Chapter XXVIIMr. Newton’s Dilemma
THE most carefully guided streaks of luck may, in spite of all precautions, overflow into the wrong channel, and this had happened to Mr. Montague Newton, producing an evening that was financially disastrous and a night from which sleep was almost banished. He had had one of his little card parties; but whether it was the absence of Joan, and the inadequacy of her fluffy-haired substitute, or whether the wine had disagreed with one of the most promising victims, the result was the same. They had playedchemin de fer, and the gilded pigeon, whose feathers seemed already to be ornamenting the head-dress of Monty Newton, had been successful, and when he should have been signing cheques for large amounts, he was cashing his counters with a reluctant host.
The night started wrong with Joan’s substitute, whose name was Lisa. She had guided to the establishment, via an excellent dinner at Mero’s, the son of an African millionaire. Joan, of course, would have brought him alone, but Lisa, less experienced, had allowed a young-looking friend of the victim to attach himself to the party, and she had even expected praise for her perspicacity and enterprise in producing two birds for the stone which Mr. Newton so effectively wielded, instead of one.
Monty did not resent the presence of the new-comer, and rather took the girl’s view, until he learnt that Lisa’s “find” was not, as she had believed, an officer of the Guards, but a sporting young lawyer with a large criminal practice, and one who had already, as a junior, conducted several prosecutions for the Crown. The moment his name was mentioned, Monty groaned in spirit. He was, moreover, painfully sober. His friend was not so favourably situated.
That was the first of the awkward things to happen. The second was the bad temper of the player, who, when the bank was considerably over £3,000, had first of all insisted upon the cards being reshuffled, and then had gone banquo—the game being baccarat. Even this contretemps might have been overcome, but after he had expressed his willingness to “give it,” the card which Monty had so industriously palmed, slipped from his hand to the table, and though the fact was unnoticed by the players, the lawyer’s attention being diverted at the moment, it was impossible to recover that very valuable piece of pasteboard. And Monty had done a silly thing. Instead of staging an artistic exhibition of annoyance at remarks which the millionaire’s son had made, he decided to take a chance on the natural run of the cards. And he had lost. On top of that, the slightly inebriated player had decided that when a man had won a coup of £3,000 it was time to stop playing. So Monty experienced the mortification of paying out money, and accompanying his visitor to the door with a smile that was so genial and so full of good-fellowship that the young gentleman was compelled to apologize for his boorishness.
“Come along some other night and give me my revenge,” said Monty.
“You bet I will! I’m going to South Africa to-morrow, but I shall be back early next year, and I’ll look you up.”
Monty watched him going down the steps and hoped he would break his neck.
He was worried about Joan—more worried than he thought it was possible for him to be about so light a girl. She was necessary to him in many ways. Lisa was a bungling fool, he decided, though he sent her home without hurting her feelings. She was a useful girl in many ways, and nothing spoils a tout quicker than constant nagging.
He felt very lonely in the house, and wandered from room to room, irritated with himself that the absence of this feather-brained girl, who had neither the education nor the breed of his own class, should make such a big difference. And it did; he had to admit as much to himself. He hated the thought of that underground room. He knew something of her temperament, and how soon her experience would get on her nerves. In many respects he wished he did not feel that way about her, because she had a big shock coming, and it was probably because he foresaw this hurt, that he was anxious to make the present as happy as he could for her.
After he had done what he was to do, there was no reason in the world why they should be bad friends, and he would give her a big present. Girls of that class soon forget their miseries if the present is large enough. Thus he argued, tossing from side to side in his bed, and all the time his thoughts playing about that infernal cellar. What she must be feeling! He did not worry at all about Mirabelle, because—well, she was a principal in the case. To him, Joan was the real victim.
Sleep did not come until daybreak, and he woke in his most irritable frame of mind. He had promised the girl he would call and see her, though he had privately arranged with Oberzohn not to go to the house until the expiry of the five days.
By lunch-time he could stand the worry no longer, and, ordering his car, drove to a point between New Cross and Bermondsey, walking on foot the remainder of the distance. Mr. Oberzohn expected the visit. He had a shrewd knowledge of his confederate’s mental outfit, and when he saw this well-dressed man picking a dainty way across the littered ground, he strolled out on the steps to meet him.
“It is curious you should have come,” he said.
“Why didn’t you telephone?” growled Newton. This was his excuse for the visit.
“Because there are human machines at the end of every wire,” said Oberzohn. “If they were automatic and none could listen, but you and I, we would talk and talk and then talk! All day long would I speak with you and find it a pleasure. But not with Miss This and Miss That saying, ‘One moment, if you please,’ and saying to the Scotland Yard man, ‘Now you cut in’!”
“Is Gurther back?”
“Gurther is back,” said the doctor soberly.
“Nothing happened to that bird? At least, I saw nothing in the evening papers.”
“He has gone to Lisbon,” replied the doctor indifferently. “Perhaps he will get there, perhaps he will not—what does it matter? I should like to see the letter, because it is data, and data has an irresistible charm for a poor old scientist. You will have a drink?”
Monty hesitated, as he always did when Oberzohn offered him refreshment. You could never be sure with Oberzohn.
“I’ll have a whisky,” he said at last, “a full bottle—one that hasn’t been opened. I’ll open it myself.”
The doctor chuckled unevenly.
“You do not trust?” he said. “I think you are wise. For who is there in this world of whom a man can say, ‘He is my friend. To the very end of my life I will have confidence in him’?”
Monty did not feel that the question called for an answer.
He took the whisky bottle to the light, examined the cork and drove in the corkscrew.
“The soda water—that also might be poisoned,” said Dr. Oberzohn pleasantly.
At any other time he would not have made that observation. That he said it at all, betrayed a subtle but ominous change in their relationships. If Monty noticed this, he did not say a word, but filled his glass and sat down on the sofa to drink. And all the time the doctor was watching him interestedly.
“Yes, Gurther is back. He failed, but you must excuse failure in a good man. The perfect agent has yet to be found, and the perfect principal also. The American, Washington, had left Paris when I last heard of him. He is to be congratulated. If I myself lived in Paris I should always be leaving. It is a frivolous city.”
Monty lit a cigar, and decided to arrive at the object of his visit by stages. For he had come to perform two important duties. He accounted as a duty a call upon Joan. No less was it a duty, and something of a relief also, to make his plan known to his partner.
“How are the girls?” he asked.
“They are very happy,” said Dr. Oberzohn, who had not resumed his seat, but stood in an attitude somewhat reminiscent of Gurther, erect, staring, motionless. “Always my guests are happy.”
“In that dog-hole?” said the other contemptuously. “I don’t want Joan to be here.”
The Herr Doktor shrugged.
“Then take her away, my friend,” he said. “Why should she stay, if you are unhappy because this woman is not with you? She serves no purpose. Possibly she is fretting. By all means—I will bring her to you.” He moved to the door.
“Wait a moment,” said Monty. “I’ll see her later and take her out perhaps, but I don’t want her to be away permanently. Somebody ought to stay with that girl.”
“Why? Am I not here?” asked Oberzohn blandly.
“You’re here, and Gurther’s here.” Monty was looking out of the window and did not meet the doctor’s eyes. “Especially Gurther. That’s why I think that Mirabelle Leicester should have somebody to look after her. Has it ever struck you that the best way out of this little trouble is—marriage?”
“I have thought that,” said the doctor. “You also have thought it? This is wonderful! You are beginning to think.”
The change of tone was noticeable enough now. Monty snapped round at the man who had hitherto stood in apparent awe of him and his judgments.
“You can cut that sarcasm right out, Oberzohn,” he said, and, without preamble: “I’m going to marry that girl.”
Oberzohn said nothing to this.
“She’s not engaged; she’s got no love affairs at all. Joan told me, and Joan is a pretty shrewd girl. I don’t know how I’m going to fix it, but I guess the best thing I can do is to pretend that I am a real friend and get her out of your cellar. She’ll be so grateful that maybe she will agree to almost anything. Besides, I think I made an impression the first time I saw her. And I’ve got a position to offer her, Oberzohn: a house in the best part of London——”
“My house,” interrupted Oberzohn’s metallic voice.
“Your house? Well,ourhouse, let us say. We’re not going to quarrel about terms.”
“I also have a position to offer her, and I do not offer her any other man’s.”
Oberzohn was looking at him wide-eyed, a comical figure; his elongated face seemed to stand out in the gloom like a pantomime mask.
“You?” Monty could hardly believe his ears.
“I, Baron Eruc Oberzohn.”
“A baron, are you?” The room shook with Monty’s laughter. “Why, you damned old fool, you don’t imagine she’d marry you, do you?”
Oberzohn nodded.
“She would do anythings what I tell her.” In his agitation his English was getting a little ragged. “A girl may not like a mans, but she might hate somethings worse—you understand? A woman says death is not’ing, but a woman is afeard of death, isn’t it?”
“You’re crazy,” said Monty scornfully.
“I am crazy, am I? And a damned old fool also—yes? Yet I shall marry her.”
There was a dead silence, and then Oberzohn continued the conversation, but on a much calmer note.
“Perhaps I am what you call me, but it is not a thing worthy for two friends to quarrel. To-morrow you shall come here, and we will discuss this matter like a business proposition, hein?”
Monty examined him as though he were a strange insect that had wandered into his ken.
“You’re not a Swede, you’re German,” he said. “That baron stuff gave you away.”
“I am from the Baltic, but I have lived many years in Sweden,” said Oberzohn shortly. “I am not German: I do not like them.”
More than this he would not say. Possibly he shared Gurther’s repugnance towards his sometime neighbours.
“We shall not quarrel, anyway,” he continued. “I am a fool, you are a fool, we are all fools. You wish to see your woman?”
“I wish to see Joan,” said Monty gruffly. “I don’t like that ‘your woman’ line of yours.”
“I will go get her. You wait.”
Again the long boots came from under the table, were dragged on to the doctor’s awkward feet, and Monty watched him from the window as he crossed to the factory and disappeared.
He was gone five minutes before he came out again, alone. Monty frowned. What was the reason for this?
“My friend,” panted Oberzohn, to whom these exertions were becoming more and more irksome, “it is not wise.”
“I want to see her——” began Monty.
“Gently, gently; you shall see her. But on the canal bank Gurther has also seen a stranger, who has been walking up and down, pretending to fish. Who can fish in a canal, I ask you?”
“What is he to do with it?”
“Would it be wise to bring her in daylight, I ask you again? Do not the men think that your—that this girl is in Brussels?”
This had not occurred to Monty.
“I have an idea for you. It is a good idea. The brain of old fool Oberzohn sometimes works remarkably. This morning a friend sent to me a ticket for a theatre. Now you shall take her to-night. There is always a little fog when the sun is setting and you can leave the house in a car. Presently I will send a man to attract this watcher’s attention, and then I will bring her to the house and you can call for her.”
“I will wait for her.” Monty was dogged on this point.
And wait he did, until an hour later a half-crazy girl came flying into the room and into his arms.
Dr. Oberzohn witnessed the reunion unmoved.
“That is a pretty scene for me,” he said, “for one to be so soon married,” and he left them alone.
“Monty, I can’t possibly go back to that beastly place to-night. She’ll have to stay by herself. And she’s not a bad kid, Monty, but she doesn’t know she’s worth a lot of money.”
“Have you been talking to her?” he asked angrily. “I told you——”
“No, I’ve only just asked her a few questions. You can’t be in a poky hole like that, thrown together day and night, without talking, can you? Monty, you’re absolutely sure nothing can happen to her?”
Monty cleared his throat.
“The worst thing that can happen to her,” he said, “is to get married.”
She opened her eyes at this.
“Does somebody want to marry her?”
“Oberzohn,” he said.
“That old thing!” she scoffed.
Again he found a difficulty in speaking.
“I have been thinking it over, honey,” he said. “Marriage doesn’t mean a whole lot to anybody.”
“It’ll mean a lot to me,” she said quietly.
“Suppose I married her?” he blurted.
“You!” She stepped back from him in horror.
“Only just a . . . well, this is the truth, Joan. It may be the only way to get her money. Now you’re in on this graft, and you know what you are to me. A marriage—a formal marriage—for a year or two, and then a divorce, and we could go away together, man and wife.”
“Is that what he meant?” She jerked her head to the door. “About ‘married so soon’?”
“He wants to marry her himself.”
“Let him,” she said viciously. “Do you think I care about money? Isn’t there any other way of getting it?”
He was silent. There were too many other ways of getting it for him to advance a direct negative.
“Oh, Monty, you’re not going to do that?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” he said.
“But not that?” she insisted, clinging to him by his coat.
“We’ll talk about it to-night. The old man’s got us tickets for the theatre. We’ll have a bit of dinner up West and go on, and it really doesn’t matter if anybody sees us, because they know very well you’re not in Brussels. What is that queer scent you’ve got?”
Joan laughed, forgetting for the moment the serious problem which faced her.
“Joss-sticks,” she said. “The place got so close and stuffy, and I found them in the pantry with the provisions. As a matter of fact, it was a silly thing to do, because we had the place full of smoke. It’s gone now, though. Monty, you do these crazy things when you’re locked up,” she said seriously. “I don’t think I can go back again.”
“Go back to-morrow,” he almost pleaded. “It’s only for two or three days, and it means a lot to me. Especially now that Oberzohn has ideas.”
“You’re not going to think any more about—about marrying her, are you?”
“We’ll talk of it to-night at dinner. I thought you’d like the idea of the graft,” he added untruthfully.
Joan had to return to her prison to collect some of her belongings. She found the girl lying on the bed, reading, and Mirabelle greeted her with a smile.
“Well, is your term of imprisonment ended?”
Joan hesitated.
“Not exactly. Do you mind if I’m not here to-night?”
Mirabelle shook her head. If the truth be told, she was glad to be alone. All that day she had been forced to listen to the plaints and weepings of this transfigured girl, and she felt that she could not well stand another twenty-four hours.
“You’re sure you won’t mind being alone?
“No, of course not. I shall miss you,” added Mirabelle, more in truth than in compliment. “When will you return?”
The girl made a little grimace.
“To-morrow.”
“You don’t want to come back, naturally? Have you succeeded in persuading your—your friend to let me out too?”
Joan shook her head.
“He’ll never do that, my dear, not till . . .” She looked at the girl. “You’re not engaged, are you?”
“I? No. Is that another story they’ve heard?” Mirabelle got up from the bed, laughing. “An heiress, and engaged?”
“No, they don’t say you were engaged.” Joan hastened to correct the wrong impression. There was genuine admiration in her voice, when she said: “You’re wonderful, kid! If I were in your shoes I’d be quaking. You’re just as cheerful as though you were going to the funeral of a rich aunt!”
She did not know how near to a breakdown her companion had been that day, and Mirabelle, who felt stronger and saner now, had no desire to tell her.
“You’re rather splendid.” Joan nodded. “I wish I had your pluck.”
And then, impulsively, she came forward and kissed the girl.
“Don’t feel too sore at me,” she said, and was gone before Mirabelle could make a reply.
The doctor was waiting for her in the factory.
“The spy has walked up to the canal bridge. We can go forward,” he said. “Besides,”—he had satisfaction out of this—“he cannot see over high walls.”
“What is this story about marrying Mirabelle Leicester?”
“So he has told you? Also did he tell you that—thatheis going to marry her?”
“Yes, and I’ll tell you something, doctor. I’d rather he married her than you.”
“So!” said the doctor.
“I’d rather anybody else married her, except that snake of yours.”
Oberzohn looked round sharply. She had used the word quite innocently, without any thought of its application, and uttered an “Oh!” of dismay when she realized her mistake.
“I meant Gurther,” she said.
“Well, I know you meant Gurther, young miss,” he said stiffly.
To get back to the house they had to make a half-circle of the factory and pass between the canal wall and the building itself. The direct route would have taken them into a deep hollow into which the debris of years had been thrown, and which now Nature, in her kindness, had hidden under a green mantle of wild convolvulus. It was typical of the place that the only beautiful picture in the grounds was out of sight.
They were just turning the corner of the factory when the doctor stopped and looked up at the high wall, which was protected by acheval de friseof broken glass. All except in one spot, about two feet wide, where not only the glass but the mortar which held it in place had been chipped off. There were fragments of the glass, and, on the inside of the wall, marks of some implement on the hard surface of the mortar.
“So!” said the doctor.
He was examining the scratches on the wall.
“Wait,” he ordered, and hurried back into the factory, to return, carrying in each hand two large rusty contraptions which he put on the ground.
One by one he forced open the jagged rusty teeth until they were wide apart and held by a spring catch. She had seen things like that in a museum. They were man-traps—relics of the barbarous days when trespass was not only a sin but a crime.
He fixed the second of the traps on the path between the factory and the wall.
“Now we shall see,” he said. “Forward!”
Monty was waiting for her impatiently. The Rolls had been turned out in her honour, and the sulky-looking driver was already in his place at the wheel.
“What is the matter with that chauffeur?” she asked, as they bumped up the lane towards easier going. “He looks so happy that I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that his mother was hanged this morning.”
“He’s sore with the old man,” explained Monty. “Oberzohn has two drivers. They do a little looking round in the morning. The other fellow was supposed to come back to take over duty at three o’clock, and he hasn’t turned up. He was the better driver of the two.”
The chauffeur was apparently seeking every pothole in the ground, and in the next five minutes she was alternately clutching the support of the arm-strap and Monty. They were relieved when at last the car found a metal road and began its noiseless way towards The Lights. And then her hand sought his, and for the moment this beautiful flower which had grown in such foul soil, bloomed in the radiance of a love common to every woman, high and low, good and bad.
Chapter XXVIIIAt Frater’s
MANFRED suggested an early dinner at the Lasky, where the soup was to his fastidious taste. Leon, who had eaten many crumpets for tea—he had a weakness for this indigestible article of diet—was prepared to dispense with the dinner, and Poiccart had views, being a man of steady habits. They dined at the Lasky, and Leon ordered a baked onion, and expatiated upon the two wasted years of Poiccart’s life, employing a wealth of imagery and a beauty of diction worthy of a better subject.
Manfred looked at his watch.
“Where are they dining?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet,” said Leon. “Our friend will be here in a few minutes; when we go out he will tell us. You don’t want to see her?”
Manfred shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“I’m going to be bored,” complained Poiccart.
“Then you should have let me bring Alma,” said Leon promptly.
“Exactly.” Raymond nodded his sober head. “I have the feeling that I am saving a lady from an unutterably dreary evening.”
There was a man waiting for them when they came out of the restaurant—a very uninteresting-looking man who had three sentences to saysotto voceas they stood near him, but apparently in ignorance of his presence.
“I did not wish to go to Mero’s,” said Manfred, “but as we have the time, I think it would be advisable to stroll in that direction. I am curious to discover whether this is really Oberzohn’s little treat, or whether the idea emanated from the unadmirable Mr. Newton.”
“And how will you know, George?” asked Gonsalez.
“By the car. If Oberzohn is master of the ceremonies, we shall find his machine parked somewhere in the neighbourhood. If it is Newton’s idea, then Oberzohn’s limousine, which brought them from South London, will have returned, and Newton’s car will be in its place.”
Mero’s was one of the most fashionable of dining clubs, patronized not only by the elite of society, but having on its books the cream of the theatrical world. It was situated in one of those quiet, old-world squares which are to be found in the very heart of London, enjoying, for some mysterious reason, immunity from the hands of the speculative property owner. The square retained the appearance it had in the days of the Georges; and though some of the fine mansions had been given over to commerce and the professions, and the lawyer and the manufacturer’s agent occupied the drawing-rooms and bedrooms sacred to the bucks and beauties of other days, quite a large number of the houses remained in private occupation.
There was nothing in the fascia of Mero’s to advertise its character. The club premises consisted of three of these fine old dwellings. The uninitiated might not even suspect that there was communication between the three houses, for the old doorways and doorsteps remained untouched, though only one was used.
They strolled along two sides of the square before, amidst the phalanx of cars that stood wheel to wheel, their backs to the railings of the centre gardens, they saw Oberzohn’s car.
The driver sat with his arms folded on the wheel, in earnest conversation with a pale-faced man, slightly and neatly bearded, and dressed in faultless evening dress. He was evidently a cripple: one shoulder was higher than the other; and when he moved, he walked painfully with the aid of a stick.
Manfred saw the driver point up the line of cars, and the lame gentleman limped in the direction the chauffeur had indicated and stopped to speak to another man in livery. As they came abreast of him, they saw that one of his boots had a thick sole, and the limp was explained.
“The gentleman has lost his car,” said Manfred, for now he was peering short-sightedly at the number-plates.
The theft of cars was a daily occurrence. Leon had something to say on the potentialities of that branch of crime. He owned to an encyclopædic knowledge of the current fashions in wrongdoing, and in a few brief sentences indicated the extent of these thefts.
“Fifty a week are shipped to India and the Colonies, after their numbers are erased and another substituted. In some cases the ‘knockers off,’ as they call the thieves, drive them straight away into the packing-cases which are prepared for every make of car; the ends are nailed up, and they are waiting shipment at the docks before the owner is certain of his loss. There are almost as many stolen cars in India, South Africa and Australia as there are honest ones!”
They walked slowly past the decorous portals of Mero’s, and caught a glimpse, through the curtained windows, of soft table lamps burning, of bare-armed women and white-shirted men, and heard faintly the strains of an orchestra playing a Viennese waltz.
“I should like to see our Jane,” said Gonsalez. “She never came to you, did she?”
“She came, but I didn’t see her,” said Manfred. “From the moment she leaves the theatre she must not be left.”
Leon nodded.
“I have already made that arrangement,” he said. “Digby——”
“Digby takes up his duty at midnight,” said Manfred. “He has been down to Oberzohn’s place to get the lie of the land: he thought it advisable that he should study the topography in daylight, and I agreed. He might get himself into an awkward tangle if he started exploring the canal bank in the dark hours. Summer or winter, there is usually a mist on the water.”
They reached Frater’s theatre so early that the queues at the pit door were still unadmitted, and Leon suggested that they make a circuit of this rambling house of entertainment. It stood in Shaftesbury Avenue and occupied an island site. On either side two narrow streets flanked the building, whilst the rear formed the third side of a small square, one of which was taken up by a County Council dwelling, mainly occupied by artisans. From the square a long passage-way led to Cranbourn Street; whilst, in addition to the alley which opened just at the back of the theatre, a street ran parallel to Shaftesbury Avenue from Charing Cross Road to Rupert Street.
The theatre itself was one of the best in London, and although it had had a succession of failures, its luck had turned, and the new mystery play was drawing all London.
“That is the stage door,” said Leon—they had reached the square—“and those are emergency exits”—he pointed back the way they had come—“which are utilized at the end of a performance to empty the theatre.”
“Why are you taking such an interest in the theatre itself?” asked Poiccart.
“Because,” said Gonsalez slowly, “I am in agreement with George. We should have found Newton’s car parked in Fitzreeve Gardens—not Oberzohn’s. And the circumstances are a little suspicious.”
The doors of the pit and gallery were open now; the queues were moving slowly to the entrances; and they watched the great building swallow up the devotees of the drama, before they returned to the front of the house.
Cars were beginning to arrive, at first at intervals, but, as the hour of the play’s beginning approached, in a ceaseless line that made a congestion and rendered the traffic police articulate and occasionally unkind. It was short of the half-hour after eight when Manfred saw Oberzohn’s glistening car in the block, and presently it pulled up before the entrance of the theatre. First Joan and then Monty Newton alighted and passed out of view.
Gonsalez thought he had never seen the girl looking quite as radiantly pretty. She had the colouring and the shape of youth, and though the more fastidious might object to her daring toilette, the most cantankerous could not cavil at the pleasing effect.
“It is a great pity,”—Leon spoke in Spanish—“a thousand pities! I have the same feeling when I see a perfect block of marble placed in the hands of a tombstone-maker to be mangled into ugliness!”
Manfred put out his hand and drew him back into the shadow. A cab was dropping the lame man. He got out with the aid of a linkman, paid the driver, and limped into the vestibule. It was not a remarkable coincidence: the gentleman had evidently come from Mero’s, and as all London was flocking to the drama, there was little that was odd in finding him here. They saw that he went up into the dress-circle, and later, when they took their places in the stalls, Leon, glancing up, saw the pale, bearded face and noted that he occupied the end seat of the front row.
“I’ve met that man somewhere,” he said, irritated. “Nothing annoys me worse than to forget, not a face, but where I have seen it!”
Did Gurther but know, he had achieved the height of his ambition: he had twice passed under the keen scrutiny of the cleverest detectives in the world, and had remained unrecognized.
Chapter XXIXWork for Gurther
GURTHER was sleeping when he was called for duty, but presented himself before his director as bright and alert as though he had not spent a sleepless night, nor yet had endured the strain of a midnight train jump.
“Once more, my Gurther, I send you forth.” Dr. Oberzohn was almost gay. “This time to save us all from the Judas treachery of one we thought was our friend. To-night the snake must bite, and bite hard, Gurther. And out into the dark goes the so-called Trusted! And after that, my brave boy, there shall be nothing to fear.”
He paused for approval, and got it in a snapped agreement.
“To-night we desire from you achef d’œuvre, the supreme employment of your great art, Gurther; the highest expression of genius! The gentleman-club manner will not do. They may look for you and find you. Better it should be, this time, that you——”
“Herr Doktor, will you graciously permit me to offer a humble suggestion?” said Gurther eagerly.
The doctor nodded his head slowly.
“You may speak, Gurther,” he said. “You are a man of intelligence; I would not presume to dictate to an artist.”
“Let me go for an hour, perhaps two hours, and I will return to you with a manner that is unique. Is it graciously permitted, Herr Doktor?”
“March!” said the doctor graciously, waving his hand to the door.
Nearly an hour and a half passed before the door opened and a gentleman came in who for even a moment even the doctor thought was a stranger. The face had an unearthly ivory pallor; the black brows, the faint shadows beneath the eyes that suggested a recent illness, the close-cropped black beard in which grey showed—these might not have deceived him. But the man was obviously the victim of some appalling accident of the past. One shoulder was hunched, the hand that held the stick was distorted out of shape, and as he moved, the clump of his club foot advertised his lameness.
“Sir, you desire to see me——?” began the doctor, and then stared open-mouthed. “It is not . . . !”
Gurther smiled.
“Herr Doktor, are you condescendingly pleased?”
“Colossal!” murmured Oberzohn, gazing in amazement. “Of all accomplishments this is supreme! Gurther, you are an artist. Some day we shall buy a theatre for you in Unter den Linden, and you shall thrill large audiences.”
“Herr Doktor, this is my own idea; this I have planned for many months. The boots I made myself; even the coat I altered”—he patted his deformed shoulder proudly.
“An eyeglass?”
“I have it,” said Gurther promptly.
“The cravat—is it not too proper?”
Gurther fingered his tie.
“For the grand habit I respectfully claim that the proper tie is desirable, if you will graciously permit.”
The Herr Doktor nodded.
“You shall go with God, Gurther,” he said piously, took a golden cigarette-case from his pocket and handed it to the man. “Sit down, my dear friend.”
He rose and pointed to the chair he had vacated.
“In my own chair, Gurther. Nothing is too good for you. Now here is the arrangement . . .”
Step by step he unfolded the time-table, for chronology was almost as great a passion with this strange and wicked man as it was with Aunt Alma.
So confident was Gurther of his disguise that he had gone in the open to speak to Oberzohn’s chauffeur, and out of the tail of his eye he had seen Manfred and Gonsalez approaching. It was the supreme test and was passed with credit to himself.
He did not dine at Mero’s; Gurther never ate or drank when he was wearing a disguise, knowing just how fatal that occupation could be. Instead, he had called a taxi, and had killed time by being driven slowly round and round the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park.
Gurther was doing a great deal of thinking in these days, and at the cost of much physical discomfort had curtailed his pernicious practices, that his head might be clear all the time. For if he were to live, that clear head of his was necessary. The prisoner in the cellar occupied his thoughts. She had an importance for two reasons: she was a friend of the men whom he hated with a cold and deadly malignity beyond description; she represented wealth untold, and the Herr Doktor had even gone to the length of planning a marriage with her. She was not to be killed, not to be hurt; she was so important that the old man would take the risks attendant upon a marriage. There must be an excellent reason for that, because Dr. Oberzohn had not a very delicate mind.
He seemed to remember that, by the English law, a wife could not give evidence against her husband. He was not sure, but he had a dim notion that Pfeiffer had told him this: Pfeiffer was an educated man and had taken high honours at the gymnasium.
Gurther was not well read. His education had been of a scrappy character, and once upon a time he had been refused a leading part because of his provincial accent. That fault he had corrected in prison, under the tuition of a professor who was serving a life sentence for killing two women; but by the time Gurther had been released, he was a marked man, and the stage was a career lost to him for ever.
Oberzohn possessed advantages which were not his. He was the master; Gurther was the servant. Oberzohn could determine events by reason of his vast authority, and the strings which he pulled in every part of the world. Even Gurther had accepted this position of blind, obedient servant, but now his angle had shifted, even as Oberzohn’s had moved in relation to Montague Newton. Perhaps because of this. The doctor, in curtailing one confidence, was enlarging another, and in the enlargement his prestige suffered.
Gurther was now the confidant, therefore the equal; and logically, the equal can always become the superior. He had dreamed dreams of a life of ease, a gratification of his sense of luxury without the sobering thought that somewhere round the corner was waiting a man ready to tap him on the shoulder . . . a white palace in a flowery land, with blue swimming pools, and supple girls who called him Master. Gurther began to see the light.
Until he had taken his seat in the theatre, he had not so much as glimpsed the man and the woman in the end box.
Joan was happy—happier than she remembered having been. Perhaps it was the reaction from her voluntary imprisonment. Certainly it was Monty’s reluctant agreement to a change of plans which so exalted her. Monty had dropped the thin pretence of an accommodation marriage; and once he was persuaded to this, the last hindrance to enjoyment was dissipated. Let Oberzohn take the girl if he wanted her; take, too, such heavy responsibility as followed. Monty Newton would get all that he wanted without the risk. Having arrived at this decision, he had ordered another bottle of champagne to seal the bargain, and they left Mero’s club a much happier couple than they had been when they entered.
“As soon as we’ve carved up this money, we’ll get away out of England,” he told her as they were driving to the theatre. “What about Buenos Ayres for the winter, old girl?”
She did not know where Buenos Ayres was, but she gurgled her delight at the suggestion, and Monty expatiated upon the joys of the South American summer, the beauties of B.A., its gaieties and amusements.
“I don’t suppose there’ll be any kick coming,” he said, “but it wouldn’t be a bad scheme if we took a trip round the world, and came back in about eighteen months’ time to settle down in London. My hectic past would have been forgotten by then—why, I might even get into Parliament.”
“How wonderful!” she breathed, and then: “What is this play about, Monty?”
“It’s a bit of a thrill, the very play for you—a detective story that will make your hair stand on end.”
She had all the gamin’s morbid interest in murder and crime, and she settled down in the box with a pleasant feeling of anticipation, and watched the development of the first act.
The scene was laid in a club, a low-down resort where the least desirable members of society met, and she drank in every word, because she knew the life, had seen that type of expensively dressed woman who swaggered on to the stage and was addressed familiarly by the club proprietor. She knew that steady-eyed detective when he made his embarrassing appearance. The woman was herself. She even knew the cadaverous wanderer who approached stealthily at the door: a human wolf that fled at the sight of the police officer.
The three who sat in the front row of the stalls—how Leon Gonsalez secured these tickets was one of the minor mysteries of the day—saw her, and one at least felt his heart ache.
Monty beamed his geniality. He had taken sufficient wine to give him a rosy view of the world, and he was even mildly interested in the play, though his chief pleasure was in the girl’s enchantment. He ordered ices for her after the first interval.
“You’re getting quite a theatre fan, kiddie,” he said. “I must take you to some other shows. I had no idea you liked this sort of thing.”
She drew a long breath and smiled at him.
“I like anything when I’m with you,” she said, and they held hands foolishly, till the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose upon a lawyer’s office.
The lawyer was of the underworld: a man everlastingly on the verge of being struck off the rolls. He had betrayed a client with whom he had had dealings, and the man had gone to prison for a long term, but had escaped. Now the news had come that he had left Australia and was in London, waiting his opportunity to destroy the man whose treachery was responsible for his capture.
Here was a note to which the heart of the girl responded. Even Monty found himself leaning forward, as the old familiar cant terms of his trade came across the footlights.
“It is quite all right,” he said at the second interval, “only”—he hesitated—“isn’t it a bit too near the real thing? After all, one doesn’t come to the theatre to see . . .”
He stopped, realizing that conditions and situations familiar to him were novel enough to a fashionable audience which was learning for the first time that a “busy” was a detective, and that a police informer went by the title of “nose.”
The lights up, he glanced round the house, and suddenly he started and caught her arm.
“Don’t look for a moment,” he said, averting his eyes, “then take a glance at the front row. Do you see anybody you know?”
Presently she looked.
“Yes, that is the fellow you hate so much, isn’t it—Gonsalez?”
“They’re all there—the three of them,” said Monty. “I wonder,”—he was troubled at the thought—“I wonder if they’re looking for you?”
“For me? They’ve nothing on me, Monty.”
He was silent.
“I’m glad you’re not going back to that place to-night. They’ll trail you sure—sure!”
He thought later that it was probably a coincidence that they were there at all. They seemed to show no interest in the box, but were chattering and talking and laughing to one another. Not once did their eyes come up to his level, and after a while he gained in confidence, though he was glad enough when the play was resumed.
There were two scenes in the act: the first was a police station, the second the lawyer’s room. The man was drunk, and the detective had come to warn him that The Ringer was after him. And then suddenly the lights on the stage were extinguished and the whole house was in the dark. It was part of the plot. In this darkness, and in the very presence of the police, the threatened man was to be murdered. They listened in tense silence, the girl craning her head forward, trying to pierce the dark, listening to the lines of intense dialogue that were coming from the blackness of the stage. Somebody was in the room—a woman, and they had found her. She slipped from the stage detective’s grasp and vanished, and when the lights went up she was gone.
“What has happened, Monty?” she whispered.
He did not answer.
“Do you think——”
She looked round at him. His head was resting on the plush-covered ledge of the box. His face, turned towards her, was grey; the eyes were closed, and his teeth showed in a hideous grin.
She screamed.
“Monty! Monty!”
She shook him. Again her scream rang through the house. At first the audience thought that it was a woman driven hysterical by the tenseness of the stage situation, and then one or two people rose from their stalls and looked up.
“Monty! Speak to me! He’s dead, he’s dead!”
Three seats in the front row had emptied. The screams of the hysterical girl made it impossible for the scene to proceed, and the curtain came down quickly.
The house was seething with excitement. Every face was turned towards the box where she knelt by the side of the dead man, clasping him in her arms, and the shrill agony in her voice was unnerving.
The door of the box swung open, and Manfred dashed in. One glance he gave at Monty Newton, and he needed no other.
“Get the girl out,” he said curtly.
Leon tried to draw her from the box, but she was a shrieking fury.
“You did it, you did it! . . . Let me go to him!”
Leon lifted her from her feet, and, clawing wildly at his face, she was carried from the box.
The manager was running along the passage, and Leon sent him on with a jerk of his head. And then a woman in evening dress came from somewhere.
“May I take her?” she said, and the exhausted girl collapsed into her arms.
Gonsalez flew back to the box. The man was lying on the floor, and the manager, standing at the edge of the box, was addressing the audience.
“The gentleman has fainted, and I’m afraid his friend has become a little hysterical. I must apologize to you, ladies and gentlemen, for this interruption. If you will allow us a minute to clear the box, the play will be resumed. If there is a doctor in the house, I should be glad if he would come.”
There were two doctors within reach, and in the passage, which was now guarded by a commissionaire, a hasty examination was made. They examined the punctured wound at the back of the neck and then looked at one another.
“This is The Snake,” said one.
“The house mustn’t know,” said Manfred. “He’s dead, of course?”
The doctor nodded.
Out in the passage was a big emergency exit door, and this the manager pushed open, and, running out into the street, found a cab, into which all that was mortal of Monty Newton was lifted.
Whilst this was being done, Poiccart returned.
“His car has just driven off,” he said. “I saw the number-plate as it turned into Lisle Street.”
“How long ago?” asked Gonsalez quickly.
“At this very moment.”
Leon pinched his lip thoughtfully.
“Why didn’t he wait, I wonder?”
He went back through the emergency door, which was being closed, and passed up the passage towards the entrance. The box was on the dress-circle level, and the end of a short passage brought him into the circle itself.
And then the thought of the lame man occurred to him, and his eyes sought the first seat in the front row, which was also the seat nearest to the boxes. The man had gone.
As he made this discovery, George emerged from the passage.
“Gurther!” said Leon. “What a fool I am! But how clever!”
“Gurther?” said Manfred in amazement. “Do you mean the man with the club foot?”
Leon nodded.
“He was not alone, of course,” said Gonsalez. “There must have been two or three of the gang here, men and women—Oberzohn works these schemes out with the care and thoroughness of a general. I wonder where the management have taken the girl?”
He found the manager discussing the tragedy with two other men, one of whom was obviously associated with the production, and he signalled him aside.
“The lady? I suppose she’s gone home. She’s left the theatre.”
“Which way did she go?” asked Gonsalez, in a sudden panic.
The manager called a linkman, who had seen a middle-aged woman come out of the theatre with a weeping girl, and they had gone down the side-street towards the little square at the back of the playhouse.
“She may have taken her home to Chester Square,” said Manfred. His voice belied the assumption of confidence.
Leon had not brought his own machine, and they drove to Chester Square in a taxi. Fred, the footman, had neither heard nor seen the girl, and nearly fainted when he learned of the tragic ending to his master’s career.
“Oh, my God!” he groaned. “And he only left here this afternoon . . . dead, you say?”
Gonsalez nodded.
“Not—not The Snake?” faltered the man.
“What do you know about the snake?” demanded Manfred sternly.
“Nothing, except—well, the snake made him nervous, I know. He told me to-day that he hoped he’d get through the week without a snake-bite.”
He was questioned closely, but although it was clear that he knew something of his master’s illicit transactions, and that he was connected in business with Oberzohn, the footman had no connection with the doctor’s gang. He drew a large wage and a percentage of profits from the gaming side of the business, and confessed that it was part of his duties to prepare stacks of cards and pass them to his master under cover of bringing in the drinks. But of anything more sinister he knew nothing.
“The woman, of course, was a confederate, who had been planted to take charge of the girl the moment the snake struck. I was in such a state of mind,” confessed Leon, “that I do not even remember what she looked like. I am a fool—a double-distilled idiot! I think I must be getting old. There’s only one thing for us to do, and that is to get back to Curzon Street—something may have turned up.”
“Did you leave anybody in the house?”
Leon nodded.
“Yes, I left one of our men, to take any ’phone messages that came through.”
They paid off the taxi before the house, and Leon sprinted to the garage to get the car. The man who opened the door to them was he who had been tied up by the pedlar at Heavytree Farm, and his first words came as a shock to Manfred:
“Digby’s here, sir.”
“Digby?” said the other in surprise. “I thought he was on duty?”
“He’s been here since just after you left, sir. If I’d known where you had gone, I’d have sent him to you.”
Digby came out of the waiting-room at that moment, ready to apologize.
“I had to see you, sir, and I’m sorry I’m away from my post.”
“You may not be missing much,” said Manfred unsmilingly. “Come upstairs and tell me all about it.”
Digby’s story was a strange one. He had gone down that afternoon to the canal bank to make a reconnaissance of ground which was new to him.
“I’m glad I did too, because the walls have got broken glass on top. I went up into the Old Kent Road and bought a garden hoe, and prised the mortar loose, so that if I wanted, I could get over. And then I climbed round the water-gate and had a look at that barge of his. There was nobody about, though I think they spotted me afterwards. It is a fairly big barge, and, of course, in a terrible state, but the hold is full of cargo—you know that, sir?”
“You mean there is something in the barge?”
Digby nodded.
“Yes, it has a load of some kind. The after part, where the bargee’s sleeping quarters are, is full of rats and water, but the fore part of the vessel is water-tight, and it holds something heavy too. That is why the barge is down by its head in the mud. I was in the Thames police and I know a lot about river craft.”
“Is that what you came to tell me?”
“No, sir, it was something queerer than that. After I’d given the barge a look over and tried to pull up some of the boards—which I didn’t manage to do—I went along and had a look at the factory. It’s not so easy to get in, because the entrance faces the house, but to get to it you have to go half round the building, and that gives you a certain amount of cover. There was nothing I could see in the factory itself. It was in a terrible mess, full of old iron and burnt-out boxes. I was coming round the back of the building,” he went on impressively, “when I smelt a peculiar scent.”
“A perfume?”
“Yes, sir, it was perfume, but stronger—more like incense. I thought at first it might be an old bale of stuff that had been thrown out, or else I was deceiving myself. I began poking about in the rubbish heaps—buttheydidn’t smell of scent! Then I went back into the building again, but there was no smell at all. It was very strong when I returned to the back of the factory, and then I saw a little waft of smoke come out of a ventilator close to the ground. My first idea was that the place was on fire, but when I knelt down, it was this scent.”
“Joss-sticks?” said Poiccart quickly.
“That’s what it was!” said the detective. “Like incense, yet not like it. I knelt down and listened at the grating, and I’ll swear that I heard voices. They were very faint.”
“Men’s?”
“No, women’s.”
“Could you see anything?”
“No, sir, it was a blind ventilator; there was probably a shaft there—in fact, I’m sure there was, because I pushed a stone through one of the holes and heard it drop some distance down.”
“There may be an underground room there,” said Poiccart, “and somebody’s burnt joss-sticks to sweeten the atmosphere.”
“Under the factory? It’s not in the plans of the building. I’ve had them from the surveyor’s office and examined them,” said George, “although surveyors’ plans aren’t infallible. A man like Oberzohn would not hesitate to break so unimportant a thing as a building law!”
Leon came in at that moment, heard the story and was in complete agreement with Poiccart’s theory.
“I wondered at the time we saw the plans whether we ought to accept that as conclusive,” he said. “The store was built at the end of 1914, when architects and builders took great liberties and pleaded the exigencies of the war.”
Digby went on with his story.
“I was going back to the barge to get past the water-gate, but I saw the old man coming down the steps of the house, so I climbed the wall, and very glad I was that I’d shifted that broken glass, or I should never have got over.”
Manfred pulled his watch from his pocket with a frown. They had lost nearly an hour of precious time with their inquiries in Chester Square.
“I hope we’re not too late,” he said ominously. “Now, Leon . . .”
But Leon had gone down the stairs in three strides.