laden with the scent of almonds.
CHAPTER VII
WHAT THE RED ENVELOPE HELD
“My dear Angel,” wrote Jimmy, “I commend to you one Mr. Spedding,
an ingenious man. If by chance you ever wish to visit him, do so in
business hours. If you desire to examine his most secret possession,
effect an entrance into a dreary-looking house at the corner of Cley’s
Road, a stone’s-throw from ‘High Holly Lodge.’ It is marked in plain
characters ‘To Let.’ In the basement you will find a coal-cellar.
Searching the coal-cellar diligently, you will discover a flight of
stone steps leading to a subterranean passage, which burrows under the
ground until it arrives at friend Spedding’s particular private vault.
If this reads like a leaf torn from Dumas or dear Harrison Ainsworth it
is not my fault. I visited our legal adviser last night, and had quite
a thrilling evening. That I am alive this morning is a tribute to my
caution and foreseeing wisdom. The result of my visit is this: I have
the key of the ‘safe-word’ in my hands. Come and get it.”
Angel found the message awaiting him when he reached Scotland Yard
that morning. He too had spent sleepless hours in a futile attempt to
unravel the mystery of old Reale’s doggerel verse.
A telegram brought Kathleen Kent to town. Angel met her at a quiet
restaurant in Rupert Street, and was struck by the delicate beauty of
this slim girl with the calm, gray eyes.
She greeted him with a sad little smile.
“I was afraid you would never see me again after my outburst of the
other night,” she said. “This--this--person is a friend of yours?”
“Jimmy?” asked the detective cheerily. “Oh, yes, Jimmy’s by way of
being a friend; but he deserved all you said, and he knows it, Miss
Kent.”
The girl’s face darkened momentarily as she thought of Jimmy.
“I shall never understand,” she said slowly, “how a man of his gifts
allowed himself to become----”
“But,” protested the detective, “he told you he took no part in the
decoying of your father.”
The girl turned with open-eyed astonishment.
“Surely you do not expect me to believe his excuses,” she cried.
Angel Esquire looked grave.
“That is just what I should ask you to believe,” he said quietly.
“Jimmy makes no excuses, and he would certainly tell no lie in
extenuation of his faults.”
“But--but,” said Kathleen, bewildered, “he is a thief by his own
showing--a bad man.”
“A thief,” said Angel soberly, “but not a bad man. Jimmy is a puzzle to
most people. To me he is perfectly understandable; that is because I
have too much of the criminal in my own composition, perhaps.”
“I wish, oh, how I wish I had your faith in him! Then I could absolve
him from suspicion of having helped ruin my poor father.”
“I think you can do that,” said the detective almost eagerly. “Believe
me, Jimmy is not to be judged by conventional standards. If you ask
me to describe him, I would say that he is a genius who works in an
eccentric circle that sometimes overlaps, sometimes underreaches the
rigid circle of the law. If you asked me as a policeman, and if I
was his bitterest enemy, what I could do with Jimmy, I should say,
‘Nothing.’ I know of no crime with which I could charge him, save
at times with associating with doubtful characters. As a matter of
fact, that equally applies to me. Listen, Miss Kent. The first big
international case I figured in was a gigantic fraud on the Egyptian
Bank. Some four hundred thousand pounds were involved, and whilst
from the outsider’s point of view Jimmy was beyond suspicion, yet we
who were working at the case suspected him, and pretty strongly. The
men who owned the bank were rich Egyptians, and the head of all was
a Somebody-or-other Pasha, as great a scoundrel as ever drew breath.
It is impossible to tell a lady exactly how big a scoundrel he was,
but you may guess. Well, the Pasha knew it was Jimmy who had done the
trick, and we knew, but we dare not say so. The arrest of Jimmy would
have automatically ruined the banker. That was where I realized the
kind of man I had to deal with, and I am always prepared when Jimmy’s
name is mentioned in connection with a big crime to discover that his
victim deserved all he got, and a little more.”
The girl gave a little shiver.
“It sounds dreadful. Cannot such a man as that employ his talents to a
greater advantage?”
Angel shrugged his shoulders despairingly.
“I’ve given up worrying about misapplied talents; it is a subject that
touches me too closely,” he said. “But as to Jimmy, I’m rather glad you
started the conversation in that direction, because I’m going to ask
you to meet him to-day.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t,” she began.
“You are thinking of what happened on the night the will was read?
Well, you must forget that. Jimmy has the key to the verse, and it is
absolutely imperative that you should be present this afternoon.”
With some demur, she consented.
* * * * *
In the sitting-room of Jimmy’s flat the three sat round a table
littered with odds and ends of papers.
The girl had met him with some trepidation, and his distant bow had
done more to assure her than had he displayed a desire to rehabilitate
himself in her good opinion.
Without any preliminaries, Jimmy showed the contents of the packet. He
did not explain to the girl by what means he had come into possession
of them.
“Of all these papers,” began Jimmy, tapping the letter before him,
“only one is of any service, and even that makes confusion worse
confounded. Reale had evidently had this cursed cryptogram in his mind
for a long time. He had made many experiments, and rejected many. Here
is one.”
He pushed over a card, which bore a few words in Reale’s characteristic
hand.
Angel read:--
“The word of five letters I will use, namely:
1. White every 24 sec.
2. Fixed white and red.
3. White group two every 30 sec.
4. Group occ. white red sec. 30 sec.
5. Fixed white and red.”
Underneath was written: “No good; too easy.”
The detective’s brows were bent in perplexity.
“I’m blessed if I can see where the easiness comes in,” he said. “To me
it seems so much gibberish, and as difficult as the other.”
Jimmy noted the detective’s bewilderment with a quiet smile of
satisfaction. He did not look directly at the girl, but out of the
corner of his eyes he could see her eager young face bent over the
card, her pretty forehead wrinkled in a despairing attempt to decipher
the curious document.
“Yet it was easy,” he said, “and if Reale had stuck to that word, the
safe would have been opened by now.”
Angel pored over the mysterious clue.
“The word, as far as I can gather,” said Jimmy, “is ‘smock,’ but it may
be----”
“How on earth----” began Angel in amazement.
“Oh, it’s easy,” said Jimmy cheerfully, “and I am surprised that an old
traveler like yourself should have missed it.”
“Group occ. white red sec. 30 sec.,” read Angel.
Jimmy laughed.
It was the first time the girl had seen this strange man throw
aside his habitual restraint, and she noted with an unaccountable
satisfaction that he was decidedly handsome when amused.
“Let me translate it for you,” said Jimmy. “Let me expand it into,
‘Group occulting White with Red Sectors every Thirty Seconds.’ Now do
you understand?”
Angel shook his head.
“You may think I am shockingly dense,” he said frankly, “but even with
your lucid explanation I am still in the dark.”
Jimmy chuckled.
“Suppose you went to Dover to-night, and sat at the end of the
Admiralty Pier. It is a beautiful night, with stars in the sky, and you
are looking toward France, and you see----?”
“Nothing,” said Angel slowly; “a few ships’ lights, perhaps, and the
flash of the Calais Lighthouse----”
“The occulting flash?” suggested Jimmy.
“The occ.! By Jove!”
“Glad you see it,” said Jimmy briskly. “What old Reale did was to take
the names of five famous lights--any nautical almanac will give you
them:
Sanda.
Milford Haven.
Orkneys.
Caldy Island.
Kinnaird Head.
They form an acrostic, and the initial letters form the work ‘smock’;
but it was too easy--and too hard, because there are two or three
lights, particularly the fixed lights, that are exactly the same, so he
dropped _that_ idea.”
Angel breathed an admiring sigh.
“Jimmy, you’re a wonder,” he said simply.
Jimmy, busying himself amongst the papers, stole a glance at the girl.
“I am very human,” he thought, and was annoyed at the discovery.
“Now we come to the more important clue,” he said, and smoothed a
crumpled paper on the table.
“This, I believe, to have a direct bearing on the verse.”
Then three heads came close together over the scrawled sheet.
“A picture of a duck, which means T,” spelt Angel, “and that’s erased;
and then it is a snake that means T----”
Jimmy nodded.
“In Reale’s verse,” he said deliberately, “there are six words; outside
of those six words I am convinced the verse has no meaning. Six words
strung together, and each word in capitals. Listen.”
He took from his pocketbook the familiar slip on which the verse was
written:--
“Here’s a puzzle in language old,
Find my meaning and get my gold.
Take one BOLT--just one, no more--
Fix it on behind a DOOR.
Place it at a river’s MOUTH
East or west or north or south.
Take some LEAVES and put them whole
In some WATER in a BOWL.
I found this puzzle in a book
From which some mighty truths were took.”
“There are six words,” said Jimmy, and scribbled them down as he
spoke:--
“Bolt (or Bolts). Leave (or Leaves).
Door. Water.
Mouth. Bowl.
Each one stands for a letter--but what letter?”
“It’s rather hopeless if the old man has searched round for all sorts
of out-of-the-way objects, and allowed them to stand for letters of the
alphabet,” said Angel.
The girl murmured something, and met Jimmy’s inquiring eyes.
“I was only saying,” she said hesitatingly, “that there seems to be a
method in all this.”
“Except,” said Jimmy, “for this,” and he pointed to the crossed-out
duck. “By that it would seem that Reale chose his symbols haphazard,
and that the duck not pleasing him, he substituted the snake.”
“But,” said Kathleen, addressing Angel, “doesn’t it seem strange that
an illiterate man like Mr. Reale should make even these rough sketches
unless he had a model to draw from?”
“Miss Kent is right,” said Jimmy quickly.
“And,” she went on, gaining confidence as she spoke, “is there not
something about these drawings that reminds you of something?”
“Of what?” asked Angel.
“I cannot tell,” she replied, shaking her head; “and yet they remind me
of something, and worry me, just as a bar of music that I cannot play
worries me. I feel sure that I have seen them before, that they form a
part of some system----” She stopped suddenly.
“I know,” she continued in a lower voice; “they are associated in my
mind--with--with the Bible.”
The two men stared at her in blank astonishment. Then Jimmy sprang to
his feet, alight with excitement.
“Yes, yes,” he cried. “Angel, don’t you see? The last two lines of
Reale’s doggerel--
“‘I found this puzzle in a book
From which some mighty truths were took.’”
“Go on, go on, Miss Kent,” cried Angel eagerly. “You are on the right
track. Try to think----”
Kathleen hesitated, then turned to Jimmy to address the first remark
she had directed to him personally that day.
“You haven’t got----?”
Jimmy’s smile was a little hard.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Kent, but I _have_ got a copy,”
he said, with a touch of bitterness in his tone. He walked to the
bookcase at one end of the room and reached down the book--a well-worn
volume--and placed it before her.
The rebuke in his voice was deserved, she felt that.
She turned the leaves over quickly, but inspiration seemed to have
died, for there was nothing in the sacred volume that marshaled her
struggling thoughts.
“Is it a text?” asked Angel.
She shook her head.
“It is--something,” she said. “That sounds vague, doesn’t it? I
thought if I had the book in my hand, it would recall everything.”
Angel was intently studying the rebus.
“Here’s one letter, anyway. You said that, Jimmy?”
“The door?” said Jimmy. “Yes, that’s fairly evident. Whatever the word
is, its second letter is ‘P.’ You see Reale’s scribbled notes? All
these are no good, the other letters are best, I suppose it means; so
we can cut out ‘T,’ ‘O,’ and ‘K.’”
“The best clue of all,” he went on, “is the notes about the
‘professor.’ You see them:
“‘Mem.: To get the professor’s new book on it.
Mem.: To do what the professor thinks right.
Mem.: To write to professor about----’
Now the questions are: Who is the professor, what is his book, and what
did he advise? Reale was in correspondence with him, that is certain;
in his desire for accuracy, Reale sought his advice. In all these
papers there is no trace of a letter, and if any book exists it is
still in Sped--it is still in the place from whence this red envelope
came.”
The two men exchanged a swift glance.
“Yes,” said Angel, as if answering the other’s unspoken thought, “it
might be done.”
The girl looked from one to the other in doubt.
“Does this mean an extra risk?” she asked quietly. “I have not
questioned you as to how this red envelope came into your possession,
but I have a feeling that it was not obtained without danger.”
Angel disregarded Jimmy’s warning frown. He was determined that the
better side of his strange friend’s character should be made evident to
the girl.
“Jimmy faced death in a particularly unpleasant form to secure the
packet, Miss Kent,” he said.
“Then I forbid any further risk,” she said spiritedly. “I thought I had
made it clear that I would not accept favors at your friend’s hands;
least of all do I want the favor of his life.”
Jimmy heard her unmoved. He had a bitter tongue when he so willed, and
he chose that moment.
“I do not think you can too strongly impress upon Miss Kent the fact
that I am an interested party in this matter,” he said acidly. “As she
refused my offer to forego my claim to a share of the fortune, she
might remember that my interest in the legacy is at least as great
as hers. I am risking what I risk, not so much from the beautifully
quixotic motives with which she doubtless credits me, as from a natural
desire to help myself.”
She winced a little at the bluntness of his speech; then recognizing
she was in the wrong, she grew angry with herself at her indiscretion.
“If the book is--where these papers were, it can be secured,” Jimmy
continued, regaining his suavity. “If the professor is still alive he
will be found, and by to-morrow I shall have in my possession a list of
every book that has ever been written by a professor of anything.”
Some thought tickled him, and he laughed for the second time that
afternoon.
“There’s a fine course of reading for us all,” he said with a little
chuckle. “Heaven knows into what mysterious regions the literary
professor will lead us. I know one professor who has written a treatise
on Sociology that runs into ten volumes, and another who has spoken his
mind on Inductive Logic to the extent of twelve hundred closely-printed
pages. I have in my mind’s eye a vision of three people sitting amidst
a chaos of thoughtful literature, searching ponderous tomes for
esoteric references to bolts, door, mouth, et cetera.”
The picture he drew was too much for the gravity of the girl, and her
friendship with the man who was professedly a thief, and by inference
something worse, began with a ripple of laughter that greeted his sally.
Jimmy gathered up the papers, and carefully replaced them in the
envelope. This he handed to Angel.
“Place this amongst the archives,” he said flippantly.
“Why not keep it here?” asked Angel in surprise.
Jimmy walked to one of the three French windows that opened on to a
small balcony. He took a rapid survey of the street, then beckoned to
Angel.
“Do you see that man?” He pointed to a lounger sauntering along on the
opposite sidewalk.
“Yes.”
Jimmy walked back to the center of the room.
“That’s why,” he said simply. “There will be a burglary here to-night
or to-morrow night. People aren’t going to let a fortune slip through
their fingers without making some kind of effort to save it.”
“What people?” demanded the girl. “You mean those dreadful men who took
me away?”
“That is very possible,” said Jimmy, “although I was thinking of
somebody else.”
The girl had put on her wrap, and stood irresolutely near the door, and
Angel was waiting.
“Good-by,” she said hesitatingly. “I--I am afraid I have done you an
injustice, and--and I want to thank you for all you have undergone for
me. I know--I feel that I have been ungracious, and----”
“You have done me no injustice,” said Jimmy in a low voice. “I am all
that you thought I was--and worse.”
She held out her hand to him, and he raised it to his lips, which was
unlike Jimmy.
CHAPTER VIII
OLD GEORGE
A stranger making a call in that portion of North Kensington which lies
in the vicinity of Ladbroke Grove by some mischance lost his way. He
wandered through many prosperous crescents and quiet squares redolent
of the opulence of the upper middle classes, through broad avenues
where neat broughams stood waiting in small carriage-drives, and once
he blundered into a tidy mews, where horsy men with great hissings
made ready the chariots of the Notting Hill plutocracy. It may be
that he was in no particular hurry to arrive at his destination, this
stranger--who has nothing to do with the story--but certainly he did
not avail himself of opportunity in the shape of a passing policeman,
and continued his aimless wanderings. He found Kensington Park Road, a
broad thoroughfare of huge gardens and walled forecourts, then turned
into a side street. He walked about twenty paces, and found himself in
the heart of slum-land.
It is no ordinary slum this little patch of property that lies between
Westbourne Grove and Kensington Park Road. There are no tumbled-down
hovels or noisome passages; there are streets of houses dignified with
flights of steps that rise to pretentious street doors and areas where
long dead menials served the need of the lower middle classes of other
days. The streets are given over to an army of squalling children in
varying styles of dirtiness, and the halls of these houses are bare
of carpet or covering, and in some the responsibility of leasehold is
shared by eight or nine families, all pigging together.
They are streets of slatternly women, who live at their front doors,
arms rolled under discolored aprons, and on Saturday nights one street
at least deserves the pithy but profane appellation which the police
have given it--“Little Hell.”
In this particular thoroughfare it is held that of all sins the
greatest is that which is associated with “spying.” A “spy” is a
fairly comprehensive phrase in Cawdor Street. It may mean policeman,
detective, school-board official, rent collector, or the gentleman
appointed by the gas company to extract pennies from the slot-meters.
To Cawdor Street came a man who rented one of the larger houses. To the
surprise of the agent, he offered his rent monthly in advance; to the
surprise of the street, he took no lodgers. It was the only detached
house in that salubrious road, and was No. 49. The furniture came by
night, which is customary amongst people who concentrate their last
fluttering rag of pride upon the respectability of their household
goods. Cawdor Street, on the _qui vive_ for the lady of the house,
learns with genuine astonishment that there was none, and that the
newcomer was a bachelor.
Years ago No. 49 had been the abode of a jobbing builder, hence the
little yard gate that flanked one side; and it was with satisfaction
that the Cawdor Streeters discovered that the new occupant intended
reviving the ancient splendor of the establishment. At any rate, a
board was prominently displayed, bearing the inscription:
J. JONES, BUILDER AND CONTRACTOR.
and the inquisitive Mr. Lane (of 76), who caught a momentary vision of
the yard through the gate, observed “Office” printed in fairly large
letters over the side door.
At stated hours, mostly in the evening, roughly-dressed men called at
the “Office,” stayed awhile, and went away. Two dilapidated ladders
made their appearance in the yard, conspicuously lifting their perished
rungs above the gate level.
“I tried to buy an old builder’s cart and a wheelbarrow to-day,” said
“Mr. Jones” to a workman. “I’ll probably get it to-morrow at my own
price, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a few sacks of lime and a
couple of cartloads of sand and bricks in, also a few road pitchers to
give it a finishing touch.”
The workman grinned.
“You’ve got this place ready in time, Connor,” he said.
Mr. Connor--for such “J. Jones, Builder and Contractor” was--nodded and
picked his teeth meditatively with a match stick.
“I’ve seen for a long time the other place was useless,” he said with a
curse.
“It was bad luck that Angel found us there last week. I’ve been fixing
up this house for a couple of months. It’s a nice neighborhood, where
people don’t go nosing around, and the boys can meet here without
anybody being the wiser.”
“And old George?”
“We’ll settle him to-night,” said the other with a frown. “Bat is
bringing him over, and I want to know how he came to let Angel get at
us.”
Old George had always been a problem to the “Borough Lot.” He held
the position of trust that many contended no demented old man should
hold. Was it safe or sane to trust him with the plate that had been
so laboriously acquired from Roebury House, and the jewels of Lady
Ivy Task-Hender, for the purloining of which one “Hog” Stander was at
that very moment doing seven stretch? Was it wise to install him as
custodian of the empty house at Blackwall, through which Angel Esquire
gained admittance to the meeting-place of the “Borough Lot”?
Some there were who said “Yes,” and these included the powerful faction
that numbered “Bat” Sands, “Curt” Goyle, and Connor amongst them. They
contended that suspicion would never rest on this half-witted old
gentleman, with his stuffed birds, his goldfish, caged rabbits and
mice, a view that was supported by the fact that Lady Ivy’s priceless
diamonds lay concealed for months in the false bottom of a hutch
devoted to guinea pigs in old George’s strange menagerie, what time the
police were turning London inside out in their quest for the property.
But now old George was under a cloud. Notwithstanding the fact that he
had been found amongst his live stock securely bound to a chair, with a
handkerchief over his mouth, suspicion attached to him. How had Angel
worked away in the upper room without old George’s knowledge?
Angel might have easily explained. Indeed, Angel might have relieved
their minds to a very large extent in regard to old George, for in
marking down the haunt of the “Borough Lot” he had been entirely
deceived as to the part played by the old man who acted as “caretaker”
to the “empty” house.
In a fourwheeled cab old George, smiling foolishly and passing his hand
from time to time over his tremulous mouth, listened to the admonitions
of Mr. Bat Sands.
“Connor wants to know all about it,” said Bat menacingly; “and if you
have been playing tricks, old man, the Lord help you.”
“The Lord help me,” smiled old George complacently.
He ran his dirty fingers through his few scanty white locks, and the
smile died out of his face, and his loose mouth dropped pathetically.
“Mr. Sands,” he said, then stopped; then he repeated the name to
himself a dozen times; then he rubbed his head again.
Bat, leaning forward to catch what might be a confession, sank back
again in his seat and swore softly.
In the house of “J. Jones, Builder and Contractor,” were gathered in
strength the men who composed the “Borough Lot.”
“Suppose he gave us away,” asked Goyle, “what shall we do with him?”
There was little doubt as to the feeling of the meeting. A low animal
growl, startling in its ferocity, ran through the gathering.
“If he’s given us away”--it was Vinnis with his dull fishlike eyes
turned upon Connor who was talking--“why, we must ‘out’ him.”
“You’re talking like a fool,” said Connor contemptuously. “If he has
given us away, you may rest assured that he is no sooner in this house
than the whole place will be surrounded by police. If Angel knows old
George is one of us, he’ll be watched day and night, and the cab that
brings him will be followed by another bringing Angel. No, I’ll stake
my life on the old man. But I want to know how Mr. Cursed Angel got
into the house next door.”
They had not long to wait, for Bat’s knock came almost as Connor
finished speaking.
Half led, half dragged into the room, old George stood, fumbling his
hat in his hand, smiling helplessly at the dark faces that met his. He
muttered something under his breath.
“What’s that?” asked Connor sharply.
“I said, a gentleman----” began old George, then lapsed into silence.
“What gentleman?” asked Connor roughly.
“I am speaking of myself,” said the old man, and there came into
his face a curious expression of dignity. “I say, and I maintain,
that a gentleman is a gentleman whatever company he affects. At
my old college I once reproved an undergraduate.” He was speaking
with stately, almost pompous distinctness. “I said, ‘There is an
axiom to which I would refer you, _De gustibus non est disputandum_,
and--and----’”
His shaking fingers went up again to the tell-tale mouth, and the
vacant smile came back.
“Look here,” said Connor, shaking his arm, “we don’t want to know
anything about your damned college; we want to know how Angel got into
our crib.”
The old man looked puzzled.
“Yes, yes,” he muttered; “of course, Mr. Connor, you have been most
kind--the crib--ah!--the young man who wanted to rent or hire the room
upstairs.”
“Yes, yes,” said Connor eagerly.
“A most admirable young man,” old George rambled on, “but very
inquisitive. I remember once, when I was addressing a large
congregation of young men at Cheltenham--or it may have been young
ladies--I----”
“Curse the man!” cried Goyle in a fury. “Make him answer, or stop his
mouth.”
Connor warned him back.
“Let him talk in his own way,” he said.
“This admirable person,” the old man went on, happily striking on the
subject again, “desired information that I was not disposed to give,
Mr. Connor, remembering your many kindnesses, particularly in respect
to one Mr. Vinnis.”
“Yes, go on,” urged Connor, and the face of Vinnis was tense.
“I fear there are times when my usually active mind takes on
a sluggishness which is foreign to my character--my normal
character”--old George was again the pedant--“when the unobservant
stranger might be deceived into regarding me as a negligible quantity.
The admirable young man so far treated me as such as to remark to his
companion that there was a rope--yes, distinctly a rope--for the said
Mr. Vinnis.”
The face of Vinnis was livid.
“And,” asked Connor, “what happened next? There were two of them, were
there?”
The old man nodded gravely; he nodded a number of times, as though the
exercise pleased him.
“The other young man--not the amiable one, but another--upon finding
that I could not rent or hire the rooms--as indeed I could not, Mr.
Connor, without your permission--engaged me in conversation--very
loudly he spoke, too--on the relative values of cabbage and carrot as
food for herbaceous mammals. Where the amiable gentleman was at that
moment I cannot say----”
“I can guess,” thought Connor.
“I can remember the occasion well,” old George continued, “because that
night I was alarmed and startled by strange noises from the empty rooms
upstairs, which I very naturally and properly concluded were caused----”
He stopped, and glancing fearfully about the room, went on in a lower
tone.
“By certain spirits,” he whispered mysteriously, and pointed and
leered first at one and then another of the occupants of the room.
There was something very eerie in the performance of the strange old
man with the queerly-working face, and more than one hardened criminal
present shivered a little.
Connor broke the silence that fell on the room.
“So that’s how it was done, eh? One held you in conversation while the
other got upstairs and hid himself? Well, boys, you’ve heard the old
man. What d’ye say?”
Vinnis shifted in his seat and turned his great unemotional face to
where the old man stood, still fumbling with his hat and muttering to
himself beneath his breath; in some strange region whither his poor
wandering mind had taken him he was holding a conversation with an
imaginary person. Connor could see his eyebrows working, and caught
scraps of sentences, now in some strange dead tongue, now in the
stilted English of the schoolmaster.
It was Vinnis who spoke for the assembled company.
“The old man knows a darned sight too much,” he said in his level tone.
“I’m for----”
He did not finish his sentence. Connor took a swift survey of the men.
“If there is any man here,” he said slowly, “who wants to wake up at
seven o’clock in the morning and meet a gentleman who will strap his
hands behind him and a person who will pray over him--if there’s any
man here that wants a short walk after breakfast between two lines of
warders to a little shed where a brand new rope is hanging from the
roof, he’s at liberty to do what he likes with old George, but not in
this house.”
He fixed his eyes on Vinnis.
“And if there’s any man here,” he went on, “who’s already in the shadow
of the rope, so that one or two murders more won’t make much difference
one way or the other, he can do as he likes--outside this house.”
Vinnis shrank back.
“There’s nothing against me,” he growled.
“The rope,” muttered the old man, “Vinnis for the rope,” he chuckled to
himself. “I fear they counted too implicitly upon the fact that I am
not always quite myself--Vinnis----”
The man he spoke of sprang to his feet with a snarl like a trapped
beast.
“Sit down--you.”
Bat Sands, with his red head close-cropped, thrust his chair in the
direction of the infuriated Vinnis.
“What Connor says is true--we’re not going to croak the old man, and
we’re not going to croak ourselves. If we hang, it will be something
worth hanging for. As to the old man, he’s soft, an’ that’s all you can
say. He’s got to be kept close----”
A rap at the door cut him short.
“Who’s that?” he whispered.
Connor tiptoed to the locked door.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
A familiar voice reassured him, and he opened the door and held a
conversation in a low voice with somebody outside.
“There’s a man who wants to see me,” he said in explanation. “Lock the
door after I leave, Bat,” and he went out quickly.
Not a word was spoken, but each after his own fashion of reasoning drew
some conclusion from Connor’s hasty departure.
“A full meetin’,” croaked a voice from the back of the room. “We’re all
asked here by Connor. Is it a plant?”
That was Bat’s thought too.
“No,” he said; “there’s nothin’ against us. Why, Angel let us off only
last week because there wasn’t evidence, an’ Connor’s straight.”
“I don’t trust him, by God!” said Vinnis.
“I trust nobody,” said Bat doggedly, “but Connor’s straight----”
There was a rap on the door.
“Who’s there?”
“All right!” said the muffled voice.
Bat unlocked the door, and Connor came in. What he had seen or what he
had heard had brought about a marvelous change in his appearance--his
cheeks were a dull red, and his eyes blazed with triumph.
“Boys,” he said, and they caught the infectious thrill in his voice,
“I’ve got the biggest thing for you--a million pounds, share and share
alike.”
He felt rather than heard the excitement his words caused. He stood
with his back to the half-opened door.
“I’m going to introduce a new pal,” he rattled on breathlessly. “I’ll
vouch for him.”
“Who is he?” asked Bat. “Do we know him?”
“No,” said Connor, “and you’re not expected to know him. But he’s
putting up the money, and that’s good enough for you, Bat--a hundred
pounds a man, and it will be paid to-night.”
Bat Sands spat on his hand.
“Bring him in. He’s good enough,” and there was a murmur of approval.
Connor disappeared for a moment, and returned followed by a
well-dressed stranger, who met the questioning glances of his audience
with a quiet smile. His eyes swept over every face. They rested for a
moment on Vinnis, they looked doubtfully at old George, who, seated on
a chair with crossed legs and his head bent, was talking with great
rapidity in an undertone to himself.
“Gentlemen,” said the stranger, “I have come with the object of gaining
your help. Mr. Connor has told me that he has already informed you
about Reale’s millions. Briefly, I have decided to forestall other
people, and secure the money for myself. I offer you a half share of
the money, to be equally divided amongst you, and as an earnest of my
intention, I am paying each man who is willing to help me a hundred
pounds down.”
He drew from one of his pockets a thick package of notes, and from two
other pockets similar bundles. He handed them to Connor, and the hungry
eyes of the “Borough Lot” focused upon the crinkling paper.
“What I shall ask you to do,” the stranger proceeded, “I shall tell you
later----”
“Wait a bit,” interrupted Bat. “Who else is in this?”
“We alone,” replied the man.
“Is Jimmy in it?”
“No.”
“Is Angel in it?”
“No” (impatiently).
“Go on,” said Bat, satisfied.
“The money is in a safe that can only be opened by a word. That word
nobody knows--so far. The clue to the word was stolen a few nights ago
from the lawyer in charge of the case by--Jimmy.”
He paused to note the effect of his words.
“Jimmy has passed the clue on to Scotland Yard, and we cannot hope to
get it.”
“Well?” demanded Bat.
“What we can do,” the other went on, “is to open the safe with
something more powerful than a word.”
“But the guard!” said Bat. “There’s an armed guard kept there by the
lawyer.”
“We can arrange about the guard,” said the other.
“Why not get at the lawyer?” It was Curt Goyle who made the suggestion.
The stranger frowned.
“The lawyer cannot be got at,” he said shortly. “Now, are you with me?”
There was no need to ask. Connor was sorting the notes into little
bundles on the table, and the men came up one by one, took their money,
and after a few words with Connor took their leave, with an awkward
salutation to the stranger.
Bat was the last to go.
“To-morrow night--here,” muttered Connor.
He was left alone with the newcomer, save for the old man, who hadn’t
changed his attitude, and was still in the midst of some imaginary
conversation.
“Who is this?” the stranger demanded.
Connor smiled.
“An old chap as mad as a March hare. A gentleman, too, and a scholar;
talks all sorts of mad languages--Latin and Greek and the Lord knows
what. He’s been a schoolmaster, I should say, and what brought him down
to this--drink or drugs or just ordinary madness--I don’t know.”
The stranger looked with interest at the unconscious man, and old
George, as if suddenly realizing that he was under scrutiny, woke up
with a start and sat blinking at the other. Then he shuffled slowly
to his feet and peered closely into the stranger’s face, all the time
sustaining his mumbled conversation.
“Ah,” he said in a voice rising from its inaudibility, “a gentleman!
Pleased to meet you, sir, pleased to meet you. _Omnia mutantur, nos et
mutamur in illis_, but you have not changed.”
He relapsed again into mutterings.
“I have never met him before,” the stranger said, turning to Connor.
“Oh, old George always thinks he has met people,” said Connor with a
grin.
“A gentleman,” old George muttered, “every inch a gentleman, and a
munificent patron. He bought a copy of my book--you have read it? It
is called--dear me, I have forgotten what it is called--and sent to
consult me in his--ah!--anagram----”
“What?” The stranger’s face was ashen, and he gripped Connor by the
arm. “Listen, listen!” he whispered fiercely.
Old George threw up his head again and stared blandly at the stranger.
“A perfect gentleman,” he said with pathetic insolence, “invariably
addressing me as the ‘professor’--a most delicate and gentlemanly thing
to do.”
He pointed a triumphant finger to the stranger.
“I know you!” he cried shrilly, and his cracked laugh rang through
the room. “Spedding, that’s your name! Lawyer, too. I saw you in the
carriage of my patron.”
“The book, the book!” gasped Spedding. “What was the name of your book?”
Old George’s voice had dropped to its normal level when he replied with
extravagant courtesy--
“That is the one thing, sir, I can never remember.”
CHAPTER IX
THE GREAT ATTEMPT
There are supercilious critics who sneer at Scotland Yard. They are
quite unofficial critics, of course, writers of stories wherein figure
amateur detectives of abnormal perspicuity, unraveling mysteries with
consummate ease which have baffled the police for years. As a matter of
fact, Scotland Yard stands for the finest police organization in the
world. People who speak glibly of “police blunders” might remember one
curious fact: in this last quarter of a century only one man has ever
stood in the dock at the Old Bailey under the capital charge who has
escaped the dread sentence of the law.
Scotland Yard is patiently slow and terribly sure.
Angel in his little room received a letter written in a sprawling,
uneducated hand; it was incoherent and stained with tears and
underlined from end to end. He read it through and examined the date
stamp, then rang his bell.
The messenger who answered him found him examining a map of London. “Go
to the Record Office, and get E.B. 93,” he said, and in five minutes
the messenger came back with a thick folder bulging with papers.
There were newspaper cuttings and plans and dreadful photographs, the
like of which the outside world do not see, and there was a little
key ticketed with an inscription. Angel looked through the _dossier_
carefully, then read the woman’s letter again....
Vinnis, the man with the dead-white face, finishing his late breakfast,
and with the pleasurable rustle of new banknotes in his trouser pocket,
strolled forth into Commercial Road, E. An acquaintance leaning against
a public-house gave him a curt nod of recognition; a bedraggled girl
hurrying homeward with her man’s breakfast in her apron shrank on one
side, knowing Vinnis to her sorrow; a stray cur cringed up to him, as
he stood for a moment at the edge of the road, and was kicked for its
pains.
Vinnis was entirely without sentiment, and besides, even though the
money in his pocket compensated for most things, the memory of old
George and his babbling talk worried him.
Somebody on the other side of the road attracted his attention. It was
a woman, and he knew her very well, therefore he ignored her beckoning
hand. Two days ago he had occasion to reprove her, and he had seized
the opportunity to summarily dissolve the informal union that had kept
them together for five years. So he made no sign when the woman with
the bruised face called him, but turned abruptly and walked towards
Aldgate.
He did not look round, but by and by he heard the patter of her feet
behind, and once his name called hoarsely. He struck off into a side
street with a raging devil inside him, then when they reached an
unfrequented part of the road he turned on her.
She saw the demon in his eyes, and tried to speak. She was a penitent
woman at that moment, and hysterically ripe for confession, but the
savage menace of the man froze her lips.
“So,” he said, his thin mouth askew, “so after what I’ve said an’ what
I’ve done you follow me, do you. Showing me up in the street, eh!”
He edged closer to her, his fist doubled, and she, poor drab,
fascinated by the snakelike glare of his dull eyes, stood rooted to
the spot. Then with a snarl he struck her--once, twice--and she fell a
huddled, moaning heap on the pavement.
You may do things in Commercial Road, E., after “lighting-up time”
that are not permissible in the broad light of the day, unless it be
Saturday, and the few people who had been attracted by the promise of a
row were indignant but passive, after the manner of all London crowds.
Not so one quiet, middle-aged man, who confronted Vinnis as he began to
walk away.
“That was a particularly brutal thing to do,” said the quiet man.
Vinnis measured him with his eye, and decided that this was not a man
to be trifled with.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” he said roughly, and tried to push
past, but an iron grip was on his arm.
“Wait a moment, my friend,” said the other steadily, “not so fast; you
cannot commit a brutal assault in the open street like that without
punishment. I must ask you to walk with me to the station.”
“Suppose I won’t go?” demanded Vinnis.
“I shall take you,” said the other. “I am Detective-Sergeant Jarvis
from Scotland Yard.”
Vinnis thought rapidly. There wasn’t much chance of escape; the street
they were in was a cul-de-sac, and at the open end two policemen had
made their appearance. After all, a “wife” assault was not a serious
business, and the woman--well, she would swear it was an accident. He
resolved to go quietly; at the worst it would be a month, so with a
shrug of his shoulders he accompanied the detective. A small crowd
followed them to the station.
In the little steel dock he stood in his stockinged feet whilst a deft
jailer ran his hands over him. With a stifled oath, he remembered the
money in his possession; it was only ten pounds, for he had secreted
the other, but ten pounds is a lot of money to be found on a person
of his class, and generally leads to embarrassing inquiries. To his
astonishment, the jailer who relieved him of the notes seemed in no
whit surprised, and the inspector at the desk took the discovery
as a matter of course. Vinnis remarked on the surprising number of
constables there were on duty in the charge room. Then--
“What is the charge?” asked the inspector, dipping his pen.
“Wilful murder!” said a voice, and Angel Esquire crossed the room from
the inspector’s office. “I charge this man with having on the night of
the 17th of February....”
Vinnis, dumb with terror and rage, listened to the crisp tones of
the detective as he detailed the particulars of an almost forgotten
crime. It was the story of a country house burglary, a man-servant who
surprised the thief, a fight in the dark, a shot and a dead man lying
in the big drawing-room. It was an ordinary little tragedy, forgotten
by everybody save Scotland Yard; but year by year unknown men had
pieced together the scraps of evidence that had come to them; strand
by strand had the rope been woven that was to hang a cold-blooded
murderer; last of all came the incoherent letter from a jealous
woman--Scotland Yard waits always for a jealous woman--and the evidence
was complete.
“Put him in No. 14,” said the inspector. Then Vinnis woke up, and the
six men on duty in the charge room found their time fully occupied.
* * * * *
Vinnis was arrested, as Angel Esquire put it, “in the ordinary way of
business.” Hundreds of little things happen daily at Scotland Yard
in the ordinary way of business which, apparently unconnected one
with the other, have an extraordinary knack of being in some remote
fashion related. A burglary at Clapham was remarkable for the fact
that a cumbersome mechanical toy was carried away in addition to other
booty. A street accident in the Kingsland Road led to the arrest of a
drunken carman. In the excitement of the moment a sneak-thief purloined
a parcel from the van, was chased and captured. A weeping wife at
the police station gave him a good character as husband and father.
“Only last week he brought my boy a fine performin’ donkey.” An alert
detective went home with her, recognized the mechanical toy from the
description, and laid by the heels the notorious “Kingsland Road Lot.”
The arrest of Vinnis was totally unconnected with Angel’s
investigations into the mystery of Reale’s millions. He knew him as a
“Borough man,” but did not associate him with the search for the word.
None the less, there are certain formalities attached to the arrest of
all bad criminals. Angel Esquire placed one or two minor matters in the
hands of subordinates, and in two days one of these waited upon him in
his office.
“The notes, sir,” said the man, “were issued to Mr. Spedding on his
private account last Monday morning. Mr. Spedding is a lawyer, of the
firm of Spedding, Mortimer and Larach.”
“Have you seen Mr. Spedding?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Spedding remembers drawing the money and paying it away
to a gentleman who was sailing to America.”
“A client?”
“So far as I can gather,” said the subordinate, “the money was paid on
behalf of a client for services. Mr. Spedding would not particularize.”
Angel Esquire made a little grimace.
“Lawyers certainly do queer things,” he said dryly.
“Does Mr. Spedding offer any suggestion as to how the money came into
this man’s possession?”
“No, sir. He thinks he might have obtained it quite honestly. I
understand that the man who received the money was a shady sort of
customer.”
“So I should imagine,” said Angel Esquire.
Left alone, he sat in deep thought drawing faces on his blotting-pad.
Then he touched a bell.
“Send Mr. Carter to me,” he directed, and in a few minutes a
bright-faced youth, fingering an elementary mustache, was awaiting his
orders.
“Carter,” said Angel cautiously, “it must be very dull work in the
finger-print department.”
“I don’t know, sir,” said the other, a fairly enthusiastic ethnologist,
“we’ve got----”
“Carter,” said Angel more cautiously still, “are you on for a lark?”
“Like a bird, sir,” said Carter, unconsciously humorous.
“I want a dozen men, the sort of men who won’t talk to reporters, and
will remain ‘unofficial’ so long as I want them to be,” said Angel, and
he unfolded his plan.
When the younger man had gone Angel drew a triangle on the blotting-pad.
“Spedding is in with the ‘Borough Lot,’” he put a cross against one
angle. “Spedding knows I know,” he put a cross at the apex. “I know
that Spedding knows I know,” he marked the remaining angle. “It’s
Spedding’s move, and he’ll move damn quick.”
The Assistant-Commissioner came into the room at that moment.
“Hullo, Angel!” he said, glancing at the figures on the pad. “What’s
this, a new game?”
“It’s an old game,” said Angel truthfully, “but played in an entirely
new way.”
* * * * *
Angel was not far wrong when he surmised that Spedding’s move would be
immediate, and although the detective had reckoned without an unknown
factor, in the person of old George, yet a variety of circumstances
combined to precipitate the act that Angel anticipated.
Not least of these was the arrest of Vinnis. After his interview with
old George, Spedding had decided on a waiting policy. The old man had
been taken to the house at Clapham. Spedding had been prepared to wait
patiently until some freak of mind brought back the memory to the form
of cryptogram he had advised. A dozen times a day he asked the old man--
“What is your name?”
“Old George, only old George,” was the invariable reply, with many
grins and noddings.
“But your real name, the name you had when you were a--professor.”
But this would only start the old man off on a rambling reminiscence of
his “munificent patron.”
Connor came secretly to Clapham for orders. It was the night after
Vinnis had been arrested.
“We’ve got to move at once, Mr. Connor,” said the lawyer. Connor sat
in the chair that had held Jimmy a few nights previous. “It is no use
waiting for the old man to talk, the earlier plan was best.”
“Has anything happened?” asked Connor. His one-time awe of the lawyer
had merged in the familiarity of conspiratorship.
“There was a detective at my office to-day inquiring about some notes
that were found on Vinnis. Angel Esquire will draw his own conclusions,
and we have no time to lose.”
“We are ready,” said Connor.
“Then let it be to-morrow night. I will withdraw the guard of
commissionaires at the safe. I can easily justify myself afterwards.”
An idea struck Connor.
“Why not send another lot of men to relieve them? I can fix up some of
the boys so that they’ll look like commissionaires.”
Spedding’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “it could be arranged--an excellent idea.”
He paced the room with long, swinging strides, his forehead puckered.
“There are two reliefs,” he said, “one in the morning and one in the
evening. I could send a note to the sergeant of the morning relief
telling him that I had arranged for a new set of night men--I have
changed them twice already, one cannot be too careful--and I could give
you the necessary authority to take over charge.”
“Better still,” said Connor, “instruct him to withdraw, leaving the
place empty, then our arrival will attract no notice. Lombard Street
must be used to the commissionaires going on guard.”
“That is an idea,” said Spedding, and sat down to write the letter.
* * * * *
The night of the great project turned out miserably wet.
“So much the better,” muttered Connor, viewing the world from his
Kensington fastness. The room dedicated to the use of the master of
the house was plainly furnished, and on the bare deal table Connor had
set his whisky down whilst he peered through the rain-blurred windows
at the streaming streets.
“England for work and Egypt for pleasure,” he muttered; “and if I get
my share of the money, and it will be a bigger share than my friend
Spedding imagines, it’s little this cursed country will see of Mr.
Patrick Connor.”
He drained off his whisky at a gulp, rubbed the steam from the windows,
and looked down into the deserted street. Two men were walking toward
the house. One, well covered by a heavy mackintosh cloak, moved with
a long stride; the other, wrapped in a new overcoat, shuffled by his
side, quickening his steps to keep up with his more energetic companion.
“Spedding,” said Connor, “and old George. What is he bringing him here
for?”
He hurried downstairs to let them in.
“Well?” asked Spedding, throwing his reeking coat off.
“All’s ready,” answered Connor. “Why have you brought the old man?”
“Oh, for company,” the lawyer answered carelessly.
If the truth be told, Spedding still hoped that the old man would
remember. That day old George had been exceedingly garrulous, almost
lucidly so at times. Mr. Spedding still held on to the faint hope that
the old man’s revelations would obviate the necessity for employing the
“Borough Lot,” and what was more important, for sharing the contents of
the safe with them.
As to this latter part of the program, Mr. Spedding had plans which
would have astonished Connor had he but known.
But old George’s loquacity stopped short at the all-important point
of instructing the lawyer on the question of the cryptogram. He had
brought him along in the hope that at the eleventh hour the old man
would reveal his identity.
Unconscious of the responsibility that lay upon his foolish head, the
old man sat in the upstairs room communing with himself.
“We will leave him here,” said the lawyer, “he will be safe.”
“Safe enough. I know him of old. He’ll sit here for hours amusing
himself.”
“And now, what about the men?” asked the lawyer. “Where do we meet
them?”
“We shall pick them up at the corner of Lombard Street, and they’ll
follow me to the Safe Deposit.”
“Ah!”
They turned swiftly on old George, who with his chin raised and with
face alert was staring at them.
“Safe Deposit, Lombard Street,” he mumbled. “And a most excellent plan
too--a most excellent plan.”
The two men held their breath.
“And quite an ingenious idea, sir. Did you say Lombard Street--a
safe?” he muttered. “A safe with a word? And how to conceal the word,
that’s the question. I am a man of honor, you may trust me.” He made
a sweeping bow to some invisible presence. “Why not conceal your word
thus?”
Old George stabbed the palm of his hand with a grimy forefinger.
“Why not? Have you read my book? It is only a little book, but
useful, sir, remarkably useful. The drawings and the signs are most
accurate. An eminent gentleman at the British Museum assisted me in its
preparation. It is called--it is called----” He passed his hand wearily
over his head, and slid down into his chair again, a miserable old man
muttering foolishly.
Spedding wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
“Nearly, nearly!” he said huskily. “By Heavens! he nearly told us.”
Connor looked at him with suspicion.
“What’s all this about the book?” he demanded. “This is the second time
old George has spoken like this. It’s to do with old Reale, isn’t it?”
Spedding nodded.
“Come,” said Connor, looking at his watch, “it’s time we were moving.
We’ll leave the old man to look after the house. Here, George.”
Old George looked up.
“You’ll stay here, and not leave till we return. D’ye hear?”
“I hear, Mr. Connor, sir,” said old George, with his curious assumption
of dignity, “and hearing, obey.”
As the two men turned into the night the rain pelted down and a gusty
northwesterly wind blew into their faces.
“George,” said Connor, answering a question, “oh, we’ve had him for
years. One of the boys found him wandering about Limehouse with hardly
any clothes to his back, and brought him to us. That was before I knew
the ‘Borough Lot,’ but they used him as a blind. He was worth the money
it cost to keep him in food.”
Spedding kept the other waiting whilst he dispatched a long telegram
from the Westbourne Grove Post Office. It was addressed to the master
of the _Polecat_ lying at Cardiff, and was reasonably unintelligible to
the clerk.
They found a hansom at the corner of Queen’s Road, and drove to the
Bank; here they alighted and crossed to the Royal Exchange. Some men
in uniform overcoats who were standing about exchanged glances with
Connor, and as the two leaders doubled back to Lombard Street, followed
them at a distance.
“The guard left at four o’clock,” said Spedding, fitting the key of the
heavy outer door. He waited a few minutes in the inky black darkness
of the vestibule whilst Connor admitted the six uniformed men who had
followed them.
“Are we all here?” said Connor in a low voice. “Bat? Here! Goyle? Here!
Lamby? Here!”
One by one he called them by their names and they answered.
“We may as well have a light,” said Spedding, and felt for the switch.
The gleam of the electric lamps showed Spedding as pure a collection of
scoundrels as ever disgraced the uniform of a gallant corps.
“Now,” said Spedding in level tones, “are all the necessary tools here?”
Bat’s grin was the answer.
“If we can get an electric connection,” he said, “we’ll burn out the
lock of the safe in half----”
Spedding had walked to the inner door that led to the great hall, and
was fumbling with the keys. Suddenly he started back.
“Hark!” he whispered. “I heard a step in the hall.”
Connor listened.
“I hear nothing,” he began, when the inner door was thrown open, and a
commissionaire, revolver in hand, stepped out.
“Stand!” he cried. Then, recognizing Spedding, dropped the muzzle of
his pistol.
White with rage, Spedding stood amidst his ill-assorted bodyguard. In
the searching white light of the electric lamps there was no mistaking
their character. He saw the commissionaire eying them curiously.
“I understood,” he said slowly, “that the guard had been relieved.”
“No, sir,” said the man, and the cluster of uniformed men at the door
of the inner hall confirmed this.
“I sent orders this afternoon,” said Spedding between his teeth.
“No orders have been received, sir,” and the lawyer saw the
scrutinizing eye of the soldierly sentry pass over his confederates.
“Is this the relief?” asked the guard, not attempting to conceal the
contempt in his tone.
“Yes,” said the lawyer.
As the sentry saluted and disappeared into the hall Spedding drew
Connor aside.
“This is ruin,” he said quickly. “The safe must be cleared to-night.
To-morrow London will not hold me.”
The sentry reappeared at the doorway and beckoned them in. They
shuffled into the great hall, where in the half darkness the safe
loomed up from its rocky pedestal, an eerie, mysterious thing. He saw
Bat Sands glancing uncomfortably around the dim spaces of the building,
and felt the impression of the loneliness.
A man who wore the stripes of a sergeant came up.
“Are we to withdraw, sir?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Spedding shortly.
“Will you give us a written order?” asked the man.
Spedding hesitated, then drew out a pocketbook and wrote a few hasty
words on a sheet, tore it out, and handed it to the man.
The sergeant looked at it carefully.
“You haven’t signed it or dated it either,” he said respectfully, and
handed it back.
Spedding cursed him under his breath and rectified the omissions.
“Now you may go.”
In the half-light, for only one solitary electrolier illuminated the
vast hall, he thought the man was smiling. It might have been a trick
of the shadows, for he could not see his face.
“And am I to leave you alone?” said the sergeant.
“Yes.”
“Is it safe?” the non-commissioned officer asked quietly.
“Curse you, what do you mean?” cried the lawyer.
“Well,” said the other easily, “I see you have Connor with you, a
notorious thief and blackmailer.”
The lawyer was dumb.
“And Bat Sands. How d’ye do, Bat? How did they treat you in Borstal, or
was it Parkhurst?” drawled the sergeant. “And there’s the gentle Lamby
trying hard to look military in an overcoat too large for him. That’s
not the uniform you’re used to wearing, Lamby, eh?”
From the group of men at the door came a genuinely amused laugh.
“Guard the outer door, one of you chaps,” said the sergeant, and
turning again to Spedding’s men, “Here we have our respected friend
Curt Goyle.”
He stooped and picked up a bag that Bat had placed gingerly on the
floor.
“What a bag of tricks,” the sergeant cooed, “diamond bits and dynamite
cartridges and--what’s this little thing, Bat--an ark? It is. By Jove,
I congratulate you on the swag.”
Spedding had recovered his nerve and strode forward. He was playing for
the greatest stake in the world.
“You shall be punished for this insolence,” he stormed.
“Not at all,” said the imperturbable sergeant.
Somebody at the door spoke.
“Here’s another one, sergeant,” and pushed a queer old figure into the
hall, a figure that blinked and peered from face to face.
He espied Spedding, and ran up to him almost fawning.
“The Safe Deposit--in Lombard Street,” he cackled joyously. “You see, I
remembered, dear friend; and I’ve come to tell you about the book--my
book, you know. My munificent patron who desired a puzzle word----”
The sergeant started forward.
“My God!” he cried, “the professor.”
“Yes, yes,” chuckled the old man, “that’s what he called me. He bought
a copy of my book--two sovereigns, four sovereigns he gave me. The
book--what was it called?”
The old man paused and clasped both hands to his head.
“_A Study--a Study_” he said painfully, “_on the Origin of--the
Alphabet._ Ah!”
Another of the commissionaires had come forward as the old man began
speaking, and to him the sergeant turned.
“Make a note of that, Jimmy,” the sergeant said.
Spedding reeled back as though he had been struck.
“Angel!” he gasped.
“That’s me,” was the ungrammatical reply.
Crushed, cowed, beaten and powerless, Spedding awaited judgment. What
form it would take he could not guess, that it would effectively ruin
him he did not doubt. The trusted lawyer stood self-condemned; there
was no explaining away his companions, there could be no mistaking the
meaning of their presence.
“Send your men away,” said Angel.
A wild hope seized the lawyer. The men were not to be arrested, there
was a chance for him.
The “Borough Lot” needed no second ordering; they trooped through the
doorway, anxious to reach the open air before Angel changed his mind.
“You may go,” said Angel to Connor, who still lingered.
“If the safe is to be opened, I’m in it,” was the sullen reply.
“You may go,” said Angel; “the safe will not be opened to-night.”
“I----”
“Go!” thundered the detective, and Connor slunk away.
Angel beckoned the commissionaire who had first interrogated Spedding.
“Take charge of that bag, Carter. There are all sorts of things in it
that go off.” Then he turned to the lawyer.
“Mr. Spedding, there is a great deal that I have to say to you, but
it would be better to defer our conversation; the genuine guard will
return in a few minutes. I told them to return at 10 o’clock.”
“By what authority?” blustered Spedding.
“Tush!” said Angel wearily. “Surely we have got altogether beyond that
stage. Your order for withdrawal was expected by me. I waited upon the
sergeant of the guard with another order.”
“A forged order, I gather?” said Spedding, recovering his balance.
“Now I see why you have allowed my men to go. I overrated your
generosity.”
“The order,” said Angel soberly, “was signed by His Majesty’s Secretary
of State for Home Affairs”--he tapped the astonished lawyer on the
shoulder--“and if it would interest you to know, I have a warrant in my
pocket for the arrest of every man jack of you. That I do not put it
into execution is a matter of policy.”
The lawyer scanned the calm face of the detective in bewilderment.
“What do you want of me?” he asked at length.
“Your presence at Jimmy’s flat at ten o’clock to-morrow morning,”
replied Angel.
“I will be there,” said the other, and turned to go.
“And, Mr. Spedding,” called Jimmy, as the lawyer reached the door, “in
regard to a boat you have chartered from Cardiff, I think you need not
go any further in the matter. One of my men is at present interviewing
the captain, and pointing out to him the enormity of the offense of
carrying fugitives from justice to Spanish-American ports.”
“Damn you!” said Spedding, and slammed the door.
Jimmy removed the commissionaire’s cap from his head and grinned.
“One of these fine days, Angel, you’ll lose your job, introducing the
Home Secretary’s name. Phew!”
“It had to be done,” said Angel sadly. “It hurts me to lie, but
I couldn’t very well tell Spedding that the sergeant of the
commissionaires had been one of my own men all along, could I?”
CHAPTER X
SOME BAD CHARACTERS
It happened that on the night of the great attempt the inquisitive Mr.
Lane, of 76 Cawdor Street, was considerably exercised in his mind as
to the depleted condition of his humble treasury. With Mr. Lane the
difference between affluence and poverty was a matter of shillings. His
line of business was a humble one. Lead piping and lengths of telephone
wire, an occasional door-mat improvidently left outside whilst the
servant cleaned the hall, these represented the scope and extent of his
prey. Perhaps he reached his zenith when he lifted an overcoat from a
hatstand what time a benevolent old lady was cutting him thick slices
of bread and butter in a basement kitchen.
Mr. Lane had only recently returned from a short stay in Wormwood
Scrubbs Prison. It was over a trifling affair of horsehair abstracted
from railway carriage cushions that compelled Mr. Lane’s retirement for
two months. It was that same affair that brought about his undoing on
the night of the attempt.
For the kudos of the railway theft had nerved him to more ambitious
attempts, and with a depleted exchequer to urge him forward, and the
prestige of his recent achievements to support him, he decided upon
burglary. It was a wild and reckless departure from his regular line,
and he did not stop to consider the disabilities attaching to a change
of profession, nor debate the unpropitious conditions of an already
overstocked labor market. It is reasonable to suppose that Mr. Lane
lacked the necessary qualities of logic and balance to argue any point
to its obvious conclusion, for he was, intellectually, the reverse
of brilliant, and was therefore ill-equipped for introspective or
psychological examination of the circumstances leading to his decision.
Communing with himself, the inquisitive Mr. Lane put the matter tersely
and brutally.
“Lead pipin’s no go unless you’ve got a pal to work with; telephone
wires is so covered up with wood casin’ that it’s worse’n hard work to
pinch two-penn’oth. I’m goin’ to have a cut at Joneses.”
So in the pelting rain he watched “Joneses” from a convenient doorway.
He noted with satisfaction the “workmen” departing one by one; he
observed with joy the going of “Jones” himself; and when, some few
minutes afterwards, the queer-looking old man, whom he suspected as
being a sort of caretaker, came shuffling out, slamming the gate
behind him, and peering left and right, and mumbling to himself as he
squelched through the rain, the watcher regarded the removal of this
final difficulty as being an especial act of Providence.
He waited for another half-hour, because, for some reason or other,
the usually deserted street became annoyingly crowded. First came a
belated coal cart and a miserably bedraggled carman who cried his
wares dolefully. Then a small boy, escaping from the confines of his
domestic circle, came to revel in the downpour and wade ecstatically
but thoroughly through the puddles that had formed on the uneven
surface of the road. Nemesis, in the shape of a shrill-voiced mother,
overtook the boy and sent him whining and expectant to the heavy hand
of maternal authority. With the coast clear Mr. Lane lost no time. In
effecting an entrance to the headquarters of the “Borough Lot,” Mr.
Lane’s method lacked subtlety. He climbed over the gate leading to
the yard, trusting inwardly that he was not observed, but taking his
chance. Had he been an accomplished burglar, with the experience of
any exploits behind him, he would have begun by making a very thorough
inspection of likely windows. Certainly he would never have tried the
“office” door. Being the veriest tyro, and being conscious, moreover,
that his greatest feats had connection with doors carelessly left ajar,
he tried the door, and to his delight it opened.
Again the skilled craftsman would have suspected some sort of
treachery, and might have withdrawn; but Mr. Lane, recognizing in the
fact that the old man had forgotten to fasten the door behind him only
yet another proof of that benevolent Providence which exerts itself for
the express service of men “in luck,” entered boldly. He lit a candle
stump and looked around.
The evidence of that wealth which is the particular possession of
“master-men” was not evident. Indeed, the floor of the passage was
uncarpeted, and the walls bare of picture or ornament. Nor was the
“office,” a little room leading from the “passage,” any more prolific
of result. Such fixtures as there were had apparently been left behind
by the previous tenant, and these were thick with dust.
“Bah!” said the inquisitive Mr. Lane scornfully, and his words echoed
hollowly as in an empty house.
With the barren possibilities of his exploit before him, Mr. Lane’s
spirits fell.
He was of the class, to whom reference has already been made, that
looked in awe and reverence toward the “Borough Lot” in the same spirit
as the youthful curate might regard the consistory of bishops. In his
cups--pewter cups they were with frothing heads a-top--he was wont to
boast that his connection with the “Borough Lot” was both close and
intimate. A rumor that went around to the effect that the “mouthpiece”
who defended him at the closing of the unsatisfactory horsehair episode
had been paid for by the “Borough Lot” he did not trouble to contradict.
If he had known any of them, even by sight, he would not at that moment
have been effecting a burglarious entry into their premises.
Room after room he searched. He found the ill-furnished bedroom of
Connor, and the room where old George slept on an uncleanly mattress.
He found, too, the big room where the “Lot” held their informal
meetings, but nothing portable. Nothing that a man might slip under his
coat, and walk boldly out of the front door with. No little article of
jewelry that your wife might carry to a pawnbroker’s with a long face
and a longer story of a penury that forced you to part with her dear
mother’s last gift. None of these, noted Mr. Lane bitterly, and with
every fresh disappointment he breathed the harder.
For apart from the commercial aspect of this, his burglary, there
was the sickening humiliation of failure. An imaginative man, he had
already invented the story he was to tell to a few select cronies in
sneak-thief division. He had rehearsed mentally a scene where, with
an air of nonchalance, he drew a handful of golden sovereigns from
his pocket and ordered drinks round. And whilst they were sipping
his drinks, smirking respectfully, he would have confided to them
the fact that he had been duly, and with all ceremony, installed a
full-fledged member of the “Borough Lot.” Of the irony of the situation
he was ignorant. A qualified burglar would have completed a systematic
examination of the premises in ten minutes, but Mr. Lane was not so
qualified. In consequence he dawdled from room to room, going back to
this room to make sure, and returning to that room to be absolutely
certain that nothing had been overlooked. Oblivious of the flight of
time, he stood irresolutely in the topmost room of the house when the
real adventure of the evening began. He heard the click of a lock--he
had thoughtfully closed the office door behind him--and a voice, and
his heart leapt into his throat. He heard a voice, a voice hoarse with
rage, and another, and yet another.
Mr. Lane realized, from the stamping of feet on the stairs, that half a
dozen men had come into the house; from their language he gathered they
were annoyed.
Then he heard something that froze his blood and turned his marrow to
water.
It had begun in a rumble of hoarse, undistinguishable words, and ended
in the phrase that caught his ear.
“... he’s sold us, I tell ye! Put spies on us! He led us into the trap,
curse him....”
He heard another voice speaking in a lower tone.
“What are we worth? You’re a fool! What d’ye think we’re worth? Ain’t
we the ‘Borough Lot’? Don’t he know enough to hang two or three of
us.... It’s Connor and his pal the lawyer....”
The “Borough Lot”!
The paralyzing intelligence came to Mr. Lane, and he held on to the
bare mantelshelf for support. Spies! Suppose they discovered him, and
mistook him for a spy! His hair rose at the thought. He knew them
well enough by repute. Overmuch hero-worship had invested them with
qualities for evil which they may or may not have possessed.
There might be a chance of escape. The tumult below continued. Scraps
of angry talk came floating up.
Mr. Lane looked out of the window; the drop into the street was too
long, and there was no sign of rope in the house.
Cautiously he opened the door of the room. The men were in the room
beneath that in which he stood. The staircase that led to the street
must take him past their door.
Mr. Lane was very anxious to leave the house. He had unwittingly
stepped into a hornets’ nest, and wanted to make his escape without
disturbing the inmates. Now was the time--or never. Whilst the angry
argument continued a creaking stair board or so might not attract
attention. But he made no allowance for the gifts of these men--gifts
of sight and hearing. Bat Sands, in the midst of his tirade, saw the
uplifted finger and head-jerk of Goyle. He did not check his flow
of invective, but edged toward the door; then he stopped short, and
flinging the door open, he caught the scared Mr. Lane by the throat,
and dragging him into the room, threw him upon the ground and knelt on
him.
“What are ye doing here?” he whispered fiercely.
Mr. Lane, with protruding eyes, saw the pitiless faces about him, saw
Goyle lift a life-preserver from the table and turn half-round the
better to strike, and fainted.
“Stop that!” growled Bat, with outstretched hand. “The little swine has
fainted. Who is he? Do any of you fellers know him?”
It was the wizened-faced man whom Angel had addressed as Lamby who
furnished the identification.
“He’s a little crook--name of Lane.”
“Where does he come from?”
“Oh, hereabouts. He was in the Scrubbs in my time,” said Lamby.
They regarded the unconscious burglar in perplexity.
“Go through his pockets,” suggested Goyle.
It happened--and this was the most providential happening of the day
from Mr. Lane’s point of view--that when he had decided upon embarking
on his career of high-class crime he had thoughtfully provided himself
with a few homemade instruments. It was the little poker with
flattened end to form a jemmy and the center-bit that was found in his
pocket that in all probability saved Mr. Lane’s life.
Lombroso and other great criminologists have given it out that your
true degenerate has no sense of humor, but on two faces at least there
was a broad grin when the object of the little man’s visit was revealed.
“He came to burgle Connor,” said Bat admiringly. “Here, pass over the
whisky, one of ye!”
He forced a little down the man’s throat, and Mr. Lane blinked and
opened his eyes in a frightened stare.
“Stand up,” commanded Bat, “an’ give an account of yourself, young
feller. What d’ye mean by breaking into----”
“Never mind about that,” Goyle interrupted savagely. “What has he heard
when he was sneaking outside?--that’s the question.”
“Nothin’, gentlemen!” gasped the unfortunate Mr. Lane, “on me word,
gentlemen! I’ve been in trouble like yourselves, an’----”
He realized he had blundered.
“Oh,” said Goyle with ominous calm, “so you’ve been in trouble like us,
have you?”
“I mean----”
“I know what you mean,” hissed the other; “you mean you’ve been
listenin’ to what we’ve been saying, you little skunk, and you’re ready
to bleat to the first copper.”
It might have gone hard with Mr. Lane but for the opportune arrival of
the messenger. Bat went downstairs at the knock, and the rest stood
quietly listening. They expected Connor, and when his voice did not
sound on the stairs they looked at one another questioningly. Bat came
into the room with a yellow envelope in his hand. He passed it to
Goyle. Reading was not an accomplishment of his. Goyle read it with
difficulty.
“Do the best you can,” he read. “I’m lying ‘doggo.’”
“What does that mean?” snarled Goyle, holding the message in his hand
and looking at Bat. “Hidin’, is he--and we’ve got to do the best we
can?”
Bat reached for his overcoat. He did not speak as he struggled into it,
nor until he had buttoned it deliberately.
“It means--git,” he said shortly. “It means run, or else it means time,
an’ worse than time.”
He swung round to the door.
“Connor’s hidin’,” he stopped to say. “When Connor starts hiding the
place is getting hot. There’s nothing against me so far as I know,
except----”
His eyes fell on the form of Mr. Lane. He had raised himself to a
sitting position on the floor, and now, with disheveled hair and
outstretched legs, he sat the picture of despair.
Goyle intercepted the glance.
“What about him?” he asked.
“Leave him,” said Bat; “we’ve got no time for fooling with him.”
A motor-car came buzzing down Cawdor Street, which was unusual. They
heard the grind of its brakes outside the door, and that in itself
was sufficiently alarming. Bat extinguished the light, and cautiously
opened the shutters. He drew back with an oath.
“What’s that?” Goyle whispered.
Bat made no reply, and they heard him open his matchbox.
“What are you doing?” whispered Goyle fiercely.
“Light the lamp,” said the other.
The tinkle of glass followed as he removed the chimney, and in the
yellow light Bat faced the “Borough Lot.”
“U--P spells ‘up,’ an’ that’s what the game is,” he said calmly. He was
searching his pockets as he spoke. “I want a light because there’s one
or two things in my pocket that I’ve got to burn--quick!”
After some fumbling he found a paper. He gave it a swift examination,
then he struck a match and carefully lit the corner.
“It’s the fairest cop,” he went on. “The street’s full of police, and
Angel ain’t playing ‘gamblin’ raids’ this time.”
There was a heavy knock on the door, but nobody moved. Goyle’s face had
gone livid. He knew better than any man there how impossible escape
was. That had been one of the drawbacks to the house--the ease with
which it could be surrounded. He had pointed out the fact to Connor
before.
Again the knock.
“Let ’em open it,” said Bat grimly, and as though the people outside
had heard the invitation, the door crashed in, and there came a patter
as of men running on the stairs.
First to enter the room was Angel. He nodded to Bat coolly, then
stepped aside to allow the policemen to follow.
“I want you,” he said briefly.
“What for?” asked Sands.
“Breaking and entering,” said the detective. “Put out your hands!”
Bat obeyed. As the steel stirrup-shaped irons snapped on his wrists he
asked--
“Have you got Connor?”
Angel smiled.
“Connor lives to fight another day,” he said quietly.
The policemen who attended him were busy with the other occupants of
the room.
“Bit of a field-day for you, Mr. Angel,” said the thin-faced Lamby
pleasantly. “Thought you was goin’ to let us off?”
“Jumping at conclusions hastily is a habit to be deplored,” said Angel
sententiously. Then he saw the panic-stricken Mr. Lane.
“Hullo, what’s this?” he demanded.
Mr. Lane had at that moment the inspiration of his life. Since he was
by fortuitous circumstances involved in this matter, and since it could
make very little difference one way or the other what he said, he
seized the fame that lay to his hand.
“I am one of the ‘Borough Lot,’” he said, and was led out proud and
handcuffed with the knowledge that he had established beyond dispute
his title to consideration as a desperate criminal.
* * * * *
Mr. Spedding was a man who thought quickly. Ideas and plans came to
him as dross and diamonds come to the man at the sorting table, and he
had the faculty of selection. He saw the police system of England as
only the police themselves saw it, and he had an open mind upon Angel’s
action. It was within the bounds of possibility that Angel had acted
with full authority; it was equally possible that Angel was bluffing.
Mr. Spedding had two courses before him, and they were both desperate;
but he must be sure in how, so far, his immediate liberty depended upon
the whim of a deputy-assistant-commissioner of police.
Angel had mentioned a supreme authority. It was characteristic of
Spedding that he should walk into a mine to see how far the fuse had
burned. In other words, he hailed the first cab, and drove to the House
of Commons.
The Right Honorable George Chandler Middleborough, His Majesty’s
Secretary of State for Home Affairs, is a notoriously inaccessible
man; but he makes exceptions, and such an exception he made in favor
of Spedding. For eminent solicitors do not come down to the House at
ten o’clock in the evening to gratify an idle curiosity, or to be shown
over the House, or beg patronage and interest; and when a business
card is marked “most urgent,” and that card stands for a staple
representative of an important profession, the request for an interview
is not easily refused.
Spedding was shown into the minister’s room, and the Home Secretary
rose with a smile. He knew Mr. Spedding by sight, and had once dined in
his company.
“Er--” he began, looking at the card in his hand, “what can I do for
you--at this hour?” he smiled again.
“I have called to see you in the matter of the late--er--Mr. Reale.” He
saw and watched the minister’s face. Beyond looking a little puzzled,
the Home Secretary made no sign.
“Good!” thought Spedding, and breathed with more freedom.
“I’m afraid----” said the minister. He got no further, for Spedding was
at once humility, apology, and embarrassment.
What! had the Home Secretary not received his letter? A letter dealing
with the estate of Reale? You can imagine the distress and vexation
on Mr. Spedding’s face as he spoke of the criminal carelessness of
his clerk, his attitude of helplessness, his recognition of the
absolute impossibility of discussing the matter until the Secretary
had received the letter, and his withdrawal, leaving behind him a
sympathetic minister of State who would have been pleased--would have
been delighted, my dear sir, to have helped Mr. Spedding if he’d
received the letter in time to consider its contents. Mr. Spedding was
an inventive genius, and it might have been in reference to him that
the motherhood of invention was first identified with dire necessity.
Out again in the courtyard, Spedding found a cab that carried him to
his club.
“Angel bluffed!” he reflected with an inward smile. “My friend, you are
risking that nice appointment of yours.”
He smiled again, for it occurred to him that his risk was the greater.
“Two millions!” he murmured. “It is worth it: I could do a great deal
with two millions.”
He got down at his club, and tendered the cabman the legal fare to a
penny.
CHAPTER XI
THE QUEST OF THE BOOK
When Piccadilly Circus, a blaze of light, was thronged with the crowds
that the theaters were discharging, a motor-car came gingerly through
the traffic, passed down Regent Street, and swinging along Pall Mall,
headed southward across Westminster Bridge.
The rain had ceased, but underfoot the roads were sodden, and the car
bespattered its occupants with black mud.
The chauffeur at the wheel turned as the car ran smoothly along the
tramway lines in the Old Kent Road and asked a question, and one of the
two men in the back of the car consulted the other.
“We will go to Cramer’s first,” said the man.
Old Kent Road was a fleeting vision of closed shops, of little knots
of men emerging from public-houses at the potman’s strident command;
Lewisham High Road, as befits that very respectable thoroughfare, was
decorously sleeping; Lea, where the hedges begin, was silent; and
Chislehurst was a place of the dead.
Near the common the car pulled up at a big house standing in black
quietude, and the two occupants of the car descended and passed through
the stiff gate, along the graveled path, and came to a stop at the
broad porch.
“I don’t know what old Mauder will say,” said Angel as he fumbled for
the bell; “he’s a methodical old chap.”
In the silence they could hear the thrill of the electric bell. They
waited a few minutes, and rang again. Then they heard a window opened
and a sleepy voice demand--
“Who is there?”
Angel stepped back from the porch and looked up.
“Hullo, Mauder! I want you. I’m Angel.”
“The devil!” said a surprised voice. “Wait a bit. I’ll be down in a
jiffy.”
The pleasant-faced man who in dressing-gown and pajamas opened the door
to them and conducted them to a cozy library was Mr. Ernest Mauder
himself. It is unnecessary to introduce that world-famous publisher to
the reader, the more particularly in view of the storm of controversy
that burst about his robust figure in regard to the recent publication
of Count Lehoff’s embarrassing “Memoirs.” He made a sign to the two men
to be seated, nodding to Jimmy as to an old friend.
“I am awfully sorry to disturb you at this rotten hour,” Angel
commenced, and the other arrested his apology with a gesture.
“You detective people are so fond of springing surprises on us
unintelligent outsiders,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, “that I
am almost tempted to startle you.”
“It takes a lot to startle me,” said Angel complacently.
“You’ve brought it on your own head,” warned the publisher, wagging
a forefinger at the smiling Angel. “Now let me tell you why you have
motored down from London on this miserable night on a fairly fruitless
errand.”
“Eh?” The smile left Angel’s face.
“Ah, I thought that would startle you! You’ve come about a book?”
“Yes,” said Jimmy wonderingly.
“A book published by our people nine years ago?”
“Yes,” the wonderment deepening on the faces of the two men.
“The title,” said the publisher impressively, “is _A Short Study on the
Origin of the Alphabet_, and the author is a half-mad old don, who was
subsequently turned out of Oxford for drunkenness.”
“Mauder,” said Jimmy, gazing at his host in bewilderment, “you’ve hit
it--but----”
“Ah,” said the publisher, triumphant, “I thought that was it. Well,
your search is fruitless. We only printed five hundred copies; the
book was a failure--the same ground was more effectively covered by
better books. I found a dusty old copy a few years ago, and gave it to
my secretary. So far as I know, that is the only copy in existence.”
“But your secretary?” said Angel eagerly. “What is his name? Where does
he live?”
“It’s not a ‘he,’” said Mauder, “but a ‘she.’”
“Her name?”
“If you had asked that question earlier in the evening I could not
have told you,” said Mauder, obviously enjoying the mystery he had
created, “but since then my memory has been refreshed. The girl--and a
most charming lady too--was my secretary for two years. I do not know
what induced her to work, but I rather think she supported an invalid
father.”
“What is her name?” asked Angel impatiently.
“Kathleen Kent,” replied the publisher, “and her address is----”
“Kathleen Kent!” repeated Jimmy in wide-eyed astonishment. “Angels and
Ministers of Grace defend us!”
“Kathleen Kent!” repeated Angel with a gasp. “Well, that takes the
everlasting biscuit! But,” he added quickly, “how did you come to know
of our errand?”
“Well,” drawled the elder man, wrapping his dressing-gown round him
more snugly, “it was a guess to an extent. You see, Angel, when a man
has been already awakened out of a sound sleep to answer mysterious
inquiries about an out-of-date book----”
“What,” cried Jimmy, jumping up, “somebody has already been here?”
“It is only natural,” the publisher went on, “to connect his errand
with that of the second midnight intruder.”
“Who has been here? For Heaven’s sake, don’t be funny; this is a
serious business.”
“Nobody has been here,” said Mauder, “but an hour ago a man called me
up on the telephone----”
Jimmy looked at Angel, and Angel looked at Jimmy.
“Jimmy,” said Angel penitently, “write me down as a fool. Telephone!
Heavens, I didn’t know you were connected.”
“Nor was I till last week,” said the publisher, “nor will I be after
to-morrow. Sleep is too precious a gift to be dissipated----”
“Who was the man?” demanded Angel.
“I couldn’t quite catch his name. He was very apologetic. I gathered
that he was a newspaper man, and wanted particulars in connection with
the death of the author.”
Angel smiled.
“The author’s alive all right,” he said grimly. “How did the voice
sound--a little pompous, with a clearing of the throat before each
sentence?”
The other nodded.
“Spedding!” said Angel, rising. “We haven’t any time to lose, Jimmy.”
Mauder accompanied them into the hall.
“One question,” said Jimmy, as he fastened the collar of his
motor-coat. “Can you give us any idea of the contents of the book?”
“I can’t,” was the reply. “I have a dim recollection that much of it
was purely conventional, that there were some rough drawings, and the
earlier forms of the alphabet were illustrated--the sort of thing you
find in encyclopædias or in the back pages of teachers’ Bibles.”
The two men took their seats in the car as it swung round and turned
its bright head-lamps toward London.
“‘I found this puzzle in a book
From which some mighty truths were took,’”
murmured Angel in his companion’s ear, and Jimmy nodded. He was at
that moment utterly oblivious and careless of the fortune that awaited
them in the great safe at Lombard Street. His mind was filled with
anxiety concerning the girl who unconsciously held the book which
might to-morrow make her an heiress. Spedding had moved promptly, and
he would be aided, he did not doubt, by Connor and the ruffians of the
“Borough Lot.” If the book was still in the girl’s possession they
would have it, and they would make their attempt at once.
His mind was full of dark forebodings, and although the car bounded
through the night at full speed, and the rain which had commenced to
fall again cut his face, and the momentum of the powerful machine took
his breath away, it went all too slowly for his mood.
One incident relieved the monotony of the journey. As the car flew
round a corner in an exceptionally narrow lane it almost crashed
into another car, which, driven at breakneck speed, was coming in
the opposite direction. A fleeting exchange of curses between the
chauffeurs, and the cars passed.
By common consent, they had headed for Kathleen’s home. Streatham was
deserted. As they turned the corner of the quiet road in which the
girl lived, Angel stopped the car and alighted. He lifted one of the
huge lamps from the socket and examined the road.
“There has been a car here less than half an hour ago,” he said,
pointing to the unmistakable track of wheels. They led to the door of
the house.
He rang the bell, and it was almost immediately answered by an elderly
lady, who, wrapped in a loose dressing-gown, bade him enter.
“Nobody seems to be surprised to see us to-night,” thought Angel with
bitter humor.
“I am Detective Angel from Scotland Yard,” he announced himself, and
the elderly lady seemed unimpressed.
“Kathleen has gone,” she informed him cheerfully.
Jimmy heard her with a sinking at his heart.
“Yes,” said the old lady, “Mr. Spedding, the eminent solicitor, called
for her an hour ago, and”--she grew confidential--“as I know you
gentlemen are very much interested in the case, I may say that there is
every hope that before to-morrow my niece will be in possession of her
fortune.”
Jimmy groaned.
“Please, go on,” said Angel.
“It came about over a book which Kathleen had given her some years ago,
and which most assuredly would have been lost but for my carefulness.”
Jimmy cursed her “carefulness” under his breath.
“When we moved here after the death of Kathleen’s poor father I had
a great number of things stored. There were amongst these an immense
quantity of books, which Kathleen would have sold, but which I
thought----”
“Where are these stored?” asked Angel quickly.
“At an old property of ours--the only property that my poor brother
had remaining,” she replied sadly, “and that because it was in too
dilapidated a condition to attract buyers.”
“Where, where?” Angel realized the rudeness of his impatience. “Forgive
me, madam,” he said, “but it is absolutely necessary that I should
follow your niece at once.”
“It is on the Tonbridge Road,” she answered stiffly. “So far as I can
remember, it is somewhere between Crawley and Tonbridge, but I am not
sure. Kathleen knows the place well; that is why she has gone.”
“Somewhere on the Tonbridge Road!” repeated Angel helplessly.
“We could follow the car’s tracks,” said Jimmy.
Angel shook his head.
“If this rain is general, they will be obliterated,” he replied.
They stood a minute, Jimmy biting the sodden finger of his glove, and
Angel staring into vacancy. Then Jimmy demanded unexpectedly--
“Have you a Bible?”
The old lady allowed the astonishment she felt at the question to be
apparent.
“I have several.”
“A teacher’s Bible, with notes?” he asked.
She thought.
“Yes, there is such an one in the house. Will you wait?”
She left the room.
“We should have told the girl about Spedding--we should have told her,”
said Angel in despair.
“It’s no use crying over spilt milk,” said Jimmy quietly. “The thing to
do now is to frustrate Spedding and rescue the girl.”
“Will he dare----?”
“He’ll dare. Oh, yes, he’ll dare,” said Jimmy. “He’s worse than you
think, Angel.”
“But he is already a ruined man.”
“The more reason why he should go a step further. He’s been on the
verge of ruin for months, I’ve found that out. I made inquiries
the other day, and discovered he’s in a hole that the dome of St.
Paul’s wouldn’t fill. He’s a trustee or something of the sort for an
association that has been pressing him for money. Spedding will dare
anything”--he paused then--“but if he dares to harm that girl he’s a
dead man.”
The old lady came in at that moment with the book, and Jimmy hastily
turned over the pages.
Near the end he came upon something that brought a gleam to his eye.
He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a notebook. He did not
wait to pull up a chair, but sank on his knees by the side of the table
and wrote rapidly, comparing the text with the drawings in the book.
Angel, leaning over, followed the work breathlessly.
“There--and there--and there!” cried Angel exultantly. “What fools we
were, Jimmy, what fools we were.”
Jimmy turned to the lady.
“May I borrow this book?” he asked. “It will be returned. Thank you.
Now, Angel,” he looked at his watch and made a move for the door, “we
have two hours. We will take the Tonbridge Road by daybreak.”
Only one other person did they disturb on that eventful night, and that
was a peppery old Colonel of Marines, who lived at Blackheath.
There, before the hastily-attired old officer, as the dawn broke, Angel
explained his mission, and writing with feverish haste, subscribed
to the written statement by oath. Whereupon the Justice of the Peace
issued a warrant for the arrest of Joseph James Spedding, Solicitor, on
a charge of felony.
CHAPTER XII
WHAT HAPPENED AT FLAIRBY MILL
Kathleen very naturally regarded the lawyer in the light of a
disinterested friend. There was no reason why she should not do so;
and if there had been any act needed to kindle a kindly feeling for
the distant legal adviser it was this last act of his, for no sooner,
as he told her, had he discovered by the merest accident a clue to the
hidden word, than he had rushed off post-haste to put her in possession
of his information. He had naturally advised immediate action, and when
she demurred at the lateness of the hour at which to begin a hunt for
the book, he had hinted vaguely at difficulties which would beset her
if she delayed. She wanted to let Angel know, and Jimmy, but this the
lawyer would not hear of, and she accounted for the insistence of his
objection by the cautiousness of the legal mind.
Then the excitement of the midnight adventure appealed to her--the
swift run in the motor-car through the wild night, and the wonderful
possibilities of the search at the end of the ride.
So she went, and her appetite for adventure was all but satisfied by a
narrowly-averted collision with another car speeding in the opposite
direction. She did not see the occupants of the other car, but she
hoped they had had as great a fright as she.
As a matter of fact, neither of the two men had given a second thought
to their danger; one’s mind was entirely and completely filled with her
image, and the other was brooding on telephones.
She had no time to tire of the excitement of the night--the run across
soaking heaths and through dead villages, where little cottages showed
up for a moment in the glare of the headlights, then faded into the
darkness. Too soon she came to a familiar stretch of the road, and
the car slowed down so that they might not pass the tiny grass lane
that led to Flairby Mill. They came to it at last, and the car bumped
cautiously over deep cart ruts, over loose stones, and through long
drenched grasses till there loomed out of the night the squat outlines
of Flairby Mill.
Once upon a time, before the coming of cheap machinery, Flairby Mill
had been famous in the district, and the rumble of its big stones went
on incessantly, night and day; but the wheel had long since broken,
its wreck lay in the bed of the little stream that had so faithfully
served it; its machinery was rust and scrap iron, and only the tiny
dwelling-house that adjoined was of value. With little or no repair
the homestead had remained watertight and weatherproof, and herein
had Kathleen stored the odds and ends of her father’s household. The
saddles, shields, spears, and oddments he had collected in his travels,
and the modest library that had consoled the embittered years of his
passing, were all stored here. Valueless as the world assesses value,
but in the eyes of the girl precious things associated with her dead
father.
The tears rose to her eyes as Spedding, taking the key from her hand,
fitted it into the lock of a seventeenth-century door, but she wiped
them away furtively.
Spedding utilized the acetylene lamp of the car to show him the way
into the house. “You must direct me, Miss Kent,” he said, and Kathleen
pointed the way. Up the oaken stairs, covered with dust, their
footsteps resounding hollowly through the deserted homestead, the two
passed. At the head of the stairs was a heavy door, and acting under
the girl’s instructions, the lawyer opened this.
It was a big room, almost like a barn, with a timbered ceiling sloping
downward. There were three shuttered windows, and another door at the
farther end of the room that led to a smaller room.
“This was the miller’s living room,” she said sadly. She could just
remember when a miller lived in the homestead, and when she had
ridden up to the door of the mill accompanied by her father, and the
miller, white and jovial, had lifted her down and taken her through a
mysterious chamber where great stones turned laboriously and noisily,
and the air was filled with a fine white dust.
Spedding placed the lamp on the table, and cast his eyes round the room
in search of the books. They were not difficult to discover; they had
been unpacked, and were ranged in three disorderly rows upon roughly
constructed bookshelves. The lawyer turned the lamp so that the full
volume of light should fall on the books. Then he went carefully over
them, row by row, checking each copy methodically, and half muttering
the name of each tome he handled. There were school books, works of
travel, and now and again a heavily bound scientific treatise, for her
father had made science a particular study. The girl stood with one
hand resting on the table, looking on, admiring the patience of the
smooth, heavy man at his task, and, it must be confessed, inwardly
wondering what necessity there was for this midnight visitation. She
had told the lawyer nothing about the red envelope, but instinctively
felt that he knew all about it.
“_Anabasis_, Xenophon,” he muttered; “Josephus, _Works and Life_;
_Essays of Elia_; _Essays_, Emerson; _Essays_, De Quincey. What’s this?”
He drew from between two bulky volumes a thin little book with a
discolored cover. He dusted it carefully, glanced at the title, opened
it and read the title-page, then walked back to the table and seated
himself, and started to read the book.
The girl did not know why, but there was something in his attitude at
that moment that caused her a little uneasiness, and stirred within her
a sense of danger. Perhaps it was that up till then he had shown her
marked deference, had been almost obsequious. Now that the book had
been found he disregarded her. He did not bring it to her or invite her
attention, and she felt that she was “out of the picture,” that the
lawyer’s interest in her affairs had stopped dead just as soon as the
discovery was made.
He turned the leaves over carefully, poring over the introduction, and
her eyes wandered from the book to his face. She had never looked at
him before with any critical interest. In the unfriendly light of the
lamp she saw his imperfections--the brutal strength of his jaw, the
unscrupulous thinness of the lip, the heavy eyelids, and the curious
hairlessness of his face. She shivered a little, for she read too much
in his face for her peace of mind.
Unconscious of her scrutiny, for the book before him was
all-engrossing, the lawyer went from page to page.
“Don’t you think we had better be going?” Kathleen asked timidly.
Spedding looked up, and his stare was in keeping with his words.
“When I have finished we will go,” he said brusquely, and went on
reading.
Kathleen gave a little gasp of astonishment, for, with all her
suspicions, she had not been prepared for such a complete and instant
dropping of his mask of amiability. In a dim fashion she began to
realize her danger, yet there could be no harm; outside was the
chauffeur, he stood for something of established order. She made
another attempt.
“I must insist, Mr. Spedding, upon your finishing your examination of
that book elsewhere. I do not know whether you are aware that you are
occupying the only chair in the room,” she added indignantly.
“I am very well aware,” said the lawyer calmly, without raising his
eyes.
“Mr. Spedding!”
He looked up with an air of weariness.
“May I ask you to remain quiet until I have finished,” he said, with an
emphasis that she could not mistake, “and lest you have any lingering
doubt that my present research is rather on my own account than on
yours, I might add that if you annoy me by whining or fuming, or by
any such nonsensical tricks, I have that with me which will quiet
you,” and he resumed his reading.
Cold and white, the girl stood in silence, her heart beating wildly,
her mind occupied with schemes of escape.
After a while the lawyer looked up and tapped the book with his
forefinger.
“Your precious secret is a secret no longer,” he said with a hard
laugh. Kathleen made no answer. “If I hadn’t been a fool, I should
have seen through it before,” he added, then he looked at the girl in
meditation.
“I have two propositions before me,” he said, “and I want your help.”
“You will have no help from me, Mr. Spedding,” she replied coldly.
“To-morrow you will be asked to explain your extraordinary conduct.”
He laughed.
“To-morrow, by whom? By Angel or the young swell-mobsman who’s half in
love with you?”
He laughed again as he saw the color rising to the girl’s cheeks.
“Ah! I’ve hit the mark, have I?”
She received his speech in contemptuous silence.
“To-morrow I shall be away--well away, I trust, from the reach of
either of the gentlemen you mention. I am not concerned with to-morrow
as much as to-day.” She remembered that they were within an hour of
daybreak. “To-day is a most fateful day for me--and for you.” He
emphasized the last words.
She preserved an icy silence.
“If I may put my case in a nutshell,” he went on, with all his old-time
suavity, “I may say that it is necessary for me to secure the money
that is stored in that ridiculous safe.” She checked an exclamation.
“Ah! you understand? Let me be more explicit. When I say get the
money, I mean get it for myself, every penny of it, and convert it to
my private use. You can have no idea,” he went on, “how comforting
it is to be able to stand up and say in so many words the unspoken
thoughts of a year, to tell some human being the most secret things
that I have so far hidden here,” he struck his chest. “I had thought
when old Reale’s commission was intrusted to me that I should find the
legatees ordinary plain, everyday fools, who would have unfolded to
me day by day the result of their investigations to my profit. I did
not reckon very greatly on you, for women are naturally secretive and
suspicious, but I did rely upon the two criminals. My experience of the
criminal classes, a fairly extensive one, led me to believe that with
these gentry I should have no difficulty.” He pursed his lips. “I had
calculated without my Jimmy,” he said shortly. He saw the light in the
girl’s eye. “Yes,” he went on, “Jimmy is no ordinary man, and Angel
is a glaring instance of bad nomenclature. I nearly had Jimmy once.
Did he tell you how he got the red envelope? I see he did not. Well,
I nearly had him. I went to look for his body next morning, and found
nothing. Later in the day I received a picture postcard from him, of a
particularly flippant and vulgar character.” He stopped as if inviting
comment.
“Your confessions have little interest for me,” said the girl quietly.
“I am now only anxious to be rid of your presence.”
“I am coming to that,” said the lawyer. “I was very rude to you a
little while ago, but I was busily engaged, and besides I desired to
give you an artistic introduction to the new condition. Now, so far
from being rude, I wish to be very kind.”
In spite of her outward calm, she trembled at the silky tone the lawyer
had now adopted.
“My position is this,” he said, “there is an enormous sum of
money, which rightly is yours. The law and the inclination of your
competitor--we will exclude Connor, who is not a factor--give you
the money. It is unfortunate that I also, who have no earthly right,
should desire this money, and we have narrowed down the ultimate issue
to this: Shall it be Spedding or Kathleen Kent? I say Spedding, and
circumstances support my claim, for I have you here, and, if you will
pardon the suspicion of melodrama, very much in my power. If I am to
take the two millions, _your_ two millions, without interruption, it
will depend entirely upon you.”
Again he stopped to notice the effect of his words. The girl made no
response, but he could see the terror in her eyes.
“If I could have dispensed with your services, or if I had had the
sense to guess the simple solution of this cursed puzzle, I could have
done everything without embarrassing you in the slightest; but now it
has come to this--I have got to silence you.”
He put forward the proposition with the utmost coolness, and Kathleen
felt her senses reel at all the words implied.
“I can silence you by killing you,” he said simply, “or by marrying
you. If I could think of some effective plan by which I might be sure
of your absolute obliteration for two days, I would gladly adopt it;
but you are a human woman, and that is too much to expect. Now, of the
alternatives, which do you prefer?”
She shrank back against the shuttered window, her eyes on the man.
“You are doubtless thinking of the chauffeur,” he said smoothly, “but
you may leave him out of the reckoning. Had your ears been sharp, you
would have heard the car going back half an hour ago--he is awaiting
our return half a mile away. If I return alone he will doubtlessly be
surprised, but he will know nothing. Do you not see a picture of him
driving me away, and me, at his side turning round and waving a smiling
farewell to an imaginary woman who is invisible to the chauffeur?
Picture his uneasiness vanishing with this touch. Two days afterwards
he would be on the sea with me, ignorant of the murder, and curious
things happen at sea. Come, Kathleen, is it to be marriage----?”
“Death!” she cried hoarsely, then, as his swift hand caught her by the
throat, she screamed.
His face looked down into hers, no muscle of it moved. Fixed, rigid,
and full of his dreadful purpose, she saw the pupils of his pitiless
eyes contract.
Then of a sudden he released hold of her, and she fell back against the
wall.
She heard his quick breathing, and closing her eyes, waited.
Then slowly she looked up. She saw a revolver in his hand, and in a
numb kind of way she realized that it was not pointed at her.
“Hands up!” She heard Spedding’s harsh shout. “Hands up, both of you!”
Then she heard an insolent laugh.
There were only two men in the world who would laugh like that in the
very face of death, and they were both there, standing in the doorway,
Angel with his motor goggles about his neck and Jimmy slowly peeling
his gloves.
Then she looked at Spedding.
The hand that held the revolver did not tremble, he was as
self-possessed as he had been a few minutes before.
“If either of you move I’ll shoot the girl, by God!” said Spedding
through his teeth.
They stood in the doorway, and Jimmy spoke. He did not raise his voice,
but she heard the slumbering passion vibrating through his quiet
sentences.
“Spedding, Spedding, my man, you’re frightening that child; put your
gun down and let us talk. Do you hear me? I am keeping myself in hand,
Spedding, but if you harm that girl I’ll be a devil to you. D’ye hear?
If you hurt her, I’ll take you with my bare hands and treat you Indian
fashion, Spedding, my man, tie you down and stake you out, then burn
you slowly. Yes, and, by the Lord, if any man interferes, even if it’s
Angel here, I’ll swing for him. D’ye hear that?”
His breast heaved with the effort to hold himself, and Spedding,
shuddering at the ferocity in the man’s whole bearing, lowered his
pistol.
“Let us talk,” he said huskily.
“That’s better,” said Angel, “and let me talk first. I want you.”
“Come and take me,” he said.
“The risk is too great,” said Angel frankly, “and besides, I can afford
to wait.”
“Well?” asked the lawyer defiantly, after a long pause. He kept the
weapon in his hand pointed in the vicinity of the girl.
Angel exchanged a word in an undertone with his companion, then--
“You may go,” he said, and stepped aside.
Spedding motioned him farther away. Then slowly edging his way to the
door, he reached it. He paused for a moment as if about to speak, then
quick as thought raised his revolver and fired twice.
Angel felt the wind of the bullets as they passed his face, and sprang
forward just as Jimmy’s arm shot out.
Crack, crack, crack! Three shots so rapid that their reports were
almost simultaneous from Jimmy’s automatic pistol sped after the
lawyer, but too late, and the heavy door crashed to in Angel’s face,
and the snap of the lock told them they were prisoners.
Angel made a dart for a window, but it was shuttered and nailed and
immovable.
He looked at Jimmy, and burst into a ringing laugh.
“Trapped, by Jove!” he said.
Jimmy was on his knees by the side of the girl. She had not fainted,
but had suddenly realized her terrible danger, and the strain and
weariness of the night adventure had brought her trembling to her
knees. Very tenderly did Jimmy’s arm support her. She felt the strength
of the man, and, thrilled at his touch, her head sank on his shoulder
and she felt at rest.
Angel was busily examining the windows, when a loud report outside the
house arrested his attention.
“What is that?” asked the girl faintly.
“It is either Mr. Spedding’s well-timed suicide, which I fear is too
much to expect,” said Angel philosophically, “or else it is the same
Mr. Spedding destroying the working parts of our car. I am afraid it is
the latter.”
He moved up and down the room, examined the smaller chamber at the
other end, then sniffed uneasily.
“Miss Kent,” he said earnestly, “are you well enough to tell me
something?”
She started and flushed as she drew herself from Jimmy’s arms, and
stood up a little shakily.
“Yes,” she said, with a faint smile, “I think I am all right now.”
“What is there under here?” asked Angel, pointing to the floor.
“An old workshop, a sort of storehouse,” she replied in surprise.
“What is in it?” There was no mistaking the seriousness in Angel’s
voice.
“Broken furniture.”
“Mattresses?”
“Yes, I think there are, and paints and things. Why do you ask?”
“Jimmy,” said Angel quickly, “do you smell anything?”
Jimmy sniffed.
“Yes,” he said quickly. “Quick, the windows!”
They made a rapid search of the room. In a corner Jimmy unearthed a
rusty cavalry saber.
“That’s the thing,” said Angel, and started to prise loose the solid
shutter; but the wood was unyielding, and just as they had secured a
purchase the blade snapped.
“There is an old ax in the cupboard,” cried the girl, who apprehended
the hidden danger.
With a yell of joy Angel dragged forth an antiquated battle-ax, and
attacked the shutter afresh. With each blow the wood flew in big
splinters, but fast as he worked something else was moving faster.
Angel had not mistaken the smell of petrol, and now a thin vapor of
smoke flowed into the room from underneath the door, and in tiny
spirals through the interstices of the floorboards. Angel stopped
exhausted, and Jimmy picked up the ax and struck it true, then after
one vigorous stroke a streak of daylight showed in the shutter. The
room was now intolerably hot, and Angel took up the ax and hacked away
at the oaken barrier to life.
“Shall we escape?” asked the girl quietly.
“Yes, I think so,” said Jimmy steadily.
“I shall not regret to-night,” she faltered.
“Nor I,” said Jimmy in a low voice, “whatever the issue is. It is very
good to love once in a lifetime, even if that once is on the brink of
the grave.”
Her lips quivered, and she tried to speak.
Angel was hard at work on the window, and his back was toward them, and
Jimmy bent and kissed the girl on the lips.
The window was down! Angel turned in a welter of perspiring triumph.
“Outside as quick as dammit!” he cried.
Angel had found a rope in the smaller room in his earlier search, and
this he slipped round the girl’s waist. “When you get down run clear
of the smoke,” he instructed her, and in a minute she found herself
swinging in mid-air, in a cloud of rolling smoke that blinded and
choked her. She felt the ground, and staying only to loose the rope,
she ran outward and fell exhausted on a grassy bank.
In a few minutes the two men were by her side.
They stood in silence contemplating the conflagration, then Kathleen
remembered.
“The book, the book!” she cried.
“It’s inside my shirt,” said the shameless Angel.
CHAPTER XIII
CONNOR TAKES A HAND
It is an axiom at Scotland Yard, “Beware of an audience.” Enemies
of our police system advance many and curious reasons for this
bashfulness. In particular they place a sinister interpretation upon
the desire of the police to carry out their work without fuss and
without ostentation, for the police have an embarrassing system of
midnight arrests. Unless you advertise the fact, or unless your case
is of sufficient importance to merit notice in the evening newspapers,
there is no reason why your disappearance from society should excite
comment, or why the excuse, put forward for your absence from your
accustomed haunts, that you have gone abroad should not be accepted
without question.
Interviewing his wise chief, Angel received some excellent advice.
“If you’ve got to arrest him, do it quietly. If, as you suggest, he
barricades himself in his house, or takes refuge in his patent vault,
leave him alone. We want no fuss, and we want no newspaper sensations.
If you can square up the Reale business without arresting him, by all
means do so. We shall probably get him in--er--what do you call it,
Angel?--oh, yes, ‘the ordinary way of business.’”
“Very good, sir,” said Angel, nothing loth to carry out the plan.
“From what I know of this class of man,” the Assistant-Commissioner
went on, fingering his grizzled mustache, “he will do nothing. He will
go about his daily life as though nothing had happened; you will find
him in his office this morning, and if you went to arrest him you’d be
shot dead. No, if you take my advice you’ll leave him severely alone
for the present. He won’t run away.”
So Angel thanked his chief and departed.
Throughout the morning he was obsessed by a desire to see the lawyer.
By midday this had become so overmastering that he put on his hat and
sauntered down to Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
“Yes, Mr. Spedding was in,” said a sober clerk, and--after consulting
his employer--“Mr. Spedding would see him.”
The lawyer was sitting behind a big desk covered with be-ribboned
bundles of papers. He greeted Angel with a smile, and pointed to a
chair on the other side of the desk.
“I’ve been in court most of the morning,” he said blandly, “but I’m at
liberty for half an hour. What can I do for you?”
Angel looked at him in undisguised admiration.
“You’re a wonderful chap,” he said with a shake of his head.
“You’re admiring me,” said the lawyer, fingering a paper-knife, “in
very much the same way as an enthusiastic naturalist admires the
markings of a horned viper.”
“That is very nicely put,” said Angel truthfully.
The lawyer had dropped his eyes on to the desk before him; then he
looked up.
“What is it to be?” he asked.
“A truce,” said Angel.
“I thought you would say that,” replied Spedding comfortably, “because
I suppose you know----”
“Oh, yes,” said Angel with nonchalant ease, “I know that the right
hand which is so carelessly reposing on your knee holds a weapon of
remarkable precision.”
“You are well advised,” said the lawyer, with a slight bow.
“Of course,” said Angel, “there is a warrant in existence for your
arrest.”
“Of course,” agreed Spedding politely.
“I got it as a precautionary measure,” Angel went on in his most
affable manner.
“Naturally,” said the lawyer; “and now----”
“Oh, now,” said Angel, “I wanted to give you formal notice that, on
behalf of Miss Kent, we intend opening the safe to-morrow.”
“I will be there,” said the lawyer, and rang a bell.
“And,” added Angel in a lower voice, “keep out of Jimmy’s way.”
Spedding’s lips twitched, the only sign of nervousness he had shown
during the interview, but he made no reply. As the clerk stood waiting
at the open door, Spedding, with his most gracious smile, said--
“Er--and did you get home safely this morning?”
“Quite, thank you,” replied Angel, in no wise perturbed by the man’s
audacity.
“Did you find your country quarters--er--comfortable?”
“Perfectly,” said Angel, rising to the occasion, “but the function was
a failure.”
“The function?” The lawyer bit at the bait Angel had thrown.
“Yes,” said the detective, his hand on the door, “the house-warming,
you know.”
Angel chuckled to himself all the way back to the Embankment. His grim
little jest pleased him so much that he must needs call in and tell his
chief, and the chief’s smile was very flattering.
“You’re a bright boy,” he said, “but when the day comes for you to
arrest that lawyer gentleman, I trust you will, as a precautionary
measure, purge your soul of all frivolities, and prepare yourself for a
better world.”
“If,” said Angel, “I do not see the humorous side of being killed, I
shall regard my life as badly ended.”
“Get out,” ordered the Commissioner, and Angel got.
He realized as the afternoon wore on that he was very tired, and
snatched a couple of hours’ sleep before keeping the appointment he had
made with Jimmy earlier in the day. Whilst he was dressing Jimmy came
in--Jimmy rather white, with a surgical bandage round his head, and
carrying with him the pungent scent of iodoform.
“Hullo,” said Angel in astonishment, “what on earth have you been
doing?”
Jimmy cast an eye round the room in search of the most luxurious chair
before replying.
“Ah,” he said with a sigh of contentment as he seated himself, “that’s
better.”
Angel pointed to the bandage.
“When did this happen?”
“An hour or so ago,” said Jimmy. “Spedding is a most active man.”
Angel whistled.
“Conventionally?” he asked.
“Artistically,” responded Jimmy, nodding his bandaged head. “A runaway
motor-car that followed my cab--beautifully done. The cab horse was
killed and the driver has a concussion, but I saw the wheeze and
jumped.”
“Got the chauffeur?” asked Angel anxiously.
“Yes; it was in the City. You know the City police? Well, they had him
in three seconds. He tried to bolt, but that’s a fool’s game in the
City.”
“Was it Spedding’s chauffeur?”
Jimmy smiled pityingly.
“Of course not. That’s where the art of the thing comes in.”
Angel looked grave for a minute.
“I think we ought to ‘pull’ our friend,” he said.
“Meaning Spedding?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t agree with you,” said Jimmy. “It would be ever so much more
comfortable for you and me, but it will be ever so much better to
finish up the Reale business first.”
“Great minds!” murmured Angel, remembering his chief’s advice. “I
suppose Mr. Spedding will lay for me to-night.”
“You can bet your life on that,” said Jimmy cheerfully.
As he was speaking, a servant came into the room with a letter. When
the man had gone, Angel opened and read it. His grin grew broader as he
perused it.
“Listen!” he said. “It’s from Miss Kent.”
Jimmy was all attention.
“Dear Mr. Angel,
“Spedding has trapped me again. Whilst I was shopping this afternoon,
two men came up to me and asked me to accompany them. They said they
were police officers, and wanted me in connection with last night’s
affair. I was so worried that I went with them. They took me to a
strange house in Kensington.... For Heaven’s sake, come to me!...”
Jimmy’s face was so white that Angel thought he would faint.
“The hounds!” he cried. “Angel, we must----”
“You must sit down,” said Angel, “or you’ll be having a fit.” He
examined the letter again. “It’s beautifully done,” he said. “Scrawled
on a torn draper’s bill in pencil, it might very easily be her writing.”
He put the missive carefully in a drawer of his desk, and locked it.
“Unfortunately for the success of _that_ scheme, Mr. Spedding, I
have four men watching Miss Kent’s house day and night, and being in
telephonic communication, I happen to know that that young lady has not
left her house all day.”
He looked at Jimmy, white and shaking.
“Buck up, Jimmy!” he said kindly. “Your bang on the head has upset you
more than you think.”
“But the letter?” asked Jimmy.
“A little fake,” said Angel airily, “Mr. Spedding’s little _ballon
d’essai_, so foolishly simple that I think Spedding must be losing his
nerve and balance. I’d like to bet that this house is being watched to
see the effect of the note.” (Angel would have won his bet.) “Now the
only question is, what little program have they arranged for me this
evening?”
Jimmy was thoughtful.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly, “but I should think it would be
wiser for you to keep indoors. You might make me up a bed in your
sitting-room, and if there is any bother, we can share it.”
“And whistle to keep my courage up?” sneered Angel. “I’ll make you up
a bed with all the pleasure in life; but I’m going out, Jimmy, and
I’ll take you with me, if you’ll agree to come along and find a man
who will replace that conspicuous white bandage by something less
blood-curdling.”
They found a man in Devonshire Place who was a mutual friend of both.
He was a specialist in unpronounceable diseases, a Knight Commander
of St. Michael and St. George, a Fellow of the two Colleges, and the
author of half a dozen works of medical science. Angel addressed him as
“Bill.”
The great surgeon deftly dressed the damaged head of Jimmy, and wisely
asked no questions. He knew them both, and had been at Oxford with one,
and he permitted himself to indulge in caustic comments on their mode
of life and the possibilities of their end.
“If you didn’t jaw so much,” said Angel, “I’d employ you regularly; as
it is, I am very doubtful if I shall ever bring you another case.”
“For which,” said Sir William Farran, as he clipped the loose ends
of the dressing, “I am greatly obliged to you, Angel Esquire. You
are the sort of patient I like to see about once a year--just about
Christmas-time, when I am surfeited with charity toward mankind, when I
need a healthy moral corrective to tone down the bright picture to its
normal grayness--that’s the time you’re welcome, Angel.”
“Fine!” said Angel ecstatically. “I’d like to see that sentence in a
book, with illustrations.”
The surgeon smiled good-humoredly. He put a final touch to the dressing.
“There you are,” he said.
“Thank you, Bill,” said Jimmy. “You’re getting fat.”
“Thank you for nothing,” said the surgeon indignantly.
Angel struck a more serious tone when he asked the surgeon in an
undertone, just as they were taking their departure--
“Where will you be to-night?”
The surgeon consulted a little engagement book.
“I am dining at the ‘Ritz’ with some people at eight. We are going on
to the Gaiety afterwards, and I shall be home by twelve. Why?”
“There’s a gentleman,” said Angel confidentially, “who will make a
valiant attempt to kill one of us, or both of us to-night, and he might
just fail; so it would be as well to know where you are, if you are
wanted. Mind you,” added Angel with a grin, “you might be wanted for
_him_.”
“You’re a queer bird,” said the surgeon, “and Jimmy’s a queerer one.
Well, off you go, you two fellows; you’ll be getting my house a bad
name.”
Outside in the street the two ingrates continued their discussion on
the corpulency that attends success in life.
They walked leisurely to Piccadilly, and turned towards the circus.
It is interesting to record the fact that for no apparent reason they
struck off into side streets, made unexpected excursions into adjoining
squares, took unnecessary short cuts through mews, and finally, finding
themselves at the Oxford Street end of Charing Cross Road, they hailed
a hansom, and drove eastward rapidly. Angel shouted up some directions
through the trap in the roof.
“I am moved to give the two gentlemen who are following me what in
sporting parlance is called ‘a run for their money,’” he said.
He lifted the flap at the back of the cab, glanced through the little
window, and groaned. Then he gave fresh directions to the cabman.
“Drive to the ‘Troc,’” he called, and to Jimmy he added, “If we must
die, let us die full of good food.”
In the thronged grill-room of the brightly-lighted restaurant the two
men found a table so placed that it commanded a view of the room. They
took their seats, and whilst Jimmy ordered the dinner Angel watched the
stream of people entering.
He saw a dapper little man, with swarthy face and coal-black eyes,
eyebrows and mustache, come through the glass doors. He stood for a
breathing space at the door, his bright eyes flashing from face to
face. Then he caught Angel’s steady gaze, and his eyes rested a little
longer on the pair. Then Angel beckoned him. He hesitated for a second,
then walked slowly toward them.
Jimmy pulled a chair from the table, and again he hesitated as if in
doubt; then slowly he seated himself, glancing from one to the other
suspiciously.
“Monsieur Callvet--ne c’est pas?” asked Angel.
“That is my name,” the other answered in French.
“Permit me to introduce myself.”
“I know you,” said the little man shortly. “You are a detective.”
“It is my fortune,” said Angel, ignoring the bitterness in the man’s
tone.
“You wish to speak to me?”
“Yes,” replied Angel. “First, I would ask why you have been following
us for the last hour?”
The man shrugged his shoulders.
“Monsieur is mistaken.”
Jimmy had been very quiet during the evening. Now he addressed the
Frenchman.
“Callvet,” he said briefly, “do you know who I am?”
“Yes, you are also a detective.”
Jimmy looked him straight in the eyes.
“I am not a detective, Callvet, as you well know. I am”--he felt an
unusual repugnance at using the next words--“I am Jimmy of Cairo. You
know me?”
“I have heard of you,” said the man doggedly.
“What you are--now--I do not know,” said Jimmy contemptuously. “I have
known you as all things--as an ornament of the young Egypt party, as a
tout for Reale, as a trader in beastliness.”
The conversation was in colloquial French, and Jimmy used a phrase
which is calculated to raise the hair of the most brazen scoundrel. But
this man shrugged his shoulders and rose to go. Jimmy caught his sleeve
and detained him.
“Callvet,” he said, “go back to Mr. Spedding, your employer, and tell
him the job is too dangerous. Tell him that one of the men, at least,
knows enough about you to send you to New Caledonia, or else----”
“Or else?” demanded the man defiantly.
“Or else,” said Jimmy in his hesitating way, “I’ll be sending word to
the French Ambassador that ‘Monsieur Plessey’ is in London.”
The face of the man turned a sickly green.
“Monsieur--je n’en vois pas la nécessité,” he muttered.
“And who is Plessey?” asked Angel when the man had gone.
“A murderer greatly wanted by the French police,” said Jimmy, “and
Spedding has well chosen his instrument. Angel, there will be trouble
before the evening is over.”
They ate their dinner in silence, lingering over the coffee. The
Frenchman had taken a table at the other side of the room. Once when
Angel went out he made as though to leave, but seeing that Jimmy did
not move, he changed his mind.
Angel dawdled through the sweet, and took an unconscionable time
over his coffee. Jimmy, fretting to be gone, groaned as his volatile
companion ordered yet another liqueur.
“That’s horribly insidious muck to drink,” grumbled Jimmy.
“Inelegant, but true,” said Angel.
He was amused at the obvious efforts of the spy at the other table to
kill time also. Then suddenly Angel rose, leaving his drink untasted,
and reached for his hat.
“Come along,” he said briskly.
“This is very sudden,” remarked the impatient Jimmy.
They walked to the desk and paid their bill, and out of the corner of
his eye Angel could see the dapper Frenchman following them out.
They stepped out along Shaftesbury Avenue; then Jimmy stopped and
fumbled in his pocket. In his search he turned round, facing the
direction from which he had come. The dapper Frenchman was sauntering
toward him, whilst behind him came two roughly-dressed men. Then
Jimmy saw the two men quicken their pace. Passing one on each side of
Callvet, each took an arm affectionately, and the three turned into
Rupert Street, Angel and Jimmy following.
Jimmy saw the three bunched together, and heard the click of the
handcuffs. Then Angel whistled a passing cab. The captive’s voice rose.
“Stick a handkerchief in his mouth,” said Angel, and one of the men
obeyed. The two stood watching the cab till it turned the corner.
“There is no sense in taking unnecessary risks,” said Angel cheerfully.
“It is one thing being a fool, and another being a silly fool. Now
we’ll go along and see what else happens.”
He explained as he proceeded--
“I’ve wanted Callvet for quite a long time--he’s on the list, so to
speak. I lost sight of him a year ago. How Spedding got him is a
mystery. If the truth be told, he’s got a nodding acquaintance with
half the crooks in London ... had a big criminal practice before he
went into the more lucrative side of the law.”
A big crowd had gathered at the corner of the Haymarket, and with one
accord they avoided it.
“Curiosity,” Angel prattled on, “has been the undoing of many a poor
soul. Keep away from crowds, Jimmy.”
They walked on till they came to Angel’s flat in Jermyn Street.
“Spedding will duplicate and triplicate his schemes for catching us
to-night,” said Jimmy.
“He will,” agreed Angel, and opened the door of the house in which his
rooms were.
The narrow passageway, in which a light usually burned day and night,
was in darkness.
“Oh, no,” said Angel, stepping back into the street, “oh, indeed no!”
During their walk Jimmy had had a suspicion that they had been
followed. This suspicion was confirmed when Angel whistled, and two men
crossed the road and joined them.
“Lend me your lamp, Johnson,” said Angel, and taking the bright little
electric lamp in his hand, he entered the passage, followed by the
others. They reached the foot of the stairs, then Angel reached back
his hand without a word, and one of the two men placed therein a stick.
Cautiously the party advanced up the stairway that led to Angel’s room.
“Somebody has been here,” said Angel, and pointed to a patch of mud on
the carpet. The door was ajar, and Jimmy sent it open with a kick; then
Angel put his arm cautiously into the room and turned on the light,
and the party waited in the darkness for a movement.
There was no sign, and they entered. It did not require any great
ingenuity to see that the place had been visited. Half-opened drawers,
their contents thrown on the floor, and all the evidence of a hurried
search met their eyes.
They passed from the little sitting-room to the bedroom, and here again
the visitors had left traces of their investigations.
“Hullo!” Jimmy stopped and picked up a soft felt hat. He looked inside;
the dull lining bore the name of an Egyptian hatter.
“Connor’s!” he said.
“Ah!” said Angel softly, “so Connor takes a hand, does he?”
One of the detectives who had followed them in grasped Angel’s arm.
“Look, sir!” he whispered.
Half-hidden by the heavy hangings of the window, a man crouched in the
shadow.
“Come out of that!” cried Angel.
Then something in the man’s attitude arrested his speech. He slipped
forward and pulled back the curtain.
“Connor!” he cried.
Connor it was indeed, stone dead, with a bullet hole in the center of
his forehead.
CHAPTER XIV
OPENING THE SAFE
The four men stood in silence before the body. Jimmy bent and touched
the hand.
“Dead!” he said.
Angel made no reply, but switched on every light in the room. Then he
passed his hands rapidly through the dead man’s pockets; the things he
found he passed to one of the other detectives, who laid them on the
table.
“A chisel, a jemmy, a center-bit, lamp, pistol,” enumerated Angel. “It
is not difficult to understand why Connor came here; but who killed
him?”
He made a close inspection of the apartment. The windows were intact
and fastened, there were no signs of a struggle. In the sitting-room
there were muddy footmarks, which might have been made by Connor or
his murderer. In the center of the room was a small table. During
Angel’s frequent absences from his lodgings he was in the habit of
locking his two rooms against his servants, who did their cleaning
under his eye. In consequence, the polished surface of the little table
was covered with a fine layer of dust, save in one place where there
was a curious circular clearing about eight inches in diameter. Angel
examined this with scrupulous care, gingerly pulling the table to where
the light would fall on it with greater brilliance. The little circle
from whence the dust had disappeared interested him more than anything
else in the room.
“You will see that this is not touched,” he said to one of the men; and
then to the other, “You had better go round to Vine Street and report
this--stay, I will go myself.”
As Jimmy and he stepped briskly in the direction of the historic police
station, Angel expressed himself tersely.
“Connor came on his own to burgle; he was surprised by a third party,
who, thinking Connor was myself, shot him.”
“That is how I read it,” said Jimmy. “But why did Connor come?”
“I have been expecting Connor,” said Angel quietly. “He was not the
sort of man to be cowed by the fear of arrest. He had got it into his
head that I had got the secret of the safe, and he came to find out.”
Inside the station the inspector on duty saluted him.
“We have one of your men inside,” he said pleasantly, referring to the
Frenchman; then, noticing the grave faces of the two, he added, “Is
anything wrong, sir?”
Briefly enough the detective gave an account of what had happened in
Jermyn Street. He added his instructions concerning the table, and left
as the inspector was summoning the divisional surgeon.
“I wonder where we could find Spedding?” asked Angel.
“I wonder where Spedding will find us?” added Jimmy grimly.
Angel looked round in surprise.
“Losing your nerve?” he asked rudely.
“No,” said the cool young man by his side slowly; “but somehow life
seems more precious than it was a week ago.”
“Fiddlesticks!” said Angel. “You’re in love.”
“Perhaps I am,” admitted Jimmy in a surprised tone, as if the idea had
never occurred to him before.
Angel looked at his watch.
“Ten o’clock,” he said; “time for all good people to be in bed. Being
myself of a vicious disposition, and, moreover, desirous of washing the
taste of tragedy out of my mouth, I suggest we walk steadily to a place
of refreshment.”
“Angel,” said Jimmy, “I cannot help thinking that you like to hear
yourself talk.”
“I love it,” said Angel frankly.
* * * * *
In a little underground bar in Leicester Square they sat at a table
listening to a little string band worry through the overture to
_Lohengrin_.
The crowded room suited their moods. Jimmy, in his preoccupation, found
the noise, the babble of voices in many tongues, and the wail of the
struggling orchestra, soothing after the exciting events of the past
few hours. To Angel the human element in the crowd formed relaxation.
The loud-speaking men with their flashy jewelry, the painted women
with their automatic smiles, the sprinkling of keen-faced sharps he
recognized, they formed part of the pageant of life--the life--as Angel
saw it.
They sat sipping their wine until there came a man who, glancing
carelessly round the room, made an imperceptible sign to Angel, and
then, as if having satisfied himself that the man he was looking for
was not present, left the room again.
Angel and his companion followed.
“Well?” asked Angel.
“Spedding goes to the safe to-night,” said the stranger.
“Good,” said Angel.
“The guard at the safe is permanently withdrawn by Spedding’s order.”
“That I know,” said Angel. “It was withdrawn the very night the
‘Borough Lot’ came. On whose behalf is Spedding acting?”
“On behalf of Connor, who I understand is one of the legatees.”
Angel whistled.
“Whew! Jimmy, this is to be the Grand Finale.”
He appeared deep in thought for a moment.
“It will be necessary for Miss Kent to be present,” he said after a
while.
From a neighboring district messenger office he got on by the telephone
to a garage, and within half an hour they were ringing the bell at
Kathleen’s modest little house.
The girl rose to greet them as they entered. All sign of the last
night’s fatigue had vanished.
“Yes,” she replied, “I have slept the greater part of the day.”
Angel observed that she studiously kept her eyes from Jimmy, and that
that worthy was preternaturally interested in a large seascape that
hung over the fireplace.
“This is the last occasion we shall be troubling you at so late an
hour,” said Angel, “but I am afraid we shall want you with us to-night.”
“I will do whatever you wish,” she answered simply. “You have been,
both of you, most kind.”
She flashed a glance at Jimmy, and saw for the first time the surgical
dressing on his head.
“You--you are not hurt?” she cried in alarm, then checked herself.
“Not at all,” said Jimmy loudly, “nothing, I assure you.”
He was in an unusual panic, and wished he had not come.
“He tripped over a hearthrug and fell against a marble mantelpiece,”
lied Angel elaborately. “The marble has been in the possession of
my family for centuries, and is now badly, and I fear irretrievably,
damaged.”
Jimmy smiled, and his smile was infectious.
“A gross libel, Miss Kent,” he said, recovering his nerve. “As a matter
of fact----”
“As a matter of fact,” interrupted Angel impressively, “Jimmy was
walking in his sleep----”
“Be serious, Mr. Angel,” implored the girl, who was now very concerned
as she saw the extent of Jimmy’s injury, and noticed the dark shadows
under his eyes. “Was it Spedding?”
“It was,” said Angel promptly. “A little attempt which proved a
failure.”
Jimmy saw the concern in the girl’s eyes, and, manlike, it cheered him.
“It is hardly worth talking about,” he said hastily, “and I think we
ought not to delay our departure a second.”
“I will not keep you a moment longer than I can help,” she said, and
left the room to dress herself for the journey.
“Jimmy,” said Angel, as soon as she had gone, “cross my hand with
silver, pretty gentleman, and I will tell your fortune.”
“Don’t talk rot,” replied Jimmy.
“I can see a bright future, a dark lady with big gray eyes, who----”
“For Heaven’s sake, shut up!” growled Jimmy, very red; “she’s coming.”
They reached the Safe Deposit when the bells of the city were chiming
the half-hour after eleven.
“Shall we go in?” asked Jimmy.
“Better not,” advised Angel. “If Spedding knows we have a key it might
spoil the whole show.”
So the car slowly patrolled the narrow length of Lombard Street,
an object of professional interest to the half-dozen plain-clothes
policemen who were on duty there.
They had three-quarters of an hour to wait, for midnight had rung
out from the belfries long before a big car came gliding into the
thoroughfare from its western end. It stopped with a jerk before the
Safe Deposit, and a top-hatted figure alighted. As he did so, Angel’s
car drew up behind, and the three got down.
Spedding, professionally attired in a frock-coat and silk hat, stood
with one foot on the steps of the building and his hand upon the key he
had fitted.
He evinced no surprise when he saw Angel, and bowed slightly to the
girl. Then he opened the door and stepped inside, and Angel and his
party followed. He lit the vestibule, opened the inner door, and walked
into the darkened hall.
Again came the click of switches, and every light in the great hall
blazed.
The girl shivered a little as she looked up at the safe, dominating and
sinister, a monument of ruin, a materialization of the dead regrets of
a thousand bygone gamblers. Solitary, alone, aloof it rose, distinct
from the magnificent building in which it stood--a granite mass set in
fine gold. Old Reale had possessed a good eye for contrasts, and had
truly foreseen how well would the surrounding beauty of the noble hall
emphasize the grim reality of the ugly pedestal.
Spedding closed the door behind them, and surveyed the party with a
triumphant smile.
“I am afraid,” he said in his smoothest tones, “you have come too late.”
“I am afraid we have,” agreed Angel, and the lawyer looked at him
suspiciously.
“I wrote you a letter,” he said. “Did you get it?”
“I have not been home since this afternoon,” said Angel, and he heard
the lawyer’s little sigh of relief.
“I am sorry,” Spedding went on, “that I have to disappoint you all;
but as you know, by the terms of the will the fortunate person who
discovers the word which opens the safe must notify me, claiming the
right to apply the word on the combination lock.”
“That is so,” said Angel.
“I have received such a notification from one of the legatees--Mr.
Connor,” the lawyer went on, and drew from his pocket a paper, “and I
have his written authority to open the safe on his behalf.”
He handed the paper to Angel, who examined it and handed it back.
“It was signed to-day,” was all that he said.
“At two o’clock this afternoon,” said the lawyer. “I now----”
“Before you go any further, Mr. Spedding,” said Angel, “I might remind
you that there is a lady present, and that you have your hat on.”
“A thousand pardons,” said the lawyer with a sarcastic smile, and
removed his hat. Angel reached out his hand for it, and mechanically
the lawyer relinquished it.
Angel looked at the crown. The nap was rubbed the wrong way, and was
covered with fine dust.
“If you desire to valet me,” said the lawyer, “I have no objection.”
Angel made no reply, but placed the hat carefully on the mosaic floor
of the hall.
“If,” said the lawyer, “before I open the safe, there is any question
you would like to ask, or any legitimate objection you would wish to
raise, I shall be happy to consider it.”
“I have nothing to say,” said Angel.
“Or you?” addressing Jimmy.
“Nothing,” was the laconic answer.
“Or Miss Kent perhaps----?”
Kathleen looked him straight in the face as she answered coldly--
“I am prepared to abide by the action of my friends.”
“There is nothing left for me to do,” said the lawyer after the
slightest pause, “but to carry out Mr. Connor’s instructions.”
He walked to the foot of the steel stairway and mounted. He stopped for
breath half-way up. He was on a little landing, and facing him was
the polished block of granite that marked where the ashes of old Reale
reposed.
Pulvis
Cinis
et
Nihil
said the inscription. “‘Dust, cinders and nothing,’” muttered the
lawyer, “an apt rebuke to one seeking the shadows of vanity.”
They watched him climb till he reached the broad platform that
fronted the safe door. Then they saw him pull a paper from his pocket
and examine it. He looked at it carefully, then twisted the dials
cautiously till one by one the desired letters came opposite the
pointer. Then he twisted the huge handle of the safe. He twisted and
pulled, but the steel door did not move. They saw him stoop and examine
the dial again, and again he seized the handle with the same result.
A dozen times he went through the same process, and a dozen times the
unyielding door resisted his efforts. Then he came clattering down the
steps, and almost reeled across the floor of the hall to the little
group. His eyes burnt with an unearthly light, his face was pallid, and
the perspiration lay thick upon his forehead.
“The word!” he gasped. “It’s the wrong word.”
Angel did not answer him.
“I have tested it a dozen times,” cried the lawyer, almost beside
himself, “and it has failed.”
“Shall I try?” asked Angel.
“No, no!” the man hissed. “By Heaven, no! I will try again. One of the
letters is wrong; there are two meanings to some of the symbols.”
He turned and remounted the stairs.
“The man is suffering,” said Jimmy in an undertone.
“Let him suffer,” said Angel, a hard look in his eyes. “He will suffer
more before he atones for his villainy. Look, he’s up again. Let the
men in, Jimmy, he will find the word this time--and take Miss Kent away
as soon as the trouble starts.”
The girl saw the sudden mask of hardness that had come over Angel’s
face, saw him slip off his overcoat, and heard the creaking of boots
in the hall outside. The pleasant, flippant man of the world was gone,
and the remorseless police officer, inscrutable as doom, had taken his
place. It was a new Angel she saw, and she drew closer to Jimmy.
An exultant shout from the man at the safe made her raise her eyes.
With a flutter at her heart, she saw the ponderous steel door swing
slowly open.
Then from the man came a cry that was like the snarl of some wild beast.
“Empty!” he roared.
He stood stunned and dumb; then he flung himself into the great steel
room, and they heard his voice reverberating hollowly. Again he
came to the platform holding in his hand a white envelope. Blindly
he blundered down the stairs again, and they could hear his heavy
breathing.
“Empty!” His grating voice rose to a scream. “Nothing but this!” He
held the envelope out, then tore it open.
It contained only a few words--
“Received on behalf of Miss Kathleen Kent the contents of this safe.
“(Signed) JAMES CAVENDISH STANNARD, Bart.
CHRISTOPHER ANGEL.”
Dazed and bewildered, the lawyer read the paper, then looked from one
to the other.
“So it was you,” he said.
Angel nodded curtly.
“You!” said Spedding again.
“Yes.”
“You have robbed the safe--you--a police officer.”
“Yes,” said Angel, not removing his eyes from the man. He motioned
to Jimmy, and Jimmy, with a whispered word to the girl, led her to
the door. Behind him, as he returned to Angel’s side, came six
plain-clothes officers.
“So you think you’ve got me, do you?” breathed Spedding.
“I don’t think,” said Angel, “I know.”
“If you know so much, do you know how near to death you are?”
“That also I know,” said Angel’s even voice. “I’m all the more certain
of my danger since I have seen your hat.”
The lawyer did not speak.
“I mean,” Angel went on calmly, “since I saw the hat that you put down
on a dusty table in my chambers--when you murdered Connor.”
“Oh, you found him, did you--I wondered,” said Spedding without
emotion. Then he heard a faint metallic click, and leapt back with his
hand in his pocket.
But Jimmy’s pistol covered him.
He paused irresolutely for one moment; then six men flung themselves
upon him, and he went to the ground fighting. Handcuffed, he rose, his
nonchalant self, with the full measure of his failure apparent. He was
once again the suave, smooth man of old. Indeed, he laughed as he faced
Angel.
“A good end,” he said. “You are a much smarter man than I thought you
were. What is the charge?”
“Murder,” said Angel.
“You will find a difficulty in proving it,” Spedding answered coolly,
“and as it is customary at this stage of the proceedings for the
accused to make a conventional statement, I formally declare that I
have not seen Connor for two days.”
Closely guarded, he walked to the door. He passed Kathleen standing
in the vestibule, and she shrank on one side, which amused him. He
clambered into the car that had brought him, followed by the policemen,
and hummed a little tune.
He leaned over to say a final word to Angel.
“You think I am indecently cheerful,” he said, “but I feel as a man
wearied with folly, who has the knowledge that before him lies the
sound sleep that will bring forgetfulness.”
Then, as the car was moving off, he spoke again--
“Of course I killed Connor--it was inevitable.”
And then the car carried him away.
Angel locked the door of the deposit, and handed the key to Kathleen.
“I will ask Jimmy to take you home,” he said.
“What do you think of him?” said Jimmy.
“Spedding? Oh, he’s acted as I thought he would. He represents the
very worst type of criminal in the world; you cannot condemn, any
more than you can explain, such men as that. They are in a class by
themselves--Nature’s perversities. There is a side to Spedding that is
particularly pleasant.”
He saw the two off, then walked slowly to the City Police Station. The
inspector on duty nodded to him as he entered.
“We have put him in a special cell,” he said.
“Has he been well searched?”
“Yes, sir. The usual kit, and a revolver loaded in five chambers.”
“Let me see it,” said Angel.
He took the pistol under the gaslight. One chamber contained an
empty shell, and the barrel was foul. That will hang him without his
confession, he thought.
“He asked for a pencil and paper,” said the inspector, “but he surely
does not expect bail.”
Angel shook his head.
“No, I should imagine he wants to write to me.”
A door burst open, and a bareheaded jailer rushed in.
“There’s something wrong in No. 4,” he said, and Angel followed the
inspector as he ran down the narrow corridor, studded with iron doors
on either side.
The inspector took one glance through the spy-hole.
“Open the door!” he said quickly.
With a jangle and rattle of bolts, the door was opened. Spedding lay
on his back, with a faint smile on his lips; his eyes were closed, and
Angel, thrusting his hand into the breast of the stricken man, felt no
beat of the heart.
“Run for a doctor!” said the inspector.
“It’s no use,” said Angel quietly, “the man’s dead.”
On the rough bed lay a piece of paper. It was addressed in the lawyer’s
bold hand to Angel Esquire.
The detective picked it up and read it.
“Excellent Angel,” the letter ran, “the time has come when I must
prove for myself the vexed question of immortality. I would say that I
bear you no ill will, nor your companion, nor the charming Miss Kent.
I would have killed you all, or either, of course, but happily my
intentions have not coincided with my opportunities. For some time past
I have foreseen the possibility of my present act, and have worn on
every suit one button, which, colored to resemble its fellows, is in
reality a skilfully molded pellet of cyanide. Farewell.”
Angel looked down at the dead man at his feet. The top cloth-covered
button on the right breast had been torn away.
CHAPTER XV
THE SOLUTION
If you can understand that all the extraordinary events of the previous
chapters occurred without the knowledge of Fleet Street, that eminent
journalists went about their business day by day without being any the
wiser, that eager news editors were diligently searching the files of
the provincial press for news items, with the mystery of the safe at
their very door, and that reporters all over London were wasting their
time over wretched little motor-bus accidents and gas explosions, you
will all the easier appreciate the journalistic explosion that followed
the double inquest on Spedding and his victim.
It is outside the province of this story to instruct the reader in what
is so much technical detail, but it may be said in passing that no
less than twelve reporters, three sub-editors, two “crime experts,”
and one publisher were summarily and incontinently discharged from
their various newspapers in connection with the “Safe Story.” The
_Megaphone_ alone lost five men, but then the _Megaphone_ invariably
discharges more than any other paper, because it has got a reputation
to sustain. Flaring contents bills, heavy black headlines, and column
upon column of solid type, told the story of Reale’s millions, and the
villainous lawyer, and the remarkable verse, and the “Borough Lot.”
There were portraits of Angel and portraits of Jimmy and portraits of
Kathleen (sketched in court and accordingly repulsive), and plans of
the lawyer’s house at Clapham and sketches of the Safe Deposit.
So for the three days that the coroner’s inquiry lasted London,
and Fleet Street more especially, reveled in the story of the old
croupier’s remarkable will and its tragic consequences. The Crown
solicitors very tactfully skimmed over Jimmy’s adventurous past, were
brief in their examination of Kathleen; but Angel’s interrogation
lasted the greater part of five hours, for upon him devolved the task
of telling the story in full.
It must be confessed that Angel’s evidence was a remarkably successful
effort to justify all that Scotland Yard had done. There were certain
irregularities to be glossed over, topics to be avoided--why, for
instance, official action was not taken when it was seen that Spedding
contemplated a felony. Most worthily did Angel hold the fort for
officialdom that day, and when he vacated the box he left behind him
the impression that Scotland Yard was all foreseeing, all wise, and had
added yet another to its list of successful cases.
The newspaper excitement lasted exactly four days. On the fourth day,
speaking at the Annual Congress of the British Association, Sir William
Farran, that great physician, in the course of an illuminating address
on “The first causes of disease,” announced as his firm conviction that
all the ills that flesh is heir to arise primarily from the wearing of
boots, and the excitement that followed the appearance in Cheapside of
a converted Lord Mayor with bare feet will long be remembered in the
history of British journalism. It was enough, at any rate, to blot out
the memory of the Reale case, for immediately following the vision of
a stout and respected member of the Haberdasher Company in full robes
and chain of office entering the Mansion House insufficiently clad
there arose that memorable newspaper discussion “Boots and Crime,”
which threatened at one time to shake established society to its very
foundations.
“Bill is a brick,” wrote Angel to Jimmy. “I suggested to him that he
might make a sensational statement about microbes, but he said that
the _Lancet_ had worked bugs to death, and offered the ‘no boots’
alternative.”
It was a fortnight after the inquiry that Jimmy drove to Streatham
to carry out his promise to explain to Kathleen the solution of the
cryptogram.
It was his last visit to her, that much he had decided. His rejection
of her offer to equally share old Reale’s fortune left but one course
open to him, and that he elected to take.
She expected him, and he found her sitting before a cozy fire idly
turning the leaves of a book.
Jimmy stood for a moment in an embarrassed silence. It was the first
time he had been alone with her, save the night he drove with her to
Streatham, and he was a little at a loss for an opening.
He began conventionally enough speaking about the weather, and not to
be outdone in commonplace, she ordered tea.
“And now, Miss Kent,” he said, “I have got to explain to you the
solution of old Reale’s cryptogram.”
He took a sheet of paper from his pocket covered with hieroglyphics.
“Where old Reale got his idea of the cryptogram from was, of course,
Egypt. He lived there long enough to be fairly well acquainted with
the picture letters that abound in that country, and we were fools not
to jump at the solution at first. I don’t mean you,” he added hastily.
“I mean Angel and I and Connor, and all the people who were associated
with him.”
The girl was looking at the sheet, and smiled quietly at the _faux pas_.
“How he came into touch with the ‘professor----’”
“What has happened to that poor old man?” she asked.
“Angel has got him into some kind of institute,” replied Jimmy. “He’s
a fairly common type of cranky old gentleman. ‘A science potterer,’
Angel calls him, and that is about the description. He’s the sort of
man that haunts the Admiralty with plans for unsinkable battleships, a
‘minus genius’--that’s Angel’s description too--who, with an academic
knowledge and a good memory, produced a reasonably clever little
book, that five hundred other schoolmasters might just as easily have
written. How the professor came into Reale’s life we shall never
know. Probably he came across the book and discovered the author, and
trusting to his madness, made a confidant of him. Do you remember,”
Jimmy went on, “that you said the figures reminded you of the Bible?
Well, you are right. Almost every teacher’s Bible, I find, has a plate
showing how the alphabet came into existence.”
He indicated with his finger as he spoke.
“Here is the Egyptian hieroglyphic. Here is a ‘hand’ that means ‘D,’
and here is the queer little Hieratic wiggle that means the same thing,
and you see how the Phœnician letter is very little different to the
hieroglyphic, and the Greek ‘delta’ has become a triangle, and locally
it has become the ‘D’ we know.” He sketched rapidly.
[Illustration]
“All this is horribly learned,” he said, “and has got nothing to do
with the solution. But old Reale went through the strange birds,
beasts and things till he found six letters, S P R I N G, which were
to form the word that would open the safe.”
“It is very interesting,” she said, a little bewildered.
“The night you were taken away,” said Jimmy, “we found the word
and cleared out the safe in case of accidents. It was a very risky
proceeding on our part, because we had no authority from you to act on
your behalf.”
“You did right,” she said. She felt it was a feeble rejoinder, but she
could think of nothing better.
“And that is all,” he ended abruptly, and looked at the clock.
“You must have some tea before you go,” she said hurriedly.
They heard the weird shriek of a motor-horn outside, and Jimmy smiled.
“That is Angel’s newest discovery,” he said, not knowing whether to
bless or curse his energetic friend for spoiling the _tête-à-tête_.
“Oh!” said the girl, a little blankly he thought.
“Angel is always experimenting with new noises,” said Jimmy, “and some
fellow has introduced him to a motor-siren which is claimed to possess
an almost human voice.”
The bell tinkled, and a few seconds after Angel was ushered into the
room.
“I have only come for a few minutes,” he said cheerfully. “I wanted
to see Jimmy before he sailed, and as I have been called out of town
unexpectedly----”
“Before he sails?” she repeated slowly. “Are you going away?”
“Oh, yes, he’s going away,” said Angel, avoiding Jimmy’s scowling eyes.
“I thought he would have told you.”
“I----” began Jimmy.
“He’s going into the French Congo to shoot elephants,” Angel rattled
on; “though what the poor elephants have done to him I have yet to
discover.”
“But this is sudden?”
She was busy with the tea-things, and had her back toward them, so
Jimmy did not see her hand tremble.
“You’re spilling the milk,” said the interfering Angel. “Shall I help
you?”
“No, thank you,” she replied tartly.
“This tea is delicious,” said Angel, unabashed, as he took his cup.
He had come to perform a duty, and he was going through with it. “You
won’t get afternoon tea on the Sangar River, Jimmy. I know because I
have been there, and I wouldn’t go again, not even if they made me
governor of the province.”
“Why?” she asked, with a futile attempt to appear indifferent.
“Please take no notice of Angel, Miss Kent,” implored Jimmy, and added
malevolently, “Angel is a big game shot, you know, and he is anxious to
impress you with the extent and dangers of his travels.”
“That is so,” agreed Angel contentedly, “but all the same, Miss Kent,
I must stand by what I said in regard to the ‘Frongo.’ It’s a deadly
country, full of fever. I’ve known chaps to complain of a headache at
four o’clock and be dead by ten, and Jimmy knows it too.”
“You are very depressing to-day, Mr. Angel,” said the girl. She felt
unaccountably shaky, and tried to tell herself that it was because she
had not recovered from the effects of her recent exciting experiences.
“I was with a party once on the Sangar River,” Angel said, cocking a
reflective eye at the ceiling. “We were looking for elephants, too, a
terribly dangerous business. I’ve known a bull elephant charge a hunter
and----”
“Angel!” stormed Jimmy, “will you be kind enough to reserve your
reminiscences for another occasion?”
Angel rose and put down his teacup sadly.
“Ah, well!” he sighed lugubriously, “after all, life is a burden, and
one might as well die in the French Congo--a particularly lonely place
to die in, I admit--as anywhere else. Good-by, Jimmy.” He held out his
hand mournfully.
“Don’t be a goat!” entreated Jimmy. “I will let you know from time to
time how I am; you can send your letters via Sierra Leone.”
“The White Man’s Grave!” murmured Angel audibly.
“And I’ll let you know in plenty of time when I return.”
“When!” said Angel significantly. He shook hands limply, and with the
air of a man taking an eternal farewell. Then he left the room, and
they could hear the eerie whine of his patent siren growing fainter and
fainter.
“Confound that chap!” said Jimmy. “With his glum face and extravagant
gloom he----”
“Why did you not tell me you were going?” she asked him quietly. She
stood with a neat foot on the fender and her head a little bent.
“I had come to tell you,” said Jimmy.
“Why are you going?”
Jimmy cleared his throat.
“Because I need the change,” he said almost brusquely.
“Are you tired--of your friends?” she asked, not lifting her eyes.
“I have so few friends,” said Jimmy bitterly. “People here who are
worth knowing know me.”
“What do they know?” she asked, and looked at him.
“They know my life,” he said doggedly, “from the day I was sent
down from Oxford to the day I succeeded to my uncle’s title and
estates. They know I have been all over the world picking up strange
acquaintances. They know I was one of the”--he hesitated for a
word--“gang that robbed Rahbat Pasha’s bank; that I held a big share in
Reale’s ventures--a share he robbed me of, but let that pass; that my
life has been consistently employed in evading the law.”
“For whose benefit?” she asked.
“God knows,” he said wearily, “not for mine. I have never felt the need
of money, my uncle saw to that. I should never have seen Reale again
but for a desire to get justice. If you think I have robbed for gain,
you are mistaken. I have robbed for the game’s sake, for the excitement
of it, for the constant fight of wits against men as keen as myself.
Men like Angel made me a thief.”
“And now----?” she asked.
“And now,” he said, straightening himself up, “I am done with the old
life. I am sick and sorry--and finished.”
“And is this African trip part of your scheme of penitence?” she asked.
“Or are you going away because you want to forget----”
Her voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and her eyes were looking into
the fire.
“What?” he asked huskily.
“To forget--me,” she breathed.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “that is what I want to forget.”
“Why?” she said, not looking at him.
“Because--oh, because I love you too much, dear, to want to drag you
down to my level. I love you more than I thought it possible to love
a woman--so much, that I am happy to sacrifice the dearest wish of my
heart, because I think I will serve you better by leaving you.”
He took her hand and held it between his two strong hands.
“Don’t you think,” she whispered, so that he had to bend closer to hear
what she said, “don’t you think I--I ought to be consulted?”
“You--you,” he cried in wonderment, “would you----”
She looked at him with a smile, and her eyes were radiant with unspoken
happiness.
“I want you, Jimmy,” she said. It was the first time she had called him
by name. “I want you, dear.”
His arms were about her, and her lips met his.
They did not hear the tinkle of the bell, but they heard the knock at
the door, and the girl slipped from his arms and was collecting the
tea-things when Angel walked in.
He looked at Jimmy inanely, fiddling with his watch chain, and he
looked at the girl.
“Awfully sorry to intrude again,” he said, “but I got a wire at the
little postoffice up the road telling me I needn’t take the case at
Newcastle, so I thought I’d come back and tell you, Jimmy, that I will
take what I might call a ‘cemetery drink’ with you to-night.”
“I am not going,” said Jimmy, recovering his calm.
“Not--not going?” said the astonished Angel.
“No,” said the girl, speaking over his shoulder, “I have persuaded him
to stay.”
“Ah, so I see!” said Angel, stooping to pick up two hairpins that lay
on the hearthrug.
THE END
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