Chapter IIIThe Vendetta
THE man who that morning walked without announcement into Dr. Oberzohn’s office might have stepped from the pages of a catalogue of men’s fashions. He was, to the initiated eye, painfully new. His lemon gloves, his dazzling shoes, the splendour of his silk hat, the very correctness of his handkerchief display, would have been remarkable even in the Ascot paddock on Cup day. He was good-looking, smooth, if a trifle plump, of face, and he wore a tawny little moustache and a monocle. People who did not like Captain Monty Newton—and their names were many—said of him that he aimed at achieving the housemaid’s conception of a guardsman. They did not say this openly, because he was a man to be propitiated rather than offended. He had money, a place in the country, a house in Chester Square, and an assortment of cars. He was a member of several good clubs, the committees of which never discussed him without offering the excuse of war-time courtesies for his election. Nobody knew how he made his money, or, if it were inherited, whose heir he was. He gave extravagant parties, played cards well, and enjoyed exceptional luck, especially when he was the host and held the bank after one of the splendid dinners he gave in his Chester Square mansion.
“Good morning, Oberzohn—how is Smitts?”
It was his favourite jest, for there was no Smitts, and had been no Smitts in the firm since ’96.
The doctor, peering down at the telegram he was writing, looked up.
“Good morning, Captain Newton,” he said precisely.
Newton passed to the back of him and read the message he was writing. It was addressed to “Miss Alma Goddard, Heavytree Farm, Daynham, Gloucester,” and the wire ran:
“Have got the fine situation. Cannot expeditiously return to-night. I am sleeping at our pretty flat in Doughty Court. Do not come up until I send for you.—Miss Mirabelle Leicester.”
“Have got the fine situation. Cannot expeditiously return to-night. I am sleeping at our pretty flat in Doughty Court. Do not come up until I send for you.—Miss Mirabelle Leicester.”
“She’s here, is she?” Captain Newton glanced at the laboratory door. “You’re not going to send that wire? ‘Miss Mirabelle Leicester!’ ‘Expeditiously return!’ She’d tumble it in a minute. Who is Alma Goddard?”
“The aunt,” said Oberzohn. “I did not intend the dispatching until you had seen it. My English is too correct.”
He made way for Captain Newton, who, having taken a sheet of paper from the rack on which to deposit with great care his silk hat, and having stripped his gloves and deposited them in his hat, sat down in the chair from which the older man had risen, pulled up the knees of his immaculate trousers, tore off the top telegraph form, and wrote under the address:
“Have got the job. Hooray! Don’t bother to come up, darling, until I am settled. Shall sleep at the flat as usual. Too busy to write. Keep my letters.—Mirabelle.”
“Have got the job. Hooray! Don’t bother to come up, darling, until I am settled. Shall sleep at the flat as usual. Too busy to write. Keep my letters.—Mirabelle.”
“That’s real,” said Captain Newton, surveying his work with satisfaction. “Push it off.”
He got up and straddled his legs before the fire.
“The hard part of the job may be to persuade the lady to come to Chester Square,” he said.
“My own little house——” began Oberzohn.
“Would scare her to death,” said Newton with a loud laugh. “That dog-kennel! No, it is Chester Square or nothing. I’ll get Joan or one of the girls to drop in this afternoon and chum up with her. When does theBenguellaarrive?”
“This afternoon: the person has booked rooms by radio at the Petworth Hotel.”
“Norfolk Street . . . humph! One of your men can pick him up and keep an eye on him. Lisa? So much the better. That kind of trash will talk for a woman. I don’t suppose he has seen a white woman in years. You ought to fire Villa—crude beast! Naturally the man is on his guard now.”
“Villa is the best of my men on the coast,” barked Oberzohn fiercely. Nothing so quickly touched the raw places of his amazing vanity as a reflection upon his organizing qualities.
“How is trade?”
Captain Newton took a long ebony holder from his tail pocket, flicked out a thin platinum case and lit a cigarette in one uninterrupted motion.
“Bat!” When Dr. Oberzohn was annoyed the purity of his pronunciation suffered. “There is nothing but expense!”
Oberzohn & Smitts had once made an enormous income from the sale of synthetic alcohol. They were, amongst other things, coast traders. They bought rubber and ivory, paying in cloth and liquor. They sold arms secretly, organized tribal wars for their greater profit, and had financed at least two Portuguese revolutions nearer at home. And with the growth of their fortune, the activities of the firm had extended. Guns and more guns went out of Belgian and French workshops. To Kurdish insurrectionaries, to ambitious Chinese generals, to South American politicians, planning to carry their convictions into more active fields. There was no country in the world that did not act as host to an O. & S. agent—and agents can be very expensive. Just now the world was alarmingly peaceful. A revolution had failed most dismally in Venezuela, and Oberzohn & Smitts had not been paid for two ship-loads of lethal weapons ordered by a general who, two days after the armaments were landed, had been placed against anadobewall and incontinently shot to rags by the soldiers of the Government against which he was in rebellion.
“But that shall not matter.” Oberzohn waved bad trade from the considerable factors of life. “This shall succeed: and then I shall be free to well punish——”
“To punish well,” corrected the purist, stroking his moustache. “Don’t split your infinitives, Eruc—it’s silly. You’re thinking of Manfred and Gonsalez and Poiccart? Leave them alone. They are nothing!”
“Nothing!” roared the doctor, his sallow face instantly distorted with fury. “To leave them alone, is it? Of my brother what? Of my brother in heaven, sainted martyr . . . !”
He spun round, gripped the silken tassel of the cord above the fire-place, and pulled down, not a map, but a picture. It had been painted from a photograph by an artist who specialized in the gaudy banners which hang before every booth at every country fair. In this setting the daub was a shrieking incongruity; yet to Dr. Oberzohn it surpassed in beauty the masterpieces of the Prado. A full-length portrait of a man in a frock-coat. He leaned on a pedestal in the attitude which cheap photographers believe is the acme of grace. His big face, idealized as it was by the artist, was brutal and stupid. The carmine lips were parted in a simper. In one hand he held a scroll of paper, in the other a Derby hat which was considerably out of drawing.
“My brother!” Dr. Oberzohn choked. “My sainted Adolph . . . murdered! By the so-called Three Just Men . . . my brother!”
“Very interesting,” murmured Captain Newton, who had not even troubled to look up. He flicked the ash from his cigarette into the fire-place and said no more.
Adolph Oberzohn had certainly been shot dead by Leon Gonsalez: there was no disputing the fact. That Adolph, at the moment of his death, was attempting to earn the generous profits which come to those who engage in a certain obnoxious trade between Europe and the South American states, was less open to question. There was a girl in it: Leon followed his man to Porto Rico, and in the Café of the Seven Virtues they had met. Adolph was by training a gunman and drew first—and died first. That was the story of Adolph Oberzohn: the story of a girl whom Leon Gonsalez smuggled back to Europe belongs elsewhere. She fell in love with her rescuer and frightened him sick.
Dr. Oberzohn let the portrait roll up with a snap, blew his nose vigorously, and blinked the tears from his pale eyes.
“Yes, very sad, very sad,” said the captain cheerfully. “Now what about this girl? There is to be nothing rough or raw, you understand, Eruc? I want the thing done sweetly. Get that bug of the Just Men out of your mind—they are out of business. When a man lowers himself to run a detective agency he’s a back number. If they start anything we’ll deal with them scientifically, eh? Scientifically!”
He chuckled with laughter at this good joke. It was obvious that Captain Newton was no dependant on the firm of Oberzohn & Smitts. If he was not the dominant partner, he dominated that branch which he had once served in a minor capacity. He owed much to the death of Adolph—he never regretted the passing of that unsavoury man.
“I’ll get one of the girls to look her over this afternoon—where is your telephone pad—the one you write messages received?”
The doctor opened a drawer of his desk and took out a little memo pad, and Newton found a pencil and wrote:
“To Mirabelle Leicester, care Oberzohn (Phone) London. Sorry I can’t come up to-night. Don’t sleep at flat alone. Have wired Joan Newton to put you up for night. She will call.—Alma.”
“To Mirabelle Leicester, care Oberzohn (Phone) London. Sorry I can’t come up to-night. Don’t sleep at flat alone. Have wired Joan Newton to put you up for night. She will call.—Alma.”
“There you are,” said the gallant captain, handing the pad to the other. “That message came this afternoon. All telegrams to Oberzohn come by ’phone—never forget it!”
“Ingenious creature!” Dr. Oberzohn’s admiration was almost reverential.
“Take her out to lunch . . . after lunch, the message. At four o’clock, Joan or one of the girls. A select dinner. To-morrow the office . . . gently, gently. Bull-rush these schemes and your plans die the death of a dog.”
He glanced at the door once more.
“She won’t come out, I suppose?” he suggested. “Deuced awkward if she came out and saw Miss Newton’s brother!”
“I have locked the door,” said Dr. Oberzohn proudly.
Captain Newton’s attitude changed: his face went red with sudden fury.
“Then you’re a—you’re a fool! Unlock the door when I’ve gone—and keep it unlocked! Want to frighten her?”
“It was my idea to risk nothing,” pleaded the long-faced Swede.
“Do as I tell you.”
Captain Newton brushed his speckless coat with the tips of his fingers. He pulled on his gloves, fitted his hat with the aid of a small pocket-mirror he took from his inside pocket, took up his clouded cane and strolled from the room.
“Ingenious creature,” murmured Dr. Oberzohn again, and went in to offer the startled Mirabelle an invitation to lunch.
Chapter IVThe Snake Strikes
THE great restaurant, with its atmosphere of luxury and wealth, had been a little overpowering. The crowded tables, the soft lights, the very capability and nonchalance of the waiters, were impressive. When her new employer had told her that it was his practice to take the laboratory secretary to lunch, “for I have no other time to speak of business things,” she accepted uncomfortably. She knew little of office routine, but she felt that it was not customary for principals to drive their secretaries from the City Road to the Ritz-Carlton to lunch expensively at that resort of fashion and the epicure. It added nothing to her self-possession that her companion was an object of interest to all who saw him. The gay luncheon-parties forgot their dishes and twisted round to stare at the extraordinary-looking man with the high forehead.
At a little table alone she saw a man whose face was tantalizingly familiar. A keen, thin face with eager, amused eyes. Where had she seen him before? Then she remembered: the chauffeur had such a face—the man who had followed her into Oberzohn’s when she arrived that morning. It was absurd, of course; this man was one of the leisured class, to whom lunching at the Ritz-Carlton was a normal event. And yet the likeness was extraordinary.
She was glad when the meal was over. Dr. Oberzohn did not talk of “business things.” He did not talk at all, but spent his time shovelling incredible quantities of food through his wide slit of a mouth. He ate intently, noisily—Mirabelle was glad the band was playing, and she went red with suppressed laughter at the whimsical thought; and after that she felt less embarrassed.
No word was spoken as the big car sped citywards. The doctor had his thoughts and ignored her presence. The only reference he made to the lunch was as they were leaving the hotel, when he had condescended to grunt a bitter complaint about the quality of English-made coffee.
He allowed her to go back to her weighing and measuring without displaying the slightest interest in her progress.
And then came the crowning surprise of the afternoon—it followed the arrival of a puzzling telegram from her aunt. She was weighing an evil-smelling mass of powder when the door opened and there floated into the room a delicate-looking girl, beautifully dressed. A small face framed in a mass of little golden-brown curls smiled a greeting.
“You’re Mirabelle Leicester, aren’t you? I’m Joan Newton—your aunt wired me to call on you.”
“Do you know my aunt?” asked Mirabelle in astonishment. She had never heard Alma speak of the Newtons, but then, Aunt Alma had queer reticences. Mirabelle had expected a middle-aged dowd—it was amazing that her unprepossessing relative could claim acquaintance with this society butterfly.
“Oh, yes—we know Alma very well,” replied the visitor. “Of course, I haven’t seen her since I wasquitea little girl—she’s a dear.”
She looked round the laboratory with curious interest.
“What a nasty-smelling place!” she said, her nose upturned. “And how do you like old—er—Mr. Oberzohn?”
“Do you know him?” asked Mirabelle, astounded at the possibility of this coincidence.
“My brother knows him—we live together, my brother and I, and he knows everybody. A man about town has to, hasn’t he, dear?”
“Man about town” was an expression that grated a little; Mirabelle was not of the “dearing” kind. The combination of errors in taste made her scrutinize the caller more closely. Joan Newton was dressed beautifully but not well. There was something . . . Had Mirabelle a larger knowledge of life, she might have thought that the girl had been dressed to play the part of a lady by somebody who wasn’t quite sure of the constituents of the part. Captain Newton she did not know at the time, or she would have guessed the dress authority.
“I’m going to take you back to Chester Square after Mr. Oberzohn—such a funny name, isn’t it?—has done with you. Monty insisted upon my bringing the Rolls. Monty is my brother; he’s rather classical.”
Mirabelle wondered whether this indicated a love of the Greek poets or a passion for the less tuneful operas. Joan (which was her real name) meant no more than classy: it was a favourite word of hers; another was “morbid.”
Half an hour later the inquisitive chauffeur put his foot on the starter and sent his car on the trail of the Rolls, wondering what Mirabelle Leicester had in common with Joan Alice Murphy, who had brought so many rich young men to the green board in Captain Newton’s beautiful drawing-room, where stakes ran high and the captain played with such phenomenal luck.
“And there you are,” said Gonsalez complacently. “I’ve done a very good day’s work. Oberzohn has gone back to his rabbit-hutch to think up new revolutions—Miss Mirabelle Leicester is to be found at 307, Chester Square. Now the point is, what do we do to save the valuable life of Mr. Sam Barberton?”
Manfred looked grave.
“I hardly like the thought of the girl spending the night in Newton’s house,” he said.
“Why allow her to remain there?” asked Poiccart in his heavy way.
“Exactly!” Leon nodded.
George Manfred looked at his watch.
“Obviously the first person to see is friend Barberton,” he said. “If we can prevail on him to spend the evening with us, the rest is a simple matter——”
The telephone bell rang shrilly and Leon Gonsalez monopolized the instrument.
“Gloucester? Yes.” He covered the receiver with his hand. “I took the liberty of asking Miss Alma Goddard to ring me up . . . her address I discovered very early in the day: Heavytree Farm, Daynham, near Gloucester . . . yes, yes, it is Mr. Johnson speaking. I wanted to ask you if you would take a message to Miss Leicester . . . oh, she isn’t at home?” Leon listened attentively, and, after a few minutes: “Thank you very much. She is staying at Doughty Court? She wired you . . . oh, nothing very important. I—er—am her old science master and I saw an advertisement . . . oh, she has seen it, has she?”
He hung up the receiver.
“Nothing to go on,” he said. “The girl has wired to say she is delighted with her job. The aunt is not to come up until she is settled, and Mirabelle is sleeping at Doughty Court.”
“And a very excellent place too,” said Manfred. “When we’ve seen Mr. Barberton I shouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t sleep there after all.”
Petworth Hotel in Norfolk Street was a sedate residential hostel, greatly favoured by overseas visitors, especially South Africans. The reception clerk thought Mr. Barberton was out: the hall porter was sure.
“He went down to the Embankment—he said he’d like to see the river before it was dark,” said that confidant of so many visitors.
Manfred stepped into the car by Leon’s side—Poiccart seldom went abroad, but sat at home piecing together the little jigsaw puzzles of life that came to Curzon Street for solution. He was the greatest of all the strategists: even Scotland Yard brought some of its problems for his inspection.
“On the Embankment?” Manfred looked up at the blue and pink sky. The sun had gone down, but the light of day remained. “If it were darker I should be worried . . . stop, there’s Dr. Elver.”
The little police surgeon who had passed them with a cheery wave of his hand turned and walked back.
“Well, Children of the Law”—he was inclined to be dramatic—“on what dread errand of vengeance are you bound?”
“We are looking for a man named Barberton to ask him to dinner,” said Manfred, shaking hands.
“Sounds tame to me: has he any peculiarities which would appeal to me?”
“Burnt feet,” said Leon promptly. “If you would like to learn how the coastal intelligence department extract information from unwilling victims, come along.”
Elver hesitated. He was a man burnt up by the Indian suns, wizened like a dried yellow apple, and he had no interest in the world beyond his work.
“I’ll go with you,” he said, stepping into the car. “And if your Barberton man fails you, you can have me as a guest. I like to hear you talking. One cannot know too much of the criminal mind! And life is dull since the snake stopped biting!”
The car made towards Blackfriars Bridge, and Manfred kept watch of the sidewalk. There was no sign of Barberton, and he signalled Leon to turn and come back. This brought the machine to the Embankment side of the broad boulevard. They had passed under Waterloo Bridge and were nearing Cleopatra’s Needle when Gonsalez saw the man they were seeking.
He was leaning against the parapet, his elbows on the coping and his head sunk forward as though he were studying the rush of the tide below. The car pulled up near a policeman who was observing the lounger thoughtfully. The officer recognized the police surgeon and saluted.
“Can’t understand that bird, sir,” he said. “He’s been standing there for ten minutes—I’m keeping an eye on him because he looks to me like a suicide who’s thinkin’ it over!”
Manfred approached the man, and suddenly, with a shock, saw his face. It was set in a grin—the eyes were wide open, the skin a coppery red.
“Elver! Leon!”
As Leon sprang from the car, Manfred touched the man’s shoulder and he fell limply to the ground. In a second the doctor was on his knees by the side of the still figure.
“Dead,” he said laconically, and then: “Good God!”
He pointed to the neck, where a red patch showed.
“What is that?” asked Manfred steadily.
“The snake!” said the doctor.
Chapter VThe Golden Woman
BARBERTON had been stricken down in the heart of London, under the very eyes of the policeman, it proved.
“Yes, sir, I’ve had him under observation for a quarter of an hour. I saw him walking along the Embankment, admiring the view, long before he stopped here.”
“Did anybody go near him or speak to him?” asked Dr. Elver, looking up.
“No, sir, he stood by himself. I’ll swear that nobody was within two yards of him. Of course, people have been passing to and fro, but I have been looking at him all the time, and I’ve not seen man or woman within yards of him, and my eyes were never off him.”
A second policeman had appeared on the scene, and he was sent across to Scotland Yard in Manfred’s car, for the ambulance and the police reserves necessary to clear and keep in circulation the gathering crowd. These returned simultaneously, and the two friends watched the pitiable thing lifted into a stretcher, and waited until the white-bodied vehicle had disappeared with its sad load before they returned to their machine.
Gonsalez took his place at the wheel; George got in by his side. No word was spoken until they were back at Curzon Street. Manfred went in alone, whilst his companion drove the machine to the garage. When he returned, he found Poiccart and George deep in discussion.
“You were right, Raymond.” Leon Gonsalez stripped his thin coat and threw it on a chair. “The accuracy of your forecasts is almost depressing. I am waiting all the time for the inevitable mistake, and I am irritated when this doesn’t occur. You said the snake would reappear, and the snake has reappeared. Prophesy now for me, O seer!”
Poiccart’s heavy face was gloomy; his dark eyes almost hidden under the frown that brought his bushy eyebrows lower.
“One hasn’t to be a seer to know that our association with Barberton will send the snake wriggling towards Curzon Street,” he said. “Was it Gurther or Pfeiffer?”
Manfred considered.
“Pfeiffer, I think. He is the steadier of the two. Gurther has brain-storms; he is on the neurotic side. And that nine-thonged whip of yours, Leon, cannot have added to his mental stability. No, it was Pfeiffer, I’m sure.”
“I suppose the whip unbalanced him a little,” said Leon. He thought over this aspect as though it were one worth consideration. “Gurther is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde, except that there is no virtue to him at all. It is difficult to believe, seeing him dropping languidly into his seat at the opera, that this exquisite young man in his private moments would not change his linen more often than once a month, and would shudder at the sound of a running bath-tap! That almost sounds as though he were a morphia fiend. I remember a case in ’99 . . . but I am interrupting you?”
“What precautions shall you take, Leon?” asked George Manfred.
“Against the snake?” Leon shrugged his shoulders. “The old military precaution against Zeppelin raids; the precaution the farmer takes against a plague of wasps. You cannot kneel on the chest of thevespa vulgarisand extract his sting with an anæsthetic. You destroy his nest—you bomb his hangar. Personally, I have never feared dissolution in any form, but I have a childish objection to being bitten by a snake.”
Poiccart’s saturnine face creased for a moment in a smile.
“You’ve no objection to stealing my theories,” he said dryly, and the other doubled up in silent laughter.
Manfred was pacing the little room, his hands behind him, a thick Egyptian cigarette between his lips.
“There’s a train leaves Paddington for Gloucester at ten forty-five,” he said. “Will you telegraph to Miss Goddard, Heavytree Farm, and ask her to meet the train with a cab? After that I shall want two men to patrol the vicinity of the farm day and night.”
Poiccart pulled open a drawer of the desk, took out a small book and ran his finger down the index.
“I can get this service in Gloucester,” he said. “Gordon, Williams, Thompson and Elfred—they’re reliable people and have worked for us before.”
Manfred nodded.
“Send them the usual instructions by letter. I wonder who will be in charge of this Barberton case. If it’s Meadows, I can work with him. On the other hand, if it’s Arbuthnot, we shall have to get our information by subterranean methods.”
“Call Elver,” suggested Leon, and George pulled the telephone towards him.
It was some time before he could get into touch with Dr. Elver, and then he learnt, to his relief, that the redoubtable Inspector Meadows had complete charge.
“He’s coming up to see you,” said Elver. “As a matter of fact, the chief was here when I arrived at the Yard, and he particularly asked Meadows to consult with you. There’s going to be an awful kick at the Home Secretary’s office about this murder. We had practically assured the Home Office that there would be no repetition of the mysterious deaths and that the snake had gone dead for good.”
Manfred asked a few questions and then hung up.
“They are worried about the public—you never know what masses will do in given circumstances. But you can gamble that the English mass does the same thing—Governments hate intelligent crowds. This may cost the Home Secretary his job, poor soul! And he’s doing his best.”
A strident shout in the street made him turn his head with a smile.
“The late editions have got it—naturally. It might have been committed on their doorstep.”
“But why?” asked Poiccart. “What was Barberton’s offence?”
“His first offence,” said Leon promptly, without waiting for Manfred to reply, “was to go in search of Miss Mirabelle Leicester. His second and greatest was to consult with us. He was a dead man when he left the house.”
The faint sound of a bell ringing sent Poiccart down to the hall to admit an unobtrusive, middle-aged man, who might have been anything but what he was: one of the cleverest trackers of criminals that Scotland Yard had known in thirty years. A sandy-haired, thin-faced man, who wore pince-nez and looked like an actor, he had been a visitor to Curzon Street before, and now received a warm welcome. With little preliminary he came to the object of his call, and Manfred told him briefly what had happened, and the gist of his conversation with Barberton.
“Miss Mirabelle Leicester is——” began Manfred.
“Employed by Oberzohn—I know,” was the surprising reply. “She came up to London this morning and took a job as laboratory assistant. I had no idea that Oberzohn & Smitts had a laboratory on the premises.”
“They hadn’t until a couple of days ago,” interrupted Leon. “The laboratory was staged especially for her.”
Meadows nodded, then turned to Manfred.
“He didn’t give you any idea at all why he wanted to meet Miss Leicester?”
George shook his head.
“No, he was very mysterious indeed on that subject,” he said.
“He arrived by theBenguella, eh?” said Meadows, making a note. “We ought to get something from the ship before they pay off their stewards. If a man isn’t communicative on board ship, he’ll never talk at all! And we may find something in his belongings. Would you like to come along, Manfred?”
“I’ll come with pleasure,” said George gravely. “I may help you a little—you will not object to my making my own interpretation of what we see?”
Meadows smiled.
“You will be allowed your private mystery,” he said.
A taxi set them down at the Petworth Hotel in Norfolk Street, and they were immediately shown up to the room which the dead man had hired but had not as yet occupied. His trunk, still strapped and locked, stood on a small wooden trestle, his overcoat was hanging behind the door; in one corner of the room was a thick hold-all, tightly strapped, and containing, as they subsequently discovered, a weather-stained mackintosh, two well-worn blankets and an air pillow, together with a collapsible canvas chair, also showing considerable signs of usage. This was the object of their preliminary search.
The lock of the trunk yielded to the third key which the detective tried. Beyond changes of linen and two suits, one of which was practically new and bore the tab of a store in St. Paul de Loanda, there was very little to enlighten them. They found an envelope full of papers, and sorted them out one by one on the bed. Barberton was evidently a careful man: he had preserved his hotel bills, writing on their backs brief but pungent comments about the accommodation he had enjoyed or suffered. There was an hotel in Lobuo which was full of vermin; there was one at Mossamedes of which he had written: “Rats ate one boot. Landlord made no allowance. Took three towels and pillow-slip.”
“One of the Four Just Men in embryo,” said Meadows dryly.
Manfred smiled.
On the back of one bill were closely written columns of figures: “12/6, 13/15, 10/7, 17/12, about 24,” etc. Against a number of these figures the word “about” appeared, and Manfred observed that invariably this qualification marked one of the higher numbers. Against the 10/7 was a thick pencil mark.
There were amongst the papers several other receipts. In St. Paul he had bought a “pistol automatic of precision” and ammunition for the same. The “pistol automatic of precision” was not in the trunk.
“We found it in his pocket,” said Meadows briefly. “That fellow was expecting trouble, and was entitled to, if it is true that they tortured him at Mosamodes.”
“Moss-am-o-dees,” Manfred corrected the mispronunciation. It almost amounted to a fad in him that to hear a place miscalled gave him a little pain.
Meadows was reading a letter, turning the pages slowly.
“This is from his sister: she lives at Brightlingsea, and there’s nothing in it except . . .” He read a portion of the letter aloud:
“. . . thank you for the books. The children will appreciate them. It must have been like old times writing them—but I can understand how it helped pass the time. Mr. Lee came over and asked if I had heard from you. He is wonderful.”
“. . . thank you for the books. The children will appreciate them. It must have been like old times writing them—but I can understand how it helped pass the time. Mr. Lee came over and asked if I had heard from you. He is wonderful.”
The letter was in an educated hand.
“He didn’t strike me as a man who wrote books,” said Meadows, and continued his search.
Presently he unfolded a dilapidated map, evidently of Angola. It was rather on the small scale, so much so that it took in a portion of the Kalahari Desert in the south, and showed in the north the undulations of the rolling Congo.
“No marks of any kind,” said Meadows, carrying the chart to the window to examine it more carefully. “And that, I think, is about all—unless this is something.”
“This” was wrapped in a piece of cloth, and was fastened to the bottom and the sides of the trunk by two improvised canvas straps. Meadows tried to pull it loose and whistled.
“Gold,” he said. “Nothing else can weigh quite as heavily as this.”
He lifted out the bundle eventually, unwrapped the covering, and gazed in amazement on the object that lay under his eyes. It was an Africanbête, a nude, squat idol, rudely shaped, the figure of a native woman.
“Gold?” said Manfred incredulously, and tried to lift it with his finger and thumb. He took a firmer grip and examined the discovery closely.
There was no doubt that it was gold, and fine gold. His thumb-nail made a deep scratch in the base of the statuette. He could see the marks where the knife of the inartistic sculptor had sliced and carved.
Meadows knew the coast fairly well: he had made many trips to Africa and had stopped off at various ports en route.
“I’ve never seen anything exactly like it before,” he said, “and it isn’t recent workmanship either. When you see this”—he pointed to a physical peculiarity of the figure—“you can bet that you’ve got something that’s been made at least a couple of hundred years, and probably before then. The natives of West and Central Africa have not worn toe-rings, for example, since the days of the Cæsars.”
He weighed the idol in his hand.
“Roughly ten pounds,” he said. “In other words, eight hundred pounds’ worth of gold.”
He was examining the cloth in which the idol had been wrapped, and uttered an exclamation.
“Look at this,” he said.
Written on one corner, in indelible pencil, were the words:
“Second shelf up left Gods lobby sixth.”
Suddenly Manfred remembered.
“Would you have this figure put on the scales right away?” he said. “I’m curious to know the exact weight.”
“Why?” asked Meadows in surprise, as he rang the bell.
The proprietor himself, who was aware that a police search was in progress, answered the call, and, at the detective’s request, hurried down to the kitchen and returned in a few minutes with a pair of scales, which he placed on the table. He was obviously curious to know the purpose for which they were intended, but Inspector Meadows did not enlighten him, standing pointedly by the door until the gentleman had gone.
The figure was taken from under the cloth where it had been hidden whilst the scales were being placed, and put in one shallow pan on the machine.
“Ten pounds seven ounces,” nodded Manfred triumphantly. “I thought that was the one!”
“One what?” asked the puzzled Meadows.
“Look at this list.”
Manfred found the hotel bill with the rows of figures and pointed to the one which had a black cross against it.
“10/7,” he said. “That is our little fellow, and the explanation is fairly plain. Barberton found some treasure-house filled with these statues. He took away the lightest. Look at the figures! He weighed them with a spring balance, one of those which register up to 21 lbs. Above that he had to guess—he puts ‘about 24,’ ‘about 22.’ ”
Meadows looked at his companion blankly, but Manfred was not deceived. That clever brain of the detective was working.
“Not for robbery—the trunk is untouched. They did not even burn his feet to find the idol or the treasure-house: they must have known nothing of that. It was easy to rob him—or, if they knew of his gold idol, they considered it too small loot to bother with.”
He looked slowly round the apartment. On the mantelshelf was a slip of brown paper like a pipe-spill.
He picked it up, looked at both sides, and, finding the paper blank, put it back where he had found it. Manfred took it down and absently drew the strip between his sensitive finger-tips.
“The thing to do,” said Meadows, taking one final look round, “is to find Miss Leicester.”
Manfred nodded.
“That is one of the things,” he said slowly. “The other, of course, is to find Johnny.”
“Johnny?” Meadows frowned suspiciously. “Who is Johnny?” he asked.
“Johnny is my private mystery.” George Manfred was smiling. “You promised me that I might have one!”
Chapter VIIn Chester Square
WHEN Mirabelle Leicester went to Chester Square, her emotions were a curious discord of wonder, curiosity and embarrassment. The latter was founded on the extraordinary effusiveness of her companion, who had suddenly, and with no justification, assumed the position of dearest friend and lifelong acquaintance. Mirabelle thought the girl was an actress: a profession in which sudden and violent friendships are not of rare occurrence. She wondered why Aunt Alma had not made an effort to come to town, and wondered more that she had known of Alma’s friendship with the Newtons. That the elder woman had her secrets was true, but there was no reason why she should have refrained from speaking of a family who were close enough friends to be asked to chaperon her in town.
She had time for thought, for Joan Newton chattered away all the time, and if she asked a question, she either did not wait for approval, or the question was answered to her own satisfaction before it was put.
Chester Square, that dignified patch of Belgravia, is an imposing quarter. The big house into which the girl was admitted by a footman had that air of luxurious comfort which would have appealed to a character less responsive to refinement than Mirabelle Leicester’s. She was ushered into a big drawing-room which ran from the front to the back of the house, and did not terminate even there, for a large, cool conservatory, bright with flowers, extended a considerable distance.
“Monty isn’t back from the City yet,” Joan rattled on. “My dear! He’s awfully busy just now, what with stocks and shares and things like that.”
She spoke as though “stocks and shares and things like that” were phenomena which had come into existence the day before yesterday for the occupation of Monty Newton.
“Is there a boom?” asked Mirabelle with a smile, and the term seemed to puzzle the girl.
“Ye-es, I suppose there is. You know what the Stock Exchange is, my dear? Everybody connected with it is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. The money they make is simply wicked! And they can give a girl an awfully good time—theatres, parties, dresses, pearls—why, Monty would think nothing of giving a string of pearls to a girl if he took a liking to her!”
In truth Joan was walking on very uncertain ground. Her instructions had been simple and to the point. “Get her to Chester Gardens, make friends with her, and don’t mention the fact that I know Oberzohn.” What was the object of bringing Mirabelle Leicester to the house, what was behind this move of Monty’s, she did not know. She was merely playing for safety, baiting the ground, as it were, with her talk of good times and vast riches, in case that was required of her. For she, no less than many of her friends, entertained a wholesome dread of Monty Newton’s disapproval, which usually took a definitely unpleasant shape.
Mirabelle was laughing softly.
“I didn’t know that stockbrokers were so rich,” she said dryly, “and I can assure you that some of them aren’t!”
She passed tactfully over thegaucherieof the pearls that Monty would give to any girl who took his fancy. By this time she had placed Joan: knew something of her upbringing, guessed pretty well the extent of her intelligence, and marvelled a little that a man of the unknown Mr. Newton’s position should have allowed his sister to come through the world without the benefit of a reasonably good education.
“Come up to your room, my dear,” said Joan. “We’ve got a perfectly topping little suite for you, and I’m sure you’ll be comfortable. It’s at the front of the house, and if you can get used to the milkmen yowling about the streets before they’re aired, you’ll have a perfectly topping time.”
When Mirabelle inspected the apartment she was enchanted. It fulfilled Joan’s vague description. Here was luxury beyond her wildest dreams. She admired the silver bed and the thick blue carpet, the silken panelled walls, the exquisite fittings, and stood in rapture before the entrance of a little bathroom, with its silver and glass, its shaded lights and marble walls.
“I’ll have a cup of tea sent up to you, my dear. You’ll want to rest after your horrible day at that perfectly terrible factory, and I wonder you can stand Oberzohn, though they tell me he’s quite a nice man. . . .”
She seemed anxious to go, and Mirabelle was no less desirous of being alone.
“Come down when you feel like it,” said Joan at parting, and ran down the stairs, reaching the hall in time to meet Mr. Newton, who was handing his hat and gloves to his valet.
“Well, is she here?”
“She’s here all right,” said Joan, who was not at all embarrassed by the presence of the footman. “Monty, isn’t she a bit of a fool? She couldn’t say boo to a goose. What is the general scheme?”
He was brushing his hair delicately in the mirror above the hall-stand.
“What’s what scheme?” he asked, after the servant had gone, as he strolled into the drawing-room before her.
“Bringing her here—is she sitting into a game?”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Monty without heat, as he dropped wearily to a low divan and drew a silken cushion behind him. “Nor inquisitive,” he added. “You haven’t scared her, have you?”
“I like that!” she said indignantly.
She was one of those ladies who speak more volubly and with the most assurance when there is a mirror in view, and she had her eyes fixed upon herself all the time she was talking, patting a strand of hair here and there, twisting her head this way and that to get a better effect, and never once looking at the man until he drew attention to himself.
“Scared! I’ll bet she’s never been to such a beautiful house in her life! What is she, Monty? A typist or something? I don’t understand her.”
“She’s a lady,” said Monty offensively. “That’s the type that’ll always seem like a foreign language to you.”
She lifted one shoulder delicately.
“I don’t pretend to be a lady, and what I am, you’ve made me,” she said, and the reproach was mechanical. He had heard it before, not only from her but from others similarly placed. “I don’t think it’s very kind to throw my education up in my face, considering the money I’ve made for you.”
“And for yourself.” He yawned. “Get me some tea.”
“You might say ‘please’ now and again,” she said resentfully, and he smiled as he took up the evening paper, paying her no more attention, until she had rung the bell with a vicious jerk and the silver tray came in and was deposited on a table near him.
“Where are you going to-night?”
His interest in her movements was unusual, and she was flattered.
“You know very well, Monty, where I’m going to-night,” she said reproachfully. “You promised to take me too. I think you’d look wonderful as a Crusader—one of them—those old knights in armour.”
He nodded, but not to her comment.
“I remember, of course—the Arts Ball.”
His surprise was so well simulated that she was deceived.
“Fancy your forgetting! I’m going as Cinderella, and Minnie Gray is going as a pierrette——”
“Minnie Gray isn’t going as anything,” said Monty, sipping his tea. “I’ve already telephoned to her to say that the engagement is off. Miss Leicester is going with you.”
“But, Monty——” protested the girl.
“Don’t ‘but Monty’ me,” he ordered. “I’m telling you! Go up and see this girl, and put it to her that you’ve got a spare ticket for the dance.”
“But her costume, Monty! The girl hasn’t got a fancy dress. And Minnie——”
“Forget Minnie, will you? Mirabelle Leicester is going to the Arts Ball to-night.” He tapped the tray before him to emphasize every word. “You have a ticket to spare, and you simply can’t go alone because I have a very important business engagement and your friend has failed you. Her dress will be here in a few minutes: it is a bright green domino with a bright-red hood.”
“How perfectly hideous!” She forgot for the moment her disappointment in this outrage. “Bright green! Nobody has a complexion to stand that!”
Yet he ignored her.
“You will explain to Miss Leicester that the dress came from a friend who, through illness or any cause you like to invent, is unable to go to the dance—she’ll jump at the chance. It is one of the events of the year and tickets are selling at a premium.”
She asked him what that meant, and he explained patiently.
“Maybe she’ll want to spend a quiet evening—have one of those headaches,” he went on. “If that is so, you can tell her that I’ve got a party coming to the house to-night, and they will be a little noisy. Did she want to know anything about me?”
“No, she didn’t,” snapped Joan promptly. “She didn’t want to know about anything. I couldn’t get her to talk. She’s like a dumb oyster.”
Mirabelle was sitting by the window, looking down into the square, when there was a gentle tap at the door and Joan came in.
“I’ve got wonderful news for you,” she said.
“For me?” said Mirabelle in surprise.
Joan ran across the room, giving what she deemed to be a surprisingly life-like representation of a young thing full of innocent joy.
“I’ve got an extra ticket for the Arts Ball to-night. They’re selling at a—they’re very expensive. Aren’t you a lucky girl!”
“I?” said Mirabelle in surprise. “Why am I the lucky girl?”
Joan rose from the bed and drew back from her reproachfully.
“You surely will come with me? If you don’t, I shan’t be able to go at all. Lady Mary and I were going together, and now she’s sick!”
Mirabelle opened her eyes wider.
“But I can’t go, surely. It is a fancy dress ball, isn’t it? I read something about it in the papers. And I’m awfully tired to-night.”
Joan pouted prettily.
“My dear, if you lay down for an hour you’d be fit. Besides, you couldn’t sleep here early to-night: Monty’s having one of his men parties, and they’re a noisy lot of people—though thoroughly respectable,” she added hastily.
Poor Joan had a mission outside her usual range.
“I’d love to go,”—Mirabelle was anxious not to be a kill-joy,—“if I could get a dress.”
“I’ve got one,” said the girl promptly, and ran out of the room.
She returned very quickly, and threw the domino on the bed.
“It’s not pretty to look at, but it’s got this advantage, that you can wear almost anything underneath.”
“What time does the ball start?” Mirabelle, examining her mind, found that she was not averse to going; she was very human, and a fancy dress ball would be a new experience.
“Ten o’clock,” said Joan. “We can have dinner before Monty’s friends arrive. You’d like to see Monty, wouldn’t you? He’s downstairs—such a gentleman, my dear!”
The girl could have laughed.
A little later she was introduced to the redoubtable Monty, and found his suave and easy manner a relief after the jerky efforts of the girl to be entertaining. Monty had seen most parts of the world and could talk entertainingly about them all. Mirabelle rather liked him, though she thought he was something of a fop, yet was not sorry when she learned that, so far from having friends to dinner, he did not expect them to arrive until after she and Joan had left.
The meal put her more at her ease. He was a polished man of the world, courteous to the point of pomposity; he neither said nor suggested one thing that could offend her; they were half-way through dinner when the cry of a newsboy was heard in the street. Through the dining-room window she saw the footman go down the steps and buy a newspaper. He glanced at the stop-press space and came back slowly up the stairs reading. A little later he came into the room, and must have signalled to her host, for Monty went out immediately and she heard their voices in the passage. Joan was uneasy.
“I wonder what’s the matter?” she asked, a little irritably. “It’s very bad manners to leave ladies in the middle of dinner——”
At that moment Monty came back. Was it imagination on her part, or had he gone suddenly pale? Joan saw it, and her brows met, but she was too wise to make a comment upon his appearance.
Mr. Newton seated himself in his place with a word of apology and poured out a glass of champagne. Only for a second did his hand tremble, and then, with a smile, he was his old self.
“What is wrong, Monty?”
“Wrong? Nothing,” he said curtly, and took up the topic of conversation where he had laid it down before leaving the room.
“It isn’t that old snake, is it?” asked Joan with a shiver. “Lord! that unnerves me! I never go to bed at night without looking under, or turning the clothes right down to the foot! They ought to have found it months ago if the police——”
At this point she caught Monty Newton’s eye, cold, menacing, malevolent, and the rest of her speech died on her lips.
Mirabelle went upstairs to dress, and Joan would have followed but the man beckoned her.
“You’re a little too talkative, Joan,” he said, more mildly than she had expected. “The snake is not a subject we wish to discuss at dinner. And listen!” He walked into the passage and looked round, then came back and closed the door. “Keep that girl near you.”
“Who is going to dance with me?” she asked petulantly. “I look like having a hell of a lively night!”
“Benton will be there to look after you, and one of the ‘Old Guard’——”
He saw the frightened look in her face and chuckled.
“What’s the matter, you fool?” he asked good-humouredly. “He’ll dance with the girl.”
“I wish those fellows weren’t going to be there,” she said uneasily, but he went on, without noticing her:
“I shall arrive at half-past eleven. You had better meet me near the entrance to the American bar. My party didn’t turn up, you understand. You’ll get back here at midnight.”
“So soon?” she said in dismay. “Why, it doesn’t end till——”
“You’ll be back here at midnight,” he said evenly. “Go into her room, clear up everything she may have left behind. You understand? Nothing is to be left.”
“But when she comes back she’ll——”
“She’ll not come back,” said Monty Newton, and the girl’s blood ran cold.