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Title: Gunman's bluff
Author: Edgar Wallace
Release date: June 1, 2026 [eBook #78794]
Language: English
Original publication: Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1929
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78794
Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUNMAN'S BLUFF ***
GUNMAN’S BLUFF
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
Wharf rats and millionaires, gangland and Mayfair, the love of a
banker and the love of a crook--a ruthless battle between upper
world and underworld!
PUBLISHED FOR
THE CRIME CLUB, INC.
BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK, 1929
[COPYRIGHT]
COPYRIGHT, 1928, 1929
BY EDGAR WALLACE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FIRST EDITION
CONTENTS
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
GUNMAN’S BLUFF
CHAPTER I
“But you _are_ going to marry him, Peggy?”
There was an agitation in the voice of Rex Leferre that almost
startled his sister: it certainly diverted for the moment the
resentment that was growing toward her unpunctual fiancé.
“What makes you say that?” she asked. “Does it mean that I am breaking
off my engagement because Luke is a bad host and has kept us waiting
ten minutes?”
They were in the palm court of the Carlton, and the remainder of the
guests, mercifully occupied with their cocktails and gossip, were
apparently unaware of Luke’s bad manners.
She stood apart with the young man who was her only relation, and no
stranger seeing them would imagine them to be brother and sister. Rex
was red haired, weak chinned, a fretful young man with a nervous trick
of adjusting his dress tie every few minutes.
Margaret Leferre had the carriage and poise of the great lady. She was
fair skinned, faultless of feature, gray eyed--a model of cold
dignity. She had never succumbed to the fashion in short hair: her own
was braided about her head so that she seemed to be wearing a coronet
of dull gold.
“I don’t know.” Rex was nibbling at his nails; he could not be cured
of this ugly habit. “Only Luke is a good fellow--in a way. Rather a
tightwad.”
“What is a tightwad?” she asked, her steady eyes on him.
“Well--I mean--he’s not terribly generous with his own money. He gives
tips and things, but somehow I’ve never been able to get into the
market in time to benefit. My own fault, of course.”
He tried to avoid her gaze, but she was the stronger character.
“Have you been borrowing money again?” she asked, and he wriggled
uncomfortably.
“No--what rot! Only Danty and I had a scheme…”
She looked round at that moment. Somehow she knew that the dark-eyed
Danton Morell was watching them. Danton was rather a dear and she had
come to rely upon him. He seemed to sense her trouble now, and
detaching himself from the group of which he was a silent member, made
his way toward her.
“Oh, shut up, Peggy. Don’t talk to Morell about it. If you’re going to
make a scene…”
With a shrug he turned and left her as Danty came up.
Danty, that splendid man of the world, was amused at her fears. He was
on the borderline of forty, a handsome, entertaining bachelor, and she
had come to know him through Rex.
“No, I don’t think he has been borrowing. Rex is an improvident devil
who will be broke for the next ten years. Then he will settle down and
be terribly successful. Your young man is rather late.”
She knew instinctively that he did not like Luke Maddison; she had
always known this. Luke, she told herself, was rather a prig in his
way. He was “county”--was related to or friendly with almost every
great family in England. Only once had he spoken disparagingly of
Danton.
“Where did _he_ spring from? I’ve never heard of him before,” he
asked.
She might have told him that Danton had spent the greater part of his
life in the Argentine, but she had stiffened at the disparagement of
her brother’s friend--and hers. And then Luke had made it worse.
“He’s a rum bird. I shouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those
light-fingered fellows who are known to the police--if one only made
inquiries.”
“You had better make inquiries,” she said icily.
This was before she had taken the plunge and had sent an ecstatic Luke
Maddison to his house walking on air.
As she listened to Danton she was looking absently at the solitaire
diamond ring which was the outward and visible sign of her engagement.
“… Rex is volatile and a bit unstable--sometimes there is nothing too
bad he can say about Maddison. Sometimes nothing too good. Hullo,
here’s our blessed host!”
Luke Maddison came through the vestibule with long strides. He paused
to strip his overcoat and take off his silk hat, which he almost threw
at an attendant, and took one step toward the door. As he did so his
foot slipped sideways on the marble floor and he would have fallen
unpleasantly but for the hand that suddenly gripped his arm.
The man who held him must have been unusually strong, for he
literally, and in the most effortless fashion, lifted Luke Maddison
bodily and placed him on his feet. Luke turned with a half smile of
dismay and found himself looking into a hard, lined face, the colour
of teak; into two unsmiling eyes, expressionless.
“Thank you--awfully!”
The stranger nodded.
“It might have been a very nasty fall. I’m greatly obliged to you!”
“Not at all,” said the unknown.
He was in evening kit, a perfectly fitted man; you saw the ghost of an
efficient valet behind him. Maddison saw lines in the face which were
not entirely nature’s handiwork. He could not know that the two scars
which disfigured the right cheek of his helper were souvenirs of an
encounter with the late Lew Selinski of New York City. Lew used a
knife when he was annoyed and he had been very annoyed with the
well-dressed man when he had left his mark upon his enemy’s face.
“I am glad I was here. Fortunately, I always wait in the lobby when I
am expecting people to dinner. Good-night.”
He half turned away as though he objected to the attention he had
called to himself, and Luke went in to his party full of apologies.
Two lives touched at the Carlton that January night--touched and went
looping away one from the other, to touch again in a moment of crisis.
Rough roads they were: a bitter, heart-aching road for one, a
methodical hell for the less favoured, to be tramped with that cynical
smile with which “Gunner” Haynes met every misfortune.
Luke Maddison saw life like that--a bewildering mass of crossing and
parallel paths. If he fell into error it was in believing that his own
was the straight-as-a-ruler highway to which and from which all other
paths inclined or diverged.
Eight generations of gentlemen bankers, all gently bred and belonging
to the class which produces statesmen and commanders by divine right
of appointment, were responsible for his wealth and his six feet of
good-looking humanity. He was fair, blue eyed, straight of back, in
his happier moments irresponsible. He was extravagant, a free spender
of money and an idealist, which means that he was spendthrift of the
material which keeps men in the City solid and comfortable. Something
of a gambler, he took chances at which his more conservative friends
might shudder. Yet, as somebody said, “With half a million of
gilt-edged securities on deposit, who could not gamble to a ten per
cent. margin?”
Gunner Haynes, whose strong arm had saved him from a fractured wrist
or worse, had no collateral worth speaking about. His principal assets
were an immaculate dress suit, a cultured voice, and perfect manners,
which more than overcame the handicap represented by his lean, dark,
sinister face. He lived God knew where, but was to be seen at such of
the best hotels as did not know him for an expert jewel thief.
They called him “Gunner” because of certain happenings in New York
City. It was said, but never proved, that he was the man who bumped
off Lew Selinski, that notorious gang leader, and shot his way through
Lew’s gunmen to the safety represented by a cattle boat which sailed
from the Hudson River an hour after the police reserves answered a
riot call.
Nobody had ever seen him with a pistol in England; but the detectives
who arrested him a year after his return to his native land fully
expected gun play and came armed.
When he came up for trial, nobody came near him: not his pretty wife
or his best friend Larry Vinman. Larry was a prince of confidence men,
young, good-looking, plausible.
There might be excellent reason why Larry should not wish to draw
attention to himself by appearing in court; no reason why Millie
should not write or do something. She had a thousand pounds in hard
cash; a good lawyer could have been briefed; but when the Gunner sent
for her, she had left the lodging they had occupied. He never saw her
again. A few months before his release from prison he heard that she
had died in a workhouse infirmary.
The Gunner’s smile when he heard this was a grim one. He always smiled
when he was hurt--and as he smiled now, his heart was one great
throbbing wound.
So he came from prison, and in due course to the Carlton Hotel, where
Mr. Luke Maddison was celebrating his engagement. Of Luke he knew
nothing--what had brought him there was a jewel box which a rich
American lady kept in the hotel safe all day and in her bedroom
between 9 P.M. and 1 A.M. Gunner Haynes had taken a room on the same
floor.
“I really am at your feet and prostrate,” said Luke, not for the first
time in the course of the dinner. “The truth is, my car hit a taxicab
sideways--it was the cabby’s fault--and up came an officious Robert
and must take down all particulars very laboriously in his little
book! Why don’t they teach policemen to write shorthand?”
“My dear, it doesn’t matter--really.”
Margaret’s voice was a little weary. Everything and everybody was
going wrong to-night. Even Danty was distressed about something and
was not his usual self. Luke was late; he had made an acrobatic
entrance, performing wild gyrations in the arms of a strange
gentleman. What had upset Danty? She had seen his face turn a sickly
white when Luke came in. Rex was grumpy and silent, scarcely speaking
to Lady Revellson on his left. And Luke had insisted on sitting next
to her, after she had arranged the table, with the result that
everybody at the table was in his or her wrong place.
“If that fellow hadn’t been on the spot I should certainly have broken
something--I couldn’t possibly have saved myself. It has been trying
to snow and I must have got some caked on the sole of my shoe--I
walked the last hundred yards or so. The car was caught in a traffic
jam in Piccadilly Circus.…”
“What was he like--in appearance?”
Danton’s voice sounded a little hoarse, as though he were speaking
from a dry throat.
“Who--the man who held me up?” And when the other nodded Luke went on:
“A dark-looking fellow--I thought he might be a German--two scars
across his right cheek--the sort of wound that duelling students love
to acquire. I remember when I was at school in Bonn…”
Danton was not listening now. Two scars across the right cheek! Then
he had not been mistaken. The question was, had the Gunner recognized
him? It was seven years since they had met--Danton had been clean
shaven and rather towheaded in those days. Millie Haynes used to call
him “the gold-hair boy” in the days of her fascination. He had grown a
moustache and darkened his hair down since then--he no longer filled
the police description of Larry Vinman. He made the change long after
he had thrown over Millie and left her to drift to a workhouse
infirmary. It had been rendered necessary by the success of a trick
which had left an Australian squatter poorer by eight thousand pounds,
and the subsequent activities of Scotland Yard’s confidence squad.
Gunner Haynes! He breathed a little faster. Down his back ran a cold
shiver of apprehension. Suppose he had recognized his old friend;
suppose he packed a gun, suppose he was waiting out there in the
lobby…
Danty wiped his moist forehead, caught the eye of his hostess, and,
with an appealing glance for permission, left his seat.
“Just remember I had to telephone,” he mumbled as he passed her.
He went down the broad steps into the palm court. The Gunner was not
there. He crossed the court into the lobby--empty. There were two
lobbies, one in Haymarket, the other in Pall Mall. They were connected
by a passage, and down this he went silently.
As he came to the second vestibule he saw his man and drew back.
Gunner was stepping into the elevator and his back was half turned to
the watcher.
It was he; there was no question of it. Gunner Haynes! The lift door
closed on him. Danton looked around. He recognized the quiet-looking
gentleman who was lounging by the revolving door.
“You’re the hotel detective, aren’t you?” he asked.
(When Danty Morell was plain Larry Vinman he knew most hotel
detectives by sight and could guess the others.)
“Yes, sir--anything wrong?”
“Who was that man?”
The detective told him. It was one of the assumed names that the
Gunner invariably used, and the heart of Mr. Morell leaped.
“Like hell he is! Number 986 is his room, eh? He’s Gunner Haynes and
he’s after jewellery. Get Scotland Yard--they’ll check him up in a
second. But my name doesn’t come into this, do you understand?”
He left the man busy at the telephone exchange and went back to the
party, exulting.
It was too good a secret to be kept. Moreover, he loved an audience;
he had the table’s breathless attention for five minutes.
“He’s got a room here, number 986. I know the fellow rather well--I
was very friendly with the district attorney in New York and he showed
me his portrait. One of the most dangerous men in New York--a gunman.
I hope there is no trouble. I recognized him as soon as I saw him, but
I had to go out and make sure.”
“What have you done?”
Luke’s face was troubled. He was on the soft side, as Danty knew.
“Naturally I put the hotel detective on his track--I left him ’phoning
the Yard.”
Luke Maddison fetched a long sigh.
“Poor devil!” he said.
Margaret shook her head at Danty helplessly.
“You’ve spoiled Luke’s evening,” she said, and her fiancé winced at
the mild sarcasm.
“Not a bit, only--will you excuse me?”
He was gone before the astonished girl could protest.
“How like Luke--and how everything fits into the scheme of this
wretched evening!” she said.
“Where has he gone?” Danty was momentarily alarmed.
She shrugged milky shoulders.
“What does one do? Bail him out? Give him money for his
breakfast--something horribly philanthropic,” she said.
Luke went straight to the second vestibule and into the elevator.
“Where is number 986?” he asked, as the lift went up.
The attendant stopped the lift on the fourth floor and pointed to the
door. For a second only did Luke Maddison hesitate, the door handle in
his grasp, and then he turned and walked into the room.
The occupant of the room was standing by the window, his back to the
visitor.
“Well, sir?”
He did not look round, and Luke realized that he was being viewed
through the medium of a mirror which was fixed on a bureau in an angle
of the wall.
Luke closed the door behind him.
“If you’re Gunner Haynes, I advise you to clear out,” he said in a low
voice. “If you’re not, I owe you an apology.”
Haynes swung round at the mention of his name.
“Oh!” he said. A pause, and then: “I am greatly obliged to you.”
“Have you any money?”
Another pause.
“Yes--I have all the money I want. Thank you.”
The Gunner was smiling, his underlip pouted. Something had amused him
in his secretive way.
“Thank you--I think I understand. I wasn’t quite sure if it was Larry.
After big pickings, eh?”
All this was Greek to Maddison. He saw the Gunner pick up an overcoat
from the footrail of the bed, and then the door was thrown open and a
big man strode in, followed by two others. There was authority in his
voice.
“Hullo, Gunner!”
The Gunner nodded.
“’Lo, Sparrow--you carry your age very well!”
The big man chuckled.
“Don’t I?” His hands passed quickly round the hips of his prisoner.
“Got a gat?” he asked, in the friendliest way.
“No, sir.” The Gunner was still smiling. “The legend that I carry a
lethal weapon dies very hard. My condition of disarmament would earn
three hearty cheers from the League of Nations.”
The big detective snapped handcuffs on his quarry; then he looked
shrewdly at Luke.
“This man hasn’t anything belonging to you, Mr. Maddison?” he asked.
Luke was staggered to discover that he was known.
“No--I am sorry to say,” he said.
“Mr. Maddison--I’ll remember that name,” said the Gunner, and gave a
friendly nod to Luke as they hustled him from the room.
“Poor devil!” said Luke Maddison for the second time that night, and
went back to his party.
This time Margaret Leferre did not accept his apologies, and when he
told her where he had been, her face grew as white as Danty Morell’s.
It was fully three weeks before that little rift was closed.
CHAPTER II
The storm that swept on London found at least two people unprepared.
Luke Maddison was cheery. He had been formally forgiven--the marriage
was to be quiet, and only a few guests were to be invited. He had only
a few minutes before arranged his train reservations--no secretary
should perform that sacred duty!
His heart would have sung a gay song even if every thick flake of snow
burned as it touched his face. The flower girl shifted the strap of
her basket from one shoulder to another and gazed with dismay upon the
tumbling white fog that descended upon St. James’s Street, blotting
out every landmark. You could not see from one side of the street to
the other. Almost instantly the ground was thick where the white
flakes lay. But for their asthmatic engines one would not have known
that such things as motor busses were passing.
Snow covered the violets in her basket, soaked into the thin shawl
about her shoulders, and even when she sought shelter in the doorway
of a bank, followed her in gusty showers.
Two men brushed past her into the bank. She offered a bunch of flowers
automatically. The younger of the two did not notice her; the
middle-aged man with the trim moustache gave her a quick, appraising
glance and stopped.
“Hullo, honey--busy?”
She did not reply. He hesitated a moment, and then the door swung open
and the impatient voice of the young man called him inside.
At that moment Luke Maddison came striding down the street, swinging a
light cane. He wore no overcoat and his shoulders already carried a
white blanketting.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl shivering in the doorway,
checked his stride and came up to her.
“My dear, you look cold! My heart keeps me terribly warm--and if you
think I am making love to you, I’m not! I want a flower, and you shall
have a present, and then you and I will drift away and we shall be
dead to one another--born and dead in this freezy moment! Buy a
wreath!”
He took a banknote out of his pocket and dangled it before her eyes
laughingly. And then he had a slight shock.
She was pretty--which flower girls, outside of musical comedy, are
not; her figure was frail, her skin flawless.
Yet she was poorly dressed; bore in her person all the evidence of
penury.
“Here’s a better one.”
He put the note in his pocket and produced another, scribbled a line
or two on the back of it.
“That’s the name and address of my company--if, when you try to change
it, the police say that it is stolen, refer them to me.”
She did not answer, but looked from the note in her cold hands to its
giver. It was for a hundred pounds! When she looked up he was gone.
The swing doors of the bank opened again and the two men came out. She
crumpled the note in her hand, dismayed, exhilarated, and, in one
respect, disappointed. It was then she saw the young man’s face. It
was deathly pale and he was breathing quickly--this was noticeable,
for the weather was cold.
“By God, that was a horrible coincidence, Danty--suppose he’d come
in----”
“Shut up, you fool!”
The elder of the two shot a glance at the flower girl. She was
arranging her violets.
“But if he had---- He said he was going out of town before the
settlement.”
He was trembling violently: the flower girl might have seen that if
she were observant. Danty’s dark eyes roved the streets for a taxi;
they rested momentarily on the flower girl. She was pretty, but at the
moment her face was vacant. More interested in her flowers than in
unintelligible scraps of conversation, he supposed.
“Now see here, Rex, there’s nothing to worry about. You could easily
explain that Margaret…”
His voice sank to an indistinguishable mutter of sound. The girl heard
the word “settlement” used several times, and “carry over” and
“account.” Also “Margaret” was mentioned twice, and “Luke.”
“… fix it, don’t worry!” Danty patted the other on the back. She
decided that she did not like “Danty.” “Here’s a cab!”
The younger man signalled and sprinted out to the taxi. The other went
at a more leisurely pace. He dropped something onto her flowers--a
visiting card.
“Come along about nine and have a drink,” he murmured.
She took the card before his eyes, glanced at the name and
deliberately tore it up.
He was rather annoyed when he joined his companion.
“Mr. Danton Morell, 907 Half Moon Street,” she read. It was a name to
remember.
And then she saw a huge figure loom out of the mist of swirling
flakes, and instinctively knew that he was going to speak to her. Why
she should think this she did not know--he might very well be going
into the bank.
He was big in every way. Until he ranged alongside her, his height did
not seem extraordinary. Till his length was gauged, the breadth of his
shoulders was not remarkable. He stood six feet four in his stockinged
feet. His face was dark and broad and unattractive; he had a short,
bull neck and a deep, rich, husky voice.
He walked slowly, almost lethargically, through the snow, his hands
behind him, his hard felt hat on the back of his head, the ragged
cigar, that was burning unevenly, gripped in his teeth.
The flower girl thought he was going to turn into the bank after all:
instead, he stood squarely before her and looked down at her. The
expression in those slits of eyes was blank. He might have his
attention entirely absorbed by her; he might be trying to remember
something.
And then he spoke huskily.
“_You’re_ no child of the poor!”
There was something so friendly, so good-humoured in his voice, that
she laughed.
“Nor a wrongdoer either,” she said demurely, and his big face folded
into a delighted smile.
“You’re nearly the first that ever gave me the right answer,” he said.
“Now I’ll ask you another: Where in the City of London is that text
carved in stone?”
The flower girl was almost scornful.
“Why, over the entrance of the Old Bailey--‘Protect the Children of
the Poor and Punish the Wrongdoer.’”
He nodded.
“You’ve won a butter cooler, but you can have your pick of the board.
Keepin’ to the general knowledge paper, who and what am I? For the
correct answer you get a pint of peanuts and free admission to the
Zoo.”
She looked at him with a certain demure solemnity that delighted him.
“You are Detective Inspector Horace Bird--you are called ‘The
Sparrow.’”
He doubled forward and his face went purple with silent laughter.
“You’re free of the fair! Now let me do a little bit of classy
detective work, like the well-known Mr. What’s-his-name of Baker
Street. Your name is Mary Bolford, you’re a reporter on the staff of
the _Daily Post-Herald_, and you’re doing a stunt called ‘A day in the
life of a flower girl.’ Don’t deny it! Your editor pointed you out an
hour ago an’ asked me to keep an eye on you. How’s that for deduction?
Come and have some tea and I’ll tell you the story of my life.”
He shifted his cigar to the offside of his face, lifted the strap of
the basket from her shoulder, and together they tramped through the
slush down St. James’s Street. Even in the midst of their own
discomforts, pedestrians turned their heads to look back after the
enormous man with a basket of violets under his arm.
“I bet you’ll suffer for this,” he rumbled. “Wet through--no? I hope
you are wearing warm undies. Why are undies indelicate and sable coats
ladylike? Ask me. It’s one of the mysteries. Good-afternoon, Tom.” He
stopped a man who was trying to pass him quickly, his head bent as
though to avoid the drift of wind-borne snow.
“Good-mornin’, Mr. Bird--cold, isn’t it?”
“It’s colder waitin’ outside the staff entrance of Hoyce & Drake, Tom.
Pretty girl, eh, Tom? I’ll bet your wife wouldn’t think so. Don’t do
it, Tom, or I’ll come along and blind you! So-long!”
“Horrific!” she murmured as the man hurried away.
“I have to be,” he said complacently. “It’s the only language they
understand. What’s that word again--horrific? That’s a good one. Go
straight in, Miss Bolford.”
They turned into the tea shop and Mary Bolford smelt the warmth and
hot-cakeness of the place and sighed luxuriously.
“Order anything you like up to fourpence,” said the Sparrow. “I’ve
only just had lunch, so you’ll excuse me if I stop at the tenth mince
pie.”
He seemed to pay no attention to the rest of the people in the long
tea room, and yet----
“That feller over there in the corner is Sam Larber, the con man.
Times are bad and suckers are scarce. There ought to be a cold weather
fund for confidence men. It takes sunshine to bring out human
foolishness. That girl who’s with him is Lisa Keane--_she’s_ no Sister
of Mercy! See that red-haired young feller who’s hidin’ behind the
newspaper? I got him nine months at the London Sessions for knockin’
off motor cars--‘knockin’ off’ means ‘pinchin’’--excuse my French.”
“What do you think of this?”
She unfolded a piece of crinkly paper and spread it on the marble top
of the tea table.
“I don’t think of hundred-pound notes--I dream of ’em,” he said, and
added, in his inconsequential way: “That’s because he’s goin’ to be
married. I saw him holdin’ it up before your eyes and thought he was
tryin’ to create a good impression. I was a bit hurt. Mr. Maddison
never struck me as bein’ a vamp. And then I suddenly knew what it was
all about.”
She might be a reporter, but she was feminine.
“Whom is he marrying?” she asked.
“A lady. That was her brother who was talkin’ to another gentleman in
the doorway. Danty!--_he’s_ no lady! What Rex loses on the swings he
borrows from the roundabouts. The bookmakers have an insurance on his
life--they hate the idea of anything happenin’ to their annuity. And
when he goes into the City all the sharks file their teeth. He’s easy
money--somebody else’s money. Is that libel or slander?”
“Both--if I printed it,” she smiled.
The waitress came--she drank the hot tea gratefully. Mr. Bird sat
munching cakes with great earnestness. A big plate of confectionery
steadily vanished.
“I’m a big man and have to keep my spirits up,” he explained. “Mince
pies are a kind of dope to me. After I’ve had a dozen I get sort of
intoxicated and all my troubles disappear. After I’ve had twenty I go
mad and tear up the pavement.”
Mercifully he stopped at the seventh.
“What am I to do with this hundred pounds?” she asked. “I feel that I
have obtained money by false pretenses!”
“I saw a couple of good evenin’ dresses at Cecilia et Cie’s,” he said.
“It’s a Modes et Robes shop in Bond Street--and if you ask me why
‘Modes et Robes’ I’ll say ‘desist.’ There was one dress with spangles
on it--wear that an’ you’d get a reputation for fastness that’d get
you the first prize at Brooklands----”
“Who is Danty?”
She was in a new world; had been in it exactly a quarter of an hour.
She went on quickly:
“I know his name--Danton Morell: he gave me his card.”
Mr. Bird nodded.
“He would: he’s that kind of philanthropist. ‘Call round any evenin’
when the servants have gone to the pictures.’ Danty is clever. I’m one
of the few people who know how clever he is. Some day I’ll take a
stick to him and he’ll be in the market for a new head.”
And then he began to talk about people--the shifting population of the
West End. The men and women who came and went; the mild old gentleman
who had a suite at the Cercle Hotel all the year round but spent his
time travelling to and from New York playing cards with the light
hearted and gullible. Of strange men who did nothing for a living and
had no visible means of support yet stayed at the best hotels. He
called them “the once-a-year men.”
“They go after one coup and that keeps ’em. They’re the highest paid
tale tellers in the world. Kiplin’ and what’s-his-name Shaw? They
never get the price that’s paid to these fellers.”
“I suppose you are always getting new experiences?” she said.
Mr. Bird sighed.
“I think I know all that is to be known about the dirty ways of
crooks,” he said.
But he was wrong.
That night he was called to number 342, Brook Street. Assisted by the
white-faced Mr. Danton Morell, he burst open the door of a bedroom,
and there he found Rex Leferre, dead by his own hand. He lay on the
floor, a revolver by his side: the quick-eyed Danty saw the note
scribbled in pencil on small sheets of paper torn from a telephone
message block, and his hand closed over the paper. An hour later
Margaret Leferre, pale and lovely in her silken negligee, read the
message the detective had not seen.
Margaret darling, I have lost. For months I have been gambling. To-day
I took a desperate step on the advice of Luke Maddison. He has led me
to ruin--money is his god. I beg of you not to trust him. He has led
me from one act of folly to another. God bless you.
Rex.
She read the pitiful message again and again. Luke Maddison: the man
she was to marry in a week!
CHAPTER III
For two days Margaret Leferre moved in a world of hideous unreality.
Strange people interviewed her: a tall, big-framed man, who was
strangely sympathetic in his heavy way, a bank manager who talked
wildly and incomprehensibly until Danty appeared and whisked him off.
One thunderous fact hammered night and day at her weary brain--Rex was
dead by his own hand, and the man she was to marry, the man who,
frantic with anxiety, was calling three times a day and being refused
admission to her, was the cause. Money was his god!
It was hard to adjust her views of him, harder still to comprehend the
callous brutality that had sent a young soul wandering into the
eternal night.
This engagement of hers had been a thing of natural growth: the
families had been friends for years; she had known Luke Maddison since
she was a child. There had been no sudden meeting, no violent kindling
of a consuming flame--she hardly remembered the time she did not like
him, and could not place her finger upon the month and the year when
liking was love.
This was the real calamity of her situation if only she could realize
it. She remembered now all that Ronnie had said of him--he was a
“tightwad.” She had always thought Luke was generous to a point of
imbecility. But that was the facet he presented to her--men knew
better. She set her teeth and brought herself to asking a question of
Danty, who had come strangely near to her in these ugly days. Danty
shrugged his shoulders.
“I am afraid it is a fact--Maddison thinks too much about money. I saw
him the other day, and the only thing he said about Rex was how lucky
for everybody it was that Rex was insured.”
(Here he spoke the truth, for Luke had referred to the insurance as a
protection against the girl being saddled with her brother’s debts.)
“He is fanatical on the point. Naturally he doesn’t appear that way to
you. You are his second obsession.” He saw her wince and went on
quickly: “That is a horrible thing to say, but it is true--except that
I am not so sure that at the moment you aren’t the first.”
It was after this that her cold hatred of the man whose name she was
to bear began to take definite shape. She could not know how much this
almost insane resentment owed its growth to the ingenuity of her new
counsellor.
Danty was clever--diabolically ingenious. He thought quickly, planned
quickly, acted as he planned. The idea came to him on the night of
Rex’s death. It seemed too fantastic for accomplishment. He allowed
the whirling nebula of it to retain its shapelessness until he had
sounded her. If she loved Maddison in the proper way, she would take a
view charitable to his intentions; she would indorse, however
half-heartedly, the conventional mercy of a coroner’s jury and put
Rex’s letter in the category of his minor derangements. This would
have dissolved the nebula of Mr. Morell’s plan to nothingness. But he
found Margaret in a mood to believe the worst, receptive, indeed
eager. And then the nebula solidified into form.
“Money is his god,” was his text; he worked harder on that theme than
he had ever worked in the days when he lived on the credulity of
chance-found strangers. All the tricks of his profession, all the
eloquent persuasions which can be best exercised by innuendo rather
than bald statement, all the craft of suggestion--they were exercised.
“At the moment, I should imagine he is so keen to marry you that he
would sacrifice every penny he has. I honestly believe that if you
asked him to assign you his fortune--as of course you could in your
antenuptial contract; I mean, it is frequently done--he would sign
without hesitation. He would hate it afterwards, and I dare say the
honeymoon wouldn’t be over before he induced you to reassign every
penny to him. I often wonder what some of these overgenerous lovers
would feel like if their wives refused to be so accommodating.”
She stared past him through the window. She was lovely; it was not the
bold loveliness of Millie Haynes, who died in an infirmary, but
something so delicate and unblemished that it caught his breath. He
allowed his eyes to rove the field of her physical perfections. He was
gambling on her strength of character--on Luke Maddison’s weakness.
There was something of the weakling in Luke or he was greatly
mistaken--and Mr. Danton Morell was seldom wrong in his appraisement
of men.
“It is almost incredible,” she said slowly. “If I thought…”
The nebula had not only solidified, it was shaped.
“About money being Maddison’s god?” His tone was one of surprise: he
was almost hurt that his characteristic of her fiancé was not as
patent to her as to himself. “Good Lord! I could give you a dozen
proofs.”
He supplied, not a dozen, but sufficient. Danty’s inventive power
needed the least stimulation.
“I know a man in Norfolk, one of Maddison’s best friends. Maddison was
landed with a block of shares in an oil field that had practically run
dry. One night he asked this fellow to dinner, and before the night
was over had transferred nearly a hundred thousand perfectly worthless
shares to a man who trusted him as--well, as you trust him! Another
case--and this was common property in the City--was a man who…”
The second lie came as glibly as the first. It was all very crude and
on a balanced mind must have produced no effect but scornful unbelief.
A week before, had he dared presume upon the mushroom friendship, he
would have found himself on the wrong side of the door. But Rex lay
shrouded in a mortuary chamber and a coroner’s officer was already
gathering twelve good men and true to pass judgment on the mind that
had willed a revolver to explode.
Danty saw the red lips grow straighter.
He had a servant who was a sometime confederate. Pi Coles had been a
card sharper until Providence smote his hands with rheumatoid. He was
an undersized little man, completely bald, with a face wrinkled with
pain and age. To him Danty confided most of his thoughts--but
obliquely, for he never mentioned names.
“It’s queer, Pi, how the mugs fall for any good story! Do you remember
when you and I were on the same landing in Strangways Jail? Doesn’t
seem eight years ago, and here am I in society, giving advice to
people with hundreds of thousands--people who know the top-notchers!”
“You always was a gentleman, Larry--I’ve never known you when you
didn’t dress for dinner,” said the sycophantic Pi.
“Not so much of the ‘Larry,’” warned Mr. Morell.
He could sit in his comfortable room and muse on the favours which
fate had shown to him. His position was not altogether unique--had not
a famous confidence man once been the guest of an Illustrious Foreign
Personage and been presented at one of the few European courts as a
friend of Royalty?
It was the third day following the tragedy. The twelve good men and
true were to be assembled that afternoon. It was not the happiest day
in Danty’s life. A message came to him the night before from Luke
Maddison, and there was something peremptory, almost unfriendly, in
the summons; and what it was all about Danty knew too well, only he
had hoped that his presence at the bank one snowy afternoon had been
unobserved by the cashier.
Luke had his office in Pall Mall, an out-of-the-way place for a man
engaged in financial transactions; but Maddison’s Bank had owned the
site on which the modern building stood for two hundred years, and
that modest room overlooking Waterloo Place had been the “master
office” from those far-off days when they overlooked a country vista.
Luke had been at his office since eight o’clock, an hour before the
arrival of the staff, and here his bearded manager found him, sitting
at his table, his head in his hands, his personal letters unopened.
Maddison looked up with a start as the manager entered.
“Hullo!” he said awkwardly. “Is there anything wrong?”
There were many things wrong from the point of view of Mr. Stiles,
that shrewd man of affairs. He laid a small sheaf of papers on the
table and detailed the contents of the documents briefly.
“Here are four or five transactions that ought to be closed to-day,
Mr. Maddison. I am rather worried about them. The Gulanga Oil accounts
should be settled. We made a very considerable loss there.”
Luke nodded impatiently.
“Settle it,” he said. “No message from--from Miss Leferre?”
It was a stupid question to ask, for he had a private ’phone and he
knew that any message that came from Margaret would be put through to
him direct.
The manager shook his head gloomily.
“A bad business, sir. I have not spoken to you about it because I
realize how badly you must be feeling. The Northern and Southern have
been on the ’phone again this morning about that check--you remember
they queried the signature yesterday?”
“Yes, yes.” Luke’s usually gentle voice was harsh. “Tell the manager
it is all right.”
“I told him yesterday, as a matter of fact.” Mr. Stiles was inclined
to linger on a subject which was hateful to the other. In desperation
Luke reverted to the question of the Gulanga Oil Concession, and for
once Mr. Stiles’s fatherly interest in the business irritated him.
“Of course, sir, I know that Maddison’s is as sound as a bell of
brass, but there is no getting away from the fact that we have been
making rather heavy losses during the past six months, and I am afraid
I shall have to call upon your reserves. Personally,” he went on,
oblivious of Luke’s growing resentment, “I have always believed we
made a mistake in not selling out to a joint stock concern. In private
banking businesses the personal security plays too big a part for my
liking----”
Mercifully the house ’phone rang at that moment. Luke snatched up the
receiver and listened with a frown.
“Yes, show him in, please.” And, as he replaced the receiver: “I am
seeing Mr. Morell and I do not wish to be interrupted,” he said.
Mr. Stiles made a little grimace. He had been all his life in the firm
of Maddison & Sons, and he did not feel called upon to disguise his
dislike of the caller.
“There is something about that fellow that I dislike very much, Mr.
Maddison. I hope we are not going to carry his account?”
Luke shook his head and nodded toward the door.
Mr. Danton Morell came into an atmosphere which he, sensitive in such
matters, realized was charged with hostility. Nevertheless he was his
smiling self, and laid his carefully brushed silk hat upon the table.
Luke did not fail to notice that he wore a mourning tie, and that, for
some reason, was a further strain upon his jangled nerves.
“Sit down, will you?” His manner and voice were brusque. “You were a
friend of poor Rex’s?”
Danty inclined his head sorrowfully.
“Yes, I was completely in his confidence,” he said. “I think I told
you the day following his unfortunate----”
Luke cut short the recollection.
“Were you so much in his confidence that you accompanied him to the
Northern and Southern Bank three days ago when he cashed a check for
eighteen thousand five hundred pounds?”
Danty opened his eyes wide in well-simulated surprise.
“Why, of course,” he said. “Rex had made very heavy losses in the
City, and I advised him to see you. I understood you gave him a check
for that amount----”
“Did he tell you that?” Luke’s blue eyes did not leave the man’s face.
“Certainly. Why, what was wrong? I saw the check myself.”
There was an uncomfortable pause, and then:
“Did you see him sign it?” asked Luke deliberately.
Danty’s gaze did not falter.
“I am afraid I do not understand you,” he said evenly. “I saw him
endorse it----”
“My name was forged to it. I did not give Rex a check for that amount.
I have been making inquiries. I find that he was heavily involved in a
derelict West African gold-mining syndicate, most of the shares of
which you bought for a song less than a year ago. He has been buying
these shares on margin and they have been steadily dropping in value.
On the day he paid you eighteen thousand five hundred pounds there
came another demand for a larger amount.”
Danty’s heart sank though he gave no visible evidence of his
perturbation. This man knew more than he had dreamed could be known.
Here was a crisis in Mr. Morell’s affairs which might easily lead him
to ruin and undo all those fine schemes of his.
“I do not exactly know what you are suggesting,” he said. “My interest
in the company is a very slight one, and I was horrified when I
learned that Rex had been gambling in the shares. I give you the
fullest permission to make any investigation you wish.”
Luke opened the drawer of his desk and took out a check. From where he
sat Danty thought the signature was a tolerably good forgery. He had
thought so when Rex had brought the check to him. It is the simplest
thing in the world to forge a name, and so far as he had been able to
judge there were no flaws in Rex Leferre’s essay in that dangerous
game.
“You realize what is wrong with this check?” asked Luke.
The other shook his head.
“Are you suggesting that I knew the check was forged?” he asked.
Before he could reply there was a tap at the door and Luke looked up
angrily.
“Come in,” he said.
It was the apologetic manager.
“I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Maddison, but will you see Mr. Bird
of Scotland Yard?”
In spite of his self-possession Danty half rose from his seat. The
Sparrow was the last man in the world he wanted to meet that morning.
CHAPTER IV
Luke thought for a minute.
“Just a moment.”
He rose and opened the door leading to the corridor.
“I shall want to see you again about this check, Mr. Morell,” he said.
“Why not see me now?”
It was a challenge, but Luke Maddison could sense its insincerity.
“Mr. Bird has come to see me on quite another matter,” he said. “In
due course we will interview him together.”
He closed the door on his visitor as the Sparrow was shown in through
the other door. Mr. Bird came heavily into the room and favoured every
corner with a long scrutiny. He seemed disappointed--as though he
expected to find something or somebody who was not present.
“Havin’ a visitor, Mr. Maddison? I thought I saw somebody come in
whilst I was waiting in the street outside.”
Luke nodded curtly.
“Mr. Danton Morell,” he said. “Do you know him?”
The Sparrow smiled.
“As one knows the Lord Mayor--from a distance. I’m humble. You never
find me bargin’ in on society. I’ve had one dress suit seventeen years
an’ wear it twice a year--once for the Police Dinner and once to give
the moths a cold.”
“Do you know anything about him?”
The Sparrow’s wide smile grew wider.
“His name an’ address--an’ that’s as much as any policeman wants to
know about anybody. Bad business, this young Leferre case, Mr.
Maddison. You don’t want to appear in it, I suppose?”
Luke looked at him, startled.
“I? How on earth do I come into it?”
Mr. Bird coughed.
“Well, you do and you don’t,” he said. “I happened to search the body
an’ the room. I found three loose checks on the Northern & Southern
Bank--that’s where you keep your private account, ain’t it? An’
this----”
Very leisurely he took out a fat and worn leather case from his
pocket, laid it flat on the desk and rummaged in the inside. After a
while he found what he was looking for--two folded sheets of paper,
evidently torn from a school exercise book. He smoothed these flat and
Luke saw a succession of signatures, one under the other: “Luke
Maddison--Luke Maddison.”
“Looks almost as though you’d been scribblin’ absentmindedly.” The
detective’s shrewd eyes were on the young banker. “But at the same
time I couldn’t imagine a business man like you doin’ anything so
silly! If you’ll excuse the liberty. I called at the Northern &
Southern Bank yesterday afternoon, but they were reticent--‘reticent’
is a good word--an’ referred me to you. But by an underhanded an’
despicable trick I found that young Mr. Leferre cashed a check the
other day for eighteen thousand.”
Luke broke in here.
“Yes--I gave him a check for that amount.”
The Sparrow was frankly skeptical.
“Did you now? Maybe you’d like to show me the counterfoil of that
check?”
For a second Luke was taken aback.
“If there were any reason for doing so, I could,” he said coldly, “but
I see no reason.”
Mr. Bird was not abashed; he leaned his huge arms on the table, and
when he spoke his voice was very serious.
“I’ve no right to ask--I’m not the sort of man who would attempt to
pull a bluff on a gentleman like you. I’ll put my cards on the table.
That check was met in notes and I want to know where those notes went.
There’s a bird in London I want to catch. I’ve got one of the best
little cages for him that was ever built, an’ whilst it’s empty so is
my heart. If that check was a forgery it might get the deceased a bad
name, but it would make it very easy for me to pull in a certain man
for ‘uttering’--I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Maddison: I want that
man’s finger prints so much that I wonder I don’t knock him down in
the street an’ take ’em!”
Luke’s eyes were averted: he gave no sign until the detective had
finished.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” he said. “The check was drawn by me and
signed by me.”
Mr. Bird rose with a sigh.
“You’re too kind to the criminal classes, Mr. Maddison,” he said. “No
wonder Gunner Haynes thinks you’re a good feller--six months he got
yesterday for bein’ a suspected person. What a man! When I tried to
pump him about your friend he wouldn’t let on that he knew him even.”
“Morell?” Luke was thrown off his guard, as he saw by the Sparrow’s
grin.
“That’s the name. What’s the use of talkin’ at cross-purposes? He’s
the----”
“I know nothing about Morell.” Luke was emphatic. “He was a friend of
Rex’s--of Mr. Leferre’s. I’d rather not discuss him.”
The Sparrow sighed again, gathered up the papers on which the
unfortunate Rex had practised the signature, and stuffed them back in
his pocketbook.
“Nobody helps the police,” he said dolefully. “All hands are against
the natural guardians of the children of the poor. I’ll be getting
along.”
He offered a limp hand and went heavily out of the room. The door had
hardly closed upon him before the telephone bell rang, and for the
first time since the tragedy Luke heard the voice of the woman he
loved.
“Will you see me to-morrow, Luke?” Her voice was very low.
“Now, if I may--darling, let me come to you now!”
But her level voice denied him.
“To-morrow--after this ghastly business. Luke, did Rex owe you any
money?”
The unexpectedness of the question threw him off his balance, and when
Luke Maddison was flurried he was invariably incoherent, for the same
reason as others are incoherent in the circumstances--he thought too
quickly for speech.
“Yes--but it isn’t worth discussing. He was heavily insured, you know,
and I don’t think the policy is invalidated.…”
He heard the quick breath and grew panic-stricken.
“I was thinking of you--that there was no need to worry about his
affairs. He owes me practically nothing.
“Will you see me to-morrow?”
Before he could reply he heard the click of the hook being depressed.
CHAPTER V
“I see no reason in the world why the wedding should be postponed,
Luke.”
The hideous business of coroner’s inquisition was only a day old, and
an accountant’s statement that the dead boy’s affairs were involved
was accepted and no details were asked.
Margaret Leferre could not understand herself; her own calm astonished
her. Had she ever loved this suave man who stood before her,
apparently agreeing, as though Rex were his dearest friend? Sometimes
she was afraid that he would read her loathing of him in her eyes--she
was amazed to find herself telling him now, with the greatest calmness
and in a tone that was sadly sweet, that she saw no reason why the
ceremony should be postponed.
“My poor darling!”
He took her in his arms, and she did not resist. Rather, she raised
her cold lips to his, and hated herself. But the Judas kiss was his,
not hers--that was a tattered comfort.
“There is nothing in the world I would not do to make life a little
more smooth for you,” he was saying. “If money could buy you happiness
I would beggar myself!”
She smiled faintly at this. Here was a man ready to betray his gods.
He had ruined Rex; he had always hated him. She remembered
half-forgotten phrases of his, little irritated comments upon Rex’s
carelessness in financial matters.
He put her at arm’s length and scrutinized her a little sadly. The
pallor and the soft shadows beneath her eyes gave her an unearthly
loveliness.
“Naturally I’ve been worried sick. What a fool I was on the ’phone to
talk of insurances--it was indecent. I just didn’t know what to
say----”
“Luke, are you awfully rich?”
She was always staggering him with questions like that.
“Why--yes, I suppose I am. The bank isn’t doing terribly well--on the
trading side. We are merchants as well, you know--but I have over half
a million private fortune. I thought you knew.”
She smiled faintly.
“I have never asked you. I’m worried about--poverty. We have been
poor--desperately. My father left us nothing, poor dear. It must be
wonderful to be so rich--to have command of money--never to be
bothered about bills, never to feel the frantic urge to go out and
earn something.”
He was regarding her in open-eyed astonishment.
“But I never knew, my dear, how awful! I thought you had an income?”
She shook her head. This time she was not acting.
“If money will give you a sense of security, and of course it will,
I’ll--why, I’d give you control of every cent I have in the world----”
He saw her incredulous smile and was angry with himself, as though in
that gesture of unbelief he detected some reservation, some gesture of
insincerity in his offer.
“Why not? Thousands of men put all their property in their wives’
names. It is a sane thing to do--it keeps a man steady and it will
make us really partners. Wait.”
He was at the ’phone--as eager, as enthusiastic as a boy pursuing some
new and delightful idea.
“Luke, is that your lawyer you’re calling?”
Conscience overwhelmed her with a sudden fear; she realized for the
first time the enormity of her treachery and was terrified.
“Yes, Hilton--it is Luke Maddison speaking… you had the draft of the
antenuptial contract? Well, include everything! You have the list of
my securities?… Yes, all. And the cash in bank--everything. My
interest in Maddison’s… no, I’m not mad!”
“You are!”
She was standing by him now, her face white as death. The words came
tremulously.
“You’re mad, Luke--I didn’t mean it.”
He smiled and kissed her, and there was something in his eyes that
made her shrink back--something that recalled the words of Danton
Morell.
“You are his first obsession at the moment!”
She stood there, her hands gripped, her breath coming quickly and more
quickly, and heard him override the protests which came from the other
end of the wire. Presently he hung up the ’phone and turned to her, a
smile of triumph on his flushed face.
“You are Maddison’s!” he said grandly. “Lock, stock, and barrel,
darling--I am what old Bird calls a child of the poor.”
Even she could not realize that he was speaking prophetically.
CHAPTER VI
To what end was life moving for Luke Maddison? In his rosy dreams he
saw nothing but the smooth path of it. For him there must come, in a
cycle of pleasant inevitability, years that were to be made up of
amusing house parties, Ascots, Deauvilles, Lidos. He would wander at
will from St. Moritz to Cannes, from Cannes to town; there would be a
make-believe of business, with the indispensable Mr. Stiles mumbling
his forebodings, but the bank would go on whether Luke was there or
not.
He had trodden these ways before--but alone. Now he was to have his
heart’s desire. It was almost unthinkable that she would be with
him--all the time, in all the places, in all the seasons. Margaret
Leferre stood for womanhood _in excelsis_. Not the weakling woman that
had been so favoured of the poets; she was to be something more than a
wife. Here was a comrade to be trusted. Toward her he felt a
tenderness more poignant because of the shadow of sorrow in which she
lay. She was definitely a charge now, someone to be protected, to be
shielded.
On the morning of his marriage he went to his office at the earnest
solicitation of his manager. There were certain documents which
demanded his personal attention. He went with the greater alacrity
since his lawyer had called at his flat that morning to protest
hopelessly (since the deed was signed the day before) against the
antenuptial agreement.
“Luke, I’m beginning to think that you’re the biggest kind of fool
that I’ve met in my professional career. Yes, yes, I know that
Margaret is the sweetest girl in the world and the most
trustworthy--all the decency of the Leferres seems to have run to her
side--but don’t you realize what an awful mess you may be making of
things? Suppose she died without making a will--I _know_ it’s a
ghastly suggestion--I tell you I know it is--but suppose----”
“I’ll suppose nothing so horrible, Jack!” said Luke hotly.
They were boyhood friends, he and the keen-faced young lawyer who
overlooked his affairs.
“I believe that a wife should have a share in her husband’s
fortune----”
“A share!” snarled Jack Hulbert. “You dam’ fool, she’s got it all!”
They came as near to quarrelling as they had ever done.
It did not soothe Luke’s irritation that Mr. Stiles was in his most
pessimistic mood.
“We can cut our losses, but it is going to cost you a lot of money,”
he said gloomily; “and after this, Mr. Maddison, I hope you’re going
to leave well enough alone. Speculation is all very well for----”
“I know, I know!” Luke’s nerves were a little on edge. “I quite agree
to cut out speculation--the truth is, I was led rather against my will
to take up these options.”
He could not confess that his amazing lapse had been due directly to
poor Rex. Mr. Stiles would hardly have believed that his shrewd young
employer could have been led into dealings so remote from the normal
business of the firm by a youth with no particular experience in the
markets. Yet this had been the truth.
“What are our losses?” asked Luke.
Mr. Stiles had the exact amount.
“Ninety-seven thousand six hundred and forty pounds,” he said
impressively, and Luke smiled.
“I happen to know that I am worth considerably more than that,” he
laughed. “In fact, Stiles, I am a much richer man than I thought.”
He “happened to know” because, for the purpose of the ante-marriage
bond, it had been necessary to make an equally exact schedule of his
holdings.
“All right, send a check, I will sign it.”
Mr. Stiles went out, and Luke made a rapid examination of the papers
that remained to be signed.
He was meeting Margaret at the registrar’s office at two o’clock.
Danty was to be there--he frowned at the thought, but had not
objected. Danty, in some mysterious way, had ingratiated himself into
Margaret’s confidence; perhaps, thought Luke, it was his close
friendship with Rex which had made this not only possible but almost
inevitable. There was to be no bridesmaid; the second witness was to
be Mr. Stiles.
His hand was on the bell push to summon the manager to remind him of
his duty when the bearded man came in.
“Do you want to see a man named Lewing?” he asked.
“Lewing? Who is he?”
From Mr. Stiles’s expression of disparagement he gathered that Lewing
was not of any great account.
“He’s a queer customer,” said Stiles. “I’d have sent him off, only he
said that he came from Gunner somebody who evidently knows you.”
For a moment Luke was puzzled. Gunner? He knew a man who was in the
artillery…
Then in a flash he remembered Gunner Haynes. He had forgotten all
about the unfortunate hotel thief whom he had tried to save--had not
even read in the newspapers what had been his fate.
“Show him in.”
The man who followed Stiles into the room was tall and spare of build.
His deep-set eyes had in them a furtiveness that was almost animal. He
glanced quickly round the room, and it almost seemed to Luke that he
was pricing every article within view against the night when he might
enter and take away such movables as would show him a profit.
“Mornin’, sir.”
He held his head downwards and sideways, looking up from under his
heavy and untidy eyebrows.
“Like to speak to you private, sir,” he said in his husky voice.
Luke glanced at the manager and signalled him to leave the room. Mr.
Stiles left with the greatest reluctance.
“Sit down, will you?”
Not taking his eyes from Luke’s face, the visitor stretched out a hand
and drew a chair to him.
“Well?”
The visitor sat down.
“Gunner’s got three moon for bein’ a suspected,” he said in a low,
hoarse voice. “The Sparrer spoke up for him, but the beak handed out
the three moon. The Gunner’s appealin’ to the sessions.”
Luke nodded.
“He has got three months’ hard labour and is appealing? I hope he gets
off. Did he send you to me?”
Lewing nodded slowly. He had the appearance of a man who was lying and
expected to be found out at any moment.
“Yes. A few quid would do him a bit of good. He wants a mouthpiece.
The Sparrer says he’ll get off--an’ the Sparrer knows.”
“Who is the Sparrow?”
A slow smile dawned on Mr. Lewing’s face.
“He’s a busy--a detective. Bird by name----”
Luke nodded. He remembered Mr. Sparrow, whose activities were
apparently not wholly confined to inquests.
“I was inside meself--for breakin’ an’ enterin’,” confided Lewing,
“but they couldn’t prove nothin’ so I got out. But me an’ the Gunner’s
like brothers. He was in the next cell to me at Brixton an’ he told me
to pop up an’ have a talk with you--a few quid would help him.”
Luke was puzzled. His acquaintance with the redoubtable gunman who
called himself Haynes was a slight one, but it had struck him, during
their brief interview in the Carlton, that the Gunner had the manners
and certainly the vocabulary of a gentleman, and that this mean
sneak-thief who was looking at him stealthily from the other side of
the table was hardly the type of man in whom the Gunner would confide
his commissions.
Luke felt in his pocket and took out a few pound notes.
“I suppose you know Mr. Bird very well?” he asked as he counted the
money.
The man grinned.
“The Sparrer? I should say so! He’s always goin’ on about the children
of the poor--but he’s always laggin’ ’em! He pretends there’s a lot of
poor people who are sufferin’ because of the likes of--” he was about
to say “me” but changed his mind--“of fellers who go on the crook.
That’s silly. If you can’t do work you’ve got to do something: you
can’t starve. The last time the Sparrer started talkin’ to me about it
I says: ‘Look here, Mr. Bird, why don’t you go after the children of
the rich an’ make ’em pay their whack to these children of the poor?’
He couldn’t answer me. He was dumbfounded. I’m always beatin’ people
in arguments.”
He seemed rather proud of this accomplishment; was not without his
vanities, even if he had to lie about his triumphs.
“Here is ten pounds. Give that to your friend. I can’t help him much
more. I’d like to know what happens to him, and he can write to me
here.”
A dirty hand like the talon of a bird shot out and clutched the money
into a ball.
“If you see the Dicky, don’t tell him I called--the Sparrer, I mean.
Some calls him one thing an’ some another. An’, governor, if you ever
want to see life or bring any other swells to see it, you might pop
down to Rotherhithe one night. Ask for Harry Sidler--I got it writ
down somewhere.”
He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and produced a dirty-looking card.
Amused, Luke took it and read:
Harry Sidler,
next door The Cap and Bells.
Beneath was the inscription:
Best prices given for old iron.
Lewing was staring at him, his teeth showing in a mirthless grin.
“Old iron!” he chuckled hoarsely. “That’s not bad! If you want to see
the children of the pore--that’s the place to see ’em!”
He rose from his chair and with a nod stole across the room and
vanished through the half-opened doorway. Vanished from life, thought
Luke, but in this he was mistaken.
CHAPTER VII
That morning had been one of great mental distress to Margaret
Leferre. Three times she had taken up the telephone to call Luke;
three times she had put down the instrument. And then Mr. Danty Morell
had called. Almost she did not receive him. She was in that state of
mind when his appearance gave an ugliness to reality of which she
would rather have remained unconscious.
Daybreak had come to her after a night of dreams; horrid dreams of the
dead Rex, of Luke, of lawyers gabbling through the esoteric terms of a
marriage deed. And out of all these disturbing dreams one fact had
emerged: she hated Luke--hated him with an intensity that overbalanced
all reason. She tried to recall the time when he had meant everything
in the world to her, when her pulse quickened at the sound of his
voice and the day seemed a little brighter for his presence.
Desperately, and for the sake of her own dwindling self-respect, she
endeavoured to recapture those hours when he was as a very god to her.
She tried to find excuses for him, and in doing so she was
unconsciously fanning the flame of her resentment. She had grown to
hate herself for the tremendous treachery she contemplated. It made
matters no easier that she found herself committed to a conspiracy
with a man who a few months before had been a stranger.
In this mood Danton found her. He was soberly attired; even in his
black silk hat there was rather a suggestion of memorial service than
wedding.
She began without preliminary; she was so far involved that there was
no need for pretense.
“I can’t go through with this, Danton,” she said--she had never taken
kindly to “Danty,” and after a few embarrassed attempts to carry off
the familiarity she compromised with the more stately Christian name.
“I have made up my mind to call up Luke and tell him. It is
horrible--I can’t do it.”
He was too clever to attempt a contest. Moreover, he had expected an
eleventh-hour penitence.
“Exactly what is horrible?” he asked. “There are certain horrible
aspects of the affair which have rather depressed me. Naturally I
cannot discuss those with you, but--well, it is rather horrible that
you hate him and must sacrifice yourself. When Luke told me that the
honeymoon was to be spent in Paris I didn’t like it. Though why you
should go on a honeymoon at all I don’t know. You remember the
Fletcher girl who broke her leg as she was stepping into the carriage?
Naturally one hates suggesting things, but--I know a doctor who would
certify a sprained ankle.…”
She shook her head, but obviously she was thinking over this
suggestion. She must have the climax of the drama at once. Must at the
very door of the registrar’s office tell Luke the truth about the
marriage--or there must be no marriage. With the ink still fresh on
the antenuptial contract she must tell him that she had deliberately
set herself to ruin him. There must be no lingering--a quick finale
whilst the hatred was not within her, before some sentimental spirit
of mercy undid the work and left her tied to a man she secretly
loathed.
Danty saw her weakening. There was need to flog her animosities to
fullest activity. He had a weapon to his hand: he had most carefully
reserved this to the last.
“I suppose you wonder why I am so bitter about Maddison,” he said.
There was no reason in the world why he should suppose anything of the
sort. He had left her with no doubt in her mind that he hated Luke for
more reasons than she could remember. He was too skilful a strategist
to have suggested that he regarded Luke Maddison as a rival. That
would have removed him from the sphere of disinterested friendship and
discounted every move he made, every argument he employed. And yet,
with every day that passed, he found it more and more difficult to
conceal his growing passion for her. She was so different from the
women he had known, so far removed from the Millie Haynes type; a
lady, one of the class against which he had warred incessantly. He had
to school himself to maintain the rôle of platonic friend. A single
false move would have brought him to disaster.
“I hate him because I loved Rex,” Danty continued, “and he will never
leave Rex alone. The poor boy is not beneath the earth before he makes
the most shocking accusation against him----”
“What?” She was on fire again.
“Forgery! You wouldn’t believe it possible, but Luke told me
confidentially that a few days before Rex’s death he had forged a
check for eighteen thousand. A stupid accusation, as I told him--for I
was with Rex when the check was given to him by Luke Maddison.”
She sat motionless, her chin held up, a new light in her eyes.
“He said that?” She spoke in so low a voice that she was almost
inaudible. “That Rex forged----but he couldn’t have! How beastly!”
He saw her lip quiver and knew that it was his moment. Bending toward
her, he began to speak, quickly, eagerly. He spoke of things which in
other moments she would have instantly resented, and she listened
unmoved: in her cold fury she became elemental--somewhere within her a
weak, protesting voice told her that she should not listen, but it
grew weaker and subsided into a murmur of unease.
At two o’clock she stepped from her car at the door of the Marylebone
registrar’s office, and Luke, waiting in the room of that official,
turned to greet the palest bride that had ever entered those
commonplace portals.
She spoke not at all, only answered the questions that were put to
her. With a shudder she felt the ring slip upon her finger.
It was all over so quickly that she could not believe that the first
act of her vengeance was played. Somebody put a pen into her hand, and
a squat forefinger showed her the place where she must sign her name.
For a long time she held the pen, and when she wrote it wavered in her
fingers and the scrawled signature looked like nothing she had ever
seen.
Leaving for Paris that night--the Meurice, or was it the Bristol?
There was some confusion in her mind about these details; anyway, they
did not matter if she kept her courage. The two o’clock wedding had
been an inspiration. She went back to her house--Luke was coming to
dinner; they were to leave immediately after to catch the night boat
from Southampton.
“Wife! It’s wonderful--unbelievable!”
Luke’s voice was tremulous. They were alone in her pretty little
drawing room, and he was sitting by her side, his arm around her. She
was very still and unyielding, but he thought that he understood this.
Luke was bubbling over with excitement--he was like a boy who had
received a new and wonderful present.
“I say, did you see that queer-looking man standing on the pavement as
we came out? A fellow named Lewing--a thief of some kind. I wonder if
he came to pick pockets? I’ll bet he did; touched his hat to me as I
came out.”
She was not listening, and, after he had gone, could remember nothing
that he had said except something about Rex. It was indecent of him to
mention the boy. Danty rang her up, but she would not see or receive
him. She must go through now without help. Luke was coming at seven,
At six she called him on the telephone, and had one panicky moment
when she feared that he had already left his flat and could not be
found. Then she heard his voice.
“Darling, isn’t it odd? I can’t believe it--I still think of myself as
a crusty old bachelor----”
“Luke, I want you to do something for me.” She found her voice at
last. “No--no, don’t interrupt. It’s a big thing. I don’t want to go
away to-night, not for a day or two. I want to be alone, not to see
you. My nerves are in a terrible state; I think I am on the verge of a
breakdown.”
As she went on, he listened with a growing sense of alarm and dismay.
And yet he was not thinking of himself.
“I’ve been a selfish brute. Of course, darling, I quite understand.”
The conversation did not occupy five minutes of time; he could hardly
realize what was happening, to what he was agreeing, before he was
sitting at his writing table staring blankly at the telegraph forms by
which he was to cancel so many pleasant arrangements.
Danty, waiting at Waterloo Station with a full view of the barrier,
watched the mail-boat passengers filter through to the platform. He
saw the barrier close and the red tail lights of the train disappear
into the darkness, and went home humming a little song, for Mr. and
Mrs. Luke Maddison were not among the passengers.
CHAPTER VIII
The general manager of Maddison’s Bank was not a man who could
easily be taken by surprise. He had the fatalistic qualities which are
peculiar to all men engaged in the business of finance. The vagaries
of markets, the incidence of bank rates, and the fluctuations of trade
left him unmoved. He had once been held up by an armed robber and did
not so much as change colour.
Yet he stared with amazement and was physically incapable of coherent
speech when he saw Luke Maddison walk through the outer office toward
his private room.
“It’s all right, Stiles,” smiled Luke: “You’re not seeing a ghost.”
Mr. Stiles recovered his speech.
“I thought--um----”
“You thought I was on my honeymoon, but I’m not,” said Luke as he
preceded the manager to his room.
He stopped on the threshold at the sight of a burly figure disposed in
the easiest armchair.
“Mr. Bird called, and I was--er--I thought you wouldn’t mind if I saw
him in your office.”
Luke Maddison was already shaking hands with his visitor.
“Thought you might turn up,” said the Sparrow cheerfully. “I noticed
you weren’t on the honeymoon express.”
Luke laughed.
“You were at Waterloo, I suppose?”
“Me and about fourteen crooks various,” said the detective, “but only
two of us interested in the boat train. All the rest were low, common
luggage pinchers, but they didn’t stay long. Me and him held on to the
Paris Limited till it went out.”
“Who was the ‘him’?” asked Luke, but Mr. Sparrow was not informative.
“Nothing wrong, Mr. Maddison? Yes, I know that your good lady is far
from well, but nothing serious?”
It was queer to hear Margaret referred to as “a good lady,” and Luke
found himself laughing quietly.
“I come up to see you about a cheap little lob-crawlin’ roustabout,”
explained the Sparrow. “If it’s not asking you to betray a criminal’s
confidence, I’d like to know what brought Lewing to you yesterday?”
Luke hesitated. He was loath to say anything which might get the man
or his principal into trouble.
“He didn’t come for money perhaps--on behalf of the Gunner?” Mr. Bird
was watching him keenly. “I thought so. The Gunner’s appealin’, that’s
true, an’ I think he’ll get away with it. I was discussin’ it in the
exercise yard at Brixton Prison, and this Lewing must have been
walking round and overheard. What did you give him?”
As nearly as he could recall Luke gave him the gist of the interview.
The Sparrow was amused.
“The Gunner wouldn’t talk to a man like Lewing. Haynes belongs to what
the newspaper writers call the aristocracy of crime. If you’ll
prosecute I’ll pull him in.”
But Luke was in no sense agreeable to such a course.
“All right--leave him. He’ll go around workin’ against the children of
the poor till one day he’ll fall an’ I shall be on top of him.”
The phrase again attracted Luke’s attention, and he asked a question.
The Sparrow pursed his thick lips.
“People like you, Mr. Maddison, don’t understand. Look out of your
window now”--he pointed, and Luke walked to the window. “See that
girl--typist or somep’n. Two pound a week. She’s one of a family of
six (I’m makin’ all this up) an’ lives in Bermonsey. Every hand’s
against her. You don’t think so? I’m tellin’ you. They rob her, they
lay in wait for her. They crowd round busses an’ pinch her purse.
Maybe some smart-lookin’ lad asks her to go to the pictures--then one
evenin’ she’ll go to supper in a flash night club. See that man? Old
feller? Brought up a family on nothin’--he’s a workin’ carpenter by
his bag. Do you know what they’ll do to him? They’ll get him tight,
pinch his tools, and turn out his pockets. That’s why I’m drawin’ so
much a week--for protectin’ the children of the poor. Do you get
that?”
“But I thought that thieves only went after the rich?” said Luke.
Mr. Bird guffawed.
“What have the rich got? Their money’s in safes. They’ve servants and
telephones, and the law’s on their side. A thief would rather rob the
poor than rob anybody. They’re helpless. I’ll tell you, Mr. Maddison,
you’ve no idea what the poor are like, and you’ve no idea of what the
rats are like. I could take you to a place in South London where they
live in herds--little wicked thieves--just like in books. Livin’
together in cellars and old warehouses. They’d hold your face down in
the river mud till you were dead--that’s if they had twenty pounds to
split between four of ’em.”
Luke shivered.
“It doesn’t seem possible.”
Mr. Bird smiled broadly.
“I hope you’ll never know how possible it is--what about that Lewing?”
Luke shook his head, and the Sparrow, heaving himself from the chair,
grunted his disapproval of such mercy.
“He’s one of the worst. Breakin’ an’ enterin’, did he tell you? He’s
got the heart of a worm--he wouldn’t break or enter anything more
dangerous than a veal an’ ham pie! He’s a shore thief--I’ll tell you
all about it one day.”
During the talk Stiles had appeared in the doorway twice. He was
obviously worried; frowned at Bird, and by such signs as Luke
understood signified his desire for an early interview. The detective
was hardly out of the office before Stiles came in.
“That check you signed yesterday for ninety-seven thousand--the bank
manager says he wants to see you urgently. He wouldn’t tell me what it
was about, after I had told him you were still in town.”
Luke frowned.
“But it was on my private account,” he said.
“That is exactly what I told him. I explained that you were
transferring that amount to the bank account, but he says he must see
you.”
The bank was not very far distant, and ten minutes later Luke was in
the manager’s office. He had first to receive the congratulations of
that official and to explain his presence in town. Margaret was
feeling better--he had telephoned to her early that morning, and her
message was reassuring.
“Now about this check, Mr. Maddison.” The manager became suddenly
businesslike. “You realize, of course, that it cannot be honoured?”
“What?” Luke looked at him incredulously and the manager laughed.
“Sounds queer, doesn’t it? Especially queer to me when I realize that
I am talking to the head of Maddison’s Bank; but it is a fact. It is
the merest formality, of course, but you as a banker will realize that
banking is based upon formalities----”
“Will you please tell me what you mean?” said Luke impatiently. “I
have six hundred thousand----”
“You had,” smiled the manager; “but you seem to forget, Mr. Maddison,
that you settled all your money and your securities on your wife!”
And then it dawned upon Luke Maddison that he was a penniless man. His
smile grew broader, his chuckle became a roar of laughter in which the
manager joined.
“That is the best joke I’ve heard.” Luke wiped his eyes. “Of course, I
had forgotten. I will see Mrs. Maddison”--he lingered on the
words--“and ask her to oblige me with a check for the amount.”
“Early,” warned the manager. “You know, of course, that I must return
this check unless I have her authority to pay?”
If Luke Maddison’s smile was a little contemptuous, he was justified
by his own standards.
He did not even trouble to see Margaret at once. Before lunch he
remembered and telephoned.
“I want to see you, darling,” he began.
“Why?” It was difficult to disguise the suspicion she felt.
“I want you to sign a little document,” he said gaily.
So that was it! Danty had warned her. Only she had never dreamed that
she would be asked to renounce her marriage portion so soon.
“A document?”
“I want you to transfer some money to me,” he said. “It is the merest
formality--I’ve discovered that I have rather less than I need.”
She thought quickly.
“Very well, come to the house at three o’clock.”
He forgot that the bank closed at three-thirty and agreed. After all,
it did not greatly matter if the check was returned. It was merely a
transference from his personal account to the bank’s.
He was, true to his methods, five minutes late, when he was shown into
her little sitting room. The first thing that struck him was that she
was dressed. He had pictured her resting in her negligee--in bed even.
She was not as pale as she had been. It was when he went to take her
in his arms that he had his first shock.
“Don’t kiss me--please!”
It was not a request; it was a peremptory command.
“Why--what is wrong, darling?”
She shook her head impatiently.
“Please tell me what you want.”
Her tone turned him cold. It was hard, almost antagonistic. He could
hardly believe the evidence of his senses.
Stammering like a schoolboy, he told her in disjointed sentences of
the situation which had arisen, and she listened and did not speak
until he stopped.
“Ninety-seven thousand pounds,” she said. “A tenth of that would have
saved Rex.”
He could only stare at her uncomprehendingly.
“It was rather dreadful to see a man make a god of money, Luke, and to
know that for its sake he is willing to sacrifice even a young life.”
To him her voice sounded like the clang of a bell; to herself it
hardly seemed that it was she who was speaking.
“And to accuse this poor dead boy of forgery--to add that infamy to
the other!”
“I--you are speaking of me?” he said in a whisper.
She nodded.
“Of you. I knew that you were coming to get your money back--that is
why I did not go with you to France. I wanted it to happen here. Here,
where I have friends and can meet you on even terms.”
A pause, and then:
“Luke, I am giving you no money. You gave it to me--it is mine. Not a
penny can you have--not a penny!”
She wished he would speak during the silence that followed. She wished
he would rave, curse her, do all the things that were consistent with
her picture of him. But he said nothing. He was not even looking at
her, but was studying the pattern of the carpet. Presently he jerked
up his head.
“Good-bye,” he said, and turned on his heel.
She heard the door close on him, and then there came to her a
realization that made her brain reel. She loved him.
CHAPTER IX
Luke Maddison walked into his office so calmly that Stiles, who from
his glass-partitioned office saw him pass, did not dream of the
devastating catastrophe which had shattered the life of his young
employer. Stiles glanced up at the clock and grunted his satisfaction.
Evidently the matter of the check had been satisfactorily adjusted.
The house ’phone rang and he took up the instrument.
“Will you come in?”
Luke’s voice was even; not by so much as a tremor did he betray his
emotion.
There was nothing remarkable to betray. He was astounded at his own
amazing calm, and it was some time before he had discovered a reason
for his abnormal serenity. He was living entirely in the present, not
daring to look backward, indifferent to what waited on the morrow.
Stiles, who had known him from a child, saw something in his face that
he had never seen before, and was alarmed.
“Anything wrong, sir?” he asked anxiously.
Luke Maddison pursed his lips as though he were going to whistle.
“I don’t know. I haven’t quite got things into perspective. Sit down,
Stiles.”
Again he pursed his lips, staring past his manager; and then, in
measured, deliberate tones, he told the man just what had happened. It
was not a moment for reticence, nor did he feel the necessity for
covering up or excusing Margaret’s action. He was dealing with
definite and final facts, and he set them forth with a sort of
cold-blooded precision, as he would have set forth the values in a
prospectus.
Stiles heard but at first could not comprehend the magnitude of the
disaster. At last he made a little moaning sound, and this seemed to
appeal to some latent sense of humour in Luke Maddison, for he smiled.
“You’ll have to do the best you can, Stiles. I suppose one has friends
in the City who would help, but I haven’t the faith to go to
them--faith in anything. No, I’m not stunned, I’m destroyed. But I’m
not feeling sorry for myself--I wish I could. That at least would
bring me back to realities.”
“What are you going to do?” Stiles’ voice was little above a whisper.
Luke Maddison shook his head.
“I don’t know exactly,” he frowned. “What does one do in these
circumstances? Go away and shoot lions! Isn’t that the usual course
for broken-hearted men to take? I don’t know.”
Stiles glanced at his watch and got up from the table.
“I’m going to see the bank,” he said, with remarkable energy. “I think
we can lodge those Artificial Silk shares against an overdraft.”
Luke made no comment. He heard the staccato explosion of Stiles’
voice--the old man invariably got that way when he was excited. He was
conscious that Stiles had gone and shut the door behind him.
For ten minutes he sat at the desk, looking straight ahead, trying
hard to reëstablish touch with life. Then he rose, took his hat from
the stand, mechanically drew on his gloves and went down the private
staircase into the street.
As he opened the door of his flat he heard the telephone bell ringing,
and had time to stop the butler as he was going to it to answer.
“Leave it, will you, please,” he said.
The ’phone was in his own little study leading from his bedroom. He
lifted the receiver and put it on the table. Then, locking the door,
he changed his clothes. He took the first garments that came to him;
was unaware, till he was dressed, that trousers and coat were a bad
match. Counting the money in his pockets, he found he had a little
over fifty pounds. He grew thoughtful at this. Was that his or hers?
It was a ridiculous problem, yet he battled it out for a long while;
but all the time realities avoided him. He could only think of
Margaret as A, himself as B. There was C, which stood for money--did
this belong to A or B?
He threw the notes on the table, retaining the silver, and went out
into the hall. He was taking down a light overcoat when the butler
appeared at his elbow to ask the inevitable question.
“No, no, I’m dining out to-night.” And then, with the open door in his
hand, he remembered. “I left some money on the table in my study. Take
half for yourself and half for the cook--I shall not want you after
this week.”
He left the man petrified with amazement and dismay.
Why he gravitated to the Embankment he could never tell; it seemed a
natural objective. He had no thought of suicide, no intention of
finding that gross way to forgetfulness. Walking slowly by the
parapet, he came to a halt before Scotland Yard and eyed that Gothic
building incuriously. That big detective was there, the Sparrow--the
Sparrow, who righted so many wrongs, could hardly disentangle the
problem which deadened the mind of Luke Maddison. The “children of the
poor”! He smiled mirthlessly. He was one of the children of the poor,
the natural charge of that big man. To protect the children of the
poor and punish the wrongdoer. Who had done wrong? Margaret? He tried
hard to apportion all blame to her, to hate her. He shook his head and
walked slowly back toward Blackfriars.
Opposite the Temple station he rested again. There was a narrow street
running up to the Strand--Norfolk Street, wasn’t it? And his lawyer
had his office there. Why not see him and tell him all that had
happened? It was the sane thing to do. But then Luke Maddison realized
that he was not sane. He was the maddest being in the maddest world.
He went on toward Blackfriars and came to a halt before the tram
station. There was a long queue of people waiting to board the cars
which arrived empty and went rolling along the Embankment crowded with
humanity. Husbands and wives, possibly; young men going back to
sweethearts who loved them; girls who had faith in some men or other
and were ready to make every sacrifice for them. To Luke Maddison
every car that drew away was laden with happy people, their day’s work
ended, the recreations and pleasures of the night before them. Old
men, young men; girls looking trim and smart; young men smoking big
pipes, with a newspaper under their arms; bespectacled students--they
hypnotized him, these great, blazing tramcars. He watched men and
women mounting to the top, tried to identify them through the glazed
windows.
He was standing with his back to the parapet, his elbows resting on
the stone.
“Are you waiting for anybody?”
The voice had authority, though it was quite kind. He looked up to
meet the suspicious scrutiny of a City policeman. The City police do
not like to see men lingering indecisively, one hand on the parapet,
the swirling black river below--especially a white-faced man, with a
tense face and an almost horrified stare.
“N-no,” stammered Luke, “I’m--just watching.”
The policeman was looking at him curiously, as though he was trying to
remember his face.
“I’ve seen you before somewhere, haven’t I?”
“I dare say,” said Luke, and turned away abruptly.
He followed the homeward-wending crowd across Blackfriars Bridge. It
was dark and cold, and he struggled into the overcoat which he had
been carrying on his arm. He remembered somewhere in the borough that
he entered a little coffee-house, redolent of burning lard.
At eleven o’clock it began to rain, a fine drizzle that very soon
soaked through the light coat. He was walking aimlessly along York
Road in the direction of Westminster. A man ahead of him was walking
more slowly, a slouching man with his hands in his pockets and his
coat collar turned up. Luke was wearing rubber-soled shoes, and came
up to the walker before he was aware of his presence. He saw the night
wanderer lurch sideways with a snarl, stoop forward as though he were
going to run, and then something in Luke’s face or appearance checked
his flight.
“Hullo!” he said huskily. “Thought you was a busy.”
Luke recognized him.
“You’re Lewing, aren’t you?”
The man peered into his face.
“Blimey, if it ain’t Mr. What’s-your-name?--Maddison! What you doing
down here? You should have come and seen me down Tooley Street: this
ain’t my pitch.”
Twice he looked back furtively over his shoulder.
“You thought I was a detective?”
The thin lips of the man twisted in a leer.
“That’s what I said. No, I thought you was one of Connor’s lot. They
chased me out of Rotherhithe to-night, said I’d been ‘nosing’ on ’em.
That’s why I’m round here. Connor’s crowd always thinks that someone’s
been nosing if one of his gang’s dragged.”
“Nosing? You mean spying?”
“Giving ’em away to the police,” explained Mr. Lewing. “Connor’s
brother got caught the other night and they got a yarn down Tooley
Street that I’d done it.”
Luke began dimly to understand.
“Come down here.”
The clawlike hands of Lewing caught him and dragged him down a narrow,
ill-lit street.
“I’m nervous to-night,” he said, and here he was speaking the truth,
for his voice became a little whimpering gasp. “You’re a gentleman,
Mr. Maddison. You’d help a pore feller to get away. You know what
Connor is--he’d knife you for twopence. Bumping off, he calls it--he’s
an American; at least, he’s been in Sing Song.… Sing Sing, is it?
Anyway, it’s a stir. A couple of quid’d get me out of London.”
“I haven’t got a couple of pounds with me,” said Luke.
He was already weary of the companionship, and, but for being in his
present condition, would never have submitted to being dragged into
this foul little street.
“Perhaps I can call at your office in the morning?” Lewing’s voice
betrayed his anxiety. And then, as he remembered: “I give that ten
pounds to the Gunner----”
“You gave nothing to the Gunner,” said Luke coldly. “Mr. Bird told me
all about you.”
There was an embarrassed silence.
“Anyway, I’d like you to stay with me, sir,” said the man. “I called
you a busy just now, and you look like a busy. If any of them Connors
see me with a busy they’ll----”
They had just turned the corner into an even narrower street, and
Lewing stopped suddenly, Four dark shapes, two on the pavement, two in
the roadway, confronted them. Luke surveyed them curiously. They all
seemed to have caps drawn over their eyes; each man had both hands in
his pockets.
“Here, what’s the idea, Joe?” Lewing’s voice was a whine. “This
gentleman is taking me round----”
The leader of the four laughed harshly.
“You’ve got to have a busy with you, have you?” he said with an oath.
“You ain’t satisfied with nosing on us Connors, but you got to carry
Scotland Yard strapped under your arm. That’s yours, Lewing!”
To Luke it only seemed that the man had edged a little closer to
Lewing as he spoke. Lewing coughed and fell groggily against Luke.
“Get the busy,” said a snarling voice.
Luke swung back but not quite in time. He saw the glitter of steel and
felt as though a hot iron had been drawn across his breast; and then a
curious weakness came on him, and he leaned back against the wall and
gradually slipped into a sitting position. His last conscious
impression was the clattering feet of running men; four dark shapes
vanished into a greater darkness, and he was left alone, with
something that sprawled across the pavement, staring with unseeing
eyes at the flickering light of the street lamps.
CHAPTER X
At noon the next day Mr. Danton Morell called with all the news
procurable--and that was not much.
“He seems to have disappeared from London, but I shouldn’t be very
much alarmed about that,” he said.
Margaret Maddison sat white faced by her writing table, playing with a
pen. She had not slept at all since Luke’s butler had wakened her at
midnight to ask for information about his master. Early that morning
she had weakened sufficiently to ring up Luke’s office, only to find
that she had communicated her own alarm to Mr. Stiles.
“Naturally he wants to worry you,” said Danty with a little smile.
“That’s part of his scheme. I dare say if you had told old Stiles that
you were ready to give a check for----”
“I told Mr. Stiles that I’d give him a check for any money he wanted,”
she said.
Her voice was a little cold and hard. Danty grew alarmed. He was
evidently on the wrong track; it was not easy to find the right one.
“Then, if I may say so, you were extremely foolish. After all, you
know the man; you know exactly what poor Rex thought of him; you went
into this with your eyes open----”
“I know.” She was impatient. “I would do it again, I think--perhaps in
another way. I was rather--brutal.”
She rose from the table and walked slowly across to the fireplace,
took a cigarette from an enamelled box on the mantelpiece, lit it,
only to throw it into the fire.
“I am worried, Danton,” she admitted. “I haven’t the stamina for hate.
I haven’t even the illusion that I’ve done right.”
“Stiles took your check, of course?”
She shook her head.
“No; he said it wouldn’t be necessary. I think Luke must have told him
about--everything. He was very sharp with me, almost rude.”
“Fire him,” said Danty promptly. “Don’t forget that you own the
bank----”
“I do not own the bank,” she interrupted. “My lawyer rang me up this
morning to say that by an omission the bank property was not included
in the contract--and I am glad. Of course I shall transfer back to
Luke every penny I have taken from him.”
“Are you mad?”
He almost shouted the words.
She had not seen this Danton before, and she stared at him in
amazement. He realized his mistake instantly.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, almost humbly. “I’m thinking of you;
I’m thinking of how easily his disappearance may be a trick, as I’m
perfectly sure it is. It is like you to want to give him back his
money, but suppose you do, what then? You’re married to him; he’s
hardly likely to give you grounds for divorce, and the net result of
your generosity would be that you would be penniless, dependent on his
charity for every farthing.”
She thought for a long time on this, looking down into the fire. It
was difficult to know what Margaret was thinking about: her face was
set; the side view he had of her eyes told him nothing.
“I wanted to hurt him, and yet I was very frightened. If he had only
said something, if he had only abused me… it was awful!”
She closed her eyes as though to shut out the memory of Luke’s face.
“He’ll be back to-night,” said Danty cheerfully, “and then you’d
better settle it among yourselves. I’m almost beginning to regret that
I gave you any advice, and yet God knows I did not act from
self-interest.”
“Why, of course not.” She held out her hand impulsively and he took
it. He was now mastering the situation.
Yet he was puzzled, and all the way home he was trying to find a
likely explanation for Luke’s disappearance. He had formed an estimate
of Luke Maddison’s character, and his own prognosis of what would
follow Margaret’s revelation was, frankly, that the man he hated would
take one of two courses: he would either display an immense sanity and
consult his solicitors, or he would go the way of Rex Leferre.
A newspaper placard attracted his attention; he tapped on the glass
and stopped the cab to buy a copy of the journal. “Race Gang Murder,”
said the contents bill, and Danty was interested in gang fights. The
scene of the tragedy was unknown to him. In his more humble days he
had worked North London. The Borough and Lambeth were _terra
incognita_.
As a result of a stabbing affray, arising, it is believed, from a
quarrel between members of rival race gangs, a man named Lewing was
killed, and his companion, whose identity the police are anxious to
establish, is now lying in a dangerous condition at St. Thomas’s
Hospital, suffering from a knife wound in the breast. The Flying Squad
is combing South London to find the assailants, who are believed to be
members of a dangerous criminal gang operating in the Borough.
Danty tossed the paper on to the floor of the cab. It was one of those
commonplace crimes which have no especial interest for the well-to-do
classes, and just now he was on the verge of becoming one of that
exclusive set.
It may be said that he had no exact plan as to what part he would play
in the present situation. He could make money more easily with Luke
out of the way, and with this fool girl Margaret controlling a
fortune, than he could if he were working under the cold blue eyes of
Luke who hated him. He had not disguised the fact, when he discussed
Rex and the forgery, that he believed Rex was more victim than
instigator of the crime.
His disappearance was really a sensible relief. It was hardly likely
that his relationship with Margaret could have continued if she were
in love with her husband and were guided by him. All that Danty
planned was that Luke should cease to be a factor; and he had planned
well. Whether he took his profits in one shape or another was a matter
of indifference, except--the growing fascination that Margaret was
exercising over him. He never saw her but there grew a stronger desire
for another relationship than confidential friend. Once he had touched
her hand by a well-timed accident. She had let her hand rest against
his long enough to encourage the hope that he might go farther; but
when he had followed up this opening she had left him in no doubt
about her feelings. Margaret had the disconcerting habit of candour.
“I hope you aren’t going to be very silly, Danton, and imagine that
you’re in love with me,” she said.
This was in the days when Rex was alive, and when her pulse beat a
little quicker at the sound of Luke Maddison’s footstep.
Danty shrugged his shoulders. Women change; their charm is their
inconsistency.
He stepped out of the taxi and turned to pay the driver.
“Morning, Mr. Morell.”
Danty brought his head round slowly. Where had the Sparrow come from?
He had a most alarming trick of appearing from nowhere. As a matter of
fact, Mr. Bird had been standing in the roadway but had been
momentarily screened by the taxi.
“I thought I’d like to have a little chat with you,” he beamed. “Seen
anything of Mr. Maddison?”
It was on the tip of Danty’s tongue to disclaim any acquaintance with
Luke Maddison’s movements.
“Not since the marriage,” he said.
“Maybe he’s gone away alone on his honeymoon,” said the Sparrow,
smiling broadly. “I can’t keep track of these modern ways of going on.
I suppose you haven’t been on a honeymoon for a long time, Mr.
Morell?”
His keen, bright eyes, half hidden behind the puffy eyelids, fixed
Danton Morell like a gimlet. Danty did not flinch.
“I’ve never been married,” he said.
He could easily have ended the interview by brushing past the
detective and walking into the vestibule of the building--it was his
error that he submitted to the cross-examination.
“A pleasure to come,” said the Sparrow brightly. “I was having a
little talk with Gunner Haynes about you.”
In spite of his self-control, Danton Morell felt the colour leave his
face.
“Oh, were you?” he said defiantly. “And who is Gunner Haynes?”
“A low criminal,” said the Sparrow in melancholy tones. “I meet
’em--it’s my job. There’s a lot of things I like about the Gunner.
First of all I like him because he never carries a gun, and secondly I
do admire his memory! Got the memory of a horse, that old Gunner! He’s
the sort of fellow that remembers the colour of the socks he was
wearing the day the Armistice was signed. I shouldn’t be surprised if
they were khaki. What colour socks did you wear that day, Mr. Morell?”
There was something so deadly in that question that Danton held his
breath. On Armistice Day he had been serving a sentence of eighteen
months in Peterhead Jail. Had the Gunner recognized and betrayed him?
He had only to consider this possibility to find a reason for its
rejection. If Gunner Haynes knew he was alive and get-at-able, he
would tell no police officer. Very surely and expeditiously he would
settle his own account.
“I can’t tell you what kind of socks I was wearing,” he drawled. “Are
you interested in the hosiery business?”
Mr. Bird nodded solemnly.
“Especially gray socks,” he said; “gray woolen socks with a little
broad arrow on the ankle.”
It was in perfect good-humour, and could not, by any effort of the
imagination, be described as offensive. Before Danton could speak he
went on:
“I suppose you can’t oblige me with information? I’d like to know why
Mr. Maddison went away yesterday, and where he’s gone. I’m thinking of
sending him a birthday present. How long are you staying in London,
Mr. Morell?”
The question was asked abruptly; the eyes behind the heavy lids seemed
to brighten when Danty answered.
“About a month.”
“I was thinking perhaps you’d be going next week.”
With a little nod he turned and went off in his heavy, ponderous
fashion. Danty looked after him, biting his lip. He had received a
warning. Though he would rather have the warning from the police than
the more ungentle warning which Gunner Haynes would have delivered.
He was still pondering the detective’s words when he was dressing for
dinner that night. It couldn’t have been the Gunner--Bird was
guessing, hoping to surprise a confirmation of his suspicions.
Margaret and he were dining together that night, and when she ’phoned
to him that afternoon he thought that she was cancelling the
engagement, and had two convincing arguments to make her reconsider
her decision. But she had merely ’phoned to ask him if he had any
further news.
She was infinitely more cheerful when he saw her that night; was
reaffirmed in her old determination.
“You’ll hear from him to-morrow,” smiled Danty over the coffee. “He’s
not the sort of man who gets very far from the City of London, where
the money is made!”
She sighed.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” she said.
At that moment two eminent surgeons stood, one on each side of a bed
in St. Thomas’s Hospital. One of them folded his stethoscope and
looked down at the unconscious patient with a little grimace.
“You haven’t found this man’s name, constable?”
The detective officer who sat by the bed shook his head.
“No, sir.”
The surgeon turned to his colleague.
“Pneumonia undoubtedly, Sir John,” he said briskly. “The lung is badly
pierced--the pneumonia symptoms were to be expected, don’t you think?”
He beckoned the third of the party, the house surgeon, who was
attending another patient on the other side of the ward.
“This fellow will probably die to-night,” he said, almost brightly. “I
don’t see what you can do except to make him as comfortable as you
can. Rather a superior-looking fellow to be a member of a gang.”
The unconscious man smiled and muttered a word.
“Sounded like ‘Margaret’ to me,” said the interested surgeon. “Pity
you don’t know who he is, you might have notified his wife--I hardly
think there’s time now.”
CHAPTER XI
It was the thirteenth day after the disappearance of Luke Maddison,
and a day of fate for his wife, since it put a period to the long and
agonizing hours of doubt and uncertainty, of self-reproach that at
times approached self-loathing. Twice she had been on the point of
acquainting the police, and twice had Danty stopped her.
It was a time of worry for Danty also, but from quite another cause.
What had puzzled, and to some degree comforted her, was the fact that
Mr. Stiles, the manager of Maddison’s Bank, had shown no particular
anxiety. She guessed, or knew, that Luke had told him of her act, for
when she had offered her check it had been almost peremptorily
refused. What she did not realize was that in the days before she
became a factor in Luke Maddison’s life, and largely determined his
actions, Luke was in the habit of disappearing into the blue.
Invariably it was from Spain that Stiles had received a postcard
notifying him of the imminent return of his employer. The country had
a fascination for Luke Maddison. He spoke the language like a native.
He was one of the few Englishmen who understood and enjoyed the
punctilio of bull fighting, and he loved nothing better than to retire
to some lodging in Cordoba or Ronda and, making that his headquarters,
rove the countryside for weeks on end.
Stiles was uneasy, but he had that hope left, that in this great
crisis of his affairs Luke Maddison had gone back to the scenes of his
happy holidays.
During all this period of waiting Margaret Maddison had kept to her
house. She was not seen in the fashionable restaurants she usually
patronized, and her few friends never doubted that she was on her
honeymoon. Danty had advised that she should take the car and go by
night to a remote Cornish village and stay there till what he
described as the “scandal” had blown over; but she was too worried
about Luke to follow this counsel.
A telegram had come to her on this twelfth morning, and she had just
’phoned to Danton Morell asking him to call, when her butler came in
with a card upon a salver. Margaret read the name and frowned.
“Miss Mary Bolford?” Who was she? “Tell her I’m not at home.”
“I told her that, madam,” said the man, “but she was rather cool about
it. She said she knew you were in, and that she insisted upon seeing
you.”
Margaret looked at the card again. In the left-hand corner where the
address is usually inscribed were the words: _Daily Post-Herald_. She
realized the futility of denying the interview; was in some terror,
being wholly unacquainted with the ethics of journalism, that if she
refused to see Miss Mary Bolford that interesting reporter (as she
guessed her to be) might invent an interview, with painful
consequences.
“Show her up, please,” she said.
She expected something rather mannish, or at best a girl who had
developed her intellectual side at the expense of her appearance, and
she was not prepared for the pretty girl in the neatly tailored
costume who walked into the drawing room, displaying none of the
nervousness nor showing the apologetic manner which Margaret expected.
“Are you Miss Bolford?” asked Margaret, in surprise.
The girl nodded her head and smiled.
“I’m a reporter: I suppose you gathered that from my card, Mrs.
Maddison?”
Mrs. Maddison! It was the first time she had been called by that name,
and somehow it seemed to bring home to her the tragedy of those past
twelve days.
“I told the butler to say I was out to everybody. I am not feeling
very well, and I’m staying in town----”
“That’s what I’ve come about--may I sit down?”
Margaret pointed to a chair, and the girl reporter settled herself
comfortably.
“I realize that you think we’re being terrible, prying into your
private affairs, but that is our business,” she said, with almost
offensive brusqueness. “Newspaper readers love a romance, whether it
is happy or unhappy, and we have news that your honeymoon was
interrupted and that your husband had to go abroad--or has he gone
abroad? Mr. Stiles--that’s the manager of the bank--suggested that he
had, without saying as much.”
Margaret did not speak for a second, and then:
“My husband is abroad, yes.”
“Do you know where he is?”
Margaret was not prepared for so open an attack and for a second was
nonplussed.
“Yes, I think I do,” she said at last; “but I am not aware that that
is a matter of public interest.”
Mary Bolford looked at Margaret straightly and searchingly. She had
rather nice gray eyes, and they were not at all hostile. The girl
shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Maddison, but I think I can best help you, as well as
help myself, if I am perfectly frank with you. We have a story that
you quarrelled with your husband on your wedding day and that he----”
“Ran away?” suggested Margaret coldly.
“Well, not exactly that. The truth is, I’ve a very good friend at
Scotland Yard, and he came to me to-day to ask if we on the newspaper
had any information as to Mr. Maddison’s whereabouts. And of course we
haven’t. Mr. Bird was not terribly communicative--Mr. Bird is
Inspector Bird of the C.I.D.----”
“What is the C.I.D.?” asked Margaret mechanically. She was fighting
for time. The mere mention of the detective frightened her--if she
stood in terror of anything it was that kind of loose talk which is as
loosely described as scandal.
The girl reporter explained. Again Margaret thought quickly.
“Suppose I were to tell you that we quarrelled? Is that a matter of
public interest, too?”
To her surprise, she discovered that accidentally she had produced an
explanation for Luke’s disappearance which might be accepted without
question.
“Of course not! You must think I’ve an awful cheek to come at all. The
last thing we want to do is to pry into a purely personal matter. If
that is the explanation I can only apologize and make a graceful
exit!”
She rose briskly; but in those laughing eyes Margaret read sympathy.
“You see,” she went on, “if Mr. Maddison had been called away on his
wedding day to conduct some big financial deal, or from almost any
cause other than--well, the cause you’ve given, it would have been a
really interesting story. I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Maddison.” She held
out her hand impulsively and Margaret took it.
“I think I’m rather sorry, too,” she said, and sighed.
And then Mary Bolford saw her face grow hard.
“I was sorry yesterday--perhaps I’m not as sorry to-day. That’s rather
cryptic, and I hope you won’t attempt to interpret it.”
She walked with the girl to the landing, and waited till she heard the
door close upon her.
Danty had arrived during the interview; she had heard the butler show
him into the small anteroom that adjoined the drawing room. She opened
the door.
“Come in,” she said.
“Who was that?” asked Danton Morell, a little anxiously. “Fenning said
that it was a reporter. What has she come about?”
Margaret smiled wryly.
“She was trying to find something romantic in my marriage,” she said.
“I’m afraid even she’ll never find it--read this.”
She opened a drawer of the desk, took out a folded sheet of paper and
handed it to him. It was a telegram addressed to Margaret Maddison:
You can hardly expect me to come back to you. In a few months I will
furnish you with sufficient evidence to enable you to secure a
divorce. I am not entirely without money, therefore I am not entirely
without pleasant consolations.
It was signed “Luke,” and had been handed in at Paris at eight-thirty
that morning.
“That’s that,” she said. Her tone was light, but there was an
agitation in her heart which she had not imagined possible.
Consolations! And this was Luke Maddison, the idealist--a vulgar
philanderer, who had fled to--consolations!
“I’m rather surprised that you got this,” said Danton gravely. “I
shouldn’t have thought he would have troubled to wire.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Stiles probably knows his address, and may have telegraphed to him
that the police were making inquiries----”
“The police?” Danty’s voice was sharp. “Who told you the police were
inquiring?”
She related all that Mary Bolford had told her, and saw his face grow
troubled.
“The Sparrow--that’s the name they’ve given Bird. He hasn’t been
here?”
She shook her head. He was very thoughtful; stood for the space of a
moment rather tense, his eyes narrowed, his mind very far away.
“What are you going to do?” he asked at last.
“Immediately? I’m leaving for Madeira on Saturday. The sea voyage will
be good for me, and I shall be spared the experience of passing
through--Paris.” Her lips curled at the word.
She saw he was perturbed, and instantly he blurted the reason.
“I don’t think I could get away on Saturday,” he began, and she
smiled.
“There’s no need for you to get away, Danton. I am going alone. I want
to think things out.”
He was dismayed, though he did not show his feelings.
“How long will you be away?”
“A month perhaps,” she said. “I’m going to ask you to be an angel and
to look after things for me--I will probably give you a power of
attorney; you’ll make much better use of it than I made of Luke’s!”
Had she been looking for it, she would have seen relief in his face.
Danton was rather obvious beyond a certain point.
“I’ll do anything, of course,” he said.
The rest of their conversation was general, and he left very soon
after. When he had gone, she opened the morning newspaper, more
interested in the weather prospects than anything else. On the centre
page of the _Post-Herald_ she saw the photograph of a haggard and
unshaven man. It had evidently been taken in a hospital bed. His eyes
were closed; the photograph just showed the edge of the sheet a few
inches under his chin.
“Do You Know This Man?” demanded the headline.
She glanced at the letter-press, and saw that it had reference to a
murder that had been committed in South London, and that he whose
picture was shown had been present and had only escaped death by the
narrowest of margins. Not even his dearest friend would have
recognized Luke Maddison, for the photograph had not been taken until
the eleventh day of his detention in hospital, and it had been taken
in a very poor light.
CHAPTER XII
Mr. Bird was discussing in a casual way the gang murder which had
scarcely agitated Scotland Yard.
“I saw the photograph of that other bird in this morning’s paper,” he
said. “Looks like the leadin’ man in _Saved from the Sea_--that’s a
great film, superintendent: you ought to see it. Brought tears to my
eyes, and I’m no light crier.” He knitted his brows. “Maybe it wasn’t
that picture at all. Have you got the feller?”
Superintendent Kalley shook his head.
“No, nor are we likely to. If we roused Lewing from the dead he’d
swear he didn’t recognize the man who knifed him. This other fellow
will be the same.”
The Sparrow pursed his lips.
“I’d like to go over and take a look at this invalid--is he going to
die?”
Kalley spread out his hands, thereby expressing his complete
indifference.
“God knows! But I wouldn’t advise you to break in on Gennett’s
‘manor’--he’s rather touchy, and he’s got charge of the case.”
Professional etiquette therefore kept Mr. Bird from the casualty ward
of St. Thomas’s Hospital. He found, however, a copy of the statement
that the dying man had made. It was brief and unilluminative.
I do not know who killed Lewing. I was with him when he was stabbed,
but I only know him slightly. I should not recognize any of the men;
they were strangers to me and I did not see their faces.
Beneath this was a note in brackets:
“This man refuses to give his name.”
The Sparrow read and was slightly amused. He did not like the
inspector in charge of the case.
“Gennett’s going to tie himself into knots over this--good luck to
him!”
Later that afternoon he met Miss Mary Bolford by arrangement, and they
had tea together. For the Sparrow was of an age when he could with
impunity meet the prettiest and the youngest of girls without exciting
any other comment than the one he employed himself.
“We’re a regular Beauty and the Beast show, me and you, Miss Bolford.
How did you get on?”
“With Mrs. Maddison?” Mary sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know.
It made me feel quite unpleasant. They quarrelled on the day of their
marriage. Of course I don’t know why.”
“Maybe the brother,” said the inspector. “You know what relations
are----”
“But he’s dead.”
The Sparrow nodded solemnly.
They were in one of the busiest teashops in the Charing Cross area,
and all the time customers were coming and going. Mr. Bird had secured
for himself a small table in an alcove, and from here he commanded a
view of the shop door. There was no especial reason why he should take
this trouble, for he neither expected friends nor enemies. He was,
however, intensely interested in his fellow humans, and, moreover, he
cherished a dream that some day a man badly wanted by the police--any
man would do--and for whom they had searched in vain, would walk into
his view. He was something of an optimist.
“Quarrelled, eh? That’s a warning to you, young Mary Bolford--never
get married. I was only saying to-day----”
She saw his mouth and eyes open in astonishment. He was staring at the
door, and, turning her head, she looked.
A man had strolled into the café, his felt hat at the back of his
head, his hands in his pockets. He was rather dour-looking, and yet
his face was strikingly attractive.
“Well, well, well!” muttered Mr. Bird. “This is where Justice falls
off the top of the Old Bailey and hits the man they couldn’t hang.”
“Who is he?” she whispered.
“A bad lad,” replied the Sparrow under his breath. “Want to meet him?”
She nodded, and at that moment the eyes of the stranger and the
detective met. A slow smile dawned in the saturnine face, and at the
request of Mr. Bird’s beckoning finger he came slowly across, took off
his hat when he saw the girl, and, after a moment’s hesitation, sat
down.
“Hullo, Gunner!” said the Sparrow, mildly reproachful. “Have you broke
jail?”
“I certainly have,” smiled Gunner Haynes, and calling a waitress to
him ordered coffee.
“A friend of mine--a newspaper lady,” introduced the Sparrow. “Being a
member of that unlawful profession, she can meet the best jewel thief
in England without blushing!”
She met the Gunner’s amused eyes and smiled.
“In case you don’t know who I am,” said Haynes ironically.
“They quashed that conviction?” And, when the Gunner nodded, Mr. Bird
emitted a long and extravagant groan. “I’ve lost my faith in the court
of appeal,” he said despairingly. “I know exactly why you were in the
hotel, whose sparklers you were after--there’s no justice in the
world, Gunner.”
The Gunner stirred the coffee that the waitress had brought, and
laughed. It was a soft, musical laugh, altogether out of character
with the man she saw.
“You had a poor case, Mr. Bird, and you’ll be the first to admit it.
I’d like to meet that man that tried to--do me a turn.”
“You were going to say ‘warn you.’” The Sparrow looked at him keenly.
“Well, you can’t, because he’s on his honeymoon.”
“Maddison, wasn’t it? I remember the name. Is he the banker? You can
answer freely, Mr. Bird: I’m not going to touch him. He’s got a good
mark in my book.”
“That’ll get him to heaven,” said Bird sardonically, and then became
his businesslike self. “What’s the game now, Gunner? Are you a
reforming character? If you are, I’ll give you a ticket for the
Prisoners’ Home of Rest.”
But Gunner Haynes was not listening.
“Who did he marry--that pretty girl that was at the dinner that night,
sitting at the head of the table? Gosh! she was lovely! Reminded me
of----”
He stopped dead and Mary Bolford saw his face twitch.
“--somebody I knew. Good luck to them!”
“Wish them good luck separately,” said Mary Bolford; “they parted on
their wedding day.”
He looked at her quickly.
“What did she do to him?” he asked, and in spite of herself Mary
Bolford laughed.
“You’re assuming a lot, aren’t you? Doesn’t it strike you that he may
have done something pretty awful?”
He shook his head.
“That kind of man couldn’t do anything pretty awful--I’m telling you,
young lady! I know men; I understand the good in them and the bad in
them--I’ve lived on men all my life; my knowledge of their weaknesses
and their strengths has been my only asset. I don’t understand women.
And that’s where you’re wrong, Bird--I’m telling you this over the
table--I wasn’t after that woman’s stuff, though I admit I was curious
to see it. I was after a diamond bracelet as big as a leg-iron. There
was an old fool staying there who was mad about an actress--or at
least she called herself an actress, but I’ve seen her! He must have
been a hundred--maybe a hundred and twenty. No, I’ve got money enough
to live on.” He glanced slyly at the Sparrow. “Money enough to buy a
machine gun and justify my title. Where’s this man Maddison?”
He addressed Mary Bolford.
“Ask me,” snapped the Sparrow, his cold eyes upon the crook. “I’m the
information bureau round here! If you want to tell the story of your
life, I dare say Miss Bolford will fix it for you, but I didn’t bring
you in here to make light conversation, Gunner.”
Haynes saw the little look of pain that came to the girl’s eyes and
laughed.
“He’s right--of course he’s right,” he said. “Let me give you a word
of advice, Miss Bolford.” His voice was strangely gentle; even the
Sparrow looked at him a little astonished. “Never be afraid of hurting
a crook’s feelings, because you can’t. A man who’s had ten minutes’
conversation with the police after his arrest, when they’re not
certain where the stuff is hidden, has been insulted by experts!”
The Sparrow nodded gravely.
“Before you get sympathetic with an ex-convict,” the Gunner went on,
“find out what he’s been in for--and, what’s more important, how many
times he’s been in. It doesn’t matter what his crime is: if he’s been
in twice you can cut him out as an object of pity--I’ve been in three
times.”
The eyes were smiling, but the mouth was strangely hard. He was
looking at the girl all the time, drinking in her fresh, unspoiled
beauty. He turned with a sudden jerk, raised his finger to the
waitress and took the check. Then he rose, offering his hand to the
Sparrow.
“Bird and I are in the same war.” He was talking to the girl. “Only
we’re on different sides. My side always loses, but has most of the
fun.”
With a jerk of his head he turned, walked slowly across the shop and
disappeared into the street.
CHAPTER XIII
They put Luke Maddison in a private ward, and one morning they left
a little temperature chart within his view, and he saw that his name
was Smith.
“How long have I been Smith?” His voice was extraordinarily strong,
remembering that only a few days before he had not been able to speak
above a whisper.
The good-natured nurse grinned cheerfully.
“If we don’t know people’s names we call them Smith--preferably Bill,”
she said. “But you’re going to be good, aren’t you, and tell us
yours?”
He shook his head.
“No, I don’t think so. Smith is a very good name, borne by some very
nice people. If my name had been Smith I might have been a better
man,” he added whimsically.
Since they had moved him into the private ward the burly-looking
policeman who had loomed out of his dreams, and seemed part of them,
had been taken away. That day they thought he was dying a police
magistrate had been summoned to take his deposition; but he had told
nothing which was of the slightest consequence or value. Moreover, he
had heard one detective say to another that he would not be of the
slightest value as a witness at the inquest. So he could afford to lie
and watch the hours pass, and the pale light of the sun move across
the green wall, and night come and the lights.
From where he lay he could hear the distant jangle of the trams; came
to know the bell of one, and marked its comings and goings. He did not
think of Margaret for longer than a few seconds. Resolutely he put her
out of his mind. Once he had an idea of sending for Stiles, but the
appearance of the manager would have betrayed his identity, and he was
anxious to save the name of the bank--or was it Margaret? Again and
again he told himself that he would not raise his hand to save
Margaret--but he knew that he was lying. It was for Margaret’s sake
that he was content to remain Bill Smith.
They brought him newspapers, but he refused to read them. That was
another reason why Bill Smith was so acceptable. If Maddison’s Bank
had suspended payment, there was an extra good reason why he should
never be Luke Maddison again.
He was curiously apathetic as to the state of the bank, curiously
apathetic about almost everything and everybody. There was a time when
he believed and hoped he was dying, and that in the final oblivion of
things he would find the complete and absolute forgetfulness which his
aching heart craved. But his heart was no longer aching. Presently the
time would come when he would leave hospital, and then----? He was
apathetic as to the prospect, too. What did anything matter? Perhaps
he would sell flowers, like that jolly girl he had seen in St. James’s
Street one snowy day. Or he might become a soldier; he was not too
old, and he had been a member of the O.T.C. when he was at Eton. Or go
abroad. He smiled faintly. “And shoot lions?” asked his own sarcastic
voice.
He did not care really what happened after. It was his sixteenth or
seventeenth day in bed--he was not sure which--when the sister came
in.
“A friend of yours wishes to see you,” she said. “He says he knows
you.”
Luke frowned.
“A friend?” he repeated. “I’m sure he’s mistaken me for somebody
else.”
“No, he particularly asked for you. He said the man who was stabbed;
of course, I didn’t tell him your name was Smith, because it isn’t.”
“Oh, yes, it is, sister--I’m profoundly curious; let him come in.”
Who was it? For one moment of lunacy he had pictured a penitent
Margaret. He would have instantly laughed at the thought, except that
laughing hurt his chest.
The man who came in he had never seen before. His shabbiness was
relieved by a collar of such surprising whiteness that Luke guessed it
had been bought for the occasion, as also had the violent necktie. He
was a man with a very small face, sharp featured; his heavily lidded
eyes glanced furtively left and right before he came stealthily to the
bed.
“All right, sister.” His voice was high and husky (Luke remembered
that Lewing’s voice was that way, and wondered if this was a
relative).
“Is this your friend?” asked the nurse.
The man nodded.
“That’s him all right, miss.”
The nurse disappeared, and the man bent over the bed. He smelt musty
and unsavoury, as though his clothes had been stored in a damp place.
“Joe says that as you didn’t squeak he’s going to make things right
for you.”
“Didn’t what?” asked Luke.
“Squeak. Don’t be funny! When you come out, see him.” He slipped a
dirty piece of paper under the pillow, and Luke heard a
well-remembered rustle. “There’s a fiver there for you. Joe says he’ll
look after you.”
“God bless him!” said Luke soberly, “for if ever there was a man who
wanted looking after, it’s me!”
The day before his discharge from hospital the sister asked Luke
Maddison if he would like to see a barber. He fingered his bristly
face, and his smile was almost one of boyish amusement.
“No, I rather like myself,” he said. “Can I indulge in the vanity of a
mirror?”
She brought a small hand glass, and he saw reflected in the polished
oval a strange, untidy-looking man with long hair and a shapeless
beard. The face was still pale, the nose pinched, but the eyes shone
as brightly as ever.
“Good lord!” he murmured, and whistled.
“You’re not very pretty, are you?” said the good-humoured sister.
“I never was,” answered Luke cheerfully. Then suddenly he frowned. “Is
that infernal policeman coming back again?”
She shook her head.
“No, he has given you up as a bad job. The inquest on that poor man
was finished last week. Didn’t you read the newspaper?”
Luke hadn’t read the newspaper.
“I can’t read,” he said, but she laughed at this.
So the inquest on “that poor man” was concluded, and presumably the
coroner had accepted his statement that he met Lewing by accident and
was walking with him when the assault occurred. A long time later he
read the newspaper account, and saw himself described as “William
Smith, of no fixed abode.” The paragraph ran.
The man is still in a critical condition, and witness said that it was
unlikely that he could give evidence for a month, or that he could
throw any light upon the murder.
That afternoon Luke spent sitting in a chintz-covered armchair looking
out across the river. Opposite were the Houses of Parliament. It was
curious that he knew personally at least fifty men whose presence in
that building was indicated by the Union flag on the clock
tower--fifty men, any one of whom would come flying across Westminster
Bridge to help him. But he did not require help.
He reviewed his position with the calm detachment of a third party.
All the objectives in life had been wiped out by a terrific gunfire.
He was homeless in the truest sense, for there was no place or being
that stood for comfort or happiness. He was in the centre of horizons
that showed no beacon light to indicate a destination. In the acid
bath of his experience ambition had been burned out; the very desire
for life had gone. He would have cheerfully and gratefully died.
It was curious that he seldom thought of Lewing’s death or of the
knife thrust that had brought him, on the point of dissolution, to an
operating room stinking of disinfectants. He had no grievance against
the man who knifed him; was rather amused than otherwise to find
himself unconsciously the victim of a vendetta in which he had no
part.
He read again the slip of paper that the mysterious man had left with
him.
Go to Mrs. Fraser, 339 Ginnett Street, Lambeth. She will look after
you.
He chuckled faintly at this. So there was somebody in the world who
wanted to look after him. It was rather funny.
The first time he had read this short message he had all but torn up
the paper and thrown it away; until his last day in hospital he had
not the slightest intention of interviewing the lady--she only came
into consideration after he had exhausted all the possibilities of
conduct. To go back to the office was impossible. He had a country
house somewhere, but he dimly remembered having made this over to
Margaret in the deed.
He could go abroad, of course, but that would cost money. He had not
the slightest intention of touching again any of the strings which
would lead him back to the old life. That episode had finished. There
was interest and adventure somewhere in the world--who knew if it
might not begin in the shabby purlieus of Ginnett Street?
He left the hospital on a sunny afternoon, and could walk out without
assistance, for he had carried no baggage. He was strong enough to
walk, for he had taken an appreciable amount of exercise on the
terrace of the hospital; but he had lost weight and his clothes hung
loosely upon him.
Ginnett Street was not discovered without difficulty, but he found it
at length; an unsavoury thoroughfare in the Borough. Number 339 was a
greengrocer’s shop that stood at the corner of a narrower street, in
which was a gateway leading evidently to a small yard at the back of
the premises. The shop was not particularly inviting; faded bills
pasted on the window announced that the best household coal and
firewood were procurable. The interior was dirty and dingy. Behind the
counter was a shelf where, in sloping compartments, were a number of
dyspeptic-looking potatoes, whilst a few weary and rusty cauliflowers
were displayed for sale in the window. In one corner of the shop was a
heap of coal and a weighing machine--evidently the people of Ginnett
Street purchased their coal by the pound.
He pushed open the door; a cracked bell clanged, and after a while
there emerged through a door leading to the shop parlour a
sharp-featured woman with brassy hair, who greeted him with all the
superficial unfriendliness which he discovered was the normal attitude
of the small tradesman in this neighbourhood.
“I am Mrs. Fraser,” she said.
“I was told to call and see you,” he began, when she interrupted him
quickly.
“Are you the man from the hospital--Smith?”
Luke smiled and nodded. She lifted the flap of the counter.
“Come in, will you?” Her tone was respectful, almost fawning. “I
thought you wasn’t coming out till to-morrow.”
She led the way into a frowsy little parlour and closed the door
communicating with the shop carefully.
“It’s lucky I had the room done up for you to-day,” she said. “I’m a
rare one for getting things done in time. Will you come this way, Mr.
What’s-your-name?”
Curiosity impelled him to follow her. At the first sight of that dingy
shop he had been tempted to turn back, to find a new foothold to life;
but now he went after the woman almost gaily. For that was the
ineradicable weakness of Luke Maddison: a consuming curiosity as to
what would happen next.
At some time or other there had been built a small annex to the house;
the floors were firmer, the doors seemed heavier. She opened one of
these and showed him into a room, the comfort of which was rather
staggering. He expected to see something particularly uninviting, and
it is possible that, had this been the case, he would have declined
the lodging and gone elsewhere. But the bed was neat, the sheets
spotless; the furniture, though plain, was ample, and a small fire
burned in the grate. “To air the room,” she explained, almost
apologetically, and led him to understand that this luxury was
impermanent.
On the table were a few sheets of writing paper and a pen and ink.
Their presence puzzled him, till the woman explained.
“A Certain Person thought you’d like to write to your friends,
especially as you didn’t write any letters from the hospital.”
“How the devil do they know that?” he asked in astonishment.
Mrs. Fraser smiled cryptically.
“He knows everything,” she said.
Evidently He was a person to be reverenced.
“You don’t want to have anything to do with that Lewing lot any more,”
she said, and all the time she was speaking her pale eyes were fixed
on his searchingly. “The police broke up that crowd last week, and
good luck to ’em! That Lewing would have twisted his own mother out of
her insurance money!”
“A bad lad, eh?”
“If you’d done any jobs with him, as sure as death he would have
shopped you--especially you being a gentleman born.”
“Let me put you right, Mrs. Fraser,” said Luke. “I was not a member of
Mr. Lewing’s gang or any other gang----”
“I know. He knew that. But Lewing was always boasting about the people
he could get hold of, and he was shouting the odds about you and how
you could drive. Are you a driver?”
“A motor-car driver? Yes, I am a pretty good driver,” smiled Luke.
“Won races, haven’t you?” she asked in her monotonous tone.
As it happened, Luke had won a private owners’ race at Brooklands
though he could not by any stretch of imagination be described as a
racing motorist.
“I thought so,” she nodded. “Boasting, that was Lewing’s downfall.”
Luke remembered a little conversation he had had with the dead man.
“He’s a friend of Gunner Haynes, isn’t he?”
An extraordinary change came over the woman. She made a little grimace
and blinked quickly, as though she had been confronted by a bright
light.
“I don’t know anything about Mr. Haynes,” she said, obviously on the
defensive. “The least said, soonest mended. We’ve never had any
trouble with Mr. Haynes and we don’t want none.”
There was something in her tone that told him beyond doubt that fear
was the basis of her respect for Gunner. He was “Mr.” Haynes to her;
she was obviously anxious to say nothing that might be construed as
disrespectful. Luke wondered why.
She bustled off soon after to get him a cup of tea, and he pulled up a
chair to the table. The writing paper was a great temptation; yet to
whom could he write? He did not think of Margaret.
When a mouse gets into a beehive and is killed by the outraged
occupants, they find him too heavy to move, and so they cover him with
wax, and he becomes part of their dwelling: a great lump that once
lived but now has no significance. He had embalmed and covered
Margaret in the same way. She was just an obstruction, to the
circumvention of which he had grown accustomed.
But Stiles----? What would Stiles be thinking? And then for the first
time there occurred a dreadful thought. Suppose Stiles thought he had
committed suicide? Suppose the newspapers were full of stories of a
“millionaire”--all people in his position were millionaires for
newspaper purposes--and rivers were being dragged and descriptions
being circulated? He turned cold at the thought.
Mrs. Fraser came back with a cup of tea which proved to be drinkable.
He made a desperate effort to obtain the information he could have had
by searching a newspaper file. She listened to his questions and shook
her head.
“No, there’s no news. There was a murder up in Finsbury, and that
fellow was hung who killed the old woman.”
“I seem to remember,” said Luke carelessly, “when I was in hospital,
hearing the nurses talk about a rich man who disappeared--his bank
went broke or something; there was a talk of suicide.”
She pursed her lips and shook her head.
“I never heard of it; and I should have noticed that, because my poor
mother lost all her money when the Webbick Bank went broke.…”
He breathed more freely when she had gone. Possibly Stiles had
refrained from communicating with the police except as a last
expedient.
He drew a sheet of paper to him and dipped the pen into the ink.
CHAPTER XIV
The last person in the world that Danty Morell wished to see was
Inspector Bird. If there was any compensation for that meeting in
Green Park, it was that Mr. Bird was accompanied by a very pretty
girl, whose face was curiously familiar to the connoisseur of beauty.
Danton was strolling aimlessly along the margin of the pond watching
the ducks, his mind intent upon a scheme which he had formulated that
morning. When he saw that the Sparrow had a companion, he hoped that
the detective would have sufficient sense of decency to pass him; but
apparently Mr. Bird was deficient in this quality. He stood, a stout,
stolid figure, his eyes twinkling through his puffed eyelids, a smirk
of satisfaction on his face, as though he were meeting a long-lost
friend.
“’Morning, Morell--I’d like you to meet this gentleman, Miss Bolford.”
His tone was so friendly that Danty was momentarily taken off his
guard. He smiled ingratiatingly.
“I think I’ve met you before,” he began.
“And you’ll meet her again,” boomed the Sparrow. “This young lady’s a
reporter--ever been to the Old Bailey, Miss Bolford?”
She laughed.
“Twice. I don’t want to go again.”
“You _can_ go there too often,” admitted the Sparrow. “Once is too
often with some people, eh, Morell?”
Before the wrathful man could reply:
“Any news of Mr. Maddison?”
“He’s in Paris,” said Danty shortly.
“Thought he was.” The Sparrow nodded. “When I see that servant of
yours getting off the boat train I said to myself, ‘I’ll bet
Maddison’s in Paris. I’ll bet he’s sendin’ lovin’ wires to his wife
all the time that servant of yours is there.’ Do you know Mr. Stiles?”
His head drooped on one side so ludicrously like a sparrow’s that Mary
Bolford had to make an effort to keep her face straight. “Manager of
Maddison’s Bank?”
“I’ve heard of him; I’ve met him, I think,” said the other curtly.
“Good fellow, but not talkative,” said Bird. “The more you talk to him
the less he says. He’s just like ten oysters singing the Hallelujah
Chorus--maybe eleven. What he doesn’t know about the whereabouts of
Mr. Maddison he doesn’t say.”
“So far as I know,” said Danty in a loud voice, “Maddison is in Paris,
having a very good time.”
“Not before the child,” murmured the Sparrow, closing his eyes in
anguish. “I suppose he said so in his wire? I’m betting ten million
pounds it wasn’t a letter.”
“You’d better ask Mrs. Maddison,” said Danty, and would have walked on
had not the detective’s hand detained him.
“There’s one thing I’d like to know--have you met the Gunner?”
He saw the man start.
“The Gunner?” he stammered. “Do you mean Haynes--the fellow who was
charged the other day? He’s in prison, I understand.”
“You don’t read your newspapers.” The Sparrow shook his head
sorrowfully. “Here’s Fleet Street spendin’ millions of pounds a year,
thousands of honest, industrious reporters workin’ like hell to get as
much of the truth as makes good readin’, and you don’t read ’em!
Gunner’s conviction was quashed--he’s floating around London
somewhere.”
Danty had regained control over his features now and his face was like
a mask.
“I’m really not interested in the criminal classes,” he said.
“I’ll bet you’re not!” said Mr. Bird admiringly. “I’ll give you a tip,
Morell--avoid the wide, open spaces where men are men in the daytime
and frequently dead at night. I never found the Gunner’s well-known
gun, but maybe he knows just where to lay his hand on it. So-long!”
He watched Danton walking furiously along the path, and turned with a
broad grin to his companion.
“That man’s nearer to being a crook than I am to being a detective,”
he said.
“He’s the man who asked me to call at his house after dinner and have
coffee with him,” smiled Mary.
“I’ll bet he is! Why, of course!” said Bird. “I’d forgotten that
little episode outside the bank.” He scratched his chin. “Who was with
him then?” he asked with sudden interest.
“A young man; I’d never seen him before, but you said he was a
speculator or a gambler or something.”
The Sparrow’s lips pursed in a whistle.
“They were in that bank together,” he said softly, “at about three in
the afternoon, when a check was cashed for umpteen thousand pounds!
Everything is very curious and mysterious.”
But when she endeavoured to satisfy her own curiosity and solve the
mystery, he was as uncommunicative as Mr. Stiles.
Danty strode on furiously, his smooth complacency disturbed. He had
counted on the fact that the Gunner would be in prison for at least
three months. And in three months much could be done. His big coup
could be projected and brought to fruition, and he could be well out
of the country, with enough money to last him for years, before Gunner
Haynes started forth on his quest.
As he reached the Mall he stopped suddenly with a blank sense of
dismay. Why had the Sparrow warned him? There was nothing to connect
him with the arrest of the Gunner, unless--the police had betrayed
him! So the Gunner knew. It was strange that Haynes had made no
attempt to see him during all the weeks he had been at liberty. Danton
Morell took comfort from that thought, and went on to keep his
appointment.
Margaret was out when he arrived; he had to wait for an hour in her
drawing room before she returned. That in itself was a bad sign. He
had made the appointment and did not dream that she would fail to keep
it. He hinted as much when she came in, and recognized his mistake.
In these days Margaret was never in the same mood for ten minutes
together. She who had been so tractable and so easily influenced, who
was ready to accept the most deadly charges against the man she had
loved, without any attempt at independent investigation, was now
peculiarly difficult to convince at all. He was constantly meeting new
barriers, new reservations; he had to combat, as it were, another
nature which he had not even suspected. She was in her most austere
mood this morning.
“You must have mistaken the time,” he suggested. “I said eleven
o’clock----”
“I know you said eleven o’clock, but I was detained.”
He swallowed something.
“Been shopping?”
She shook her head. She seemed to be more intent upon the book whose
leaves she was turning than upon Danton and his appointment. He saw it
was a Continental Bradshaw.
“I thought you were bored with Madeira? You’re not going away again?”
She did not answer. She had found the place she wanted and her finger
went down a column of figures.
“I’m not going away,” she said; “I am sending a man into Spain--Mr.
Stiles thinks that if Luke went anywhere it would be to Ronda, though
of course he wouldn’t have had time to reach there yet.”
He stared at her in amazement.
“Stiles? Have you seen him?”
She nodded.
“Yes.”
“But I thought he was rather rude to you the last time you spoke to
him?”
A faint smile curled the finely moulded lips.
“He was inclined to be rude to me to-day--but I persevered,” she said
quietly.
“But, my dear Margaret! You surely aren’t going to do anything as
undignified as to run after Luke? After his wire and his barefaced
admission of consolations----”
“Luke has not been in Paris,” she said evenly. “Mr. Stiles had a note
from him this morning, saying that he had been in London but would
probably go off to Spain for a little time. He asked Mr. Stiles to
send his Spanish check book to the Carlton in Madrid. Luke has an
account at the Spanish National Bank which apparently he has only just
remembered.”
There was a long silence. Danty was too wise to insist upon the
authenticity of the Paris telegram.
“You’re sending a man to Ronda?”
She nodded.
“But what can he do?”
“He can tell me when Luke arrives--then I shall go out to him.”
The man stared at her open mouthed.
“You’ll go out to him?” he repeated incredulously. “Do you really mean
that you’ve forgotten… Rex, and Rex’s letter?”
She was standing by her little writing table, looking down at the pad,
very lovely, very thoughtfully--a slim, gracious figure of a girl.
“When Rex--” she hesitated--“shot himself he could not have been in
his right mind. He must have been mistaken. It wasn’t possible that
Luke could have done this thing. I’ve been thinking it over day and
night.”
Danty could adapt himself to circumstances, but when those
circumstances were centred in a woman’s caprice he found his task an
almost superhuman one.
“You disbelieve your brother, then?”
She raised her eyes slowly to his.
“I even disbelieve myself,” she said.
“And me?” he challenged.
She hesitated.
“I think you were very zealous for me,” she said, “and I probably let
you into my way of thinking; and Rex was very fond of you.”
He smiled bitterly.
“Is that all?”
“What did you expect?”
There was genuine surprise in her voice. Danton Morell knew that it
was not the moment to put his fortune to the test. He threw out his
hands and smiled.
“I’m sorry--one is human with human ambitions, human thoughts, human
hopes.”
Before she could check this, he went on:
“I suppose I was prejudiced against Maddison. I always thought he was
a weakling. I have still suspicions that he is. If one of us has
prejudiced the other, it is I who have prejudiced you.”
Instinct told him that he was saying the right thing, and that now for
the first time he was attuned to her mood. But he had his own business
to settle.
“I was talking to you the other day about this Argentine Power Scheme
I was organizing--you remember I showed you the report and the
figures. You said you would like to take a few thousand shares.”
She nodded.
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” she began, but he interrupted
her.
“Well, I’ve had a cable this morning. I have been trying to persuade
one of the biggest supporters of the scheme to stand out--I was
virtually pledged to give him a big holding--and he has agreed. I can
now let you invest a hundred thousand pounds----”
“I’m sorry”--her tone was so definite that he turned cold--“but I
can’t even take the few thousand. I have handed to the custody of Mr.
Stiles and Luke’s lawyer every penny I had from him--that is why I
went to see Mr. Stiles.”
CHAPTER XV
Danty looked at the girl in horrified amazement. His consternation
was almost comic.
“You’ve given back all the money he gave you?” he stammered.
She nodded, her steady eyes on his.
“Why shouldn’t I? I have enough to live on,” she said. “Mr. Stiles, as
trustee of the fund, is making me a sufficient allowance.”
He could only gaze at her, dumbfounded. All his fine schemes had been
blown away as a feather of steam is blown by a gale. She saved him the
trouble of speaking and gave him time to recover himself, for she went
on:
“Luke has never been in Paris since he went away--some interested
person must have sent that wire. I almost feel as though I willed it
to be sent, to give me some excuse for the terrible way I treated
Luke.” She smiled. “I should be awfully uncomfortable if I thought my
money made any difference to you in your scheme, Danton. Happily,
you’re a rich man.”
Danty nodded slowly. He had that morning received a warning letter
from his banker, for he had been spending money and losing large sums
at his favourite gaming house in the faith that his financial position
would soon be unassailable.
With an effort he recovered his balance and forced his voice into a
tone of indifference.
“I’m not sure that you’re wise. Did you consult your lawyer?”
She shook her head.
“In matters of conscience one does not consult lawyers,” she said
quietly.
It was difficult enough even to make intelligent conversation. Her
attitude was a dead wall built across his easy path, and at the moment
it seemed unscalable. He had to play for time now; his native cunning
told him that so long as he had her on his side there was no reason
why he should lose hope. He had dreamed of hundreds of thousands; he
had been certain of tens of thousands; there was still an odd thousand
or two for the picking and possibly a greater haul if he played the
game shrewdly.
“When do you expect to leave for Ronda?”
“In two days’ time,” she said, quickly--so quickly that he realized
she had worked it out to the hour. “As soon as I am certain that Luke
is in Ronda I shall go to him.”
“Exactly what will you say to him?”
He could not resist asking this question, though he realized even as
he spoke the words that he was guilty of a tactical error.
He saw her stiffen; that cold look came back to the beautiful eyes.
“That is entirely a matter between Luke and me,” she said. “I have
made this mess, I am afraid, and I must get out of it.”
In his desperation he blundered again.
“You owe something to Rex’s memory,” he said. “I don’t know what
you’re feeling about Luke, but there’s a fact that can’t be blinked.
Luke could have saved your brother’s life; instead, when he found he
was ruined, he hounded him still further into the mire. His god is
money----”
“Yet he gave me everything,” she said quietly; “and when I refused him
money, he went away without a word. Don’t you realize, Danton, that
had he gone to his lawyer, had he gone to the courts--had he done
anything--I must have given him the money back, not because he had any
legal right to it but because I would not have dared to face a public
inquiry. He may have been mean, he may have been terribly cruel, but I
cannot right one wrong with another. That is the consideration which
made me give back the money to Mr. Stiles,” she went on in a voice
less tense, more agreeable, almost friendly. “We shall have to thresh
out this business of Rex--it’s very ugly and hurtful, and I can’t
think of it calmly even now. Luke may have some explanation; there may
be a very excellent reason why he refused any further help to poor
Rex. At any rate, it’s my job to find the truth.”
He was almost livid with a fury he could hardly disguise. His lips
curled in a sneer.
“It seems to me that the result of your reconciliation--I suppose
that’s what it is coming to--will be to leave me in the lurch and put
me wrong with anybody. Financially it may ruin me. Luke had a big
influence in the City, and even now the mere suggestion that I was
antagonistic to him is making a big difference.”
To his surprise she laughed.
“Danton,” she said, almost gaily, “you’re making me feel a pig! You
don’t imagine I would allow a friend of Rex’s to suffer because of the
help he tried to give me?”
Danton Morell was puzzled. Why was she so cheerful? And then he
remembered--she would be in Ronda in a few days, would be united with
her husband. The thought made him wince; he was beginning to
understand how big a place this girl had made for herself in his life.
It was not like Danton Morell to allow any woman a foothold in the
cold thing he called a heart; but insensibly, and for some reason
which he could not understand, she whom he had intended as a dupe had
become a factor. It was almost unbelievable.
And with this came another realization that momentarily left him
aghast. She was in love with her husband!
He had opened his lips to speak when there came a discreet knock at
the door and the maid entered.
“There’s a gentleman wishes to see you, madam--a Mr. Haynes.”
Had Margaret been looking at him, she would have seen Danty’s face go
pale.
“He says he knows Mr. Maddison slightly,” the girl went on, “and he
wants particularly to see you.”
Danty gaped at her.
“You didn’t tell him I was here, did you?” he began, and saw the look
of astonishment in Margaret’s face.
“Do you know him?”
He nodded, and glanced significantly at the girl.
“Just wait a moment outside, will you?” said Margaret, and, when the
maid had gone and the door was closed: “Who is he?”
“He’s a man I don’t wish to see, and a man I don’t think you ought to
see. He’s a criminal, the fellow who was arrested that night at the
Carlton. If you take my advice you’ll send him away.”
She hesitated.
“If he knows Luke----” she began.
“He doesn’t--that’s just a trick to see you. He’ll probably want
money, and he’s a pretty dangerous man.”
“Then you’d better be here when he comes,” she said, and saw by his
consternation that this was not an acceptable suggestion. “I’d better
see him,” she said. “Will you wait in the little drawing room?”
Margaret in that mood he could not combat; he agreed sulkily to her
suggestion, and was in the little drawing room when he heard the quick
step of the Gunner pass the closed door.
Margaret was unprepared for the type that came into the drawing room.
The tanned, hawk face had a strength and a certain refinement which
she had not expected.
“Are you Mrs. Maddison?” drawled the visitor, and she inclined her
head slightly. “My name’s Haynes--the police know me as Gunner Haynes.
I am a jewel thief among other things,” he said.
His tone was as calm as though he were announcing himself the member
of an honourable guild.
“I met your husband once; he tried to do me a service--I should like
to do him one, Mrs. Maddison.”
Again she nodded.
“Mr. Danton Morell is a friend of yours, isn’t he?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said coldly. “Why?”
She saw his lips twitch.
“I was wondering… Mrs. Maddison, would you think I was impertinent if
I asked you why your husband left you?”
Her steady eyes met his.
“Do you think you would be?” she asked quietly, and saw that faint
smile of his.
“I should be a little worse than impertinent. And yet, Mrs. Maddison,
I have a very deep interest in your husband’s affairs. I have many bad
qualities, but disloyalty is not one of them. Your husband went out of
his way to warn me, at a moment when he knew the police were coming to
arrest me. If ever there was a white and wholesome man, that man is
Luke Maddison. I ought not to have asked you the question and I could
not very well expect a satisfactory answer. The only thing I am
anxious to know is this: have you any idea where your husband is?”
“Do you wish to find him?” she challenged.
He shook his head.
“No, but I’d like to know exactly where he is. I have a very special
reason for asking this. Is he in London?”
She shook her head.
“He’s in Spain at the moment, but I’m afraid I cannot give you the
address.”
“Mr. Morell--is he in Spain? Pardon me, Mrs. Maddison, but if I have a
reason for asking you the one question, I have a doubly important
reason for asking the other. Morell is the kind of man that no decent
woman should know----”
She walked to the table and pressed the little onyx bell push. This
time he smiled.
“That means you’re going to turn me out, and I don’t blame you. I’m
afraid I’ve blundered this interview, which I intended should be very
discreet and diplomatic. I particularly wished to know where Mr.
Maddison was----”
“I have told you,” she said, as the maid appeared in the doorway.
“As far as Danty Morell is concerned----” he began.
Her hand pointed to the door.
“I am not prepared to discuss my friends--even with the criminal
acquaintances of my husband,” she said, and she heard him chuckling as
he went down the stairs as though at a very good joke.
She waited till she heard the street door close, and went in search of
Danty, but he was not in the small drawing room. The maid told her he
had left within a few seconds of Gunner Haynes’s arrival. Danty was
not a man who took unnecessary risks.
She had some business to do in the West End of London, and as the
afternoon progressed she ordered the car to drive her into the park.
Near the Marble Arch she signalled to the driver to stop and got out.
She wanted the walk and the solitude that the park gave her. Here she
could think more clearly.
She walked slowly along the asphalt path that runs parallel with the
roadway. As she did so she saw a car coming slowly along the tan on
the other side of the road. It was an electric brougham containing two
people: a beautiful-looking girl, fashionably dressed; by her side,
his face half hidden under a broad-brimmed Stetson hat, a bearded man
of striking appearance. Ahead of her was walking a stout-looking man,
and by his side a rather pretty girl. As she overtook them she heard
the stout man say:
“Take a look at that swell woman! That’s Jean Gurlay--the biggest
crook in London, my dear.”
Those ahead of her she recognized as the Sparrow and his companion,
and, not wishing to be seen by them, sat down on a garden seat, her
eyes following curiously the electric brougham. She saw the machine
turn at the Marble Arch and come slowly along by the side of the curb,
and she watched with a detached interest the beautiful girl and the
bearded man, whose head was turned toward his companion. As they
passed she heard the man say:
“This is all very mysterious. What does it mean?”
In an instant she was on her feet, pale and shaking; she had
recognized the voice of the bearded man. It was her husband.
CHAPTER XVI
Life in Ginnett Street might be rather amusing, thought Luke
Maddison.
It was his third day in his lodging, and he was not averse to his new
life. He had discovered unsuspected physical weaknesses as he had made
his way from the hospital, and was glad of a rest, the freedom from
worry, the utter irresponsibility of this queer life into which he had
obtruded.
Mrs. Fraser did not bother him with her presence. She brought in a
surprisingly interesting collection of books to read, supplied him
with plain but very wholesome meals, and gave him the freedom of the
house, though she suggested that he had better only go out at nights.
He was mystified by the attention she was paying him, though he
realized that she was acting on behalf of the unknown Connor.
Some of the mystery was cleared up on the third day when she asked him
a number of questions about Australia, a country to which he had never
been. When he said as much she smiled cryptically.
“If that Lewing had had as much sense as you and had kept his mouth
shut, he might have been alive and well to-day. If he’d had the sense
to keep his mouth shut, nobody would have known anything about you.
But he was a rare one to boast, was Lewing, God rest him, always
boasting what his crowd could do against our crowd, though he must
have known that we had all the money.”
Gradually it came out. Lewing had boasted of a man who was coming from
Australia to work with his “crowd.” Luke gathered that the new man had
a fairly hectic reputation in the Dominion, but that he had never been
convicted.
“The moment Connor heard you were coming, he said: ‘That’s the man for
us--get him.’ He reckons that Sydney bank affair was the cleverest job
that’s ever been done.”
Now Luke discovered his identity, and began to piece together the
little scraps of information he had had from time to time. If Lewing
was not the brains, or the leader, of the Borough gang, he was at
least a person of considerable importance. It was he who had arranged
for the Australian’s services, and apparently had recruited him by
correspondence.
Luke learned that the gang warfare in South London had a special
significance. The Borough gang were mainly river thieves, and several
of the members had grown rich out of the cargoes they had broached.
“Now let us get this straight, Mrs. Fraser. You’re under the
impression that I’m an Australian criminal. When I say ‘you’ I mean
your principals.”
“My how much?” asked Mrs. Fraser, puzzled.
Luke explained.
“Well, I’m not the man you were expecting,” he insisted. “The fact
that I happened to be with Lewing the night he was killed means
nothing--it was the purest fluke. I can certainly drive a car, but I’m
afraid I can be of very little use to your friends, who, I gather, are
on the wrong side of the law.”
She smiled cryptically at this.
“What I like about you, Mr. Smith,” she said, “is that you know how to
keep yourself to yourself.”
It was late that night that he saw the redoubtable Connor. As he shook
hands with the stranger he shuddered, for he had heard that deep voice
before on the night when Lewing met his end.
“I shan’t want you for a day or two, Smith,” said Connor brusquely.
“Everything being done for you? That’s right.”
His tone was commanding; it was the same voice that had challenged
Lewing, but more cultured. Before Luke could explain who he was, or at
any rate explain who he was not, the man had taken his departure. A
day or two later came another surprise. There walked into his room as
he was sitting at the table, a book before him, his head upon his
hands, a pretty, fair-haired girl, who eyed him with a certain amount
of amused interest.
“Connor sent me down to see you. Did your new clothes arrive?”
Luke shook his head and smiled.
“No,” he said. “Am I getting an outfit?”
She looked at him critically.
“And you want a barber. I’ll have one sent up to you to-night. That
beard of yours wants trimming. Could you bear taking a little drive
with me to-morrow?”
He laughed again.
“I could bear worse things than that,” he said, wondering who she was
or whence she had come.
She was well but not too smartly dressed, and he guessed that her
attire was designed so that she should not attract too much attention.
“This is a hole you’re in!” she said contemptuously, looking out onto
the street. “It must be hell here. How these people manage to exist I
don’t know.”
He said nothing to this; he had gained a working knowledge of these
children of the poor; had watched in the earlier hours of the dawn the
street doors open and discharge the workers; had seen the brave, drab
wives battling to make a sixpence do the work of a shilling. At
eight-thirty their daughters, neatly attired, in flesh-coloured
stockings and cheaply smart coats, went forth to the City to add
theirs to the meagre family resources. The children of the poor! The
victims of a thousand preying vultures! For the poor are robbed as the
rich are never robbed. There existed a dozen gangs of little sneak
thieves, who would pick their pockets in omnibuses, snatch their bags,
sneak into their houses when they were out, to collect a few pence
worth of their poor belongings. He had seen one night a gang of three
young ruffians attack a middle-aged workman, knock him down and empty
his pockets. He had heard of glib men who had come down this street,
pretending they had been sent by some absent husband to fetch tools he
had left behind; and once, to his great joy, he had seen a swift car
rush through the street and discharge half-a-dozen detectives to the
arrest of a bully who had lived on the wages of infamy.
The police gave them what protection they could. He had seen a
wife-beater lying stark and unconscious on the pavement after a
detective had used his rubber truncheon on him. But as a rule these
human parasites that preyed upon the poor escaped unharmed.
The girl turned from the contemplation of misery.
“Meet me near the Guards Memorial in Green Park. I shall be in a car
and will pick you up,” she said.
She looked him up and down, admiration in her eyes.
“You’ve got a good voice,” she said. “You’d pass for a swell.”
The clothes came that night; they fitted him remarkably well, and when
the promised barber had finished his work and Luke was arrayed in his
new clothes, he was almost reconciled to the beard.
In the interest of his new, strange life he found it fairly easy to
forget. The spirit of adventure was on him. Margaret belonged to a
dim, almost unbelievable, past. She was of the substance of dreams.
He went gaily to the rendezvous on the following afternoon, and was
delighted to find how springy was his step. He had hardly taken his
place in front of the Guards Memorial when he saw an electric brougham
approach and, catching the girl’s signal, stepped to the side of the
road as the car stopped.
She was in excellent spirits.
“It’s a great idea to let yourself be seen in a certain kind of car,”
she said. “You don’t know what I mean? I’ll bet you don’t!”
They crossed into Hyde Park, made a slow progress near the edge of the
sidewalk, and he found himself enjoying the novel experience. She was
very pretty, though older than he had thought.
“Do you see that fat man over there? That’s the Sparrow. You want to
keep away from him.”
He started at the name.
“You mean Bird?” he stammered, and looked guiltily in the direction
she indicated.
He saw Mr. Bird. He was walking with a very pretty girl, but the woman
who was at that moment seating herself on one of the park benches he
did not recognize.
As the brougham turned and came back on the other side of the road,
she said suddenly:
“There will be a car waiting near the Cavalry Barracks. I hope you can
drive?”
“Another car?” he asked in astonishment.
She nodded.
“I want to try you out.”
He laughed.
“All this is very mysterious,” he said.
The car was waiting for them, a closed light car of English make.
There was nobody in attendance, but without hesitation she stopped the
brougham and gave the driver instructions.
“Here it is,” she said. “Get in.”
Luke sank into the driver’s seat and put his foot on the self-starter,
and she came in after him, slamming the little door behind her.
“Grafton Street,” she said, in a businesslike tone. “Pull up opposite
the Rean Club.”
He thought she was testing his driving ability, for he had to pass
through three traffic blocks before he brought the machine to a
standstill at a place she indicated.
“Now you understand,” she said, dropping her voice and speaking
rapidly, “I’m going in to see my husband.”
She looked him straight in the eyes.
“If he makes a fuss I shall expect you to help me. If he doesn’t make
a fuss, we’ll drive quietly away down Albemarle Street, make for
Vauxhall Bridge and Tooting Common.”
“Your husband?” he stammered.
She gave him one quick look of suspicion.
“That is what you tell the flattie if there is any fuss.”
What a flattie was she did not explain, and was gone before he could
ask her. He kept the engine running according to her instructions. She
was gone some twenty minutes. Presently, looking out, he saw her turn
the corner from Bond Street and walk with apparent unconcern toward
him. As she stepped into the car, a man in his shirt-sleeves darted
round the corner, flew at her, and gripped her by the arm. She tried
to wrench herself free, and before Luke realized what he was doing he
had struck her assailant and sent him tumbling to the pavement.
“Drive!” she snapped, and mechanically Luke Maddison sent the machine
leaping forward.
They crossed Oxford Street, down St. James’s Street, through the park,
and were over Vauxhall Bridge before he partly realized what had
happened.
“Why did that fellow grab you?” he asked.
“My husband--I had a row with him,” she said calmly. And then: “I knew
Connor was wrong,” she said, and whistled. “If I hadn’t had my wits
about me and started that husband story, I’d have been half-way to
Holloway!”
He saw her look at every policeman they passed, out of the corner of
her eye, and his heart was beating faster as they came to the edge of
Tooting Common, and at her command he stopped the car.
“We’ll get out here,” she said. “You can go back by bus, I’ll take a
taxi. If Connor comes to-night, tell him I’ve got the stuff.”
She turned to go, but he caught her by the arm.
“What stuff?” he asked sternly.
And then he saw the flat case she carried under her leather coat.
“My God!” gasped Luke Maddison. “You stole that!”
There was amusement in her fine eyes as she nodded.
“Of course I did, you poor simp!”
A taxicab was passing and she hailed it. Slowly his grip on her arm
relaxed. He watched the taxi recede like a man in a dream, too stunned
even to think. He could never remember that journey back to Lambeth.
He had crossed Westminster Bridge when he saw a newsboy with a
placard: “Daring West End Robbery.” He stood dead still, gazing
open-mouthed at the contents bill, and then he felt in his pocket and
dropped a penny from his trembling hand into the newsboy’s palm.
He dared not look inside the newspaper until he was in a quiet street.
Then he read:
DARING WEST END ROBBERY
Bearded Man and Pretty Girl Rob Taffanny’s of £20,000 Diamond
Necklace.
A daring robbery was committed this afternoon at Messrs. Taffanny’s
jewel shop in Bond Street. At about 3:50 a well-dressed woman walked
into the shop and asked to be shown some plain gold rings. Whilst the
assistant’s back was turned, she must have broken a glass case with a
rubber-headed hammer. When he came back, he found not only the woman
but a valuable diamond necklace had disappeared. He flew out into the
street and overtook the woman as she was entering a motor car. He was
immediately struck down by her companion, who is described as a man of
great height, with a fair, well-trimmed beard, dressed in a gray tweed
suit.…
“That’s me!” groaned Luke Maddison, and almost swooned.
CHAPTER XVII
Luke Maddison sat in his little room in Ginnett Street, his head
upon his hands, his mind a great confusion. Mrs. Fraser had not been
in the shop parlour when he passed through, and was apparently
unconscious of his return. But this was not the fact, he discovered,
when, a quarter of an hour afterwards, she came in with a cup of tea.
He had a feeling that she was well aware of what had happened that
afternoon, although she made no reference to his terrifying adventure
until she seemed at the point of departure.
“Connor says that the only danger is that some of the Lewing mob may
put up a squeal.”
“What is a squeal?” asked Luke, and she smiled amiably and admiringly.
“What a one you are! But perhaps in Australia they don’t have these
expressions.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Do you know what strikes me, Mrs. Fraser?” he said calmly. “That
every person in this street who reads the description will recognize
me? About a hundred people must have seen me walking down Ginnett
Street----”
She shook her head.
“I know everybody in the neighbourhood and what they’re doing,” she
said calmly. “The only man who saw you is old Joe who runs errands for
me. Connor says you ought to cut that beard of yours and get another
suit. I’ll take away the one you’re wearing, if you’ll change.”
“Into what?” he demanded with some asperity.
“There’s a blue suit in the drawer; it came when you were out this
afternoon,” she said, and went away.
For a quarter of an hour he sat and watched his tea growing cold, his
mind vacillating between horror and amusement. He, Luke Maddison, was
a thief, a gangster, an active member of an organization which had
robbed Taffanny’s! He knew Taffanny’s rather well; he had bought
Margaret’s engagement ring over the very glass counter that had been
smashed. He was helpless--the idea of going to the police and
betraying his associates never occurred to him. There was only one
thing to be done and that was to steal away at the first opportunity.
He had written for his check book to be sent to Ronda, and it was a
simple matter to reach Spain. Was it, though?
With a gasp he realized that he had no passport! And without a
passport it was impossible to reach Spain, of all countries, where
every man and woman who passed across the frontier were closely
scrutinized. If he had not dismissed his servant it would be easy to
creep back to his flat one night, pack a bag, and fade away into a
Continental limbo. But probably his solicitor had the key of the flat.
A new hope awakened. Hulbert had an apartment in St. James’s Street.
He was a bachelor and accessible.
Luke dismissed from his mind his experience of the afternoon. That was
something not to be thought of without a shudder--he was whistling
cheerfully when Mrs. Fraser came with a pair of bright, new scissors
to collect the gray tweed suit he had discarded, and to bring him a
pair of brown shoes, so hideously bright that they dazzled him.
“Connor says you’d better leave your moustache,” she suggested.
“Where is Connor? Is he on the premises?”
She shook her head.
“No, he ’phoned me.”
“I didn’t know you had a ’phone,” he said, in surprise.
Mrs. Fraser smiled cryptically.
“We’ve got lots of things here that people don’t know anything about,”
she said.
She came back a little later with a tube of shaving paste, a brand new
lather brush, and a razor which had evidently been purchased recently,
for when he opened the case he found it still inclosed in oil paper.
Shaving was a painful process in spite of this, but apparently the
results were satisfactory, for when the woman brought him some food
later she stood in the doorway and gaped her approval.
“Well, I should never have known you, Mr. Smith,” she said, “and I’ll
bet your best friend wouldn’t know you!”
As to this Luke was perfectly convinced. What an extraordinary change
a moustache made in a man’s appearance! To him it lent a touch of the
sinister--he stood gazing, fascinated, at his reflection in the
mirror.
Mrs. Fraser seemed more inclined to be conversational than she had
been before; asked him if he was married, and before he could answer
announced herself as a widow.
“At least, practically,” she amended the statement. “My husband got a
lifer two years ago.”
She was quite cheerful about this calamity, and Luke gathered that
life had not run any too smoothly for the woman.
“He asked for it,” she said. “Shot a copper and nearly killed him; and
naturally, Connor wouldn’t stand for that. Connor says a gun’s all
right for the heads but not for the unders. Fraser was that
kind--flash! He tried everything----”
“Had he been in prison before?”
She smiled amusedly.
“Why, of course! He did two stretches.”
Luke did not ask what a stretch might be: he had a vague idea that it
meant penal servitude.
“He did one stretch,” said the communicative Mrs. Fraser, “for a
swindle up in Manchester--he and Danty were in it----”
Luke’s jaw dropped.
“Danty?” he said incredulously. “Who is he?”
“He’s a con man--you must have heard of him. I think he’s straight
now, but you can never tell. He lives up west, knows all the swells,
and has got a flat in Half Moon Street. He and Gunner Haynes used to
work together----”
“Gunner Haynes--you know him?” asked Luke quickly.
From her expression and tone he gathered that Haynes was a person of
some importance in the hierarchy of the underworld.
“No, I don’t know him, I’ve only heard of him. But what do they call
Danty now?” She frowned in an effort of memory. “I had it on the tip
of my tongue--a swell name. Danton Morell--that’s it! Connor told me
only the other day about him.”
The room seemed to swim before Luke Maddison’s eyes. Danton Morell--a
confidence man, an ex-convict? It was incredible! And then suddenly he
had the stunning realization that Danty Morell was his wife’s best
friend!
“What is he like in appearance?”
“Danty? I’ve seen him two or three times.…”
She described Morell in her homely language. There was no doubt at all
that this was the man! It was more vitally necessary than ever that he
should escape from this environment and reappear as Luke Maddison.
His vague plans became definite. He could leave the house that night,
seek out Hulbert, and tell him the truth.
At nine o’clock that night he was preparing to leave when an
unexpected difficulty arose. He was just about to turn out the light
when Mrs. Fraser appeared. She closed the door behind her, and from
her manner he gathered that something serious had happened.
“Two of the Lewing crowd are down below,” she said in a low voice. “I
haven’t had a chance to call up Connor; the ’phone is in the parlour,
and they came in before I knew what was happening.”
She had something hidden under her apron, and when she withdrew her
hand he saw that it was a small Browning pistol.
“Put that in your sky,” she said urgently. “You don’t know what these
fellows are after.”
“In my----?” he began, bewildered.
“In your pocket,” she said impatiently. “Do as you’re told.”
Mechanically he took the pistol from her hand and slipped it into his
hip pocket. The one thing he did not wish to challenge was a scene
with two members of the rival gang. It was vital that he should get
away from Ginnett Street with the least possible delay, and if this
pistol helped him it was welcome.
“They want to see you----” she began.
And then a voice came from the foot of the narrow stairs.
“Come on, Smith!”
There was menace in the tone. Mrs. Fraser flung open the door.
“Wait!” she said sharply. “Who do you think you are?”
Luke heard a grumbling voice and the slam of the door which separated
the foot of the stairs from the parlour. And then, at the beckoning
jerk of the woman’s head, he followed her down the stairs.
There were two men in the parlour. One stood with his back to the
fire, the other significantly near the door that gave egress to the
shop. They were respectably dressed. Luke realized that if he had seen
them in the street he would have thought they were decent artisans.
There was certainly nothing sinister in either face. One was tall and
rather stout, the other a slightly built man, who wore as his necktie
the colours of a cavalry regiment.
The big man who stood with his back to the fire lowered his chin to
his breast and looked at Luke from under his eyebrows.
“Is this Smith?” he asked.
“That is Mr. Smith,” said Mrs. Fraser primly.
“What’s the idea of your coming here and pretending you’re somebody
you’re not?” asked the little man by the door with extraordinary
rapidity.
His big companion silenced him.
“You shut up. I’ll do all the talking, Curly,” he said. “You did that
job to-day, didn’t you, Smith?”
“I’ve done many jobs,” said Luke coolly.
“You’re pretending you’re a fellow named Smith whom our governor
brought over from Australia--no, I’m not talking about Lewing: he was
nobody. Swank killed him, and he’s well dead. But you’re not Smith.”
He pointed a finger to the man at the door. “That’s Curly Smith.”
“I’ll say I am!”
The little man was quivering with anger; he spoke with a shrill
cockney whine.
“You’ve been using my name”--he qualified the name with a violent
adjective.
The stout man by the fire rebuked him.
“There are ladies present,” he said, with such solemnity that Luke
almost laughed at the incongruity of the reproach.
“The point is,” said the big man, who, Luke discovered, was named
Verdi, “you was picked up when Lewing was chived, and you got yours
too, and naturally Connor thought you were the man that Lewing was
supposed to meet off the boat in the London Docks. And instead of
going to meet him, Lewing got cold feet, because he thought the Connor
lot were after him for a squeal. But you’re not Smith, and I’ll take
my oath you’ve never been to Australia.”
“Him!” Curly Smith was quivering with contempt. “That feller couldn’t
get a living in Australia!”
He suddenly tugged a newspaper from his side pocket.
“Do you see what you’ve done for me?” he hissed, and thrust the paper
under Luke’s nose.
Luke Maddison read the paragraph which the grimy thumb of the man
stabbed.
In connection with this robbery the police are seeking information
concerning a man named Smith who landed a few weeks ago from the
Orient liner _Pontiac_.
“Do you see what you’ve done?” repeated Smith savagely. “You’ve got
the dicks after me!”
His hand strayed to his trousers pocket.
“Steady your mitt!” growled Verdi. “This bird’s got a gat--what do you
think the old woman went up to see him about?”
Mrs. Fraser flamed at the insult.
“Old, am I, you fat snail! We’ll see what Connor says to that! He’ll
be here in five minutes.”
Verdi glanced uneasily at the door.
“Bluff,” he said. “Anyway, Connor can’t complain if we come round to
make a few inquiries. We’re entitled to a bit of information.”
“Do you want to see me any more?” said Luke, and moved toward the
door.
Curly Smith stood squarely in his way.
“We want to know----” began Verdi.
“You know all you’re likely to know,” said Luke curtly.
He took another step forward, but Smith did not move. Suddenly Luke’s
hand shot up, gripped the little man and swung him across the room. It
was not a moment to compromise or to argue; instinctively he knew he
was taking the right line as he pulled the door wide open.
“Get outside, both of you!” he said.
Verdi shrugged his broad shoulders.
“That’s all right,” he said. “We don’t want any unpleasantness.”
He was smiling when he came abreast of Luke; but Mrs. Fraser had
slipped to the other side of the table, and saw the life preserver he
carried in his right hand.
“Look out!” she cried shrilly.
As the deadly little stick rose, Luke struck for the man’s jaw, and he
went over with a crash against the wooden partition which separated
the shop from the parlour.
For a moment he was stunned, and in that time Luke had jerked the life
preserver from the man’s hand (a leather cord attached to it was
twisted round his wrist) and had dropped it into his pocket.
“Come on, you.” He beckoned Curly Smith, and the little man sidled
nimbly past him.
Verdi was on his feet by now, a little dazed, blinking with his pale
blue eyes at the man who had knocked him down.
“All right,” he said, and went heavily after his companion.
Luke closed the door with some difficulty, for the fall of the man
against the partition had thrown the door out of true. Mrs. Fraser was
very pale and her breath was coming quickly.
“I’ve never known them Lewings to do that before,” she said. “I
wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t start a fire.”
They had taken this course once before, Luke learned to his horror and
amazement--that explained the new annex to the house.
339 Ginnett Street was obviously Connor’s headquarters. The place had
never been raided--for the matter of that, it had never held a
pennyworth of stolen property.
He learned now, in the burst of confidence which apprehension
inspired, that although the rival gang was called Lewing’s, the dead
man had had very little to do with its organization. There had been a
coterie of irresponsible larrikins and shop thieves, and this had been
the nucleus of a more important gang, of which Lewing, at the moment
of his death, was the merest servant.
“He was just a little thief and a nose” (this was an informer, Luke
learned), said Mrs. Fraser. “Why, he was in stir a few days before he
was killed.”
Luke nodded. He remembered the occasion of Lewing’s first visit to
him. He had been in Brixton with Gunner Haynes, and had come in a
fraudulent spirit to collect money on behalf of the Gunner.
“There’s going to be some trouble--the Lewings have never done this
before,” repeated Mrs. Fraser. “I must let Connor know about it--you
going out?”
Luke was going out, and never intended returning. This latter piece of
information he did not pass to his hostess.
“Have you got any money? Oh, that reminds me.” The woman searched in a
leather bag which she carried beneath her apron and produced a small
package of notes. “Connor sent this--it’s fifty,” she said. “It’s only
on account. That stuff has got to be cut four ways, and you’ll get
your share. Connor’s always straight about money. You could trust him
with a million pounds.”
“I don’t want this.”
“Put it in your pocket,” she commanded, and as he did not wish to
prolong the conversation he obeyed. “Have you got any small money?”
“I have plenty,” he said, almost impatiently.
“Small money,” she insisted, and he had reason to be thankful for her
insistence.
He had not, and again she dived her hand under the apron and produced
some silver and coppers.
“If you try to pass fivers in this country you’ll get yourself into
trouble,” she said. And then: “Are you Australian?”
“No,” said Luke.
She was troubled at this, but her face cleared up.
“I expect Connor knows all about it.”
Evidently the word of Connor was something more than law.
She accompanied him to the door of the shop. When she found it was
raining she went back herself to get his mackintosh.
“Watch out for the Lewings,” she warned him, “and keep that gat in
your pocket where you can reach it.”
She fussed over him as a family nurse might and was not satisfied till
he had taken the automatic from his hip and dropped it into the slip
pocket of his waterproof.
Why was a pistol called a gat, he wondered. Probably it was an
abbreviation of gatling, and was obviously an Americanism.
There was nobody in the street, but he took the precaution, on Mrs.
Fraser’s advice, of making a wide detour, and ten minutes later he was
walking across Westminster Bridge.
Parliament was sitting; the clock in the big tower pointed to twenty
minutes to ten.
First he must see Jack Hulbert, that sane young solicitor of his. It
struck him that there was a possibility that Jack might not be alone.
The telephone, of course! He stopped at the first public booth and put
through a call. And here it was he was thankful to Mrs. Fraser for her
coppers.
The voice of Mr. Hulbert’s servant answered him.
“I want to speak to Mr. Hulbert,” he said, and to his horror the reply
came:
“Mr. Hulbert is not in England, sir; he has gone to Berlin for a
holiday and will not be back till next week. Who is it speaking?”
Luke for the moment was speechless; when the question was repeated he
had an inspiration.
“Can you tell me if Mr. Luke Maddison’s flat is occupied--is his
servant there?”
The tone of the man changed.
“Who are you, and why do you want to know that?” he demanded.
Luke rang off without explanation. He might have told the man who he
was, but he was chary of confiding in servants, and it was
particularly undesirable that he should betray his presence in London
to anybody except to Jack.
And then a thought struck him and he called the number of his own
flat. He waited for fully five minutes listening to the faint buzz of
the call, and then the operator said:
“I’m sorry, sir, there’s no reply from that number.”
Luke made a slow way to the Mall, and walked slowly toward Buckingham
Palace, oblivious of the rain which was now falling in earnest. There
was only one thing to be done, and by the time he reached the end of
the Mall he had made his plans. He had often remarked jokingly how
easy it was to burgle his flat. Recently there had been erected a new
fire escape at the back of the block in which he had his residence,
and access to the yard where the escape touched earth was by no means
difficult. He could climb the wall from the mews which ran at the back
of the flat; he knew exactly how the window could be forced.
CHAPTER XVIII
Margaret Maddison was preparing for bed when the street bell rang.
She opened the door of her room and listened: somebody was talking in
the hall below; she heard her footman’s voice and a deeper one, and
then somebody said:
“You’d better go up and tell the lady. I must see her… Scotland Yard.”
She sent her maid down to find out what was the matter, and in a few
minutes the girl came back.
“It’s an inspector from Scotland Yard, madam. He wants to see you on a
matter of importance.”
“Is it Mr. Bird?” she asked anxiously.
Why she should be anxious at all she could not for the moment
understand. Later she realized that it was the knowledge that Scotland
Yard was a carrier of unpleasant news, and that possibly something
might have happened to Luke, which sent her down to the drawing room
so quickly.
It was not Bird but a stranger, who introduced himself as Divisional
Inspector Gorton.
“I’m sorry to bother you at this time of night, Mrs. Maddison,” he
said, “but we’ve got a report sent to us by the servant of Mr.
Hulbert, the solicitor--I believe he is your husband’s solicitor?”
She nodded, and drew a quick breath.
“Is anything wrong--I mean, with Mr. Maddison?”
“No, ma’am, it’s not serious--in fact it may be nothing at all. But
this valet of Mr. Hulbert’s says that he had an inquiry from a strange
man to-night as to whether your husband’s flat was occupied--he also
said that you had the key of the flat.”
Margaret nodded. The key had been in her possession since a few days
after Luke’s departure. His man had brought it; it was at that moment
in her desk.
“I understand Mr. Maddison’s abroad?”
“Yes, he is in Ronda,” she said quickly. “You can have the key.”
Inspector Gorton hesitated.
“I’d rather like you to come along with us, madam,” he said. “I
promise you there’s not the slightest danger, but we do not like
searching houses until there is a representative of the owner
present.”
“What do you expect to find? I’ll come with pleasure,” she said.
“You can wait outside in your car, madam. What do we expect to find?
Well, there is a possibility that the man who called up intended
burgling the flat, and we want to be on the safe side.”
She went upstairs and finished dressing, putting on a raincoat, and
accompanied the policeman into the street. A car was drawn up, with
two or three men sitting in the back, and she was invited to take her
place by the side of the driver.
They came very quickly to the entrance of Luke’s flat.
“No, no, I’ll come up with you,” she said. “I’ve only been in it
twice, but I’ll probably be able to help you find your way about.”
It was not a pleasant experience, walking into that familiar hall,
looking at the dusty furnishings. The place was peculiarly Luke’s, had
something of his aura, and it gave her a little pang to realize that
Luke might never come here again.
“There’s a fire escape here, isn’t there? Where does it touch?”
“The kitchen,” she said.
The inspector sent one of his men to search that apartment; and then
suddenly he sniffed.
“Somebody’s been smoking a cigar here, and smoking it recently,” he
said.
Margaret too had smelt the faint fragrance. At that moment the
detective sent to look at the kitchen came running back.
“The window’s been forced!” he said.
Again Gorton nodded. Evidently he expected to hear this.
“Which is Mr. Maddison’s room?”
She pointed. A key was already inserted in the lock. The detective
turned the handle. The door did not move: it was bolted on the inside.
“Out you come, son!” he said in a loud voice as he rapped on the
panel. “It’s a cop!”
He turned to the girl.
“You’d better go downstairs, Mrs. Maddison--we’re going to break in
this door!”
Luke Maddison, standing on the other side of the door, listening,
heard the words and gasped. His wife was there--the one person in the
world who must not see him!
CHAPTER XIX
With her heart beating a little faster, Margaret passed down the
stairs. When she reached the street she found that the driver of the
police car had summoned a taxi, which was drawn up behind the tender.
“Is anybody there, miss?” asked a police officer.
“Yes, I think there is,” she said breathlessly. “At least, the
inspector thinks so.”
“You’d better get into the cab, miss,” said the police officer. “I
suppose Mr. Gorton expects a bit of a fight.”
“Do you often have cases like this?”
“About every other day,” he said cheerfully. “We’re one of the Flying
Squads.”
Apparently it was quite usual for the Squad to be called to buildings
where suspected burglars were. They moved with the celerity of a fire
engine and were as alert.
Inspector Gorton waited until Margaret had left the building, and then
he rapped again on the panel.
“Open this door, my son.”
The bolt was slipped back, the door flung open. The inspector saw a
man with grimy face and disordered clothing standing in the doorway,
and instantly he was seized.
Luke was taken aback. He had expected an opportunity of parleying,
even of taking the detective into his confidence. Resenting the sudden
seizure, he tried to shake off the detaining hands, and in the next
instant was flung violently to the floor. Somebody passed their hands
scientifically behind his coat.
“He’s got a gat,” said a voice.
The pistol was passed to Inspector Gorton.
“I can explain the gun,” said Luke.
“I dare say you can.” Gorton snapped back the jacket of the automatic
and detached the magazine. “Loaded--you’ll get a ten stretch for this,
my lad. Fan him, one of you: he may have another.”
In two minutes Luke was searched and everything was taken from him.
“Where did you get this money?” asked the inspector.
“It was given to me----” began Luke, and there was a roar of laughter.
“What is this?” said Gorton, examining something in his hand.
That morning, before he had left on his fatal expedition, Mrs. Fraser
had handed him a little blue-covered book.
“A driving license, eh? You weren’t by any chance driving a car to-day
round about Bond Street, were you?”
Luke’s heart sank within him. And then he heard one of the detectives
say:
“That’s the fellow! He had a beard this afternoon. I saw him driving
with a woman in the park.”
He whispered something to Gorton and the inspector nodded. All the
time Luke was thinking rapidly. That simple explanation of his was no
longer possible. If he declared himself to be Luke Maddison, he must
also explain what he had been doing since he disappeared. The
realization of that came with shocking emphasis. And he knew that
below, Margaret was waiting and would recognize him instantly in spite
of his moustache.
Ahead of him was the open door leading to the hall. To the right the
little room he had used as a dressing room. The window was right above
the first landing of the fire escape. Luke had a horror of fires, and
it was his favourite amusement to plan out how he would escape from a
burning building. If he could get to that room.… It did not seem
possible.
Somebody spoke from the landing outside. It was the hall porter, who
had called to discover what the commotion was about. The two
detectives who were guarding the door turned their backs for a moment,
and in that instant Luke Maddison leaped. He was something of an
athlete; had played for his fifteen at college, and had nothing to
learn about the art of avoiding a tackle. He dashed through the door
of the dressing room, banged it tight, and shot in the bolt as the
weight of two men was flung against it.
This was no moment for caution. He flung up the window and his legs
went out almost in the same motion. In another second he dropped into
the darkness. He had calculated well. The steel platform of the fire
escape clanged under his feet. In another instant he was flying down
the steps and was over the wall before the first of the detectives
reached the head of the escape.
A man was lounging in the mews: he turned with a shout as Luke
dropped. But Luke was off like the wind. His long stay in the hospital
had thrown him out of condition, but he had all the technique of a
runner. As he emerged from the narrow entrance of the mews he saw a
cab passing, and leaped on the running board.
“Paddington,” he said, and swung himself deftly inside.
Evidently the driver was in some doubt as to whether he should
continue. He went about two blocks and then pulled the car up by the
side of the curb.
“Where have you come from?” he asked. “I can’t take you, guv’nor. You
look as if you were running away from somebody.”
“I was,” said Luke.
It was not a moment to argue. He threw a two-shilling piece into the
man’s hand, turned down a narrow street conveniently near, and
doubling back, reached the main road. Here he found a taxi moving at
leisure, and a driver who did not question his _bona fides_.
“Scotland Yard,” he said.
He had made a sudden resolution. He would go to the Sparrow, tell him
the truth, and trust to that shrewd man to see him through his
troubles.
The cab drew up at the entrance of Scotland Yard and Luke went swiftly
down the declivity and into the gloomy entrance hall. A police officer
on duty challenged him and he stated his requirements.
“Mr. Bird’s been gone for two hours, sir. I think he’s gone into the
country. Would you like to see anybody else?”
Groaning inwardly, Luke shook his head.
“No, I don’t think anybody else would be of much use to me,” he said.
“You wouldn’t like to see Mr. Gorton? He’ll be back soon,” said the
police officer, quite ignorant of the fact that the one person in the
world whom Luke did not wish to see was that same Gorton.
He came out on to the Thames Embankment at one end of the Yard as
Gorton and his Flying Squad came in at the other. Turning left, he
walked toward Waterloo Bridge. At Charing Cross Underground he made
another attempt to get into touch with the Sparrow. There was a chance
that the policeman was wrong and that Bird was still in town. He went
to the telephone directory, but there were so many Birds that it was
impossible to tell which was which. And then he remembered one of his
initials--an unusual “Z” (Mr. Bird’s middle name was Zachariah). He
scanned the list again and going into the telephone booth, gave a
number.
At first he thought his luck was in.
“Yes, this is Mr. Bird’s house,” said a voice, “but he’s out of town.
Who is it speaking?”
“It is vitally necessary that I should get in touch with him as soon
as possible,” said Luke urgently. “Can you tell me where I can find
him?”
“Who are you?”
“Will you tell him it’s Mr. Maddison speaking? I have been to Scotland
Yard…”
He felt a sudden draught. The door of the telephone booth was ajar; an
unconcerned man was standing near by, and apparently had no interest
either in him or his conversation. Luke shut the door again, and then,
to his annoyance, found that whoever had spoken for Mr. Bird had hung
up her receiver. Still, that was a start. He almost felt a sense of
relief as he came out on to the cold Embankment and pursued his way
toward Waterloo.
He had not gone twenty yards before two men, walking quickly, overtook
him and fell in one at each side.
“Hullo, Smith! Connor wants to see you.”
He had never seen the man before. His tone was offensive and
peremptory.
“And who may Mr. Connor be?” asked Luke coolly. “My name is not Smith,
it is Maddison.”
“That’s all right, sir,” said the other more respectfully, “but Mr.
Connor does want to see you pretty badly.”
“Where is he?” asked Luke after a moment’s thought.
“At the top of Savoy Hill--there goes the Squad.”
A car flashed past at that moment; the red light disappeared along the
Embankment.
“They call ’em busies and they _are_ busy,” said the second man
bitterly.
They did not go up Savoy Hill but turned aside, passed one entrance of
the Savoy Hotel and up a steep and narrow street. They turned again to
the right.
“Where is Connor?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute, when I’ve got a light for my fag,” said
the smaller of the two.
He struck a match, and Luke’s eyes instinctively went to it. That is
all he remembered. He did not feel the pain of any blow, but dropped
limply to the pavement under the impact of a rubber cosh.
His head was splitting when he came to his senses. He was lying on the
hard floor of a jolting motor car; he discovered afterwards it was a
tilting Ford wagon that bore innocuously enough the name of a
respectable firm of greengrocers. The two men were squatting by his
side; one was smoking, and they were carrying on a conversation in a
low voice.
“… That’s what Connor told me,” said one. “But then, Connor always
thought this nut would put up a squeal.”
Luke lay motionless; his head was throbbing, but he felt no other
discomfort. Apparently, although he could guess there was a bump as
big as an egg on his skull, the blow had not drawn blood.
The car stopped. There was the creak of a gate being opened, and then
they went forward again, jolting over uneven ground; presently the car
stopped and the engine was shut off.
“Are you awake?” asked a voice.
“I’m awake all right,” said Luke.
“Then get out of this. Why was you so foolish, Smith?”
A mild question from a man who, only ten minutes before, had stunned
him.
He slithered out of the back of the car and came to his feet on soft,
muddy ground. The cold night air made him reel; one of the men caught
him by the arm and guided him into what looked to be a small cottage.
To the right he saw the gleam of the river. A tug was moving, her
green starboard light reflected in the water. So quickly she was
moving that he guessed she was going downstream. He must therefore be
on the Surrey side of the Thames.
He could see nothing but a high wall to his right, and far away a
blood-red advertisement sign. The door banged on him. There was a
smell of dampness, but apparently the cottage had some sort of
furnishing, for he walked upon something that might have been a
carpet, and when a door was opened on his right and he was pushed in,
he found himself in a room not only furnished but overfurnished.
Connor was sitting at a table shuffling a pack of cards. He looked up
as Luke entered the room.
“Did you have to cosh him?” he asked pleasantly.
The man who held Luke’s arm grinned.
“He wouldn’t be sensible,” he said.
“Sit down.” Connor pointed to a horsehair sofa against the wall, and
Luke was glad to accept the invitation. “Tried to put up a squeal, did
you, Smith?”
There was nothing unfriendly in Connor’s tone, but he did not cease
shuffling the cards as he spoke.
“I thought you were a man when you did that bust--yes, one of my lads
saw you get into that flat, and saw you when you bolted. But you’re
nothing better than a dirty squealer. Went into the Yard and asked for
the Sparrow, did you? Is he a pal of yours?”
“I know him,” said Luke.
Mr. Connor nodded pleasantly.
“And then you tried to get him on the ’phone--what was the squeal
about? Don’t trouble to tell me: I know. I never trusted you from the
first, Smith--I don’t trust Australians.”
Despite his aching head, Luke could not but smile at this libel.
“I shouldn’t think they trust you a great deal, do they?” he asked.
“Not much,” said Connor.
He cut the pack into two, shuffling them scientifically, and all the
time his eyes were on Luke.
“So you know the Sparrow? That’s good. I’ll bet you know Danty, too.”
Luke started.
“Danty Morell?” he asked.
Why had Danty gone out of his mind? Why had he forgotten that Danty
was the confidant of his wife--that his one desire, in seeking freedom
from the sinister environment in which he found himself, had been to
expose that confidence man?
“Know Danty, too!” Connor’s voice was almost admiring. “And Pi Coles?”
Luke nodded.
“Yes, Coles--that’s his servant.”
Connors smiled broadly, and there were grins on the faces of the other
two men.
“Pi is his servant all right. You seem to know the whole darn shoot!
I’m telling you, Smith, that a man that knows Danty and the Lewing
gang, and calls at Scotland Yard to see his friend the Sparrow, isn’t
a healthy fellow to have around the house.”
There was a long pause, and then he added:
“That’s why you’re not going to be around the house.”
He looked up at one of the men thoughtfully.
“When is high tide?”
“Four o’clock.”
Connor nodded. Again his dark eyes fell on Luke.
“You a good swimmer?”
“Fair,” said Luke coolly.
“We’ll give you a little dip to-night,” said Connor. “Put him in the
cooler, Harry.”
The man who had struck him gripped Luke by the arm and pulled him to
his feet. The throbbing was easier now; he did not reel, had recovered
something of his strength; but this was not a moment for its
exhibition.
Evidently the building was not an extensive one. It had been the
weighing room of a company that had once owned the wharf and small
warehouse which Connor used as a headquarters.
Connor carried on a legitimate if unprofitable business. He was a
dealer in certain building material, and barges came regularly but at
rare intervals to this wharf and were unloaded. He bought and sold
scrap iron, cement, any commodity which offered an immediate profit.
The wharf could be, and was, hired for a fee.
A few paces from the door of the sitting room they came to another.
Luke could not help wondering whether the little chamber into which he
was thrust had been used before for the same purpose. It had no
windows, but in other respects was curiously like a prison cell. It
might have been employed for the storage of coal, but there was
nothing in it now, not even a bed or a stool. In the light of the
man’s electric torch he saw that the walls were of brick and
whitewashed. Then the door slammed on him; he heard a bolt shot, and
he was left alone with the unpleasant knowledge that it would be high
tide in five hours, and that Mr. Connor, in his amiable way, had
planned “a dip” for him.
CHAPTER XX
Margaret had waited a long time for Mr. Gorton to come out, and when
he appeared he was in so great a hurry that he could only tell her the
bare fact that he had found a man in the room and that he had escaped.
It was the hall porter who supplied her with greater, and in some
respects less accurate, information.
“Yes, madam, the police found a man in Mr. Maddison’s room. I caught a
glimpse of him just before he got away. Good-looking fellow with a
moustache, and, according to the police, a pretty desperate
burglar--they found a revolver on him. Perhaps you’d like to go up and
see the flat, madam?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Yes, I will,” she said, and the man took her up in the lift.
A detective had been left in charge of the disordered room; apparently
she was expected, for he displayed some relief on her arrival.
“You don’t want me to stay, madam? Inspector Gorton told me that he’d
like a list of anything missing, and he’ll come and see you in the
morning.”
He showed her the room where the “burglar” had been. Drawers had been
pulled out, a desk had been broken open (Luke had lost the key);
papers littered the floor.
“Mr. Gorton doesn’t know even now what he was looking for,” said the
detective. “There was a gold watch in one of the drawers, but he
didn’t touch that. We know he was after the clothes.”
He showed her a big suitcase into which clothing had been thrown
pell-mell. There was a dress suit, half-a-dozen shirts and collars, a
wad of pocket handkerchiefs, and a suit of pajamas.
“But he must have spent a lot of time over the desk,” said the
officer. “One of my mates said that he had something like a book
between his shirt and his skin. He’d just felt it when he broke away
and made his escape.”
“A book?” said Margaret quickly. “How very odd!”
And then her eyes fell upon an envelope on the floor and she
recognized it immediately. It bore the official stamp of the Passport
Office, and Luke had had it in his pocket the day before the wedding,
and had shown it to her in that half-shy and half-amused way of his
that sometimes irritated her. It was his new passport, decorated,
rather prematurely, with a portrait of his wife. He had opened it in
her presence, and she had been rather annoyed because he had
light-heartedly forged her name in order to present her with the
document on her wedding day.
She picked up the envelope; there was nothing inside it--this, then,
was the book which the burglar had stolen--why?
There were several sheets of notepaper on the floor. She picked up
one, read it and gasped. The date had been scrawled in on the top
line, and it began:
My dear Hulbert, I am in a most terrible----
It was Luke’s writing! It was Luke who had been there that night. She
found another sheet covered with smudged writing; this also was
addressed to the solicitor, but the three scrawled lines were
undecipherable. He had deliberately crossed them out. Evidently he had
sat down to write a letter to Hulbert, had made two attempts and then
had changed his mind.
It was so like Luke: he could never resist the temptation offered by a
sheet of note paper--he must write to somebody, he had often told her.
Luke had been here; Luke was the burglar. But why?
She turned to the detective, and it was on the tip of her tongue to
make the revelation when he said something that struck speech from her
lips.
“He must have been a pretty bad man, that fellow--one of our men
recognized him as the chap who was driving a car this afternoon when
Taffanny’s was robbed. He gave one of the shop assistants a punch in
the jaw----”
“But that’s impossible!” she said indignantly. “This man----”
“Ah, you’ve read about it in the papers--a bearded man. That’s right,
madam, he’s taken his beard off this afternoon. Johnson--that’s the
officer--saw him driving with a girl round the park.”
Again speech died on her lips.
“They got her to-night,” said the communicative detective. “Mr.
Gorton’s pretty certain she’ll put up a squeal--I mean to say, she’ll
tell who her companion was. From all accounts he’s a man who’s been
seen about with her a great deal in the past year or two.”
She was stunned, bewildered; she could only shake her head in feeble
protest.
“It couldn’t have been the same man,” she said at last.
“Do you know him--the fellow who was here?” The detective looked at
her keenly.
“No, no,” she said hastily. “I only thought… it would be such an
extraordinary coincidence.”
“I’ve got an idea Mr. Gorton knows him.” The detective shut the door
behind her as she walked out of the room. “I heard him telling the
sergeant that he might be the fellow who was knifed the night a man
named Lewing was killed. If that’s the case, he’s only been out of
hospital a few days.”
She offered the officer some money; he refused it with great firmness
and escorted her to her taxi. She was reminded by the fare, when she
reached her house, that she had been two hours absent.
Her maid was waiting up for her and she sent her down to make some
coffee. Turning on all the lights in the drawing room, she opened her
desk and presently found a bundle of Luke’s letters. She compared
their beginnings with the two scraps of paper she had brought from the
flat. There was no question at all: it was Luke’s writing. The “My
dear” began characteristically in the middle of the page in every
case.
It was Luke! And it had been Luke that afternoon in a car with that
impossible woman! Luke who had assisted at the robbery of Taffanny’s!
She was not shocked; it was too tremendous a discovery to produce
emotional phenomena of the commonplace kind. She accepted Luke
Maddison, banker, burglar, hold-up man, companion of questionable
ladies, with the calmness of a scientist who had happened upon a new
and interesting discovery.
Here was an immense happening. To display anger or humiliation would
be absurd. One has no regard for a sense of decency when fleeing from
an earthquake and its tumbling walls.
She went to bed; and such is the serenity of a resolute mind that she
slept dreamlessly. In the morning while she was sitting at breakfast
came Inspector Gorton; she listened calmly to his confession of
failure.
“The fellow ran like a hare. He must have been a trained athlete,” he
said. “I’m pretty sure now that he is the fellow who was knifed in a
gang fight in South London. Lewing was killed.”
“Who was Lewing?” she asked.
Gorton shrugged his broad shoulders.
“Nobody in particular, although he gave his name to a gang. The real
leader of that crowd is a gentleman named Danty Morell--though he
hasn’t taken any very active…”
She had put down her cup. He saw how white her face was.
“Danty Morell? You don’t mean Mr. Danton Morell who lives in Half Moon
Street?”
Gorton smiled.
“Perhaps I oughtn’t to have said that, but I thought Mr. Bird had told
you. You know Mr. Bird? I hope you don’t know Mr. Morell!”
“I know him very well,” she said; her voice was steady and she was
smiling. “But you may rely on my discretion, Inspector--I feel almost
like a Scotland Yard officer myself.”
She had her hands folded in her lap so that he could not see how they
were trembling.
“He may, of course, have turned over a new leaf,” said Gorton,
uneasily conscious that he had said the wrong thing. “Some of these
fellows do. I know there’s been no complaint against him at the Yard
for a very long time. Morell isn’t his name, of course--I forget what
it was, but the Sparrow--I mean Mr. Bird knows. Wonderful fellow,
Danty! He can talk the hind leg off a donkey. They say he’s the
cleverest confidence man that ever operated in Europe. Perhaps he’s
made enough money to retire.”
Danton Morell! How had she come to know him? She tried to trace back
the friendship. Of course, it was her brother--her poor brother--who
had introduced him. Rex knew so many queer people. She trusted
him--she had trusted Danty. She had believed him implicitly, believed
him when he told her that Luke had hounded her brother to his death,
believed him when he had produced that pitiable note written on two
small sheets of notepaper--that at least was genuine, for she knew her
brother’s writing.
She was viewing a new world, or viewing it from a new angle; and
somehow she was able to cope with problems which the day before would
have terrified her. Of that new gift she was unconscious--she could
only feel the effect.
Gorton, who had had very little sleep on the previous night, accepted
her invitation to join her at breakfast, though he confined himself to
a cup of coffee and a roll.
“You found nothing missing, I suppose? The officer I left in charge
told me you’d been there looking round. Where is your good husband
now, Mrs. Maddison?”
She swallowed something.
“In Spain, I think. I am going to join him in a day or two.”
“None of the wedding presents were at the flat?”
She shook her head.
“We had no wedding presents,” she smiled.
He finished his coffee, folded his serviette, and got up from the
table.
“Now I’ve got a very unpleasant job which I wish somebody else was
going to do,” he said.
“You’re going to arrest somebody?”
He shook his head.
“No, that wouldn’t be unpleasant--I enjoy putting these fellows behind
bars; and the day I catch that enterprising gentleman who came to your
flat last night will be one of the happiest I have known for years!
No, this is something gruesome which would shock you, so I shan’t tell
you.”
“I’m beyond being shocked,” she smiled.
“It’s nothing really,” said Gorton. “Only there was a very high tide
last night, and the river police found the body of a man who had
evidently been drowned in the night. I’m going down to see if I know
him. From the description I had I shouldn’t be surprised if it was our
burglar.”
She had said she could not be shocked. She was shocked now, and
clasping her hands together so tightly that they hurt--it was only the
pain that prevented her from fainting.
CHAPTER XXI
During the hours which Luke Maddison had spent in his prison house,
it was curious that he should think so little on serious topics. He
was face to face with death in its most hideous aspect--it was
impossible to mistake Connor’s intention--and yet for the main part
his mind was occupied by the veriest trivialities. If he thought of
Margaret at all it was only in a detached and impersonal way and to
find an explanation for her presence with the police at his flat that
night. She must have had the key; the police went to her--but why?
Then he remembered his conversation with Hulbert’s servant, who had
obviously been suspicious and must have communicated at once with the
nearest police station.
He thought of the drive across London in that uncomfortable van, and
spent quite an hour trying to locate exactly the building in which he
was confined. Driving along the Embankment on his way to the City, he
must have often seen the very wharf, the very building. He went to the
City twice a week, to directors’ meetings, and he loved the Embankment
in the early days of spring, when the green was bursting from the
trees, and sunlight dappled the pavements with moving arabesques of
shadow.
In such circumstances as his all a man’s past life should come before
him. Luke made an effort to satisfy the convention, but grew bored
after five minutes.
He wandered round and round his cell, feeling the walls in a grim
spirit of humour, seeking for those loose bricks which inevitably
occur in the prison houses of heroes. Not that he was any hero, he
decided. He was a smash-and-grab man--liable, probably, to three years
penal servitude, certainly to disgrace. He decided that it was not in
any spirit of altruism that he wished to save Margaret’s name from
being dragged into this sordid affair. It was because it would
intensify his own sense of foolishness.
Exactly what would Connor do? He was almost curious to know.
There was a church clock close by; he heard it striking the quarters
and the hours, and the last notes of three were still quivering on the
air when he heard the sound of a key in the lock, the door was opened,
and the two men who had been his captors invited him forth. Their tone
was friendly, almost courteous.
He followed the first, and was followed by the second, into the room.
Connor had evidently been sleeping on a folding bed. He sat on the
edge of his untidy couch, rubbing his fingers through his hair and
yawning prodigiously. On the table were four cups of steaming coffee
and some sandwiches.
“Sit down, Smith. We’ve got to think out what we’re going to do with
you,” said Connor, coming to his feet with a yawn.
He drew up a chair to the table and fell into it; pulled a cup of
coffee toward him and took a sandwich.
“Help yourself to milk and sugar.”
He pushed a cup toward the prisoner. Luke was looking round the room
interestedly. Stacked on a chair were four great bars of something
white and crystalline, which he guessed was salt, and on the floor was
a long length of heavy chain.
Connor followed the direction of his eyes.
“Want to buy a bit of salt?” he asked good-humouredly.
His question seemed to tickle his two companions, for they chuckled
deeply.
“I am not in the salt business,” said Luke with a smile.
He sipped at the coffee; it was raw stuff, but the warmth of it was
grateful, for the night was cold and he had grown chilly in the
brick-lined room.
“What are we going to do with you, Smith, eh?”
Luke took a big gulp of coffee and leaned back in his chair with a
laugh.
“You can listen to a very interesting story,” he said, “and you can
also earn yourself a thousand pounds.”
He saw a faint ghost of a smile come to Connor’s face.
“Go on,” said that tousled man.
Then Luke told everything, but without referring to Margaret. He gave
his name, his address, told how he came to meet Lewing, related the
story of Lewing’s little fraud and of his meeting him on that
night----
“But what were you running away from?” asked Connor.
This was difficult to explain, for Luke had perforce to leave out the
motive for his strange action. He could neither tell of his marriage
nor of Margaret’s staggering conduct; and without these facts he felt
he was being unconvincing. Nevertheless, with this handicap, he
struggled on to a finish. Connor shook his head.
“I’ve heard all about you, Smith--there never was a con man who
couldn’t tell a tale. But if you’re a specimen of the Australian man I
wonder you’re not starving! Drink up your coffee and have some more. I
want to find a way of settling this business without unpleasantness.”
Luke finished the coffee and put down the cup.
“Now, I’ll tell one,” said Connor, and his voice was no longer
pleasant or amiable. “You’ve been to the police and you’ve tried to
double-cross me. And now you think you’ll get out of it with a silly
story!… Squealer… police find you…”
Luke heard only scraps of the talk: he was desperately sleepy. His
head sank forward on his breast, and though he strove with all his
will-power to rouse himself, he could not so much as open his eyes. He
did not even realize that he had been drinking laudanum----
“Hold him up,” said Connor.
One of the men caught Luke as he swayed sideways and lowered him to
the floor. Connor pushed back the table and jerked his thumb in the
direction of the salt. Two blocks were put on the floor under Luke’s
legs, and with a knife one of the men scooped a deep depression in two
of the corners. The other blocks were laid on top. Connor lifted the
heavy chain, wound it carefully round and round the salt, fastening
the last two links with a piece of wire.
They discussed their grisly work without emotion.
“… You want to be careful it doesn’t slip over his feet, Harry,” said
Connor. “Tighten that chain a bit--not too tight or you’ll break the
salt.”
At last it was finished and Connor straightened his back.
“Get that old plank to lay him on,” he commanded, and the bigger of
the two walked to the door and pulled it open.
Connor saw him start back and his face wrinkle.
“Who’s that?” he asked sharply.
The man who was in the passage walked into the room at his leisure.
Connor saw him and showed his teeth like an angry dog.
“Hullo, Gunner! What the hell are you doing round here?”
Gunner Haynes looked from Connor to the unconscious man on the floor.
“Ingenious but not original,” he drawled, his thin lips curling in
contempt. “You’re dropping him in the river, of course, and the water
will dissolve the salt, the chains will fall off, and the verdict will
be ‘Death from misadventure.’ What a pity!”
“What’s the pity, Gunner?” asked Connor.
“That I happened to butt in,” said Haynes. “Who’s the victim?”
“There’s no victim,” said Connor loudly. “This poor fellow is ill and
we’re taking him off to the hospital.”
The Gunner nodded.
“I thought you might be pickling him,” he said, shook his head and
repeated: “Ingenious but not original. No marks of violence on the
body, nothing to show that he didn’t drown, as people do drown, by
accident. I’m sorry to have spoiled your amusement, but you’ll have to
let him go.”
“Why?” asked Connor.
“Because,” said the Gunner deliberately, “I’m in it! You don’t catch
me as accessory before, after, or in the fact of murder. It’s not my
graft, Connor. Remove that interesting apparatus.”
Connor smiled. His hand dropped quite naturally out of sight below the
level of the table.
“If you pull a gun on me,” said the Gunner, not a muscle of his lean
body moving, “I shall shoot you through the stomach. It’ll take you
five days to die, and it’s a very painful death by all accounts. I
shall then go out and explain to the police why I shot you, and there
will be no flowers from Scotland Yard.”
One of Connor’s assistants moved a step toward him.
“Look here, Gunner----” he began, mildly enough.
Haynes’s fist shot out so swiftly that the man could not counter the
blow. He went down with a crash. The Gunner stood motionless,
watching.
“Both hands in sight,” said Haynes. “Lay ’em on the table, Connor.”
He had no weapon in his hand, but none knew better than the livid man
on the other side of the table how quickly the Gunner could draw, with
what devilish accuracy he could shoot.
“What’s the fuss?” he growled. “This bird doesn’t mean a thing to
you.”
“Unlace him,” smiled the Gunner. “I’m sorry to butt in, as I said
before.”
“What did you come here for, anyway?” asked the other savagely.
The Gunner looked up at the ceiling.
“I forget exactly,” he said untruthfully. And then: “Who is this man?”
“Man named Smith. He squealed on me to-night, and then tried to carry
it off with a tale about being a banker--he’s got a nerve! Luke
something or other.”
Gunner Haynes bent down and peered into Luke’s face.
He recognized the sleeping man instantly.
“Luke something or other, eh? Where did you pick him up?” As he spoke
he beckoned one of the men. “Take that chain off,” he said.
The man glanced uneasily at his chief, but Connor nodded.
“The trouble with you, Gunner, is that you will interfere with other
people’s graft. If you want to know who he is, he did that job to-day
in Bond Street.”
He related “Smith’s” biography; Gunner Haynes knew that he was
speaking the truth. He was puzzled, but not greatly. He had lived too
long on the seamy and shadowy side of life to be surprised at
anything. Men had lived double lives before; but this was the kind of
double life which Haynes thought belonged to the realm of imaginative
novelists. A banker who amused himself in smash-and-grab raids was
wildly fictional--but possible.
There might be, he thought, a woman somewhere in the background. Where
women touched life, the inexplicable became almost daylight-clear.
“What are you going to do with him?” asked Connor, as the man stooped
and with scarcely an effort lifted the unconscious Luke onto the
chair.
The Gunner did not answer the question. Instead, he propounded one of
his own.
“Have you any slush in this place?” he asked and saw a look of alarm
come into the imperturbable face of the other.
“Slush?” said Connor quickly. “No--why should we? I don’t deal in that
kind of stuff.”
“No forged French banknotes?” The Gunner shook his head in
anticipation of the answer.
“What do you mean, Gunner?”
A smile lit up the saturnine face.
“You asked me why I came here, and I’m telling you. They’re raiding
your place to-night. I only got to know it an hour ago. I thought I’d
come along and tell you. I don’t know why, but that’s my
nature--helping poor crooks!”
He saw the three men glance at one another, and the alarm in Connor’s
face was patent.
“We had a parcel over from Paris the other day,” he said uneasily.
“Harry, get it up.”
He looked at the huddled figure of Luke.
“You’re making a big mistake about this bird,” he said. “You let him
get into the hands of the police, and he’ll put up a squeal that’ll
make you deaf!”
Stooping, the Gunner put his arm about Luke Maddison and lifted him
bodily. He turned and strode through the door, down the narrow
passage, and into the untidy yard. He had already located Connor’s
van, and he was on the point of hoisting his burden into its interior
when he heard a stealthy scraping against wood. It was the sound that
a man makes when he is climbing--somebody was getting over the gate.
He sat Luke on the ground, propped him against a wall, and went
noiselessly toward the entrance of the yard. Stooping to get a
skyline, he saw the head and shoulders of two men above the gate. It
was enough; he need see no more.
Returning as quickly as he came to the place where he had left Luke,
he lifted him and went cautiously and gingerly down the slope toward
the water. There would be a boat here. Presently his keen eyes
discerned the dim shape of it as it moved uneasily on the rising tide.
He had considered the possibility of leaving Luke to be discovered by
the police, and had rejected that plan. He owed a debt to this man--he
could not leave him to discovery and disgrace. If what Connor had said
was true, Maddison, in his capacity of brigand, was as much wanted by
the police as Connor himself.
He drew the boat to the broken stone causeway with the heel of his
boot, and put Luke aboard by the simple process of laying him level
with the edge of the wharf and rolling him onto the boat. It took a
few minutes to balance him. As he himself stepped astride of the man,
he heard the sound of voices in the yard, saw the flicker of electric
lamps. Untying the painter, he pushed off with his hand, dragged an
oar from under the reclining figure and paddled his way to midstream,
keeping a sharp lookout for the river police.
He saw the launch coming downstream at full speed, and drove his boat
into the shelter of two moored barges as the tiny steamer swung in a
semicircle.
“A bit late,” muttered the Gunner.
He was free from detection now, unless he met another patrol, and
finding the second oar, he pushed Luke down between the two seats and
sitting, rowed steadily downstream.
In an hour there would be daylight; already the eastern sky was
whitening. The Gunner knew a safe landing near Rotherhithe; the tide
was turning and would, he judged, carry him to safety.
He judged wrong, and saw, before he had reached London Bridge, that he
could not make his destination in the darkness. He took his decision
quickly. Stooping over the side of the boat, he filled his hat with
water and dashed it in the face of the slumbering man. Luke shivered
and groaned, and the Gunner repeated his experiment. He heard the
moaning voice of the man at the bottom of the boat.
“My head…”
“Keep quiet!” hissed Haynes. “I’m taking you to London Bridge Stairs.”
There was no answer, and the Gunner prodded with his heel at his
uneasily moving cargo.
“Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you. What has happened?”
Haynes did not reply, but pulled at his oars, and in a minute Luke
heard the jolt of the boat striking against the stone.
“Can you get up?” The Gunner’s hand gripped Luke’s wrist and drew him
to a sitting position.
With the boathook he drew the little skiff against the steps and came
to land. It took five minutes before Luke could follow him. His knees
gave under him, and he wanted all the support that his companion could
give him.
“Sit on the steps,” commanded the Gunner, and Luke obeyed. “Now try to
stand.”
For five minutes Luke sat crouched up, his face in his hands, and then
the Gunner’s voice aroused him.
“There are too many people passing over the bridge to please me,” he
said. “We had better get up before it’s light.”
He assisted the half-unconscious man to rise to his feet. The Gunner’s
grip was firm as they climbed the steep flight until they emerged
flush with the footpath. The people who were hurrying across the
bridge took little notice of them, and gripping his companion by the
arm, the Gunner led him down toward Tooley Street. When he saw a
slowly moving cab he hailed the driver and bundled Luke inside.
“My friend’s a bit under the weather,” he explained to the cabman with
a smile. “Drive me to Lennox Street, Clerkenwell.”
There was a large block of model buildings in Lennox Street, and for
years the Gunner had had his secret headquarters in a fairly large
flat on the ground floor. It was a place to which he very seldom came,
and of whose existence the police were ignorant. It was his
_pied-à-terre_, jealously preserved for emergencies. He had slept
there two nights before, and the woman who came in daily had made the
bed. Upon this he laid Luke Maddison.
“They must have given you a pretty large dose,” he said. “I’ll make
you some coffee.”
Luke shuddered.
“Coffee--ugh!”
“Gave it you in that, did they? That’s probably why you’re not dead.”
He pulled down the blinds before he lit the gas; then, going out into
the little kitchen, he made coffee as only a man who had fended for
himself on the Continent, and who had kept house in places as wide
apart as Biarritz is from Munich, could brew that delicious beverage.
When he came back Luke was sitting on the side of the bed, his head in
his hands.
“A couple of aspirins ought to put you right,” said the Gunner, and
went in search of the little white pellets.
Luke gulped down the medicine, and then for the first time became
conscious of his benefactor.
“Aren’t you Gunner Haynes?” he asked.
Haynes smiled.
“That is my name.”
“Where is Connor?”
Again that cryptic smile.
“In jail, I hope,” said the Gunner. “Now, Mr. Maddison, are you well
enough to talk?”
Luke looked up eagerly.
“You know me, then?”
The man nodded.
“I knew you the first time I saw you. There’s one thing I want to ask
you--is it true, the story that Connor told? That you were in that
smash-and-grab raid at Taffanny’s?”
Luke nodded.
“I drove the car. I hadn’t the slightest idea what they wanted me to
do or what it was all about until it was too late.”
“So you’re the bearded man?” mused the Gunner. “That certainly is
amazing. I’m not asking you to explain----”
“I’ll explain as soon as my head stops splitting,” groaned Luke.
It was after two that afternoon when he woke from an uneasy sleep. His
head was still thick, his mouth tasted like a limekiln, but after a
cold wash at the kitchen sink he was near to his normal self; and over
a cigarette and a cup of tea he told the story from start to finish,
and this time reserved nothing.
The Gunner listened in silence, making no comment until he had
finished.
“Did you tell Connor this story?”
Luke nodded.
“Yes, except that naturally enough I didn’t speak about my wife and
the--money. Why do you ask?”
Gunner Haynes pursed his lips.
“I don’t know. Connor is a pretty bad man. Your only hope is that he’s
sent down for a stretch--by which inelegant word I mean a term of
penal servitude. If he gets away with this police raid, supposing they
find nothing on the premises--and like a fool I gave him plenty of
warning--Connor is the sort of man who would investigate the most
unlikely story if he thought there was a chance of money in it. And
that is going to make your reappearance a rather difficult matter.”
He lit another cigarette and stared past his guest.
“Tell me why your wife hated you--you rather glossed over that part of
your yarn.”
Luke was silent for a long time.
“I don’t think it’s very difficult to understand,” he said. “She
thought I was responsible for the death of her brother. He shot
himself.”
“But why did she understand that?” persisted the Gunner. “Allowing
that Danty Morell is a very plausible gentleman, she would hardly take
his bare word.” He thought for a moment, then asked suddenly: “When
that boy shot himself did he leave any message behind?”
Luke shook his head.
“I heard of none--nor was anything mentioned at the inquest.”
“Who found his body?”
Luke considered.
“Morell was in the room and made the discovery.”
The Gunner nodded.
“And immediately after that Mrs. Maddison’s manner changed. Of course,
you weren’t married then, but that is a fact, isn’t it? If that is a
fact, it means that Danty carried some evidence to the young lady that
was quite sufficient to make her play this trick----”
“I’m not blaming her,” began Luke.
He saw a flicker of amusement in the man’s eyes.
“You are?”
“Well, not exactly,” drawled the Gunner. “I’ve given up blaming
people. There’s no profit in it.”
He flicked off the ash of his cigarette carefully into his saucer.
“You can’t make a sudden reappearance; you can’t even get to Ronda and
be sure you’ll get away with it,” he said. “You’ve got yourself mixed
up with two bad gangsters--Connor and Morell.”
He rose and paced up and down the small room, his eyes narrowed, his
brow corrugated in thought.
“It’s Connor that’s worrying me. If he’s held for trial, that problem
is settled. If he isn’t, and suppose you come back from Ronda, he’ll
be able to trace all your movements. Have you got your passport?”
He saw Luke thrust his hand inside his shirt, and a look of blank
dismay come to his face.
“I’ve lost it somewhere.”
Gunner Haynes’s lips clicked impatiently.
“If you lost it at Keel’s Wharf then you’re in the soup,” he said.
“There’s only one thing to do and that is to get your passport back.
There’s another thing: I want to see the letter that that boy wrote
before he shot himself.”
Luke shook his head.
“I don’t believe he wrote a letter, and if he did it was certainly
destroyed.”
Ten minutes later the Gunner left the house on his quest. His first
call was at a police station near to Keel’s Wharf. He knew the
inspector in charge, and between them was that curious camaraderie
which it is so difficult for the “layman” to appreciate--the
understanding between the criminal and his ruthless enemy.
In point of fact the Gunner met the divisional inspector as he was
coming out of the station.
“I hear you’ve had trouble at Keel’s Wharf,” he said.
The inspector looked at him with a smile in his keen eyes.
“Is this hearsay or information, Gunner, or direct observation?”
“Come again,” said the Gunner, with elaborate innocence.
“Connor says you were on the wharf a few minutes before, and that if
anybody was toting slush it was you. He said you came with a parcel,
that he refused to entertain the deal, and that you got away by boat.”
Now the police do not always speak the truth. It is a lamentable
statement to make. They have to deal with liars and cunning men. But
the Gunner trusted the man to whom he was speaking.
“I was on the wharf, yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact I came to see
him about another matter altogether--you know that forgeries are not
in my line. I heard the raid and I got away by boat. I gather that you
did not pull him?”
The inspector shook his head.
“No; there was nothing there. Connor and his friends seem to be doing
an extensive trade in salt. Do you know anything about that, Gunner?”
“If I did I shouldn’t tell you,” said Haynes coolly. “So you didn’t
drag Connor, eh? That’s a pity.”
The detective looked left and right and lowered his voice.
“If you particularly want him dragged, you’ll tell me what I can drag
him on----”
Again the Gunner shook his head.
“You want me to give you a little information? I’m not that kind of
bureau! Is Connor still at the wharf?”
The inspector nodded.
“I think I’ll call on him. I haven’t seen you, Pullman.”
He came to the wharf and found Connor in a very cheerful frame of
mind. If he was at all disconcerted to see Gunner Haynes, he did not
reveal the fact.
“You owe me four pounds,” said Connor. “That’s the price I paid for
that boat which you pinched. You’re not staying long, are you? Because
I’m expecting a lady visitor.”
“Who amongst your friends has this courtesy title?” asked the Gunner
offensively.
“Nobody you know,” said Connor carelessly. “A lady named Mrs.
Maddison--who has recently lost her husband.”
CHAPTER XXII
Gunner Haynes looked at his companion oddly.
“You are expecting Mrs. Maddison, are you? Who is she?”
Connor took up a half-smoked cigar from an ash tray on the table and
lit it.
“A friend of mine,” he said. “What have you done with your pal?”
“Who is Mrs. Maddison?” asked the Gunner again.
Connor tried to appear unconcerned. He had heard that steely tone
before, and it was rather disconcerting.
“She’s the wife of a friend of mine,” he said.
“Sit down,” said the Gunner, “and let’s talk.”
Reluctantly Connor pulled up a chair and sat. As he did so, Gunner
Haynes walked to the door, closed and locked it.
“Let’s talk,” he said again, and sat opposite the gangster.
“Look here, Gunner, I don’t want any trouble with you,” suggested
Connor. “If there’s anything coming, you can take your corner. I don’t
know whether Maddison was making up that story he told me or not, but
if he wasn’t then there’s big money in this. Naturally, I didn’t take
any notice of the yarn he told when were readying him; but after you
got him away Billy--that’s the man who’s working with me--said he’d
seen something in the paper about Maddison’s wedding. I had a chat
with one of the busies who came to fan this place, and he told me that
Maddison’s flat was broken into last night by the man who drove the
car. That tallied with all Maddison told me--and all I knew. This
isn’t the first time I’ve seen a swell playing crook, but I’ve never
had the luck to catch one before. This man will be money for jam.”
“You’re sure it is he, eh?” asked the Gunner, and deceived by the mild
inquiry, Connor went on with greater confidence.
“Sure! I sent a flash fellow up to Maddison’s office to see his
manager--Stiles, I think his name is. There’s a portrait of Maddison
hanging up in the private room, which my fellow saw. He got the name
of the photographer and tried to buy a copy. He couldn’t get that, but
he was told where the picture had appeared in one of these illustrated
weeklies, and he got a copy of that.”
Connor pulled open a drawer of the table and took out a periodical
which had been folded over at a page. He pushed the paper to Gunner
Haynes.
“That’s him all right,” said Connor, with a confident smile. “I’d have
known him with or without his moustache. Maddison went away the day
after he was married. There’s a woman in it somewhere----”
“What a brain you’ve got!” interrupted the Gunner with mock
admiration, and Connor scowled. Any reflection on his mentality
infuriated him. It was his weakness that he believed himself to be the
cleverest of his kind.
“Brain or no brain,” he growled, “there’s the picture, and that’s the
man. I could shop him to-day, and he knows it. Naturally, if I have
ten minutes’ talk with him I shall make him see sense, but if I can’t
get him I thought I’d send a note to his wife. She’s got a bit of
money----”
“What sort of a note?” asked the Gunner, and the man hesitated.
“Billy writes a better hand than me--I read in the paper the other day
that all clever people write bad----”
“And some of the unclever ones, too,” said the Gunner.
He watched the man groping in the drawer, and presently his hand came
out with two or three sheets of paper covered with pencilled writing.
“I wrote it down, and Billy copied it and did the spelling,” said
Connor. “As you’re in on this, Gunner, you’d better see what I’ve
said.”
He pushed the note across, one hand still in the drawer, a fact which
the Gunner did not fail to notice; as he stretched out and took the
paper, his own hand came up and an automatic lay flat on the table,
the barrel pointing to Connor’s diaphragm.
“Take your hand out of the drawer. If there’s any murder to be
committed, I’d prefer to commit it myself,” he said.
Connor’s hand came up with great alacrity.
“I’m surprised at you, Gunner--you wouldn’t trust your best friend.”
“You’re no friend of mine,” said the Gunner.
He found some difficulty in reading the scrawled words. The note ran:
Dear Mrs. Maddison, I should like to give you some information about
your husband. I am afraid he has got into serious trouble, but I can
get him out of it. He has fallen into bad hands through no fault of
his own----
The Gunner read the last sentence aloud and looked up.
“That’s a bit of a smoodge,” said Connor coolly. “Naturally I want to
wrap it up for him so that it looks as though I’m trying to help him.”
“Strategist!” murmured the Gunner, and went on with his reading.
It will be very serious if the police know what I know re robbery at
Taffanny’s, but I think I can get him out of it, though it may cost a
bit of money, which I’m sure you will not mind paying.
Haynes smiled sardonically as he came to this line.
Don’t take this note to the police but bring it with you. If you go to
the police, your husband will be in trouble. Come and see me after
dark.…
Here followed elaborate directions as to how the wharf was to be
reached.
“That’s the letter, is it?” The Gunner pushed the paper across the
table. “I thought you were a specialist, Connor. I’ve never known you
put the black before.”
“This isn’t blackmail,” said Connor indignantly, “this is compensation
for money wasted. Besides, he pretended he was an Australian fellow
called Smith----”
“He pretended nothing of the kind. You jumped at the conclusion that
he was Smith because he was in Lewing’s company the night your crowd
knifed him,” said the Gunner quietly. “It’ll interest you to know that
Smith never arrived in England--he was turned back at Plymouth; he is
now on his way to Australia.”
He took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end and lit the long
brown smoke.
“Suppose Mrs. Maddison goes to the police--they’ll catch you for ten
years, Connor.”
Connor smiled uneasily.
“Is that likely----” he began.
There was a tap at the door.
“Open it,” ordered Haynes.
Connor unlocked the door. One of his men was standing outside, and by
his agitation he knew something was wrong.
“The Sparrow’s here, with a lady,” he whispered hoarsely, and watching
him the Gunner saw Connor’s face go gray.
“Do you hear that?” asked Connor breathlessly. “The Sparrow--she’s
brought him.”
He snatched the letter up from the table, made a ball of it and threw
it into the little fire. At that moment they heard the heavy footsteps
of Inspector Bird in the passage.
The big man came in, a benevolent smile upon his large face, and
behind him a pretty girl whom the Gunner had met before.
“Why, Gunner, this is an unexpected pleasure!” rumbled the Sparrow.
“Thirty-eight more of you, and you’d have a regular Ali Baba’s cave!”
Haynes saw that the girl recognized him. He was already on his feet,
and gave her a friendly little nod.
“How are you, Miss Bolford?” he said, and the sharp-eared Connor
heard, as he intended he should hear. The last thing in the world he
wanted was for the blackmailer to reveal the fact that he was
expecting Margaret Maddison.
He saw the look of bewilderment and relief that came into Connor’s
face, and knew that he had taken the hint.
“I didn’t know you were running with this crowd, Gunner,” said the
Sparrow. “Old friend of yours, Miss Bolford.” His finger shot out.
“That’s Connor. You ought to know Connor, Miss Bolford.” And then, to
the discomfited man: “This lady is on a newspaper, and she wants to
get acquainted with all the bad and nearly bad men in London. Raided
last night, weren’t you?”
“They’re always raiding me,” grinned Connor, “and never finding
anything, Mr. Bird.”
The Sparrow’s eyes roved from one to the other.
“How long have the crow and the hawk been living in the same nest?
That’s puzzling me,” he asked. “Coming down in the world, aren’t you,
Gunner? What are you doing here?”
“Slumming,” said Gunner Haynes coolly. “I like now and again to
establish contact with the underworld.”
The detective’s face was wreathed in a sudden smile.
“Hear him?” he asked admiringly. “Quite a classy line of conversation.
There’s nobody like him.”
This was the Gunner’s opportunity. He knew that Bird would keep
occupied the discomfited owner of the wharf. He put on his hat
carefully and moved toward the door.
“I’ll be getting along, Mr. Bird. I presume you don’t wish to see me?”
And then he saw a malignant gleam in Connor’s eye.
“So long, Gunner!” said the man loudly. “If you take my advice, give
up carrying a gat: it will do you no good, and get you a lagging if
you’re ever caught.”
“Carrying a gat, is he?” The Sparrow became instantly alert. “That’s a
silly thing to do, Gunner. Got a license?”
Haynes smiled.
“I don’t carry a license and you can search my clothing for a gat.
You’ve no right to, but you can.”
He spread out his arms and Bird’s hands passed over him quickly. Mary
Bolford watched the deadly byplay and was fascinated.
“No gat there,” said the Sparrow. Then, to Connor: “What’s the idea?”
“I can tell you what the idea is.” The Gunner was at the door. “Our
friend was anxious to do a trade in lethal firearms, and I wasn’t
buying any. The only gun you’re likely to see to-day, Mr. Bird, is in
that table drawer.”
The detective pulled open the drawer near where the man had sat, and
Mary Bolford saw Connor’s face go green, for there at the bottom of
the drawer was a silver-plated revolver.
“I’ll leave you to it,” said the Gunner easily, and strolled out.
Before he passed through the little wicket gate leading to the street
he took off his hat as carefully as he had put it on, and removed from
its interior the automatic he had cached, and slipped it into his
pocket.
CHAPTER XXIII
Margaret Maddison had spent a torturing two hours before the shabby
messenger had brought her the note which told her at least that Luke
was alive. At the bottom of the letter there was scrawled in a
different hand--Connor’s own--“Come round about eight.” The postscript
he had not communicated to the Gunner.
The letter confirmed all she had feared. She sat motionless at her
desk for half an hour with the copper-plate communication before her,
trying to formulate a working theory. Luke was in trouble--had
trouble. She had accepted this fact as a starting point. In her mind
she did not reproach him for the monstrous eccentricity which had
brought him to his present position--rather she hated herself that in
a moment of crisis she had deserted him and urged him into deeper
folly.
A servant came into the room and spoke to her, but she was so absorbed
that she did not notice his presence, and he spoke again.
“Mr. Morell?” She came to reality with a start. She had not seen Danty
for days, and her first inclination was to send a message that she was
not well enough to be seen. And then a thought occurred to her, and
she nodded.
“Ask him to come up, please.”
Danty came in, a sprucely dressed man about town, and bore in his
smiling face no evidence of his embarrassment.
“Any news of Luke?” he asked, almost jovially. “I was on my way to the
City and I thought I’d call in.”
She was regarding him curiously. Danton the friend, and Danton the
gang leader, were indistinguishable. It came almost as a shock to her
to realize that her confidence in him had already evaporated before
Gorton had told her the truth about this adventurer. In that moment
she realized how complete had been his duplicity, yet in her desk was
that fatal message from Rex. That at least must have been true. It was
Danty who had arranged to send her the message from Paris which bore
Luke’s signature.
Yet she felt no indignation, no resentment--Danton was an ugly fact,
no less or more a fact because of its ugliness.
“I heard from a friend of mine that Luke’s flat was burgled last
night. Did they get anything?”
“Nothing of any great consequence,” she said.
He saw her fold in some haste a letter that was in front of her, and
put it in a little handbag that lay on the table, and he wondered what
there was in that epistle which brought the colour into her cheeks.
“I expect Luke’s having the time of his life. Have you heard from
him?”
She shook her head.
“No, I haven’t heard from him.” And then, a little awkwardly: “Did you
see that curious case in the paper this morning?”
He thought she was trying to turn the conversation into other
channels. It seemed a little gauche, but he did not suspect her object
in asking the question--her embarrassment saved her from suspicion.
“There are hundreds of cases in the paper: which is the one?”
“About the man who was living a double life: a respectable merchant by
day and a--a burglar by night.”
Danty smiled. He lived too near the criminal world to harbour any
illusions about its romantical character.
“That’s the sort of stuff you read in stories,” he said, “but I have
known such cases. I’ve read about them, of course,” he added hastily.
“There was a man in Liverpool who preached in a local chapel on
Sundays and ran a forgery plant the rest of the week. I know another
man--by hearsay, of course--who was the head of a prosperous shoe
company in the Midlands, and one of the cleverest jewel thieves the
police have ever had through their hands.”
She was looking out of the window, apparently uninterested.
“Why do men do that sort of thing?”
Danty shrugged.
“I don’t know. It’s a sort of field of adventure--there are precious
few fields left. I wanted to talk to you about my South American
company, Margaret. I’m in rather serious trouble. I want seventy
thousand pounds to finish the deal, to be exact seventy-six thousand
pounds, and I’ve raised sixty-nine. I was thinking this morning that
if Luke was here I could get all I wanted. He didn’t like me, but he
was a very good business man.”
She was neither amused nor indignant at the cool request. For a moment
she had a wild idea of supplying him with the money he required. He
might prove a useful ally, if all Gorton had said was true. Then the
danger of making a confidant of this unscrupulous creature became
apparent. Danty was a parasite living on society: he would not fail to
exact the fullest advantage from his knowledge.
She was confronted with the alternatives of seeking the aid of the
society in which Luke had found a discreditable place, or of going to
the police, who, she knew, were no respecters of persons, and would as
lief send Luke to penal servitude as they would the jailbirds with
whom he was in association.
“I’m afraid that is impossible, Danton,” she said quietly. “Why don’t
you see Mr. Stiles? He is a business man.”
Danton shrugged his shoulders.
“Stiles! A servant--the man is without any initiative, and a word from
you----”
She shook her head.
“That I can’t give,” she said.
There was a silence after this; then Danton Morell began to speak
easily about trivialities, and in a short time took his leave. At
least, he thought, as he went down the stairs, he had satisfied
himself that she was not definitely antagonistic to him.
That he was on his way to the City was true. There was a little City
office where he occasionally met his humble associates. Since Lewing’s
death the gang which bore his name had lain very quiet. It comprised a
not inconsiderable number of men, old and young, who lived on the
river and its cargoes. Though Danty took no part in their operations,
he had organized their work and reduced their methods to a system. His
corner was a small one, for receivers paid badly. The work was
dangerous and difficult, and sometimes weeks would pass before the
gang could make a good clean-up. Bales of silk, chests of tea, pockets
of rubber--nothing came amiss to the thieves; but the commodities they
stole were hard to dispose of, and Danty’s share hardly paid the rent
of his flat.
A proposal put up to him that morning that he should take a more
active part in the work was negatived by him.
“It is not my graft,” he said. “I’m not a Connor. You don’t imagine
that I’ll come and live in Bermondsey, do you?”
The active leader of the gang--a short, thick-set man who bore the
name of Dick and apparently nothing else, did not receive the refusal
without protest.
“The boys say that Connor’s crowd are making big money, and that they
ought to be making the same. Even if you didn’t stay in Bermondsey,
and only came down occasionally, you might help.”
“You’re having all the help you’ll get from me,” said Danty
impatiently. “What’s the sense of comparing Connor’s crowd with ours?
Connor does land work, and that’s different. If your people hadn’t had
my advice they’d spend their time in stir. Who was it made you buy an
electric boat--it was I! Who arranged to supply you with lists of
cargoes and the lightering contracts? You’re doing a small business
because it’s the only kind of business you know. Do you think Connor
would take any one of your crowd and use him?”
“We could go into Connor’s trade and make good pickings,” insisted
Dick doggedly. “Lewing would have been more use to us than you are.”
Danty was not easily cowed. He showed his teeth in a mirthless smile.
“And Lewing’s dead! Do you know why? It wasn’t because he put up a
squeal, but because he poached on Connor’s territory.”
He sent the man away dissatisfied, folded the notes which Dick had
brought as his share of a recent haul, and went to a respectable City
club to lunch.
Every thief has his failings, and Danty was a gambler. He loved that
part of the City which immediately surrounds the Stock Exchange; he
would spend hours poring over the rise and fall of prices; he
speculated heavily in every kind of share, and had seen the
considerable fortune he had achieved by the crooked practice of his
profession melt like snow in the sun. Rex Leferre had been a useful
lieutenant--he had been the money getter at a period when money was
tight. He had served other purposes--paid with real money for blocks
of unsalable shares with which Danty was saddled. The time had come
when Danton Morell must find a new source of revenue, or vanish
forever from his usual haunts.
It was his boast that he was the best confidence man in England; yet
he was made to look a child in that place that has been the ruin of so
many confidence men--the London Stock Exchange.
He stopped long enough in the City to discover many unpleasant truths.
Shares which he held in considerable quantities were sliding steadily
down the list. He met his broker, a cold-blooded man, who laid before
him a statement of account which made Danton Morell go cold.
Danty left the City in a state of desperation, and arrived at his flat
at the same time as the lawyer’s clerk who served him with a writ for
£140 from his tailor--the tenth writ Danty had received in the past
month. Pi Coles, his so-called valet, took his coat and hat.
“Any luck?” asked the little man with the ease and familiarity of one
who was addressing a friend.
“No luck, Pi,” said Danty with a twisted smile. “But every cloud has
its silver lining.”
He did not realize that the silver lining in this case radiated from
one called Connor. To do him justice, Mr. Connor was unaware of the
fact that he was destined to assist the head of a rival gang.
CHAPTER XXIV
Gunner Haynes and his guest sat in conference. Luke was still
feeling the effect of the drug: his head throbbed at the slightest
noise, and during the day he had consumed uncountable quantities of
tea.
“There’s the situation,” said Haynes. “Connor knows who you are.
Naturally, I am not blaming you for telling him, though you could not
have expected him to believe you were a man of substance----”
“Not so very substantial,” smiled Luke. “You wired to my wife, you
say?”
The Gunner nodded.
“I sent a telegram in Connor’s name, putting off the appointment,” he
said. “I should imagine it was not till night, because Connor would
not risk detectives seeing Mrs. Maddison go into his wharf. If she
doesn’t turn up, Connor will naturally make a call on her to-morrow;
but a lot of things might happen before then.”
“Suppose I saw Bird----” began Luke.
The Gunner shook his head.
“I’ve no great love for the police, although I’ve a mighty respect for
the Sparrow,” he said. “But I can tell you this, that if you were the
Duke of Oojah they would have to pinch you for that raid on
Taffanny’s. You see, your fatal mistake was to give the shop assistant
a punch on the jaw. That made you a willing agent in the matter. If
you’d stepped out of the car and given the lady into custody, and then
explained your position, there would have been no harm except a few
flaring headlines in the evening newspapers. But you didn’t. You
became an accessory the moment you gave the shop assistant a punch and
assisted your lady friend to escape. Anyway, whatever happens, you
couldn’t escape a lot of unpleasant publicity--or your wife either.
That seems to me the one thing you do not wish. No, I’ve got to find
another way of getting you back into society.”
His lips curled at the word; he was evidently secretly amused.
“But if Connor sees my wife to-morrow, what then?” asked Luke.
The Gunner considered this question for a little time.
“He mustn’t see her. I think that can be managed. It is a pity the
Sparrow arrived when he did--otherwise, I should have had the solution
in both hands. As it is, I don’t think we shall have a great deal of
difficulty.”
He knelt down at the side of Luke’s bed, groped beneath and pulled out
the case of a portable typewriter. This he unfastened, and, putting
the little machine on the table, he took a sheet of paper and began to
type laboriously.…
Connor, striding impatiently up and down his room, looking from time
to time at his watch, heard a knock at the gate and ran eagerly to
open the wicket. It was a small boy with a letter. Connor snatched it
from the boy, slammed the wicket in his face and went back to his
room.
The letter was typewritten and began without preamble.
I’m afraid I can’t come to see you to-night. The neighbourhood is so
dreadfully squalid that I fear my presence would be noticed by the
police. Can you meet me by the edge of the Serpentine at ten o’clock
to-night (about a hundred paces from the bridge: there will be nobody
there at that time)? But you must supply me proof that my husband is
the man about whom you are speaking.
It bore no signature, but there was a postscript.
P.S. I do hope you have not told a man named Haynes this story about
Mr. Maddison. He called to-day, but I would not see him.
Connor smiled. The Gunner was certainly a quick worker.
CHAPTER XXV
Margaret was dressing in preparation for her interview when the
telegram came. It was brief.
Cannot see you to-night. Same time to-morrow night.
Connor.
In a sense she was relieved, though she would have been glad to have
ended the state of suspense in which she was living. She had a wild
idea of taking with her a large sum of money, and with that intention
had drawn a thousand pounds from the bank. She had revised this plan,
however, and the money was now in her safe. If it was blackmail, and
these people wanted paying, they could wait for a few hours. She did
not know the neighbourhood into which she was going, but she guessed
from its locality that it was not the place where an unprotected woman
would carry a large sum of money with impunity.
As she put the money away she caught a glimpse of an envelope which
gave her a little heartache. It contained poor Rex’s last scrawled
message. Several times she had been on the point of putting that
envelope into the fire, but something had prevented her. There was a
time when she needed the stimulation to her hatred which that pitiable
note supplied. But that time had passed. The boy’s dead hand still lay
on her, had wrecked Luke’s life and might yet bring her to disaster.
Now she must wait another twenty-four hours before she resolved her
doubts.
She heard the doorbell ring, and presently came a tap on the door and
her footman came in.
“A man wishes to see you, madam. I think he’s been here before--a Mr.
Haynes.”
At first she did not grasp who was meant, and then in a flash she
recalled the earlier visit. Here at any rate was a man who was
friendly disposed toward Luke.
“Bring him up, please,” she said.
Now she recalled more vividly the previous interview she had had with
him. He had told her that Danty Morell was a man whom no decent woman
should know, and she had rung for the servant and had him shown out.
But he was friendly to Luke, had spoken of some service which he had
rendered to him, and here she would find an ally.
Haynes was not prepared for the kindness of the welcome. In a sense it
was a little embarrassing. He had come not to give but to seek
information. It was vitally necessary that he should not betray the
fact that he had any communication with Luke.
“I’m afraid I was very rude to you the last time you came, Mr.
Haynes,” she said as she sat down behind her little desk and signalled
to him to sit. “You rather hurt my feelings about a--” she
hesitated--“a friend of mine, who isn’t so much of a friend as he
was,” she smiled.
The Gunner nodded.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard for a long time,” he said. “I was a
little impertinent. I remember I asked you why your husband left you.
I wonder you didn’t send for the police.”
She laughed at this.
“Do you know where my husband is now?” she asked, and when he shook
his head her heart sank.
She had had a vague idea that this man might have come into touch with
his benefactor.
“I can tell you where Mr. Morell is now,” he said, with a twinkle in
his eyes, “but that’s not going to help you very much. I’ve come to
repeat my impertinence, Mrs. Maddison. At the back of my mind I’ve got
a notion I can help you and your husband, who, I have reason to
believe, is in Spain.”
He said this deliberately, his eyes challenging hers.
“But--” she began.
“I believe he’s in Spain. If a man’s in Spain he can’t be in London,
can he? And if he’s a gentleman at large in Spain, taking long hikes
through the country, he can’t be burgling Taffanny’s or getting
himself mixed up with Connor.”
“You know, then?” she interrupted quickly. “I was seeing that man
to-night, but he sent me a wire----”
“I sent you the wire,” said Gunner Haynes coolly. “That engagement of
yours has got to be put off indefinitely.”
“How did you know?” she demanded.
The Gunner smiled cryptically.
“I’ve got a whole lot of sources of information that I am not making
public,” he said. “The point I want to make with you is this--your
husband is in Spain. You’ve had letters from him, which unfortunately
you’ve destroyed.”
She understood now. Did he come from Luke? There could be no other
explanation for his knowledge, and she put the question bluntly.
“I haven’t been to Ronda for years,” said the Gunner calmly. “And if I
had been, and met your husband, he wouldn’t know that I was coming to
see you. Now, Mrs. Maddison, I’m going to ask you that impertinent
question all over again: exactly why did your husband leave you? No,
no, I don’t mean that. I know why he left you. But why did you
suddenly leave him flat? I don’t know that; I’ll bet your husband
doesn’t know that. Only you know--and Danty. I guess Danty knows.”
She was silent; but she realized at that moment just why she had not
destroyed Rex’s last note. She had kept it to show Luke some day, and
demand from him the explanation she should have asked for when it came
to her. It was her justification--the only one she could have for her
conduct.
“That is an extraordinary request for a stranger to make, Mr. Haynes,
and I don’t know whether to enlighten you or not.”
She stood for a moment silent, and then, turning abruptly, walked out
of the room. Haynes picked up his hat from the floor and rose,
thinking the interview was at an end. But in three minutes she was
back again with a little envelope in her hand.
“I’m telling you something that nobody knows but me and Mr. Morell,”
she said. “When my poor brother shot himself, this note was found in
his room.”
She took from the envelope two telephone slips and passed them to him.
Gunner Haynes read:
Margaret darling, I have lost. For months I have been gambling. To-day
I took a desperate step on the advice of Luke Maddison. He has led me
to ruin--money is his god. I beg of you not to trust him. He has led
me from one act of folly to another. God bless you.
Rex.
He read it twice and then looked up.
“Is this your brother’s handwriting?”
She nodded.
“Could you swear to it?”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s his. I’ve had hundreds of pencilled notes from
him, and I couldn’t possibly be mistaken.”
“Who found it?”
“Mr. Morell found it in Rex’s room. Poor, dear Rex had a servant, a
very trustworthy man, and he saw the note before Mr. Morell put it in
his pocket----”
“He didn’t read it, of course?” suggested the Gunner. “The servant, I
mean?”
“I don’t think so. He only saw the note, and Mr. Morell hide it.”
The Gunner had an amazing memory. He could from that moment have
repeated every word in the letter--there was no need for him to take a
copy, and he handed it back to the girl.
“Naturally, you thought that your husband was responsible for the
death of your brother, and that was why you--acted as you did.”
“He told you?” she challenged.
The Gunner neither denied nor agreed. He stood frowning down at the
carpet, his hands pushed into his pockets, his underlip outthrust.
“Queer bird, Danty,” he said after a while, and she realized that he
was speaking as much to himself as to her. “He used to be a great
hoarder of trifles--I wonder if he’s got over it. There’s something of
a miser about Danty, though he could never keep money and never will.
All crooks die poor.”
“Will----” she began, and stopped in natural confusion.
She saw a smile dawn slowly in his face.
“You were going to ask me, shall I? No, Mrs. Maddison, I shall not die
poor, unless I go mad. I’ll never have to work again--I’m a reformed
character. That doesn’t mean,” he said quickly, “that I’ve got any
notions that I have been following the wrong track. I’ve known that
all my life. Five years ago a brother swindler traded me a block of
shares in a copper mine. They looked to be worth about the value of
the paper they were printed on, but luckily I didn’t throw them into
the fire. Copper was found on the property whilst I was on remand the
other day, and I’ve sold at a big profit. I shall only commit one more
crime.”
She would have smiled at this, but she saw something in his eyes which
froze the smile on her lips.
“Danty Morell has got to be punished one of these days--when I find
proof,” he said slowly.
He took his watch from his pocket.
“I’ve got rather an important engagement, so, if you don’t mind, Mrs.
Maddison, I’ll go. Don’t ask me to give any messages to your husband,
because I don’t know where he is. If I did, I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Is he well?” she asked anxiously.
“Pretty well,” said the Gunner.
He made no attempt to move, but stood twiddling his watch guard.
“He’ll want money,” he said suddenly, “and this sounds like the
beginning of the confidence trick. I can let him have all he wants if
there’s any need, but I think you’d better provide it, just to show
your confidence in me.” He chuckled at this. “Sounds almost like Danty
at his worst! If you have any hesitation, Mrs. Maddison, don’t give it
to me. I shall want about two hundred pounds, but three hundred would
be better.”
She went out of the room and returned with a small pad of notes.
“Four hundred will be better still,” she said, and he thrust the money
into his pocket without counting it.
“Seems a pretty easy game. Pity I didn’t start earlier,” he said.
“Danty’s the lad! There isn’t a finer tale teller in the world.”
He jerked out his hand and she took it.
“I’ll be seeing you again, Mrs. Maddison--perhaps some day when you’re
going to Ronda you’ll let me travel on the same train, in case some of
the real con men get hold of you!”
CHAPTER XXVI
At the appointed hour Mr. Connor arrived, paid off his taxi short of
the bridge across the Serpentine, and strolled down toward the water.
The night was inclined to be rainy; a high, chill wind was blowing--it
was not a night even for the most romantic of couples to spend on the
brim of the Serpentine.
Mr. Connor was not romantic; he was very much a realist. He could well
understand Margaret Maddison’s reluctance to come to his wharf, and he
blamed himself for the stupidity of such a suggestion. She might have
come accompanied by the police, as the Gunner suggested she would; and
that was exactly the way she would have arrived had she intended
making a fuss.
He found a wooden chair leaning over upon another, and straightening
it, sat down. Here was the promise of an income for life. He could
even bless the Gunner that he had interfered in his affairs at the
most critical moment in the life of Luke Maddison. He looked right and
left; there was nobody in sight. The police, he knew, did not patrol
this path except at rare intervals.
Behind him was a stretch of grass which was separated from the pathway
by a railing less than a foot from the ground. He was meditating upon
all the prospects which his discovery had opened up when a hand
dropped on his shoulder and something cold touched the back of his
neck.
“Shouting means shooting,” said a muffled voice behind him. “Don’t
look round, kid!”
“What’s the idea?” growled Connor, who, to do him Justice, was not so
much frightened as annoyed.
“Stick ’em up, and let’s have a look at you,” said the stranger
laconically. “Now turn,” he said, and Connor obeyed.
His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and had his assailant’s
face been uncovered, he could have been distinguished; but where the
face should be was a black patch.
“Outrage by masked highwayman,” murmured the newcomer, as his
disengaged hand passed quickly across the outside of Connor’s pockets.
“You needn’t have covered up your face, Gunner,” growled Connor. “I’d
know you anywhere.”
The other said nothing; his hand went into the inside pocket of
Connor’s coat and he jerked something free. Connor gripped at his
wrist, but the barrel of the automatic hit him gently under the
chin--not so gently that his teeth did not rattle.
“You came after the passport, did you? I was a can to fall for your
letter. But it’s going to make no difference, Gunner, and you can tell
the woman who sent you here----”
“You talk too much,” said the mask.
He put his hand in Connor’s hip pocket, took out the pistol it
contained and flung it into the dark pond. Connor heard the splash of
the revolver as it hit the surface of the water.
“Probably saved you ten years,” said the hold-up man cheerfully. “If
there’s one thing I like, it is saving people from penal servitude.”
He pushed his hand down into the trousers pocket of his victim and
pulled out a handful of notes.
“Richness beyond the dreams of avarice,” he said, as he transferred
the money to his own pocket. “Saving up to buy a car or something?”
“You’ll know all about this!” threatened Connor. “You don’t think I’m
going to take it lying down, do you?”
He heard a faint laugh, but so far removed from amusement did it sound
that he shuddered.
“What’s to stop me finishing you?” asked the man in the mask. “The
answer is--nothing! I’m telling you, Connor, for your own good, not to
raise a squeal about this little affair.”
“Maddison put you up to this, I suppose--but I’ll get him!” said
Connor between his teeth. “I’m not kidding you----”
“You talk too much,” said the other again, and, gripping his victim by
the shoulder, he spun him round, so rapidly that Connor staggered.
Before he could recover his balance the stranger gave him a violent
push that sent him sprawling into the water. By the time Connor had
recovered, his man had disappeared.
It was not the kind of night to wander about in wet clothes, but they
were nearly dry by the time Connor had made his plans. Now he knew too
well why the Gunner had called that day--he had come for the passport,
but the arrival of Inspector Bird and the girl reporter had made it
impossible to secure the document he wanted.
Connor had half a dozen plans but rejected them all. And then he
remembered the one man in London who could be of assistance to him.
The fact that he was head of a rival gang made little or no difference
to this opportunist. The idea had no sooner settled in his mind than
he took up the ’phone and called Danty Morell’s flat. Here was one of
the widest men in the world, with a brain even more cunning than his
own--a man who had mixed with real swells and had reputedly made
enough money to retire from the crooked game, though he still
maintained nominal direction of the Borough crowd.
Danty was in bed when the call came through and cursing all telephones
went into the passage in his bare feet to take the message. He was not
sufficiently well acquainted with the gangster to recognize his voice
and Connor lost no time in introducing himself.
“What’s the game?” asked Danty suspiciously.
He knew there was bad blood between the two gangs, but so far had kept
clear of offending either by the lukewarmness of his championship or
the vehemence of his enmity.
“It’s a big thing with big money in it. Can you see me right away?”
asked Connor.
For fully a minute Danty considered the possibilities.
“All right, come up,” he said, “but if you start a rough-house here,
you’ll be pinched.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” smiled Connor. “Why should I call you up to
start a rough-house--what’s the matter with the streets? You go on
’em, don’t you?”
“All right, come along,” said Danty at last.
He was not particularly enthusiastic for a meeting, especially as he
was aware that his house from time to time was under observation. He
woke Pi Coles and revealed the identity of the caller. The dumpy
little man shook his head.
“Connor’s mustard,” he said. “I shouldn’t have much to do with him if
I were you, guv’nor.”
From time to time there had been red war between the two gangs but
Danty was so aloof from their operations that he could afford to take
a disinterested view. He never went south of the river until the feuds
had died down, and it was perfectly understood that he was not to be
the object of reprisals.
Danty had dreamed dreams of shaking loose all his old associations and
forgetting that he had ever organized river thefts and drawn a small
but steady income from the proceeds.
He was dressed by the time Connor called. Pi, his servant, who had
spent a quarter of an hour looking out of the window, reported the
man’s arrival in Half Moon Street.
“He’s alone, guv’nor,” he said, and most of Danty’s uneasiness was
removed by this information.
Connor was in a friendly mood--which meant nothing. Friendliness of
mood was part of his stock in trade.
“I’ve got a nerve to call you up, Mr. Morell,” he said, “but something
has happened and I think you’re going to help me. When I say ‘help
me,’” he added carefully, “I mean help yourself. My crowd and yours
are not always matey, but I hope that’s going to make no difference.”
Danty informed him with the greatest politeness that he was superior
to the antagonisms of crowds. With his own hand he pushed forward a
box of cigars, and Mr. Connor lit one carefully and thoughtfully.
“I happen to know a lot about you, Morell--everybody agrees you’re the
widest fellow in London. You know Mr. Maddison, too, don’t you--he
mentioned your name.”
Danty’s eyes opened.
“Maddison?” he said slowly. “Why, do you know him?”
Connor grinned.
“I’m not going to tell you any lies. I didn’t know him till last
night.” Then, abruptly: “How much money has he got?”
The question took Morell’s breath away.
“What am I, an inquiry agent?” he asked sarcastically. “He’s a rich
man, that’s all I can tell you, and you probably know that yourself.”
He might have added that Luke’s wealth was a genuine source of
grievance at that moment.
He was curious to know why the gangster was interested in Luke, and
how he had come to meet him, but for the moment Connor was not
prepared to enlighten him.
“The point is this, Morell: if this fellow’s rich, and we can get big
stuff out of him, are you ready to split two ways?”
Danty did not answer. He certainly had no intention of committing
himself to this man, who might be really friendly but as likely as not
was preparing a trap for him.
“Well, I’m going to tell you,” said Connor, “because you’ve got to
come in, whether you like it or not. If you’re in, there’s only one
way the makings can be split, and that’s two ways.” He chuckled at his
own joke.
“Perhaps you’ll be kind enough to tell me just what the graft is?”
said Morell.
The other nodded.
“That’s fair,” he said. “Do you remember Lewing being killed, and a
fellow being knifed?”
“I remember,” said Morell.
“Do you know Taffanny’s was robbed two days ago, and a man with a
beard got away with a lot of stuff?”
Danty nodded again.
“Do you know that was the same man--the chap who was in hospital and
the fellow who drove the car? And do you know that man was Mr. Luke
Maddison?”
Danty stared at him, his mouth wide open.
“Forget it!” he said scornfully. “Maddison’s in Spain.”
The other chuckled.
“In Spain, is he? I’ll tell you where he is. He’s hiding up with
Gunner Haynes. And what’s more, his wife knows he’s on the run with
the police after him.”
Luke Maddison a thief, a man badly wanted by the police? The idea was
so fantastical that Danty could not grasp it. And then Connor began to
tell his story. He did not explain the circumstances in which Luke had
revealed his identity; but after his host had heard of the seeming
treachery of Connor’s confederate, he had no difficulty in bridging
over the gap.
“We were holding him to give him a towelling when Gunner Haynes butted
in and got him away. Naturally I didn’t take any notice of the yarn he
told until one of my men found a passport.”
“You wrote to Mrs. Maddison, did you?”
Connor nodded.
“We got a faked letter--I ought to be kicked for not knowing it was a
fake. Anyway, the Gunner caught me in the park and got the passport
away from me.”
Danty began to think quickly. He knew that this story was true, and
that in some amazing way Luke had got himself mixed up in a gang war
and was now hiding from the police. The reason why the passport was so
vital to him he could realize--that had been the real object of his
burglarious entrance into his own flat. Once the passport was in his
possession it was a simple matter for him to melt away to the
Continent, and with his disappearance from London vanished also every
hope of bringing home to him his association with the Taffanny
robbery. And Margaret knew--if not all, at least the vital part--of
Connor’s story.
Here in his hand was the lever. To think, with Danton, was to act. He
went out into the corridor to the telephone and rang up Margaret. She
was certain to be in bed, but he would insist that she answer him.
To his surprise it was her voice which replied.
“Is that Margaret?”
“Who is it speaking?” she asked quickly.
“It’s Danton,” he said. “Listen, Margaret, this is very important--did
a man called Haynes call on you to-night?”
She hesitated.
“Yes,” she said, “but I don’t think that is any business----”
“Listen, please,” he pleaded. “Did you give him any money? This is
very important.”
Again the hesitation.
“Did you?” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said, “I gave him some money--not for himself----”
She realized her error too late.
“For somebody else?” asked Danty eagerly.
He waited, and then heard the click of the instrument as she hung up
the receiver. He came quickly back to Connor.
“He’s got the passport, and he’s got money, and that means he’ll leave
for the Continent by to-morrow morning’s train. I want you to get a
couple of your gang down at the station to-morrow morning; they’re to
watch at the barrier and head back Maddison if he tries to leave
England.”
He shouted for Pi Coles.
“Bring me my shoes,” he said; and, when the man had gone: “I’m going
to see Mrs. Maddison and get the first instalment of our pension. How
much did you think you’d get from her if she had come over to your
wharf?”
“I reckoned on a thousand,” said Connor, and Morell laughed
thoughtfully.
“If this job is not worth a hundred thousand, it’s worth nothing,” he
said.
CHAPTER XXVII
Somehow Margaret knew that the telephone message she had had from
Danton would be followed up by a personal call, and she was not
surprised when she heard the bell ring. She went to the landing.
“If that is Mr. Danton Morell will you please bring him up?” she said
to the footman who was hurrying to the door.
The first thing she noticed about Danty was a certain unkemptness
which she had never observed before. Usually he was a most painfully
tidy man: every hair of his glossy head was in place, his clothes were
immaculate. But now his hair was unbrushed, he wore an odd coat and
vest, and she formed the impression that he had risen hurriedly from
his bed.
She sensed his hostility, and the new attitude he had taken to her,
within a second of his entering the room.
“Margaret, I am afraid I’ve got a very unpleasant duty to perform,” he
said, almost jauntily. “It concerns this lunatic husband of yours. He
seems to have got himself into a mess. What on earth made him do it?”
“Do what?” she asked innocently.
He smiled.
“It’s no use pretending you don’t know, my dear girl. Luke has got
himself mixed up with a gang. I don’t know what is the pull they have
or who is the woman in it.” He added this maliciously, and was
disappointed when she smiled.
“Your mind runs on women, Danton. Perhaps it was the same lady whom
you discovered in Paris--you remember, your man telegraphed me about
it?”
“I swear to you----” he began, but she shook her head.
“It isn’t worth while discussing that at all. What do you want now?”
Danton shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, there’s a man called Connor, who seems to be pretty sore with
you for not turning up to-night after you’d made an appointment. He
said you’d promised him a thousand pounds----”
“I promised nothing of the sort, and I shouldn’t dream of giving him a
thousand pounds,” said Margaret, and something made her add: “Or you
either.”
She saw him wince. She had not known until then how important a part
money played in Danton Morell’s life.
“There’s no sense in getting up in the air about this,” he said. “It
won’t help you or Luke to fight Connor. He’s one of the most powerful
gangsters in London, and unfortunately he knows that the man who
robbed Taffanny’s the other day was Luke. What are you going to do
about it?”
“I still have no proposal,” she said.
“Connor wants money--a couple of thousand pounds. I’m very naturally
anxious to save you from the disgrace, and as the man came to me to
ask my advice, I thought the best thing I could do would be to act as
intermediary. You’ve been paying the wrong man, Margaret. Haynes
cannot help you--by the way, you don’t imagine the money you gave him
to-night will ever get to Luke, do you?”
When she did not answer, he went on:
“It is nothing to do with me, and if you like to fight Connor that’s
your business entirely. But----”
She interrupted him.
“Do you suggest I should pay this two thousand pounds blackmail to
your friend?”
“He is not my friend,” said the man testily, “and it is not blackmail.
Apparently Luke borrowed the money from Connor.”
She laughed softly at this, her amused eyes on his.
“How terribly unconvincing you can be, Mr. Morell! Well, I’m going to
tell you now that I’m not paying either you or Mr. Connor. It will
save us a lot of unnecessary argument.”
“Haynes advised you not to pay, eh?”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said quietly, “Inspector Bird. I got onto him after you
telephoned, and put a hypothetical case to him--he is coming here.”
There was a sharp rat-tat on the door below.
“I think that is he,” she said, and had all the satisfaction she
required out of the pallor that came to the face of Danton Morell.
“You’re not going to tell him?” he asked agitatedly. “I mean, about my
asking for this money--about Connor. It will all come out--you realize
that? About Luke, I mean. His name will be plastered all over London
as a friend of murderers and a jewel thief.”
He tailed off incoherently, and she went out of the room to meet the
Sparrow.
In the early hours of the morning Mr. Bird was always in his most
jovial mood. He had been at Scotland Yard engaged upon a case when
Margaret had called him, and he seemed in no degree surprised, when he
was shown into the drawing room, to find the discomfited Danton
Morell, standing guiltily and nervously with his back to the little
fire that burned on the hearth.
“Well, well, wonders will never cease. I haven’t been asked out to a
party for years. Fancy meeting you, Danty!” he chuckled.
His heavy eyes surveyed Margaret.
“If you think I’m going to lecture you about keeping bad company,
you’ve got another guess coming, Mrs. Maddison. I realize you’re a
social leader, and naturally you do charitable work amongst the
criminal classes. What’s the trouble, Danty--lost your uncle and want
your train fare out of London? This isn’t your hypo--what’s the word,
Mrs. Maddison, hypothetical case? ‘What should you do if people asked
you for money to keep a secret?’ That was the question, wasn’t it?
Danty wouldn’t do such a low thing as that, would you, Danty? He’s
never done anything except con work, and he’s a reformed character
now. He’s given up thieving and gone into the Stock Exchange.”
“I’m not on the Stock Exchange,” snapped Danty, stung to an answer.
“Thought you’d gone on to-day,” said the Sparrow amiably. “I saw the
flags out in the City. Must have been the King of Baluchistan getting
the Freedom.”
He looked inquiringly at Margaret, and understood the signal in her
eyes.
“Well, Danty, we’ll not be keeping you much longer. Mrs. Maddison and
I have got a few private thoughts to exchange on the subject of
blackmail. How’s Connor?”
“I haven’t seen Connor for months,” said Danton loudly.
The detective rubbed his big chin.
“That’s queer. Here am I thinking he called at your house to-night and
that he’s waiting for you to come back. Getting old, I guess--we have
these illusions at my time of life--always fancy we’re seeing crooks
when they’re only stockbrokers, and not even that.”
It was a very uncomfortable Danton Morell that went down the stairs,
too terrified to be angry. There was no cab in sight, but a car that
looked suspiciously like a police tender was drawn up near the curb a
few houses away, and he hurried past this and was glad when he turned
the corner out of the still bright glare of its headlamps.
Connor was playing euchre with Pi Coles when he came in.
“Well, did you have any luck?”
The man was too cheerful for Danty’s liking: he would have preferred a
more despondent and unhoping note in his tone.
“I’ve got no money, if that’s what you mean--the Sparrow was there.”
Connor sat up, his narrowed eyes fixed upon his host.
“That sounds like a damned lie to me,” he said, but Danty took no
offense.
“He wasn’t at the house when I got there, but I’d hardly started
talking before he turned up. She had sent for him.”
This time Connor was convinced. His lips pursed as though he were
whistling some inaudible tune.
“Did my name come into it?” he asked, after a moment’s thought.
“Yes, the Sparrow brought it in. He said he knew you came to this flat
to-night and that you were waiting for me.”
Connor leaned back in the chair, frowning thoughtfully.
“I wonder if that’s a lie, too?” he said, speaking to himself. “It
mightn’t be--he’s been trailing me for a week--not he but one of his
bloodhounds. Did she squeal?”
Danty did not reply till he had hung up his coat.
“She didn’t and she won’t. I know her! She’s got a bug in her head
that he’s an ill-used man, and she’s going to try to save him without
letting the police know.”
Connor took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end and lit it. He
puffed slowly, his eyes on the ceiling, and then he said:
“I’m out of this. I don’t go after women who’ve got the brains to call
in the police. You go ahead, Danty, and I’ll take my corner.
Twenty-five per cent. is good enough for any man.”
Danty glared down at him.
“I’m to do the work and you’ll take the profit, eh? Is that the idea?
When did we float this company?”
Connor smiled broadly.
“I brought the business; that’s my answer to you. I can’t afford to be
mixed up in it now my name’s known and they’ve brought in the Sparrow.
You can handle these swells, Danty, and you’re wide enough to keep
yourself out of trouble.”
He rose, reached for his coat and hat, and moved to the door. In the
doorway he stood for a little while surveying the other man.
“Twenty-five per cent.,” he said. “You’ll split that way or I’ll do a
bit of splitting myself.”
Danty followed him to the landing.
“Where does the Gunner live?”
Connor shook his head.
“I’ll tail him up and let you know in the morning,” he said. “He’s got
a quiet pitch somewhere.”
Danty went back to his flat and closed the door. Usually he did not
discuss matters with Pi Coles, but this little man was shrewd and
understanding. He had touched most illicit occupations, from larceny
to felony, and was a surprisingly well-educated man. He was one of
those men, so infrequently met with, who had occupied his many
visitations to prison in reading and study; for though he spoke with
the vilest cockney accent and his English was more or less negligible,
he could speak French and Spanish fluently--the former accomplishment
had served him remarkably well, for he had served a year in a French
prison.
For the first time Danton showed his hand. He had not before been very
communicative on the subject of Luke Maddison and his wife, but now he
opened up. Pi Coles listened with the puckered face which was evidence
of his close application. It was when Danton mentioned Gunner Haynes
that he shook his head.
“I’d keep clear of him if I were you, guv’nor,” he said. “You know
what happened?” He nodded significantly.
Danton knew all that had happened; but he flattered himself that he
understood the psychology of the criminal mind. Such men as the Gunner
forgave even the stealing of their wives. Probably Gunner Haynes, with
his philosophical outlook, bore him little or no malice for that
incident. Anyway, the girl was dead, and could never tell the story
that might bring the Gunner at his throat.
Wasn’t there anything he knew about him--something he could hang over
the Gunner’s head, some old crime in which they had both participated?
Danty was a miser of trifles; he was the sort of man who hoarded even
unwanted souvenirs. In his bedroom was a safe where he kept the most
precious of these. Letters tied together with bootlaces; old scraps of
press cuttings relative to previous exploits; and, in an oblong
blotting book, a little square of paper covered with scrawled writing,
which he should have destroyed the night it came into his hands. But
he hated burning anything--otherwise those mad letters of the girl
whose heart he had broken would have been ashes years ago.
He found certain records, letters that the Gunner had written to him
in the days when they were partners, but nothing that would
incriminate him, nothing that he could use to-day. When he had closed
the safe with a bang and locked it, he returned to Pi, who in his
absence had formulated a brand-new idea.
“You can leave the Gunner alone and get away with it, guv’nor,” he
said. “Suppose this man Maddison is staying with Haynes, what’s to
stop you getting at Maddison and leaving out Haynes altogether? And
what’s the use of his wife to you, anyway? You’ve only to get Maddison
away to the Continent with a check book, and you’re on Easy Street for
the rest of your life.”
Danty listened and frowned. That possibility had not occurred to him.
He went to bed at three o’clock that morning and did not fall asleep
until seven. When he awoke, at midday, he found that Connor had sent a
messenger with a letter. It was unaddressed, for that was Connor’s
way, and tearing open the envelope Danty took out a slip of paper torn
from a cheap notebook. It ran:
L.M. staying with G.H. at 974 Pennybody Buildings, Clerkenwell.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Margaret woke that morning with a fixed determination. She had
fenced with the detective and once or twice had been badly pinked. He
was too shrewd a man, too wise in the artless guile which passes in
criminal circles for clever evasion, to be deceived by her. Her
hypothetical case he demolished, and revealed with alarming clearness
the figure and deeds of Luke. He did not say as much; he did not even
connect the missing banker with the Taffanny robbery. All that he knew
was that Luke Maddison had made a fool of himself, that somebody had
got hold of the fact and was trying to blackmail his wife; but what
shape that folly took he regarded as indelicate to inquire.
When she found herself cornered, and the facts which she was trying to
conceal coming to light, in sheer desperation Margaret had been forced
to accept the suggestion of a woman, though she loathed herself for
her new disloyalty. She spoke vaguely of an earlier attachment, but
since she was a bad liar she carried no conviction. The very fact that
she was not speaking the truth in reality saved her from closer
questioning. The Sparrow jumped to a conclusion which was wrong.
“The only thing I can tell you, Mrs. Maddison, is that, whatever
happens, you’re not to pay anybody anything. If it’s Danty or Connor,
or whoever it is putting the black on you, you’ve only to ring me up
to stop ’em!”
He left with the definite assurance that she would take this step.
She had to force herself to go to bed that night, and will herself to
sleep. She had a heavy day ahead of her and no plans definitely fixed.
The Gunner had told her nothing except that he was in touch with Luke.
Had he told her that he was trying to get him out of England? If he
hadn’t, she had in some occult way received that impression.
Luke would make for Ronda, whither his check book had been sent. She
must follow him--accompany him if possible. She went early to the bank
and saw Stiles. He was--for Stiles--in an optimistic frame of mind.
Two or three undertakings in which the bank was interested had become
flourishing.
“One I had written down as a bad debt and it looks as if it would
bring in eighteen thousand a year,” he almost chortled the news. “I
wish you’d let Mr. Maddison know that: he’ll be delighted. I’d have
sent him a wire to Spain, only I don’t know his address.”
And then, realizing that her appearance at this hour was unusual:
“Is there anything you want, Mrs. Maddison?”
“I want to see my husband’s private account. You had it transferred to
the bank.”
He took her into his private room, brought the pass book to her, and
she ran her finger down the column. The last check drawn was a few
days before his wedding. Since then, Stiles told her, no check had
come in.
“I’ve been expecting some in. Mr. Maddison is rather extravagant at
times, and I’m surprised that he hasn’t cashed a check--although of
course he’s got his Spanish account--but I should have thought he
would wish to replenish that.”
“That is what I’ve come to see you about, Stiles,” she said. “I want
you not to honour any check drawn by my husband for any amount over a
thousand pounds.”
Stiles stared at her over his glasses. This was the resolution she had
reached as she lay in bed on the previous night. She had gone over
every possibility step by step, had seen the likelihood of the
blackmailers transferring their attention from her to Luke. At present
Luke was safe under the protection of the Gunner; but something might
happen to remove him from this watchful, hawk-faced man.
Somehow, for a reason which she could not understand, she trusted the
Gunner implicitly--was sure that whatever his record might be he would
do no harm to Luke.
“That’s an extraordinary request you’re making, Mrs. Maddison,” said
Stiles, troubled. “It’s quite likely that Mr. Maddison may want to
make a big purchase--the last time he was in Spain he bought some
property in Seville that showed a profit of fifty per cent. the first
year.”
She nodded.
“I realize that, but I still make this request--in his name.”
“Very good, Mrs. Maddison.”
Stiles scribbled some instructions on a slip of paper and pinned it to
the ledger he had brought in.
“I don’t know what’s in your mind, but I understood that you had
transferred everything back to Mr. Maddison----”
“It isn’t that,” she explained hastily. “It’s the possibility of----”
But here she was at a loss; she could not offer any explanation which
an intelligent man would accept unless the whole story were revealed.
Her car was parked in Waterloo Place and she was waiting while the
commissionaire brought it, when, turning her head, she saw a man
standing at the corner whose attitude had something familiar about it.
He was still there when the commissionaire returned with the car, and
she had to pass the loiterer. It was then that she saw his face and
tapped at the window. He saw her, too, and for once Gunner Haynes’s
sang-froid deserted him and he looked uncomfortable. The car pulled up
with a jerk; she beckoned the man toward her and he came reluctantly.
“Will you drive with me, please?” she asked a little breathlessly.
“There are one or two questions I want to settle.”
He hesitated.
“It won’t do you very much good, Mrs. Maddison, to be seen driving
with me.”
“Come in, please,” she ordered imperiously, and he stepped in and sat
down by her side.
Through the microphone she gave an order to the driver.
“I want to see my husband,” she said, when this was done.
The Gunner shook his head.
“I don’t think that’s going to be very useful to you. Too many people
have seen him already.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded, and she saw Haynes’s face harden.
“I tried to get him away this morning by the early mail. Two of
Connor’s men were there to head him off; I don’t know how they did it,
but they’d persuaded a couple of dicks--detectives--to watch the
barriers, and I didn’t dare chance it. I tried again at eleven o’clock
and I didn’t have any better luck. Of course, Connor guessed, when I
took the passport, what I was going to do.”
“When you took the passport?” she said in surprise. “When did you take
the passport?”
The Gunner deftly slid round the question.
“Your husband’s getting a bit on my mind and is interfering with my
lawful occasions.” There was a faint smile in his eyes as he said
this.
“Were you waiting at the bank to see me?”
He smiled again.
“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Maddison, I didn’t even know you were
there, and didn’t realize it was the bank. The truth is--” he seemed
more uncomfortable still--“there’s a young lady who comes to this part
of the world, and I occasionally take tea with her. I think she’s more
interested in me as a criminal and a source of copy than in anything
else.” He smiled wryly. “But I’m very grateful to have the opportunity
of meeting a decent girl. She’s a newspaper woman, as they call ’em in
America, and she covers some of these West End functions.”
Margaret laughed softly. It was the first time she had laughed for a
very long while.
“Poor Mr. Haynes! I’m terribly sorry if I’ve robbed you of a
tête-à-tête.”
He shook his head.
“No, there was no possibility of her coming--it’s too late. And of
course, there’s always the chance that that obese Sparrow might be
with her.”
“You’re talking of Mr. Bird--and the girl’s name is Bolford.”
He started.
“Did you know?” he gasped, and then: “Oh, of course, she has met you.
She told me once. No, there’s no romance in it, Mrs. Maddison, just a
congenial--” he shrugged--“friendship. I am thankful for small
mercies.”
“Are you married?” she asked.
“I was,” was the short reply, and she did not feel encouraged to
pursue her inquiries.
“Can I see my husband? I think I should, don’t you?”
He looked at her oddly.
“Does it strike you as a possibility that he might not want to see
you?” he asked bluntly, and saw the red come into her cheeks.
“I--I have blinded myself wilfully to that possibility,” she said.
“But he is in trouble, and a wife’s place is by her husband’s side,”
he mocked, and for a moment she hated him.
Then her sense of humour overcame her annoyance.
“Yes, we’ll put it like that. It sounds terribly trite, but most trite
things are true.”
The Gunner was silent for a long time, but presently he sighed.
“I’ve got an idea that whatever I’m doing is quite wrong, and that I
ought to let you help him. Mrs. Maddison, it’s going to be a very
difficult thing to get this husband of yours away out of England.
You’re going to say ‘aëroplane’--I can see it in your eyes--but you
can bet that Connor has got his people at Croydon, too. The only thing
to do is to smuggle him away in a motor-car to a seaside place, hire a
yacht, and push him across the Channel. It’s not going to be easy,
especially as he’s not terribly keen on your giving him any help at
all.”
She pondered this as the car went slowly round the park.
“I’ll take the risk of a snub,” she said, “if you’ll take the risk of
offending him. Will you let me see him?”
Haynes nodded.
“Yes, but you’re not going to take this expensive car, Mrs.
Maddison--into my neighbourhood, I mean. We’ll stop the car at Hyde
Park Corner and get a taxi.”
This they did.
“The only thing that’s troubling me,” he said as they were driving
along Piccadilly, “is whether Connor has tailed me to my home. ‘Tail’
is slang for ‘trail.’”
“You think they followed you there? Didn’t they know where you live?”
“They know many places I live,” explained the Gunner whimsically, “but
this is one they don’t know, or didn’t until this morning.”
They paid off the cab two hundred yards from the model dwelling where
Haynes had his home, and at that hour fortunately there were few
people about, and certainly none who seemed to evince the slightest
curiosity in the presence of this well-dressed woman. They had to pass
through a little gateway to reach the asphalt square that formed the
quadrangle of the huge block, and she saw the Gunner look back; there
was trouble in his face.
“They’ve tailed me all right,” he said grimly. “Did you see that
motor-van on the street outside? The man at the wheel was one of
Connor’s little friends. You won’t see him now--he’s gone. Connor uses
motor-vans a lot.”
As he was mounting the few steps which led to the landing from which
his flat opened, a slatternly woman came out of a door opposite.
“I suppose it’s all right taking your wardrobe away, Mr.
What’s-your-name?” she said.
The Gunner spun round.
“Took my wardrobe? What do you mean?”
“The men from the furniture place came about an hour ago--two chaps in
green aprons. They had the key so I thought it was all right.”
The Gunner asked no further questions: he opened the door and ran into
the passage. The door of Luke’s room was open. He looked at the
disorder, saw the bloodstained sheets, and turned to meet the white
face of Margaret Maddison.
“I’m afraid your husband’s gone,” he said, in such a matter-of-fact
tone that she was deceived.
He closed the door behind him and led her into the little sitting
room.
“He won’t be back till late, so I don’t think it’s worth while your
staying.”
“How do you know?” she asked. “Why were you so worried when they
talked about the wardrobe being taken away?”
“An old wardrobe that I sold,” said the Gunner. “It’s not worth while
keeping stuff that isn’t much use to you.”
He chatted with her pleasantly before he took her away and, finding
another cab, sent her home. She could not guess that he knew in his
heart that the wardrobe contained the body of Luke Maddison. Whether
he was alive or dead he must find out. After he had left the girl
Gunner Haynes went back to his room, rolled up the carpet, took up a
floor-board, and, groping, found a box containing two small
automatics. One of these he slipped in a specially constructed inside
pocket of his coat; the other went into a small holster which buckled
to his braces.
“I think there is going to be some trouble to-night,” said Gunner
Haynes, addressing nobody in particular.
CHAPTER XXIX
Luke Maddison had only the most confused memory of what followed his
incautious opening of the door. He had been sitting reading when he
heard a knock, and saw nothing suspicious in the appearance of two men
in green baize aprons and shirt-sleeves.
“Is this Mr. Haynes’s flat?” asked one. “We’ve come to take away the
wardrobe.”
“You’d better return when Mr. Haynes is here,” said Luke, thinking
naturally that the Gunner had given instructions for the removal of a
piece of furniture.
“If we can’t take it away we’d like to measure it,” said the man, who
carried a notebook ostensibly in his hand.
Luke Maddison hesitated. He knew nothing about wardrobes, or indeed of
any of the domestic arrangements of the flat. But there could be no
harm in acceding to this request. He turned his back upon the men for
a second, and after that he remembered nothing distinctly.
His first conscious impression was of having his face roughly cleaned
by a cold, wet sponge. There was a rank smell of tar in the air, and
the room in which he was sitting seemed to be in motion. He thought at
first that this was one of the many illusions he was experiencing, but
when his eyes wandered round the apartment and saw the heavily
timbered ribs of the room, the low ceiling, and the black, tar-painted
floor, he realized that he was not dreaming.
“Am I on a ship?” he asked huskily, and heard a laugh.
He recognized the man who had the sponge in his hand as the artist who
had once before wielded a cosh.
“Was it you in the baize apron? I didn’t recognize you.”
“It wasn’t me this time, guv’nor,” said the man, who seemed
chronically hoarse. “I wouldn’t have drawn blood--you ain’t hurt.
Drink this.”
Luke drank the weak brandy and water that was offered to him, but
would have preferred plain water.
“You’re a regular nuisance to us, you are, guv’nor,” said the man,
dropping the sponge into a pail of water and wiping his hands on a
grimy-looking handkerchief. “Now you take my advice and keep quiet.
There’s a proper bed for you here, and you’ll find a pail of water in
the stern. Nobody’s going to hurt you if you behave yourself.”
“Am I on a ship?” asked Luke again.
“Barge,” was the reply. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. The Gunner’s
looking for you, but he won’t find you.”
He turned to his silent companion, and only then was Luke aware that
there was a second man in the cabin--if such a foul place could be
dignified by such a name.
“We oughtn’t to have laid him on the bed. That was the give-away,
Harry,” he said. “It was my fault, but we had to put him somewhere.
You’re stronger than I thought, Maddison.”
Luke chuckled feebly.
“I don’t remember that I put up a fight, did I?”
“Put up a fight?” said the other. “I should say you did! It was when
we got you in the bedroom that you started scrapping. Don’t you
remember?”
Luke remembered nothing.
“The guv’nor’s coming aboard in a minute--we’re moored very near the
wharf. If you’re a sensible man, Mr. Maddison, you’ll do what he asks.
There’ll be no funny business, now we know who you are.”
He looked curiously at Luke.
“A pal of Lewing’s, wasn’t you? That’s a funny game, mixing with a
crowd like that. I’m surprised that a gentleman like you should have
got yourself into that kind of trouble.”
Luke did not reply. The two men went soon after, leaving the smoky
lamp to illuminate the gloom.
A short flight of steps led to a heavy hatchway, which was closed.
There was a kind of washing-place in the stern of the craft. There was
no porthole through which he could see daylight, and a system of
ventilation did not exist. Such air as came was admitted through three
circular holes cut in the hatchway, and he suspected that over this
was a canvas cover, for he could see no light.
Everything of value had been taken from him. His clothes were soiled
with blood--he found his sodden collar in a corner of the cabin; and
his head ached all the time. Nevertheless he was beginning to feel
hungry when the hatchway was pulled back and the legs of a man
appeared on the first step of the ladder.
He discovered now why he had seen no light: there was evidently a
small deck-house above the hatchway, and he caught a glimpse of this
as his visitor was descending. It was Connor, who greeted him with the
air of a friend who had been badly treated.
“You’ve given us a lot of trouble, Mr. Maddison,” he said, unconscious
of repeating the words of his lieutenant, “and when people give me
trouble they have to pay for it. I’ve come to have a little talk with
you. You want to get away to the Continent, don’t you?”
Luke did not answer.
“Don’t be obstinate,” begged Connor, with a friendly grin. “I’m trying
to help you. I’ve fixed up with a boat--the skipper’s a friend of
mine--to take you to Rotterdam in the morning.”
He took something out of his pocket which Luke recognized.
“Here’s your passport--my boys found that when they were rummaging at
the Gunner’s house. You take it from me, Mr. Maddison, I am the best
friend you ever had.”
Luke smiled wryly.
“I gather that this is the trouble I’m going to pay for, isn’t it?” he
asked.
“Spoken like a sensible man,” said Connor. “Yes, it’s going to cost
you a bit, but you can afford it.”
From his inside pocket he brought out a long envelope, and from this
extracted three blank checks.
“I want you to make these out yourself: one for two, one for three,
and one for five thousand. It’ll look better that way, and look much
better if the checks are in your handwriting.”
“May I see them?”
The man passed the checks to him and Luke chuckled again.
“My poor conspirator!” he said mockingly. “I haven’t more than a
hundred pounds in that account--or any other.”
Connor’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you pulling one on me?” he asked.
“I’m telling you the truth,” said Luke, “though I can quite understand
it sounds so strange to you that it seems a lie. This is on my private
account, which is down to nothing--one of the last things I did before
I--before I went away, was to transfer most of the money I had in this
account to my own bank.”
“But you always used the Northern & Southern?” insisted Connor.
He was obviously perturbed by the discovery, as well he might be, for
he had spent that afternoon searching London for the right “kites.”
There is quite a brisk trade in blank check forms, and certain sources
from which they can be obtained. It had taken him some time to track
Luke’s bank, a longer time to get the necessary forms, and his
discomfiture was pardonable.
“Anyway, I’ve got no money,” said Luke, “so your labours are all
wasted.”
“Yes, you have,” interrupted Connor. “Your missus transferred all your
money back to you after you’d left.”
This was news to Luke, but obviously the man was not talking at
random.
“Who told you this?”
“A pal of yours,” said the other coolly.
“Danton Morell?”
Connor nodded.
“It would not have gone back to this account, anyway,” said Luke after
a moment’s thought. “It would be in my own bank.”
Connor understood humanity sufficiently well to realize that his
prisoner was speaking the truth.
“But you’ll sign the checks when I get them, won’t you, Mr. Maddison?”
Luke shook his head.
“I’m not going to threaten you; I want this thing done in a
gentlemanly way,” said Connor earnestly. “You’re a rich man, and a few
hundreds more or less isn’t going to hurt you. Somebody’s got to get
you out of the country, and the Gunner can’t. If you trust me, I’ll
see you right, and I’ll never come to you for another penny--you know
that I can’t put the black on you once you get away from England:
that’s why I’m asking big money now. You’re a business man, Mr.
Maddison, and you’ve got enough sense to see that if I blacked you
after this I should be cutting my own throat. I’ve had a cabin made up
for you for’ard, and I’ll take your word that you won’t try to
escape--and I don’t see why you should either, with the police looking
for you. Is it a deal?”
“You’ll get not a bean out of me,” said Luke defiantly.
Connor looked at him long and thoughtfully.
“All right,” he said; “you can stay here and starve till you change
your mind.”
For a second Luke was tempted to rush at him as he ascended the steps.
A low tackle would bring him down; but Luke was still very weak so he
sat passively till the hatch was pulled tight. Mr. Connor dropped to
the little rowboat which was alongside the barge.
He did not go to his wharf, but rowed to some narrow steps opposite to
where the barge was moored; then making his way to the City, he hailed
a taxi and was driven to Half Moon Street.
Danty was just going out when his visitor arrived, and Mr. Danton
Morell was not in a good mood.
“What was the idea of sending me that address?” he said. “I went down
there this afternoon and nearly ran into Gunner Haynes.”
“Then why the hell did you go?” demanded Connor.
“To see Maddison. I could have persuaded him to part. Maddison isn’t
there. A woman in the building told me that the Gunner had locked up
his flat and gone away. Where is Maddison?”
Connor lit a cigar before he replied.
“I’ve got him--I think I was in a quarter here, wasn’t I, Danty? Well,
I’m in three quarters now, and I’m being generous. You’ve had your
chance and you’ve missed it. What is he worth?”
Danty stifled his rising anger which was provoked by the tone of the
man. There was no sense in getting on the wrong side of Connor, and
the question of distribution might very well wait over for another and
more propitious moment.
“Half a million, I should think. Where is he?”
“Half a million, eh?” Connor ignored the question. “Would he stand a
hundred thousand?”
The other man thought a moment.
“Yes, he’d stand a hundred thousand if he could get it,” he said.
“He said he hadn’t got a bean.”
“He’s got money all right,” said Danty savagely. “It’s all in his own
bank.”
Connor pondered this for a long time.
“That’ll mean ten kites. Can you get them?”
Danty frowned.
“What do you want checks for?”
Connor closed his eyes wearily.
“You’ve been so long out of the con game that you’ve forgotten your
business,” he said offensively. “I want the checks for him to sign,
that’s all. Can you get them?”
Danty thought for a moment.
“I’ve got a check book on that bank,” he said. “I had a small account
there. But they won’t be any good: they’ll be able to trace the checks
to me. But I can get them.”
He went to the telephone and called Margaret’s number. The servant who
replied told him that she was out, which was just the news he wanted.
“When will she be back? It is Mr. Morell speaking.”
He half expected a message to the effect that Mrs. Maddison would not
be in to him at any time.
“Not till after lunch, sir.”
Danty hung up the ’phone.
“Wait here,” he said. “I think I know where I can get all the kites
you want.”
He knew a great deal about Margaret and her domestic habits--he had
been deeper in her confidence than any other man. The butler was
surprised to see him, but took him up to Margaret’s sitting room
without hesitation.
“I didn’t make myself clear, sir. Madam will not be back for another
hour.”
Danty smiled.
“I think you will find she returns a little sooner than that,” he
said, almost gaily. “Anyway, I’ll wait for her.”
The door had hardly closed upon the servant before he was at
Margaret’s desk. It was unlocked, and in one of the side drawers he
knew she invariably kept two check books. They were there, as he had
expected: one half empty, one unused. From the end of the latter he
tore a dozen checks, slipped them in his pocket and closed the desk,
before he rang the bell.
“I don’t think I will wait: I’ll call back in an hour. My business
isn’t so pressing, and I’ve just thought of some calls I had to make.”
Within half an hour of leaving he was back with Connor and laid the
checks before him. Mr. Connor asked no questions, nor was there any
necessity.
“You’re going to make him sign these? Shall I come along with you?”
Connor grinned.
“I don’t think that’s a clever idea,” he said. “You’ll get your
corner, Danty.”
He could not approach the barge in broad daylight, for he knew that he
was under police observation. As soon as it was dark he slipped down
the stream and clambered aboard the craft, carrying with him a basket
of food and a vacuum flask of hot tea. The light which he had left had
burned itself out. Luke was half sleeping on the bed that had been
prepared for him, but the rush of cold, fresh air awakened him.
Connor switched on an electric lamp he was carrying and put it on the
floor, with one or two refills.
“Here’s your food,” he said. “I’m sorry to have kept you so long, but
I hope you’ve got more intelligence now than you had when I left you.
And here are the kites: I’d like you to fill them in in your own
hand.”
Luke reached for the food and ate ravenously. He was feeling hungry,
and his vitality was at its lowest ebb. The hot tea probably revived
him more than the food, and he was almost cheerful when he swept the
last crumbs from his knees.
“Now, what are your kites?” he said. “Oh, checks! You want me to fill
them up and sign them--for what fabulous amount? You can make it a
million if you like, but I can assure you that they will not be
honoured. I think I told you before that all my money is in my wife’s
name.”
“In that case we’ll have a little joke,” said Connor, not taking his
eyes from his prisoner. “You’ll make each of these checks out for ten
thousand, and date ’em a week apart. If you want to stay longer than
ten weeks you can date ’em a month apart; or, if you’d like to get
away in a few days, you can sign one check for a hundred thousand
pounds and you can write a letter to your bank manager telling him the
kite’s got to be honoured.”
Before he had finished, Luke was laughing.
“I’ve got a very keen sense of humour,” he said, “but it doesn’t
strike me as being a joke for a banker to draw checks on a debit
account.”
Connor pulled up a stool and sat down.
“Let’s have this thing right,” he said. “You know me, you know my
name; I’ve put myself in for a ten-year sentence, probably longer. I’d
as soon hang as spend my life in Broadmoor, and that’s just the risk
I’m taking, Mr. Maddison. I’ll plug you and drop you over the side, or
you’ll do as I ask. You’re a sensible man and I’m putting the case to
you. I can’t let you go without the money.” He drew the stool a little
closer. “I’ve been battling for years at this river work and gang
work, and what do you think I’ve got to show for it? The lease of an
old wharf that’s not worth a monkey; about a couple of thousand
planted away in country banks, and the certainty that sooner or later
one of my rats will squeak on me. I’ve got a chance now of getting
away with big money--you’ve got a chance of clearing yourself. I’ll
make a signed statement, giving the facts about the Taffanny smash--is
it a bet?”
It was not the moment for heroics. Luke realized this very definitely.
He had no doubt in his mind that in the last extremity Connor would
keep his word. There would lie the end of all things. It was not a
moment to snap fingers in the face of fate. Connor had put the
situation on a business basis, and this was not the time to consider
the niceties of business etiquette. If he drew a check and it were
presented, he had no doubt in his mind that the check would not be
met; inquiries would be set afoot, and possibly he would be traced.
“I think it is foolish to attempt to put in a check for ten thousand,”
he said. “The amount is so big that, even if I had the money, Stiles
would be suspicious. I’m willing to make a compromise: I’ll give you a
check for five thousand pounds. If that is honoured--which it will not
be--your luck is in, and you had better clear before there are
inquiries. Obviously no bank manager in his senses would pay out a
hundred thousand pounds without communicating with the man who drew
the checks.”
He saw Connor smile.
“That’s the stuff I like to hear,” said the man. “That’s intelligent.
Where are you supposed to be--in Spain, aren’t you?”
Luke frowned.
“I suppose I am. Why?”
“We’ll draw this five thousand, and then you and me will go to Spain
together--I’ll get you away to-night.”
The scheme did not even seem feasible to Luke, but he made no comment.
He wrote and signed the check and handed it to the other.
“And now,” said Luke, “I’d like a little fresh air. This place is
stifling me.”
Connor hesitated.
“Come up on deck, but if there’s any monkey business I may have to do
something I shall be sorry for.”
A few seconds later Luke sat on the edge of the hatchway, sucking in
the cool, sweet air. The hatch was on the well of the barge, and this
was covered with tarpaulin. He could see this by the light of a
flashing electric sign erected on one of the towers that fringed the
river. Opposite was a line of lights which stood for the Thames
Embankment. A fussy little tug was moving slowly against the tide
upstream; he heard the hoot and shriek of a train as it passed across
one of the bridges. The lights of the West End painted the low-lying
clouds a dull orange. The tide was on the turn; he heard the lap of it
against the flat bow of the barge.
For ten minutes he sat in silence, then rose onto the deck and
stretched his cramped limbs.
“If I promised not to leave the barge, or attempt to attract
attention, would you leave the hatch open, Mr. Connor?”
Connor’s laugh was his answer.
“Don’t be silly! That word of honour stuff doesn’t mean anything to
me.”
“I’m glad,” said Luke. “If you had accepted my word it might have been
very embarrassing.”
As he spoke, his hand shot out, and Connor went sprawling onto the
hatch. Before he could recover, Luke had reached the edge of the barge
and without a glance had plunged in and was striking out for
midstream.
He heard no sound but the patter of footsteps on the hollow hatches,
and then a voice giving urgent instructions. Connor must have a
rowboat moored alongside, he decided. The tide had already swept him
clear of the barge; it was running strongly, and there was nothing
nearer to him than a line of moored lighters in the centre of the
river. To make for these, however, would be to invite discovery. He
struck back toward the shore.
As he did so, he saw a shape come round the bow of the barge. Connor
had come in a motor launch. It moved too quickly to be anything else.
There was only one thing to do. He drew a lungful of air and dived
toward the launch, swimming hard against the tide. He seemed to be
under the water for an eternity; his lungs and head were bursting when
he came to the surface, coming up just under the stern of the launch,
so close that the whirling little propeller seemed to touch his hair.
Neither of the two men in the launch had seen him. He just caught the
silhouette of their heads and shoulders peering over the side, and
then he sank again.
He was lamentably weak; his effort could not be long sustained. He had
to come again to the surface, and was relieved to see no sign of the
launch. As he trod water he saw it, making for the lighters in
mid-stream. He was now twenty yards from a barge moored to a wharf,
and striking out he caught the mooring chain and recovered his breath
before he attempted to reach land.
He was too weak to climb up to the barge; the only thing he could do
was to complete his journey to the shore, and with infinite labour he
succeeded at last, wading through mud up to his knees until he came to
the blank face of a warehouse. There seemed no escape here. Looking
back over his shoulder, he saw the launch returning. Somebody was
fanning the water with an electric torch, and escape seemed
impossible.
It was at that moment he heard a hoarse voice hail him from the barge.
“Give us your hand.”
He reached up and found it gripped.
“Catch hold of the top of the pile,” whispered the voice cheerfully,
and groping upward Luke found a hold, and with a superhuman effort and
the assistance of his unknown friend, dragged himself up onto a narrow
strip of wharfage running before the warehouse and scarcely wide
enough for two people to walk abreast.
“They didn’t see you, did they?” whispered the unknown, and before
Luke could reply: “Push round to the left. Follow me--there’s a
watchman here; he’s asleep, but don’t make a row!”
Luke Maddison found himself picking a way across a yard littered with
paving-stones and granite setts. He saw a long shed and the projecting
shafts of vans. Somewhere near at hand were horses for he heard one
kicking in his stall.
He followed stealthily, past a little lighted hut, wherein the night
watchman (as he hoped) was sleeping. After a while they came to a
heavy black gate; the wicket door was unfastened, and through this
they slipped, Luke’s rescuer closing the door softly behind
him--apparently he had a key.
“I saw ’em looking for you, but I thought they was out for Connor’s
lot.”
He swore most foully for a few seconds.
“These river busies are worse than the land busies.”
By the light of a street lamp Luke took stock of his companion: a
sharp, lantern-jawed man of thirty, with a Jewish nose and furtive
eyes that never kept still.
“You’re wet, ain’t you? Come into Connor’s yard: he’ll give you a
change.”
“No, thank you,” said Luke hastily. “I don’t want anything to do with
Connor.”
“You don’t want anything to do with Connor, eh? Well, you’re wise. Got
any money?”
Luke felt in his pockets.
“No,” he said.
The man uttered a grunt of disgust.
“I thought at least I’d get a quid out of it. Where do you live?”
“I don’t know where the devil I do live,” said Luke irritably, and he
heard the thin, whistling laugh of his companion.
“You’re a swell--I thought you was when I first heard you speak. Ever
busted a safe? There’s one in that warehouse and nothing else. They
told me there was a lot of stuff there. I’ve been three days getting
in and out. The only way you can do it is to go through the stone
yard. But I’ll bet there’s some stuff in the safe, Have you ever
busted one?”
“Never,” said Luke, and added: “It’s one of the few things I haven’t
done.”
“What were the busies after you for? Was you doing the lighter?”
The man was under the impression that Luke was a fugitive from the
river police, and he did not undeceive him.
“It’s a pretty hard life,” said the other agreeably.
They were reaching now a more populous centre, and the little man, who
said his name was Tom, stopped.
“You can’t go into the street like this: they’d pinch you in a minute.
You’d better come home with me. But I can’t afford to keep you.”
Luke was led through divers byways to the meanest street he had ever
struck. Although the hour was late, children were playing and
screaming, women stood at the doors gossiping. Nobody took any notice
of Luke and his companion, and presently they passed through a door,
which Tom unlocked, along an evil-smelling passage and up an
uncarpeted flight of stairs.
“Go in there and get your wet clothes off.” Tom opened a door, and
striking a match lit a candle.
The windows were heavily screened with an old piece of horse blanket,
and the furniture of the room consisted of a bed with horrible-looking
bedding, and precious little else.
Tom said he was going to see the landlord. He was gone some time and
when he returned Luke had overcome his repugnance to the soiled linen,
and having stripped and dried himself as well as he could on the one
grimy towel that the room possessed, he had crawled into the bed.
Tom threw down on a chair a pair of trousers and an old shirt, which
had the advantage of being clean.
“That’s all I can get for you,” he said, and picked up Luke’s sodden
suit, eying it with approval.
The boots also came under his scrutiny.
“Silk shirt, eh? I thought you was a swell. I’ll get these dried for
you.”
He disappeared and did not return. Ten minutes later, in spite of his
unsavoury surroundings, Luke was fast asleep. When he woke the sun was
shining through the holes in the blanket. Rising, he put on the shirt
and trousers, feeling uncommonly chilly.
There was noise enough downstairs: the howl of a crying child, a
woman’s strident voice, and the deeper, bullying tone of a man. He
opened the door, went out onto the landing and called. Presently the
owner of the deep voice appeared.
“What’s the matter?”
“Are my clothes dried?” asked Luke politely.
“What clothes?”
The man was interested, and came heavily up the stairs: a big,
unshaven brute, puffy-faced.
“Gave Tom your clothes?” He kissed his hand loudly. “Say good-bye to
’em, old man.”
Luke stared at him aghast.
“Do you mean he’s gone away with them?”
That apparently was what he did mean. He also informed his guest that
he needed half a crown for the night’s lodging.
“And then there’s my trousers and shirt,” he said. “What do I get for
’em?”
He took a long time before he consented to add to the loan an old
jacket and a pair of worn shoes that were two sizes too small. He
could, he thought, “get a bit out of Tom,” from which Luke gathered he
was going to share the proceeds of the stolen clothing. He added to
his other beneficences a cup of tea and a thick slice of bread and
margarine, and with this equipment the banker was turned out into the
street.
Rain was falling heavily. By the time he had reached Lambeth Bridge he
was soaked through. He made for the park, and finding a chair drew it
into the shelter of a big, overhanging tree. For a long time he sat
there, and then he reached a decision. Disgrace and prison seemed a
little less unpleasant prospect than cold and hunger. He decided to go
to the bank.
He did not know the time and asked a man who was hurrying past,
without, however, eliciting the slightest response. He asked another
man, who gruffly told him it was nearly twelve. He would find Stiles
in the office, and Stiles meant comfort and food and decent clothing.
As he came out of the park gates somebody caught him by the arm and
swung him round, and he looked into the unsympathetic face of a man
who was obviously a detective.
“Begging, eh? I saw you speak to those two gentlemen.”
“I asked them the time,” said Luke.
“I dare say,” said the detective, tightening his lips. “Come a little
walk with me.”
Ten minutes later a door closed on Luke Maddison, and he found himself
alone in a clean but very uncomfortable cell of a police station. In
this experience he was not entirely unfortunate, for Connor had been
trailing him, hoping that he might go to some part of the park where
persuasion, peaceful or otherwise, could be attempted.
CHAPTER XXX
No man wasted less time or effort than Gunner Haynes. His method
represented the very economy of labour. He was satisfied that Connor
had carried away his victim, but was wrong when he associated Danty
Morell with the abduction.
He called upon Connor but was told vaguely that the man had gone into
the country. He did not attempt to seek an interview with Danty
Morell, but after a day spent in a vain search of Connor’s wharf, made
his way to Half Moon Street, watched the house until he saw first
Danty and then Pi Coles leave. To get into Danty’s flat was a very
simple matter--a key blank, a piece of lampblack, a quarter of an hour
spent in Green Park filing the soft metal, procured him an entrance.
Once inside the flat he proceeded at his leisure. He was not at all
anxious at the thought of Danty’s return. His hatred of Morell was in
one sense illogical. They had been friends and partners, though he had
lost sight of the man and the partnership had broken off. He had no
direct proof of the duplicity he suspected. Gunner Haynes had loved
that feather-headed little wife of his, and when she had disappeared,
never to become more to him than a record in a workhouse register, a
tremendous part of his life had been cut away from him. He might
suspect Danty as the cause of his agony: he had no clear evidence that
the story the man had told was untrue.
Danty had said the girl had disappeared, and that he was as ignorant
of her whereabouts as her husband. Yet, for all this, the suspicion in
Gunner Haynes’s mind amounted to a certainty. He was a just man, and
so long as that proof was missing, Danty Morell would come to no harm.
He made a quick but thorough examination of the two rooms. There were
letters which had to be scanned, pocketbooks to investigate, drawers
to be opened and searched, but in none of these did Haynes find the
slightest clue to Luke Maddison’s present place of imprisonment. He
did find the note which Connor had scribbled, giving the address where
Luke was staying, but no more. There remained only the safe, which was
not so much a safe as a steel cupboard fastened with a spring
lock--the type that is found in most business offices. To open this
was a matter of five minutes’ patient work.
There were four shelves and each was crowded with letters, bills, and
curious souvenirs which Danty had collected--the cupboard was in such
disorder as only a man without method could create. On the third shelf
he found a wooden box, the lock of which he forced. There were papers
here--bundles of letters tied up with shoe-laces, bits of old
string--there was nothing romantic in Danty’s disposition.
The first bundle did not interest him. At the sight of the writing on
the second his face went gray. He brought the box into the dining-room
and sat down, read three of the letters, glanced at the others, and
very slowly and deliberately tied them up again and put them back in
the box. As he did so he caught sight of a scrap of paper exactly the
size of that on which Rex had written his last message. He took it
out--yes, it was scrawled in the same handwriting. But the message was
unintelligible. It ran:
Danty Morell. The man is a common swindler. I was warned against him
by----
And then in a flash he realized. He had an extraordinary memory, and
could repeat almost word for word the supposedly complete message Rex
had left. With these words added it would have read:
Margaret darling, I have lost. For months I have been gambling. To-day
I took a desperate step on the advice of Danty Morell. The man is a
common swindler. I was warned against him by Luke Maddison. He has led
me to ruin--money is his god. I beg of you not to trust him. He has
led me from one act of folly to another.…
That was it! Danty had found that the first and last of those scraps
made a complete message; he had put the second in his pocket (it still
bore marks of being screwed up).
It took him quite a long time to realize all this. His mind was numbed
from reading the letters; he was almost stupid in his horror and hate.
Mechanically he put the tell-tale slip of paper into his pocketbook,
closed the lid.… His wife’s letters must be burned. He opened the box
again, took them out, threw them into the fireplace and put a match to
them. He stood watching and stirring them until they were black ashes,
then he put the box back where he had found it and closed the steel
cupboard.
For the moment Luke Maddison and his safety were subsidiary
considerations. The only thing that mattered was Danty. The agony and
appeal in those letters! Gunner Haynes caught a glimpse of his face in
a mirror over the mantelpiece and for a moment was shocked. He had
become suddenly old.
Danty did not return--he was glad. He turned out all the lights,
closed the door behind him, and went out into the street. He had
hardly crossed to the other sidewalk before a cab drew up to the
pavement and a man alighted. It was Danty.
The gunman watched but made no effort to intercept him. That would
come later; there would be a great accounting.
He strolled into Piccadilly, moving like a man in a dream, and heard
his name spoken twice before he turned with a start to look into the
pretty face of Mary Bolford.
“I wondered if it was you,” she said, “and if you were contemplating
some nefarious act. Of course you’re not!”
The Gunner drew a long breath.
“To tell you the truth, I was,” he said gently. “I haven’t had the
good fortune to meet you in this last week, Miss Bolford.”
She shook her head.
“I’ve been very busy. I’ve accepted a job on an Australian newspaper,
and I’m leaving London next week.” Her tone was jaunty, but he could
detect a strain in the voice that was very flattering to him.
“Well, I’ve given you enough to write about,” he said. “Enough
material, I mean.”
She sighed.
“Yes.” A little pause. “I shall miss you. I suppose if I told Mr. Bird
that he would be annoyed.”
“He’d be furious,” said the Gunner, a slow smile displacing the pained
look she had seen in his eyes.
“You won’t come to Australia, of course, ever? I shall be there for
seven years.”
“By what boat do you travel?” he asked, and when she told him:
“There’s another mail leaving a week or so after. Do you sail from
London?”
She nodded.
“They wanted me to pick up the boat at Naples--we call there; but I
rather want the sea journey. I’ve got what is called a lung--not a bad
one: that is why I have taken work in Australia.”
They had coffee together, and in that flying time he thought neither
of Luke Maddison nor of Danty Morell nor of the letters which were ash
in the grate. When he left her at eleven o’clock, he said:
“If I can get my business through I may join your ship at Naples.”
She looked at him very gravely.
“Do you really mean that?” she said. “And is Australia to be the scene
of your next----” She hesitated for a word, but he anticipated her.
“I am going to be the rarest of phenomena--the reformed crook,” he
said.
She sipped her coffee in silence.
“Would anything help you to that end?” she asked, and Haynes nodded.
He did not put into words the thought that was in his mind and hers,
but she understood. It was then that he gave her his first confidence,
and she listened open eyed, stricken dumb with amazement, to the true
story of Luke Maddison.
“I’ve been searching for him all day,” he said, “and I haven’t even
got a thread of a clue.”
“He isn’t dead?”
Haynes shook his head.
“That is most unlikely,” he said. “The trouble is that the police
cannot be told--I suppose the press shouldn’t be either,” he smiled,
“but things are--different now, aren’t they?”
“Have you got the little piece of paper you found in Morell’s flat?”
(He had omitted nothing from his narrative.)
He passed it across the table to her. She read and nodded.
“What was the rest of it?”
He recited the full message almost word for word.
“I have seen Rex--in fact I know a great deal about him,” she said.
“Mr. Bird was very confidential and told me about the forgery. I could
have given him a lot of information, because I was standing in the
doorway of the bank the day the forged check was cashed. It was the
day Mr. Maddison gave me a hundred pounds--I’ve still got it.”
They were talking of the Sparrow as they came out of the restaurant,
and at the corner of Bury Street they met him. He looked
disapprovingly at Gunner Haynes and frowned at the girl.
“Getting a first-hand crime story? What’s doing, Gunner? Are you
giving evidence before the select commission?” he asked with a sneer.
Gunner Haynes chuckled. There had been one of those periodical police
scandals; somebody had been arrested who ought not to have been
arrested, and there was the inevitable inquiry on foot into police
methods.
“We’ve got to go so carefully nowadays that I wouldn’t arrest a man if
I found him cutting his wife’s throat, without making a few
inquiries,” said the Sparrow. “I’ll tell you how bad it is: they’ve
just turned a tramp out of a police station, charged with begging, but
only one witness--a policeman. So they hoofed him out. When we’ve got
to consider the feelings of tramps you might as well turn Scotland
Yard into a home for lost dogs. I mention the tramp because I was down
at the police station just after they pushed him out. I suppose it’s
happening all over London. You’re going to Australia, they tell me,
Miss Bolford?”
His keen eyes searched the Gunner’s face.
“You’re not going too, are you, Gunner? You’ll miss those little
tea-table talks, won’t you?”
Mary Bolford turned red. She had never dreamed that those unrehearsed
and informal meetings with Gunner Haynes had attracted the attention
of this stout man.
“Both of you ought to be warned,” said Sparrow soberly, “and I’m
warning you! There never was a crook who could be anything but a
crook. There never was a girl who married a man to reform him who
didn’t finish by bolting with somebody better.”
“You’re in your most prophetic mood to-night, Mr. Bird,” said the
Gunner coolly. “Now tell us what’s going to win the Derby?”
The Sparrow grunted and went on with a little chuck of his head--a
gesture of farewell. Haynes and the girl walked along Piccadilly till
they came within sight of the Circus, and here they parted. As they
lingered, her hand in his, he said:
“You’ve saved a man’s life to-night, Mary,” and wisely she did not
question him.
CHAPTER XXXI
It came as something in the nature of a shock to Margaret Maddison
to discover how completely changed were her feelings toward the man
with whom she had passed through stages of toleration to liking, and
from liking to a sort of passive affection, and from that again, in
the cataclysmic revolution of feeling that her brother’s death had
brought about, to the bitterest loathing.
For the first time in her life Margaret was in love, and in love with
something which was neither a memory nor an idea, but something which
was to her as real as her own hand. She had gained that sense of
possession which is the wife’s own sense--an understanding of her
obligations. She could not afford to waste time in regrets at the
amazing follies and wicked errors of the past: in the days that
followed her mind was occupied with schemes for helping him out of the
morass in which he struggled.
She did not hear from Gunner Haynes, although she stayed up until
nearly two o’clock the next morning, having the telephone switched
through to her bedside. Nor did the next day bring news. She was out
when Danty called, and having no occasion to go to her check book, she
did not discover his theft.
The following morning brought the Sparrow--professionally.
“Did you give orders that none of your husband’s checks over a
thousand pounds were to be cashed at the bank?” he asked.
She nodded.
“A young man brought one in for two thousand this morning. Very
foolishly, Mr. Stiles didn’t call me up, and he got away before I
arrived.”
“Was it in Luke’s handwriting?” she asked eagerly. “Where is he?”
The Sparrow could not supply information.
“I thought he was abroad--is it usual for your husband to send people
to the bank with checks to cash? It seems queer to me.”
“The money was not paid?” she asked.
“No--Stiles said if it had been for a thousand he’d have cashed it.”
She was purposely evasive, and after the detective had gone she
telephoned through to Stiles. He had little to add.
“The man who brought the check seemed very respectable.”
“But did you ask him where he got the check?” she demanded
impatiently. “Surely, Mr. Stiles, you weren’t satisfied----”
“I thought that you expected him to send checks,” said Mr. Stiles.
She had never realized how dense a man this middle-aged manager was.
After she had rung off she sat down to think. Luke had broken into his
flat to secure his passport and clothes. The passport was now in the
Gunner’s possession--she must see that he had a change in case he
arrived unexpectedly. She went herself to his flat, made a careful
collection, packed such toilet articles as she thought he might
require, including a case of razors, and had them taken down to her
car. It was the first wifely duty she had performed, and it brought
her a pleasing sense of novelty. Even that faint pleasure brought to
her a realization of the strain under which she was living, and the
ever increasing anxiety concerning Luke’s fate.
If she could have got into touch with Gunner Haynes she would have
done so. She would almost have welcomed the arrival of Danty Morell.
She had a reminder of his earlier visit when she went to her bureau to
make out household checks. She took out the wrong check book and saw
that some were missing. Putting through a call to the bank, she
learned that the check presented that day was one of these. Then
Danton Morell was in the conspiracy!
Her first inclination was to send for Inspector Bird. But at all costs
the police must not be called in. She turned the leaves of the
telephone directory to search for Danton’s number, and was on the
point of calling him when she came to a decision to see him herself.
She did not wait for her car, but hailing a taxi and leaving certain
very definite instructions behind her, drove to Half Moon Street. Pi
Coles, who opened the door to her, stared in amazement at this
unexpected vision.
“Come in, miss,” he said awkwardly. “The guv’nor’s inside.”
Danton heard her voice and was coming across the hall to meet her
before the door was closed.
“This is an unexpected pleasure, Margaret,” he said. “Is anything
wrong?”
She did not answer until she was in his room.
“Before I tell you why I’ve come,” she said, “I think it is only fair
that you should know I have left instructions that unless I am back in
my house in three quarters of an hour my butler will ring up Mr. Bird
and tell him where I have gone.”
He frowned at this.
“What’s the idea?” he asked harshly. “That’s an extraordinary way to
behave--why the dickens shouldn’t you be back in three quarters of an
hour?”
“Where are the remainder of those checks that you stole from my check
book when you called the other day?” she asked.
She saw his face go red.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said loudly. “I steal checks? What
nonsense you’re talking----”
“You came into my house and you were in my sitting room long enough to
extract ten checks. One of them was brought to the bank to-day, made
out in Luke’s name and signed by him. On my instructions the check was
not honoured.”
The colour left his face.
“Not honoured?” he stammered, and in his embarrassment he betrayed his
share of the guilt.
“I’m less interested in the check than in my husband,” she said
quietly. “Where is he?”
He strove vainly to recover his self-possession and forced a smile.
“Really, my dear girl----” he began.
“You’ll address me as Mrs. Maddison, if you have to address me as
anything,” she said. “I want you to return those checks; I want you
also to tell me exactly where Luke is.”
“As far as I know, he’s staying with a convicted thief named Haynes,”
the man answered roughly, and to his surprise she nodded.
“I thought so, too. I went down to see him--but he had gone. I think
Mr. Haynes was surprised to find that he had gone, and I’m only now
understanding that Luke did not go of his own free will. Then I
thought he may have wandered out by himself in order to escape
association with Mr. Haynes. But the check explains a great deal.
Where is Luke?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“In that case I am going to do what I was trying to avoid,” she said.
“I am going to the police, and I shall charge you with stealing the
blank checks, and leave it to Mr. Bird to connect you with Luke’s
disappearance.”
She half turned to the door, but he caught her by the arm.
“For God’s sake, Margaret, consider what you’re doing!”
She saw he was really alarmed; his voice was tremulous, his whole air
suggested panic.
“I swear to you I don’t know where Luke is--he was on a barge, where
Connor was keeping him. The swine didn’t tell me that Maddison had
signed a check. All he told me was that he jumped into the river and
got away or was drowned--I don’t know which. That’s the truth. I knew
nothing about it till Connor had found him. I swear to you this is the
truth!”
“Where is Connor?” she asked.
“I don’t know. He was here this morning, and told me about Luke
getting away. That is all the information I have. I didn’t believe
him, and probably it’s a lie he told me.”
He saw she was undecided and eagerly sought to turn her from her
intention. He had no doubt that she meant what she had said.
She did not know what to do.
“Could you find Haynes for me?”
“Find Haynes?” he almost shouted. “You don’t imagine I would
communicate with that fellow, do you? He’s a dangerous man,
Margaret----”
“Mrs. Maddison,” she said coldly.
“He’s dangerous--you oughtn’t to have any dealings with him.”
He did not attempt to deny the theft of the checks.
“You don’t know where Mr. Maddison is at all?”
He accepted the corrected relationship without demur.
“No, Mrs. Maddison, I’ve no idea. Connor’s been looking for him all
night.”
When she returned home she found the Sparrow waiting for her on the
doorstep. The sight of a large kitbag at his feet surprised her, and
when he carried it into the house and into the little study on the
ground floor, she was to have a shock. She did not recognize the
crumpled clothes he took from the bag.
“These clothes were found in the possession of a river thief, who was
trying to sell them this morning,” he said. “He didn’t know that your
husband’s name was stitched in the inside pocket.”
“My husband’s name?” she gasped, turning pale. “Where did he get
them?”
“That’s what I want to know. The yarn he tells is that last night he
picked up a man who was wet through and who had come out of the river,
and took him to a house. We’ve since verified that--though from the
description I’ve had it couldn’t possibly be Mr. Maddison, who is
still abroad, I presume?”
Was there a note of sarcasm in his voice? She thought she detected it,
and very wisely did not answer.
“The man said the clothes were given to him, but that of course is the
usual yarn. I have reason to believe that they were stolen while the
owner was in bed. Can you throw any light upon them.”
She shook her head. It was a pitiable confession, but she knew she
could not even recognize an old suit of clothes worn by her husband.
It was the suit into which he had changed when he broke into his flat.
“What do you make of that, Mrs. Maddison?”
She shook her head helplessly.
“It couldn’t be a suit your husband gave away, because the date it was
delivered is written on the tab, and it must have been new a month
ago.”
He looked at her keenly.
“There’s a lot of mystery about this husband of yours, Mrs. Maddison,
and I think you’re in some kind of trouble. I’d like to help you if I
could.”
She was going to speak, but he held up his hand to stop her.
“Don’t tell me anything until I have told you just how much I know.”
He ticked off the facts on the fingers of his hand. “I know your
husband disappeared the day after your marriage. I know that there was
a burglary at his flat, and that when the police arrived they
recognized the man who had been concerned in a robbery that afternoon.
I know that among the things stolen from his flat was a passport--I
interviewed his servant subsequently, and he told me there was a
passport in one of the drawers of the desk. Now, if there were any
chance--and it seems one of those fantastic theories that writers make
a lot of money from--that this man is Mr. Maddison, the best people to
help him are the police. I know him well enough to be sure he wouldn’t
hold up Taffanny’s. If it’s a question of impersonation--we can be
more than useful. Won’t you tell me, Mrs. Maddison?”
She was silent. With a shake of his head the detective took his
departure, carrying with him the suit of clothes and a very
deep-seated conviction.
It was a curious coincidence that he should have brought those
crumpled garments to the house when, neatly packed away in a new
suitcase in her bedroom, was the change of garments she had arranged
for Luke.
She was puzzled as to the arrangements she could make that would be
most convenient. She decided ultimately upon leaving the suitcase at a
railway cloakroom. The ticket could be sent to Luke as soon as he was
discovered. She waited for the night to come to carry this plan into
effect.
The night brought its problems for Danty Morell. That afternoon, after
Margaret Maddison had left him, he made a discovery which turned him
sick with apprehension. He had lost his hold on Margaret; at any
moment she might go to the police, and just then he was most anxious
not to renew acquaintance with Scotland Yard. Things had gone badly
with him; he owed a very large sum of money which had to be paid in
the City on the following day; and now, with the added possibility of
police intervention, his position was perilous.
Danton Morell was in some ways a careful man. However extravagant he
might be, he had reserved for himself a fat nest egg in cash which, in
spite of all temptation, he had never touched. He had collected the
money that day from two or three accounts which he ran in an assumed
name. Nothing was needed now but to follow the line of retreat he had
planned. There was a small aërodrome on the outskirts of London, from
which exhibition flights were given. Danty had found it expedient to
finance the small company which owned the airplanes, and by telephone
he arranged his flight. This was facilitated by the fact that the
company had recently acquired a big rebuilt monoplane which was
capable of a long flight. Danty, who had decided upon Switzerland for
his first hop, gave orders for the storage of petrol and necessities
for the journey. He certainly did not anticipate taking a companion
with him, but he was not the only panic-stricken man in London.
Danty made a very quick search for papers which, left behind, might
have awkward consequences, and his first attention was directed to the
little box in which he kept the most dangerous of his correspondence.
He brought this into the dining room before he discovered that the
lock had been forced. With an exclamation he threw up the lid, shook
out the contents---- The one packet of letters that he had been mad to
keep was gone! And the little telephone slip--that also had
disappeared.
His hands were shaking so that he could hardly hold the papers he was
examining. There was no need to speculate upon the identity of the man
who had forced that box. The Gunner had been seen in the
neighbourhood: Pi Coles had told him that, and it had been the Gunner
who had made this search and found the documents. Danty Morell saw
death grinning at him; hypnotized into sheer inaction. When there came
a knock at the outer door, he leaped up from his chair, a shivering
wreck of a man, not daring to open to the visitor.
He calmed himself sufficiently to go to the door and demand who was
there, and when he heard Connor’s voice he could have cried aloud for
joy.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Connor, when they were back in the
room.
“I’ve had a bit of a shock, and I’m not particularly well. You know
they’re after those kites?”
Connor himself was not particularly happy-looking.
“I know. They’ve stopped a check I sent to the bank and half the
busies in London are looking for him. They know who it is, too--that’s
the worst of it. You’re in this, Danty.”
“We’re both in it, aren’t we?” snarled the other. “I’m getting out of
London to-night.”
Connor laughed raucously.
“You’ve got a fine chance of getting out of London, unless you take a
rattler.” And then, suddenly: “How are you going?”
It was on the tip of Danty’s tongue to invent a method of escape, but
just now he needed the association of Connor. Connor was not above
using a gun at a pinch, and, moreover, hated Gunner Haynes.
“I’m going by airplane from Elford,” he said. “We’ve got the Gunner to
thank for this. He squealed.”
“He’s never stopped squealing,” said Connor without heat. “Where do
you land in your flying machine?”
Danty told him his destination.
“That’ll do for me,” said Connor.
He looked at the papers on the table.
“Having a burn-up?” he asked pleasantly. And then: “How much stuff
have you got?”
Here Danty lied. He could not tell the truth about money.
The conference was a brief one. They agreed to visit the aërodrome
that evening and make final preparations for their journey. The
journey through the suburbs into outer London was a silent one; now
and again Danty lifted the flap at the back of the hired car in which
they were travelling, and peered along the darkening road.
“What’s the matter with you?” growled Connor.
“There’s a car, a two-seater, following us.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” demanded the other sarcastically. “Do you want the
road to yourself?”
A few minutes later, when Danty looked back, the little car had
disappeared.
The preparations for the night’s journey were not easily made. The
pilot had only just been communicated with. He was on a holiday in the
Midlands.
“It’s a good job we came, or we might have been in Queer Street,” said
Connor as they were driving back. “What time did you say you’d be
here?”
“About midnight.”
“What are you looking for?” asked Connor ten minutes later. “The
little car?”
He pushed his companion aside and peered.
“There’s a motor lorry: has that got anything on us?” he demanded.
Danty said nothing. No man could know the terror that was in his
heart. Behind him stalked the grim shadow of vengeance, and every
second he expected to see the hawklike face of the Gunner peering into
his from the darkness.
Danty did not go near his flat. He telephoned to Pi Coles and they met
in the park, Pi bringing with him an overcoat and wrap which were to
be Danty’s sole luggage. His servitor he rewarded liberally. There was
nothing to do now but to pass the few hours which intervened before he
left England forever.
He telephoned to the hangar and learned to his satisfaction that the
pilot had arrived. He would have liked to advance the hour of his
departure, but he knew that for once he must keep faith--Connor was a
dangerous man, and he had no desire to let two enemies grow in the
place of one.
Once or twice, as he loafed about the less frequented streets of
Pimlico, he had the impression that he was being shadowed; but when
once he walked back in desperate boldness to interview the man who was
following him, he found it was a perfectly inoffensive stranger to the
neighbourhood who was trying to find a street and a number.
He had work to do--vengeful work--and he completed this in a teashop
near Vauxhall Bridge. Making a wide detour, he reached the central
post office and handed in the telegram addressed to Inspector Bird. It
ran:
The man who was concerned in the Taffanny robbery was Luke Maddison.
He is attempting to leave London to-night. His wife and Gunner Haynes
are aware of the double life he has been living.
He signed it with his own name.
Late as was the hour, he knew that the telegram would be delivered. He
went back to meet his companion in misfortune, feeling more cheerful
than he had felt all day.
CHAPTER XXXII
It was nearly eleven o’clock that night when Margaret had the car
brought to the door and Luke’s suitcase deposited. Her intention was
to drive the car to the lower part of Villiers Street and send the
chauffeur with the suitcase to the cloakroom. She came into the south
end of the Strand and the car had some difficulty in making its way
through the returning theatre traffic, but after a long wait it turned
down the steep street toward the Embankment, and at a signal from
Margaret the chauffeur stopped the machine.
It was raining heavily; there were few pedestrians in sight, and those
were hurrying to reach the shelter of the Underground station. She
pulled at the catch of the door to open it, that the chauffeur might
more easily take the suitcase at her feet, when, out of the shadows,
came a shabby-looking figure. He must have seen her difficulty, for he
turned the handle and pulled open the door before the chauffeur could
descend.
“Thank you,” said Margaret, and handed him the piece of silver she had
ready to pay the luggage-room attendant.
As she did so she switched on the light. For a second she stared into
the unshaven face and the grimy figure.
“Luke!” she gasped.
He was stricken dumb with amazement, was unable to speak or move.
“Luke!” she said again.
Then, as he shrank back, her hand shot out and gripped him by the
coat.
“Come in, for God’s sake!” she said breathlessly, and half dragged him
to her side.
At that moment the chauffeur arrived.
“Drive on,” she said hurriedly. “This is a--a friend of mine.”
She only hoped that the man could not see the scarecrow who was seated
at her side.
“Where shall I go, madam?”
“To--to the house,” she said.
As the chauffeur climbed back into his seat, a third figure appeared.
He came running down the street like a man pursued, and gripping the
handle of the door, leaped onto the running board as the car moved.
She thought at first it was a policeman, but then a passing street
lamp revealed the dark face of Gunner Haynes.
“Don’t make a fuss,” he said, as he blundered in, slamming the door
behind him. “I’ve chased your car from the Haymarket. Who’s this?”
He peered forward and she heard him whistle.
“Is that Mr. Maddison?”
“Yes, it’s me,” said Luke, speaking for the first time.
His voice sounded pitiably weak. He had been turned out of the police
station in the early part of the afternoon and had not eaten since the
morning. He made no attempt to explain his need, he was too tired and
weary to care very much. The soft luxury of the padded seats dulled
him into lethargy: he was nodding almost before the car reached the
Embankment.
“All right, don’t wake him,” said Gunner Haynes in a low voice. “He
was arrested this morning, I’ve only just found out; one of
my--friends told me. The police are looking for him. Somebody sent a
wire to the Sparrow--I suspect it was friend Danty. Where are you
taking him?”
“Home,” she said.
She was wrapping a rug about the chilled figure in the corner of the
car.
“You’ll have a policeman waiting on the mat. No, you’ll take him to
Elford. What’s this?”
He kicked against the suitcase and she explained, and heard him
chuckle.
“You must be a thought reader. That’s the very thing he’ll
require--not to-night perhaps, but in the morning. We’re going to
Elford. Do you know it? It’s three quarters of an hour’s run, and if
we’re lucky we’ll reach there before two of the biggest rats that ever
climbed out of Thames mud.”
She leaned out of the window and gave directions to the chauffeur.
“Couldn’t we drive on to Dover and get on board the boat?” she asked
urgently.
Gunner Haynes shook his head.
“No, that won’t work. The Sparrow’s a good fellow, but he’d shop his
own mother. And if, as I believe, Mr. Morell, or whatever his present
name is, has blown--has told the story of Taffanny’s--every boat will
be watched. Besides, there isn’t one till daylight that we could
possibly catch. There’s only one chance, and that is for Mr. Maddison
to appear in Spain, where he is supposed to be. I think that can be
worked--unless Mr. Danty Morell has got too far ahead of us.”
He peered forward again.
“You’ve got a fur coat on--that’s good. You can lend it to your
husband. It’ll look rather silly, but nobody will see him.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going on an airplane ride to-night, and he’s going with me,” he
said. “As for you, Mrs. Maddison, your work is very simple. You’ll
return to London; you’ll lie a little--I hope it won’t hurt you very
much--and leave for Spain to-morrow. If I can’t get him there after
I’ve landed him in France, I’m a Dutchman.”
There was a silence, and then:
“I know a better way,” she said quietly. “I can go with him.”
To her surprise, the Gunner did not combat that suggestion.
“Perhaps you’re wise,” was his comment.
They came at last to a dark and bumpy road, and here the car was
stopped by the Gunner’s instructions. He got down and pointed into the
darkness.
“Pull your car over there and shut off all your lights,” he said, and
when this was done and with great trouble the car had been manœuvred
over the rough ground and the engine had been shut off, he came back
to the girl. “We’re here first,” he said. “I’m banking on Danty being
cautious--look!”
Lights were coming along the road from the direction of London. It was
a car, which stopped a hundred yards away, and then after a while
turned round.
“They’re walking the rest of the journey,” murmured the Gunner with
grim satisfaction. “Wait here.”
He walked back to the entrance of the untidy little aërodrome and
slipped something from his pocket. He had not long to wait: Danty and
Connor turned out of the road again.
“Is that you, Higgins?” asked Danty. “Is the pilot here----?”
“Everybody’s here including me,” said the Gunner. “Don’t try any funny
business, Connor; I’ve got you covered, and there’s a silencer on my
gun. You’ll hear no more than a ‘plop’ and you’ll be in hell!”
Danty said nothing. Haynes could almost hear him shivering with fear.
“Well, what next?” asked Connor.
“The next is a long walk back to the nearest town, unless you’ve had
the intelligence to keep your car. If you’re clever you’ll run--I’m
afraid you haven’t a chance,” he added, as he saw the red tail light
of the car moving rapidly away. “The police are controlling this
aërodrome, and you’ve a snowflake’s chance of getting away.”
“You’re being a friendly little fellow and helping us: is that what
you’re telling us to believe?” sneered Connor.
“Don’t talk--walk,” said the Gunner sternly. “I’m not in my best
temper to-night. I’ve practically promised I wouldn’t kill you, but it
won’t take a hell of a lot to make me change my mind.”
“All right, Gunner, we’ll go.” Danty found his quaking voice. “Come
on, Connor. The Gunner wouldn’t put us in bad----”
“I found the letters, Danty,” said Haynes softly. “You know just how
near you are to eternal rest, don’t you?”
Danty said nothing: he grabbed the arm of his reluctant friend and
almost dragged him back to the roadway. They walked rapidly back the
way they had come, and must have gone a hundred yards before Connor
stopped.
“I’m not going to stand for this bird----” he began, when a voice
behind him said: “Walk!” and he obeyed.
When he had seen them well on their way, the Gunner sped back to the
car. Luke was awake; they were talking together in a low tone, he and
this strange bride of his, and Gunner Haynes thought it delicate to
leave them and interview the pilot.
He found the machine waiting, with two weary mechanics and an
impatient pilot, and to the latter he gave new instructions. The other
argument he employed was a very effective one, for the airman agreed
cheerfully to all conditions.
“I can carry three or ten,” he said. “There’ll be no difficulty about
getting up. I’ve done this night trip hundreds of times.”
Satisfied on this score, Gunner Haynes went back to the car and
interrupted the more than usually intimate conversation.
“I’ve a little scrap of paper to give you when it’s light enough to
read it, Mrs. Maddison. It concerns the death of your brother--I’m
sorry to be so brutal, but I think you ought to know that the man who
ruined him was Danty, and----”
“I guessed that,” she said quietly.
It was still drizzling and the clouds were low, but neither of the
three passengers evinced the slightest anxiety as, with a roar of the
engines, the big monoplane swept into the darkness, up and up, through
the thick mist of clouds, until they emerged with the moon riding in a
clear sky above them and billowing white clouds beneath.
Less than a week later, three people dined at the Café Ritz in
Madrid, and the dinner was in the nature of a farewell banquet to
Gunner Haynes, who was going to Naples to join the Australian mail
boat.
“I shan’t be comfortable till I get on board the Barcelona express,”
he said. “I’ve done many things in my life, but this is the first time
I’ve played third to a honeymoon couple.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
This story was published as _The Gunner_ in the UK. The John Long, Ltd.
(London, 1928) edition of _The Gunner_ was consulted for some of the
changes listed below.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. motor-car/motor car, tea
table/tea-table, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Add ToC.
Fix a few quotation mark pairings.
[Chapter I]
Change (“He’s got a room here, _mumber_ 986) to _number_.
[Chapter II]
“That was her _bother_ who was talkin’ to another gentleman” to
_brother_.
[Chapter III]
“for once Mr. Stiles’s _father_ interest in the business irritated him”
to _fatherly_.
[Chapter XIII]
“_Mark_ hadn’t read the newspaper” to _Luke_.
[Chapter XXI]
“effort lifted the _unconsious_ Luke onto the chair” to _unconscious_.
“a look of alarm come into the _imperturable_ face” to _imperturbable_.
[Chapter XXII]
“the police know what I know re robbery at _Taffany’s_” to
_Taffanny’s_.
[Chapter XXIV]
“It is a pity the _Sparow_ arrived when he did” to _Sparrow_.
[Chapter XXIX]
“who carried a notebook _obstensibly_ in his hand” to _ostensibly_.
“It was not a _monent_ to snap fingers in the face of fate” to
_moment_.
[Chapter XXXI]
“You don’t imagine I would communicate with that _felow_” to _fellow_.
“make final preparations for their _jorney_” to _journey_.
[End of text]
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