Six months later T. X. Meredith was laboriously tracing an elusive line which occurred on an ordnance map of Sussex when the Chief Commissioner announced himself.
Sir George described T. X. as the most wholesome corrective a public official could have, and never missed an opportunity of meeting his subordinate (as he said) for this reason.
“What are you doing there?” he growled.
“The lesson this morning,” said T. X. without looking up, “is maps.”
Sir George passed behind his assistant and looked over his shoulder.
“That is a very old map you have got there,” he said.
“1876. It shows the course of a number of interesting little streams in this neighbourhood which have been lost sight of for one reason or the other by the gentleman who made the survey at a later period. I am perfectly sure that in one of these streams I shall find what I am seeking.”
“You haven't given up hope, then, in regard to Lexman?”
“I shall never give up hope,” said T. X., “until I am dead, and possibly not then.”
“Let me see, what did he get—fifteen years!”
“Fifteen years,” repeated T. X., “and a very fortunate man to escape with his life.”
Sir George walked to the window and stared out on to busy Whitehall.
“I am told you are quite friendly with Kara again.”
T. X. made a noise which might be taken to indicate his assent to the statement.
“I suppose you know that gentleman has made a very heroic attempt to get you fired,” he said.
“I shouldn't wonder,” said T. X. “I made as heroic an attempt to get him hung, and one good turn deserves another. What did he do? See ministers and people?”
“He did,” said Sir George.
“He's a silly ass,” responded T. X.
“I can understand all that”—the Chief Commissioner turned round—“but what I cannot understand is your apology to him.”
“There are so many things you don't understand, Sir George,” said T. X. tartly, “that I despair of ever cataloguing them.”
“You are an insolent cub,” growled his Chief. “Come to lunch.”
“Where will you take me?” asked T. X. cautiously.
“To my club.”
“I'm sorry,” said the other, with elaborate politeness, “I have lunched once at your club. Need I say more?”
He smiled, as he worked after his Chief had gone, at the recollection of Kara's profound astonishment and the gratification he strove so desperately to disguise.
Kara was a vain man, immensely conscious of his good looks, conscious of his wealth. He had behaved most handsomely, for not only had he accepted the apology, but he left nothing undone to show his desire to create a good impression upon the man who had so grossly insulted him.
T. X. had accepted an invitation to stay a weekend at Kara's “little place in the country,” and had found there assembled everything that the heart could desire in the way of fellowship, eminent politicians who might conceivably be of service to an ambitious young Assistant Commissioner of Police, beautiful ladies to interest and amuse him. Kara had even gone to the length of engaging a theatrical company to play “Sweet Lavender,” and for this purpose the big ballroom at Hever Court had been transformed into a theatre.
As he was undressing for bed that night T. X. remembered that he had mentioned to Kara that “Sweet Lavender” was his favorite play, and he realized that the entertainment was got up especially for his benefit.
In a score of other ways Kara had endeavoured to consolidate the friendship. He gave the young Commissioner advice about a railway company which was operating in Asia Minor, and the shares of which stood a little below par. T. X. thanked him for the advice, and did not take it, nor did he feel any regret when the shares rose 3 pounds in as many weeks.
T. X. had superintended the disposal of Beston Priory. He had the furniture removed to London, and had taken a flat for Grace Lexman.
She had a small income of her own, and this, added to the large royalties which came to her (as she was bitterly conscious) in increasing volume as the result of the publicity of the trial, placed her beyond fear of want.
“Fifteen years,” murmured T. X., as he worked and whistled.
There had been no hope for John Lexman from the start. He was in debt to the man he killed. His story of threatening letters was not substantiated. The revolver which he said had been flourished at him had never been found. Two people believed implicitly in the story, and a sympathetic Home Secretary had assured T. X. personally that if he could find the revolver and associate it with the murder beyond any doubt, John Lexman would be pardoned.
Every stream in the neighbourhood had been dragged. In one case a small river had been dammed, and the bed had been carefully dried and sifted, but there was no trace of the weapon, and T. X. had tried methods more effective and certainly less legal.
A mysterious electrician had called at 456 Cadogan Square in Kara's absence, and he was armed with such indisputable authority that he was permitted to penetrate to Kara's private room, in order to examine certain fitments.
Kara returning next day thought no more of the matter when it was reported to him, until going to his safe that night he discovered that it had been opened and ransacked.
As it happened, most of Kara's valuable and confidential possessions were at the bank. In a fret of panic and at considerable cost he had the safe removed and another put in its place of such potency that the makers offered to indemnify him against any loss from burglary.
T. X. finished his work, washed his hands, and was drying them when Mansus came bursting into the room. It was not usual for Mansus to burst into anywhere. He was a slow, methodical, painstaking man, with a deliberate and an official, manner.
“What's the matter?” asked T. X. quickly.
“We didn't search Vassalaro's lodgings,” cried Mansus breathlessly. “It just occurred to me as I was coming over Westminster Bridge. I was on top of a bus—”
“Wake up!” said T. X. “You're amongst friends and cut all that 'bus' stuff out. Of course we searched Vassalaro's lodgings!”
“No, we didn't, sir,” said the other triumphantly. “He lived in Great James Street.”
“He lived in the Adelphi,” corrected T. X.
“There were two places where he lived,” said Mansus.
“When did you learn this?” asked his Chief, dropping his flippancy.
“This morning. I was on a bus coming across Westminster Bridge, and there were two men in front of me, and I heard the word 'Vassalaro' and naturally I pricked up my ears.”
“It was very unnatural, but proceed,” said T. X.
“One of the men—a very respectable person—said, 'That chap Vassalaro used to lodge in my place, and I've still got a lot of his things. What do you think I ought to do?'”
“And you said,” suggested the other.
“I nearly frightened his life out of him,” said Mansus. “I said, 'I am a police officer and I want you to come along with me.'”
“And of course he shut up and would not say another word,” said T. X.
“That's true, sir,” said Mansus, “but after awhile I got him to talk. Vassalaro lived in Great James Street, 604, on the third floor. In fact, some of his furniture is there still. He had a good reason for keeping two addresses by all accounts.”
T. X. nodded wisely.
“What was her name?” he asked.
“He had a wife,” said the other, “but she left him about four months before he was killed. He used the Adelphi address for business purposes and apparently he slept two or three nights of the week at Great James Street. I have told the man to leave everything as it is, and that we will come round.”
Ten minutes later the two officers were in the somewhat gloomy apartments which Vassalaro had occupied.
The landlord explained that most of the furniture was his, but that there were certain articles which were the property of the deceased man. He added, somewhat unnecessarily, that the late tenant owed him six months' rent.
The articles which had been the property of Vassalaro included a tin trunk, a small writing bureau, a secretaire bookcase and a few clothes. The secretaire was locked, as was the writing bureau. The tin box, which had little or nothing of interest, was unfastened.
The other locks needed very little attention. Without any difficulty Mansus opened both. The leaf of the bureau, when let down, formed the desk, and piled up inside was a whole mass of letters opened and unopened, accounts, note-books and all the paraphernalia which an untidy man collects.
Letter by letter, T. X. went through the accumulation without finding anything to help him. Then his eye was attracted by a small tin case thrust into one of the oblong pigeon holes at the back of the desk. This he pulled out and opened and found a small wad of paper wrapped in tin foil.
“Hello, hello!” said T. X., and he was pardonably exhilarated.
A Man stood in the speckless courtyard before the Governor's house at Dartmoor gaol. He wore the ugly livery of shame which marks the convict. His head was clipped short, and there was two days' growth of beard upon his haggard face. Standing with his hands behind him, he waited for the moment when he would be ordered to his work.
John Lexman—A. O. 43—looked up at the blue sky as he had looked so many times from the exercise yard, and wondered what the day would bring forth. A day to him was the beginning and the end of an eternity. He dare not let his mind dwell upon the long aching years ahead. He dare not think of the woman he left, or let his mind dwell upon the agony which she was enduring. He had disappeared from the world, the world he loved, and the world that knew him, and all that there was in life; all that was worth while had been crushed and obliterated into the granite of the Princetown quarries, and its wide horizon shrunken by the gaunt moorland with its menacing tors.
New interests made up his existence. The quality of the food was one. The character of the book he would receive from the prison library another. The future meant Sunday chapel; the present whatever task they found him. For the day he was to paint some doors and windows of an outlying cottage. A cottage occupied by a warder who, for some reason, on the day previous, had spoken to him with a certain kindness and a certain respect which was unusual.
“Face the wall,” growled a voice, and mechanically he turned, his hands still behind him, and stood staring at the grey wall of the prison storehouse.
He heard the shuffling feet of the quarry gang, his ears caught the clink of the chains which bound them together. They were desperate men, peculiarly interesting to him, and he had watched their faces furtively in the early period of his imprisonment.
He had been sent to Dartmoor after spending three months in Wormwood Scrubbs. Old hands had told him variously that he was fortunate or unlucky. It was usual to have twelve months at the Scrubbs before testing the life of a convict establishment. He believed there was some talk of sending him to Parkhurst, and here he traced the influence which T. X. would exercise, for Parkhurst was a prisoner's paradise.
He heard his warder's voice behind him.
“Right turn, 43, quick march.”
He walked ahead of the armed guard, through the great and gloomy gates of the prison, turned sharply to the right, and walked up the village street toward the moors, beyond the village of Princetown, and on the Tavistock Road where were two or three cottages which had been lately taken by the prison staff; and it was to the decoration of one of these that A. O. 43 had been sent.
The house was as yet without a tenant.
A paper-hanger under the charge of another warder was waiting for the arrival of the painter. The two warders exchanged greetings, and the first went off leaving the other in charge of both men.
For an hour they worked in silence under the eyes of the guard. Presently the warder went outside, and John Lexman had an opportunity of examining his fellow sufferer.
He was a man of twenty-four or twenty-five, lithe and alert. By no means bad looking, he lacked that indefinable suggestion of animalism which distinguished the majority of the inhabitants at Dartmoor.
They waited until they heard the warder's step clear the passage, and until his iron-shod boots were tramping over the cobbled path which led from the door, through the tiny garden to the road, before the second man spoke.
“What are you in for?” he asked, in a low voice.
“Murder,” said John Lexman, laconically.
He had answered the question before, and had noticed with a little amusement the look of respect which came into the eyes of the questioner.
“What have you got!”
“Fifteen years,” said the other.
“That means 11 years and 9 months,” said the first man. “You've never been here before, I suppose?”
“Hardly,” said Lexman, drily.
“I was here when I was a kid,” confessed the paper-hanger. “I am going out next week.”
John Lexman looked at him enviously. Had the man told him that he had inherited a great fortune and a greater title his envy would not have been so genuine.
Going out!
The drive in the brake to the station, the ride to London in creased, but comfortable clothing, free as the air, at liberty to go to bed and rise when he liked, to choose his own dinner, to answer no call save the call of his conscience, to see—he checked himself.
“What are you in for?” he asked in self-defence.
“Conspiracy and fraud,” said the other cheerfully. “I was put away by a woman after three of us had got clear with 12,000 pounds. Damn rough luck, wasn't it?”
John nodded.
It was curious, he thought, how sympathetic one grows with these exponents of crimes. One naturally adopts their point of view and sees life through their distorted vision.
“I bet I'm not given away with the next lot,” the prisoner went on. “I've got one of the biggest ideas I've ever had, and I've got a real good man to help me.”
“How?” asked John, in surprise.
The man jerked his head in the direction of the prison.
“Larry Green,” he said briefly. “He's coming out next month, too, and we are all fixed up proper. We are going to get the pile and then we're off to South America, and you won't see us for dust.”
Though he employed all the colloquialisms which were common, his tone was that of a man of education, and yet there was something in his address which told John as clearly as though the man had confessed as much, that he had never occupied any social position in life.
The warder's step on the stones outside reduced them to silence. Suddenly his voice came up the stairs.
“Forty-three,” he called sharply, “I want you down here.”
John took his paint pot and brush and went clattering down the uncarpeted stairs.
“Where's the other man?” asked the warder, in a low voice.
“He's upstairs in the back room.”
The warder stepped out of the door and looked left and right. Coming up from Princetown was a big, grey car.
“Put down your paint pot,” he said.
His voice was shaking with excitement.
“I am going upstairs. When that car comes abreast of the gate, ask no questions and jump into it. Get down into the bottom and pull a sack over you, and do not get up until the car stops.”
The blood rushed to John Lexman's head, and he staggered.
“My God!” he whispered.
“Do as I tell you,” hissed the warder.
Like an automaton John put down his brushes, and walked slowly to the gate. The grey car was crawling up the hill, and the face of the driver was half enveloped in a big rubber mask. Through the two great goggles John could see little to help him identify the man. As the machine came up to the gate, he leapt into the tonneau and sank instantly to the bottom. As he did so he felt the car leap forward underneath him. Now it was going fast, now faster, now it rocked and swayed as it gathered speed. He felt it sweeping down hill and up hill, and once he heard a hollow rumble as it crossed a wooden bridge.
He could not detect from his hiding place in what direction they were going, but he gathered they had switched off to the left and were making for one of the wildest parts of the moor. Never once did he feel the car slacken its pace, until, with a grind of brakes, it stopped suddenly.
“Get out,” said a voice.
John Lexman threw off the cover and leapt out and as he did so the car turned and sped back the way it had come.
For a moment he thought he was alone, and looked around. Far away in the distance he saw the grey bulk of Princetown Gaol. It was an accident that he should see it, but it so happened that a ray of the sun fell athwart it and threw it into relief.
He was alone on the moors! Where could he go?
He turned at the sound of a voice.
He was standing on the slope of a small tor. At the foot there was a smooth stretch of green sward. It was on this stretch that the people of Dartmoor held their pony races in the summer months. There was no sign of horses; but only a great bat-like machine with out-stretched pinions of taut white canvas, and by that machine a man clad from head to foot in brown overalls.
John stumbled down the slope. As he neared the machine he stopped and gasped.
“Kara,” he said, and the brown man smiled.
“But, I do not understand. What are you going to do!” asked Lexman, when he had recovered from his surprise.
“I am going to take you to a place of safety,” said the other.
“I have no reason to be grateful to you, as yet, Kara,” breathed Lexman. “A word from you could have saved me.”
“I could not lie, my dear Lexman. And honestly, I had forgotten the existence of the letter; if that is what you are referring to, but I am trying to do what I can for you and for your wife.”
“My wife!”
“She is waiting for you,” said the other.
He turned his head, listening.
Across the moor came the dull sullen boom of a gun.
“You haven't time for argument. They discovered your escape,” he said. “Get in.”
John clambered up into the frail body of the machine and Kara followed.
“This is a self-starter,” he said, “one of the newest models of monoplanes.”
He clicked over a lever and with a roar the big three-bladed tractor screw spun.
The aeroplane moved forward with a jerk, ran with increasing gait for a hundred yards, and then suddenly the jerky progress ceased. The machine swayed gently from side to side, and looking over, the passenger saw the ground recede beneath him.
Up, up, they climbed in one long sweeping ascent, passing through drifting clouds till the machine soared like a bird above the blue sea.
John Lexman looked down. He saw the indentations of the coast and recognized the fringe of white houses that stood for Torquay, but in an incredibly short space of time all signs of the land were blotted out.
Talking was impossible. The roar of the engines defied penetration.
Kara was evidently a skilful pilot. From time to time he consulted the compass on the board before him, and changed his course ever so slightly. Presently he released one hand from the driving wheel, and scribbling on a little block of paper which was inserted in a pocket at the side of the seat he passed it back.
John Lexman read:
“If you cannot swim there is a life belt under your seat.”
John nodded.
Kara was searching the sea for something, and presently he found it. Viewed from the height at which they flew it looked no more than a white speck in a great blue saucer, but presently the machine began to dip, falling at a terrific rate of speed, which took away the breath of the man who was hanging on with both hands to the dangerous seat behind.
He was deadly cold, but had hardly noticed the fact. It was all so incredible, so impossible. He expected to wake up and wondered if the prison was also part of the dream.
Now he saw the point for which Kara was making.
A white steam yacht, long and narrow of beam, was steaming slowly westward. He could see the feathery wake in her rear, and as the aeroplane fell he had time to observe that a boat had been put off. Then with a jerk the monoplane flattened out and came like a skimming bird to the surface of the water; her engines stopped.
“We ought to be able to keep afloat for ten minutes,” said Kara, “and by that time they will pick us up.”
His voice was high and harsh in the almost painful silence which followed the stoppage of the engines.
In less than five minutes the boat had come alongside, manned, as Lexman gathered from a glimpse of the crew, by Greeks. He scrambled aboard and five minutes later he was standing on the white deck of the yacht, watching the disappearing tail of the monoplane. Kara was by his side.
“There goes fifteen hundred pounds,” said the Greek, with a smile, “add that to the two thousand I paid the warder and you have a tidy sum-but some things are worth all the money in the world!”
T. X. came from Downing Street at 11 o'clock one night, and his heart was filled with joy and gratitude.
He swung his stick to the common danger of the public, but the policeman on point duty at the end of the street, who saw him, recognized and saluted him, did not think it fit to issue any official warning.
He ran up the stairs to his office, and found Mansus reading the evening paper.
“My poor, dumb beast,” said T. X. “I am afraid I have kept you waiting for a very long time, but tomorrow you and I will take a little journey to Devonshire. It will be good for you, Mansus—where did you get that ridiculous name, by the way!”
“M. or N.,” replied Mansus, laconically.
“I repeat that there is the dawn of an intellect in you,” said T. X., offensively.
He became more serious as he took from a pocket inside his waistcoat a long blue envelope containing the paper which had cost him so much to secure.
“Finding the revolver was a master-stroke of yours, Mansus,” he said, and he was in earnest as he spoke.
The man coloured with pleasure for the subordinates of T. X. loved him, and a word of praise was almost equal to promotion. It was on the advice of Mansus that the road from London to Lewes had been carefully covered and such streams as passed beneath that road had been searched.
The revolver had been found after the third attempt between Gatwick and Horsley. Its identification was made easier by the fact that Vassalaro's name was engraved on the butt. It was rather an ornate affair and in its earlier days had been silver plated; the handle was of mother-o'-pearl.
“Obviously the gift of one brigand to another,” was T. X.'s comment.
Armed with this, his task would have been fairly easy, but when to this evidence he added a rough draft of the threatening letter which he had found amongst Vassalaro's belongings, and which had evidently been taken down at dictation, since some of the words were misspelt and had been corrected by another hand, the case was complete.
But what clinched the matter was the finding of a wad of that peculiar chemical paper, a number of sheets of which T. X. had ignited for the information of the Chief Commissioner and the Home Secretary by simply exposing them for a few seconds to the light of an electric lamp.
Instantly it had filled the Home Secretary's office with a pungent and most disagreeable smoke, for which he was heartily cursed by his superiors. But it had rounded off the argument.
He looked at his watch.
“I wonder if it is too late to see Mrs. Lexman,” he said.
“I don't think any hour would be too late,” suggested Mansus.
“You shall come and chaperon me,” said his superior.
But a disappointment awaited. Mrs. Lexman was not in and neither the ringing at her electric bell nor vigorous applications to the knocker brought any response. The hall porter of the flats where she lived was under the impression that Mrs. Lexman had gone out of town. She frequently went out on Saturdays and returned on the Monday and, he thought, occasionally on Tuesdays.
It happened that this particular night was a Monday night and T. X. was faced with a dilemma. The night porter, who had only the vaguest information on the subject, thought that the day porter might know more, and aroused him from his sleep.
Yes, Mrs. Lexman had gone. She went on the Sunday, an unusual day to pay a week-end visit, and she had taken with her two bags. The porter ventured the opinion that she was rather excited, but when asked to define the symptoms relapsed into a chaos of incoherent “you-knows” and “what-I-means.”
“I don't like this,” said T. X., suddenly. “Does anybody know that we have made these discoveries?”
“Nobody outside the office,” said Mansus, “unless, unless...”
“Unless what?” asked the other, irritably. “Don't be a jimp, Mansus. Get it off your mind. What is it?”
“I am wondering,” said Mansus slowly, “if the landlord at Great James Street said anything. He knows we have made a search.”
“We can easily find that out,” said T. X.
They hailed a taxi and drove to Great James Street. That respectable thoroughfare was wrapped in sleep and it was some time before the landlord could be aroused. Recognizing T. X. he checked his sarcasm, which he had prepared for a keyless lodger, and led the way into the drawing room.
“You didn't tell me not to speak about it, Mr. Meredith,” he said, in an aggrieved tone, “and as a matter of fact I have spoken to nobody except the gentleman who called the same day.”
“What did he want?” asked T. X.
“He said he had only just discovered that Mr. Vassalaro had stayed with me and he wanted to pay whatever rent was due,” replied the other.
“What like of man was he?” asked T. X.
The brief description the man gave sent a cold chill to the Commissioner's heart.
“Kara for a ducat!” he said, and swore long and variously.
“Cadogan Square,” he ordered.
His ring was answered promptly. Mr. Kara was out of town, had indeed been out of town since Saturday. This much the man-servant explained with a suspicious eye upon his visitors, remembering that his predecessor had lost his job from a too confiding friendliness with spurious electric fitters. He did not know when Mr. Kara would return, perhaps it would be a long time and perhaps a short time. He might come back that night or he might not.
“You are wasting your young life,” said T. X. bitterly. “You ought to be a fortune teller.”
“This settles the matter,” he said, in the cab on the way back. “Find out the first train for Tavistock in the morning and wire the George Hotel to have a car waiting.”
“Why not go to-night?” suggested the other. “There is the midnight train. It is rather slow, but it will get you there by six or seven in the morning.”
“Too late,” he said, “unless you can invent a method of getting from here to Paddington in about fifty seconds.”
The morning journey to Devonshire was a dispiriting one despite the fineness of the day. T. X. had an uncomfortable sense that something distressing had happened. The run across the moor in the fresh spring air revived him a little.
As they spun down to the valley of the Dart, Mansus touched his arm.
“Look at that,” he said, and pointed to the blue heavens where, a mile above their heads, a white-winged aeroplane, looking no larger than a very distant dragon fly, shimmered in the sunlight.
“By Jove!” said T. X. “What an excellent way for a man to escape!”
“It's about the only way,” said Mansus.
The significance of the aeroplane was borne in upon T. X. a few minutes later when he was held up by an armed guard. A glance at his card was enough to pass him.
“What is the matter?” he asked.
“A prisoner has escaped,” said the sentry.
“Escaped—by aeroplane?” asked T. X.
“I don't know anything about aeroplanes, sir. All I know is that one of the working party got away.”
The car came to the gates of the prison and T. X. sprang out, followed by his assistant. He had no difficulty in finding the Governor, a greatly perturbed man, for an escape is a very serious matter.
The official was inclined to be brusque in his manner, but again the magic card produced a soothing effect.
“I am rather rattled,” said the Governor. “One of my men has got away. I suppose you know that?”
“And I am afraid another of your men is going away, sir,” said T. X., who had a curious reverence for military authority. He produced his paper and laid it on the governor's table.
“This is an order for the release of John Lexman, convicted under sentence of fifteen years penal servitude.”
The Governor looked at it.
“Dated last night,” he said, and breathed a long sigh of relief. “Thank the Lord!—that is the man who escaped!”
Two years after the events just described, T. X. journeying up to London from Bath was attracted by a paragraph in the Morning Post. It told him briefly that Mr. Remington Kara, the influential leader of the Greek Colony, had been the guest of honor at a dinner of the Hellenic Society.
T. X. had only seen Kara for a brief space of time following that tragic morning, when he had discovered not only that his best friend had escaped from Dartmoor prison and disappeared, as it were, from the world at a moment when his pardon had been signed, but that that friend's wife had also vanished from the face of the earth.
At the same time—it might, as even T. X. admitted, have been the veriest coincidence that Kara had also cleared out of London to reappear at the end of six months. Any question addressed to him, concerning the whereabouts of the two unhappy people, was met with a bland expression of ignorance as to their whereabouts.
John Lexman was somewhere in the world, hiding as he believed from justice, and with him was his wife. T. X. had no doubt in his mind as to this solution of the puzzle. He had caused to be published the story of the pardon and the circumstances under which that pardon had been secured, and he had, moreover, arranged for an advertisement to be inserted in the principal papers of every European country.
It was a moot question amongst the departmental lawyers as to whether John Lexman was not guilty of a technical and punishable offence for prison breaking, but this possibility did not keep T. X. awake at nights. The circumstances of the escape had been carefully examined. The warder responsible had been discharged from the service, and had almost immediately purchased for himself a beer house in Falmouth, for a sum which left no doubt in the official mind that he had been the recipient of a heavy bribe.
Who had been the guiding spirit in that escape—Mrs. Lexman, or Kara?
It was impossible to connect Kara with the event. The motor car had been traced to Exeter, where it had been hired by a “foreign-looking gentleman,” but the chauffeur, whoever he was, had made good his escape. An inspection of Kara's hangars at Wembley showed that his two monoplanes had not been removed, and T. X. failed entirely to trace the owner of the machine he had seen flying over Dartmoor on the fatal morning.
T. X. was somewhat baffled and a little amused by the disinclination of the authorities to believe that the escape had been effected by this method at all. All the events of the trial came back to him, as he watched the landscape spinning past.
He set down the newspaper with a little sigh, put his feet on the cushions of the opposite seat and gave himself up to reverie. Presently he returned to his journals and searched them idly for something to interest him in the final stretch of journey between Newbury and Paddington.
Presently he found it in a two column article with the uninspiring title, “The Mineral Wealth of Tierra del Fuego.” It was written brightly with a style which was at once easy and informative. It told of adventures in the marshes behind St. Sebastian Bay and journeys up the Guarez Celman river, of nights spent in primeval forests and ended in a geological survey, wherein the commercial value of syenite, porphyry, trachite and dialite were severally canvassed.
The article was signed “G. G.” It is said of T. X. that his greatest virtue was his curiosity. He had at the tip of his fingers the names of all the big explorers and author-travellers, and for some reason he could not place “G. G.” to his satisfaction, in fact he had an absurd desire to interpret the initials into “George Grossmith.” His inability to identify the writer irritated him, and his first act on reaching his office was to telephone to one of the literary editors of the Times whom he knew.
“Not my department,” was the chilly reply, “and besides we never give away the names of our contributors. Speaking as a person outside the office I should say that 'G. G.' was 'George Gathercole' the explorer you know, the fellow who had an arm chewed off by a lion or something.”
“George Gathercole!” repeated T. X. “What an ass I am.”
“Yes,” said the voice at the other end the wire, and he had rung off before T. X. could think of something suitable to say.
Having elucidated this little side-line of mystery, the matter passed from the young Commissioner's mind. It happened that morning that his work consisted of dealing with John Lexman's estate.
With the disappearance of the couple he had taken over control of their belongings. It had not embarrassed him to discover that he was an executor under Lexman's will, for he had already acted as trustee to the wife's small estate, and had been one of the parties to the ante-nuptial contract which John Lexman had made before his marriage.
The estate revenues had increased very considerably. All the vanished author's books were selling as they had never sold before, and the executor's work was made the heavier by the fact that Grace Lexman had possessed an aunt who had most inconsiderately died, leaving a considerable fortune to her “unhappy niece.”
“I will keep the trusteeship another year,” he told the solicitor who came to consult him that morning. “At the end of that time I shall go to the court for relief.”
“Do you think they will ever turn up?” asked the solicitor, an elderly and unimaginative man.
“Of course, they'll turn up!” said T. X. impatiently; “all the heroes of Lexman's books turn up sooner or later. He will discover himself to us at a suitable moment, and we shall be properly thrilled.”
That Lexman would return he was sure. It was a faith from which he did not swerve.
He had as implicit a confidence that one day or other Kara, the magnificent, would play into his hands.
There were some queer stories in circulation concerning the Greek, but on the whole they were stories and rumours which were difficult to separate from the malicious gossip which invariably attaches itself to the rich and to the successful.
One of these was that Kara desired something more than an Albanian chieftainship, which he undoubtedly enjoyed. There were whispers of wider and higher ambitions. Though his father had been born a Greek, he had indubitably descended in a direct line from one of those old Mprets of Albania, who had exercised their brief authority over that turbulent land.
The man's passion was for power. To this end he did not spare himself. It was said that he utilized his vast wealth for this reason, and none other, and that whatever might have been the irregularities of his youth—and there were adduced concrete instances—he was working toward an end with a singleness of purpose, from which it was difficult to withhold admiration.
T. X. kept in his locked desk a little red book, steel bound and triple locked, which he called his “Scandalaria.” In this he inscribed in his own irregular writing the titbits which might not be published, and which often helped an investigator to light upon the missing threads of a problem. In truth he scorned no source of information, and was conscienceless in the compilation of this somewhat chaotic record.
The affairs of John Lexman recalled Kara, and Kara's great reception. Mansus would have made arrangements to secure a verbatim report of the speeches which were made, and these would be in his hands by the night. Mansus did not tell him that Kara was financing some very influential people indeed, that a certain Under-secretary of State with a great number of very influential relations had been saved from bankruptcy by the timely advances which Kara had made. This T. X. had obtained through sources which might be hastily described as discreditable. Mansus knew of the baccarat establishment in Albemarle Street, but he did not know that the neurotic wife of a very great man indeed, no less than the Minister of Justice, was a frequent visitor to that establishment, and that she had lost in one night some 6,000 pounds. In these circumstances it was remarkable, thought T. X., that she should report to the police so small a matter as the petty pilfering of servants. This, however, she had done and whilst the lesser officers of Scotland Yard were interrogating pawnbrokers, the men higher up were genuinely worried by the lady's own lapses from grace.
It was all sordid but, unfortunately, conventional, because highly placed people will always do underbred things, where money or women are concerned, but it was necessary, for the proper conduct of the department which T. X. directed, that, however sordid and however conventional might be the errors which the great ones of the earth committed, they should be filed for reference.
The motto which T. X. went upon in life was, “You never know.”
The Minister of Justice was a very important person, for he was a personal friend of half the monarchs of Europe. A poor man, with two or three thousand a year of his own, with no very definite political views and uncommitted to the more violent policies of either party, he succeeded in serving both, with profit to himself, and without earning the obloquy of either. Though he did not pursue the blatant policy of the Vicar of Bray, yet it is fact which may be confirmed from the reader's own knowledge, that he served in four different administrations, drawing the pay and emoluments of his office from each, though the fundamental policies of those four governments were distinct.
Lady Bartholomew, the wife of this adaptable Minister, had recently departed for San Remo. The newspapers announced the fact and spoke vaguely of a breakdown which prevented the lady from fulfilling her social engagements.
T. X., ever a Doubting Thomas, could trace no visit of nerve specialist, nor yet of the family practitioner, to the official residence in Downing Street, and therefore he drew conclusions. In his own “Who's Who” T. X. noted the hobbies of his victims which, by the way, did not always coincide with the innocent occupations set against their names in the more pretentious volume. Their follies and their weaknesses found a place and were recorded at a length (as it might seem to the uninformed observer) beyond the limit which charity allowed.
Lady Mary Bartholomew's name appeared not once, but many times, in the erratic records which T. X. kept. There was a plain matter-of-fact and wholly unobjectionable statement that she was born in 1874, that she was the seventh daughter of the Earl of Balmorey, that she had one daughter who rejoiced in the somewhat unpromising name of Belinda Mary, and such further information as a man might get without going to a great deal of trouble.
T. X., refreshing his memory from the little red book, wondered what unexpected tragedy had sent Lady Bartholomew out of London in the middle of the season. The information was that the lady was fairly well off at this moment, and this fact made matters all the more puzzling and almost induced him to believe that, after all, the story was true, and a nervous breakdown really was the cause of her sudden departure. He sent for Mansus.
“You saw Lady Bartholomew off at Charing Cross, I suppose?”
Mansus nodded.
“She went alone?”
“She took her maid, but otherwise she was alone. I thought she looked ill.”
“She has been looking ill for months past,” said T. X., without any visible expression of sympathy.
“Did she take Belinda Mary?”
Mansus was puzzled. “Belinda Mary?” he repeated slowly. “Oh, you mean the daughter. No, she's at a school somewhere in France.”
T. X. whistled a snatch of a popular song, closed the little red book with a snap and replaced it in his desk.
“I wonder where on earth people dig up names like Belinda Mary?” he mused. “Belinda Mary must be rather a weird little animal—the Lord forgive me for speaking so about my betters! If heredity counts for anything she ought to be something between a head waiter and a pack of cards. Have you lost anything'?”
Mansus was searching his pockets.
“I made a few notes, some questions I wanted to ask you about and Lady Bartholomew was the subject of one of them. I have had her under observation for six months; do you want it kept up?”
T. X. thought awhile, then shook his head.
“I am only interested in Lady Bartholomew in so far as Kara is interested in her. There is a criminal for you, my friend!” he added, admiringly.
Mansus busily engaged in going through the bundles of letters, slips of paper and little notebooks he had taken from his pocket, sniffed audibly.
“Have you a cold?” asked T. X. politely.
“No, sir,” was the reply, “only I haven't much opinion of Kara as a criminal. Besides, what has he got to be a criminal about? He has all that he requires in the money department, he's one of the most popular people in London, and certainly one of the best-looking men I've ever seen in my life. He needs nothing.”
T. X. regarded him scornfully.
“You're a poor blind brute,” he said, shaking his head; don't you know that great criminals are never influenced by material desires, or by the prospect of concrete gains? The man, who robs his employer's till in order to give the girl of his heart the 25-pearl and ruby brooch her soul desires, gains nothing but the glow of satisfaction which comes to the man who is thought well of. The majority of crimes in the world are committed by people for the same reason—they want to be thought well of. Here is Doctor X. who murdered his wife because she was a drunkard and a slut, and he dared not leave her for fear the neighbours would have doubts as to his respectability. Here is another gentleman who murders his wives in their baths in order that he should keep up some sort of position and earn the respect of his friends and his associates. Nothing roused him more quickly to a frenzy of passion than the suggestion that he was not respectable. Here is the great financier, who has embezzled a million and a quarter, not because he needed money, but because people looked up to him. Therefore, he must build great mansions, submarine pleasure courts and must lay out huge estates—because he wished that he should be thought well of.
Mansus sniffed again.
“What about the man who half murders his wife, does he do that to be well thought of?” he asked, with a tinge of sarcasm.
T. X. looked at him pityingly.
“The low-brow who beats his wife, my poor Mansus,” he said, “does so because she doesn't think well of him. That is our ruling passion, our national characteristic, the primary cause of most crimes, big or little. That is why Kara is a bad criminal and will, as I say, end his life very violently.”
He took down his glossy silk hat from the peg and slipped into his overcoat.
“I am going down to see my friend Kara,” he said. “I have a feeling that I should like to talk with him. He might tell me something.”
His acquaintance with Kara's menage had been mere hearsay. He had interviewed the Greek once after his return, but since all his efforts to secure information concerning the whereabouts of John Lexman and his wife—the main reason for his visit—had been in vain, he had not repeated his visit.
The house in Cadogan Square was a large one, occupying a corner site. It was peculiarly English in appearance with its window boxes, its discreet curtains, its polished brass and enamelled doorway. It had been the town house of Lord Henry Gratham, that eccentric connoisseur of wine and follower of witless pleasure. It had been built by him “round a bottle of port,” as his friends said, meaning thereby that his first consideration had been the cellarage of the house, and that when those cellars had been built and provision made for the safe storage of his priceless wines, the house had been built without the architect's being greatly troubled by his lordship. The double cellars of Gratham House had, in their time, been one of the sights of London. When Henry Gratham lay under eight feet of Congo earth (he was killed by an elephant whilst on a hunting trip) his executors had been singularly fortunate in finding an immediate purchaser. Rumour had it that Kara, who was no lover of wine, had bricked up the cellars, and their very existence passed into domestic legendary.
The door was opened by a well-dressed and deferential man-servant and T. X. was ushered into the hall. A fire burnt cheerily in a bronze grate and T. X. had a glimpse of a big oil painting of Kara above the marble mantle-piece.
“Mr. Kara is very busy, sir,” said the man.
“Just take in my card,” said T. X. “I think he may care to see me.”
The man bowed, produced from some mysterious corner a silver salver and glided upstairs in that manner which well-trained servants have, a manner which seems to call for no bodily effort. In a minute he returned.
“Will you come this way, sir,” he said, and led the way up a broad flight of stairs.
At the head of the stairs was a corridor which ran to the left and to the right. From this there gave four rooms. One at the extreme end of the passage on the right, one on the left, and two at fairly regular intervals in the centre.
When the man's hand was on one of the doors, T. X. asked quietly, “I think I have seen you before somewhere, my friend.”
The man smiled.
“It is very possible, sir. I was a waiter at the Constitutional for some time.”
T. X. nodded.
“That is where it must have been,” he said.
The man opened the door and announced the visitor.
T. X. found himself in a large room, very handsomely furnished, but just lacking that sense of cosiness and comfort which is the feature of the Englishman's home.
Kara rose from behind a big writing table, and came with a smile and a quick step to greet the visitor.
“This is a most unexpected pleasure,” he said, and shook hands warmly.
T. X. had not seen him for a year and found very little change in this strange young man. He could not be more confident than he had been, nor bear himself with a more graceful carriage. Whatever social success he had achieved, it had not spoiled him, for his manner was as genial and easy as ever.
“I think that will do, Miss Holland,” he said, turning to the girl who, with notebook in hand, stood by the desk.
“Evidently,” thought T. X., “our Hellenic friend has a pretty taste in secretaries.”
In that one glance he took her all in—from the bronze-brown of her hair to her neat foot.
T. X. was not readily attracted by members of the opposite sex. He was self-confessed a predestined bachelor, finding life and its incidence too absorbing to give his whole mind to the serious problem of marriage, or to contract responsibilities and interests which might divert his attention from what he believed was the greater game. Yet he must be a man of stone to resist the freshness, the beauty and the youth of this straight, slender girl; the pink-and-whiteness of her, the aliveness and buoyancy and the thrilling sense of vitality she carried in her very presence.
“What is the weirdest name you have ever heard?” asked Kara laughingly. “I ask you, because Miss Holland and I have been discussing a begging letter addressed to us by a Maggie Goomer.”
The girl smiled slightly and in that smile was paradise, thought T. X.
“The weirdest name?” he repeated, “why I think the worst I have heard for a long time is Belinda Mary.”
“That has a familiar ring,” said Kara.
T. X. was looking at the girl.
She was staring at him with a certain languid insolence which made him curl up inside. Then with a glance at her employer she swept from the room.
“I ought to have introduced you,” said Kara. “That was my secretary, Miss Holland. Rather a pretty girl, isn't she?”
“Very,” said T. X., recovering his breath.
“I like pretty things around me,” said Kara, and somehow the complacency of the remark annoyed the detective more than anything that Kara had ever said to him.
The Greek went to the mantlepiece, and taking down a silver cigarette box, opened and offered it to his visitor. Kara was wearing a grey lounge suit; and although grey is a very trying colour for a foreigner to wear, this suit fitted his splendid figure and gave him just that bulk which he needed.
“You are a most suspicious man, Mr. Meredith,” he smiled.
“Suspicious! I?” asked the innocent T. X.
Kara nodded.
“I am sure you want to enquire into the character of all my present staff. I am perfectly satisfied that you will never be at rest until you learn the antecedents of my cook, my valet, my secretary—”
T. X. held up his hand with a laugh.
“Spare me,” he said. “It is one of my failings, I admit, but I have never gone much farther into your domestic affairs than to pry into the antecedents of your very interesting chauffeur.”
A little cloud passed over Kara's face, but it was only momentary.
“Oh, Brown,” he said, airily, with just a perceptible pause between the two words.
“It used to be Smith,” said T. X., “but no matter. His name is really Poropulos.”
“Oh, Poropulos,” said Kara gravely, “I dismissed him a long time ago.”
“Pensioned hire, too, I understand,” said T. X.
The other looked at him awhile, then, “I am very good to my old servants,” he said slowly and, changing the subject; “to what good fortune do I owe this visit?”
T. X. selected a cigarette before he replied.
“I thought you might be of some service to me,” he said, apparently giving his whole attention to the cigarette.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” said Kara, a little eagerly. “I am afraid you have not been very keen on continuing what I hoped would have ripened into a valuable friendship, more valuable to me perhaps,” he smiled, “than to you.”
“I am a very shy man,” said the shameless T. X., “difficult to a fault, and rather apt to underrate my social attractions. I have come to you now because you know everybody—by the way, how long have you had your secretary!” he asked abruptly.
Kara looked up at the ceiling for inspiration.
“Four, no three months,” he corrected, “a very efficient young lady who came to me from one of the training establishments. Somewhat uncommunicative, better educated than most girls in her position—for example, she speaks and writes modern Greek fairly well.”
“A treasure!” suggested T. X.
“Unusually so,” said Kara. “She lives in Marylebone Road, 86a is the address. She has no friends, spends most of her evenings in her room, is eminently respectable and a little chilling in her attitude to her employer.”
T. X. shot a swift glance at the other.
“Why do you tell me all this?” he asked.
“To save you the trouble of finding out,” replied the other coolly. “That insatiable curiosity which is one of the equipments of your profession, would, I feel sure, induce you to conduct investigations for your own satisfaction.”
T. X. laughed.
“May I sit down?” he said.
The other wheeled an armchair across the room and T. X. sank into it. He leant back and crossed his legs, and was, in a second, the personification of ease.
“I think you are a very clever man, Monsieur Kara,” he said.
The other looked down at him this time without amusement.
“Not so clever that I can discover the object of your visit,” he said pleasantly enough.
“It is very simply explained,” said T. X. “You know everybody in town. You know, amongst other people, Lady Bartholomew.”
“I know the lady very well indeed,” said Kara, readily,—too readily in fact, for the rapidity with which answer had followed question, suggested to T. X. that Kara had anticipated the reason for the call.
“Have you any idea,” asked T. X., speaking with deliberation, “as to why Lady Bartholomew has gone out of town at this particular moment?”
Kara laughed.
“What an extraordinary question to ask me—as though Lady Bartholomew confided her plans to one who is little more than a chance acquaintance!”
“And yet,” said T. X., contemplating the burning end of his cigarette, “you know her well enough to hold her promissory note.”
“Promissory note?” asked the other.
His tone was one of involuntary surprise and T. X. swore softly to himself for now he saw the faintest shade of relief in Kara's face. The Commissioner realized that he had committed an error—he had been far too definite.
“When I say promissory note,” he went on easily, as though he had noticed nothing, “I mean, of course, the securities which the debtor invariably gives to one from whom he or she has borrowed large sums of money.”
Kara made no answer, but opening a drawer of his desk he took out a key and brought it across to where T. X. was sitting.
“Here is the key of my safe,” he said quietly. “You are at liberty to go carefully through its contents and discover for yourself any promissory note which I hold from Lady Bartholomew. My dear fellow, you don't imagine I'm a moneylender, do you?” he said in an injured tone.
“Nothing was further from my thoughts,” said T. X., untruthfully.
But the other pressed the key upon him.
“I should be awfully glad if you would look for yourself,” he said earnestly. “I feel that in some way you associate Lady Bartholomew's illness with some horrible act of usury on my part—will you satisfy yourself and in doing so satisfy me?”
Now any ordinary man, and possibly any ordinary detective, would have made the conventional answer. He would have protested that he had no intention of doing anything of the sort; he would have uttered, if he were a man in the position which T. X. occupied, the conventional statement that he had no authority to search the private papers, and that he would certainly not avail himself of the other's kindness. But T. X. was not an ordinary person. He took the key and balanced it lightly in the palm of his hand.
“Is this the key of the famous bedroom safe?” he said banteringly.
Kara was looking down at him with a quizzical smile. “It isn't the safe you opened in my absence, on one memorable occasion, Mr. Meredith,” he said. “As you probably know, I have changed that safe, but perhaps you don't feel equal to the task?”
“On the contrary,” said T. X., calmly, and rising from the chair, “I am going to put your good faith to the test.”
For answer Kara walked to the door and opened it.
“Let me show you the way,” he said politely.
He passed along the corridor and entered the apartment at the end. The room was a large one and lighted by one big square window which was protected by steel bars. In the grate which was broad and high a huge fire was burning and the temperature of the room was unpleasantly close despite the coldness of the day.
“That is one of the eccentricities which you, as an Englishman, will never excuse in me,” said Kara.
Near the foot of the bed, let into, and flush with, the wall, was a big green door of the safe.
“Here you are, Mr. Meredith,” said Kara. “All the precious secrets of Remington Kara are yours for the seeking.”
“I am afraid I've had my trouble for nothing,” said T. X., making no attempt to use the key.
“That is an opinion which I share,” said Kara, with a smile.
“Curiously enough,” said T. X. “I mean just what you mean.”
He handed the key to Kara.
“Won't you open it?” asked the Greek.
T. X. shook his head.
“The safe as far as I can see is a Magnus, the key which you have been kind enough to give me is legibly inscribed upon the handle 'Chubb.' My experience as a police officer has taught me that Chubb keys very rarely open Magnus safes.”
Kara uttered an exclamation of annoyance.
“How stupid of me!” he said, “yet now I remember, I sent the key to my bankers, before I went out of town—I only came back this morning, you know. I will send for it at once.”
“Pray don't trouble,” murmured T. X. politely. He took from his pocket a little flat leather case and opened it. It contained a number of steel implements of curious shape which were held in position by a leather loop along the centre of the case. From one of these loops he extracted a handle, and deftly fitted something that looked like a steel awl to the socket in the handle. Looking in wonder, and with no little apprehension, Kara saw that the awl was bent at the head.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, a little alarmed.