HERCULES, ESQ

A TALE OF MYSTERY AND MILLIONS

BY

GWYN EVANS

LONDON:

THE MODERN PUBLISHING COMPANY

HERCULES, ESQ.

CHAPTER I

FIGHT THAT MAN

“SAY, Doc, I reckon you’re plumb crazy!”

Phineas T. Lee paused in the act of lighting a Calixto Lopez cigar and regarded his guest with a half-incredulous smile, then turned for confirmation to the other occupant of the Royal Suite of the Hotel Splendide.

“What do you say, Jarvie?” he demanded. “It sounds all punk to me.”

Sir John Jarvie, whose pink, benevolent face was known in a million homes throughout the country, sipped his port delicately, then ejaculated the single word:

“Preposterous!”

“You said it, Jarvie!” exclaimed Phineas T. Lee, the American Canning King, agreeing for once with his quondam rival, the millionaire manufacturer of Jarvie’s Jams and Jellies.

Dr. Armand Lenoir shrugged his shoulders and laughed softly.

“On the contrary, my dear fellows,” he drawled. “My suggestion is not only sensible and practical, but it offers you the only chance of relief from the intolerable boredom with which you are both afflicted since Mr. Maxwell brought about the amalgamation.”

“Curse Maxwell!” snarled the American. “If I hadn’t listened to that guy I’d have smashed Jarvie when he tried to corner——”

“You’d have what?” snapped Sir John, starting to his feet.

He was a rotund little man, whose benevolent features, while an excellent advertising adjunct on posters and bottle labels, were merely a mask for a ruthless, pugnacious nature that swept aside all obstacles in his lust for commercial power.

Phineas T. Lee, president of the Calypso Canning Corporation, Inc., and a chain of subsidiary companies, had for twenty years been the bitterest enemy of John Jarvie. Both were self-made men, and were inordinately proud of the fact.

In Europe, Jarvie’s name had become synonymous with jam. His rubicund, smiling face and silver hair ornamented every pot of preserves turned out from the great factory. Every time Phineas T. Lee saw it, however, he wanted to smash it. It was the exact antithesis of his own gaunt, ruthless, and rather haggard features.

When John Jarvie opened his first factory in America Phineas T. Lee, who was a symbolist, bought a two-pound jar of Jarvie’s raspberry jam and solemnly smashed it with his mashie. He then bought up half a dozen of Jarvie’s rivals and started operations in England.

The combat developed on Homeric lines. Not with jam, jellies, and pineapple chunks alone was the war waged. As the business grew it embraced shipping, railroads, and real estate.

Jarvie received his knighthood for War-time services with the commisariat on the same day that Phineas pulled off a ten-million-dollar deal by buying up the Crystal Cling Company.

Long ago the simple amassing of money had become a secondary matter in the lives of the rival millionaires. Each was obsessed with the idea of smashing the other.

Neither side triumphed for long; their forces and their fortunes were evenly matched, and but for the intervention of that conciliatory genius, Mr. Elmer Maxwell, the Lee v. Jarvie struggle on the world’s markets would have become as classic a deadlock as Dickens’ Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Chancery.

How he managed it is one of the most romantic stories in the tangled history of international finance. That America did not suggest Elmer Maxwell as a solution of post-War problems instead of the League of Nations is one of Europe’s tragedies.

In financial circles the news of the amalgamation came as a bombshell, but the housewives of England and America continued to buy Jarvie’s jams and Calypso cans, entirely unaware that a titanic struggle had ended, and that the manufacturers of these popular comestibles had become at one fell swoop the richest and most miserable merchants in the world.

Six months had elapsed since the merger—six months during which both Phineas and Jarvie had met each other for the first time in the flesh. The encounter merely intensified their mutual dislike, but both were compelled to bottle up their emotions in view of the amalgamation.

One thing alone they shared in common—an almost homicidal hatred of Maxwell.

His was the fate of most peacemakers, and his unhappy lot was one that the shrewd psychologist, Dr. Armand Lenoir, took pains to avoid.

It was the post prandial hour at the Hotel Splendide. Both Sir John Jarvie and Dr. Lenoir were the guests of the American, but of the three who sat down to the exquisitely-cooked meal Lenoir was the only one who was thoroughly enjoying himself.

He was a dapper little man, slightly theatrical in appearance, with his neat Imperial beard and moustache. He sat back in his chair, stretched out a slim, blue-veined hand to the fire, and covertly studied his host.

Tall and gangling, with a shock of iron-grey hair, Phineas T. Lee lit his cigar and stood with his back to the mantelpiece.

“I tell you it’s a crazy idea, Doc,” he repeated. “There ain’t no one else big enough to fight. If that guy Maxwell hadn’t butted in when he did I’d have got Jarvie here where I wanted him.”

Sir John Jarvie gulped a little. His face reddened with rage.

“See here, you big Yankee boaster!” he began.

“Gentlemen—please!” interrupted Lenoir soothingly. “I implore you not to descend to personalities. I came here to tender my advice, not to listen to a vulgar brawl. Sit down, both of you, while I diagnose your malady, and suggest a remedy.”

Sir John Jarvie bounced back into his chair and glowered at the American. Imperturbably, Lenoir addressed them.

“You are both suffering from a disease that attacks either the very poor or the very rich, my dear sirs,” he drawled. “It is a disease that makes one man put his head in a gas-oven and another elope with a barmaid. It is known as ‘taedium vitae’.”

Phineas T. Lee coughed uneasily.

“Say, I’m as sound as a bell, Doc. You know that. I don’t know about Jarvie here, but——”

“The disease is not physical, but mental,” continued Lenoir. “You are both bored to the point of extinction. You are—pardon my frankness—too old and set in your ways to take up a hobby, or I should recommend golf or yachting——”

“Golf!” snorted the American.

“I’m not keen on games,” echoed Jarvie, stiffly.

“Exactly,” said Lenoir. “You both asked me for advice, and I am giving it to you. You want to fight. You are essentially combative—and the present armistice doesn’t agree with you.”

“It ain’t an armistice,” growled Phineas. “It’s a damned peace treaty. Maxwell saw to that.”

“H’m!” said Lenoir thoughtfully. “And you really think that you are so immensely powerful financially that it is not worth your while entering the arena again?”

“You said it, Doc,” replied the American. “Between us Jarvie and I are unbeatable.”

Lenoir helped himself to a cigar.

“The old story—Alexander sighing for fresh worlds to conquer,” he murmured. “You have money, power, position, and are satiated, my friends. Psychologically, your case is a simple one to diagnose, yet a difficult and expensive one to cure.”

“Oh, cut out the psychology, Lenoir,” said Sir John, testily. “The point is that between us we control nearly a hundred million sterling—and there’s no one big enough to fight.”

“No one big enough to fight, eh?” echoed Lenoir, with a peculiar little smile.

“Tell me, my friends, how much you would pay if I pointed out an enemy so strong that it would need all your wits, all your combative instincts, perhaps all your vast fortune, to overthrow?”

“Who is this unknown Colossus, Lenoir?” asked Sir John, stiffly. Lenoir rose to his feet, a queer satiric gleam in his dark eyes.

He crossed over to the windows and drew back the curtains.

Down below, through the foliage, shone the yellow lights of the Thames Embankment.

The two millionaires followed Lenoir’s outstretched finger with their eyes.

“See! There is the enemy!” he said quietly, and pointed out the figure of a man huddled on an Embankment seat beneath the shadow of the obelisk.

“What on earth are you talking about?” demanded Sir John, irritably.

“That homeless hobo?” echoed Phineas Lee, with a snort of contempt.

“Exactly!” said Lenoir. “Fight that man!”

“Say, what are you handing us, Doc?” demanded the American.

“My friends,” said Lenoir, with a satiric little smile. “He also is suffering from the same disease as you, and may possibly supply the antidote.”

“What the devil are you talking about, Lenoir?” snapped Sir John. “Really, I hate to suggest it, but you sound quite drunk to me.”

“On the contrary, my friends, I was never more serious and sober in my life. You are not the only wealthy patients of mine who are suffering from boredom, and now that I have five millionaires to diagnose for, I think the time is ripe to inaugurate a long-cherished project of mine.”

“And that is?” demanded Sir John.

“Sit down and I will tell you about Hercules, Esq. and that remarkable organisation, the Secret Six,” said Doctor Lenoir.

CHAPTER II

AT CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE

BILL KELLAWAY emerged from the editorial office of the Daily Bulletin and the jauntiness with which he had entered dropped from him like a cloak.

Dusk had fallen, and a chill wind blew up from the river.

Bill Kellaway shivered. Sutcliffe’s parting words, with their stereotyped kindness, still echoed: “Sorry, old man. Absolutely no vacancy at the moment. Leave your address.” Sutcliffe was the news editor of the Bulletin—a good fellow but——

He turned and strode past the Temple, and down Villiers Street towards the embankment. The lights glowed in the gloom like a necklace of amber beads. The stark obelisk of Cleopatra’s Needle loomed incongruously through the mist.

Kellaway laughed.

He felt a queer sense of kinship with the monument.

He sat down on a seat and hunched his shoulders.

An overwhelming yearning for Egypt came over him. His heart ached with memories of a desert moon, whispering palms, and the queer, breath-catching glamour of the cool bazaars and glowing colours of the Orient.

For ten years Bill Kellaway had lived in Cairo—ever since the Armistice, when, a youngster of eighteen, he had been demobbed from the R.A.F. after a bad crash at Heliopolis.

He had been the very successful Editor of the Cairo Mail, which, unfortunately, closed down after the withdrawal of English officials from Egypt when the country was granted her independence.

There was nothing for it but to return to England, and Kellaway, full of optimism, determined to tackle Fleet Street as a free lance.

He had been home six months now, but beyond a few guineas for stray articles in the newspapers and a solitary short story in the Unique Magazine, Kellaway had earned nothing.

That morning he had given up his frowsy back bedroom in Bloomsbury—and now the ridiculously inadequate coin of sixpence stood between him and starvation.

He poised it between finger and thumb and soliloquised: “Heads a dosshouse and no supper; tails St. Martin’s Crypt and a sausage-roll.”

With a flick he sent it spinning; it slipped from his fingers and rolled under the seat. He cursed softly under his breath and groped for it.

Red of face he straightened—then started suddenly.

A figure garbed in a dingy white abayia stood in the shadow of the obelisk.

Kellaway glimpsed a swarthy face and dark eyes regarding him gravely from beneath a scarlet tarboush.

It was appropriate, Kellaway thought, to meet an Egyptian fellah against such a background.

Kellaway felt a queer sympathy for the man, and greeted him civilly in Arabic.

“ ’Scuse me, sir,” replied the other, and Kellaway noticed he carried a small wooden tray to which was pinned a printed card. “You’d like to buy a mascot? Very lucky charm—thousands of years old. The crocodile god Sebak!”

He spoke in a curiously sing-song voice with a pronounced Cockney accent.

Kellaway started and glanced sharply at the man’s face.

“Why you’re English!” he said, with a chuckle.

The other grinned sheepishly.

“Yes, sir. This ’ere’s just a kind of advertisement, sir. But ’ave a look at this mascot. ’Onest, it’s supposed to bring luck. ’Ere’s the ’ole ’istory of it on the envelope. A tanner the lot, sir.”

Kellaway chuckled.

“Let’s have a look at the bally thing,” he answered and took the envelope.

Within was a small metal charm about two inches long. It was wrought in the shape of the crocodile-headed god Sebak, with a small clip attached—a crude, hideous piece of work.

“This is about as Egyptian as you are my friend,” said Kellaway. “What’s the idea?”

He turned over the badly-printed card, and read a brief statement in Teutonic English to the effect that the original finder of the statue of the great god Sebak was a British officer in the Sudan. The mascot was a small reproduction of the statue, which had, according to the veracious chronicler, “to the English officer great good lucks and riches brought.”

“So much did he prosper,” continued the narrative, “that he determined to others in the same way benefit. For thousands of years in Egypt the mighty god Sebak good luck to the unfortunate has brought.”

“Right. It’s a sporting offer, Abdul,” laughed Kellaway. “I hope jolly old Sebak does his stuff soon. This is my last tanner.”

The other smiled tolerantly. He was evidently sceptical.

“Thank you, sir. I ’ope it brings yer luck. Cawn’t say as it’s brought me much,” he added, then glanced anxiously at the lowering sky.

“Looks like a storm brewing, sir. I’ll have to be getting back and take this muck off my face,” he added.

“Cheerio!” Kellaway replied; then laughed, a queer little discordant laugh, as he stared after the incongruously garbed figure.

“Decent little chap!” murmured Kellaway. “And now what?”

He glanced ruefully at the hideous mascot reposing in his palm, then thrust it into his pocket. “Fool!” he apostrophised himself bitterly. “Might have bought a packet of gaspers at least with the money.”

Bill groped in the linings of his coat in the faint hope that he had overlooked a cigarette, and he gave a sigh of satisfaction as he unearthed a stub.

A sudden jagged lightning flash split the sullen clouds, followed by a deafening thunderclap.

He shivered and rubbed his numbed fingers.

“Gosh!” said he, as he tightened his belt and sucked in the last pungent whiff of his draggled fag to ease the hunger pang that was almost a physical pain. “I’d sell my soul for——”

He broke off suddenly as he felt the light touch of a hand on his sleeve.

“Would you like a million pounds, my friend?” asked a soft, urbane voice at his side.

Bill Kellaway swung round with an exclamation of surprise. Facing him was a tall man in evening dress.

“What the devil—” began Kellaway in astonishment.

A vivid sheet of lightning for an instant bathed the Embankment in its blue, unearthly glare. The stranger’s face shone grey and pallid in its all-revealing radiance. His slanting eyebrows and dark beard were horribly suggestive, somehow.

“Exactly!” said the stranger. “I’ve been told I look like him.”

Then the thunder boomed and large drops of rain began to fall.

“What did you say?” demanded Kellaway in a high-pitched voice.

“I asked you whether you would like a million pounds,” said the stranger, calmly. “Needless to say, there are conditions.”

Kellaway laughed unsteadily.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” he answered. “The market price of souls seems to have gone up. I must say it’s a handsome offer for a rather shop-soiled specimen.”

The stranger laughed.

“You’ll do, my friend.” And then, more seriously: “This is scarcely the place to discuss an important transaction.”

He took Kellaway’s arm gently, and for the first time Kellaway noticed that a luxurious limousine had drawn up unobtrusively by the kerb in the shadow of the Sphinx.

“Come, my friend. A good dinner and a bottle of wine are an excellent prelude to a million-pound transaction. I seem to have arrived in time.”

The ground seemed to give slightly under Bill’s feet. This fantastic stranger—the purring Rolls-Royce—a million pounds!

He felt he would wake up presently. In the meantime——

“Lead on, Monsieur Mephisto,” said Kellaway. “I’ll try any drink once.”

CHAPTER III

THE MYSTERY MILLIONAIRES

“DO you smoke, my friend?”

“Thanks—er—Mr.——”

Bill floundered helplessly.

“My name is Lenoir—Doctor Armand Lenoir,” replied the other “Virginian this side—Turkish that,” he added. Kellaway helped himself to a Virginian.

“Ah, that’s better,” he remarked, as Kellaway relaxed his long legs and blew out a wreath of smoke. “Apart from a natural surprise and mystification, you have reacted extraordinarily well, my friend. Your name is——?”

Lenoir’s slanting eyebrows lifted interrogatively.

“Kellaway—Bill Kellaway. Is this a joke, or a bet, or what, doctor? You must admit it’s a bit out of the ordinary to be offered a million pounds by a complete stranger who looks like——”

Kellaway broke off in embarrassment.

The other chuckled softly.

“The devil himself. Go on, say it. The elements played up extraordinarily well, I admit.”

“Well you certainly startled me, doctor. You see, I—I happen to be dead broke, and in the circumstances——”

“Exactly,” broke in Lenoir. “That is precisely why I approached you my dear fellow. My question is perfectly genuine. Would you like a million pounds—and if so, are you prepared to fulfil the necessary conditions?”

Kellaway glanced sharply at his companion’s pale, impassive face. It was as expressionless as the bronze Sphinx itself.

“Of course I could do with a million quid—who couldn’t?” he said. “The point is, who’s going to give it me, and what have I got to do to get it?”

“Ah!” said Lenoir. “You will be enlightened later on that point. Meanwhile if you contemplate putting yourself up as a provisional candidate, I must beg of you to submit to one or two simple conditions. You will notice that the blinds of this car are specially made to shut out the view. That is because I wish our destination to remain unknown.

“Will you give me your word of honour not to attempt to find out where we are going, nor in any way try to discover the identity of the people you are about to meet?”

Kellaway hesitated.

The doctor’s calm, matter-of-fact tone was in singular contrast to his fantastic proposals. Was Lenoir a crook or a lunatic, or both?

Bill thrust his hand into his trousers’ pocket. His fingers encountered a little metal object. In a flash he remembered Sebak—the crocodile god!

For a moment or two a nameless fear of the occult gripped him. It was queer—dashed queer!

“Think carefully, my friend,” broke in Dr. Lenoir, quietly. “I offer you a million pounds on certain conditions. If you accept I will enlighten you further later. We haven’t very far to go, once you give your word to attempt no inquiries.”

“Suppose,” said Kellaway, “I refuse?”

Dr. Lenoir laughed softly.

“If you refuse, my dear fellow, then the episode is closed.”

“Right-ho, doc!” said Kellaway, suddenly leaning forward. “I accept unreservedly. I’m a candidate for that million pounds from now on.”

“Excellent!”

Dr. Lenoir patted his knee approvingly.

“I don’t think you will regret your decision. I’m afraid you’ll consider it absurdly melodramatic, Mr. Kellaway, but you’ll have to be blindfolded very shortly. We are nearing our destination.”

Lenoir tapped the darkened window of the car, and withdrew a white silk handkerchief from his pocket as the limousine slid slowly to a standstill.

“If you don’t mind,” he said suavely.

Kellaway shrugged his shoulders.

He submitted with good grace while the doctor bandaged his eyes tightly.

“Only a few steps,” said Lenoir. “Steady!”

Kellaway heard the door of the limousine open and felt himself gently propelled up what seemed to be a gravel path.

They walked about fifty yards then ascended half a dozen steps.

“One moment,” said Lenoir.

Kellaway heard him fumble in the darkness and the faint whirr of an electric bell. Almost immediately he heard the door being opened, and felt a draught of warm air scented with the pungent odour of pine logs.

“This way, please,” said Lenoir.

Kellaway felt his feet sink into a thick pile carpet. Lenoir touched his arm and guided him to the right.

“Wait here a moment,” he remarked. “Do not remove your bandage until I give you permission.”

“You may remove your bandage, Mr. Kellaway,” said Dr. Lenoir.

Bill Wrenched off the white handkerchief. He blinked for a moment in the sudden dazzle of light.

He found himself standing in the centre of a luxuriously-furnished room. A brocade curtain of Chinese silk faced him, embroidered with fantastic golden dragons that seemed to withe and twist realistically in the faint breeze that came from a half-opened French window on the right.

“Well, what’s the programme?” Kellaway demanded.

Lenoir placed a finger to his lips. Suddenly the silken curtains parted and Kellaway stared in bewilderment.

Facing him sat two masked men in evening dress. Each held a deadly-looking automatic levelled directly at Kellaway’s heart over an inlaid table on which was a gold inkstand and a heap of bundles of papers.

For a moment no one spoke. The silence was tense and electric. Kellaway swayed a little dizzily on his heels. Those two unwavering automatics——

Lenoir broke the silence.

“This is Mr. Kellaway, gentlemen,” he said, quietly. “He is willing to accept the conditions.”

“Good, Lenoir. You picked him up at Cleopatra’s Needle as arranged?” said one of the men. Kellaway noticed he spoke with a strong American accent.

“You want a million pounds, young man?” he demanded suddenly.

Kellaway shifted uneasily on his feet. The mystery was deepening instead of clarifying. How could Lenoir have arranged to meet him at Cleopatra’s Needle?

“Say, ain’t you got a tongue?” broke in the American. “Are you prepared to accept five million dollars for performing certain tasks?”

Kellaway licked his lips and assumed a jauntiness he was far from feeling.

“Why yes, anything short of murder, that is. What have I got to do?”

“We want a man that’s quick at making decisions, who’s not hampered by—er—domestic ties, and—er—isn’t unduly troubled by conscience,” broke in the other man.

Kellaway laughed softly.

“I fancy I can fill the bill. My sole relative is a dyspeptic aunt at a Harrogate hydro; and as for conscience, well, for ten years I’ve been a journalist.”

The masked American toyed idly with a bundle of papers.

“There is exactly a million pounds on this table,” said the American almost casually. “In one-thousand and hundred-pound notes it doesn’t look particularly large or romantic, but I guess it means a considerable amount of power to the guy who handles it.”

“I never thought a million could look so dull,” drawled Kellaway, with a shrug. “Perhaps, gentlemen, you would kindly explain.”

“Drop them guns, or by heck, I’ll blow you to smithereens!” rasped a harsh voice from the half-opened french window.

Kellaway spun round.

Framed against the darkness stood a tall, thin man, clad almost in rags. His face was ghastly in its pallor, and his mouth was twisted in a vindictive snarl. His right arm was raised above his head. Gripped in the man’s hand was a pear-shaped metal object.

“I’ll give you twenty seconds to drop ’em. The pin’s out of this grenade,” said the newcomer, and his eyes gleamed maniacally.

“Schultz! You!”

The masked American’s voice shook.

“Don’t be a fool man. Don’t throw——”

“Five—six—seven——” counted the man with the bomb.

Kellaway’s scalp tingled as he saw the deadly purpose in the man’s white, twitching face.

“He’s mad! Look out!” said Lenoir, shrilly.

“For Heaven’s sake do as he tells you, or——”

“Fifteen—sixteen—seventeen——” chanted the newcomer, and his fingers stiffened round the grenade.

Something snapped in Kellaway’s brain. Life seemed suddenly very sweet. To be blown to atoms by a lunatic when there was a million pounds at stake was all wrong. He laughed discordantly and sprang straight as an arrow from a bow—fingers clawing for the stranger’s throat.

“Stop, you fool!” yelled Lenoir.

“Back!” screamed the stranger. “Back——”

The words died away in a choking gasp as Kellaway’s fingers dug into his throat and brought him crashing downwards. His right hand closed round the other’s wrist in a desperate effort to clutch the bomb.

There was a dazzling flash of light that blinded him and then——

BOOM!

The whole room seemed to rock and sway round Kellaway; a great roaring sounded in his ears.

CHAPTER IV

KELLAWAY SIGNS

“THAT’S better, my friend. A bottle of Pol Roger ’06, a little cold chicken and salad, and life will appear rosy again.”

Kellaway sat up dazedly as he heard Dr. Lenoir’s faint, mocking drawl.

“What the devil——” he began in bewilderment.

“Why will you attribute a Satanic origin to a perfectly respectable medical man?” said Lenoir, with a chuckle.

“But—but what’s happened?” said Kellaway shakily. “That lunatic with a bomb——”

“Has been effectually dealt with, my dear fellow. It was inexcusable of me, I admit, to submit you to such an ordeal before dinner. But that can be remedied at once. Voila!”

He waved his hand towards a small dining-table, on which was set out an appetising cold collation.

“Don’t mind me, my friend,” said Lenoir. “Help yourself.”

Kellaway realised he was ravenously hungry.

Lenoir laughed as he helped his guest to the table.

“You realise, of course, that the man we chose for this—er—enterprise must be reliable and quick in emergencies. That little comedy was staged specially. Melodramatic, I admit, but effective.”

“But supposing I’d done nothing?” queried Bill, with a grin. “You’d have looked pretty foolish, doctor.”

“I am a pretty good psychologist, my friend,” said Lenoir. “One thing I overlooked, and that was your fainting fit. However, it simplified matters.”

Kellaway pushed aside his plate with a sigh of satisfaction.

“Gee! That’s better,” he announced.

“And now what, doctor?” he asked pleasantly. “I’m quite at your service.”

Lenoir took his stand against the fireplace and clasped his hands behind his back, a favourite pose of his.

“Have you ever heard of Hercules, young man?” he queried.

“Hercules? Why sure! Is this one of these Do-You-Know tests, or something?”

“I refer to Hercules, the mythical hero of Ancient Greece,” said Lenoir. “You recall his legendary exploits?”

Kellaway nodded.

“Rather. Great old boy. Hadn’t he to perform twelve tasks before he became immortal, or something?”

Dr. Lenoir laughed.

“Exactly. I refer to Hercules because, in a way, his labours are a good precedent for what we expect from you. But whereas Hercules relied on his phenomenal strength, you have to rely on your quick wits and courage. Hercules had twelve tasks to perform before he gained the accolade. You have exactly half that number. If you succeed, you receive one million pounds sterling, and you may assume you have won the battle, as it were, with your two employers. If you fail—well——”

Dr. Lenoir shrugged his shoulders in an eloquent gesture. “The labours of Hercules were not child’s play—failure meant death. In yours it might mean something worse.”

There was a tinge of menace in his tone, and Bill Kellaway glanced at him sharply.

“So long as I come back with a million I don’t mind,” said Bill. “Let’s have the jolly old tasks, doctor. When do I start?”

Lenoir shook his head.

“The various tasks will be revealed to you in due course. In the first place I must have your written promise to make no attempt either now or in the future to learn the identity of your employers. In the second to communicate to no living soul what has transpired to-night, nor the nature of the enterprise in which you are engaged. Thirdly, in the event of any trouble arising while engaged on your tasks, not to appeal to me or your employers for protection.”

“That sounds reasonable enough,” Kellaway agreed. “I’ll promise that. What about the reward, though? I must have some sort of guarantee that when I’ve pulled off this stunt I’ll get the million.”

“Of course,” said Dr. Lenoir. “You have already seen the money to-night. It will be placed in the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit tomorrow in your name and mine. Neither of us will be able to draw out the money without the other. Each of us will have a key, and in the event of the death of either of us the survivor becomes the executor. Is that clear?”

“Quite,” said Bill Kellaway.

Lenoir crossed over to an oak bureau in the corner of the room and drew out a sheet of thick cream notepaper, which he handed to Kellaway. Then he picked up the telephone receiver.

Kellaway hurriedly wrote down his acceptance of the conditions. He signed his name with a flourish just as a tap sounded at the door.

A uniformed chauffeur entered.

“Ah, Reeves, would you mind witnessing my friend Mr. Kellaway’s signature?” said Lenoir. “And then stand by with the car.”

“Very, good sir.”

Reeves signed the document and was about to add his address when Lenoir checked him.

“That will do. I’ll just add my signature, Kellaway, and it’ll be O.K.” In his neat, microscopic handwriting he wrote ‘Armand Lenoir’ and folded up the document, placing it in his pocket. “You may go, Reeves,” he announced.

The chauffeur clicked his heels and withdrew with military precision. “And now, Kellaway!”

Lenoir placed his hand on Bill’s shoulder.

“Tomorrow you will meet me at one o’clock sharp at the entrance to Chancery Lane Safe Deposit. To-night you will sleep in your new quarters at the Splendide. A suite has already been engaged for you, and here is a little money for expenses.”

Kellaway’s eyes widened.

It was a hundred-pound banknote.

“But, I say, dash it all,” he began. “This is a bit——”

“My friend, believe me you’ll need it,” broke in Lenoir, ominously. “Sleep well, and remember, one p.m. tomorrow.”

“I shall be there,” said Bill Kellaway, pocketing the rustling note. “Bright and shining,” he added.

Lenoir laughed soundlessly.

“I must take the precaution of blindfolding you once again,” he said, as he retied his handkerchief round Kellaway’s head and softly opened the door.

“Two steps and you’re in that car, my friend,” said Lenoir.

“Remember, I trust to your honour not to remove that bandage for at least five minutes. Don’t look back.”

Kellaway grinned.

“I’m not Lot’s wife, and I want that million,” he said, as he groped his way into the limousine.

The engine purred into life. He sat back, keyed up and quivering with a strange, heady sense of excitement.

The car purred smoothly and swiftly on its way. Suddenly a tap sounded on the window. Kellaway leaned forward, then tore off the bandage. Reeves, the chauffeur, had let down the window and he turned round towards Kellaway.

“Just to tell you the five minutes was up, sir,” he remarked.

Bill peered forward into the darkness.

He raised the window and sank back in his seat, thrusting his hands deep in his trousers’ pockets.

In a silent grey house in a quiet backwater of London three men sat round a table on which was spread a map of England.

One of them, a tall, white-haired American, jabbed a spatulate finger at a spot in the north-western corner of the map.

“The sooner he starts, the better, Lenoir,” he said in his nasal, metallic voice. “Do you think he suspects?”

Dr. Armand Lenoir laughed softly.

“Not at all, my dear sir. The romantic role of Hercules seems to appeal to him. It’s lucky for us that he fainted when he did. Otherwise——”

He shrugged, and the American turned to his companion, a short-bearded man with restless grey eyes.

“Poor Schultz still has a sore throat,” he said, with a wry smile, “thanks to Kellaway.”

Lenoir laughed and rubbed his hands.

“Friend Schultz has an opportunity of getting his own back very shortly,” he remarked. “Meanwhile, what of the yellow envelope? The morning after has a way of restoring sanity—and don’t forget that Kellaway’s no fool.”

“Leave him to me,” rasped the American. “Once he’s fallen for the scheme it’ll be easy enough to fix him.”

“Don’t be too sure,” broke in the bearded man. “It is always unwise to underestimate your opponent. You ought to know that by now, Phineas.”

The American laughed.

“By heck, Jarvie, I’ll go down fighting if it costs me every cent I’ve got. Lenoir says it can’t be done but … !

CHAPTER V

THE VOICE ON THE WIRE

“GEORGE, Alphonse, or Giuseppe as the case may be,” said Bill Kellaway “bring me the Daily Bulletin, some porridge, and ham and eggs.”

“Certainly, sir,” said the valet. My name is Henry, sir.”

He was a lugubrious-looking man, with pathetic eyes.

It was nearly ten o’clock.

On his arrival at the Hotel Splendide the previous night, Bill found that a comfortable bachelor suite had already been reserved in his name, but he had grown beyond surprise by that time. He felt dog-weary, and turned in to sleep dreamlessly until nine o’clock.

His first waking thought had been that his meeting with Lenoir and the fantastic proposal of the two mystery millionaires were part of a dream; but the entrance of the stolid, unemotional Henry was reassuring.

“I must clothe myself in fine raiment,” he announced. “It is not seemly for a prospective millionaire to——”

He broke off suddenly as the telephone bell rang.

“Hallo! Who the deuce is that?” said Bill, lifting the receiver.

“Is that Mr. Kellaway?” said a musical feminine voice over the wire.

“It is. It am,” said Bill, with a chuckle. “Who are you, please?”

“Listen, Mr. Kellaway.” A low note of urgency crept into the voice. “I want to warn you about—about last night.”

Bill Kellaway frowned. The girl’s voice was entirely unknown to him, and he was instantly on the defensive.

“Last night?” he echoed. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Who’s that speaking, please?”

“Oh, but you do. You must listen to me, Mr. Kellaway,” pleaded the voice urgently. “I—I want to help you. Don’t embark on this mad, this wicked enterprise. You’re in danger.”

“Rubbish,” said Bill cheerfully. “By the way, do you know you have an adorable voice? I like that little huskiness in it—sort of thrilling over the telephone—”

“Oh stop, stop.” The girl’s voice was impatient. “You don’t realise the terrible danger you’re in. Those men you met last night, they’ll stop at nothing to gain their own ends. They’ll sacrifice you as ruthlessly as——”

“But look here, my dear young lady,” broke in Bill. “I mean listen. I forgot. This isn’t a television set. Wish it was.”

He imagined he heard the stamp of an imperious feminine foot.

“Will you please be sensible, Mr. Kellaway. If you embark on this terrible mission, you’re bound to fail. Drop it now, I implore you.”

“But I can’t drop it,” said Bill. “It’s all fixed. How on earth do you know anything about me anyway?”

“Never mind. You must never breathe a word to a soul that I’ve warned you,” came the reply. “They’d kill me if they thought I knew the plans. Promise me, Mr. Kellaway.”

“Sure. Won’t you call me Bill? Sounds much more homely. Or Herc—short for Hercules, you know.”

“Oh!”

There was a strangled scream from the other end of the wire.

“Then—then you’ve signed?”

Bill bit his lips, and cursed his impetuosity in mentioning Hercules. What if this girl were a spy or something?

“Er—signed what, my dear lady?” he temporised, anxious to learn how much the girl knew.

“Your death warrant, Heaven help you!” was the low reply.

A click. The unknown had rung off.

“Now who on earth could that have been?” he mused. If her face and figure match her voice, she’s sure to be easy on the eyes,” he added.

A tap interrupted the soliloquy and Henry entered, hearing a well-filled breakfast tray. His long face and lank, black hair gave him the appearance of a rather superior undertaker.

“Henry, my lad, cheer up. Life’s full of surprises, you know,” said Bill cheerfully. “You never know what’s round the corner.”

“Indubitably, sir,” said Henry, with a sigh.

“Henry,” said Bill. “Would it surprise you to hear that I’ve just signed my own death warrant?”

“No, sir, not at all,” said Henry. “One lump or two, sir?” he added, imperturbably.

Bill Kellaway smoothed the lapels of his jacket and glanced approvingly at himself in the mirror before leaving Mr. Isaac Marks’ shop in Covent Garden.

“Thuit’s thplendid,” said Isaac, throwing his expressive palms into an estatic gesture.

Bill nodded.

“Top-hole, Isaac. Most obliging of the noble earl to provide such a decent line in cast-offs,” he remarked. “You can do what you like with the other rag-bags.”

Mr. Marks smirked and bent almost double as Bill bade him a cheerful good morning.

There was just time to walk leisurely to his appointment. He quickened his steps as he turned into Chancery Lane, and reached the rather forbidding entrance of the Safe Deposit Vault precisely as the clock of the Law Courts struck one.

“Ah! Admirably punctual,” said a voice at his elbow.

Bill turned, and found himself gazing into the dark, sardonic eyes of Dr. Lenoir.

“Good morning, doc!” he said, cheerfully. “Topping day, what.”

Lenoir smiled.

“Come along, we’ll get these formalities over,” said Lenoir briskly.

Bill noticed that he carried a rather bulky leather attache-case, and thrilled inwardly.

Together they passed down into the basement, and were confronted by a commissionaire and a ponderous steel grille behind which were rows upon rows of steel lockers.

“I have an appointment with the manager,” said Lenoir, producing his card.

The commissionaire bowed, and ushered them into a plainly-furnished room to the right of the steel grille. A grey-haired, alert-looking man rose from his desk to greet them as they entered.

“Good morning, Mr. Brent,” said Lenoir, affably. “This is my friend, Mr. Kellaway. We have come to deposit these—er—deeds jointly, as I mentioned to you.”

“Certainly, doctor. Pray be seated. I will see my assistant about the necessary forms.”

When the door had closed Lenoir placed the attache-case on the table and unlocked it.

“To show there is no deception, as the conjuror says,” he remarked, with a smile, “you might satisfy yourself about the contents.”

Kellaway leaned forward.

Packed neatly and methodically in the bag were packages of banknotes, each a bundle of a hundred, neatly secured by an elastic band.

“Great Scott! I can hardly believe that—that they’re real,” gasped Bill, in an awestruck voice.

Lenoir waved a slim hand.

“Choose any note at random, my dear fellow, and submit it to Brent.”

Kellaway shook his head.

“No. I take your word for it, doctor, but phew!” He whistled softly. “Fancy carrying a million quid around in an ordinary attache-case. Why, the risk is frightful! Supposing——”

“Not in the least, my dear fellow. The risk is merely relative. But if you’re satisfied, let us close the bag. Brent doesn’t know the contents. I’ve merely hinted that they’re valuable title deeds——”

The door opened and the manager, accompanied by a clerk, entered, bearing a leather-bound book.

“If you will kindly sign here, please,” he said. “I will escort you both to the safe.”

In a few minutes the formalities were completed, and the brown attache-case handed over to the manager. He led the way through a maze of steel-lined passages to an arched vault in the basement.

Uniformed attendants paced leisurely to and fro.

“Hasn’t anybody ever tried to burgle this place?” Kellaway remarked.

Brent laughed.

“No, not even the most optimistic burglar,” he remarked. “The odds are too great. Practically speaking, these vaults are invulnerable. Apart from armour-plated doors, steel grilles, time locks, and the very latest devices of the safe-builder’s art, the place is bomb-proof and guarded day and night by a squad of picked men. In the remote eventuality of anybody getting by the intricate burglar alarms he would not be able to penetrate into this inner vault, for by an ingenious hydraulic arrangement the place can be flooded in less than two minutes.”

“I—I see,” said Bill faintly. “It looks as if your little bag’s safe enough, doctor.”

Dr. Lenoir’s white teeth flashed in a queer smile that Bill remembered long afterwards.

“Yes, my friend, but remember the dictum of Edgar Allan Poe—there is no puzzle evolved by the human mind so cryptic that another human brain cannot solve.”

Bill Kellaway glanced at him sharply, but Lenoir had unlocked a safe numbered 303 and was placing the bag within.

He closed the door with a bang, and taking the key from Brent, locked the door.

“Now yours, Kellaway.”

Brent handed Bill a small brass key, and he turned it in the second lock, then placed it in his trousers’ pocket.

“Good,” said Lenoir. “We are much obliged to you, Mr. Brent. “As matters stand, I take it that neither of us can gain access to the—er—deeds without the other.”

“And also, of course, only in the presence of the safe deposit officials, whose key is also necessary,” said Brent. “You have rented that safe jointly. It is only in the—er—event of the death of one or both that——”

“Exactly,” broke in Lenoir.

“Well, that’s that!” said Bill Kellaway with a sigh of relief as they reached the open air after taking leave of the manager. “I feel mighty relieved my million’s under lock and key.”

Lenoir laughed.

“You’re very confident, mon ami,” he said.

“Sure I am. Now that I’ve seen and handled the money.”

“How about a spot of something, doctor?” said Bill, with a grin.

Lenoir glanced at his watch.

“I can spare ten minutes, my friend. After that I must leave you.”

Bill led the way to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, at the top of Chancery Lane, and in the lounge signalled a waiter.

Bill lit a cigarette.

“I’m just spoiling to begin, doc. What’s the first herculean task.”

Lenoir placed his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small slip of pasteboard.

“Your first task, Kellaway, will be made known to you at this address,” he said slowly. “You will arrive there at nine p.m. promptly to-night. Ring the bell and inquire for Mr. Metaxas.”

Bill took the card and read the neatly-pencilled address.

“No. 9, Rice Street, Pimlico, eh?” he repeated. “Right-ho. What do I say to this Metaxas johnny?”

“Simply say: ‘I have come for the yellow envelope.’ That is all. He will hand it to you. When you have reached the corner of the street open it. Within, you will find written the first task you have to perform.”

“I see. That seems clear enough,” said Bill, as the waiter arrived with the drinks.

“One word of warning.” Dr. Lenoir lowered his voice. “You must act at once, immediately after you have read the contents of the yellow envelope. Destroy both the envelope and the enclosure, and proceed immediately in accordance with the written instructions. You must allow nothing—bear in mind, nothing whatsoever—to stop you. Otherwise, not only do you forfeit the million pounds, but——”

Dr. Lenoir did not finish the sentence, but he shrugged expressively.

“Right-ho, doc, I’m on,” said Bill.

Lenoir finished his drink and rose to his feet.

“You’ll excuse me, but I am already late for my appointment. Au revoir, mon ami, and remember, the tasks of Hercules grew more difficult as he progressed.”

Bill Kellaway gazed after his slim, elegant figure, and frowned.

“Now I wonder what the devil he means by that?” he remarked.

Back in the hotel Kellaway found the sad-faced valet stowing away in the wardrobe the numerous purchases Bill had bought that morning.

He looked up respectfully as Bill entered.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but a young lady has been waiting for you in the lounge for about an hour,” he remarked.

“A young lady!” said Bill blankly. “Who is she? What’s her name?”

“She wouldn’t give her name, sir. According to the reception clerk she said you were expecting her.”

Kellaway’s heart leapt.

It must be the mysterious girl on the phone—the one with the adorable voice.

“By Jove, yes!” he said, enthusiastically. “I remember. Just give me two minutes, and——”

He crossed over to the dressing-table, hitched his silk tie into place, and began to brush his hair vigorously.

“She said she was sorry,” continued Henry tonelessly, “but she couldn’t wait any longer——”

“What?” roared Bill. “She’s gone?”

“Yes, sir. She left ten minutes ago after leaving this message.”

He produced an envelope bearing the crest of the Splendide.

Bill snatched it out of his hand and tore it open. On a piece of hotel notepaper was a message written in a round feminine hand.

“I implore you not to visit Rice Street, Pimlico, to-night,” it ran. “Be warned in time, for you are in grave danger.”

That was all. No name, no clue to the identity of the sender.

Bill re-read it and swore.

He turned to Henry. There was absolutely no expression on the horse-like face.

“Hang it all, Henry. Here’s a go!” he said. “I wanted to see that young lady particularly. You’ve no idea what she was like?”

Henry’s eyelids flickered.

“A remarkably pretty young lady, sir. She was about twenty-two or three, I should imagine, with brown eyes, a slightly retrousse nose, and an extraordinarily good complexion. She was dressed in a charming two-piece suit of rose beige wool and figured silk, with a helmet-shaped hat of picot straw and chenille——”

“What the devil are you talking about?” broke in Bill Kellaway in amazement.

“You asked me for a description of the young lady,” said Henry, reproachfully.

“So I did. But you sound like a fashion catalogue. Where on earth did you learn that jargon?”

“I am always interested in clothes, sir,” said Henry.

“Tell me, Henry, do you like your job here?” he demanded.

The valet shrugged imperceptibly.

“It is inadequate, sir. I confess that ministering to a succession of different gentlemen has a few advantages, but they are outweighed by many drawbacks. Variety is excellent on the stage, or in canned food, perhaps, but it palls a little in valeting.”

Bill Kellaway glanced at him keenly.

“Great Scott! I believe you have a sense of humour, Henry,” he said, in amazement.

“I hope so, sir,” replied the other. “But it is an asset that should be used with discretion, sir.”

Bill Kellaway sank into a chair.

“Henry you’re like life—full of surprises,” he said. “How’d you like to change your job, and look after me permanently?”

“It sounds an attractive proposition, sir,” said the valet.

“Good. I’m beginning to think I’ll be needing someone to look after me. You’re engaged, Henry, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, and all that.”

“I am very pleased, sir, and hope to give you satisfaction.”

“Never mind the satisfaction—give me a whisky and soda,” said Bill. “What’s your other name, Henry?”

“Henry,” was the reply. “A rather unusual combination, sir.”

“Henry Henry, eh?” said Bill.

“Yes, sir. I was known by the ribald at school as Henry squared,” was the quiet reply.

CHAPTER VI

THE HOUSE IN PIMLICO

RICE STREET, PIMLICO, is the most depressing thoroughfare in that depressing neighbourhood.

It was close on nine p.m.

Bill ascended the steps of No. 9 and paused before the door, his hand on the rusty knocker. His heart beat a trifle faster as he noticed a tall figure loom from the darkness, and caught the glint of metal buttons.

A policeman glanced at him swiftly, then passed on, his heavy footsteps echoing down the dreariness of Rice Street.

Bill raised his hand and knocked three times.

The rat-tat-tat seemed unnaturally loud to his taut nerves as he waited. No sound came from behind the doorway. The house itself was in darkness. Again Bill knocked—harder this time. Something fell to the doorstep.

The door swung open noiselessly.

Bill had a torch in his pocket, and his heart thudded with a queer excitement as he flashed it downwards. What had fallen down when his knock jerked the door was a folded piece of newspaper. Evidently the door had not even been latched—simply pushed to, with the piece of paper in the jamb just to keep it from being ajar.

Bill whistled softly.

The house was deathly still, and Bill had a strange feeling of impending danger. The message of the unknown girl came back with redoubled force.

Where was Metaxas?

Bill called out softly:

“Is anybody in?”

A groan, hollow and sepulchral, sounded from the darkness upstairs. The suddenness of it startled him.

“Are you there?” cried Bill again.

There was no reply other than a long shuddering sigh. Someone in pain! Bill felt the sweat prickle out on his forehead. He squared his shoulders.

“All right, I’m coming,” he called, and dashed up the stairway.

He halted on the first landing and found himself facing a half-open doorway. He pushed it open, flashed in his torch—and he started back.

In the yellow glare of his flashlamp he made out the limp body of a man lying face upwards on the floor with arms outstretched. Protruding from the chest was the hilt of a dagger. The man’s white shirt was dyed with a dark crimson stain.

Bill gasped. Murdered!

He dropped on one knee beside the still figure and shifted his torch towards the man’s face.

Then he reeled back, overcome by a nauseous, sickening odour and the sight of that ghastly, dead face. The flesh was puffy—mottled with a queer greenish hue. The lips were leaden-grey, the lobe of the right ear was torn as if it had been gnawed by a rat.

Bill Kellaway shuddered and rose unsteadily to his feet. He switched out his torch to shut out that ghastly sight. Blindly, he groped for the door.

There was a hoarse chuckle from the landing, and his scalp tingled as he heard it. A click—and the door was shut to.

“Hil” roared Bill. “Come back, you devil. I’ll——”

The rasp of the key in the lock, and again that evil chuckle. Bill tugged frenziedly at the handle. He heard the sound of footsteps descending the stairs; then—Bang! The street door shut.

Bill groaned as he realised how neatly he had been tricked. He was alone in a locked room with the corpse of a murdered man.

“Damn Lenoir!” Bill ground out savagely.

What a fool he had been to listen to that specious rogue. He flashed his torch again, and jerked viciously at the door handle.

He gave a sharp cry of amazement as the light illumined a small oblong object pinned to the centre panel of the door.

It was a yellow envelope—and it was addressed to himself.

For a moment or two Kellaway stared blankly at the envelope, then suddenly he snatched it from the door.

His fingers trembled shakily as he tore it open and withdrew a halfsheet of yellow notepaper. Bill read the message.

“Task Number One. You will proceed at once to Liverpool. You have twenty-four hours’ grace. After that period you must consider yourself a hunted man. Your task is to remain hidden for a week, without disguise, and without leaving Liverpool or its environs. You must not under any circumstances use a false name or break any of the conditions you have already signed.

“If you succeed in evading capture for that period—ending on midnight on Friday next—you will have performed your first task. In that event, you must telephone Duke 0983 immediately after 12 o’clock when the second task will be made known to you.

“If, however, in the course of the next seven days you are recognised by certain agents of the police and formally challenged, you will forfeit all claim to the million—apart from unpleasant consequences to yourself; X and Y.”

Kellaway laughed hoarsely.

“So that’s the game, is it?” he muttered. “I’ve got to act as a decoy while Metaxas, or whoever he is, gets clear with this ghastly crime.”

The situation was desperate. To be discovered alone with a murdered man, to have no convincing explanation of his presence—he felt that the noose was already tightening about his throat.

“Gosh! What a messl” breathed Kellaway. “What an unholy mess!”

He was checkmated at all points. He knew if he flung open the window and yelled for the police it would do little good.

He was not even allowed a disguise, or a false name.

Suddenly he squared his shoulders, and into his eyes came a dogged fighting look.

“By Gosh, I’ll try for it!” he declared aloud. “I’ll not be beaten at the first fence.”

He crossed over to the sideboard in the poorly-furnished room, jerked open a drawer, and gave a grunt of satisfaction as he saw that it was full of cutlery. He selected a small steel carving-knife and crossed over to the flimsy lock.

He wrenched hard against the socket, there was a protesting squeak and then—He was free!

He strained his ears.

No sound from the dark, cavernous basement.

“Mustn’t leave any fingerprints!” he thought subconsciously.

He wiped the handle of the knife and the doorplate with a spare handkerchief. Panic almost seized him as he reached the front door and wrenched it open.

The fog had thickened now.

A street lamp shone palely yellow ahead, and he heard the steady tramp of advancing footsteps. A beam of light stabbed from the gloom, almost blinding him. He found himself staring at the blue-uniformed bulk of a policeman and quaked inwardly.

“Rotten night, constable,” he managed to mutter.

“You’re right, sir. Looks like being a real pea-souper,” was the gruff reply.

Murmuring a good night, he plunged ahead in the direction of Victoria Station. He heard the purr of a motor car. Then his heart almost stood still, for from the depth of the fog somebody called his name.

“Kellaway! Mr. Kellaway! Are you there?”

The voice was a woman’s, low, with a queer attractive huskiness about it.

Bill felt himself gasping.

“Yes? Who is that?” he called in a low voice.

“Thank Heaven!” was the heartfelt reply. “Are you safe? Wait moment, and I’ll——”

At the wheel he made out the slim, feminine figure in a fur coat. The car purred to a standstill, within three feet of him. The girl beckoned him urgently. He ran towards her, feeling absurdly excited.

“You didn’t take my warning,” she said, reproachfully. “Oh why—why didn’t you listen?”

Kellaway stared at her speechlessly.

In the dim light above her head she looked extraordinarily pretty. She had a firm, resolute little chin, dark-brown eyes, and red lips that now parted in an adorable curve.

“I waited as long as I could for you this morning,” said the girl. “But I’m watched night and day, and it was dangerous to stay a minute longer. Won’t you please give up this mad undertaking of yours?” she pleaded.

Bill Kellaway found his voice.

“It’s frightfully decent of you to take all this interest in me,” he began. “I don’t know who you are or——”

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” she said. “I dare not stop a moment longer. They’ve spies everywhere, and if once they discover I’ve talked to you——” She glanced fearfully over Bill’s shoulder. He noticed that she shivered slightly.

“But won’t you tell me your name?” he pleaded. “I’m so entirely in the dark. That ghastly business at No. 9——”

He broke off suddenly.

“What,” demanded the girl, and her eyes were alive with eagerness, “what did you see? What was the message in the yellow envelope?”

Kellaway hesitated. He had signed that he would divulge to no one the secret of his mission.

He coughed awkwardly.

“Well, you see—er—miss,” he began, “I’m afraid as I don’t know you I am not allowed to discuss the matter.”

“You fool!”

The girl’s eyes blazed with contempt.

“I’ve tried to help you—gone out of my way and risked everything to warn you against these men, yet you persist in carrying out your insane compact. Do you know who they are?”

“But who are they?” demanded Bill.

“I dare not tell you,” she whispered. “Go away now before it is too late. Leave England, and try to forget that you’ve ever seen or heard of No. 9 Rice Street and the masked men you saw last night.”

“But, I say, I can’t do that, you know,” said Bill.

There came a toot of a motor horn in the fog. The girl’s face paled.

“Quick! I must go,” she gasped. “For Heaven’s sake be persuaded in time, Mr. Kellaway. No, no, you mustn’t try to find out who I am. It would be fatal. They—they would kill me if they knew,” she added, and waved Bill aside as she pressed the self-starter.

Bill stepped back just as the limousine accelerated.

“But I say,” he gasped. “Dash it all, I don’t even know your name.”

“Call me Echo,” was the reply, and a moment later the girl and the car were swallowed up in the fog.

CHAPTER VII

THE MYSTERIOUS MR. METAXAS

A GUARD’S whistle shrilled, a perspiring porter banged the carriage door to, and Bill Kellaway sank into his seat in the first-class compartment with a sobbing sigh of relief as the mail train pulled out of Euston Station on it’s non-stop run for Crewe.

“Call me Echo!”

The girl’s last words, as they drifted through the fog, haunted him. Echo! It was so characteristic of her elfin-enigmatic personality—the girl who had been a voice to him, and nothing more, until an hour ago.

His blood ran cold as he reviewed the events of the past hour. Had he left any tell-tale clue behind?

He shivered.

His one gleam of comfort was that, according to his instructions, he had twenty-four hours in which to hide like a hunted fox, and after that—the deluge!

“I’ll give ’em a run for the money, curse ’em!” he muttered.

The thought of that million, and all that it would mean, offered some consolation; but if he were arrested for murder, and hanged, at the end of it all, it would be precious little comfort to know that he died a millionaire.

It was the impenetrable mystery of the whole affair that almost maddened him. Who was the dead man? Metaxas? Or was Metaxas the fellow who chuckled on the landing as he locked the door?

Bill lit a cigarette. The express was due at Lime Street shortly before two a.m. and Kellaway wondered what on earth he would do when he got to Liverpool in the small hours. If the police were on his trail, and a reward offered, it was a pretty hopeless proposition.

He flung away the butt of his cigarette and closed his eyes.

It was not until Crewe was reached that he awoke with a start. He opened the carriage door.

There was a boy wheeling a refreshment trolley along the platform. Kellaway signalled to him.

As he did so a man in a hard bowler hat, with a blue overcoat tightly buttoned up to his throat, advanced towards the carriage. He was evidently searching for someone. Kellaway’s heart missed a beat as the man approached him.

The man looked like a plain-clothes man, with his bullet head and large, determined-looking jaw.

“Tea please,” said Bill, striving to keep his voice steady as the refreshment waggon trundled up. He covered his confusion by groping for change.

The bullet-headed man shot a keen glance at him, and a ham-like hand descended on the handle of the open door.

“Ah!” said the man, with a little note of satisfaction in his voice.

Bill essayed a watery smile.

“Cold night, isn’t it?” he ventured. His voice sounded like a croak.

“Very, Mr. Kellaway,” said the other. “I’d like to have a word with you.”

“Yes,” said the man with the bullet head. “It has come to my knowledge that you——”

Bill’s cup rattled against the saucer. He looked around wildly for a chance to escape. A frantic impulse to crash his fist into that thinlipped mouth possessed him. He clenched his left fist, and the other noticed the action.

“That looks like blood on your hand, Mr. Kellaway,” he said quietly.

“What—what do you mean?” he demanded uneasily, as he stared down at the man standing on the platform beneath the carriage window. “I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”

“You were at No. 9, Rice Street to-night, were you not?” said the man, and his eyes gazed sternly at Bill.

Bill licked his lips.

“What the devil’s that got to do with you?” he snarled.

“A good deal, my friend,” retorted the other. “You were seen leaving the house, and you stopped to talk to a certain young lady in a car. That was not only an indiscreet proceeding in the circumstances, but highly dangerous.

“It has already caused a great deal of—er—inconvenience and I am here to tell you that by your action the twenty-four hours of grace allotted to you has been curtailed by half. You have now less than twelve hours to escape—and the fault is entirely your own.”

Bill stared at the man.

“Then—then you’re not from the police?” he gasped, faintly.

The other shook his head.

“You have more to fear from the agents of—of a certain power than from the police, Mr. Kellaway,” he said.

“I may add that immediately after your twelve hours’ respite is up your full description will be broadcast throughout the country. That means that all police stations will be on the watch for you. You have only yourself to blame for the curtailment of your hours of grace. As for the woman, she is—er—being dealt with.”

There was a threat in the man’s voice that made Bill’s blood boil. An ear-splitting whistle, and the train started to move. Kellaway stuck a red and furious face out of the window.

“Look here,” he roared. “I don’t know who you are, but——”

“My name,” said the other, “is Metaxas!”

CHAPTER VIII

A CHANCE IN A MILLION

THE rest of the journey was a nightmare to Bill. At every stop he felt the hand of the law on his shoulder, and as the train roared on through the night towards Liverpool he would have felt grateful if he had actually been arrested, and released from the nerve-racking suspense. He had exactly twelve hours, according to the man who called himself Metaxas, before the hunt would be in full cry.

It was not until the train rattled into Lime Street Station that Bill Kellaway grappled with the problem of escape.

“Lime Street! Lime Street!”

Hoarse-voiced porters roared out raucously. A uniformed figure stepped forward with an air of decision and opened the carriage door. With much relief, Bill saw that it was a porter of the Midland Adelphi Hotel, and not a police-inspector, as the man’s peaked cap, silhouetted in the darkness, had suggested.

“Any luggage, sir?”

For a moment Bill hesitated. His soul craved for a drink and a comfortable bed before tomorrow’s ordeal. But he reflected that his arrival at the largest hotel in the north of England, without luggage, would attract attention and cause comment.

He shook his head.

“No thanks. I’m already fixed.”

He was cold, tired, and most extraordinarily thirsty as he walked rapidly towards the Pier Head.

Kellaway paused on the pavement in front of the vast bulk of St. George’s Hall, wondering whether it would be worth while risking it and booking a room, when suddenly he heard a maudlin voice raised in a song.

A moment later a young man, hatless, very flushed of face, staggered round the corner. In his hand he gripped a bottle of whisky, with which he was beating time to his philosophic ditty:

“No ushe a-worrying, no ushe a-flurrying,

No ushe kicking up a row!

For you won’t be here, and I won’t be here

When a hundred yearzh are gone!”

His voice quavered away as he goggled owlishly at Bill.

“Hallo!” he said. “Jolly old Moosh—fine animal the Moosh. Noble beas’.”

“Annual dinner, dear boy. The annual dinner of the Anshun Loy’l Order of Andeluvianmooshes!”

The last word came out with a rush, and he clutched at the railing to support himself. He flourished the bottle towards Kellaway.

“Go on, have a drink, old fruit. Won it in a g-g-uessing competition,” he explained.

Bill’s eyes glistened.

The whisky bottle was half full, and it was a tempting offer.

“Go on,” urged the reveller. “Won’ go ’ome till mornin’!” he declared defiantly, and promtly sat on the pavement.

Bill caught the bottle dexterously as it was jerked out of the other’s hand. He placed it to his lips and gulped down the fiery spirit gratefully. It brought the blood tingling to his checks, and with a smile he turned to help up the other on his homeward way.

The loyal Moose, however, was disinclined for walking.

“Go ’way, theresh good chap,” he breathed. “I wanner go bye-byes.”

Bill cursed softly below his breath. It hardly seemed sporting to leave the poor devil to be scooped up by the police. On the other hand——

Like a flash a way out of the impasse came into Bill’s mind.

“By Gosh!” he ejaculated. “I’ll do it! It’s the one chance in a million!”

He seized the whisky bottle and then from his pocket he dragged out his wallet and extracted thirteen pound notes. The reveller was snoring gently, with a beatific smile of happiness on his face, and Bill thrust the notes inside the breast-pocket of the young man’s dinner jacket.

He then flung his hat over the railings, unbuttoned his collar, and sat on the pavement. It was a desperate chance he was taking, but it seemed the only possible one.

Heavy footsteps sounded round the corner, steady, inexorable as Fate. Bill drained the whisky bottle and flung it into the gutter with a crash, then bellowed at the top of his voice:

“I’m ’Enery the Eighth I am, I am,

I got married to the widow next door——”

“ ’Ere, wot’s the meaning of this?” demanded an angry voice, and a bullseye lamp flashed into Bill’s face.

“She’s been married seven times before,” continued Bill, irrelevantly.

“Get up!” said the constable. “Disgusting way for a gent to be’ave.”

“And each ole bloke was Henery,” carolled Bill, blithely. “She wouldn’t ’ave a Willie or a Sam.”

“Stow it, will you!” snapped the policeman, dragging Bill to his feet.

“I—hic—know who you are,” said Bill, admiringly digging a finger into the constabulary corpulence. “You’re l’il Boy Blue blowin’ your horn, sheep’s in the meadow, and cows in the corn.”

The constable’s face darkened with wrath. His massive hand gripped Bill firmly by the collar.

“Assaultin’ the police in the execution of their dooty, eh?” he said grimly, “You’ll get it ’ot for that Henry the Eighth!”

CHAPTER IX

SEVEN DAYS’ HARD

“At 2.33 a.m. on the night of the 6th inst., while patrolling my beat in the neighb’rood of Picton Road, I ’eard a loud crash, and found accused sitting on the pavement in an intoxicated condition.”

P.C. Y987 paused impressively.

Bill Kellaway, sitting in the cramped dock of Dale Street Police Court, stared stonily at the grey-bearded magistrate on the bench.

“Near ’im was the previous accused, in a comatose condition, sir. I hendeavoured to remonstrate with the prisoner, who was singing at the top of ’is voice in a manner liable to cause a breach of the peace.”

The magistrate glanced sternly at Bill through his spectacles.

“I cautioned accused,” continued the policeman, “who replied in a hoffensive fashion and endeavoured to snatch off my ’elmet. He stated he collected them to keep aspidistras in.”

A titter went round the court, but the magistrate frowned heavily.

“Did accused offer any violence?” he demanded.

“ ’E did, sir.”

“H’m!” said the magistrate, and his eyes rested sternly on Bill, who looked very much the worse for wear.

“Have you anything to say for yourself?” he snapped.

“No, sir,” said Bill. “I objected to the policeman barging in on me when I was perfectly happy. There’s far too much interference with the liberty of the subject nowadays, I think,” he added.

P.C. Y987 gasped, and the magistrate’s face reddened with anger.

“How dare you, sir! You are found in a disgustingly intoxicated condition by a constable who very kindly warned you of the consequences before arresting you. You assault the law’s representative, commit several breaches of the peace, and have the effrontery to stand there and express no regret for your behaviour, but actually attempt to justify it. Your—er—companion in debauchery at least had the decency to express his shame and regret. You will be fined the sum of five pounds on the charge of insulting words and behaviour and five pounds for being drunk and disorderly.”

“I haven’t got the money, your worship,” said Bill, with a bland smile.

“Very well. You will go to prison for seven days with hard labour.”

Bill felt a touch on his shoulder, and was hustled out of the court into the passage below.

“Silly juggins!” said the gaoler contemptuously as he clanged the cell door on Bill.

Bill yawned and stretched himself on the hard wooden bench of the cell.

“Call me when the Maria comes,” he said sleepily, and promptly leaned back and closed his eyes.

When the warder’s footsteps had died away down the corridor he sat up with a jerk. Gone was his assumed fatigue. It was now about eleven a.m., he thought. Within a few minutes, if Metaxas spoke truly, the hue-and-cry would break and his unknown enemies would be on his track. Bill grinned at the simplicity of his plan.

He had deliberately feigned drunkenness and made himself as offensive as possible in the hope that he would be kept in custody. Sir John Matthews, the magistrate, had played up beautifully, and Kellaway awaited his incarceration in Salton Gaol, if not with pleasure, at least with relief. Of course, the risk was tremendous. At any moment the cell door might open, and he would be charged with a graver offence than drunk and disorderly; but that was a peril that he preferred not to dwell upon.

He heard the jangle of keys down the corridor.

“Come along,” said the warder gruffly, unlocking the cell door. “Step lively now.”

Bill followed his guide through the cold, gloomy passage into an anteroom in which sat half a dozen other prisoners.

A policeman took particulars of Bill’s name, age and religion, then barked out an order:

“Stand up! Left turn! Quick march!”

A black pantechnicon-shaped van stood, with throbbing engine, on the cobbles. Kellaway found himself hustled inside with the other prisoners.

A stalwart sergeant took his seat in the rear of the van, and in a moment or two the driver accelerated and Bill Kellaway experienced his first motor ride as a guest of the King.

The van jolted and shook horribly in places, and Bill gave a sigh of relief when the uncomfortable journey was over. He heard the clang of gates and hoarse commands. Suddenly the rear door was flung open, and he caught his first glimpse of the grim greystone frontage of Salton Gaol.

“Step lively now!” snapped the Sergeant.

Bill Kellaway shrugged his shoulders resignedly and stepped out on them hard asphalt exercise-ground towards the chief warder’s office. Grim as the outlook seemed, he felt almost grateful towards the high forbidding walls, with their spiked tops that shut out, for a time at least, the vengeance of his unknown enemies.

CHAPTER X

THE LAIR OF THE SECRET SIX

ONE of the most remarkable features of that extraordinary organisation, the Secret Six, was undoubtedly its curious choice of headquarters.

When that elderly spinster lady, Miss Letitia Carberry, defied the combines, and, with the uncrushable optimism of the meek, opened yet another of those ineffectual teashops with the infantile name of Ye Olde Browne Potte experienced observers prophesied the speedy bankruptcy of the restaurant.

But certainly neither the general public not even Scotland Yard had the slightest suspicion that Ye Olde Browne Potte was the headquarters of that amazing society, the Secret Six.

The long room above the restaurant was locked securely during the daytime, and Miss Carberry never interfered with what transpired in that room. It was this discreet reticence on her part that earned her substantial salary, which more than balanced the losses on Ye Olde Browne Potte.

Shortly after eight o’clock on a cold, wet evening a limousine turned into Wessex Street, and from it descended the debonair figure of Dr. Armand Lenoir, who strolled slowly towards the restaurant. There was a side door leading off to a small alleyway, and inserting his key into the lock, the doctor entered and slowly walked upstairs. He entered a long, low room, the walls of which were painted a dull and unrelieved black.

Round a horseshoe-shaped table five men sat—each one in evening dress, and with his face masked with a black domino, from which descended a strip of black lace, completely obscuring the features. Above the mantelpiece, nailed to the wall, was a huge, double-edged sword, which glinted in the rays of the pendant electrolier.

But the most incongruous figures in that bizarre upper chamber were the two silent and watchful individuals standing with their backs to the sable-hued walls, arms folded, and staring with expressionless gaze into nothingness. They were like two wax figures in their immobility and it was not until Lenoir handed his hat and gloves to the taller of the two—a gigantic Chinaman—that the illusion was broken.

Lenoir smiled—that lop-sided, cynical smile—then turned to the motionless, black-garbed figure who, expressionless as a tailor’s dummy still stared with folded arms into vacancy.

“A whisky and soda, Thurwood—a long drop!” he added, with a chuckle.

The little man did not smile. He was a thick-set fellow, with a pallid rather pimply face, a drooping sandy moustache, and cold fishy eyes of a repellently pale blue.

The Secret Six was a unique organisation in many ways, but it was undoubtedly the only society in existence that employed as servants two ex-executioners—Chang, late headsman to the Imperial House of Pekin, and James Thurwood, late public hangman to his Majesty’s Government.

The masked five round the horseshoe table turned inquisitively towards Lenoir. One of them spoke with a pronounced American twang.

“Wal, Doc, any noos?” he demanded.

Lenoir shrugged and took his seat at the vacant place.

“I’m afraid, gentlemen,” he remarked, “that the situation is a complete deadlock. I have just received the following telegram from Metaxas.” He pulled out a buff-coloured form, and cleared his throat: “Drawn blank everywhere. Suggest issuing second notice. Metaxas.”

“Hades!” rasped the American. “It strikes me Metaxas and the whole bunch are a lotta saps. Back home, Pinkerton or Burns would have gotten Kellaway in twenty-four hours. It’s now Wednesday night, five solid days since he made his getaway, and neither Barnes, Metaxas, nor Forrest has the ghost of an idea of his hangout. Whad’ya say, Jarvie?”

He turned to the plump little man at his side.

“I agree with you, my dear Phineas. It’s utterly ridiculous. Either he has committed suicide in view—er—of the unfortunate affair in Rice Street, or he has left the country. In which case, of course, the million is forfeit.”

“Kellaway certainly doesn’t strike me as being a man of suicidal tendencies,” said Lenoir. “And as for leaving the country—well, Forrest is covering that end of the trail. No! The fact is, gentlemen, Kellaway—much as I regret to admit it—has indubitably checkmated us thus far.”

A sudden silence fell on the masked group. Suddenly the American spoke, and thumped the baize-topped table.

“No, by heck, Lenoir!” he announced. “This particular task was my idea, and if I’ve gotta spend another million I’ll find him. Metaxas advises us to issue the second notice, don’t he?”

Lenoir nodded.

“He does, gentlemen. But remember, we promised not to call in the aid of the official police unless absolutely necessary. I admit I was astonished that Kellaway has managed to elude us for so long, but if you think it necessary, by all means proceed with our second plan of attack. The point is, how are we going to persuade Scotland Yard to assist us in our search without—er—disclosing the existence of the Secret Six?”

“This is my show, Number Four,” rasped Phineas. “I guess there’s nothing to prevent me charging the man Kellaway with theft, is there? Lenoir here has the number of that hundred-pound note we gave him for expenses. They kin hold him on that. We also have the flashlight photo we took of him when—er—our friend Schultz tried his stuff with a bomb.”

“Why not cut out the theft charge altogether?” broke in the gruff tones of Number Three, who had not hitherto spoken. “Simply go to Scotland Yard. Tell them Kellaway is missing, that you’ve anxious to trace him, and there’s a thousand-pound reward for information that will lead to his discovery.”

“You said it,” snapped Phineas. “I’ll get right along to Scotland Yard now.” He pushed back his chair with a scrape.

“Don’t worry, boys,” said Phineas, with a chuckle. “Mr. Hercules ain’t gonna to win round one—let alone the whole six!”

So saying, he swung on his heel, and as Chang closed the door after him Lenoir lit a cigarette.

“Our friend seems very sure, gentlemen,” he murmured. “Personally I fancy Kellaway is not so easily checkmated.”

It was the sixth day of Kellaway’s self-imposed imprisonment. Six days of soulless routine, of heart-breaking despair and wildly fantastic hopes.

Tired and exhausted, with fingers bleeding and sore from their unaccustomed task of stitching canvas bags, he would fling himself on his hard pallet bed and wonder what was happening in the outside world.

It was the baffling mystery and the motive behind his fantastic predicament that nearly drove Bill frantic. Who were the mysterious foes he had to fight? The girl, Echo, had merely deepened the riddle. Each day seemed a century, and each night an eternity. And now, on the last day before his release, new and alarming problems had presented themselves.

Once outside the gaol, how was he to escape detection? He knew he was to be released early on the morrow. Between then and the appointed hour where could he hide?

He dared not leave Liverpool—that was out of the question. If he entered a hotel the keen-eyed spies of his secret adversaries would be on the watch.

Then there were the police!

Bill stifled a groan as he followed the warder down the echoing corridor into the storeroom. Here, close-cropped, listless-eyed convicts piled high hundreds of drab-looking canvas bags stamped with the hideous broad arrow of servitude.

Bill thanked his stars for the modification of prison uniform and the abolition of the same hideous brand of a convict’s clothes. The suit he was wearing, though drab, was not ill-fitting. It was a uniform grey serge, and differed little from that of the average artisan.

“Look sharp with them bags, No. 7,” snapped Warder Williams.

Bill mechanically handed his pile to the close-cropped convict and stood at attention.

“You’re going out tomorrow, ain’t you?” demanded the warder.

Bill nodded.

“Good. I’ve got another job for you. Left turn!”

“Set to—and use some elbow-grease, m’lad,” ordered the warder. “And mind—no talking.”

Bill rolled up his sleeves and took his place at the sink. Near him stood a rubicund, freckle-faced little man, with eyes as bright and alert as a sparrow. He grinned cheerfully at Bill, and without moving a muscle of his lips, murmured:

“Wotcher, mate! The last day’s the worst!”

Bill nodded.

On the exercise-ground he had met the little robin-like convict before, and found him the most likeable among the motley crowd of crooks in the confines of Salton.

“Symphony Sam,” as he was known by “con” and “screw” alike, was a burglar by profession and a musician by inclination. He was an “old lag” and knew all the ropes, and he had earned his soubriquet by his really astonishing ability to extract music from the most unlikely instruments.

Once he had entertained the whole cell corridor by a masterly improvisation of the “Bells of St. Mary” and brought tears to the eyes of the most hardened crook with the melody until checked by a scandalised warder, who discovered that Sam had extracted the notes by banging in turn his tin plate, the grille of the door, two spoons, and a piece of glass that he had smuggled into his cell.

“See you outside, mate!” he murmured, confidentially. “I’ve got a snip—a sure job—sweetened, once I’m out of this ’ere.”

Bill smiled and wondered at the amazing and unquenchable optimism of the old lag.

“Take my tip, young ’un,” continued Symphony, “steer clear of the P.A. You don’t want to chop wood and ’awk veges. Go along to Juniper Joe’s place in Burke Street; say I sent yer an’ old Joey’ll fix yer. The Prisoner’s Aid’s all right for mugs, but——”

Suddenly a whistle rang out shrilly. Symphony promptly wiped his hands on a towel and grunted:

“Exercise. C’mon, kid.”

Bill, whose mind had been wandering, fell into line automatically. He was wondering if going to Symphony’s pal, Juniper, would solve the problem of a hiding-place on the morrow.

Quickly the half dozen men were marched into the open beneath the warder’s watchful gaze. A little apart were a group of men still in civilian clothes—prisoners on remand, who eyed the convicts curiously.

A warder barked a command, Bill and Symphony fell into single file and marched towards the centre of the exercise-ground.

Suddenly one of the remand men, a sandy-haired, ferret-faced fellow, gave a gasp as Bill passed him with averted eyes.

“My Gosh!” he gasped, excited. “It’s ’im! It’s William Kellaway. ’Ere, warder,” he bellowed, “there’s a thousand quid reward for that bloke!”

“Stop that talk!” roared the warder, mechanically. “Shut up, or I’ll——”

“But I tell yer,” persisted ferret-face, “that’s Kellaway! I saw ’is dial in the cop shop an hour ago. A thousand——”

Something snapped in Kellaway. Like a coiled spring he leapt out of the ranks. Almost before the warders realised it, he hared across the quadrangle. His action had been so sudden that for a moment or two no one moved—then pandemonium broke forth.

“ ’Alt there! Get that man!” roared a burly, red-faced warder.

Williams turned round suddenly, but the quick-witted Symphony shootout a foot that brought him crashing with a bone-shattering jolt to the hard asphalt. The convicts grinned gleefully. Despite the frenzied shouts of “Stop him! Stop him!” from the chief warder they made no move. Williams rose wrathfully to his feet, assisted by Symphony Sam, who, with a look of bland concern, inquired if he had “ ‘urt ’isself”.

“Stand back, curse you!” snarled Williams, rubbing his bruised knees. “I’ll deal with you later, me lad!”

“There he is!” roared a score of voices, and Symphony chuckled gleefully as he saw Bill desperately shinning up the waste-pipe that ran parallel with the walls of the cook-house, which was an annexe to the prison proper.

“Go it, young un,” chuckled Symphony. “Throw a chimbley-pot at ’em. Don’t let ’em——”

“Silence!” roared the chief warder.

Blindly, Bill dashed for the spike-topped wall. He knew that it was a good twenty-foot drop to the ground, but that had to be risked.

Grasping the spikes firmly, he lowered himself over on the other side, closed his eyes, relaxed his limbs, then dropped like a plummet.

For a few moments he lay as he fell, dazed and breathless. Shakily he rose to his feet and looked around him. Beyond was a row of jerry-built houses; to the right lay Liverpool.

Bill’s shrewd wits worked at lightning speed. Less than a minute had elapsed since he had made his dash for freedom. He was hatless, dishevelled. He began to brush his coat, and suddenly his hand came in contact with something metallic in his pocket. He drew it out curiously, and eyed it with a puzzled stare.

It was an enamelled tin cup—the sort of utensil used in prisons.

“Now what the devil——” began Bill; then suddenly he remembered.

While Symphony had been talking of Juniper Joe, he himself had been mechanically drying the cup to add to the pile by the side of the sink. Then Williams’ sharp order to fall in must have flustered him, and quite mechanically he had placed the cup in his pocket instead of on the drying board.

“Silly thing to do,” he murmured, and was about to fling it away when suddenly he caught a glimpse of three uniformed figures running across the roadway from the main entrance of the prison.

Instantly Bill ran—blindly, madly, in the direction of Liverpool. If he could only mingle with the crowds, he thought subconsciously, he would have a better chance.

“Stop thief!”

A score of voices screamed in his rear. It was the cry of manhunters lusting for blood, and Bill felt like a harried fox. And with a fox’s cunning he doubled back on his harriers. He pressed himself into the shadow of a tiny alleyway that ran between two rows of shops and grinned exultantly as he heard the thudding feet of his pursuers on the pavement. He found he was still clutching the ridiculous tin cup by the handle. And in that moment a blinding flash of inspiration came to Bill.

From his temporary vantage point he could see an outfitter’s shop.

At the door the fat proprietor had his back to Bill, and was gesticulating violently and roaring encouragement to the mob of people racing up the road. There were, Bill noticed with instant appreciation, two articles displayed prominently outside the shop—a rack of very new and very hideous cloth caps and an ornate stand with walking-sticks for sale.

Stealthily Bill sidled alongside the latter, and extracted one. Then, with a gesture swift as the dart of a snake, he removed a cap from the hanging rack. He had just donned it when the fat proprietor turned, his face purple with excitement.

“Mein Gott! A gonvict hav’ escabed!” he began, then broke off suddenly.

Before him stood a pathetic figure, that of a young man with closed and sightless eyes, a tin cup held mutely in his hand as he tap-tapped uncertainly on the pavement.

“Boor vellow! Blind, eh?” he muttered, and dropped a coin with a tinkle into the proffered cup.

“Thank you, sir—thank you!” said Bill Kellaway, and passed on, his stick tap-tapping on the pavement.

It was an inspiration of sheer genius, thought Bill.

He had not only kept within the letter of his agreement, but, with luck, had shaken off his pursuers. Nobody would imagine that the pathetic figure he presented was an able-bodied prisoner who had just scaled a twenty-foot wall.

Suddenly he heard a deep baying sound like the noise of a pack of hounds. He half opened his eyes and saw, with a groan of dismay, that another crowd, led this time by the fat chief warder, poured round the corner leading from the gaol.

A big lorry driver emerged from a near-by eating-house, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes fell on Bill and the advancing crowd.

“Look out, mate! You’ll be knocked over,” he said, gripping Bill’s sleeve. “Another bloomin’ convict’s escaped. Makin’ a fair ’abit of it they are. Where d’you want to go, mate?” he added, kindly.

Bill hesitated. He felt a hot blush of shame, but realised that necessity knew no law.

“Well, if you—er—could put me on a tram for the Pier Head,” he said, diffidently.

“Sure, son. Wait till this blinking excitement’s over,” replied the drayman. “Now then, gently does it, step down ’ere. There’s a Pier ’Ead car just coming.”

He allowed himself to be hoisted aboard the tram, heard the conductor’s kindly “I’ll look after yer, mate,” and sank back into a corner seat with a sigh of relief.

Kellaway felt he was playing a lone hand against the world. Naturally, the police had taken charge of his clothes and personal possessions. How was he to get back to London, assuming, of course, that he successfully evaded the police? Even a trunk call from Liverpool to London cost considerably more than the sixpence he had in his possession.

Ironically enough at that moment he heard the conductor’s voice demanding “Fares, please”.

Bill groped in his pocket and unearthed the money. He felt a tap on his shoulder and his heart missed a beat. He had an overmastering desire to open his eyes and ruin everything when the hoarse but kindly voice of the conductor breathed in his ear.

“That’s all right, matey. Keep the tanner.”

Bill wanted to laugh aloud.

CHAPTER XI

A DISCIPLE OF DRAXTON DREAD

THAT remarkable man, and still more remarkable manservant, Henry Henry, studied the photograph of his new employer in the Daily Post and shook his head lugubriously.

“A far from flattering likeness,” he mused. “More like a police photograph than anything. It is interesting to speculate what exactly has happened to the precipitate Mr. Kellaway.”

All the week Henry had been thrilled to the depths of his romantic soul by the mysterious disappearance of his employer. When, on the Monday, a brief announcement had appeared in the Personal Column of the leading morning papers advertising a reward for information that would lead to the whereabouts of William Kellaway, Henry’s first impulse had been to phone up the solicitors who had inserted the announcement. Any ordinary manservant would have done so , but Henry was a hardened detective story fan, and like the celebrated criminologist, Draxton Dread, preferred to wait developments before taking action or formulating a theory.

Three days went by, and Henry had heard no word either from or about Bill Kellaway until he opened his favourite newspaper, the Daily Post, and saw a very smudged-looking likeness of his employer beneath the caption: “Missing—£1,000 reward!” Then followed a brief description of Bill, concluding with the intimation that information leading to the finding of the said William Kellaway should be given at any police station or direct to Scotland Yard.

It was now Thursday morning and Henry, seated negligently on the armchair of his employer’s suite at the Hotel Splendide, was lighting a cigarette to review the situation when a knock sounded on the door and the manager of the Splendide entered, accompanied by a round-headed, burly man with an aggressively-waxed moustache and a cold and suspicious eye.

Henry instantly recognised him as a detective from Scotland Yard.

“Yes, sir? You wished to see me?”

“This is Henry, the valet, inspector,” said the manager. “Doubtless he will have information to give you. As for me,” he shrugged deprecatingly, “the management are not responsible for the—er—misdeeds of their clients.”

“I said nothing whatever about misdeeds,” snapped Inspector Barker. The manager bowed and glided away, leaving Henry alone with the detective.

“Your name is Henry?” snapped Barker gruffly.

“It is, sir—Henry Henry, a gentleman’s gentleman.”

“You mean a valet, I suppose?” said Barker acridly. “Can you tell me anything about your employer, Henry?”

Henry paused for a fraction of a second.

“Very little indeed, inspector,” he replied.

“Ah! You’re one of these discreet chaps, eh?” sneered the Yard man.

“Discretion is the better part of valeting, sir,” said Henry softly.

“Cut out the Noel Coward stuff! I understand you entered Mr. Kellaway’s service a week from to-day?”

“I did, sir,” was the rather chastened reply. The reference to Noel Coward had surprised Henry.

“You received a phone call from Euston Station shortly before ten on Friday evening last from your employer, stating that he was leaving for Liverpool, did you not?”

Henry’s mouth almost gaped. How on earth did this bullet-headed policeman know that?

“That is so, sir. He said he would be back within a week and told me to forward no letters.”

“I see. He did not seem at all depressed, or have anything on his mind?”

Henry’s heart leapt. At last he had a chance of shaking the phlegmatic inspector.

“He was not actually depressed, but mentioned casually, almost laughingly, that he had just received sentence of death. Of course he may have been using the term metaphorically. On the other hand——”

“You read too much Draxton Dread, Henry,” broke in Barker. “In any case, your theories don’t interest me. But to continue. Tell me, did Mr. Kellaway receive any letter before he left that might have caused him to—er—make that remark to you?”

Henry hesitated, and Barker noticed the hesitation.

“You needn’t be reticent out of mistaken loyalty to your employer,” he said. “As a matter of fact, as far as I know, Mr Kellaway has committed no crime. Another thing. I am not acting in an official capacity, or for the police.”

Henry swayed a little.

“In that case, inspector, I do not see the necessity of discussing my employer’s private affairs with you.”

“Not even when they are in his interests, eh?”

“That is different,” said Henry. “May I ask on whose behalf you are acting?”

“I am on holiday at the moment,” replied Barker. “The lawyers who are acting on behalf of the—er—advertiser asked me to look into the matter of Mr. Kellaway’s disappearance, that is all.”

“I see,” said Henry stiffly. “Well, inspector, as this is entirely unofficial, may I respectfully submit that——”

A knock sounded at the door and interrupted his sentence. With a murmur of apology he slipped across and opened it. It took all his years of training to repress an exclamation of surprise. Standing on the threshold—a charming little figure in a dove-grey tailor-made suit—was the elusive girl who called herself Echo.

“Excuse me,” she began breathlessly. “Have you heard from Mr. Kellaway?”

Henry shook his head solemnly.

“No, madam, I regret I have had no news.”

“Oh! Did you see the advertisements in this morning’s paper?” she demanded. “It’s not fair! It’s beastly! I—I——” She stamped an imperious little foot.

“I regret, madam, I cannot ask you in to wait Mr. Kellaway’s return, but——”

At that moment the burly figure of Inspector Barker loomed in the doorway. The girl gave a gasp, and her cheeks flamed.

“Oh, you!” she said unsteadily, and turned as if she would race down the corridor.

“Precisely, Miss Jarvie,” said Inspector Barker. “I, also, am looking for Mr. Kellaway.”

Then the telephone bell rang, and Henry hurried to answer it. A gruff voice at the other end of the wire asked for Henry. He turned, and found the girl talking in obviously agitated tones to the inspector.

“Henry speaking. Who’s that, please?” he demanded. His heart leapt oddly as he heard the voice of Bill Kellaway.

“Say listen. I’ve got to lie low till midnight tomorrow,” announced Bill. “Don’t worry about what you see in the papers. I shall be back in the early hours of Saturday morning, all being well. Meanwhile, hang on, Henry—oh, and have a hot bath and a mixed grill waiting by the five ack amma train.”

“Very good, sir,” said Henry, the perfect servant. Then, with an apologetic cough, he announced:

“Er—the young lady has just inquired after you, sir. She is here now. Would you like to speak to her?”

“What!” roared Bill, and his voice seemed to shatter the telephone diaphragm. “You bet your sweet life!”

Henry turned from the instrument and with a deliberate glance at Inspector Barker announced blandly:

“Mr. Kellaway would like to speak to you, madam.”

“What d’you say?” snapped Barker. “Kellaway? Great Scott! Where is he?”

It was then that Henry rose to the occasion.

“That, inspector, I submit with all due deference, is none of your damned business.”

CHAPTER XII

THE HOUSE OF JUNIPER JOE

WHEN the tram finally reached the pier-head without mishap—and at every step Bill had expected a policeman’s hand on his shoulder—he breathed in the salt-laden air of the Mersey, took one swift, comprehensive glance at the panorama of the river, and then entered a tiny general and marine-store dealer’s shop near the docks.

He realised that he must have some sort of stockin-trade if he was to sustain his role of a blind pedlar. A pudding-faced boy of about fourteen sat munching bullseyes behind the counter, and to him Bill gave his order for a sixpenny packet of matches.

The youth handed the package over, and took no further notice of him.

“Can you tell us where Burke Street is, son?” he inquired wheezily.

“Ah! ’Bout twenty minutes’ walk down here. Keep straight on till you comes to a pub—the Spotted Dog. Ask anyone there to guide you.”

“Thanks, sonny,” said Bill. His plans were not completely formulated, but it was obvious that he couldn’t walk about for the better part of two days with his eyes closed and in a prison suit. The only alternative was to act on Symphony Sam’s suggestion and seek out Juniper, whoever he was.

Bill was pretty confident that the man was a crook. Whether a mere word of recommendation from Symphony was good enough remained to be seen.

He was beginning to feel most confoundedly hungry as he tapped his way uncertainly along the crowded sidewalk.

“Burke Street at last! An ominous name!”

A burly seaman in a blue reefer suit emerged from a frowst gin palace at the corner and nearly cannoned into Bill.

“Steady on there, mate!” he hiccoughed. “Cawn’t you look where you’re——” His remarks checked suddenly. “Sorry mate!” he added shamefacedly as his gaze fell on Bill’s fast-closed eyes.

“That’s all right,” muttered Kellaway. “Can you direct me to a place called Juniper Joe’s?”

“Sure. Old Joe Cartwright. This way, chum,”

Bill allowed himself to be led about fifty yards down the narrow street, and in a surreptitious glance saw the words over a dingy-looking store:

“JOE CARTWRIGHT. MARINE STORE DEALER. Good Beds for Single Men.”

“There y’are, mate!” muttered the sailor, opening the door. “ ’Ere’s old Joe’s joint!”

Bill nodded his thanks, and as the sailor took his leave, approached the counter hesitantly.

He dared not open his eyes to glance at the man whom he sensed was watching him curiously. Whether it was Juniper Joe or not, he had to risk it.

“Well, mate?” queried a gruff voice from the gloom. “What kin I do for you?”

“Are you Juniper Joe?” demanded Bill.

A rich chuckle sounded from the other.

“Ay, that’s me, son. I ain’t seen you before anywhere. ’Oo sent yer?”

“Symphony,” whispered Bill. “Symphony Sam. I—I saw him this morning.”

“S—sh!” hissed Juniper Joe. “Step inside through ’ere—quick. I’ll be with yer in ’arf a tick.”

Bill slunk inside and closed the door. He heard the voice of Juniper Joe from the shop calling hoarsely for George—a whispered colloquy, and finally Joe himself sidled into the room.

His expression was apprehensive, and there was a lurking suspicion in his eyes as he sat down and studied Bill Kellaway.

“Came out this mornin’, did yer?” he demanded.

Bill nodded. He felt he had to go warily.

“Yes. Broke out. Symphony helped me.”

“Cripes! You escaped?” said Juniper, with a soft whistle. “That’s bad, son. The bloomin’ busys will be swarmin’ all over the place. Anybody seen you come?”

Bill shook his head.

“I don’t think so. The fact is, I pretended to be blind. It was the only way to get clear.”

Juniper Joe pounded his knee and chuckled.

“You’ve got a ’eadpiece on yer, son. What’s yer lay and monniker? Any pal of Symphony’s a pal o’ mine.”

Bill hesitated for a moment, then boldly decided to take the plunge.

Jupiter Joe might be a fence and a crook, but he had to take a chance on that. Nothing could be gained by trying to bluff the shrewd, hard-eyed old man, and Bill accordingly put all his cards on the table. He kept back merely his compact with Lenoir, and insinuated that he was on the run from a gang in London.

Old Joe listened without a word of comment.

“You want to lie low until tomorrow night then, son?” he said, at length. “It’s going to be blamed awkward for me. If you hadn’t been Symphony’s pal I’d ’ave given yer the key o’ the street. The bloomin’ ’tecs are allus nosin’ about my place, curse ’em!”

Bill chuckled.

“There’s only one thing to do,” continued Juniper Joe. “You’ll ’ave to ‘ave Dodger Martin’s kip in the cellar. It ain’t much of a kip, but it’s safe.”

“I don’t care what it’s like,” said Bill, “so long as the police don’t cotton to it. Tell me, Juniper, d’you think it possible I could get a trunk call through to London?”

The old man shot a keen glance at him.

“D’yer think it’s safe?” he demanded. “The sooner you dig in the better. I’ve got a phone in the passidge, but you’d better not ‘ang about too long.”

Bill hesitated. He wanted to ring up Henry and find out what had happened in his absence. The risk was great, yet if he was to return on the morrow it was essential that he should have money, and Henry seemed to be the only person to whom he could apply.

Juniper Joe noticed his hesitation, and touched his elbow.

“Come on, get it over, son,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’ll ’old the fort then I’ll show yer Dodger’s room.”

Bill followed him into the gloomy little passage. With beating heart he raised the receiver and demanded a trunk call. An impersonal voice from the exchange murmured: “I’ll ring you.”

“It’ll be another ten minutes afore you get through,” said Juniper. “Come on, I’ll show yer the kip.”

He turned to the left and entered a kind of storeroom piled high with a miscellaneous assortment of oddments. He pushed aside a heavy packing-case and disclosed a trap-door let into the floor. He opened it, disclosing a dark cavity below, into which a ladder descended.

“It’s a bit stuffy, but it’s safe,” he announced. “Try and get a bit of shut-eye, son. When the coast’s clear I’ll bring yer some grub.”

“Sorry, boss. Bloke wants to see yer most pertickler, name of Dobbs.”

Juniper swore softly and closed the trap-door with a bang. Just then the phone bell rang shrilly, and he turned to Bill.

“Ring up and wait till I’ve dealt with this chap,” he muttered.

George eyed Bill Kellaway with a fishy, lack-lustre expression as he walked over to the telephone, then followed his employer into the shop.

Meanwhile, Bill had got through to Henry, and that admirable valet’s announcement set his heart hammering against his ribs.

“Echo there!” he said blankly, “Of course I’ll speak to her.”

His brain was whirling at the thought of hearing again that adorable husky voice. What was she doing in his rooms at the Splendide?

He thrilled as he heard the eager: “Is that you, Mr. Kellaway?” It was Echo right enough, mysterious, provocative.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe,” said the girl. “I’ve been frightfully worried ever since that—that night.”

“Nice of you,” murmured Bill. “I seem to be worrying a hole lot of people lately. Tell me, Echo, what are you doing in my rooms? Vamping Henry, or burgling?”

He heard her faint gurgle of laughter.

“Don’t be silly. I came to find out if there’s any news. How on earth have you managed to evade them?”

“You mean the police?” queried Bill. “Easy. I disguised myself as a female cook and bribed them with large portions of pie. It’s easy when you——”

“For goodness’ sake be sensible,” broke in the girl. “I mean the Secret Six. There’s a reward of a thousand pounds out for you, and a man from Scotland Yard is here at this moment pumping Henry.”

Bill whistled.

More complications! What on earth was the Secret Six? No wonder the remand prisoner had recognised him, with all that money as a reward.

“Do you think you can stick it out—er—Bill?” demanded Echo.

Kellaway’s pulses leapt at the sound of his Christian name.

“You bet your life, my dear,” he announced confidentially. “There’s only twenty-four hours to go, and then——”

“Hercules will have performed task number one.” was the amazing reply. “Good luck—Bill.”

“Here, what the deuce?” began Bill, in astonishment. “I say——”

A faint elusive laugh floated over the wires, followed by a click.

Echo, elusive as ever, had hung up.

Bill Kellaway swore, and glared savagely at the vulcanite receiver before replacing it.

He turned, just as Juniper Joe emerged from the shop, an early edition of the Liverpool Echo gripped in his hand.

“My oath!” said Juniper. “You’ve torn it! Quick—into the cellar with you. Every busy in London’s on your track. What the hades have you done for them to offer a thousand quid reward?”

Bill stated at the headlines with stupefaction:

“CONVICT’S DARING ESCAPE. WILLIAM KELLAWAY FOUND—AND LOST! POLICE HUNT.”

Juniper Joe feverishly lifted the trap and thrust the paper into Bill’s hands.

“You haven’t done the big thing?” he murmured, in a hoarse whisper.

“Murder—no! Don’t be a fool!”

“I’m glad o’ that,” said Juniper Joe. “Quick! Down yer get, mate. It’s your only chance. Lie low till I give you the wire.”

The trap-door shut with a bang.

In the corner was a trestle bed. A ricketty table, on which reposed a hurricane lamp, and a broken-backed chair completed the meagre furniture of the place. Bill sat down on the bed and stared at the headlines.

He felt a slight sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he encountered a smudged portrait of himself under the caption of “£1,000 REWARD.” Was Juniper Joe to be trusted? He was a crook, a receiver of stolen property. Was he a nark as well?

The situation, far from becoming easier, had grown more hopeless. There was nothing to prevent Juniper Joe telephoning up the nearest police station and claiming the reward…

CHAPTER XIII

A SHOCK FOR PHINEAS LEE

PHINEAS T. LEE paced restlessly up and down the hearthrug of his study and chewed savagely at the end of his unlit cheroot.

He was in a foul temper, and the absent Hercules was the innocent cause. It seemed preposterous that a man could successfully evade every policeman and private inquiry agent in England and disappear without a trace.

It was now Thursday afternoon. If Bill Kellaway managed to remain in hiding until midnight on Friday, he, Phineas T. Lee, known in Wall Street as “Battler Lee”, would have to admit defeat, and furthermore, lose the sum of two thousand pounds.

Not that he cared a hang for the money. It was the sense of impotence that rankled. He flung the sodden cheroot into the grate and glanced irritably at the door as a knock sounded.

“Come in, curse you!” he rasped.

A moment later Cole, his butler, entered, and coughed deprecatingly.

“Inspector Barker to see you, sir,” he announced.

“Show him in, Cole. Mix a couple of highballs and fetch ’em in,” he added.

The butler bowed and returned, accompanied by the burly C.I.D. man.

“Well?” snapped the American. “Find him?”

“No, sir. I made enquiries at the Hotel Splendide, and learnt one or two interesting facts. In the first place, Kellaway is alive and still at Liverpool.”

“What?” ejaculated Phineas. “Still at Liverpool! You mean to tell me that none of the harness bulls have been able to find him, and he’s been in the city for five days?”

“It seems like it, sir. While I was interviewing his valet the phone bell rang. It was William Kellaway, and he wanted to speak to Miss Jarvie.”

“Miss Jarvie?” echoed the millionaire, blankly. “What in tarnation was Miss Jarvie doing in Kellaway’s rooms?”

“I have no idea, sir. I did try to question her, but she was very—er—abrupt.”

Phineas Lee whistled as Cole entered with the whisky.

“I was about to suggest, sir, that I proceeded at once to Liverpool,” said Barker, after an appreciative sip of his whisky. “If you want Kellaway found by midnight tomorrow there’s not much time to waste.”

“Gosh, darn it, Barker!” said Phineas. “The police at Liverpool seem to be a dud lot. Kellaway must be staying somewhere, and with that reward out I can’t understand it.”

“Liverpool is a sizeable city, sir,” broke in the inspector. “There are over a million inhabitants all told.”

Phineas checked himself in time. He was about to mention the conditions under which Bill was hiding when a tap sounded on the door and Dr. Armand Lenoir entered, an early edition of the Evening News under his arm.

He nodded briefly to the inspector, and turned to the American.

“Well, what do you think of Master Hercules now?” he demanded. “Kellaway’s got brains, and he knows how to use ’em. No wonder he’s managed to evade the police.”

“What’s that?” barked Phineas. “Have’you heard any news? Barker here says Kellaway has just rung through from Liverpool.”

Dr. Lenoir laughed softly.

“What colossal nerve!” he remarked. “He escaped from Salton gaol three hours ago.”

“What?” gasped Inspector Barker blankly. “Escaped from gaol?”

“Exactly,” said Lenoir, and pointed to a brief paragraph announcing Bill’s escapade in the Stop Press column.

The American snatched the paper and read the news with a deep frown.

“Wal, if that don’t lick creation!” he announced, sinking into a chair.

Inspector Barker cleared his throat.

“I’m afraid, gentlemen, I don’t quite understand the situation. I’m on leave, and when Mr. Lee here suggested that I should search for this man Kellaway I did not know that he was a crook.” He glanced sternly at the millionaire. “You gave me to understand, sir, that Kellaway was missing; that it was important that he should be found by midnight tomorrow night to sign certain documents. I now find that he is an escaped convict. I would be glad of an explanation.”

Phineas T. Lee coughed a little uneasily. It was an awkward moment. Naturally it would be impossible to explain the activities of the Secret Six and the million pound challenge to the inspector.

It was Dr. Lenoir who came to the rescue.

“The fact is, Inspector,” he said, with a smile, “Bill Kellaway is an old friend of ours who for some reason best known to himself has elected to disappear. It is vitally important that his signature should be secured for a certain document by tomorrow night; otherwise it will be invalid, and a considerable amount of money is at stake. According to the report, Kellaway was serving seven days on a charge of drunkenness. Why on earth he was not fined, and why he should have escaped when he was to be released tomorrow is beyond me.”

The Yard man nodded.

“It’s rum, sir,” he agreed. “But I dare say they’ll find him in an hour or two. Convicts very seldom get away with it.”

Lenoir smiled.

“My dear inspector, you would relieve our minds considerably if you ran up to Liverpool yourself and found him for us. Expense is no object. Kellaway must sign those forms before midnight tomorrow.”

Phineas T. Lee pulled out his wallet, and extracted therefrom a crisp banknote.

“That’ll cover expenses, inspector,” he announced. “Ring me up immediately Kellaway’s found.”

The C.I.D. man lumbered to his feet, and his fingers closed on the money.

“Very good, sir. I quite understand. You can rest assured that Kellaway will be found before the day’s out.”

When the door had closed Lenoir sank limply into a chair and mopped his forehead.

“Phew!” he murmured. “A narrow shave, my dear Phineas. Fortunately the worthy inspector is as big a fool as he looks.”

A statement which did that shrewd and capable officer a gross injustice—as Lenoir was later to discover.

Phineas Lee helped himself to another cheroot and lit it.

“Say, doc, this guy Kellaway’s got guts,” he drawled. “Durn me, I’m beginning to enjoy the game.”

Lenoir smiled and stroked his neat Imperial.

“I told you so, my dear fellow. You wanted someone to fight. Admit that your membership of the Secret Six has at least cured you of boredom.”

The millionaire blew a wreath of smoke ceilingwards.

“You’ve said it, doc,” he agreed. “What I want to know is how Jarvie’s girl cottoned on to Kellaway?”

“You had better ask her,” retorted Lenoir, blandly. “I am dining with the Jarvies to-night if you care to come along.”

“I sure will,” said the other grimly. “I’ve got a side bet with Jarvie that Hercules don’t get past his first fence.”

“You’ll lose,” announced Lenoir frankly. “Consider what he has already achieved. Not only has he dodged all our agents, but he has actually bamboozled the whole Police Force. Why on earth he went out of his way to escape this morning is beyond me.”

“Ferget it!” snapped Phineas Lee. “Nobody’s ever beaten me yet. Mister goldarned Hercules is probably in a prison cell right now.”

He was not far wrong, for at that moment Bill Kellaway was gloomily surveying Dodger Martin’s funkhole and comparing it, to its disadvantage, with the cell he had recently vacated at Salton Gaol.

Over half an hour had passed.

He leapt to his feet suddenly, with fists clenched. There was a protesting squeak of hinges, and suddenly he blinked as the trap-door was opened letting in a flood of light. Framed in the square aperture was the figure of Juniper Joe.

“You all right, Bill?” he whispered hoarsely. “It’s one o’clock. I’ve shut the shop, and that fat slob, George, has gone home to dinner.”

“It’s safe enough for a bit,” continued Juniper. “Come up and have summat to eat.”

Bill clambered up the ladder and reached out for the other’s gnarled hand.

“Joe, you’re a white man,” he said, rather huskily. “Believe me, I’m grateful.”

“Stow the gaff, son,” growled the other. “I owe Symphony a lot, the silly ole idiot. Why the blazes ’e let ’imself get copped the larst time beats me. ’Owsomever, ’e’ll be out in a week, and mebbe ’e’ll listen to ole Juniper Joe next time.”

He led the way to the ramshackle parlour. On the table there was a round of cold beef, pickles, and a loaf of bread.

The sight of the eatables reminded Bill that he was ravenously hungry. Juniper Joe grinned as he opened a quart bottle of beer.

“Looks good after stoo, don’t it, son?” he chuckled.

Bill nodded. His mouth was too full for speech.

The old man waited until his guest had finished, then leaned forward.

“What’s your lay, son—screwsman or penman?”

Bill understood that he was being asked, in the crook’s vernacular, if he were a burglar or a forger. He realised that Juniper Joe had evidently mistaken him for a criminal, and thought he would be foolish to disillusion the old rascal.

“I’m a tale-teller,” said Bill, truthfully.

“A con man, eh?” chuckled Juniper. “I s.’pose you’ve said bye-bve to your glad rags, eh?”

Bill nodded regretfully as he thought of Lord Humphrey Craik’s herring-bone suit.

“This is all I’ve got in the wide till I get up to town,” he announced, indicating his grey prison serge.

“Got anything salted in London?” demanded Juniper.

“Sure. Fifty quid, and a couple of suits.”

“Good. I’ve got a nifty-looking suit in the shop; belonged to a bloke who got pinched for moll buzzing. Just about fit you, son. What are you goin’ to do? You can’t stay ’ere for good. It ain’t ’ealthy, mate. My advice is to streak back to London, grab what you’ve salted, and try gay Paree for a bit.”

“That’s all very well,” said Bill. “Point is, I’ve just got to stay here till midnight tomorrow. There’s a lot hanging on that. You keep me hidden, Juniper, until I’ve put a phone call through tomorrow night, and half that fifty’s yours.”

“I don’t want the oof, son. Crikey, if I wanted spondulicks, wot about tipping you off to the busys and collaring that thousand?”

“You wouldn’t do it, you old sinner,” said Bill confidently.

Juniper Joe laughed with obvious pleasure.

“I ain’t never shopped a pal in me life, Bill,” he announced proudly. “Ask anybody if ole Juniper ain’t the straightest fence in Liverpool.

“I’ll get you them togs. You’ll ’ave to get back to your funk’ole for a bit afore that fool George comes back. I don’t trust George.”

Kellaway drained his glass and Juniper flung down a suit of navy blue serge and a packet of cigarettes before closing the trap.

“See you to-night,” he announced, cheerfully. “Keep smiling, mate.”

George Jelks the fat and unprepossessing assistant of Juniper Joe, pushed back his plate with a contented sigh and picked his teeth with the corner of the menu in the dingy little eating-house at the corner of Burke Street. He had a glazed and cod-like expression in his protuberant eyes as he reached out for the newspaper on the rack beside him.

It was the noon edition of the Echo. Mr Jelks’ hobby was picking winners. He turned towards the late wire from the course and was about to indulge in his fancy when his gaze fell on the photograph of a convict who had escaped from Salton Gaol that morning.

“Gor!” said Mr. Jelks. “Coo lumme!”

Slowly he absorbed the information that there was a reward of one thousand pounds for anyone giving information regarding the whereabouts of one William Kellaway.

It gradually dawned on him that the photograph of the escaped convict was extraordinarily like the man he had seen at Juniper’s that morning.

Mr. Jelks himself had been ‘inside’ more than once for petty pilfering. His first and most natural reaction towards the news was sympathy for the escaped convict, but gradually it changed under the magic influence of those four fascinating figures.

“A thousand quid!” breathed George Jelks, stertorously. “Lumme!”

Very carefully he folded up the newspaper and thrust it into his pocket. He was a slow mover, and this was a matter to be reflected over a pint of ale.

George Jelks knew that Juniper was on the crook. He knew also that Juniper’s house had often been used as a sanctuary for those who wished to evade the law. The simplest and most obvious course, thought Mr. Jelks, was to approach the nearest “rozzer” and tell him that the convict, William Kellaway, was hiding under the trap in Juniper Joe’s storeroom.

On the other hand, reflected the cautious Mr. Jelks, he mightn’t. The fat George had few scruples other than a wholesome regard for his own skin. A known nark has short shrift in the underworld, and to split to the police about such a popular fence as Juniper Joe would be a highly dangerous business in spite of the thousand pounds reward.

“No,” he mused, as he regained the dingy squalor of Burke Street. “A thousand quid or no thousand quid, a cove had to make certain first that his own skin was safe.”

When, therefore, shortly after two p.m. he was admitted by Juniper, who shot a keen, suspicious glance at his subordinate, Mr. George Jelks’ elation was considerably modified by uneasiness.

“You’ve bin a devil of time,” growled Juniper Joe, angrily. “Watcher think I pay yer for—boozin’ at the corner?”

Jelks muttered an apology, doffed his coat and took his place behind the counter of the gloomy little shop.

“You get a move on with them kips upstairs,” ordered his employer “I’ll look after ’ere, me lad.”

When his assistant had vanished Juniper Joe’s eyes narrowed craftily.

“I wonder where that fat slob’s been?” he muttered, and tiptoed towards the peg where George had hung his coat. His gaze fell on a folded copy of the Echo with the report of Kellaway’s escape liberally ornamented by greasy thumb-prints.

“So that’s it, you dirty tyke!” he murmured. “Cripes, if you’ve split, I’ll—I’ll——” He clenched his fists and sat down to consider matters.

Meanwhile there was nothing to do but wait, and if the busys came, trust to luck and brazen it out. They had raided his place before and found nothing.

There was the respectable house in Garston, to which he paid rare but profitable visits; the snug little ketch moored near the Hadstone dock, where many deals in stolen jewellery had been negotiated. Perhaps, after nightfall, mused Juniper, it wouldn’t be a bad scheme to give the Sophie Jane the once over.

The long afternoon wore on, and beyond the visit of a mate of a tramp, an old crony of Juniper’s, no one called at the dingy shop in Burke Street. The fence studied Jelks covertly and noticed his badly-concealed uneasiness. Once he surprised him rummaging in the lumber room, and Jelks’ shifty eyes and scared expression were significant.

Juniper’s muscular arm shot out, and his grip tightened on the back of the fat one’s neck.

“Wot the devil d’ye think you’re doin’?” he snarled. “Come on out with it.”

Jelks squealed like a frightened rabbit.

“N-nothing, boss,” he stuttered. “I was jest tidying up like, ’onest I was. S’welp me there ain’t no ’arm in that.”

“You’re a liar!” snapped the other. “Now listen ’ere, George Jelks, I’m warnin’ yer. The feller that tries puttin’ the double-cross on me won’t last twenty-four hours.” Jelks wriggled free from his grasp, and felt his blood run cold at the threat.

He longed desperately for eight o’clock when he would go off duty.

He donned his coat and muttered a curt good night, conscious all the while of his employer’s hard, suspicious eye.

“Yer don’t want anythink else, I s’pose?” he added, pausing with his hand on the door.

“No,” growled Juniper Joe. “Seem anxious to oblige, all of sudden, don’t yer? Remember wot I’ve told yer—keep a still tongue in yer ’ead

or else——” His gesture was eloquent, and Jelks sweated beneath his muffler as he took his leave.

At the end of Burke Street a shrill-voiced newsboy sped along between the hurrying throng of homeward-bound pedestrians. Jelks caught a glimpse of his bill, which announced in flaring red type:

“KELLAWAY STILL AT LARGE.”

He bought a copy of the late night final.

Meanwhile, in his stuffy funkhole beneath the storeroom, Bill Kellaway awoke from an uneasy sleep to find his eyes dazzled by the rays of an electric torch. He arose to his feet with a bound, and clenched his fists instinctively.

“Sssh!” cautioned the voice of Juniper Joe. “ ’Salright, son, it’s me. Listen. I’ve a hunch that fat slob George’s going to nark.”

“What’s that?” snapped Bill, his keen mind instantly alert. “You mean the police are on the way?”

The other shook his head, and glanced with approval at the blue reefer suit Bill had donned in place of his convict clothes.

“You kim up for a breather, son,” he announced. “I’ve shut up the shop, but don’t make a noise, for fear them blokes upstairs ’ear.”

Kellaway climbed the ladder and cautiously closed the trap.

“What’s happened?” he demanded quietly. “What’s the time?”

“Gorn eight o’clock,” whispered Juniper. “And that’s the danger. That swine George’s slung his ’ook. ’E knows you’re ’ere—an’ if ’e splits, it’s all U.P.”

“Gosh!” muttered Kellaway. “That’s bad, Joe.”

Even as he spoke there came a thunderous knock on the door.

“And that’s the way of ut, inspector, sorr,” announced Desk-Sergeant Clancy of the Dale Street Police Station, with a resigned shrug of his shoulders.

Inspector Barker, who had just arrived in Liverpool from London was distinctly out of temper.

“You mean to say, sergeant, that there is absolutely no clue concerning Kellaway?” he demanded. “Here it is, after nine p.m. Nearly twelve hours since the man escaped, and nobody in Liverpool seems to have set eyes on him. It sounds perfectly preposterous!”

“It does that, sorr,” agreed Clancy, thoughtfully, nibbling his penholder. “But then the whole case——”

He broke off suddenly as a man’s face peered furtively round the jamb of the charge-room door. It was a white, flabby face, glistening with perspiration, and it wore a frightened, hang-dog expression.

“Phwat the divil do you want?” demanded Clancy.

The head disappeared as if it had been jerked back by force, and the desk-sergeant rapped out an order to the constable.

“See who that is, Green?”

The constable’ re-entered, grasping a fat, frightened-looking loafer by the sleeve.

“Now then you,” said the desk-sergeant sternly. “What’s all this?”

“He seems scared about something, sergeant,” muttered the policeman. “Says he’s afraid of being seen.”

Clancy stared at the man and his red face wrinkled into a smile.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Georgie Porgie,” he remarked, playfully, “What’s the throuble, me boy?”

George Jelks shook his arm free from the constable’s detaining grasp and licked his thick lips as he glanced apprehensively round the charge-room.

“I—I want to see the inspector, urgent!” he announced, huskily. “It’s about this Kellaway bloke.”

“What?” said Barker and Clancy simultaneously.

“Do you know where he is?” added Barker.

“Yus, I do,” announced George Jelks, with a cunning leer. “But I ain’t telling till I knows about this thousand quid. You boys are liable to pinch it if——”

“None of that now, or we’ll pinch you, Mr. Smarty Jelks,” snapped Clancy. “You can speak free before this gintleman. He’s an inspector from Scotland Yard.”

Jelks studied Barker’s grim, forbidding countenance and quailed inwardly.

“Scotland Yard!” he echoed. “Gor!”

He had all the provincial crook’s fear and hatred of police headquarters.

“What’s all this about Kellaway?” demanded Barker. “Know this man, sergeant?”

“Sure,” replied the desk-sergeant. “Pulled him in once or twice, haven’t we, Georgie?”

Jelks swore under his breath. He had imbibed freely, but the Dutch courage that had strengthened his decision in the pub was now oozing quickly.

“Come on now.”

Barker strode over to the unhappy Jelks, and his prominent eyes were hard as steel.

“Tell us about Kellaway. If your information’s straight, I’ll see that it’s forwarded to the proper quarter.”

Jelks backed away hastily beneath the Yard man’s baleful glare.

“I—I—ain’t sure, sir,” he stammered. “But I believe ’e’s ’iding in Juniper Joe’s joint.”

“Begorrah, is that so?” said Clancy, scribbling on a buff form.

“Who’s Juniper Joe?” asked Barker sharply.

“A fence down by the docks, sorr,” replied the sergeant. “Least-ways, he calls himself a marine store dealer—slippery as they make ’em.”

“I see,” said the detective. “Better take this man’s statement, sergeant.”

Haltingly, George Jelks told his story. Inspector Barker’s mouth set grimly as he listened while Clancy wrote down the statement.

“Better investigate the matter at once,” he advised. “As Inspector Brown’s not here, perhaps I——”

“I was going to suggest it myself, sorr.” interposed Clancy, lifting the telephone receiver. “I’ll just ring through for a tender, and warn ’em at the other end.”

He spoke a few crisp words of instructions into the receiver, then turned to the cowering Jelks.

“I suppose you was too scared to go to Hare Street Station, seein’ it was so near Juniper’s?”

Jelks nodded.

“For ‘eaven’s sake, sergeant, don’t let ’em know I’ve told yer,” he pleaded hoarsely. “Juniper’ll croak me for sure if—if ’e finds out.”

“Take him inside till we verify his statement,” ordered the inspector.

George Jelks followed the constable meekly towards the cells. For the first time in his life he felt kindly disposed towards a police station.

“Phew!” whistled Clancy, as he departed. “Nasty little rat! Here’s the tender, inspector,” he added, as the door opened to admit a tall, burly figure in plain clothes.

“This is Sarjint Hankinson, in charge of our little Flying Squad. All ready, sarjint?”

Hankinson saluted the Yard man deferentially.

“Quite ready, sir,” he announced, briskly. “Burke Street, isn’t it?”

“It is, and good luck to ye!” said Clancy.

The great clock of the Royal Liver Building pointed to nine-thirty as the fast police car threaded its way through the maze of the Pier Head traffic in the direction of the docks. Grim, unsmiling, Inspector Barker sat next to the driver of the car, half a dozen plain-clothes men in the rear. Everything had been arranged with the minimum of fuss for the raid on Juniper Joe’s.

“Here we are, sir,” whispered Hankinson, drawing his car to a standstill. “The back’s already covered by our men,” he added.

“Good,” said Barker, laconically, as he followed the six plain-clothes men on to the pavement.

“He’s a clever old devil, old Joe is,” whispered Hankinson. “But we’ve got him this time, I guess, sir.”

He approached the door of the shop—closed now—raised a ham-like fist and pounded on the knocker. The reverberating rat-tat-tat went echoing down the street.

Suddenly the door opened, and on the threshold stood Juniper Joe, a lamp in his hand and a bewildered expression on his face. He fell back a step as Barker and Hankinson pushed back the door and marched into the narrow hallway.

“ ’Ere, wot’s all this?” he protested. “Out of my ’ouse, or——”

“Stand aside, Joe,” rasped Hankinson. “We want Kellaway.”

“Kellaway?” echoed Juniper Joe blankly. “ ’Oo the devil’s ’e?”

Sergeant Hankinson laughed unpleasantly.

“Not so much of it, Joe. We’ve got you properly this time. Are you going to offer any obstruction?” he added, with a meaning glance, as three plain-clothes men followed him inside and shut the door.

Juniper Joe’s bronzed face twisted into a scowl.

“This is outrageous,” he said, in an injured tone. “I suppose, by your overbearing an’ insolent manner ye’ve come from the police, I’d like to see your warrant,” he added vindictively.

Hankinson produced a blue strip of paper.

“Always have one ready for you, Juniper. Come on, boys. You go and sit down in your parlour, Joe. Inspector Barker here would like a word with you.”

CHAPTER XIV

WELL AWAY

Juniper Joe continued to gaze with an air of injured innocence at the police officer who had been introduced to him as Inspector Barker.

“You’re a new one to me,” he remarked. “I thought I knew most of the busys who——”

“I’m from Scotland Yard,” said Barker, sternly. “Er—sit down, Mr. Juniper Joe.”

“Scotland Yard! Strewth!” said Juniper Joe. “What an ’onour for my ’umble abode, Mister Copperfield. Strewth! I’ve never seen a busy look more like a busy in my life.”

“That’s enough insolence, my man,” snarled the Yard man. “Where’s Kellaway?”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Mr. Barker, sir,” replied Juniper Joe, blandly. “I don’t know anyone of that name!”

“What’s the use of bluffing, my man?” he said, irritably. “You know very well Kellaway’s on the premises.”

“I tell you ’e ain’t,” said Juniper Joe, starting to his feet. “ ’Ere, Ankinson,” he called out. “Go easy with them things in the storeroom. I don’t want ’em all trampled by your big feet.”

Barker noticed his agitation and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Come on, we’ll see what’s in that storeroom, my lad!” he said, grimly.

Still keeping a firm grip on the crook, he piloted him into the barnlike, untidy room.

Hankinson and another policeman were pushing back the heavy packing-case, and the sergeant gave an exultant grin as the trap-door was revealed.

“Come out o’ that now, Kellaway!” he cried sharply. “The game’s up.”

Seizing the trap by its rusty iron ring, he wrenched it open, and flashed his torch into the depths below, flooding the cellar with a yellow glare.

“Well, I’m—damned!” Hankinson. “There’s nobody there.”

“ ’Scuse my lafture, Mr. Barker, sir,” chuckled Joe. “Did you say this ‘ere bloke’s name was Kellaway, or Wellaway?”

When the thunderous knock had sounded at the door of Juniper Joe’s, Bill Kellaway’s first and most obvious thought was that the police had already arrived, in view of the old fence’s remarks about George Jelks.

“ ’Salright, son,” he whispered, with a glance at his wrist-watch. “It’s Eddie—Eddie the driver. I told ’im to be ’ere at eight-fifteen sharp. You see, it ain’t safe for you or fer me to stay ’ere, so I phoned ’im up to run yer down to the Sophie Jane.”

“The Sophie Jane?” echoed Bill, blankly. “Who on earth is she?”

Juniper tapped his nose in a knowing gesture.

“You’ll see, son,” he whispered. “ ‘Ang on a bit while I let Eddie in.”

He shuffled down the passage and opened the door to admit a short, stocky little man in a chauffeur’s uniform.

“All clear, Eddie?” he whispered.

The newcomer nodded.

“Sure, Joe. What’s the lay?”

“Run this bloke down to the Sophie Jane, and mind you ain’t rumbled,” said Juniper. “That rat Jelks has narked, and unless yer can get my friend ’ere under ’atches ’e ’asn’t a dawg’s chance.”

Eddie the driver nodded understandingly.

“You’re Kellaway, ain’t yer, mate?”

Bill nodded.

“You trust Eddie, Bill,” Joe added. “ ’E’ll put yer wise.”

Cutting short Kellaway’s protestations of thanks, he bundled them both out into the darkness of Burke Street. A battered old Ford van throbbed by the kerb.

“ ‘Op in,” said Eddie the driver, briefly. “Pull a sack over yer till I give yer the wire.”

Thus it happened that when, an hour later, Inspector Barker arrived at Juniper Joe’s, Bill Kellaway, a trifle bewildered, found himself aboard the snug little ketch, the Sophie Jane.

CHAPTER XV

A TRIUMPHANT TRUNK CALL.

DR. ARMAND LENOIR, whose puckish and sardonic brain had created that extraordinary organisation, the Secret Six, selected a cigar from a gold-topped humidor and surveyed the five masked men round the horseshoe table.

The atmosphere was tense and heavy with expectation. It was five minutes to midnight.

“Five minutes to go, gentlemen,” he drawled. “The situation, you will admit, is not without interest.”

“Say, Lenoir, I guess Kellaway’s funked it,” announced the American, derisively. “I reckon he’s slipped aboard an Atlantic liner and got going while the going’s good. I’ve had a wire from Barker, who says he’s convinced of it.”

“You may be right, Number one,” said Lenoir. “You must admit, however, that Mr. Hercules is giving you a run for your money. That idea of hiding in gaol was masterly.”

“Sure. I’ll grant that,” agreed the other. “But it didn’t last. He fell down on the job when he made his getaway.”

“Personally, I sincerely hope he succeeds, Phin—er—Number One,” broke in Jarvie, tartly.

“You would, eh?” Phineas Lee’s lips were ugly beneath his mask. “Let me tell you, I’d lose it cheerfully just to see you fall down on your particular task. I guess it’d be worth a million to sting——”

“Gentlemen,” broke in Lenoir, suavely. “No recrimination, please. You all understand the situation, which, as you remember, was carried unanimously at our first conference. Each one of you suggests a certain task for our—er—Mr. Hercules to perform; it is reserved for myself to give him the sixth and final task. Each of you has contributed two hundred thousand to the pool. In the event of Kellaway failing any particular task, the million goes to the member who propounded it.”

“Sure. We got you first time, doc,” agreed Phineas, a trifle testily.

“But supposin’ Kellaway fails at the first fence? Are we gonna try another Hercules, or——”

Br-br-brring!

The telephone on the little Moorish table tinkled sharply, and instantly the five masked men bent forward in an attitude of strained attention.

Lenoir glanced at the clock.

It was exactly midnight.

Amidst dead silence he crossed over to the instrument and lifted the receiver.

“Hallo!” said Lenoir, quietly. “Who is that, please?”

“It’s me,” came the faint voice of Bill Kellaway over the wires, “Darn your hide, doc, I’ve had a devil of a time, but I’ve won, hang it—I’ve won!”

His voice sounded strained, but exultant.

“Where are you speaking from?” said Lenoir calmly.

“Liverpool, dammit!” snarled Bill. “And how the deuce I’m going to get back to London, with the police waiting to grab me any second—to say nothing of your beastly spies—I—I——”

“Congratulations, my dear fellow,” drawled Lenoir. “Of course we shall have to verify your statements. Meanwhile, understand that you have nothing to fear from us. I advise you to give yourself up to the local police station, and I will put matters right with the authorities.”

“What?” gasped Bill, and his voice almost choked. “Put myself in jug again? Not on your blessed life! Why——”

“I assure you it will be perfectly all right,” purred Lenoir. “I shall call on you at Liverpool tomorrow morning. The station is Dale Street, I believe.”

“Yes, but——” gulped Bill. “I mean to say——”

“Don’t worry, my dear fellow. In the circumstances, the police can do very little indeed. As for the Rice Street affair—that has already been settled, and there is no occasion for you to be nervous about it.”

“My God!” gasped Kellaway, in relief. “Is that true, Lenoir?”

“Perfectly. Rely on me, and if you go on as well as you’ve started, you’ll be a millionaire yet.”

Unheeding the rather incoherent questions Bill stammered over the wire, Lenoir hung up the receiver and turned with a smile to the others.

“Gentlemen,” he remarked. “Mr. Hercules has performed Task Number One. I shall, of course, have to see that the authorities do not take too serious a view of his prison escapade. Considering he had only one day more to serve, and his offence was a trivial one, I fancy that can be managed.”

“Hell’s bells!” said Phineas. “That’s the first time anyone’s put one over on me, I’ll tell the world.”

Lenoir rubbed his hands softly and chuckled.

“Er—did you find the experience enjoyable?” he demanded.

“Huh!” grunted the American. “I guess I’ll find it more enjoyable seeing what sorta Jarvie here puts over. I’ll take a side bet of fifty grand he loses.”

“Done,” said Jarvie, with ill-concealed triumph. “Task Number One will be child’s play compared with the job I’ve fixed for Hercules Esquire.”

“Good morning, sir! Welcome home!”

Henry, that admirable man, did not even flutter an eyelash in surprise as he opened the door and greeted Bill Kellaway after his adventurous trip in Liverpool.

“ ’Morning, Henry. Thanks,” replied Bill, equally laconically as he sank into a saddlebag chair with a long-drawn sigh of relief.

He stretched his long legs, and mentally re-enacted the drama of that last dreadful day aboard the Sophie Jane.

It was not until nightfall that Eddie the driver had returned and informed him of the abortive police search of Juniper Joe’s. The little crook had not stayed long. He warned him that it was dangerous to return to Burke Street, and Bill assured him he was only too anxious to shake the dust of Liverpool from his feet for ever. Just before midnight, with the recklessness of sheer despair, he emerged from the Sophie Jane, and, hugging the shadows, went in search of a telephone box.

It was with a sob of relief that he finally rang up Duke 0983 and heard the suave voice of Dr. Lenoir. At first he had demurred at Lenoir’s suggestion to give himself up to the police; but when he learned that he need no longer fear the consequences of his visit to that horrible house in Pimlico, he realised that the mysterious doctor’s advice was sound.

Bill grinned reminiscently as he looked around at the furnishings of the Hotel Splendide, and recalled his visit to Dale Street Police Station at twelve thirty-five, and the consternation his quietly-spoken announcement caused.

Instead of being taken back to Salton Gaol, he had appeared a second time before the magistrates, and he had listened with wonder, not unmixed with amusement, to the wholly unveracious defence of his escape by counsel.

“You seem to be a most unbalanced and headstrong young man,” was the magistrate’s comment. “In addition to causing endless trouble to the police and—er—your distracted colleagues, you imperil your own future. In view, however, of your counsel’s eloquent plea, and your assurance of deep regret, I shall not order you to finish your sentence as I understand you have been in custody two days.

“I shall, however, fine you a substantial sum for the costs of your ridiculous and nonsensical escapade. To get deliberately drunk, knowing there were important documents to be signed by a certain date, to defy the bench, and then to crown it all by escaping from prison on the day before your release, strikes me as being the action of a disordered brain. In view of Dr. Lenoir’s statements, however, I will also bind you over to keep the peace for twelve months.”

Still smarting under the magistrate’s reproof, Bill had left the dock a free but very bewildered man. Counsel’s defence was that Bill, instead of attending to his affairs in London, had deliberately gone on the spree and forgotten all about what counsel hinted were delicate financial matters—negotiations with Bill’s partner, Dr. Lenoir.

Remembering suddenly while at Salton Gaol, he had impulsively escaped in older to be in time to sign the contract, which expired on the day of his release.

It was a brilliant defence, and Bill almost believed it himself as he left the court and entered Lenoir’s waiting Rolls-Royce. That enigmatic man greeted him with his lop-sided smile.

“My dear Kellaway, you have done astonishingly well,” was Lenoir’s comment when Bill had narrated his adventures. “I shall see that your—er—friend with the euphonious name Juniper Joe is suitably rewarded.”

Lenoir had presented him with a further hundred pounds, and stated that at the successful conclusion of each task one hundred pounds would be allowed him for his expenses until the final was accomplished.

He had also told that the nature of the second task would be communicated to him during the next two days, and that meanwhile he was entirely free from both the police and the Secret Six.

“And that’s that!” said Bill aloud, as his valet entered with a tray and cocktails. “Squat, Henry, and cheerio!”

“Cheery excessively ho! sir,” said Henry, with pontifical solemnity.

“Henry,” said Bill suddenly, “I’ve been in a devil of a mess—and I’m likely to be in a worse one.”

“Indeed, sir. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Hang it all, cut out that imperturbability,” said Bill. “It isn’t human. You know very well I’ve been in prison. It’s been in all the papers.”

“Stone walls,” quoted Henry, sententiouly, “do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage, if I may say so, sir.”

“Look here, Henry,” said Bill, impulsively. “You’re a dashed good chap. If I could, I would tell you all about why I went to clink, and the rest of it; but I can’t, for a bit. I’m under oath—see? The fact is, it’s a sort of a bet. I’ve wagered I’d do half a dozen damfool things, and if later on you find me acting queerly, don’t be alarmed. I can rely on you, can’t I?”

“Indubitably, sir. If I may say so, I much appreciate the romance you are bringing into what threatened to become a singularly vegetative existence.”

“Eh?” said Bill blankly.

“I was referring to myself,” said Henry, rising to his feet and carefully depositing his empty glass on the salver.

Bill went to the Gaiety in the evening, and afterwards mingled with the homeward bound people in the Strand. As he stopped at the corner of Wellington Street to cross over towards his hotel there was the usual traffic block. A low, rakish Mercedes car throbbed close to the kerb, awaiting the drop of the policeman’s hand.

Bill glanced at the occupants, then drew in his breath sharply.

In the tonneau, a frown of impatience on her eager, vivid little face, was the girl he knew as Echo. With her was a middle-aged, benevolent-looking man with pink, plump features.

The car was within a few feet of him, and Bill’s heart began to thump queerly. He raised his hat and smiled as the girl’s eyes rested on his for a moment. For an instant recognition flickered in their depths, her lips half ported to utter an exclamation, then suddenly she drew herself up and gazed haughtily in front of her. It was the cut direct.

Bill Kellaway Hushed angrily, and before he could recover from his astonishment the car had jerked forward into the traffic stream.

“My Gosh!” he breathed. “That was Echo, I’ll swear. Why did she turn away like that?”

Once again the elusive personality of the girl taunted and maddened him with its mystery. She had sounded so friendly, so sporting, on the phone, and now——

Bill scowled, and pushed his way through the crowd towards the Splendide. He found Henry waiting for him as he entered his sitting-room and flung himself moodily into a chair.

“A message arrived shortly after you left, sir,” said the valet, with a slight cough. “I have put it on the tray beside the decanter.”

He stared at it for a moment or two, and a queer thrill of foreboding shot through him. It bore his name and address in neat, typewritten characters, but no stamp.

“Who brought this?” he demanded.

“A Chinaman, sir, I understand from the hall porter,” said Henry.

“A Chinaman?” echoed Bill. “How extraordinary!”

“He was, sir,” replied Henry. “Perkins tells me he was a veritable giant, and seemed to be deaf and dumb.”

“Suffering saddleblankets!” groaned Bill, surveying the sinister-looking envelope gingerly. “More trouble, Henry. A deaf-and-dumb Chink! What next?”

With fingers that were not quite steady he tore it open and extracted the typewritten enclosure. It contained merely a title and six lines of doggerel that conveyed absolutely no meaning to Bill Kellaway. The one significant factor was the heading—three simple words, but pregnant with Heaven knew what perilous possibilities, thought Bill.

They ran as follows.

“TASK NUMBER TWO.

“Out of sweetness came forth riches;

Out of riches came forth beauty,

Heed not one whose voice bewitches,

Trust her not, but do your duty.

A barn in Holland with open portal

Perished now, but still immortal,

Find it, steal it, but beware,

Danger lurks beneath the stair;

Clues you’ll find on every station

If you heed alliteration.

End your task within a week

And be nearer what you seek.”

Bill re-read the cryptic message through, and his mind felt an absolute blank.

“Try a whisky and soda, sir,” said Henry, proffering a glass.

“Henry, I believe I’m going mad,” said Bill, after a gulp of the spirit.

“Indeed,” said that admirable man, mildly. “Is there anything I can do?”

CHAPTER XVI

HENRY DOES HIS BIT

BILL KELLAWAY awoke next day and found himself unconsciously repeating the first two lines of the doggerel which had been delivered by the mysterious Chinaman the previous night. The accursed jingle didn’t even make sense.

At breakfast, he demanded suddenly of Henry: “Are you any good at riddles, enigmas, and all that sort of rot? Take a peep at this lot, will you, and see what you can make of it.”

Henry took the sheet of yellow notepaper and studied it thoughtfully. His horse-like face was twisted into what he fondly imagined was the “Keen, analytical scrutiny” of that celebrated sleuth, Draxton Dread.

“It reminds me of Samson, sir—Samson and Delilah,” he announced, at length.

“By Jove! I believe you’ve hit it,” said Bill. “Didn’t Comrade Samson turn a jolly old lion inside out, and a flock, or a gaggle, or a swarm whichever it is, of bees made their nest inside the carcass?”

“Indubitably, sir, according to Holy Writ,” said Henry. “The words, if I remember rightly, run: ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness.’ It was an enigma which puzzled the Philistines.”

“Yes, but hang it, what bearing has that on beauty, and all this stuff about bewitching voices?”

Henry coughed behind his palm.

“If I may venture to suggest it, sir, without offence, the young lady who called here had a voice which could be—er—classed in that category.”

“Gosh!” said Bill. “I never thought of that.”

He lit a cigarette and lounged back in his chair. Of course! Echo! Hadn’t she got the most adorable husky voice? Also, she knew all about the Secret Six, and the mysterious X and Y whom he had first met in that strange room. If the line referred to Echo, then it was a distinct warning. But a warning against what?

The more Bill examined the verse the more involved it became. Riches and beauty came out of sweetness. I’ve got to beware of somebody’s voice, and, Heaven knows why, find a barn in Holland with an open door that isn’t there. Presumably, when I’ve found it, I’ve got to slip it into my waistcoat pocket, and I’ll find a lot of clues on every station.”

Bill rose to his feet suddenly.

“I’m going to try a brisk walk in the Park. See if you can get an angle on that by the time I come back,” he added.

It was a fresh sunny morning, and Bill enjoyed himself, despite his preoccupation, with the puzzle.

Did the second line refer to Echo? It seemed a plausible explanation of the riddle, somehow, and yet——

He recalled his chance meeting with her the previous night. Who was the benevolent-looking man beside her?

His face seemed vaguely familiar to Kellaway, but the more he pondered on the problem the darker it grew. The mystery, far from exhilarating, was exasperating. The cool, matter-of-fact way with which Lenoir had dismissed the subject of Rice Street, for instance. Bill was certain that the body he had found on the floor was that of a murdered man, yet why had there been nothing about it in the papers?

Kellaway gave it up.

He felt suddenly hungry and realised that it was after one o’clock. He rose to his feet and crossed to Hyde Park Corner Tube Station. As he entered, a line from the enigma flashed into his mind. “Clues you’ll find on every station—if you heed alliteration.”

“Why, of course!” he ejaculated, amazed at his density as he stopped opposite half a dozen posters advertising various health resorts.

“Seahampton for Sunny Skies!”

“Bournlea for Balmy Breezes and Bright Beaches!” so ran the legends.

“Alliteration all right,” thought Bill. “The point is, which is the right one? Does it mean I’ve got to go to Sunny Southsea or Breezy Bognor—or what?”

He studied the various posters carefully, and repeated the jingle softly. Suddenly his eye fell on the picture of a starry-eyed child grasping a huge jam-jar and inserting a spoon into the pot, with an expression of ecstatic eagerness. In red letters beneath ran the slogan:

“Oh Joy! It’s Jarvie’s Jam!”

The admirably executed picture of the pretty child brought a twinkle into Bill’s eyes; then suddenly the significance of the thing dawned on him.

“Eureka!” said Bill. “That’s it! ‘Out of sweetness came forth riches.’ That’s jam for a dead cert. I bet old man Jarvie’s made millions out of the stuff. Gosh! We’re getting warm!”

Blithely he entered the station and booked to the Temple. Luncheon could wait, he reflected. He had already solved one part of the enigma, and in Fleet Street he hoped to discover the remainder. The part about the barn in Holland was certainly puzzling. What on earth it had to do with jam he couldn’t conjecture.

Ten minutes later he emerged into the Street of Ink and crossed over into the offices of the Daily Gazette. He smiled a little bitterly as he compared his status with the last time he visited the building. Then, the world had seemed dreary and hopeless; now, well Heaven alone knew what fresh fantastic adventure lay around the corner. A keen-eyed young man almost cannoned into him, as he entered the swing door.

He murmured an apology, then, recognising the man, smiled a greeting.

“Hallo, Camp! How goes it?”

“Kellaway, by all that’s holy!” gasped Camp Maynard, one of the bright reporters on the Gazette. “I was just off to the Splendide to interview you. Heard you were back, but couldn’t get near you yesterday. What the devil have you been doing?”

Kellaway chuckled.

“You can lunch with me, on two conditions; one is that you don’t ask inconvenient questions; the second is that you let me have a look at your library. I shan’t be long.”

“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” said Camp, grimly.

“My dear fellow,” said Bill, amicably, “there’s no catch. I’ll stand you a nice lunch on condition that you let me use your library. I shan’t be very long, but there’s an important point I want to settle before I toy with a steak and chips.”

“Done,” said the reporter, promptly. “You know the way up. I’ll pop over to the Falstaff for an appetiser.”

Kellaway climbed up the stone stairs to a secluded and cloistered spot at the top of the building in which was situated the grimly-named mortuary of the Daily Gazette.

Here lie columns of obituary notices of the famous and the infamous, of the just and the only just, brought right up to date so that on the death of any great man the account of his life and achievements may be clamped ready set into the forme. Here, also, in charge of the dusty, bat-like librarian, were reference books, atlases, and some millions of newspaper cuttings indexed and cross-indexed for instant use. The librarian—a husky-voiced, dried-up little man—emerged from a dark corner as Bill Kellaway entered.

“May I have the Jarvie dope, please?” asked Bill, pleasantly. “Not the explorer chappie, but the jam king.”

“Certainly, sir,” said the human bat.

He vanished into a maze of filing cabinets, to emerge a few minutes later clutching a large envelope in a withered paw. Bill thanked him with a nod, and crossing over to a table in the corner, opened the envelope.

Within were some hundreds of neatly-indexed cuttings, all relating to the career of Sir John Jarvie, the famous jam manufacturer, ranging from the erection of his first factory at Walthamstow to his purchase of the National Provision Trust a few weeks previously. Bill pulled out his wallet and refreshed his memory again with the typewritten doggerel.

“H’m!” mused Bill. “It’s certainly Jarvie’s Jams. Riches certainly come out of it, but I’m hanged if I can see any beauty unless—Hallo!”

He stared at a photograph in the centre of a press cutting which bore the caption:

“Sir John Jarvie and his pretty daughter, Dorothy, snapped in the paddock.”

“Good Heavens!” ejaculated Bill, as he recognised the piquant smiling features of the girl in the gorgeous Ascot frock. “It’s Echo!”

There was no doubt about it. The girl with the adorably husky voice, who had warned him of the Secret Six, who had alternately helped and tantalised him, was Dorothy Jarvie, only daughter of the millionaire jam merchant.

He picked up the cuttings again, and his eyes narrowed as he saw the reproduction of a picture beneath the caption: “£50,000 FOR FAMOUS PICTURE!—Sir John Jarvie Buys Rembrandt’s ‘Barn’.”

“Got it!” yelled Kellaway, as he read the newspaper paragraph. It was dated two years before, and, though brief, it was illuminating:

“The record sum of £50,000 was paid at Christie’s yesterday for Rembrandt’s famous painting ‘Vandermeyer’s Barn’ by Sir John Jarvie, the millionaire jam magnate. It is one of the best examples of the great master’s masterly treatment of light and shade, and it depicts the interior of an old barn, through the slats of which the sunlight pours. Through the open door one can glimpse——”

Bill skipped the technical details. The cryptogram was practically solved. A barn in Holland with open portal, etc., undoubtedly meant the famous Rembrandt. That being so, it would seem that Bill’s next task was to find the £50,000 picture, and steal it, all within a week.

He groaned.

“That’s all as easy as pie, of course,” he murmured, glancing again at the article with its reproduction of the famous painting.

“The picture will be transferred in due course to Sir John’s magnificent private gallery at Melford Manor, in Hovenden,” he read.

Bill laughed hollowly. His first elation rapidly gave way to despair. Task Number 2 was even more difficult than Task Number 1. It was deliberate law-breaking likely to send him down for seven years if he was caught.

Seven years!

But now, studying the matter in cold blood, Bill realised that if he attempted to steal the Rembrandt he would automatically become a criminal de facto as well as de jure. He dallied with temptation over a final liqueur, and then, still undecided, went up to his room. There he found the horse-faced Henry gazing intently at a two-pound pot of Jarvie’s jam. He clapped him on the shoulder, and the valet was startled out of his trance-like attitude.

“What are you doing? Crystal gazing?” queried Bill, with a chuckle. Henry coughed behind his palm.

“I have—er—I think discovered part of the riddle, sir. One line indubitably refers to Jarvie’s jam. I approached the matter, as Draxton Dread, the famous detective says, with an unbiased mind, and eliminated all non-essentials so that——”

“That’s all right, Henry,” said Bill, cutting short the valet’s analysis of his deductive methods. “I’ve solved the riddle, but I’m darned if I know what to do when I have solved it.”

The telephone bell rang. Bill seized the receiver and thrilled as he heard the husky notes of Echo’s voice:

“That you, Mr. Kellaway?”

“Sure is, Miss Jarvie,” he replied.

“Oh!”

He grinned as he heard her little gasp of dismay at the other end.

“That’s got you groggy, eh?” chuckled Bill. “By the way, why the frozen face and frigid mitt last night?”

“Last night?” said the girl in a puzzled voice. “I don’t understand you.”

“Yes, you do. Don’t tell fibs. You were in a car with a benevolent old boy whose face has launched a million jampots—to wit, your father.”

“How—how dare you!” said the girl. “I’m—I’m sorry I rang you up now. I had a rather important message to give you.”

Instantly Bill was all contrition.

“Oh, please Echo, I’m sorry,” he began. “But honestly I was peeved at the way you cut me. Can’t I meet you somewhere and—and explain?”

“I’m afraid not,” was the reply. “I’m leaving town in half an hour. We shall probably never meet again.”

“But what was the urgent message you wanted to give me?” pleaded Bill humbly.

A low laugh sounded over the wire.

“Simply mind the step, Mr. Hercules,” was the tantalising reply. “Good-bye!”

She had rung off with her usual abruptness.

“Damn!” said Bill. “Henry!”

“Sir?”

“Pack our traps. We’re going to the country in an hour’s time, but I must first pay a call at the excellent Mr. Clarkson’s.”

“Very good, sir. Shall you still continue to reserve your suite here?”

“No,” said Bill. “Get the manager to send my bill.”

“Yes, sir. Where shall I have the baggage addressed to, sir?”

“Dartmoor, via Melford,” replied Bill Kellaway, with a sardonic grin.

CHAPTER XVII

ALIAS HANNIBAL HAWK.

“SAY, where’s the sole prop, of this here road house?” boomed a nasal voice at the hostelry, the Melford Arms.

Mr. Timothy Tring, the landlord, a tubby, apple-cheeked little man, clad in a vivid check suit and a red waistcoat, emerged from his cosy bar and surveyed the newcomer curiously.

He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a double-breasted serge suit, a broad-brimmed Stetson hat thrust back on his head. His face, which was lean and bronzed, was decorated, or defiled, by an enormous pair of horn-rimmed spectacles and a tuft of grey beard which waggled on his chin when he spoke.

He reminded Timothy of an amiable goat.

“The sole what, sir?” he asked, with a puzzled expression. “I am the landlord if there’s anything I can do for you.”

The newcomer clapped a large hand on Timothy’s shoulder and pulled him outside into the courtyard of the hotel. He pointed to the swinging sign, which bore a complicated-looking crest, and the legend: “The Melford Arms. Timothy Tring, Sole Prop.”

“Ah,” said the landlord, as enlightenment dawned on him. “That’s me. I’m the sole proprietor of this ’ere inn, if that’s what you mean.”

“Gee!” said the other. “That’s what it means. Just plain landlord, eh? It looked kinda strange abbreviated like that. I’ve heard of a guy being the sole prop of his widowed ma, but I guess I’d sooner be the sole prop of a saloon. Have you any rooms vacant?”

“Yes, sir. Won’t you come inside, Mr.——”

“Hawk,” boomed the stranger. “Hannibal Hawk.

“Y-yes, sir. Step this way, please. Have you any luggage that I can fetch in, sir?”

“I guess my man’s looking after that,” said the other. “I want a bedroom and a place for my man—likewise a large tankard of your best beer.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Timothy Tring entered his bar with a sense of relief. The newcomer was a little overpowering. A uniformed boots and a page appeared from the back.

“Show this gentleman up to rooms Nos. 9 and 10,” said Timothy. “I think you’ll find them very comfortable, sir.”

“Tell my man to bring up the grips,” said Mr. Hawk. “Also send up that beer.”

He followed the diminutive page boy upstairs, and gazed critically around his allotted quarters. He flung his Stetson on the bed and sank luxuriously into a low armchair. A tap sounded at the door and a lank-faced individual, dressed in sober black, entered. A wispy Adolphe Menjou moustache ornamented his upper lip, and he lifted his eyebrows interrogatively as he entered with the luggage.

“Alphonse,” said his master, “we’re in.”

“Indubitably, sir,” said the lips of Alphonse, but the voice was the voice of Henry.

“Unpack the traps, then, there’s a good chap, while I think out the next move.”

Bill Kellaway sipped his drink and reviewed the situation.

“The next item on the programme is a survey of the land,” he mused. “I gather that Melford Manor is about half a mile from here, Henry.”

The valet nodded.

“Yes, sir. Very fine old Elizabethan structure. It is eight hundred and ninety-five yards away, to be exact, or one hundred and seventy-nine and a half rods, poles, or perches.”

Henry’s face was perfectly expressionless as he delivered this meticulous information, and Bill chuckled. His manservant was undoubtedly a pearl of great price.

“I think,” said Bill, “I will reconnoitre said rods, poles, or perches. Do a bit of sheikh stuff with that good-looking parlour maid, Henry. Every little helps.”

“Sheikhs, sir, if I may venture to suggest, are somewhat demode at the moment,” said Henry, with a flourish of his wispy moustache. “Er—the ladies nowadays prefer suavity with a hint of diablerie. Mr. Menjou has a lot to be responsible for.”

“He has, by heck!” agreed Bill, as he sallied forth into the afternoon sunlight.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FACE IN THE NIGHT.

AS Bill Kellaway emerged from the Melford Arms, Mr. Timothy Tring, the landlord of that picturesque hostelry, bowed respectfully.

He was delighted to furnish information to the rich American, Hannibal Hawk—otherwise Bill—about Melford Manor. It was originally, Bill gathered, the ancestral home of the late Lord Melford, whose executors had sold it Sir John Jarvie.

“A great change. Mr. ’Awk,” sighed Timothy. “Sir Jarvie’s all very well as far as ’e goes—liberal with charity—but ’tain’t like ’aving a real Lord of the Manor, as you might say. Besides, ’e’s very seldom ’ere, sir,” he added, “and they do say that if ’e let ’is fruit preserves go the same way as ’is game preserves, I doubt if ’e’d sell much jam.”

“Say, ain’t that tough now,” Bill commiserated. “I came here thinking to see some honest to goodness British feudal stuff, and I find a mass production jam king ruling the roost.”

He shook his head solemnly and emerged into the sleepy High Street.

Through a vista in the trees he glimpsed the tall and shafted chimneys of the manor house. A green lane wound towards a pair of magnificently-wrought bronze gates, and beyond them, across the velvet lawns, Melford Manor—a mellow, red-bricked building with mullioned windows and creeper-clad walls, drowsed in the sunlight.

A grey stone wall separated the manor from the roadway. At the gates, almost obliterated by ivy, was an ancient lodge house. Lofty poplars flung their lengthened shadows across the emerald turf, and Bill drew in his breath deeply at the sheer peaceful loveliness of the scene.

“And that’s the place I’ve got to burgle,” he muttered, with a trace of bitterness.

He studied the points of vantage critically. It would be easy enough to scale the walls, but effecting an entrance was another matter. He wondered if the rear of the buildings where the garage and stables were situated would offer a better solution to his difficulty.

He was about to move off and investigate when he heard the canter of hoofs approaching. Instinctively he drew back into the shadow of the hedge, but as the rider approached he felt himself blushing like a schoolboy, for, erect and willowy in the saddle, he recognised Dorothy Jarvie, the girl, who called herself Echo.

She looked extraordinarily attractive in her perfectly-cut riding-habit, a faint flush of colour in her cheeks, and a sparkle of healthy enjoyment in her dark-lashed eyes.

Bill felt an unutterable fool as her level gaze rested on him for a moment, calmly, impersonally, then, with a touch of her whip, she galloped on towards the manor drive-way. It was obvious she had not recognised the middle-aged American with the goatee beard as Hercules, Esq.

That was Bill’s one consolation, but he groaned aloud at this further complication. Burgling Melford Manor was bad enough, but burgling the home of the girl he loved was dreadful.

For the first time he admitted it fairly and squarely to himself. He loved Dorothy Jarvie, had loved her ever since he heard her adorably husky voice and gazed into those candid blue eyes.

“Oh, hell!” said Bill Kellaway savagely, not for the first time since he had embarked on this fantastic adventure. “What a mess—what an unholy mess!”

With one final look at the girl he turned on his heel and walked moodily homeward to the Melford Arms.

“You have the torch, sir?”

Henry’s voice cut sibilantly through the darkness. Night had fallen, a chill wind had sprung up and rustled mournfully in the swaying poplars. Down in the village a clock chimed half-past eleven.

Bill Kellaway grunted an affirmative to Henry’s question.

“Sure. Now hike back to the pub, there’s a good chap,” he whispered. “Remember, if I’m not back by two a.m. don’t wait up for me. Got that?”

“Yes, but——” Henry temporised.

“But me no buts, you old goat,” said Bill. “It’d spoil everything if you were hanging round. Cheerio, Henry.”

Since his meeting with Dorothy Jarvie that afternoon Bill had abandoned his original plan of calling at the manor in the guise of a guileless, American interested in art. He had resolved on playing a bold stroke, trusting to the uncanny luck that had sustained him thus far.

That consummate diplomat, Henry, had already fixed things below stairs at the Melford Arms. He had mentioned casually to the impressionable parlourmaid that his employer was an eccentric American keen on moth collecting, and as those nocturnal insects could only be secured at night, she would realise what a rotten time a valet had, employed by a fool of a master, up half the night chasing moths with a butterfly-net.

The girl agreed, and as it was her duty to lock the back door of the inn before retiring, she readily fell in with Henry’s idea to keep the door on the jar, as she expressed it, to save him the trouble of disturbing the whole house to admit his master.

Thus far everything had proceeded satisfactorily. Bill, dressed in a dark and inconspicuous suit of Henry’s, had removed his goatee, and, armed with a clasp-knife, wire-cutter, chisel, and an electric torch, to say nothing of a black stockinette mask, had embarked on his first, and he devoutly hoped his last, burglary.

His immediate plans were to make a reconnaissance of the manor, and effect an entry if possible through an open window; if not, to use his cold chisel as a jemmy. He paused for a moment or two, listening intently. Not a sound disturbed the silence save the lisp of leaves and the melancholy hoot of an owl.

His rubber-soled feet made scarcely a sound on the gravel fronting the manor. He knew that Sir James’ picture gallery was situated in the long, panelled diningroom at the right of the hall; knew also that the whole place was honeycombed with burglar alarms. The wire-cutters would deal with them, thought Bill, grimly. He drew on a pair of wash-leather gloves and tiptoed towards a latticed window overlooking the lawn.

Suddenly he drew in his breath in a soft, sibilant whistle.

A tiny gleam of light danced like a firefly within the room—then suddenly went out. In its momentary ray, however, Bill had glimpsed a dark, crouching figure moving furtively through the panelled room. He saw also two suits of armour, a sideboard with glinting silver, and in the corner a steel safe.

“My Gosh!” he breathed. “A blooming burglar!”

The contretemps was so unexpected that he felt at an utter loss. His original plan of entry was thrown to the winds. Here, within the manor house, was a nocturnal visitor bent on the same errand as himself.

Very cautiously he looked through the latticed pane, and gradually his eyes made out the details of the room. Again there was a flash of yellow light, stabbing the darkness like a golden poignard. It flashed for an instant on walls and sideboard, and finally came to rest on the door of the safe. The dark, stocky figure had its back towards Bill as he knelt before the steel door.

It seemed obvious that the burglar, whoever he was, was no art connoisseur. He ignored the portraits on the panelled wall entirely, and devoted his attention assiduously to the safe. It was evident that he was a practised hand and a cool customer. From his pockets he produced a little oilskin bag and selected a slender, flexible steel instrument. Bill watched him, fascinated. It was the first time he had ever seen a cracksman at work, and his respect for the unknown burglar increased considerably as he saw him take out what looked like a doctor’s stethoscope and affix it to his ears.

It was while the man cautiously revolved the knobs of the combination that Bill suddenly observed something else. One of the diamondshaped panes of the window was missing. Soundlessly, with fastbeating heart, but outwardly as cold as ice, Bill tried the casement. It swung towards him without a creak. With sudden inspiration, Bill whipped off his mask, and then levered himself on the sill. The kneeling figure at the safe was still intent on his task, and Bill dropped into the room without a sound.

Stealthily he tiptoed towards the man. In his left hand he gripped his torch, in his right the wire-cutters. The blunt nose of the instrument looked rather like the snout of an automatic—a fact that Bill was banking on. He was going to play an audacious game of bluff.

A muttered imprecation escaped from the burglar as he twirled the knob of the combination, then suddenly some subtle instinct warned him of danger. He turned round, revealing a face the lower half of which was masked by a black silk handkerchief.

“Put up your hands, my friend!” said Bill Kellaway, quietly. “This, I think, is a fair cop!”

He switched on his torch.

“Strewth!” ejaculated the burglar as his hands shot upwards, the stethoscope dangling grotesquely from his ears. “It’s Nutty! What’s the game?”

Bill Kellaway gasped with astonishment. Nutty was the nickname bestowed on him at Salton Gaol by his fellow convicts because of his ridiculous sentence.

“Put that gat away, Nutty, for the love of Mike!” hissed the burglar, “Don’t you know me? I’m Symphony—Symphony Sam!”

Bill’s mouth gaped open. He almost dropped his torch at this staggering announcement. Of all the amazing surprises since he had embarked on the fantastic quest, this was the most astonishing.

“Symphony?” he gasped. “Great Scott! What the deuce are you doing here?”

“S’sh, you idiot,” hissed the little burglar. “Put that blooming gat away an’ talk sense—and talk it quiet.”

Bill passed a hand dazedly over his forehead. To meet, here in Melford Manor, the cheerful little convict who had helped him escape from Salton Gaol seemed unbelievable.

“Nutty,” said the little crook, in the soundless whisper of the exconvict, “for the love of Mike, douse that glim. We’ll talk after. I’ll yank this peter open and you collect the hard stuff. Fifty-fifty we goes—no haggling, but speed’s speed. I’ve got Eddie the driver waitin’ fer me at two o’clock. Funny you an’ me sh’d meet. Ole Juniper told me ’ow you dodged the busys and——”

“Listen, Symphony,” said Bill urgently. “Don’t worry about that safe. It may be empty for all you know. I’ve come here for a picture. Help me get it and I’ll guarantee you I’ll give you half what it’s worth.”

“Picter?” echoed Symphony, unutterable scorn in his voice. “You’re crazy. Allus said you was, Nutty.”

“I’m not,” Bill insisted. “Old Jarvie paid fifty thou, for it. It’s in this room or the next somewhere. All we need to do is to cut it out of the frame and——”

“Fifty thousand! Holy smoke!” gasped Symphony, in an awestruck voice. “Ain’t that a grand and glorious feeling?”

“Now listen,” whispered Bill. “You say that Eddie the driver’s waiting for you? Suppose I lift this picture, can you both run me down to town? I—I know where I can dispose of it, and honestly, I’ll go halves.”

“I don’t believe no picter’s worth that, Nutty,” objected Symphony. “A monkey, mebbe, no more. Now this ’ere ’ard stuff now.”

He waved his hand towards the sideboard with its silverplate.

“I can always get a couple of hundred for that from Izzy the Whizz. It’s sure stuff.”

“Listen,” pleaded Bill, desperately. “To show you I’m in earnest.”

From his pocket he whipped out a wallet and extracted a bundle of crisp banknotes.

“Here’s fifty quid. That peter might take you hours to open, and then it might be empty. Help me get this picture, and there’s more oof to follow.”

Symphony Sam’s bright, bird-like eyes gleamed.

“It listens good to me, boy,” he murmured. “This can is a tough ’un to smash.”

“It’s a deal then?” Bill whispered hoarsely.

Precious minutes were flying. At any moment some untoward sound would disturb the sleeping household.

“Right y’are, Nutty,” said Symphony Sam.

With a sigh of relief Bill watched him thrust the money into his pocket and remove the stethoscope.

“What’s this ’ere coloured supplement like?” asked the little crook.

Bill placed his finger to his lips and tiptoed silently to the door.

“Mind the stairs,” he said. “I happen to know there’s danger if we’re not careful. They’re wired, I believe.”

Soundlessly they opened the door and entered a large hallway.

Cautiously Bill Kellaway switched on his torch. The beam shone on the wide stairway. In his head the words of the doggerel rhyme beat rhythmically:

“Find it, steal it, but beware,

Danger lurks beneath the stair.”

Bill drew in his breath abruptly. At the head of a staircase, on the first landing, hung a dark, sombre picture in an ornate gilt frame. It depicted an open barn. In the distance, gaunt against the skyline, were the skeleton arms of a windmill. In the barn itself a shaft of light transformed the hay into a heap of gold.

“That’s it!” hissed Bill. “Gosh! That’s Vendermeyer’s ‘Barn.’ ”

The sight of it steadied his jangled nerves, and he gave an exultant grin as he opened his clasp-knife. It would be the work of a few seconds only to cut the masterpiece from its frame, and then—Bill squared his shoulders at the thought—Hercules, Esq., would have achieved task No. 2.

“Stay here, Symphony,” he hissed. “I’ll hand it down to you. Then we’ll beat it for Eddie the driver.”

“What about the ’ard stuff?” same back the crook’s hard whisper.

Bill shook his head impatiently.

“Never mind that, you idiot! We’ve a fortune in our grasp—a fortune!”

He was tingling with suppressed excitement as he cautiously approached the first step of the staircase. Subconsciously the warning line of the jingle ran through his mind. He gripped the carved balustrade and grinned to himself. Half a dozen slashes from his keen-bladed knife and the canvas was free of its frame. Bill rolled it up with reverent care, and then straddled the bannister and slid safely down into the hallway.

“Got it!” he cried triumphantly. “Now, Symphony, let’s beat it while the going’s good. Shall we get out through the window, or——”

He broke off suddenly. From above came the click of a latch, and then the hallway was flooded with light.

“Who’s there?” cried a musical feminine voice. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot.”

Bill thrilled as he recognised the husky contralto tones of Dorothy Jarvie. Even in the present desperate situation he felt a glow of admiration for her superb courage. There was not a tremour in her voice, and though he could not see her, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was covered by an unpleasant revolver.

Symphony Sam was the first to act.

“Gimme that picture,” he breathed. “Make a dash for it. Eddie’s at the cross-roads. If you can’t make it, remember the Croucher’s, Shaftesbury Avenue.”

Almost before Bill realised it, Symphony had snatched the Rembrandt from his hand and darted like a snake for the diningroom. Bill was about to follow when——

A revolver shot cracked sharply from above, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of cordite.

“Gosh!” muttered Bill. “She means it.”

Symphony had reached the diningroom without mishap, however, and Bill pressed himself into the shadows beneath the stairway. He did not feel like risking a dash across the brilliantly-lighted hall, and making himself a target for the girl’s gun.

There was an alcove beneath the stair in which a grandfather clock ticked solemnly. Bill pressed himself against the oak-panelled wall, and then—it happened.

The solid floor seemed to give beneath his feet. He gave a startled cry, strove desperately to retain his balance, but in vain. He dropped like a plummet down, down, and even as he fell he heard the mocking voice of the girl he knew as Echo chanting:

“But beware—danger lurks beneath the stair.”

CHAPTER XIX

COUNTING THEIR CHICKENS

BILL landed on all fours, breathless, dazed, but unhurt. Fortunately he still had his torch, and he switched it on when he had managed to scramble to his feet. He found he had dropped on a coarse straw palliasse, and he was in a little brick chamber very like the sanctuary at Juniper Joe’s, but this one was completely void of furniture.

He scratched his chin ruefully, and gazed upward. Above his head was a smooth, unbroken wooden surface that offered no indication of the trap through which he had fallen.

He groaned.

“Gosh! What a silly fool! I might have known. The danger wasn’t on the stair, but beneath the stair.”

He sat on the mattress, his arms clasping his knees, to review the situation. He was trapped! There was no doubt about that. Even the most minute inspection of the brick walls and oaken roof above his head showed him that it was next to impossible to escape from the place.

What made it worse was that he had committed a felony, and was liable to penal servitude.

Then there was Echo! Probably even now she was telephoning to the police. He wondered what she would say when she recognised him as a burglar—a common thief. That was the hardest part of all.

Bill Kellaway felt a hot flush of shame burning his cheeks, then suddenly he started as part of the oaken roof of his prison slipped back soundlessly, to reveal a determined little face, framed against a background of crisp shingled curls, surveying him calmly.

“So, Mr. Hercules, you walked into the trap, eh?” said the girl who called herself Echo.

Bill said nothing. He hung his head like a scolded schoolboy.

“You can’t say you were not warned, mon ami” she continued. “I am just waiting the arrival of your old friend, Inspector Barker. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”

“Echo—er—Miss Jarvie, you must think me a frightful sweep,” began Bill, unsteadily. “But honestly I’m not really a thief. There—there were reasons why I came to—er—abstract that Rembrandt. I—I can’t explain,” he added, helplessly.

“Didn’t I warn you in Pimlico about the Secret Six?” demanded the girl. “I told you what would happen. You are certainly ruined now, young man. Inspector Barker is not the kind of man to believe in their existence any more than you were when I first told you.”

“Miss Jarvie, I swear——” began Bill.

“I know you do, horribly,” she broke in, with a laugh. “Who was your companion on this nefarious quest of yours?”

Bill’s lips set firmly.

“I’m—I’m sorry, I can’t tell you,” he said, doggedly. “I met him here by accident.”

“He was luckier than you, anyway,” the girl retorted. “He got away, but doubtless the police will get him before the night’s out.”

She started suddenly.

“Ah, there’s a ring at the bell,” she announced, mockingly. “Sounds like Inspector Barker.”

With a cool laugh, and a wave of her hand, she vanished and the wooden roof slid soundlessly to.

Bill Kellaway smiled bitterly.

“So the other line of the jingle was true, too,” he muttered, and quoted aloud: “Heed not one whose voice bewitches trust her not, but do your duty.”

His torch was still burning on the floor of his prison, and he groped in his pocket for a cigarette. Suddenly his fingers encountered the cold steel of the chisel with which he had armed himself. He had forgotten all about it in the excitement of the past half-hour.

“Gee whiz!” he muttered. “I wonder if I’ve got a chance.”

“If I could pry out one brick I might be able to—— Hallo!”

He broke off with an exclamation of astonishment. For as he had inserted the chisel in the interstices of the brickwork the whole wall revolved slowly and creakily on invisible hinges. A blast of cold, dank air swept his cheeks, a musty and earthy smell assailed his nostrils. He grabbed his torch and saw a long, tunnel-like vista before him.

“Gosh! Complete with secret passage,” said Bill. “Here goes! I don’t know where it leads to, but my heart’s right there.”

Bill hacked savagely with his clasp-knife to clear a passageway. Gradually he succeeded in hacking a hole large enough to crawl through the tangled undergrowth, and with lacerated hands and torn coat sleeve he emerged, to find himself in a moonlit grove a hundred yards away from the grey walls that surrounded Melford Manor.

“My middle name,” grinned Bill, exultantly, “is Houdini.”

Meanwhile, inside the old Elizabethan building Miss Dorothy Jarvie, wearing an adorable negligee absolutely wasted on old Parsons, the butler, who stood by with a scared expression on his face, was telephoning a certain number in London.

Her eyes were dancing with mischief, but her husky voice gave a passable imitation of a tremor as she spoke.

“Oh, Daddy, come at once!” she said earnestly. “I think there’s been burglars in the house. I’m scared to death.”

“What’s that?” said her father’s voice. “Burglars! Bless my soul! Ring for the police at once. What’s that fool Parsons doing? Has anything been taken?”

“N-no, I don’t think so,” said Dorothy, with exasperating slowness. “Nothing, I mean, except the Rembrandt. It’s been cut out of the frame.”

“What?” roared Sir John. “Are you sure, girl?”

“Quite sure, Daddy. I noticed it as I came downstairs. I—I think, too, I’ve caught the burglar. He—he fell into the priest’s hole. I’ve rung up for the police, and they’ll be along at any moment.”

“You have, have you?” said Sir John, grimly. “So shall I. Tell Parsons to have some hot coffee ready. Keep the police there till I arrive.”

“Yes, Daddy. But do please hurry,” said Dorothy. “I’m dreadfully frightened.”

“I’ll be there under the hour, my dear,” said Sir John. “Be brave.”

Dorothy’s lips twitched as she replaced the receiver. She had certainly no intention of ringing up the police until she had had a little further conversation with her prisoner. Her talk of Inspector Barker had been all bluff—punishment for Bill Kellaway’s presumptuous disregard of her warning.

Secretly she admired his grim tenacity of purpose, but it was as well to keep him in his place a bit. Had either Sir John Jarvie or any of the other members of the Secret Six realised how much this slim, laughing-eyed girl knew of their organisation, they would not have felt so complacent at their headquarters, when the millionaire informed them gleefully:

“Kellaway’s caught. My game, I think, gentlemen.”

Dr. Lenoir smiled his crooked, enigmatic smile.

“Wait, Jarvie. There’s many a slip, you know.” he quoted. “Kellaway has a knack of pulling it off at the last moment.”

“Nonsense,” snapped Sir John. “My girl’s just told me he’s a prisoner at Melford Manor, and the police are on their way. I’ll run down in the car and square matters. Of course, I won’t charge the poor devil, but you must admit the task I set Master Hercules proved too difficult. I win the million, gentlemen, I think. What about that side bet, Phineas—er—No. 1?” he added, turning to the American.

“Guess I’ll wait till it’s proved you’ve beaten him first,” drawled Phineas T. Lee.

Sir John snorted and rose to his feet.

CHAPTER XX

CROUCHER DELIVERS THE GOODS

It was perhaps fortunate that Mr. Timothy Tring, the sole proprietor of the Melford Arms, did not connect his eccentric American guest with the desperate scoundrel who had burgled Melford Manor, or Mr. Hannibal Hawk’s leave-taking would not have been quite so affable next morning.

It was in great spirits that, shortly after ten o’clock, they bowled through the winding lanes to join the main road to London. Rumours of the burglary at the manor had already reached the Melford Arms, but according to the landlord, nothing had been taken save one of “they pickshers.”

Bill maintained a discreet silence most of the journey, and it was not until the car entered the outskirts of London that he took stock of the situation. The most important thing was, of course, to get in touch with Symphony Sam. That engaging crook had evidently got away and met Eddie the driver as arranged. The unfortunate part of the affair was, however, that Bill had not the slightest idea who the Croucher was, or anything about him, save that he appeared to live or work in Shaftesbury Avenue.

Bill wondered whether Symphony Sam had left any fingerprints or clues behind. Bill had a bad five minutes at the thought of Symphony’s arrest by a zealous policeman, with the Rembrandt found in his possession.

They arrived at the Splendide a little after mid-day. Neither the suave reception clerk nor the fussy little manager recognised Bill or Henry in their simple but effective disguises. After a lunch served in his own suite, Bill flung himself on to the chaise-longue and lit a cigar. It was all very well to say “The Croucher, Shaftesbury Avenue,” but he could hardly ask a policeman the whereabouts of a crook without arousing suspicion.

Finally, inspiration came to him. He called up young Camp Maynard, the Gazette’s crime reporter. That worthy had just turned up at the office, and he chuckled as he recognised Bill’s voice.

“Still going in for realism in that novel, Kellaway?” he queried. “Is that why you want the Croucher?”

“That’s right,” Bill agreed delightedly. “Do you know him?”

“Not personally.” was the reply. “The Croucher is the pet name given to a pub in Shaftesbury Avenue—‘The Goat and Buskin’ is its real name, I believe. It’s kept by a chap named Cree—Croucher Cree. The place is mostly used for con men and dips.”

“Thanks very much,” said Bill. “I’m looking for more local colour.”

“You’ll get it at the Croucher’s all right,” agreed the reporter.

It was shortly after six o’clock that Bill, still in his role of Mr. Hannibal Hawk, emerged from the Hotel Splendide and strolled leisurely up Shaftesbury Avenue. His broad-brimmed Stetson hat, goatee, and horn-rimmed spectacles gave him the appearance of a prosperous American tourist.

Bill grinned as he strode onwards. The “Goat and Buskin” differed little—outwardly at least—from scores of public-houses in the district. There were the usual three bars, gilt mirror, shining handles of the beer engines, and peroxided barmaids. The clientele, too, seemed to be the usual heterogenous assortment that congregate of an evening for a drink and a chat.

Bill called for a whisky and soda. Through narrowed eyes he took, stock of the customers. On the surface they looked ordinary enough, yet curiously, though several groups were conversing at once, the noise they made was little above a hum. Bill noticed that nearly all of them spoke in the ventriloquial fashion of the old lag, and noticed the prison pallor on many of their faces.

The landlord glared suspiciously at Bill, and jerked out harshly:

“ ’Evening. Lookin’ fer someone?”

Bill nodded.

“Symphony. Has he been?”

Croucher Cree leaned forward, two elbows on the bar, and calmly, scrutinised Bill’s face.

“Phony, eh?” he said, baring yellow teeth in a mirthless grin. “What’s your monniker?”

“Nutty,” said Bill promptly.

Instantly the Croucher’s demeanour changed.

“Ho! yus, Symphony’s left a parcel for yuh,” he said. “He’s gorn orf with a Brass Nail somewheres. She’s a bit of a hoister in her spare time, but you know what Symph is when he gets the coin.”

Bill nodded solemnly.

“When’ll he be back?” he inquired.

The Croucher winked.

“Some time tomorrow, o’ course. That girl’s a good looker. Better take your parcel, Nutty, afore the flatties come round. They generally looks us over about this time.”

CHAPTER XXI

BILL’S SETBACK.

Having handed over his parcel containing Sir John Jarvie’s Rembrandt, the publican whom Bill knew as the Croucher leant forward over his bar.

“That’ll be a saucepan,” he murmured.

Fortunately Bill’s knowledge of criminal slang was good, and he handed over a pound note without blinking.

“Have a drink?” he added. “I’m much obliged to you.”

The Croucher poured himself out almost a tumblerful of neat whisky, and drained it off at a gulp. A furtive little Jew sidled up to the bar and murmured something that Bill could not catch; but it evidently interested the landlord.

TaKing advantage of the diversion, Bill finished his drink, and gripping his precious parcel tightly beneath his left arm, emerged into the roaring traffic of Shaftesbury Avenue.

In the privacy of his room he unrolled the brown canvas with reverent fingers and gazed ecstatically at the master’s work. He almost gloated over it.

“Hanged if I don’t buy it when I’ve got my million,” he said, enthusiastically. “Gosh! What a picture!”

Very slowly he rolled it up again, and then he noticed a crumpled sheet of white paper that he had overlooked in his excitement. It was a sprawling note, in unfamiliar writing, and was creased and ill-spelt.

“Dere Nutty,” it ran. “Here’s your bloming picksher. I hop you got away orlright. Crowcher ses as it ain’t worth a steever, but I nicked some hard stuff on my way out when that skirt started shooting. With that and the fifty I’m orlright. You can keep enclosed. You can orlways find me at Crowcher’s if you arsk him. All the best, dere Nutty. Symfoni Sam Hicks.”

Bill Kellaway’s lips twitched at the characteristic epistle from the little crook. Symphony had undoubtedly been useful, and he was welcome to the fifty pounds as far as Bill was concerned. He lit a cigarette and reviewed the situation. He had fulfilled all the conditions of the second task well within the stipulated time of one week.

It now remained to communicate with Lenoir, and the only address Bill knew was the cryptic phone number Duke 0983. He was about to stretch his hand towards the receiver when Henry entered, an expression of dismay on his melancholy face.

“What’s wrong, man?” Bill demanded sharply.

“I—I am afraid, sir,” said Henry, sepulchrally, “that all is discovered. There’s a gentleman outside demanding to see Mr. Hannibal Hawk, alias William Kellaway.”

Bill’s heart missed a heat. He made a dash for the picture and was about to thrust it out of sight when the cool, mocking voice of Dr. Armand Lenoir sounded at his elbow.

“Ah, Kellaway, my dear fellow. Don’t be alarmed. Your disguise is admirable—most admirable.”

Bill gulped with relief. His voice was unsteady as he spoke.

“Gosh! You, Lenoir. Why on earth didn’t you give your name to Henry? Sit down, doctor,” he added, hospitably. “I was just about to phone you.”

“Indeed?” said Lenoir. “Then you have succeeded in your—er—second task?”

“I have,” said Bill, proudly unfolding the canvas. “Feast your eyes on that, Lenoir, the fifty-thousand-pound Rembrandt.”

Lenoir surveyed it through his monocle in a perfunctory fashion. The familiar satiric smile played round his lips.

“On the contrary, my dear fellow, it is nothing of the sort. It is a copy—an admirable copy—that is all.”

“A—a copy?” echoed Bill, blankly. “Do you mean to tell me, after all my trouble and the risks I’ve taken, that this isn’t the genuine picture?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Lenoir, with a shrug. “Unfortunately, my dear fellow, you have been a little too precipitate., However——”

Again he smiled—Bill felt he could smash his fist into his mocking face.

“You have still four more days in which to succeed. You guessed the riddle correctly enough, but you can take my word for it that this is not a genuine Rembrandt. It is worth little more than the canvas on which it is painted.”

Bill sank into a chair. The watchful Henry materialised a whisky and soda, then discreetly evaporated.

CHAPTER XXII

BILL WINS

“I TELL you, Phineas, I’ve beaten him!” announced Sir John Jarvie, glancing at his watch. It was nearly ten p.m., and the two millionaires were seated in the lounge of the Carlton Hotel.

“My bet still stands. I’ll double it if you like,” said Phineas T. Lee, nasally. “I reckon that young cuss Kellaway’s got grit. It must have been a knockout blow when Lenoir informed him the picture you hung up in the hope that he’d nick it was a fake.”

Sir John chuckled and rubbed his chubby hands.

“Don’t you think it was a splendid scheme, my dear fellow? I knew he’d fall into the trap. By the way, Dorothy was dreadfully concerned when she found that he had vanished from the priest’s hole. I admit I didn’t expect him to find the secret exit so soon—but Kellaway is a surprising fellow.”

“Yes, and he’ll put one over on you yet,” said Phineas. “I should hate like Hades for him to fall at the second post, and for you to scoop the pool.”

“I know that,” snapped the jam king. “Anyway, he beat you, despite Metaxas and your string of private detectives. But come, it’s ten o’clock already. Kellaway has two hours of grace left, and then——”

He crushed his cigar butt into the ash-tray with an air of finality.

Phineas T. Lee rose to his feet. Together the two men passed into the vestibule, and a few minutes later strolled up the Haymarket towards Piccadilly.

Sir John was unusually silent as they approached that ridiculously-named cafe, Ye Olde Browne Potte, just as the Law Courts clock pointed to eleven p.m.

Once within the portals of Miss Letitia Carberry’s restaurant, those most discreet manservants, Mr. Chang and Mr. Thurwood, admitted the two millionaires into the queer headquarters of the Secret Six.

Lenoir, looking more saturnine than ever in the cold bluish glare of the pendant lamp, glanced quizzically at the pair as they seated themselves at the horseshoe table.

“Less than an hour to go, gentlemen,” he remarked, smoothly. “You must admit there is a piquancy in the situation.”

“There sure is,” drawled Phineas Lee. “But l gotta hunch that Bill Kellaway has a knack of pulling his stuff just about zero hour.”

“You and your hunches,” snapped Sir John irritably. “I tell you, man, it’s impossible. He swallowed the bait, hook, line and sinker, sn’t that so, Lenoir?”

The doctor shrugged.

Sir John rattled the coins in his pocket uneasily. His lips twitched beneath the rim of his mask. There was an electric thrill of expectancy in the situation, a thrill he had not experienced since the historic merger.

The tension was broken by the sudden whir of the telephone bell. Lenoir crossed over to the receiver, and the five millionaires craned forward eagerly.

“A message from Hercules, Esq., gentlemen,” he announced.

After the first rumbling shock of discovery that the picture he had taken such pains to acquire was a forgery, Bill Kellaway tried to settle down to find the elusive Rembrandt, but each way he turned failure stared him in the face.

Bill groaned as he sipped the cocktail which the faithful Henry had prescribed.

“It would seem, sir,” solicited Henry, sorrowfully, “that you have lost the wager?”

Bill shrugged his shoulders ruefully. “I have five hours’ grace to find the right one,” he announced. “Looking for a needle in a haystack is child’s play to it. What do you suggest, Henry?”

A tap sounded at the door, and Henry crossed over to answer it. He returned a moment later with a long, cylindrical package. Bill’s heart leapt as he saw it. He almost snatched it from the valet’s hand.

“A young lady desired to have this delivered to you urgently,” said Henry. “I am inclined to think——”

But what Henry was inclined to think was never uttered, for with a whoop of joy, Bill Kellaway tore off the paper wrapper and disclosed a brown canvas roll. With it was a sheet of mauve notepaper.

“Holy smoke!” gasped Bill.

He unfolded the canvas, and even to his inexperienced eye the genuineness of the picture was apparent. He snatched up the note which accompanied it, and his eyes glowed exultantly.

“Dear Hercules,” it ran, “Herewith some slight amends for the uncomfortable half-hour beneath the stair. You need not tell Daddy how you obtained it—he will probably guess, anyway. Also, I think it was perfectly mean to challenge you to get a picture which had really been spirited away. Good luck to you with Task No. 3. I admire your courage. If you need an ally you will find one in—Yours sincerely, Echo.”

Bill read and re-read the note half a dozen times, and then seized the scandalised Henry by the waist and waltzed him around the room.

“Order dinner and a bottle of ‘bubbly’ at once, my lad,” said Bill. “We must celebrate a double event.”

“Indubitably, sir,” replied the valet. “But I—er—suggest that we place the picture in safe keeping.”

He rolled up the canvas reverently, and Bill, whose first impulse was to ring up the number Lenoir had given him, decided that it would be more dramatic to wait until the eleventh hour.

He flung himself into a chair and lit a cigarette. So Echo, the elusive, had become a tangible reality! She had offered him her aid in his fight with the Secret Six. The thought was intoxicating.

“But how?” Bill asked himself for the hundredth time, “how does Dorothy know anything about the Secret Six unless she herself is one of them?”

The thought was disturbing. But somehow he could not believe it. In any case, eleven o’clock would decide.

Despite the excellent dinner, Bill Kellaway’s nerves were in a sadly frayed state when he finally called up Dr. Lenoir. He managed, by an effort, to keep his voice steady as he heard the other’s smooth voice over the wire.

“Er—Task No. 2 is completed,” Bill announced. “What will I do with the Rembrandt?”

“Indeed!” drawled Lenoir, and there was no hint of surprise in his tone. “You have been remarkably quick in rectifying your—er—unfortunate error. I will send a messenger round at once for the picture. If it is indeed the genuine one, I congratulate you.”

“Send him along,” snapped Bill. “I’m ready for Task No. 3.”

He hung up the receiver, and moodily paced the hearthrug. Meanwhile, Lenoir turned with a smile to the five millionaires.

“It looks as if he’s done it,” he announced. “Of course, we must verify the canvas. Thurwood,” he turned to the ex-executioner, “take a taxi to the Splendide, and ask for Mr. Hawk. Take this card with you, and bring back the parcel he will give you.”

“The young devil’s bluffing,” growled Sir John, angrily. “He couldn’t possibly have found the Rembrandt. I had it locked in my safe at the office. Nobody but my daughter knew it was there. I told her after Kellaway’s first attempt. She seemed so distressed that I had to reassure her.”

“Ah!” said Lenoir, significantly. “Then I am afraid you have lost.”

“What do you mean?” gasped the other. “Are you insinuating that my daughter is in collusion with Kellaway?”

“Your daughter is a very remarkable young woman,” replied Lenoir, tactfully. “In any case, Thurwood will be back within a quarter of an hour, and you can decide for yourself.”

Phineas Lee chuckled.

“I told you, Jarvie. I guess you give that l’il girl of yours too much rope. I figured she wasn’t exactly fooled the night we staged that fake explosion, and she saw us carry Kellaway into the study.”

“By Gosh!” ejaculated Jarvie. “If Dorothy’s in league with Kellaway, I—I’ll——”

He choked violently, and pounded the table with his podgy fist.

Lenoir said nothing, but he winked significantly at Phineas Lee. Punctually, ten minutes later, the melancholy Thurwood returned, with a parcel under his arm. Sir John rose eagerly to his feet, and the others watched him intently as he opened the package.

“Wal?” drawled the American. “Who wins this bet?”

The other took one look at the £50,000 picture, and then dashed it angrily to the floor.

“You do, damn you!” he growled.

And, as if to emphasise his defeat, the clock in the room commenced to chime the midnight hour.

Lenoir stroked his silken beard.

“And now, Number Three,” he said quietly, “if you will kindly outline the nature of your task, we will consider its adoption.”

CHAPTER XXIII

HERCULES, ESQ., ALIAS MR. GODIVA

“I have phoned up Sir John’s office, and his secretary informs me that Miss Jarvie left for the Continent this morning,” announced Henry the next day.

“Did they tell you where she was going?” Bill demanded.

Henry shook his head.

“No, sir. The secretary merely said the Continent. He did not particularise which of the five it was. I presume he meant Europe, sir.”

“H’m,” said Bill. “It might have been Australia, on the other hand. I think we’ll make a move from this place, Henry. It gets on my nerves.”

“Very good, sir. If I might suggest, sir, there is a very discreet hotel just off Park Street, where the service is good, and the cuisine even better. The identity of Mr. Hawk, I take it, need not be upheld.”

“I’ll get these confounded whiskers off within half an hour. Pack up my traps, Henry,” said Bill, demolishing a final slice of toast.

It was a fairly simple matter, once free of the Splendide, for Bill to resume his normal appearance, and just before midday found him ensconced in the Hotel Europa, a modest-fronted bachelor hotel in Park Street.

Henry’s eulogy of the hotel was well-deserved, Bill reflected, sipping a cocktail in the lounge. He had successfully completed the first two tasks; above all, he had earned the praise of Dorothy Jarvie. But where, in the name of sanity, Bill wondered, did that adorable girl fit into the scheme of things?

He had no clue on which to work. He was bound by his compact not to attempt to discover the identity of his employers. He felt like the man in the story, groping in a dark cellar for a black cat that wasn’t there.

“Hang it!” he murmured irritably, and signalled to the waiter for another cocktail.

That functionary approached with a salver on which reposed a yellow envelope.

“Mr. Kellaway, sir?” he inquired doubtfully.

“That’s me,” replied Bill promptly and ungrammatically; and again he felt that uncomfortable sense of foreboding as his gaze fell on that saffron-hued envelope.

“When did this arrive?” he demanded, picking up the letter.

“A few minutes ago, sir. The gentleman said there was no reply.”

“Thanks. A dry Martini, please. I guess I’ll need it,” added Bill, with resignation, as he slit open the envelope.

There was something uncanny in the way Lenoir and his unknown employers worked. How in the name of all that was wonderful had they found his whereabouts so soon? He had told no one but Henry of his intention to leave the Splendide, yet within two hours of his arrival they had traced him.

He gulped down his drink, and then unfolded the note which, he knew, contained his instructions for the third of his Herculean labours. Like the first two, it was brief, and staggering in its import.

“Task Number Three,” Bill read. “You will, within a week from the receipt of this note, take a bath in London, without a bathing costume.

“You are expressly debarred from camouflaging your act as a publicity, cinema or stage stunt. You must be witnessed in your bath by any member of the public who happens to pass, and if a breach of the law is committed or you are ordered by the police to desist, you will automatically forfeit the million pounds.

“Ponds, lakes, private houses, or public swimming baths are expressly debarred from being the scene of your exploit. A report, if successful, of your accomplishment must be furnished by you not later than midnight seven days from now.”

“Holy smoke!” gasped Bill Kellaway. “I’ve said good-bye to that million quid.”

His mind boggled at the fantastically impossible task.

“Who do they think I am—Mr. Godiva?” he added, cynically.

“Take a bath in full view of the public without a——” He felt himself blushing all over at the thought. After all, there were limits. “Not for the blooming million will I do it,” said Bill Kellaway, and his lips set firmly. “I’m heel-tapping on this little effort, and by heck, I’ll tell Lenoir now.”

He slipped the note into his pocket and strode manfully over to the telephone booth, where he called up Duke 0983, that cryptic number which he was pledged not to trace.

“Ah, Kellaway, I was expecting a call,” purred Lenoir’s voice smoothly.

“I’m quitting right now,” Bill snapped.

“My dear fellow,” broke in the doctor. “Am I to understand that you are not going to attempt your third task?”

“I’m damned if I will,” said Bill.—“It’s utterly impossible.”

“It is perfectly possible, if you use your undoubted mental ability,” drawled the other. “Surely you are not going to forfeit one million pounds on account of some prudish fear of being made to look ridiculous?”

Bill gulped hard. Lenoir’s contempt stung.

“Remember if you succeed,” continued the voice of the tempter, “you are half way through your labours. Only three more to do, Kellaway. Three more, and you become a millionaire!”

“Well, er——” Bill temporised.

“I should not have suspected you of mid-Victorian prejudices,” chuckled Lenoir.

“Curse you, Lenoir!” he decided. “I’ll take it on.”

“Splendid,” laughed the other.

“By the way, what happened to the Rembrandt?” queried Bill.

“The question is not in order, my dear Hercules. Er—by the way, you might be able to persuade the charming Miss Jarvie to assist you in your next task,” he added maliciously.

Bill’s reply nearly shattered the diaphragm as he rang off.

• • • • •

It was two days since Bill had received his instructions for task number three—two days in which he had chafed restlessly, postponing the ordeal that awaited him. To the watchful eyes of his valet, Kellaway’s symptoms were undoubtedly those of a man in love. Not for nothing had he seen the confetti-like profusion of torn paper in the waste basket when clearing in the morning. Henry’s sympathies were entirely with Bill, but he was far too discreet to express it in words.

“I was wondering, sir,” he began, with a slight cough, “if you would require my services for the rest of the day?”

“Eh?” said Bill absently, for he had been wrestling, for the umteenth time, with the difficult task of writing to Dorothy Jarvie, to thank her for her aid, and tell her that he loved her, without being indiscreet and mentioning the Secret Six.

Henry repeated his question, and Bill’s thoughts returned to matters mundane.

“Why, no, Henry, I don’t think so. Let me see, this is your day off, isn’t it?”

Henry coughed deprecatingly.

“Yes, sir; but of course, if it’s inconvenient I could postpone my relaxation until——”

“Not at all,” broke in Bill. “By the way, Henry, apart from reading those confounded shockers of yours, what is your relaxation?”

The valet hesitated a brief while.

“Well, beer, sir; and I am also particularly attracted to criminology in all its aspects. Whenever I feel depressed I find the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s very soothing, not to say stimulating.”

“You’re a queer devil, Henry,” said Bill. “Have you got that sinking feeling to-day?”

“Well sir, I admit I have felt more blithe. I thought an hour or two at Madame Tussaud’s would be amusing, entertaining, and—er—instructive.”

Bill pushed back his chair, and thrust his unfinished letter into his pocket.

“Rot me if I don’t come with you, Henry. I’ve got a touch of the willies myself. I feel like a character out of a Russian novel, only worse.”

“I should be greatly honoured by your company, sir,” said Henry, with a bow. “Have you been there before?”

“Not since I was a kid,” said Bill, with a grin. “But that was in the old building, before it was burnt down.”

“Ah, yes,” said Henry, with a sigh. “I have very happy memories of it myself, sir. A distant relative of mine, a butler named Webber, had the honour of having his effigy placed in the old Chamber of Horrors. He murdered his master with a meat axe—a regrettable lapse, but it certainly gave me a personal interest in Madame Tussaud’s. It was a great shock to me to learn that his effigy perished in the fire—and alas, I regret a substitute has not yet been placed in the new building. I have written to them on the matter, but—er—nothing has transpired.”

Bill Kellaway chuckled. Henry was a never-failing source of surprise to him.

They boarded a bus for Baker Street.

Once within Madame Tussaud’s Henry seemed to be awed into silence as he gazed on the waxen effigies of the notorious criminals in the Chamber of Horrors. Charles Peace, crouching in his cell, his monkey like face twisted into a Satanic leer, held him fascinated.

“The greatest of them all, sir,” he whispered.

Bill smiled, and wondered what Henry would have said had he known of his compact with the Secret Six, and of that stark corpse in the house in Pimlico.

“Let me see, didn’t they once offer five quid—or was it fifty—for anyone who would sleep all night in the Chamber of Horrors, Henry?”

“A fabrication, sir. In his history of Madame Tussaud’s, M. Jean Tussaud expressly condemns it as a canard,” replied the valet. “It would be an interesting experience to try, at least,” he added.

Bill said nothing. His eyes were held by something that stood beneath the stark arms of the guillotine, something illuminated by the greenish glare of a mercury lamp.

He slapped his thigh triumphantly.

“By Gosh! I’ve got it!” he muttered half aloud. “I believe I know how to pull off Task No. 3.”

“L’audace—el tonjours Vaudace, Henry,” said Bill, clapping his valet heartily on the shoulder. “Which being interpreted means: ‘The cheek, and always the blooming cheek!’ ”

Henry glanced sharply at his employer.

“A motto on which the late Mr. Peace invariably acted, sir,” he replied. “Er—are you contemplating another experiment?”

“I am,” announced Bill. “It has long been one of my cherished ambitions to spend a night in the Chamber of Horrors, Henry. Tell me, my old Henry, how you proceed to carry out the scheme with the minimum amount of discomfort? I understand that the present directors of Madame Tussaud’s discourage the idea.”

“That is so, sir. The subject demands cogitation.”

“Then let us adjourn to the nearest hostelry and cudgel the old grey matter over a tankard or two,” said Bill. “Charlotte Corday was a dashed fine woman,” he added, irrelevantly.

“Indeed, sir!”

Henry’s tone was non-committal. He failed to grasp the allusion.

“An excellent wench,” added Bill, as they emerged into the more decorous surroundings of the Historical Room. “She’s going to place a large lump sum into our pockets, Henry mine. Come on, it’s almost the witching hour when pub doors yawn.”

“You admitted that your other relaxation was beer, Henry,” said Bill, with a chuckle, as they crossed over to an ornate public-house at the corner. “This is your day out. Order your favourite beverage—lashings of it.”

A faint smile played about the valet’s lips. “Thank you, sir. A pint of bitter!” he announced. “May I venture to suggest that we——er—drink the health of Mlle. Corday?”

Bill chuckled.

“Her ‘clay, with long oblivion, has gone dry,’ to quote Omar Khayyam—but here’s to her memory,” he added, as the barman placed two foaming tankards before them.

“I confess, sir, that I am rather in the dark concerning the lady in question,” said Henry, a little doubtfully. “The name is familiar, but——”

“Charlotte did her stuff in 1793, Henry,” broke in Kellaway. “The immediate point is, however, how am I to stop all night in the Chamber of Horrors without being spotted?”

Henry rubbed his long chin reflectively.

“One could, of course, approach the directors, sir, or one could secrete oneself on the premises,” he advised.

“The first idea is out of the question,” said Bill hastily. “As for the second——”

He gulped down his beer, and his eyes sparkled.

“By Jove, I’ve got it!” he announced, triumphantly. “Chase along back to the hotel, Henry, and bring me my make-up box. There’ll be a tenner for you if I pull off this stunt.”

Henry drained his tankard.

“Do you really contemplate spending the night at Madame Tussaud’s, sir?”

“I sure do,” said Bill. “And the day, too, which makes it more original.”

Henry rose to his feet.

“Sir,” he said, sepulchrally. “May I, with all deference, say that I am proud to serve under such an employer. You may count on me.”

Bill Kellaway held out his hand.

“You’re a good scout, Henry. One of these days I’ll enlighten you and damme if I pull this stunt off I’ll buy you a private Chamber of Horrors for your own amusement.”

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TASK OF TERROR

At eleven-thirty p.m. Sergeant Jonathan Mimble paced majestically down the silent great hall of Madame Tussaud’s, and punctiliously saluted the waxen effigies of the Royal Family as he passed. An old soldier, entirely devoid of imagination, he had done his present duty by seeing that no unauthorised person was on the exhibition premises.

He flashed his torch towards the entrance to the Chamber of Horrors, and yawned lustily ere departing for the snug little cuby-hole he occupied.

Inside the papier-mache fronted cell of Charles Peace, Bill Kellaway listened to the sergeant’s retreating footsteps, and heaved a sigh of relief. The last two hours had been crammed with discomfort. It had been easy enough to wander around the exhibition until closing-time, but difficult to dodge the various attendants once the warning bell had been rung.

Henry had procured Bill’s make-up box and he had secreted it beneath the life-size replica of the guillotine. Bill himself, taking advantage of the screams of a hysterical spinster at the saturnine effigy of Landru, was crouching beneath the wooden bench on which the wax figure sat, where he waited with as much patience as he could muster until the exhibition closed.

There was a grimly ironic humour in the situation, he reflected. Beneath the spindly legs of the convict’s effigy, Bill Kellaway chuckled. The front of the cell, with its flimsy bars, effectually screened him from view, and as the sergeant’s footsteps died away in the distance he relaxed his cramped limbs and crawled out cautiously.

The first part of his audacious scheme had been accomplished, but the second, and harder, was to follow.

“Peace, perfect Peace, in this dark world of sin,” he murmured, flashing his torch at the master crook’s effigy. In the glow, the deepset, cunning little eyes looked startlingly alive. Around him in the gloom the ranks of the infamous loomed, silent horribly silent—and somehow strangely watchful.

“Ah!” Bill drew in his breath sharply as he neared the guillotine. “A thousand pardons, Monsieur Marat, but once again you must be disturbed in your ablutions.” He bowed half mockingly towards the hideously-pock-marked effigy of Jean Paul Marat, crouched realistically in his bath—the original bath in which the revolutionary leader had been stabbed by Charlotte Corday during the terror of ’93.

He studied the ugly features, distorted in the throes of death, that the genius of the little old Frenchwoman, Madame Tussaud, had preserved for posterity, and with difficulty repressed a shiver.

“By Gosh!” muttered Bill, glancing at the glinting, triangular blade of the guillotine above his head. “Now I know how Sydney Carton felt; but as he so truly remarked: ‘It is the only way.’ ”

With that he placed his torch on an adjacent ledge, and groped for the japanned make-up box which Henry had hidden beneath the gaunt arms of the death-machine earlier in the evening. He opened the box, and sorted out several sticks of grease-paint and peeled off his coat and shirt. Then followed what seemed to Bill the most uncanny task he had yet performed since he had embarked on his million-pound quest.

In the glow of his torch he studied the repulsive features of the monster Marat, and proceeded, with the aid of his pigments, to transform his own smooth face into a replica of that of the murdered revolutionary.

Gradually, by skilful manipulation of nose wax and No. 3. Leichner’s, Bill succeeded in obtaining an uncannily accurate likeness of Jean Paul Marat as he looked on that fateful morning when Charlotte Corday, burning to avenge the wrongs of her country, stabbed him to the heart.

Bill glanced approvingly in the mirror at his hideous reflection. “And now,” he reflected, “where am I going to dump Marat?”

He glanced round the gloomy chamber, and noticed the huge dock, crammed with a miscellaneous assortment of criminals, ranging from Burke and Hare to Patrick Mahon.

Very gingerly he lifted the effigy from the bath, and in his stockinged feet tiptoed towards the dock, with its monstrous occupants. There was room to stow it beneath the voluminous folds of Mrs. Manning’s skirts, and this accomplished, Bill permitted himself the luxury of a cigarette.

He glanced at his wrist-watch. It was nearly two a.m.. The cleaners were due at six, and Bill decided that a nap was indicated. First, however, so that there could be no possibility of Lenoir raising any quibble about the matter if his audacious plan was to succeed, he must obtain water.

He flashed his torch towards the turnstile, and then grinned. His luck was certainly in that night. Dangling from polished hooks were half a dozen red-painted fire-buckets above a coil of rubber hose. It was the work of a few minutes to half fill Marat’s bath and adjust it in the exact position beneath the shadow of the guillotine.

“It’s going to be damnably cold,” Bill muttered. “But as I’ll probably end up in hot water, anyway, what’s the odds?”

Henry, that usually imperturbable man, was frankly nervous when he sallied forth from the Hotel Europa at precisely 10.15 a.m. the following day. Much as he admired Bill Kellaway, there were moments when Henry had grave doubts about his employer’s sanity.

To wish to sleep in the Chamber of Horrors was a natural enough matter, Henry thought. He had often evinced the same desire himself. But why in the name of goodness had Bill instructed him to buy a rattle, and alarm-clock, and afterwards, by acting on Bill’s instructions, lay himself open to be arrested for a breach of the peace.

Henry shook his head dolefully as he emerged from the hotel. His instructions were explicit. He had given his word to assist, and that was irrefragably that. Over his arm he carried a long grey ulster, under which he had concealed the alarm-clock and a rattle of terrifying resonance.

Punctually at ten-thirty Henry paid his admission to Madame Tussaud’s, and felt distinctly nervous as he passed through the turnstiles into the Chamber of Horrors. There were about a dozen persons present, provincials, Henry surmised, judging from their accents.

Even thus early in the day they were gazing with morbid ecstasy at the grim relics of the French Revolution. Beneath the gaunt arms of the guillotine Henry glimpsed the crouching figure of Jean Paul Marat in his bath. The repulsive face was set in an expression of agony, the bloated lips were ashen in hue. A terribly realistic gout of red oozed from his bare flesh.

“Eh, lad, but it gives me the creeps,” murmured a plump woman to her tall, gangling companion, with a shudder. “Look at them ropes. Fancy them ’anging a man! Why, they’re just like clothes lines.”

A young girl clung tightly to her companion’s arm, and giggled nervously.

“Oo, duckie! Have you noticed that all the murderers have blue eyes? And look at your eyes, George, they’re blue too. You wouldn’t murder me, would you?” she added, with a sudden rising note of hysteria in her voice.

She little realised how very near to homicide Bill Kellaway felt at that moment as she passed.

He had endured four hours of the most exquisite torture, cramped and motionless in the bath. His lower limbs were blue with cold. The waxen pallor of his face was more natural than artificial, but he stuck it grimly.

From beneath his paint-encrusted eyelids he scanned the Chamber of Horrors anxiously for any sign of Henry, and gave a sigh of relief as the valet entered punctually at half-past ten.

It was up to Henry, now, Bill reflected. He had done his share. For an hour he had taken a bath, without the bathing costume, in full view of the public, without being questioned or queried.

Slowly Henry approached the guillotine rail, and negligently dropped the long grey ulster over it. His lips never moved as he whispered:

“Everything is ready, sir. The taxi is waiting.”

“Good,” muttered Bill. “Go to it, Henry. Raise merry Hell, and I’ll see you through.”

He broke off suddenly as a bespectacled little man poked an inquisitive nose towards him. Henry sidled off towards the other end of the chamber. His eyes were set. There was a light of steely determination in his eyes as he released the catch of the alarm-clock and brandished his rattle.

Suddenly an eldritch scream tore from his lips, followed by a pandemonium of sound. The alarm-clock shrilled, and the rattle’s raucous cacaphony filled the Chamber of Horrors with an ear-splitting clangour.

“Hi! Hi! Hi!” roared Henry. “Help! Help! Murder!”

The pale-faced girl screamed and collapsed into the arms of her companion. A bemedalled commissionaire standing near the turnstile turned towards the gesticulating and gibbering valet and his face paled.

All eyes were turned on Henry, who gave a most creditable imitation of a howling dervish afflicted with delirium tremens. Like a flash Bill Kellaway stepped out of his bath and wrapped his shivering body in the grey ulster. It was the work of a second to slip on his shoes, and hastily smearing the paint off his face with a greasy rag placed in readiness in one of the overcoat pockets, he bore down on Henry.

“Nah! What’s all this?” demanded the commissionaire. “What are you making all this ’orrible row for?”

“Blood, bones, and Beelzebub!” screeched Henry, playing a further devil’s tattoo with his rattle.

“He’s barmy! The ’orrers ’ave driven ’im daft,” said a Lancashire voice.

“Pore feller! Such a respectable-looking man, too,” said Bill, maliciously, as he dodged nimbly through the turnstile.

People were rushing to the Chamber of Horrors from all parts of the exhibition. Scarcely anyone noticed Bill Kellaway’s departure. He flung himself down the steps and into the waiting taxi with a sobbing breath of relief.

Task No. 3 had been accomplished. Henry, that man of infinite resource, could extricate himself. At the worst he might be bound over for a breach of the peace, Bill reflected.

“And now for Dr. Armand Lenoir,” said Bill grimly as the taxi headed for the Hotel Europa.

CHAPTER XXV

A FACER FOR BILL.

“Gosh, Lenoir, you’ve gotta hand it to Kellaway,” drawled Phineas T. Lee, over the evening cocktail in the Savoy Lounge. “That guy sure has guts. Land’s sake, I laughed till I cried at old Benstoke’s face when he realised that young Hercules had put one over on him.”

Dr. Lenoir sipped his Martini delicately, and smiled over at Sir John Jarvie and a quiet, grey-haired man with a close-clipped grey moustache and tired eyes.

The latter was Colonel Eustace Reed, the fabulously wealthy inventor of the Reed gun, and the fourth member of the Secret Six.

Bill, on his return to the Europa, had promptly telephoned to Lenoir of his escapade at Madame Tussaud’s. Lenoir’s reply was characteristic. He had dryly informed Bill that his claim should be verified and if approved, the fourth task would be set for him in due course.

That eccentric peer, Lord Benstoke, whose perverse sense of humour had evolved the third task, when informed of Bill’s ingenious plan, had lost his temper completely. Phineas Lee, on the other hand, since his defeat by Bill, had become absorbingly interested in that dynamic young man, and frankly sided with him.

“You must give Benstoke credit for evolving a very ingenious task, gentlemen,” said Lenoir. “Doubtless, when we meet this evening, his sense of humour will return, and he will regard the loss of his twenty thousand pounds with comparative equanimity.”

“He’s a queer devil, Benstoke,” broke in the Colonel, in his quiet toneless voice. “A bad loser, I fear.”

“He certainly spent less money and trouble in evolving the task than I did,” grumbled Sir John. “Have you evolved your scheme yet, No. 4.”

The Colonel nodded.

“I have. It will be submitted in the usual way, of course. Frankly, I imagine that even the resourceful Mr. Kellaway will find it insuperable.”

“I shall probably lunch with Kellaway tomorrow, gentlemen,” Lenoir announced. “Metaxas’ inquiries at Madame Tussaud’s do certainly lend credence to his statement. There is a line or two in this evening’s paper about the queer behaviour of an unknown man in the Chamber of Horrors. Kellaway is exceedingly fortunate in his choice of a valet.”

“He’ll need all the allies he can get before we’re though with him, poor devil,” said Phineas T. Lee. “What’s the betting on the boy beating the Colonel, Jarvie?”

“Wait till you’ve heard the task!” snapped the jam manufacturer. “Then I’ll take you.”

“A good valet, Henry, like a good woman, is far above rubies. I possess one, and I hope some day to be possessed by the other,” said Bill Kellaway, tossing aside the telegram which had just arrived from Paris that morning.

It was brief, but it filled Bill with wild excitement. It ran simply:

“Congratulations. Returning to-night. Meet me Savoy lunch tomorrow.—Echo.”

Bill Kellaway had given up trying to understand how Dorothy Jarvie knew so intimately of his Herculean tasks. He accepted it philosophically. Some day soon, he felt, he would be disentangled from the web of mystery and intrigue, and when the sixth task was completed he vowed that no power on earth would prevent him from marrying Dorothy.

He turned to Henry:

“Dr. Lenoir will be here at one, Henry,” he announced.

“Very good, sir. Will you lunch here, or downstairs?” said the valet, in a hoarse whisper.

“Here, Henry. By the way, how’s the jolly old larynx?”

“Still somewhat strained, sir. The—er—vocal cords received an excessive amount of vibration yesterday, sir.”

Bill Kellaway chuckled.

“They did. Talk about the Bulls of Bashan! They were sucking doves compared with you, Henry. How on earth did you manage to pacify the attendants?”

“Diplomacy, sir, allied to the surprise element, sir,” announced the other. “When I saw that you had reached the main hall I immediately ceased to shout. The attendant, by that time, had overcome his stupefaction and had seized me rather forcibly by the arm. I managed, however, to insert a Treasury note into his other and disengaged palm, told him I was the Archbishop of Canterbury, and before he could recover from his surprise, I—er—followed in your wake.

“There was some brief mention of the incident in the evening papers, sir. Fortunately—as we said in the army—no names, no pack drill.”

Bill rubbed his still aching thighs, and grimaced.

“No wonder Marat was a Bolshevik if he spent his life in that bath. I had four hours of it, and I nearly succeeded in becoming blasphemous.”

Henry deftly whisked away the tablecloth, and replaced it with one of snowy white linen.

“Er—pardon my curiosity, sir, but are there likely to be any further—er—stunts in the future? The visits of Dr. Lenoir usually coincide with a certain liveliness.”

“It is extremely probable, Henry,” said Bill, “that there’ll be something doing, but what, Heaven alone knows.”

Henry sighed resignedly.

Punctually to the minute Dr. Lenoir arrived, sleek and well-groomed as usual.

“Good-morning, Kellaway. None the worse for your escapade, I perceive,” he said, cordially.

“Not so bad as I thought I’d be,” said Bill. “Sit down, doc, and let’s have the next bally bombshell.”

Henry, in his discreet fashion, assimilated hat and walking-stick and shimmered out. Lenoir himself held up a slim hand, and ticked off on his fingers.

“You are now exactly half way towards the million pounds, Kellaway. We have decided, in the circumstances, to enlighten you a little further regarding the Secret Six. In the first place, as I told you before, it is not a criminal organisation, nor will you suffer in any way in the future for the consequences of the first three tasks you have performed. Is that clear?”

Bill Kellaway nodded.

“We have decided, in future, to vary the procedure a little, my dear Kellaway. I shall keep in closer touch with you, and needless to say, our organisation has ample resources to see that you abide by the conditions.”

“I don’t like the idea of being spied upon,” said Bill. “I’ve given my word; that’s enough, isn’t it?”

“Quite. But you are guarded in your own and my clients’ interests. However, if you are quite ready, I have pleasure in designating your fourth task. It is not quite so elaborate as the others, perhaps, but as I told you in the beginning, they grow more difficult as they progress.”

“Shoot,” said Bill Kellaway. “Let’s have the worst. Nothing’ll ever surprise me again.”

Lenoir smiled satirically, as he drew from his pocket the familiar yellow envelope.

“Your instructions are in here, my dear fellow. A little easier to remember than tasks No. 2 and 3.”

Bill tore open the envelope, and Lenoir’s eyes gleamed mockingly as Bill read the laconic two lines it contained:

“Task Number Four. You will yourself obtain the million pounds from the Safe Deposit Vault.”

Bill looked up with a puzzled expression at his guest.

“What the devil does this mean, Lenoir?” he demanded. “Is this a threat or a promise?”

“Precisely what it says. Go to Chancery Lane and obtain the million pounds which was deposited there in your name and in mine. But you must go yourself—don’t count on me.”

“But that’s absurd!” said Bill. “How on earth can I possibly do that? You know perfectly well that the bag will only be given up to both of us, or in the event of the death of either of us, to the survivor as a legal executor.”

“Precisely,” said Lenoir, suavely. “That is a problem that you have to solve, my dear fellow. I tell you frankly that I am debarred from helping you in the slightest degree. You know that the million is there—go and help yourself to it—if you can.”

Bill whistled speechlessly for a few moments.

“I knew there was a snag in it somewhere, Lenoir; you know the thing’s utterly impossible. Short of burgling the mightiest strongroom in the world, or murdering you, it can’t be done.”

Lenoir lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring ceilingwards.

“Both alternatives would have rather unpleasant consequences on yourself,” he drawled, with soft and sibilant emphasis.

“I’ve a good mind to murder you and chance my arm,” retorted Bill savagely. “What chance in a million have I got of getting by about ten thousand armed watchmen, steel grilles, time-locks, and six-foot-thick steel doors?”

Lenoir shrugged.

“It’s your problem, Hercules. You have precisely a week to think it out, or forfeit the million for good.”

There was a deprecatory cough from behind them.

“Luncheon is served, sir,” said Henry the imperturbable.

CHAPTER XXVI

BILL IS ENCOURAGED.

BILL KELLAWAY was fed up, and showed it, though he hardly touched his luncheon, and his repletion was metaphorical rather than literal.

“I’m beaten,” thought Bill. “And the blighters know it. They’ve been leading me gently up the garden, and having had their bit of fun, they’re going to dump me.

His jaw set doggedly. If that was the game, two could play at it. He groped in his pocket, and studied the tiny Yale key to the steel safe in the deposit vault. Alone, of course, it was useless. Without Lenoir’s, it would be impossible to open the safe.

Even if he obtained possession of the doctor’s key, the situation would still be a deadlock. He would have to provide clear and unmistakable proof that Lenoir was dead. That was part of the agreement signed by the manager. One man would be allowed access to the million pounds only in the event of the other’s death.

“Anyhow,” Bill reflected, “Lenoir won’t be able to touch the million pounds unless I peg out, so I’m dashed if I see what the Secret Six gain by it. Unless, of course——”

A chill thought gripped him. Judging from his last experience with that queer organisation, they were not likely to allow Bill Kellaway to checkmate them without a struggle.

He shivered a little. Men had been murdered for much less than a million pounds, and Lenoir had hinted at unpleasant consequences should Bill prove recalcitrant.

A wave of gloom swept over Bill Kellaway, lightened only by the thought of the morrow. Echo was returning; his pulses leapt at the thought of meeting her again and hearing that adorably husky voice. She had faith in him, and in some queer fashion seemed to be aware of his grim struggle against the power of the Secret Six.

“Tell me, Henry, how would you set about burgling a safe deposit vault?” he demanded.

The valet coughed.

“Well, sir, in the Draxton Dread Library No 81, ‘The Affair of the Hooded Horror,’ I recall that an audacious attempt was made to burgle the Bank of England by means of poison gas. The—er—criminals hired a pantechnicon, and at midnight, aided by a gang of crooks disguised as policemen, succeeded in stupefying the squad of Guardsmen on duty by the aid of chlorine gas, injected from a kind of vacuum cleaner. Fortunately, Draxton Dread, in the nick of time, turned up and——”

“Fetch me the volume, Henry,” broke in Bill wearily. “It sounds intriguing.”

“Certainly, sir. I trust you will find it useful in your project.”

“I doubt it,” said Bill.

Miss Dorothy Jarvie turned to her companion, a faded little woman, who twittered like a canary as she descended from the smart little runabout in the Savoy courtyard a little after midday.

“Tell me, how is Ye Olde Browne Potte getting on? Has Daddy been holding any more of his absurd seances upstairs since I left?”

“I really cannot understand what’s come over your father lately, Dorothy,” she announced. “Of course, it was very generous of him to finance me in the cafe—which, strictly between ourselves, was not doing so well as I expected. But really the strange people who arrive there sometimes make me feel quite nervous.”

“What that very charming man, Dr Lenoir, can see in spiritualism I cannot conjecture,” she announced. “He tells me, however, that both Chang and that awful Mr. Thurwood are wonderful mediums, and have a lot to do with dispatches on the other side.”

Fortunately Miss Carberry was unaware of the sardonic subtlety of Lenoir’s remark.

Dorothy cupped her dimpled chin in her hands and scanned the lounge anxiously. There was no sign yet of Bill Kellaway, and a little frown of annoyance creased her forehead.

“Yes,” continued Miss Carberry, with a sniff, “they call us women unbalanced and neurotic, and here are half a dozen men of the world—including your father whom I thought had more sense—playing about with tables and tambourines in an endeavour to communicate with the dead.”

“Never mind, dear,” said Dorothy. “Let the poor darlings have their fun if they want it. It’s only a passing craze, I suppose. Daddy is certainly better-tempered lately, and has quite recovered his appetite. Why, he even ate some of his own marmalade at breakfast this morning.”

Miss Carberry glanced at her watch.

“Gracious!” she exclaimed, “I must fly. Hortense is perfectly helpless unless I’m there to superintend. I shall have to meet this Mr. Kellaway of yours some other time. Why not bring him over to tea this afternoon?”

“I will, darling. You were a perfect dear to come shopping with me,” said Dorothy. “I simply hate going alone. Won’t you have a cocktail before you go?”

“Thanks, no,” said Miss Carberry, hurriedly. She gave her niece a peck on the cheek, and a trifle flustered, hurried away to Wessex Street.

Dorothy, left to herself, lit a cigarette and snuggled back in her chair, her slim silken legs crossed. Very charming she looked, in a plain black-and-white costume, simple with the artful simplicity of the Rue de la Paix.

She had rung up Miss Carberry, ostensibly to accompany her on a shopping expedition that morning. In reality it was to learn a little more of the queer happenings that took place in the locked room above the cafe.

Ever since the first night of Bill’s arrival in Sir John Jarvie’s Park Lane house, Dorothy had been aware that her father was engaged on some queer and secret enterprise. Unsuspected by either of the millionaires, she had been a witness of the queer compact which Bill had signed.

She had returned home unexpectedly from a dance that bored her just in time to see Bill’s unconscious body carried from the diningroom to the library on the night of the storm. She had been thrilled and intrigued by the presence of the pale-faced, good-looking young man in the threadbare suit, and was about to demand an explanation when she overheard Phineas T. Lee’s malicious voice.

“We’ll get that guy yet. He’ll pull no Hercules stuff on us.”

Instantly she realised that she had stumbled unwittingly, on a first-class mystery, and Dorothy, in common with Henry, dearly loved a mystery. Quite unblushingly she hid herself behind the heavy portidres of the millionaire’s study, and listened while Lenoir suavely outlined his project to the bewildered Kellaway.

As she listened, Dorothy was at first indignant, then interested. Indignant with her father for not telling her what was afoot; interested because of the romantic possibilities of Bill Kellaway’s enterprise. There was a flavour of feminine resentment, too, in her subsequent actions.

Dorothy glanced at her jewelled wrist-watch, and tapped her tiny shoe impatiently. The lounge was filling rapidly, and from the nearby tables came the clink of ice in glasses.

Suddenly she flushed a little as a tall, elegant figure entered the swing door of the lounge and glanced about anxiously.

It was Bill Kellaway, sartorially perfect in his braided morning coat and grey striped trousers. From the tips of his dazzling shoes to the crown of his resplendent hat, he was a living testimonial to the loving ministrations of Henry—Henry, the perfect valet.

The girl drew in her breath sharply as she studied his profile. He was certainly good-looking, and he carried his clothes with an indefinable air of distinction. Suddenly he smiled as he recognised the girl.

His heart thumped madly as he drank in her loveliness, and he marvelled anew at the blue of her dark-lashed eyes and the exquisite bow of her carmine lips. For the life of him he could not speak, and felt an unutterable gawk.

“Well, Mr. Hercules,” said Dorothy, “I was beginning to think you’d been snapped up by Cerberus, or were dallying with the nymphs at the garden of the Hesperides.”

Bill grinned.

“Sorry I’m late, dear lady. I’ve just been doing a job for Comrade Atlas. He said to me, ‘’Ere, old man, ’old up this bloomin’ earth for ’arf a tick while I dodge round to the Gannymede Arms for a wet.’ You may possibly have noted another earthquake has been reported in China,” added Bill, with a twinkle. “That was my clumsiness. I slipped on a piece of orange peel.”

Dorothy shook with silent laughter.

“Won’t you ever be serious?” she demanded. “I must admit you show few signs of wear and tear after your last ordeal.”

Bill sank into a chair, and signalled to a waiter.

“I feel a trifle part-worn,” he confessed. “How about a cocktail—er—Echo?”

“Echo answers ‘Why not?’ ” said Dorothy, with dancing eyes.

When the drinks had been brought, Bill leant forward confidentially.

“Let us drink to the eternal confusion of Dr. Lenoir,” he said quietly.

Dorothy glanced at him shrewdly.

“Is that how you feel about him?” she demanded. “Personally, I think he is a most charming man.”

“Doubtless,” said Bill Kellaway, a trifle grimly. “Er—Miss Jarvie—hang it all, mayn’t I call you Dorothy? I never was a stickler for conventions. I’ve written to you fifteen times, and torn up the letters.”

“Have you—Bill?” asked Dorothy softly. “I suppose you thought a wire was much safer?”

“A wire?” echoed Bill, blankly. “That’s just what I’m trying to explain. You must have thought me an unutterable cad not writing to thank you for—for what you did. I—I can’t explain exactly what I mean. Perhaps you understand why.”

Dorothy’s blue eyes danced with mischief.

“You’re half way through your tasks, aren’t you, Hercules? It was awfully nice of you to let me know.”

“B-but I didn’t,” Bill stammered. “The night you saved me from failure by sending that canvas I tried to get in touch with you, but couldn’t. Henry tried again the next morning, but you’d gone abroad.”

“Daddy was very angry,” said Dorothy. “I thought I’d slip away until his wrath cooled a little.”

“But hang it all,” protested the bewildered Bill. “I can’t make head or tail of the business. You seem to know all about me—what I’m doing, what I’m going to do—and yet I’m absolutely barred from questioning you, or even discussing the matter. As for sending you a wire, I swear I did nothing of the sort. In the first place, I had not the slightest idea of your address.”

Dorothy looked at him in astonishment. Bill’s tone was perfectly sincere, and she believed him. She fumbled in her handbag and unearthed a crumpled telegraph form.

“Then can you explain this, my friend?” she demanded.

Bill read the message through, and shook his head. It was brief, but pointed:

“Succeeded in third task. When can I see you? Kellaway.”

“I certainly never sent the message, Dorothy,” he said earnestly. “I admit that the facts are substantially correct; but——”

“Now listen, Bill,” broke in Dorothy. “Let me put all my cards on the table. I know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. As far as I can see, you are bound by oath not to discuss the matter with me, so I won’t tempt you to try and explain. The point is, I want to help. My promise stands. Is it a deal?”

Bill Kellaway put out his hand impulsively.

“Dorothy, you’re a brick,” he said, taking her slim fingers in his own. “I—I can’t explain yet how much this means to me, but by Heaven, I’ve decided to go right through with the business to the end. With you on my side. I reckon I’ll beat the Secret Six.”

“You’ve beaten them so far, Bill.”

“Thanks to you, my dear. The point is, the next job of work is harder than the other three put together.”

“What is it?” queried the girl. She coloured suddenly. “Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked,” she added hastily.

“I wish to Heaven I could tell you, my dear,” said Bill, “but I’m bound by my compact. I’ve got to see this thing through—alone.”

“Not alone,” laughed Dorothy. “In a way I, too, am up against the Secret Six. I’ve discovered quite a lot about them. Take it from me, Bill, you look like winning.”

Bill glanced at her eagerly:

“Do you really think so, Dorothy? Jove, if I could only be sure. I’d—I’d ask you something.”

“Is this a proposal?” asked Dorothy, peering at him provocatively beneath her long dark lashes.

“A prelude to a proposal,” said Bill. “At the moment, I’m a penniless adventurer, Dorothy. Soon, with luck, I may be able to——”

“Support me in the luxury to which I’ve been accustomed,” Dorothy broke in. “Oh, Bill, how disgustingly Balhamish.”

“You mean that I’ve—I’ve got a chance?” he stammered. Dorothy studied the cherry in the bottom of her glass.

“You’re rather a dear, Mr. Hercules,” she said, softly. “As I said before, you look like winning.”

Bill’s heart raced madly. He had an insane impulse to take her in his arms and kiss her, but resisted it. Instead, he braced his shoulders and there was a ring of assurance in his voice as he answered:

“Dorothy darling, watch my smoke! I’ll pull off the next three tasks, or perish.”

“And then you’ll be a millionaire,” broke in Dorothy. “How dull! I know so many.”

“Very well,” said Bill, recklessly. “I’ll tell Lenoir to go to blazes. If you’ll marry me——”

“I certainly won’t,” said Dorothy. “You’ve got to beat them first, Bill. I don’t care about the money, but I’d like to see you win. I—I have particular reasons.”

Bill grinned cheerfully.

“Let’s go and worry a chop, my dear,” he said. “I may be poor, but I feel like a billion dollars.”

CHAPTER XXVII

BILL SEES THE WAY

BILL KELLAWAY spent a deliriously happy afternoon. For a young man who was confronted with the staggering and stupendous task of abstracting a million pounds from the Chancery Lane safe deposit vault his light-heartedness was amazing.

But then Bill Kellaway was a remarkably resilient person.

Bill and Dorothy spent that afternoon at the Tivoli. Neither he nor she paid very much attention to the thrilling super-film shown on the silver screen. They had far more thrilling things to discuss.

Bill was debarred from asking any questions, or replying to them. There was nothing, however, to prevent Dorothy imparting what information she knew, and when they left the cinema for tea at Miss Carberry’s restaurant in Wessex Street, Bill Kellaway had revised his opinion considerably of the Secret Six. Task Number Four did not seem so impossible nor unsurmountable as he had imagined, and he had already arrived at some glimmering of an idea of its accomplishment.

“You’ll like Aunt Letitia,” whispered Dorothy, as they entered the chintz-festooned entrance to Ye Olde Browne Potte. “She’s not really my aunt, but——” She broke off suddenly.

Seated at a table near the entrance, with a microscopic piece of plum cake in his slim, tapering fingers, was Dr. Armand Lenoir.

“Oh!” gasped Dorothy, suddenly taken aback.

Lenoir rose to his feet and bowed. His dark eyes were alive with mockery.

“How do you do, Miss Jarvie, and you, Kellaway?” he said suavely.

Bill nodded curtly. Confound the fellow. What on earth was he doing at Ye Olde Browne Potte?

Dorothy recovered a little of her poise.

“Why, hallo, doctor,” she greeted him gaily. “I didn’t know this was a haunt of yours—in the daytime,” she added, with a hint of emphasis.

“I very often drop in,” said Lenoir quietly. “I am a staunch supporter of the one-man business. Being a distributist, I abhor combines.”

“So do I,” announced Bill Kellaway grimly. “Six to one aren’t fair odds.”

“Really?” Lenoir’s eyebrows elevated into interrogation-marks. “I was referring to multiple teashops, my dear Kellaway.”

Miss Carberry emerged at this juncture, and a truce was given to verbal sword-play. Bill steered Dorothy to a table at the back of the little cafe, and Lenoir smiled quizzically.

“I wonder,” he murmured softly, “whether Hercules, like Samson, will be betrayed by a woman!”

Curiously enough, Miss Dorothy Jarvie, at that moment, was scribbling an address on the back of a visiting card, and her eyes were unnaturally bright.

“There you are, Bill,” she whispered. “That’s the address. Go to it. You haven’t broken your contract.”

Henry, staggering beneath the weight of a heavy volume, knocked gently at his master’s door at the Hotel Europa, and entered. It was nine p. m., and Bill Kellaway had returned radiant after spending six blissful hours in the company of Dorothy Jarvie.

He had learned that afternoon the secret of many things that had puzzled him; he had disentangled several of the threads that had at first seemed so hopelessly tangled. He felt supremely confident that, with Dorothy as an ally, he would emerge triumphant in his battle against the Secret Six.

He looked up from his chair as Henry entered.

“Did you manage it?”

“With some difficulty, sir,” said Henry. “It is really deplorable how hotels, claiming to be up-to-date, are so sadly deficient in reference books. I obtained this on loan from my friend Soames, Lord Wilton’s valet, sir. His lordship is away at the moment, and in the circumstances it had to be borrowed without his permission.”

“Henry, you’re a wonder,” said Bill, admiringly. “No other man in London could scrounge a volume of the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica’ in less than ten minutes.”

Henry bowed, and placed the bulky tome on the table. It was the final volume of that monumental work S—Z. Bill turned over the leaves hurriedly. He wanted to find something about safe deposits—their history and their system.

Suddenly his gaze fell on an unfamiliar word, and he read out its definition with idle curiosity.

“Holy Smoke!” said Bill Kellaway. “That’s the stuff!”

He read the definition again, and into his alert, journalistic brain flashed an idea so amazing, so unexpected, that it dazzled him. Here, quite by accident, he had discovered a solution to his problem.

There was no need now to read up the history of safe deposits, nor map out a plan of campaign for burglary. One simple word that his eye had fallen on at random had become the key to a million pounds.

A knock sounded at the door, and the valet crossed over to open it. Framed on the threshold was a burly, broad-shouldered man, with a hard bowler hat cocked aggressively on his bullet head.

Henry, by a great effort, managed to remain impassive.

“Is Mr. Kellaway in?” snapped the newcomer. “I’d like to see him on important business.”

“I will ascertain,” said Henry. “Will you wait a moment?” He closed the door and tiptoed softly into the room.

“Inspector Barker of Scotland Yard to see you, sir,” he said.

“Great Scott! Whatever does he want?” he demanded. “Show him in, Henry. It looks like trouble for somebody!”

Inspector Barker’s cold eye rested speculatively on Henry as he returned to the door.

“Er—still interested in criminology, Henry?” he demanded, bluntly.

Henry nodded.

“Mr. Kellaway will see you, sir,” he said, tactfully. “Will you step this way?”

Bill closed the encyclopaedia ostentatiously as the Yard man entered. His manner was perfectly natural, but inwardly he felt apprehensive. Both Henry and Dorothy had told him about Barker, but this was the first time he had met the C.I.D. man. He smiled pleasantly.

“Good evening, inspector! What can I do for you?”

Barker sat down, and balanced his billycock hat awkwardly on his knee.

“Good evening, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you at this time of night, but I was wondering if you could give me a little information.”

Bill pushed over the cigar-box.

“Help yourself, inspector,” he said, hospitably. “As for the information—that depends——” He tapped the bulky volume on the table. “If it’s about anything beginning with the letters S to Z I can give it to you at once. Anything from saccomydaie to zymurgy. A good word zymurgy, inspector. It is a branch of chemistry in which fermentation is the principal feature—such as brewing beer. I’d a dashed sight sooner be called a zymurgist than a brewer, wouldn’t you?”

Inspector Barker bit off the end of a cigar and smiled frostily.

“Curiously enough the information I want does begin with an S, Mr. Kellaway. Know anything about Symphony—Symphony Sam Hicks?” he demanded.

Bill’s heart missed a beat.

“What is he—a jazz band conductor?” he asked, assuming a guileless expression.

“He’s a burglar, Mr. Kellaway,” said Barker crisply. “I have reason to believe you met him during your—er—unfortunate lapse at Liverpool.”

“Well?” Bill was giving nothing away.

The inspector twisted his spiky moustache.

“Look here, Mr. Kellaway, I’ll be frank with you,” he said, in a sudden burst of confidence. “I know all about your getaway from Salton Gaol. I missed you by a few minutes when we raided the house of Juniper Joe; and I also know that you and Symphony are friends. I want to warn you that you are under suspicion——”

“How very thrilling,” laughed Bill. “It’s very kind of you to tell me all this, inspector. I shall certainly watch my step.”

“I see it’s no use my asking you any questions about Symphony?” said Barker.

“Not the slightest,” said Bill. “Even if I knew where he was I wouldn’t tell you. I’m sorry and all that. I recognise you ’tec fellows are only doing your duty, but, to be equally frank with you, I’ve lost a good deal of my admiration and respect for the C.I.D. since my Liverpool lapse, as you so tactfully put it.”

The Yard man frowned and rose to his feet.

“I don’t want to seem unpleasant, Mr. Kellaway,” he said gruffly. “You are a young man, resourceful and clever. I have been a detective for the best part of thirty years, and there is one axiom that I have learned in that period; crime does not pay. The cleverest crook is caught out in the end. It is a mathematical certainty.”

“Are you insinuating that I’m a crook?” asked Bill, indignantly.

“Not at all, Mr. Kellaway—not at all,” said Barker. “But even at the risk of being platitudinous, I must say that a man is known by the company he keeps, and yours lately has been very dubious indeed.”

“It has,” said Bill offensively. “For the past twenty minutes.”

Barker’s face flushed a dull red and he seized his hat.

“Please show the inspector the way out, Henry,” said Bill.

The valet bowed, and a queer little smile played round his lips as he opened the door for Barker. The Yard man jammed his bowler on his bullet head, and glared in response to his suave “good night.”

“So I’m an object of interest to Scotland Yard, eh?” mused Bill, as the door closed.

He helped himself to a cigar, and opened the encyclopedia again. For a long time he studied a short paragraph, and gradually the scheme he had evolved to obtain access to the safe deposit vault crystallised into a sound and workmanlike certainty.

Tomorrow he would call at the address Dorothy had given him. The whole project bristled with difficulty and danger, and the fact that Scotland Yard was watching his movements hampered Bill considerably; but forewarned is forearmed, and he went to sleep that night supremely confident, and cheered by the thought that, whatever the outcome, Dorothy cared.

“Henry,” said Bill, the following day, “I’m going to make one of my periodic disappearances. It may be for years, it may be for ever, Henry mavourneen.”

“Indeed, sir. I surmised that something of the sort would be in the offing.”

“You’ll stand by for future orders, Henry. I shall probably need your help. Give me my small hand valise. I’ve a little call to make on the estimable Mr. Clarkson.”

An hour later, after making several purchases at the fascinating theatrical costumier’s in Wardour Street and a chemist’s shop at the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue, Bill Kellaway ascended the steps of a modest-fronted house in Portland Place.

A gigantic Chinaman, clad in a loose, dark-blue robe, answered his ring. His impassive yellow face, with sloe-black slanting eyes, was perfectly expressionless as Bill inquired if Dr. Lenoir was at home.

“Name, pliss?” he said briefly.

“Hercules, Esq.,” said Bill, with a grin.

“Wait, pliss,” said Chang, one-time public executioner of Pekin, waving a lemon-hued hand towards a chair in the luxuriously furnished hall.

“Well, my friend,” said a suave voice, “to what do I owe the honour of this visit?”

Bill stood up. Facing him was Dr. Lenoir, clad in a gorgeous dressing-gown of flowered silk. In his fingers he held a long cigarette holder of jade green, and his dark eyes were full of some secret mirth.

“I’ve come to consult you professionally, doc,” said Bill. “I hope it’s in order?”

Lenoir smiled.

“Come this way, my dear fellow,” he said, leading the way to a small but well-equipped surgery to the right of the hallway. “I am not now in practice, Kellaway,” he added. “What’s the matter—heart trouble?”

Bill flushed as he sensed the flippancy in the other’s tone.

“No,” he said, curtly. “I want to talk to you about this fourth task, doc. You needn’t think I’ve broken the compact. I made no inquiries as to where you lived. Your address came to me quite by accident.”

“Indeed?” said Lenoir. “Miss Jarvie knows it, of course. She and her father have often dined here. I suppose it was inevitable that you should discover it.”

Bill Kellaway nodded. His fingers crept into his coat pocket and closed over something sharp and gleaming. It was a desperate chance he was about to take. One false move, and the whole plan would be ruined.

“Inspector Barker came to see me last night,” he announced.

“Indeed. A most capable fellow. What did he want?”

“He wanted to know what sort of game I was playing, Lenoir,” said Bill slowly. “But he got no change out of me.”

“Naturally,” said the other. “I take it this visit is a result of Barker’s call?”

“Yes—and no,” replied Bill. “It’s perfectly obvious, Lenoir, that if one person is to obtain that million quid, either you or myself must die. Burgling the safe deposit is out of the question.”

“I see,” said Lenoir. “So you have come to see—er—which of us shuffles off this mortal coil—is that it?”

“That’s it,” said Bill Kellaway gravely. “The issue lies between you and me, Lenoir. One of us must die!”

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE DRUG OF TRUTH

“You sound like the villain of a Lyceum melodrama, Kellaway,” said Dr. Lenoir, with a maddening smile spreading over his face.

“Probably I do,” Bill retorted. “But don’t forget you are part author in the play in which I seem to be taking the leading role.”

“Now be sensible, my dear chap,” said the other. “Why all this talk about death? You have got on very well indeed, so far. Why get morbid about it? Sit down, my dear fellow, and let’s discuss this matter amicably. You have found out where I live; as I said that was probably inevitable, and it really makes very little difference.

“I am merely the agent of the Secret Six. I can tell you at once that this place is not their headquarters, nor are you likely ever to discover it.”

Bill Kellaway took out a cigarette and lit it.

“Now let’s get this straight, Lenoir. Assume for a moment that I manage to obtain that despatch case containing the million quid. What’s to prevent me doing a bunk with it, and not bothering about the two final tasks?”

“Two things, my dear Kellaway—your own sense of honour, and—well, you don’t think the Secret Six are quite such fools as to let you escape your obligations.”

“H’m,” said Bill. “Still assuming of course, doc. What do I do with the million?”

“You bring it to me. Now that you know my address, you can bring it straight here.”

“Oh indeed. And what’s to prevent you doing a bunk with the million?”

Lenoir’s eyes hardened.

“That is rather impertinent, Kellaway,” he said, coldly. “I am not in need of money, and even if I were, the unique position I hold in relation to the Secret Six would effectively debar me from doing anything so foolish.”

“I see,” said Bill. “Then that’s all clear. But one of us has got to die. Looking at it by and large, there’s not much object in killing you. You are certainly not likely to commit hari-kari just to suit me, so it looks to me as if I’m the one that’s got to peg out.”

“But that’s preposterous! Don’t talk rot, man,” ejaculated Lenoir.

“I’ve decided it all,” said Bill, and his voice changed subtly. “I’m the one who must pass out, Lenoir. I am tired of the struggle; death holds no terror for me—now.”

His voice broke a little, and a hint of alarm crept into the doctor’s dark eyes.

Had the strain of the past few weeks been too much for Kellaway? He leapt to his feet. At all costs he must prevent this young fool from doing anything rash.

Bill’s mouth twisted into a wry smile.

“Good-bye, doc, it’s been great fun while it lasted, but I’m tired now,” he said.

Something glittered between his fingers. It was a nickelled automatic. Bill raised it slowly and pressed the muzzle to his head.

“Stop, you fool!” cried Lenoir hoarsely.

He grabbed hold of Kellaway’s right arm and dragged the pistol away from his temple.

“So be it, Lenoir,” chuckled Bill, and fired point-blank into Lenoir’s face. A thin jet of vapour was ejected from the nozzle of the gun. The doctor swayed dizzily, and clapped his hands over his streaming eyes.

“By Heaven, Kellaway,” he gasped. “You’ve blinded me! You’ve——”

His voice trailed away into a groan. Bill was just in time to catch his limp body as he slumped to the floor unconscious.

He chuckled.

“You deserved that, doc,” said Bill Kellaway. “You and your pals put the breeze up me with a fake bomb. It’s tit for tat.”

He slipped the little water pistol he had bought at Wardour Street into his pocket. So far, everything had gone off according to plan. Lenoir would remain unconscious for at least ten minutes. The anaesthetic in the rubber bulb of the pistol was a mixture of chloral and ether, and its advantage lay in the fact that its effect was almost immediate.

Bill lifted Lenoir’s limp body up in his arms, and deposited it on the surgical couch. To his delight he noticed that there were leather straps at the head and feet, and with these pinioned the unconscious man securely.

Bill heaved a sigh of relief, and turned to his make-up box. This was no job for grease-paint and liners. Fortunately for Bill, that wizard of make-up, Mr. Willy Clarkson, was the inventor of certain pigments and ingenious gadgets which defied detection, even in the strongest sunshine.

Lenoir was breathing as peacefully as a child, his eyes fast closed. Bill uncorked a little bottle and tried it on his palm. With the aid of the hot water in Dr. Lenoir’s fully-equipped consulting room he diluted the stain until it was the exact shade of Lenoir’s somewhat sallow skin. At the end of seven minutes all trace of Bill Kellaway’s features had vanished.

A wig of glossy black human hair rested snugly on his own fair head, and his upper lip was adorned by the twin of Lenoir’s wispy moustache. He was just teasing out a strand of crepe hair to complete his extraordinarily effective make-up when Lenoir opened his eyes, groaned, and attempted to struggle into a sitting position.

Bill clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Not a word, Doc!” he hissed. “I’ve got the drop on you. Will you give me your word you won’t yell out, or shall I have to put you to sleep again?”

“You—you scoundrel!” muttered Lenoir thickly. “I’ll——”

“Quick—which is it to be?” snapped Bill.

“All right, curse you, I promise,” growled Lenoir.

“Then lie still like a good boy,” chuckled Bill.

Lenoir writhed with impotent fury as Kellaway calmly took a strand of his beard between his fingers and compared it with the crepe hair he had just fluffed.

“A shade too dark, but good enough,” said Bill, methodically dabbing spirit gum on his chin.

“Would you mind telling me what the devil you’re doing?” asked Lenoir feebly.

“Ssh! Don’t raise your voice, now, doc,” reproved Bill. “I’m going to kill Bill Kellaway. I’ve worked it all out beautifully. You’re a doctor. You have the authority to sign death certificates. Very well, then. When I’ve finished this little job—incidentaly, don’t you think it’s a good make-up?—you’ll write out one, stating that the unfortunate William Kellaway died suddenly from angina pectoris, or pneumonia, or something equally unpleasant.

“Armed with said certificate, and accompanied by a lawyer, I present myself at the Safe Deposit Vault, posing, of course, as yourself. As the late-lamented William Kellaway’s sole executor I am, of course, empowered to withdraw the million. Simple, isn’t it?”

Lenoir’s dark eyes smouldered dangerously.

“Very ingenious! Very ingenious indeed, Kellaway. I congratulate you. There is only one snag. Suppose I emphatically refuse to sign the death certificate?”

“I thought you’d say that,” chuckled Bill. “By Jove, Lenoir,” he added, glancing at his transformed features in the mirror, “though I says it as shouldn’t, this is a fine make-up.”

Lenoir smiled vindictively.

“You’re too darned optimistic, Kellaway. If you’re counting on me to sign that death certificate you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.”

“You refuse, then?”

“Emphatically,” snapped Dr. Lenoir. “And I should like to know what you are going to do about that.”

“I could forge it, of course,” said Bill, rubbing his chin reflectively.

“If you did, my friend, the consequences would be most unpleasant,” said Lenoir. “Seven years is the maximum penalty for forgery.”

“I’m not risking forgery thanks,” said Bill. “Either you sign that death certificate of your own accord or——”

“Or what, my friend? You cannot force me to.”

“Can’t I?” laughed Bill, as he crossed over to the shelves on the wall of the surgery and glanced down the long array of bottles containing nearly every drug in the pharmacopoeia. He stopped suddenly before a tiny phial of colourless liquid and scanned the label.

“Last night, Lenoir, I studied the Encyclopaedia Britannica,” he drawled, “and quite by accident discovered the solution to the problem you have just set me.”

“Indeed?” said Lenoir coldly. “How very interesting!”

“It is,” agreed Bill, toying with the little phial. “I was looking for some information about safe deposits. I had already a rough notion of impersonating you, but as you pointed out just now, the death certificate is the snag. My eye, however, fell on the word ‘scopolamin.’ I seemed to have heard it before in some connection or other—— Why, what’s the matter, Lenoir?” demanded Bill suddenly.

The doctor’s face had grown pallid, and for the first time fear showed nakedly in his dark eyes.

“You clever devil, Kellaway!”

“Ah! You know the peculiar properties of that queer drug, scopolamin?” said Bill, with a mocking grin. “When I read that it was distilled from Japanese belladonna I suddenly remembered a news item I had read when I was out in Egypt about this self-same drug. Perhaps you recall it, doc? A certain doctor in America injected a small quantity into the arms of half a dozen convicts, notorious liars and confirmed criminals. You remember what happened, Lenoir?”

Dr. Lenoir did not reply. He was watching Bill Kellaway, who had calmly drawn out a brand new hypodermic syringe from his pocket, one that he had bought from the chemist’s that morning.

“The drug scopolamin had an extraordinary effect on the convicts, Lenoir,” remarked Bill Kellaway. “They found it absolutely impossible to tell a lie. Cross-examined on various matters by the doctor, they made no attempt at evasion, but told the plain, simple truth.

“Yet—and this is the extraordinary thing, Lenoir—as soon as the effects of the scopolamin wore off, they immediately denied everything strenuously.”

“Well?” snarled Lenoir. “What the devil has all this rigmarole to do with me? I know all about scopolamin and its effects on the system. It is a combination of hyoscin and——”

“One moment, Lenoir,” broke in Bill Kellaway. “I don’t want to hurt you. You insist on refusing to sign that death certificate; therefore I think a spot of scopolamin is indicated.”

Bill opened the little bottle and inserted the plunger of his hypodermic.

“I don’t quite know the exact dose,” he announced, cheerfully, “but I should think that about three grains——”

“For Heaven’s sake, Kellaway, stop!” gasped Lenoir, hoarsely. “Listen to me, man.”

“I’m listening,” said Bill calmly.

“You—you don’t intend to dope me with that foul drug, do you?”

“Most certainly, dear old bean. You have a pretty strong will, my dear doc. I couldn’t hope to break down your resistance any other way, but once you’ve had an injection, you won’t have the mental energy to resist. You’ll have to do just as you’re told, like a good and wise child.”

Bill Kellaway crossed over to the couch, and smiled down at his captive. “The tables are certainly turned this time, doc,” he grinned. “I’m sorry, but I want that million, and by heck, I’m going to get it.”

“Wait a moment, Kellaway,” said Lenoir. “Don’t be rash. Let’s consider the matter.”

Bill glanced at his wrist watch.

“Make it snappy, Lenoir. I’m in a hurry,” he said coolly. “The Safe Deposit closes at three——”

“Kellaway,” said Lenoir, hoarsely. “Will you do something for me, personally? After all, you are indebted to me for the chance of earning that million pounds, you know,” he added.

“I’m also indebted to you for sleepless nights, seven days’ imprisonment, police surveillance, and a few other things,” said Bill. “Let’s hear your proposition.”

“Don’t inject that drug,” pleaded Dr. Lenoir. “I admit you have the upper hand, and that, once under its influence, I shall be helpless.”

“Well, you know the alternative,” said Bill. “Sign that certificate, promise me a clear field of two hours, and I won’t bother about the scopolamin.”

“For Heaven’s sake don’t use it, Kellaway. I promise you, on my word of honour, I’ll give you two hours’ start before I act.”

Bill chuckled.

“And the certificate?”

“You’ll find ’em in the top left hand drawer of my desk,” said Lenoir, with a sigh of relief.

Bill laughed a trifle recklessly.

“What particular disease did I die of, doc?” he asked, as the doctor filled in the form.

“Meningitis,” said Lenoir, and the familiar satirical grin played round his bearded lips. “The patient generally suffers from an enlarged brain.”

Bill thrust the certificate into his pocket.

“And now for your collar and cravat, Lenoir,” he said, with a chuckle. “You must admit I’m earning that million.”

“My dear Kellaway,” said Lenoir, gravely, “you are the only man on earth who has ever succeeded in outwitting me. I was not far wrong when I chose you for the role of Hercules. Some day, perhaps, you will learn the real reason for these fantastic tasks of yours. Until then, believe me, I am more your friend than your enemy.”

Bill donned his silk hat, and took a final glance at himself in the mirror.

“Au revoir, my friend, until three o’clock,” he said, and the voice was Lenoir’s own.

Bill hailed a taxi at the corner of Portland Place. The first part of the job was over.

It was nearly half past one when the cab drew up outside the Hotel Europa. Grasping his gloves and cane in the manner Lenoir affected, Bill paid off the driver and strode coolly into the lounge.

“Is Mr. Kellaway in?” he asked of the reception clerk.

“I will ascertain, sir. What name, please?” said the clerk, unsuspicious.

“Lenoir—Doctor Armand Lenoir,” replied Bill, without a tremor. He waited for a few moments in the lounge; then his eyes sparkled as he saw Henry descend and glance inquiringly about him.

Suddenly the valet spotted him, and he crossed over with a deferential bow.

“I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Kellaway is not in at the moment,” he said. “He has gone away for an indefinite period. If you care to leave a message, sir, perhaps I can forward——”

“Leave a message be hanged!” hissed Bill, in his natural voice. “Don’t you recognise me, Henry?”

The valet’s eyebrows lifted suddenly, and a shadow flickered over his horse-like countenance.

“Great Heavens, sir—you?” he gasped. Then, admirable man that he was, for the benefit of the hovering page-boy added: “If you care to come upstairs, doctor, perhaps you will be able to pick out the book you want.”

Once within the security of his suite Bill relaxed.

“Henry, my lad, keep the speechless admiration until later,” he said. “You will be sorry to learn that your employer, Mr. William Kellaway, died suddenly this afternoon from meningitis.”

“B—but I don’t quite follow, sir,” gasped the bewildered valet.

“You will soon, my lad,” said Bill. “Snap into it, Henry. Change that funeral tie of yours, and wear one of mine. Change into your overcoat and bowler hat. You are about to assist in a million-pound burglary.”

Henry’s gulp was both audible and visible.

“I—I see, sir,” he said, uncertainly.

Bill chuckled.

“You don’t see at all, Henry,” he remarked. “But bless you, a little later on you will. Your name, incidentally, for the next two hours, is Snagge—Henry Snagge, of Snagge, Snagge, Pondlebury and Snagge, the eminent but non-existent lawyers of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. You have, if I may say so without giving offence, a strictly legal dial. With a different tie, my handsome, you would pass very well as a commissioner for oaths.”

“And expletives, sir. I’m feeling a trifle profane at the moment,” countered Henry. “The—er—project appears distinctly nebulous.”

“You go and change that tie,” said Bill. “There’ll be nothing nebulous about the million quid.”

Twenty minutes later Bill Kellaway, accompanied by his legal adviser, the solemn Mr. Snagge, entered the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit Vault.

“Good afternoon,” he said, coolly. “I rent a safe here, in conjunction with my late partner, Mr. William Kellaway. He died very suddenly yesterday afternoon, and as his executor, I am anxious to obtain access to several documents placed in our joint names.”

“I see,” said the official. “You are Dr. Lenoir, I presume?”

Bill Kellaway bowed.

“My legal adviser, Mr. Snagge”—and he gestured towards the wooden Henry—“will confirm my statement. Mr. Kellaway’s sudden end has naturally been a great shock to me—so young, so full of vitality.”

Bill sighed, and shook his head solemnly.

Henry, taking his cue from his master, opened the legal-looking brief bag he had purchased ten minutes before.

“Here,” he said, with a dry little cough, “is the death certificate, Mr. Kellaway’s key, and a statement from him authorising Dr. Lenoir to have access to the safe. A glance at your signature book will doubtless confirm the matter.”

The official, a fair-haired young man, crossed over to a desk in the corner, and opened a leather-bound volume. He scanned its pages for a minute or two, and then smiled.

“It appears to be quite in order, Dr. Lenoir,” he said. “I see that in the event of the decease of either one of the renters the survivor is to have access to the safe.”

“Quite,” said Bill, highly elated that his ingenious scheme seemed to be working smoothly.

“I presume you will continue to rent the integer—the private safe you know—but in your own name?”

“Of course,” said Bill Kellaway.

In less than ten minutes the formalities were completed. There was not a vestige of suspicion in the young man’s mind that everything was not in order.

A moment later he pulled out the inconspicuous-looking attache-case, and turned nonchalantly to Henry.

“We had better examine the documents in your office, Mr. Snagge,” he said. “Poor Kellaway was particularly anxious that we should deal with the Antofagasta Shares at once.”

“I agree, doctor,” said Henry. “His wishes in the matter should undoubtedly be respected.”

Bill relocked the safe door. He did not dare open the attache-case in the presence of the official.

“I shall call in the morning,” he announced suavely. “It is understood I retain the same number, but in my own name.”

“That’s right, Dr. Lenoir,” agreed the young man. “This way out, please.”

Bill Kellaway’s heart was thudding against his ribs as he and Henry emerged into the light of day again.

“Phew!” he whistled. “Henry, a taxi. For the next half-hour I’m going to gloat.”

As he lounged back in the tonneau, he noticed a queer livid expression on his valet’s face.

“Here, what’s the matter?” Bill demanded. “You look ghastly.”

Queer, incoherent sounds escaped from the valet’s ashen lips, and then Bill felt himself as if an invisible hand had seized him by the throat and was squeezing the breath out of his body.

He struggled frantically against the deadly nausea that enveloped him. He was conscious of a queer, sickly smell rather like chloroform. His limbs became suddenly leaden. He had a last vision of Henry’s limp body collapsing inertly to the floor of the taxi before he, too, slipped down into the mists of unconsciousness.

The cab driver seemed to be quite apathetic about the fate of his fares. He drove at a fairly fast pace into Holborn, and entered a gloomy little side street without so much as a rearward glance.

There was a small and derelict mews at the end of the street, and at the entrance sat a hard-bitten, lean-faced individual, chewing a straw reflectively. He looked up with a grunt as the driver stopped a few yards from the decrepit gates of the cobbled courtyard.

“All set?” he demanded gruffly.

The driver nodded.

“Easy as pie, sir. They went under without a sound.”

“Then back her in, Drew,” he ordered.

“They’re safe for another half-hour at least,” he announced complacently. “It worked like a charm. I had an uneasy minute as we swung into Holborn, but fortunately they both collapsed on the floor, and no one was near enough to look in at the windows, sir.”

The other grinned.

“Splendid! Ingenious contraption,” he added, pointing to the peculiarly-shaped fitting that was attached to what should have been the earpiece of the driver’s speaking-tube. This was a thin, flexible piece of rubber tubing, silken-covered, connected with a rubber bulb that was placed at the base of the steering-wheel.

The driver of the taxi leant over and disconnected the apparatus.

“What shall we do with ’em, sir?” he queried, gesturing at his passengers. “Let ’em come to in the cab, or dump ’em somewhere else?”

The other man shrugged slightly.

“It’s really immaterial. All I need is the attache-case. I think most of the gas has dispersed now.”

Holding a handkerchief over his nose he approached the door of the cab and jerked it open. Sprawled across each other on the floor were the limp, unconscious bodies of Kellaway and Henry.

With a low chuckle the lean man reached out the leather attache-case and snatched it from the seat.

“I’m afraid they’re going to have a very rude awakening,” he announced. “Come, Drew, let’s change into respectable clothes again. This neighbourhood is going to be distinctly unhealthy for us from now on.”

Bill Kellaway recovered consciousness gradually. For a moment or two he was too dazed to figure out exactly what had happened. He opened his eyes and saw Henry’s sprawling figure on the floor of the cab, and painfully levered himself up to the seat.

Then, suddenly, realisation came. Frantically, he looked round for the attache-case.

It had vanished!

“By Gosh! Tricked—tricked, just on the threshold of success!” he muttered. “Here, Henry, pull yourself together, man,” he added, shaking the still recumbent valet.

The other groaned feebly and opened his eyes.

“Er—what has happened, sir?” he inquired shakily. “Has there been an accident, or——”

“Accident be poleaxed!” said Bill. “We’ve been robbed, that’s what! Drugged and robbed! Funny, isn’t it?” he added, with a bitter smile.

“Let’s get out of this beastly cab,” he added. “By heck! There might yet be a chance of catching the chap.”

Outside he saw only the deserted cobbled courtyard of the mews. There was not a soul in sight.

“What the devil are we going to do, Henry?” demanded Bill, tonelessly. “We daren’t complain to the police. The driver of that taxi was undoubtedly a crook, but how on earth did he manage to put us under the ’fluence? I went out like a snuffed candle.”

Henry scratched his chin.

“We appear to have been unconscious for nearly an hour, sir,” he said, with a glance at his watch. “I remember very little save feeling very sick and dizzy for a moment, and then—well, I don’t remember anything else.”

Bill strode over to the taxi and examined it minutely. It was of the ordinary regulation pattern, and had little to distinguish it from a thousand similar vehicles that plied for hire.

His keen eyes noted, however, the strand of thin tubing inserted into the speaking-tube of the cab, and he gave a soft whistle.

“Gosh! That’s it, Henry. The cunning devil must have pumped in some sort of anaesthetic through the speaking-tube. It’s not a new dodge—the Bonnot gang of motor bandits in Paris used something very similar. But who on earth would have suspected it in London—in broad daylight?”

“It’s extraordinary, sir,” said Henry. “We seem, sir, to have come to an impasse. In the—er—circumstances it would hardly be judicious to inform the police.”

“The police?” echoed Bill, with a twisted smile. “Good Heavens, we daren’t! That nosey blighter Barker already suspects. We’re scuppered, Henry, and what’s going to happen to me Heaven only knows.”

He rose wearily to his feet. He felt unutterably tired.

“You’d better go back to the hotel, Henry,” he said dully. “We can’t do much here. I’m—I’m beaten, I think.”

The valet rubbed his long chin thoughtfully.

“I shouldn’t despair, sir,” he remarked. “It is not always necessary to call in the services of the police. What is to prevent us doing a little detective work on our own? A few discreet inquiries in the vicinity would doubtless supply information regarding the people who rented the mews. Perhaps if you would allow me——”

“Try, if you like,” said Bill. “I’m going off to Dr. Lenoir.”

Henry’s eyes sparkled.

“Am I to understand you give me a free hand in the case, sir?” he asked.

“Sure. Go to it, Henry. I’m through,” said Bill. “I wish you luck, but I doubt if you’ll discover anything.”

Dr. Armand Lenoir glanced at the clock, and fidgeted uneasily with his gold-mounted fob. It was nearly ten minutes to three.

He started suddenly as there came a ring at the electric bell, and crossed over to the bay window which gave a view of the steps. Standing there was a bearded figure—an exact replica of himself.

“Kellaway, of course,” muttered Lenoir, with a sigh of relief. Then he had succeeded in his fourth task!

He crossed over to the hallway and opened the front door.

“For Heaven’s sake, get me a drink,” gasped Bill. “I’m all in, doc!”

Lenoir shot a keen glance at Kellaway’s pallid face.

“Come in, man,” he said. “What’s happened? Did you succeed?”

“Succeed?” said Bill, bitterly. “I got the million all right, but one of your cursed myrmidons must have trailed me there, and—well——” He shrugged his shoulders resignedly. “You win, I guess.”

Lenoir glanced incredulously at Kellaway.

“What’s the joke?” he demanded, and his eyes were bleak. “I certainly gave no instructions for you to be followed. Your coup this afternoon was—er—frankly unexpected and unforeseen.”

“In that case,” said Bill, sinking into a chair, “both you and I are in the same boat. The million’s gone—blooey!”

“Gone, man? Explain yourself,” ejaculated Lenoir, as Bill helped himself to a whisky and soda. “Didn’t your impersonation succeed?”

“Perfectly,” said Bill. “Their condolences on my sudden demise were most affecting. They sympathised deeply with Dr. Lenoir in the loss of his brilliant young partner.”

“Doubtless,” replied the other dryly. “But what of the million pounds?”

Bill Kellaway shrugged.

“Search me! An hour ago it was in my possession. Now it’s giving its celebrated impersonation of the snows of yester-year.”

“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Lenoir. “If you’ve succeeded in your task, hand me over the attache-case.”

“But I’ve just told you I haven’t got it. I gained access to the safe, all right, thanks to Henry’s magnificent backing. Incidentally, here’s the new receipt, in your name.”

He pulled out his wallet, and extracted therefrom a pink perforated slip.

Lenoir glanced at it casually.

“That’s all very well. But what about the money?” he demanded.

“That’s just what I’d like to know, Lenoir,” said Bill. “That taxi dodge of yours was cute, I’ll admit, and it looks as if I’ve been beaten on task number four, but,” he added, and his jaw set doggedly, “there are still three more days left.”

“Taxi?” repeated Lenoir, and the surprise in his voice was genuine. “What on earth are you talking about? Hand over that million, young man, or there’ll be trouble.”

“But I tell you,” persisted Bill. “I’ve been robbed! I hailed a taxi to chase along here as quickly as possible; like a born idiot, I never suspected anything wrong——”

“Don’t bluff, Kellaway,” snapped the doctor. “I’m not a fool.”

Bill started to his feet. His eyes gleamed dangerously.

“Do you insinuate I’m lying, Lenoir?” he demanded. “By Gosh, I’ve had about enough——”

“Sit down, man,” broke in the other. “What’s all this nonsense about a taxi? I give you my word of honour that I have kept my promise and haven’t interfered in the slightest with your movements this afternoon.”

“In that case,” said Bill, “the situation’s worse. Somebody’s got the million quid, and if it’s not the Secret Six, nor myself, who has?”

With that he gave a succinct account of his adventures since leaving Portland Place.

Lenoir listened in silence, occasionally stroking his beard with his slim fingers. Bill’s story obviously rang true.

“Man alive, Kellaway,” he ejaculated, “do you realise the gravity of the situation? Some unauthorised person has snatched a million pounds from under our very noses! The money actually belongs to the Secret Six. It might have belonged to you. As it is, I’m afraid the whole enterprise is ruined.”

“Now see here, doc,” said Bill. “I entered this game with my eyes wide open, and I’ve abided loyally with the compact I signed; but——”

A ring at the telephone interrupted him. With a murmur of apology Lenoir crossed over and lifted the receiver. He heard the nasal voice of Phineas Lee at the other end.

“Howdy, doc? How’s tricks?”

“I’m afraid something serious has happened, Number One,” he said, in a guarded tone. “I can’t be more explicit over the phone. Er—Mr. Hercules is with me now.”

Bill listened intently. Obviously Lenoir was upset.

“I’ll be with you in half an hour, Number One,” he said. “I have received most disturbing information.”

Lenoir hung up and turned to Bill.

“You’d better remove that make-up, my friend,” he said. “Get back to your hotel, and stand by until I’ve reported this to your employers. Personally I’m inclined to believe your version of the affair.”

CHAPTER XXIX

HENRY HENRY—DETECTIVE

BACK in his rooms at the Hotel Europa Bill Kellaway lit his pipe and for over an hour sat pondering in his chair, wrapped in thought and tobacco smoke. That Lenoir was genuinely surprised and alarmed about the mysterious taxi was obvious.

What action would the Secret Six take in the matter?

Henry returned at five o’clock, and Bill noticed the suppressed excitement in his manner.

“Well, find any clues, Draxton?” he demanded.

“I have spent a most arduous afternoon, sir,” said Henry. “I am afraid the tedious side of criminological investigation is glossed over by most detective-story writers. My inquiries regarding the mews brought me into contact with the most unintelligent morons it has ever been my misfortune to meet.”

“Sit down and have a drink, Henry,” said Bill. “In other words, you’ve drawn a blank.”

“On the contrary, sir,” said Henry. “I have secured a most promising lead. Followed up, sir, I am most sanguine of discovering the culprits.”

“Spill the beans, Henry. You interest me.”

Henry helped himself to a small whisky.

“Well, sir, I made a note of the number of the taxicab—the first and most obvious thing to do. I then thoroughly examined the vehicle and found these.”

From his pocket he withdrew an envelope, from which he unearthed the frayed stub of a cigar, a couple of match-sticks, a franc, and a crumpled piece of paper, both corners of which had been torn.

The paper itself contained a few faint pencilled hieroglyphics, but at the top was part of a printed legend, which ran:—“ED GUN C——”

“H’m,” said Bill picking up the cigar-butt gingerly in his fingers. “Draxton Dread would, of course, deduce that this was smoked by a left-handed man with a sandy moustache, a limp, and an aunt in Penge.”

A smile flickered for a moment on Henry’s face.

“I admit the cigar is rather negligible, but that paper may or may not be significant, sir.”

“It sounds pretty sinister,” said Bill. “ ‘ED GUN C——’ Is that the monniker of Ed the Gunman, d’you think? Seems funny to have it printed. What about all these pencil marks? Looks like a chemical formula of some kind.”

“So I conjecture, sir. The point is, these things may have been in the cab for months. They were all under the cushions, and might have been the property of various fares who have nothing to do with the robbery.”

Bill leant forward and picked up the crumpled paper again.

“Look at this?” he said suddenly. “There’s a date on it, the fifteenth of this month. Hang it, that’s only two days ago.”

Henry craned forward.

“So it is, sir. I confess I overlooked it. My next move, after thoroughly searching the vehicle, was to ring up the Motor Registration Department at the County Hall.

“They asked me to ring them again in half an hour and they would give me the information I required about the number of the taxi. I then made inquiries from all the houses near the mews, to discover who was the ostensible owner. I drew blank in every case.

“As one blowsy woman remarked, ‘They kep’ theirselves to theirselves in Leggat Street.’ One man, however, a beery-looking ruffian, vouchsafed the information that the mews had only been used as a garage in the past three days, and from him I learned the name of the owner, a Mr. Stokes, who lived in Holborn. I felt I was getting warm, and on the way there I rang up the County Hall again. I was told that no such number appeared on their list.”

“Hard luck, Henry,” broke in Bill. “Gosh, man, you’ve worked like a Trojan while I’ve been moping here. What had the man Stokes to say?”

“Very little, sir. He said a taximan named Drew paid him five pounds for the hire of his mews three days ago. I obtained a vague description of the man, and that’s the sum total of my investigations so far.”

Bill thrummed with his fingers on the table.

“Doesn’t anything strike you as significant about this, Henry?” he demanded. “It’s only three days ago since—since I decided to get that million. Assuming the hold-up was the work of a crook who knew nothing about what the attache-case contained, and merely selected a likely-looking fare to rob him of what he’d got, it seems a queer coincidence.

“If, on the other hand, he knew, that means we’ve still got a chance.”

Bill’s eyes sparkled. The elaborate precautions taken by the taximan, the fact that only the attache-case and Henry’s brief-bag had been taken, and that the contents of their pockets were untouched, seemed to point to someone who knew all their movements, and knew, moreover, of his connection with the Secret Six.

There was a tap at the door, and Henry rose to answer it. A diminutive messenger boy handed him an envelope.

Bill Kellaway stared at it and swore softly. It was the fifth yellow envelope he had received. He tore it open, and scanned the contents. Neatly typed was the following letter, bearing Lenoir’s sprawling signature:

“My dear Hercules.

“In view of this afternoon’s unfortunate occurrence, which was quite unforeseen by me, your employers have decided that your fifth task is to find that million and bring it to our Headquarters within seven days from to-day.

“Should you succeed, you have only one task left to perform. I may say I consider the obstacles in your way well nigh insurmountable, for you have not only to find the money but also penetrate to our secret headquarters before midnight this day week.

“I have tried to reason with the Secret Six, but they are adamant. I regret I am precluded from helping you in any way, so it is useless your calling on me.

“Faithfully yours,

“ARMAND LENOIR.”

“Well I’m—er—bothered!” said Bill Kellaway. “No reply, Henry. There’s no possible reply to a letter like this.”

“Henry,” said Bill, wearily. “We’ve got to find that million.”

“Indubitably, sir. But I’m afraid that the chances are singularly remote, sir.”

“Remote or not,” said Bill, and his jaw set doggedly, “we’ve got seven days to do it in. Let’s have a look at that paper again. The man to find is Ed the Gunman. Queer why that should be printed,” he mused. “It looks like a letter-head, or——”

He broke off suddenly.

“Henry, my lad, an idea!” he announced. “Fetch me the buff directory. I’ve got a hunch!”

Bill’s keen brain had already evolved a theory to account for the taxi problem. The crumpled paper might possibly provide a clue to the driver’s identity, yet, as Henry pointed out, it might have been dropped by a perfectly innocent fare.

Henry returned with the buff directory, and Bill flicked over the leaves feverishly. It was a long chance he was taking, but in the grim game he was playing it was usually the long chance that came off.

“I was thinking, sir,” broke in Henry quietly. “Suppose we were to insert an advertisement in the Press for information regarding the whereabouts of a man named Drew, with a brief description of him, stating that he had hired a garage in Leggat Street?”

“What a hope,” said Bill Kellaway. “Look at the time my mug was in all the papers, yet nobody found me. No, we must think of something better than that. I can’t help thinking this paper’s got something to do with it. ‘ED GUN—ED GUN’ he repeated. Do you know any gun company whose name ends in ‘gun,’ Henry?”

The valet shook his head.

“I’m afraid, sir, I’m not well up in firearms. It’s an omission I must rectify if I am to take up criminology seriously.”

The telephone bell rang, and Bill took up the receiver.

“ ’Ullo,” said a husky voice. “Is that Mr. Kellaway’s suite? Mister ’Enery there?”

“Hold on a moment, please,” said Bill; then, turning to his valet, said: “Somebody wants you, Henry. An alcoholic voice, I fear. I can almost smell his breath.”

Henry looked puzzled as he took the receiver from his employer.

“Yes,” he said, with dignity. “It is indubitably I. Who is that speaking, please?”

Bill smiled. Henry’s pontifical gravity when telephoning amused him. He pricked up his ears when he heard Henry’s replies to the other.

“Ten minutes ago, you say? Are you sure he’s the same man? What’s that? Differently dressed? Where did he go?”

There was a pause, and Bill drummed impatiently on the arm of his chair. Suddenly Henry turned round and his eyes were alive with excitement.

“Someone’s come back for the cab, sir,” he whispered, in an aside. “It’s the same driver, according to my informant. He’s halted outside the public house at the corner of Leggat Street.”

“Holy smoke!” gasped Bill, leaping to his feet. “Can’t we do anything? Isn’t there any way of holding the blighter?”

“We can try, sir,” said Henry, “but the chances are exceedingly slim.”

He turned to the telephone again.

“Hanlow, listen!” he said, urgently. “Take a look and see if the cab’s still there. If it is, hail it, and tell the driver to take you straight round here. If he refuses, hold an altercation with him—a row. Do you understand? There’s a fiver for you in this.”

He listened for a moment or two, and then rang off.

“I flatter myself on my prescience, sir,” said Henry. “The beery man who volunteered the information about Stokes seems to spend half his time propping up the ‘Bunch o’ Grapes’ at the other end of Leggat Street. I gave him five shillings to ring me up at once if he saw anyone returning to the mews.

“A risky outlay, but justified in the circumstances. He tells me that the same driver, differently dressed, returned ten minutes ago, and has just gone to the ‘Bunch o’ Grapes for a drink.”

“My Gosh!” said Bill. “You’re a wonder, Henry. It’s a slim enough chance, but let’s take it.”

“Oughn’t I to stay on here, in case he accepts Hanlow as a fare, sir?”

“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Bill. “Do you think a man with a million quid’s going to drive a beery loafer in his cab? Kim on.”

He grabbed his hat, and closely followed by Henry descended at breakneck speed to the lounge. Outside he hailed a taxi. Henry opened the door, and glanced keenly at the driver.

“Leggat Street, quick!” he announced. “Stop at the pub at the corner.”

Bill sank into the tonneau, and opened both of the windows to their fullest extent.

“I’m taking no chances,” he said. “How far is the beastly place?”

“It’s a good twenty minutes’ run I’m afraid sir,” said Henry. “I’m not very hopeful——”

“We’ve got to snatch at every straw,” broke in Bill Kellaway. “Has this man Hanlow got the intelligence to hold him until we arrive, do you think?”

“His grey matter seems to be sodden with beer, sir. I’m not particularly sanguine.”

“Oh, hell!” snapped Bill, as the taxi stopped suddenly in a traffic jam at the corner. It was maddening. At any moment now the man they were hunting for might leave the “Bunch o’ Grapes.” It was extremely unlikely, as Bill said, that he would drive anybody to the Hotel Europa, especially a pub lounger such as Hanlow seemed to be.

The “Bunch o’ Grapes” was not a prepossessing hostelry. Its sign was faded, its frosted windows were none too clean. Bill bounded out of the cab, and surveyed the dreary length of Leggat Street. Save for a slinking cat it was deserted. There was no sign of the taxi.

He groaned.

“Too late, of course, Henry. It was too much to expect——”

“One moment, sir,” said Henry. “I’ll just see if Hanlow’s inside.”

He pushed open the swing door, and then beckoned to Bill. Sitting on a form, glowering into a half-empty mug, was a red-faced man with an almost incandescent nose. His stubby chin was set in a pugnacious scowl, but he looked up suddenly as the valet entered.

“Ah. ’ere you are, sir,” he said gruffly. “An’ a rare time I’ve ’ad, I gives yer my word. I’d just ’ad me tea when I ’appens to look out of the winder at Stokes’ Mews, when I seed that shuffer feller slip into the garridge. ‘Corks!’ I ses, just like that. ‘’Ere’s where I do meself a bit o’ good.’ So I slips on me ’at an’ steps out to phone you, as you asked. Jus’ then out comes ’is nibs, taxi an’ all, an’ passes me. Then I seed ’im stop outside the saloon-bar, an’ I nips over to ’Arris’ shop and called you up.”

“H’m,” said Henry, dubiously. “How long did he stay?”

“About ten minutes, guv’nor. I did wot you asked me to. ‘Mate,’ ses I civil like, ‘The ’Otel Europa, please, an’ put a jerk in it.’ Coo, you should ’ave seen ’is face—an ’is langwidge was somethink awful. ”Ere,’ he ses, ‘wot’s your game? What d’you know about the ’Otel Europa?”

“ ‘I’ve got a pertickler friend stayin’ there,’ ses I, dignified like. With that ’e goes as white as a sheet, slams dahn ’is flag, and climbs into ’is seat. Bearing in mind your instructions, I tried to ’old ’im.

“ ‘You’re on ’ire,’ I ses. ‘A public servant. I’ve got the money to pay for this ‘ere cab, an’ if you don’t I’ll call a cop.’

“ ‘Get orf my cab,’ ’e shouts, ‘I’m not for ’ire. I’m already booked.’ With that ‘e gives me a shove in the chest an’ me not bein’ quite steady on me pins owin’ to me haricot veins, I went dahn all of a ’eap. When I got up ’e was ’arf-way dahn towards ’Olborn,” concluded Mr. Hanlow, with a melancholy shake of the head.

Henry turned to Bill.

“Seems very significant, sir. Mention of the Europa seems to have upset the man.”

“Look here, Hanlow,” said Bill Kellaway, “you seem to have done very well, considering. I want to find that taximan badly. Do you know anything about him?”

He pulled out his pocket book and rustled its contents suggestively.

“Well, sir, I do an’ I don’t. It’s only three days ago since I seed ’im in this neighbourhood. ’E seemed an eddicated sort of chap for a shuvver. ’E weren’t very talkative, an’ a funny thing, ’e always brought back ’is cab at about five o’clock at night an’ didn’t take it out afore ten in the mornin’. ’E was a bit sweet on Miss Elsie ’ere—like the rest of ’em, I think. ’E spent a good deal of ’is time a-chatting with ‘er in the saloon, that I do know.”

“Ah!” said Bill, with a glance at Henry. “Cherchez la femme!” That explained the extraordinary conduct of the unknown taxi-driver in stopping at the “Bunch o’ Grapes’, when the most obvious thing to do was to put as wide a berth as possible between himself and the environs of Leggat Street.

“I see, Hanlow,” said Bill. “I’m much obliged to you for your trouble. Don’t forget there’s another of these for you if you can find out more about the driver. Ring us up at once if he returns to the mews.”

He pushed over a five-pound-note.

Hanlow’s eyes glazed a little.

“ ’Evvin bless you, guv’nor,” he said. “You count on me. I owe that feller somethink—pushin’ me in the chest ahtside me own pub.”

Bill bade the man good-day and, followed by Henry, emerged from the four-ale bar.

“We’ll see what luck we have in the saloon,” he murmured. “A chat with the fair Miss Elsie seems indicated.”

“It certainly does, sir,” replied the valet, as they walked round the corner to the more flamboyant part of the “Bunch o’ Grapes.”

Bill drew in his breath sharply. Standing demurely by the cash register was a slim girl, clad in a simple black frock. She was about eighteen or nineteen, and her lovely little face, with its soft, peach-like complexion and astonishingly candid eyes, was as unsophisticated as a child’s.

Round her slender throat was coiled a string of artificial pearls, her sole ornament. Bill, who had expected a totally different type of barmaid, was taken aback. She looked like a debutante, and carried herself in her squalid surroundings like one, too.

He smiled as he hoisted himself on to a stool, and ordered two whiskies and sodas. No wonder the man, Drew, if that was his name, had fallen for Elsie. If he hadn’t met Dorothy, Bill reflected, he’d have fallen for her good and hard himself.

“Good evening, Miss Elsie,” he began cheerfully. “Pleasant day.”

She smiled, revealing teeth that made her pearls look dingy.

“ ’Taint so blinkin’ dusty,” said the debutante. “Splash?”

Her fingers poised delicately on a siphon.

Bill winced. Her voice was strident, her accent appalling. Coming from those perfect lips, the effect was as startling as an oath in a pulpit. A shadow darkened Henry’s face. His gloom was funereal.

“Cheer up, misery!” said the girl.

A frightful spasm that was meant for a smile contorted Henry’s lips. Bill leant negligently on the counter. This was no time for finesse.

“Say, kid, how about a night at the Pally some time? I bet you can shake a leg.”

The girl tossed her head.

“Cheek! You leave my legs alone. They ain’t been pulled by the likes o’ you.”

Bill coloured faintly. It was a bad start.

“Aw, I was only joking, Miss Elsie. Honest, kid, I’d like to take you to a dance. I’ve heard my pal Bert talk a lot about you, so I came in on purpose to make your acquaintance.”

“Bert oo?” she asked suspiciously. “I know lots of ’em.”

“I’ll bet you do,” chuckled Bill. “I mean Bert Drew, chap who’s just taken Stokes’ Mews.”

“Oh, is ’e a pal o’ yours?” asked the girl, and her manner softened a bit. “But ’is name ain’t Bert—it’s Charlie.”

“We always call him Bert,” said Bill unblushingly.

“Oh, do you?” she retorted. “Fast workers, both of you, ain’t you? Bert wants to take me to Stolls’ Picture ’Ouse on my day out, which is tomorrow, an’ I’ve only known ’im three days. Now you, I’ve only met you ten minutes, and you want to take me to the Pally. ’Ave a ’eart. I’m only a pore working girl.”

She smiled beneath her dark lashes.

“Oh, you men!” she added, turning to Henry. “You’re all the same.”

“I assure you, madam, that there are marked divergencies in the male sex, both mental and physical,” said Henry.

Elsie gasped, then flung back her head and laughed shrilly.

“Owl ’Ark at ’im. ’E’s swallered a dictionary,” she gasped to Bill. “ ’Old me up, somebody.”

Bill leaned forward.

“Now look here, Miss Elsie,” he said, winningly, “which would you prefer—going to the pics with me or Bert—I mean Charlie?”

She glanced at him coquettishly.

“That depends. Charlie’s an awfully nice boy. Quite the gen’l’man. He’s got a car.”

“So’ve I,” said Bill. “By the way,” he added, innocently. “Where does old Charlie live now? Did he happen to tell you? Since he’s taken Stokes’ he’s shifted from his old place.”

“Are you a partic’ler friend of ’is?” asked the girl. “Cos I ’appen to know ’e’s changed ’is address. ’E gave me ’is card,” she added proudly.

Bill pulled out his cigarette case, and offered her a cigarette. She waved it aside.

“Not on dooty, silly,” she remarked. She crossed over to the cash register and took out a small red handbag. From it she produced a slip of pasteboard. “That’s where Charlie lives,” she announced. “Ain’t it swanky?”

Bill stared. His eyes gleamed with excitement. It was a vital clue at last!

CHAPTER XXX

LIGHT

ONCE again Fate seemed to have relented, and Bill made a mental note of the address on the card. No. 5, Flite Street, Fulham, was distinctly apt in the circumstances, he thought, as he flicked the pasteboard back over the counter with a murmur of thanks to the girl.

“ ’Ad your eyeful?” asked Elsie.

Bill nodded.

“Yes, thanks. Be glad to see him,” he answered fervently. “What about the Palais de Danse?” he added.

“I’ll think it over,” replied that somewhat inconstant nymph. “Maybe I can manage both.”

An infinitesimal smile flickered for a moment on Henry’s funereal visage as he finished his drink. Elsie’s perfect eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“Coo lumme! Old Misery’s just seen the point o’ the joke ’e ’eard larst Christmas,” she said. “Does it reely ’urt you to smile?” she asked anxiously.

“The process is not particularly painful, given the correct concatenation of circumstances,” said Henry sonorously.

“ ’Ark at ’im! Ain’t ’e a knockout?” laughed the girl.

She turned to serve another customer who had just entered the bar. Bill Kellaway winked at Henry, and taking advantage of the diversion prepared to leave.

“See you later, kid,” he murmured.

“Thanks for the buggy ride,” said Elsie, with a vigorous pull at the beer engine.

“A most remarkable young woman, that, sir,” said Henry, when they had gained the street again. “Reminiscent of the unfortunate princess in the fairy tale,” he added. “She was, if I rightly recollect, very beautiful, but was suddenly bewitched by a malignant godmother, so that every time she opened her lips a toad popped out.”

Bill chuckled.

“An apt comparison, Henry. Elsie certainly looks a peach, but her voice——”

He shivered delicately.

“Unfortunate, admittedly, sir, but not, I fancy, irreparable. If American film stars can be trained for the ‘Talkies’ I feel sure that that winsome young lady can be taught a more cultured diction. Bernard Shaw’s amusing play on the subject exemplifies the possibility.”

“Gosh, Henry, are you aiming to play Pygmalion to Elsie’s Galatea?” asked Bill, in astonishment.

“Well, sir,” replied the valet. “I admit I toyed tentatively with the idea. Now that I fear that I am debarred for some considerable time from Madame Tussaud’s, it might prove pleasant, and perhaps profitable, to combine ingurgitation with instruction at the ‘Bunch o’ Grapes’.”

“Henry,” replied Bill, “you’re a sly old dog. I believe you’re smitten with Elsie.”

A slight flush of embarrassment tinged the valet’s sallow cheeks.

“Her pulchritude certainly impressed me, sir.”

“Go to it,” chuckled Bill. “As Galatea she’s the goods. Besides, you’ll be one up on this Mr. Crook Drew, of No. 5 Flite Street, Fulham.”

“Do you think the address is genuine, sir?”

“That’s just what I’m going to find out,” said Bill grimly. “You’ve done enough for one day, Henry, my lad. I’m tackling this bloke myself. You take the evening off, and if I’m not back by midnight you can tell Inspector Barker where I’ve gone.”

Henry sighed as Bill boarded a bus at the corner of Holborn, then resignedly strolled down the circus. He stopped outside a bookseller’s window, and his eyes held a gleam of decision as he entered the shop.

“Have you a copy of Nesfield’s ‘Outline of English Grammar’?” he asked the assistant.

Henry’s masterly mind was made up; if he was debarred from helping Hercules, he could at least assist the beautiful Galatea to change her terminological toads into jewelled English.

Henry Henry was nothing if not romantic.

Meanwhile, Bill Kellaway alighted at the Fulham Town Hall, and a friendly constable directed him to Flite Street, a narrow thoroughfare that skirted a railway goods yard. He paused at a little stucco, two-storied house with a dreary strip of garden in front. A faded numeral painted on the gate told him he had reached his destination, and he knocked tentatively at the knocker.

A faded-looking woman with wispy hair answered his knock.

Bill plunged boldly, and asked if Mr. Drew was at home.

“No, sir, ’e’s not,” said the woman.

“H’m, that’s a pity,” answered Bill. “I wanted to see him rather particularly. Er—do you know when he’ll be back?”

The woman glanced at him speculatively. She seemed to be reassured about his appearance, for she thawed a little.

“ ’E won’t be back afore one or two o’clock,” she announced. “It’s ’is night-shift at the factory, y’see.”

This information conveyed little comfort to Bill, and for a moment or two he considered the matter. If he could only gain access on some pretext to the man’s room, it might yield some clue to the whereabouts of the missing million.

“I wonder if you’d mind if I left a note for him?” he asked with a smile. “I’ve come rather a long way.”

“Why don’t you go to the factory an’ ask for ’im, sir?” the woman suggested. “It’s only at the end of the road.”

“Splendid,” said Kellaway, with a heartiness he was far from feeling, “i’ll try that.”

He raised his hat and bade her good evening, then slowly strode towards the huge concrete building at the end of Flite Street.

Suddenly he stopped dead, and a soft whistle of astonishment escaped him.

High up on the concrete walls of the factory was fixed an enamel sign that was lit by three are lamps.

“THE EUSTACE REED GUN & TROTAN BICYCLE MFG. CO., LTD.” ran the legend.

“Well I’m hanged!” said Bill tersely. “That disposes of Eddie the Gunman. I never thought of another vowel before the ED. And now what?” he added, staring moodily at the towering mass of concrete.

“Eustace Reed, eh?” he muttered. He was conversant, of course, with the name of the famous inventor, and suddenly he recalled the fact that the gallant colonel had won fame a few months recently at Deauville by the prodigious sums he had won at the casino.

“Queer,” muttered Bill. “Dashed queer! Reed’s a millionaire; so’s Jarvie, and that raw-boned Yank, Lee. This chap Drew seems to be employed by Reed. I wonder——”

“By Gosh, it’s worth trying!” murmured Kellaway. “The point is, trying what?”

He walked briskly up Flite Street again and strove to cope with the situation. Granting that Eustace Reed was responsible for the theft of the million, and was also one of the Secret Six—where would he place the money?

The bank was an obvious solution—but, Bill reflected, the banks had just closed by the time he had hailed the taxi. That left, of course, a private safe at the man’s home or in his office.

It was a pretty safe bet that the money was in Reed’s possession somewhere; he was not likely to trust it to an employee like Drew. The situation was tantalising, but Bill was so elated at his new theory that he did not despair. He built it up elaborately as a scientist reconstructs a prehistoric monster from one fossilised bone. Piece by piece he reconstructed the crime from the time he first felt that whiff of anaesthetic.

Were Drew and the colonel the same man? If not, would the colonel trust his employee sufficiently to allow him to pull off the coup single-handed. Bill doubted it.

He squared his shoulders, and took a coin out of his pocket.

“Heads—I interview Reed,” he murmured, grimly. “Tails—Mr. Drew.”

He spun it lightly into the air and caught it. In the glow of a street lamp he examined the coin.

Tails came uppermost.

Bill Kellaway retraced his steps towards the factory.

CHAPTER XXXI

A SURPRISE

Bill Kellaway, once his mind was made up, never deflected from the course he had taken. Having decided that Drew and his employer were connected in some way with the Secret Six—and subsequent events were to prove how keen his intuition had been—he marched boldly up to the gates of the factory and rapped sharply on the night-watchman’s cubby-hole.

The latter, a bleary-eyed old man with a draggled beard, peered short-sightedly at him when he demanded to see Mr. Drew.

“ ’E’s up in the laboratory, sir,” he quavered. “ ’E don’t like to be disturbed when he’s working late.”

“Send up my card,” snapped Bill, authoritatively.

“If you’ll wait a sec I’ll phone him,” said the old man, glancing myopically at the card.

He dialled a house telephone, and a moment or two later, with marked respect, asked for Mr. Drew, and gave Bill’s name.

Bill waited impatiently for a few moments, and then the old man turned to him.

“Please go inside. Straight across the yard, fust turning on left, sir,” he directed.

Bill picked his way through the maze of packing-cases, and found a white sign directing him to the laboratories.

Through a glass-panelled door he glimpsed a white-coated, alert figure bending over a bench lined with row after row of chemical bottles, test-tubes, and a beaker of some bluish liquid which bubbled over a Bunsen burner near the man’s elbow. Suddenly he looked up as Bill swung through the doors.

He was a stooping, sandy-haired man with a tip-tilted, freckled nose and restless eyes.

“Good evening, Mr. Drew,” said Bill pleasantly. “It’s rather a late hour to call, I’m afraid.”

The other bowed stiffly.

“Sit down, Mr.—er—Kellaway,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

He waved a stained hand towards a wooden chair, and Bill sat down and took out his cigarette case.

“Have one?” he asked hospitably.

The other shook his head.

“I’m afraid your brew is rather—er—overpowering, Mr. Drew,” said Bill, waving his hand towards the bubbling beaker. “Almost as overpowering as the fumes I experienced this afternoon.”

He watched Drew like a hawk, but the man did not blink an eyelash. “I’m afraid 1 don’t quite catch your allusion,” he remarked.

Bill felt his way very carefully. This was a cool customer, he reflected, and not easily taken off his guard

“I have called on behalf of the Secret Six,” he said at length. “Indeed? I have heard of the Silent Six, a popular motor-car,” replied Drew. “ Surely this is an unconventional hour for an automobile salesman to call ? ”

There was a hint of mockery in his voice, and his pale eyes flickered.

“I was in a popular motor-car this afternoon,” said Bill—“a taxi, in fact. I’m looking for the driver of that taxi,” he added, significantly.

The other seemed to stiffen suddenly, and Bill realised that he had pierced his guard.

“Perhaps,” said Drew, in a quiet voice, “I can help you. The Secret Six, did you say?”

Bill nodded, and jerked out sharply: “Look here, let’s have this thing out. You drove that taxi from the Chancery Lane Deposit this afternoon—I recognise your face now.”

Drew’s reply was peculiar. He crossed over to the door and locked it, then when he turned he smiled secretively.

“Now we can talk, Mr.—er—Kellaway,” he said, “though how you found me I can’t conjecture.”

“You admit it, then?” Bill asked triumphantly.

“I do. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”

“This,” snapped Kellaway, bounding from his chair, and jabbing an automatic into the other’s ribs.

“Come across quick, Drew, or you’ll drink no more at the ‘Bunch o’ Grapes’.”

Drew raised his hands slowly above his head.

“What precisely, do you want?” he asked quietly. “You’re a fool to use that gun, you know. At any moment someone might come by.”

“I want that attache-case you stole from me this afternoon. Quick now. This is a hair trigger.”

The other gave a short contemptuous laugh.

“You’d never dare use it, Kellaway,” he said.

The man’s bland assurance jolted Bill considerably, but he did not relax his grip on the trigger. There was something queer in Drew’s manner that puzzled Kellaway—something furtive and secretive.

“Naturally you want the attache-case,” continued Drew in the same level voice. “Both you and I know what it contains, and it would be valuable if—er—certain people got hold of it.”

Bill was frankly out of his depth. What was the man hinting at?

“I want that case, pronto,” he snapped. “No arguments. Where is it?”

“Don’t you think this is rather an undignified position for me?” retorted Drew blandly. “If you put that gun away we might come to terms.”

Bill lowered his automatic. He realised that it would be impossible to keep up that bluff at the pistol point with this calm, cold-eyed man. He resolved to temporise.

“So you know the contents of the case, eh?”

Drew smiled slowly.

“The—er—Secret Six would give a great deal to obtain it, would they not?” he demanded.

Bill Kellaway stared hard at him. What on earth was he driving at? Had he made a huge mistake and tackled the wrong man?

“Yes, Mr. Kellaway,” continued Drew. “Your scheme this afternoon was very ingenious and might have succeeded had we not taken precautions. You must remember, however, that we also have our Secret Service.”

“I realise that.” Bill assented bitterly.

“Still,” Drew continued, “there is no need for despondency. Suppose I agreed to assist you in your quest—er—how much would your employers pay me?”

Bill started. He was quite out of his depth. He had naturally supposed that Drew was an agent of the Secret Six, yet now the other seemed to be hinting at betraying that organisation. Drew’s eyes were crafty as he had put the question.

“I think it’s the other way round,” replied Bill slowly, feeling his way. “I would pay handsomely if I could secure that attache-case.”

“Ah!” said Drew. “I understand. Your government does not tolerate failure. Well, I dare say it can be arranged.”

“My government?” echoed Bill blankly.

“Let’s call them the Secret Six then,” said Drew, “After all, it’s a dictatorship, is it not?”

A blinding flash of realisation came to Bill. Drew knew nothing at all about the Secret Six. He imagined Bill Kellaway was a spy in the service of a certain foreign power, which one was easy to guess by his reference to dictatorship.

He resolved to play his cards warily.

“You seem to know a good deal about me, Drew,” he said.

The other laughed softly.

“Quite enough to know you are clever and resourceful, my friend, though your visit here to-night was rather a blunder. You see, the chief told me you were out to get those plans and obtained a fake key to the safe deposit. He was anxious not to drag the police into the matter—you probably know why. With all this talk of disarmament in the air, the fact that there’s a new Eustace Reed gun in existence ought not to be broadcast.

“We therefore lay in wait for you, and without fuss or ostentation took back the plans which you were at such pains to collect. How you learned of their existence is beyond me, but if only your government had waited. I could have negotiated a deal myself without risk.”

Drew’s cold eyes narrowed, and Bill felt like crashing his fist into his mean avaricious face. His blood boiled at the thought of the man’s treachery. So he was quite willing to betray the secret plans of the new gun to his country’s enemies. It was with difficulty that Bill managed to look him calmly in the face.

CHAPTER XXXII

ECHO ANSWERS WHY

FOR some extraordinary reason that Bill Kellaway could not then fathom, Drew had taken him for a spy, and verily believed that the attache-case contained the plans. He was not to know that that had been the Colonel’s story to enlist Drew’s service in the taxi vigil outside the Safe Deposit.

Colonel Eustace Reed had made two errors when he set Hercules the fourth task. He believed Drew to be a loyal and capable employee. For obvious reasons he had never mentioned the Secret Six, nor the fact that the attache-case contained a million pounds. He had relied on gaining Drew’s co-operation on patriotic grounds by stating that the plans were in danger, little dreaming that Drew had schemed for months to gain a glimpse of them in order to forward his information to the highest bidder.

Bill forced himself to smile. It would be fatal at this juncture to antagonise Drew, traitor though he was. At all costs he must keep up the role that had been thrust upon him.

“So you are one of us, comrade?” he drawled. “We have no reference to your name on our register.”

“But you will my, friend,” said Drew, with a sly grin. “Unfortunately this afternoon I had no chance to slip away with the case. The boss put Patterson, the foreman, on to watch me; besides, it was too risky. Had I not turned up, the hue and cry would be after me at once. No, my friend, I bided my time. I meant to approach you secretly when you had recovered. This afternoon one of the Special Branch men, disguised as a drunken loafer, wanted me to drive to your hotel, the Europa. It was a try-on, I suppose, to see how I reacted. But I didn’t bite.”

With difficulty Bill repressed a chuckle. The thought of the beery Hanlow being mistaken for a member of the Special Branch of the C.I.D. was distinctly funny.

“You did well, comrade,” he said, gravely. “I shall let them know when I return, and maybe they will find you further work for the cause. Meanwhile,” he added, “it is all-important that I should get hold of that attache-case.”

“It is not very far away, my friend,” said Drew, with a grin. “The boss took charge of it in Leggat Street, and told me he was going to put it in the office safe. If you could arrange a burglary convincingly, I will play my part.”

Bill’s heart leapt. He had located the missing million!

“Yes,” continued Drew, “a burglary would be the safest plan. I am ostensibly in charge here at night. The safe is next door. A chloroform pad on my mouth, a length of rope tied cruelly round my tender limbs, the safe smashed, and I shall appear the innocent victim of a dastardly crime when they find me trussed in the morning.”

“Drew, you’re a clever devil,” said Bill, with unwilling admiration. “The scheme sounds feasible. The only drawback is, how am I to open that safe? I am not a cracksman.”

“That’s for you to discover, my friend,” said Drew, with a shrug. “I will play my part—at a price.”

Again Bill had an impulse to shake the life out of the traitorous villain who cold-bloodedly planned to betray both his employer and his country.

“I must think this out,” he said, quietly. “It would obviously be madness to attempt it to-night. The night watchman would remember my description, if not my name; besides, I have no tools to open the safe.”

Drew grinned evilly.

“This is a laboratory, my friend. Have you heard of nitro-glycerine? I agree with you, however, that to-night the job is too risky. In the morning I will ring you; perhaps by then you will have thought out a plan.”

Bill rose to his feet.

“Excellent, Drew. Meanwhile—a still tongue.”

“I am not a fool, my friend,” replied the other. “Remember I am not risking my liberty and my job for the love of the cause. Tell that to your masters.”

He crossed over to the door and unlocked it.

“Au revoir until tomorrow then,” he said, with a stilted bow. “I shall be off duty until ten p.m. By that time you should have fixed your plans. Remember, no one must suspect that I am anything but a victim—and don’t forget the money, my friend,” he added, with a wink. “And I don’t want roubles.”

Bill Kellaway nodded curtly, and took his leave.

Henry returned to the Hotel Europa at 11 p.m. His grave face was more than usually thoughtful as he ascended the stairs and entered Bill’s room.

One cannot, he reflected bitterly, discuss the niceties of syntax with a young lady, however beautiful, in a bar crowded with thirsty members of the proletariat calling incessantly for beer.

Elsie had greeted his reappearance cordially enough, he admitted, though the form of it left a good deal to be desired. Her precise salutation had been:

“Gorblimey! ’Ere’s old misery agin, bless ’is backache.”

It was not until nearly closing time that he had an opportunity of presenting his gift of Nesfield’s “Outline of English Grammar,” and Elsie’s comments were characteristic:

“Any love-stuff in it, misery? Real ’Old me ’Orace passion?”

The role of Pygmalion was a hard one, he reflected, as he recalled the contemptuous way she had chucked his offering behind the cash register.

His reverie was disturbed by a light rap on the door.

He rose to open it, and found a dainty figure in a silken evening wrap smiling up at him. From the tips of her diamante shoes to her smooth shingled head she looked charming.

“Good evening, Miss Jarvie,” said Henry, with a bow.

“Hallo, Henry,” said Dorothy. “Is Bill—I mean Mr. Kellaway—in?”

“He has not yet returned, madam. I anticipate his arrival somewhere about midnight.”

“Good,” said Dorothy. “I’ll wait for him.”

And sweeping imperiously past Henry she sank with a sigh of contentment into an armchair.

“Is there anything I can get you, madam?” asked Henry solicitously.

“Chuck me a cigarette, Henry, that’s all,” said Dorothy. “But what’s the matter? You look a bit hipped to-night.”

Henry placed a silver box at her elbow and lit a match when she had selected a cigarette.

“I’ve had rather a trying day, madam,” he said. “I’m afraid I am getting old.”

“Old?” said Dorothy. “Tell me, Henry, have you ever been in love?”

“Why—er—no, madam.”

“Something’s on your mind, Henry,” said Dorothy decisively. “If you’re worrying about that little affair of the million pounds, don’t.”

Henry gasped.

“Er—million pounds, madam? I’m afraid I don’t grasp the allusion.”

“Oh yes you do,” she insisted, and her eyes twinkled with mischief. “The million you helped to steal from Chancery Lane this afternoon.”

How on earth did this beautiful girl learn of their adventure?

Bill Kellaway’s valet resolved to dissemble.

“To be precise I was worrying about education, madam,” he said. “A young protegee of mine is causing me serious concern. She is seriously deficient in the rudiments of English grammar.”

“Really?”

Dorothy’s tone was surprised.

“I should have thought that looking after Mr. Kellaway was sufficiently arduous without taking on another protegee, Henry. So it’s a girl, is it?”

“Yes, madam. I——”

He was about to become confidential when the door opened suddenly and Bill Kellaway breezed into the room. His eyes sparkled with surprise and pleasure when he saw Dorothy.

“Why, hallo, Echo! This is certainly a treat for a rather part-worn prodigal,” he chuckled. “Henry been enlivening you with a little pleasant chit-chat?”

Dorothy smiled as the valet gave his celebrated imitation of the Arab and silently, stole away.

Bill flung his hat on a chair.

“Dorothy darling, I’ve had a devil of a day,” he said. “Almost beaten at the post; but there’s still a chance.”

“I know, Bill,” said the girl softly. “But don’t worry. I know where the million is, and I can wise you up to a lot of things that have puzzled us both. Really, men are childish,” she added.

“Alluding to Henry, or me?” demanded Bill.

“All men,” she insisted, “but particularly the Secret Six.”

He glanced at her keenly, and noticed that her eyes were full of suppressed excitement.

“You know where the million is? So do I, my dear. Unfortunately, I’m debarred from telling you, nor enlivening you with an account of a particularly strenuous day. That being taboo, we’ll discuss something more interesting. You’re looking lovelier than ever to-night, sweetheart.”

He took a step towards her, but she eluded him.

“Be sensible, Bill. It’s after eleven p.m. I’ve already braved the disapproving frown of the manager by coming here, and his faith in his own judgment can only be restored by you taking me away instantly to some low night club or other. I’ve got the old bus outside, and I want to show you something interesting.”

Bill seized his hat again.

“Let’s go! I’ll push that manager’s face if he bats an eyelash,” he growled, and his jaw was pugnacious.

“Where shall we go?” he asked her, as they passed through the vestibule into the quietness of Park Street, where Dorothy’s little sedan was drawn up by the kerb.

She smiled enigmatically.

“I’ve been listening to a very interesting conference this evening, Bill. By the way, it was a frightfully clever stunt of yours to use that drug—scopo—what do you call it? It must have been interesting to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth from Dr. Lenoir.”

“Are you a sorceress, or a clairvoyant, or what?” Bill demanded in astonishment, as Dorothy took the wheel and he sat beside her.

“Don’t talk. .Listen,” she said, deftly steering her way in the direction of the City.

“Colonel Eustace Reed’s hidden that attache-case, and you say you know where.”

“I do,” replied Bill promptly. “Though how on earth you discovered the secret is beyond me.”

“You’ll see how, later. The point is, Bill, that you’ve very little time left to get it. Somehow or other you’ve got to gain access to the colonel’s pocket-book and extract that cloak-room ticket.”

“Cloak-room ticket?” Bill echoed blankly. “What on earth——”

“But I thought you said you knew where the million was?” broke in the girl.

“In the safe of Colonel Eustace Reed, of course,” said Bill. “Somehow or other I’ve got to smash it. I was thinking of getting a burglar pal of mine to give a hand. You know the jolly little chap who helped me at Melford Manor.”

“William Kellaway, you’re perfectly absurd,” said Dorothy. “To get that million you’ve risked imprisonment, sudden and violent death, chummed up with the criminal fraternity, and you don’t yet realise that the Secret Six are a lot of silly old men who ought to be spanked. I’ve found out all about them, and I think they should all be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. I’m going to teach them a lesson,” she added.

“Admitting all that,” said Bill, “I can’t go back on my compact. I’ve got to go right through with my tasks.”

“Then you’ve only one more to perform, Bill. The H.Q. of this precious gang of sillies is, as I suspected, over Aunt Letitia’s cafe in Wessex Street, and that’s where we’re going right now.”

“Well I’m dashed!” said Bill Kellaway blankly. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Aunt Letitia told me all about those so-called spiritualist seances that were supposed to be held upstairs They’re no more Spiritualists than I am, Bill. Daddy and Mr. Lee and Colonel Reed and the rest are just a lot of tiresome old men trying to get a kick out of life—and incidentally gambling on the chance of your failure.”

Bill Kellaway was speechless with astonishment. Dorothy’s revelation staggered him.

“They’re using you as a pawn, Bill, in a complicated game of chess they’re playing,” she continued. “Each of them was confident that he’d beat you, and gambled on it. Daddy lost, Phineas Lee lost, they’ve all failed except the final two—and they’ll fail also. I’ll see to that,” she added, with a firm lift of her determined little chin.

“But why—how—what?” gasped Bill.

“You’ll see in a minute,” she murmured, as they swung down the Strand into Wessex Street, and drew up before the door of Ye Olde Browne Potte. The little cafe was shuttered and dark. Dorothy, followed by Bill, alighted, and the girl inserted a Yale key into the lock of the unobtrusive little side door. Bill followed her wonderingly as she snapped on a switch.

“For once they’re not in session at midnight, Bill,” she said. “Your stunt to-day rattled them all pretty badly, my dear.”

“Is that you, Dorothy,” called a voice from the end of the passage.

“Hallo, Aunt Letitia! Everything O.K.?” answered the girl, as Miss Carberry emerged. “I’ve brought Bill to see our new wireless set.”

Bill bowed. He felt awkward and embarrassed, and wondered what on earth would happen next.

“How do you do, Mr. Kellaway?” said Miss Carberry, and her ineffectual hands fumbled nervously with her beads. “Dorothy dear, this is most terribly unconventional as you know——”

“Rubbish!” laughed the girl. “Come in, Bill, and I’ll show you the clever little gadget I fixed up which is going to help you win that million.”

Still slightly bemused, Kellaway entered the tiny sitting-room beyond the cafe proper, and there, for the first time, learned the real secret of the Secret Six.

It was late, very late, when he returned to the Hotel Europa, but for the first time since his encounter with the Machiavellian Dr. Lenoir, he was certain of the outcome of his battle for the million.

Miss Carberry, discreetest of chaperons, had retired, and Ye Olde Browne Potte justified its existence for ever in the opinion of Hercules, Esq., as being the most romantic cafe in the world, and confirmed what he already knew—that Dorothy was the most wonderful girl.

Henry Henry was deep in thought about ten a.m. the next morning.

From the adjacent bathroom of Bill’s private suite came a vigorous sound of splashing, followed by the throaty gurgle of the waste-pipe. Henry sighed, and was about to put paper and pencil away when Bill entered, glowing and radiant from his tub.

“Henry, my boy,” he announced, “blithe is the password for the day—blithe and merry. Give ear. There are doings of momentous import afoot. It may interest you to know that that taxi-driver who put us hors de combat yesterday will probably ring me up within the next hour.”

“Indeed, sir? I inferred from your manner last night that you had not been wholly unsuccessful in your project.”

“I’m the luckiest man alive,” said Bill. “Incidentally, it would relieve my mind considerably, Henry, if you made an appointment over the phone with that poisonous person Drew, and gave him a thundering good hiding. I haven’t time to myself. I go to seek a friend of my dear old prison days, and after that I shall be busy.”

“Indeed, sir?” said Henry. “Then you have traced the million?”

Bill nodded.

“You wouldn’t guess where it was in a million years,” he said. “And, by the way, as Drew is likely to be snooping round the ‘Bunch o’ Grapes,’ Henry, you’d better watch your step. He’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work.”

“I will, sir. Would it be injudicious to apprise Miss Elsie as to his character, sir?”

“I leave that to you,” said Bill. “In any case, Mr. Crook Drew is going to get a shock very shortly.”

The phone bell tinkled.

“This is probably the merchant himself,” said Bill. “Tell him I’m out, and likely to be out all day.”

“Very good, sir.”

Bill lit a cigarette while Henry obeyed instructions.

“Well?” he inquired, after the valet had replaced the receiver.

“He seemed rather agitated, sir,” Henry reported. “Said that he wanted to see you most urgently, and would ring up later.”

Bill grinned happily. Thanks to the amazing disclosures that Dorothy Jarvie had made the previous night, there was now no need to enlist the aid of the treacherous Drew.

He had resolved before her dramatic arrival the previous night that he would call at that sinister rendezvous, the Croucher’s, and try to pick up the trail of that elusive little crook, Symphony Sam, to aid him in the burglary. Dorothy’s revelations, however, had put a totally new complexion on the situation. Drew had either been deliberately lying or had been misinformed by Colonel Reed.

The million pounds was not in the safe at the factory, but was reposing in the Left Luggage Office at Charing Cross Station.

CHAPTER XXXIII

BARKER BUTTS IN

WHEN Dorothy had decided that she was going to probe the mystery of those alleged seances at Ye Olde Browne Potte, she persuaded her aunt to become an accomplice. Both of them, being women, were piqued at the mystery of the locked door; but Dorothy had no intention of meekly playing the role of Bluebeard’s wife.

It was a comparatively simple matter to obtain a microphone, but not so simple to install it. As, however, the Secret Six avoided the cafe by day—Lenoir was the only one who dropped in occasionally—she managed, with Miss Carberry’s aid, to obtain a key to fit that bizarre room.

She had been fascinated, but repelled, by the gruesome exhibits it contained, the queer criminological collection which Lenoir had amassed, and it was on the black wall behind the two-handed sword that Dorothy finally hid the unobtrusive microphone.

Being a wireless enthusiast, she had made a neat job of it, and not one of the millionaires suspected that after the completion of Bill Kellaway’s fourth task every word they had spoken had been overheard by the girl.

There was something maddeningly tantalising in the thought that a pink cloak-room ticket was all that stood between him and a fortune, and Bill, emerging from the Europa, resolved that the one person who could aid him in his difficulty now was Symphony Sam Hicks.

He could perhaps find out from the Croucher, that saturnine individual, where the little crook was to be found. Unfortunately, he reckoned without the shrewd and suspicious brain of his old enemy, Inspector Barker of Scotland Yard.

He was to find that his troubles were by no means over.

It was just on opening time when he reached Shaftesbury Avenue and strode into the saloon bar of the pub. Behind the counter stood the massive bulk of the Croucher. He was engrossed in the fourth edition of the Evening News.

He looked up suspiciously as Bill entered; his deepset eyes beneath their bushy brows were suspicious.

“ ’Morning,” said Bill, cheerfully. “Bottle of Bass, please.”

The Croucher laid down his newspaper without a word, and with surprising agility for a man of his bulk, reached out for a bottle, uncorked it, and poured out the ale, in three rhythmic actions.

Bill raised the glass to his lips, and, emulating the whisper without lip movement of the old lag, murmured the convicts’ denunciation of warders.

“Damn all screws!”

The Croucher’s eyes narrowed. He raised one huge hand to his broken nose, and gently caressed the place where the bridge had once been, but for what the police called an altercation with a hasty-tempered welter-weight champion.

“Wot’s your monniker?” he inquired in a hoarse whisper.

“Don’t you recognise me, Crouch?” asked Bill. “I’m Nutty—Symph’s side-kick. Know where I can find Symph?”

The publican took a deep breath.

“ ’E’s on the run,” he announced. “That Norwood job. ’E ain’t parked ‘is gunivers yet—can’t find a buyer.”

Bill clicked his tongue. He had no idea what gunivers were, but judged it to be a new term for swag.

“Ay,” continued the Croucher, disgustedly. “I knew as ’ow that brass nail’d do ’im dahn. ’E was goin’ to jump the rattler to Liverpool with a bunch o’ broadsmen, but somebody gave ’in the office, and ’e’s beat it for Ma Shapiro’s.”

Bill nodded, and tried to look as if he understood. Brass nail, he knew, stood for the pretty ladies who haunt the purlieus of Shaftesbury Avenue. By some tortuous system of rhyming slang it had been derived from frail. A rattler was a train; but who, or what, Ma Shapiro was he had no idea.

“ ’E’s bin askin’ for you, Nutty,” volunteered the Croucher. Bill took a chance. “Where’s Ma Shapiro?”

The other looked at him in amazement; his close-set little eyes were agleam with suspicion.

“Wot’s the joke?” he demanded. “What stuff are you pulling?”

Bill realised that he had made a faux pas, but attempted to carry off his blunder by a show of frankness.

“Honestly I don’t know,” he whispered. “I’ve been working the North, and I’m out of touch.”

“Blimey! Ain’t never ’eard o’ Ma?” said the Croucher, incredulously. “You’ve never bin in at the Scrubs, ’ave yer?”

“No,” said Bill. “I was lagged in Liverpool.”

“That accounts for it,” replied the other, with a snort that expressed his contempt of all provincials. “Well, Ma’s the girl wot looks after the boys who——”

“Good morning,” said an unpleasant voice from the doorway. “Lovely day, Mr. Kellaway!”

Bill turned with a stifled oath, and recognised the burly, blue-over-coated figure of Inspector Barker. The Yard man’s bowler hat was cocked aggressively, and the points of his waxed moustache seemed to bristle with suspicion.

An ugly scowl darkened the Croucher’s battered features.

“ ’Mornin’, Inspector. Lookin’ for anyone?” he inquired.

Bill essayed a heartiness he was far from feeling.

“Have a drink, Inspector,” he said, cordially.

“Thanks, a small tonic water,” said Barker. “I didn’t know you frequented the place, Mr. Kellaway.”

“You’ve lots to learn about my habits,” Bill parried, as the Croucher jerked off the capsule of the bottle as if it was the head of Barker himself.

“Doubtless, Mr. Kellaway,” said Barker, unpleasantly. “They call me Eric at the Yard, you know—Eric, or little by little.”

“Well, cheerio, Eric!” said Bill mockingly. “I remember the book well. I recall that Eric was a particularly obnoxious specimen, and I’m glad to say he died unpleasantly.”

A fugitive grin played round the Croucher’s lips as he polished a glass.

“Business brisk, Inspector?” he asked, casually. “Lot o’ crime about these days I see from the papers. It beats me why they do it. It don’t pay in the long run, with smart chaps like you about, Mr. Barker. ’Onesty’s the best policy, I allus say,” he added, breathing heavily on a tumbler.

The Yard man smiled bleakly.

“Stick to that motto, my friend. You’ve been lucky so far, Croucher. One of these days——”

He left the threat unfinished as he drained his tasteless drink.

“I had a chat with Dr. Lenoir yesterday, Mr. Kellaway,” he said, turning to Bill. “The doctor is most anxious about you.”

“Indeed!” said Bill. “He told me nothing about it.”

“Most anxious,” Barker repeated. “He’s afraid of you breaking loose again, I fancy.”

“I can hardly break loose when I’m not in—yet!” returned Kellaway, meaningly. “Is that what you’re after, Barker?”

“Not at all, sir,” replied the other quickly. “But as you’re bound over for twelve months, we naturally like to keep an eye on you.”

“Tell me,” said Bill Kellaway, suddenly confidential, “has Scotland Yard any objection to my getting married?”

Barker blinked.

“Married?” he echoed. “Why, no. Are you contemplating matrimony, Mr. Kelllaway?”

“At once—if not sooner,” Bill returned. “There’s such a thing as a special licence, isn’t there?”

“I believe so. They’ll tell you at Somerset House. Er—my congratulations, sir.”

“Thank you, Inspector. Very nice of you. A miniature pair of platinum handcuffs would be a very acceptable present, you know. Perhaps you’d like to have a whip round at Scotland Yard.”

Barker flushed and lumbered to his feet.

“I’ll bid you good morning, Mr. Kellaway,” he said, shortly, and without a look at the Croucher, strode out of the bar. The publican’s glare at his broad back was murderous.

“That’s the third time ’e’s bin snoopin’ around ’ere,” he announced, disgustedly. “Blimey, Nutty, you ain’t ’arf got a cheek. Put it across ’im fair an’ square, you did.”

Bill laughed softly. It was as well to keep in the obese publican’s good graces.

“You were telling me about Ma Shapiro,” he said, “before that cursed busy shoved his nose in.”

“Ho yus,” replied the other. “I don’t think. If Barker’s tailin’ you, son, it’s too blamed dangerous. If you went to Ma’s now, like as not Barker an’ ’is flatties ’ud follow yer an’ pull in Symph and the rest.”

“I’m not such a fool,” said Bill, indignantly. “Tell me where Ma hangs out, and I’ll wait till I’ve shook every busy off the trail.”

The publican scratched his chin dubiously.

“Gosh! If anything was to ’appen to Ma, the boys ’ud out me fer shure,” he said. “Listen, Nutty—listen careful. I kin see as ’ow you’re a pretty good ringer. Well, ole Ma keeps a ‘good pull up’ in Endell Street, just off Covent Garden. No use you goin’ in there all togged up. Drop in casual like, arsk fer a couple o’ doorsteps an’ keep yer mince pies open.

“You’ll know Ma all right. Jus’ say to ’er ‘Old Ammond’s took queer again.’ She’ll say she’s sorry to ’ear it, an’ you say ‘Yus, it was them scarlet-runners did it.’ That’s all—leave the rest to Ma.”

Bill Kellaway pulled out his wallet, and the Croucher’s eyes gleamed avariciously.

“Good-looking dummy you’ve got, Nutty. Where’d yer nick it?”

Bill’s smile was sphinx-like as he pulled out a pound note.

“Treat yourself to a drink, Crouch, and keep the change,” he said, airily. “Much obliged.”

“Good luck, son,” said the other. “An’ mind you ain’t tailed.”

Out in Shaftesbury Avenue, Bill scanned the opposite side of the pavement. Standing beneath the portico of a theatre was a red-faced, burly man, with plain-clothes man written all over him, ostensibly engaged in scanning the showbill.

Bill cursed softly beneath his breath, and hailed a taxi.

“Somerset House,” said Bill Kellaway, shortly, and grinned. If he was being followed by Inspector Barker, that would give him something to think about.

Meanwhile, Mr. Herbert Drew was spending a particularly trying morning. Twice in the past hour he had rung up the Hotel Europa, only to be blandly informed that Kellaway was out and was not expected in till late.

Drew was a man of parts. In addition to being chief laboratory assistant at the Eustace Reed Gun Company, he was a excellent mechanic, and had an inventive brain, which, if it had not been marred by a criminal kink, might have advanced his position considerably with his firm.

As he had told Bill, he would not be on duty until ten p.m., and therefore they had the whole day in which to discuss the plans for the bogus burglary.

Drew emerged from the telephone box after his second abortive call to the Hotel Europa, and stood indecisively on the edge of the kerb. He debated whether he would call at Bill’s hotel, or seek solace elsewhere.

He remembered suddenly that he had promised to take the pretty barmaid of the “Bunch o’ Grapes” to Stoll’s Picture House that day, and the thought of Elsie’s fragrant beauty quickened his pulses. He had plenty of time for dalliance, he decided.

He would ring up Kellaway later, and get the information he wanted. Possibly some hitch had occurred. Secret Service agents had to be careful, he reflected, and there was no knowing whether the Special Branch were already aware of Kellaway’s activities. As for Drew himself, he felt perfectly safe. From his point of view the onus of the job rested on Bill. He was quite content to be trussed and chloroformed once the robbery had been committed, on condition that he was already in possession of a substantial rake-off.

His close-set eyes sparkled as he visualised the newspaper headlines. The proposed burglary would undoubtedly enhance his reputation in the eyes of the fair Elsie.

CHAPTER XXXIV

MA SHAPIRO’S

“LOOK where you’re goin’, chum,” snapped a rotund little man with an incredible load of empty baskets piled high on his bullet head, as a tall, gangling individual in a nondescript suit of corduroys emerged from the echoing arches of Covent Garden.

“Sorry, mate,” jerked out the other. It was early evening, the slackest time of the day at Covent Garden—that queer quarter of the metropolis which houses incongruously opera and oranges, and one meets literally cabbages and kings.

The tall man in corduroys hurried past the frowning wall of Bow Street police station and turned with a sign of relief into a frowsty little eating-house which announced rather ambiguously that M. Shapiro was a “good pull up for carmen.”

A blowsy, untidy-looking woman emerged from behind a faded plush curtain as Bill sat down by the table. She had distinctly Semitic features, and had once been very handsome. Her eyes were large and dark, and still fringed by long curling lashes; but her complexion was dough-like and flabby, and her three chins quivered as she spoke.

Bill was surprised at her voice which was low and pleasantly modulated. A pity, he reflected subconsciously, that the girl at the “Bunch o’ Grapes” hadn’t Ma Shapiro’s voice.

“What can I do for you, son?” she remarked.

Bill shot a quick glance at her, then winked.

“Old man ‘Ammond’s been took queer again,” he murmured.

Instantly a change swept over the woman’s face.

“I’m sorry to heat that,” she said. “What’s the matter this time?”

“Them scarlet runners, I’ll swear,” said Bill. “Gi’ us a couple of doorsteps and a cup of coffee.”

“Right you are, son. By the way, pa wanted to see you when you came in. His rheumatism’s still bad. Can’t ’ardly leave ’is bed.”

Bill took his cue.

“Poor ole feller. Better go an’ cheer ’im up like, I think,”

Ma Shapiro sighed.

“It’d be a godsend,” she remarked, piously. “You know your way, son?”

Her dark eyes flashed meaningly towards the plush curtains and Bill lumbered to his feet. She held it aside, and joined him in a tiny passageway.

“Who sent you? What do you want?” she hissed urgently.

“The Croucher. Where’s Symph?” replied Bill promptly.

“You’re not on the run, are you?” she asked, and her eyes were alarmed.

Bill shook his head.

“No fear, Ma. I just want to see Symph.”

She studied him reflectively for a moment in the gloom of the passage.

“You’ve bin ringin’ ’em,” she said. “But you’ve forgotten your finger-nails, young man.”

Bill glanced at his hands. He had grimed them before starting but he realised with a start he had omitted to blacken his carefully-manicured nails.

“Watch those points, son,” said Ma Shapiro. “In you go. You’ll find Symph in the kitchen.”

He followed her down the passage, and suddenly from behind the closed portal to Bill’s ears came the tuneful rattle of tin against tin, giving a more-or-less recognisable version of “Ole Man River.”

Ma Shapiro frowned as she opened the door.

“Symphony, you fool, haven’t I told you to stop that? You’ll give yourself away as sure as Fate, if you don’t quit jazzing. Here’s one of the boys to see you.”

Bill stared at the white-aproned figure standing by the gas-stove. Symphony Sam had a chef’s cap on his head, and his face smeared with grease and soot. It was difficult to recognise in the seemingly industrious cook his fellow prisoner at Salton Gaol.

“Hallo, Symph?” chuckled Bill.

The little man dropped the wooden spoon he held with a clatter.

“Ole Nutty!” he gasped

Ma Shapiro pressed a finger to her full red lips.

“Upstairs, you two. Mind, Nutty, you don’t stay longer than ten minutes. The cops are leery.”

“Righto, Ma,” said Symphony Sam. “I’ll see ‘e goes. Come up an’ see pore ole pa,” he added, to Bill, and led the way up the stairs to a little back bedroom overlooking a dreary-looking asphalt yard.

“Sit on the bed, Nutty, an’ let’s ’ave the low down,” said Symphony Sam. “Cripes, wot a time I’ve ’ad since we cracked the Melford place. Not a sausage have I got, not a bean, an’ the cops all out for me arter a little job I pulled at Norwood. Howsomever,” he added, and his bird-like eyes twinkled, “Ma’s fixin’ me up an’ I’m clearing for Canada with her brother nex’ week.”

“Who is Ma, Symph?” asked Bill. “She seems a dashed good sort.”

“One of ’Eaven’s bloomin’ angels,” said Symphony Sam. “Uster be on the stage once. The busys pulled in ’er ’usdban for somethink ’e ’adn’t done. Sent ’im dahn for a five-year stretch and ’e died at Dartmoor. Nearly broke Ma’s ’eart. She swore she’d get even with the rozzers, and by heck, she ’as. There ain’t a better pal to us boys then Ma Shapiro—right under their bloomin’ conks, too,” he added, with a chuckle.

Bill Kellaway drew out his cigarette case and offered one to the little crook.

“Symph,” he announced, “I want to get hold of something badly. It means a lot of money to me, and if you’ll help there’s a hundred quid rake-off for you.”

“Now wot’s in your old bean now, Nutty?” demanded Symphony Sam. “Fust it’s a seven-day D. and D., then it’s a bloomin’ picksher—by the way, the Croucher said you’d called for it——”

“Yes, thanks,” said Bill. “I got it safely. I’m much obliged to you, Sam.”

“Aw, cut it. That’s nothink between pals. Wot’s the big idea this time, Nutty?”

Bill lit a cigarette and thoughtfully considered its glowing tip before replying.

“It’s like this, Symph,” said Bill. “There’s a chap named Reed—Colonel Eustace Reed. He lives at Sloane Square. I happen to know he’s got a ticket in his wallet—a cloak-room ticket for a bag. I want that bag. I can’t get it without the ticket. How can I get the ticket?”

“H’m,” said Symphony Sam. “If I wasn’t on the run, I’d get it for yer in two shakes of a duck’s tail; but I daren’t shift till Ma gives me the tip. Tell yer wot, Nutty,” he said, in a sudden burst of confidence. “Wally’s the boy for you—Wally the Dip. Smartest bloomin’ sack opener that ever worked the bus tails. Give Wally ’arf a chance an’ ’e’d nick the Nelson Monument if ’e thought ’e could fence it. ’E once pinched the kettle o’ the warder as was guardin’ im in the dock while beak sentenced ’im.

“The kettle?” echoed Bill, blankly.

“You don’t ’arf talk wet sometimes, Nutty,” said Symphony Sam. “A kettle’s a watch, same as a tie-pin’s a stalk, and a chain’s a slang.”

Bill felt awkward.

“You’ll learn,” replied the other, with a chuckle. “Now my advice is to get ’old of Wally. Ma Shapiro’ll do that for yer. Meet ’im at the Croucher’s——”

“I daren’t do that,” said Bill, hastily. “Barker of the Yard’s got the place taped.”

“Then leave it to Ma Shapiro,” said Symphony. “She’ll give Wally the dope and he’ll phone you when he’s pulled it off. Where you ’anging out now?”

Bill told him.

“Coo, lumme! You alius was one for the ’igh spots, Nutty. I s’pose you rung the changes because o’ Mr. Blinkin’ Barker,” he added, with a glance at Bill’s frayed corduroys.

“I didn’t want to get you or her into trouble, Symph.”

He pulled out a wallet and extracted a five-pound note.

“Something to go on with, Symph. Will you fix it with Ma Shapiro?”

The little crook nodded, and kissed the banknote ecstatically.

“ ’Oo says crime don’t pay?” he chuckled.

A bell rang warningly, from above the bed, and Symphony leapt to his feet.

“Time’s up, Nutty. Better clear, ole son. I’ll fix that with Ma, don’t you worry. This time next week Symphony Sam ’Icks Hesquire will be singing ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’; there’s good pickin’s in Canada, Nutty.”

Bill smiled.

“You’re incorrigible, Symphony,” he said. “Remember, you’re on a birthday present if this chap Wally pulls it off. Tell him to ring me up at the Europa. I suppose he’s straight?” he added.

“ ’E’s one of Ma Shapiro’s lambs,” said Symphony Sam. “There ain’t any squeakers in ’er flock, trust ’er.”

Bill held out his hand.

“Cheerio, Symph,” he said. “And good luck. Write me when you get to Canada.”

Symphony Sam grinned.

“Come over an’ see me in my million-dollar suite at the Toronto Ritz, Nutty—you’re always welcome.”

Cautiously they descended the stairs. Ma Shapiro stood at the bottom. She shot a keen-eyed glance at Symphony, who smiled.

“ ’Salright, Ma. Nutty’s one o’ the best. ’E’s got a little job on for Wally the Dip. I’ll tell yer.”

Ma Shapiro nodded understandingly.

“Go and eat your doorsteps and tea, son,” she said. “Don’t forget details like that. You never know who’s watching.”

Bill nodded. He sat down at the greasy little table and attacked the unappetising-looking fare.

The situation now depended entirely on the pickpocket. If he failed——

Resolutely Bill put aside the thought of failure. One thing at least was certain; million or no million, defeat or victory, Dorothy loved him.

He touched his breast pocket and smiled; his visit to Somerset House had not been fruitless.

CHAPTER XXXV

A SHOCK FOR THE COLONEL

COLONEL EUSTACE REED, that grim-faced gambler, replaced the telephone receiver and his mouth hardened beneath his iron-grey moustache. The message he had just received from Dr. Armand Lenoir was disturbing.

It was nearly eleven a. m. Lenoir’s message had been brief and reticent; but if what he stated was true, then instant action was necessary.

Colonel Reed rose to his feet and pressed the bell for his man.

“Get me a taxi, Parsons,” he snapped, and paced restlessly up and down the room. Colonel Reed was worried. Lenoir had just rung through to tell him that an attempt was to be made to steal the plans of his new gun, and that one of his most trusted employees was in the plot.

On the face of it, it was an extraordinary message for Lenoir to send. Colonel Reed’s business and his pleasure were kept in water-tight compartments, and he allowed neither to encroach upon the other.

Yet here was Lenoir hinting that the new guns, the plans of which had already been approved by the War Office, were in danger. How did Lenoir know? Colonel Reed was seriously disturbed, and decided to call on the doctor without delay.

“The taxi’s here sir,” announced Parsons, holding out his master’s gloves and stick. Reed disdained overcoats, even in the coldest weather.

“Good,” he snapped. “I shan’t be in for lunch.”

“Very good, sir.”

Reed descended the stairs and drew on his lemon-hued gloves. As he emerged into the Square a newsboy yelling his wares at the top of his leather lungs, cannoned into him as he dashed along the pavement.

“Confound you!” snarled the Colonel, picking up his malacca cane and glaring furiously at the rapidly retreating figure.

“ ’Urt yerself, sir?” asked a grey-haired little man solicitously. “These boys never looks where they’re goin’.”

“Pah!” snorted the Colonel angrily, and entered his waiting taxi. “Portland Place, and quick about it.”

He gnawed his lip savagely as the taxi bowled through Sloane Street. He prided himself with great justice on the smooth-running efficiency of his great factory in Fulham, and the thought that one of his staff was disloyal was galling.

He reached Lenoir’s house shortly after eleven-thirty. The doctor received him in the study, and his face was grave.

“Good morning, Colonel. Glad you’ve come,” he said. “Your particular task seems to have stirred up a veritable hornets’ nest.”

“What’s all this nonsense about?” snapped Reed. “I hardly understood you on the phone, Lenoir.”

The doctor stroked his beard.

“I have just received a message from our friend, Hercules, Colonel,” he announced. “Strictly speaking, it has nothing to do with the Secret Six, but I pass the information on to you for what it is worth. I may say I’ve never found Kellaway a liar, and he was particularly anxious for you to know about this.”

“Know what? Come on, out with it, man!” said Reed.

“He tells me that the man Drew, whom you employed on your unauthorised taxi exploit, is anxious to sell the plans of your new gun to the highest bidder,” said Lenoir suavely.

“What! Preposterous!” snapped the colonel. “Drew has been in my employ for years. I trust that man implicitly.”

Dr. Lenoir shrugged his shoulders.

“I fail to see what object Kellaway would have in suggesting the matter unless it was true; he has nothing to gain by it.”

“But, good gad, man,” stammered the colonel, “how the devil does Kellaway know anything about me, or Drew, for that matter?”

“You forget,” broke in Lenoir, smoothly, “that Hercules, Esq., is, to quote our friend Lee, hell-bent for that million. Remember, he has only two more tasks to perform and realise that he’ll move heaven and earth to find out where the money is. He is hot on the scent, obviously, or he would not have traced you and Drew in connection with it.”

“But I don’t see it at all,” said the puzzled colonel. “One thing is certain, anyway. He’ll never be able to trace it to Charing Cross Station by tomorrow night, and even if he does, I’ve got the ticket here.” He patted his breast pocket, and then suddenly a look of consternation spread over his face.

“Hades!” he gasped, and leapt to his feet. Frantically he unbuttoned his coat, and groped in his pocket.

Lenoir watched him, and his smile was crooked against his beard.

“It’s gone, curse it, it’s gone!” said Colonel Eustace Reed, shakily. “I had that wallet in my pocket this morning, less than half an hour ago. Some scoundrel must have——”

“Now don’t get excited,” soothed Lenoir.

Colonel Reed mopped his forehead, and his face was crimson.

“By heaven, Lenoir, I’m not taking this lying down. I——”

“You forget, my dear fellow, you cannot intervene. This is not, strictly speaking your task. It rather looks as if Hercules has pulled off Number Five. We shall know in due course, anyway. I think, in the circumstances, that the rest of our organisation should be informed at once.”

“Egad, yes,” said the colonel. “We’ll beat him yet. I suggest we form a cordon round the Left Luggage Office and when Kellaway arrives——”

“You forget. We must all act in concert,” interposed Lenoir, crossing over to the telephone. “I’m inclined to think that Number One will be amused,” he added. “He had rather a large side bet on with Number Two.”

“Rot Lee and Jarvie,” snapped Reed, as he helped himself to a drink. “I also stand to lose a packet.”

“Don’t forget that I have the privilege of setting the last task if Hercules wins this,” said Lenoir, and his eyes were full of secret mirth.

Bill had spent a feverish morning. Acting on sudden impulse, he had rung up Lenoir and told him, in guarded terms, of Drew’s perfidy. Bill felt that a drubbing by Henry was not sufficient punishment for a traitor of Drew’s kidney.

The man’s presence in the Reed factory was a menace, not only to his employer, about whom Bill cared little, but to Great Britain. He was a potential, if not an actual, traitor to his country.

Lenoir had sounded uncommonly sympathetic on the phone, Bill thought, and promised to forward the news to the right quarter. Having eased his conscience, Kellaway had turned to the serious business of the day, in consultation with the invaluable Henry. He now sat, a resplendent figure of sartorial perfection, anxiously awaiting a phone call from Dorothy.

Henry himself, with his black eye carefully painted, looked almost festive. He coughed a little dubiously.

“If I might suggest, sir,” he began, “the cravat should be a shade more to the right. Allow me, sir,” he ventured, leaning towards Bill, and with deft fingers adjusting the recalcitrant neckwear.

“Curse the cravat!” said Bill irritably. “What the——”

The phone bell rang, and Bill leapt to his feet, his eyes shining with eagerness.

“Hallo, darling,” he called eagerly into the receiver. “I’ve been waiting for——”

“Hallo, ducky,” answered a husky voice. “Sorry I ain’t got time to chew the rag. But is that Park 0162?”

“Curse,” said Bill Kellaway. “Yes, who the devil are you?”

“Sorry to disappoint yer, guv’nor,” said the voice. “I want to speak to Mr. Kellaway.”

“Kellaway speaking,” said Bill, shortly. “What is it?”

“I was to tell you that that there wot you wanted was ’ooked, guv’nor. Say the word, and it’s yours.”

“What!” gasped Bill Kellaway incredulously.

In his wildest dreams he had never expected a phone call so early from the elusive Wally the Dip. Indeed, he had been so occupied with the all-important meeting with Dorothy that he had almost forgotten the promise of Symphony Sam.

“You—you’ve got it?” he repeated blankly.

“Yus, guv’nor, easy,” was the reply. “Wot’ll I do wiv it? Ma says as ’ow you’d pay me ’andsome.”

“Pay you,” said Kellaway. “Bless your lily white fingers, Wally. I’ll be wearing a white rose in my buttonhole, and——”

“’Sail right, guv’nor. Ma told me what you looked like. ’Sides, I follered you ’ome,” he added, with a rich chuckle.

Bill Kellaway slammed down the receiver, and grabbed Henry by the shoulders.

“We win! We win! We win!” he chanted gleefully. “If Miss Jarvie rings, Henry, my old crocus, tell her I’ll be back by twelve-thirty with a million quid.”

“Very good, sir,” said Henry, as if Bill had stated the most ordinary of platitudes.

Kellaway seized his silk hat and gloves, and raced out of the room. The millionth chance had come off. His cup of happiness was full.

Million or no million Dorothy had promised to marry him, and if Wally the Dip spoke truly, in less than twenty minutes he would have achieved task number five.

He Hung himself into a taxi and fumed with impatience. Good old Symphony Sam! Splendid old Ma Shapiro! They had kept their word. Bill vowed at the earliest opportunity to recompense them both. What did it matter if they were crooks? There is more faith in honest crooks, he misquoted, with a grin, as the cab drew up outside Charing Cross Station.

He paid off the driver and tipped him lavishly, then hurried on to the platform. Even as he did so a second taxi stopped and disgorged the burly figure of Inspector Barker, of Scotland Yard.

The C.I.D. man’s face was grim and set as he watched Bill’s resplendent figure mix with the crowds on the platform. He curtly instructed the driver to wait, then followed in the wake of his quarry.

Beneath the clock Bill halted and scanned the crowd. He had no idea what Wally the Dip looked like. The boat train was in, and the dingy station was in a hum of activity. Porters jostled by with rumbling trucks; bewildered foreigners gesticulated frantically to stolid officials; crowds streamed through the barriers.

Suddenly Bill left a tug on his sleeve, and found a short, grey-haired little man with a face like an apple, and alert, twinkling eyes, at his elbow.

“I fixed it, mister,” he said. “Easy as pie. ’Ellever job to get ’ere in time from Sloane Square. Symph said you’d fix it with Ma. Send the money on to ’er. If the busies fahnd it in a lump on me they’d—”

Wally the Dip broke off with an oath. Confronting them both, with a grin of triumph on his face, was Inspector Barker, of the C.I.D.

“Well, well, Wally,” he remarked, with dangerous pleasantness, “I haven’t seen you for a long time. How are you, Mr. Kellaway?” he added. “Your—er—friend seeing you off?”

Bill bit his lip to check the flaming fury that seized him. At all costs he must remain calm. A false move would be fatal.

“I’m not going away, inspector,” he said, quietly. “Want anything?”

Barker’s hand descended on Wally the Dip’s shoulder.

“I want you, Wally,” he said, with a chuckle. “And maybe, Mr. Kellaway, I want you.”

“ ’Ere, come orf it,” said Wally the Dip indignantly. “I’m an ’onest workin’ man, I am. Can’t I awsk this gen’l’man the time wivout a lot o’ blue-nosed busies wot ain’t got nothink better to do——”

“Cut that out, Wally,” snapped Barker. “You’ll just come round the corner with me while I see what’s in your pockets.”

“I tell yer I’m goin’ straight, Bow-wow,” pleaded Wally, using the name by which Barker was known in the underworld. “Me licence’s clean an’——”

“All the same, Wally, we’ll step into the stationmaster’s office and have a dekko.”

“I protest,” said Kellaway. “I haven’t seen this man in my life before. He merely asked me the time.”

“Tell that,” said Barker, “to the Marines. Mebbe they’ll believe you. I’m from Scotland Yard.”

“They are to be congratulated on the courtesy and politeness of their representatives,” said Bill, icily.

Inspector Barker flushed.

“Take care, Mr. Kellaway,” he threatened. “There’s enough between us——”

“There couldn’t be enough between us—space, I mean,” retorted Bill.

“Go it, guv’nor,” said Wally the Dip, with a wink.

“That’s enough from you,” snarled the Yard man. “Come on.”

Suddenly Wally the Dip fell into step beside the inspector. He looked over his shoulder at Bill, and his eyes seemed to hold an urgent message. Bill stood there for a moment, irresolute. His hatred of Barker was almost homicidal. He did not know what to do. No word from him could save the unfortunate Wally if Barker discovered Reed’s wallet on him. There was no hope of bribing the inspector or even of rescuing Wally from his clutches in a melee.

He glanced across at the Left Luggage Office, and laughed hollowly. So near and yet——

Suddenly his face blanched as he noticed a curling cloud of black smoke belch from the open counter of the office, followed by a sudden vivid flame that shot outward like a scarlet tongue derisively.

“Fire!” roared a stentorian voice.

CHAPTER XXXVI

“MY MILLION, I THINK”

INSTANTLY pandemonium raged. Porters dropped their trucks with a clang, men swore, a woman screamed hysterically. The cry was taken up by a hundred throats.

“Where’s the extinguisher? Stamp on it, fool!”

Thick clouds of black, poisonous-looking smoke rose sluggishly, followed by the staccato crackle of burning wood. Flames licked the paintwork greedily. A dozen station police leapt on to the ledge over which the luggage was handed, each one armed with a fire bucket.

“Keep back there!” roared a voice. “Keep back!”

The crowd surged and swayed forward and backward, while smoke-grimed figures within the office battled with the leaping flames. Bill Kellaway stood rooted to the spot for a moment, too stunned with surprise even to think coherently. Then suddenly he realised.

“My stars!” he babbled. “The million quid. It’ll be burnt to ashes.”

Like a madman he leapt forward into the crowd pushing and fighting to get near that blazing inferno.

He wrenched his arm away from the policeman’s restraining grip and his sleeve was ripped to tatters. Heedless of the smoke that tore at his throat and almost blinded him, to took a flying leap on to the smouldering ledge, and as the raging flames fanned his cheeks with their burning breath, he glared wildly round for the little attache-case for which he had endured so much.

“Come down, you crazy fool!” roared one of the policemen, as Bill made a sudden grab for the topmost shelf, on which reposed a neat leather valise.

“Go to Hell!” roared Kellaway. “I want my luggage. I——”

His fingers closed greedily on the handle, and with a sobbing breath of relief, he jerked down the million-pound attache-case from the shelf.

The leather was warped and blistered by the heat, but Bill, capering like a madman, emerged from the blazing office flourishing the case like a triumphant banner above his head.

He was greeted by a half-ironical cheer from the crowd.

Suddenly there was a loud swoosh of water, and as Bill collapsed, spent and exhausted, on to a porter’s truck, the station fire staff brought the hydrant into play, and the jet hissed and steamed as it met the now roaring flames.

Bill hugged his attache-case to his knee, and his eyes shone with triumph. His silk hat was lost, somewhere in the fire, his morning coat was in tatters, his resplendent cravat was a sooty rag—but he had the million pounds!

He groped in his pocket for a cigarette, and his fingers encountered an unfamiliar object. Wonderingly, he brought it out. It was Colonel Eustace Reed’s wallet. Opening it, he saw a pink ticket No. 0767.

“Pardon me, sir,” said a voice civilly enough. “ ’Ave you any proof that this is your luggage?”

Bill Kellaway laughed a trifle hysterically.

“Proof!” he said. “D’you think I’d risk my life if it wasn’t? Here’s my bally ticket.”

“Very good, sir,” said the stationmaster. “Sorry, sir, but rules are rules.” He took the pink slip and compared it with the number of the label pasted on the attache-case. “That’s all right, sir. I think we’ve got the fire under control; very little damage done, considering.”

Bill chuckled. He was thinking of Inspector Barker and the wiliness of Wally the Dip. The little crook, with colossal nerve, must have slipped Reed’s wallet into Bill’s pocket right under the Yard man’s nose.

“Good old Wally,” said Bill, rising shakily to his feet. “No wonder he went quietly.”

At that very moment Inspector Barker was engaged in the salutary but bitter task of mentally kicking himself, while Wally the Dip hilariously boarded a west-bound bus, to exercise his talent on the matinee queues.

In the centre of the black-walled room the five masked members of the Secret Six sat round the horseshoe table, with Lenoir at the top centre. Lenoir’s dark eyes were unusually brilliant to-night as he rose to his feet, the ivory pallor of his face enhanced by his black imperial beard.

“Well, gentlemen,” he began. “I have to announce, provisionally, of course, that Hercules, Esq., has successfully accomplished his fifth task. I received a telephone call shortly after six o’clock this evening, stating that he secured the million pounds from Charing Cross Left Luggage Office, and would bring it to our headquarters to-night.

“I note from this evening’s papers that there was an outbreak of fire in the office this forenoon. Whether that has anything to do with our friend Hercules we shall probably learn later.”

“We should have taken action at once, as I suggested, Lenoir,” snapped Colonel Reed. “It was waste of time ringing up Lee and Jarvie and the rest when I found that cloak-room ticket was missing.”

“Hell!” broke in Phineas, irritably. “Quit that Shylocking, Number Four. I reckon the kid’s done blamed well. What do you say, Jarvie?”

Sir John Jarvie coughed as he studied his ancient enemy.

“He has certainly been phenomenally lucky,” he said stiffly. “He has also, I grieve to say, been helped considerably by that minx Dorothy. I have spoken to her very seriously on the matter, and I believe she has now seen reason.”

“Aw shucks,” said Phineas Lee. “Young Here beat me fair and square, and he’s the first guy’s ever done it.”

“Pardon me,” broke in Jarvie, with icy politeness. “I seem to remember hammering you over that Los Angeles deal when——”

“Gentlemen, please,” broke in Lenoir, suavely. “The time grows short. I have many things to say. Assuming for the moment that Hercules has fulfilled his fifth task, there remains one more to perform. The setting of that task devolves upon myself.”

“Sure,” chimed the American. “And I’ll bet you five grand he does it.”

“I’ll take you,” said Jarvie. “If I know anything of Lenoir’s inventive brain and his perverse humour, he’ll set a task that will make the first five look as easy as falling off a log.”

“That remains to be seen,” chimed No. 5. “Hercules isn’t here yet. Don’t forget that, in addition to getting the million, he’s got to bring it here in person.”

Lenoir glanced at the clock. It was eleven-thirty p.m.

“If I know anything of Kellaway’s love for the dramatic, it will be midnight when he arrives. There is a lot to say for melodrama, as you have already seen, gentlemen,” he added. “You must admit, I think, that up to now I have carried out my promise, and you have experienced in turn the thrill of the gaming table, the joy of battle, and even the rare and refreshing tonic of defeat. Too many victories are apt to cloy, I think you’ll agree.”

“Waal, I’ll say I’ve enjoyed the game, Lenoir,” said Phineas Lee.

“There is still the final task to perform,” broke in Lord Benstoke’s thin, acidulated voice.

“Well,” commented Colonel Eustace Reed, “though I’ve lost a fifth of a million, Lenoir, I’m not complaining. I’ve had a good flutter and incidentally I’m grateful to Hercules, Esq., for the information about Drew. I called at his place this afternoon, and found he was in bed, suffering from neuralgia. I insisted on seeing him, and discovered that he was most shockingly battered about the face. I tackled him at once about Kellaway, and he was in such a state of nerves that he broke down completely, and——” he paused, with a smile, “the story would be laughable were it not so serious—he actually believed that Kellaway was a Soviet agent.”

“And I bet he played up to it. Hercules is nothing if not resourceful.”

“Anyway,” said Colonel Reed. “Drew is no longer in my employ. He should consider himself lucky that he is not arrested for conspiracy.”

“If you did that,” drawled Lenoir, “ I’m afraid the whole of the Secret Six would be in gaol. Our friend, Inspector Barker, is getting decidedly suspicious of——”

“Rat-tat-tat!” A thunderous knock sounded at the door.

Instantly dead silence fell on the little group.

Lenoir smiled.

“Hercules, Esq., I think,” he murmured softly. “Thurwood, will you go——”

“Rat-tat-tat!” The knock was repeated louder and more vehemently; then a gruff voice shouted:

“Open, in the name of the law!”

“My stars!” gasped Sir John Jarvie. “Barker, of Scotland Yard.”

Lenoir rose to his feet. His face was unnaturally pale.

“Keep cool, gentlemen,” he said. “Keep your masks on. Maybe I’ll be able to bluff the fool.”

He crossed over to the back door, and stealthily unlocked it. In the darkness of the corridor outside he glimpsed a burly blue-clad figure, behind him loomed a helmeted figure in gleaming oilskins.

“Ah, good evening, inspector,” said Lenoir. “What can I do for you?”

“I want you, Dr. Lenoir,” snapped the other, his red face and waxed moustache bristling. “Sergeant, stand by the door while I see what’s going on here.”

Lenoir, for once in his life, was unable to cope with the situation. He fell back as the other entered and swept the room with a comprehensive glance.

Sir John Jarvie’s face turned pale beneath his mask, and Phineas licked his dry lips uneasily. Lenoir recovered a little. Fingering his pince-nez nervously he approached the dumbfounded group around the table.

“Er—by the way, inspector, this seems a little irregular. Have you a warrant to search these premises? We’re doing nothing illegal, you know. It’s merely——”

“Warrant?” laughed the other harshly. “I’ve been watching you folk for some time. You can’t pull any wool over my eyes, Dr. Lenoir. This is a criminal organisation——”

“I—I say,” bleated Jarvie, nervously. “You—you know me, Barker. Surely this matter can be arranged amicably between friends?”

His hand slid to his pocket, and he pulled out a bulging wallet.

“Sergeant,” snapped the other. “You’re a witness of this. Attempted bribery and corruption.”

“My stars!” said Sir John again, and sank down heavily into his chair.

Lenoir was the only one who retained some semblance of composure.

“I insist on seeing your warrant, inspector,” he said.

“You do, eh?” said the other, grimly. “Sergeant, will you bring in——”

The black onyx clock on the mantelpiece began to chime the hour of twelve. There was deathly silence, save for the staccato chime.

The man in uniform pushed something into his chief’s hand, and as the last stroke of midnight died, the clear voice of Bill Kellaway cried triumphantly:

“My win, gentlemen!”

With that the alleged inspector flung down a leather attache-case on the table, and ripped off the waxed moustache, revealing the rather parboiled but unmistakable features of Hercules, Esq.

“Well, I’ll be hornswoggled!” ejaculated Phineas T. Lee. Lenoir opened his mouth to speak, but for a moment he could not utter a word.

“Kellaway!” he gasped, at length. “Kellaway, you—you young devil.”

Bill grinned joyously.

“You all deserved that scare, gentlemen,” he chuckled. “I owe the Secret Six many a fright.”

Sir John Jarvie spluttered incoherently.

“I—I never heard such insolence. I——”

Suddenly, Phineas Lee laughed, peal after peal of deep, rumbling laughter that was infectious. The tension was broken. Even the acidulated Benstoke joined in the merriment. The relief of the five millionaires was so overwhelming that they behaved like schoolboys for a few minutes. They clapped each other on the back, looked at Kellaway, whose face was a queer blend of Barker’s and his own, and from Kellaway to the man in policeman’s clothes.

“Take your face fungus off, Henry,” chuckled Bill. “Gentlemen, meet Henry Squared, the world’s most perfect valet. I wouldn’t part with him for the contents of the case. By the way, Lenoir, you might open it and see that the million’s O.K.,” he added.

Lenoir produced a key from his chain and unlocked the bag. Tied neatly in bundles within lay the thousand £1,000 Bank of England notes, crisp, new, and undisturbed.

“Gentlemen,” said Lenoir, holding his hand for silence. “I think we may safely admit that Hercules, Esq., has satisfactorily performed his fifth task. In the circumstances, I think he was entitled to play his little joke upon us. It at least originated a new and unexpected thrill into our gathering.”

“It sure did,” chuckled Phineas T. Lee. “Say, Thurwood, I guess we’ll celebrate this with a magnum of bubbly.”

“One moment, please,” said Lenoir, suavely. “You forget that, according to the compact, Hercules has six tasks to perform. He has triumphantly achieved the first five——”

“Oh, help!” said Bill helplessly.

“The sixth task still remains to be performed, gentlemen,” he continued, “and according to our rules, I am empowered to set it.”

“That’s true enough,” cut in Sir John Jarvie, “but don’t be too hard on him, Lenoir. I reckon he’s earned his million.”

Sir John’s relief was so great at Bill’s dramatic denouement that his tone was unusually magnanimous. He had visualised disgrace and arrest, perhaps penal servitude, and the sudden reaction had softened his truculence considerably.

Lenoir shook his head solemnly.

“I’m afraid we must adhere to the rules, Number One. Much as I should like to be lenient—er—M’sieu Hercules.” He turned to Bill, who scowled savagely at him.

“All right, curse you, have your pound of flesh, Lenoir,” he said, wearily. “Shoot.”

Lenoir smiled, that queer, lop-sided smile of his that gave a touch of diablerie to his pale face.

“I beg to submit Task Number Six, gentlemen,” he announced. “One which I think is eminently worthy of its predecessors.”

“Task Number Six, my dear Hercules,” drawled Lenoir, “can be very simply expressed. To be brief, you must marry Miss Dorothy Jarvie within one week from to-day, or you forfeit the million pounds.”

“What’s that?” spluttered Sir John, starting to his feet. “What the devil d’you mean, Lenoir? I never heard such confounded——”

He broke off suddenly as Bill Kellaway, with a wild whoop, bounded to his feet, and raced across the room so quickly that he had reached the landing before anyone could stop him.

“Gee!” said Phineas Lee, with a chuckle. “I guess you’ve scared him at last. Even Hercules jibs at matrimony.”

Lenoir’s dark eyes twinkled, and he glanced at Henry, whose face was wooden. Suddenly Bill Kellaway reappeared. With him, looking radiantly beautiful, with eyes like twin stars and her face aglow with happiness, was Dorothy.

She gurgled with laughter as her eyes fell on the dumbfounded millionaires. Bill raised her slim hand aloft. On her third finger glittered a plain gold wedding ring.

“Gentlemen,” he announced, “as all the best murderers say, ‘I done it.’ We were married by special licence this afternoon.”

Sir John Jarvie’s mouth sagged open. He stared at Bill, stared at Dorothy, and uttered never a word. Dorothy looked up at her husband with shining eyes, and suddenly he kissed her tenderly.

He grinned, utterly unabashed, at the Secret Six, and reached out for the attache-case.

“Our million, I think,” said Hercules, Esq.

“Indubitably, sir,” said Henry.

To

LLOYD WILLEY

My

EAST END CHINA

PURNELL AND SONS, LTD.

THE MAN FROM ABYSSINIA

CHAPTER I

SYMPHONY SAM—DETECTIVE

“THANKS, driver—an’ get yourself a wash an’ brush-up wiv the change!”

The little man in the loud check suit and the curly brimmed bowler grinned cheerfully as he paid the lugubrious-looking taxi-driver who had just decanted him before a modest, Georgian-fronted house in Park Lane.

“ ’Ere, wot’s orl this?” demanded the driver suspiciously, gazing at the shining silver disc that reposed in the centre of his well-worn glove. “The fare from the Strand is——”

“That ain’t yer fare,” cut in the little man, with a chuckle. “That’s a Coronation medal for ole Lizzie ’ere.”

He patted the bonnet of the decrepit taxi affectionately.

The taxi-driver scowled.

“If you’re trying any funny business wiv me——” he began truculently.

“Funny business?” cut in the other. “Wait ’ere an’ I’ll show yer somethink that’ll make yer bust yer braces laughin’.”

He ran swiftly up the steps of the house and pressed the bell to the right of the gay, orange-painted door.

The taxi-driver stared at him with goggle eyes, for he knew the occupant of that modest-fronted house in London’s most exclusive thoroughfare was a well-known millionaire.

“ ’Ere, wotcher playin’ at——” His voice trailed off as he saw the door open and a tall, impassive manservant appear on the threshold.

“ ’Enery, me old china,” said the little man, “kindly pay that antique walrus in the pramb’later ’is legal fare. But only just, ’Enery—only just.”

The manservant bowed.

“Certainly, sir! Will you kindly step into the lounge? Mr. Kellaway is expecting you.”

“Anythink to oblige, ’Enery,” said the little man as the manservant held open the door invitingly.

The taxi-driver made queer noises in his throat as he watched.

“Your fare is?” demanded the manservant, taking a wallet from his pocket and disclosing a crisp wad of banknotes.

The driver gulped and jerked his hand towards the taximeter.

“I see,” replied the manservant. “Here is ten shillings. Take it. And don’t, I beg of you, allow anything to impede the speedy removal of your antiquated—ah—conveyance from the immediate neighbourhood. Good-evening!”

The taxi-driver’s jaw sagged open as he took the proffered note. With superb and crushing dignity the manservant slowly ascended the steps and closed the orange door behind him.

“Well I’ll be——” said the taxi-driver; but the rest of the sentence was drowned by his engine as he started-up.

Meanwhile, the little Cockney in the loud check suit hesitated for a moment or two in the spacious hallway, with its wide Adams fireplace, luxurious furnishings, and walls, ornamented with an astonishing collection of weapons and trophies. He removed his curly brimmed billycock hat, and, squaring his sturdy shoulders, tapped at a door to the right of the hallway and entered.

A tall, broad-shouldered young man, clad in a silk dressing-gown of riotous and flamboyant pattern, was standing with his back to the fireplace, a cigarette between his slim fingers, and a glass of whisky-and-soda at his elbow.

His face lit up with a smile of welcome as he recognised his visitor.

“Wotcher, Symphony, me old china!” he said cordially. “I’m glad to see you. I got your letter this morning. Sit down and have a drink.”

“Wotcher, Nutty!” grinned the other, sinking into a chair. “I don’t mind if I do. How’s the missus? You’re looking fit to push a bus over.”

His host laughed and crossed over to the sideboard.

“My respected plates and dishes is very well, thanks, Symphony! At the moment she’s gallivanting in the South of France, enjoying herself. Say when,” he added, pressing the trigger of the soda siphon.

“When!” said his guest promptly; and Mr. William Kellaway, that eccentric young millionaire, chuckled.

“You haven’t changed much, Symph,” he said, passing over the glass to his guest and replenishing his own. “It must be nearly a year since I’ve seen you. Smoke?”

He pushed over a silver cigarette-box.

“Your favourites. Henry knew you were coming, and laid in a stock of Woodbines.”

“Good ole ’Enery!” said his guest, helping himself. “ ’E thinks of everythink. ’E ought to be a bishop or Prime Minister at least, wiv ’is brains.”

Bill Kellaway, once known as Hercules, Esq., smiled affectionately at the little Cockney whom he had first met in prison some years before when, as a penniless journalist, he had embarked on the fantastic quest that had earned for him his fortune.

Mr. Sam Hicks was an old lag—an ex-burglar, who had now, to use his own expressive idiom, “swallowed the anchor,” which is the crooks’ term for going straight.

He had earned his soubriquet of Symphony because of his gift, amounting almost to genius, of extracting the most tuneful melodies from the unlikeliest musical instruments, ranging from a Jew’s harp to a row of empty beer bottles.

Thanks to Bill Kellaway, who never forgot the little lag’s kindness to him when he was a hunted fugitive, Symphony Sam was now a prosperous man, and lived in comparative luxury in an obscure hotel in his native East End.

Symph, however, saw no reason to be ashamed of his past, as the ornate gold watch-chain that spanned his rotund waistcoat attested.

It had been presented to him by Bill Kellaway, and in order to annoy his old enemy, Detective-Inspector Barker, of Scotland Yard, Symphony had ornamented the chain with three gold medals inscribed respectively, Wandsworth, Pentonville, and Wormwood Scrubs.

“Talking of Henry,” said Kellaway, “I think another drink is indicated to toast this glad reunion of old chinas.”

He pressed the bell, and Symphony Sam chuckled.

“Still the same old Nutty,” he said approvingly.

It was his affectionate nickname for Bill whom, at their first meeting, he had considered “Nuts—or bats in the belfry,” as he expressed it.

The door opened soundlessly, and Henry Henry, that pluperfect manservant, entered in that peculiarly noiseless fashion that characterised him.

The relations between him and his employer were much closer than that between master and man. Henry was a loyal friend and trusted confidant.

“Sit down, Henry, old hoss. Help yourself to a drink and let’s talk of this and that,” said Kellaway.

“Thank you, sir!” said Henry, with a discreet cough.

“Did you tell ole Walrus where ’e got off, ’Enery?” Queried Symphony.

A faint flicker of a smile hovered for a moment over Henry’s horse-like features.

“I dealt adequately with that recalcitrant individual, I think, sir,” he said.

“ ’Ark at ’im!” said Symphony Sam. “I allus said as ’ow ’e oughter be in the bloomin’ ’Ouse o’ Lords!”

He groped in his pocket as Henry sat down.

“That’s ten bob I owe yer——” he began.

Henry raised a protesting hand.

“Pray don’t mention it, sir,” he said. “I was fortunate enough to back Saucy Girl at fifty-to-one in the three-thirty. I don’t usually indulge in horse racing, but the result of this race seemed to me to be a foregone conclusion.”

“Lucky devil!” said Bill. “My blooming dead certs always come unstuck.”

He turned to Symphony.

“Well, what have you been doing with yourself, Symph? We’ve been out of touch since I went on that trip to the Sudan. What was the important matter you mentioned in your letter that you wanted to discuss?”

Symphony Sam took a long pull at his drink, coughed in a slightly embarrassed fashion, and hesitated.

“Come on, Symph! Spill the beans! You can speak freely to two old chinas like Henry and me. What’s eating you?”

Symphony cleared his throat.

“Indigestion,” he said laconically.

Henry nodded sympathetically.

“A painful complaint to which my late father was a martyr. It is not, however, incurable. I have an infallible specific to alleviate any dyspeptic——”

“It isn’t that sort of indigestion at all, ’Enry,” broke in the little Cockney. “It’s a kind of mental indigestion. If you want the truth, the ’ole truth, and nothink but the truth, yer can ’ave it. Swallerin’ the anchor’s given me the belly ache. It was all right at first but, dammit, I’m fed-up with running straight! And now you’ve got it!” he added, flushing slightly.

Bill shot a significant glance at the impassive Henry which Symph intercepted.

“Don’t think I’m an ungrateful ’ound, ole pals,” he added. “Thanks to you, Mr. Kellaway, I ain’t got nothink to worry about as far as spondulicks are concerned for the rest o’ me nacheral. You’ve treated me like the torf you are!”

“You’re talking bilge, Symph,” broke in Bill. “I’d never have touched my million if it hadn’t been for you and old Henry here,” he added.

“I think I understand Symphony’s viewpoint, sir,” said Henry. “Bourgeois respectability is apt to be irksome to one of his adventurous temperament. If I may venture to remind you, sir, you yourself have been complaining of ennui since your return to England.”

“That’s just it,” said Symphony Sam. “Ole Nutty ’ere’s got a yacht. When ’e’s tired o’ one place ’e can push off to another. When ’e’s fed-up with shootin’ tigers in India ’e can go to the North Pole and bump off polar bears an’—an’ penguins an’ things.

“I miss the excitement, Nutty, of dodgin’ the busies. I miss the fun we uster ’ave putting it acrost old flatfooted Barker of the Yard! I’ve got all the money I want, thanks to you, but, blimey, wot’s oof, arter all?

“I want the old life. I promised yer I wouldn’t do nothink wivout consultin’ yer, but the fac’ is I’m fed-up!”

He leaned forward confidentially.

“I ’eard larst week abaht a crib Norwood way with a necklace o’ rocks worth at least ten thou’. They’re locked in a peter that I could open with a bloomin’ butter knife as easy as kiss me ’and.”

“Don’t be a darn fool, Symph!” broke in Bill. “Suppose you get lagged again. With your record you’d go down for ten years! I don’t say I don’t sympathise with you—I’m bored stiff myself. I’ve got all I want—a lovely wife, the means to gratify every whim, two of the most loyal pals a man ever had—and yet sometimes, by heck, I long for the days when I was a hard-up newspaperman in Fleet Street.”

“I sympathise with you both, sir,” said Henry. “We’ve had some pretty exciting adventures together in the past, and I myself have a nostalgia for those hectic days, but, I agree with you, it would be ineffably foolish—not to say fatal—for Symphony here to—er—revert to his previous profession.”

“Let’s have another drink and thrash this matter out,” said Bill.

Symphony Sam helped himself to another cigarette as Henry replenished the glasses.

“I don’t want to go against your wishes, gents,” said Symph, “but ’onest I can’t stick it any longer. This ’ere life o’ luxury’s chokin’ me. Once a thief, allus a thief, I s’pose,” he added, with unwonted bitterness, “though Pete knows I never ’arf-inched a nickel from them as needed it.”

“Don’t talk like that!” said Bill sharply. “The point is, what are we going to do about it? Any suggestions, Henry? Get that grey matter moving.”

Henry cleared his throat.

“Sublimation is the word I wanted. A psychoanalytical term which is doubtless familiar to you, sir.”

“Wot’s it mean?” demanded Symphony.

“Well, briefly, it is a psycho-pathological term which implies the diversion of undesirable or unexpected natural trends or impulses by education of conscious effort, into some more desirable type of behaviour or activity,” replied Henry quietly.

“Strewth!” said Symphony.

“What Henry means, in a nutshell, is this, Symph,” Bill Kellaway explained. “Suppose we take a pickpocket—a dip, as you call him—and he wants to be cured of his habit.”

Symphony Sam nodded. He knew several expert dips.

“Well, as you know, dips are artists in their way; their fingers are slim, clever, and extraordinarily dexterous. They would make extremely good conjurers, for instance. Well, instead of wasting that talent, the dip would be able to use it, quite legitimately, as a conjurer. That’s all sublimation means.”

“I get you, Nutty,” he said gratefully. “Though why the blazes old ’Enery ’ere used all them words I dunno. What I wanter know is ’ow you’re goin’ to subli—sub—wot you said, my gift o’ crackin’ peters. Want me to get a job as a safe manufacturer, an’ do a bunch o’ good cracksmen out of a job?”

Bill laughed.

“Not quite, Symph, but you get the idea, don’t you?”

“It occurred to me, sir,” broke in Henry, with a deferential cough, “that Symph here would make an excellent detective.”

“Wot!” ejaculated the little ex-convict, almost dropping his glass in astonishment. “Me, a dick, a perishin’ busy! You’re barmy!”

“Now, Symph, go easy,” reproved Bill. “Go on, Henry.”

“I ain’t never narked or shopped a pal in me life,” said Symphony, “an’ I’m ’anged if I’ll start now.”

“Pardon me, Symphony,” said Henry suavely, “you’re naturally proud of your profession. I believe you’re the most expert safe-cracker in the country.”

“One o’ the best peter busters,” said Symph modestly. “There’s Coldharbour Cree, o’ course, but ’e’s gettin’ old.”

“The point is, you take a pride in your profession,” Henry insisted. “You are, therefore, angry with the rotten type of crook who brings discredit on it.”

Bill chuckled inwardly at Henry’s masterly tactics in overcoming the little crook’s scruples.

“Yes, there’s a lot o’ bad eggs, an’ that’s a fact,” agreed Symph. “If I ’ad my way I’d—I’d——”

He paused and drained his drink.

“Exactly!” said Henry. “Now, who and what in your opinion are the lowest crooks that disgrace the profession?”

“Easy,” replied Symphony. “The Blackers. The dirty, low, skunking blackmailing beggars. The cat’s too good for ’em. Then there’s dope peddlers, a greasy lot of wops. Then them perishin’ White Slavers, to say nothink of kidnappers.”

“Exactly!” said Henry. “That’s enough to get on with. Well, how’d you like to clear up your profession by cleaning out the thugs you’ve just mentioned? Think of the fun you’d get putting your spoke in the wheel of dirty tykes like Mr. Solly Marino, for instance. Everybody knows he’s a blackmailer and worse, but the police can’t pin a thing on him. Then there’s that greasy dago that runs the gambling joint in Half Moon Street; he ought to be deported, but the Yard can’t do a thing. They’ve got no evidence.”

“Yes, the lousy scug! I owe him something for a dirty deal he gave a china o’ mine,” agreed Symphony.

His bright, birdlike eyes gleamed with interest.

“There may be something in what you say, ‘Enery,” he conceded. “But, mind yer, I ain’t going to nark on me pals. All my chinas are honest crooks, and I’d sooner cut me right ’and off than split on them.”

“Admirable sentiments,” approved Henry, “but who’s asking you to? Besides, there’s another thing. Think of the mortification of Barker and the rest of them in Scotland Yard if you pulled off cases they couldn’t tackle.”

Bill grinned.

Henry’s genius for diplomacy had never been better exemplified. His last suggestion made an instant appeal to Sam’s mischievous nature.

“Gosh! It would be a lark, doin’ ole flatfoot in the eye!” he said. “It ain’t arf a bad scheme, ’Enery, blowed if it ain’t!”

“Tell you what, Symph,” broke in Bill, “if you’ll take Henry and me in as sleeping partners and, say, technical advisers, I’ll get you an office right opposite Scotland Yard. It’ll make old Barker hopping, raving mad.”

Symphony Sam’s birdlike eyes twinkled.

“It’s a bet, Nutty. I’m on. ’Enery, you’re a wonder!”

“Fill ’em up again, Henry,” said Kellaway. “The Three Musketeers are united once more. Let’s drink a toast to the Symphony Sam Detective Bureau and confusion to Scotland Yard!”

CHAPTER II

THE SCREAM OF THE WIRE

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR BARKER leant back in his swivel-chair and lit one of the atrocious cheroots he affected. He frowned moodily at a tugboat as it passed up the Thames, puffing proudly by the Embankment side of New Scotland Yard.

His desk was piled with the morning papers, which it was his habit to look through from 9 a.m. to 9.30. He was a stout, bull-necked individual, with keen, slate-grey eyes, a very black moustache, waxed to almost geometrical points, and a florid complexion that indicated a choleric temper.

He glanced first at the headlines of the more sensational papers, then flipped over the pages and scanned the Personal column. Long training had taught him that the Personal column contained very often more news to the initiated than the news pages themselves.

Crooks very often communicated information to each other, camouflaged as letters from a heartbroken swain to his sweetheart, and even the most innocent announcement might contain some valuable information to an astute observer.

Suddenly Barker snorted as he took in the following announcement, printed in bold type, and boxed, right in the centre of the “Personal” column:

ARE YOU WORRIED OR UNHAPPY? IS SOMETHING TROUBLING YOU? IS THERE A MYSTERY YOU CANNOT SOLVE?

IF SO, CONSULT

SUNNY SYMPHONY SAM,

AND

HE’LL SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS. THE DETECTIVE THAT IS DIFFERENT.

WRITE, PHONE, CALL, OR WIRE.

DAY AND NIGHT SERVICE.

7, Whitehall Crescent (opposite Scotland Yard).

Phone: Whitehall 08972.

N.B.—No Divorce Cases Handled.

Barker viciously crushed out the stub of his cheroot in the ashtray, and scowled.

“Of all the confounded nerve!” he ejaculated explosively, and his red face purpled with indignation as he re-read the striking advertisement.

The name Symphony Sam recalled vivid memories to the Yard man—memories of wild-goose chases after the elusive little crook, who always managed to be one jump ahead of him, and whose mocking, tantalising laughter had often driven him to the verge of apoplexy.

Between him and Symphony Sam existed an unending feud, with no quarter asked or given on either side. Barker had sworn to clap Symphony behind prison bars for ten years once he could pin anything on to him, but Symph had invariably slipped out of his clutches. And now the infernal little crook had the colossal impudence to open a detective agency in the very shadow of Police H.Q. itself.

“By heck, I’ll see about this!” exploded Barker, pounding the desk with his fist until the inkwells rattled. He jerked back his chair, rose to his feet and reached for his bowler hat, jamming it on his head at an even more aggressive angle than usual.

His waxed moustache bristled as he opened the door of his office, slammed it behind him, and pounded down the corridor towards the Whitehall entrance of Scotland Yard.

He was so angry that he failed to acknowledge the salute of the constable on duty, and his face darkened as he swung into the little cul-de-sac in the shadow of the Yard that is known as Whitehall Crescent. In the main, that quiet, little-known thoroughfare consists of minor Government offices and houses, the overflow staff of Civil Servants from the Home and Colonial Offices.

Barker halted before No. 7, a three-storied Queen Anne house. The lower floors were occupied by an old-established firm of Government accountants and quantity surveyors, and Barker’s face purpled with wrath as he saw a shining new brass plate, bearing the legend:

Symphony Sam Detective Bureau 3RD Floor.

“By Heaven! It’s true!” he almost groaned. He had tried to convince himself that the advertisement he had read might have been a hoax, but this blatantly new brass plate dispelled that illusion.

He tilted his bowler an inch farther over his bushy eyebrows, took out a cheroot, savagely bit off the end, lit up, and ascended the stairs.

His heavy boots clumped down the stone passage when he reached the third floor. Before him was a glass-panelled door, on which was painted “S. S. Detective Bureau. Enquiries.”

Barker snorted, and rapped loudly on the glass with his bunched knuckles.

“Come in!” said a clear, feminine voice.

Barker entered. He found himself in a luxuriously furnished room. The thick pile carpet deadened his clumping footsteps. The walls were cream-coloured, and were ornamented by half a dozen tasteful etchings. Two luxurious armchairs, upholstered in vivid orange-and-black, with an exotic-looking divan, a table bearing current issues of the glossier and more expensive weeklies, and a desk on which reposed a lapis blue bowl of obviously expensive roses, completed the furniture of the place.

But it was not the furnishing, exotic though it was, that took Barker’s breath away. At his entrance a girl rose from the desk and greeted him with a dazzling smile. She was slim, and exceedingly pretty, little more than a girl. She was dressed in a cool-looking frock of apple green, with dainty high-heeled shoes, slim, sheer silk-stockinged ankles, and, with her bobbed honey-coloured hair she made a winsome and attractive figure to even the stolid Yard man.

“Good-morning,” she said, in her clear voice. “What can I do for you, please?”

Barker cleared his throat.

This self-possessed girl with the candid blue eyes nonplussed him. He began to bluster.

“I want to see your boss, miss. Tell him Detective-Inspector Barker, of Scotland Yard, wants to see him immediately.”

The girl smiled.

“You were not, I presume, educated at Peel College, were you, inspector?”

“No, I wasn’t!” he growled ungraciously. “Why?”

Again she smiled, but her eyes were icy.

“Pity. They might have taught you that it is customary to remove your hat in a lady’s presence,” she said sweetly.

Barker flushed dully. This cool young woman was rapidly disconcerting him. He removed his bowler hat and mumbled an apology.

“Thank you,” said the girl. “You may smoke. Please sit down. I will see whether Mr. Hicks is disengaged.”

Barker sank heavily into a chair and flung his half-smoked cheroot viciously into the grate as the girl tapped at a baize-covered door and entered an inner sanctum.

“Well, I’m hanged!” he breathed, mopping his forehead helplessly.

The girl passed into the inner room, furnished with exquisite taste, and smiled ravishingly at Symphony Sam, deeply immersed at that moment in the pages of the “Sporting Life,” a Woodbine behind one ear and a half-smoked one between his lips.

He lowered his paper and grinned up at her amiably.

“Don’t tell me it’s a client, Candy!” he said in alarm.

Miss Candy Lee, niece of that remarkable man, Henry Henry, smiled mischievously.

“Are you too busy to see Inspector Barker, sir?” she queried.

A delighted grin spread over Symphony Sam’s rubicund face.

“What, not old flannel foot ’isself, Candy!” he said joyously.

“Himself in person,” she said demurely.

Symphony removed his feet from the desk and thrust the “Sporting Life” in a drawer.

“Tell ’im I’m busy, but I can spare ’im five minutes,” he said.

“He is not,” said his charming secretary, “a nice man.”

“You said a mouthful,” said Symphony Sam.

The door closed, and Symph glanced approvingly after the trim little figure.

A month had elapsed since his memorable visit to Park Lane, and it was only two days ago that he had moved into his present luxurious surroundings. Bill Kellaway had been as good as his word. That omniscient man, Henry, had arranged the furnishing and produced, much to both Bill’s and Symphony’s astonishment, that remarkably efficient young woman, Miss Candy Lee, who was the daughter of Henry’s only sister. The girl’s charm of manner, allied to her cool, calm efficiency, had captivated Symphony Sam at once. He and his new secretary were already firm friends, as the omniscient Henry had foreseen.

Symph grinned. Hitherto he had received no clients, but already his letter-basket was full of correspondence from people who were intrigued by the advertisement which Bill had drawn up and inserted in all the leading newspapers.

There was another tap at the door.

“Come in!” said Symphony, scribbling furiously on his open pad.

The door opened, and Symph finished his sentence with an impressive flourish before looking up at his visitor and laying down his pen.

His face registered a neat blend of astonishment and gratification.

“Well, well! If it isn’t me old friend Inspector Barker, of Scotland Yard!” he said affably. “This is a most unexpected pleasure, I’m sure. Sit down, inspector, an’ ’ave a Corona.”

He proffered a cigar-box, but Barker waved it aside and remained standing.

“What’s the meaning of all this tomfoolery, Hicks?” he demanded, his voice quivering with suppressed fury.

“I’ve an’ ’andle to my monniker, inspector,” said Symph. “My business name is Symphony Sam. See those two initials on the door when you came in? ‘The S. S. Bureau.’ Well, they may stand for Symphony Sam or they may stand for Secret Service. Get me?”

Barker swallowed hard, and a vein throbbed dully in his forehead.

“Never mind initials. I want to know what game you think you’re playing at, my lad? An old lag setting up as a private inquiry agent sounds darned fishy to me! What’s the idea?”

Symphony inserted his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and revealed his bemedalled watch-chain.

“Yus; I got medals for it, Barker, which is more than you can say,” he added, with a grin. “Fact is, the British public’s getting tired of the old-fashioned methods of you flannel-footed flatties in the Yard. An’ I’ve started in business in response to popular demand. I’ve forgotten more than you ever knew about crime, Barker. If you want to consult me perfeshonally, well an’ good; if you don’t—well, I’m a busy man.”

He seized his pen, and Barker spluttered incoherently.

“Look here, you——” he began.

“I can’t—me eyes are weak, an’ I can’t stand shocks,” said Symphony, with an exasperating grin.

“Clever, aren’t you!” snarled Barker. “Just you watch your step, Mr. Sam Hicks! You’ll be laughing on the other side of your ugly mug when I’m finished with you. You’ve over-reached yourself this time, and——”

A tap sounded at the door, and Candy entered.

“Mr. Kellaway to see you, sir, by appointment,” she said.

A moment later, cool, debonair, and as impeccably turned out as ever, Bill Kellaway entered.

“Good-morning, Symph!” he said, with a wink, and then gave an exaggerated start of surprise as he saw the Yard man. “Do mine eyes deceive me, or is this Detective-Inspector Barker, the relentless Man Hunter himself? Oh, frabjous day, calloo callay!” he chortled in his joy. “How are you, inspector?”

Barker nodded stiffly.

“I’m all right!” he said curtly. “I might have known you were back of this nonsense,” he added, then shot a final black look at Symphony.

“Now watch your step! I’ve warned you!” he said.

Without another word he swung on his heel and left the room.

“Dear old Barker! The same sweet, sunny disposition as ever!” chuckled Bill as the door closed behind the irate Yard man.

Symphony Sam chuckled.

“We’ve got ’em guessing again, Nutty,” he said. “Thanks to good ole ’Enery!”

Bill perched himself negligently on the edge of the desk and lit a cigarette.

“Seriously, Symph,” he queried, “how goes the sleuthing? Any millionairess lost her missing tiara or distressed damsels haunted by sinister master crooks?”

Symphony Sam shook his head gloomily.

“No such luck, Nutty! ’Course, I didn’t let on to old Barker, but ’ave a look at this little lot!”

He leaned forward across the desk and pressed an ivory bell-push.

Candy entered, and smiled devastatingly at Bill. Symph cleared his throat.

“Er—Miss Lee. Can I ’ave the correspondence file, please?” he said.

“Certainly, sir,” said Candy, and crossed over to the huge steel filing-cabinet in the corner of the consulting-room. She took out a buff-covered folder and placed it on the desk before her employer.

“Thanks, miss,” said Symph; and Candy vanished with the same soundless unobtrusiveness that characterised her Uncle Henry.

“Well, ’ere y’are, Nutty,” said Symph. “O’ course, we ain’t been open long, but still——”

He shrugged his shoulders as Bill scanned the contents of the folder.

He chuckled as he read the first letter. Its heading was elaborately embossed with the name of Mr. Hector MacTavish, of Chancery Lane. Beneath it in minute letters was the name Isaac Blovinenbaum. From it Bill gathered that the benevolent Mr. MacTavish had learned with interest of Mr. Hick’s new venture and wished him every success. He also offered to advance Mr. Hicks sufficient money to expand his newly formed business and make it a success, without security, and on note of hand alone.

“That’s a crime, anyway,” commented Bill. “Contravening the Moneylenders’ Act by circularising.”

“Wot a ’ope Izzy’s got!” chuckled Symphony. “Look at the other one with the coronet!”

Bill flicked over the letter of the obliging Mr. MacTavish, and scanned the letter which immediately followed. It was on blue linen-grained notepaper, and bore a West End address. In the top left-hand corner there was an embossed coronet, in purple. In thin, spidery writing he read the following missive:

“Lady Entwistle Fotheringill presents her compliments to Mr. Hicks, and, with reference to his advertisement in the ‘Personal’ column of the ‘Morning Post,’ begs to state that she will be pleased to grant him an interview at any time that will be convenient to him between 2 and 4 at the Institute of Psychology and Otolaryngology, at Portland Place, when she will be pleased to expound her doctrine of the Subliminal Urge in its Relation to the Higher Self.”

Bill’s lips twitched.

“How’s your subliminal urge to-day, Symph?” he queried.

“Durned dry!” chuckled the little Cockney. “ ’Ave a drink?”

He crossed over to the lacquered cabinet in the corner of the room, pressed a button, and the door swung open, to reveal a complete cocktail bar.

The phone bell shrilled suddenly.

“Answer it, Nutty,” said Symph, “while I mix the drinks. Maybe it’s a client!”

Bill lifted the receiver, and his eyes narrowed suddenly as he heard an urgent feminine voice at the other end of the wire.

“Is that Symphony’s Detective Bureau, please?”

“Speaking,” said Bill. “At your service, madam.”

“Oh!”

It was a gasp—half-frightened, half-relieved. “My name is Deane—Pamela Deane. I’m speaking from Pencraig Manor, Llandwr, North Wales. Can you help me? My father, Colonel Deane, has disappeared, and—and the dog Gelert has howled, and—— Help! Help!”

The voice rose to a shriek that tingled Bill Kellaway’s blood.

He heard a snarl like that of a wild beast, followed by a thud. The diaphragm crackled and buzzed in his ear—and then there was silence.

Symphony Sam set down the two cocktail glasses and turned to Bill.

“Wot’s up, Nutty?” he began.

Bill’s lips compressed into a thin, hard line as he jerked at the receiver.

“Trouble, Symph!” he rapped out. “Serious trouble—maybe murder!”

CHAPTER III

THE LEGEND OF BEDDGELERT

SYMPHONY SAM hurriedly gulped down his drink, and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, turned to Kellaway.

“Murder!” he echoed.

Bill nodded grimly and depressed the receiver hook to call exchange. His voice altered subtly as he called the operator. There was a ring of authority in it.

“Hallo, exchange! Police speaking. Detective Kellaway. That call that just came through—can you trace it?”

“One moment, please,” came back the operator’s reply.

Bill’s fingers drummed impatiently on the desk as he waited. Once more he recaptured the thrill of the days when he was a crime reporter on the Daily Ray—hot on the scent of a news story. That sudden call for help, the urgency, the appeal in that low, husky, feminine voice could not be disregarded. The woman was obviously in utter terror—her very incoherence betrayed that. What did she mean by the cryptic phrase: “The dog Gelert has howled”?

Symphony stood there watching Bill’s set, grim face. The little man’s head was cocked on one side, and he reminded Bill absurdly of an alert terrier as he stood expectantly near.

“Hallo!” came the impersonal voice of the operator. “You are through to inquiries.”

Bill muttered something below his breath, then repeated his question to another disembodied voice.

“One moment, please,” came the reply.

Symphony Sam ran his fingers through his rumpled hair.

“Fer the love of Mike, wot’s ’appening, Nutty?” he demanded, in a hoarse whisper. Bill raised his hand as he gripped the receiver and heard inquiries reply:

“That was a trunk call from Pencraig Manor, Beddgelert, North Wales.”

“Thank you very much,” said Bill, and hung up the receiver.

“Let’s have it, Nutty,” began Symph. “Wot’s ’appened?”

“Heaven knows!” said Bill Kellaway, and there was a fighting glint in his vivid blue eyes. “That call came from North Wales. A girl named Deane, and she’s in trouble, desperate trouble—or I’m a Dutchman!”

“Blimey!” said Symphony Sam. “This is where we start getting busy, Nutty.”

Bill nodded.

“We take the trail again, old china,” he said. “Ring for Candy, will you?”

Symphony pressed the bell-push and a moment later Candy entered. Bill smiled at her.

“Oh, Miss Lee! Would you mind getting through to inquiries and ascertaining the phone number of Colonel Deane, of Pencraig Hall, Beddgelert, North Wales.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Candy, and crossed over to her own phone in the waiting-room.

Bill Kellaway turned to Symphony Sam.

“Get me an ABC, Symph,” he said. “You and I are going to move—and move fast!”

The little Cockney shrugged his shoulders and took down the familiar buff-bound book from the shelves of the reference library which the omniscient Henry had chosen for office use.

“There y’are, Nutty,” he said, and whistled softly. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I think you’re wonderful!” Bill turned over the pages of the time-table, and as he did so a stray fragment of poetry that he had learned in his childhood returned to him as he saw the name Beddgelert.

He slapped his thigh.

“Of course! It all fits in. The hound, the wolf, and the prince!” he murmured. “Listen, Symph! A train leaves Paddington at 6.15 to-night for Portmadoc via Barmouth. Portmadoc is about ten miles from Beddgelert, and if we get a car——”

“ ’Ere, Nutty!” broke in the bewildered Symph. “Wot is all this? ’Ave we got to meet the Prince of Wales? Wot’s this about wolves an’ damsels in distress? Blowed if I kin make any sense out of it.”

Bill chuckled and leant forward in his chair.

“As a matter of fact, this business is connected with the Prince of Wales, Symph.”

“Blimey!” replied Symphony Sam, with awe.

“I don’t mean our present prince,” continued Bill. “An earlier one, Prince Llewellyn.”

The little Cockney shook his head disconsolately.

“No wonder we called you Nutty,” he said. “You open your mouth, sounds come out, but they don’t mean nothink to me!”

“Listen,” said Bill Kellaway. “Beddgelert is a little village about three hundred miles from London, practically at the foot of Snowdon.”

“And then wot?” queried the bewildered Symphony.

“A woman has appealed to us for help. She is Pamela Deane, and the daughter of a colonel. It may, of course, be a hoax. On the other hand——”

A tap sounded at the door, and Candy entered.

“The number is Port. 012, sir,” she announced. “I tried to get through, but the exchange says there’s no reply.”

Bill frowned, then his face cleared as he looked at the pretty secretary.

“Thank you, Miss Lee. I guessed as much. That confirms it,” he added, turning to Symphony Sam.

“Confirms what, Nutty?” queried the little Cockney. “Wot wiv your Prince o’ Wales, bloodhounds, an’ voices off, I feel like one o’ the ruins that Cromwell knocked abaht a bit!”

Bill chuckled.

“Take an earful of this. The name, Beddgelert, sounded familiar to me, but until I realised it was in North Wales I couldn’t link it up with anything; and then I remembered a poem I learned at school. I can’t recall how it runs, exactly, but it’s all about a hound, and it’s called the ‘Death of Gelert.’ ”

Symphony Sam helped himself to a Woodbine and leaned back in his chair.

“Go on, Nutty! I’m blowed if I know if I’m a detective or a defective, but what you’re talking abaht sounds straight boloney to me.”

Bill Kellaway’s shrewd blue eyes twinkled with merriment.

“Boiled down, Symph, here’s the dope,” he explained. “A few hundred years ago, before England thought she’d conquered Wales, the country was ruled by Prince Llewellyn. He was a brave man, and very keen on hunting. His favourite hound was a dog named Gelert.”

“Blimey! I suppose ’e backed it both ways an’ lorst,” cut in Symphony feelingly.

“This is nothing to do with dog racing, you ass!” continued Bill. “The whole point of the legend is this: Prince Llewellyn went out hunting. He left his infant son in charge of his hound, Gelert. He returned tired and weary after his day’s sport and entered his son’s bed-chamber. When he got there he was horrified to find the cradle spattered with blood, and, what was even worse, his hound’s jaws covered with blood.

“Gelert was a fearsome brute, that none but Llewellyn could handle, and the prince, finding no trace of his infant son, naturally thought that the vicious brute had devoured the baby. Seizing his sword, he plunged it into the beast’s heart.”

Bill paused, and helped himself to another drink.

“Go on, Nutty,” said Symphony. “An’ then wot ’appened?”

“The prince heard a cry from beneath the overturned cradle, and his little son crawled out alive and unhurt,” continued Bill. “He crossed over to the window. There he saw the mangled body of a huge grey wolf, with its throat torn, and realised that his faithful hound, true to its trust, had fought a terrific battle with the wolf to save the life of the baby, who was now more frightened than hurt. Realising his rash mistake, Llewellyn turned to Gelert. The faithful hound looked at him feebly, its eyes glazed suddenly, and then, with a convulsive shudder, it rolled over—dead!”

“Blimey!” said Symphony Sam. “The pore perishin’ dawg. An’ then wot ’appened?”

Bill smiled whimsically.

“Hence Beddgelert—the place we’re going to to-night. Overcome by remorse, the prince swore to erect a tomb to the faithful hound—a tomb such as no dog had ever had before. The tomb still stands to this day, and the little village in the heart of the Snowdonian mountains is known to this day as Bedd-Gelert—or Gelert’s Grave.”

Symphony Sam looked admiringly at Bill.

“No kiddin’, Nutty?” he queried.

“That is the old Welsh legend,” said Bill Kellaway. “To-morrow morning I’ll show you the grave of the faithful hound. It’s years since I was up in North Wales, but the grave is still there, I believe.”

“ ’Oly smoke!” said Symphony Sam. “And where does this Miss Pamela Deane come in?”

Bill shrugged his shoulders.

“I haven’t the vaguest idea, Symph. All she told me on the phone was that her father had vanished, and that she’d heard the howling of Gelert, the hound.”

Symphony scratched his chin thoughtfully.

“When do we start, Nutty?” he said.

Bill glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was nearly four o’clock.

“We leave Paddington at six-fifteen,” he announced. “Ring up Henry, Symph, and tell him to have my bags packed in time.”

Symphony Sam chuckled.

“O.K. by me, Nutty. ’Ave another drink while I fix the doin’s. This is like old times.”

He crossed over to the telephone, and Bill poured out another two drinks.

A tap sounded at the door of the room as Symphony got through to Bill’s number.

“Come in!” said Kellaway, and Candy entered.

“There’s a coloured gentleman to see Mr. Hicks,” she announced, a little breathlessly.

Symph, in the throes of dialing, motioned to Bill to take the card she clutched between her slim, pink-tipped fingers.

“Thanks, Candy,” said Bill, and glanced curiously at the gilt-edged slip of pasteboard which she proffered. The superscription was embossed in deep purple ink, and ran:

H.H. PRINCE RAS AMARA

Addis Ababa,

Abyssinia.

He turned towards Symphony.

“Never mind Henry for the moment, Symph. You are indeed honoured. Royalty awaits you without——”

“Wivout wot?” asked Symphony Sam blankly.

“Our excellent advice,” chuckled Bill. “Show his Highness in, Candy.”

Symph glanced with awe at the visiting card.

“You deal with him, Nutty. Royalty ain’t much in my line,” he said.

“O.K., Symph. Sit down and do the strong silent man stuff.”

Symphony settled himself at his desk and began to scribble furiously. A moment later Candy entered, accompanied by a resplendent-looking figure clad in an old-fashioned frock coat.

In his ebony fingers he gripped a glossy silk hat whose sleek, polished surface matched the shining blackness of his smooth, dusky features, even as his dazzling white spats equalled the flashing whiteness of his teeth as he smiled agreeably at Bill, who, with Symph, had risen courteously to greet him.

“Good-afternoon, gentlemen!” he said in excellent but oddly accented English. “Have I the pleasure of meeting Mr. Symphony Sam, the well-known private detective?”

CHAPTER IV

THE STOLEN SCEPTRE

THE little Cockney bowed awkwardly.

“In person, your Royal ‘Ighness,” he said. “This is my—er—china—I mean partner, Mr. Kellaway, ’oo ’andles all me Society cases. You can speak before ’im wiv perfect confidence.”

“Indeed, I thank you,” said their visitor, as Symphony drew forward an armchair.

“Please sit dahn, your Royal ‘Ighness, an’ ’ave a cigar,” he said hospitably.

Their distinguished visitor sank elegantly into a chair and smilingly declined the proffered cigar-box.

“Thank you, I do not smoke,” he said.

“And how can we have the honour of serving your Highness?” said Bill Kellaway briskly.

The prince’s dark and not unhandsome features grew suddenly grave.

“Mr. Kellaway,” he said, “you will, of course, treat the information I have to give you in the strictest confidence. It concerns a matter of grave international importance, and if the slightest hint of it were to leak out, especially to the newspapers, the results would be disastrous. It is for that reason that I have come to you and not the official police.”

“We shall certainly respect your confidence, your Highness,” said Bill quietly.

The prince gave a sigh of relief.

“Good! I feel I can trust you gentlemen,” he said. “The matter, as you have probably surmised, concerns the fate of my unhappy country, Abyssinia. As you know, a grave state of tension exists between my country and Italy.”

Bill nodded.

“You are doubtless familiar with the distinguished ancestry of the emperor, of whom I am a distant kinsman,” went on the prince. “He is directly descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.”

“Yes, your Highness. The Abyssinian royal house has indeed a romantic history,” said Bill Kellaway.

“I mention the Queen of Sheba,” continued the prince, “because, strange as it may seem, my visit here directly concerns her.”

Symphony Sam, who had been chewing the end of his penholder, glanced up at their dusky visitor.

“Bats!” he murmured to himself. “Bats in the belfry.” He refrained from audible comment, however, as their dusky visitor continued:

“Perhaps you are unaware, Mr. Kellaway, that Abyssinia possesses one of the most ancient and precious relics in the world. I refer to the jewelled sceptre of the Queen of Sheba presented to her by King Solomon.”

He paused impressively, and Bill leaned forward with interest.

“The sceptre is still in existence, your Highness?”

The prince nodded.

“Sheba’s sceptre has been handed down for generations, and, as a symbol of the emperor’s temporal power, is naturally regarded as the most precious and sacred relic in our possession. Now, in view of approaching hostilities in Abyssinia, it has been decided that Sheba’s sceptre should be safeguarded from the invader. There is a legend that once the sceptre is in danger the country will be conquered and the royal house dethroned. True or not, the legend is implicitly believed by my countrymen, and you can see why such precautions have been taken to safeguard it.”

“Quite,” said Bill.

“The emperor therefore commanded me to take Queen Sheba’s sceptre to England and there deposit it in the Bank of England vaults. Your country is friendly towards mine, and yet—disaster has fallen.”

The prince’s voice dropped to a husky whisper and his dark features seemed to grow grey. He made a helpless gesture with his hands.

“Woe is me, I have betrayed my trust, betrayed my country. Nothing but a shameful death faces me, gentlemen.”

His voice broke, and Symphony Sam glanced significantly at Bill.

“Well, wot’s ’appened, prince?” he demanded.

The prince rose to his feet, and there was a hopeless, baffled look in his dark eyes.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “the sceptre of the Queen of Sheba has been stolen!”

“Wot!” ejaculated Symphony blankly. “You mean somebody’s ’arf inched it?”

“It has gone—vanished,” replied the prince. “Unless it is recovered within twenty-four hours, Abyssinia is doomed!”

Bill Kellaway lit a cigarette, and his shrewd blue eyes narrowed.

“This is indeed a serious matter, your Highness,” he said. “How and when did it happen?”

The prince shrugged his bowed shoulders helplessly.

“I have been foolish, Mr. Kellaway—criminally foolish. I trusted a man that I met on the boat—a big red-haired Irishman who seemed so sympathetic to our cause. Naturally, I revealed nothing of my mission to him at the time, but I hinted that I was on important State business. I met him aboard the ship at Alexandria, and we became very friendly on the voyage. He was, he told me, a mining engineer from the Sudan—which, as you know, is adjacent to our country.”

“What was his name?” demanded Bill bluntly.

“Cassidy,” said the prince. “He was a big, burly man with a hearty voice and a cheery laugh. He told me he was going home on leave. You have probably guessed that I was educated in an English mission school. This man Cassidy told me that the late headmaster, the Rev. John Malcaby, was his uncle—and that established a link between us.”

“ ’Arf-a-mo’!” broke in Symphony Sam, his beady brown eyes dancing with excitement. “ ’Ad this

feller Cassidy got a gold tooth on the top right-’and side of his mouth?”

The prince rubbed his chin reflectively.

“Why, now you mention it, he had,” he answered.

Symphony Sam thumped his fist into the palm of his left hand.

“That’s Gold Brick Dan, for a million, Nutty!” he said excitedly. “The sleekest con man who ever worked the P.O. boats. That’s Dan’s ’appy ’unting ground—catching suckers on the way back East.”

“You—you know this man?” queried the prince, his voice quivering with eagerness.

Symphony nodded.

“If it’s the same bloke, me an’ ’im met before often,” he said. “Did ’e ’ave a rich Irish brogue and an ’abit of jingling loose change in his trousers pocket?”

“Well, he talked with an accent—I suppose it was Irish,” said their visitor. “He may have jingled his money, but I can’t remember.”

“Where did you keep the sceptre?” demanded Bill.

“In a steel case locked in my cabin trunk,” replied the prince.

“When did you discover the theft?”

“Last night, on my arrival at my hotel. I am staying at a small private hotel in Bloomsbury. The lock of the steel case had been forced open, and the sceptre had vanished.”

“What makes you suspect this man Cassidy?” demanded Bill.

The prince hesitated.

“Well, because he was the only man who ever came into my cabin, except the steward. I was travelling incognito, without attendants, and had a private saloon on the boat deck.”

“And the boat was?”

“The P. & O. liner Mena Star,” answered the other.

“H’m!” said Bill thoughtfully. “We can check up the passenger list and see if we can learn more of the elusive Mr. Cassidy.”

“I can tell you all abaht Gold Brick Dan,” said Symphony. “We did a lagging together in——”

Bill coughed and kicked the little man in the ankle.

Symph repressed an oath and spluttered.

“I said I believe ’e was pinched for the con trick three years back. The boat game was allus ’is racket.”

“My Heaven!” said the prince. “Destiny must have guided me to you this morning, gentlemen. If you really know this man, then there is hope. I will pay anything—anything, gentlemen—if you can recover the relic. But, remember, no hint of this affair must leak out. The essence of my calling you into the matter is to ensure secrecy. That is why I think that the hand of Providence guided me to you to-day. Your advertisement was like a beacon of light in the darkness of my despair,” he added with fluent Oriental imagery.

“You may rely implicitly on our discretion, your Highness,” said Bill. “If it is humanly possible we will recover the sceptre for you intact. If it is in the possession of this man Cassidy, I think he will be quite prepared to hand it over on a cash basis. After all, he will find considerable difficulty in disposing of it in London.”

“Do you think so?” asked the prince eagerly. “Then all is not lost. At all costs, the news that the sceptre has left Abyssinia must not leak out. Some of our hill tribesmen are so fanatical that if they heard the sacred relic had left my country they would revolt against the King of Kings himself.”

“Leave it to us, prince,” said Symphony Sam. “If Gold Brick Cassidy’s our man, I’ll ’ave the bloomin’ sceptre back in twenty-four hours!”

Prince Ras Amara rose to his feet.

“Gentlemen, you have brought me hope,” he said. “Believe me, neither I nor my emperor will forget it if you succeed in your mission. I wish you godspeed!”

He held out his ebony hand in a courtly gesture, and Bill shook it, followed in turn by Symphony.

“It’s a bet, prince!” said the little Cockney. “By the way, ’ow do I get ’old of yer to give yer the good news?”

The prince withdrew an ornate gold monogrammed wallet from his pocket and extracted a card.

“This is my hotel—the Belmont, in Guildford Square, Bloomsbury. I am known there as Mr. Amara.”

“O.K., prince!” said Symph with a bow, as he took the card and crossed over to open the consulting-room door.

“May success crown your efforts, Mr. Symphony,” said the prince.

There was a new jauntiness in his stride as he donned his glossy silk hat, and his white teeth flashed in a smile. “Au revoir, gentlemen,” he added.

“Abyssinia, prince! The old Moroccan farewell,” said the irrepressible Symphony, as the door closed behind their distinguished caller.

He turned to Bill Kellaway, who was thoughtfully smoking a fresh cigarette.

“Well, can you beat that, Nutty!” he said. “Two princes in one day. The S.S. Bureau’s ’aving a busy day.”

“Two?” echoed Bill. “What d’ye mean?”

“Well, ole Snowball, oo’s just left—and this ere Llew—what you said, the bloke wot killed ’is ’ound,” he added.

Bill grinned.

“You ass! Prince Llewellyn has been dead over five hundred years.”

“Never mind,” said Symph loftily. “It’ll look swell on our notepaper—by appointment to the King of Kings and Emperor of Abyssinia. That’ll make old Barker sit up!”

Bill laughed outright, then his face became grave.

“Seriously, Symph. What d’you think of it?”

“Think?” echoed the little ex-lag. “Why, it’s as plain as a pikestaff. The so-called Mr. Cassidy is none other than me old pal Gold Brick Dan. Just up ’is street, that. Dan’s been workin’ the Indian boats for years. Gets in tow wiv these rich rajahs visiting England and pitches ’em the tale. ’E’s a genius in ’e’s way, is ole Dan. ’E made a packet once out of an Indian cricket team by sellin’ ’em shares in a fruit farm at ’Oundsditch, of all places.”

Bill laughed again.

“Be serious, Symph. If Cassidy really is the man, it’ll be comparatively simple. D’you know how to get in touch with him? If I knew anything about con men, he’d rather have a cool thousand in cash than any queen’s sceptre.”

“I’ll find ’im, Nutty, don’t you worry. And I’ll get that sceptre for a ’undred quid an’ charge ’is ’Ighness accordingly. I know old Dan’s ’aunts. When ’e ain’t in the West End ’e ’angs out at the Clincher’s, in Shinwell.”

He lit another Woodbine, and his brown, birdlike eyes danced with mischief.

“Tell yer wot, Bill. You tackle this Beddgelert job, an’ I’ll find the bloomin’ sceptre. Let’s make a sportin’ bet on it—a pony I find the jooled bauble ’afore you find Colonel Deane. You know North Wales, and I know the East End, so we start level.”

“Done!” said Bill, and once more the old devil-may-care glint appeared in his vivid blue eyes. “You’re on, Symph.”

He glanced at the clock.

“I’ll just have time to get back and pack. We start level. I’ll catch the 6.15 from Paddington. Let me know how you get on.”

Symphony Sam chuckled.

“Nutty, ole pal, won’t old Barker be pleased? I don’t fink!”

“Like old times, isn’t it,” chuckled Bill Kellaway. “Hercules and Symph take the trail.”

He patted the little man’s shoulder affectionately.

“Cheerio, Symph!” he said. “Take care of yourself.”

“You’ll owe me twenty-five quid when you come back,” retorted the other. “Abyssinia, Nutty!”

But they little realised how strangely—and soon—their widely separated trails were to meet!

The managing director of the newly created S.S. Detective Bureau glanced approvingly at himself in the mirror of the taxi-cab as it threaded its way through the Commercial Road in the direction of Limehouse and Shinwell. He wore a jaunty grey billycock with a very curly brim, and a red carnation ornamented the lapel of his cheerfully loud check suit.

Symphony Sam was feeling very pleased with himself. If, as he shrewdly suspected, the affable gentleman with the gold tooth and the ingratiating manners who had met Prince Ras Amara aboard the Mena Star was indeed Gold Brick Dan—then the Clincher knew where he was.

“Pore ole Nutty, wiv ’is phantom ’ounds an’ Welsh ’ills,” he murmured. “My job’s a cinch compared to ’is.”

Already, in anticipation, he fingered five crisp banknotes, and his mouth watered as he thought of the rich reward that would be his once he had restored the sceptre of Sheba to the prince. The taxi turned south towards the river, and Symph’s keen nose wrinkled as he recognised the familiar smell of tar, salt, and bilge water which was the main characteristic of the atmosphere in Shinwell Basin.

The taxi sped along mean streets flanked by towering, gaunt warehouses, and finally drew up before a frowsty-looking public house at the corner of a dingy street that rejoiced in the incongruous name of Mandalay Road.

The name of the public house painted in faded gold letters above the frosted glass windows was “The Fox and Goose,” but in Shinwell and the underworld, it was known as “The Clincher’s.”

Welfare societies in the neighbourhood despaired of “The Clincher’s,” and demanded to know why the police did nothing to stamp out such a den of iniquity.

There was method, however, in the seeming apathy of the police to the clientele of the “Fox and Goose.”

They argued that it was infinitely preferable to allow crooks to congregate in one rendezvous where they could be “pulled in” on occasion, than to break up the rendezvous and scatter criminals about all the devious dives in the East End.

It was thus that the Clincher flourished. The average small-time crook is a gregarious individual and a creature of habit.

The Clincher himself was a crook, but he had been astute enough to avoid police conviction on the one hand, and to “nark” on his customers on the other.

He thus made the best of both possible worlds.

Symphony Sam knew the Clincher of old, and, adjusting his curly brimmed bowler at a jaunty angle, he paid off the driver and entered the public-house with all the swagger of an habitue.

A synthetic platinum blonde barmaid smiled at him mechanically as he approached the bar.

“Evening, miss,” said Symphony. “Pint o’ bitter, please.”

She jerked the ebony handle disdainfully, and as the beer frothed into the glass Symphony leant forward and spoke to her in the soundless way of the old lag.

“Clincher abaht?”

The girl glanced at the clock. It was 5.30.

“It’s a bit early fer ’im. Did yer want ter see ’im particler?” she queried.

“Yus!” replied the little Cockney. “Tell ’im Symphony’s ’ere.”

He patted his jingling medals, and the barmaid, impressed, went to the rear of the bar and called out shrilly:

“Guv’nor!”

The Clincher, that obese and slow-moving man, emerged presently from his sanctum behind the dingy plush curtain at the rear of the bar.

He waddled rather than walked towards the counter, and his cold, fish-like eyes lighted with recognition as he saw Symphony in all the glory of his cheerful check suit and curly brimmed billycock.

“Wotcher, Symph, me old china!” he said, in his wheezy, asthmatical voice. “ ’Ow’s tricks? You’ve bin ‘itting the ’igh spots lately, by all accounts!”

Symph grinned, inserted his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and played a jingling tattoo on the gold medals that spanned his chest.

“Life ain’t just a bowl o’ cherries, Clinch,” he announced cryptically. “Name yer poisin an’ ’ave a seegar.”

The Clincher grunted and busied himself with a bottle and glass. Symphony proffered an ornate cigar-case, as the landlord returned. With his thick sausage-like fingers, the Clincher helped himself to a Corona, and sniffed it appreciatively.

“It’s the goods, all right, Symph,” he announced. “I ’eard as ’ow yer’d swallered the anchor on account o’ this ’ere millionaire pal o’ yours.”

“Wot, me?” echoed Symph, with well-assumed incredulity. “Ferget it.”

“Anyway, you look as fat as a porker,” said the Clincher bluntly.

“Yus,” agreed the little Cockney. “I’m getting fed-up with the life o’ the idle rich, Clinch. I’ve got me palatial suite o’ rooms at the Grand ’Otel, in Shinwell, but some’ow or other I feel lonely. I miss the boys. It’s munce since I cracked a crib,” he added wistfully. “An’ wot’s more, I needs exercise to keep me weight dahn, an’ there’s nothink like porch climbing ter keep a bloke’s weight dahn, I allus says.”

He leant forward confidentially over the bar.

“Yer know, Clinch,” he said, “there’s a little job I got in mind, an’ until I pull it off, I’m like that there kid ’owling in the bath for ’is soap. I won’t be ’appy till I gets it.”

The Clincher nodded understanding.

“I know the feelin’, Symph,” he commented.

“This lay needs a con man,” continued Symphony. “Seen anythin’ of me old side-kick Gold Brick Dan lately?”

The Clincher’s porcine eyes narrowed.

“Well, no, I ain’t, Symph. ’Smatter o’ fac’, me an’ Dan ’ad a bit of a dust-up some time back, an’ ’e don’t use this place no more. You know ’e can be pretty ’igh ’at when ’e likes.”

Symphony nodded. On occasion, the affable Dan could be exceedingly domineering, not to say ugly, when thwarted.

Symphony frowned with disappointment at the news.

“Any idea where ’e ’angs out nah?” he queried.

The Clincher grunted.

“Mebbe, if you calls at Manchester Meg’s joint, she’d tell you,” he said. “ ’E was teaming wiv ’er, an’ as a matter o’ fact, she was the cause o’ the row. You know wot she’s like in liquor.”

Symph drained his drink.

“Oh, that’s it, is it!” he said. “It’s allus the same when yer team up wiv a brass nail. Me, I lay off women, Clinch. Does Meg still ’ang out at Ma Ling’s joint?”

The Clincher nodded.

“Yus, an’ that’s where you’ll probably find Dan,” he answered, with a leer.

“Thanks a lot, Clinch,” returned the other, alighting from his stool. “S’ long!”

He waved his hand cheerfully and left the bar.

The Clincher stared after his retreating figure with a lopsided grin, then waddled to his cubby hole behind the red plush curtains. Here he crossed over to the telephone and called a certain number.

“That you, Snowball?” he demanded huskily, at the sound of the voice from the other end of the wire.

“Speaking,” came the answer. “Has he been, and did he fall for it?”

“Bin an’ gorn, the double-crossin’ little rat!” said the Clincher. “And sock ’im one fer me, Snowball. Ruddy fine tec ’e is, I don’t think.”

“Sure, leave that to me,” came the reply, with a soft laugh. “I shan’t forget, Clincher. See you later.”

The Clincher hung up, his little, piggy eyes glinting maliciously.

Had Symphony Sam overheard the voice at the other end of the phone he would have been considerably astonished, for it was in the deep, oddly accented tones of His Highness Ras Amara of Abyssinia.

As the taxi carried him towards Ma Ling’s joint, Symphony was blissfully ignorant that he had been followed to Shinwell by the dusky prince, who had given the Clincher his instructions by phone call from an adjacent phone-box, and, furthermore, that the versatile Mr. Gold Brick Dan was over a thousand miles away exercising his talents aboard the s.s. Noemandir.

Ten minutes later the taxi deposited the jaunty figure of Mr. Flicks at No. 7, Lunt Street—a frowsty little restaurant above the lintel of which was painted “Ma Ling’s Oriental Hotel and Restaurant. Good Beds for Men.”

To the right of the steamy windows was a paint-blistered door, with a dirty brass plate, announcing, “Hong Kong Club.”

Having dismissed the taxi, Symph pressed the bell and waited. It was a peculiar ring, and was answered a few moments later by the door opening inward. No one greeted him, however, as he stepped into the malodorous passage. The door was operated from upstairs by a mechanical arrangement, and as it closed behind him, Symph ascended the rickety stairs.

He had been no stranger to Ma Ling’s joint in his old unregenerate East End days, and he hummed cheerfully as he reached the landing. Here he was greeted by a greasy-looking Italian in a dirty waiter’s uniform.

“Wotcher, Guiseppi!” chuckled Symph. “Why ain’t yer bin called up yet?” The waiter shrugged his shoulders expressively.

“Too old, sare,” he said. “Besides, I’m a Breetish subject.”

Symph chuckled.

“Seen anythin’ o’ Manchester Meg or Gold Brick?” he queried.

Again the waiter shrugged.

“They come, they go, sare,” he said. “Mebbe you’d like to see Ma Ling.”

“She’ll do,” said Symph.

The waiter opened the door and revealed a long room, with a bar at one end. The atmosphere was thick and heavy with stale tobacco smoke. The floor itself was set with small bamboo chairs and tables, at which sat a heterogeneous group of men drinking or playing cards.

The clientele of the Hong Kong Club was not particularly select, and there was no colour bar. The half-dozen or so men which comprised the group at whom Symph nodded affably comprised two lascar sailors, a sloe-eyed Chinese, and a voluble Indian half-caste arguing with three equally voluble Jews.

At the bar counter sat a very fat, very ugly woman, with cunning, beady black eyes. This was Ma Ling, widow of the late proprietor—a Chinese, who had been stabbed to death in a gang feud some years before.

“ ’Lo, Mai” greeted Symphony. “I hear you’ve still got Manchester Meg stayin’ wiv yer. Is she anywhere abaht?”

Ma Ling nodded.

“Sure, Symph,” she answered. “Shall I call her?”

Symphony glanced round the smoke-laden room.

“I’d like a chat with ’er in private, Ma,” he said. “Still got that little room at the back I useter use?”

She nodded and lifted the flap of the counter.

“Send in a bottle o’ gin and a siphon,” said Symph. “Me an’ Meg want a ’eart to ’eart talk abaht old times.”

“The woman’s beady eyes narrowed, and her foot pressed a tiny bell-push beneath the counter.

“Second on the right—you know your way, Symph,” she said, with a meaning wink.

Symphony passed through the bead curtain to the corridor beyond, and his nostrils wrinkled at the stale, sour smell of vegetables that floated from the restaurant below.

He halted before a door and knocked.

“Who’s that?” came the reply.

“Me, Symph!” said the little man cheerfully.

“Half a moment,” came the answer, in a queerly muffled voice.

Symphony whistled a few bars of “Cavalleria Rusticana,” then, in response to the summons: “You can come in now,” turned the knob and entered.

Next instant he halted dead in his tracks, his eyes widening in astonishment.

Confronting him was a man over whose entire head had been drawn a tight-fitting bag of black silk, with holes for the eyes and mouth, and a drawstring, which covered his collar. He wore a striped pair of trousers, white spats. But the chief element of his appearance was the long blue-steel automatic, which he held in his gloved right hand, pointed unwaveringly towards Symph in the doorway.

And Symph!

For once he uttered no word. He did not need to. He knew the underworld too well, and saw that the time had come to place his own hands far above his head.

And even as he reasoned he became aware that his subconscious self had acted. His arms were erect in the air with both hands open and palms outward.

There was a moment of tense silence, and Symph glared at the hooded man balefully. Not once had the direction of that blue-steel gun wavered. Then the silence was broken.

“Step four paces to the right!” said the masked man. His voice was a strange, frog-like croak that seemed to rumble from out of his body rather than out of his throat.

Mechanically, Sam obeyed. Still covering him with his gun, the other stepped swiftly to the door, closed and locked it. Symph knew only too well when he was the under-dog in a situation, but he had been in tight corners before. Years in prison had hardened his muscles into whipcord and steel, and he did not know the meaning of fear.

With a catch in his breath he sprang forward, taut as an arrow, towards Black Hood as he turned from locking the door.

Plunt!

There was a spurt of red flame, followed by a muffled report from the gun. Symph felt a burning streak of pain along the side of his neck as he flung himself in a Rugby tackle around the man’s waist.

The struggle that followed was a silent, desperate one. As they swayed and staggered across the room, Symphony’s left arm was around his assailant’s neck, his right hand striving to grasp the muzzle of that menacing gun.

And thus it continued without a word spoken. Once Black Hood succeeded in breaking Symph’s grip, but as the wiry little Cockney’s hands were wrenched away they clutched at the other’s shirt. It tore open, and Symph glimpsed a hairy, coal-black chest. His assailant was a negro!

The little Cockney swore lividly. He cut and tore and fought like a demon. But the man who struggled with him was as strong as a black Hercules. With a last powerful swing he hurled Symph on his back, and the little Cockney went down with a crash.

In dismay, he stared up at the hideous hooded face, heard the other’s exultant snarl as he reversed his gun. Symphony knew what was coming, and as the other towered over him he hacked out savagely with his feet. But he was badly winded, his strength was ebbing. A blood-red mist swam before his eyes. He closed them despairingly for an instant, and then——

A smashing blow descended on his head, and with a stifled groan of agony Symphony Sam went limp—clean out!

CHAPTER V

IN WILD WALES

“Henry, old boy,” said Bill Kellaway, “on second thoughts I think it best to put it in the old oak chest. I shall not go up by train.”

“Very good, sir. In that case, I wall cancel the reservations, and you’ll only be needing your valise.”

Bill nodded.

“It’s a lively journey by road, Henry,” he said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be away, maybe a week, but you can take a week’s holiday, in any event.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Henry.

“And keep in touch with old Symph, will you?” added Bill. “It’s his first case, and I shouldn’t like him to fall down on it. Funny business altogether, but if his hunch is right, he ought to recover the sceptre in twenty-four hours.”

“Yes, sir,” said Henry. “Pardon me, sir, the tie—a shade more to the right.”

He crossed over and with his slim, delicate fingers adjusted Bill’s necktie. The latter had changed into a comfortable suit of roomy tweeds. He glanced at his wrist-watch and whistled.

“Jove! It’s nearly five o’clock. If I’m to reach Wales before midnight I’ll have to step on the gas. I don’t think there’s anything more, is there, Henry?”

“No, sir. Everything is packed,” was the response.

“Hobson’s brought the car from the garage.” He picked up Bill’s leather valise and opened the door.

Bill Kellaway whistled cheerfully as he descended the stairs. Life felt good again. That mysterious message from North Wales intrigued his journalistic soul, and the fact that there seemed to be a damsel in distress added to the romantic glamour of his quest.

It was in rare good humour that he took the wheel of his big black Bentley, waved a cheerful good-bye to Henry, and headed the car towards the Great West Road.

Henry watched his departure with a slightly wistful expression on his lean, horse-like features. He returned to his sanctum, and there a thought struck him. He crossed over to the telephone and rang up Paddington Station. Put through to inquiries, he asked a few brief questions, and there was a queer little smile on his lips as he replaced his receiver.

“I think,” said Henry, “I’m going to enjoy my vacation.”

He glanced at the clock, and for the next half-hour was very busy indeed on some private business of his own.

Meanwhile, Bill Kellaway, roaring northward in his great black limousine, was thinking of the two strange stories he had heard that day. One from the mountain fortresses of wild Wales, and one from the far-off semi-civilised country of Abyssinia.

Why had that desperate phone call to Symphony Sam’s office been so abruptly cut off? What had happened in that lonely Welsh manor, and in what strange fashion was the long-dead hound of Prince Llewellyn’s involved in the case?

Useless to attempt answering those questions until he reached Beddgelert, and he would have to make it snappy if he was to reach there before it was too late.

“Wonder how dear old Symph is getting on with Sheba’s sceptre?” he murmured, as, with London’s traffic-congested streets behind him, he urged the great car forward.

Despite his uncanny “sixth sense” that crime journalism had developed, he little dreamed that his knight errant speed dash to Wales was linked up with the visit of the man from Abyssinia to Symphony Sam’s office that morning.

The moon, like a silver gong, hung high in the dark violet sky spangled with stars when Bill Kellaway’s long night dash ended.

He discovered Llandwr, the nearest small market town to Beddgelert, to be a peaceful spot nestling in the heart of the mighty Snowdonian range, and it was with a sigh of satisfaction that he drew up at a picturesque old inn whose sign, the Welsh harp, announced also that there was “Good Accommodation for Man and Beast.”

Bill patted the bonnet of his car.

“You’ll be all right on Welsh oats and petrol, Black Bess!” he chuckled.

In the silver radiance of the moon he scanned the narrow High Street.

The neat pink-and-white cottages with thatched and slate roofs, the towering background of the mighty hills, and the gurgling stream that wound its way westward to the valley, made a picture of sheer beauty.

A short, thick-set man appeared at the door of the inn as Bill alighted. He had a plump, good-humoured face circled by a fringe of old-fashioned whiskers.

“Good evening, sir!” he said, in a marked Welsh accent.

“Good evening!” said Bill. “Have you a single room for the night? And could you garage the car?”

“Certainly, sir!” said the landlord. “Will you step this way?”

Bill followed him into a low, sanded bar-parlour, with a wide, old-fashioned grate in which a log fire crackled cheerfully.

“I’ve arrived rather late, I’m afraid,” said Bill, “but if you could let me have some supper and a pint of beer——”

“No trouble whateffer, sir!” said the landlord. “We don’t get many tourists this time of the year, and you’re very welcome,” he added hospitably.

While the landlord hurried off to attend to his wants, Bill sank into the old oak settle and warmed his hands at the blaze. The bar had long since closed, and judging by the quietness of the little town, the country-folk were all a-bed.

Bill stretched himself luxuriously.

“Well, we’re in, Meredith—we’re in!” he said, with a yawn.

In a very short time the landlord reappeared.

“Your supper is laid in the dining-room, sir,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I was just sitting down to my own,” he added. “If you like boiled Welsh ham, broad beans——”

“Say no more,” broke in Bill. “Lead me to it, Mr.——”

“Davies, sir.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Davies!” said Bill introducing himself. “Will you join me in a drink? I hate eating alone.”

“It is very kind indeed of you, sir!” said the landlord.

Half an hour later, Bill Kellaway and the genial host, after doing justice to an excellent supper, were seated before the fire in the landlord’s snuggery.

Bill found Davies a genial and intelligent conversationalist, and after discussing general topics he adroitly turned the subject to the story of Gelert.

“Bless you, sir, Beddgelert is only three miles from here,” said Davies. “In the summer it’s crowded with tourists from all parts of the world, but now that winter’s drawing on—well, it goes to sleep.”

“Tell me,” said Bill, “do you happen to know a Colonel Deane who lives at Pencraig Manor?”

The landlord nodded.

“Why, yes, sir. Very popular landlord he is, too, sir—when he’s at home. Great sportsman, too. Travels a lot abroad—big game hunting, and all that!”

“So I gathered,” said Bill. “He’s back now, isn’t he?”

The landlord shook his head.

“No, sir; he won’t be back until next year,” he said. “He and his daughter—a very pretty young lady—have gone on a world cruise.”

Bill’s eyes narrowed. Here was a discrepancy that needed probing.

“Are you sure?” he demanded.

The landlord laughed.

“Of course, sir. I have the honour of supplying him with wines and spirits, and he always lets me know when he’s back at the manor.”

Bill lit a cigarette and came to a sudden decision. He glanced at his wrist-watch. It was nearly midnight.

“Do you mind if I use your telephone?” he asked.

“Not a bit, sir,” said the landlord. “You’ll find it in the hall.”

Bill’s eyes gleamed as he rose to his feet and crossed over to the instrument.

“Put me on to Pencraig Manor, please!” he said briskly, to the sleepy-voiced operator. He waited a few moments, and then a gruff masculine voice said:

“Hallo! Who’s that?”

“My name is Kellaway,” said Bill. “May I speak to Miss Deane, please? I have just arrived in Llandwr in response to her phone call this morning.”

“Oh!” said the gruff voice. “Hang on a moment, please!”

Bill tapped impatiently on the phone box. He heard a low confused murmur of voices over the wire, and then again the gruff tones.

“I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. There’s no Miss Deane here.”

“But that is Pencraig Manor, isn’t it?” said Bill.

There was an angry buzz, a sharp click, as the other hung up the receiver.

Bill swore and turned on his heel.

“There’s something fishy—blamed fishy about this!” he murmured. He rejoined his host. “How far is Pencraig Manor from here, Mr. Davies?” he demanded abruptly.

The other looked at him curiously.

“Why, about half a mile beyond Beddgelert, sir. It’s a lonely place; a very old manor supposed to be built on the site of Prince Llewellyn Castle. They do say that it’s haunted by the ghost of the dog Gelert, who appears just before any of the household die. I don’t believe in it myself, but the country people swear that it’s true. Anyway, none of ’em go near the manor after dark. All the colonel’s servants are English, an’ they don’t seem to mind ghosts.”

Bill laughed.

“Look here, Davies!” he said. “It’s such a lovely night that I don’t think I’ll turn in yet. I’d love to have a look at Snowdon in the moonlight now I’ve got a chance.”

“It’s all the same to me, sir,” replied his host. “Your bed is aired, and room quite ready. You’d better take the key, in case I’ve gone to bed when you return.”

He pulled out an old-fashioned key from his pocket, and Bill thanked him.

“Don’t worry about me,” he chuckled. “Maybe I’ll have a chance of seeing poor Gelert’s ghost baying the moon.”

Once more at the wheel of Black Bess, Bill Kellaway roared down the silver ribbon of roadway that led through the famous Aberglaslyn Pass.

On either side of him the majestic mountains, with their fir and pine-clad slopes, rose in silver splendour.

The Glaslyn river, swollen by recent rains, roared and leaped over its rocky, boulder-strewn bed, and a chill wind whistled mournfully through the telephone wires as he neared Beddgelert.

Bill crouched over the wheel, was thinking hard.

That something was seriously wrong at Pencraig Manor he was convinced. The girl’s voice over the phone that morning had been urgent in its entreaty. It was the voice of a woman distraught by fear.

And to-night? Who was the owner of that gruff and singularly unpleasant voice that had answered him?

That, Bill told himself, was something he was going to find out—and soon.

He passed through the sleeping village of Beddgelert, and turned to the right, following the directions Davies had given him.

The road wound through an avenue of tall fir-trees that soughed eerily in the night breeze. He had encountered no living soul since he had left Llandwr, and he gave an involuntary shiver as he buttoned up his coat collar.

Suddenly, full into the yellow blaze of his headlamps, a dark figure leapt from the hedge that skirted the roadway—a grotesque, capering figure that flung up its arms, and danced in what seemed a wild fandango right in the centre of the road.

“Stop!” shrilled a voice. “For Heaven’s sake stop!”

With an oath Bill slammed down his brakes, and brought the Bentley slithering to a standstill a few feet away from the capering object.

In the glare of the headlamps Bill saw the hatless, dishevelled figure of a young man in evening dress. One side of his collar flapped grotesquely in the breeze, his eyes had a wide, glassy stare.

“What’s the devil’s the matter?” demanded Bill.

“Go back!” gasped the stranger in a high-pitched, unnatural voice. “Go back before it’s too late! All hell’s let loose along there to-night!”

Even as he spoke there sounded the deep-throated bay of a hound, resonant, menacing, that awoke a thousand rumbling echoes in the cavernous hills.

Bill felt his scalp tingle at the awesomeness of that sound in the silent valley.

He held open the tonneau door invitingly.

“Hop in, brother!” he said. “You look all in!”

The other tottered rather than stepped into the car. His breath came in short, panting sobs.

“What’s up?” demanded Bill Kellaway curiously. “What’s the matter?”

“This!” snapped the other as, with a sudden change of tone, he leapt to his feet. “Stick ’em up!”

Bill found himself staring full into the muzzle of an automatic. And there was the menace of death in the other’s blazing eyes.

CHAPTER VI

THE POSTMARK CLUE

WITH a feeling that his throat was encircled with red-hot wire, and a sledge-hammer was beating his dazed brain to pulp, Symphony Sam gradually recovered consciousness.

His first reaction was to lie back and groan. His second to press his hands to his clammy forehead. It seemed to him that his wrists were oddly constricted, and then he realised—he was trussed as helplessly as a chicken and lying on a low truckle bed in the corner of the frowsty room at Ma Ling’s.

He tried to cry out, and choked as he inhaled the dust from the filthy piece of sacking with which his mouth was gagged.

He groaned again and strove to collect his scattered wits.

He had come here to see Gold Brick Dan. Yes, that was it; and failing Dan, Manchester Meg. He had been held up by a bloke with a gun, and——

Desperately he strove to get some coherence into his whirling, kaleidoscopic thoughts. He had not been drunk, anyway. That he distinctly remembered. There was something about a nigger. Nothing after that—nothing but blank darkness. He stared about him. In the half-light he recognised the tawdry bedsitting-room.

Then, in a flash, it all came back to him.

He struggled upright on the bed.

Of course. He’d been outed by a man in a hood—a nigger. He’d arrived here on the trail of the Queen of Sheba’s sceptre. The man who had engaged him had also been a black. Was there any possible connection between the two?

Still, before puzzling about that, he had to get himself out of this mess. The filthy gag nearly choked him as he strained against those viciously tight cords without shifting them a fraction. No good; he’d have to——

Then, with a dawning look of hope, he remembered. What a mug he was not to have thought of it before!

That morning, having run short of safety razor blades, he had dropped in at a local department store and bought a packet, which now reposed in his left-hand coat pocket.

With Symphony Sam, to think was to act.

Bound tightly though he was, it was a simple job to dig into his wide pocket. To his delight his fingers encountered the tiny packet, but it was not so easy to unearth it. He managed it at last, however, and after a few minutes of hasty fumbling he pulled out a shining steel blade from its paper envelope.

Desperately he sawed away with the fingers of one hand at the cord which fastened his two wrists, and bit by bit he felt his bonds giving, as the keen blade bit through the strands. At last the final coil was severed, and with a long breath of thankfulness Symph had his hands free.

It was the work of a moment to tear off his gag, and he rubbed his chafed wrists to restore circulation.

With two powerful slashes he cut the cords that bound his ankles, and, steadying himself, stretched his cramped limbs. He listened intently but no sound came from below stairs.

Cautiously he tiptoed to the window and drew aside the thick curtain. Dusk had fallen. The street lamps were already lit. He saw that the room overlooked a dismal-looking backyard in which broken boxes and garbage cans seemed to be the chief feature.

“And now what?” he murmured to himself.

Again he tiptoed towards the door, nerves and muscles tense. Cautiously he turned the knob and found the door had been locked on the outside.

He crossed over to the washstand and greedily gulped down long draughts of water from the cracked jug. His neck felt as though it was on fire, and he examined it in the mirror above the rickety dressing-table. A long angry red weal showed where the bullet had grazed the skin, and Symph fingered it gingerly.

“Mighter bin worse!” he murmured philosophically.

Then, rapidly, with practiced, professional fingers, he made a search of the drawers of the dressing-table. The first two revealed nothing but a few collars, a few hastily rolled ties, some toilet requisites, and a cloth cap. The next contained a badly folded grey suit, two pairs of shoes, and a rolled-up mackintosh.

As he picked up the latter Symph’s gaze fell on a small brown-paper parcel about six inches long and an inch thick.

It was addressed to Roscoe Denver at Ma Ling’s Hotel, and had evidently been registered. Without compunction Symph re-opened the brown paper wrapping.

“Strewth!” he murmured. “Bunce! Oof! Spondulicks!”

His birdlike eyes widened with amazement as his gaze fell on the contents of the parcel.

It was a wad about an inch thick of crisp green £1 notes.

He gave a low whistle of astonishment, and read the superscription on the wrapper again.

“Who the blazes is Roscoe Denver?” he muttered. “ ’Ere’s two ’undred o’ the best. Wot’s the gime?”

Suddenly his face became grim as he recognised the postmark which had obliterated the stamps.

“Jumpin’ Jehosophat!” said Symphony Sam. He had recognised the name of the place which had loomed so largely in Bill Kellaway’s conversation a few hours before—Beddgelert, N. Wales!

He thrust the parcel of notes into his capacious Pockets, then spun round as though he had been shot.

Somebody was fumbling at the handle of the door! Symphony Sam was nothing if not quick-witted. His success as a cracksman was due to his ability of thinking one jump ahead of the next man.

With a silent bound he seized the bedroom chair and jammed it under the doorknob; then, without pausing, leapt for the window. He flung it open, mentally measured the distance to the asphalted backyard below, and saw with satisfaction that there was a convenient stackpipe.

He thumbed his nose at the rattling door and leapt for the pipe. To an expert like Symphony Sam the climb was child’s play. He dropped noiseless as a cat into the courtyard below, reached the wall in two jumps, and swung himself over into the narrow alley-way that led to the main road.

Crouching there in the darkness, he grinned as he heard the crack of a splintered door panel from the room he had just left.

“The back of me ’and ter yer!” said Symphony ironically, blowing a good-bye kiss over his shoulder. Then, breaking into a swift run, he joined the seething, motley throng of shoppers and pedestrians in the Shinwell High Street.

His head still ached and his neck smarted abominably, but his fighting heart soared with exultation as he took a flying leap and boarded a moving westbound bus.

At Ludgate Circus he alighted, and entered a chemists’ shop well known to journalists. The assistant was an acquaintance of Bill Kellaway when that dynamic young man had been a newspaper reporter.

“Kin I use yer phone, guv’nor?” queried Symph. “And when I’m through I wish you’d put some iodine on this,” he added, pointing to the livid bullet weal at the side of his neck.

“Certainly, sir!” said the assistant briskly. “The phone’s vacant. That’s a nasty place you’ve got there, sir!” he added. “It ought to be seen to immediately. How did it happen?”

“Me canary bit me!” said Symphony Sam, as he entered the telephone-box.

CHAPTER VII

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

IT was not the first occasion in his adventurous career by any means that Bill Kellaway had looked into the round, menacing muzzle of an automatic.

His brain was as cool as ice, and his muscles so perfectly co-ordinated with that brain that his action seemed to be an instinctive reflex.

Slowly, as if still hardly able to realise what was happening, his hands moved upwards. They were at shoulder-level when—smack! His left fist shot outward in a lightning uppercut, with all his two hundred pounds of brawn and muscle behind it.

His bunched knuckles caught the gunman on the chin with such force that there was an audible click as his head was jerked backward by the impact.

He fell into the road like a poleaxed ox, the gun flying half a dozen yards from his nerveless fingers. He lay there in the moonlit roadway, a sprawling, grotesque figure, motionless.

Ruefully, Bill sucked his bruised knuckles, then hopped out of the car. He knelt beside the unconscious man and smiled grimly.

“Out for the count, I guess,” he said. “Let’s see who you are, my friend.”

He made a rapid search of the man’s pockets, and the result yielded very little in the way of identification. Beyond some loose change, a battered silver cigarette-case, a lighter, and a bunch of keys, there was nothing.

Bill crossed over to the toolbox and took out a coil of rope, with which he proceeded to pinion the man’s hands and ankles. He thrust the gunman’s own handkerchief in his mouth as a gag and tied it firmly into place with his own; then heaving the limp and insensible body over his shoulders, he dumped it as unceremoniously as a sack of potatoes into the tonneau.

Suddenly Bill felt the hair on the nape of his neck bristle as once more the silence of the sleeping valley was shattered by the long-drawn terrifying bay of a hound. His mouth set into a grim hard line as he pocketed the gangster’s gun, and took the wheel.

“My hunch was right!” he muttered, as he sent the great car hurtling forward. “There’s bad trouble in this valley, and the storm centre is at Pencraig Manor.

A swift few minutes’ run and he drew the car to a standstill before the lodge gates at the entrance to a carriage drive.

Through the long avenue of trees he glimpsed the gabled roof, peculiar twisted chimneys, and mullioned windows of a fine old Tudor mansion.

Not a glimmer of light shone from the casements. The lodge house, too, seemed empty and deserted. He tried the drive gates and found them locked. The wind howled mournfully in the trees, and an atmosphere of desolation and decay seemed to brood over the lonely place.

He glanced at the trussed figure of his assailant lying motionless on the rear seat where he had dumped him.

“You’ll be safe enough for a bit, my friend!” he murmured. Then, climbing agilely to the roof of the car, he stretched across to the coping of the high brick wall that surrounded the manor grounds. It was a simple task to clamber over it and drop to the other side. He alighted without a sound on the springy turf, and, with shoulders squared, marched towards the lonely manor.

The mystery of that morning’s phone call had grown more baffling. Who was the man who had held him up? And why? If the landlord of the Harp was right and Colonel Deane and his daughter were away on a world cruise, who was the woman who had phoned him from this dark, shuttered, and apparently deserted house? And, again, why?

Suddenly Kellaway’s pulses raced. For the fraction of a second he glimpsed a flash of yellow light from the lower mullioned window ahead—and then darkness again.

He quickened his pace and ran up the steps of the broad terrace before the manor house. The door was a massive oaken portal studded with heavy iron bolts.

An immense iron ornament in the shape of a hound’s head, with a dangling iron ring from its snarling mouth, served as a knocker.

Bill drew a deep breath and raised it.

Rat, tat, tat!

The peremptory knocking roused a dozen echoes from within the house and the neighbouring hills.

Bill paused, his nerves tense and tingling. From the valley he heard a church clock chime two.

A cloud scurried across the face of the moon, then once again the spine chilling, melancholy howl of a dog rang out.

Rat, tat, tat!

Again Bill plied the knocker and strained his ears. Was it fancy, or did he hear the faint murmur of voices from behind that forbidding portal.

His hand closed on the comforting butt of his automatic.

Suddenly he saw a light spring up from an adjacent window. The house was occupied, after all. Bill smiled with grim satisfaction. The mystery of the lonely manor was one step nearer solution.

He stiffened suddenly as he heard the rasp of a rusty bolt being drawn, followed by the rattle of a chain.

“Now for it!” he muttered, as the door was cautiously opened.

“Who’s there?” said a low, rather musical voice.

“Is that you, Karl?”

Bill gasped as he found himself face to face with a strikingly beautiful girl, who stared at him with great, dark, lustrous eyes in which lurked fear, deadly fear.

He smiled.

“Don’t be alarmed, madam,” he said. “Please forgive me calling at such an unconventional hour, but your phone message was so urgent that——”

“Oh!” the girl gave a little cry. “Then it’s you. But I thought you had been——”

She broke off suddenly and her slim hand flew to her round throat in a helpless gesture.

Bill smiled, that engaging smile, which in the past had steered him safely through many a difficult interview.

“My name is Kellaway, madam. You, I presume, are Miss Deane. Miss Pamela Deane. I represent the S.S. Detective Bureau.”

“Oh!” said the girl, and she gave a sigh of relief. “Oh, please come in! I’m so frightened, so terribly frightened,” she added invitingly.

Bill laughed.

“No need to be frightened now, Miss Deane. My colleague, Symphony, sent me here at once to assist you.”

“Oh, thank Heaven!” said the girl.

In the glow of the lamplight Bill was yet more aware of her vivid and arresting beauty. She was dressed in a simple black evening frock that suited the creamy pallor of her face, her slim, supple figure to perfection. She was, Bill mentally commented, extremely easy on the eyes.

She laid a slim hand on his sleeve.

“I’m so glad,” she said. “So glad you’ve come. I dared not appeal to the police, and poor daddy——”

Her red lips quivered.

“Supposing we sit down,” broke in Bill cheerfully. “And you can tell me all about it.”

She led the way to a comfortably furnished room with a magnificent Tudor fireplace and book-lined walls.

“Won’t you have a drink?” she said, as she turned to a convenient sideboard.

“Well, that’s a bright thought,” smiled Bill. “I’ll have one on condition you join me. It’ll buck you up.”

The girl smiled wanly and mixed two whiskies-and-sodas.

Bill sank into a chair while his hostess sat opposite him on a divan.

He raised his glass.

“Here’s luck, Miss Deane, and don’t worry too much,” he said. “My services are gladly at your disposal!”

The girl studied him gravely for a moment. “I think it was marvellous of you to get here so quickly.” she said. “I’d given up hope. These last few days have been dreadful, horrible. I was at my wit’s end till I saw your advertisement in the paper this morning. It was just a forlorn hope that made me ring you. And now—you’re here.”

She smiled dazzlingly.

“Yes, but I very nearly wasn’t, Miss Deane,” Bill said. “Less than ten minutes ago I was very nearly bumped off by an excitable young man in evening dress. However, he wasn’t quite quick enough,” he added, with a rueful glance at his knuckles.

The girl’s eyes dilated.

“Tell me quickly. What happened to him?”

Bill laughed.

“The subsequent proceedings won’t interest him no more, lady—to quote Bret Harte. He’s gone to bye-byes in my car, and will wake up next morning in what my friend Symphony calls the cooler.”

“Oh!” she gasped. “How—how dreadful. You mean he meant to kill you?”

Bill shrugged.

“He had a darned good shot at it,” he said. “But, tell me, Miss Deane, what is this mystery about your father? Where has he disappeared, and how? Let me have the facts, however trivial. Your phone call this morning was interrupted, and——”

Bill broke off suddenly. From below he heard a muffled but steady thudding noise like the even throb of an engine.

“What’s that?” he demanded sharply.

The girl’s face paled.

“Oh! That’s nothing. It’s only the petrol engine in the cellars. We make our own electric light, you know,” she said. “We’re too far away from Beddgelert’s supply.”

“I see. It’s a funny sort of sound it’s making, Miss Deane. It’s a sound like Fleet Street to me.”

“Like Fleet Street?” she gasped. “I—I don’t understand.”

“I’m an old newspaperman, Miss Deane,” answered Bill, “and that noise reminds me of the rotary presses. However, go on, please. Tell me when you last saw your father. Who is with you in the house? I understand from inquiries that you and he returned unexpectedly from India and that you are not yet staffed.”

As he spoke Bill watched the girl’s beautiful face intently. Suddenly she sprang to her feet, and with a swift movement tugged at her skirt.

Bill caught a fleeting glimpse of a shapely leg, a jewelled garter, and a flash of steel.

Instinctively he raised his arm and parried the swift, downward blow which the girl aimed at him with a slender-bladed dagger. Her face was contorted with fury, the smile wiped away like a smudge of paint.

“Curse you, you nosy, interfering nark!” she thrilled. “I’ll——”

“Now, now,” reproved Bill gently, seizing her slender wrist in a vice-like hold. “Naughty, wicked temper!”

He squeezed her wrist until she screamed and the dagger dropped with a clatter to the hearth.

“ ’You brute!” she snarled. “What have you done to Karl?”

“My dear young lady,” said Bill, while his blue eyes bored into hers like pin-points of chilled steel, “what shocking language! I am pained—nay, disgusted!”

“That’s enough of that!” snarled a masculine voice, and a tall, masked figure, clad in tweeds, emerged from behind the heavy plush portieres that spanned the study window.

For the second time within the last half-hour Bill found himself gazing into the barrel of an automatic.

“Reach for the ceiling, or I’ll blow a hole in your stomach!” rasped the newcomer.

Bill measured his distance for a spring and his muscles flexed.

“Keep ’em well up!” said the masked man. “Don’t try any funny business!”

The girl swayed towards Bill, hand on hips, and spat viciously in his face.

“That’s for what you did to Karl!” she flung at him.

Bill bit his lip to hold back the pent-up torrent of his rage.

“Always the little lady,” he said icily.

So intent was he on this new and unexpected development and the staggering volte-face in the girl’s attitude, that his usually alert senses did not warn him in time of the danger that lurked behind him.

The study door had opened soundlessly, and a second man had entered behind Bill, a vicious-looking black jack poised in his hand. Instinctively Bill half turned, but he was not quick enough to dodge the brutal blow. It came down on the base of the skull with the sound of a mallet on wood.

Bill gave a hoarse grunt, his knees sagged under him like wet cardboard, and he collapsed, an inert figure on the hearthrug, a sluggish stream of blood oozing over the back of his collar.

The girl kicked his limp figure with her dainty buckled shoe.

“That’s for Karl, you dog!” she snarled.

“Lay off it, Jose!” snarled the masked man. “We’ve gotter get busy—and quick. You, Jake, go and fetch Karl in. You can’t leave that car in the road all night. Hop lively!”

The man named Jake, a surly, broad-shouldered individual with a bullet head and a brutal jowl, mumbled some profanity below his breath and shuffled out of the room.

Bill Kellaway, as Symphony Sam often said, was a tough nut to crack.

He came to consciousness, after an interval of time that he had no means of knowing, with a splitting headache and a feeling that his tongue was like a piece of scorched flannel in his mouth.

He found himself sitting on a cold stone slab at the end of a long, vaulted chamber, the walls of which were dank with slime.

He shivered violently with cold and tried to rise to his feet. Something clanked and he discovered that his wrists were circled by two bracelets of steel and chained to a rusty iron bolt in the wall. With a gasp of amazement, he realised that his legs were also manacled.

“Holy smoke! What’s all this? Where am I?”

“Are you better?” came a soft whisper from the gloom.

Bill stared about him.

The vault in which he found himself was lit only by a sickly yellow light that came through a rusty iron grille high above his head.

Something scurried over his foot, and two jewelled eyes glinted at him through the gloom.

“Ugh!” said Bill. “Rats!”

“Who are you?” said the low, musical voice again.

Gradually, as his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, Bill became aware that he was not the only occupant of the vault.

Lying on a slab on a coarse mattress lay a girl. Her small, piquant face was wan and pale, her fair hair tousled about her head. She wore a simple tweed tailor-made, and, with a slow-consuming anger Bill saw that she was lying on one side, her limbs and ankles tied with whip-like cord, and her hands likewise tied behind her back.

In the farther corner of the vault, chained by wrists and ankles to the wall, sat a grey-haired, kindly faced man of middle age, with a red-brick complexion and a grizzled moustache.

“Are you feeling better, sir?” he asked kindly. “I am sorry that my daughter and myself were unable to minister to your wounds, but, as you can see, we are handicapped?”

He rattled his manacles with a helpless gesture.

Bill Kellaway smiled with an attempt at his old cheeriness.

“You, I presume, are Colonel Deane. My name is Kellaway. This unfortunate young lady is——”

“My daughter. Mr. Kellaway,” said the colonel. “I wish I could have introduced her to you in—er—happier circumstances.”

“Tell me, something, Miss Deane. Did you phone a man named Symphony Sam this morning, or was it yesterday? I seem to have lost all sense of time.”

The girl struggled to a sitting posture, and her blue eyes shone. She was, Bill surmised, scarcely older than eighteen, and his blood boiled with fury as he thought of her treatment.

“Oh!” she gasped. “Are—you—you him?”

Bill shook his head.

“No; but I’m his best friend,” he said. “In fact, he sent me here to help you—and a pretty fine job I seem to have made of it,” he added, with a rueful glance at his fetters.

“Oh, but how wonderful and brave of you!” said the real Pamela Deane.

“I’ve been a clumsy idiot!” said Bill. “But, cheer up, Miss Deane. We’re not dead yet. Trust Symphony Sam for that!”

“Mr. Kellaway,” broke in the colonel, “I don’t know what you think of the extraordinary situation in which you find us, but the very fact that someone in the outside world knows of our plight fills me with hope. I confess I had all but abandoned it.”

“Perhaps you had better explain, colonel,” said Bill. “I confess I am completely mystified.”

The colonel cleared his throat.

“The story, in one way, is very simple. I own this Manor House. It has been in my family for generations. I am, however, an inveterate globe trotter,

and frequently remain abroad for a year or two, leaving my agent in charge of my estate.

“My daughter, who has just left college, accompanied me on my last trip to India. We had planned to go on a world cruise, but urgent family business compelled me to cancel the project.

“Judge of my dismay on reading shortly before I left India that my agent had been accused of embezzling from his firm, and had been sentenced to three years’ penal servitude.”

Bill nodded.

“It must have been a great shock to you, sir.”

“I was stunned at the news, and sailed for England immediately. I arrived unexpectedly at the manor here—three days ago, to be precise—and intended to occupy it for the rest of the year, engaging a staff of servants from London.

“Imagine my consternation on my arrival to find the place already tenanted. Naturally, I demanded an explanation, and the villain who calls himself Karl Elkin promptly drew a pistol and threatened to blow my brains out if I resisted. The long and short of it is that both Pamela and myself were made prisoners.

“They treated Pamela fairly decently at first, and allowed her comparative freedom, merely locking her in her room.”

“Yes, daddy,” said the girl. “But I was desperately worried about you. They warned me that if I tried to escape or phone the police they’d kill you. Then, yesterday, Mr. Kellaway,” she added, turning to Bill, “I saw that advertisement in The Times. That hateful women Jose had gone out somewhere, and I managed to slip to the telephone. I had just got through to you when—when——”

Her voice quivered and she strove desperately to keep back her tears.

“I—I didn’t dare phone the police,” she added. “They might have blundered everything, and so——”

She broke down and cried softly.

“Yes. Mr. Kellaway,” resumed her father. “Unfortunately, while she was phoning you, the brute they call Jake overheard her and brutally tore her away. That is why she has been bound as you see her now.”

“The skunks!” said Bill, and his big fists clenched. “By heck, once I get out of this, I’ll—I’ll——”

He rattled his fetters, sick with impotent rage.

“Who is the leader of this gang?” he asked a moment later in a calmer voice.

“I don’t know his name, nor have I seen his face,” answered the other. “He is addressed as the Chief, and always wears a mask. The others are Karl Elkin; the woman—an unscrupulous Mexican adventuress named Jose del Castro; the man Jake, and a man they call the Snider. The Snider, by the way, arrived yesterday. I haven’t seen him.”

“The Snider!” echoed Bill. “Then that explains everything, colonel!”

“Why?” demanded the other. “Do you know him?”

Bill smiled grimly.

“I certainly do! Why, Miss Pamela, I wouldn’t have missed this case for worlds!” he added. “If the Snider’s in on this there’ll surely be fun and fireworks!”

“Fun!” snorted the colonel. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Kellaway.”

“Metaphorically speaking, I mean, of course,” explained Bill. “The Snider, as his name implies, is probably the greatest maker of ‘snide’ or counterfeit money in this country. He’s an expert forger, and, frankly, I thought he was still at Dartmoor. I was at his trial when he was sentenced to five years.”

“Good heavens! This is terrible, Mr. Kellaway!” said the Colonel. “We are completely at the mercy of these thugs.”

Bill shook his head.

“Not completely, colonel,” he said. “Your story has cleared up a lot of things. If the Snider is a member of the gang, then that explains the printing machine I heard to-night and which the fair Jose tried to kid me was a lighting plant. I’m beginning to see daylight, colonel. What was the name of your agent?” he added, with seeming irrelevance.

“Probyn,” replied the other—“Stephen Probyn.”

“I see. And how long ago was he sentenced?”

“About three months ago.”

“Ah! That explains a lot,” said Bill. “Evidently Probyn either met Snider in gaol, or knew him before. The Snider was sentenced some four years ago. Let me think a moment.”

He rested his aching head between his hands, for a moment.

“Yes, I see it now. The Snider would be due for release about this time, and anxious, of course, to get back to his nefarious game. This crooked agent of yours, Probyn, either meets him in prison or communicates with him in some way, and——”

Bill paused, and his eyes gleamed with excitement. His keen journalistic brain was assembling the tangled skein of threads and conflicting clues into one coherent whole.

“Probyn thought you’d be away for at least a year on this world cruise. The Snider, an ex-convict, wanted a hide-out. Above all, he wanted to resume his large scale forgeries in comfort in a place unsuspected by the police. What better crook headquarters could he find than this deserted manor, said to be haunted, miles from anywhere, and the owner abroad?”

“Great Scott!” ejaculated the startled colonel. “I believe you’ve hit it, Mr. Kellaway. Judging from scraps of conversation I’ve heard between my gaolers I was convinced some criminal scheme was being hatched here.”

“Listen!” said Bill Kellaway. From somewhere close at hand came the low, rhythmic thud of machinery. “If that’s not a Konigsberg Ultra platen press,” said Bill Kellaway, “then I’m a Dutchman!”

Pamela Deane listened intently, her eyes shining with excitement.

“But how marvellous of you to discover all this, Mr. Kellaway,” she said.

Bill chuckled.

“Part of my early training, that’s all, Miss Pamela. A journalist knows a bit about everything, and often invents a bit about nothing. Tell me, colonel,” he went on, “how long have I been unconscious?”

The colonel shook his head.

“They brought you down here about an hour ago. Incidentally, this vault is part of the dungeon of Llewellyn’s castle, on which the manor was built,” he explained. “The family kept it as a curiosity, but, by heavens, if ever I get out of here alive I’ll have it bricked up!” he added fiercely.

“Of course we’ll get out of here alive!” said Bill, albeit with a confidence he was far from feeling.

“You will, will you?” rasped a sneering, nasal voice, and the three turned towards the heavy, iron-studded doorway of their prison. Staring through the Judas hole in the portal was the man in the mask beneath the rim of which his mouth twisted in a sardonic smile.

Came the rasp of a key in the lock, followed by the protesting squeak of a rusty bolt. A moment later the door swung open and he entered, followed by the man Jake and the girl. Behind them, carrying a heavy wooden box, was the man in evening dress whom Bill had outed a little while before—Kark Elkin.

“There he is, Karl!” said Jose del Castro, with a sneer. “The gallant knight-errant. Looks pretty, doesn’t he?”

Bill Kellaway forced a smile to his face and bowed mockingly.

“Hail, hail! The gang’s all here. How’s your jaw, Karl?”

Karl Elkin’s pasty face grew ugly.

“That’s enough, Kellaway! You think you were mighty slick, don’t you? But you’ve got another think coming.”

“Yes, Mr. Kellaway,” purred the man in the mask. “You would have been far better off if you had occupied your unique talents in searching for the Queen of Sheba’s sceptre.”

It took a great deal to astonish that hard-boiled exnewspaper man, Bill Kellaway, but the masked man’s statement left him, for the moment, literally speechless. How, in Heaven’s name, did this suave, smiling crook know anything about Prince Ras Amara, of Ethiopia?”

“Staggers you a bit, eh, Mr. Kellaway?” drawled the other, mockingly. “While your doubtless estimable colleague, or chief, is on a wild goose chase in London, you are here!”

“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about,” broke in Bill.

“That’s a lie!” returned the other, with a smile. “You see, when this foolish young lady took it in her head to phone up your detective agency, I took steps to see that you didn’t interfere. You private detectives are all the same; you handle cases where you think the big money lies.”

Despite himself, Bill chuckled. His sense of humour was never long absent.

“Go on, Black Mask,” he said. “Spill the beans. The whole fifty-seven varieties of them.”

“Clever, aren’t you?” sneered the masked man. “But not as clever as I am. When I found Miss Deane tampering with the telephone I had her forcibly removed and used it myself. I got through to a friend named Snowball Patterson—a gentleman of whom you have doubtless never heard.”

Bill Kellaway laughed softly.

“I didn’t know you numbered gentlemen among your friends,” he said.

“Otherwise known,” continued Black Mask, “as his Highness Prince Ras Amara, of the Abyssinian royal house. He is a gentleman of colour, and one of the slickest crooks that America has ever produced—and nothing to do with Abyssinia.

“I knew if the bait was big enough your employer would concentrate on the black prince, sooner than on the unknown damsel in distress, but I’ll admit I never bargained for him sending you here so soon.”

“A Solomon come to judgment, eh?” said Bill. “Cut the cackle, and come to the horses—if any.”

“It pleases you to be facetious,” said the man in the mask.

“A good word!” laughed Bill Kellaway. “Do you know it contains all the vowels in alphabetical order?”

The thin-lipped mouth beneath the black rim of the mask writhed back into a snarl. The eyes that glinted through the slits of the domino were cold and implacable.

“Your last joke, Mr. Kellaway,” he said. “You are going to die, and this girl with you. We have completed our task. The Snider has finished his printing. We are finished with this house. You have an excellent car——”

He turned to Karl.

“This is where you have a chance of getting your own back, my friend,” he said.

Karl fingered his bruised jaw gingerly.

“So what?” he demanded.

“Do you remember there are quarries—slate quarries—quite near here, and——”

Karl grinned evilly.

“I get you, chief. You mean——”

“Exactly!” replied the other. “To use an expressive Americanism—give ’em the works!”

Karl laughed.

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure. Besides, we ought to get rid of all dangerous evidence, chief. Now the Snider’s finished his job, let’s blow the place to smithereens. Thanks for you car, Mr. Kellaway!” he added, turning to the hapless Bill.

Bill Kellaway looked at the colonel. He would not face Pamela’s eyes.

“Get on with it, you swine!” said Colonel Deane.

Karl grinned at Black Mask.

“We shan’t keep you long, colonel,” he said mockingly.

He strode towards the vaulted doorway and the masked man laughed softly.

“Within ten minutes, Mr. Kellaway, Pencraig Manor will be blown to pieces, leaving, as Shakespeare says, not a wrack behind.”

He turned and whispered a few words to Karl, who chuckled sardonically.

“The hound which was useful in keeping away superstitious villagers will join you in Valhalla, gentlemen,” he added. “Go to it, Karl!”

The other swung on his heel and disappeared through the low vaulted doorway.

“Necessity,” said Black Mask, with an ironical bow, “knows no law, gentlemen. Good-bye, Miss Deane! If it had not been for your impetuosity, I should not have been compelled to take such drastic measures. As it is——”

He shrugged his shoulders as Karl returned with another long coffin-shaped box in his arms. He placed it on the dank stone floor, of the vault, and Bill’s heart sank as he recognised the Government-mark blazoned on the side of the box.

“Blasting powder,” explained the crook amiably. “Hurry up, Karl, and set the fuse. Once more, Mr. Kellaway, thank you for the car; I’ve always wanted to own a Bentley!”

CHAPTER VIII

SHOWDOWN

SYMPHONY SAM emerged from the railway carriage and snorted disgustedly.

“So this,” he said, “is Wiles, land o’ me farvers, I don’t think!” The little Cockney had caught the train from Paddington by the skin of his teeth. Having called round at Bill’s Park Lane flat and found that Henry was absent, he had taken a taxi direct to the station.

“And now, wot?” said Symphony, as he walked down the bleak platform of Llandwr Station, the nearest to Beddgelert. It was nearly midnight, and cold.

This was Symph’s first visit to Wales. He had acted on instinct. The parcel of notes he had found at Ma Ling’s—every one of them, he knew now, a clever forgery—meant that some deep, under-cover game was being played in this wild, remote spot. And, if he knew anything of Bill Kellaway, that danger-seeker would be in the thick of it.

That was enough for Symphony Sam.

He gave up his ticket to the walrus-moustached stationmaster, who looked curiously at his blatant suit.

“ ’Ere, ole-timer,” said Symphony Sam, “can yer get me a public vehicle? I want a bus or a flivver. I want to get to Beddgelert.”

“Beddgelert?” echoed the stationmaster.

“Yus! The plice where the dawg died,” said Symphony Sam.

“But that is at least five miles away from here, and at this time of the night it is almost impossible to——”

“Listen!” cut in Symphony Sam, unearthing his wallet. “ ’Ere’s a quid. Get me a car, Savee?”

The stationmaster stroked his moustache thoughtfully.

“My nephew Fred, as got a car, but——”

“That’s the ticket!” said Symphony Sam. “Lead me to ’im!”

The stationmaster pocketed his green flag and jerked a thumb towards the waiting-room.

“If you would make yourself comfortable in there,” he suggested, “I’ll slip over to my nephew’s cottage. It’s not far away on the other side of the roadway by the Great Western station.”

Symphony flushed out a cigarette from the depth of his capacious pockets and entered the draughty little waiting-room.

“Don’t be long,” he said, seating himself before the miserable fire in the tiny grate. “I’ve got a lot to do afore I turn in!”

The stationmaster strode off into the darkness swinging his lantern, and Symph lit his gasper and tried to review the situation since his escape from Ma Ling’s joint that evening.

He had tried to get in touch with Henry by phone but obtained no reply.

“Probably on the razzle,” commented Symphony. “And I don’t blame him, neither; it’s perishin’ cold up ’ere!”

He wondered what was happening to Bill Kellaway. Ever since he had discovered that parcel of snide notes in the drawer of the bogus prince’s bedroom, Symph felt that Bill had been lured on a wild-goose chase. But why? Was it a kidnapping racket or not?

Symph set his jaw grimly. Whatever it was, he was determined to find out before morning.

After about ten minutes’ wait he heard the wheezy rattle of a car, and a few moments later the stationmaster stumped into the waiting-room accompanied by a stolid, ruddy-faced young man.

“This is my nephew, sir,” he announced. “He is willing to drive you to Beddgelert. Where is it you wish to go? The Welsh ’Arp is a very good hotel.”

“Drive me first to Pencraig Manor,” said Symph, buttoning up his coat collar.

The driver’s jaw dropped.

“Pencraig Manor at this time o’ night?” he said, with an uneasy glance at his uncle. “Why, there isn’t anybody there, look you.”

“Oh, yes, there is!” said Symph, confidently. “Come on! There’s a fiver for you if you get me there in arf an hour!”

“I—I wouldn’t do it for twenty pounds!” replied the driver fervently. “Not at this time o’ night. It’s ‘aunted, sir, and the hound Gelert has been howling again.”

“Wot of it?” demanded Symph. “Are you scared of it?”

“It means death!” replied the other in a husky whisper.

“Death—my eye!” said Symph. “Tell you what—if you’re too scared to come to the manor, show me the way and I’ll borrow the flivver for the night.”

He drew out his wallet and ruffled a thick wad of notes before the other’s eye.

The driver hesitated.

“I’ll drive you as far as the gates,” he temporised.

“That’ll do,” grunted Symph impatiently. “Let’s go. Good-night, old-timer!” he added to the stationmaster. “Pleasant dreams!”

“You’d better stay ’ere then, Fred,” said Symphony Sam, as the car stopped at the head of a bridge about 300 yards away from the lodge gates of Pencraig Manor. “If you ’ear any shootin’ and I’m not back in ’arf an hour, you know wot to do.”

The chauffeur nodded, glancing fearfully over his shoulder.

“Very well, sir. ’Arf an hour, you said?”

“That’s right,” said Symphony. “And, for ’Eving’s sake, buck up!”

He swung on his heel towards the great iron gates of the manor-house, and whistled softly.

He eyed the ornate wrought-iron gates with professional interest.

“Easy as kiss your ’and!” he muttered, and with the ease of long practice hoisted himself upward.

In less than half a minute he had alighted soundlessly in the grounds of Pencraig Manor. He listened intently. Beyond the distant hoot of an owl he heard nothing. With noiseless tread he blended with the shadows of the fir-trees that flanked the carriage drive, and peered towards the ancient manor.

The whole place appeared to be in darkness, and Symph whistled thoughtfully.

“Don’t like the look o’ that!” he murmured. Cautiously he drew out his torch, and, switching it on, flashed it downward onto the gravelled drive. His eyes narrowed as he recognised the freshly made tyre-marks on the gravel.

“Somebody’s bin ’ere all right,” he muttered. “I bet Nutty’s Bentley made these tyre-marks. An’ if that’s so, where is ’e?”

He peered around him into the gloom and switched out his torch. Was it fancy, or did he see a tiny, winking pin-point of light ahead in the darkness? He strained his keen eyes and gave a sharp hiss of satisfaction.

Yes, there it was—a tiny, winking light from the shadowy terrace. He thrust the torch back into his pocket and raced forward through the dark, leaf-carpeted avenue.

His hand had snaked to his hip, groping for his gun, when a black-garbed figure hurled itself on him from behind with the force of a stone from a catapult.

“No, you don’t!” snarled a voice in his ear, and Symphony felt muscular arms twine about his throat.

The attack from the rear was so sudden and unexpected that Symph was borne to the ground with a jolt that left him breathless.

He squirmed like an eel, however, his legs whirling like flails. He heard a sharp “Ouch!” of pain as his foot hacked his unknown assailant’s shin.

“Got yer, yer perisher!” he gasped breathlessly.

The other’s breath came in laboured, wheezy gasps as he strove to maintain his stranglehold on the little Cockney’s throat. But Symph was an expert at this sort of rough-and-tumble scrimmage. With a heave of his muscular shoulders he managed to loosen the other’s hold a fraction. Suddenly the pale moon emerged from behind a rift in the clouds, and he glimpsed the white, set face of his assailant—a familiar lean face, ornamented by two decorous black wisps of sidewhiskers.

“Strike me pink!” gasped the breathless Symph. “You, ’Enery! Wot the blazes are you doin’ ’ere?”

Henry Henry—for it was indeed that enigmatic manservant—stared back at Symphony, and, for once in his life, his lean, horse-like features showed utter bewilderment.

“Dear me!” he gasped. “It’s you, Symphony! How—how very extraordinary!”

The stifling grip on Symphony’s throat relaxed, and the little crook passed a dazed hand over his forehead as he sat up.

“Strewth, ’Enery! I didn’t know you ’ad it in yer!” He laughed ruefully. “For the love of Mike, wot are you doin’ in the moated grange? Where’s Nutty?”

Henry shook his head solemnly.

“I am very much afraid that something untoward has happened to Mr. Kellaway,” he said. “I had what he would describe as a hunch that all was not well within him.”

“So what?”

“Well, as you know, Mr. Kellaway had intended coming by train, but he changed his mind. He also very kindly allowed me a few days’ vacation: and, so as not to waste the train ticket, and to avail myself of seeing North Wales—which I understand is very beautiful—I—er—came on here.”

“You darned old spoofer!” laughed Symph. “You thought there was going to be some fun and yer didn’t want to be left out of it, that’s wot. Nah own up!”

The faintest flicker of a smile hovered over Henry’s lips.

“Have it your own way, sir,” he said demurely. “Anyway, I’m glad I came. I am perturbed about Mr. Kellaway.”

“But why didn’t I see you on the train?” demanded Symph. “I left Euston at seven-fifteen.”

“That explains it, sir. I came via Great Western from Paddington. There are two routes to Llandwr.”

“Blimey, so there are!” ejaculated Symph. “The stationmaster told me. ’Ow long ’ave you bin ere?”

“Only a few minutes,” answered the other. “I was making a brief investigation, when I saw your torch.”

“Same here,” said Symph with a grin. “An’ we nearly knocked each other out. Wot’s the next move, old ’orse face? There’s somethink blame funny goin’ on in this ’aunted ’ouse.”

“Exactly, sir,” said the other. “I am curious to know what brought you here so soon. I thought you were after the sceptre of the Queen of Sheba!” he said curiously.

“There ain’t no durned sceptre nor yet no Queen of Sheba. Wot’s more——”

He broke off suddenly as a wild, unearthly scream pealed out—a womans scream of sheer panic and terror.

The two men stiffened and Symphony reached for his gun.

“Wot’s ’appening?” gasped the little crook hoarsely.

“Better investigate,” said Henry, briefly. “The sound seemed to come from——”

He broke off suddenly as once again the deep rumbling bay of a hound rang out.

And a moment later they saw it.

The ghastly spectral shape of a huge dog bounded across the terrace steps in the wake of a screaming girl in black. The beast’s foam-flecked jaws and red-rimmed, baleful eyes gleamed with a faintly phosphorescent glow in the moonlight.

Henry jerked out his revolver and raced towards the terrace, followed by Symphony Sam.

Crack!

Symphony’s gun spat flame, but in almost the same instant his foot caught in a hidden root and he sprawled on all fours over the turf.

The hound stopped dead, then, with another bloodcurdling bay, turned and launched itself full at the oncoming Henry. So quick was its spring, and so powerful its impetus, that Henry was knocked flying, the gun spinning from his fingers. The great beast’s hot breath fanned his checks and the slavering jaws were within an inch of his throat. There was nothing ghostly about this animal. Desperately, Henry tried to grapple with the monstrous hound. He dug his nails into its pendulous jowls, scrabbling frantically for the animal’s windpipe.

Quick as a flash, Symphony Sam took aim, kneeling, at the monstrous beast, his hand as steady as a rock.

Three shots rang out and Henry felt the great hairy body above him give a convulsive shudder. With one last snap of its jaws the hound crumpled beside him and lay still.

Henry staggered to his feet and picked up his gun. He was rejoined by the grim-faced Symphony.

A moment later a blaze of light appeared on the terrace as the great iron bolted door was flung open.

“What’s that?” called a harsh voice as the two raced forward. “What’s happening here?”

Symph saw the man’s mask and he gave an exultant grin.

“Stick ’em up, buddy!” he snarled. “The house is surrounded. The game’s up!”

“Curse you! Keep back or I’ll——”

The man in the mask darted a hand to his hip, but Symph’s gun spoke first.

The big crook gave a howl of pain as the bullet shattered his wrist.

“Next time,” said Symph pleasantly, “it’ll be in the stummick. Take ’is gun, ’Enry. This is our night out, me lad!”

Bill Kellaway was a fatalist as far as his own life was concerned. As a hard-boiled newspaperman he had been confronted too often with murder and sudden death to face his present predicament with anything but stoic resignation.

He watched the spluttering red snake of fuse as it crept nearer, ever nearer the deadly explosive. A good half of it had been consumed now.

“Don’t cry, Pamela, little girl!” he said gently. “Stiff upper lip an’ all that.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said through her tears. “It—it’s the thought that I’ve dragged you and daddy into it. They might not have——”

Crack!

Faintly to Bill’s ears came the sound of a shot. Colonel Deane raised his haggard face.

“What was that?” he demanded hoarsely.

Again three more shots rang out in swift succession, and Bill Kellaway chuckled softly.

“Unless I’m much mistaken, the miracle has happened,” he said.

From above they heard a muffled scream followed by the crash of something breaking.

Then to their ears came the faint sound of a police whistle.

Pamela Deane gave a tired little sigh. Her overwrought nerves gave way and she slumped into a deep and merciful faint.

Bill Kellaway heard quick, pattering footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later the door swung open.

Standing on the threshold, urbane and dignified as ever, was the pluperfect factotum, Henry Henry—a revolver in one hand, a glass of whisky and soda in the other.

“I anticipated you would be needing this, sir” he said quietly. “One moment, sir—allow me!”

He took in the situation in a swift glance. With two deliberate movements he first thrust the brimming glass into Bill’s manacled hands and then very sedately and solemnly stamped out the glowing fuse.

Bill drained the glass at a gulp and stared blankly at the imperturbable man.

“Henry. You’re a wonder!”

“Not at all, sir,” said Henry. “I merely do my best to give satisfaction.”

He bowed to Colonel Deane.

“Had I known there were others here, sir, I would have brought down a decanter and siphon. But it was very short notice,” he said apologetically.

Mine host Davies, of the Welsh Harp, nervously wiped his hands on his apron and beamed at the four guests who were seated round the groaning breakfast table in his parlour.

It was the morning after the dramatic events at Pencraig Manor. Bill, none the worse for his adventure, was seated next to Pamela Deane, still a little white and peaked after the ordeal.

Colonel Deane sat next, and at the other end were Henry and Symph—the latter with a large piece of sticking plaster on neck and jaw.

The aroma of steaming hot coffee and the pleasant smell of ham and eggs still lingered.

“Everything to your satisfaction, ladies and gentlemen?” asked the landlord.

“Everything O.K.!” said Bill Kellaway. “The ghost is laid, thanks to Mr. Hicks here.”

“Thank you, gentlemen. Indeet to gootness, I am much obliged, I’m sure,” he said, and with an old-fashioned little bob withdrew.

Symph pushed aside his coffee cup, and his little birdlike eyes twinkled.

“Mind if I smoke, miss?” he queried.

Pamela Deane smiled dazzingly.

“Do, please!” she said. “Oh, dear!” she added. “If you hadn’t arrived when you did, I—I——”

Her red lips quivered tremulously. She was still overwrought by her ordeal.

“Sammy on the Spot! That’s my monniker, miss,” said Symph, patting his jingling medals complacently.

“I still don’t know how the devil you held ’em up single-handed, old china,” said Bill.

“Old ’Enery, ’ere, was worf a battalion, isself,” chuckled Symph. “When I smashed the chief’s wrist, the others didn’t show much fight. Besides, the police soon turned up. I’d told the driver if ’e ’eard any shootin’ or I wasn’t back in ’arf an hour, to drive like blazes an’ bring the cops back. ’E got scared by the very first shot and beat it. Fortunately the local sergeant is quick on the up-take, an’ it didn’t take him long to size up matters.”

“Well, Symph, this is a feather in your cap all right, rounding up the Hartmann gang,” said Bill. “Hartmann’s the chief, the Snider’s the expert forger, and the girl and Elkin the snide pushers. Thanks to you, they’ve bagged the lot. I dare say the Yard will pull in Snowball, alias Prince Ras Amara. There’s an A.S. message out for him. In a way it was a clever move to try to keep you in London on the wild goose chase of Sheba’s sceptre. Hartmann’s idea, I suppose. He’s got brains.”

“Yus!” said Symph. “The bogus prince almost took me in. It wasn’t till I saw that wad of snide notes in ’is drawer that I tumbled. And the postmark, Beddgelert, clinched it. They was pretty good forgeries, mind yer, but that’s the best of ’aving earned these ’ere medals, we learn to tell a dud note quicker than the police.”

The colonel laughed.

“We can never be sufficiently grateful to you, gentlemen,” he said, and his voice shook a little.

“It was a darn good show,” laughed Bill Kellaway.

“A bit hot while it lasted, but thanks to Symph and Henry here, it turned out all right.”

Henry cleared his throat.

“Er—I’m afraid the hound caused me a few moments’ perturbation, sir,” he said. “I—er—examined the corpse afterwards and discovered it was a Great Dane whose jaws and jowl had been treated by luminous paint. Not a new idea, sir, but extraordinary effective at close quarters. It was used, of course, to keep the local villagers away, and must have got loose last night.”

“It’s a good job for that little she-devil Jose you turned up, Henry. The brute would have torn her to pieces.”

Henry coughed.

“I don’t wish to be vindictive, sir,” he said. “But after her treatment of Miss Deane and yourself, I rather wish he had!”

Bill clapped Symphony on the back.

“There’s another good bit of news coming to you, Symph,” he said. “I learned last night there’s a reward of £5,000 from the banks for the round up of the Snider gang. You’ll get it in due course.”

“Blimey!” said Symph. “Five thousand fick ’uns! Coo lummy, won’t Inspector Barker be pleased? I don’t fink!”

THE SECRET OF ALI BABA’S JARS

CHAPTER IX

CHELSEA NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS

“It’ll be orl the sime,

Jest the sime, when a nundred years roll on.

No use a worryin’ no use a flurryin’,

No use kickin’ up a row,

For you wont be ’ere and I wont be ’ere

When a nundred years are gone——”

THE singer, a short, stocky little man in a loud check suit, and a curly-brimmed billycock hat, beamed affectionately at his tall companion, Mr. Bill Kellaway, that eccentric millionaire.

It was nearly two in the morning as they turned from Church Street into the King’s Road, Chelsea, and Mr. Symphony Sam Hicks was feeling melodious, not to say hilarious, as he concluded his philosophic ditty in his tuneful tenor.

“But somebody else will be well in the cart

And the world will still roll on.”

he concluded cheerfully.

Bill Kellaway chuckled and linked his arm through that of his companion.

“Excellent sentiments, Symph, my lad,” he chuckled. “But there’s no need to make the local welkin ring with them at this time of the morning. Come on, I think we’ll walk as far as Sloane Square. The air will do us good after the fug in Rowney’s studio.”

“O.K. by me, Nutty, me old China,” agreed Symphony Sam amiably. “It was a darn good party, anyway. I wish Candy had been there.”

He was referring to his secretary, that extremely efficient and personable young lady, Miss Candy Lee.

He and Bill were returning from a studio bottle party thrown by one Rowney, an artist friend of Kellaway’s, and if Symph had not exactly looked upon the wine when it was red he had at least taken an eyeful of the beer when it was brown.

“Talking of Candy,” said Bill Kellaway as they walked briskly up the long deserted length of the King’s Road. “How’s business faring these days?”

The Chief of the S.S. Detective Bureau shook his head gloomily.

“Slack, Nutty, slack as Charlie Chaplin’s trousers. No Duchess ’as lost ’er diamond tar-rar-a for munce, an’ no old squire ’as bin found foully murdered on the libery ’earthrug fer at least a fortnight.”

Kellaway chuckled.

It had been some weeks now since he had last met the engaging little ex-crook whom he had befriended ever since he had met him in prison in the far off days, when he, Bill Kellaway had been known as Hercules, Esq. and before he had embarked on the fantastic quest that had earned him his millions.

Mr. Sam Hicks was an old lag, an ex-burglar, who had earned his soubriquet because of his innate musical talent. Thanks to Bill, the little crook was running straight and was now chief of a detective bureau within a stone’s throw of Scotland Yard, much to the disgust of his old enemy Detective-Inspector Barker.

Symph’s proudest possession was the heavy gold watchchain which spanned his waistcoat, from which dangled a row of gold medals recording his various convictions from Borstal to Wormwood Scrubs.

“Yus, business is bad, Nutty,” he said gloomily. “Swallerin’ the anchors all very well, but I miss the excitement of the old days. Tell me, when you was a journalist and there wasn’t any noos, what did you do?”

Bill laughed. He had once been a crack crime reporter on London’s most go-ahead newspaper, The Daily Ray.

“Why if there’s no news, make it, that’s the reporter’s motto, Symph,” he said.

“Meanin’ if I can’t get clients I oughter go out an’ pinch the jools an’ wot not, then go sleuthin’ arter myself and landin’ meselfin cooler,” he said sceptically. “Bloomin’ fine gime that’d be.”

“Don’t be an ass,” laughed Bill. “I was referring to news not ’tec work. There’s a story in everything if you only know where to find it. A trained journalist can get a story out of an umbrella handle, a spent match, even a stockbroker’s spats. Why, I once got a darn good story out of an empty sardine tin I found in an area in Berkley Square. It gave me a lead to the strange double life of the late Lord Sunbury.”

“Oh yeah,” said Symph incredulously. “I don’t fink.”

He stood still for a moment, swaying slightly on his feet and glancing a trifle owlishly at Bill.

“I challenge yer,” he said with a slight hiccough. “If yer can make a story outer anythink. Make a story outer—outer——”

He groped for inspiration then grinned.

“Outer this ’ere shop,” he added triumphantly. Bill followed his outstretched finger. They had inadvertently halted before an ironmonger’s shop off the King’s Road.

“See if yer can get any romance aht o’ this little lot,” chuckled Symphony Sam.

Bill frowned.

Anything less romantic or capable of forming the basis of a thrilling story than an ironmonger’s shop would be hard to imagine. He gazed at the heterogeneous assortment of hardware in the window. Enamelled saucepans, tin kettles, zinc pails, scrubbing brushes, mops, bars of soap, washing boards, tins of paint, carpenter’s tools, heaps of nails, floor polishes and furniture creams were piled higgledy-piggledy in the window.

Symphony Sam chuckled at Bill’s apparent discomfiture. The latter looked upward to the lintel of the shop on which in faded gilt letters appeared the legend.

IRONMONGER—U. SNEECH—OIL & COLOURMAN

Suddenly Kellaway’s keen blue eyes twinkled. Into his shrewd journalistic brain there flashed an inspiration. He had the born newspaperman’s flair for scenting the unusual in the commonplace, the bizarre in the most mundane happening.

“Why that’s an easy one Symph,” he laughed. “Seen rightly an oil shop is crammed with romance and adventure.”

“Blessed if I can see any think romantic in a scrubbin’ brush or a can o’ paraffin,” objected the little cockney.

“Ah!” laughed Bill. “That’s because you lack imagination my dear chap. Look at those, Symph. There’s Romance for you, Romance with a capital R.

“In them I see the hot, arid plains of Araby, the colourful processions of caravans on the golden road to Samarkand. They recall to me, glamorous Oriental nights, with a silver moon, and a spice-laden breeze stirring the fronded palms. I can hear again the tinkle of camel bells, the jingling bangles of the dusky Arab girls dancing with wild abandon to the wail of pipes and the throb of a darabukka.”

Symphony Sam pushed back his curly brimmed bowler.

“Blimey, Nutty,” he said, “you are tight. It must ’ave bin that final binder. Come on, let’s get a taxi and go ’ome. All this tinklin’ caravan and Sheik of Araby stuff at two in the mornin’—I’m surprised at yer,” he added, but the effect of his reproof was slightly marred by a hiccough.

“You chump,” chuckled Bill Kellaway. “Can’t you see? I’m not tight. Look!”

He pointed to the ledge above the lintel of the shop.

“Them jars,” said Symphony. “Wot about ’em? Every oilshop has them jars as a kind o’ trade mark, same as a chemist ’as bottles o’ coloured water in his windows.”

Kellaway smiled patiently and pointed to the two large eathenware jars above.

“Don’t you see, Symph. Those jars are the outward and visible signs and symbols of the oil and colourman’s romantic trade. They are exactly the same in size and shape of those used for thousands of years in the East. Did you ever hear of Ali Baba?”

“Yus. When I was a kid I saw the panto at the Mile End ’Ippodrome. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Wot about it, anyway?”

Bill’s blue eyes twinkled. As usual, when on a good story, he became volubly enthusiastic.

“There you are, Symph. There’s your title. ‘The Haunted Jars of Ali Baba.’ Don’t you remember when Cassim, the wicked robber chieftain of the Forty Thieves tried to plan Ali Baba’s downfall and death? How, disguised as an oil merchant he loaded his donkeys with two large earthenware jars like these, and called at Ali Baba’s palace. Hidden in each jar, however, was one of his gang of forty thieves who, at a signal, were to emerge and massacre Ali Baba and all his household.”

“Why, yes,” said Symphony. “You ain’t tight arter all, Nutty. And didn’t Ali’s fav’rite slave girl double-cross the robber chief? I’ve forgotten exactly ’ow it goes.”

“Her name was Morgiana,” said Bill. “She overheard the chief’s plan and, at midnight, she tiptoed into the cellar where the thieves were hidden and——”

“Blimey, yes. I remember,” cried Symph. “And she poured boilin’ oil on the blighters and serve ’em right, the treacherous ’ounds,” he added. “Now you explain it that way I can see wot you’re drivin’ at but——”

The rest of his sentence was drowned by an earpiercing, long drawn out shriek, spine chilling and blood curdling in its inhuman shrillness.

“My Gawd!” gasped Symphony. “Wot’s that?”

He stared upwards towards the shop lintel and his heart missed a beat. From the top of one of the oil jars two green, baleful eyes glared down at him with implacable hatred in their lambent depths.

“Cripes!” said Symphony a trifle incoherently, “It’s—it’s the ghost of Ali Baba!”

CHAPTER X

THE UNACCOUNTABLE CONDUCT OF URIAH SNEECH

BILL stared up and down the deserted length of the King’s Road but there was not even a crawling belated taxi in sight.

“Don’t be a damn fool, Symph,” he chuckled, grabbing the other by the arm. “It’s only a prowling tom cat serenading his love. Scat!” he added, shaking his gold-headed ebony cane. The green eyes flamed hatred for a moment then with a spitting snarl of defiance the cat vanished.

Symphony Sam mopped his forehead and grinned a trifle sheepishly.

“Blimey! It gave me a turn, Nutty,” he said ruefully then, changing the subject, “I wonder wot they keep in them jars.”

Bill shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing. They’re only there for show really,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

Symphony Sam’s lower jaw set obstinately. Usually abstemious he had taken a pint too much at the party and he was nettled at being so startled by a mere cat.

“Orlright, Nutty,” he said. “You’ve done your turn, and it was a good story. Now I’ll show you my turn,” he added.

With a suddenness that was startling, he wrenched himself from Bill’s friendly clasp and with a leap of astonishing agility started to scale the rainpipe on the side of the shop.

“Come down, you damn fool!” hissed Bill.

Symphony Sam chuckled and with the agility of a monkey he shinned up the pipe and, with a quick sideward leap, reached the ledge above the shop window on which the earthenware jars stood.

Had he not been merry he would not have attempted the foolhardy feat. He had, in his unregenerate days, been one of the most expert cat-burglars in England and this was child’s play to him.

“Come down, you damn fool!” cried Bill. “Supposin’ the cop’s on his beat!”

“Take it easy, Nutty,” laughed Symph. “I’ve often wanted to see wot’s inside these jars.”

“You’ll see the inside of clink again if you don’t come down!” snapped Bill, thoroughly angry.

Symph, however, began to whistle very tunefully and softly the Robber’s March from “Chu Chin Chow.”

He crossed over to one of the oil jars. It was about four feet in height and about two feet wide at its broadest part. He lifted the heavy earthenware lid of the jar and peered inside. It was not empty. His nostrils were assailed by a dank musty odour and he saw a vague bundle within. He whipped out his electric torch and flashed it into the interior of the earthenware jar.

“My God!” gasped Symphony Sam and his face went the colour of death.

Grinning at him in the glow of the torch was a human skeleton grotesquely draped in mouldering clothes. The eyeless sockets and ghastly, wide, unmeaning grin on the fleshless skull shocked Symph into sobriety. Hurriedly he closed down the lid of the jar on its gruesome contents and took a flying leap for the rainpipe down which he slithered breathlessly.

“You idiot——” began Bill angrily then stopped as he saw the white, strained expression in the little man’s face.

“What the devil’s the matter with you?” he demanded.

Symphony Sam clutched his sleeve.

“Nutty!” he gasped. “There’s a stiff in the jar. A ruddy ’uman skillington!”

Bill stared at him incredulously.

“You’re as drunk as an owl!” he said sternly. “Come on home no more nonsense now.”

He grabbed Symph firmly by the sleeve but the little man wrenched himself free.

“It’s gospel truth I’m tellin’ yer, Nutty,” he said with a ring of sincerity in his voice. “There’s a blasted corpse in that jar. Gawd knows ’ow it got there.”

Bill Kellaway’s eyes narrowed. Symphony was in deadly earnest, he could see that.

“Wot are we goin’ to do abart it, Nutty?” asked the little cockney.

“Do!” echoed Bill. “Why you chump, follow it up of course. It’s a peach of a story. This is the kind of case that only the S.S. Detective Bureau can handle.”

Symphony Sam scratched his chin ruefully.

“But—but—’ow do we start, Nutty?” he queried helplessly.

“This way,” said Bill Kellaway, and with a purposeful stride he walked to the door to the right of the window, a door that evidently gave access to the premises above the shop.

A moment later he shattered the nocturnal stillness of the King’s Road with a thunderous Rat! tat! tat! on the knocker.

“We’ll see what Mr. U. Sneech has to say about it,” he said grimly.

“But ’ow the ’ell are we going to explain——” began Symph plaintively.

“Ssh! Leave the talking to me,” said Bill. “Look. He’s at home.”

An oblong of lemon light sprang into view in the first floor window above the shop. A moment later the window was opened and a man looked out.

“Who’s there?” he demanded harshly. “What do you want at this time o’ night!”

“Better let us in, Mr. Sneech!” said Bill quietly. “This is a police matter.”

The other gave a startled oath.

“All right. I’ll be down in a minute,” he grunted, banging the window shut.

“And now what?” asked Symph. “Mind you don’t get ’ad for impersonatin’ a police officer, Nutty. I knew a bloke wot did twelve munce for that!”

“Leave it to me,” said Bill cheerfully. His blue eyes sparkled with anticipation. Once more he experienced the old thrill of the crime hunter’s game in the days when he was a reporter on the Daily Ray.

Footsteps sounded behind the heavy paint-blistered portal, footsteps followed by the rasp of a bolt and the clang of a chain being withdrawn. A moment later the door was opened and an amazing apparition stood on the threshold, a paraffin lamp gripped in his skinny, clawlike hand.

“What dye want?” he demanded suspiciously. “Knocking honest folk up at this time o’ night.”

“We are detectives,” said Bill in a voice of crisp authority. “Is your name Sneech?”

“Yes. What about it?” answered the other surlily. “What’s the idea?”

“Simply that we want you to answer a few questions, Mr. Sneech,” replied Bill quietly. “Sorry to disturb you from your beauty sleep and all that but the matter is of urgent importance.”

The other’s beady black eyes glared suspiciously at the pair. Illumined in the rays of the lamp he was a grotesque, rather repellent figure. He was clad in a long threadbare dressing-gown, girdled round the waist with what appeared to be a piece of clothesline.

He had a long straggling grey beard, a hooked nose, and wore an old-fashioned smoking cap on his grey greasy curls. He reminded Bill unpleasantly of Fagin.

“Well, you’d better come in,” he said, “Mr. Whatsname.”

“My name is Kellaway, this is my colleague, Mr. Hicks,” said Bill.

Sneech grunted again and led the way through the passage which was cluttered with a varied assortment of packing cases, tin pails and a very ancient bicycle. The whole place was redolent of oil and stale cabbage water.

“This way, mind the step,” he said, holding aloft the lamp in his talonous dirty-nailed fingers.

Bill and Symph followed him up the rickety, uncarpeted stairs to a room above the shop. Sneech set the lamp down on a table on which reposed a half empty beer bottle and the remnants of a fish and chips supper. The room was incredibly untidy; a horsehair sofa stood in one corner, one or two rickety chairs, a desk, the pigeon-holes of which were crammed with dusty documents, and a heap of unwashed kitchen utensils in the grate.

“I must again apologise for intruding at this hour of the morning, Mr. Sneech,” said Bill. “But the matter is one of extreme urgency.”

“Well. Never mind the apologies,” growled the other. “What d’you want?”

Bill took out his cigarette case and selected one deliberately.

“Are you aware, Mr. Sneech, that you have a corpse on your premises and if so—why?”

The man’s beady black eyes gave a flicker of fear and he licked his dry lips nervously while his clawlike fingers plucked at his straggling beard.

“A corpse,” he echoed harshly at length. “What the devil d’you mean—a corpse? What damn tomfoolery is this?”

For answer Bill crossed over to the window, drew up the blind. The lintel over the shop was about five feet below the window-sill. The ledge on which the earthenware jars reposed was easily accessible.

“I’ll show you, Mr. Sneech,” said Bill quietly.

He raised the sash of the window and turned to Symph.

“Lend me your torch, please,” he said. “Which jar was it?”

Symph handed over his torch and pointed to the jar on the right of the ledge.

“What is all this damn nonsense?” demanded Sneech irritably.

“You’ll see,” said Bill grimly. He vaulted lightly on to the lintel, prized open the lid of the jar and flashed in his torch. There within, huddled so that the bony knees nearly met the grisly chin, was a human skeleton on which clung the mouldering rags of what had once been clothes.

“That’s what I mean, Mr. Sneech!” said Bill. “Do you know anything about it?”

Sneech’s eyes were dilated with terror and he shrank back beneath Bill’s cold, probing stare.

“My God! A skeleton!” he gasped. “As Heaven’s my judge, sir, I know nothing about it.”

Bill smiled grimly and replaced the lid on the jar with its ghastly contents. He clambered back into the room and turned to Sneech.

“You see now that we are here on no idle errand,” he said crisply.

Sneech sank into a chair and his hand fumbled nervously with his matted grey beard.

“I—I can’t understand it,” he croaked.

“Now listen to me, Sneech!” said Bill with a ring of authority. “This is a matter for Scotland Yard. You’re bound to be pretty severely interrogated, so you’d better make up your mind about your story. In the first place are you alone here?”

Sneech nodded.

“Of course I’m alone. I’ve no use for women,” he snarled. “I’ve run this house single-handed for the last twenty years. Save for one assistant I’ve also run me business. Nobody can say as Uriah Sneech owes ’em a penny.”

Bill’s eyebrows lifted slightly on hearing the name Uriah. He had wondered what the uncommon initial U had stood for.

“So you’ve lived here alone for twenty years.”

The other nodded.

“Except about five years back I had an assistant name o’ Parker who lived in, but he’s gorn to Canada.”

“I see!” said Bill thoughtfully. “And you hadn’t the slightest idea that that skeleton was in the jar.”

Sneech spat inelegantly into the empty grate.

“Spit my death I hadn’t!” he said.

Bill Kellaway puffed slowly at his cigarette and studied the unsavoury Mr. Sneech. The glittering, close-set eyes held a hunted look as he restlessly pulled at his tangled beard.

“What—what—are you goin’ to do about it, gents?” he asked uneasily.

Bill straightened.

“Inform the police immediately,” he said. “Have you a telephone?”

Uriah Sneech fumbled with the piece of clothesline that girdled his tattered dressing-gown.

“No, I haven’t,” he said. “Can’t stand the blamed things.”

“Then”—Bill decided quickly—“we’ll go round to the Police Station.”

Symphony Sam darted a swift glance at him and coughed.

“Look ’ere, Mr. Sneech,” he said, “I ain’t at all satisfied with yer atitood. That skillington in the jar will tike a bit of explaining.”

Sneech licked his dry lips nervously.

“Of course, of course, gentlemen. I—I am sure that is the best plan. If you will excuse me while I get dressed——”

Once more he fumbled at the rope round his waist and Bill chuckled inwardly.

This was a night after his own heart. The bizarre, fantastic had happened and the vulturine Sneech was grotesquely like a character out of the pages of Dickens.

Bill smiled.

“By all means, Mr. Sneech,” he said.

The other shuffled towards the doorway and paused for a moment on the threshold.

“Tell me,” he asked hoarsely. “How—how—did you know that dreadful body was hidden in the jar?”

Symphony Sam rose to his full height and patted his jingling medals proudly.

“We ’ave our own methods, Sneech!” he said. “ ’Urry up an’ get dressed.”

Sneech cringed before his steady gaze and shuffled towards his bedroom. When the door had closed behind him Bill glanced sharply at the little cockney.

“Now’s your chance, Symphony, to put the S.S. Bureau on the map.”

Symphony Sam mopped his forehead.

“That’s all very well, Nutty,” he protested. “But this is the Big and s’welp me, I ain’t never bin mixed in the Big before.”

Kellaway’s face was grave as he recognised the euphemistic term for murder as used in the Underworld.

“What makes you think it’s murder, Symph?” he queried.

Symphony Sam lowered his voice.

“Didn’t yer notice the back o’ the skull? It was smashed in like a bloomin’ heggshell. If that wasn’t done by a blackjack—then I’m a Dutchman,” he said.

“It certainly looks suspiciously like it,” said Bill Kellaway. “The point is we’ve really no earthly right to butt in here, but now we’re in——”

Bang!

He broke off suddenly as a loud crash sounded from the end of the dingy landing.

“Wot’s that?” demanded Symph. “There’s somethink funny abaht this ’ere ’ouse, Nutty. That feller Sneech——”

He did not finish the sentence for with a bound Bill Kellaway had reached the landing. Ahead of him was a curtained doorway that evidently led to Sneech’s bedroom. Bill rattled the handle.

“Are you there, Mr. Sneech?” he demanded sharply.

There was no reply. Bill’s face set grimly as he turned to Symphony.

“That sounded like a window being slammed, Symph. Shall us?”

The little cockney grinned.

“Let’s!” he said and promptly hurled himself against the panel.

“It’s locked, Nutty!” he said as the door quivered under the impact of his hefty shoulder.

“Both together!” snapped Bill Kellaway and the pair hurled their combined weight against the door.

“Crash!”

Beneath their joint impact the flimsy lock gave way and Symph catapulted into the room. An unmade, brass-railed bed stood in one corner. Save for a wardrobe cupboard and a washstand there was no furniture in the dingy room. Of Mr. Uriah Sneech there was no sign.

Bill dashed to the window and peered into the darkness below. The window overlooked an asphalted yard that was littered with empty packing cases and rusty oil drums. He strained his eyes and was just in time to see a stoop-shouldered figure disappear over the low brick wall behind which ran a narrow alleyway.

“Quick! Symph,” said Bill. “The blighter’s made a getaway.”

He flung up the sash and, noticing a convenient stack pipe, clambered out on the sill. Flexing his muscles he grasped the pipe and descended hand over hand. The bedroom was about thirty feet from the ground and Symph with the ease born of long practice followed in his wake as he slid to the courtyard.

“Stand by, Symph,” said Bill. “I’ll catch the blighter.”

With a flying leap he scaled the low backyard Wall and gazed up and down the narrow ill lit alley. Save for a prowling cat there was no living thing in sight.

Impulsively Bill raced along the narrow passage and found himself in the narrow cul-de-sac of Cheyne Place.

The quiet little thoroughfare was utterly deserted. Of Mr. Uriah Sneech there was no sign.

Bill Kellaway cursed softly as he halted indecisively for a moment.

“And now—what?” he murmured retracing his steps to the house of Ali Baba.

• • • • • •

Detective-Inspector Barker, of Scotland Yard, Crammed his bowler hat at a more aggressive angle on his bullet head and glowered at his colleague, divisional Detective-Inspector Larner of the Chelsea Police station.

“It’s wasting me time, Larner!” he said gruffly. “Dragging me out at this hour of the morning to identify the corpse of a man that doesn’t bear the faintest resemblance to Danny the Driver.”

Inspector Larner coughed deprecatingly.

“I’m very sorry, Inspector,” he said. “But as you know Danny is said to have a hideout here in Chelsea and when we fished out the body from beneath Battersea Bridge I thought——”

“Never mind!” broke in Barker testily. “You acted for the best no doubt, but you can take it from me, Danny’s not the sort to commit suicide. This feller is probably some poor down and out artist chap. And now, confound it,” he added, glancing at his watch, “I’ll have to get back home to Balham all the way by taxi!”

Inspector Barker was incensed. He had been working late at Scotland Yard that night in connection with a fresh outbreak of daring “smash and grab” raids organised by that expert motorist Danny the Driver. When, therefore, he had received a phone call from the Chelsea police station stating that a body which bore a resemblance to that much wanted bandit had been picked up from the Thames at Battersea Bridge, he had hurried down to identify it. Danny had been a thorn in the side of the authorities for months, but, much to Barker’s chagrin the corpse recovered from the river was not that of the notorious bandit. It bore a superficial resemblance, however. Barker grudgingly admitted Larner’s zeal in the matter, but he had had a tiring day and it was now past two in the morning.

“Well,” he grunted, “it can’t be helped. You did your bet Larner and——”

A tap sounded at the door of the Inspector’s rooms and a uniformed sergeant entered in response to Larner’s growled “Come in!”

“What is it, Stokes?” he demanded wearily.

The sergeant held a slip of pasteboard between a pudgy thumb and forefinger.

“Party name of ‘Icks want to see you urgently, sir,” he said.

Larner took the proferred visiting-card. It had a gilt edge, and neatly embossed, the following legend

SAM HICKS. B.P. & W.S.C.

Director.

S.S. DETECTIVE BUREAU.

7 WHITEHALL CRESCENT. Opposte Scotland Yard.

Larner frowned and handed the card to Barker who had just donned his gloves and overcoat prefatory to departure.

The Yard man snorted as he read the superscription and into his fish-like, rather protuberant eyes there leapt the glint of battle.

“What the devil does he want out this time of night, the cheeky little charlatan?” he demanded.

The sergeant shook his head.

“Couldn’t say, sir. He just asked to see the Inspector on personal and urgent business. He has another gent with him.”

Larner stifled a yawn and shrugged resignedly.

“Oh well—show him in, Stokes,” he said.

The sergeant saluted and withdrew and Barker turned explosively to his colleague.

“Do you know who this fellow is, Larner?” he demanded.

The other shook his head.

“No. The name sounds familiar but I can’t quite place him.”

“It’s Symphony Sam,” growled Barker. “An old lag and one of the slickest screwsmen that ever busted a Peter,” he said disgustedly. “He’s supposed to have swallowed the anchor and had had the cheek to open a private enquiry agency within the very shadow of the Yard. It’s monstrous, that’s what it is, monstrous. If I had my way I’d—I’d——”

He never finished his threat for at that moment the sergeant returned accompanied by Symphony Sam and Bill Kellaway.

The little Cockney’s rubicund face split into a wide and cheerful grin as he recognised the fuming Yard man.

“Well! Well! Look ’oo’s ’ere, Nutty,” he said, “Little Sunshine ’isself. ’Ow are you, Mr. Barker, sir?”

Barker growled something below his breath then added,

“And what the devil d’you two want?”

“A word in your shell-like,” replied Symphony Sam and his bright, robin-like eyes twinkled mischievously. “Just a little murder I ’appened to run acrost, in the course of my never endin’ battle against crime and crooks. The motto of the S.S. Burea is, ‘We never Sleep.’ Our badge is the ‘Eye wot Never Shuts.’ ”

“Tchah!” snorted Barker. “Your battle against crime my foot. You’re so damn straight that you could hide behind a corkscrew.”

Symphony shook his head sadly and turned to Bill.

“ ’Ear that, Mr. Kellaway,” he said. “Sounds suspiciously like slander and defamation o’ character to me, to say nothink o’ the swear word.”

“Or professional jealousy,” commented Bill maliciously.

The Divisional Inspector cleared his throat.

“What’s this about murder?” he demanded sharply. “Where? How? What?”

“I’ll tell yer,” said Symphony Sam amiably. “My friend Mr. Kellaway and I was jest returning from a reception given in our ’onour by the Dook o’ Chelsea. We decided to walk ’ome to our palatial ’ouse in Park Lane——”

“Cut the cackle,” snarled Barker. “What happened?”

Symph looked at him with a pained expression.

“Well, as you flatties say in court, we was proceedin’ westward chatting, amongst other things, of the gross inefficiency o’ the police in general and Scotland Yard in particler, when——”

“That’s enough of that, Hicks,” spluttered Barker choleric with suppressed rage. “What happened?”

“Ain’t I telling yer?” demanded the patient Symphony. “Well as I said, Mr. Kellaway and I had jest come to the conclusion that of all the antiquated out-of-date an’ useless instishoons under the ’Ome Secretary, Scotland Yard was easily first.”

Barker almost danced with rage.

“Will you get on with it!” he bellowed. “Or, by Heaven, I’ll—I’ll pull you in!”

“ ’Ark at that, Mr. Kellaway. ’E threatens me. ’Bout ’ow much damages d’you fink a public man like meself would get for wrongful imprisonment?”

Bill’s eyes twitched with inward laughter. The face of their old antagonist, Inspector Barker, was a study in magenta as Symph continued his impish baiting.

“Suddenly!” said Symph dramatically, “a gust o’ wind playfully removes the silk titfer from the noble napper of my friend Kellaway ’ere. Ain’t that so, Nutty?”

Bill nodded gravely. He was wondering how Symph was going to get over the awkward difficulty of explaining his nocturnal climb.

“The titfer tat went sailin’ in the air and landed on the lintel of Sneech’s oilshop orf of the King’s Road,” continued Symph mendaciously. “Not wishin’ to let me old college chum catch cold I accordingly climbs up for the ’at. It ’ad lodged right on top o’ one o’ them Ali Barber jars which you can see on most oilshops. I accordingly grasped the titfer and as the slavey said, the lid o’ the jar came away in me ’and—then I lamped it.”

“Lamped what!” snapped Barker.

“The skellywag,” replied the little Cockney. “The stiff.”

Barker shot a swift glance at his colleague.

“You’re drunk, Hicks,” he said brusquely.

Symphony Sam gave a deep sigh.

“ ’Ark at ’im. And me, President of the Rechabite Band of ’Ope. It’s a crool nasturtium, that’s wot it is, Inspector. If you don’t believe me ask Mr. Kellaway, he’ll corrober-corriber—any way, ’e’ll back me up,” he added.

Barker swung round to Bill.

“Just exactly what does this mean?” he demanded.

Bill shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s quite easily verifiable, my dear Inspector,” he drawled. “Ten minutes ago we found a human skeleton in the oil jar above Sneech’s shop. If you don’t believe me, go and investigate. I’m afraid you won’t find Comrade Sneech at home, tho’,” he added. “The bird—as they say in the classics—’as flown.”

“Sneech!” echoed Larner. “I know the feller. Snuffy old bloke with a dirty grey beard. He’s kept that shop for donkey’s years. Nearly all the Chelsea artists deal with him for oil and colours. D’you mean to tell me he’s gone?”

“Gone!” said Bill Kellaway. “ ‘Vamoosed, leaving not a wrack behind,’ as Shakespeare says.”

With that, in clear, crisp, journalistic sentences, he gave a resume of their interview with the queer oil merchant.

Barker cleared his throat and glanced significantly at Larner.

“If that’s the case you’d better come along with me,” he said gruffly. “Come on, Larner, we’ll soon see if these fellows are telling the truth or not.”

Bill Kellaway drew himself up to his full height of six feet one. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly three a.m. “We shall certainly not accompany you, Inspector,” he said. “It’s late and we’re tired. You know my address. You have the power to subpoena us for the inevitable inquest but you have no right to detain us. Mr. Hicks and I have done our duties as honest citizens in reporting the matter and the rest is up to you.”

“Yus!” broke in Symphony Sam with virtuous indignation. “And if you’re baffled abaht anythink, just drop in at the S.S. Detective Bureau in the shadder o’ Scotland Yard. Consult the Eye wot Never Sleeps!”

Barker made an inarticulate noise in his throat and Bill chuckled.

“Come, Symph, you’d better stay at my place to-night,” he said. “It’s too far to go to Shinwell.”

“Thanks!” said Symph. He dived his hand into his pocket and produced an ornate cigar-case, a birthday present from Bill Kellaway.

“ ’Ave a Corona-Corona, Inspector,” he said.

“No thanks!” snapped Barker. “And if you’re fooling me——”

“What abaht you, sir,” said Symph, turning to Larner.

The Divisional Inspector shook his head. His eyes seemed hypnotised by the jingling row of medals across the little man’s waistcoat.

“All me own work, Inspector,” chuckled Symph. “You noticed my degrees on me visidng-card.”

Mechanically Larner picked up the visiting-card and again read the superscription.

SAM HICKS, B.P. & W.S.C.

“What do they mean?” he demanded.

Symph jingled his medals.

“Borstal, Pentonville and Wormwood Scrubs,” he said sweetly. “Or if yer prefer it. Be Prepared. We Solve Crimes!”

“Get out of here,” he exploded, “before I——”

The clock on the wall chimed three.

Symph bowed ironically to the pair.

“Come on, Nutty,” he said. “Let’s go! Good night, gents!”

Very melodiously he began to sing:

“It’s free o’clock in the mornin’

We’ve danced the ’ole night through

An’ daylight soon will be dawnin’——”

Inspector Barker’s language was unprintable as the door closed behind the irrepressible pair.

CHAPTER XI

ENTER VELVET VIC

MISS CANDY LEE, the amazingly pretty and efficient secretary of the S.S. Detective Bureau, gazed with approval at the result of her handiwork, a beautifully arranged lapis bowl of Gloire de Dijon roses on her desk, then looked up suddenly as the buzzer of the outer office sounded.

She smoothed the rebellious curls of her honey-coloured hair and took a swift look at herself in her vanity mirror. A moment later she pressed an electric switch and the door of the glittering chromium and plate-glass waiting-room over which she presided opened soundlessly and a tall, grave-faced man in sober black entered.

His horse-like face with its wispy sideboards broke into a smile as his gaze rested on the girl, for she was indeed “easy on the eyes” to quote her employer, Mr. Symphony Sam Hicks.

“Good morning, Candy,” said the newcomer. “You look, if I may venture to say so, more than usually pulchritudinous this morning.”

Candy Lee made a mock curtsey.

“Thank you, Uncle Henry,” she said. “Do you want to see Symph? He’s just come in after a quick one at the Place.”

She was alluding to that discreet little public house in the shadow of Scotland Yard where detectives—and often crooks—foregather.

Henry Henry, that remarkable man, and incomparable manservant to Bill Kellaway, nodded gravely. Candy was the only daughter of his widowed sister, and it was he who had secured for her the situation at the S.S. Detective Bureau.

“Thank you, my dear,” he said pontifically. “I dropped in to tell him that Mr. Kellaway was detained in the City and will be along after lunch. Has—er—anything further transpired?”

Candy shrugged her slim shoulders.

“Better ask Symph,” she said.

She knocked at the door of the inner room.

“Come in!” replied the cheerful Cockney voice of her employer.

“Mr. Henry Henry,” announced Candy, her cornflower blue eyes dancing with mischief.

Her employer was seated at his desk with his feet on the blotter and a copy of the Greyhound Gazette spread over his knees and the fag-end of a Woodbine cigarette pendant from his lower lip.

He grinned as he recognised Henry.

“Come right in, ole ’orse-face!” he said cordially. “Wot’s eatin’ yer?”

Henry smiled fleetingly. He was very fond of Symphony Sam. He and Bill Kellaway and the little Cockney had shared peril and adventure together on many a dangerous trail in the past.

“Park yerself, ’Enery,” said Symphony. “Where’s Nutty?”

“Mr. Kellaway is unavoidably delayed in the City, sir,” explained Henry. “He will be along a little later.”

He sat down in a chromium plated arm-chair and glanced across Whitehall to where the red brick barrack-like building of Scotland Yard reared its massive bulk fronting the Thames Embankment.

“Oughter be getting a call from ole Barker soon,” said Symphony with a chuckle. “I’d like to ’ave seen ’is face when ’e found that skellywag, ’Enery. I suppose there ain’t any further news?”

Henry shook his head.

“A few bare facts in the noon edition of the evening papers,” he said.

It was the morning after Symphony Sam’s momentous nocturnal visit to the oilshop of Mr. Uriah Sneech.

“Wot do you make of it, ’Enery, ole timer?” asked Symph. “Oos’ is the corpse in the oil jar? Did Sneech murder ’im, an’ if so why? If we could only discover the truth wot a boost for the S.S. Bureau.”

Henry shrugged his shoulders.

“It was a remarkable encounter,” he said. “I understand that the inquest is fixed for Thursday according to the Evening Wireless.”

Symphony made a grimace.

“I ain’t lookin’ forward to it,” he said. “But there ain’t any dodgin’ it!”

Henry leant forward.

“As far as I can ascertain, from discreet enquiries,” he said, “Mr. Uriah Sneech has been in business in the King’s Road for nearly thirty years. He lived the life of a recluse and was reputed to be a miser.”

“Well, ’e certainly looked like one,” broke in Symph. “ ’E reminded me o’ Fagin the Jew, in that there talkie of Oliver Twist I seed once.”

“So I gathered from Mr. Kellaway,” said Henry. “The point is, where did he disappear to last night?”

“Don’t you worry abaht that,” answered Symphony. “Ole Barker’s got the dragnet aht. They’ll pull ’im in orlright. They mayn’t ’ave many brains at Scotland Yard but they’re pretty good when they gets dahn to teamwork.”

Henry smiled.

“I should like to have been present at Chelsea police station last night,” he said wistfully. “Our old friend Barker reminds me of the Bourbons. He learns nothing and forgets nothing.”

“Silly ole fool, but ’e ain’t a bad sort at ’eart,” said Symphony. “You’d ’ave larfed, ’Enery, if you’d ’eard the way ole Nutty ticked ’im orf. ’E came the acid good an’ ’early an——”

A tap sounded at the plate-glass door of the consulting room and Candy entered, a demure figure in a dove-grey tailor-made that suited her slim girlish figure admirably.

“Two clients to see you, sir,” she said primly.

Henry rose to his feet and Symph glanced at him in panic.

“Don’t go, ’Enery,” he said.

The little Cockney had never been at ease with the preliminary interview with clients and relied mainly on Candy to help him out.

“But really I——” began Henry protestingly.

“Sit where you are, Uncle,” said Candy with a dazzling smile. “You’re in on this. Mr. Kellaway won’t mind.”

“Oo the devil is it, anyway?” demanded Symph, removing his feet from the desk and crumpling his copy of the Greyhound Gazette into the waste basket.

“Mr. and Mrs. Zachariah Sneech!” said Candy Lee demurely.

“Blimey!” said Symphony glancing helplessly at Henry. “Now we’ve torn it. Stand by me, ole Chiner.”

He turned to Candy and gave her a comical glance of resignation.

“Orl right, show ’em in to the celebrated mince-pie wot never sleeps, I don’t fink!” he added.

Candy left the room for a moment to return accompanied by two persons, a man and a woman.

Symphony Sam glanced at them curiously as they entered the consulting-room. The man was of medium height clad in a shiny blue serge suit.

He had a tanned, weatherbeaten face and a straggling, grey moustache, his fingers gripped nervously the peak of a cloth cap which he had doffed, revealing a semi-bald head. His companion, a buxom woman, seemed some years his junior. She was dressed in decent black and wore one of those shapeless black hats trimmed with violets that are so popular among the lower middle class. Her gloves though clean were threadbare and her red face was anxious. She had evidently been pretty and her brown eyes were still beautiful.

“Er—are you the director o’ the S.S. Bureau?” the man asked hesitantly, his gaze resting midway between Symph and Henry.

“I am!” said Symph jingling his medals. “Please sit dahn. This is me colleague, Mr. ’Enery, wot runs our social side. You may speak freely before ‘im.” The man glanced uncertainly at his companion then in a broad Lancashire accent said, “My name is Sneech, Zachariah Sneech, this is my wife, ’Annah,” he announced.

“Pleased ter meecher,” said Symph. “Wot kin I do fer yer?”

His visitor sank into a chair.

“I ’ardly know ’ow to begin, mister,” he said. “I only seed a bit in the paper about an hour ago, and it’s given me a bit of a shock like. Yer see, Uriah Sneech is my ooncle and wot with the paper sayin’ ‘e’s disappeared and that, it’s bin a fair upset for mother and me.”

Henry cleared his throat.

“Oh, pardon me. What part of Lancashire do you hail from?” he asked.

“Liverpool!” said the other. “We’re nobbut straangers in London. Mother an’ I came ’ere day afore yesterday to see about a job in Dagenham. Traade is pretty bad up North an’ I ’ad an offer from an old chum to go in with ’im in a new factory ’e’s startin’ there.”

“H’m!” said Henry, taking charge of the interview much to Symph’s relief. “And when did you last see your uncle Mr. Uriah Sneech?”

“Not for two years,” said the other. “Ye see, Ooncle was a difficult chap to get on with. Very tight fisted ’e was——”

“ ’Arf a mo’,” broke in Symphony Sam. “Never mind yer uncle fer a minute. Wot made yer come ’ere to see me?”

His visitor hesitated for a moment and jerked his thumb towards the woman.

“Ask ’er, mister,” he said. “Mother’s a rare reader of t’papers.”

Mrs. Sneech bridled a little.

“Well, sir, I’ve often seen your advertisement offerin’ ’elp to all those in trouble an’ when I read about Uncle being missing I said to Zack, you don’t want to bother with police, go to a private detective and—” she added with a voluminous sigh—“ ’Ere we are!”

“Quite right too,” commented Symphony Sam approvingly. “The police, between you and me, ain’t much use in delicate cases.”

“Pardon me, madam,” broke in Henry, “but this quarrel with Mr. Sneech. How did it affect your relationships.”

“I can answer that!” broke in her husband. “We quarrelled about Hannah ’ere. Ooncle allus was a woman ’ater and when ’e ’eard I’d got married ’e swore ’e’d cut me off out of ’is will. Well, owin’ to the depression our factory in Liverpool ’ad to close down and I was out o’ work. I wrote to Ooncle when things was gettin’ desperate and he told me that as I’d made me own bed I could lie in it. That’s all it was about, mister. Uncle was a queer, tight-fisted old chap as everybody knows. And now ’e’s gone and according to t’papers the police are after ’im.”

He leant forward earnestly.

“ ’E might ’ave bin a miser, mister, but Uncle Uriah was no murderer, that I’ll take my oath on.”

Henry Henry placed the tips of his well-manicured fingers together and studied the pair dispassionately from beneath lowered lids. They looked typical products of the hardworking artisans of the North, plain, uncompromising in their speech, with a certain ruggedness and tenacity of purpose.

“And what do you expect us to do, Mrs. Sneech?” asked Henry.

“Why. Find Ooncle, o’ course,” replied the woman. “It’s bad enough to ’ave ’is naame dragged in the papers without——”

A tap sounded at the door and the debonair figure of Bill Kellaway, clad in a well cut suit of grey tweed, entered.

“How d’you do?” he said pleasantly as Henry performed the necessary introductions. “Here’s the latest from Fleet Street!” he added, tossing down a copy of the Evening Wireless, still wet from the press, on the table.

Symphony Sam whistled softly between his teeth as he scanned the headlines.

SKELETON IN OIL JAR

GRUESOME CHELSEA FIND

POLICE HUNT FOR MISSING MERCHANT

Then followed in terse journalese a resume of their discovery of the previous night. Symphony Sam’s bright, birdlike eyes narrowed as he scanned the news, then he turned to his visitors.

“Well, ’ere it is in black and white, Mr. Sneech!” he commented, tapping the paper with a stubby forefinger. “Between ’em the press an’ police’ll find your Uncle Uriah, don’t you worry, an’ I lay odds that the noospapers find ’im fust—’specially as my dear ole Chiner Inspector Barker’s in charge o’ the case.”

The woman licked her dry lips nervously as she read the news item.

“But—but surely the police don’t think as Uncle murdered this pore chap ’oo was found in t’jar,” she said. “He was a cantankerous old chap, I admit, an’ close fisted, but that he would commit murder, that I’ll never believe,” she added emphatically.

“Well,” broke in Bill cheerfully, “the papers don’t actually say that he’s liable to arrest, madam, it simply states ‘The police are anxious to get into touch with Mr. U. Sneech to interview him’—and there follows a pretty accurate description of your uncle.”

“Yes!” commented Symphony Sam grimly. “I know that kind of interview of old.”

Sneech cleared his throat.

“This has fair moithered me, gents,” he said, shaking his head gloomily. “Wot d’ye think we’d best do about it?”

“Well, sir,” interposed Henry with a deprecatory cough, “in the circumstances sir, considering you are the sole surviving relative of Mr. Sneech, I should get in touch with Inspector Barker. Somebody must look after the business and who better qualified than yourself and your wife?”

“Blimey! Yes, that’s a good idea, ’Enry,” said Symph. “Wot about Mr. Sneech and ’is Mrs. goin’ to live over the shop till their uncle is found. They’ll be able to keep an eye on things and in one sense they’ve got more right to be there than the police.”

Zachariah Sneech looked doubtfully at his wife.

“What d’you say, Hannah?” he asked.

She nodded vehemently.

“I quite agree with Mr. ’Icks, ” she said firmly. “Uriah had no kith nor kin exceptin’ you, Zack. I dunno if he’s made a will or not—it don’t reely matter. We’ve got the right to look after ’is interests. That’s what I think,” she concluded.

Symph tapped his medals meditatively.

“I ain’t sure you ain’t within yer rights, ma’am. Your best move is to go to Scotland Yard. See Inspector Barker an’ tell him everythink. ’E can’t object to you takin’ your abode in Kings Road till your uncle turns up. And if ’e tries any funny business yer can tell ’im that the S.S. Detective Bureau is acting for you. We’ll get the best legal advice in the country if need be,” he added.

Sneech looked at his wife then lumbered slowly to his feet.

“I’m much obliged, gents,” he said in his slow North-country burr. “I’m thinkin’ our plaace is to stand by Uncle Uriah. After all, blood is thicker’n water, and tho we aren’t seen eye to eye in the past, now the poor chap’s in trouble its up to Hannah and me to help him.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Sneech,” said Bill with his engaging smile. “From what I have seen of your uncle, he is quite capable of taking care of himself. Just you take over the shop, and if the police get nasty, refer to us.”

Sneech fumbled with his cap and his weatherbeaten face grew a deep brick red.

“Much obliged to you, gentlemen,” he said. “I’m only a poor man but I’ve saved a bit o’ brass. If you’ll tell me what your fee——”

“Yer can settle all that later on when your Uncle turns up ” broke in Symph with an airy wave of his hand. “And we’ve found out the mystery of the body in the bag—I mean oil jar.”

He pressed an ivory bell-push and in response to his summons Candy Lee entered.

“Please take Mr. and Mrs. Sneech dahn in the lift, Miss Lee, and direct ’em to Scotland Yard,” he instructed.

Candy raised her delicately pencilled eyebrows slightly then smiled.

“Certainly sir, this way if you please,” she added, turning to the visitors.

When the door had closed Symphony Sam lit another Woodbine.

“And nah wot?” he queried. “Do we wait till the busies pull in ole Uriah or do we go ’unting for ’im ourselves?”

Bill shrugged his shoulders.

“I’d leave the dirty work to the Yard if I were you, Symph,” he said. “And hold a watching brief till after the inquest.”

Symphony shook his head in a puzzled fashion.

“It’s a rum business, Nutty. ’Oos shellington’s that in a jar? Did ’ole Sneech bump ’im off? If ’e was innercent why did ’e do a bunk?”

“Search me,” said Bill Kellaway. “What did you make of Zachariah and his Missus. D’you think they know anything?”

“They appeared to me to be a typical worthy couple of the class,” said Henry. “Not particularly gifted with intelligence but honest and hardworking.”

Symphony grunted.

“If ole Uriah’s dead they’ll come into a nice little packet, I reckon,” he said. “By all accounts the ole devil has saved a pile o’ dough, and as next of kin they’d come into the business.”

Bill Kellaway helped himself to one of Symph’s Woodbines and his gaze was abstracted.

“I wonder,” he said. “I’ve an idea I’ve seen Mrs. Hannah Sneech, somewhere, sometime, before. She evidently wears the trousers. I don’t think her husband would come here on his own initiative.”

He glanced at his watch and rose suddenly to his feet.

“By Jove, I promised to take the wife to a matinee,” he said. “Come along Henry, let’s get going. See you later, Symph, ring Henry up if you hear any further news of Ali Baba and his wonderful jar.”

He waved an amiable farewell, and followed by the thoughtful Henry took his leave.

When the door had closed Symphony’s fingers groped in his waistcoat pocket and pulled out the small ocarina he carried, an instrument he played whenever in doubt or stress.

Miss Candy Lee in the outer room heard the sweet, melancholy strain of “Smoke gets in your eyes,” and executed a neat and effective pas-seul on the parquet floor, exhibiting a length of lisson silk-clad limbs that would have brought a disapproving frown to the usually placid forehead of her Uncle Henry Henry.

Her dance was interrupted by a gentle tap on the outer door and, smoothing her honey-coloured curls, Candy crossed over to open it.

Standing on the threshold was a tall slim figure clad in a double-breasted navy blue suit of somewhat exaggerated cut, and curiously wrinkled. He had a swarthy, rather good-looking face, dark brown luminous eyes and a wisp of moustache. Under his arm he carried an evening paper and he raised his black velour hat with a sweeping bow as his gaze fell on Candy.

“Pardon me, mademoiselle, ” he said with the faintest hint of a foreign accent in his low, musical voice, “but does there, is there a Mr. Hicks in this firm?”

Candy studied him covertly beneath her dark lashes.

“Mr. Hicks is the Director of the Bureau,” she said. “Did you want to consult him?”

The man’s dark eyes shifted uneasily and he fumbled with the paper in his hands.

“Well—er—yes, mademoiselle, if it is convenient,” he said. “I—er—am an old friend of his.”

Candy’s sharp eyes had already noted the old-fashioned cut of his clothes, and the peculiar creases that marred the symmetry of his well-fitting coat.

“Please come in,” she said. “What name, please?”

“Er—Savini,” answered the other, “Victor Savini.”

“If you will wait a few moments,” said Candy indicating one of the luxurious chairs, “I will see whether he is disengaged.”

“Thank you,” said Savini as she turned to the door of the consulting room and disappeared.

Symph hurriedly thrust the ocarina in a drawer as Candy entered.

“A Mister Savini to see you, sir,” she announced.

Symphony Sam frowned and drummed on the blotter with his finger.

“Savini. Wots ’e like?” he asked.

“A gigolo from one of the silent films,” replied Candy. “Good looking but a bit out of date.”

“Savini,” echoed Symphony Sam. The name was familiar but for the moment he could not place it.

“Victor Savini,” added Candy. “He looks like a wop.”

Symphony Sam gave a startled exclamation as he suddenly remembered the name.

“Good Lord, Candy!” he ejaculated. “Watch your step, lassie. Its Velvet Vic!”

Candy smiled.

“You know him then. Shall I show him in?” she answered.

“Sure,” said Symph. “He’s an old school chum of mine,” he added, tapping the third medal on his chain. “Pentonville, 1923.”

“Oh!” said Candy faintly and disappeared.

A moment later Mr. Savini thrust a sleek head into the doorway.

He bared his teeth in a flashing smile.

“Hello, Symph!” he said in his soft liquid accent. “Sitting pretty?”

“Come in. Shut the door!” said Symphony Sam, and he spoke in the manner of the old lag without moving his lips.

“Velvet” Vic Savini, one of the slickest jewel thieves that ever worked the Continental boat trains, sidled into the room and closed the door softly behind him.

“And wot?” demanded Symphony, his face grim. “Wot the ’ell are you doin’ outside? I thought you was in stir for five years.”

Velvet Vic smiled.

“So did I!” he grinned. “I was released this mornin’!”

“But, dammit man,” ejaculated Symph. “ ’Ow did that ’appen? Its arly two years since old Savory give you the stretch at the Ole Bailey. I thought five years was a bit stiff for pullin’ orf that Orlow job, the rocks wern’t worth it, but then old Savory allus was one for the maximum.”

Velvet Vic laughed softly and, leaning forward, helped himself to one of Symphony’s Woodbines.

“May I?” he queried.

“Sure,” answered Symph, flicking on a nickel lighter. As he lit the other’s cigarette an anxious note crept into his voice. “You ain’t on the run, are yer?” he queried. “Look wots across the road.”

He jerked his thumb towards the square fortresslike bulk of Scotland Yard.

“I know,” said Velvet Vic with another smile. “As a matter of fact I’ve just reported there. Standish of Records told me you’d set up here in opposition, so I thought I’d drop in and see you.”

Symphony Sam stared blankly at the jewel thief. He had known, but never been an intimate friend, of the smooth tongued plausible Italian in the past. Two years before Savini had been sentenced to five years penal servitude at the Old Bailey, and yet here he was apparently free and completely at his ease.

“How come?” asked Symphony blankly.

“Don’t worry,” laughed Savini. “I’m not on the run, Symphony. I’ve been released by a special order of the Home Secretary.”

“What!” ejaculated Symph. “You’re kidding.”

“On the contrary,” said Velvet Vic. “Take a slant at these, Symph.”

From the pocket of his crinkled coat, donned that morning for the first time after a sojourn of two years in the prison store, he pulled out a sheaf of buff, official forms. Silently he handed them to Symphony Sam who scanned them perfunctorily. They were Prison discharge papers and as he read on the mystery of Velvet Vic’s premature release became clear.

“So that’s the explanation—the mutiny,” he said.

Velvet Vic nodded.

“Exactly,” replied the ex-convict. “God knows I have no liking for ‘screws,’ Symph, but I’ve always drawn the line at murder. When Big Butch Maloney hatched out the mutiny plot in Bleakmoor I refused to be drawn into it. Of course I didn’t split—who would, but I knew from the first that Butch’s crazy scheme would be a failure.”

“Gosh!” ejaculated Symph. “Then you was at Bleakmoor.”

Velvet Vic nodded bitterly as he studied his calloused hands and broken finger-nails. Symphony Sam’s mind went back to the newspaper report of the prison mutiny at Bleakmoor over some three months before, when the convicts made a wild and bloody bid for freedom, attacking warders with picks and shovels and setting fire to the prison workshops.

It had been a short and sanguinary rebellion, however, and after a few hours the authorities gained the upper hand.

“Then—then—you were one of the three convicts that saved the Chief ‘Screws’ life when Butch’s gang attacked him with crowbars.”

Velvet Vic nodded.

“Yes. It was a hellish business, Symph. God knows I hate all screws but the Chief had been decent to me an’—well—I couldn’t see ’im being done in like a dog.”

Symphony Sam crossed over to the little cupboard in the corner from which he took out a whisky bottle and a syphon.

“I don’t ’old wiv Screws meself, Vic,” he said. “But I bars the Big thing. ’Ave a drink?”

Velvet Vic smiled assent as Symph mixed two whiskys and soda. “Well!” he said raising his glass, “here’s how. Helpin’ the Chief did me no harm, anyway. I got three years knocked off my sentence, and ’ere I am, ready for the old game again.”

Symphony Sam frowned and lit a cigarette.

“So ’ere you are, eh?” he said. “Got any plans?”

A scowl darkened Velvet Vic’s handsome, swarthy features.

“Sure I’ve got plans, Symph,” he said and a steely note crept into his voice. “Plenty of ’em. Just you wait till I lay my hands on those two double-crossing swine Ringer Bell and Uriah Sneech!”

The Italian’s dark eyes smouldered with suppressed hatred and he clenched his lean swarthy hands until the knuckles shone bone white.

CHAPTER XII

RINGER BELL STRIKES AGAIN

SYMPHONY SAM drained his drink at a gulp and stared incredulously at the ex-convict.

“Did you say Sneech—Uriah Sneech?” he demanded harshly.

Velvet Vic Savini nodded and slammed down his crumpled copy of the Evening Wireless on the desk before Symphony Sam.

“That feller!” he said. “The dirtiest double-crossing fence that ever framed an’ honest crook. Him, and his ruddy side-trick Ringer Bell.”

Symphony Sam whistled softly.

“Are you sure you got it right, Vic?” he asked. “This feller Sneech is an oil merchant off the King’s Road, Chelsea. I knows a bit abaht ’im becos——”

“Oil merchant my foot!” broke in the Italian contemptuously. “That was only a blind. Sneech was one of the craftiest sparkler fences in the game. He never touched anythink but ‘rocks’ an’ never dealt direct except with half a dozen jewel thieves of the front rank, that’s why the busies never got wise to him.”

Symphony Sam pushed back his chair and his birdlike eyes gleamed with amazement.

Uriah Sneech a fence! A receiver of stolen jewels. If Velvet Vic’s statement was true then it explained his curious and furtive demeanours the previous night. No wonder he had made good his escape in the darkness after Symph and Bill had stumbled on the grisly secret of the oil jar.

He turned to the ex-convict and his birdlike eyes hardened into steely pin-points.

“When wos you let aht o’ stir, Vic,” he demanded sternly.

“This morning seven o’clock, why?” demanded the other. “Look at the date on those forms if you don’t believe me.”

Symph picked up the buff documents signed by the Home Secretary and his frown deepened. Vic’s statement was completely verified by the Governor’s signature and the rubber date stamp.

“This,” said Symph with a sigh, “is a knock-aht. A fair knock-aht.”

Velvet Vic helped himself to another tot of whisky then bent forward in his chair.

“Now you see why I came here, Symph. I read that account of Sneech’s disappearance when I arrived at Paddington this morning. When I saw the name Symphony I wondered what the devil you were doin’ mixed up with Sneech. I know that you never touched ‘rocks’ when you were working and I wondered just where you came in on this.”

Symphony Sam grinned faintly. It was going to be difficult to explain to the suave Italian exactly how and why he had forsaken the paths of crime and become director of a Detective Agency within a stone’s throw of the grim grey shadow of Scotland Yard.

“Listen, Vic,” he said earnestly. “Best thing you can do is come out and ’ave a spot o’ lunch with me. I reckon I knows ’ow you feel coming out o’ stir. Let’s go to a little joint I know and push back some eats. It’ll be quiet there and yer can spill the beans better on a full tummy.”

Velvet Vic bared his excellent teeth in a grateful smile.

“You’re a good scout, Symph,” he said. “Though I’m hanged if I know what you’re doing in this racket.”

He waved his hand round the luxuriously furnished consulting-room with its glittering chromium furniture and up to the minute office fixtures.

“Is all this on the level, Symph?” he queried.

The little Cockney chuckled.

“Sure it’s on the level, Vic. ’Aven’t you ’eard as I’ve swallowed the anchor?”

Velvet Vic shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

“Oh well, I hope you find the diet digestible,” he said.

Symphony Sam seized his billycock hat and adjusted it at its accustomed jaunty angle on his oddly pear-shaped head.

“I’ll tell yer abaht it, Vic,” he said, “Let’s go.”

Together they left the consulting-room and Symph grinned cheerfully at Candy.

“I’m going to lunch, Peaches, if anybody calls, tell ’em I’m designin’ St. Paul’s!”

Candy looked up from the lurid detective novel she was reading.

“O.K. Chief!” she commented, flashing Symph a smile that caused the susceptible heart of Signor Savini to miss several beats.

Outside, in Whitehall, he turned to Symphony, and smiled cryptically.

“The dessert makes up for the main meal, I reckon,” he said.

“Meanin’ wot?” demanded Symphony Sam.

“I shouldn’t mind swallowing two anchors if I had Peaches to follow,” smiled Velvet Vic.

Symphony Sam frowned momentarily.

“She’s a nice kid, Vic, but she means nothink to me. I’ve only got one mother where wimmin are concerned—F.E.A. Ferget ’em all!”

Savini shrugged his eloquent Latin shoulders.

“Oh well! You always were a lone wolf, Symph. If I’d played a lone hand I’d never have been pinched. That’s why I’ve got it in for this guy Sneech and ‘Ringer Bell.’ ”

“Ringer Bell,” echoed Symphony. “The name seems kind o’ familiar. What’s ’is graft?”

“Graft?” echoed Velvet Vic. “All of ’em. He’s the slickest con man in the game. He used to be a mummer and what he doesn’t know about disguise isn’t worth knowing.”

Symphony smacked his thigh.

“Gosh yes. I remember Ringer nah!” he said. “I never met ’im personally. They call ’im Ringer cos ’e rings so many changes on ’is dial that nobody reckernises ’is real mug. Ain’t there some yarn that if ’e was to be ’anged, the bloomin’ executioner would ’ang ’imself thinkin ’e was Ringer Bell.”

Savini laughed softly.

“I’ll grant you he’s a genius at disguise, Symph. Even I don’t know what he really looks like. I met him through Sneech. He called himself Doctor Fadullo then.”

Symphony halted suddenly before a tiny little restaurant tucked in an alleyway between two government buildings.

“ ’Ere we are, Vic. The grub’s good and cheap. Wot’s more we ain’t likely to be disturbed,” he said. Together they passed into the restaurant and a portly red-faced man bowed obsequiously to Symphony.

“Mornin’, Charles,” said the little Cockney. “Ow’s the Kate and Sidney?”

“Special to-day, Mr. ‘Icks,” replied the proprietor. “With nice fresh mushrooms.”

“ ’Ow does that appeal to you, Vic?” asked Symph.

The ex-convict smiled.

“It listens good to me, Symph,” he said. “Anything would after——”

He broke off suddenly, and Symphony covered his momentary confusion by ordering two tankards of beer very loudly and heartily.

The manager led the way to a discreet alcove at the end of the long narrow restaurant and a bustling waitress attended to their wants.

“And nah, Vic,” said Symphony Sam when they had done justice to the steaming steak and kidney pudding, “spill them beans. Who, why, and what is Sneech? ’Ow does Ringer Bell come into the schemozzle?”

Velvet Vic lit a cigarette.

“They framed me, Symph,” he said quietly. “Ringer introduced me to Sneech when I pulled that Orlov jewel job. Sneech offered me five grand.”

“Five thashand!” ejaculated Symph. “Cripes, that must ’ave bin some job, Vic.”

“It was,” said Velvet Vic drily. “Took me months to sweeten. I won’t bother about details but the point is I got the rocks. Ringer Bell in his role of Dr. Fadullo introduced me to Sneech. We haggled over the price and Ringer, the dirty double-crossing twicer, told me to stick out for seven grand. I was hitting the high spots at the time, staying at the Cosmos and drinking too much. Ringer Bell pretended to be a pal and warned me against Sneech. Then——”

The Italian drew in his breath with the hiss of a snake.

“Well, it’s a simple story, Symph. When I think of the double mug I was I see red. Ringer Bell and I throw a party, chorous girls and all that. I’d got the rocks cached in the Chancery Lane safe deposit vault and like a fool I told Ringer about it.”

He paused and his dark eyes smouldered with hatred.

“Go on,” said Symph. “An’ then wot!”

“Butyl chloride,” said Velvet Vic. “Fancy me copped out by knock-out drops. The dirty swine doped my drink an’ when I woke up, I was in the cooler at Cannon Row. The safe deposit ticket had vanished and the Ringer, disguised as me, had half inched the rocks and framed me to the blasted busy’s for the first time, I’d left a finger-print on the Orlov safe—result five years,” he added.

“An’ no rocks?” said Symphony Sam sympathetically.

“No rocks,” replied the Italian bitterly with a glance at his bruised and toilworn hands. “No rocks—save the hard granite of Bleakmoor—thanks to Ringer Bell.”

He leant forward suddenly and his eyes blazed with hatred.

“I tell you, Symph, I’m going to get Ringer Bell. I’ll get him if I’ve got to tear London to pieces. He, and this swine Sneech, were hand in glove together. Sneech has vanished. Maybe Ringer Bell double-crossed him—maybe not. But I’ll tell you here and now, I’ve only got one thought that has sustained me in ‘stir’ and that’s to put paid to Ringer Bell’s account!”

The Italian’s voice vibrated with suppressed passion and Symphony Sam pressed his foot warningly beneath the table as the waitress approached with their bill.

“Go easy, Vic!” he murmured in the soundless fashion of the old lag.

Ostentatiously he drew out a pig-skin wallet from which he withdrew a pound note.

“There y’are, my dear. Cheap at ’arf the price,” he said.

The waitress giggled.

“Get along wiv yer, do, Mr. ‘Icks, you allus will ’ave yer joke,” she said.

Symphony Sam smiled grimly as she went off to get his change.

“I’m glad you came to see me, Vic,” he said. “It ’elps matters considerably. Nah I’ll tell yer wot I know abaht Mr. Uriah Sneech!”

With that he leant forward and in brief, precise Cockney he told Velvet Vic about the Singular Adventure of Ali Baba’s Jar and his meeting with the elusive Mr. Sneech.

Velvet Vic listened intently as the story was unfolded.

His dark, luminous eyes flashed as Symph described Sneech’s agitation and his headlong flight when the corpse had been discovered.

“So that’s how you come in on this,” said Vic, when Symph had finished.

“That old devil Sneech must have had the wind up about something. It was a good racket posing as an oil and colour man right in the heart of Chelsea, still, I don’t see——”

“I tell yer wot I see,” broke in Symphony Sam as the waitress returned with his change.

He tipped her lavishly then bent forward to Velvet Vic.

“If yer look in yer pocket when yer get aht, Vic, yer’ll find a tenner,” he murmured. “Yer needn’t pay me back. Its wiv the compliments of the S.S. Detective Bureau.”

Velvet Vic flushed slightly and his hand went mechanically to his breast pocket.

Dazedly he brought out ten new crisp pound notes.

“By Gosh! Symph!” he ejaculated. “How the devil——”

“Shurrup!” said Symphony Sam. “Once a whizz alius a whizz he said. Its just as easy to put somethink in yer skyrocket as ter tike somethink aht!”

Vic Savini gulped a little.

“Symph,” he began. “You’re the whitest——”

“Shurrup!” broke in Symphony Sam brusquely. “Go an’ fix yerself up in some digs. I may be needin’ yer. If the cops don’t pull in Sneech, I’ll ’ave to.”

Velvet Vic held out his hand.

“I’m with you, Symph,” he said. “I want to find Sneech myself, because he’ll lead me to Ringer Bell. And I’ve something to say to Ringer,” he added and in his eyes Symphony read cold hate.

CHAPTER XIII

SOMETHING STIRRED

“GOOD morning, sir.”

Henry Henry, that pluperfect manservant, gently deposited a daintily laid tray on the occasional table beside Bill Kellaway’s bed—single perforce, since Dorothy, his charming wife, was holidaying in the South of France.

Bill flung aside the bedclothes and blinked sleepily at him.

“Mornin’, Henry,” he said. “Whasser time?”

“Nine-thirty-three, sir,” replied Henry. “The weather forecast states that we may expect a moderate south-west to south wind, bright intervals, local showers, perhaps more general rain later, average temperature——”

“Shut up,” roared Bill, hurling a pillow at him. “I’m not Sir John Reith. Have they found Sneech?”

Henry dodged the missile and laid a copy of the Daily Ray on the coverlet.

“No, sir. Scotland Yard is, as usual, like most politicians, exploring every avenue!” he said.

Bill propped himself on one elbow and stretched out his hand for the cup of coffee which Henry had already poured out.

“Page two, Column three, sir,” said Henry quietly.

Bill grinned as he flicked over the main news page of the paper.

It was two days since their adventure at the King’s Road, Chelsea, and judging from the report which Bill now read, there was no clue to the whereabouts of the missing Uriah Sneech.

Bill frowned as he scanned the headlines.

CHELSEA SKELETON MYSTERY

FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED

MYSTERY OF MR. SNEECH

Bill Kellaway chuckled as he read the terse, vivid journalese of his friend, Bannerhead Bruce, the star crime reporter of the Daily Rag.

“Good old Bannerhead!” he commented, reading the opening paragraph aloud.

“He tells the story in the first three lines. Listen, Henry.

“‘The identity of the human skeleton discovered in the terra-cotta oil jar ornamenting the shop of Mr. Uriah Sneech, Colourman, of King’s Road, Chelsea, remains a mystery. The disappearance of Mr. Sneech who vanished——’

“So they haven’t found the blighter yet,” commented Bill gulping down his cafe au lait. “I see the inquest’s fixed for to-morrow. There’s not much doubt about the verdict. If you’d seen that smashed skull——”

He paused suggestively.

“I have no doubt that murder has been committed, sir, especially in view of the fact of the information which Mr. Hicks imparted to us yesterday,” said Henry.

Bill rubbed his chin and grinned.

“Yes. Damn funny that. Not even old Barker suspects that Sneech is the wiliest fence in the game. Point is, what about his nephew Zachariah and ’Onest ’Annah his wife. If they learn that their respected uncle is a receiver of stolen goods——”

“Brr—brr—brring!”

The phone bell at the side of Bill’s bed shrilled suddenly.

Henry lifted the receiver and his grave, horse-like face, was unemotional.

“Hello! Yes. Henry speaking,” he said in response to the query at the other end of the wire. His mouth twitched slightly as he recognised it.

“That you ’Enery? Somethink’s ’appened,” came the urgent voice. “Velvet Vic’s bin stabbed. ’E’s under police guard in St. Stephen’s ’Orspittle an’ ’e wants me. E’s fahnd aht all abaht Sneech. I’m on me wiy.”

“One moment, sir. Perhaps you’d like to speak to Mr. Kellaway,” said Henry.

He handed the receiver to his employer.

“Say! Listen, Nutty. I’ve jest ’ad a phone call from St. Stephen’s,” came Symph’s quick urgent voice. “Velvet Vic’s bin stabbed. ’E’s dyin’—and ’e’s fahnd aht where Sneech is. Can yer make it? I’m on me wiy nah!”

“O.K., Symph. I’ll join you in half an hour,” said Bill Kellaway and replaced the receiver.

He took a flying leap out of bed.

“Hear that, Henry?” he demanded. “The sinister Mr. Sneech, sounds as if he’s been located.”

“Yes, sir,” said Henry. “And may I suggest in view of the weather forecast, the Harris tweed with a blue shirt——”

“Oh, Hell! I leave it to you,” said Bill Kellaway and dashed into the bathroom.

• • • • • •

Symphony Sam replaced the receiver and his rubicund face was very thoughtful. He had arrived early at his office and the phone call he had just received from St. Stephen’s Hospital had jolted him considerably. It was from the house surgeon. Brief, laconic, and to the point.

“Would Mr. Hicks kindly call at once to see Mr. Savini who was dangerously injured and not expected to live.”

Symph, with his Cockney blandishments, had managed to extract the information that it was not a mere car smash, and that his friend Vic had been stabbed. He promptly rang up Bill Kellaway and having given the information grabbed his hat, nodded good-bye to Candy and hailed a taxi.

As the cab bowled through the morning traffic of Whitehall towards St. Stephen’s Hospital Symphony Sam’s brain worked quickly. Since his interview with Velvet Vic two days before, nothing had transpired in the Oil Jar Mystery as the press dubbed it. There was no trace of the elusive Sneech, and as for that protean individual Ringer Bell who had framed Savini, there was not the slightest clue to his whereabouts. Symph had dived, not without danger, into the Underworld he knew so well, but not a hint or a whisper did he learn of the two elusive crooks.

And now Velvet Vic had been stabbed.

Symph’s usually cheerful face was set and grim as the taxi drew up before the imposing facade of St. Stephen’s Hospital.

He paid and dismissed the taxi and hurried up the steps of the hospital. A white-clad commissionaire looked up from his desk as he entered the white enamelled iodoform-scented hallway. The little Cockney lowered his voice. Hospitals were one of the few places that overawed him.

“I got an urgent message,” he said. “Abart Mr. Savini. ’Ow is ‘e?”

The attendant looked at the open book before him and shook his head dubiously.

“On the danger list I’m afraid, sir,” he announced. “He’s still unconscious. I think you may see him for a moment or two. He was calling for you before he relapsed. Second floor, Block A. Ward three,” he added in brisk impersonal tones.

“Thanks, mate,” said Symphony and, removing his billycock hat, slowly mounted the echoing stone steps to a long white-tiled corridor, down which white-clad nurses hurried with tireless, soundless steps.

“Nah I realise the French siying,” murmured Symph to himself, “Blanc is White.”

Suddenly he halted before a door in front of which, on a white enamelled chair, sat a burly, broad-shouldered figure whose face was vaguely familiar. Symphony stiffened suddenly as he recognised the other’s tanned, clean-shaven features and hard gimlet eyes beneath bushy, black eyebrows. It was his old enemy of the E. Division, Detective-Sergeant Gleeson. The recognition was mutual.

“ ’Lo! Sergint. Fancy meetin’ you ’ere,” he said in a hushed whisper.

Gleeson frowned, rose to his full height of six feet and glowered down at the diminutive Cockney.

“Huh!” he grunted, “so you’re here at last. Know anything about this business?”

“Nary a thing,” replied Symphony blandly, “except Vic was an old Chiner o’ mine an’ sent for me.”

“A precious pair both of you,” commented the detective with a scowl. “I doubt if Vic’ll tell you much, anyway. He’s got his, I’m afraid, poor devil, Symph,” he added in a more kindly tone.

“Who done it?” asked Symph.

Gleeson shook his head.

“He was unconscious when we found him. The doc’s in with him now,” he added.

Very quietly, for a man of his bulk, he opened the door and Symph peered into the spotless white private ward. A tall, grave-faced surgeon was bending over the bed on which reposed the limp, inanimate figure of Velvet Vic.

“The man Hicks, sir,” said Gleeson in a whisper as Symph hesitated on the threshold. The white-clad surgeon nodded gravely.

“I’m afraid you’re too late, my friend,” he said. “The wound is fatal.”

Symphony Sam gazed down at the pale, waxen features of the erstwhile debonair crook Velvet Vic Savini. He clenched his fists until the knuckles shone bone white. True Savini had never been an intimate friend of his but to see him lying there breathing stertorously as the result of a cowardly assassin’s murderous attack, stirred him to a slow anger strange to his usually sunny nature.

He registered a mental oath that he’d track down the man responsible.

“Is ’e—is ’e in much pain, doc?” he whispered.

The surgeon shook his head.

“No!” he answered. “I suppose you cannot throw any light on this matter, Hicks?”

Symphony Sam hesitated.

He recalled the hot-tempered Sicilian’s vow of the previous day, to get even with the man who had double-crossed him and put him behind prison bars.

“The police have a theory it was the result of a gang fight,” added the surgeon.

Symphony shook his head.

“I don’t think so, sir. Savini allus got on well with the boys. Besides, ’e only came out o’stir a couple——”

He broke off suddenly as a faint moan broke from Savini’s ashen lips.

Instantly the surgeon bent over the dying man and his eyes narrowed.

Quick! he ordered to the hovering attendant. Instantly the other handed him a graduated glass filled with an amber-hued fluid. The doctor placed it to Savini’s lips and lifted him gently, with infinite care, from the pillow, pouring a few drops down the parched throat. Savini gave a convulsive shudder and a moment later his eyelids flickered open.

For a moment his eyes gazed glazed and dull into the surgeon’s grave face, and then a faint glimmer of recognition crept into their depths as he recognised Symphony Sam. A wan smile played about his ashen lips.

“ ’Lo, Symph,” he whispered in a voice so low and broken that Symph had to crane forward to hear. “ ’E got me, the twicer. I—I—guess its curtains for me.”

A violent fit of coughing shook his spare frame but with a supreme effort of will the dying man gasped out painfully,

“Get him, Symph. Get Ringer. He’s disguised as——”

Flecks of foam frothed on his pallid lips.

“Go on, Vic,” urged Symphony. “I’ll get him. Tell me who he is?”

A convulsive shudder shook Savini’s frame.

“See Cora,” he murmured in a scarcely audible whisper. “Cora Cavelli. She—she—knows. I—I—meant to——”

His voice trailed off into silence and a gush of blood welled up from his punctured lung. His limbs grew rigid in the surgeon s arms and then relaxed.

The doctor lowered his head gently on to the pillow and his firm lips tightened.

Velvet Vic Savini had gone to his last account.

CHAPTER XIV

NEWS OF URIAH

IT was a very thoughtful and subdued Symphony Sam that returned in the early dusk of a grey winter afternoon to his office in Whitehall Crescent.

Candy’s quick feminine perception noticed the change in the little man’s demeanour but she forbore to comment. Instead, as he passed, without his usually cheery greeting into his inner sanctum, she bustled about and prepared a pot of strong black tea which she set out on a dainty tea-tray, not forgetting a liberal supply of Symphony’s favourite buttered scones.

She found her employer hunched in a despondent attitude in his chair as she entered with the tea-tray.

“Drink this, Chief!” she said briskly. “It’ll do your headache good.”

Symph smiled gratefully.

“Thanks, Candy, you’re a good kid!” he said as she deftly poured out the tea. “Sit dahn there and pour yourself a cup. I want to talk. I’ve ’ad a bit of a shock.”

Candy curled her lithe young form into a deep arm-chair and looked up attentively.

“Savini’s snuffed it!” announced Symphony briefly.

“You—You—mean he’s dead?” queried Candy.

He nodded gloomily.

“Yus. Ringer Bell croaked ’im. I was wiv ‘im when ’e ’anded in ’is checks this arternoon, he answered.

“B-but—how awful!” said the girl, her vivid eyes clouding momentarily. “I am sorry, Mr. Hicks. He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”

“Well not exac’ly a Chiner,” said Symph. “But ’e wasn’t a bad cove as wops go, Candy. Wot worries me is I promised ’im I’d get this bloke Ringer an’ put ’im where ’e belongs. The devil of it is, nobody knows ’oo the ’ell Ringer Bell is or wot ’e looks like. ’E useter be a mummer years ago an’ ‘e can disguise ’isself so well that ’is own mother wouldn’t reckernise ’im if she saw ’im.”

Candy furrowed her pretty brows.

“It sounds a difficult proposition you’ve taken on,” she said. “Especially as in some way this Ringer man seems to be involved in the disappearance of Mr. Sneech.”

“That’s just the point,” said Symph gloomily. “According to Vic Savini, Ringer and Sneech were as thick as—as—the thieves they were. Poor ole Vic croaked it afore ’e could tell me the Ringer’s reel identity. The only cloo I ’ave, is the name of a moll ‘oo useter keep a joint in Soho, called Cora Callini. Vic was sweet on ’er in the old days but she’s disappeared from Soho for munce.”

Candy bent forward, crossing her shapely ankles.

“Maybe after the inquest somebody’ll come forward and give you a lead,” she suggested.

“Which inquest?” queried Symph gloomily. “The skellington’s or Vic’s? If only that bonehead Barker and his busys would pull in Sneech we might get somewheres. As it is, I believe the damn fools suspect me of ’aving an ’and in the business.”

“You!” laughed Candy. “But how absurd!”

“Not so absurd as yer think, my dear,” replied Symph. “Yer should ’ave ’eard the grilling I got from that blighter Gleeson in the ’orspittle this afternoon. ’E seemed to think that because Savini sent for me I must know somethink of ’ow ’e was croaked. The ruddy—fool!” he added bitterly.

Candy rose to her feet and poured out two further cups of tea.

“It’s certainly a tangle,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s see if we can marshal our cogent facts together, as Uncle Henry says.”

She smiled and ticked off the fingers of one slim hand.

“First, the skeleton discovered by accident by you and Mr. Kellaway. We have no clue to its identity, except that, by all appearances, it is that of a murdered man. Secondly, Mr. Uriah Sneech denies all knowledge of it, and suddenly disappears. Thirdly, Savini says that Sneech was a fence and in league with Ringer Bell who’s real identity nobody seems to know.”

“Fair mix up, ain’t it?” commented Symph bitterly. “Go on, Miss Datas,” he added with a return to his old banter.

“Fourthly, this mysterious Ringer Bell murders Savini after double-crossing him over a big jewel haul and then——”

The buzzer of the outer office whirred suddenly and Candy broke off her cataloguing.

She glanced enquiringly at her employer.

“May as well see ’oo it is,” he said. “ ’Eaven knows we can’t be in a worse tangle than the one we’re in nah!”

Candy sighed, and crossed to the reception room. Gloomily Symph lit one of his favourite Woodbine cigarettes. He heard the low murmur of voices from the room beyond and, a moment later, Candy returned, her violet-blue eyes dancing with mischief.

“A Mr. Jack Travers from the Malay Straits to see you, sir,” she said.

“Huh!” grunted Symph. “Tell ’em I’m busy.”

“But his business is urgent,” Candy insisted, then lowering her voice, “he’s got some information about Mr. Uriah Sneech—his uncle!”

“What!” ejaculated Symph incredulously. “His uncle. ’Ow many more nephews ’as the blighter got!”

“Better see him, sir,” advised Candy.

Symph shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

“Oh well, show ’im in—and, Candy,” he added, “bring your notebook, my dear, I reckon I’ll need a witness for this interview in case old Barker cuts up rough.”

“Very good, sir!” said Candy demurely, the efficient secretary once more.

With deft movements she placed the tea things in adjacent cupboard while Symph seated himself at his desk and tried to look busy.

A moment later she ushered in a tall, loose-limbed young man with a face tanned to the colour of old mahogany. He was dressed in a heavy tweed overcoat and a blue serge suit. His features were irregular and his nose seemed to have been broken at some period in his career. His eyes were blue and likeable, however, as he advanced towards the watchful Symphony with outstretched hand.

Symph grasped it, and was momentarily surprised at the strength of those tanned, lean fingers.

“Wot can I do for you, Mr. Travers?” he said. “This is my confidential sekketary afore ’oom you can speak freely,” he added in the formula Bill had taught him.

His visitor smiled as Candy indicated a chair.

“Glad to know you, Mr. Hicks!” he said in a deep voice. “My business naturally is confidential.”

“ ‘Ave a cigar,” said Symph hospitably pushing forward the humidor.

“Thanks,” said the other as he selected one. “The fact is, I’ve come to consult you regarding the disappearance of my uncle, Mr. Uriah Sneech. Your name has been mentioned in connection with the case in the papers so I thought I’d come to the fountain head, as it were, without bothering the police. I only arrived in England last evening,” he added explanatorily.

As he lit up his cigar, Candy seated herself in an unobtrusive corner and opened her notebook.

“You’ve come to the right spot, Mr.—er—Travers,” he said. “Fac’ is we ’ad yer cousin an’ is wife ’ere a short time ago on the sime business.”

“My cousin and his wife?” repeated the other. “I don’t understand. As far as I know I’m the only living relative of my uncle. In fact, I’ve documents here to prove it,” he added, fumbling in his inner pocket and pulling out a leather wallet.

Symphony shot a significant glance at Candy then cleared his throat.

“Er. That’s strange, Mr. Travers. ’Ow exactly are you related to Mr. Sneech? I mean your nime’s different.”

The young man laughed as he opened his wallet.

“Why, that’s easily explained, my mother was Mr. Sneech’s only sister who married my father, John Travers, thirty years ago. They are both dead now, and, as you can see by this queer letter, I am my uncle’s sole heir.”

So saying he pulled out a much creased and folded sheet of notepaper and handed it to Symphony Sam.

The little Cockney scrutinised the document with inward bewilderment but did not betray that emotion in his rubicund features.

The letter bore the date of some three months before and ran as follows:

“189a Kings Road Walk,

“Chelsea.

“DEAR NEPHEW,

“As I feel that I am getting on in years and as you’re the only son of my only sister Amelia who, with all her strait-laced ways, I was very fond of, I think it only right you should have my money after I’m gone.

“You’re the only kith and kin I’ve got, and if I don’t leave it to you them cursed lawyers are sure to get it. According I make you my sole heir to my money if your clever enough to find it.

“If you can solve the riddle, then its all yours and no questions asked. If you are a fool like your father then you deserve to lose it.

“Its in a place I never much use.

Next to godliness then you can’t lose.

Waste not. Want not. You’ll find it true.

So Practice Economy in what you do.

You needn’t go further than the shop.

Because its above. There it’ll stop.

And if you go to Somerset House,

I’ll leave it all to a mouse.

“Your uncle

“URIAH SNEECH.”

Symphony Sam gazed blankly at the extraordinary missive.

Even his quick Cockney wits were unable to cope with the seemingly meaningless gibberish which was written in an old man’s crabbed and spidery handwriting.

“Do you mind if I make a note of this, Mr. Travers? ” he queried to gain time.

The other shrugged his shoulders.

“Not at all, Mr. Hicks. If you can make head or tail of the nonsense you’re a cleverer man than I am. Its my firm belief that my uncle’s gone potty. First, this extraordinary letter, and now, his unaccountable disappearance.”

Symph nodded and pulled thoughtfully at his lower lip.

“Maybe you’re right, mister,” he said, a memory coming to him of that queer, bent old man with the matted beard and glaring eyes on that memorable night in the oil shop.

“Kindly make a note o’ that, Miss Lee,” he said, turning to Candy then, with an inward chuckle at the girl’s perplexity, added,

“ ’Ow did you get on wiv your uncle, Mister Travers?”

The other smiled wryly.

“As a matter of fact I hardly knew him,” he answered. “He and my father didn’t get on at all well together. Uncle Uriah was very miserly in his habits, and he was furious when my mother, who had acted as his housekeeper, ran away with Dad.”

Symphony nodded thoughtfully.

“ ’An ’ow long ’ave you bin abroad?” he queried.

“Off and on for ten years,” was the reply.

“When did you last see your Uncle?”

“About seven years ago. We parted on fairly friendly terms. It was after my mother’s funeral,” added his visitor.

“Was Mr. Sneech very rich, d’you think?” asked Symph.

“Well, judging by what he didn’t spend he must have had a tidy bit put by,” answered the other. “He was not a likeable old man by any means but you can imagine my feelings on my return yesterday to find this police hue and cry after him, and not only that, strong hints that he is a murderer.”

“Quite! Quite!” said Symph lighting another Woodbine. “Now why exactly have you come ter consult me?”

“Why!” came the swift rejoinder. “I want to know whether he’s alive or dead. I want to know why the police want him. I want the whole mystery solved. After all, Mr. Hicks, you were one of the last people to see Uncle Uriah alive.”

“I see, Mr. Travers. I only met your uncle once, an’ then only fer a few minutes, but as we met under pecooliar circs. I can see yer point. Nah as ter findin’ ’im,” he added, jerking his thumb behind him to where the barrack-like bulk of Scotland Yard loomed on the other side of Whitehall.

“My very good an’ ’ighly esteemed colleague Inspector Barker o’ the C.I.D. ’as ’is dragnet out an’ I’m expectin’ noos at any moment.”

He paused, and glanced across at Candy, whose blue eyes were twinkling with inward mirth.

“If I was you, sir,” added Symphony, “I’d leave the findin’ o’ your Uncle Uriah to Scotland Yard. Meantime, leave matters, such as lookin’ arter ’oo

done it eckcectera ter me——”

“But look here, Mr. Hicks,” broke in his visitor angrily, “I don’t understand. You are one of the last to see my uncle alive. I came to you for advice——”

“An’ I’ll give it yer, young feller,” cut in Symph. “Go an’ see a good West End show. You’ve bin years abroad and you’ll need a change. Don’t bother yer ’ead abaht yer uncle to-night. Come and see me to-morrer mornin’ an’ I’ll ’ave noos for yer.”

He spoke with such assurance that his visitor gasped.

“But—but—what—what can I do, Mr. Hicks? Do you mean you can explain this mystery to me?”

“Yus!” replied the irrepressible Cockney. “But not ter-night. Scotland Yard’s dealin’ wiv yer uncle. I’d go an see ’em if I was you. Or trust me—until to-morrer,” he added.

His caller rose to his feet and his lower lip twitched. “But—but—I don’t understand. Can’t you see my position?”

“Neether do I,” replied Symph with a disarming smile. “Can’t you see mine at the moment? I shall get my experts at work. Call in the mornin’, Mr. Travers, and I’ll ’ave noos!”

Candy, in response to the unspoken signal, closed her notebook with a snap of finality and rose to her feet.

“Thanks for calling,” said Symphony Sam. “Miss Lee will give you all particulars where to ’phone on the way out. Glad you called!”

The visitor glanced at Candy who held the door open invitingly.

“Then—then——” he temporised. “You mean I must wait until Scotland Yard have found my uncle?”

“Exactly, Mr. Travers,” said Symphony. “I never work agin my colleagues of the C.I.D. Ring me in the mornin’. Here, by the way, is your uncle’s letter.”

So saying he handed over the document.

Travers took it and bestowed it in his wallet. He fumbled with the latter for a moment.

“I don’t know what your fees are, Mr. Hicks,” he began hesitantly. But if——”

“Plenty of time ter talk abaht spondulicks when I’ve finished this ’ere cise,” said Symphony Sam.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Travers,” said Candy in her cool clear voice. “Here is our card. Ring us in the morning between ten and eleven. We may have news for you.”

Travers looked in her candid eyes and his own dropped a little.

“I—I don’t know what to say Miss—er——”

“Good afternoon!” said Miss Candy Lee very decidedly.

When the door had closed behind their visitor Symph rose to his feet and clutched her by her shoulders.

“Wot’s on your mind, kid?” he demanded. “This feller’s got me beat for a minute. What abaht ’Ezekiah and ’Onest ’Annah? If wot ’e sez is true——”

“Then, my dear,” said Candy Lee dulcetly, “One of them may be Ringer Bell!”

CHAPTER XV

AT THE SIGN OF THE FLYING FLEA

SYMPHONY Sam crossed over to the cupboard above his desk and helped himself to a whisky and soda.

“Candy, my dear,” he said when he had drained his drink, “get in touch with Mr. Kellaway. This beats me. Fust a feller comes in ’ere sayin’ ’is nime is ’Ezekiah, only survivin’ brother of Uriah the blinkin’ ’Ittite or wot ’ave yer, then——”

“Excuse me, Mr. Hicks,” broke in Candy, “I took the liberty of ’phoning them and they will be here at any moment. My Uncle Henry is an expert at cryptograms and if there is any truth in this letter——”

She tapped her notebook significantly.

“Uncle Henry will find it!”

“There’s too many uncles in this cise, kid,” said Symphony Sam with his whimsical smile. “Reminds me of the Old Kent Road when I useter pawn me——”

A tap sounded at the door and the tall shadow of Bill Kellaway shrouded the frosted glass.

“Come in, Nutty!” shouted Symph. “Yer wanted—and wanted bad.”

“By whom?” said Kellaway, a resplendent figure evening kit. “Barker?”

“Nah! Me!” replied Symph bitterly. “I only wantcher to solve the blinkin’ mystery of the wicked

uncles boiled in oil, the ’uman skellington, and ’is nephew from Malaya, to say nothink of Velvet Vic an’ Ringer Bell—that’s all.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Symph?” demanded Bill Kellaway.

For answer the little cockney turned to Candy and shrugged his shoulders.

“Ask her. She’s got it all down,” he said. “I ’phoned you telling you poor Vic Savini was dead, but on top of that comes this.”

Bill Kellaway sank into a chair and helped himself to a cigarette.

“Shoot! Candy dear,” he said.

He listened, while Candy, in her clear young voice, read the verbatim account of Travers’ interview with Symphony Sam.

He listened without interruption until Candy came to the end of the extraordinary letter of Uriah Sneech.

“By Jove, Symph!” he ejaculated. “There’s much more in that letter than the gibberish of a fool. I know something about cryptograms. Henry’s the man for this. Why, he even solves the cross-word puzzles of “Torquemada” in the Observer every week.”

“Blimey!” said Symphony Sam.

“Candy dear,” said Kellaway. “Type a fair copy of that letter to your uncle——”

“Wot! More uncles!” said Symph with a groan.

Bill chuckled.

“Take it round to my place to-night and tell him to get busy. Meanwhile——”

He turned to Symphony Sam.

“After your ’phone call this afternoon I traced the whereabouts of Cora Callini, late of Soho. Trust the Fleet Street boys to know where the night clubs are. She was raided a few months back and she’s taken a joint in Chelsea.”

“Chelsea!” echoed Symphony Sam. “Quit kiddin’, Nutty. There ain’t no more night clubs there. All them so-called Bohemians emigrated to Bloomsbury years ago.”

Bill smiled cynically as he helped himself to a drink.

“Plus ce change, plus le meme chose” he murmured. “Which means, my dear Symphony, ‘the more it changes, the more it’s the same ruddy thing!’ Chelsea was no longer fashionable—the Bohemians went to Bloomsbury. The bourgeois discovered ’em, and now they’re back in Chelsea. Cora now has a club, on the same premises from which she was flung out, known as the ‘Flying Flea.’ ”

Symphony Sam gazed blankly at Kellaway.

“So Cora’s in Chelsea, eh?” he said. “Then poor Vic was right. Let’s go!”

“But why?” Kellaway demanded.

“Because Cora’s the only person living that knows who Ringer Bell really is!” said Symphony Sam. “Let’s go, Nutty.”

• • • • • •

Along King’s Road, down Sidney Street towards the Thames Embankment the nocturnal taxi bowled. Tugs hooted on the leaden waters of the river, nosing their way towards the sea beneath Battersea Bridge.

Chelsea Old Church, enshrouded by a dank river mist, looked pale and ghost-like as Bill Kellaway looked through the streaming windows of the taxicab and he and Symphony passed towards the mighty power station of Lots Road which controls mighty London’s Underground.

Here in the slums of Chelsea, whilom haunt of authors and artists, the Underworld has spread its slimy tentacles.

Bill Kellaway, as an ex-newspaperman, knew the district well. He rapped sharply at the window of the taxicab as it passed the windows of a gaunt-looking restaurant at the Embankment side of World’s End.

“Blimey, Nutty!” said Symph. “It ain’t changed much. Larst time I was ’ere I remember where Eddie the Dip——”

Bill squeezed his arm and curtly ordering the driver to wait they passed into the gaily lighted restaurant.

It was crowded with a weird assortment of people. Chelsea artists in broad-brimmed black hats, floppy ties, and an expression of permanent thirst in their lack-lustre eyes sat next to blowsy looking women from the World’s End. Here and there a sailorman sat eating fish and chips with noisy gusto but, for the most part, the customers seemed to be foreigners of various nationalities.

Bill glanced at his watch. It was five to eleven.

“Hullo, Joe,” he said affably to the dark thinlipped manager who had glided imperceptibly towards his elbow. “Where’s Cora?”

The Italian shrugged.

“Upstairs, M’sieu. It is a long time since I ’ave seen you M’sieu Kellaway.”

“And it’ll be a damn long time before you see me again,” murmured Bill as he led the way to a curtained alcove above which flared a red neon sign bearing a legend THE FLYING FLEA.

Bill led the way up a flight of rickety stairs and together they entered a gaudily painted and decorated room, evidently used as a dance hall. Little tables were perched at intervals round the wall. In the corner a henna-headed Jewess with a shrill voice presided at the bar.

An orchestra that looked tired and torpid even at such an early hour played on a little dais at the end of the room. The walls were weirdly and wonderfully decorated by cubist pictures of oblong nudes and octagonal insects. The general atmosphere of the place reminded Big Bill Kellaway of a wet washing day in a Balham Nonconformist orphanage.

“The Noo Bohemia, eh, Nutty?” grinned Symphony Sam and, then added as they sat down at a table, “ ’Ow the ’ell these long ’aired men an’ short ’aired wimmin manage to enjoy theirselves in a dump like this I dunno.”

He ordered two whiskies and sodas from a depressed looking waiter and glanced curiously around the room.

“I don’t see no sign o’ Cora——” he began.

Then, like a flash, it happened.

Something whizzed through the air and instinctively the little Cockney ducked.

The something buried itself in the wall, and stuck there, one inch above Symphony Sam’s head.

It was a barrel-hilted knife.

In an instant pandemonium broke loose in the crowded room. A woman’s scream shattered through the babel of excited voices.

“Get him, Nutty. It’s—it’s—’im,” roared Symphony Sam as he recognised the dark, hate-filled face that peered for an instant from behind a curtain behind the counter.

“Crack!”

A tongue of flame spat out of the muzzle of an unseen gun and a moment later the hall was plunged into darkness. The electric light had been shattered. Immediately the place became a shrieking chaos of sound. Women screamed hysterically, men shouted as they struggled together in the roaring darkness.

Symphony Sam, however, with uncanny accuracy, had placed his assailant’s position just as the light went out. He struck a violent short arm jab upwards and his knuckles barked against flesh and bone.

“Ouch!”

A strangled cry of pain ripped through the darkness, and a body crashed to the floor.

Symph grinned exultantly then groped for the torch he habitually carried in his hip pocket. The yellow beam flashed through the darkness as he stumbled against a limp inert figure.

“I’ve got yer, yer——” he began, then his voice trailed off.

At his feet lay the body of a woman clad in a sequined evening frock that glittered goldenly in the glow of his torch.

“Cora!” shrilled a woman’s voice. “Cora. Where are you?”

Symph stared down at the limp body and noticed a crimson stream dyeing the glittering sequins. Noticed also in the powerful ray of his torch the woman’s bare outflung arm and tight-clenched hand. And on that hand something he had seen before. A small gold ring shaped like two intertwined serpents with two glittering ruby eyes.

“Nutty,” he whispered hoarsely, “it’s ’Onest ’Annah. Stand by ’ere. I’m gonna find Sneech!”

With a bound he hurled himself through the swirling mob on the dance floor in the direction of the curtain behind which, a few seconds before, he had seen the hate distorted face of Zachariah Sneech.

“Cora! Oh my God. Cora!” sobbed a woman throwing herself on her knees beside the still, inanimate body.

From the street outside came the shrill Pheep! Pheep! of police whistles.

CHAPTER XVI

ALI BABA’S AGAIN

SYMPHONY SAM’S long experience as a cat burglar had endowed him with an almost feline ability to see in the dark. With a bound he cleared the counter, knocking over a tray of glasses with a crash that added to the shrieking pandemonium of the dance hall.

His torch pierced the gloom ahead like a golden poignard and he halted momentarily at a flight of rickety stairs that evidently led to the rear of the premises. He was just in time to see a broad-shouldered familiar figure disappear round the corner of the lower landing and he smiled grimly.

“No you don’t, Sneech!” he muttered and clattered down the stairs three steps at a time in the wake of his quarry.

Bang!

As he reached the bottom a door slammed and Symph swore in the darkness. His mind was in a whirl after the breathless events of the past few minutes. What was Zachariah Sneech, that guileless North Countryman, doing in the Flying Flea? Why was Cora Callini wearing the identical ring he had noticed on the plump finger of Mrs. Hannah Sneech when she had called to consult him? Symph’s training as a cracksman had made him an expert on jewellery and he had subconsciously noted the ring and knew he could not be mistaken.

The questions flashed through his mind but he did not pause to answer them. Overhead the turmoil grew while from the front came the lumbering of heavy footsteps.

“The cops!” gasped Symph and scrabbled at the latch of the door. A moment later it swung open and he found himself in a small asphalted backyard. Of his quarry there was no sign.

He paused irresolutely for a moment. Long training as an outlaw had taught him to think two jumps ahead of the other man and also put himself in the other man’s place.

“Now if I was Zachariah,” he thought swiftly, “I’d double back. ’Ere goes, any’ow.”

So saying he leapt for the brick wall and scaled it with the agility born of long practice. He found himself in a quiet alleyway which led to Church Street. Thrusting his torch in his pocket he raced like a hare in the direction of the King’s Road and as he ran the clamour in the distance grew fainter. Once in the main thoroughfare he slackened his pace. The King’s Road was still a hum of activity as the red buses roared bearing their loads of homeward bound theatre goers.

Symph glanced at the clock of the Chelsea town hall. It was 11.10. It was almost incredible that so much had happened in such a short space of time. He squared his shoulders and strode purposefully towards King’s Road Walk. His mind was a riot of chaotic questions. Where was this fantastic trail of tangled mystery going to lead him further?

At the oil shop where his strange adventure had begun, Symphony Sam halted. He glanced up at the windows. Not a glimmer of light showed. He gazed up half ruefully at the lintel of the shop with its legend:

U. SNEECH, OIL & COLOURMAN

then noticed that only one jar reposed above the lintel. The one containing the skeleton had been removed by the police.

What strange secret lay hidden behind that shop window with its homely contents of kettles, saucepans and scrubbing brushes?

The little Cockney’s jaw set grimly. He glanced cautiously over his shoulder. There were few pedestrians about.

“’Ere goes!” said Symphony Sam.

From his pocket he withdrew a set of skeleton keys which would have caused the worthy Inspector Barker a good deal of satisfaction had he discovered them in Symph’s possession.

With another cautious look over his shoulder, Symph inserted a queerly twisted piece of steel wire into the keyhole and gently turned it. The lock opened soundlessly beneath his practised fingers and with a soft sigh of satisfaction he entered the hallway and closed the door gently behind him.

He waited for a moment tense in the darkness and strained his ears.

Not a sound, save the dull rumble of traffic in the King’s Road.

Symph frowned. Had he played his hunch correctly?

Had he, himself, been in the place of Zachariah Sneech he would have doubled back on his trail and reached the oil shop there to retire to bed and thus prove an alibi if suspected. Would Zachariah do the same thing? That was the rub.

For fully two minutes Symph stood in the hallway his back against the wall listening intently. Suddenly, from the basement he heard a faint chink-chink-chink, as of metal on brickwork.

Symphony Sam smiled grimly in the darkness. His hand snaked to his hip pocket and he drew out a tiny automatic which Scotland Yard had reluctantly given him a permit to carry.

Stealthily he crept down the stone stairs into the cellar of the oil shop. Drums of kerosene and linseed oil flanked the walls and in the gloom beyond he saw the faint glimmer of a light.

Cautiously he cat-footed towards it and gave a grim smile of satisfaction. Crouched against the cellar wall was the figure of a man. In his left hand he held a chisel, in the right a mallet. He was working feverishly to dislodge further bricks from a wide hole which gaped in the cellar wall.

“Stick ’em up, Sneech!” snapped Symphony Sam and his eyes glittered.

The other dropped his mallet and chisel with an oath and turned to face Symph. There was a look of incredulous amazement on his face which gradually gave way to one of baffled fury.

“The game’s up, Sneechy me lad!” said Symphony Sam. “Better come quietly.”

“Move an inch!” rasped a voice that seemed to come from behind Symphony, “and I’ll blow your head off!”

• • • • • •

“So we meet again, Mr. Kellaway.”

The Divisional Inspector of Chelsea Division smiled grimly at Bill as he stood before him in the charge room where only a few nights before they had related the strange story of Ali Baba’s jars.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” laughed Bill. “Anything I can do for you, Inspector?”

The Inspector glanced keenly at him.

“If you would kindly answer a few questions I would be obliged,” he said.

“Delighted!” replied Bill.

It was twenty minutes after the shooting affray at the Flying Flea. Cora Canelli had been rushed to hospital dangerously injured and Bill, in response to the Inspector’s request, had volunteered to go along to the police station to give an eye-witness account of of the proceedings.

“In the first place, Mr. Kellaway,” began the policeman, “what were you doing in the club.”

“Trying to enjoy myself,” countered Bill.

The Inspector frowned impatiently.

“Are you a member?”

“I was, when I was a newspaperman,” said Bill serenely.

“Did you see—er—any untoward incident that led to the shooting?”

“None at all. Everything was very decorous.”

“H’m! Do you know this woman Cora Canelli?”

“I’ve heard of her. She used to keep a club in Soho.”

“H’m! Did you catch a glimpse of her assailant?”

“Momentary only. The lights went out. I’m afraid my description would be too vague to be of any use to you.”

“H’m! That’s unfortunate.”

“Very,” commented Bill drily. He did not think it judicious to describe the attempt on Symph’s life by the knife-thrower earlier. He’d leave that to the other witnesses.

“I’m afraid I shall have to subpoena you,” snapped the Inspector.

“Dear, dear. It seems to be becoming a habit with you,” said Bill blandly.

The Inspector smiled sourly.

“Thank you, Mr. Kellaway. That’ll be all for the moment.”

“By the way, when am I wanted for the Inquest?” Bill asked as he turned to leave.

“The day after to-morrow Mr. Kellaway,” said the Inspector grimly.

“Good. Any fresh clues?”

“Plenty,” snapped the other.

“Liar!” thought Bill, but what he said was, “Splendid fellow.”

“Good night, Mr. Kellaway. I shall see you later,” said the Inspector.

“Now I wonder,” murmured Bill as he took his leave, “whether that’s a threat or a promise.”

His brows furrowed. He was worried about Symphony. Where the devil had he gone? What was he babbling about Sneech for? Who had flung the knife? Was it the same hand that had shot Cora Canelli?

His reflections were rudely, shatteringly interrupted by the loud, clamorous, insistent, clang-clang, of a fire brigade’s bell.

He halted suddenly and westward saw a dull red blaze in the sky.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Thundering down the King’s Road came the red and brass chariot of the fire fighters.

Bill’s pulses leapt. Hardened newspaperman tho’ he was the sight of a fire engine always stirred his blood.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

“Jove! It looks like a hell of a blaze!” ejaculated Bill as he saw the ruddy glow turn to vivid scarlet. “And quite near too.”

As usual when the strident call of a fire alarm breaks out, people sprang up as if by magic and the King’s Road, semi-deserted before, was now filled with a hurrying excited throng of people.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

A second engine raced after the first and then came the escape. Bill Kellaway ran towards the blaze a strange premonition in his heart.

“Lumme, wot a blaze!” gasped a little bowler-hatted man at Bill’s side as they neared a dense crowd of people in King’s Road Walk.

Dozens of uniformed police were struggling with a rapidly increasing crowd, then like a hissing whisper the news swept over the crowds.

“It’s old Sneech’s! Sneech’s is on fire!”

Bill gave a gasp. Used as he was, as an old reporter, to fires, the conflagration was awe-inspiring in its terrible beauty.

Hungry, leaping flames poured from every window in the oilshop. Behind the shop window itself a glaring, blinding inferno was raging. There came continuous spiteful cracklings of glass as it shattered under the intense heat. Flames and great clouds of black acrid smoke leaped and billowed from jagged holes in the fabric.

Those in the forefront of the crowd recoiled, coughing and choking. A gusty fitful wind that had sprung up from the river helped to feed the roaring flames as nothing else could have done.

Red eyed and almost suffocated the crowds hung on doggedly eager for whatever exciting drama was to happen. Sneech’s shop had for days been the centre of the morbid mob. Now that interest was intensified a thousandfold.

Crash! Crash!

The fireman had begun to uncoil their hoses and shatter the windows. From the gleaming brass nozzles powerful hissing jets of water were sent gushing into the building but with little or no effect.

The blaze had such a grip that it seemed thirstily to lap up the water then to roar into a rage more fierce, as if in mockery of man’s puny attempt to subdue it.

Bill tried to clear the smother of smoke from his smarting eyes. And then, suddenly, some caprice of the wind cleared the worst of the black, suffocating fumes from one side of the blazing building and a woman gave a shrill scream of horror.

In practically the only window now left that had not a sea of fire behind it stood framed a human figure.

“My God, look!” yelled a dozen voices.

Bill jerked up his head and followed the direction of a thousand pointing fingers. Illumined against the ruddy background he recognised it.

“My God!” gasped Bill Kellaway and his face went the colour of death. “It’s Symphony Sam!”

CHAPTER XVII

GRAND FINALE

IT took a great deal to jolt the imperturbability of Symphony Sam but at the sound of that raucous command, “Move an inch and I’ll blow your head off!” he stiffened suddenly.

It was so utterly unexpected that it jolted even Symphony. There was a mocking grin on the face of Zachariah Sneech.

“That puts checkmate to you, my friend!” he said, speaking now without a trace of his North Country accent.

Symphony Sam thought quickly. For a fraction of a second his gaze wavered and he half turned his head to see who his new assailant might be. That split second was enough for Sneech. With a tigerish spring he leapt at Symphony who was taken temporarily off his guard and bore him earthward by the sheer force of his impetus. The automatic went flying from Symph’s nerveless fingers and fell with a clatter to the floor.

“So, Mr. Clever Detective, I’ve fooled you again!” snarled Sneech, his fingers scrabbling for Symphony’s wind-pipe. “Fooled you with an old ventriloquist trick. You poor boob. D’you think you can pit your wits against mine?”

A great roaring sounded in Symphony Sam’s ears as he gazed up into his assailant’s face. It was contorted into a mask of fiendish hatred.

“You’ll go the same way as Savini did, and as that hell-cat Cora Canelli, damn you!”

Symph felt as though a red-hot wire was tautening round his throat beneath the merciless grip of those talonous fingers. And even in that instant of excruciating agony he realised in a flash who his opponent was.

“My God! he gasped hoarsely. “You’re—you’re—Ringer Bell!”

The other grinned maliciously and dug his fingers deeper into Symphony’s quivering throat.

The realisation seemed to galvanise Symph with a fresh access of strength. Tough as whipcord, his muscles had been hardened after years of training in prison. He writhed and squirmed like an eel and lashed out with his feet at the other’s shins.

Ringer Bell gave a grunt of pain as Symph’s flailing boot hacked his shins. Stark murder blazed in his eyes as his grip tightened on the little man’s throat.

Sweat poured down Symphony’s face and his breath came in strangled gasps. With a superhuman effort he raised himself on one elbow and practised a trick he had learned in many an East End gang fight.

It was not strictly ethical, perhaps, but Symph was fighting for his life against a callous murderer who had shot down a woman in cold blood. His knee jerked upward viciously and caught Ringer a thudding blow beneath the stomach.

His face contorted in a spasm of excruciating agony and his grip relaxed. Symphony drew a deep breath and then as the Ringer writhed in agony slammed home a merciless blow to the point like the sound of a mallet on wet wood.

Ringer Bell collapsed like a sack of potatoes and lay as still. Panting but triumphant, Symphony Sam gazed down at his fallen opponent and grinned exultantly.

“That’s for Velvet Vic, you swine. Maybe I won on a foul but there was no other way with wild beasts.”

He mopped his forehead and suddenly his nostrils dilated as he smelt the acrid odour of smoke.

“My God!” he gasped. “Fire!”

So tense had been the struggle that he had not noticed before, but he realised it now with growing horror. The oil shop was ablaze.

“It’d serve you right to let you roast alive,” he muttered. “But I won’t cheat an ’onest ’angman aht of ’is ten quid.”

With that he hoisted the unconscious crook on his back and staggered towards the door.

As he did so he recoiled in horror as a blast of hot, searing flame fanned his sweating cheeks. Whether the fire had been intentionally planned or was the result of an accident, he neither knew nor cared at that moment.

He drew a deep breath and, shouldering his limp, inanimate burden, staggered groggily into the smokeladen passage.

Almost blinded by the heat and sulphuric oil fumes, he doggedly mounted the blazing stairs, his breath coming in short, convulsive gasps.

In the street outside all traffic was held up as the great crowd was swelled by an ever-increasing throng of sightseers from adjacent streets.

There was a loud cheer as the glistening red fire escape was placed into position towards the top windows of the shop. The crowd cheered again as a fireman pluckily started up the long telescopic ladder.

He wavered suddenly as a viscid pall of smoke belched from one of the smashed casements and stumbling, staggered backwards to be caught by one of his colleagues who went down with him in a heap at the foot of the escape.

His brass helmet fell off and Bill, who had forced his way to the forefront of the crowd, caught up the gleaming casque and, doffing his own soft felt hat, donned the helmet and dashed up the steel ladder.

Nobody attempted to stop him for the moment, the excitement was too tense. The police who glimpsed the helmet probably thought that Bill was one of the brigade.

He was about fifteen feet up before the Brigade Captain realised that Bill was a civilian and he bellowed hoarsely,

“Come back, you damn fool!”

Bill grinned and waved his hand derisively then went on and up the red ladder that reared dizzily above him, its top resting on the roof of the oil shop.

The crowd cheered, and the firemen played their hissing hoses on either side of him. Bill paused in his climb and, whipping out his handkerchief, held it in the spray of one of the jets of water played near him. When it was thoroughly saturated, he wrapped it round his mouth and nostrils and grimly continued his climb.

The crowd below roared its enthusiasm at his pluck.

Higher, higher climbed Kellaway though the rungs of the ladder were nearly red hot.

Crack!

With a thud, something struck the stout brass helmet that he wore and he had reason to bless the sudden impulse that had made him discard his hat. If it had not been for the helmet, his skull would have been crushed to pulp beneath the impact of that falling chunk of masonry.

As it was, his head sang dizzily and he staggered. Dazed already by the heat he lurched back.

From below, a sound like a great sob rose from a thousand throats, but Bill rallied just in time to hear a gruff voice behind him say,

“Steady mate. We’ll manage it!”

Behind him stood a burly, red-faced fireman who steadied him with a muscular arm.

“Thanks!” gasped Bill and, gritting his teeth, reached the window-sill. He gazed down at a sea of faces and now an uncanny silence fell on the vast crowd.

“Aaah!”

The tense hush on the crowd was broken by a concerted sigh followed by a ringing cheer. For a moment the smoke had cleared and it was seen that Bill had reached Symphony who lay limply over the window-sill almost overcome by the choking fumes.

With a superhuman effort Bill reached his colleague and seized him by the armpits. Symph’s smoke-grimed face was almost unrecognisable but his grin was as cheerful as ever.

“ ’Arf a mo’, Nutty,” he gasped. “Take this first and guard ’im carefully.”

So saying, he stooped, and picking up the limp figure of Ringer Bell from the floor of the room, hoisted him into Bill’s muscular arms.

Bill whistled softly and with the aid of the fireman they hauled the unconscious man over the sill on to the escape.

“Take him!” gasped Bill. “I’ll help my friend here. Steady now, Symph!” he added in a choking voice.

Almost at his last gasp, the little Cockney did not lose his head, however. With the agility of years of training as a cat burglar, he sprang for the escape.

A stentorian roar of cheering rose from the watching multitude as he and Bill, preceded by the burly fireman carrying the unconscious Ringer over his shoulder in a professional “hoist,” slowly descended earthward.

As he reached the foot of the escape Symphony Sam glimpsed the tense angry face of the Divisional Inspector. Though he was scorched and as black as a sweep, Symph beamed cheerfully at the irate officer.

He jerked his thumb towards the limp body of Ringer Bell whom the fireman had just deposited on a stretcher.

“Don’t lose sight of ’im, Inspector. You want ’im badly,” he said.

“What d’ye mean?” snarled the other. “Who is he? And what the devil——?”

“Zachariah Sneech, alias Uriah Sneech, alias Ringer Bell and Gawd knows wot all!” said Symphony Sam, the imperturbable.

• • • • • •

Candy Lee hummed cheerfully “My Song goes Round the World” as she deftly arranged a fresh supply of flowers in the lapis bowl that was a colourful feature of her tastefully-furnished office.

It was the morning after the fire at Sneech’s oil shop and her employer, Symphony Sam, had arrived as he expressed it, “bashed, battered but still in the ring.”

At that precise moment Symph, his forehead decorated with an ornate pattern of court plaster and his left hand bandaged, was seated at his desk smoking a philosophical Woodbine.

“Wot a night, Nutty?” he said with a painful grin on his bruised lips as he turned to Bill Kellaway, a resplendent figure in an exquisitely cut morning coat and a blithesome gardenia in his lapel.

Bill Kellaway laughed.

“It’ll be interesting to hear Comrade Barker’s comment, Symph,” he said.

“I guess it’ll be almost as lurid as Ringer Bell when he recovered consciousness this morning and found himself in the prison hospital.”

Symph glanced at the electric clock above the mantelpiece. It was close on 11 a.m.

“Barker oughter be ’ere nah,” he said. “Wot abaht ’Enery?”

“Don’t worry about Henry, my dear Symph,” laughed Bill. “He’s been burning the midnight oil too, with a wet towel round his head trying to solve old Sneech’s letter.”

“Talking o’ midnight oil,” grinned Symph ruefully, “I wonder ’ow the shop got ablaze. D’yer think it was an accident or——?”

A tap sounded at the door and Candy appeared.

“Inspector Barker, sir, and Mr. Travers,” she announced.

Symph removed his feet from the desk, winked at Bill, then said,

“Show ’em right in, my dear.”

Candy withdrew and a moment later Barker entered, puffing stertorously. He was accompanied by the bronzed young man from Malaya.

“Hah, good mornin’, Inspector,” greeted Symphony. “Prompt on the dot, I see. Nothink like bein’ punctual, as my dear ole mail-bag master useter tell us at Wandsworth.”

Barker grinned sourly.

“You ought to know something about time,” he said gruffly. “Well, we’ve checked up on your statements and in the main they’re substantially correct,” he added grudgingly.

Symphony rubbed his hands.

“Fine. Which’ll you ’ave, Inspector, cigars or nuts?”

He pushed over the silver-topped humidor and Barker gingerly selected a weed.

Jack Travers cleared his throat.

“Er—Mr. Hicks, Inspector Barker has told me a little of what transpired last night but I’m still completely in the dark as to what has happened. This woman, Cora Canelli, I’ve never seen or heard of her in my life and yet, I gather, she was posing as a relation of my uncle. It’s—it’s—all so bewildering,” he added.

Symph, who was thoroughly enjoying the discomfiture of his old enemy of Scotland Yard, blew a smoke wreath arily ceilingward.

“Nacherally. Nacherally,” he said. “You want the best solutions to your problems, we ’ave ’em,” he added complacently tapping his jingling medals. “Scotland Yard is doubtless excellent on mere routine problems, but when it comes to complicated cases like the disappearance of your Uncle Uriah, this is the right shop,” he added, waving a hand comprehensively round the consulting-room.

Barker snorted.

“Cut the cackle, Hicks,” he said. “Tell us what you know. You’re not in the clear yet, not by a long chalk.”

Symph grinned.

“Did you get a statement from the fair Cora as I suggested?” he demanded.

Barker growled an assent.

“I did. She recovered consciousness late last night and confirmed your theory that the man who called himself Hezikiah Sneech was, in reality, Ringer Bell.”

“Ringer Bell,” echoed Travers, “but who the devil’s he?”

“Ringer,” said Symphony Sam quietly, “is one of the cleverest mummers and cracksmen in the game. ’E can ring the chinges on ’is dial so’s ’is own muwer wouldn’ reckernise ’im. Not only that, ’e’s got abaht ’arf a dozen murders to ’is credit, includin’ that of Velvet Vic Savini.”

Travers drew a deep breath.

“But—but—what the devil has this to do with my uncle?” he demanded.

Symphony leant forward and his cheerful, good-humoured face became suddenly very grave.

“You ’ad better prepare yourself for a shock, Mr. Travers,” he said. “Your Uncle Uriah ’as bin dead for the parst six munce!”

“Dead!” echoed Travers, and his face whitened. “Dead six months, but I thought, I understood——”

He glanced blankly at the C.I.D. man.

“I—I thought Scotland Yard was after him!” he added.

Barker cleared his throat and produced his black official notebook.

“As a matter o’ fact we were after the man who called himself Uriah Sneech, but——”

He paused impressively.

“From Information Received——”

“By the S.S. Detective Bureau, don’t forget, flattie!” cut in Symphony incisively.

Barker crimsoned, and blew his nose violently on a virulently hued bandana handkerchief.

“Er—from Information Received we learned that the man supposed by ’is neighbours in the King’s Road to be your uncle Uriah, was in reality an impostor.”

“An impostor named Ringer Bell,” interposed Bill Kellaway blandly.

“But—but—I don’t understand!” said the bewildered young man. “You’ve just said that Ringer Bell was the impostor who called himself a North Countryman named Zachariah and posed as a relative of my uncle’s and came here to ask your advice.”

“Exac’ly!” said Symphony Sam. “That was only Ringer Bell’s bloomin’ artfulness an’ that’s where ‘e tripped ’imself up.”

“But, how, why did he murder my uncle?” gasped Travers. “You say it happened six months ago and yet——”

He paused and his eyes were blank with bewilderment.

Bill Kellaway turned to the fuming Yard man with an ingratiating smile.

“Perhaps things will be made more clear if Inspector Barker would kindly read us the statement we suggested he should take from Cora Canelli, alias Mrs. Zachariah Sneech,” he suggested.

Barker opened his notebook with a snap of the elastic band and cleared his throat.

“Well, Mr. Travers,” he began. “In view of the fac’ that you are the sole heir of Uriah Sneech, deceased, I think you’re entitled to hear the statement.”

He paused impressively and a little silence fell on the group.

Symphony Sam lit a cigarette and beamed at Candy who had unobtrusively entered.

“Statement made by Cora Canelli on the fifteenth instant to Det. Insp. Barker of the C.I.D.,” began Barker impressively, reading from his book. “The witness, having been duly cautioned, stated:

“My name is Cora Canelli. I am thirty-seven years of age and I live at 5 Justice Walk, Chelsea. I knew Ringer Bell intimately. In fact I was his mistress. His real name is Charles Henry Bell. I knew he was a crook. We have lived together for the past ten years off and on but not very happily. Three years ago Ringer and a crook I knew by the name of Velvet Vic Savini pulled off a big job and fenced their stuff with a man they called S. I afterwards discovered he was an oil merchant named Uriah Sneech.”

Barker paused and Travers’ face whitened beneath its tan.

“My uncle,” he gasped. “A fence! A receiver of stolen goods!”

“I’m afraid it’s quite true, sir,” said Barker apologetically. “We’ve checked up on one or two things that have puzzled us, and Cora’s statement bears out what we have long suspected. Your uncle, ostensibly an honest oil merchant, was one of the biggest receivers in the country. The woman’s statement goes on to say that between them, Ringer and your uncle framed Vic Savini to the police for a crime and he was sentenced to five years penal servitude. Ringer, however, double-crossed Uriah Sneech as well and after a violent quarrel, when Savini had been sentenced, Ringer Bell murdered Sneech. He smashed in his skull with an iron bar!”

“My God!” gasped Travers hoarsely. “But this is dreadful! Terrible! My uncle a fence, and murdered then—then——”

“The skeleton in the jar was undoubtedly that of your uncle, Mr. Travers,” broke in Bill Kellaway gently.

“Ringer Bell was a murderous cunning ruffian. Your uncle also was cunning and, as you yourself said, miserly in the extreme. Bell having murdered him and disposed so ingeniously of the body, hit on a still more ingenious scheme of impersonating his victim.”

“But why? Why?” gasped Travers.

“Becos ’e wanted time to get ’old o’ the swag!” interposed Symphony Sam. “You told us your uncle didn’t ’old wiv banks. There was thasahnds of pahnds ’idden in jools somewhere in that oil shop, so by tiking the role of Uriah Sneech ’e could ’unt for it at ’is leisure.”

“I—I—see!” said Travers dully. “The cunning devil. Then the Sneech you saw was—was—my uncle’s murderer.”

“Exactly!” said Bill Kellaway. “Symphony’s unexpected arrival and his discovery of the body must have jolted Ringer Bell badly. He decided it was too dangerous to maintain his role—so he just vanished into thin air. No wonder Scotland Yard couldn’t find Uriah Sneech, who at that moment was lying on a mortuary slab awaiting an inquest!”

“Ghastly!” said Travers. “I can hardly believe it.”

Barker tapped his notebook.

“It’s confirmed by this woman’s statement,” he said. “Baffled at not discovering the hiding-place of the loot he played a bold stroke indeed. He got Cora to pose as Hannah Sneech, a respectable North Country woman, and himself as his only relative, Zachariah. They thus had access to the shop and he was able to continue his search for the jewels right under our very noses.”

“Until Velvet Vic turned up and blew the gaff!” said Symphony Sam. “Ringer Bell thought Vic was safe inside for another three years, when ’e learnt ’e was out and free ’e got the wind up—and murdered ’im!”

“As he tried to murder the woman Cora Canelli!” broke in Barker. “The man found the net closing in too tightly for him. He never found Uriah Sneech’s hidden hoard, and now that the oil shop has been gutted, I doubt if it ever will be found.”

Travers licked his dry lips nervously.

“It’s—it’s—a terrible story of crime and depravity, gentlemen,” he said. “You—you—can tell what this means to me——”

He buried his face in his hands and Symphony rose to his feet. He crossed over to the sideboard and mixed a stiff drink.

“ ’Ere, chum,” he said. “Drink this. You can’t ’elp yer relations,” he added with gruff kindliness. “You’ve got your career abroad. In a few weeks it’ll all ’ave blown over.”

Jack Travers’ face was haggard as he took the proferred glass and drained it at a gulp.

“You’ve been darned decent, gendemen,” he said. “I—I—am very grateful to you.”

“Cheer up, son. Look at ole Barker ’ere,” said Symph with his customary grin. “ ’E’s rahnded up the Ringer an’ ’is name’ll be in orl the pipers fer ’is brilliant detective work.”

Barker flushed and rose to his feet.

“Er, we haven’t always seen eye to eye, Mr. Hicks,” he said ponderously. “But I must admit that your assistance in this tangled case has been most useful. Most useful, I shall see that my appreciation is er—forwarded to the proper quarter.”

“Thanks, flattie,” said Symph with a chuckle. “Spoken ’andsomely. Give us a free seat for Ringer’s execution, that’s all I want!”

Barker bowed stiffly.

“Well, gentlemen, I have a busy day in front of me,” he said. “I’ll bid you good morning.”

Symph waved his hand affably.

“Morning, Barker. See you at the trial!” he said.

Candy opened the door and the Yard man took his leave.

“And that,” said Bill Kellaway when the door had closed, “is indubitably that. Cora’s evidence will certainly put the rope round the Ringer’s neck!”

Jack Travers rose to his feet and his smile was a trifle wan.

“Gentlemen!” he said. “I—I—scarcely know what to say. You can imagine what a shock this has been to me. I—I’m terribly grateful to you for clearing up this dreadful affair but I wish somehow it had had a more pleasant ending. The thought that my uncle——”

He broke off suddenly as a tap sounded on the door.

“Come in!” said Symph.

A moment later Henry Henry entered, a sombre figure in his smartly-cut black suit.

“I trust I do not intrude, gentlemen,” he said in his quiet impersonal voice.

“Not at all, ’Enery. Sit dahn!” said Symphony. “ ’Ave a segar.”

“Not at the moment, thank you, sir,” said Henry. Then, turning to Bill,

“I—er—have succeeded in solving that intriguing little cryptogram, sir,” he said quietly. “Though elementary it presented one or two problems which puzzled me for a short time. However, to quote the dictum of Edgar Alan Poe, there is no cryptogram evolved by human ingenuity that cannot, all things being equal, be solved by the human mentality.”

“Meanin’ exac’ly wot!” demanded the bewildered Symph. There were moments when the valet’s orotundity of phrase left him baffled.

“The letter of the late Mr. Uriah Sneech to his nephew, Mr. Travers, here,” said Bill.

He pulled out a typewritten copy of the letter and smiled fleetingly at Symph.

“A somewhat eccentric character if I might say so, sir, was your uncle,” he said, turning to Jack Travers.

“Eccentric!” echoed the other bitterly. “He was a damn scoundrel!”

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum, sir,” said Henry gravely. “Forgive me for being late this morning but I took the liberty of paying a visit to the burnt-out oil shop and I found these.”

So saying he pulled out a small canvas bag, charred and brown at the edges.

He opened the mouth of the bag and then before their astonished gaze poured out a heap of glittering flawless diamonds that flashed and coruscated like fire in the mellow sunlight.

“Where the devil did you find these, Henry?” demanded Bill blankly.

“In the waste pipe of the bath, sir. The bag was suspended from the grille of the pipe,” said the valet.

“But how on earth?” began Travers, “did you know where to look for them, and how did you get into the shop?”

Henry coughed.

“I’m afraid I was guilty of a little chicanery, sir,” he answered. “I posed as a fire assessor and was allowed access. As I had already deduced where the jewels were hidden it was a comparatively simple matter to locate them.”

“But ’ow the ’ell?” broke in the bewildered Symph.

Henry took up the letter and quoted it again.

“189a Kings Road Walk,

“Chelsea.

“DEAR NEPHEW,

“As I feel that I am getting on in years and as you’re the only son of my only sister Amelia who, with all her strait-laced ways, I was very fond of, I think it only right you should have my money after I’m gone.

“You’re the only kith and kin I’ve got, and if I don’t leave it to you them cursed lawyers are sure to get it. According I make you my sole heir to my money if your clever enough to find it.

“If you can solve the riddle, then its all yours and no questions asked. If you are a fool like your father then you deserve to lose it.

“Its in a place I never much use.

Next to godliness then you can’t lose.

Waste not. Want not. You’ll find it true.

So Practice Economy in what you do.

You needn’t go further than the shop.

Because its above. There it’ll stop.

And if you go to Somerset House,

I’ll leave it all to a mouse.

“Your uncle

“URIAH SNEECH.”

“With due respect, sir, judging from Mr. Kellaway’s description, your uncle was not particularly enamoured of bathrooms. The clue ‘next to godliness’ gave me a pointer to ‘cleanliness.’ Cleanliness inevitably suggested a bath—and a bath in conjunction with ‘waste not’ suggested waste pipe and so——”

Henry shrugged his shoulders.

“Quod erat demonstrandum, as Euclid teaches us!”

“Well I’m——” began Symphony Sam but, as the door opened and Candy entered Henry coughed desperately.

“Not before the ladies, sir!” he said.

THE MAN WITH THE DIAMOND MASK

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CANDOUR OF CANDY LEE

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR BARKER, of the C.I.D., alighted from his bus at the corner of Whitehall, glanced at Big Ben, compared the time with the watch that ticked on his hirsute wrist, and scowled.

It was ten minutes past ten of a crisp winter morning.

“Tut! Tut! Lite again, Inspector!” said a cheerful Cockney voice at his elbow. “You won’t ’arf catch it from teacher!”

Barker’s choleric red face purpled as he turned and recognised the speaker—a short, thick-set little man clad in a loud check suit and wearing a very curly billycock hat.

“Think you’re funny, don’t you!” snarled the Yard man. “Let me tell you Symphony——”

“I’ve got an ’andle to my monniker, Inspector,” broke in the little man with dignity. “ ’Icks is the nime. Samuel ’Icks, esquire. Lite o’ Pentonville, Wandsworth, and Wormwood Scrubs, complete wiv testimonials.”

He rattled the massive gold chain that spanned his waistcoat and set his medals jingling.

Barker snarled.

“I haven’t any time to waste, Hicks,” he said, buttoning his blue reefer overcoat.

“You should ’ave,” replied Symphony sweetly. “Yer give me plenty of it in the old diys, afore I swallowed the anchor and became a detective.”

“Pah!” said Barker.

He was in a very bad temper that morning, and Symphony Sam had the knack of rubbing him up the wrong way. The Yard man, honest and painstaking though he was, had no sense of humour, and the fact that an ex-convict like Symphony Sam had the effrontery to open a private detective bureau within a stone’s throw of Scotland Yard still rankled.

“ ’Ow’s crime?” asked Symphony affably. “Any cloos to Trunk Murder Number One yet?”

Barker snorted and moved on in the direction of Scotland Yard.

“ ’Scuse me, Inspector,” said the imperturbable Symph, proffering a leather spectacle case which he had deftly abstracted from the Yard man’s pocket. “But you dropped these!”

Barker, who was extremely sensitive about having to wear spectacles, made inarticulate noises in his throat as he snatched the case from Symph.

“By-by, Barker. See you on the Christmas tree,” said the little Cockney as he turned towards his own office in Whitehall Crescent.

He began to hum cheerfully in that tuneful tenor voice which earned for him his soubriquet.

“You Jack o’ Diamonds, you Jack o’ Diamonds,

You rob all mah pockets of silver and go-oold!”

Since the peculiar adventure of Ali Baba’s jars and Symph’s triumphant vindication in the Press, the S.S. Detective Bureau had become famous. Business was brisk, and the little Cockney no longer hankered after the risks and thrills of his former profession.

“Poor old Barker!” he murmured with a reminiscent grin as he let himself into the office. “ ’Ood be a busy, anyway?”

Still whistling “Jack o’ Diamonds,” he entered the outer office and was greeted by his extremely efficient, and wholly charming secretary, Candy Lee.

“Good mornin’, my dear,” said Symph gallantly. “Blimey if you ain’t a treat for sore minces.”

“Minces?” she said arching her delicately pencilled eyebrows into interrogation marks. “That’s a new one on me.”

Symphony Sam chuckled.

“Minces. A noun plural. Derived from mince pie, which is rhymin’ slang for eye. Get me?” he explained.

Candy laughed softly.

“I’m always learning something new from you, Mr. Hicks,” she said.

Symph flung his bowler hat on the divan and held up his hand.

“ ’Ush!” he said. “You’ve given me a noo idea for a song. ’Arf a mo’ while I ’ums it.”

He took an imaginary tuning fork from his pocket and pretending to strike it on the heel of his shoe, struck an exaggerated gesture. Then in his pleasant tenor he sang:

“I’m always learnin’ somethink noo

From you, from you.

Don’t know what I do——”

Bbbring!

The phone bell shrilled suddenly, bringing to an end Symph’s attempt at improvisation.

Candy crossed over to the telephone.

“If that’s the Duchess,” said Symphony Sam, “tell ’er I prefer winkles and watercress for tea.”

Gurgling with laughter, Candy lifted the receiver.

“Hello! Yes!” she answered. “This is the S.S. Detective Bureau speaking.”

“Oh!” came an agitated voice over the wire. “Is—is—that you, Candy?”

Candy frowned slightly. She was not used to getting private calls on the office ’phone.

“This is Candy Lee speaking,” she said crisply. “What is it?”

“Oh, Candy!” was the answer. “This is Monica, Monica Frayne. I’m in such dreadful trouble.”

Candy bit her red lips. Symph had already passed and entered his inner sanctum.

“What’s the matter, Monica?” she queried.

“I—I—can’t tell you over the ’phone, dear,” came the answer. “But—but—I need help. Desperately. I read all about you and your boss in the papers and I was wondering if you could help me. I’m at my wits’ end, Candy dear; the wedding’s fixed for next month and if Lady Esmerelda hears——”

“Where are you ringing from, Monica?” cut in Candy in her cool contralto.

“Er, the Venetia, Piccadilly,” came the answer. “And oh, Candy, I’m nearly frantic.”

“Then pop into a taxi and come here at once. I’ll make an appointment for you,” said Candy Lee. She spoke like a schoolmistress soothing a refractory pupil.

“Oh, thank you, thank you. I knew I could depend on you, Candy dear,” said the voice.

“Make it snappy,” said Candy succinctly, and hung up the receiver.

Her smooth forehead furrowed slightly as she turned and entered Symph’s inner office.

That worthy, a Woodbine in the corner of his mouth, a glass of beer at his elbow and the Greyhound Special on his lap, looked up with a twinkle as she entered.

“Wot’s up, kid?” he queried.

Candy sighed and flushed a little.

“I—I—wonder whether you’d mind doing something for me, Mr. Hicks,” she began. “I know it’s frightful cheek but—but——”

“Mind doin’ any think fer you, kid?” broke in Symph. “Apart from the fac’ that your Uncle ’Enery’s one o’ the best Chiners I got in the world, I’d—I’d go through ’ell for yer own sike! ’Oos bin ’urtin’ yer?” he added with a sudden fierce belligerence to hide the unwonted emotion he had displayed.

Candy laughed tremulously.

“Oh, nobody’s hurt me, Mr. Hicks,” she said. “It’s—it’s—a friend of mine. She’s just ’phoned up. She seems to be in trouble.”

“Any Chiner o’ yours, kid, is a Chiner o’ mine,” said Symphony Sam. “Sit dahn an’ spill the beans.”

He motioned to an armchair, and Candy seated herself, crossing her slim, silk-sheathed legs.

“Her name is Frayne,” began Candy. “Monica Frayne. We were at school together and were very good friends.”

“ ’Bout your age, Candy?” asked Symph shrewdly. She nodded.

“She’s twenty-three, a year younger than I. I haven’t seen her for some time, and I heard recently she’s engaged to an awfully nice fellow named Dell. Anthony Dell, son of the late Sir Arthur Dell, Baronet.”

“One o’ the nobs, eh?” queried Symph with a chuckle. “Well, what’s the trouble?”

“I—I don’t know,” said Candy. “Poor Monica sounded distracted on the ’phone, so I took the liberty of telling her to come here.”

“Fine!” said Symph. “Don’t you worry, little girl. I’ll handle this. ’And me the book o’ words while I just gets wise to this Dell feller.”

Candy smiled and crossed over to the revolving bookcase where reposed a unique compilation, the work of Henry Henry in his spare time, a completely annotated edition of Debrett.

She flicked over the pages, each one of which had been interleaved with voluminous notes by that most omniscient of menservants, her uncle. Symph helped himself to another Woodbine, flung aside the Greyhound Special, and took the volume.

“Dell,” he said. “Let’s have a dekko. Fifth baronet. Address 7a, Jermyn Street and Layton Manor, Lines. Accordin’ to ’Enery ’is father, Sir Arthur, was killed in the war and ’is rich uncle left ’im a fortune in trust. ’Is ma, Lady Esmerelda, is still alive, an’ ’e’s the only child. Eddicated at ’Arrow,” he added absent-mindedly, fingering his medals.

Candy smiled.

“Doesn’t tell you very much,” she said. “I happen to know he’s extraordinarily good-looking and an expert racing motorist. Actually I believe he intends going to Kenya and——”

A buzzer sounded and she rose to her feet with a murmur of apology.

Symphony Sam gazed after her trim retreating figure and sighed.

“Coo lumme! If I ’adn’t bin a crook!” he murmured.

For the first time in his life Symphony Sam was beginning to regret his career of crime before swallowing the anchor.

A tap sounded at the door and Candy returned announcing:

“Miss Frayne to consult you, sir.”

Symph, with the instinctive courtesy of the Cockney, rose to his feet and bowed as a tall, slimly-built girl entered. She wore a fur coat and her pretty face looked flushed as she turned towards him.

“Don’t go, Miss Lee,” said Symph. “I’d like you to take notes of this interview.” Then, turning to the visitor, he drew out a chair.

“Sit down, Miss Frayne,” he said affably. “Any friend o’ Miss Lee’s is a friend o’ mine. You can spill the beans ’ere in perfec’ confidence. Why, in that very chair you’re sittin’ in, I once ’ad a Prince o’ Abyssinia. I crowned ’im meself,” he added with a chuckle.

Monica Frayne smiled tremulously.

“Well, Mr. Hicks. I—I—hardly know where to begin,” she said. “You see it’s all so difficult, and Lady Esmerelda is such a tartar that——”

“ ’Ave a cigarette?” suggested Symph proffering the silver box he reserved for clients. “There ain’t a cough in a car load,” he added as his visitor helped herself.

He lit a match for her and settled back in his chair.

“You can speak quite freely ’ere, miss,” he said. “We shan’t charge yer nothink. Shoot all your worries ’ere and we’ll deal wiv ’em.”

Monica Frayne smiled wanly as she lit her cigarette.

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Hicks,” she said. “You can’t tell what a relief it is to be able to confide in someone. Dear Candy here has been so kind,” she added with an affectionate glance.

“Nonsense, Monica,” said Candy. “Just tell Mr. Hicks all about it. He’ll help you, my dear.”

Monica Frayne leant forward and her lips trembled slightly.

“I—I suppose you know I’m to be married in a month’s time,” she began hesitantly.

“Why sure!” said Symphony Sam inserting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat.

“Congratulations to you both. ’E’s a good feller, Sir Anthony Dell, one of the best. A real sport.”

Monica Frayne smiled.

“Thank you, Mr. Hicks. And it’s just because he is a sport that—that I should hate to have this thing happen.”

“Wot thing?” broke in Symphony Sam bluntly.

The girl hesitated and fumbled with the clasp of her bag.

“The fact is, I’m being blackmailed, Mr. Hicks,” she said after a moment’s pause.

The little Cockney’s cheerful face grew ugly.

“The Black, eh?” he said. “Miss, I ain’t no plaster saint, but the thought o’ blackmailers makes me see red. I don’t mind a good ’onest burglar. I’ve bin one meself, nor do I mind the con-man, but a ruddy blackmailer, if I ’ad me wiy wiv ’em——”

He closed his fists suggestively until the knuckles showed white.

Candy coughed warningly, and Symph cleared his throat.

“Sorry, miss,” he apologised. “But the very thought of them swine got me back up. If anybody’s put the ‘black’ on yer—leave ’em ter me!” he added.

Monica Frayne leant forward and in her tear-laden eyes a gleam of hope shone.

“I—I’m so grateful, Mr. Hicks,” she said. “The fact is that it isn’t Tony so much that I’m worrying about but his mother, Lady Esmerelda. She—she hates me, and if she possibly could she’d break off the match, and if Dr. Zoltaire carries out his threat then——”

“Doctor ’oo?” broke in Symphony Sam.

“Zoltaire,” replied the girl. “Dr. Simon Zoltaire. He is the man who’s blackmailing me. I—I met him in Cairo two years ago,” she added. “He’s a Maltese, and a very clever and fascinating man. I was a fool. I—I fell for him!”

Symph nodded sympathetically.

“Poor kid. I suppose you wrote ’im the usual letters and now ’e’s trying to sting you for dough, otherwise ’e’ll tell your young man.”

He bent forward suddenly over the desk.

“Jest you leave ’im to me, miss. I’ll get them letters back,” he said confidently. Monica Frayne’s lips quivered.

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she said. “But—but you see he doesn’t want money. It’s—it’s—not so simple as that, otherwise——”

“Doesn’t want any oof?” said Symphony Sam blankly. “Blimey if that ain’t a knock aht. Wot the ’ell does ’e want?”

“The ‘Silver Casket’,” she replied quietly.

“An’ wot’s that when it’s at ’ome?” queried Symph.

Monica Frayne shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know. All I do know is that Lady Esmerelda Dell has a silver casket in her possession, and that for some reason or other that beast, Zoltaire, wants to get hold of it.”

Symphony Sam rubbed his jaw ruminatingly.

“It’s a noo one on me, miss,” he confessed. “Wot’s in this ’ere silver casket anyway?”

The girl shook her head.

“I don’t know. Zoltaire seems to want it desperately, and he says that unless I produce it he’ll post copies of my letters to Lady Esmerelda and—and——”

Her lips quivered piteously, and Candy placed her arm round her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, dear. You leave it to Mr. Hicks. He’ll look after you.”

Symphony Sam rose to his feet and his mouth was grim.

“What’s this swine Zoltaire’s address?” he demanded.

Monica Frayne fumbled with her handbag and produced a card. Symph scanned the small strip of pasteboard.

SIMON ZOLTAIRE, M.R.C.S.

21 CHAYNE AVENUE,

HOLLAND PARK,

W.

“Good!” he said succinctly. “I’ll deal with him, Miss Frayne. Don’t you worry your pretty ’ead any more about it!”

The girl smiled up at him gratefully through her tears.

“Oh! If you only could,” she said. “I’d bless you for the rest of my life.”

“Leave it to me,” said Symphony Sam confidently. “An’ nah, Miss Candy, ’ow abaht a nice cupper tea!”

CHAPTER XIX

THE SINISTER DR. ZOLTAIRE

Shinwell Road was sloppy with mud and slush.

Lights twinkled in the shop windows through the winter gloom. Belated shoppers, carrying bundles of strange and fascinating shapes, hurried along the pavement with their heads well down to protect them from the biting east wind.

Shinwell, which lies between Shadwell and Lime-house, was the home of Symphony Sam Hicks. Symph loved the malodorous place, although it possessed neither the squalor of the one nor the alleged romance of the other.

It was dusk of a raw, gusty day as Symph emerged from the hotel in which he lived. From the river a dank, miasmic mist floated.

Near the docks the lights on ships glowed spectrally through the haze. Screaming winches, rattling cable chains, mingled with the hoarse shouts of stevedores, and made a raucous clamour through the night. But to Symphony Sam it was all music. The music of the East End and he hummed softly once again to himself as he boarded a ’bus.

“You Jack o’ Diamonds

You rob all mah pockets o; silver and go-oold!”

It was the day after the visit of Monica Frayne to his office in Whitehall Crescent. Symph, although he scarcely admitted it, even to himself, would not have been interested in the girl if she had not been a friend of Candy’s.

As it was—his eyes narrowed as he thought of Dr. Zoltaire. There was only one way to deal with a blackmailer, and Symph had not scruples where “the Black” was concerned.

He buttoned up his coat collar and felt the (of late) unfamiliar bulge of a jemmy in his hip pocket and he hummed softly his favourite refrain as the bus rolled Westward.

“Be a nice little weddin’ present for Monica, them letters,” he murmured.

At Notting Hill Gate Symphony alighted and glanced at the clock above the “Coach and Horses.” It was ten minutes past eleven.

He strode briskly down Holland Park Avenue and found that Chayne Avenue was a cul-de-sac in the shadow of the waterworks on Campden Hill.

Symph’s nerves were ice cool. It was years since he had burgled a house, but to-night some of the old tang and zest for adventure that he had felt in the days when he was a cracksman returned.

No 21, he found, was a three storey house with a sham Greek portico. Symph eyed the latter speculatively.

“Easy as kiss yer ’and,” he murmured, then, having taken his bearings, he retraced his steps towards a snack bar, where he ordered a cup of coffee.

His bright, bird-like eyes twinkled as he exchanged Cockney badinage with the barman, and deftly turned the subject to doctors.

“Know a cove rahnd ’ere named Zoltaire?” he asked. “Furrin’ lookin’ chap.”

The barman shrugged.

“Mean the psychic bloke?”

“That’s ’im,” said Symph unveraciously.

“Yes,” said the barman. “ ’E drops in ’ere sometimes rahnd abaht midnight. Funny devil. Nice as pie one night, snappy as ’ell the next.”

“That’s the worst o’ this ’ere spiritualism,” assented Symph.

He ordered another coffee and a plate of saveloy. When he had completed his meal the clock showed ten minutes of midnight.

“The witchin’ hour!” said Symphony, yawning like a churchyard and giving up his dead “hot dog.”

He rose to his feet, paid his bill and turned round the corner to Chayne Avenue. The last bus rumbled by, and Symph drew a deep breath. The risks he was running were tremendous. With his past record, and the veiled but undoubted hostility of Scotland Yard, if he were caught he would, to use his own expressive phrase, “cop a packet.”

He thought of Candy, however. Candy with her cornflower blue eyes and her gay, lilting laugh.

Candy trusted him.

It was the work of a moment to scale the wall and jump neatly clear of the trimly kept privet hedge. He paused for a moment, drew a deep breath, and then, with the agility of a monkey, ascended the sham Grecian pillar of the portico. He reached the top, and crouched for a moment in the shadows while he adjusted his black silk mask. He slipped his hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out a tiny pencil torch. The window opposite him was French, and he gave a grunt of satisfaction. It was simple to press back the catch with the long flexible “pete buster” he carried. Cautiously he pushed back the pane and entered the room. His tiny torch illumined a bookshelf, an easy chair, and a table.

“Library,” murmured Symph. “This is probably where the letters are.”

The golden beam of light stabbed through the gloom, and rested at length on an oval green wall safe beneath the picture of Pasteur.

Symph grinned to himself.

“Easy as kiss yer ’and,” he murmured. “One o’ Woolworth’s best.”

He cat-footed towards the door of the safe and twirled the combination knob. Symph was familiar with most makes of safe, and he recognised in the one that confronted him, one of a cheap American type whose mechanism was simple. He listened intently as the tumblers dropped and then chuckled.

“It’s a wiste o’ bloomin’ time. Lucky this is a doctor’s ’ouse.”

With that he crossed to an ornate desk in the corner of the room. Very cautiously he pulled out a drawer.

“I thought as much,” he muttered, and withdrew a small ivory-handled appliance from which two rubber tubes emanated. He grinned to himself as he affixed the stethoscope to his ears.

“Saves me a lot o’ trouble, if I give the doctor’s safe the once-over,” he ruminated. Pressing the rubber nozzle of the delicate instrument against the combination dial, his keen cars heard the amplification of the falling tumblers.

To an expert like Symphony Sam, it was the work of a moment to get the correct combination. He swung open the green door within seven minutes of his arrival. He thrust his hand into the round interior. Within was a bundle of notes, two ledgers, a cash book and a bundle of documents tied with red tape. Hurriedly he scanned them through and his mouth set in a grim, hard line.

“The dirty, blackmailing tyke!” he muttered as he recognized the signature at the end of the letter.

A red glow shone from the grate. “That’s where we finish with you, Doctor Bloomin’ Zoltaire,” thought Symphony Sam as he flung the bundle into the smouldering embers and watched them flame into life even as had the young girl’s passion that had inspired them—to flicker out again.

He closed the safe door, wiped his hands, switched off his torch, and suddenly stiffened.

“Stick them right up, Mr. Burglar.”

Symph dropped his torch as he felt something hard and circular jabbed into the small of his back.

He raised his hands ceilingwards.

“That’s better, my friend,” said the smooth, hateful voice. “Now, let’s take a look at you.”

There was a sudden click, and in the room was a beam from a torch. “Turn round, and don’t try any funny business,” said the voice. Symphony Sam swivelled round slowly on his heel as the pressure on his vertebrae relaxed.

He found himself staring into the cold, green eyes of a swarthy individual with a high domed forehead and a black Vandyke beard.

“Doctor Livingstone, I presoom?” said Symphony Sam, imperturbable as ever. It was not the first time that the little Cockney had felt a revolver jabbed into the small of his back.

“So!” hissed the smooth, silken voice of Dr. Zoltaire. “You are pleased to be facetious, my friend.”

Symphony Sam chuckled softly.

“Blimey, you’re worse than ’Enery’,” he said. “ ’E’s a reg’lar crossword fan. Did you know that that there word facetious is the only one in the langwidge wot contains all the vowels in the right order, includin’ I.O.U.,” he added.

Dr. Zoltaire smiled sardonically. “So we have a humorist as well as a thief,” he drawled. “Let’s have a look at you, my friend. And remember, I’ve got you covered.”

Symphony Sam felt the pressure of the gun muzzle removed from his backbone, and, a moment later, the room was flooded into light. He found himself gazing into the cold, enigmatic eyes of Zoltaire.

“H’m! ” said the doctor. “Just an average specimen of lateris vulgaris.”

“Don’t you swear at me, you big bum,” said Symphony Sam. “If you’re goin’ ter call a cop, call one, and ’ave done with it.”

Zoltaire smiled, and stroked his Vandyke beard.

“It’s simply a Latin word, my dear fellow, meaning a common thief. And as for calling a cop, as you so elegantly phrase it, I am quite capable of looking after myself.”

“Well, git on wiv it. And don’t do so much jawring,” said Symphony Sam.

He was furious at the situation in which he had found himself. His quick, Cockney wit strove desperately to formulate some plan of escape.

Dr. Zoltaire’s voice was icy.

“Tell me, my friend, why exactly did you honour me with a visit?” he said. “I am only a poor physician. Surely you might have devoted your rudimentary talents to one of our captains of industry.”

Symphony Sam shrugged his shoulders.

“Now, I arsk yer strite, guv’nor, is this a cop or ain’t it? If you’re goin’ ter start a long moral lecture, I ain’t listenin’—see? I could tell yer a story about a wife and ’arf a dozen starvin’ kids, but I ain’t doin’ it. See these”—he jingled the medals on his watch-chain—“I won these from ’Is Majesty the King. Prison don’t hold no terrors for me. Either you let me go or you calls the cop. There’s the ’phone ’andy.”

He jerked his head towards the telephone receiver on the doctor’s desk.

For a fraction of a second, Zoltaire’s gaze was distracted, and it was at that moment that Symphony Sam acted. With a pantherine spring, he launched himself forward and his left fist shot out in a sweeping upper cut towards Zoltaire’s jaw.

Quick as he was, however, Zoltaire saw the blow coming. His green eyes gleamed as he parried the swiftly-delivered uppercut. And the next moment, Symph, who never quite realised how it happened, found himself sprawling on the hearth-rug.

He glared up at the bearded doctor and strove manfully to rise. A great roaring sounded in his ears, and a blood-red curtain flecked with golden spangles seemed to dance before his eyes. Desperately he strove to speak, but no words came. He felt benumbed, and dead. As from a long distance, he heard the cool, mocking voice of Zoltaire.

“My friend, you are too clever by half, but you have reckoned without me.”

With a desperate effort, Symphony Sam tried to stagger to his feet, but his limbs seemed paralysed. He mouthed incoherently, but no sound escaped his lips. A moment later he found himself descending into the deep, black, velvet-lined pit of oblivion.

Dr. Zoltaire gazed down at his unconscious body. From his pocket, he withdrew a glittering hypodermic needle, and his thin lips writhed back from his white, even teeth into a vulpine snarl.

“A very interesting subject for experiment,” he said. “Very interesting indeed.”

*********

Symphony Sam rubbed his sleep-laden eyes. Confound it! Why did that yellow tiger stare at him so balefully. The glare was intolerable.

“Don’t look at me like that!” he murmured huskily. “Turn them minces orf of me or by ’eck I’ll——”

He broke off suddenly as the tiger vanished, to be replaced by a very tall, very grim, and uncompromising figure. Rain glistened on his oilskin cape and the yellow glare of his electric torch shone down balefully on the recumbent figure of Symphony Sam.

“Feelin’ better, mate?” queried the policeman. “Let’s give you a hand. You’d better come along with me.”

Symphony raised himself to a sitting posture. He felt very cold, very wet and his tongue was like a slab of cardboard against the roof of his mouth.

Desperately he tried to recall what had happened. He had a vague memory of the gleaming green and mocking eyes of Dr. Zoltaire and the feel of the gun muzzle against his fifth vertebrae.

After that, everything was black. He gazed dully around him and found he was lying on the pavement in a quiet Bloomsbury Square and shining steadily, searchingly into his eyes the yellow gleam of a policeman’s torch.

“Thanks, mate,” said Symphony. “I’ve been took queer. If yer can get me a taxi——”

Desperately he lurched to his feet.

The young policeman’s face was grim beneath the rim of his dripping helmet.

“That’s all very well,” he began. “Strikes me you’ve had one over the eight. Better come along with me to Tottenham Court Road and sleep it off. Come on now.”

A brawny arm helped Symphony to his feet.

For a moment or two he stood there, white and trembling. Queer how light-headed he felt.

“Whatch the time, orficer?” he queried thickly. “I bin celebratin’. Went an’ ’ad a party with the Buffaloes. You know ’ow it is.”

The policeman switched off his torch.

“Well, sir,” he temporised, “I don’t want to be awkward but I——”

“I know that,” cut in Symph. “Peel ’Ouse eddication an’ all that. Jest get me a taxi there’s a good scout. I lives in Shinwell an’ the chinge’s yours. Drunks is a noosance whichever way you look at ’em—speshially in the morning.”

The constable smiled. Symph’s manner was so frank and engaging. Besides, it would be a confounded nuisance not only piloting the little Cockney to the local station, but also appearing before the magistrate and giving evidence against him in the morning.

A belated taxi crawling by decided the policeman. He placed his fingers to his lips and whistled.

Symphony Sam chuckled.

From his wallet he extracted a crisp green treasury note. “Fer the police orphanage, officer,” he said. “An’ may all your troubles be little ’uns.”

He steadied himself by gripping the spear-like railings that were the main features of decoration in the Bloomsbury Square.

“Thanks, flattie,” he said. “I’ll remember this.”

The young constable smiled as the taxi approached.

“Where to, sir?” he queried deftly sliding the pound note into his pocket.

“Number 3 White’all Crescent,” said Symphony imperturbably. “Opposite Scotland Yard.”

He entered the waiting cab and his brain strove desperately to cope with the situation. He had failed, failed dismally. Nearly been pinched for being drunk and disorderly.

And Candy—he’d let her down.

Symphony Sam held his throbbing head as the taxi bowled down Southampton Row in the direction of Whitehall.

CHAPTER XX

THE SILVER CASKET

CANDY LEE hummed cheerfully to herself as she alighted from her bus at the corner of Westminster Bridge. She glanced at the wide, familiar face of Big Ben and noticed it was 10 a.m. It was a crisp, frosty morning as she hurried past Cannon Row, at the lower end of Whitehall, her lips twitched reminiscently. She was thinking of the implacable enmity between that dour man, Inspector Barker, of Scotland Yard, and her cheerful little Cockney employer. As she passed the grim, barrack-like building that morning, even that stolid haunt of red tape and soulless bureaucracy had an almost cheerful look, for a mellow winter sun gilded its forbidding casements with shining gold.

Candy Lee wrapped her coat more snugly round her trim figure as a brisk east wind blew up from the river.

At the corner, at the entrance to the tube station, a blue-nosed, chill-fingered news-vendor stood with his array of morning papers.

Candy smiled as she scanned the flaring contents-bills.

“PALESTINE CRISIS.

WEST END JEWEL ROBBERY.”

She smiled as she bought a copy of the Daily Ray. Ever since she had taken on her job with her unique employer, Palestine had loomed large in the public eye, and West End robberies were, to quote Symphony, “two a copper.”

She wondered what had happened as she turned into the quiet cul-de-sac which stood hard by Downing Street and which was enhanced by the presence of the S.S. Detective Bureau. Symphony had been so emphatic that he could do something for Monica Frayne.

Candy liked the girl. She had been her prefect at school, but she was always inclined to consider that Monica was one of the “mushy” type, and indeed had had difficulty in nipping the usual schoolgirl “crush” which the younger girl had for her more sophisticated self.

The commissionaire at the entrance, a burly and good-humoured Irishman, touched his gold-braided cap, and his eyes twinkled as he recognised her trim loveliness.

“The top o’ the mornin’ to ye, miss,” said O’Brien.

Candy smiled.

“Early as usual,” added the Irishman as the loud, sonorous notes of Big Ben boomed forth. “But I’m thinkin’ ye’re not as early as the Boss himself. He was in at seven this marnin’. Jest when I was rubbing the slape out o’ me eyes.”

Candy frowned thoughtfully as she ascended the lift. It was very unusual for Symphony Sam to be in the office before she arrived.

She let herself in to her own department, and after having removed her coat, took once glance, entirely without coquetry, at herself in the mirror. She was startled by a groan that came from the other side of the room. She tapped lightly upon the frosted panel.

“Come in!” said a flat, toneless voice.

She looked at the grey-faced little man who was slumped in a chair opposite the electric fire. Symphony Sam’s eyes were bloodshot, and his usually rubicund face looked strangely lined and old. He staggered to his feet and made a pitiful attempt to smile.

“Mornin’, Sugar!” he greeted her.

Candy stepped forward impulsively.

“Why, what’s the matter, Mr. Hicks? You look ghastly.”

The little Cockney made a weary gesture.

“S’orl right. Serves me right. Bit of an ’angover that’s all. Shouldn’t’a gone out with the boys.”

His usually brown, bird-like eyes shifted uneasily before the blue candid gaze of her own.

“What you want,” said Candy decisively, “is a cup of tea and an aspirin.”

Deftly she moved towards the glittering chromium plated cupboard to the right of the fireplace.

“Well,” said Symphony watching her graceful movements, as she placed the delicate fragile porcelain which had been her own choice on a brightly-hued tray, “I might as well come clean, Sugar. I been and gone and done it.”

She wheeled round on him, slim fingers poised above the jade green tea caddy.

“You mean——” she gasped.

“Yer little frien’, Monica, is quite sife. She can marry ’er bloomin’ Sir Anthony as soon as she likes, though the very thought o’ weddin’ cike at the moment gives me a pine in the stummick.”

“Whatever have you been doing?” demanded Candy.

“I kep’ me promise,” said Symphony Sam sulkily. “Yer little school pal can ’ave ’er orange blossoms, though judgin’ from the state o’ my stummick this mornin’ the answer’s a lemon.”

She bent towards him almost protectively.

“Mr. Hicks, what have you done?”

“It’s what I ain’t done what’s worryin’ me,” said Symphony Sam. “I should ’ave pahnded that blackmailing bleeder’s dial into a black-curran’ jelly. ’Stead o’ w’ich I destroyed them letters, an’ now every think’s dead set for the weddin’ march.”

Candy’s vivid blue eyes shone luminously.

“Oh, but how brave of you,” she said. “And was Dr. Zoltaire pleased?”

Symphony Sam shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t want ter ’ear no more abaht ’im,” he said. “ ’E’s a dirty rat. Is that the mornin’ piper?” he added.

She smiled.

“Yes. What do you want—the winner of the two-thirty?”

A little geniality crept back into Symph’s face.

“Well, yes. I ’ad an idea there was an ’orse called ‘Silver Casket’ runnin’ at Newmarket. I’d like to back it,” he said with the ghost of his old smile.

Candy looked at him, her blue eyes clouded.

“You’ve had a shock,” she said. “Drink this tea. It’ll steady your nerves.”

He took the proffered cup and saucer and his usually steady hand shook a little.

The ’phone bell shrilled suddenly on the desk and he gave a soft oath as Candy lifted the receiver.

“Hallo!” she said, in her cool, capable voice. “S.S. Detective Bureau speaking.”

She caught her breath as she recognised the voice of Monica Frayne at the other end of the wire.

“Oh, Candy, is that you?” said the voice. “I’m—I’m so worried. Has he——?”

She broke off breathlessly.

“Yes,” said Candy, and her firm chin lifted a little.

There were moments when Monica’s helplessness jarred on her nerves.

“Would you like to speak to Mr. Hicks?”

She heard the audible gulp of thankfulness that came clearly over the wires.

“O-oh! It would be wonderful.”

Candy turned and smiled at Symphony as she handed him the receiver.

“There you are, Knight Errant,” she murmured. “Your lady love calling.”

“Meanin’ ’oo?” demanded Symphony as he hurriedly replaced a Woodbine into the ashtray.

“Miss Monica Frayne wants to speak to you,” answered Candy primly.

“Oh! ’Er,” said Symphony. And at the tone of his uninterested voice, Candy became conscious of a peculiar little sense of relief which she strove her best to dissemble with the wide candour of her eyes.

“Is that you, Mr. Hicks?” Monica Frayne’s voice sounded tearful.

“Granted as soon as arsked,” replied Symphony, and watched abstractedly as Candy busied herself with the morning mail.

“Oh!”

Once more a tearful gasp twanged in the diaphragm which Symph held to a cauliflower ear, a relic of an impotent mutiny in the days when he was first graduate at Wandsworth.

“Abaht that there little job,” replied Symphony brusquely.

He was feeling sick, sore, and sorry for himself.

“You can go a’ead,” he added. “You ain’t got nuthink ter worry abaht.”

Suddenly his old sense of humour was restored. He began to hum the familiar air from Pagliacci.

“Do—do you really mean it?” gasped the voice of Monica Frayne.

“Sure, miss,” said Symphony Sam, and he smiled for the first time that day. “Yer can get on with the motley, the rice and confetti. Them letters ain’t no more. Yer finished wiv Dr. Zoltaire. I burnt the letters wiv me own ’ands.”

Candy Lee turned from the filing cabinet.

“No, you needn’t bother ter thank me, miss,” said Symphony. “That’s part o’ my job. Besides, any Chiner o’ my Chiner, Miss Candy Lee, is a Chiner o’ mine.”

He replaced the receiver with a sign. Candy Lee watched him, and her soft, blue eyes grew luminous.

“I’d go through ’Ell fer that girl,” muttered Symphony below his breath. But it was little that either he or Candy Lee realised the Hell that was in store for both of them, nor of the gloating satisfaction of Detective-Inspector Barker, of Scotland Yard, opposite, who had just sunk plethorically into his chair, twenty minutes late as usual.

• • • • • •

Monica Frayne lived in South Kensington with her mother, in a very respectable boarding house. So respectable that what were known hard by in Bayswater, as “lodgers,” were called by the far more euphonious title of “paying guests.”

Her father had been an Indian civil servant. He had left her with a small competence, and a querulous mother, around whom clung an atmosphere of faded gentility and some remembrance of the days when she was the reigning belle of Poona.

Monica Frayne had been born in India, but like most children of Anglo-Indian civil servants, had been educated in England. She was quite beautiful to look at, though the word “woman” might perhaps be too serious a word to apply to her. She had a certain air of doll-like prettiness. She had grey eyes of a peculiar softness, and whenever she spoke to a man he felt oddly paternal towards her.

She wore her hair low over her forehead. It was dark, almost to a point of blackness, and at the moment she was clad in a pink negligee from the neck of which frothed a foam of pseudo-ostrich feathers. She inserted a slender foot into a pink mule as she replaced the receiver. Her grey eyes shone and she clicked her fingers. So it was all over! She knew she could have counted on Candy and that common little man who was her employer.

But then Candy Lee had always been a strange girl. She had never quite grown over her schoolgirl “crush” for her cool, sophisticated, prefect. There had been rumours, of course, at school that Candy wasn’t quite “pukka.” There was some talk about a mysterious uncle… .

And now, she was free. There was no need to worry. As Lady Anthony Dell she would be——

She was jerked into realities by the ring of the front door bell. A moment later the door opened and her mother entered. She was a small, sparse woman, still beautiful, though age had given her a certain angularity. Time and the hot climate of India had made ravages on her face that had made it equally necessary to add artificial aid to strengthen her attractions, but she carried it off very well.

She smiled as she crossed over to the girl and clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

“Why, Monica, not up yet?”

She yawned and stretched her arms luxuriously.

“No, dear. Why, what is it?”

She was answered by the sound of stertorous breathing from behind the portal of her tiny room.

Mrs. Frayne turned round as two distinct raps sounded on the door.

“Gentleman ter see you, Miss,” said the piping Cockney voice of Albert, the page.

Monica’s grey eyes narrowed. How unreasonable of Anthony to arrive so early in the morning.

“Mother,” she said, “will you entertain him for a few minutes while I dress.”

Her mother sniffed. A thin acidulated sniff.

“I’ve told you before, my dear,” she said, “about these late nights.”

Her thin, beringed fingers turned the knob of the door and the freckled, red-headed urchin that did duty as page for the Simla boarding house, grinned amiably.

“Kindly show Sir Anthony into the lounge,” said Mrs. Frayne haughtily.

“Sir Anthony?” repeated the boy blankly. “ ’E ain’t there. This is a foreign gent. ’E wants ter see Miss Frayne partikler. ’Ere’s ’is card.”

He unearthed a small slip of pasteboard on which was engraved two words.

Monica Frayne, leaning over her mother’s shoulder saw the name and her face went the colour of death. Dr. Zoltaire.

“That’s all right, Mummy,” she murmured, and her voice was husky. “I’ll see him. He’s a friend I met in Egypt. Keep him amused, I shall be down later.”

CHAPTER XXI

“EITHER OR——”

DR. ZOLTAIRE, that enigmatic man, stroked his dark, Vandyke beard, and his bushy eyebrows rose a little as he found himself ushered into the typical Kensington lounge.

It was comfortable in a dreary fashion. Save for a faded spinster lady busily crocheting in a chair beside the meagre fire, and the lingering smell of a typical English breakfast, there was nothing worthy of note in the mediocrity of the whole apartment.

His gloved hands clasped the top of his gold-headed malacca cane. From the tips of his shining, varnished shoes, to the crown of his sleek, patent-leather head, the doctor radiated an aura of sleep and well-fed prosperity. His coat was a trifle extravagantly cut for the best canons of West-End taste, and the stock collar which he affected was not perhaps strictly ethical according to the canons of Harley Street. Yet, he possessed a certain air of distinction, and his extraordinary penetrating dark brown eyes were full of a more luminous fire than that which flickered so smokily in the Kensington grate.

They narrowed a little as Mrs. Frayne swept into the room and glanced at him enquiringly.

Zoltaire rose to his feet with the lithe, almost feline grace that was one of his characteristics.

“Dr. Zoltaire?” enquired Mrs. Frayne uncertainly.

He smiled, revealing flawless teeth.

“You are Mrs. Frayne,” he said. “I hope I’m not intruding at so early an hour, but business brought me to Kensington and I thought I would pay my respects to your daughter and her charming mother.”

Again he bowed slightly. Mrs. Frayne smiled and flushed slightly at the compliment. Zoltaire’s voice was low and exquisitely modulated, and he carried his irreproachable bedside manner into his social contacts.

“Please sit down, Dr. Zoltaire, Monica will not be long. You know what the modern generation is. Too many late parties and a disinclination for early rising,” she sighed.

He smiled good-humouredly.

“She is well, I trust? I haven’t seen her for some time.”

“Quite well, doctor. You met her in Cairo I believe,” she answered.

“I had that honour, Mrs. Frayne. I thought I would call and offer my congratulations on her forthcoming wedding. I read the announcement in The Times, I know young Dell slightly. It seems to be an ideal match.”

“Anthony is a charming boy,” agreed Mrs. Frayne. “I think they will be very happy.”

“I hope so indeed,” said Dr. Zoltaire blandly, and there was the faintest glint of mockery in his dark eyes which was lost on Mrs. Frayne.

“You know Cairo well, Dr. Zoltaire?” she said, changing the subject.

He nodded.

“Very well, Mrs. Frayne. I visit Cairo annually. I have a somewhat exacting practice, and I find a month or so of the calm and peace of the Garden of Allah rejuvenating physically and mentally. When one’s profession brings one into contact with the sick and restless minds of neurotic and often, alas, peevish patients, the desert is a great healer.”

“You are a mental specialist then?” queried Mrs. Frayne.

He nodded.

“A psychiatrist, dear lady; a humble minister to a mind diseased, as Shakespeare has it.”

She glanced at him with a new interest, and in his easy fluent fashion Zoltaire spoke of the glamour of the East, of India, reviving old memories in her mind of her long-vanished girlhood.

“Why, you two sound like old friends,” said a cool voice a little later, and Zoltaire looked up and recognised Monica Frayne.

He rose to his feet and bent over her slim fingers.

“Why, Miss Frayne, this is indeed a pleasure,” he drawled.

His keen eyes noted the unnatural brightness of her eyes, the too lavish use of powder to hide the dark circles that rimmed her lids. The deaf old lady in the corner picked up her crochet work and trotted out of the room.

“Mrs. Frayne and I have been discussing the East,” said Zoltaire. “I didn’t know you had been born in India,” he added.

Monica shrugged her shoulders slightly.

“I didn’t think it worth boasting about,” she said tartly. “Tell me, doctor, what brings you to Kensington?”

“Business—and pleasure,” said Zoltaire, his green eyes inscrutable.

A tap sounded on the door and a maid entered.

“Miss Milkin to see you, Ma’am,” she announced.

Mrs. Frayne gave a small frown of annoyance.

“Show her in to my sitting-room, Annie,” she said, then, as the girl withdrew, turned with a smile to her guest.

“Such a nuisance. My dressmaker,” she said. “With weddings imminent we poor mothers are simply rushed off our feet. If you will excuse me I’ll leave Monica to entertain you.”

Zoltaire rose and murmured a pleasant courtesy as the lady took her leave.

When the door closed Monica turned, and her eyes flashed ominously. She stood with her back to the fireplace and her little hands were clenched.

“Well,” she snapped, “what do you want? Haven’t you pestered me enough you—you beast?”

Zoltaire’s handsome face darkened, but his voice was as suave as ever.

“You look magnificent when your eyes flash, my flear,” he said.

She smiled contemptuously.

“I suppose you were trying to smarm your way into poor mother’s good graces,” she demanded. “You make me sick. How I was ever fool enough to ever imagine I cared for you—you dago,” she added, and broke off suddenly as she saw the sudden danger gleam in his eyes.

“So that’s your attitude, my lady, is it?” he snapped, and his voice was steely as he bent over her and gripped her wrist.

“We’ll see what your precious Sir Anthony has to say when he reads your impassioned love letters to—to—a dago. Also your romantic idea of an elopement ‘down the scented Nile of immemorial dreams,’ if I quote your words accurately,” he added mockingly.

She winced at that extract, and her breast heaved.

“You cad! You utter cad!” she said, and her voice was a whip of scorn. “Go and tell Anthony. But remember, you’ll have to prove it, my blackmailing friend. I defy you to prove it. Go now. Show him all my letters. If you can.”

Zoltaire’s eyes narrowed.

There was an expression of triumph on the girl’s face, and her eyes shone like stars as her too-vivid lips curled into contempt. Zoltaire drew a hissing breath.

“So!” he said at length. “It’s like that is it? You are responsible for my nocturnal visitor last night I see.”

She smiled mockingly.

“Clever, aren’t you, Dr. Zoltaire?” she laughed. “I happen to know that you are powerless. If You go to Tony without proof he’ll horsewhip you within an inch of your life. That’s why I say, take the letters to him and be on the safe side.”

Zoltaire drew a deep breath and his green eyes glittered dangerously.

“So it was you that was responsible for the burglary. I might have guessed it!”

Monica Frayne laughed, the hard, metallic laugh of a disillusioned girl.

“And why not? you blackmailer!” she demanded. “You had no right to them. They were my property.”

Zoltaire bowed mockingly.

“They were written to me, my dear,” he drawled. “If you look up the law of copyright, you will discover that by engaging a professional burglar to steal what is legally mine, you are liable to be charged as an accessory both before, and after the fact.”

Monica Frayne stared at him with loathing.

“You swine. You utter swine!” she hissed. “Anyway try and prove it in a court of law. The letters are destroyed, thank God, and what that distinguished psychiatrist, Doctor Zoltaire, will look like when his fashionable West End clientele of neurotic women learn that he is a blackmailer, a——”

“Stop!”

Zoltaire’s face grew ugly and his strange, green eyes were malevolent.

“Do you think, you poor little fool, that that bungling little Cockney crook got away with it? He may have destroyed your letters but——”

He patted the pocket of his well-cut morning coat.

“I have here photostatic copies of every one of your written indiscretions. No! No!” he added as Monica made a tigerish leap at him. “There are more copies extant, my dear. Exact facsimiles of your own handwriting. So now what? As you modern young women are so fond of saying.”

She recoiled from him in horror. The elation she had felt when she had received Symph’s confident assurance on the ’phone that morning was wiped away like a smudge of paint.

“If you don’t believe me—look!” said Zoltaire. He pulled out a crocodile leather notebook and from it extracted a folded slip of paper.

“One of the most innocuous, my dear,” he drawled.

The blood drained from her face as she recognised her sprawling schoolgirl handwriting, an exact photographic reproduction of the letter she had fondly believed destroyed forever.

She tried to snatch it from his hand, but with a laugh he held her off.

“There’s one way, and one way only, spitfire,” he murmured, “to retrieve these schoolgirl indiscretions, and marry your beloved Tony.”

He paused and she drew in a deep, sibilant breath.

“And that is?” she queried.

“Get me the Silver Casket somehow from Lady Esmeralda Dell,” he said.

“The Silver Casket,” she replied mechanically. “What in God’s name is it?”

Zoltaire grinned sardonically.

“What its contents are,” he murmured, “I hope you’ll never know. I will give you fourteen days to find it. Otherwise——”

He tapped his pocket suggestively.

She stared at that masterful man and realised that once again she was faced with the terrible alternative of the “Blacker.”

“Either—Or——”

CHAPTER XXII

DIAMONDS ARE TRUMPS

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR BARKER, of the C.I.D., hoisted his pudgy legs on the desk before him and gloomily surveyed the polished toe-caps of his boots. There was a tap at the door and a uniformed policeman entered in response to the growled “Come in!”

He deposited a sheaf of morning newspapers on the Yard man’s desk and murmured, “That chap Diamond Mask has been at it again, sir.”

Inspector Barker grunted. He fished in his pockets for one of the vile Indian cheroots he affected.

“That’ll do, Williams,” he grunted. When the door had closed behind the constable, Barker unfolded a copy of that morning’s Daily Ray. The headlines smote him between the eyes with almost the force of a physical blow.

“£50,000 NECKLACE STOLEN.

LADY LAYCOMBE’S LOSS.

MAN WITH DIAMOND MASK AGAIN.”

Inspector Barker grunted as he read the tersely written account of the previous night’s robbery from Lady Laycombe’s house in Park Lane. For the past few weeks Scotland Yard had been baffled by an astounding series of burglaries which seemed to be the work of an elusive cracksman who the Press had nicknamed the Man with the Diamond Mask. Some of his victims had actually encountered the daring individual, but he had always succeeded in making his get-away. The only description the police had of the criminal was that he was of medium height and that the upper part of his face was covered with a parti-coloured mask of the diamond pattern of Harlequin.

Inspector Barker had been severely rapped over the knuckles by the Assistant Commissioner for his failure in obtaining any clues to the elusive crook.

As he read the newspaper report of the latest robbery, his sandy eyebrows bristled aggressively.

“By Gosh! I’ll get that fellow yet,” he grunted. “He’s not going to get away with it.” He glanced moodily across at the river Thames. A fussy tug was puffing under Westminster Bridge towing a long, squat line of barges behind it.

Once more a tap sounded at the door of the room.

“Come in!” growled Barker.

The constable entered and deposited a card on the Yard man’s desk. Barker took it up and gave a snort.

“Mr. Kellaway would like to see you for a few minutes, sir, if you can spare the time,” he said.

Again Barker grunted. “Show him in,” he said.

A moment later the tall, debonair figure of the man who had earned the nickname of Hercules, Esq., strode into the Yard man’s office.

“Morning, Barker,” greeted Bill cheerfully. “How are tricks?”

“What do you want, Kellaway?” demanded the Yard man ungraciously.

Bill laughed as he took a chair and hitched up his faultlessly creased trousers.

“Mind if I sit down?” he queried, taking out his cigarette case.

“I’m busy,” snarled Barker. “What do you want?”

“Oh, I just dropped in for a little pleasant chitchat. I was wondering whether you knew anything about this engaging chappie in the diamond mask. By all accounts he is a pretty slick screwsman.”

“Why don’t you ask your friend, Symphony Sam?” demanded Barker truculently.

“I have,” replied Bill blandly. “He knows nothing at all about it, and that’s why I came to you. I mean, it seems too darned absurd. Here’s a crook pulled off at least seven jobs in as many weeks and you haven’t even a vestige of a notion as to who he is.”

“Don’t you be too sure about that Mr. Kellaway,” said Barker, wagging an admonitory and sausageshaped forefinger in Bill’s direction. “Just because the blasted newspapers say we haven’t any clue, there is no reason for thinking that we’re stumped.”

“Ah!” said Bill, “the old hand hasn’t lost its cunning, Barker. I suppose an arrest is imminent.”

Barker scowled. “That’s our business, Mr. Kellaway,” he said.

“Is there anything particular you wanted?” he added pointedly, glancing at his watch.

“Only this,” said Bill Kellaway. “My friend Symphony is on the track of the Man with the Diamond Mask. I’ve got a side bet with our mutual friend, Henry, that the S.S. detective bureau will find him before you do at the Yard.”

Barker laughed scornfully.

“What, that cheap crook?” he said. “You can tell Mr. Symphony Sam from me to watch his step. We haven’t forgotten his record, Mr. Kellaway. And don’t forget that you yourself are not above suspicion.”

Bill Kellaway laughed. “Poor old Barker!” he said. “Age does not wither, nor custom stale your infinite propriety. Personally, I think this chap Diamond Mask seems to be a sport. After all, he’s only robbed people who can well afford to lose the money. And what’s more, he doesn’t seem to use any violence.”

Inspector Barker’s lips curled.

“It’s the sort of thing I should have expected of you, Mr. Kellaway, to hold a brief for criminals. Let me tell you I’m far from satisfied with Symphony Hick’s movements during the past few days.”

He paused significantly. Bill glanced at him curiously.

“Are you meaning to suggest that Symph knows anything about Diamond Mask?” he queried.

“I suggest nothing, Mr. Kellaway,” snapped Barker. “But my advice to you is to watch your step. You might consider yourself very cock-a-hoop at the moment, but my time will come.”

“Dear, dear, dear!” said Bill. “How very melodramatic. Do you know, Barker, you almost frighten me when you talk like that.”

He rose to his full height and smiled benevolently at the Yard man.

“Good hunting, Barker!” he said. “My bet’s on Symphony Sam.”

Barker pulled out a virulently-hued bandana handkerchief and blew his nose vigorously. He affected not to see Bill’s outstretched hand. Bill shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, good morning, Sunshine,” he said. “Watch your step.”

“Watch yours,” growled Barker.

“I always have,” replied Bill Kellaway. “I always have.”

With an airy wave of his hand he took his leave. When the door had closed, Barker crossed over to the window and scowled savagely at an inoffensive sea-gull that had whirled up from the Thames embankment.

CHAPTER XXIII

BEER FOR ONE

HENRY HENRY, that omniscient man, shimmered rather than walked into his employer’s bedroom shortly after nine thirty a few days after Mr. Hicks’s unfortunate altercation with Dr. Zoltaire.

If there was one thing that Bill Kellaway enjoyed more than anything else in his chequered career, it was a long, uninterrupted sleep. Having been a newspaperman, he had the Napoleonic facility of going to sleep at any time and in any circumstances, and awaking at any moment he thought fit. Since he had joined the ranks of the “bloated capitalists”—to quote Symphony Sam—Bill Kellaway luxuriated in bed in the morning.

He had given orders, however, to Henry that he was to be awakened at 7.30 a.m. every day for no reason whatsoever except to tell his awakener to go to Hell and thus enjoy the added luxury of turning over on the other side, relapsing to sleep again.

Bill felt, as an old newspaperman, that he had been cheated roughly out of at least fifteen years of sleep, and he was determined to square the account.

Henry coughed deferentially and deposited a silver salver on the table beside the bed. Bill awoke instantly and rubbed his eyes.

He grinned sleepily at the valet.

“Morning, Henry!”

“Good morning, sir!”

“What sort of a day is it?”

Henry cleared his throat.

“It is what I might venture to describe, sir, a middish sort of morning. According to the weather forecast, some rain or sleet is expected in southern and eastern districts, but it will remain fair and rather cold. The flying prospects Paris—Brussels—Cologne—and Amsterdam—wind S.E. to E. twenty m.p.h——”

“Oh, shut up, ass. Give me my livener.”

“At your elbow, sir,” said Henry with a slight smile.

Bill propped himself up and stretched out his hands towards the foaming glass of beer on the silver salver.

“Do you know, Henry,” he began, “that there are damn fools who start the day with a cup of tea.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Henry.

“Tea!” repeated Bill with an accent of disgust. “Good Lord Almighty, in the days when England was really great, in the days of the Tudors and Good Queen Bess, men drank ale for breakfast.”

“So I am creditably informed, sir. I must confess I have no strong partiality for that oriental beverage myself, sir. If I may venture to quote so early in the morning, sir,

‘Tea is like the East he grows in,

A great, yellow Mandarin

With urbanity of manner

And unconsciousness of sin.

All the women, like a Harem,

At his pigtail troop along.

And just like the East he grows in

He is poison when he’s strong.’ ”

“Good old ’Enery! That’s G.K.C., isn’t it?”

Henry nodded. “One of my favourite authors, sir! Next to the chronicler of Sexton Blake.”

“Talking of the East,” said Bill Kellaway, as he put down his empty glass, “what’s Japan doing?”

Henry handed him a copy of that morning’s Daily Ray. “The present situation can be described as in statu quo,” he said. “But I notice that ‘Diamond Mask’ has been busy again.”

Bill Kellaway frowned.

“Gosh! That chap seems to have been going it, Henry,” he said. “What the devil has he been doing this time?”

Henry shrugged. “His usual nocturnal depredations, sir. The Marquis of Malplaquet seems to have been deprived of an emerald tiara to which, I believe, he has no title, as it belongs to his wife, late Cora Canani, of the Zeigfield Follies, and——” his voice trailed away into silence as Bill scanned the headlines in that morning’s Daily Ray.

“ANOTHER WEST END BURGLARY.

£20,000 TIARA STOLEN.

DIAMOND MASK AGAIN.”

Bill chuckled as he scanned the swift journalese of his quondam colleague, Bannerhead Bruce.

“Another smack in the eye for poor old Barker!”

he said. “This crook seems to be an expert, Henry. Got any theories about him?”

Henry cleared his throat.

“Well, sir, up to date the exploits credited to the mysterious ‘Man in the Diamond Mask’ are twenty-seven. He commenced his operations seven weeks ago to-morrow. His methods are simple. He is evidently an accomplished cat-burglar, and his sole eccentricity consists in the Harlequin diamond-lozenged mask which he affects. He has left no finger-prints, and all the safes which he has rifled have been found uninjured, thus proving that he has an expert knowledge of their mechanism. In fact, sir,” said Henry—a cloud suddenly shrouded the urbane serenity of his countenance—“I know of only one man who could have accomplished the—er—depredations, but that, as Euclid says, is absurd.”

“Meaning?” said Bill, and his voice was suddenly sharp.

“Mr. Hicks, sir,” said Henry quietly.

“Symph?” ejaculated Bill. “Don’t be a fool, Henry. Why, he’s as straight as a die. Our old chiner, Symphony Sam? You’re ridiculous.”

Henry coughed again, a trifle self-consciously.

“I have the honour of Mr. Hicks’ personal friendship, sir. His unfortunate antecedants have nothing in common with his at present predilections, which, I understand, are the running of the most successful private detective agency in London. Mr. Hicks, sir, to quote his own graphic term, has ‘swallowed the anchor.’ Long may he subsist on what I frankly consider to be an extraordinarily indigestible and uninteresting diet.”

“Henry, you damned old fool,” said Bill, “quit talking like something out of P.G. Wodehouse. What’s back of your mind?”

“Nothing, sir, but if I might venture to suggest, there has been a marked change in the demeanour of Mr. Hicks of late. My niece, Candy, by no means an unobservant girl, has been somewhat troubled. As you know, Mr. Hicks and you and I have followed many a difficult and adventurous trail together, but we have never found Symphony allowing his natural love for alcohol to get the better of him.”

“Meaning exactly what?” cried the exasperated Bill. There were moments when the circumlocutory phraseology of Henry got on his nerves.

“I think, sir,” said Henry, and for once he dropped his polysyllables, “there’s something wrong with Symphony Sam.”

An abstracted glint came into Bill Kellaway’s shrewd blue eyes, as he recalled his last visit to Scotland Yard to Detective-Inspector Barker. Of course the idea was fantastic, ridiculous. He would have trusted Symphony with his life and yet——

With an effort, he changed the subject.

“Don’t let’s get morbid, Henry,” he said. “Crime, like time, is merely relative. What’s on to-day?”

Henry picked up the sheaf of letters which lay beside the empty beer glass on the tray. He acted, this unconventional manservant, as Bill’s secretary.

“The usual list of invitations, sir; none of which would appeal to you. There is one possibly of some passing personal interest. Lady Esmeralda Dell is giving a party in honour of the forthcoming marriage of her son, Sir Anthony, and Miss Monica Frayne.”

Bill stifled a yawn.

“Good Gad! You mean, young Tony Dell, the racing motorist? He’s a pretty good fellow. He’s hardly the sort that I’d think of settling down suddenly.”

Henry coughed discreetly.

“Er—his fiancee, was at school with my niece, sir.”

Bill stared blankly at Henry.

“Was she, by Gad. Do you know, Henry, you’re always springing surprises at me. Were you by any chance at Eton yourself?”

“Sir,” said Henry, and coughed again, “I have been, I hope, educated.”

CHAPTER XXIV

A SHOCK FOR TWO

SWING music.

Bill Kellaway passed through the vestibule of Lady Esmeralda Dell’s house in Portman Square, and grinned slightly to himself as he recognised the strains of a Tin Pan alley tune from the orchestra which that exacting lady had hired for the evening.

They were all alike, these boring society functions. He remembered the days when, as a poverty-stricken reporter, he had to attend them in a professional capacity, but now as Kellaway, the “well-known millionaire and man-about-town,” he was welcome everywhere.

He stood for a moment at the entrance to the ballroom, and his eyes roved over the throng of people present. All the Bright Young People seemed to be assembled in full force. He recognised the Hon. Jimmy Fairbanks and his bosom friend, Lord Chipperdale. Judging by the unsteady movements of the latter, and the vapid grin on his face, he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Big Bill Kellaway smiled cynically as he recognised most of the more frivolous element of modern fashionable society who gyrated round the ballroom. He had seen it, oh, so often before.

“Why, Kellaway,” said a pleasant voice, “I didn’t spot you before. Where the devil have you been?”

Bill half-turned and found himself facing a tall, slim, good-looking young man with a wispy, Ronald Coleman moustache and very steady grey eyes.

“Hello, Dell,” said Bill, as he shook hands with Sir Anthony. “I’ve just come to offer my felicitations on joining the ranks of the Benedict.”

“Not yet, old man,” replied Tony Dell. “Come and have a drink.”

Together they passed into the buffet. As they perched themselves at the bar, Dell eased his dress collar.

“These darned shows get me down, Kellaway,” he said. “Can’t a chappie get engaged without a lot of old harridans——” He coughed suddenly as a tall, angular woman, with a dominant nose and remarkably vivid red hair appeared at the entrance of the buffet.

“Tony!” her voice was curt, almost peremptory.

Young Dell shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

“ ’Scuse me, old chap. The mater wants me. Where the devil poor Monica is in all this crush I don’t know. ’Bye ’bye. See you anon.”

Bill Kellaway shrugged his shoulders as the young baronet threaded his way through the crowded guests that elbowed their way towards the bar. He ordered himself a dry Martini and, as the white coated bartender pushed it over towards him, he groped in his pocket for his cigarette case. As he did so, his elbow jostled a tall, bearded man on his right.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Kellaway.

The other smiled, revealing flawless teeth against the black luxuriance of his Vandyke beard.

“It’s rather crowded in here.”

The other shrugged his shoulders.

“What will you?” he said. “Both Sir Anthony and his charming fiancee have many friends. They are a most popular young couple.”

“Tony’s a good sport,” agreed Bill. “I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Miss Frayne.”

With the cold, detached eyes of a journalist, he studied the man he addressed.

“Your face seems vaguely familiar, sir,” he said. “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”

The other laughed.

“In Cairo, I believe, Mr. Kellaway. My name is Zoltaire, Dr. Simon Zoltaire.”

“Oh, of course,” said Bill. “Have a drink.”

He signalled the hovering barman.

“Well, how go the neuroses, doctor? Discovered any new complices yet?”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

“There are no new ones, Mr. Kellaway,” he drawled in his soft, mellifluous voice. “There is merely sin and its aftermath.”

Bill’s eyebrows elevated slightly.

“Surely, doctor, that is more theological than psychological. What is Sin?”

Zoltaire smiled sardonically.

“As jesting Pilate said, ‘What is Truth?’ ”

“Search me,” said Bill Kellaway, as he lit a cigarette.

From the ballroom came the strains of the latest trans-Atlantic foxtrot, and Bill suddenly recognised young Eve Carstairs who had been once a colleague of his on the Daily Ray. She was now a full-blown Social Editress, and with a murmured apology to Zoltaire he drained his drink and joined the girl.

Zoltaire’s green eyes gazed speculatively after his retreating figure.

“I wonder,” he murmured. “I wonder if——”

• • • • • •

From the shadow of the long line of cars which flanked the corner of Portland Place, a crouching figure emerged. He was dressed in a long grey raincoat, and the dark felt hat that he wore threw his face into shadow. There was a sardonic smile on his lips as the strains of the latest foxtrot floated from the ballroom window of Lady Dell’s residence.

The policeman on duty at the corner did not notice the furtive figure as it descended into the basement of the house on rubber-soled shoes. It was one o’clock in the morning and the party was in full swing. The crouching figure grinned as he heard the clink of glasses and subdued hum of conversation overhead. He slipped a lean, long-fingered hand into his inner pocket and from it removed a silken domino of a peculiar pattern. It was fashioned in the diamond shaped, multi-coloured lozenges of Harlequin. It masked three-quarters of his features. Very cautiously he inserted a long, shining steel implement into the Yale lock of the door. Came a slight click, and a moment later the portal swung open. He stood for a moment on the threshold, and then braced himself. The servants would be busy upstairs he reflected.

He had already had a lay-out of the house, and knew that his objective could be reached by a stairway at the rear of the basement. Noiseless as a cat on velvet cushions, he tiptoed through the pantry until he approached the stairway. He did not carry a gun. He was far too wary a marauder for that. As he approached the second landing, the noise of the orchestra grew louder, but the man in the diamond mask was in no mood for music.

He found himself in a shadowed hall-way, illumined only by the light of one electric bulb set in an ancient lantern. For a moment or two he hesitated, and then cat-footed stealthily towards a white-panelled door to the right.

The boom of the drums down below, as the jazz grew merrier, drowned whatever slight sound he made as he turned the knob. From his pocket he withdrew a fine, pencil torch and flashed it into the room. It was a lady’s bedroom. Two or three coats had been flung carelessly on the silken coverlets of the wide, ornate bed. Slowly the yellow pencil of light travelled round the room until it came to rest above a dressing-table. The Man in the Diamond Mask gave a soft chuckle of satisfaction as he crossed over towards the large oval mirror which surmounted the dressing-table. He swung it back, and as he did so, there came a faint click from the vanity drawer on the left. He jerked it open. Within lay a vanity set, two or three powder puffs, and a pair of curling tongs.

He brushed them aside, and it was at that moment that the bedroom door was opened and Bill Kellaway stood on the threshold. On his handsome, clear-cut face there was a look of grim determination. In his right hand glinted a squat, blue-nosed automatic.

“Stick ’em up, Mr. Diamond Mask,” said Bill Kellaway pleasantly. “We don’t need any fuss.”

Diamond Mask turned round with a snarl.

“What the ’ell——” he began.

The revolver in Kellaway’s hand shook a little as he recognised the voice.

“My God,” he gasped. “It’s Symphony Sam.” He stepped forward and the little crook backed away. He tore away the Harlequin mask he wore.

“Yus, Nutty,” he confessed. “It’s me. But I can explain everything. Give us ’alf a chance.”

“Thank you, Mr. Flicks,” boomed a hateful voice, and a moment later the heavy plush portieres that screened the windows were pulled back and Detective-Inspector Barker entered the room.

“I want you, Mr. ‘Diamond Mask,’ ” he said grimly.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ARREST OF SYMPHONY SAM

FOR a moment or two there was a tense and electric silence in that over-ornated room. Symphony Sam shrugged his shoulders philosophically.

“Yus. I knows you’ve always wanted me, for what you ain’t got, Flatty.”

Barker’s face purpled.

“Brines!” added Symphony Sam with a wink at Bill Kellaway.

Bill drew a deep breath.

Used as he was to crises all his life, the fact that his old friend, Symphony Sam, was caught in what Henry, with his pedantry, would have called in flagrante delicto, and that the little man whose career he had watched with amused tolerance had become a crook again, flung the usual equipoise of Bill off its balance.

Barker turned triumphantly to Kellaway.

“So you see, Mister Kellaway,” he said with slow emphasis, “this only proves what I’ve always told you. Once a crook, always a crook. And I’m not so sure——”

Here his bushy eyebrows drew together in an ominous frown.

“That you yourself can’t be drawn in as an accessory.”

Symphony Sam gave a snort of disgust.

“Go a’ead, misery,” he said. “Why don’t you accuse us of bein’ responsible for Trunk Murder No. 1 and 2 and 3,” he added with unusual venom.

Bill Kellaway was frankly nonplussed.

“Symph, old man,” he said, “there must surely be some explanation for this. You wouldn’t let an old chiner down.”

“Sure there’s an explanation,” replied Symph cheerfully. “But I ain’t tellin’ it in front of ’im.”

He jerked his head towards the fuming Yard man.

“Go on, Flatty. Get it over. If you’ve forgotten the words an’ music, I’ll sing it to yer. ‘Samuel ‘Icks, you’re bein’ found in possession of burglarious instruments, and it is my dooty to inform yer that you will be taken inter custody and that any think you say——”

“That’s quite enough of that, Hicks,” said Barker. “You’ll come along with me. I’ve got enough on you to send you down for seven years. To say nothing of five years’ P.D.”

“But look here, Barker,” broke in Bill Kellaway, “this is all wrong. There must be some explanation. I’ll bail Symphony out.”

Barker’s mottled face grew ugly.

“Bail him out, will you, Mister Kellaway? Are you aware that the £20,000 tiara stolen two nights ago has been traced and the robbery is the work of Symphony Sam?”

“That’s a lie, Nutty. It’s a bloody lie,” broke in the little Cockney indignantly. “I’ve been straight, swelp me God I ’ave.”

Barker laughed nastily.

“Then you can explain to the judge and the jury how your finger-prints were found on the knob of the rifled safe. Don’t forget it’s all down in Records, Hicks. All Records cannot lie.”

“I suppose you fink you’re the recordin’ angel, do yer?” said Symphony. “Go a’ead, Barker. It’s a fair cop. I’ll go quiet.”

He held out his wrists.

Detective-Inspector Barker, of Scotland Yard, gave an indignant snort.

“There is no need for these melodramatic exits,” he said.

He looked belligerently at Bill Kellaway.

“I shall need your evidence at the trial, Mister Kellaway. But I want the truth.”

“Shurrup,” Symphony Sam said. “The ’ole truth and nuffink but the truth. Get on wiv it, Barker, and not so much pious chinwag.”

Bill Kellaway replaced his automatic in his hip pocket.

“A very smart capture indeed, Inspector,” he said. “However, did you discover that Mr. Hicks was about to honour this place with a visit?”

“Information received,” said Barker brusquely. “I bid you Good night, Mr. Kellaway, and don’t forget that you will be needed at the police court to-morrow morning.”

Symphony Sam glanced humorously at Bill, and shrugged his sturdy shoulders.

“So long, nutty,” he said, and for once there was a return of his own old raillery. “Don’t forget I ain’t ’arf as bad as Barker paints me.”

Barker cleared his throat. His hand fell heavily on the little man’s bowed shoulder.

“Come along, Hicks,” he snapped.

Symphony Sam turned to Bill Kellaway, and there was a mute appeal in his eyes.

“So long, old chiner. Tell Candy I’m—I’m sorry,” he said.

As Barker opened the door, the strains of a haunting Viennese waltz floated upwards.

Bill Kellaway stared after the retreating figure of his chiner and his throat felt oddly constricted.

• • • • • •

“There for the moment the matter rests.”

Detective-Inspector Barker glanced complacently at Candy Lee.

It was eleven o’clock in the morning the day after Symphony’s dramatic arrest in the house in Portland Square. He had been brought up at Bovine Street Police Station and, despite the substantial bail offered by Bill, the application had been opposed by the police because of the little man’s past record. Candy Lee glanced across at the choleric face of the Yard man.

“You’ve always hated Mr. Hicks, haven’t you?” she said ice in her cornflower blue eyes. Barker smiled.

“I’ve never hated him, Miss Lee. In fact, I’ve warned him enough of the kind of life he was leading would get him——”

“Thank you, I don’t want to hear my employer discussed,” said Candy, and her voice was acid. “I have given you all the information which is in my power, and I shall be pleased to testify in court that he is one of the most considerate and charming and honest men I have ever met.”

“That may be,” boomed Barker. “I appreciate your loyalty, Miss Lee, but surely his past record and the fact that he was caught practically red-handed trying to burgle Lady Dell’s safe, is enough evidence to convince a jury of his guilt.”

“It doesn’t convince me,” said Candy Lee, and her little chin set in a line determinedly.

Barker shrugged his shoulders.

“Very well, miss,” he said. “As you know, you’re liable to be subpoenaed as a witness.”

“Then,” said Candy, rising to her feet, “you may treat me as a hostile one, Inspector Barker.”

“That’s as may be,” grunted Barker. He seized his bowler hat and cocked it at an aggressive angle on his bullet head.

“Good-bye,” said Candy cheerfully. “Abyssinia, an old Moroccan farewell.”

Inspector Barker frowned as he closed the door. Abyssinia and the Black Prince were an unpleasant memory for him.

Candy’s lip quivered slightly. Events of the past forty-eight hours had been catastrophic.

“Surely, surely,” she mused, “there must be some explanation for it. The little Cockney whom she respected, yes, and almost loved, because of his kind heart and sunny cheerful nature was a thief. And, what was even worse, a mean thief.”

She shuddered as she recalled the array of evidence that had been marshalled by the prosecutor at the preliminary court procedure. There was no doubt that Symphony Sam had intended to burgle Lady Esmeralda Dell’s house. No doubt, either, that the finger-prints found on the safe from which the emerald tiara had been purloined corresponded in all details with those of Symphony. Of course, this evidence had not come up in court, but, most damning of all, and this was the trump card that the police were holding, in Symphony’s room at Shinwell they had discovered bonds and jewels to the value of £100,000, all identified as the loot of the Man with the Diamond Mask.

Candy Lee crossed over to the mirror above the mantelpiece and dabbed a powder puff hastily over her small, tip-tilted nose. A tap sounded at the door, and, thrusting the powder puff into her bag, she ran to open it. Standing on the threshold was the tall, quietly dressed figure of her uncle, Henry Henry. His preternaturally solemn face relaxed into a momentary smile.

“Ah, Candy, my dear,” he said, “may I come in?”

She smiled back. “Oh do come in, Uncle Harry. I feel—I feel so miserable.”

Henry removed his decorous bowler hat.

Candy was the only person in the world who ever called that omniscient manservant by a diminutive. His real name was Henry Henry, known, as he explained once to Bill Kellaway, by the ribald at school as Henry squared.

“My dear child,” he began, “you look somewhat peaked. The pristine lustre of your pulchritude is——”

“Oh, shut up, Uncle Harry,” said Candy. “Why do you always use long words when short ones will do?”

A flicker of a smile passed over Henry’s face.

“I never was a Fleet Street journalist, my dear Candy. According to my respected employer, Mr. Kellaway, they pay just as much for the word ‘of’ as ‘incontrovertibility.’ ”

Candy laughed, the first for forty-eight hours.

“What brought you here, Uncle?” she queried.

“Mr. Kellaway asked me to meet him here at noon,” he said. “It is now five minutes of midday,” he added glancing at the neat, and inconspicuous wrist-watch he carried.

“I wish you weren’t so infernally cool and competent, Uncle. Here am I at my wits’ end. Poor Symphony is inside and——”

Henry frowned.

“Your predilection for quoting the less seemly analogies of Mr. Hicks’s conversation——”

“Will you stop it, Uncle Harry?” insisted Candy, her small fists clenched. “Talk like a reasonable human being. Here’s poor Symphony. He’s been a crook. We all know that, but he’s one of the whitest crooks and the whitest men I ever met. I told you why he went to Lady Dell’s house. It was that damn’ fool, Monica.”

Viciously she jerked open her cigarette case and lit a match, but was forestalled by the ever-watchful Henry, who seemed to have conjured from mid-air a jewelled lighter.

“She always was a fool,” said Candy, after taking a deep inhalation. “If it wasn’t for her and Dr. Zoltaire——”

“Zoltaire?” repeated Henry, and his eyes narrowed somewhat. “What do you know about him, my child?”

“Nothing,” answered Candy frankly, “except that he’s a beast and a blackmailing beast.”

Henry Henry smiled.

“I gather from outside sources that Miss Monica Frayne requisitioned the services of your bureau to recover certain letters.”

Candy nodded.

“The outside sources being my uncle,” she said, “I told you that the damn’ little fool fell for this man Zoltaire, wrote him a lot of mushy letters, and Zoltaire blackmailed her. She came to Symphony in desperation. He stole the letters from Zoltaire’s safe and—and”—she hesitated—“the next thing I hear is that poor Symph is arrested for burgling Lady Dell’s bedroom.”

Henry Henry nodded wisely.

“Have you noticed anything strange about Symph’s demeanour lately?”

Candy, loyal little soul, hesitated for a moment. Then in a rush said,

“Now you come to talk of it, nunks, I think he’s been lifting his elbow more than usual. There’s been a strange look about his eyes, and sometimes he’s been quite snappy with me, which is very unlike him.”

Again Henry nodded.

“I have noticed that myself, my dear Candy,” he said. “What precisely did Dr. Zoltaire demand from this schoolgirl friend of yours? Was it money?”

Candy shook her head.

“No. That’s the odd part of it, uncle. Symph didn’t tell me very much about it. But he mentioned what Zoltaire wanted was a Silver Casket.”

“A Silver Casket?” repeated Henry. “Then that explains a lot. There’s——”

Boom.

The first note of Big Ben across the way struck midday, and a shadow darkened the frosted glass panels of the S.S. Detective Bureau. A tap sounded on the door. Candy rose to open it. Framed in the portals was the tall, debonair figure of Bill Kellaway.

“Hello, child! How goes it?” grinned Bill. “Your Uncle ’Enery abaht?” he queried.

Candy winced a little as his banter recalled her little employer vividly to her memory. Her employer, who was now on remand at Brixton Gaol.

“Please come in, Mr. Kellaway,” said Candy.

Henry, in some miraculous fashion, had crossed over to the chromium-plated filing cabinet in the corner, and as Bill entered, proffered a tray on which reposed a whisky, while poised delicately in his left hand was a bottle of soda-water.

“Say when, sir,” said the omniscient one.

“When,” said Bill with a chuckle. “And talking of when, Henry, when I catch you napping the age of miracles has arrived.”

The faintest flicker of a smile hovered over the valet’s horse-like face. He coughed slightly beneath an upraised hand.

“Miss Lee and myself were discussing the unfortunate contretemps between Inspector Barker and Mr. Hicks, sir,” he said.

“One of these days I’ll brain you,” said Bill. “You’ve got plenty to lose,” he added with a laugh as he relapsed into a saddle-bag chair, and stretched out his lean, sinewy hands towards the comforting blaze of the electric fire.

“We’ve got to get Symphony out of this mess,” he added. “Barker’s as vindictive as Hell. Coming to think of it, I’m puzzled myself. That Symphony has been a crook on the side is what I can’t and won’t believe. It’s my idea that he’s been framed. You and I know Symphony well enough, my dear Henry, to realise that if he was going on the crook he’d have told us.”

“Indubitably, sir. I think the secret lies in the Silver Casket.”

Bill Kellaway smiled sardonically.

“A goal in one, Henry!” he said. “And if Barker and the rest of his blue-coated myrmidons tried to frame Symphony Sam for a burglary he didn’t commit, then they’ll be the laughing stock of Fleet Street, and that means, my dear Henry, as you know, the world.”

Candy drew in her breath sharply.

“You—you mean—that Symph did not steal the Silver Casket?”

Bill bowed ironically.

“Exactly, my dear young lady. He could not possibly have stolen it.”

“But—but——” gasped the bewildered girl. “I don’t understand.”

“For the simple reason,” said Hercules, Esquire, “I stole it myself.”

From his inner pocket he withdrew a small brown-paper covered parcel. He tore off the wrapping, and on the glass-topped table disclosed a small casket of silver filigree of Indian workmanship.

For once in his life Henry Henry was literally without words. A queer choking noise sounded at the back of his throat. Candy gave a gasp.

“But, Mr. Kellaway, if Sir Anthony Dell knew——”

Bill Kellaway smiled, and his blue eyes twinkled.

“Do you know your Dickens, my dear Candy?”

She shook her lovely, honey-coloured head in a bewildered fashion.

“Yes, but——” she faltered uncertainly.

“Ever heard of Mrs. Harris?” queried Bill.

She laughed uncertainly. “Yes. Didn’t Sarah Gamp say ‘there was no sich person.’ ”

Bill bowed again, half-mockingly.

“Good girl. It’s the same thing about Sir Anthony Dell. There ’ain’t no sich person.’ ”

CHAPTER XXVI

IN THE COOLER

SYMPHONY SAM stepped briskly over the threshold of Handforth Prison and the surly chief warder at the gate said,

“Mind the step.”

“Garn,” said Symphony with a withering look. “I knew that step afore you was born.”

There was no truculence in the little crook’s attitude as he wended his way through the old, familiar routine.

Clang!

The cell door shut on him, and he faced once again the grey, uncompromising bolts and bars of His Majesty’s prison cell.

“Coo!” said Symphony Sam. “Lumme! ’Ome again!”

And then he looked, and into his brown, bird-like eyes there crept a queer film.

“No. It’s all wrong,” said Symphony Sam. “S’welp me. I gone straight. I swallered the anchor. Wot ’ave the bleeders pinched me for?”

He looked round at the bare outlines of his cell. In the left hand corner reposed a Bible. He picked it up and murmured, “I know you, old timer. An eye for an eye an’ a toof fer a toof. Same’s I saw in Maria Martin, when Tod Slaughter was a’playin’ of it in the Elephant and Castle. Once a crook always a crook,” he said bitterly as he sat down by the edge of his bed. “But they’ve framed me. S’welp me Gawd they ’aven’t ’alf framed me.” He sat there on the side of his bed with the Bible on his knee and tried to think. “Candy!” he murmured. “Wot the ’ell does she think abaht it? And Bill? Pore ole Nutty. I don’t know. I seem ter ’ave gone queer.”

Suddenly he flung the Bible on the floor in a gesture of disgust. “Seven blinkin’ years. Mebbe I done it. Mebbe I ain’t. But by Gawd——”

A queer, convulsive shudder shook his sturdy frame. His usually bright robin-like eyes grew grey. He collapsed on the floor of his cell in a dead faint.

• • • • • •

Henry Henry, that imperturbable manservant, coughed discreetly behind his well-manicured fingers.

Bill Kellaway, lounging in his chair, looked up suddenly.

“What the devil——?”

“Only me, sir,” said Henry.

“You’re the Devil himself,” said Bill as he accepted the drink proffered on the silver salver.

“I trace no ancestor from Beelzebub, sir, which is a name derived, if I understand my Luetonius well, from the Araamaic, meaning a black emperor, one of Mr. Mussolini’s favourite bugbears.”

“To Hell with your black emperors,” ejaculated Bill Kellaway. “The point is Symph in—trouble. Symphony’s in——”

“Gaol, sir,” supplied Henry.

“Do you believe that he is innocent?” demanded Bill Kellaway.

Henry shrugged his shoulders.

“Whether he is innocent or guilty, sir, he is my friend.”

“Then move nitwit! Move!” said Bill, hurling a pillow from under his head. “We won’t let Barker, of Scotland Yard, get the laugh on us.”

A faint flicker of a smile hovered for a moment on Henry’s horse-faced countenance.

“I have already instituted certain enquiries, sir. And if movement is required, I may say that I have accelerated my own somewhat lethargic temperament into some semblance of action.”

“Shut up, Henry. I’m getting tired of your dictionary talk. Symph’s in trouble and it’s up to us to get him out.”

A pained expression crossed over Henry’s features.

“What’s eating you now?” demanded Bill harshly.

“You ended your sentence with a proposition, sir,” he explained.

Bill made an involuntary movement towards the poker. Henry Henry did not flinch.

“Sir,” he said. “Apart from the respect and the affection which I have for Mr. Hicks, there is also the question of my niece’s good name. I never was partial to her joining what the proletariat call the upper classes. Miss Monica Frayne is a bad lot, if I might use that expression.”

“What the Hell has Monica Frayne got to do with it?”

“Everything, sir,” replied Henry. “Find her and you’ll find the Man in the Diamond Mask.”

“What the devil do you mean?” demanded Bill. “Symphony Sam is the Man in the Diamond Mask. It was proved in court and——”

Henry shook his head slightly.

“I beg your pardon, sir. It was Symphony’s record that damned him at the trial. As a matter of fact I have overwhelming proof that the Man in the Diamond Mask is——”

Bill Kellaway’s face went white. He looked up startled.

“What’s that you say, Henry? Who do you think it is?”

“Maybe you, sir. At least, you stole the Silver Casket.”

Bill Kellaway shrugged his shoulders.

“O.K., Henry. Let’s call it a day. I’ve never lied to you in my life. When Symph got pulled in by Barker, that very complacent man did not realise that I was left behind in the room. He was far too enraptured about his capture. Here is the Silver Casket, Henry, and now you will be able to realise why Sir Anthony Dell is no more Sir Anthony than I am.”

“I surmised as much, sir,” said Henry, “and if you will excuse me for a moment I will bring my records.”

He crossed over to the door that led to his own sanctum.

Bill helped himself to a cigarette. Henry was a never-failing source of surprise to Hercules, Esq.

When Henry returned, he found Bill absently fingering the filigree casket. Under his arm the valet carried a small ledger.

“Which of us is going to shoot first?” said Bill with a chuckle.

Henry coughed.

“If I might venture to make a bet with you, sir, you will find not only some very private and personal papers, but a birth certificate.”

“And then what?” interrupted Bill.

“A death certificate, too, sir,” said Henry.

Bill shrugged his shoulders.

“All right, Horse-face. You win. Spill the beans. The whole fifty-seven varieties of ’em.”

Henry coughed.

‘‘Well, sir,” he said, opening his brown-covered ledger, “my information, garnered with considerable difficulty from ‘Gentlemen’s Gentlemen,’ and very possibly reprehensible habits of eavesdropping at the local public-house in which they foregather, has enabled me to build up a comprehensive, if somewhat sketchy, explanation of the extraordinary attitude of Lady Esmerelda.”

“For God’s sake, man, why don’t you get to the point?” said Bill. “For once in your life, can’t you tell your story as we do in Fleet Street, in the first three lines?”

A smile hovered over Henry’s lips.

“Very good, sir. I will endeav—I mean, try, sir—in brief, to give you what I believe editors call a synopsis. This is what happened eighteen years ago. Old Sir Richard Dell left a very large fortune to be inherited by his nephew, the Hon. Anthony, when he reached the age of twenty-five. The old man died. Tony’s father, as you know was killed in the War, and Lady Dell took her son to East Africa, where he died from blackwater fever. The Lady Esmerelda, realising that her family would lose the trust money, adopted a ruse——”

“How the devil do you know all this, Henry?” demanded Bill Kellaway.

Henry smiled inscrutably.

“The proofs, I believe, sir, you will find in that Silver Casket which you so deftly extracted.”

Bill flicked open the lid of the little filigree box.

“By Gosh, Henry, you’re a wizard. I don’t know how the devil you discovered it. Here is a copy of the death certificate of the Hon. Anthony Dell, and also a deed of adoption from Piet van Kramer, a Boer farmer, who relinquishes all rights to his son, Pete, to Lady Esmerelda Dell in consideration of a sum of £5,000. What staggers me, Henry, is how the devil you knew all this.”

“Well, sir,” said Henry, and once more he coughed depreciatingly. “If you will remember rightly, you slipped the Silver Casket into the pocket of your overcoat, and, being naturally rather upset at Mr. Hicks’s arrest, you forgot about it momentarily. As you know, sir, I strongly disapprove of bulges in your clothes. It is a reprehensible habit—a relic of your journalistic days. I removed the bulge, and confirmed my suspicions.”

Bill Kellaway laughed out aloud.

“O.K., Henry,” he said. “You’ll do. In other words Lady Esmerelda is a twister.”

“I would hardly use that expression, sir,” he said. “But she is somewhat indiscreet and unveracious. That is why Dr. Zoltaire, who has come from Capetown, has been enabled to overawe Miss Monica Frayne. As you know, he is a fashionable psychoanalyst with some popularity amongst the frail ladies of Mayfair. I have ascertained that Lady Dell was one of his clients, and it is quite possible that by the aid of his scientific jargon and mumbo-jumbo, he discovered that Lady Dell had a secret to hide.”

“By Gosh!” ejaculated Bill Kellaway. “It all fits in now, Henry. Zoltaire suspected that the Silver Casket contains the proof of Lady Dell’s deception. Knowing Monica, our sinister friend, Zoltaire, tries to get hold of the casket. And that means it’s the double-black. With Monica married to Anthony, she is still a valuable source which he can tap, and not only that, the mother can be terrified into acquiescence.”

“Exactly, sir,” agreed Henry. “That is exactly why Monica Frayne appealed to Candy and Symphony Sam——”

“And the nett result is that our friend Symphony Sam is in gaol,” broke in Bill.

“He won’t be there long, sir,” replied Henry. “I have a certain reckoning with Dr. Zoltaire.”

For once his expressionless countenance showed unwonted emotion, and Bill Kellaway noticed that his slim well-manicured hands were clenched until the knuckles shone bone-white.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE LOQUACIOUS MR. RICE

IN a quiet side street, just off Notting Hill Gate, where that bustling quarter merges imperceptibly to the Royal Borough of Kensington, is situated that discreet and self-effacing little pub, the “Running Footman.”

Here, at permitted hours, foregathers its small but select clientele of grave-faced, grey-haired men, urbanity of manner, and sober habiliments and habits. The atmosphere of the hostelry is quiet, almost ecclesiastic in its calm aloofness from the noise and bustle of Kensington High Street and its proprietor, Mr. Murgatroyd, dispense his beverages with an arch-episcopal dignity unhappily rare in these degenerate days. He is ably assisted by his niece, Miss Gumbril, an unimpeachable virgin of uncertain age and uncompromising gentility.

The amenities of the “Running Footman,” apart from its excellent wines, beers and spirits, consist of a comfortable lounge, a cosy snug, and a billiard room plentifully supplied with the glossier and more expensive society weeklies. Innovations in the shape of pin tables, dart or shove ha’penny boards have been rigorously excluded, for the clientele of the house is nothing if not genteel.

Shortly after nine o’clock on the evening of Mr. Hick’s first day of incarceration at Handforth Gaol, a tall, grey-haired man, clad in a well cut suit of inconspicuous black, entered the “Running Footman.” He had a sallow, smooth face, ornamented by grey side-whiskers, a mellifluous voice, and a copy of the evening paper under his arm.

The landlord looked up from the copy of the Tatler he had been perusing and smiled. He was a large man with a pink, benevolent face and the manner of an archbishop.

“Good evening, Mr. Rice,” he said in a rich, fruity voice. “The weather still continues inclement I perceive.”

He glanced out of the window as the dull rumble of thunder sounded in the leaden skies.

Mr. Rice nodded.

“In for another storm, I’m afraid,” he said, then turning to Miss Gumbril, “A glass of the usual, if you please.”

Miss Gumbril smiled archly, revealing pink vulcanite gums, and poured out a glass of port from a basketed bottle liberally cobwebbed.

“Will you join me, Mr. Murgatroyd,” said the affable Mr. Rice.

The landlord smiled, and climbed down from his stool.

“Thank you, sir,” he said unguently. “As the scriptures have it, wine maketh the heart glad, especially this weather, Mr. Rice.”

His niece filled another glass and shook her head coyly as the customer urged her to join them.

“And how is the good doctor?” queried the publican, after they had drunk each other’s mutual health.

“Busy, exceedingly busy,” replied Mr. Rice. “It is surprising how prevalent neurasthenia is becoming nowadays. Psycho-analysis is the fashionable fad of the moment.”

The landlord nodded understandingly.

“When I was in service it was appendicitus,” he said. “I remember the late Duchess of Denver——”

He broke off suddenly as the door opened and the tall, elegant figure of Henry Henry entered the saloon lounge. The valet unbuttoned his raincoat and smiled urbanely at the trio.

“Good evening. A whisky and soda, if you please,” he said.

Miss Gumbril mincingly obliged.

“Raining, I perceive,” said Murgatroyd.

Henry nodded, and smiled affably at Mr. Rice.

“Good evening,” he said. “Forgive me, but haven’t I the pleasure of your acquaintance. We met some years ago at Bognor Regis, I believe. My name is Henry.”

Mr. Rice flushed slightly and his smile was uncertain.

“Your face is familiar, sir,” he said. “My name is Rice.”

“That’s right,” interposed Henry. “You were then, I believe, with the Hon. Freddie Arbuthnot. You were complaining, if I remember rightly, about his yachting trip and the slight contretemps that ensued.”

Mr. Rice nodded.

“Quite right, sir. The Hon. Freddie was a most impetuous young man, exceedingly difficult to handle,” he added.

“So I should imagine,” said Henry. “He was lucky to escape that breach case at the price. Are you still with him?”

Mr. Rice shook his head.

“No. I—er—was forced to tender my resignation in the circumstances,” he explained vaguely.

Again the bar door opened and two more customers entered. Their gravity of deportment and unctuous voices were unmistakable. The majority of Mr. Murgatroyd’s customers consisted of gentlemen’s gentlemen, and he hurried to greet the newcomers with an affable smile.

Henry ordered two more drinks.

“Shall we enter the snug,” he suggested. “I feel a trifle chilly.”

“By all means,” replied Mr. Rice, and gingerly raising his glass, followed the valet into the cosy, firelet room beyond the bar.

The walls were ornamented with some rare old sporting prints and in the corner a grandfather’s clock ticked solemnly.

Henry sat down and smiled quizzically at his companion.

“And how is Dr. Zoltaire?” he queried.

“Er—the doctor is in good health,” replied the other. “He is away at the moment, but I expect him back later this evening. He’s gone to Eastbourne.”

Henry groped in his pocket and from it extracted a leather note case. He glanced cautiously round the room then lowered his voice.

“Tell me, Latimer,” he said quietly, “has the Surete-General got anything on you?”

The other drew in a deep, hissing breath, and his face went the colour of death.

“What—what—d’you mean?” he demanded hoarsely. “I—I—don’t understand you.”

“Oh yes you do, my friend,” replied Henry suavely. “It gave you a nasty jolt to see me to-night, Mr.—er—Rice, alias Latimer, alias “Smooth” Sims.”

The man who called himself Rice clutched at his wine glass and his shifty eyes narrowed.

“You dirty nark,” he gasped hoarsely. “I remember you now. You’re Kellaway’s man. That damned millionaire who——”

“Never mind who I am,” broke in Henry brusquely. “The point is, who you are. Remember that little matter of Lady Constance Wortleigh’s diamond necklace? My friend Inspector Barker would be interested to meet you, my dear Rice. I notice a ’phone box in the hall and——”

“Stop! For Heaven’s sake, not so loud,” gasped Rice, and there was fear in his close-set eyes. “What is it you want—money? I swear to you I’m broke. That swine Zoltaire’s as mean as a Scotch Jew. If he were to suspect who I am he’d have me pulled in. He’s a devil that man.”

He gulped down his drink and his hand shook.

“Take it easy, my friend,” broke in Henry suavely. “I don’t want money. I want some information—and what is more I’m willing to pay for it.”

So saying he opened his wallet and ruffled a bundle of crisp banknotes before the other’s startled gaze.

“I asked you just now if the French Prefecture had anything on you,” continued Henry. “If they have not, I was going to suggest a nice little trip to the Continent with all expenses paid—by me.”

The other licked his dry lips nervously.

“It’s a deal,” he whispered hoarsely. “Gimme!”

“A very great deal,” replied Henry, and his voice was as crisp as the notes he peeled off the bundle.

• • • • • •

Dr. Simon Zoltaire inserted the curiously-fashioned key into the lock of his front door precisely as the adjacent church clock of St. Bernard’s struck midnight. He was a very methodical man and he grinned good humouredly to himself as he realised that he was back at the hour he had stipulated.

He closed the hall door softly behind him and his lean, spatulate fingers groped for the light switch.

“Rice!”

His voice was a hissing whisper in the passage.

“Sir!”

From the shadows beyond the plush portieres emerged the sedate figure of the manservant, obsequious and solicitous.

“Fetch me a whisky and soda. Any messages?”

The other assisted him off with his heavy, fur lined coat.

“No, sir,” he answered, his smooth face impassive.

Zoltaire rubbed his hands and hurried into the library.

A cheerful fire blazed in the grate and he kicked a glowing coal into an even ruddier blaze before he sank down into an arm chair. Things had gone very well indeed, he reflected, down at Bognor. That fool of a woman would pay through her long and Semitic nose for the secrets she had imparted to him in his role of psychoanalyst.

He chuckled sardonically. How easy it all was. Women were all the same. Lady Esmeralda, and that little fool, Monica Frayne—and now the Countess of Cavour nee Rosenkrantz.

He heard a discreet cough at his elbow and the sombre clad manservant placed a silver salver on which reposed a decanter and siphon, at his elbow.

“I trust you had an agreeable journey, sir,” he ventured.

“Very, my dear Rice!” chuckled Zoltaire, leaning forward and spreading his talonous hands to the blaze. “Very agreeable indeed.”

The other mixed a drink and Zoltaire gave a soft and sibilant laugh as he lifted the glass.

“The trouble with you small-time crooks, Rice, alias Latimer, is that you’ve no imagination,” he drawled. “You stick in a rut. The police get a line on you, and into the cooler you go like that clumsy little screwsman Hicks, or whatever his name is. Nor if you had a knowledge of psychology you would realise that a man with a record like his proves conclusively that he is a mere bungler in crime. You, yourself, my friend, know what it is to have tasted the amenities of His Majesty’s prisons.”

He drained his glass, and the other leant over and deftly removed the salver.

“Yes,” mused Zoltaire, and his voice sounded strangely slurred and thick, as he stretched his fingers once more towards the glowing grate. “You have got to be a hundred per cent efficient if you want to be a crook, my dear Rice.”

The other smiled grimly. Suddenly a tremor passed over Zoltaire’s hawk-like features and a little bubble of foam appeared at the corner of his lips. A strangled gasp came from his throat.

“My God!” he gasped, “what have you——”

He never finished the sentence, but slumped forward an inert heap on to the hearth rug.

Henry Henry, that omniscient man, stooped over the prostrate man and smiled sardonically.

“Yes, Zoltaire,” he drawled, “one hundred per cent efficient. He gazed squarely into the rapidly glazing eyes of the other and his voice was a sibilant hiss.

“Listen to me, Zoltaire, your bluff’s called. You’ve just swallowed enough anolyn to paralyse all your motor muscles. You cannot speak, but you can understand what I can say. I am calling your bluff, Zoltaire. You might be a clever hypnotist, but your brain power is dulled now, and you’ll have to do as I tell you.”

He crossed over to an ormolu writing desk in the corner of the room and jerked open a drawer. “I have spent a very pleasant hour reading your diary, Dr. Simon Zoltaire. You mention a hundred per cent efficiency a little while ago, but, like all crooks, you have forgotten that egotism is the sure Judas that betrays them. You are the man in the Diamond Mask. It is all here.” He tapped the little black book with a long, lean forefinger.

Zoltaire, helpless in the grip of the drug, stared up at him with bloodshot eyes. He could not speak, he could not stir, and as the relentless eyes seemed to bore deep into his very soul, queer, uncouth noises emerged from his foam-flecked lips.

“A pretty plot, my dear Zoltaire; with your hypnotic powers you have terrorized the lives of many poor neurotic women, but you over-reached yourself when you played your diabolical trick on my friend Symphony Sam.”

A convulsive shudder shook the helpless man on the carpet. Henry Henry crossed over to the telephone, “Give me,” he said quietly, to the operator, “Whitehall One two, one two. I want to speak to Inspector Barker. Recognise the number, Zoltaire,” he said.

Dr. Zoltaire said nothing, there was nothing to say, nor could he have said it if there had been.

• • • • • •

Sir Bruce Carfax, the Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, stroked the grey Velasquez beard he affected and glanced quizzically across at Bill Kellaway. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and that usually imperturbable man looked uneasily at his two visitors, Henry Henry and the eccentric millionaire.

“It is a most astounding story, Mr. Kellaway,” he said, “quite without precedent.”

Bill Kellaway shrugged. “Zoltaire is a very remarkable man, Sir Bruce,” he said. “You have only to read his diary to see that he is an ego-maniac. Long immunity from the law has made him reckless, but this time he has over-reached himself. It was a freakish and damnable idea to drug and hypnotise my poor friend Hicks into reverting to crime.”

“But I still do not understand it,” said the Commissioner. “I admit that I have only a hazy knowledge of this disease Encephalitis Lethargica, or Sleepy Sickness. If I had not read it in the man’s own handwriting I would never have believed it possible for any human being to be so diabolically vindictive.”

Bill Kellaway shrugged his shoulders. “Zoltaire was a sadist, a blackmailer must be a sadist,” he said. “When he found Symphony Sam at his mercy he inoculated him with the germs of that fell disease. We have sufficient medical testimony to prove that Encephalitis Lethargica alters the whole of a man’s moral fibre, add to that the undoubted hypnotic powers of Zoltaire and you will realise that it was easy enough for Symphony Sam to revert to type. Quite literally speaking, Hicks was not responsible for his actions.”

“Amazing,” said the Commissioner. He picked up a buff form from the desk. “I have a report here from Sir Cedric Blayne, the specialist on tropic diseases, and he undoubtedly confirms that the man Hicks is a victim of the disease.”

Henry Henry coughed. “If I might venture to quote, sir,” he said, “it is elementary, our case is proved.”

“It’s going to be difficult to convince the Home Secretary,” replied the Commissioner.

“Not so difficult as you think, sir,” answered Bill Kellaway. “As you can see from Zoltaire’s diary, you have nabbed a very dangerous crook. For years he has lived by blackmail, and had not Symphony Sam chivalrously agreed to obtain the Silver Casket, with which he was terrorizing Lady Dell, his bluff would not have been called.”

The Commissioner polished his monocle. “What, precisely, are the contents of that Silver Casket?” he said.

Bill Kellaway smiled. “Whether or not they shall ever be made public, I leave to your discretion, Sir Bruce,” he said. “Actually it contains the death certificate of young Sir Anthony Dell, who, as you will see, died in South Africa from Blackwater Fever, twenty-five years ago.”

“Then,” gasped the Commissioner, “the present Sir Anthony is an impostor.”

Bill Kellaway shrugged his shoulders. “If you can call him that,” he said. “I think this is a matter that we can safely leave to the discretion of the Home Secretary.”

Sir Bruce Carfax lifted up a sheaf of documents. “Yes, gentlemen,” he said, “I think discretion is the word. We have still, under the Emergency Powers Act, the right to try in camera, and there are so many State secrets in this damnable black volume,” he tapped Zoltaire’s diary, “that I think we can manage it without too much publicity.”

Bill Kellaway smiled and winked at Henry.

• • • • • •

A long, grey limousine slipped through the early morning mist that shrouded the grim grey walls of Handforth Gaol. A wicket gate opened and from it emerged the short, stocky figure of Symphony Sam Hicks. He grinned amiably as he recognised the demure figure of the driver, Candy Lee. He turned to the grizzled-haired warder and patted his jingling medals complacently. “So long, Screw, and if I don’t see you never no more, it won’t be a day too soon,” he said. Then, as he opened the door of the tonneau and sank beside the pretty driver, he smiled at Candy. “ ’Ome,” said Symphony Sam. “ ’Ome and beauty.”

THE CROUCHER

GWYN EVANS

A SENSATIONAL LONG COMPLETE STORY OF THE C.I.D.

Chapter 1

THE CROUCHER STRIKES

SIR RICHARD GILBERT, the Chief Commissioner, sat at his desk in the austerely furnished room at Scotland Yard and gazed absently through the window at the efforts of a fussy tug to negotiate Westminster Bridge.

He was a slim, wiry man, with a greying imperial beard and grizzled hair, an almost dandified figure with his braided morning coat and faultlessly creased trousers. He toyed with a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez that dangled from a silken cord about his cravat, and sighed a little.

It would be a wrench to leave this familiar room and to relinquish the duty of controlling the greatest police organisation in the world. But the dice had been cast, and in a few hours he would have to welcome his successor to the post of commissioner.

A tap sounded at the door, and a uniformed policeman entered.

“The morning papers, sir,” he said, depositing a bundle on the desk.

“Thank you, Bowers,” said Sir Richard, in his dry, impersonal tones. He smiled wryly as the door closed.

No need to look at the newspapers to see what they contained. He had handed in his resignation to the Home Secretary the previous night. The banner head of the “Daily Clarion” seemed to smite him like a blow between the eyes:

SCOTLAND YARD COMMISSIONER TO RESIGN!

It was the sensational climax to a sensational Press campaign which had had its repercussions in Parliament itself.

Sir Richard pursed his lips as he read the thinly veiled triumph in the “Daily Clarion’s” leading article at the news, and the eulogy of his successor, General Sir Martin Dale. “Oh, well,” the commissioner shrugged, if the public wanted a scapegoat, his shoulders were wide enough to bear the blame even of the Croucher’s misdeeds, for, of course, it was the activities of that elusive criminal that originated the whole affair.

It was not until the tragic and untimely death of Lady Pamela Howard that the storm had burst, and the name of that enigmatic crook, the Croucher, achieved the fearsome notoriety of Jack the Ripper himself.

True, at Scotland Yard, they had long known of the Croucher’s existence—and that was about all even the argus-eyed C.I.D. knew off the man responsible for the alarming increase of the cocaine traffic, not only in the West End but throughout the country.

Through the “Noses’ Gate,” a discreet, little portal which admitted shabby, furtive men into police H.Q. when daylight waned, meagre information trickled about The Man Higher Up, as the Croucher was first known in the underworld. But the information was very vague and unreliable, and when sifted and tabulated would scarcely have covered the surface of a postage stamp.

Not even “Sheeny MacGuire,” most knowledgeable of “noses,” had been able to sniff out the slightest clue to the Croucher’s identity.

It was Lady Pamela’s death from an overdose of cocaine that brought matters to a climax, for, in addition to being an earl’s daughter, she had been a member of the “Daily Clarion” staff. She had a clever, mordant pen, and her bright paragraphs of Society gossip were a popular feature of that go-ahead newspaper.

Her sudden end came near to shocking that most unshockable of thoroughfares—Fleet Street. Young Maynard, “The Clarion’s” star crime reporter, started the wave of indignation which was to sweep the country by a bitter attack on Scotland Yard. He had been a friend of the dead girl. He could write brilliantly, and had his own peculiar methods of learning what went on in the underworld independently of the police. He exposed the alarming growth of the dope traffic, the gradual but unmistakable increase in the number of unsolved crimes, and mercilessly criticised the C.I.D. It was he who nicknamed the hidden figure behind the cocaine smugglers the Croucher, and pointed out that the dope sniffer was as familiar a figure in Mayfair Society as in the dingy all-night cafes of the Tottenham Court Road and Chinatown.

Backed by the vast resources of the “Daily Clarion,” the campaign grew. The public became uneasy as that newspaper, with damning effect, printed daily a list of unsolved crimes side by side with trivial cases which failed because of the policeman’s uncorroborated evidence.

The clamour grew for a general tightening up at Scotland Yard.

Questions were asked in Parliament, and after an interview with the Home Secretary, Sir Richard Gilbert handed in his resignation.

He had spent his life in the service of his country. For many years he had served with distinction abroad in India before being appointed head of the C.I.D. He was by no means a popular man, but he was respected. At Scotland Yard the general attitude of his staff can be summarised in the schoolboy’s definition of his headmaster:

“He’s a beast—but he’s a just beast!”

“And now, I suppose,” he murmured half-aloud as he folded the “Daily Clarion,” “the Press is satisfied until they get some other stunt.”

He pressed the ivory bell-push on his desk, and a few moments later a tall, well-built young man entered.

He had a frank almost ingenuous expression on his smooth, pink face that was oddly boyish, his blue eyes had a twinkle of humour, but his chin was resolute and his lips betrayed firmness and decision behind his mask of flippancy.

“Ah, New!” said Sir Richard. “Are there any further developments in the Whitechapel area?”

Detective Inspector Nicholas New shook his head.

“Nothing further, sir. Berry pulled in Larry Lennox. Found about half a kilo of dope on him; but where he got it and how, the Squidge only knows!”

“The what!” snapped Sir Richard irritably.

“The Squidge, sir. An engaging creature of my own invention. It is closely related to other strange beasts who made their appearance during the war. Maybe you’ve heard of the Wowser, sir? The Squidge is a sort of second cousin, twice removed.”

“Are you mad, New?” gasped the scandalised commissioner. “What the deuce d’ye mean by quoting nonsensical gibberish to me?”

“You asked me what a Squidge was, sir,” said Nicholas New patiently, “I—er—endeavoured to explain.”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” snapped the other irritably. “You are far too facetious, New. I wish you would——”

He broke off suddenly as a tap sounded on the door, then said crisply “Come in!”

A bronzed, soldierly-looking man with a close clipped grey moustache and clad in an inconspicuous lounge suit, entered, and bowed rather formally.

The retiring commissioner rose to his feet.

“Ah! Good-morning, general! Pray come in!” he added cordially. “This will be your kingdom.” He made a gesture that embraced the austerely-furnished room that overlooked the Thames. It was an airy, workmanlike place with a rolltop desk, half a dozen comfortable chairs, a telephone, and a three-valve wireless set near the bookcase.

“Inspector New. This is your new commissioner, General Sir Martin Dale.”

Nicholas New’s eyes twinkled mischievously.

“Hallo, Uncle Bimbo!” he said. “Two coppers in the family—eh? Aunt Araminta’ll have galloping hysterics!”

“New!” thundered the scandalised Sir Richard. “How dare you have the infernal impudence to——”

“It’s only Nick’s nonsense,” broke in General Dale, with a chuckle. “I—er—ahem—have the misfortune to be his uncle. My sister’s boy,” he explained.

“God bless my soul!” gasped Sir Richard. “How long have you been in the force, New?”

“Since the Armistice, sir,” replied Nick. “I’m afraid the family have never quite forgiven me for becoming a policeman. They’ll blame me now for having a bad influence on Uncle Bim, I suppose,” he added.

“But this is astonishing,” said Sir Richard. “I know your promotion has been rapid and well deserved, but——”

He flung up his hands in a helpless gesture.

Inspector New winked at his uncle, who turned to Sir Richard.

“I understand from the Home Secretary that your—er—resignation does not take effect till the end of the month, and you have suggested you will be pleased to remain and show me the ropes.”

“That is so,” said Sir Richard rather stiffly. “In the circumstances, as I pointed out to the Home Secretary, it would hardly be fair to you, general, to expect you to take over immediately.”

“It is exceedingly kind of you,” said General Dale. “I am a soldier, and there are bound to be very many points in connection with my new job on which only you could advise me.”

Sir Richard bowed.

“I shall be most happy to co-operate,” he remarked cordially, and Inspector New saw that the two men, being gentlemen, had tactfully avoided that rather awkward problem of their future relationship.

“Perhaps, as a preliminary,” said Sir Richard briskly, “I had better show you round the building and introduce——”

There was a knock at the door, and a policeman entered with a letter.

“By express messenger, sir,” he announced, handing it to the retiring commissioner.

With a murmured apology, Sir Edward tore open the envelope and scanned its contents through his pince-nez.

“Er—no reply, Bowers,” he said to the hovering policeman.

As soon as the door had closed, he turned to Nick with a perplexed expression.

“What the deuce d’ye make of that—eh?” he demanded.

Nick took the document. It was neatly typed on a sheet of yellow notepaper, and ran as follows:

“Commiserations, commissioner, but resignation, like patriotism, is not enough. Scotland Yard is getting uncomfortably warm. I must remove a few of the more meddlesome ones to discourage the others. I never warn twice.

“Sheeny MacGuire died very suddenly at 3 a.m. this morning you will be sorry to learn. He knew too much. You and others are on my list.

“THE CROUCHER.”

At the corner of the sheet was a roughly-drawn picture of a crouching man with a dagger upraised to strike.

Nicholas New whistled softly.

“It’s certainly a remarkable document, sir,” he announced. “May I examine it further?”

“You don’t think it can be genuine, New?” asked Sir Richard. “It sounds absurdly melodramatic to me. What do you say, general?”

“Egad!” said the general. “I’m dashed hazy about the whole business. The Press have been screeching about the Croucher for weeks, but——”

B-brring!

The ’phone bell tinkled sharply, and Sir Richard raised the receiver. He listened for a few moments, then his face became very grave.

“Very good, Berry. I’ll send New along at once,” he said. He turned to Nick. “That was Berry, of E Division, speaking,” he announced. “The man MacGuire was found stabbed to the heart twenty minutes ago in Stonewall Street, Pimlico.”

Chapter 2

THE SINISTER MR. SIN

“I’m afraid Sheeny was an unpleasant fellow and got what was coming to him,” remarked Nicholas New to his charming companion later in the day. “I dislike ‘noses’—except when they are set on a fair feminine countenance,” he added gallantly.

“Don’t be personal, Mr. New,” said Miss Dorothy Somerville, hurriedly opening her vanity case, and dabbing a powder puff on her delightfully audacious nose. She took a half-coquettish glance at her reflection in the little oval mirror, and pushed back a rebellious curl beneath the brim of her tight-fitting cloche hat. Her tailored suit, though simple and of an inconspicuous black, had a subtle effect of enhancing the gracefulness of her slim figure. She was, Nick considered judicially, far too pretty to have anything to do with the police, and yet this shingled, sophisticated young woman had held a secretarial post at Scotland Yard for two years.

She came daily into contact with the seamy side of London life and still maintained not only a sense of humour, but a demure innocence of outlook that was a source of continual surprise to the C.I.D. man.

They were dining now—an alfresco meal at a small Spanish cafe in Soho. There was no orchestra, the clientele, like the menu, was pleasantly varied, and the alcove in which their table was set was discreetly, but not too discreetly, screened from the rest of the diners.

“Scotland Yard seems to be getting it in the neck,” announced Dorothy. “That horrid young man on the ‘Daily Clarion’ ought to be ashamed of himself.”

“Who, Billy Maynard?” asked Nicholas. “Not he. He’s hard-boiled, Miss Somerville. Detectives and newspaper men were born without a sense of shame.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Dorothy.

“But I always do,” pleaded Nicholas. “Do you know that the longer I live in this wicked world, the more I realise that nonsense is the greatest thing in life.”

“Precisely what do you mean?” she asked, with an adorable pout. “I know you’re always quoting absurd limericks and inventing all sorts of preposterous animals, like that silly Oogle you mentioned this morning.”

“Ah! The Oogle!” said Nicholas solemnly. “A well meaning, but rather ineffectual beast, I am afraid.”

He began to quote solemnly:

“The Oogle does abhor a Snark, and often when the nights are dark——”

“Oh, stop, do!” pleaded the girl. “I really think you’re quite crazy at times, Mr. New.”

“My dear girl, I’m perfectly serious. Nonsense is the one thing to keep me sane in this sordid profession of mine. I like to talk nonsense sometimes. For instance, it’s all nonsense that a delightful girl like you should be earning your living in the dull and sordid surroundings of Scotland Yard, when you ought——”

“Please don’t!” she broke in hurriedly. “I love the work, the hours are short, the salary is adequate, and I—er—have compensations.”

She glanced through her very long eyelashes at Nick, and that peculiar young man felt oddly embarrassed.

Nicholas New’s strange personality was an enigma to his friends. No one quite knew whether to take him seriously or not. When, after the Armistice, he had been demobbed, a mere stripling of twenty, after two years war service in the R.A.F., he announced to his scandalised family that he intended to join the police force.

“But that’s all nonsense!” said his mother, Lady New, widow of that distinguished diplomat, Sir Brian New.

“Precisely,” Nicholas had agreed blandly. “That’s why I’m doing it.”

He served two years as a uniformed constable on his beat, and the smart capture of Wally the Dip and his satellites attracted the attention of his superiors, who transferred him to the plain clothes branch of the C.I.D.

Nick’s promotion was rapid. His methods were terribly unorthodox—but he got away with it.

It was at the 99 Club that Nicholas New first heard of the Croucher. That engaging con. man, “Gold Brick” Brady, let fall a few casual remarks that a big noise was “spreading the snow” thick and heavy. From him it was Nick gleaned that all the little “snowmen” of Limehouse and the Tottenham Court Road, mainly comprising Chinks and half-breed waiters, had all suddenly become affluent—and not only affluent, but cocksure.

Even when the Flying Squad pulled in a dozen or more of such old hands at the game of dope peddling as Limehouse Lil, “Shanty” Harris, and “Snitcher” Marks, they gleaned little of the source from which they obtained the deadly white drug. Nick also learned that the “Blackers were growing active again—active and aggressive, and that was a bad sign, for the blackmailing gangs of the West End are the most difficult of all criminals to round up. Despite the repeated assurances of the Press and police that the victims’ names would not be disclosed in open court, scores of highly-placed people hesitated to come forward and give evidence, and preferred to pay hush money to the Blackers.

Some were driven to the coward’s way out of their troubles as the demands of the blackmailers became intolerable, and the increasing number of suicides supported the “Clarion’s” theory that a colossus of crime had entered the lists in the never ending battle between the police and the underworld.

Inspector New, in his own whimsical fashion, made discreet and strictly illegal inquiries among his crook friends, but not even the friendliest informer could be prevailed upon to “come across” with any information against the Croucher.

And now Sheeny MacGuire, that most reliable and best hated of noses was dead—murdered, undoubtedly, because he knew, or suspected, the Croucher’s identity. There was no clue. His body had been found by a policeman behind an advertisement hoarding on a plot of waste ground in Pimlico. He had been stabbed to the heart. There was no trace of a weapon. Not a scrap of paper or a coin in the dead man’s pockets.

Sheeny MacGuire had not been a particularly pleasant person in life. In death, Nick recalled with a slight shiver, he was repellent. He had seen dead rats that reminded him of Sheeny as he saw him last on the mortuary slab.

• • • • • •

“Don’t look round!” whispered Dorothy Somerville. “Somebody seems to be watching you very closely. A Chinaman.”

Nick New proffered his cigarette-case. The girl took one, and as he held a match to its tip, he slowly swivelled round. His action was perfectly natural, and for a fleeting moment his eyes rested on the occupant of the next table.

It was a Chinese. The man’s smooth, hairless face was as yellow as a lemon, the slanting sloe eyes watched Nicholas and the girl impassively. He was dressed in a perfectly-fitting dress-suit. Nick noted that the cigarette he held between his slim, saffron fingers was black. It was an odd, incongruous detail that appealed to his love of the bizarre.

“Queer!” he murmured, pouring out a glass of wine. “He may, or may not be, interested in us. One is always inclined to think that all Chinese are inscrutable and sinister. Ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, and all that! But that’s nonsense, and so I’m inclined to believe it,” he added.

“You’re incorrigible, Mr. New,” said Dorothy. “Tell me, do you really think that the Croucher exists, or is he simply a product of the fertile imagination of the ‘Clarion’ reporter?”

“Of course he exists,” said Nick seriously. “If we only had Sheeny’s murder to go on, I might be inclined to doubt it. A nark endeavours to make the best of two possible worlds—the Under and the Over, and generally ends in the next,” he added dryly. “A score of people might have stabbed Sheeny, but that letter this morning shows that the Croucher is getting nervous or vain. Both attributes are dangerous in a criminal. But don’t let’s talk shop, my dear.” He glanced at his watch. It was 9.45.

“What about a spot of dancing? The Eclair Club is handy.”

She shook her head and glanced at her neat tailor-made suit.

“I don’t think so. I have a busy day tomorrow,” she reminded him. “Sir Richard wants me to type out those divisional reports for your uncle. Besides,” she added, with a smile, “it’s very bad for discipline, Mr. New, for a detective inspector to be seen dancing in a night club with his typist.”

She drew on her small suede gloves with an air of finality.

Nick knew it was hopeless to argue with her. Miss Somerville had a will of her own. He called for the bill, and noticed, with the tail of his eye, that the Chinaman was also leaving.

“Thank you for a very charming evening,” she said. “A little nonsense now and then is relished by the—er—wisest woman,” she misquoted gaily.

“One of these days,” threatened Nick, “we’ll celebrate in earnest——”

“Celebrate?” she echoed, puzzled.

“The Croucher’s capture,” said Nick, as he donned his overcoat.

The Chinaman brushed past him with a murmur of apology, while Nick dealt with the hovering waiter.

“Shall I get you a taxi?” he asked.

“Thanks, no. The bus goes right by my door,” she said.

Nick escorted her to the corner and watched her board it.

She waved to him gaily, and was swallowed up in the maelstrom of traffic. Nick thrust his hands in his overcoat pocket, a disappointed man. An hour or two’s dancing at the Eclair would have topped off the evening nicely, but beyond dining with him on one or two occasions, the independent Miss Somerville did not encourage a more intimate relationship.

“A pity,” mused Nick. She was an extraordinarily capable and attractive girl. There was a curious reserve about her, however, at times that intrigued him.

He glimpsed a wiry, ferretfaced little man hovering uncertainly at the tail of the crowd boarding a West-bound bus, and his blue eyes hardened.

“Well! Well! Shifty!” he murmured pleasantly, as his muscular hand shot out and grasped the little man’s arm. “Fancy meeting you here! And only just out of the ’Ville, too! Dear, dear, how indiscreet!”

“Shifty” Lee, one of the cleverest dips who ever worked the bus queues, turned with a snarl.

“Leggo my arm, you big stiff! I tell you——”

“Tut! Tut!” said Nicholas gently. He signalled to a burly red-faced man, who strolled over from the shadow of a theatre canopy.

“A present for you, Willis,” he said, handing over the squirming little pickpocket. “Pull him in.”

He began to hum softly a chorus tune from the latest revue, but broke off suddenly as his fingers encountered an envelope in his pocket. He drew it out, and saw that it was addressed to himself in typescript. With a puzzled frown he tore open the envelope, and read the brief, laconic message. It contained three words: “You are next!” and it was signed the Croucher.

Nick whistled. He was certain the message was not in his overcoat pocket when he entered the restaurant. That meant that he was being tailed, and the envelope must have been slipped there during the past eight minutes.

Suddenly he recalled the Chinaman who had passed him in the restaurant.

“My gosh!” said Nicholas New. “I wonder?”

He thrust the note into his breast pocket, and stood for a moment or two irresolutely on the kerb, watching the stream of traffic at the corner of Piccadilly Circus, the centre of the world. Ablaze with light, its sky signs shot heavenwards cascades of coloured fire. Above the theatres, thousands of electric bulbs winked and glowed like monster fireflies, while from Shaftesbury Avenue poured the ever-moving kaleidoscopic crowd of theatreland. Expensive limousines purred feline and catlike at the exits, a hawker in rags stood in the gutter holding out a tray of bootlaces.

A young man with a thin, emaciated face, held aloft a banner foretelling the wrath to come. Contrast—tragedy—comedy. The night life of the world’s metropolis. All these were familiar to Nicholas New.

Suddenly he started forward. In a momentary jam of the traffic he glimpsed a luxurious grey car, rakishly cut and built for speed, judging by the greyhound trace of her streamlined body. Lounging in the tonneau was an elegant figure in a silk-lined opera cloak with a jewelled order ornamenting his stiff shirt-front on a sash of moire silk.

It was the mysterious Chinaman, and as Nick gazed at him his yellow face relaxed into a mocking smile, and he waved a kid-gloved hand.

Heedless of the traffic, the detective dashed towards the car, but at that moment the temporary jam cleared, and the grey car shot forward like an arrow from a bow. Nick memorised the number-plate, and looked vainly for a taxi to take in pursuit. By the time he had hailed one, the grey car and its mysterious occupant had vanished.

“Scotland Yard—quick!” said Nicholas New.

Down the Haymarket, into Trafalgar Square and through Whitehall the taxi threaded its way with what seemed maddening slowness.

Nick fumed impatiently. He wanted to verify that number plate.

Outside the grim, barrack-like building at the end of Whitehall, the taxi drew up, and Nick hurriedly alighted.

Even as he stepped under the archway of Scotland Yard a tall, elegant figure emerged.

“Ah, Inspector New,” cooed a musical, rather sibilant voice. “This is indeed fortunate. I was about to leave a written message for you, as it is, I can deliver it in person.”

With difficulty Nick repressed a start of astonishment, for confronting him was the Chinaman, his slant eyes held a gleam of mockery, but his smile was bland, revealing a perfect set of white, even teeth.

“Indeed!” snapped the detective. “Who the deuce are you, sir? I’ve seen you before twice to-night,” he added.

“Allow me to present my card,” returned the other in impeccable English. From a small case, which he seemed to have produced from nowhere with the ease of a professional illusionist, he brought out a thin strip of white silk. It was of gossamerlike texture, and bore characters both in Chinese and English. In the sickly blue glare of the police lamp over the arch, Nick read the latter superscription which ran:

PROFESSOR LI. SIN. D.Sc.,

University of Pekin.

Nick looked up at him, but the Chinaman’s yellow, hairless face was a mask of impassivity.

“You’d better come along inside with me—er—professor,” he said grimly.

“Thank you, I would prefer not to,” replied the other urbanely. “I have rather an urgent appointment.”

“I don’t know what your game is,” snapped Nick. “You come along in and answer a few questions.”

“I think not,” said the other. “My name is Sin—not Savidge. The message I wished to deliver to you is very brief. Beware of The Croucher!”

Almost before Nick realised it, the man had climbed into his grey limousine and had gone.

Chapter 3

THE HOUSE OF LARRY

INSPECTOR NICHOLAS NEW was an equable man. He very seldom lost his temper, but the calm effrontery of the bland Chinaman, who called himself by the somewhat sinister name of Professor Li Sin, nettled him. He frowned irritably and barely acknowledged the salute of the policeman on gate duty as he entered Scotland Yard.

“Get me this number verified,” he snapped. “What did that Chink want?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. He simply asked if you were in. When I told him you were out, he said something about leaving a message—and then you turned up.”

“Huh!” said Nick. “Hurry the Traffic Dept. I want that number badly.”

He mounted the steps towards his room, his footsteps echoing hollowly down the dim-lit corridors. Most of the C.I.D. were off duty. He switched on the light, unlocked his desk and pulled out the depositions concerning the murder of Sheeny MacGuire.

There was very little indeed in the way of clues to go upon. Sheeny, being an informer, was despised by the police, and hated by the criminal fraternity. A dozen men might have murdered him—but that letter from the Croucher was significant. He pulled out the last note of warning he had received that night, and compared it with the note received by the commissioner. Both had evidently been typed by the same machine—a portable Underwood. There was the same malformation of the letter “r,” and the slight eccentricity of alignment. He placed them both in a buff envelope and sealed it.

“I’ll let Brownlow have a go at ’em,” he murmured. “But I’m not very sanguine.”

Inspector Brownlow was in charge of the fingerprint department, and had also an encyclopaedic knowledge of typewriters.

The ’phone hell rang suddenly, and Nick lifted the receiver.

He recognised the voice of Bill Maynard, of the “Daily Clarion.”

“What is it?” he demanded. “No. Nothing fresh about Sheeny. What’s that?”

He listened intently to the disjointed information that came over the wires.

“You’ve had a letter from the Croucher, you say?” he demanded.

“Sure,” snapped the journalist. “Came by district messenger an hour back. It doesn’t frighten me. Matter of fact, I’m running a facsimile of it in tomorrow’s rag. And listen, I’ve got a promising clue. A letter reached me this morning from a joint in Shadwell. It’s very vague, but the writer hints he knows something about the Croucher.”

“Who wrote it?” demanded the Yard man.

“It’s signed simply—‘One who knows.’ Illiterate devil, I should imagine, but l’m following it up. I thought maybe if you’ve any info’ we could trade.”

“Hold ’em,” snapped Nicholas. “I’ll call for you in half an hour at the office.”

“Good egg,” said Maynard, and rang off.

Nick opened the drawer of his desk and slipped an automatic into his hip pocket. Things were moving. He knew, and liked Bill Maynard, that alert young reporter on the “Daily Clarion.” The newspaperman’s knowledge of crime and criminals was almost academic. A good crime man on a great London daily has very often more knowledge of crooks and their methods than the average detective, and Maynard’s knowledge of the dubious night haunts of London was extensive and peculiar. Nick lit a cigarette and fell to studying the queer visiting card of Professor Li Sin. Who was he? Was he an agent of the Croucher’s? He might even be the Croucher himself.

That was the maddening thing about that mysterious criminal. Everyone had heard of him, but nobody apparently knew whether he was white, yellow or black. For that matter, the Croucher might be a woman, thought Nick bitterly.

He glanced across the room towards Dorothy Somerville’s desk, neat, tidy, like herself, with one or two fastidious feminine touches, the bowl of roses, and the coloured penholders, that brightened up the drabness of the office.

A knock sounded at the door and the policeman entered.

“Traffic can’t trace that number, sir. Sergeant Miles says he’ll have another comb through the supplementary list tomorrow.”

Nick swore softly.

“All right, constable. I’m off! Switch out the light and lock up, will you? Goodnight!”

He jammed on his grey felt hat, patted his hip pocket, and took his leave. His taxi was still waiting within the Yard, and ten minutes later he was at the tall, imposing building of the “Daily Clarion,” in Fleet Street.

From the bowels of the building came the hum of the rotary machines beginning the run of the country edition. He sent in his card to Maynard, and three minutes later that dynamic young man came into the waiting-room. He was burly and broad-shouldered and some inches shorter than Nick.

“What’s all this about Shadwell?” demanded the Yard man.

“I’ve got both letters here,” said Maynard, producing them. One, Nick noted, was typed on a sheet of yellow notepaper similar to those already at the Yard, and the other was a mis-spelt scrawl, written on what seemed to be a leaflet torn out of a penny notebook. The first was brief and satiric:

Maynard, you’ve meddled too long. You’ll join Sheeny, Gilbert and New in a long silence.

THE CROUCHER.

Beneath the typescript was the roughly drawn figure of a crouching man, dagger ominously upraised.

“Pleasant little fellow, ain’t he?” demanded Maynard with a grin. “How does Sir Richard take it?”

Nicholas New shrugged.

“I don’t think he quite knows what to make of it. He’s naturally sore with you and the rag, y’know. You certainly piled it in good and hard against us.”

“Pamela Howard was my pal, New,” said Maynard quietly. “Something had to be done. I don’t bear any personal animosity towards any of you at the Yard—it’s your methods I condemn.”

“Cut the cackle,” said Nick. “Let’s see the other note.”

He took the unsavoury looking sheet of paper. It was grimy and dog-eared, and the following message was scrawled in pencil:

Dere Sir,

I no somethink about the Crowcher, but daresn’t be sene comin to your offis or the Yard. If you call tomorer nite at No. 4 Bakewell St Shadwell at midnite I can tell you somethink. Ask for Larry.

One Who Nose.

“H’m!” said the detective, examining the envelope. “Posted last night in Commercial Road, written by a man. Not very illuminating, is it?”

The newspaper man shrugged.

“It’s worth trying, anyhow. Like to come? I’ve got the old bus outside.”

“Of course, I’m coming,” said Nicholas New. “It’s probably a trap of some sort—but we’ll risk that.”

Together they entered Maynard’s weatherbeaten roadster and headed eastward.

It was nearly midnight, and the traffic roar had died down a little as they bowled along through Aldgate and Commercial Road.

“Got your gat?” Nicholas jerked out as they neared the malodorous dockside of Shadwell.

Maynard grinned.

“Yes. Do you want to see the licence?” he said cynically. “Bakewell St.’s somewhere round here, I believe Old Heng Lee used to have a chop suey joint at the corner of it, I believe, before it was raided for puck-a-poo and chandu.”

They found it at last, a narrow, gloomy street of such depressing uniformity that it looked like the dreary corridor of a gaol. They parked the car in the shadow of a ramshackle warehouse. A husky looking dock labourer, with a bristly chin and a coarse, drink-sodden face glanced at them suspiciously from an open doorway.

“Keep an eye on yer car for yer, mister?” he asked, expectorating into the garbage-strewn gutter.

“Keep exactly where you are, my friend!” said Nicholas significantly.

The other quailed beneath the steely glitter in the detective’s eyes.

“What about it, Maynard?” he added. “Which of us’ll tackle the ‘One Who Knows’? One of us ought to stay outside, I reckon—in case,” he added significantly.

“Toss for it,” laughed the newspaper man. “Heads, I go.”

He spun a coin and a tail showed uppermost in his palm.

“Right-ho. I’ll stroll around. If you’re not out in ten minutes,” said Maynard, “I’ll do the needful.”

Nick’s face was very grim and purposeful as he strolled down Bakewell Street. One or two lights glimmered in the windows, but mostly the street was shrouded in darkness. A dark mist was rising from the river, and the boot of a steamer’s syren floated mournfully through the fog. The detective halted before the paint-blistered door of No. 4, behind the fanlight of which flickered a gas-jet.

He knocked gently, for loud rat-tats are apt to scare the inhabitants of Shadwell’s salubrious neighbourhood.

Not a sound came from the dark, dilapidated house. Nick scratched his chin and knocked a second time—somewhat louder. The door swung soundlessly open and his hand sprang to his hip. Every nerve in his body was tense as he peered ahead into the gloom of the corridor. He flashed on his electric torch. Save for a rickety chair the hallway was deserted. Wallpaper peeled grotesquely from the walls, one piece flapped like a large and loathsome bat in the current of the night breeze.

Beyond loomed a pair of dingy purple curtains, and to the right wound a carpet-less stair.

“Queer,” murmured the Yard man. He glanced at his watch. It was a little after midnight. Was this a trap? His fingers closed on the butt of his automatic and he advanced cautiously along the hallway.

Suddenly from behind the curtains came a feeble groan, hollow and sepulchral, followed by a fit of coughing.

“Hallo, there!” snapped the Yard man, striding forward. “What’s the trouble?”

There was no reply save for a long shuddering sigh.

Gripping his gun, Nick wrenched back the curtains. The rays of his torch revealed a frowsy bod-room, meanly furnished with a bed in the corner, on which lay the limp body of a man. He lay face upward on the dingy bedclothes, his face was contorted with agony, and from the rent in his torn jacket there welled a crimson stream of blood.

“Heavens!” gasped Nicholas New, striding over to the bed. “He’s done for!”

He propped his arms under the man’s shoulders and gently lifted his head from the pillow. The man’s swarthy face was wet with sweat; he seemed to be a half-breed, and he gasped painfully, fighting for breath.

“Are you Larry?” demanded Nick. “Brace up, man, tell me what’s happened.”

The man opened his lids and turned two glazing eyes towards the detective.

“I’m Larry. Larry the Wop,” he croaked hoarsely. “He got me, the cuss, got me——”

A terrible fit. of coughing tore from his emaciated chest and the crimson stream widened.

“Quick!” snapped Nicholas New. “Who is the Croucher? Tell me. Don’t be afraid!”

“The Croucher,” gasped the dying man painfully. “The Croucher is——”

A bubbling scream of horror welled from his ashen lips as his gaze turned towards the window.

“Look! Look! That face, that ghastly——” he shrilled, pointing a shaky finger at the dirty window-pane.

Nick swung round. From the swelling mists of fog he glimpsed a smooth, hairless face, mocking, sardonic.

It was the face of the mysterious Mr. Sin.

He raced across the room, and, with an effort, flung open the sash.

Crack! Crack! His automatic spoke twice. A low, mocking laugh seemed to float from the depths of the dark river mist.

Larry the Wop, mouthing painfully, strove to speak. Nick bent low to hear his whispered words.

“The Croucher is——” he gasped, and suddenly a convulsive shudder ran through his limbs, and the death rattle sounded hideously in his scrawny throat. The One Who Knew had carried his secret to the grave.

For a moment or two, Nick gazed down at the body. He felt slightly sick with the suddenness of it all, but his first reaction was one of rage against that bland and smiling Celestial who called himself Li Sin.

He clambered over the window-sill and dropped, lithe as a cat, into the garbage-strewn, asphalted courtyard, and flashed his torch through the murk. There was no sign of the Chinaman, but a door, creaking wheezily on its hinges, gave access to a narrow alleyway, down which the detective sped. It debouched on the dilapidated warehouse where Maynard had parked his car. Gasping painfully for breath, Nicholas New was just in time to see a high-powered limousine driven at frantic haste through the fog, its yellow headlights glaring like monstrous cat’s eyes. Then from the tonneau of the car two vicious tongues of flame spat out, and the next instant Bill Maynard, pacing the opposite pavement, clutched convulsively at his chest, then slumped head forward to the ground without a cry.

Nick ground out an oath between tight-clenched teeth. Lungs almost bursting, he raced after the death car, but it was a hopeless task.

From his pocket he drew out a police whistle and blew three long, urgent blasts, then turned back to where, on the pavement, sprawled the limp, lifeless body of the newspaperman.

Reverently, Nick turned over Maynard’s body. One quick, cursory glance showed that he had been shot through the heart. In the rays of the detective’s torch, the dead man’s face held a faint, surprised expression. His death must have been practically instantaneous, thought Nick, as he lowered the body to the dank pavement. Then, suddenly, a gust of fury seized Nicholas New, stark, berserker rage that shook him as a mighty wind shakes a sapling. He forgot his years of training to repress emotion in times of crisis. A fierce, insensate fury against the foul and cowardly murderer who had shot down his friend Maynard in cold blood suffused his being.

“By ——,” he swore, “I’ll get the Croucher if it’s the last thing I do in this world! Bill, old man,” he added, and his voice was husky, “I’ll see you are avenged!”

From the gloom ahead came the sound of heavy, running footsteps, and a moment later two uniformed policemen emerged from the fog.

“What’s all this?” demanded one, a grizzled sergeant, suspiciously.

“Murder!” rasped Nicholas New. “Quick, one of you, get the ambulance! There are two more victims to be added to the Croucher’s list!”

“The Croucher!” whispered the sergeant, then, suddenly recognising Nick, saluted smartly.

“Where’s the other chap, sir?”

“Round the corner,” answered the detective curtly. “Chap named Larry the Wop. Know him at all?”

“Phew!” whistled the sergeant. “So Larry’s got it. It was coming to him a long time. He’s one of Brilliant Ling’s runners.”

“He was,” corrected Nick significantly. “His running days are over now, poor chap!”

Chapter 4

THE CLIENTS OF MR. AMBROSE ERTZ

MISS DOROTHY SOMERVILLE came down the steps of her quiet, little flat in the quiet, little street off the King’s Road, Chelsea, at exactly 8.30 a.m., and, following her invariable custom, bought a copy of the “Daily Clarion” at the bus stop opposite the Town Hall.

Save for a subtle air of refinement about her carriage and the quiet distinction of her neat dove-grey costume, there was little to distinguish her from a score of other City-bound girl clerks and typists who boarded the No. 11 bus.

She opened her paper cursorily enough, and suddenly a blaze of headlines met her gaze:

“ ‘CLARION’ REPORTER MURDERED!

£5,000 REWARD FOR CAPTURE OF THE CROUCHER!”

Dorothy gasped as she read the news of the dastardly crime in Shadwell the previous night. Hitherto she had been inclined to think that the Croucher was a partly mythical crook who existed mainly in the fertile imagination of the “Clarion’s” reporter, but now as she read the stark account of the murder of Bill Maynard, a little tremor of fear seized her. It was only too horribly true. The report in the newspaper was meagre enough, but she thrilled a little as she read the significant sentence:

“Detective Inspector Nicholas New, who is in charge of the case, and was actually present when the dastardly crime was committed, is in possession of a valuable clue to the identity of this master criminal, who is evidently bent on inaugurating a reign of terror against Society.”

It was with rising impatience that she continued the journey from Victoria to Westminster, and at Parliament Square she alighted eagerly and hurried through the drab courtyard of Scotland Yard with a good deal of suppressed excitement.

Nick was already at his desk when she arrived. He looked up wearily as she entered, and a queer tittle pang shot through her as she noticed how careworn and haggard his usually cheerful face appeared.

He flashed her a little smile of greeting.

“Well, Miss Somerville. The Croucher’s sprung at last with a vengeance!” he remarked. “Two in one night, and if I hadn’t been lucky I’d have been a third!”

“Oh, don’t! It’s ghastly to think of it, Mr. New!” said Dorothy, taking off her coat and hat, and seating herself at her desk. “And to think I spoke so horribly about poor Mr. Maynard last night. Is—is there any clue at all to the Croucher?”

Nick shrugged.

“A dozen, but they have all to be sifted and sorted,” he announced. “Bowers is working on the notes for fingerprints. Leeson’s got the drag-net out for all cars, I’m covering the dives. We’ll get him, never fear. I wish you’d type these depositions as soon as possible, Miss Somerville,” he added. “I’ve got to report to the commissioner. Tough luck on my poor uncle taking over at this time; fortunately, Sir Richard’s there to help him.”

He rose to his feet and laid a mass of closely written reports on her desk. She noticed the tired strain in his eyes and the grimness about his lips. This was a different Nicholas from the gay, inconsequential quoter of nonsense of last evening’s tittle dinner-party.

Nick tapped at the door of the commissioner’s room. His uncle was pacing restlessly up and down the rug, hands clasped behind his back, while Sir Richard was giving instructions to Inspector Myers of the Flying Squad.

“Pull them all in if they can give no satisfactory account of themselves,” he was saying. “Someone’s bound to know the Croucher’s haunts. He cannot possibly work without accomplices. This reward the ‘Clarion’s’ offering will help, of course—— Ah, New,” he added, turning to Nick. “Find anything further about this man, Larry the Wop?”

“I did, sir. He’s been in twice for dope peddling—years back. Used to work for that Chink, Brilliant Ling, we deported. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ling’s not slipped into the country again, and is backed by a cleverer rogue than himself.”

“It’s feasible, of course,” said Sir Richard, tugging at his imperial. “Poor Maynard’s murder will raise a cyclone of criticism against us now, of course, so we’ll have to strain every nerve to get the Croucher. This is particularly unfortunate for you, general,” he added, “to have to deal with two spectacular murders on your very first day of office.”

“Confound it, yes!” fumed the general. “Fortunately, I have your valuable advice, but I almost wish I hadn’t allowed the Home Secretary to persuade me to take on the post. Damme, sir!” he added explosively. “Judging by what I’ve seen of Scotland Yard’s inner organisation, this Croucher chappie hasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hades. The public simply don’t know—they’re misled by cheap newspaper criticism of the finest police force in the world. Just because we don’t catch a criminal red-handed, or in a few hours, they seem to think the whole organisation ought to be scrapped—and staffed, I suppose, by a lot of Fleet Street pen pushers!” he added bitterly.

Nick smiled.

“I’m following up the Brilliant Ling lead, sir,” he announced. “There was very little indeed to go on in Larry’s bed-room. He had only inhabited the place a week. The divisional surgeon reports that he must have been stabbed half an hour before my arrival. May I have a free hand?”

“Of course,” said Sir Richard. “And by the way, Myers”—he turned to the Flying Squad chief—“it’d be as well to raid the Tottenham Court Road clubs in addition to the East End joints.”

“Very good, sir. I’ll instruct Winslow in the matter,” replied Myers. “I was wondering if——”

The ’phone bell shrilled sharply, and Sir Richard lifted the receiver. As he listened, his face contorted with rage.

“What’s that?” he snapped. “A bomb! Good gad! The murderous scoundrel will stop at nothing! Of course I’ll be along at once.”

He turned to the others, and his voice shook a little.

“A bomb exploded in my flat ten minutes ago, gentlemen,” he said quietly. “If I hadn’t left half an hour earlier than usual this morning, the Croucher would have fulfilled his threat!”

He sank into a chair, and his face was pale and twitching.

“Great Scott!” ejaculated Nicholas New. “Are there any casualties, sir?”

“None, fortunately, according to the sergeant on duty,” replied the other. “My man, Hynes, was out shopping, but my study and dining-room are completely wrecked.”

Nick felt sorry for his old chief; the stern martinet he had known had suddenly become strangely old and feeble.

“Egad, Gilbert!” snapped the general. “This—this is damnable! The murderous villain must have an organised gang. I suppose I’m the next on his list!”

Sir Richard rose to his feet, slightly more composed now.

“Myers. I’ll come with you in a tender to see the extent of the damage,” he announced. “He’ll try again, of course,” he added. “Please, Heaven, that’ll be his undoing. Criminals nearly always overreach themselves in the end!”

• • • • • •

Bedford Row, that eminently respectable thoroughfare off the Gray’s Inn Road, housed a no mere respectable-looking tenant than Mr. Ambrose Ertz, whose neat brass plate outside the door of his mellow Georgian house bore simply his name and nothing more.

Yet there was a distinctly legal atmosphere about the tail-fronted house, through the windows of which one glimpsed neat, japanned deed boxes, ledgers, high, old-fashioned desks at which two seedy but also very respectable-looking old gentlemen sat industriously copying deeds on parchment in writing rivalling exquisite copper plate.

A severely lawyer-like street, disdaining change and ostention is Bedford Row, and one that appealed strongly to the quiet, unassuming nature of Mr. Ambrose Ertz.

He sat at the desk of his modestly furnished inner office, a middle-aged man inclined to embonpoint. He was dressed in a rather old-fashioned frock coat, and wore a black cravat with his pointed linen collar that gave him a faintly Georgian appearance that harmonised with his surroundings. His greying hair was brushed smoothly back from the forehead, and his plump, well-kept fingers drummed a tattoo on the desk before him. He affected a monocle with a tortoiseshell rim, and this he screwed into his eye ere scanning an afternoon edition of the “Evening News.”

He clucked his tongue in disapproval as he read.

“Dear me! How shocking!” he murmured. “What will the Croucher do next? Bombing the Scotland Yard Commissioner’s house indeed. Dreadful! Dreadful!”

Something in the account of the Croucher’s latest outrage seemed to amuse Mr. Ertz, for his eyes twinkled as he pushed the ivory bell-push on his desk.

A thin, stoop-shouldered man well past middle age entered the room. He was dressed in rusty black, his cadaverous face was as yellow as the parchment he ornamented with his beautiful copper plate. He looked exactly what he wasn’t, a studious, rather dull lawyer’s clerk.

“Ah, Stephens!” said Mr. Ertz, with a smile. “Have you finished that letter?”

“I have,” said Stephens. “And a darn good job I made of it, chief, if you ask me.”

The geniality vanished from the eyes of Mr. Ertz.

“I didn’t ask you!” he snapped. “And drop that tone during business hours. Let’s see the note.”

Stephens pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Mr. Ertz, who scanned it narrowly through his monocle.

“You won’t find any fault with that if you was to use a microscope,” said Stephens, baring his yellow teeth in a grin. “That’ll get Mr. Nosey New and——”

“That’ll do, you fool!” snarled Ertz, and his face twisted into an ugly grimace. “Do you want to toe the T piece at eight on a chilly morning?”

A flicker of fear shone for a moment in the sunken eyes of Mr. “Phoney” Stephens, ex-engraver, and now one of the cleverest forgers in Europe. He stood in awe of his employer, the enigmatic Mr. Ertz, who knew so much of his dubious past.

“Sorry, chief,” he mumbled. “By the way, Hanlon’s waiting to see you.”

“Send him in!” snapped Ertz.

Stephens shuffled out of the room, and Mr. Ertz’s ill-humour vanished as suddenly as it appeared. He gazed round the austere lawyer-like office and surveyed the dusty japanned brief boxes on the shelves with approval.

Scotland Yard would have given a good deal to know the contents of those boxes. Mr. Ertz had inhabited that quiet house in Bedford Row for many years—his neighbours, both dry-as-dust solicitors, whenever they bothered their heads about anything other than torts, deeds and conveyances, thought Mr. Ertz a very sound, dependable member of the legal profession. In a sense they were right. The criminal confraternity found Mr Ertz very sound and dependable—as a fence.

His clientele was not extensive, but it was peculiar, very peculiar, as the newcomer, who now entered, attested. He was a sharp-nosed, ferret-eyed man with reddish hair and a snub freckled nose.

“Come in, Hanlon,” said Mr. Ertz. “Have you fixed it with Brilliant?”

“Sure, chief,” said Red Hanlon, with the peculiar lip movement of the old lag. “Everything’s fixed. But, lumme, ain’t the Croucher puttin’ it over; he’s put the fear o’ death into——”

“Shut up, hang you!” snarled Ertz. “What the devil’s the Croucher to you? Remember what happened to the last man who talked too much.”

Mr. Ertz closed his soft hand in a slow, relentless gesture, and Hanlon’s face paled suddenly. He changed the subject hurriedly.

“Brilliant has the room all set,” he announced. “The darn busies and flatties are combing out every joint in Limehouse, boss—they’ve pulled in Mike the Whizz an’——”

“Police activities do not worry me, Hanlon,” said Mr. Ertz coldly. “Remember—at midnight, the girl’s room must be ready at the house of Brilliant Ling.”

“Midnight it is, chief,” said Red Hanlon, and his loose lips curled into a lascivious leer.

“Give this to Stephens as you go out,” snapped Ertz. “Tell him to have it delivered on the stroke of six p.m.”

He handed the folded note to the red-haired crook and dismissed him with an airy wave of his plump hand For a few moments he gazed into vacancy. There was a peculiar expression in his cold, strangely light eyes, a reptilian glitter that was not pleasant to contemplate. Then, as if impelled by a sudden decision, he lifted a small house telephone that stood on his desk and murmured a few words into the receiver.

“Pardon me, my dear Ertz,” cooed a soft voice at his elbow. “It is quite unnecessary to inform me. I rely as much on telepathy as telephony.”

With an oath Mr. Ertz swung round in his swivel chair, and found himself gazing at the bland, unruffled figure of Professor Li Sin.

The Chinaman was dressed in his usual impeccable fashion, between his lemon-hued fingers he held a black, rice-paper cigarette.

“Gosh! You—you startled me,” gasped Ertz. “I—I was just going to let you know that all’s set for the big kill.”

“I know,” said Mr. Sin blandly. “It is work of sheer superogation on your part, my dear Ertz. I, however, appreciate your zeal, while deprecating your impetuosity. It was surely an error to tell the rather obvious Mr. Hanlon to call. He is dangerous—he drinks too much.”

Mr. Ertz, who inspired so much terror in others, found great difficulty in controlling his trembling fingers, and winced beneath the cold reproof of the man from Pekin.

Chapter 5

THE MAN IN BLACK

NICK NEW had a comfortable bachelor flat just off Trafalgar Square. He found it central and convenient for Scotland Yard, and shortly after two o’clock in the afternoon he restored a little of his customary serenity of outlook with a long, luxurious soak in his tub and a light but appetising lunch.

He had been on his feet for nearly thirty-six hours, and, after accompanying the commissioner to the scene of the damage at his place in Elmsmere Square, and helping Myers restore a little order out of the chaos of the wrecked rooms, Nick felt entitled to an hour or two’s rest.

The Croucher’s latest outrage might have had serious consequences had the bomb exploded earlier. Both Sir Richard’s study and dining-room had been completely wrecked by the force of the explosion. Amidst the debris of splintered furniture, gaping walls and shattered windows, Myers had found pieces of twisted steel and an enamel dial, which indicated that a time-bomb of some kind had been hidden somewhere within the house.

Sir Richard’s man had been rigorously cross-examined, but he could supply little or no information. Indeed his one reiterated statement was one of joy that he was out shopping when the sanguinary bomb went off. The commissioner himself, in a towering rage, had decamped for his club, a funereal building in Piccadilly, leaving, as Nick misquoted to Miss Somerville, “the world to darkness and to me.”

The Flying Squad had excelled itself, however. Into its all embracing net had been dragged all the queer fish that infest the polluted streams of the underworld. But one and all, from pickpocket to con. man, stoutly denied all knowledge of the Croucher.

Meanwhile, Fleet Street was in a ferment. Every half-hour special editions of the great national dailies appeared, each with its own garbled and fantastic account of the latest developments. It was with a sigh of genuine relief that Nick reached the sanctuary of his flat, there to ponder on the baffling problem.

He lit his after-luncheon pipe and considered every aspect of the case, since he had received that laconic warning, “You’re Next,” the previous night.

Maynard had been murdered obviously because the Croucher feared that the newspaper man knew too much. Sheeny MacGuire and Larry the Wop shared his fate for the same reason. There remained only Sir Richard and himself to bE accounted for. If the commissioner had followed his usual habit of leaving his house at 9.30 a.m. he would certainly have perished in the explosion.

Again and again in Nick’s mind rose the memory of that saffron-tinted incorruptible, Mr. Li Sin, of Pekin. Who was he? Why had he warned him against the Croucher? Was it sheer bravado on the man’s part that visit to Scotland Yard?

Nick was frankly out of his depth. The uncanny reticence of even the most loquacious nark was attributable either to the fact that that they did not know anything at all about the Croucher, or that they were scared to death of his vengeance. In any case, it seemed hopeless to expect any results from that angle unless the “Clarion’s” offer of £5,000 would result in avarice overcoming fear.

Nick recalled the Gutteridge case in that connection, and it gave him a few crumbs of comfort. If only one of the crooks caught in the Flying Squad drag-net could be induced to speak.

The ’phone bell tinkled sharply and interrupted his reverie. He lifted the receiver and stiffened suddenly as he recognised the suave, cool voice of Professor Li Sin.

“Is that you, Mr. New?” purred the Chinaman.

“It is,” snapped Nick. “What the deuce do you want. I want you very badly, incidentally.”

“Come and find me, my dear sir,” was the mocking reply. “I’m—er—sorry I missed you last night,” he added.

Nick swore softly under his breath, but he managed to control his voice.

“The regret is mutual, I assure you,” he replied. “What do you want?”

“I want you to take great care of yourself, Mr. New, and incidentally of your commissioner. The Croucher does not fail twice, you know. Unless the Flying Squad ceases its rather strenuous activities, I shall be compelled to—er—take very drastic measures indeed. They are seriously embarrassing me. That is all.”

There was a faint click. The Chinaman had rung off. Feverishly Nick called up the exchange and found, as he suspected, that the call was from a public call-box in Piccadilly.

He swore roundly and seized his hat—then abandoning his first impulse, strode info his dressing-room. Peeling off his dressing-gown he surveyed himself critically in the mirror, then opened a drawer of his dressing-table and produced various items necessary to the art of disguise.

“Limehouse Louie’s the only hope,” said Detective-Inspector Nicholas New cryptically. “If I can’t get wise to the Croucher that way—nobody on earth can.”

• • • • • •

“Where the deuce is New?” snapped Sir Richard Gilbert irritable, as Miss Dorothy Somerville entered the big. airy room in Scotland Yard shortly after five p.m.

“I told him to report to me by four o’clock. Myers has discovered a very promising lead from the Yellow Harlequin Cafe.”

“I could not say, Sir Richard,” replied the girl quietly. “I believe he went home to change at two; he hasn’t communicated since.” She placed a heap of neatly typed depositions on the desk, and stood rather hesitantly beneath her chief’s scrutiny.

Sir Richard’s eye rested in frank approval on the girl’s trim figure. She coloured faintly under his gaze, and, clearing his throat, Sir Richard pulled irritably at his greying beard. He was nervous and restless. The Croucher affair was getting on his nerves. Usually coldly practical, Dorothy saw that that bomb outrage that morning had shaken him considerably.

She was not very keen on Sir Richard, but she thought that the Press attacks on his regime were uncalled for. After all, he had spent years at Scotland Yard, and received little credit for the many reforms he had instituted. She remembered little acts of kindnesses on his part to her, when raw and inexperienced, she had first joined the staff at Police H.Q., but she disliked his disconcerting fashion of gazing at her in that peculiar speculative fashion.

“Is—is there any further news of the Croucher, sir?” she ventured. “That horrible affair this morning seems to show he’s terribly in earnest.”

Sir Richard’s eyes lightened a little.

“Bless my soul,” he remarked. “Are you worrying about me? I have a personal bodyguard of plain-clothes men, my dear young lady—and as for this scoundrel, the Croucher, I have every hope of pulling him in within the next twenty-four hours. Myers has a splendid clue that he is following up. Er—send Inspector New to me immediately he arrives,” he added.

Dorothy nodded and withdrew quietly.

“Egad, my nephew’s chosen a darned pretty secretary,” chuckled the general, who was deep in a bewildering maze of traffic returns.

Sir Richard nodded absently. He was distinctly jealous of Inspector New.

“Your nephew is a remarkable young man, general, but I do wish his methods were a trifle more orthodox. It’s very bad for discipline the way he mixes so intimately with the criminal fraternity. A little fraternisation is, of course, essential, but I am afraid he overdoes it.”

• • • • • •

Meanwhile, Mr. Ambrose Ertz, that eminently respectable tenant of Bedford Row, was filled with a pleasurable feeling of anticipation as he glanced at the ormolu clock on his desk. In a few minutes the note to which Mr. “Phony” Stephens had devoted so much time and skill would be delivered at Scotland Yard, and Mr. Ertz awaited developments with keen interest. There was absolutely no risk, of course. Nothing that the versatile Mr. Ertz tackled ever had a risky element, at least, to himself. To others maybe—but no dossier of misdeeds, no hint of suspicion concerning himself were extant at police headquarters.

Very few people indeed knew Mr. Ertz’s real profession—those who did were silent, for the shadow of the gallows is a great deterrent to the squeaker.

He pressed a bell on his desk and the cadaverous Stephens entered.

“You and Martin stay until the girl has arrived, then vanish,” he said. “Understand?”

Stephens grinned evilly.

“Sure, chief. And does New get his?”

“Mind your own business!” snarled Ertz.

Stephens rubbed his bristly chin, and his shifty eyes shot a look of hatred at his employer.

“I see there’s five thousand quid out for info’ about the Crouchcr, chief,” he said quietly. “It’s a big sum for a tiny scrap of——”

He broke off, appalled at the sudden look of tigerish ferocity in the other’s face and backed away hastily.

“What’s that?” snarled Ertz.

Gone was his suavity, gone his respectability. He was brute beast. His eyes glowed with an unholy light, and his lips writhed back from his too-white teeth in a wolfish snarl. “You think you can squeal on the Croucher, eh?” he demanded, and his voice was shrill with passion. “You—you—sewer-rat! Let me tell you that no man alive has ever hinted that he’d squeal on the Croucher—and lived. You’ve signed your death warrant, Stephens.”

“No—no—chief!” gasped the terror-stricken crook. “For ’eaven’s sake. I—I didn’t mean it; I—I couldn’t squeal if I wanted to. As Heaven’s my witness, I don’t even know who the Croucher is.”

Ertz stared at the cowed wretch and laughed softly. His rage passed with almost startling suddenness.

“Your ignorance is indeed bliss, Stephens. Knowledge would mean a particularly unpleasant death, my friend Go!”

He pointed towards the door, and the trembling crook slunk out like a whipped cur.

• • • • • •

“A letter for you, Miss Somerville.”

Dorothy looked up from her typewriter as a young constable entered the room, an envelope gripped in his ham-like hand. She smiled her thanks charmingly, causing a distinct flutter in the constabulary breast, and glanced at the superscription. She recognised the handwriting, and flushed a little, then, woman-like, felt oddly resentful that the sight of that familiar scrawl should react so strangely upon her.

The note had evidently been delivered by District Messenger, and was addressed from Bedford Row. The message was brief, but explicit:

“Dear Miss Somerville,” it ran, “please bring copies of depositions A and B to the above address by 6.30 p.m. I believe I am at last on the Croucher’s trail—curiously enough, through a woman not even remotely connected with the underworld.

“She will not speak, however, except in the presence of her solicitor, Mr. Ertz, and must be very tactfully handled. You being the embodiment of that virtue, your presence is both desirable and essential. Sincerely,

“NICHOLAS NEW.”

Dorothy smiled at the odd mixture of formality and friendship in the note which was typical of the relationship between her and Nicholas New. She glanced at her wrist watch. It was five minutes past six. She generally finished work at six p.m. except on special occasions. It was quite evident that Nicholas needed her presence urgently at the lawyer’s office. It was not the first occasion she had been present when the police in the course of their duties had to question a female witness.

She felt a queer thrill of excitement at the thought that at long last Nick had found a clue to the Croucher’s identity, and wondered who the woman was that was not even connected with crime. It was certainly an intriguing situation, she mused, as she snapped the lock of her little attache case and added a few deft touches to her toilet.

Dorothy hesitated for a moment, wondering whether she should leave word indicating her movements. This precaution appeared to her rather unnecessary, as she was acting on the direct instructions of Inspector New, who she would meet in so short a time.

She hailed a taxi in Whitehall, down which leather-lunged newsvendors ran bawling “Croucher Latest,” and felt a pleasurable sense of superiority at being admitted behind the scenes of this sensational drama.

The taxi turned into Grays Inn Road and deposited her outside No. 7a, Bedford Row. She noted its atmosphere of aloof respectability and lawyer-like mustiness. She dismissed the cab and entered the outer office. An ancient clerk in shabby black, who looked as if he had stepped out of Dickens, shuffled towards her, quill pen behind his ear.

“Miss Somerville?” he ventured, with an old-world bow.

Dorothy nodded.

“Mr. New is waiting for me, I believe,” she remarked.

“He is in with Mr. Ertz and his client,” said Stephens. “Won’t you step this way?”

He lifted the flap of the counter and led the way towards a green baize door and knocked.

“Come in!” called Mr. Ambrose Ertz.

“Miss Somerville,” announced Stephens, as he held open the door.

Dorothy entered, and found herself in a cosy, workmanlike room and facing a rather portly, pink-faced gentleman clad in clothes of rather old-fashioned cut.

Mr. Ertz rose to his feet and smiled. Subconsciously, Dorothy noted his teeth were rather too large and too white.

“Ah! The—er—young lady from Scotland Yard,” said Mr. Ertz. “Won’t you sit down? Inspector New and my client are expected at any moment.”

He waved his hand towards a leather-backed chair, and surveyed Dorothy appraisingly through his monocle.

“Pray pardon my presumption,” he purred. “But you are a most attractive young lady to be connected with the police force.”

Dorothy stiffened. Her first impression of Mr. Ertz had not been exactly favourable, but now she felt she thoroughly disliked the man. He was too suave, too smooth. She checked the retort that rose to her lips, and hurriedly changed the subject.

“I understood from Inspector New that he was waiting for me here,” she said coldly.

Mr. Ertz nodded and gave an oily chuckle.

“Quite right. That’s what I meant you to understand, my dear Miss Somerville.”

Dorothy felt her heart thumping uncomfortably, but she kept her head and tried to still the feeling of alarm that startled her.

“I—I fail to understand what you mean, sir,” she said. “I had a letter from Inspector New——”

“You did not, my dear little police lady,” broke in Ertz, and his eyes narrowed. “You had a letter purporting to come from dear Nicholas—a different matter.”

Dorothy leapt to her feet. Panic gripped her.

“You—you mean it was a forgery.”

“Precisely,” was the reply. “But do not blame yourself unduly, that letter was forged by the greatest expert since the late lamented Jim the Penman.”

“Then—then this is a trap!” gasped Dorothy, glancing round wildly.

Ambrose Ertz rose to his feet, and the expression on his face was ugly.

“Now, my dear girl, be sensible!” he said. “I wanted you here for a particular reason.”

With a panther-like step he strode towards her.

“Let me go at once!” hissed the girl. “If you touch me, you beast, I’ll——”

She screamed as she felt his soft, pudgy hands close on her arms.

“Scream away, young lady,” cried Ertz. “This office is soundproof. Beyond that door are plates of steel. You have no possibility of escape. The very taxi that brought you here was fake.”

Dorothy felt a sickly wave of nausea sweep over her as she struggled in his grip. His hot breath fanned her cheeks, his curiously light eyes were ablaze with passion.

She wrenched one arm desperately from his clammy clutch, and struck with all her might at his pink, fleshy face.

He staggered back and spat out an oath.

“By—— You little spitfire! I’ll make you pay for that! I’ll——”

“Keep back, you beast!” she cried, and her fingers closed on a heavy leaden paperweight on the desk. A wild surge of exultation flooded her veins as she raised the missile. She wanted to pound that flabby face.

Ertz saw the look in her eyes, and cowered back, but it was only for a moment or so. Suddenly he sprang forward with surprising agility for one of his bulk.

Crash!

The heavy paperweight missed his temple by a fraction of an inch, and smashed a framed photograph on the wall. He laughed exultantly, and, sick with horror, Dorothy felt the grasp of his strong hands as his arms closed around her.

She was trembling in every limb, and a prayer rose from her ashen lips.

“Don’t! Don’t!” she screamed.

“Scream away, my pretty one!” he mocked. “There is no one to hear. No one to come to your rescue——”

Clang!

Even as he spoke a steel shutter opened in the wall at the rear of his desk, and framed in the aperture was a black-garbed figure, his face completely hidden by a mask, in his hand a blue-nosed automatic.

“Ooh!” sobbed Ertz, and his face was the colour of death.

“The Croucher!”

“Exactly!” said a soft, sibilant voice. “Mr. Ambrose Ertz, you seem to have exceeded your instructions. You will at once beg this young lady’s pardon on your knees!”

Dorothy stared at that sinister, crouching figure in the aperture. He was completely covered by a black velvet cloak, and through the slits in his mask his eyes glittered balefully, and the hand that held the gun was like a yellow claw.

That much she saw, and suddenly a queer red mist swam before her eyes, and she slumped forward to the floor into blank and blessed unconsciousness.

Chapter 6

A SHOOK FOR SHIFTY LEE

MR. “SHTFTY” LEE, that resourceful dip, had a grievance which he loudly and luridly aired through the grille of his cell to the quite unresponsive back of the phlegmatic turnkey at Bovine Street Police Court. In the first place the unsympathetic magistrate had remanded him in custody “under the act” simply on the uncorroborated word of Detective Willis, despite Shifty’s almost passionate plea that he was simply waiting for a bus for Swiss Cottage the previous night in order to get home to his sick aunt.

Shitty’s record, however, was far too well known to the police, and they passed polite but sceptical remarks even about the existence of the little pickpocket’s ailing relative. But Shifty’s chief grievance was against Detective Inspector Nicholas New. “Nosey” New as he was called in crookdom.

Nick’s action in arresting him the previous night meant not only that he would forfeit the three months remission he had earned—for he was just out of Pentonville on ticket of leave—but, what was worse, earn him an additional half stretch for “loitering with intent.”

Shifty’s heart was sore at the injustice of it all, and what made matters worse was that this had been the one occasion in his life he had stood near a bus queue, not to pick pockets, but to do exactly the reverse.

He sat down on the hard, wooden bench of his cell and groaned. For some reason or other Bovine Street Station was extraordinarily full, and the Black Maria to convey him to Brixton was long overdue. As an old campaigner, Shifty infinitely preferred the cell amenities of a real “jug” to the stark discomfort of a police station “cooler.”

He tugged at his scrubby moustache, then bounded towards the grille of his cell door.

“Hi, Beefy!” he bawled down the corridor. “Wot abaht my mouthpiece? S’welp me if I don’t ’ire Curtis Bennett and ’ave this case taken to the ’Ouse o’ Lords.”

There was a shuffling sound from the far end of the corridor, the jingle of keys, and there hove into Shifty’s restricted view the burly figure of Warder Higgins grasping by the arm a tattered-looking derelict of repellant aspect.

“Shut up, Shifty! ‘Ere’s a little playmate for you till Maria comes,” reproved the warder, unlocking the ceil door.

“In you get, Louie. If you want to see a doctor wait till you get to Brixton.”

The newcomer, an unwholesome, pasty-faced-looking specimen of humanity, clad in a suit of nondescript garments that were green with age, slumped on to the bench, and held his head in his filthy, talonlike hand.

He was quivering and shaking from head to foot, and Shifty turned truculently to the warder.

“ ’Ere! Wotcher mean? Puttin’ me in with a dope yob? I’m a ’igh-class dip, I am, Beefy! I’ll write to the ’Ome Secretary about it. I’ll——”

Clang!

The cell door successfully cut short his harangue, and Shifty eyed his cell mate with acute disfavour. The other lifted up his head and stared with lack lustre eyes at the little pickpocket. His twitching lips and rapidly dilating nostrils were the tell-tale marks of the cocaine sniffer, and Shifty gave an exclamation of surprise.

“Crikey! If it ain’t Limehouse Louie!” he remarked. “ ’Ere, Lou’, doncher remember me at ‘Ginger’ Martin’s joint ‘bout six munce back? You was all lit up and standin’ drinks all round.”

“Eh?” said the other, in a dazed fashion. “I seem to know your dial, mate. What’s your monniker?”

“I’m Shifty Lee,” said the pickpocket, with an odd assumption of pride. “Gosh! But you ain’t ’arf got the willies, Louie! What they run yer for—snow? It’s a

blame silly game now the Yard’s all out fer the Croucher.”

It was significant that even in the privacy of the cell the little crook lowered his voice to a whisper as he mentioned the master crook’s name.

“Ssh!” gasped the other. “The blighted Flying Squad’s cleared us all up. Ginger’s raided; they pulled in Wong Foo. They got me ’arf an hour back, the devils—got me afore I’d time to sniff a shot to steady me nerves.”

“ ’Oo pulled yer?” demanded Shifty, with professional interest.

“Nosey New. May his eyes rot and his tongue wither!” snarled the other venomously. “I’ll be a full stretch this time, Shifty, an’ no error,” he added, passing a shaking hand over his bristly chin.

“ ’E knocked me ’orf, too, the big stiff!” growled the pickpocket. “Knocked me orf for dipping. Think of it! The only night I wasn’t workin’, Nosey pinches me! An’ fer what?” he asked dramatically.

“Spite,” spat out Louie laconically.

“Lemme tell you,” said Shifty, full of his grievance. “Ever ’ear of Red ’Anlon? ’E’s a peter buster, one of the ’igh ups. Well, Red comes to me an’ tells me to tail Nosey. We was at Luigi’s cafe, in Soho, and Red ses as ’ow Nosey New was dining with a skirt in the Spanish Restaurant. ‘You’re the best dip in London ’—them were Red’s exac’ words to me. ‘There’s a tenner for yer if yer slips this envelope into Nosey’s pocket inside ten minutes.’ ”

Shifty paused dramatically, and his companion showed his yellow teeth in a mirthless grin.

“Well, wot ’appened?” he demanded.

“Why, it was as easy as falling orf a log,” replied Shifty. “I tailed Nosey New. Saw ’im see ’is gal to a bus, and slipped the envelope in ’is pocket. Red paid me five quid dahn, and I was to get the other ’arf later. That’s where I was a fool. Feeling bucked like, I sorter ‘ustled an old geezer that looked as if ’o ’ad a nice gold kettle on ’im, when Nosey spots me, an’ in that sarky way ’e ’as arsts me wot I’m a-doin’ of. There’s a flattie ‘andy—and ‘ere I am,” concluded Shifty lugubriously.

“Strewth!” said the other. “Wot’s Red’s game?”

“Blowed if I know. They say ’e’s mixed up in the Croucher lay; but me, I lay off that stuff. Ain’t you with the Croucher crowd, Louie? Someone tole me as you was?”

“The Croucher?” echoed Limehouse Louie. “Blimey, no! Wisht I was! E pays ’is runners well. I reckon ole Wong Foo’s one of ’is agents; but ’e’s such a wily cuss nobody kin tell. ‘Sides, look at the bloomin’ Croucher, nobody knows ’oo ’e is. Some say ’e’s a Chink. I ’eard old Brilliant Ling’s slipped back from China, and ’e’s the Croucher; but nobody’s sure, not even Mr. Know-All Nosey. ’Oo’s Red ’Anion’s fence now—old Kemmy Marks?” he added inconsequently.

“Kemmy!” echoed Shifty, with a short laugh. “Stow it! I tell you Red’s on the up and up; none of old Mark’s prices for ’im. ’E’s got a crook mouthpiece ’e was tellin’ me; ’e was a bit lit up larst night, and swankin’. Queer name it was. Not one of the reglers. Sounded like a sneeze or a dawg growlin’. Grrch or Bertz or somethink. Anyway,” added the little crook bitterly, “Mr. Bloomin’ Red ’Anlon owes me a fiver, and I kin see a stretch at the bloomin’ ’Ville astaring me in the fice just for carrying bloomin’ love letters from ’im to Nosey New!”

Limehouse Louie’s pasty face began to twitch alarmingly, queer, gurgling sounds came from his throat. He clutched Shifty’s arm with his claw-like hands and gasped painfully.

“Oh, gosh! They’re coming, Shifty!”

His teeth chattered violently, and his frame was racked by convulsive shudders.

“ ’Ere, brace up, Louie!” gasped the pickpocket. “You’ve got a touch of the ’orrors, that’s what!”

“For ——’s sake fetch the doc,” shrilled the other. “I must ’ave a shot. Me nerves are raw, they’re burnin’ me alive——”

Flecks of foam appeared round his writhing lips, and Shifty, who knew a little of the fiendish agony endured by the dope fiend suddenly deprived of the drug his tortured system craves, leapt for the bell push.

“Hi, Beefy!” he roared through the grille. “This chap’s going bats! Quick, fetch the doc., you fat blighter!”

The burly warder quickened his pace and unlocked the cell door. He cast one glance at the writhing figure on the bench, then rapped out sternly:

“Stow it! Stop that screamin’, d’y’ear.”

“Fetch the doc. for the luvva Heaven!” moaned the quivering, pitiful figure clinging convulsively to the turnkey’s sleeve. Warder Higgins grasped the writhing Louie in his arms as though he had been a child. Another warder appeared on the scene, much to Shifty’s disgust, for that wily crook had edged near the open door.

“Come on now, Louie! Pull yerself together!” mumbled the warder. “You’re better alone, I reckon. I’ll send for the doc.”

He half-dragged, half-carried him out of the cell, and the last glimpse Shifty had of Limehouse Louie was kicking and struggling in the warder’s arms down the dreary cell corridor.

The warder flung open the inspector’s room and saluted.

“Louie seems in a deuce of a bad way, sor,” he announced. “Better let the doc. see him.”

“Right, Higgins!” said the inspector sharply, with a glance of disgust at the shivering derelict. “Leave him here for a moment, and I’ll get Murgatroyd to examine him.”

“Very good, sor!”

Higgins saluted and withdrew, and when the door had closed Shifty’s late cell companion shook himself like a dog, sat up straight, and grinned at Inspector Rawlins.

“Good-morning, Rawlins,” he remarked casually. “I’m sorry to have to play tricks on my comrades of the force. Could you spare me a cigarette?”

Rawlins frowned, stared hard at his captive, then grinned his appreciation of the splendid make-up.

“By heck, New, you’re playing a dangerous game! You’ll get it in the neck one of these days. You know it’s strictly illegal——”

“Rot!” said Detective Inspector Nicholas New, blandly waving aside the objection. “It isn’t the first or the last time I’ve assumed the identity of Limehouse Louie. Besides, the commissioner’s given me a free hand. All’s fair when one is up against the Croucher. I had a hunch and it came off. By the way,” he added, “when Shifty comes up again on Thursday, don’t press the charge. Indirectly he’s given me a lead to the Croucher, but he’s safer here until I’ve pulled in that murderous brute.”

“Good gosh! Does Shifty know who the Croucher is?” gasped the astounded Rawlins.

“He hasn’t the vaguest idea,” laughed Nick. “That’s the nonsensical part of it! Knowing nothing himself he’s put me wise to a good deal.”

Chapter 7

THE HOUSE OF BRILLIANT LING

DOBOTHY SOMERVILLE’S first sensation on regaining consciousness was one of deadly nausea. Her temples throbbed dully, her mouth was parched and dry, and she felt she had not even the physical energy to open her eyelids.

She lay for a few moments quite still, striving to collect her scattered senses into some coherency. She had, she remembered, called at Bedford Row in response to an urgent letter from Nicholas New, and after that——

She shivered involuntarily.

Was it all a nightmare? Ertz with his white, flashing teeth that reminded her of tombstones. That dark, sinister figure who had appeared so dramatically seemingly from nowhere. Surely it was all a dream!

She opened her eyes and gasped with incredulous amazement at her surroundings.

She found herself lying on a long, low divan of orange silk, her head resting on soft swansdown cushions, but it was the exotic luxury of the room itself that bewildered her.

Each wall of the room from floor to ceiling was curtained with silken black hangings, embroidered with writhing dragons of gold brocade. From the ceiling hung a pendant bowl of some transparent rose-coloured stone, shedding a diffused and soft light on the beautifully lacquered red and black Chinese furniture.

At her side, on an exquisitely wrought table of bronze and silver, reposed a gold-topped carafe and a bowl of fruit—purple grapes, peaches, apricots, and near by a silver filigree cigarette-box.

She struggled into a sitting posture, and clasped her throbbing temples.

“Where am I?” she gasped painfully. “I—I seem to remember fainting in that awful man’s office in Bedford Row, and then——”

“Pray do not be alarmed, my dear young lady,” cooed a soft, mellifluous voice from seemingly mid-air. “I assure you that the obnoxious Mr. Ertz has—er—been drastically, dealt with. You are doubtless feeling rather bewildered at the moment, but in due course you shall be enlightened.”

Dorothy leapt to her feet.

“Who are you?” she gasped. “By what right do you hold me here? Let me go at once.”

She stamped a small and imperious foot. The calm suavity of that disembodied voice maddened her.

She looked round wildly. There was no sign of a human being within sight. She dashed at the curtains and drew them aside, to be met by a blank black wall.

“You coward!” she said contemptuously. “You dare not show your face! Come out of your hiding-place!”

“At the appointed time, my dear Miss Somerville,” said the mocking voice. “May I, however, assure you that escape is quite impossible. There is only one exit to this room, and that is guarded night and day. Also in case you imagine that you are still at Bedford Row, let me hasten to correct that misapprehension. You are miles from that eminently respectable neighbourhood, and you were in fact conveyed from Mr. Ertz’s office in a state of coma induced by the judicious use of a hypodermic needle—hence doubtless the slight touch of nausea you are experiencing——”

“You cowardly brute!” broke in Dorothy vehemently. “Do you really imagine you’ll get away with it? Why, Scotland Yard already know that I left for Bedford Row, and once Inspector New gets busy——”

“A brave bluff, my dear,” chuckled the unseen. “Unfortunately, it won’t work. As for the egregious Mr. New, he will shortly be solving the greatest of all mysteries—what happens after death?”

The diabolic chuckle which followed chilled the blood in Dorothy’s veins. Her head reeled at the horror of it all. She was alone, helpless, at the mercy of that utterly ruthless criminal, the Croucher.

She sank down on the divan, weak and trembling in every limb, then suddenly she lifted her determined little chin. She would not allow this mocking, invisible scoundrel to gloat or to see that she was afraid.

She helped herself to a cigarette from the filigree box and lit it, controlling the tremor in her slim fingers by an effort of will.

“That’s right, young lady. Take it philosophically,” laughed the unseen watcher. “I give you my word that nothing on that table has been tampered with, and you may eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow New dies!”

There was a faint click. It seemed to come from above the red lacquer cabinet, then silence—chill with the menace of death.

• • • • • •

The underworld was ablaze with rumours that grew and spread like a forest fire, from the dingy, little, foreign clubs and drinking dens of Soho, from the gaily-lit haunts of the con. men in the West End to the frowsy joints of Shadwell and Limehouse, the news of the devastating raids made by the Flying Squad spread panic among the various crook gangs.

Yet one man alone was quite unperturbed about the tidings of the wholesale round up of many notorious dens, both in the East and West End of the metropolis. That man was the Croucher, whose brilliant brain had organised one of the most dangerous and ruthless criminal confederations that had ever menaced society. Only three men in London knew the real identity of the man responsible for the wave of crime that had recently swept over the metropolis—and those three men lived in deadly fear of their leader. They themselves were murderers and expert crooks, each was an accomplished gang organiser, and not one had ever been in the hands of the police, yet compared to the Croucher himself they were mere tyros in crime.

It was a significant fact that, despite every effort made by the Flying Squad, not one single member of the inner circle of the Croucher’s organisation had been caught, a fact which the master crook took pains to impress upon his lieutenants at their bizarre headquarters the night following Bill Maynard’s murder.

It was a queer assembly, in a queer rendezvous. In the maze of streets beyond Blackfriars Bridge, narrow, evil-smelling, hemmed in by gaunt and gigantic warehouses that make the Surrey side of the river hideous, the Croucher’s headquarters lay unseen and unsuspected.

It had the double advantage of having at least ten different means of ingress, including one cunningly hidden between the piles of a crumbling jetty, long since abandoned by the owners of the derelict grain warehouse that frowned desolately down on the Thames.

Not even the River Rats, as the Thames Police are known at Scotland Yard and the underworld alike, suspected that the boarded and shuttered building standing so forlornly cheek by jowl with a busy contractor’s yard and an abandoned and crumbling church, was the H.Q. of the Croucher’s organisation. It was here that Brilliant Ling returned secretly after his deportation to China and plied again his evil trade of smuggling that soul-destroying drug—cocaine. Few people ever penetrated the house of Brilliant Ling save those who knew the password. Fewer people knew the river exit. Some who passed through came back strangely altered, some who went through never came back. The warehouse was honeycombed with passages, and it is typical of the Croucher’s thoroughness that the seemingly busy contractor’s yard abutting the derelict building was his property, and the workmen had nearly all gleaned their building experience on the grim breakwater at Portland and the grimmer quarries of Dartmoor.

Six men in evening dress sat round a horseshoe-shaped table in a bare, vaulted room within the skeleton shell of the warehouse. Each one was masked, each one was a murderer, but only three knew the Croucher’s identity. The rest was content not to know, for knowledge might have meant death.

“You’re jumpy to-night, Ertz,” drawled a bullet-headed man with a strong American accent. “What’s bitten you?”

Mr. Ambrose Ertz shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing. Touch of nerves I reckon.”

From his waistcoat pocket he pulled out a small oval gold case rather like a woman’s vanity box. He carefully emptied a few crystals of white powder on the back of his hand, and inhaled it gratefully. His eyes glittered feverishly behind the slits of his mask.

“Stephens needs fixing,” he announced significantly. “That five thousand’s rankling.”

“What of it?” laughed the American. “Phony’s too durned scared of his hide to try anything for five grand. What do you say, Duval?”

The man addressed, a grey-haired Frenchman, and, incidentally, proprietor of one of the most popular restaurants in the West End, smiled beneath the rim of his mask.

“Leave him to the Croucher!” he said quietly.

“Yes. Leave everything to me,” laughed a voice from the doorway, and the velvet-garbed figure of the Croucher, his face completely covered by the folds of his sable mask, strode into the room.

“My friends,” he said, seating himself at the head of the table, “very soon we will have London at our mercy, and we can proceed with the plans I outlined to you. The police are already demoralised. The removal of that gadfly, Maynard, has given the Press something to think about. To-night, Sir Bichard Gilbert and Mr. Nicholas New will also be removed, and then——”

Very slowly he closed his claw-like hand.

“The Croucher squeezes, and all London is his orange.”

“Eh bien!” drawled Duval. “And meanwhile?”

“Meanwhile,” said the Croucher, and his baleful eyes turned full upon Ambrose Ertz, “a little disciplinary action must be taken against friend Ertz here. I am afraid he forgot the respect due to a lady in whom I am—very—interested.”

The last three words were slowly emphasised, and Ertz shivered with fear as he read death in the eyes that glittered so evilly behind the Croucher’s mask.

Chapter 8

KEMMY, THE FENCE

“IT’S all nonsense, of course, but because it’s nonsense I believe it!”

Nick New, seated at his desk at Scotland Yard, stared sombrely at three strips of metal that lay on the blotting-pad before him.

It was nearly 9 p.m.

Six hours had elapsed since he had discarded the unsavoury role of Limehouse Louie—a role he had often assumed when in the East End during the preliminary skirmish of Scotland Yard’s warfare against the Croucher before that arch crook had actually come into the limelight. Nick had spent a strenuous afternoon. His methods of procedure, as the commissioner had remarked, were appallingly unorthodox, but Nick cared little so long as they worked. It was an axiom of his, and he had proved it on countless occasions, that life was infinitely ahead of fiction in providing bizarre problems. The old proverb that “truth is stranger than fiction,” Nick amplified—truth is harder to believe than fiction, for fiction is a product of the human mind, and therefore congenial to it, whereas life is always incalculable.

He had, in his odd fashion, rejected, for no earthly reason except that it was plausible, his first theory that the enigmatic Li Sin had slipped the Croucher’s ominous warning in his pocket.

That left two persons excluding the waiter of the restaurant who might have done it. Dorothy Somerville—or Shifty Lee.

On the face of it each alternative was nonsensical; but Nick took a chance, and by taking it immediately obtained a different orientation towards the case. Red Hanlon was in touch with the Croucher somehow. From that point Nick’s whimsical brain was attracted to the man whose name sounded like a sneeze. The nonsensical element in that fact appealed to him, and he spent a pleasant, but unprofitable half-hour with a telephone directory searching for a lawyer whose cognomen might apply. He tried a dozen with little result, and in disgust joined Meadows, who was making a detailed report of the outrage at the commissioner’s flat.

Sir Richard himself had long since departed for his very exclusive club, and General Dale was dining with a member of the Government—so Nick’s hands were untrammelled.

The actual notes on the yellow paper which the Croucher affected yielded very little information in the way of fingerprints. Not even that expert, Inspector Barlow, could identify the half-dozen smudged whorls which the camera revealed. Beyond the fact that the warnings were all typed on an Underwood portable machine, and that the paper was of German origin, and supplied in large quantities to the leading stationers, Barlow could say nothing with certitude.

Nick himself had interviewed the assistant at the District Messenger office in Southampton Row, but he failed to recall the appearance of the person who paid for the message.

The tangible clues in the detective’s possession were pitifully meagre—the number—untraced—of Li Sin’s motor-car; the fact that Red Hanlon was in some way, unspecified, connected with the Croucher; and the three strips of bent metal which he had discovered among the debris of Sir Richard’s flat after the bomb outrage.

Nick picked them up from his blotting-pad, and his eyes narrowed. Fantastic and improbable though his theory was, there was that streak of oddity in his character that impelled him to reject the obvious and concentrate on the subtle.

For a moment or two he examined the strips through a magnifying-glass, then his lips set in a firm, decisive line as he swept them into the drawer of his desk and locked it.

“And now for Mr. Red Hanlon,” he murmured, patting his hip pocket, where his automatic bulged comfortingly.

The ’phone bell tinkled as he donned his grey felt hat, and with a frown of annoyance he lifted the receiver.

“Is that Inspector New?” demanded a suave voice—one that Nick had heard before. A vein throbbed dully in his forehead as he recognised it, but his tone was quite impersonal as he answered:

“Sure! What can I do for you?”

“Your activities, my dear New,” drawled the voice, “are causing me serious embarrassment. I must ask you to refrain from these wholesale panic measures which the Flying Squad are conducting, otherwise the consequences will be very serious.”

“Indeed?” laughed Nick. “So you are feeling the draught—er—Professor Li Sin?”

He sensed rather than heard the sudden gasp of astonishment at the other end of the wire.

“Your crude methods must cease, Mr. New, otherwise the very charming Miss Somerville will undergo a very unpleasant ordeal——”

“What! You yellow hound!” snarled Nick. “If any harm comes to that young lady, by heaven, I’ll kill you with my own hands!”

“How very interesting,” mocked Li Sin. “At the moment Miss Somerville is quite safe in my care, but——”

He paused significantly, and a gust of rage swept over Nicholas New. Dorothy in the hands of this scheming yellow scoundrel. It was unthinkable. The man was bluffing. With difficulty he controlled himself.

“Listen, Li Sin,” he hissed into the receiver, “I’m going to get you, if I have to tear London to tatters to find you. As for Miss Somerville, I’ll have a treble guard put over her night and day——”

A dry, mocking laugh twanged in the telephone.

“You have an English proverb, I believe, which runs: ‘It is useless to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted.’ Miss Somerville is very well guarded, indeed—by me. She has been a prisoner since six p.m. That, my dear sir, is for your information and necessary action, as the Civil Service so felicitously phrase it.”

For a moment or two Nicholas New was quite speechless. He was stunned by the appalling fact. Dorothy in the hands of the Croucher!

His face was white and strained as he mechanically clicked the receiver to recall exchange, and found, as he expected, that the call had come through from a public call-box in the Blackfriars district.

He pressed a bell-push on his desk and gave curt orders to his sergeant.

“I’m off to Kemmy Marks to trace Red Hanlon,” he announced. “The Croucher’s got Miss Somerville.”

“What!” gasped the astounded sergeant, then fell back hastily at the blazing fury in his superior’s eyes as he strode out of the room.

“ ‘Eaven ’elp Red—and the Croucher!” he muttered piously.

Nick hailed a taxi at the corner of Westminster Bridge, his brain was chaotic. The one fact that hammered incessantly was that Dorothy was in deadly danger. It came over him with a suddenness that was startling, that he loved her. It was the first time he had ever put the thought into words, and to Nicholas, who had always treated the opposite sex with a kind of gay camaraderie, this sudden revelation was disturbing. He ached to hold the girl in his arms, to smash through all the barriers that kept her from him. A fierce primeval passion possessed him; he lusted to fight and pound his way through to her side and claim her as his mate by right of conquest.

He laughed discordantly. “Love is the greatest nonsense in the world,” he muttered as the taxi bowled along the Embankment, the lights gleaming in the darkness like a necklace of amber beads.

It was significant that the phone call had come through from Blackfriars, for in that district, just beyond the Ring, was the hangout of Kemmy Marks, who was ostensibly a marine store dealer, but in reality a fence and receiver of stolen property. According to Shifty, Red Hanlon had dispensed with Kemmy’s services in favour of the lawyer whose name was like a sneeze, but that, Nick argued, was no reason why Kemmy couldn’t put him wise to Red’s new hangout. The more he considered the matter the more promising it seemed. If Red had quarrelled with the old Jew, Kemmy might quite conceivably open up.

He dismissed the taxi at the entrance of the Boxing Ring and plunged into a rabbit warren of alleyways. The houses, mean, brick-built slums, were in the last stages of squalor and dilapidation. Some of the passages were as dark as tunnels, and at the end of one court that rejoiced in the name of Angel’s Rents, Nick New halted.

Ramshackle houses, unlit by any comforting gleam of yellow, were huddled together, like evil hags; from a nearby court came the shrill chatter of guttersnipes at play and the strident voice of some nagging harridan.

His hand sneaked stealthily to his hip as he crossed over towards a frowsy-looking shop. The windows were so grimed with filth that it was impossible to see into the interior. Over the lintel, in faded yellow lettering, was the name “K. Marks,” and in the transom a sickly gas jet flickered.

The Yard man rapped sharply on the rusty knocker, and was rewarded by the sound of shuffling footsteps.

“Whoths there?” quavered a voice through the slit in the letter-box. “Go avay. Bithneth ith over for the day.”

“Open up, Kemmy!” rapped Nick sternly. “It’s me. You’d better open quickly, or I’ll smash the door in!”

Two bleary eyes surveyed him through the slit; then, as if reassured, Kemmy heaved a wheezing sigh.

“Oh, Mithter New! ’Ow you frightened me!” he mumbled. There was a rattle of chains, the squeak of a protesting bolt, and Kemmy revealed himself in all his hideousness.

He was a bent, incredibly dirty old man, with a ragged, matted beard, a nose like a predatory beak, and red-rimmed, bleary eyes, which now blinked suspiciously at Nick.

“Come on inside!” snapped the detective brusquely, leading the way to the filthy little living-room behind the shop. “It depends on how you answer, Kemmy, how I’m going to treat you.”

“Vy, vot do you mean, Mithter New?” demanded Kemmy Marks, with a feigned innocence that was ludicrous in the circumstances.

Nick New wasted no time on formalities. “When did you quarrel with Red Hanlon?” he snapped.

“Red Hanlon?” echoed the fence. “I’m afraid I don’t know vot you’re talking about, Mr. New.”

Nick’s hand shot out, and his fingers gripped the other’s scrawny throat in a throttling grip.

“Listen, Kemmy,” he rasped. “I’ll choke the life out of your filthy carcass if you don’t come across. The verdict’ll be justifiable insecticide,” he added with grim humour.

“Oh, merthy—merthy!” gasped the wretched Kemmy. “I—I’ll tell you anything you want to know within reathon, Mithter New.”

Nick released his grip, and Kemmy collapsed into a rickety chair. The detective dusted his fingers delicately with his handkerchief and rapped out sharply:

“Where does Red Hanlon hang out?”

Kemmy licked his lips furtively, his red-rimmed eyes dropped beneath Nick’s steady stare.

“I ain’t seen him for three months, honeth, I ain’t,” he whined. “The dirty tyke let me down over a deal an——”

“Never mind that. Who’s Red working with now?”

Kemmy glanced suspiciously over his shoulder, then lowered his voice to a whisper.

“They thay he’th running with the Croucher,” he announced. “Don’t athk me who he ith, Mithter New, becauthe I don’t know—nobody knows.”

“H’m!” said Nick thoughtfully. “Has Red pulled any jobs lately? Don’t be squeamish, Kemmy,” he added. “You’ve squealed enough in your time!”

The fence leaned forward, his mean little eyes malevolent with hatred.

“Red’s running around with a girl—she’th sthraight—a barmaid at the Goath’s Head down Frame Road way. Thath’s all I know—and thath’s the whole truth, Mithter New, th’ welp me!”

“Ah!” said Nick, and a triumphant glint came into his eyes. “Red’s got a girl, has he? I know the Goat’s Head. Doesn’t Bruiser Patterson keep the place?”

Kemmy Marks nodded eagerly as the detective rose to his feet.

“For the love of Mike, don’t tell Red you’ve theen me, Mithter New,” he pleaded, laying a skinny claw on Nick’s sleeve.

The detective shook him off with a gesture of disgust.

“Watch your step, Kemmy,” he said significantly “I’ll be round this way again very soon. No, you needn’t bother to see me to the door—I can find my way out!”

Kemmy Marks cursed in his matted beard as the door closed behind his unwelcome visitor.

“Nothy beatht!” he snarled. “I hope the Croucher geth him!”

Meanwhile Nick had quickened his pace. The fact that Red was keen on a girl—and a straight girl at that, if Kemmy was to be believed—was at least a tangible link to his whereabouts. His nose wrinkled in disgust as he plunged into the malodorous squalor of the streets that fronted the riverside.

The Goat’s Head at Frame Street was a public-house of some reputation among the dockers and water-front men, in that its licensee was an ex-welter-weight champion—one Bruiser Patterson. The police had little complaint to make about the place, for the burly landlord ruled his tough customers by the strength of his strong right arm, and woe betide anyone who started any funny business at the Goat’s Head.

Frame Street was about ten minutes’ walk away from Kemmy’s shop, and it was nearly quarter to ten when the detective reached the blazing lights of the tawdrylooking gin palace at the corner.

He walked quickly into the four ale bar with his hands in his pockets. It was crowded, and a babble of voices rose from every corner of the room. The marble counter was sloppy with unwiped beer-stains. A pert-looking barmaid with bobbed, peroxided hair, and a shrill, cantankerous voice dispensed tankards to a crowd of seedy bar loungers.

From the saloon came the raucous strains of an electric piano blaring a Tin Pan Alley tune. Nick ordered a whisky and soda, and manoeuvred his way to a seat in the corner, where he glanced covertly at the bar occupants.

The clientele of the Goat’s Head was like Nick’s whisky, badly mixed. Hulking dock labourers, weedy wharf rats, one or two lascars from docked vessels, and, in the corner, a slant-eyed celestial placidly eating potato crisps. From behind the bar the gigantic torso of Bruiser Patterson loomed threateningly as he roared to a hilarious group of sailors in the corner, “Nah, then! Less noise there, you lot!”

Suddenly Nick’s keen eyes narrowed, and his nerves tingled with excitement. At the other end of the long bar counter, screened by a pot of ferns, was a red-haired, ferretfaced man deep in conversation with a plump and rather good-looking barmaid.

It was Red Hanlon!

Nick glanced at the clock. It wanted a few minutes to closing time, and hastily he formed a plan of action. On the table beside him someone had left a copy of the “Evening News.” He opened it, and pretended to be immersed in its contents, though one eye watched Red’s movements like a hawk.

“Nah, then, Milly!” roared the landlord. “Stop that chin-waggin’, there’s customers waitin’ to be served!”

Nick noticed Hanlon swear under his breath and hastily gulp down his drink. The barmaid flashed him an apologetic smile, showing the glint of a gold tooth. Hanlon muttered a curt “Goodnight,” and slouched out of the bar.

Unobtrusive as a shadow, Nick followed in his wake. He had two courses open to him. One was to tackle Red point-blank—in which case it would undoubtedly mean a fight—the other was to shadow the crook in the hope that he would glean some information about Dorothy. While there were many points in favour of the first course—and it would have given Nick, in his present mood, an unholy joy to pound Red Hanlon’s face into a pulp—it by no means followed that Red would give him any information.

Accordingly, Nick, with a skill born of long practice as a shadower, tailed the unsuspecting crook through the maze of crisscross streets that led to the water-front.

Red slouched along at a fairly rapid pace. He was not drunk, but his gait was unsteady. Once or twice he tripped and swore luridly as he neared the house of Brilliant Ling.

Nick was frankly puzzled about the man’s objective as he plunged deeper into the narrow alleyways, so puzzled that he did not notice a dark figure detach itself from the shadows of a neighbouring timber yard and signal with a peculiar motion of his hands to the other side of the narrow street.

Nick, still intent on his quarry, failed to notice half a dozen dim, shadowy forms converging upon him, until an incautious movement behind him caused him to wheel round suddenly. He glimpsed a yellow, hairless face, a clenched hand that held something bright and glittering, and, quick as the dart of a snake, Nick’s fist shot straight for the other’s jaw. Crack!

Like the sound of mallet on wood, his bunched knuckles slammed home. He laughed exultantly as he heard the other’s howl of pain, but his triumph was shortlived. Even as he turned to square up to his attackers, his legs were suddenly jerked from under him, and then it came without hint or warning—a sudden staggering, numbing blow full on his temple that paralysed his limbs instantly.

Nick’s senses reeled beneath the impact. It sent a great blinding whiteness shooting across his eyes. He was conscious of being almost smothered by sweaty, glistening bodies—there seemed to be myriads of them pressing the life out of him. He groaned and tried to lash out, but found he hadn’t the strength.

He felt himself sinking into a deep pit of darkness—then consciousness left him, as if one had snapped out a switch.

Chapter 9

THE SECRET OF LI SIN

NICK came to with a cracking headache an hour later, though he had lost all sense of time when the first glimmer of consciousness came. He felt as though his head was tied tightly by strands of red-hot wire, and for some seconds he did not move. He found himself in complete and oppressive darkness, and put out a shaking hand that seemed constricted somehow, to touch a cold, slimy wall.

From afar off he could hear a faint drip, drip, and to his hypersensitive nerves it sounded like the drip of blood.

Gradually his brain started to function. He found himself lying on what seemed to be a filthy straw palliasse. Something squeaked in the darkness, and two jewelled eyes watched him unwinkingly. He shuddered as his hand came into contact with something warm, loathsome—and wriggling.

Rats. The cellar was full of them.

Desperately he struggled to his feet—only to realise that his legs were pinioned, and he laughed discordantly as something jingled at his wrists. He had been handcuffed with his own bracelets!

Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps that seemed to be descending a stone stairway. Whoever it was, he was approaching cautiously, a step at a time. The footstep grew louder, and a little later there was a rasp of a key in the lock and the door began to open slowly.

A second later Nick was almost blinded by a ray from an electric torch that cut through the darkness like a sword.

“Ah! You have recovered consciousness. Mr. New?” said a voice that Nick had not heard before. “That is excellent.”

“Who are you?” snarled Nick. “And where am I?”

“Ah! True to type,” said the newcomer. “They call you ‘Nosey’ affectionately at the Yard, I understand; your thirst for knowledge shall be slaked very soon.”

Nick struggled up to a sitting position, and in the rays of the torch made out three figures—each one was garbed in evening dress, and a black domino masked their faces.

“What have you done to Miss Somerville, you—villains?” he demanded wrathfully.

“By heck! If you’ve harmed a hair of her head, I’ll——”

“Miss Somerville is quite safe, my dear sir. She has a charming room, plenty to eat and drink—in fact, everything she wants except liberty, and that, unfortunately, she cannot obtain until—er—certain formalities are completed.”

Nick groaned helplessly as he gassed at his manacled wrists. What his immediate fate was to be he did not much care, but he writhed at the thought of Dorothy alone and helpless in the hands of the Croucher.

“I suppose you know that all three of you’ll hang!” he said, with an ugly little smile. “You’ll take a very short walk at eight o’cock one morning, my friends—and none of you’ll ever come back from that walk. A good, clean wind will whistle between your feet and the earth——”

“Drop that, dash you!” snarled Ambrose Ertz with a threatening gesture. His nerves were all on edge. It was only the news of Nick’s dramatic capture that had saved him from the Crouchers wrath.

Three of the outside guard of Brilliant Ling’s house had noticed Nick shadowing the unsuspecting Hanlon, and acted. Although he did not know it, the detective was now actually in a cellar of the Croucher’s headquarters, having been brought there while still unconscious by two of Ling’s dope runners through the maze of passages that honeycombed the place.

“Better drag him upstairs, Ertz,” said Duval. “The Croucher’s keyed up to-night.”

“Ah!” said Nick. “So you are the missing link, Ertz. I’ve searched for you with the painstaking devotion of a Darwin, and rejoice to note you’re almost human.”

“Funny, aren’t you?” snarled Ertz. “You’ll laugh the other side of your face when the Croucher’s finished with you.”

“Ertz—Ertz. It really does sound like a sneeze,” said Nick. “Good theme for a nonsense rhyme, too. There’s a curious creature called Ertz, who bluffs and bamboozles and blurts——”

SMACK!

Ertz’s open hand caught Nick full on the mouth.

“Stop that!” he snarled, stung by the detective’s maddening coolness.

Nick’s eyes blazed, but he kept his temper.

“I’ll remember that blow, Ertz,” he said quietly, “when I am not hampered by these.”

He jingled the steel handcuffs significantly.

“Are you going to come quietly? I believe that is the formula you use,” asked Duval, with an exaggerated bow. “The Croucher is very anxious to see you.”

“And I also reciprocate,” said Nick, with a grim smile. “Please lead the way, gentlemen. My steps are somewhat restricted,” he added, with a glance at the rope which barely enabled him to walk.

“It’s not far, buddy,” drawled the third man, who had hitherto remained silent. Nick noticed the American accent, and his head whirled as he rose to his feet.

What fantastic fate was in store for him? Above all, how and where was Dorothy?

The dank stone stairs were climbed in silence. To Nick’s ears came the sound of muffled hammering, and it grew louder as they advanced along a vaulted corridor. Suddenly Ertz paused before a large wooden door and inserted a key in the lock. It swung soundlessly open on well-oiled hinges, and Nick found himself half pushed and half-dragged into a high, vaulted room lit by a sputtering arc-lamp.

The whole room was bare of furniture save for a horseshoe-shaped table at which sat three masked men, immobile as statues. There was something sinister about the very bareness of that vaulted room, and the harsh light from the arc irradiated the scene with a chill, bluish glare.

Nick hardly knew what to expect the Croucher’s headquarters to be like. He was half-prepared for luxury, even for squalor, but this bare, austere room, devoid of all comfort, was like some monstrously enlarged prison-cell.

Suddenly one of the masked figures rose to his feet. Nick noted that he alone was garbed in a black velvet cloak, and his heart quickened its beat.

The Croucher at last!

For fully half a minute no one spoke.

Ertz, Duval, and Roscoe the American sat down in silence. Nick stood, manacled hands in front of him, gazing steadily at the motionless figure of the Croucher.

Then suddenly the tension was broken.

“You have given me a great deal of trouble, Mr. New,” said the Croucher quietly, in his curiously sibilant voice. “People who annoy me do not do so for long,” he added. “Mr Maynard of the ‘Daily Clarion’ annoyed me; he is dead. Sheeny MacGuire might have annoyed me; he also is dead. Larry the Wop, poor fool, thought he could identify me; he also died under that delusion.”

“As for you, Mr. Nicholas New—tell me frankly what my fate would be, assuming our present roles were reversed, and I was your captive.”

“You would be hanged by the neck until you were dead,” said Nicholas calmly, “and I doubt if the Lord would have mercy on your black soul!”

The Croucher laughed mockingly.

“Very well, Mr New. Such frankness merits a reward. Voila!”

He reached forward and pressed a switch in the wall. Instantly a doorway to the right sprang open, revealing a small room about twelve feet square.

The room was quite devoid of furniture, and Nick saw there was something curiously familiar about the bare, whitewashed walls, the two upright beams spanned by one crossbar, from which dangled a hempen rope. There was a steel lever jutting from the floor.

“My God! The gallows!” he gasped.

“Precisely,” laughed the Croucher. “An exact replica of the execution-shed at Pentonville. You, my dear New, shall have the honour of being its first victim. There are many more that will follow you in the near future.”

With a prodigious effort of will, Nick managed to restrain himself. He had a wild, insensate idea of hurling himself, manacled as he was, and battering the life out of the suave, cold-blooded villain, but realised that the struggle would be worse than useless.

“Then literally as well as metaphorically you live in the shadow of the gallows,” he remarked flippantly.

“Do you seriously imagine that you are going to hang me—as you yourself will be hanged one day?” he turned to the Croucher.

“I do not imagine,” was the reply. “I know. Ten minutes from, now, Nicholas New, the quicklime will be searing the flesh from your bones. Have you any message you would like to convey to Miss Somerville? She is within call and quite comfortable, so do not worry on her behalf.”

“You darned scoundrel!”

Nicholas’ pent-up rage burst out. He hurled himself forward, bound as he was, but Ertz and Duval seized him ere he could reach the master-crook. Quivering with passion, Nick turned to the Croucher and said thickly:

“It’s—it’s—usual to grant one boon to the condemned. May I see her for two minutes? I—I have something I particularly want to tell her before——” He broke off hastily as his eye fell on the sinister, dangling noose.

“It is a reasonable request,” said the Croucher slowly. “You may certainly speak to her—and see her, but in my presence.”

So saying, he signalled to one of the masked men and whispered a few words, too low for Nick to catch.

“Of course, Mr New,” he resumed when the man had gone, “you have only yourself to blame tor this distressing finish to a very promising career. You know too much. You cannot say you have not been warned to cease your activities against my organisation.”

“I am afraid it is now too late to proceed with the plan I first contemplated—namely, to ask you to join us.”

“Join you!” said Nicholas, and his voice was icy with contempt. “I’d sooner hang—there.”

He pointed to the dangling noose.

“Quite,” said the Croucher dryly. “You shall. Meanwhile, of course, I may say I have a very great regard for Miss Somerville——”

He broke off suddenly as the door opened and Dorothy, accompanied by the masked man, entered the room. The girl’s face was wan and pale, dark circles showed beneath her eyes, and she gave an involuntary cry as she recognised Nick.

He made a half-step towards her, but was checked by the Croucher.

“Oh, Nick! They’ve got you, too!” she gasped huskily.

His pulses thrilled at her use of his Christian name. How desperately he longed for her, and how ironic the situation! Even in his present plight the sense of the bizarre influenced him.

“Keep a stiff upper lip, dear,” he said quietly. “It—it’ll work out right in the end, you know,” he added lamely.

“You—you—wanted to tell me something ‘particularly,’ ” said Dorothy quietly.

She ignored the others completely. It was as if they did not exist.

Nick read the message in her eyes, which were wet with tears, and, reading it, felt that death somehow would be easier now he knew.

“And I, too, Dorothy,” he said very quietly.

The Croucher chuckled satirically.

“Very affecting indeed! It’s a pity young Maynard isn’t here to chronicle the latest romance of Scotland Yard—but one of very short duration,” he added with a sneer.

“You always were fond of melodrama, my dear Croucher,” broke in a cool voice. “Perhaps this will appeal to you. Put ’em up. They both spit death!”

Nick’s jaw gaped open. As if by magic, two squat, vicious-looking automatics had appeared in the hands of the masked man who had brought down Dorothy from the Lacquer Room. And the hands were yellow!

One gun pointed at the Croucher’s heart; the other covered his dumbfounded accomplices. For a second or two no one spoke, then a strangled snarl tore from the Croucher’s throat.

“Li Sin! You yellow scum! Have you gone mad?” he demanded harshly.

“On the contrary, I am perfectly sane. If you don’t elevate your hands before I count three, I shoot to kill,” he said, with slow, sibilant emphasis.

“You cursed double-crossing Chink!” broke out Ertz, with a vile oath. “I’ll——”

CRACK!

Calmly, imperturbably, Li Sin fired as the maddened man rushed towards him. With a squeal of agony Ertz cowered back, holding a shattered wrist.

“Back, you dogs!” rasped the Chinaman. “Miss Somerville, if you will kindly slip your hand into my waistcoat pocket you will find the key to Inspector New’s handcuffs—and quite probably another small automatic.”

Like one in a daze, Dorothy stared at the speaker. Her brain was reeling at the suddenness of this unexpected denouement. Nick’s urgent voice impelled her forward, however.

“Hurry, darling!” he pleaded.

Feverishly she groped in the Chinaman’s pocket. He stood there, calm, imperturbable as a statue, while the chill menace of his guns cowed the others into immobility. Her fingers fumbled nervously as she tried to insert the key into the handcuffs. Nick smiled reassuringly at her, there was a slight click, and his hands were free.

She thrust a small, nickel-plated gun into his hand, and Nick’s heart leapt exultantly.

“And now, you murderous fiend,” he ejaculated, turning to face the masked master-crook. “Let’s see your ugly mug!”

Hampered as he was by his still pinioned legs, Nick approached the Croucher, who backed away hastily, arms upraised from the menacing purpose in the detective’s face.

“Keep back, curse you!” snarled the Croucher. “Ertz, Duval, you spineless fools, why don’t you rush ’em?”

“They have too wholesome a regard for their own skins,” chuckled the imperturbable Li Sin.

Nick’s left hand shot out like a darting snake, straight for the Croucher’s face. He tore off the sinister black domino. A scream rose involuntarily from Dorothy Somerville’s lips. She recognised in the sputtering glare of the mercury lamp the hate-distorted features of Sir Richard Gilbert, the retiring Commissioner for Scotland Yard!

For one split second she saw it, and then suddenly there was a loud explosion, followed by the crash of breaking glass, then a holocaust of roaring darkness.

Chapter 10

THE RATS OF THE RIVER

THE next few minutes were like a glimpse of inferno to the girl.

Vicious tongues of flame spat through the darkness, followed by the staccato crack of automatics. She heard the clang of an iron shutter, the sound of men struggling furiously, their breath coming in frenzied gasps. She stumbled blindly to keep out of the way of the scuffling figures that blundered against her, and shuddered as she heard the sickening sound of a revolver butt smashing against a skull.

“Nick! Oh, Nick !” she gasped. “Where are you?”

“This way, darling. Stay by me,” said a voice from the gloom, and a firm, strong arm circled her waist. Her body seemed to grow suddenly limp. She was hardly conscious, and allowed herself to be half-dragged, half-carried away from the struggling melee in the centre of that vast and vault-like room.

“Lights! Curse you! Where are the lights?” she heard a hoarse voice bellow.

CRASH!

Someone had blundered into the horseshoe table, and a man cursed luridly. Something whistled unpleasantly close to Dorothy’s ear and phutted viciously into the wall just above her head.

“Don’t worry, dear,” said a voice soothingly. “I’ve got you safe—at last!”

She struggled violently as she felt the man’s arm tighten around her.

“You’re not Nick!” she screamed. “Help, Nick! Help!”

She sickened as she felt the hot breath of the man fanning her cheeks, and fought like a wild-cat to escape from his embrace. Her nails scored his bearded face in a vicious scratch that drew blood, but the Croucher laughed exultantly.

“In here, my little spitfire!” he said hoarsely. “The gallows can be an exit to life, as well as death!”

She was powerless. Struggle as she might, she realised that her strength was ebbing away, ebbing away. Dimly she realised that the sound of the fight in the vaulted room had grown fainter. Hope died, and with it consciousness.

Faintly from behind the steel door of the execution-room came the hoarse voice of Nicholas New calling the girl by name. The Croucher’s sensual lips parted in a vulpine snarl as he gently lowered the girl on to the gallows some distance away from the fatal trap. His strange eyes glowed in the darkness like, those of a beast of prey as he fumbled for the lever.

He pressed hard upon it, and the hinged doors fell soundlessly on well-oiled hinges. From below came the sluggish, oily lap of the river. The Croucher groped in his pocket for a torch, and snapped it on. Hastily but methodically he uncoiled the ominous noose that dangled from the crossbar of the gallows and bound it round the girl’s waist.

He placed two fingers to his lips and blew a soft, peculiar whistle.

From the murky depths below it was answered, and he bared his teeth into a mirthless grin. Evidently the outer guard on the rotting jetty that fronted the river were not aware of the melee upstairs. It was all to the good.

“Pietro!” he called softly. “Pietro! Quick, the launch!”

Far below he heard the sudden scurry of footsteps, and into the circle of his torch a squat, evil-visaged figure shambled. It was Pietro, the outer guard to the riverside exit of the house of Brilliant Ling. Only in cases of grave emergency had the Croucher ever used that exit so cunningly hidden from the keen eyes of the Thames Police.

“Quick—the launch!” he hissed. “Hurry, you fool! Tell Mathers to stand by for an extra passenger—a woman!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” croaked the other hoarsely. “There’s bad trouble in Lych Street. The Flying Squad is——”

“Curse the Flying Squad!” snarled the Croucher. “Stand by for the girl.”

Gently he lowered Dorothy’s unconscious body through the dark aperture above the river. A ladder led from the jetty below to the foot of the improvised gallows. Pietro, accompanied by another man, lifted their still inanimate burden, and the Croucher heaved a sigh of relief as he heard the subdued chug-chug of the motor launch.

He was just about to descend the ladder when there came a thunderous knocking at the steal shutter that separated the room of death from the vaulted chamber.

“Knock away, you fool!” grinned the Croucher. “It’ll take you half an hour to batter down that door.”

Hand over hand he lowered himself down until he reached the improvised jetty built right beneath the gaunt and apparently derelict warehouse. He stood in the shadows, an evil, satanic figure, with his long black cloak flapping about him like the wings of a monstrous bat, while Pietro and Mathers carried Dorothy into the waiting launch.

It was characteristic of the man that, even when the closely guarded secret of his amazing double life had been so dramatically revealed, and the hounds of the law were hot on his heels, his actions were calm and unflurried. He issued orders curtly to his henchmen, and it was proof of his utter callousness and ruthlessness that spared no thought to his five lieutenants, nor cared whether they were alive or dead.

Meanwhile, Nicholas New, with a gash in his temple and a cold, smouldering fury in his heart, pounded vainly with the butt of his empty automatic on the steel door of the execution-chamber. Events had happened with such bewildering rapidity in the past five minutes that he scarcely realised what he was doing. Since the sputtering arc-lamp had exploded into a myriad fragments he had been fighting literally and metaphorically in the dark.

It was not until later that he was to learn that the Croucher had been prepared for every emergency, and that when the master-crook cowered back in apparent fear when Nick tore off his mask, it was to reach for the switch in the wall which would automatically blow up the lamp. Hobbled as he was, Nick had been hampered in the general melee that followed that abrupt change from dazzling light into complete blackness. He had fallen sprawling over a chair, and gashed his temple against the concrete floor.

When he had regained his breath it was to find pandemonium raging around him. He lashed out indiscriminately with his fists, and felt a fierce joy as his knuckles slammed home into the writhing bodies of his opponents. Dorothy’s scream for help turned him into a raving tornado of fury. He kicked and smashed his way in her direction, only to realise with a sob of despair that the Croucher had succeeded in slamming down the steel shutter, and that the girl was gone.

Li Sin, meanwhile, that cool and enigmatic individual, had not been idle. He seemed to have the peculiar feline quality that went with his catlike gait of being able to see in the dark. As Duval blundered towards him in a mad rush of blind fury he calmly reversed his gun and smashed down the butt on his skull. Duval fell like a log. Ertz, with his crippled arm, moaned feebly in the corner. All the fight had gone out of him. Nick himself had accounted for Roscoe with his first savage onslaught, and the American, blissfully oblivious of everything, sprawled face downward on the floor. Of the fifth man, Brilliant Ling, there was no trace. That wily Oriental had no stomach for a fight at such close range, and had taken a hurried refuge in the passage that led to the Lacquer Room in which Dorothy had been kept prisoner.

“CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!”

Nick pounded a hail of blows on the steel doors of the execution-chamber, and bellowed to Li Sin to bring a light.

Calmly and imperturbably the Chinaman switched on his electric torch and approached Nick. Not a trace of emotion or excitement appeared on his lemon-hued features.

“I’m afraid it will take some time to batter that down, my dear inspector,” he drawled. “In the meantime it would be as well to attend to our prisoners.”

“But I tell you the Croucher’s got Miss Somerville,” groaned Nick. “Is there any exit this way?”

The Celestial shrugged.

“I believe it leads to the river. As, however, I took the precaution of having a police cordon drawn round the place, I doubt if he’ll get very far.”

Nick New stared in astonishment at the Oriental.

“In heaven’s name, who are you?” he demanded.

“I have already introduced myself once, inspector. Professor Li Sin, one-time chief of police in Pekin—at present attached for special duty at the Home Office.”

“Jumping Jehosophat!” ejaculated Nick blankly. “And I once thought you were the Croucher!”

The Chinaman laughed softly. His eyes were inscrutable.

“Later, I will explain,” he remarked. “Meanwhile, I think I hear our friend Meadows, of the Flying Squad. His arrival is most propitious.”

There was a clatter of footsteps in the corridor, and a moment later what seemed like an avalanche of blue-clad figures surged into the vaulted room, headed by the burly, bull-necked Meadows.

Nick smiled wanly at Meadows’ blank astonishment when his gaze fell on the scene of the holocaust.

Duval lay spreadeagled at the foot of the table. Near him, Roscoe groaned hollowly, while Ertz whimpered in the corner, holding his splintered wrist.

“Pull ’em all in, Bill!” said Nick. “They’re a mixed bag, but I’m sorry the Croucher isn’t among ’em.”

Meadows whistled.

“Great Mike! It seems to have been a fierce scrap while it lasted,” he ejaculated. “Where’s the Croucher got to?”

“I don’t know,” announced Nicholas New grimly. “But I’m not letting up till I’ve got him—dead or alive.”

• • • • • •

A hunched, squat figure in glistening oilskins gripped the wheel of the Croucher’s speedy motor launch, the Yellow Queen. Heading downstream, her slim nose sheared the waters of the turgid Thames like a knife. The night was pitch dark, black as the belly of a wolf, and like a wolf himself the Croucher sat in the cabin, his smouldering eyes watching the slim figure of the girl on the tiny bunk. A vein throbbed dully in his white, smooth forehead. It was the one sign of emotion he showed—but the strain of the past half-hour was beginning to tell. Ahead of them lay the Pool of London, the Tower Bridge loomed massive in the dank river mist, and beyond, if his luck held, lay the open sea.

The Croucher’s slim fingers beat a tattoo on his knee, a devil’s tattoo of impatience—and suspense. None knew better than Sir Richard Gilbert, ex-commissioner of Scotland Yard, how well the London river was patrolled by the Thames Police, known by crooks and colleagues alike as the River Rats. If he was to get through at all, he would have to rely upon bluff. His thin lips pursed thoughtfully. Did anyone but Nicholas New and that yellow traitor, Li Sin, know that the commissioner and the Croucher were one and the same person?

He had guarded the secret well, he reflected. Placing that bomb in his own flat had been a masterpiece of ingenuity. The threatening letters, too, had all been part of his scheme to hamper and terrorise the police, to confuse the issues, and keep their attention away from himself.

He smiled reminiscently.

The “Daily Clarion’s” demand for a clean up at Scotland Yard was certainly justified, but not even the acute Maynard had suggested the real truth, that the chief of the London police was also hand in glove with the chief crooks of the underworld. But now the mask was off! It was bound to happen eventually, of course, he mused. His resignation was a mere prelude to the future he had planned for himself three years ago. Nicholas New had merely accelerated the issue, that was all.

His brooding eyes studied the girl who lay on the bunk, and he stroked his beard complacently.

Once at sea, his yacht, the Spindrift, would carry him to freedom and to luxury in that South American State of Torridor—from which there was no extradition. He had planned well and cunningly. Not for him the beggarly pension of a retiring Civil Servant. Well over half a million pounds, the proceeds of blackmail and dope running, lay to his credit under another name in an American bank.

Dorothy Somerville, as if conscious of his brooding gaze, stirred uneasily, and her eyelids fluttered open. For a moment or two she lay there quiescent, then, with a half-strangled scream, she sat up.

“Better, my dear?” said the Croucher, reaching for a silver-topped decanter on the table of his luxuriously-furnished cabin.

Dorothy passed a trembling hand over her throbbing head, and stared at him wide-eyed.

“Sir Richard!” she gasped. “Where am I? What am I doing here?”

The throb of the engines, the snort of the Yellow Queen’s bow as she cleaved her way through the Pool bewildered her. Then in a flash, she remembered. It was fantastic, incredible, but true! Sir Richard, her chief, was the Croucher!

“We are going on a long voyage, little girl,” he said, with a slow, meaning smile. “Far away from the sordid routine of Scotland Yard. I am taking you to a land of lotus eaters and luxury, a land drenched with sunshine, for you were created for love and laughter and life, and not for the soulless routine of the Civil Service.”

“Stop!”

Dorothy’s eyes blazed. She sprang to her feet, and her little hands clenched until the knuckles shone white in the subdued light of the cabin.

“You are mad!” she breathed. “That is the only explanation. Keep your filthy hands away from me!” she added with a shiver, as he loomed over her. “If you don’t give orders to stop this boat, I swear I shall throw myself overboard. I would sooner drown than—than breathe the same air as you, you cold-blooded fiend!”

Sir Richard Gilbert laughed softly.

“Try, my dear. The door of the cabin is locked and bolted. The key is in my pocket. The skipper and mate are my creatures body and soul.”

Dorothy dashed herself frenziedly against the door of the cabin, and gave a groan of despair. It was only too terribly true!

“Now, don’t be a foolish little girl!” he said in a voice that was like a purr. “I would not harm a hair of your head. I love you, Dorothy, have loved you, ever since the day you first brightened the dinginess of Scotland Yard with your presence. Do you realise what it means to be loved by a man like me?”

A fanatical light blazed in his eyes, a proof of his monomania, and Dorothy shuddered.

“A traitor, a murderer!” she gasped. “Keep away from me, you beast!”

With an abrupt change of manner, the Croucher sat down and pressed the lean tips of his fingers together.

“A genius, my dear, a man with too vast a brain, too soaring an ambition to be content to be a mere glorified policeman. The ‘Clarion,’ poor fools, berated me for incompetence—they little dreamed that I know more of crime and criminals than any man alive. I was monarch of all I surveyed—both at Scotland Yard and in the underworld. I know the secret of a hundred unsolved mysteries. I have levied toll on the rich, and on the poor, on the righteous and on the unrighteous. But now I am tired. I want rest—and love. I want you, Dorothy, and by Heaven you shall learn what love can mean. I am not a young, hot-headed stripling, but a man, mature, who can offer you all that a woman craves——”

He broke off suddenly as a thunderous rat-tat-tat sounded at the cabin door. With an exclamation of annoyance he pulled aside a small, latched spy-hole, and saw the cold, piggy eyes of Pietro.

“What is it?” he snarled. “Can’t you get more speed out of this dashed tub? It will be dawn soon, and we must make the Spindrift by——”

“Police boat overhauling us, chief. The engine’s missing badly. Mathers is in a blue funk,” grumbled the other.

The Croucher swore below his breath.

“I’ll deal with the River Rats. Tell that fool to slow down.”

He unlocked the cabin door. A scurry of spray and dark river mist swirled info the cabin.

“Stay there!” he jerked over his shoulder to Dorothy.

He slammed the door shut and locked it, and went on deck.

The spume from the bow wave dashed coldly into his face. The ugly hulk of a tramp loomed to the starboard, and the chug-chug of a Thames Police boat grew louder as a dark shape overhauled them.

The Croucher’s lips set grimly as his keen ears heard the irregular beat of the Yellow Queen’s engines.

Hang the luck! He could easily have outstripped the police boat if that fool Mathers had done his job properly.

“Ahoy there!” bawled a voice through a megaphone. “Launch ahoy!”

“Reverse the engines!” snapped the Croucher. There was only one thing for it. Bluff!

Pietro brought the boat to a rolling halt, and the black, pantherine shape of the T.P. boat creamed alongside.

“What the devil d’you want?” snapped the Croucher. “I am the commissioner of police, and have reason to believe that——”

Crash!

There was a splintering sound of glass, and something fell into the Thames with a loud splash. A second later Dorothy Somerville’s voice screamed for help.

The Croucher ripped out an oath. Dash the girl! She must have smashed the porthole with a decanter or something. His eyes blazed with fury.

“The game’s up, Croucher!” bawled a voice through the megaphone. “Heave to, or by gosh I’ll shoot you where you stand!”

Like lightning the crook’s hand darted for his hip. He could make out a dark figure at the tiller, and, taking careful aim, he fired.

Crack!

The man at the stern collapsed without a cry. Instantly a fusillade of shots rang out from the police boat, and the Croucher darted for cover behind the engine-room just as Pietro fell with a bullet through his lungs.

A black shape hovered for an instant on the gunwale of the police boat, which had nosed imperceptibly nearer the Yellow Queen, then, with an almost soundless splash, slipped into the water. The Croucher, on the port side of the launch, did not see the swimmer approaching. His one thought now was revenge—revenge against the girl who had spoiled his plans. The thin dividing line between reason and madness had snapped, and it was a madman lusting to kill that raced down into the cabin and leapt with scrabbling fingers for the throat of the white-faced girl.

“Curse you!” he rasped, in a queer high-pitched voice. “I might have known! I’m going to kill you, you vixen. If I cannot have you no one else shall!”

Dorothy screamed as she felt those talonlike hands about her throat, but they dug relentlessly into the soft, white flesh. Flecks of foam appeared at the Croucher’s writhing lips. He felt a fierce pleasure in watching the horror and death fear in the girl’s beautiful eyes.

“For—all—men—kill—the thing they love!” he panted breathlessly.

“And the thing they hate, too!” snarled a voice from the doorway, and Nicholas New, dripping, but exultant, hurled himself like a tiger on the murderer. So great was his impetus and so sudden his appearance that the Croucher was taken utterly unawares.

Nick’s left fist shot out with the shattering force of a battering-ram, and the Croucher’s head snicked back with a queer little jerk. His fingers relaxed, and suddenly he collapsed to the floor like a pole-axed ox.

His head moved in a strangely helpless fashion as he crashed like a flower on a broken stalk.

Nick gazed at him for a moment, and his face was white. He was just in time to catch Dorothy as she swayed towards him. She clung to him convulsively, and buried her face against his sodden coat.

“Oh, Nick! My dear, my dear!” she breathed. “I—I knew somehow you’d come!”

Nicholas said nothing. His lips were otherwise engaged.

EPILOGUE

“YOU are old, Uncle Bimbo, the young man averred,

But your brain is uncommonly bright.

And yet you incessantly give me the bird.

Do you think in the circs, it is right?”

Detective Inspector Nicholas New smiled across the dinner table at his uncle. General Sir Martin Dale, the new Scotland Yard Commissioner, as he misquoted one of his favourite nonsense rhymes.

General Dale’s eyes twinkled.

“He’s perfectly incorrigible, Miss Somerville,” he remarked. “This nonsense stuff will be the death of him.”

“It nearly was—once,” said Nick, growing suddenly grave. “If it hadn’t been for Professor Li Sin here.”

Dorothy, a radiant figure in evening dress, smiled shyly at the bland, inscrutable Chinaman, who held one of his eccentric black rice paper cigarettes in his saffron fingers.

A week had elapsed since the Croucher’s end—a week of sensation unparalleled in the history of Fleet Street. A week of hurriedly summoned Cabinet Meetings, of almost hourly conferences at Scotland Yard; since it was announced to an astounded world that the master criminal who had terrorised London was the one-time head of the Metropolitan Police.

Much to Nick’s relief little fuss had been made at the inquest on the body of the Croucher. The coroner, by arrangement with the Home Office, brought in a purely formal verdict of “Death by misadventure.” Only Nick knew that the blow he had struck that wild night on the Yellow Queen was a blow aimed to kill and rid the world of a monster of iniquity.

The “Daily Clarion,” of course, claimed its due share of the credit for exposing the scandal, and General Dale wisely allowed them to have the fullest information about the circumstances, and of his plans for the future.

The dinner to-night at the Hotel Splendide was by way of celebration of the new regime at police headquarters. Public confidence had been restored by the Home Secretary’s frank Statement in the House, and the four people who had been mainly responsible for the roundup of the Croucher’s gang, and the smashing of one of the most dangerous organisations that ever menaced society, were now seated in a private room of the hotel overlooking the river on which the grim drama had been played to its close.

Nick, looking very handsome in his evening kit, gazed with frank adoration at Dorothy, while his uncle glanced meaningly at Li Sin.

“I find, inspector,” drawled the Chinaman, “your methods, though unorthodox, have had a singular element of success. I found it absorbingly interesting to compare how you and myself both arrived at the same conclusion.”

Nick recalled his eyes from Dorothy’s superb profile with a start.

“You certainly fooled me, professor. How the dickens was I to know that Uncle Bim here had advised the Home Secretary to give you a free hand?”

The Chinaman shrugged.

“In the first place, my dear fellow, it had been obvious for months that the Croucher was no ordinary crook. It was also obvious that some leakage of information came from police headquarters. When young Maynard’s Press campaign started, the Cabinet were naturally perturbed, and a successor to Sir Richard Gilbert was looked for. Not, of course, that anyone suspected him of being the Croucher, but simply because they thought a new man at the head might restore public confidence. They sent for your uncle, who, as you know, has had a distinguished career in the Far East as a political officer. He very kindly brought to their notice my unworthy name, as he was convinced that the recrudescence of the dope traffic was of Oriental origin.”

Li Sin paused, and studied the glowing end of his cigarette.

“I have had nearly a lifetime’s experience of narcotic smugglers and their ways in the East,” he resumed. “When it was mooted that I should be given a free hand to attempt to discover the ringleader of the gang, I accepted the offer for your uncle’s sake. He and I were old friends in Pekin.

“It was easier for an Oriental like myself to join the gang than a European.”

Li Sin smiled.

“My ways were certainly dark and devious,” he said in his calm, level voice. “But I don’t think my tricks were vain, Mr. New. Very early on, I realised that the Croucher was constantly in touch with some official in Scotland Yard. This, of course, was long before your uncle’s appointment. By devious methods I managed finally to ingratiate myself into the confidence of Mr. Ambrose Ertz. He took it for granted that I was as crooked as he was, and I allowed him to cherish that delusion.”

Li Sin paused and lit another of his black cigarettes.

“I suspected everyone, my dear fellow, including yourself. Not, may I add, of being the Croucher, but of supplying advance information to him. When, however, your investigations crossed mine, I was seriously embarrassed. At all costs I had to keep up my role and establish confidence with the gang, and your wholesale arrests of minor agents of my own were hampering me considerably.”

“I’m sorry,” confessed Nick. “If I’d known you were working with us, of course——”

“You’d naturally have told your chief, Sir Gilbert,” broke in General Dale. “It was essential that Li Sin should have a free hand until he had irrefutable proof of the Croucher’s identity.”

“What were you doing at Larry the Wop’s the night poor Maynard was killed?” Nick demanded.

“I was there on the same errand as yourself—to find out the Croucher’s identity. Remember, only Ertz, Duval and Brilliant Ling knew it. He held them in the hollow of his hand. I arrived there three minutes after you, and saw through the window that he was done for. One of Ertz’s gang of minor crooks must have killed him, but it was the Croucher himself that shot poor Maynard and tried to shoot you. He boasted of it afterwards. That bomb he placed in his own flat to divert suspicion. Had no attempt been made on his own life, naturally, my dear New, you would have thought it odd, not to say nonsensical.”

“And yet,” broke in Nick, with a laugh, “that’s where he overreached himself. I told you that in nine cases out of ten I reject the plausible and accept the seemingly impossible. Searching Sir Richard’s flat I found in the debris some strips and the battered frame of a portable typewriter. The type keys were by some queer freak undamaged, and, curiously, certain letters corresponded exactly to the malformed ‘r’ and the choked ‘e’ that were so noticeable in the Croucher’s warnings. Immediately—because it seemed so nonsensical that my respected chief should be the Croucher—I believed it. I assure you, my dear Li Sin, one gets extraordinarily refreshing results by my methods.”

“A pity, my dear fellow, you did not believe me when I rang you up to put your mind at rest about Miss Somerville. I told you she was perfectly safe in my hands. I could not be more explicit on the ’phone, but really, your thorough roundups of my stool pigeons and informers were very embarrassing. As a matter of fact, I arrived at Mr Ertz’s office just when that estimable gentleman was—or—making himself unpleasant. I accordingly impersonated the Croucher and myself took her to his headquarters while unconscious—so that no harm would come to her. I dared not take her to the Yard, however, or the Croucher would have suspected. She was under my care the whole time, but the moment was not propitious for the final coup. I wanted the whole gang, and it was a distinct shock to me to find you there. You followed Red Hanlon’s trail, I suppose. The Croucher was uneasy about Hanlon, but, of course, never suspected me!” Li Sin’s sloe black eyes narrowed.

“But, then, no crook ever does,” broke in General Dale, with a laugh. “That’s why you make such a darned good detective, Li Sin.”

Nicholas New laughed.

“What do you think, Dorothy?”

The girl smiled.

“I must admit I was horribly scared of you at first, professor. You—you looked so sinister.”

“A distinct, asset to a detective, my dear Miss Somerville,” laughed the Chinaman.

General Dale cleared his throat and glanced at his watch.

“Bless my soul. It’s almost nine o clock. Nick, my boy, I’ve promised to take the professor to your aunt’s reception. He’ll be bared to tears, of course, but you know what Aunt Araminta is.”

Nick grimaced a little.

“Count Dorothy and me out sir. We’re going to shake a nimble foot at a night club later—that is, if there are any left unraided under your new regime.”

Dorothy’s eyes danced with mischief. In their depths, Nick saw a new light, one that had not been there before that night of peril in the house of Brilliant Ling. He had no need to ask her if she loved him.

Inspector Nicholas knew!

THE END.

THE CROOK CRUSADERS

GWYN EVANS

DRAMATIC LONG NOVEL OF ACTION AND GRIPPING MYSTERY

Chapter 1

GHOSTS OF THE GREY DAWN

“NAH this bloomin’ stretch is over,

No more slabs o’ duff for me.

No more cans o’ watered skilly.

No more margarine for tea.”

Clincher Coke, that melodious man, raised his voice in a valedictory song as he polished for the last time the utensils of his cell and looked approvingly at his battered face reflected in the shining surface of a tin mug.

It was the chill grey hour before the dawn, and the Clincher was up betimes. It was very quiet and still in his bare cell at Pentonworth Gaol, save for the little convict’s tuneless tenor raised in a ribald parody.

The Clincher had got up early for the best of all possible reasons. It was the morning of his release from his fifth lagging, and music seemed indicated.

He glanced round the bare square room in which he had spent the greater part of the last year. He would have no regrets at leaving, and, to show his contempt for authority, he spat very solemnly as a ritual in the four corners of his cell.

Again he raised his voice in song. Some memory of his war service had come back to him.

“When I get my civvie clothes on,

Oh, ’ow ‘appy I shall be——”

“Now then, stop that noise!” called a peremptory voice from the corridor outside, and the flap which covered the Judas hole in the steel door of his cell was suddenly raised.

A grey eye, monstrously magnified, glowered at Clincher Coke.

“Now, then, 431. not so much of it!” cautioned the warder.

The Clincher’s battered face twisted into an ugly grimace. In an hour’s time he would be free. Only an hour to go. It would be a pity to spoil it by back chat, and he gulped down the angry retort that rose to his lips.

Came a jingle of keys, and the door of his cell opened. The “screw” entered and scanned the cell perfunctorily.

“All right, 431,” he said. “Step lively. Ye’ll find your suit at the tailor’s. Get into line, and mind, no talkin’.”

The Clincher nodded. He had long been trained to silence, and he obeyed the warder automatically. He passed along the drear grey corridor of the gaol, and a dozen pairs of jealous eyes watched his passage.

“Good old Clincher! Give my love to the old Bull and Bush,” tailed a hoarse voice from behind a steel grille.

“Fetch us in some ‘snout’ next time you come in!” said another.

“Stop that talking, there!” snapped the warder mechanically.

The Clincher grinned. He had been very careful on this lagging, and not blotted his copy-book. He had earned three months’ remission, and his conduct sheet was marked “V.G.”

The formalities were soon over, only remained the final interview with the prison governor.

There were very few convicts leaving that morning, he learnt. He would not leave the prison entirely penniless, and his mouth watered with delight. The first tiling he would do, once outside those grey gates, would be to catch a tram for Ma Shappiro’s, that benevolent lady, whose “good pull-up for carmen” was the mecca of all released lags.

It was a chill and misty morning. A few curious idlers lounged against the drab prison walls waiting for the gates to open. They spoke in whispers, a grey and melancholy little group dressed in dingy and nondescript clothes. They had a furtive, shifty air about them. One or two pale-faced women shivered and drew their tattered shawls about their thin shoulders.

Suddenly a glittering limousine appeared round the bend of the road, and a stir of interest swept over the little crowd.

In the morning mist their figures were amorphous, like grey ghosts of the dawn against the dreary background of the gaol.

“Lummy, ‘oo’s goin’ ‘ome wiv the toffs?” muttered a weasel-faced little man with an admiring glance at the magnificent saloon car which had drawn up near the prison gates.

The chauffeur, an immobile figure in bottle green livery, stared woodenly ahead of him.

Meanwhile the Clincher grinned cheerfully at himself in a fly-blown mirror, as he donned the waistcoat and jacket of his “civvie” suit, sadly frayed and crumpled after its long incarceration in storage. He was the last of the batch of released prisoners. The governor had spoken a few kindly admonitory words, and in a few moments he would step out to freedom.

The assistant chief warder, a grizzled-haired man, patted the Clincher on his broad shoulders.

“Well, good-bye, Coke, mind you don’t come back again,” he admonished.

“I’ll see that I don’t,” said the Clincher stoutly. “It was sheer bad luck and carelessness that got me here, Mr. Williams. I swear to you that I was——”

“Yes, yes,” broke in the assistant warder gruffly. “You all say that.”

He had grown used to the protestations of injured innocence throughout the years.

The Clincher grinned.

“I don’t mean as ’ow I were innocent,” he said with a touch of bravado. “I were just blamed foolish. Quit the crook game?” he chuckled as if at a huge joke. “Not on yer life, I don’t. Next time I’ll be on Easy Street.”

“You’re a fool, Clincher,” said the warder.

Clincher Coke ran a finger abstractedly over his chin.

“The moths ’ave been at this suit,” he said in an aggrieved tone. “An’, blimey, yer might ’ave seen as ’ow this shirt was ironed. I’m lunchin’ at the Carlton today.”

“Run along—and remember what I’ve told you,” reproved the ward.

“So long,” returned the Clincher. “See yer on the Christmas tree—but not this week.”

With an airy wave of his hand, he quitted the walls of Pentonworth Prison for ever.

“Coke!” said a voice, as the gates clanged behind him.

The Clincher halted suddenly. Before him at the kerb a Rolls-Royce purred. In the cushioned tonneau sat a greyhaired man clad in a dove grey suit. His cleanshaven face was curiously pallid. Beneath his high intellectual forehead and bushy brows, his strangely coloured eyes were piercing and compelling—the eyes of a man born to command. They were agate green in hue, with something of that stone’s cold hardness.

“Well, well,” said the Clincher cheerfully with an approving glance at the saloon. “If this isn’t a bit of all right!”

“Come here, Coke!”

The man in the tonneau lifted a gloved hand and crooked his finger. Clincher Coke hesitated. With a touch of bravado, for the edification of the interested onlookers, he said:

“I suppose you’re from the Prisoners’ Aid Society, or the Salvation Army? Much obliged, but I’ve no intention of runnin’ straight. Choppin’ up firewood an’ sortin’ out noospapers don’t appeal ter me. Besides, my own limmysine’ll be around in a minute or two.”

He made a pretence of glancing at his wrist-watch, and, with an exaggerated accent, said:

“Confound Alphonse! I told him to be here at seven-thirty prompt!”

The white-faced man frowned.

“Get—in—side,” he hissed sibilantly, and swung open the tonneau door.

For the first time the Clincher saw him clearly.

He gave a violent start.

“Coo lummy, it’s you, is it? Blimey, I didn’t recognise yer, Parson!”

“Get in, curse you!” said the other, in strangely unclerical language.

The Clincher’s mouth felt suddenly parched, and a gleam of fear appeared in his shifty eyes.

Without another word, he entered the tonneau. The other man lifted the speaking-tube.

“Dartmoor Gaol,” he said surprisingly.

The chauffeur nodded, and the great grey car glided through the morning mist.

Chapter 2

THE CURIOSITY OF KID DROPPER

IT was the insatiable curiosity of Kid Dropper that first revealed to an incredulous world the existence of that enigmatical individual known as “The Blacker.”

If the Kid had not stayed for a “binder” at a disreputable hostelry, the Goat and Buskin, Dr. Charles Kronin would still be an ornament of the Buckinghamshire Bench, and the bones of his saintly wife would have remained undisturbed in Aylesdon churchyard.

That final drink of the Kid’s was fateful. It was, incidentally, his favourite tipple—a mixture of gin and beer, known to the initiated as “dog’s nose.” It was destined long afterwards to affect the lives of many men, and at least three women. It was responsible for the premature greyness of Mr. Hector McPherson, and cost Bannerton Bruce, the crime reporter of the “Daily Flash,” many sleepless nights.

Detective-inspector Nicholas New, who was fond of speculating on obscure origins, and whose hobby was fantastic statistics, computed that the Kid’s ninepenny drink cost in the long run as many Treasury notes as, placed end to end, would stretch from London to Brighton.

“Of that the reader may judge in its appointed place. The first act in the drama that was to have such sinister and far-reaching results, that was to establish a reign of terror in England and plunge Scotland Yard itself into chaos, opened shortly before eleven o’clock at that aforesaid disreputable hostelry, the Goat and Buskin.

To its regulars it was known simply as Flick’s place. The estimable Mr. Flick had a varied and interesting clientele, which consisted mainly of crooks and detectives. It was here, and at Ma Shappiro’s, in Covent Garden, that the exconvicts made for immediately after their release, in the assurance that they would meet old friends, either of the same profession or belonging to the police.

Scotland Yard tolerated Flick’s place. It was easier to have one or two joints where the crook fraternity could foregather, as they invariably did, than to close up such dubious rendezvous and scatter the queer fish who infest the muddy waters of the underworld.

Kid Dropper, a peter opener of repute, was normally an abstemious man, but tonight he was celebrating the successful busting of a suburban post office in North London. He was flush—and flushed.

When the obese Mr. Flick roared out “Time!” the Kid insisted on a final binder. The landlord sized him up, and stretched a point. Unfortunately, the Kid drank his liquor down too swiftly, with the result that his homeward-bound journey was erratic, and, to use the expressive nautical metaphor, he sallied home in the night breeze, “three sheets in the wind.”

He found himself, for no apparent reason, some time later seated on the steps of a modest fronted brown stone house in Duke Street.

He blinked stupidly, and found that he was clutching something cold and hard. It felt like a bottle, and he smiled foolishly as he raised it shakily to his lips.

He swore softly as he realised that it was an empty milk bottle he had been nursing. He lurched to his feet.

Somewhere a distant clock chimed two.

Kid Dropper shivered. He was cold, peevish, and still a little dazed. The night was very quiet. The rumble of traffic had died down, only the hoot of a belated taxi disturbed the quietude of Duke Street.

Kid clutched the railings and blinked blearily towards the portico. It would be an easy matter, he reflected, to shin up with the aid of a convenient stack-pipe and have a “look see,” but he shook his head mournfully. He wasn’t feeling quite steady enough.

It was at that moment that he heard the purr of an advancing motor-car. Instinctively he crouched back in the shadows. The limousine drew up within a few yards of him, and the Kid watched from his vantage point.

He drew in his breath sharply. In the yellow rays of the street lamp he recognised the short, stocky figure of the liveried chauffeur as he hurried down to open the tonneau door.

He whistled softly.

“S’trewth, it’s the Clincher!”

He recognised an old prison crony of his whom he had not seen for over two years.

“Now wot the dooce is the Clincher’s game,” he muttered, as he saw the other open the door with a flourish and stand respectfully to attention.

The next moment all curiosity regarding the Clincher had given way to astonishment as he saw the tall figure that descended from the car.

It was that of a man in full evening dress with a silk-lined opera cloak hanging in graceful folds from his shoulders. But it was not the sartorial magnificence that brought the gasp to the Kid’s lips. It was the fact that the stranger’s face was masked by a deep white domino.

There was something bizarre about that white mask beneath the black opera hat.

The Clincher closed the door of the car while White Mask rapidly mounted the steps of the house and inserted a key in the lock.

“That’ll be all, Coke,” Kid heard him say. “I shan’t need you any more tonight, but stand by the ’phone in case I have a call in the morning.”

The Clincher touched his cap, took his seat at the steering-wheel, and drove off.

The Kid’s curiosity was aroused. Had the Clincher swallowed the anchor, he wondered, using the crook’s expressive idiom for going straight? It was hardly like the Clincher. Who was the guy in the white mask? He looked one of the up and ups.

There was still enough alcohol left in the Kid’s system to make him reckless. He glanced up at the portico again, and a sudden decision came to him. The “look see” promised to be interesting.

He peered cautiously to right and left of Duke Street. There was not a soul in sight. In the distance the ruby glow of the limousine’s tail lamp grew faint, and vanished.

“Here goes!” said the Kid.

Carefully he replaced the useless milk bottle on the step, and, with the agility of a monkey, hoisted himself up by the aid of the stack-pipe to the top of the pillared portico. A little breathless, he paused. An oblong of yellow light appeared suddenly in a window to the left.

He had no very clear idea what he was going to do. Curiosity had always been the Kid’s besetting sin. Was White Mask a crook, or was he a gent back from one of these fancy dress masked dances, or something?

The house looked as if it contained valuables. The Kid crouched down on the portico and waited, debating with himself as to his next move.

After five minutes, very cautiously he lifted his hand and tried the catch of an oval window above the porch. He noticed there were no burglar alarms. He glanced over his shoulder to the left, and saw a shadow on the blind. It was that of a man taking off his collar and tie.

The Kid grinned to himself.

“ ’E’ll be in by-byes soon, an’ then——”

He composed himself to wait. Ten minutes passed, then suddenly the light was extinguished. The Kid waited another seven minutes before making a move, then very cautiously he withdrew a peculiar thin-bladed knife from his pocket. With the ease born of long practice, he snicked back the hasp of the oval window, and, flashing on a minute electric torch, saw that it gave on to a landing.

He dropped, noiseless as a cat, on his rubber-soled shoes, and listened intently.

Kid Dropper was a practised hand. His first object was to secure a means of escape.

Softly he tiptoed downstairs, and found himself in a narrow passageway, in which two doors, leading to a kitchen and small sitting-room, were situated.

He saw a further door beyond which gave on to an asphalted yard, and, with a suppressed chuckle, he drew back the hasp. All was set for his getaway if it came to a show down.

Very slowly he ascended the stairs again. The house was intensely still. Evidently White Mask had retired for the night.

With great precaution Kid Dropper turned the knob of a door and flashed in his torch. He saw a comfortably furnished study. A dying fire flickered in the grate illumining the gold bindings on the bookshelves, and a massive steel safe set in an alcove in one corner of the room.

The crook’s eyes sparkled. He noticed that there was a second door between the bookshelves, and he tiptoed towards it and very gingerly turned the handle.

Suddenly he started back with an oath, and his face went ashen as a dazzling blaze of light temporarily blinded him.

Facing him, half-dressed in shirt and trousers, was the figure of a man in a white mask. In his hand there glinted a squat, ugly automatic. His voice came crisply:

“Up with them—quick!”

The menacing round bore of the gun sobered Kid Dropper instantly. He licked his dry lips and glanced round like a cornered rat. The room was evidently a dressing-room, he noted subconsciously, judging by the six-sided bevelled mirror above a marble-topped dressing-table and the wardrobe crammed with miscellaneous clothes.

Sheepishly he raised his hands to the ceiling, and his mind worked quickly. He had earned his soubriquet because of his speed and stealth in dropping not only on his feet but anyone who came up against him. It was a bit difficult, however, to adopt his usual tactics menaced by that unwavering automatic.

He temporised.

“All right, guv’nor, it’s a cop. S’welp me, I wouldn’t ‘ave done it if it ‘adn’t——”

“Ah, spare me the usual whining story of a large wife and larger family,” snapped the other.

Behind the slits of his white mask his eyes glittered hard and malignant.

“Your name is Dropper, is it not?” continued White Mask. “You served three years’ penal servitude for robbery with violence.”

“I—I——” mumbled the unhappy crook.

“Don’t lie!” snarled the other. Then, suddenly changing his tone: “Who put you up to this?” he demanded harshly. “No tricks now, and remember I can drop you where you stand and the law won’t touch me.”

The Kid’s jaw sagged.

His cunning brain strove to cope with the situation. If he got lagged this time it would mean five years P.D. as a habitual criminal on top of the sentence for burglary. It was a desperate risk, but Kid Dropper took it.

“That’s right, guv’nor,” he said, shrugging his shoulders with assumed nonchalance. “I dunno ’oo yer are, but——”

Like a coiled spring released, he leapt suddenly and swiftly forward. One hand clutched the other’s right wrist. So sudden was his momentum that White Mask was taken for an instant off his guard.

The Kid thrust out a knee behind the other’s legs, and his left hand scrabbled for the other’s throat. He miscalculated, however. His fingers caught the mask, and it was ripped from the other’s features.

With an oath, the man grappled desperately with Kid Dropper. Suddenly the Kid glimpsed the face that had been hidden beneath the mask, and his blood turned to ice.

“My heaven!” he gasped. “It’s—it’s——”

He could not finish the sentence. Panic gripped him as he saw the horror which the mask had hidden.

“Yes, my friend,” laughed the other. “You are the first and last person who has pierced the Blacker’s secret. You can carry your knowledge with you.”

Plop!

Came a dull muffled report of an automatic equipped with a silencer, an acrid smell of burning cordite, and Kid Dropper dropped for the last time and lay very still on the Persian rug.

The Blacker gazed down at the corpse, then coolly stepped over to the dressing-table. From it he took up half a dozen sheets of white blotting-paper. He was very fond of that Persian rug.

Chapter 3

MR. DIBNEY IS DELIGHTED

P.-c. WILLIS buttoned the flap of his oilskin cape and continued his lonely patrol of Mitcham Common. It was a cold and drizzly morning, and the constable, who was young and disillusioned, reflected bitterly that Gilbert’s famous dictum about a policeman’s lot was grossly understated.

The rain trickled in annoying rivulets from his helmet as he strode manfully over the damp grass of the common. He halted suddenly by a gorse bush whose yellow flowers were a gay and golden challenge to the grey drizzle. It was not, however, the aesthetic value of the gorse bloom that arrested P.-c. Willis, but the glimpse of a very shiny lemon-hued boot with a crepe rubber sole and a trousered leg that protruded from the base of the bushes.

The constable strode towards it. It was not likely that some tramp was enjoying the amenities of the common in that dreary drizzle, and the boot looked too new and expensive, in any case, to belong to a vagrant.

P.-c. Willis stooped down—then gasped. He saw what the golden-crested gorse hid—it was the body of a man clad in an inconspicuous suit of navy blue. Judging by the condition of the sodden suit—and other things—the body had been lying there for some time.

P.-c. Willis pushed back the prickly branches of the gorse and shuddered slightly. The dead man’s face was almost unrecognisable. He rubbed his chin reflectively, and a moment later the melancholy “pheep-pheep” of a police whistle echoed through the rain.

He pulled out his notebook and screened it as best he could beneath his oilskin cape. Slowly his fat fingers traversed the pages, and, half an hour later, a silent man in that grim, barracklike building on the Thames Embankment, Scotland Yard, pulled out Kid Dropper’s dossier and wrote upon it the laconic word:

Deceased.

Inexorable as fate, and as passionless, was the work of the silent man in charge of C.R.O. Here was recorded patiently, week after week, year after year, the misdeeds of those who fell foul of the law. Even death did not cancel his labours. The word “deceased” on the buff file did not always mean the end of the story, and in the case of Kid Dropper it was not an end, but a beginning.

Mayhew, the saturnine man in charge of the Criminal Record Office, replaced Kid Dropper’s dossier in the file and drew another bulky pile of buff-hued documents towards him.

They chronicled, in dry, uninspired English, the life and adventures of one, Dorothy Delisle, whose real name, Amelia Miggs, the candid records had brutally printed in block letters.

Unemotionally Mayhew wrote: “Sentenced to twelve months, Holloway.” And added the date.

He looked up as a tall, loose-limbed young man with a bronzed, cleanshaven face and merry blue eyes entered the silence of that room of dusty and brutally candid biographies.

“Hallo, New!” said Mayhew.

He had a gentle voice, which he seldom raised above a whisper.

“I see the Dropper’s got his.”

Inspector Nicholas New, of the C.I.D., balanced himself precariously on the edge of Mayhew’s desk.

He was the youngest inspector at Scotland Yard, and it was said of him that he was a greater mystery than anything police headquarters had been called upon to solve. No one quite knew whether to take Nick seriously or not. His unorthodox methods scandalised his superiors, but as he achieved results he was seldom censured.

When, after the Armistice, Flight-lieutenant Nicholas New, D.F.C., had been demobbed, a mere stripling of twenty, he announced to his scandalised family that he intended to join the police force. He did so, and served two years as a uniformed constable, until the smart capture of one Wally the Dip attracted the attention of his superiors, who transferred him to the plain clothes branch. His next promotion was rapid, and his brilliant work in running to earth that ruthless criminal, the Croucher, had vindicated him in the eyes of his most jealous superiors.

Mayhew folded up the dossier of Miss Delisle and replaced it in the cabinet.

“Anything I can do for you?” he inquired.

Nick nodded.

“Yes. Know anything about the Blacker?”

Mayhew scratched his thin, beaky nose with the end of his penholder.

“The Blacker?” he repeated, and pressed an ivory bell-push. “Not under that name, of course, but let’s have a look!”

A uniformed constable entered.

“Fetch me File 125b,” he ordered.

Nick grinned.

“Are you falling back on the old modus operandi or identification a la mode?”

Mayhew nodded as in a few moments the young constable returned with a pile of envelopes.

“Where does the Blacker come in?” he queried over his shoulder.

Nicholas New drew out his cigarette-case and proffered it to the presiding deity of records. Mayhew declined it with a shake of his head, and, lighting up, Nick gave him a terse account of the finding of Kid Dropper.

“The divisional surgeon says he’s been dead at least a week,” he announced. “He was shot by a .36 Derringer at close range. There’s no bullet.”

“Mphm!” said Mayhew. “Bullets talk. What about the Blacker?”

“This,” said Nick. He placed before Mayhew a limp, sodden piece of pasteboard about the size of a visiting-card. On it was printed in waterproof Indian ink:

“Either—or——”

It was signed simply—

“The Blacker!”

“Mphm!” said Mayhew. “New one on me. Let’s have a look!” He flicked through the file with his spatulate finger. “Let’s see—the last blackmailer to do any killing was ‘Augie Silverman.’ He was the last man Bellis hanged before he retired in ’98. Blackmailers seldom kill!”

Nick nodded.

“Goose and golden eggs,” he said laconically. “A historic precedent. Better open a new dossier, Mayhew.”

The other looked grave.

“No clue, I suppose?”

“Not as yet. The Press, of course, is snooping around. You’re sure Augie was the last?”

“Quite sure,” said infallibility of C.R.O.

Nick hoisted himself from the desk, and his good-looking, oddly boyish face was very thoughtful. Mayhew glanced at the damp card and opened a new file. It was destined shortly to become very swollen.

• • • • • •

Mr. Daniel Dibney sat back in his swivel chair at his mahogany desk in his austerely furnished office in Southampton Row. Ho was a tall, dark man, with greying hair, a handsome, if sallow face. He was dressed in sombre black, and he wore a high stock collar and neatly-tied black cravat, which gave him a vaguely clerical appearance.

He glanced for a moment at the portrait over the finely-carved mantelpiece. It was an oil painting of the Bishop of Lychester, a relative of Mr. Dibney.

The room was furnished with excellent taste, although there was something faintly ecclesiastical about the carved panelling and the really excellent diptych above Mr. Dibney’s desk.

He was a well-preserved man on the right side of forty, and few people would have guessed from his appearance that he was the head of “Dibney’s Ltd., Detectives with Discretion,” as his black-headed notepaper expressed it.

The elegant Mr. Dibney was wont to confess to his privileged clients that he had been originally intended for the church, but circumstances over which he had no control had interfered with his ecclesiastical career.

It was a bright spring morning, and the sunlight streamed through the window of his office, lending an added lustre to the bowl of yellow daffodils on his desk.

From an adjoining room came the tap-tap of a typewriter, and Mr. Dibney yawned luxuriously as he opened his correspondence. He polished his old-fashioned gold-rimmed pincenez, and adjusted them on his cold aquiline nose.

A tap sounded on the frosted panel which separated his office from the clerk’s, and his secretary, a trimly-garbed young woman in black, entered with a visiting-card.

Mr. Dibney smiled.

“Good-morning, Miss Kerris, I hope you are better?” he said in his sonorous voice.

He glanced at the card, which bore the name “Sir Frederick Jessell, Bart.”

“Ah, please show him in,” said Mr. Dibney.

A moment or two later the girl ushered in a tall spare man with a lined, delicate face and a moustache that was fast turning grey.

“Good-morning, Sir Frederick,” greeted Mr. Dibney. “Won’t you sit down?”

The baronet looked worried and ill at ease.

“Er—er—good morning,” he began. “I was recommended to call on you by Mr. Frank Maurice.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Dibney encouragingly. “I know Mr. Maurice very well. Won’t you have a cigar?” he added, hospitably pushing over a silver-topped humidor.

The baronet shook his head, and it was obvious to the head of the Dibney Detective Agency that he was labouring under some suppressed fear. He evidently found some difficulty in beginning his story.

“Er—I hardly know exactly where to—er—start,” began Sir Frederick. “It is rather a long story, and I’m afraid——”

“Pray take your own time, Sir Frederick,” said the detective. “I assure you that these walls have heard some strange stories in their time. You are evidently in trouble, and I shall be only too pleased to help you with advice.

“We detectives,” he added, “are in a sense rather like dentists. People put off seeing us until the last minute, and then come in a hurry.”

The baronet smiled faintly, and Daniel Dibney saw that he was nerving himself for the plunge.

“The fact is I’m being blackmailed,” broke out Sir Frederick suddenly.

Instantly Mr. Dibney’s face became grave.

“Dear, dear, that is rather a bad business, Sir Frederick,” he said, and placed the tips of his slender fingers together as he gazed through his pincenez at his client. “You may rely entirely on my discretion in this matter, Sir Frederick. I think Mr. Maurice will vouch for my dependability.”

The baronet drew out a silk handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

“Quite, quite,” he remarked hurriedly. “As you doubtless know, Mr. Dibney, I am engaged to be married to Lady Penelope Thyme, the daughter of the Earl of Mandeville? I have served in the Diplomatic Service for the past twenty years, and I think I can say that no breath of scandal has touched me until I received this abominable document yesterday morning.”

So saying he pulled out a sheet of notepaper and handed it over to Dibney. The detective adjusted his pincenez and noted that the letter was typewritten. There was no address, and the message was brief, but pointed.

“Your indiscretion at Cairo in March, 1913, may possibly have escaped your memory, but it has an unpleasant, after-math. In view of your approaching wedding you would doubtless hate to be reminded of a certain ceremony that took place in the Consulate at Zagazig. A search of the records of Tanta Hospital will reveal that a mistake was made in recording the death of Mademoiselle Aziza Rehani in that disastrous fire. The sum of ten thousand pounds will bury the unfortunate episode in the oblivion to which it belongs. Failure to comply will result in unpleasant consequences. A notice in the personal column of ‘The Times,’ addressed to T. B., signifying acquiescence, will close the episode. Any attempt to invoke the aid of the police will result in exposure.”

The letter was signed in pitted block capitals—“THE BLACKER.”

Mr. Dibney took off his pincenez and glanced inquiringly at the baronet. In halting sentences Sir Frederick told his story.

It was the usual tale of youthful infatuation and bitter regrets. He had become enthralled with a beautiful Circassian girl, the daughter of an Egyptian notable, while he was attached to the Residency at Cairo. He had married her according to the Moslem code, having embraced Islam. Two days after the wedding she had been taken ill with enteric fever and moved to a hospital at Tanta. The hospital had been destroyed by a disastrous fire a week after her arrival, and at least thirty patients had perished. Among them it was alleged was Sir Frederick’s wife, but the letter hinted that a mistake had been made, and the baronet confessed that he was racked with anxiety regarding the possibility.

Mr. Dibney smoothed out the document with his delicate fingers, and his curiously penetrating eyes rested speculatively on the baronet’s lined, worn face.

“I see,” he commented quietly. “It is a very awkward situation. I presume you have no idea who this man, the Blacker, is?”

Sir Frederick shook his head.

“No, I have not the slightest. I thought that episode was closed finally. The wedding was secret,” he added. “For Heaven’s sake, Mr. Dibney, advise me what to do? If—if—Aziza is alive, then——”

His voice broke.

The detective smiled reassuringly.

“Leave the matter to me, Sir Frederick,” he advised. “We must not allow ourselves to be stampeded. Very probably the whole thing is a colossal bluff. First we must institute inquiries and find out if there is any truth in the blackmailer’s assertion. I have a reliable agent at Alexandria, and I will cable to him right away. I advise you to answer this letter stating that you are willing to come to some agreement. Meanwhile, if you will leave it to me I will find out exactly how much truth there is in the story.”

Sir Frederick coughed nervously and held out a fragile hand.

“My Heaven, Mr. Dibney,” he said huskily. “If the story is true I shall never be able to hold up my head again.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” replied the detective with a smile. “The battle is not yet lost. Nil desperandum,” he added, “as my uncle, the bishop, often told me when I was struggling through my theological exams.”

Sir Frederick shook hands wanly and took his leave. He seemed suddenly to have grown very tired and old.

After his departure, Mr. Dibney gazed for a few minutes at the portrait of his uncle, then smiled.

“The bishop’s move, I think,” he murmured, and pressed the bell for his secretary.

Chapter 4

THE CRIMSON CRUSADERS

IN one of his several homes, that mysterious and protean personality, the Blacker, sat, chin cupped in his hand. His agate green eyes stared unseeingly before him.

It was 8 p.m. On his desk before him was a book of newspaper cuttings, and he turned over the leaves leisurely. It was a thick volume, and the Blacker stared for some time at the first entry in the book.

It was only a stick or two of typo, but it seemed to afford the Blacker a good deal of quiet satisfaction.

“F. X. QUARLES RELEASED.

“Francis Xavier Quarles, who was sentenced in 1921 to five years’ penal servitude for the notorious Anglo-Alliance frauds, was released this morning from Pentonworth Gaol. There was no demonstration. He left speedily in his private limousine for an unknown destination.”

The Blacker chuckled. An unknown destination was right. Three years had passed since that chill, grey morning when he and Clincher Coke had been released from gaol, and in that three years the Blacker had perfected the scheme which he had hatched during those long, weary years of penal servitude.

Prison, far from reforming him, had merely intensified his hatred against society. A brilliant financier with a queer, warped kink in his brain, F. X.—as he had once been familiarly known in the City—had been arrested through the medium of an anonymous letter to the Public Prosecutor. It was in the silence and solitude of his cell that he had planned the colossal blackmail conspiracy which was now nearing fruition.

It required tremendous patience and unlimited capital, but fortunately he had salted away a good sum before his arrest.

On the day the prison gates opened F. X. Quarles, alias Convict 909, disappeared from the ken of man, and none knew of his passing save Clincher Coke, who had good and sufficient reasons to hug that knowledge to himself.

The. Blacker pressed the bell on his desk. A moment or two later the Clincher entered. The exconvict was a little fatter and a little greyer since that far off morning when he had said good-bye to Pentonworth Gaol.

“Get me a taxi,” ordered the Blacker.

The Clincher nodded, and spoke out of the side of his mouth.

“I see, boss, as ‘ow Nosey New is snoopin’ round,” he remarked. “He’s one o’ these ’ere clever ones, Nosey.”

“Curse Nosey!” said the Blacker.

He crossed over to the dressing-room which gave off from the study. Here was a heterogeneous assortment of clothes, ranging from the gaiters and laced hat of a bishop to the corduroys and grey flannel shirt of a navvy.

The stage lost a great actor when F. X. Quarles, one time president of the O.U.D.S., went in for finance and eventually embarked on crime. Used as he was to his master’s amazing disguises, the Clincher was staggered at the change in Quarles’ appearance when he emerged twenty minutes later from the dressing-room.

He glanced at his watch. It was 9 p.m. He issued a few curt instructions to his henchman and descended into the waiting taxi. Giving the driver an address in Camden Town, he leant back luxuriously.

Brotherhood Hall, in Sago Street, Camden Town, was a depressing-looking building of mustard-coloured brick. Sago Street itself was a narrow, dreary thoroughfare whose houses were so depressingly uniform with their dirty windows and paint-blistered doors, that it might well have been the corridor of some derelict gaol.

Brotherhood Hall had had many vicissitudes since it had been erected way back in 1888 as a Nonconformist chapel. It was a two-storeyed structure with a flight of stone steps leading to its entrance. The hall had been in turn, after its debut as a chapel, a furniture repository, a social club, a rope factory, and a moving picture theatre in the early days of the films.

It had also been an auctioneer’s warehouse, and again a furniture repository. Traces of its chequered past still lingered on the notice boards, which were covered by a thick glutinous mass of ancient posters, torn and bedraggled.

Brotherhood Hall, though derelict, still survived, however. Next door to it was a low, one-storeyed shop, in which a light glimmered day and night. It was a depressing emporium, the window dressings of which consisted of a very sooty marble cross that had once been white and half a dozen hideous artificial wreaths in glass cases. In faded letters across the lintel ran the legend:

EZRA TAPP,

UNDERTAKER AND FUNERAL OUTFITTER.

And beneath it the amiable Mr. Tapp’s slogan:

EMBALMING A SPECIALTY.

We Lend Death Dignity.

The apathetic inhabitants of that gloomy thoroughfare had recently learnt with little interest that the Brotherhood Hall was now the headquarters of a friendly society, “The Loyal and Ancient Order of Crimson Crusaders.”

A new notice board had been erected, but Sago Street shrugged its shoulders, and, learning that the place possessed no amenities in the shape of billiard tables or a bar, promptly forgot its latest metamorphosis.

It exactly suited the man who called himself “Brian,” and styled himself grandiloquently as the Exalted Grand Crusader.

The night was dreary and wet when the Blacker pulled up at a frowsy gin palace at the corner of Sago Street. He buttoned up his coat collar and drew a shabby broad-brimmed hat over his brow as he strode towards the black bulk which was Brotherhood Hall.

The gates were open, and a rectangle of yellow light shone from the interior of the barn-like structure. He ascended the steps and found himself inside a fairly large room, at one end of which there was a dais and rostrum. Behind it was a door leading to what had once been a vestry. The walls were dank and wet with slime, and an evil-smelling oil-stove, round which were grouped half a dozen men, stood in the centre of the room.

The Blacker nodded at them perfunctorily.

“We are all set, brothers, for the initiation ceremony, I take it?” he said.

“That’s right, boss,” acquiesced the others.

The Blacker smiled fleetingly.

“Will all those who have their regalia kindly don the same?”

He turned to the beetle-browed man who was guarding the door.

“Don’t forget the signal,” he warned. He crooked his finger towards a slim, elegantly dressed man in a pin-stripe blue suit. “I want you, Crewe,” he remarked.

Charley Crewe, confidence man and exconvict, shrugged his shoulders and followed the leader into the vestry. The Blacker shut the door.

“Anything to report?” he inquired.

The con man shook his head.

“Intensive activity at police headquarters,” he announced with a chuckle. “But as they’re all running round in circles we should worry!”

The Blacker smiled.

“And did you have a pleasant time at Aylesdon?” he asked.

His henchman lit a cigarette and perched himself on the deal table.

“The doctor’s going to prove very useful to us, my friend,” he remarked.

The Blacker nodded, and his greenish eyes held an unholy light.

“In conjunction with our friend, Ezra Tapp, I am certain he will be able to assist in—er—disposing of recalcitrant clients.”

A grim smile played round the Blacker’s lips as he opened his attache case and took therefrom a round, glittering object of steel. It was a helmet, and he donned the casque and drew down the heavy V-shaped vizor so that the whole of his face was obscured. He next donned a long white robe on which was emblazoned a scarlet cross. Round his waist he wound a girdle and thrust a long straight sword into a leathern thong.

He looked through the slits of his vizor at his companion. Crewe laughed uneasily.

“Don’t you think this mummery is rather foolish, chief,” he said, donning a similar regalia which he took out of a cupboard.

“Don’t be silly,” snapped the Blacker. “Are you aware that in this England of ours the police look with a tolerant eye on the activities of friendly societies? A member can wear any darn thing he likes in the sacred name of charity. The Ancient Order of Crimson Crusaders is duly registered as a ‘friendly society’ within the meaning of the Act. What better method can you devise for holding meetings than this? None of us need be embarrassed by knowing too much about each other.”

“You’re a clever devil, chief,” said Crewe.

“You don’t know the half of it,” laughed the Blacker. Which was true. Not even that crafty confidence trickster was aware of the vast ramifications of the Blacker’s web of intrigue.

The Ancient Order of Crimson Crusaders did not number more than twenty, but they were loyal to the Blacker, there is no gainsaying. Each single man was a specialist in some form of crime, and they were held together in fealty, not by friendship, but by fear.

The Blacker knew enough about each one of them to send them to penal servitude for seven years. He knew enough about one or two to send them to the gallows. He ruled them with the menace of “either—or.”

Who he was, and how he was possessed of his well nigh uncanny knowledge, none of the gang knew. Crewe had often racked his brains to discover the Blacker’s secret.

“I’ve told Manson to be here tonight,” announced the master crook. “He’ll have to work fast. The Flying Squad is raiding his studio at 9.30 to-morrow. You’d better order Spike Mullins, Lefty Stokes, and Billy the Dip to stand by for the slush machines.”

Crewe looked alarmed.

“Are the cursed busies wise to him at last?” he asked.

The Blacker nodded.

“What beats me,” said Crewe, “is how in Heaven you glean your advance information, chief.”

The Blacker’s lips curved in a secret grin.

“I know everything,” he said with a grim chuckle. “For nearly ten years I have planned and worked for this infallibility of knowledge. I know the secrets of every crook, and am familiar with every skeleton in Society’s cupboards. Omniscience is invulnerable, Crewe.”

The con man’s shifty eyes lowered. There were certain unsavoury details in his past that he did not like recalling.

A tap sounded on the door, and a third vizored figure entered.

“The brothers and initiate are all assembled, Exalted!” he announced.

“Good, then we shall begin,” said the Blacker, and his voice boomed sepulchrally behind his steel casque.

The police-constable on duty on that cold, wet evening flashed his lamp in curiously on the dilapidated steps of Brotherhood Hall. He mounted them stolidly and peeped through the letter-box. He found a group of amiable gentlemen dressed in fancy costumes, and, being himself a member of just such another secret society, the constable nodded and approved.

He clumped on stolidly, little dreaming of the gigantic criminal conspiracy that was even then being hatched in the drabness of Brotherhood Hall.

Chapter 5

NICK TAKES THE TRAIL

DOROTHY SOMERVILLE emerged from Westminster Bridge station just as Big Ben boomed forth the hour of eight. It was a crisp, sunshiny morning, and Dorothy, a trim figure in her neat, dove-grey costume, bought a copy of the “Daily Flash” at the corner and hurried towards the grey, austere precincts of the Home Office.

She flashed a dazzling smile at the commissionaire, a gallant old soldier who reflected for the umpteenth time that this slim, graceful girl was far too pretty to have anything to do with crime and the sordid routine of a police court.

Dorothy Somerville was not yet twenty-one, and, though she came daily into contact with the seamy side of life, she still maintained not only a sense of humour, but a demure innocence of outlook that surprised that impressionable young man Inspector Nicholas New.

She was, however, thoroughly sophisticated, and had recently been transferred from Scotland Yard to be the private secretary of Sir Alastair Benskin, the Director of Public Prosecutions.

She was early this morning, fully an hour before time, but she had a lot of arrears of work to finish, and was determined to avail herself of the opportunity before the rest of the staff arrived. She preferred coming early in the morning to staying late at night.

Dorothy had her own key to the office, but there was no necessity to use it. The door was wide open, and she found a pleasant-faced, greyhaired woman hard at work polishing the linoleum. She looked up from her task at Dorothy’s entrance, and smiled.

“Good-morning, miss; early again, I see.”

“Good-morning, Mrs. Raddell,” said Dorothy, removing her little cloche hat and dabbing her powder-puff over her nose. “How’s the rheumatism these days?”

The charwoman sighed.

“Not so good miss,” she answered. “But we manages to bear up. The least said, the soonest mended, is what I always says.”

“Can I offer you a cup of tea?” asked Dorothy, crossing over to the little cupboard in the corner, where she kept a small spirit-stove and tea-things.

The cleaner’s lined face softened into a smile. She rose to her feet.

“Thank ’ee kindly, miss,” she said, wiping her hands on her coarse apron. “I didn’t ’ave much time this mornin’ ter make meself a cup. I been spring cleanin’ me house.”

With deft fingers Dorothy Somerville laid out the tea-things. Mrs. Raddell leant on her broomstick and beamed.

“An’ ’ow’s yer young man?” she inquired. “I seed ’is name in the paper last night, all very fine an’ large. Lawks a’ mussy, ’e’s got a dangerous job, miss.”

Dorothy flushed a little as she sipped her tea. She had known Mrs. Raddell, the garrulous old cleaner, for two years now. She evidently had a soft spot in her heart for Dorothy, and knew what very few in the department were aware of, that Dorothy and Nick were engaged.

Dorothy poured out a cup of tea for Mrs. Raddell, who accepted it gratefully.

“Yuss,” commented the cleaner, “I know wot it is, pore dear Raddell bein’ a public man, in a manner o’ speakin’, afore ’e was took. ’E was one o’ the most ‘ighly respected water-rate collectors in Battersea, an’ in a way ’e were a sort o’ sluice, too. The artful tricks them people gits up to in usin’ buckshee water yer wouldn’t believe!”

She chattered on while Dorothy sipped her tea and arranged a bunch of flowers in a silver bowl on her desk.

“And how’s your son these days, Mrs. Raddell?” she inquired.

A shadow darkened the charwoman’s face.

“Jem’s lorst ’is job again, miss,” she announced. “Pore feller, ’e do ’ave bad luck. One o’ the nicest boys yer could wish ter meet, but easily led, miss, yer know—easily led. I wish yer could git yer young man ter talk ter ’im, miss. I don’t like the bunch o’ young fellers ’e’s runnin’ round with.”

She sighed and replaced her empty cup on the desk.

“But there, miss, I’m not goin’ ter keep yer away from yer work with my troubles,” she said, picking up her broom and glancing round at the now spotless room. The steel-shuttered filing cabinets, behind the brass locks of which were hidden a thousand secrets, shone resplendently in the sunlight, and for a Government department the office was a pattern of neatness.

Mrs. Raddell paused at the door.

“Don’t forgit as ’ow you’ve promised ter come an’ ’ave a cup o’ tea with me some time, my dear. I’m a lonely body, an’ Jem ain’t ’ome much these days.”

“I’ll come, never fear,” returned Dorothy gaily. “I’ve heard such a lot about your house.”

She smiled as the old dame took her leave, and applied herself assiduously to her work prior to Sir Alastair’s arrival.

The Director came in shortly after ten.

He looked, Dorothy thought, pale and somewhat worried as she took in the morning mail.

He was a thin, stoop-shouldered man with a lean, haggard face and a prematurely bald head which the public had seldom seen without its decorous covering of legal horsehair.

“Good-morning,” said Sir Alastair. “Kindly get me the file of the Manson case, and ring up the Yard and ask Inspector New to look in during the next half-hour.”

He did not notice Dorothy’s faint blush as she withdrew. Sir Alastair drummed with his fingers on his desk. He was worried, and with reason. Always an onerous post, the Director of Public Prosecutions had of late encountered inexplicable and unexpected difficulties in his by no means easy task.

He picked up a wire basket which contained that morning’s mail, which Dorothy had sorted out and classified for his perusal. Probably no person, save the editor of a great newspaper, receives such a varied and interesting post-bag as the Public Prosecutor. All sorts of facets of human nature are reflected in that queer mail. Most of the letters are anonymous, many scurrilous and nearly all libellous.

Careful note, however, is taken of each, and if the evidence sounds promising it is acted upon and sifted and sorted until false and true are placed in their right perspective.

It was an anonymous post-card in an illiterate hand that first placed the police on the track of George Joseph Smith, the Bluebeard of the bath. It was a letter from a neighbour that finally brought Armstrong, solicitor and poisoner, to the gallows.

Letters on all sorts of fantastic subjects crop up almost daily. There were communications from disgruntled shareholders regarding the private lives of company promoters; letters from jealous wives hinting at their husbands’ infidelities were many. There were ill-spelt scrawls from embittered exconvicts giving details of projected burglaries—all were queer fish in the Public Prosecutor’s net.

Sir Alastair ran through them all. There was a worried expression on his face as he neared the end of the basket. There was a letter signed “A FREND,” bearing a Runcorn postmark, which described in scurrilous language the alleged misdoings of a local magistrate.

Sir Alastair dropped it back into the basket with a gesture of disgust. He picked up another typewritten communication bearing a city postmark. It contained a significant hint regarding the income-tax returns of a well-known shipbuilder. The Director marked it with a cross for investigation. He picked up another letter and sniffed. It was written on scented notepaper of a flamboyant hue and in a big sprawling feminine handwriting.

“Has the attention of the Public Prosecutor been drawn to the illegal activities of a certain band of undergraduates of which his own son is a member? Inquiries would yield some surprising information.”

Sir Alastair’s bushy eyebrows contracted, and he looked up with a scowl as Dorothy Somerville entered with the Manson dossier. She looked at him curiously. Of late she had noticed a change in his manner. He had been irritable and indeed almost furtive in his attitude towards her.

“Inspector New will be along right away,” she announced.

“Good,” returned Sir Alastair. “Show him in as soon as he comes.”

He picked up the scented missive again, and his nose wrinkled with disfavour. His face looked suddenly haggard. Was there any truth in the accusation? His only son, Malcolm, had always been a little wild and difficult to manage—heredity, of course, Sir Alastair reflected—he took after his lovely and impetuous mother, who had died when he was a boy.

Sir Alastair placed the letter in his pocket and sighed. A knock sounded at the door and Inspector Nicholas New entered briskly.

He was clad in his usual fastidious fashion in a braided morning coat, striped trousers and inevitable buttonhole. From the tips of his varnished shoes to the crown of his silk hat, he was sartorial perfection. Anyone less like a Scotland Yard detective would be difficult to imagine, yet on occasion Nick actually disguised himself in a hard bowler hat and regulation boots, so that, as he explained, he looked so like a detective that no one would believe he was one.

He smiled at the Director.

“Good-morning, Sir Alastair. Meadows seems to have made a bad break in the Manson business, poor devil.”

Sir Alastair cleared his throat.

“Sit down, will you? I’m very perturbed, very perturbed indeed. You have, of course, seen the newspapers recently?”

Nick grinned rather ruefully.

“I have, sir. I notice the Press generally have a dig at Scotland Yard at this time of the year. It’s a sort of little silly season. Bless your heart, sir, the poor ink-slingers must have something to write about. They’ll soon be back to sea serpents and giant gooseberries,” he added with a chuckle.

The Director frowned.

“I’m afraid you’re taking far too flippant a view of it. Look at this !” He pointed to a cutting of the leading article of that morning’s “Daily Flash.”

OUR PRECIPITATE POLICE

“The public is becoming alarmed, and not without justification, about the collapse of police evidence in a number of recent cases. Charges seem to have been brought by members of the force on the flimsiest of pretexts and the most tenuous of evidence against citizens, only to be quashed when heard before the magistrate.

“It is unnecessary to dwell upon the mental torture endured by a sensitive man when charged with a crime in open court. Theoretically, English law assumes that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty, but a stigma attaches to one who has been forced to stand in the dock after being remanded several times, even though the police finally withdraw their charge, as in the famous Filson case. Grave uneasiness prevails. Rightly or wrongly, a growing public opinion inclines to the belief that the police do not take sufficient care to verify their charges. It is even rumoured that a new spirit prevails at Scotland Yard, which can be summarised in a sentence—a case at all costs.

“No fewer than ten charges collapsed from lack of evidence in the Metropolitan courts last month. The situation calls for a drastic overhaul of police methods, and we draw the attention of the Public Prosecutor to the growing indignation of the public, whose servant he is.”

Nick laid down the cutting and smiled.

“Old Man Carruthers, I bet, I can recognise his style. He’s a soured and embittered man since he was fined for exceeding the speed limit at Guildford a month back. As for Filson, he was darned lucky—that’s all I can say. If the dear British public knew that the so-called ‘innocent Mr. Filson’ has already served seven years for robbery with violence I reckon they’d change their tune.”

Sir Alastair stroked his chin.

“I don’t like it, New. There’s a leakage somewhere. You know perfectly well that we never proceed against a person unless we have some pretty tangible evidence, yet in these last ten eases we have found at the last moment the accused has managed either to get rid of the incriminating evidence or to be sufficiently forewarned to arrange an alibi.

“Take this man, Manson, for instance, whom the Flying Squad raided yesterday. No one but Meadows and myself knew the time of the raid, yet when we got there there was no sign of any counterfeit money or plates, which we knew were hidden in the room behind his studio.”

Nick’s face grew suddenly serious.

“Yes, sir, I admit it’s queer. What about this Aylesdon business, sir; this Dr. Kronin chap? Hadn’t I better sift the evidence?”

Sir Alastair nodded.

“Of course it may be village gossip,” he remarked. “But it wouldn’t do you any harm to run over to Bucks and have a look round. Have you heard any more of the Blacker?” he demanded suddenly.

Nick’s blue eyes hardened.

“No, sir, very little indeed that’s new. There are all sorts of queer rumours about him in the underworld, but I can’t fix anything on him yet.”

Over a month had elapsed since the finding of Kid Dropper’s body on Mitcham Common, and the most intensive police inquiries had resulted in a dead end.

“I see,” said Sir Alastair. He turned as a tap sounded on the door and Dorothy entered. She saw Nick and smiled prettily.

“Mr. Bruce, of the ‘Daily Flash,’ would like to see you, Sir Alastair,” she said.

The Public Prosecutor blew his nose loudly.

“Tell him I cannot grant him an interview,” he said.

“Very good, sir.”

Dorothy was about to withdraw when Nick halted her.

“Half a sec., my dear, I want to see Bruce myself.”

He bade the Chief good-morning and when the door closed gave Dorothy a bear-like hug.

“You’re looking radiant this morning dearest,” he told her.

Dorothy pushed him away.

“I do wish you’d behave on duty, Mr. Policeman,” she protested. “I’m not a cook.”

Nick grinned and turned to the tall, thick-set young man with a keen face and extraordinarily alert blue eyes, who sat at the edge of the desk in the outer room. It was Bannerton Bruce, the star crime reporter of the “Daily Flash.”

“Well—news-hound!” he remarked.

“What’s the latest?”

“This,” said Bruce laconically. “I found it waiting on my desk when I got into the office this morning.”

He handed a letter over to Nick, who saw from the postmark that it had been posted the previous night in the West End at eleven-thirty.

He opened it, pulled out the contents, and read the following:

“To the Editor of the ‘Daily Flash,’

“The recent highhanded police methods culminated to-day in the arrest of Mr. Max Manson, the well-known artist, on a preposterous charge of forgery. Your paper has called attention to the questionable methods of the Public Prosecutor in recent cases. I have reason to believe that there are serious discrepancies and leakages connected with the Prosecutor’s office. The private lives of the officials might well repay investigation. The police, for some reason or other, are following a deliberate policy of victimisation or a frame-up, as it is known in America.

“Has the ‘Daily Flash’ the courage to expose these methods?

“THE BLACKER.”

Nick New whistled, and his good-looking face became very grave.

“What do you make of it, Bruce?” he demanded.

The newspaper man shrugged.

“What can I make of it? Scotland Yard’s been making a terrible lot of bloomers lately, and I tell you quite frankly, New, the public are getting darned uneasy. Manson’s bound to be released to-day through lack of evidence. What is the mess at police H.Q.?”

Nick shook his head.

“I’d give a year’s screw to know who the Blacker is,” he remarked. “Leave this with me for an hour or two?”

The newspaper man nodded reluctantly. “I’m following up this story, Nick, and I expect you as a favour to keep me posted.”

Dorothy noticed Nick’s look of preoccupation.

“Tell me, Nick, d’you think the Blacker’s got anything to do with this department?” she inquired.

“Goodness knows,” said Nick grimly. “I suspect everybody.”

“Including me?” she laughed.

“Including you,” he said gravely.

Chapter 6

TELEPHONE BOX NO. 3.

NICK was a very thoughtful man after his interview with Bruce. On his return to his austerely furnished room at Scotland Yard he found a visitor waiting for him, and his eyebrows elevated in surprise as he recognised the plump figure in the black suit with the vaguely clerical air.

“Why, hullo, Dibney!” said Nick.

There was not much cordiality in his voice, for he disliked both Mr. Dibney and his methods.

“What brings you here?”

The discreet Mr. Dibney drew out a silk bandanna handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

“I’m on the track of the Blacker,” he remarked.

Nick stared at him incredulously.

“What’s that?” he demanded.

“Just what I say. Read that!”

Mr. Dibney sat back in his chair and regarded Nick pontifically as he glanced at the envelope and saw that it was addressed to Sir Frederick Jessell, Bart., at a Piccadilly club.

“Client of mine,” he explained, waving his hand airily.

“I see,” said Nick, in a puzzled tone. “But what precisely has the case got to do with us? We don’t deal in divorce business,” he added, with a sly dig at the most questionable part of a discreet detective agent’s business.

Mr. Dibney laughed somewhat uneasily. “This is not divorce—it’s blackmail,” he announced. “Sir Frederick consulted me a little while ago on a very delicate matter into which I need not enter at the moment.”

“Still living up to your slogan?” grinned Nick.

“Precisely,” was the stiff reply, as his fingers fumbled with the gold cross on his watch-chain.

Nick opened the envelope, and his eyebrows lifted in surprise as he recognised the Blacker’s characteristic typing.

The message was brief, but pointed:

“You will obtain £10,000 in Treasury notes from your bank. Have them wrapped in a brown paper parcel and bring it at 9 p.m. prompt tonight to Telephone Box No. 2, situated in the arcade of South Ken. Tube Station.

“Within the box you will find a young lady wearing a grey coat and a green cloche hat. You will at once hand her the package and immediately take your departure.

“Carry out these instructions, and you will not be further molested. Should you, however, call in the police or advise them of your intention, exposure is inevitable.

“Do not speak to the young lady or make any attempt to follow her.

“This is final.

“Either—or——

“THE BLACKER.”

Nick drew in his breath sharply and played an invisible piano on the edge of the table.

“What’s he blackmailing Jessell for?” he inquired at length.

Dibney shrugged deprecatingly.

“I would refer you to our slogan, inspector,” he said drily.

“I see.” said Nick. “And what do you propose to do about it?”

“Well, er——” began Daniel Dibney. “There are only two things to do. Either to pay up and look pleasant or fix up a scheme to outwit the Blacker. My idea, which I’ve conveyed to Sir Frederick, is that he should call at his bank this afternoon as ostentatiously as possible. The Blacker is bound to be having him watched. I have arranged with the manager to prepare a dummy parcel of notes to hand to Sir Frederick.”

“Yes, that’s all right as far as it goes,” said Nick. “But what then? The Blacker’s a wily bird.”

“That,” said Mr. Dibney, with a nervous smile, “is why I came here to ask for your co-operation, my dear inspector. If we could station a Flying Squad van at the entrance to the Tube station there would be some chance of getting a lead to the Blacker.”

Nick shook his head.

“I doubt it, my friend. I’ll bet the girl has orders to hand on the parcel to somebody else, and it will pass through at least a dozen hands before it finally reaches the Blacker.

“Think of the opportunities she has! There are no less than four entrances to South Ken. station. She could have an accomplice on the head of the stairway leading to the District Railway. Another on the Piccadilly line—or even someone waiting in a taxi just outside the arcade.”

Dibney looked a trifle crestfallen.

“I’ll confess I did not look on it in that light before, inspector,” he remarked. “Coming to think of it, it’s a diabolically clever scheme of the Blacker’s.”

He smiled ingratiatingly.

“What do you propose, inspector?” he asked.

Nick scratched his head with the stub of his pencil.

“At that it wouldn’t be a bad plan to have a F.S. van outside,” he mused. “If we act quickly we may have a chance.”

“Then I can count on you, inspector?” said Dibney, and a look of relief came into his close-set eyes.

“Yes,” said Nick. “You can count on me all right.”

Mr. Dibney took his departure with effusive thanks. Nick lit his pipe and sucked moodily at it. Events were moving fast. He drew from his desk the meagre dossier containing the scanty information which he had managed to glean about the Blacker. It was not very illuminating. Again he read through the letter which Bannerton Bruce had received that morning.

Was there a leakage in the Public Prosecutor’s department? It would explain many things. The uncannily accurate advance information, for instance, which had enabled many crooks to show a clean pair of heels after the lightning raid of the Flying Squad.

“I must have more data,” murmured Nicholas New, chewing the end of his penholder viciously.

He pressed the buzzer on his desk, and a few minutes later Sergeant Meadows, that redfaced man of the Feared Forty, sauntered into the room.

Meadows always sauntered. There was, as Nicholas expressed it, something lush about the big, cheerful giant who was amateur boxing heavyweight of the London Division.

“Bill,” said Nick, “I shall want you tonight. There’s a chance of a spot of fun down in South Kensington.”

Sergeant Meadows grinned.

“Another smash and grab?” he inquired.

Nick shook his head.

“No, we’re flying for higher game this time. It’s the Blacker!”

In a few brief sentences he outlined the plan of campaign, and Bill Meadows nodded his head in complete understanding.

“Good!” he remarked. “I reckon we’ll take little ‘Sunshine’ out for an airing.”

With which cryptic announcement he took his leave.

• • • • • •

Sir Frederick Jessell was a much-worried man, but whether it was the pontifical appearance of Mr. Dibney that gave him confidence, or whether the fact that Scotland Yard were already tackling the problem of the Blacker, it was with almost a jaunty air that he descended from his brougham outside the old-established banking firm of Hilton & Co., at the end of the Haymarket.

He was an elegant figure as he swept in through the swing doors of the bank, and, being a favoured customer, was ushered into the manager’s presence without delay.

In the gutter outside, a ragged individual in a check cap and choker of virulent hue stood with a tray slung from his shoulders. There was a glass of water on the tray, in which floated those multi-coloured and rather pretty pieces of decoration known as Japanese water-flowers.

He was a redfaced, husky-voiced man, and called out his wares in a monotonous voice:

“Japanese flowers, penny a packet. A garden in a glarss. The very thing for the dinner tible.”

Few of the hurrying pedestrians paused to heed the hawker.

Inspector Nicholas New gave him but a cursory glance as he passed into the bank shortly after Sir Frederick’s arrival.

A small boy proffered a penny to the hawker and received in exchange a gaily coloured envelope. Ten minutes went by, kind the bank door opened with a swoosh to emit Sir Frederick.

Under his arm he carried a neatly tied brown paper parcel heavily sealed. He strode hurriedly towards his waiting brougham, and even as the car moved off, the hawker poured away the contents of his tumbler into the gutter and unshipped his tray. The Blacker’s agent had seen all he wanted to see.

Five minutes later he entered a public telephone box in Piccadilly Circus and called up a certain number. It was significant that the man he asked for was named Brian, and had anyone listened-in to his conversation he would have learned that the prospects for the Crimson Crusaders in Camden Town were distinctly rosy.

Sir Frederick Jessell dined at his club, the Mausoleum, the morgue-like atmosphere of which was not conducive to a steady nerve.

Meanwhile Nick New had had a long and illuminating talk with the bank manager. Nick had a flat just off Trafalgar Square, and he changed his clothes before embarking for South Kensington.

Shortly before 9 p.m. a small, one-ton motor-van bearing the legend “Sunshine Laundry,” drew up before the Brompton Road entrance of South Kensington Tube Station. The driver was a large, somnolent looking individual, who seemed to have some difficulty in lighting his pipe.

At five minutes to the hour a small grey closed tourer drew up at the Sydney Street side of the station. A vociferous newsvendor, standing near, bawled out:

“Star-Newser-Standard,” and officiously proffered one to the greyhaired, anxious-faced man who alighted from the car’s interior.

“Keep cool, Sir Frederick,” whispered Nick. He had disguised himself simply but effectively with a red wig and muffler, and had taken up his pitch a quarter of an hour before.

Sir Frederick Jessell clutched hold of the brown paper parcel like grim death. The shops in the arcade, in which the telephone booths were situated, were closing. There were four different converging streams of people, and once again Nick appreciated the cleverness of the Blacker in choosing a spot with so many entrances and exits as a rendezvous.

A crowd of people ascended the steps of the District Railway, and Nick kept a sharp look out for any familiar figures among the hurrying pedestrians. He knew that the innocuous-looking laundry van contained the stalwart Meadows and four of the Feared Forty, and that one end was covered.

Sir Frederick hesitated for a moment at the top of the steps. Nick kept furtively in his wake to catch a glimpse of the occupant of telephone box number 2.

Ho could distinguish the slim figure of a girl in a grey costume with a green hat.

She turned suddenly as Sir Frederick approached and raised his hat. Nicholas New drew in his breath sharply and a queer foreboding gripped his heart as he recognised the piquant features framed beneath that oval hat.

It was Dorothy Somerville!

“My Heaven!” gasped Nick, utterly ignoring a fussy little man’s demand for an “Evening News.”

Sir Frederick was talking to the girl. Nick saw him hand her the brown paper parcel with its red seals.

What did it all mean? Was Dorothy in league with the Blacker? It seemed almost incredible—and yet—and yet——

He glimpsed Dorothy’s smiling face as she took the bundle, and with a murmured word or two hurried towards the lift. For a moment Nick stood there nonplussed, then was suddenly galvanised into action.

“One minute, Sir Frederick,” he muttered as the baronet stood in some bewilderment close to the ’phone box.

Nick made a wild dive towards the lift just as the gates closed with a clang and Dorothy was swept downward out of sight.

He swore luridly, and panting slightly, ran back towards Sir Frederick. It was just at that moment that the portly figure of Mr. Dibney emerged from the entrance of one of the arcade’s shops. He rubbed his podgy hands and smiled at Sir Frederick.

“Ha, ha, the plot thickens,” he began. “I think I know that young lady.”

He looked archly at Nicholas New, who was fuming inwardly.

Sir Frederick clutched his stick and peered around him nervously.

“Well, really, gentlemen, I’m at a loss to know whether we have failed or succeeded,” he began.

“That remains to be seen,” remarked Nick. “I’ve got two men covering the District station platform and two the Piccadilly line. If one of us doesn’t link up with the Blacker then I’m a Dutchman,” he added.

Sir Frederick groped for his drooping moustache.

“Er—I am afraid I do not quite see what is going to happen.”

“What did the young lady say to you?” demanded Nick.

Sir Frederick looked at him oddly for a moment or two, then suddenly he gave a queer choking gasp and clutched convulsively at his breast.

“Great heaven,” gasped Nick as he saw a crimson stream ooze sluggishly down the baronet’s shirt front and between his clutching fingers.

“Quick, Sims,” he rasped and signalled to a hovering plain-clothes man, jumping forward just in time to catch the baronet as he fell.

He glanced at the Sydney Street entrance, and was just in time to see a powerful black limousine gather speed and cut in between a taxi and a motor ’bus.

Nick sped forward, a police whistle at his lips.

The window of the tonneau was down, and two spurts of flame flashed from the dark interior.

He glimpsed the shadowy outline of a man whose face was hidden by a white mask. Above the noise of the traffic sounded a sudden staccato “plop, plop.”

Nick whipped out his automatic and aimed it at the speeding car. A bullet phutted above his head and splintered the glass of the telephone booth into a myriad fragments. A woman screamed hysterically, and pandemonium seized the crowd, which scattered to right and left.

“Quick, Meadows,” roared Nick, and instantly the back of the innocuous-looking laundry van opened and three burly figures raced into the arcade.

“After the car, you idiots,” yelled Nick. “Spin her round. And take care—the hounds have got silencers on their guns.”

Meadows’ driver slammed his foot on the accelerator and followed Nick’s pointing forefinger with his eyes. A high-powered, black limousine went roaring away into the night, its red tail lamp winking derisively through the murk.

Nick turned and saw the plain-clothes man gently lower the limp figure of Sir Frederick Jessell to the ground. The frightened crowd pressed forward, and Nick ordered them back brusquely. He knelt beside the baronet, and drew in his breath sharply as he saw the greying face and the blood that stained the white shirt front.

Sir Frederick’s eyes were glazed, then suddenly he gave a convulsive shudder and went limp.

The detective’s face hardened. The Blacker had killed again, swiftly and remorselessly as a striking cobra.

Nick issued a few curt instructions to the plain-clothes man. His mind was in a turmoil at the bewildering sequence of events.

What was Dorothy Somerville doing in ’phone box Number 2? How was she connected with this foul and wanton crime? There was a leakage somewhere. Again the Blacker had been forewarned.

Who was the traitor?

Chapter 7

THE HOODED MAN

DOROTHY SOMERVILLE emerged from Westminster Station with no idea of the disastrous results of her meeting with Sir Frederick Jessell. It was a quarter past nine. A shower of rain had fallen, and pools of gold were reflected on the pavements from the lights of Parliament Square.

A mist was gathering from the river and a tug boat hooted mournfully as it passed under Westminster Bridge.

Dorothy shivered, for the night was cold, as she turned into the grey, forbidding facade of the Home Office. She was also slightly bewildered at the events of the past half hour. It was not often that she was engaged on departmental work so late at night, yet the instructions she had received had been explicit.

A uniformed night porter was on duty, drowsing in his cubby hole at the foot of the stairs. He glanced up somnolently as she passed and murmured a vague goodnight.

Still clutching the little sealed parcel, Dorothy entered the lift and shot upwards to her office on the third floor. She wondered vaguely what all the mystery was about. A uniformed constable had presented her with a letter of instruction shortly before six o’clock, telling her to enter ’phone box Number 2 at South Kensington Tube Station.

It wasn’t the first time she had received secret orders on the buff paper of Scotland Yard for extra duty. It came under the category of “overtime.” Very often she had been summoned to attend police interrogations of female witnesses, so she saw nothing very unusual in the errand.

The instructions were curt and explicit, and were signed with the sprawling signature of Inspector Nicholas New.

Briefly, Dorothy’s orders were to await the arrival of Sir Frederick Jessell, to take over the sealed package, and proceed at once to the Public Prosecutor’s office, where she was to surrender the parcel to Nick.

Her heart beat a trifle faster as she tiptoed along the corridor and switched on the light. Evidently Mrs. Raddell, the cleaner, had gone home, and, with a little gesture of annoyance, Dorothy sat down to wait for Nicholas.

Suddenly she became aware of a dim light beyond the frosted panel of the door that led to the Public Prosecutor’s office.

Evidently Sir Alastair was working late.

Idly Dorothy examined the parcel, and saw that it was liberally sealed by the coat-of-arms of Hilton’s bank. She was about to place it in a drawer in her desk when suddenly a hand closed over her arm.

Her flesh tingled at the contact, and she gave a startled scream.

“Keep quiet!” hissed a queer, sepulchral voice, and Dorothy felt a gnarled and calloused hand clapped roughly over her mouth.

She gave a strangled scream and turned to grapple with her assailant. She was young and virile, and with a wrench she turned and faced the unknown, and her eyes widened in horror.

Looming above her was a tall figure shrouded in a black cloak. She caught no glimpse of his face, for his head was enveloped completely in a black hood, but between the slits of that ominous-looking hood two blazing eyes stared down implacably at her.

“Keep still, you vixen!” hissed the voice.

It was strange how muffled and hollow it sounded from the folds of the material.

Dorothy wrenched her arm free, but the pressure over her mouth increased, and her nose was held tightly between a spatulate thumb and forefinger. Her senses reeled and her lungs, felt as if they were bursting. Her head was jerked backwards, and a curtain of red flame shot with fire danced before her eyes, to give place a moment later to the complete blackness of oblivion.

The Blacker stared down at the limp body he held in his arms and grinned crookedly behind his hood.

“You’ll be safe for a bit, my beauty,” he muttered.

From a pocket beneath his cloak he pulled out a small, glittering hypodermic-needle, and, baring Dorothy’s smooth, round arm, pressed home the plunger. The girl’s limbs gave a convulsive shudder and were still.

He lifted the unconscious form in his arms and carried her across to a large stationery cupboard set in an alcove in a corner of the room.

“You’ll wait there a bit, my beauty,” he said.

Then, with a swift, gliding motion, he crossed over to the steel filing cabinets which comprised most of the furniture of the room. From his pocket he pulled out a bunch of skeleton keys, and his eyes glinted with unholy glee behind his mask as he turned up a dossier marked “K. M.”

He took no notice whatever of the scaled packet which Dorothy had obtained from Sir Frederick Jessell. The Blacker was never fooled. His plans were too well laid.

• • • • • •

Nick New drove like a demon from South Kensington to Scotland Yard. He did not bother to accompany the local police who had taken charge of the dead baronet’s body. He merely gave a rough description of the speeding black limousine to the local inspector. He could safely leave Meadows and his wireless-equipped police van to chase the bandit car.

Nick alighted beneath the sickly blue lamp over Scotland Yard archway within twenty minutes of the murder. His face was very set and purposeful as he strode moodily upstairs to his room. He was worried to death about Dorothy. What, in the name of sanity, was the girl doing mixed up in the blackmail of Sir Frederick Jessell?

Dibney had been more than usually provoking. Nick cordially disliked that unctuous man, and his eyes narrowed as he opened a dossier and registered a brief account of the murder at South Kensington.

The thing that puzzled Nick was why the Blacker should have shot Sir Frederick. As he had said, blackmailers very seldom kill the goose that lays the golden egg. He flung down his pen and lifted the receiver of his telephone. He got through to Parker of the wireless-room.

“Anything from Meadows?” he snapped.

Parker’s reply was brief.

“Meadows followed him to Battersea and clocked in at Wandsworth,” he announced. “The limousine is a devil for speed, and Meadows got a puncture on the way to Mitcham.”

“Mitcham again?” echoed Nick.

The Blacker seemed to have a fondness for the district. Moodily he replaced the receiver. In police stations all over England an A.S. message was being ticked out giving a description of the murder car, with orders to hold it at all costs.

Nick did not linger at Scotland Yard. He was too worried about Dorothy, and decided to call on her, though the hour was late. Dorothy lived in a little flat in Chelsea, and as Nick strode into Whitehall and entered his waiting runabout, his eyes suddenly glimpsed a long, rakish racing car draw up close to the Home Office.

Instantly the detective’s trained senses were on the alert. He buttoned up his coat collar, and, drawing his hat low over his eyes, followed a slim, elegant figure in evening dress as he alighted from the racing car and entered the Home Office.

Subconsciously Nick noticed the number. He gave the man two minutes start, then followed himself. The sleepy-eyed porter glanced at him suspiciously.

“What’s up tonight?” he grumbled. “The whole bloomin’ staff seems engaged on night work.”

“Who was that that went in?” snapped Nick.

“The Public Prosecutor’s son,” returned the other.

The detective whistled. What was young Malcolm Benskin doing at the Home Office at this hour? The web was getting more tangled than ever.

“Your young lady’s been,” volunteered the porter.

“What’s that?” snarled Nick, and his face darkened.

“Came in abaht quarter-past nine, she did,” continued the janitor.

Nick looked at his wrist-watch. It was a little after ten. What was Dorothy doing in the office at this time of night? The queer foreboding that had troubled him earlier on in the evening now grew into an acute suspicion. He compressed his lips firmly and moved towards the lift.

On the third-floor he halted outside Dorothy’s room. The light was still on. He glanced around inquiringly, and noted the mute evidence of femininity in the bowl of freshly-cut flowers on her desk, noted also something else, and his eyes hardened.

Lying on the centre of the blotting-pad was the sealed dummy parcel which had been the cause of one man’s death that night.

From within the inner room he heard the sound of voices, and he frowned. He recognised the crisp, incisive tones of Sir Alastair Benskin, followed by the loud, shrill voice of a young man, obviously in a towering passion.

“But I tell you, father, I must have it. If this leaks out, then it means—the finish——”

Nick’s eyes gleamed. He tiptoed towards the steel filing cabinet and crouched behind it. The murmur of voices died down, and he heard the rattle of a door-knob. A minute later the door of the Prosecutor’s sanctum opened, and a white-faced, agitated young man staggered out, muttering:

“My Heaven, it’s the last straw!”

Nick crouched closer where he was. It would not have been politic to be discovered at the moment. He waited until the other had crossed the room with quick, hurried strides, and heard him clang the gates of the lift in the corridor outside.

He straightened then. This new development had further complicated the issue. What did young Benskin mean by his threat? What was Sir Alastair doing working so late at the office? Above all, where was Dorothy?

Nick’s nerves were not quite steady as he lit a cigarette. Bracing his shoulders he opened the frosted door behind which was another portal that separated the Public Prosecutor’s sanctum from the outer office.

Sir Alastair was seated at his desk, a greyhaired, haggard-faced figure. He looked up listlessly as Nick entered. The Yard man coughed.

“Good-evening, Sir Alastair,” he said steadily. “I’m afraid I’m rather late, but I have reason to believe that Miss Somerville is on the premises. I want to speak to her very urgently.”

The Prosecutor stared at Nick blankly.

“Miss Somerville?” he echoed. “Why, she went home hours ago. The only woman I’ve seen on the premises is the cleaner, Mrs. Riddle, or Raddell something.”

Nick surveyed him searchingly and produced the sealed package. He placed it before the Public Prosecutor.

“Then can you explain that?” he said, and his voice was grim.

The other adjusted his pincenez and stared at the small parcel.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” he said in his dry impersonal tone.

“That package,” said Nicholas New quietly, “was handed by Sir Frederick Jessell to Miss Somerville a little over an hour ago. Less than three minutes after Sir Frederick was shot dead.”

“What?” gasped the Director, and his face was ashen. “Was it—was it——”

“Yes,” said Nick. “It was the Blacker. And I’m telling you frankly, Sir Alastair, that I suspect this department of harbouring the Blacker himself. By some means or other he must have got wind of our trap to catch him with these dummy notes. For weeks past now the police have been hampered and hindered in their investigations through the man’s uncanny fore-knowledge.”

“What are you suggesting?” demanded the Director angrily.

“I suggest nothing,” Said Nicholas New, “until I can substantiate it by concrete facts. Incidentally,” he added in a voice that he strove hard to make casual, “was that your son that I met going out a few minutes ago?” Sir Alastair paused a second or two before replying, and his voice became husky and strained.

“Yes, that was my boy. I’m afraid that I had to be very stern with him, New. He’s got into a very bad set at his university, and he had the effrontery to come here tonight in an endeavour to persuade me to use my official status in order to get one of his disreputable friends out of trouble.”

“Oh!” said Nick. “I see.”

He looked upset, but his voice did not sound convinced.

“Well, never mind my son,” said Sir Alastair. “What about this shocking business at South Kensington?”

“Meadows of the Flying Squad is looking after that,” replied Nick.

“Then while you’re here,” said Sir Alastair, “you might look into the case of this man Kronin. The local police have amassed a good deal of evidence. I think you’d better go along to-morrow and see whether an arrest is justifiable.”

Nick glanced shrewdly at the Director. Why this sudden change of subject? Did Sir Alastair want to have him shunted off on to another case?

The Director seemed to read some of Nick’s unspoken suspicions.

“We’ll see whether the Blacker has any advance information about Dr. Kronin,” he said with a wintry smile.

He rose to his feet and yawned exaggeratedly. Taking up a pile of documents on his desk he crossed over to a massive steel safe in the corner and locked them in.

“I’ve had a tiring day, New,” he remarked.

Nick said nothing. He was wondering whether Sir Alastair was lying or not. Had Dorothy left the building and if so, what possessed her to leave the dummy package on her desk?

He bade goodnight to the Director and waited until he had descended in the lift. Then suddenly he pounced on a small glittering object beneath Dorothy’s swivel-topped chair. It was a tiny Rhinestone brooch which he recognised as one that she used to pin her scarf.

Nick recalled that she had been wearing the brooch that very evening when she had emerged from the telephone-box.

Stooping, he picked it up and examined it. Suddenly he felt something hard and round jammed into the small of his back and a harsh voice hissed in his ear:

“Stick ’em up, mister, or I’ll drop yer!”

Nick New was too old a tactician to try any funny business with the circlet of a .45 revolver jabbed against his fifth vertebrae.

He lifted up his hands ceilingwards.

“March!” commanded the voice. “And don’t try any monkey business, inspector, or I shall kill you without compunction.”

Nick writhed at the indignity of it, but the situation was inescapable. However heroic a man may feel, it would be nothing less than sheer lunacy to attempt to grapple with an assailant who can shatter one’s spine to fragments with a touch of a trigger-finger.

He ground his teeth as he felt himself impelled forward in the direction of a small cupboard that gave off from the outer room. A rich throaty chuckle that sounded hollow and reverberating came from the man.

“They say that all movements carry within themselves the seeds of their own destruction. Mr. New,” mocked the Blacker. “You were evidently sanguine of arresting me this evening, judging by these.”

Nick felt a hand inserted into his hip-pocket and cursed below his breath as he heard the jingle of handcuffs.

“Turn round, my friend,” chuckled the Blacker.

Nick spun round, and for a fraction of a second it seemed as if he were going to launch himself full at his captor, but he restrained the impulse in time.

“There is nothing that convinces one quite so much of the futility of argument as one of these little weapons, Mr. New,” mocked the crook.

Nick found himself staring into the squat, ugly muzzle of a revolver. It was gripped in the hand of a man in a black cloak whose face was covered by a white mask.

The detective drew in his breath sharply as with a deft movement the Blacker snapped the handcuffs on Nick’s wrists.

“And now, adieu, Mr. New,” said the crook. “This scarf twisted about your mouth will make an effectual gag. The cleaners will probably release you in the morning.”

He bowed mockingly and slammed and locked the door.

Chapter 8

AT THE BLACKER’S MERCY

DOROTHY SOMERVILLE came to herself with a raging headache. Her eyelids fluttered open and she tried to speak, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, which was dry and parched. Her limbs seemed to have grown suddenly numb and everything was spinning round her. She discovered she was lying on a small truckle bed in a barely-furnished room. The sole illumination came from an electric light bulb that dangled above the bed.

The wallpaper was hideous and an infinitesimal fire burnt smokily in the grate. Dorothy moaned slightly and found that her wrists and ankles were lashed together by thin but strong strands of cord.

Desperately she tried to struggle up to a sitting posture. Her temples throbbed abominably, and she wondered, panic-stricken, what was going to happen to her.

There was a rickety gate-legged table in the centre of the room. On it reposed a quart bottle of beer and a hunk of bread and cheese.

Dorothy licked her dry lips and tried to scream, but no sound came. Suddenly she heard the soft slither of footsteps outside the door of the room and a key grated in the lock. The door opened and a gaunt, hard-featured woman dressed in rusty black entered. She had a lean, cadaverous face and eyes as hard, shiny and malignant as two black hatpin heads.

“Well,” she croaked harshly. “You’ve come to yerself, ’ave yer?”

Dorothy moaned feebly.

“Where am I?” she asked, and her voice strengthened a little as she sat up, and some slight memory returned. “What’s the meaning of this outrage?”

The woman grinned evilly.

“Ask no questions an yer’ll ’ear no lies, dearie. The Blacker’s got yer, that’s wot.”

“The Blacker?” echoed Dorothy blankly, and a shiver of fear ran through her as realisation came to her.

Her brain was in a whirl. What did it all mean? Who was the man in the hood who had attacked her in the office? Above all, why had Nicholas New not turned up as he had promised? She felt lost and bewildered, and her red lips curled mutinously as her wardress sat down at the table and poured out a glass of beer, which she drank with noisy gusto.

“Could I have a drink?” she suggested faintly.

The woman’s laugh was harsh as she poured out some beer into a cracked cup.

“ ’Ere, put this down!” she said harshly.

Dorothy shuddered.

The cup was dirty and greasy, but she managed to swallow half of the unappetising brew. The woman attacked the bread and cheese voraciously, and her yellow teeth bared in a snarl of animal greed.

Dorothy shuddered. She wondered what further horrors were in store for her, and whether it would be worth while trying to placate the gaunt-featured woman.

“Who is the Blacker?” she asked, and the woman tapped her beaky nose knowingly.

“That’s a thing a good many would like to know, my lady!” she said. “But I ain’t telling—see?”

She demolished the final piece of bread and cheese and rose to her bony height.

“Well, I’d better be tellin’ the chief as you’re awake,” she remarked.

Dorothy had no means of knowing what time it was nor for how long she had remained unconscious. The glare of the electric lamp above her head made her eyes water, and she closed them wearily. The woman gave an evil laugh and unlocked the door.

“You rest a bit, dearie,” she said. “And, mind, no larks, or it will be the worse for you!”

She shuffled out of the room, and Dorothy was left alone. A miasma of evil seemed to cling about that utterly silent house. The very vagueness of her fate was terrifying.

Who was the Blacker? Why had she been kidnapped? These and a hundred other questions surged through Dorothy’s numbed and bewildered brain. The thought of Nick and his calm, debonair attitude and his steadfast blue eyes brought her courage.

He wouldn’t let her down. There must have been some ghastly mistake, she reflected, and shivered again as she recalled that terrifying, masked figure who had loomed over her ere she became unconscious.

Suddenly she sat up. Again she heard the shuffle of footsteps. The door opened slowly and soundlessly. Dorothy gave a gasp of astonishment as she recognised the familiar figure that stood on the threshold. Her senses reeled. There was something bizarre and fantastic about it all.

“Why—you!” she gasped. “What—what are you doing here?”

It was the last person in the world she had expected to see. The figure in the doorway smiled sardonically.

“Good-evening, Miss Somerville. I’m sorry to put you to this temporary inconvenience, but, believe me, it cannot bo helped. You are perhaps suffering from a little malaise, eh? I shall send in a medical adviser to you soon.”

“My Heaven!” gasped Dorothy. “Then it’s you who are the——”

“I am the Blacker,” was the quiet reply. “Rather amusing, isn’t it?”

Sick with horror, Dorothy stared at the smiling crook. At last she was beginning to realise how the secret information had leaked out from the Public Prosecutor’s office. It was incredible, fantastic, but true.

The Blacker removed the grey wig, and the change in his appearance was startlingly incongruous.

“You must admit that it has been an admirable disguise.”

He rubbed his long, slim fingers together in the attitude of Uriah Heep.

“I am so pleased to welcome you to my ’umble abode, Miss—er—Copperfield!” he said mockingly.

Chapter 9

THE SHIFTER’S JOINT

INSPECTOR NICHOLAS NEW was not the type of man to submit tamely to imprisonment. The door had hardly closed behind the masked stranger when he raised his manacled wrists and pounded on the panels of the door. The handcuffs were of regulation pattern, heavy and solid. Nick had noted that the key had been turned on the outside, and there was only one way out of the place, and that was by bashing in the panels.

He gritted his teeth and brought the heel of the handcuffs down with a smashing blow against the flimsy woodwork. He took half a dozen blows before a panel finally splintered with a crash.

Nick swore luridly as a jagged sliver of wood pierced his wrist, inflicting a long, jagged gash. It was the work of a moment to thrust out both his hands and grope for the key on the outside.

He turned the lock with difficulty, and, tearing the gag away from his jaw, he staggered into the outer office.

He took one glance at the open stationery cupboard, and his eyes narrowed as they fell on a squire of cambric on the floor. He picked up the handkerchief. It was lace-edged and dainty, with a faint aroma of lavender which Dorothy affected.

Nick clenched his teeth. He took a flying leap towards the lift. It was not an easy task with his manacled wrists to manipulate the elevator, but he managed it finally, and went swooshing downwards.

The echoing hallway was in darkness save for a faint light from the night porter’s cubbyhole. Nick staggered towards it, his eyes blazing feverishly.

“Hey, Robson, wake up!” he shouted—and recoiled in horror.

A crouching figure sat stiffly and awkwardly in his chair, his head and shoulders sprawled on the table before him. There was an ugly, jagged wound above the right temple from which the blood still oozed sluggishly.

Nick drew in his breath sharply and dashed down the steps into Whitehall. He was a dishevelled, wild-eyed figure with his handcuffed wrists and torn coat. It was a foggy night, and the lamps gleamed palely yellow through the murk.

Dazed and breathless, Nick sprinted along towards Parliament Square. Near Scotland Yard he almost cannoned into a burly, blue-uniformed constable, who flashed his lamp suspiciously on to him.

“ ’Ere, wot’s all this?” glancing at the glinting lacerated wrists.

“Never mind questions,” snapped Nick. “I want to get these off!”

The constable stared, and a grin recognition flashed over his red face.

“Beg pardon, sir, I didn’t recognise you,” he apologised.

“Hurry!” cried Nicholas impatiently. “Come up with me. We don’t want to attract a crowd.”

They turned into Scotland Yard, and Nick soon had the handcuffs removed.

“Send an ambulance round to the Home Office,” he ordered. “The Blacker’s abroad.”

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and pursed his lips thoughtfully as he glimpsed a throbbing motor-van drawn up a little to the right of the entrance. It bore the innocent-seeming legend—“Sunlight Laundry.”

Nick raced up the stairs and bellowed for Meadows. That big and lethargic man was seated in an armchair in his shirt-sleeves. Nick frowned.

“Well?” he demanded. “What happened?”

Meadows shrugged.

“The blamed thing got clean away,” he announced. “I chased it as far as Wandsworth, when I got a puncture in the front wheel. By gosh, that car can travel!” he added feelingly.

“What’s the matter with you, Nick?” he inquired. “You look all in.”

“Matter?” returned the detective grimly. “The Blacker has kidnapped Miss Somerville. He held me up in the Home Office and killed the poor devil of a night porter.”

“What’s that?” ejaculated Meadows, and his round placid eyes widened in astonishment. “What’s the big idea, Nick?”

Nick shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

“This can’t go on!” he rasped. “I’m going over to the Shifter’s. If anybody knows anything about the Blacker’s movements he does.”

Meadows nodded.

“It’s dangerous work, Nick,” he commented. “The Blacker’s a killer. I’m willing to bet you you’ll find the car abandoned somewhere near Mitcham Common before the morning’s out.”

“What I want to know,” persisted Nick, “is how the devil the Blacker knew we’d got the stage set at South Ken. There’s more than one leak, Meadows,” he said.

“What about Dibney?” asked Meadows. “I never liked that man, Nick. He knew all about the faked notes business. If you ask me, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dibney was the Blacker.”

“I’m not asking you,” said Nick brusquely.

He lit a cigarette and glanced at the chronometer on the wall. It was not yet 11 p m. Much had happened in the crowded two hours since the murder of Sir Frederick Jessell.

He nodded a curt goodnight to Meadows, and after having tied up his cut wrist with a handkerchief he entered his little runabout and made direct for his flat in Trafalgar Square.

The Shifter’s joint was situated in a side street off the Tottenham Court Road. Ostensibly, it was an Italian restaurant. The Shifter’s real name was Bert Ibbido, a fierce-moustached Italian with mild brown eyes. The Shifter’s place was well known to the police. He was one of the most knowledgeable of “noses,” one of those contemptible creatures who hover eternally on the edge of the underworld and are disliked by police and crooks alike.

Still, there was no doubt about it that the Shifter was useful. In his all-night cafe the flotsam and jetsam of London’s underworld drifted in and out continually. It was not in Scotland Yard’s interest to close the place.

Shortly after midnight a big hulking ruffian with a swarthy face, a loud check cap and heavy gold earrings swaggered into Ibbido’s joint. The Shifter’s clientele was as diverse and varied as his menu. In the main it consisted of Italians and plug uglies who were members of notorious race gangs.

The big wop strode into the restaurant. The atmosphere was thick and blue with smoke. A slant-eyed Chinaman sitting next to a negro at a filthy marble-topped table stared at the newcomer, whose keen eyes took in every detail of that small and squalid room. An electric piano churned out an ancient fox-trot and an obese Hebraic-looking individual clasped a frousty-looking woman in a tipsy dance.

A big buck negro in a resplendent suit of check was rolling the bones with a half-caste at one of the side tables, while a pale-faced, pretty girl with chemically yellow hair giggled hysterically as she watched the players.

The newcomer peered through the pungent clouds of tobacco smoke and discerned the squat, ungainly figure of the Shifter. He was seated at the cash desk, and he twirled his black moustache fiercely as the big man lurched over to him.

“Why, hallo, Loo!” he said, flashing his teeth in a golden and ingratiating smile. “I haven’t seen you this long time!”

The man addressed as “Loo” half-closed his eyes and without moving his lips rapped out:

“Oo’ve yer got stayin’ ’ere, Shifter?”

A look of fear leapt into the man’s startled eyes. He waved his greasy palms in a deprecatory gesture.

“Why, nobody as you know, Loo,” he returned.

From the corner of his eye he watched one of the Chinamen who slid furtively towards the crimson curtain that screened a door at the back of the cafe.

“Shifter,” said Inspector Nicholas New, and his voice was ominously quiet, “where’s the Blacker?”

The Italian staggered as though he had been shot. His flabby cheeks went pasty with fear.

“The—the Blacker?” he stammered. “I don’t know wot yer drivin’ at. S’welp me bob, I don’t!”

“Ah, yes you do!” replied the Yard man. “Come on, across with it, Shifter; I want a little chat.”

He jerked his head meaningly towards the crimson curtain, and with a sigh the nark clambered down from his high stool and accompanied Nick behind the curtain.

The Yard man had assumed a role that he often used when ferreting out information from London’s night haunts. No one but the Shifter knew that “Loo Siniter” was connected with the police. Nick’s disguise was simple but effective and enabled him to mix on terms of or less equality with the smaller fry of crookland.

The Shifter clutched his sleeve as they stepped into the dank and noisesome passage beyond the curtain. It was illumined by a sickly gas jet that, threw dense sooty shadows on the dingy ceiling.

“Now come across,” commanded Nick. “Don’t pretend you haven’t heard about the Blacker.”

The Shifter bit his lip. He was obviously agitated.

“ ’E’s one o’ the up and ups, mister,” he said. “S’welp me, I dursen’t give you any dope on the Blacker.”

Nick’s eyes grew steely hard. He turned to the door on the right from behind which came a murmur of voices.

“Who’s in there?” he demanded.

“On’y a few friends o’ mine, mister,” said the Shifter uneasily.

Nick wrenched open the door. Three men, flashily dressed, were seated playing cards at a table on which reposed a half-empty bottle of whisky and three glasses. One of them swore at the detective’s sudden entrance.

“Sit down, gentlemen, sit down,” said Inspector Nicholas New.

He smiled somewhat grimly as he recognised two notorious gangsters and a squat, burly man with a hang-dog, sullen face.

“Why, hallo, if it isn’t my old friend the Clincher!” said Nick New.

The exconvict started to his feet with an oath. As if by magic an automatic appeared between Nick’s fingers.

“Sit down, Clincher, my lad,” said the detective. “I want to have a talk with you. I hear you’ve been going straight for a while?”

Clincher Coke curled his lip scornfully.

“I don’t care a cuss wot you ’ear, Mr. Nosey New,” he rejoined. “You ain’t got anythink on me. Look at ’im, fellers. Scotland Yard’s dandy detective. Runs wiv the ’are and ’unts wiv the ’ounds. Ain’t ’e one for disguise?”

Nick New flushed beneath his swarthy make-up while the other two gangsters tittered with amusement. The Shifter hovered about uncertainly.

“Please, please don’t make any trouble, gentlemen,” he pleaded. “Inspector New thinks you know something about the Blacker, an’ I’m tellin’ ’im yer don’t know a darned thing.”

“The Blacker!” echoed Clincher Coke, and his smile was ugly. “You watch out, or you’ll be gettings yours, Nosey New.”

In that instant the ’phone bell rang with startling suddenness. Nick saw the glance which passed between the three men. A glance of apprehension and fear. He wagged his automatic suggestively towards the trio. The telephone was on the wall, and the Clincher half-staggered to his feet to answer it.

“Sit down!” snapped Nick. “That’s for me, I guess.”

He grabbed hold of the receiver and menaced the others with his gun.

“Hallo, that you, Clincher?” came a voice, low-toned and urgent, over the wires.

“Yes, boss,” said Nick in a gruff tone that was a fairly good imitation of the exconvict’s.

“Listen,” came the voice again. “I’m over at Aylesdon. I shall be back at three. Keep an eye on the girl.”

Nick’s pulses raced. It was evident enough who the speaker was.

“Yes, boss,” he began. “I’ve forgotten the number of the place.”

“What’s the matter with you, you fool?” rasped the voice of the Blacker. “Are you drunk? She’s over at Flite Street, Fulham. Number Seven. There’ll be a meeting at Brotherhood Hall to-morrow. See that Crewe keeps off the booze.”

Nick felt his heart pounding violently as he listened. It was obvious that the Blacker was referring to Dorothy. He did not dare say too much, however, in case the arch-crook should suspect something was wrong.

“Right-oh, boss,” he said huskily. “I’ll do that.”

Crash!

Nick spun round just in time to see the Clincher hurl over the table with its bottle and glasses. A snarl of fury ripped from the convict’s throat, and without an instant’s warning the Clincher hurled his heavy bulk at Nick. He sprang with tigerish ferocity and gripped Nick’s wrist in a vice-like grasp.

Crack!

Nick’s revolver spat once—harmlessly. The Clincher’s sudden onset had spoilt his aim, and the exconvict merely grunted as a scorching tongue of flame seared his temple.

The weapon went flying out of Nick’s hand and the telephone receiver dangled helplessly from the instrument. The Clincher laughed savagely as he advanced on New. Nick swung back his deadly left and drove it with every ounce of his strength straight for the Clincher’s jaw.

The crook’s head snicked back with the pain and suddenness of the blow. One of the gangsters jabbed a gun towards Nick as the Clincher crashed forward. A stream of strange oaths flowed from the Shifter’s flaccid lips.

“Stick ’em up, yer darned busy!” rasped the gangster triumphantly.

Nick’s hands shot upwards. His keen eyes had already noticed in a bracket on the wall a patent pear-shaped glass fire-extinguisher. As his hand shot upward he seized hold of it and hurled the heavy object with a crash straight at the gangster’s evil face.

It broke in a thousand fragments against the gunman’s thick skull and with a howl of agony he dropped, his face streaming with blood. The room was full of pungent chemical fumes. Nick did not pause. He wrenched open the door and took a flying leap into the passage outside.

A revolver shot roared past him and he heard the whine of a bullet pass his ear. In two bounds he was outside in the street. On the other side of the road was a crawling taxi. Nick hailed it, and wrenching open the door sank back inside.

“Flite Street, Fulham!” he said. “And drive like the devil!”

Chapter 10

THE BLACKER BLACKS OUT

A LOG fire crackled in the cosy oak-panelled library of Dr. Charles Kronin’s comfortable house in Aylesdon, a pleasant market town in Bucks, some forty miles from town. The doctor himself was a ruddy-cheeked dapper little man with twinkling blue eyes and a bedside manner that was famous throughout the county.

He was a man of some substance. In addition to being Medical Officer of Health he was Justice of the Peace and chairman of the local British Legion.

It was close on midnight, and the doctor, who had had a strenuous day, now relaxed in slippered ease before the fire, little dreaming of the reign of terror which the Blacker had started in London, nor how soon he himself was to be enmeshed in it.

Doctor Kronin’s household was small but efficient. Recently a widower, his wife had been the “lady bountiful” of the district, and his sudden bereavement had evoked genuine sympathy from the countryside.

The doctor had a resilient nature, however, and his many friends had vied with one another in showing him kindliness and sympathy. It was rare indeed for the doctor to dine alone, but this evening was the exception.

He had had a somewhat melancholy errand to perform that afternoon. He had called at a monumental mason’s to order a tombstone for his late wife. The good doctor had spent a lot of thought over the inscription to her memory, and even the mason, whose gloomy trade had calloused him to sentiment, was touched by the doctor’s choice of an epitaph.

“Nothing is here for tears, nothing but well and fair and what may quiet us in a death so noble.”

Doctor Kronin laid down his copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost from which he had taken the quotation. He smiled.

“I think I’ll try Paradise Regained,” he remarked.

His eyes narrowed reflectively. Nearly eight months had elapsed since the death of his wife whom he had nursed so devotedly during her illness.

The firelight rose and fell, casting strange fantastic shadows on the panelled walls of his study. Doctor Kronin’s thoughts were very pleasant. The time for mourning was almost past.

In the embers of the grate he glimpsed shadow pictures of enchanted cities and tropic seas. The late Mrs. Kronin had had a considerable private income of her own, and now that probate had been proved the worthy doctor felt that at last he was entitled to a rest.

He stretched his arms luxuriantly. The household had long since retired. Outside a chill wind moaned eerily in the gables. The doctor stretched his fingers and took down a volume of toxicology from his well-filled bookshelves. He became so engrossed in his reading that he did not notice the faint click of a latch and the bulge in the heavy plush portieres that screened the French windows.

He scribbled a few illegible notes on the margin of his book.

“Indiscreet, highly indiscreet,” said a calm, suave voice.

Doctor Kronin swung round in his chair and his rubicund face went the colour of death. Standing by the window was a tall figure in a silk-lined opera cloak and his face covered by a white silk mask. In one hand he held a gun that pointed steadily at the doctor’s heart.

The physician’s jaw dropped.

“What—what d’you want?” he stammered.

“You!” was the laconic reply.

With an effort Kronin pulled himself together and in a voice that he strove to keep steady he demanded:

“Who are you?”

“You may call me the Blacker,” said the stranger.

“The Blacker?” echoed the doctor, and his face was bloodless.

The other’s full red lips smiled crookedly beneath the rim of his mask.

“I have two words to say to you, my friend,” he remarked. “Two very effective words. Either—or! I need not particularise, for I think you will understand.”

Dr. Kronin wetted his lips. He understood only too well. The midnight intruder crossed over to the fireplace and sat down in a chair opposite his victim’s.

“My friend,” he said, and his tone was almost casual, “your conduct during the past few months has been very indiscreet. Village gossip is growing, and what is move, there are letters—anonymous letters—in circulation.”

“Wh-what d’you mean?” gasped Kronin.

“Ah!” the Blacker chuckled softly. “Your clandestine visits to the beautiful Miss—X, shall we call her?—and—what about the sum of five thousand pounds you owed Mr. Overman?

“Incidentally,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “you don’t seem to have been as successful in killing the weeds in your garden as you were in——”

“Stop, curse you, stop!”

Kronin’s face blenched. Guilt was manifest in his eyes, and his heart was gripped by fear’s icy fingers.

“A very stupid poison to use, arsenic,” commented White Mask. “It is lucky for you that I have come before the police take action, my friend. The Public Prosecutor is very interested in the matter.”

“My Heaven!” gasped Kronin, and his voice shook. “You—you mean they suspect?”

The Blacker shrugged.

“Unless you are guided by me, doctor,” he said quietly, “you will be wakened up early one morning by a man you’ve never seen before, and one you will never see again. He will take you for a little walk, and——”

He hesitated a second, then said, very sibilantly and distinctly:

“You—won’t—come—back—from—that walk!”

Dr. Kronin leapt to his feet and mouthed feebly while the Blacker again uttered his terrible alternative:

“Either—or. I need the services of a medical man in the—er—organisation which I control. One preferably who is not too scrupulous. You have, of course, an alternative, my dear doctor. You can refuse—but I do not advise it. In the first place, I may mention that a Scotland Yard detective will start investigations in the district to-morrow. In the second place, a gentleman ignored my instructions this evening, and I was forced to kill him.” His finger trembled significantly on the trigger, and Dr. Kronin’s blood turned to ice.

“On the other hand,” continued the Blacker, and from his pocket he produced a buff-coloured envelope which he had extracted two hours before from the file in the Public Prosecutor’s office. “If you follow my instructions you will be able to circumvent all police inquiry into the—er—lamentable death of your wife.”

Dr. Kronin stared at the documents which comprised anonymous letters containing subtle hints and innuendoes, and he smiled bitterly as he recognised the handwriting of a man who was ostensibily his best friend.

“Well, what have I to do?” he said, and his voice was a mere croak.

“I think you’d better come up to town with me and discuss matters,” said the Blacker. “Even in this gossipy village the fact that a doctor goes out to a midnight call will not occasion too much comment.”

Dr. Kronin moved towards the fireplace. He looked suddenly very old and haggard. Behind the slits of his mask the Blacker’s eyes glinted satirically.

Chapter 11

UNMASKED!

DOROTHY had lost all sense of time, and had fallen into an uneasy slumber after she had made her staggering discovery of the Blacker’s identity.

She awoke with a start, conscious of the subdued murmur of voices in that dingy room. Seated at the table she saw two men whose faces were masked by silken dominoes. In one case the disguise was unnecessary, for she recognised the suave, hateful voice of the Blacker.

He crossed over to the bed, and his smile was crooked beneath the rim of his white mask.

“Ah, you’re looking better already,” he said. “I have brought a doctor friend of mine to take a look at you. If you will promise to be a good girl, and not make any fuss. I shall be delighted to remove your bonds. I may as well inform you that screams for help will be worse than useless, and will merely result in very unpleasant consequences to yourself.”

Dorothy shrank back among her pillows, loathing in her eyes. The other man, who was short and rotund, with grey hair, bent over her and held her fettered and swollen wrist.

“What—what d’you want of me? Wh-why do you kidnap me?” she inquired.

The Blacker laughed softly.

“It is a somewhat unusual proposal I have to make to you, Miss Somerville,” he said. “And, as a matter of fact, it is a mere formality.”

He paused, and Dorothy stared at him in wondering fear.

“Will you marry me?” said that strange man who called himself the Blacker, and who was once known as F. X. Quarles.

“Marry you?” echoed Dorothy.

His question sounded so preposterous and fantastic that she began to laugh weakly, hysterically.

“Marry you—a murderer and a blackmailer? How—how dare you?”

Quite unperturbed, the Blacker shrugged his shoulders.

“It is usual, I believe, in these cases to ask the lady’s consent to matrimony ; but, fortunately, thanks to modern science, it is not necessary.”

His voice altered suddenly.

“You will marry me by special licence within three days’ time in the register office at Camden Town,” he said.

Dorothy stared at him, her eyes wide with horror.

“You must be mad—stark, raving mad,” she declared.

“On the contrary,” laughed the Blacker. “I am exceedingly sane. The doctor here will corroborate that, I think?”

Dr. Kronin nodded. By his shaking hands and a feverish glitter in his eyes Dorothy saw that the man had been drinking.

“Yes, yes, my dear young lady, I assure you it would be much better for all concerned if you—or—accepted my friend’s proposal.”

Dorothy’s lips curled scornfully.

“I would sooner die,” she said. “You must be utterly insane, both of you. This isn’t the nineteenth century. I cannot be forced into marriage against my will.”

The Blacker gave a soft and sibilant chuckle.

“Coerced—no. Persuaded—yes! My friend, Dr. K., here, will doubtless substantiate my statement.”

Dorothy’s heart was numb with fear. There was no doubt about it, the man was mad. The very clarity of his explanation held the ghastly, irrefutable logic of the insane.

“To be quite candid with you,” continued the Blacker, “you will be drugged into submission in exactly the same way as violent lunatics and criminals are pacified. You will be quite aware of what is happening to you, but you will not care very much. They tell me the effects of the drug are very pleasant. It is known as bromocain, I believe, and its chief effect is that it saps the will power.”

The Blacker smiled again.

“I merely place before you the alternative I have placed before so many people. Either—or! Marry me of your own free will, and there will be no necessity to use the drug. Refuse and——”

His pause was eloquent. Dorothy turned her face to the wall. She was sick with weariness and dread. The Blacker seemed so sure—so certain. She realised now his diabolical plan. There was not much use pinning her faith to the rescue, she reflected. Nick did not know where she was. She did not know herself, and it was obvious that, having pierced the Blacker’s secret, she would be guarded day and night until he achieved his fantastic object.

“I will leave you to think the matter over,” said the Blacker. “Come, doctor, do you think we can trust her to remain quiescent if we were to unfasten her bonds?”

Kronin glanced at Dorothy and saw the defiance in her eyes.

“I doubt it,” he remarked, shaking his head.

“So be it,” said the Blacker.

He unlocked the door, and the two left Dorothy dazed and bewildered as she thought of the Blacker’s astounding proposal.

• • • • • •

Nicholas New’s nerves were aquiver with excitement as he sank into the taxi. It had been a piece of stupendous luck that the Blacker had rung up his henchmen just then.

It was not the first time that a visit to the Shifter’s in the guise of Loo Siniter had produced results.

The taxi bowled along towards the Tottenham Court Road, and at the corner Nick rapped sharply at the window and beckoned to a constable on point duty.

“Look in at the Shifter’s quickly,” he commanded. “Pull in the Clincher; I’m off to Fulham.”

The constable stared in bewilderment for a moment at the big, swarthy-looking Italian. Nick produced his identity card, however, and instantly the policeman’s manner changed. He blew his whistle, and as the shrill pheep echoed through the deserted streets Nick ordered the driver to move on.

They flashed down towards the Bayswater Road, and Nick grinned exultantly. He knew by the Blacker’s ’phone message that Dorothy was alive. She was a prisoner in Flite Street. The address was vaguely familiar to Nick, and he racked his brains to try and recall in what connection he had heard it before. He patted his hip pocket with satisfaction and joyed in the thought of meeting the Blacker face to face. A cold rage filled his heart. If that arch crook had harmed one hair of Dorothy’s shingled head, then Nick swore to kill him with his own hands.

He glanced at the stolid back of the driver and lifted the speaking-tube to order that phlegmatic to hurry. He had just placed the vulcanite mouthpiece to his lips when he suddenly inhaled a sickly, sweet-smelling vapour. He spluttered and coughed and dropped the flexible tubing with an oath. He felt a choking sensation in his throat, and tore at his muffler. His senses reeled, and with a prodigious effort he tried to open the window of the taxi.

The strap seemed to have jammed, and his fingers seemed suddenly paralysed. With a choking gurgle he slumped forward to the floor, out to the wide.

From his seat in the front of the cab Steve, the driver, cracksman and a prominent member of the Camden Town Crusaders, turned round and grinned happily. In his hand he held a rubber bulb, which had, a minute before, contained ethyl chloride, and which he had only been waiting the opportunity to use.

“That’s for you, Mr. Nosey New,” he said with a grin and stepped on the gas. The car sped through the deserted streets towards Camden Town.

• • • • • •

“Very satisfactory, very satisfactory indeed.”

The suave voice of the Blacker commented approvingly as he listened to the report of his lieutenant, Crewe.

The arch crook had had a busy night, but so carefully had he arranged his plans and delegated instructions to his henchmen that it was not later than three a.m. when he entered the funereal precincts of Mr. Ezra Tapp’s undertaking emporium.

It was typical of the Blacker to have chosen Brotherhood Hall, not only because of its secluded position but because the shop of the amiable Mr. Tapp was next door.

The most suspicious policeman would hardly connect the nocturnal activities of that well-known and respected mortician of Camden Town with the arch blackmailer. The shop, like many undertakers’ in the poorer districts of London, was open all night, but save for a sickly light in the depressing-looking window the place was in darkness.

The Blacker arrived shortly after three accompanied by Dr. Kronin, who was a very frightened man. They had returned from the place in Fulham after a record trip from Buckinghamshire.

There were six members of the Crimson Crusaders present in the back room. They had doffed their robes, for they were all members of the inner circle of the Blacker’s gang held in fealty to the chief by his terrible alternative.

“Yes; very satisfactory, indeed,” repeated the Blacker with a sly chuckle and a sidelong glance at Dr. Kronin. “All our benevolent institution needed was the services, freely given, of a medical man.

“Gentlemen, let me introduce you to our new colleague, whom you may call Dr. K.”

Ezra Tapp, the undertaker, was a lean, cadaverous individual with lantern jaws and eyes so deep set that they looked like the sockets of a skull. He was dressed in rusty black, and day and night affected a crepe bandaged stove pipe hat that added to his grotesque appearance.

The room in which they were now assembled was situated behind the shop, and the chief furniture of the place consisted of coffins in various stages of construction.

“Meet Mr. Tapp, a very ingenious man,” said the Blacker. “You and he should get on famously together.”

The undertaker bowed and rubbed his bony hands. Hitherto, Mr. Tapp’s one difficulty in his ancient but necessary profession was to obtain the legal certificate necessary for burial.

“That will be remedied in future,” said the Blacker quietly.

“What about the girl?” demanded Crewe.

The arch crook’s thin lips tightened.

“Speak a little more respectfully of my future wife,” he remarked. “What our organisation needs is the services of an attractive young lady with no scruples, and one, moreover, who will be unable to go into the witness box to testify against her dear husband.”

He chuckled malignantly.

“Well, well, Tapp, I think we’ll go and take a look at our meddlesome friend, Mr. Nicholas New. That was a very smart capture of yours,” he added, turning to Steve, the driver. “Has he come to yet?”

Mr. Tapp touched his beaky nose with a skeletal finger.

“Just about. He’s still a bit groggy. Ethyl chloride has rather a nasty after effect. We’ve got to hand it to Nosey New,” he added. “It was a darned good make-up.”

“If I hadn’t had the wink tipped me by one o’ the Chinks in Shifter’s place, I would never have known him,” broke in Steve, the driver.

The Blacker laughed.

“Good,” he said approvingly. “Kick him in the ribs and bring him in here.”

Mr. Tapp stretched out a hand and twiddled with an ornamental knob in the wainscotting of his funereal parlour. With a faint, whirrring noise part of the floorway slid back revealing a dark, cavernous hole with stone stops leading to its depths.

Crewe drew in his breath sharply as the charnel house odour assailed his nostrils.

“My private mortuary,” grinned Tapp. “Very useful in hot weather,” he added with a chuckle.

Despite his professional training, Dr. Kronin shivered. There was something so utterly callous about the cadaverous undertaker.

“Come on, Steve,” laughed Tapp, over his shoulder, flashing a torch.

The taxi-driver lumbered over while Tapp descended. There was silence for a moment as the group waited. Suddenly from the dark hole below came the sound of Tapp’s grating voice.

“Come on, Mr. Nosey New, no funny business.”

A few moments later they heard stumbling footsteps, then the head and shoulders of Nicholas New appeared. He blinked dazedly, and his wrists were tightly bound by a knotted cord.

The Blacker toyed with his revolver as Nick ascended, closely followed by Tapp, who covered him with an automatic.

“Dear, dear,” said the Blacker in a mocking voice, “so we meet again!”

Behind his mask his eyes were like those of a tiger about to spring. Nicholas New, pale, dishevelled but indomitable, stared back at him with unwavering, grey eyes.

“So it seems,” he drawled. “I thought I was a goner when I woke and found myself in a coffin. I fully expected to wake up in Heaven. But, seeing the present company, I am convinced that I’m—er—in the other place.”

“Funny, aren’t you?” snarled the Blacker. “You’ll laugh the other side of your face when I’m done with you.”

It was at that moment that a bell buzzed above the locked door of the parlour. Instantly silence fell, and the Blacker’s voice dropped as he heard the sound of an engine being cut off.

“Who’s that, Tapp?” he demanded harshly.

The undertaker placed a bony finger to his lips.

“It’s Mead——”

“Quiet!” hissed the Blacker warningly.

Tapp murmured an apology, and crossing over to the door drew back the bolt. Nick New stiffened. All his senses were on the alert. His plight was desperate, but he had one lone trump card to play.

He pressed his lips, and his pulses raced as he recognised a voice in the passage outside. A moment later Tapp returned. With him was a big, burly man with the lower half of his face covered by a silk handkerchief.

Nick needed but one glance at the man’s square shoulders and tiny gold compass on his watch-chain to realise that he now possessed one solution to the leakage of police information.

“Well, Meadows?” he said, and his lips curved in a satiric smile. “I’ve had ma doots about you for some time. So it was you, was it, that tipped the news of tonight’s little raid at South Ken? Very clever of you!”

Meadows advanced towards Nick truculantly.

“That’s enough of your lip, Mr. Nosey New!” he said belligerently. “You an’ yer darned highhanded methods ’ave ben stickin’ in my gullet for months past, you Commissioner’s pet!”

The change in the big, genial man was startling. Few would have thought that the popular lethargic member of the Flying Squad was a crook. For months he had been in the pay of the Blacker, and had indulged in several blackmailing coups of his own, levying toll on various night club proprietors on the plea of immunity from raids.

Nick’s lips tightened.

“You dirty double-crosser, Meadow’s!” he said in an accent of withering contempt.

“Stop that, darn you!” snarled Meadows, and made as if to fling himself on the helpless detective.

“Steady on there!” snapped the Blacker. “Don’t lose your temper. Remember we want to find out about——”

With a scowl Meadows subsided. Nicholas glanced from one to the other of his captors, and his heart began to hammer violently. He had recovered consciousness at least half an hour before the others were aware of the fact, and much that had hitherto mystified him had become clear. At last he realised how the suspects managed to get away before the police net closed in on them. With a traitor at Scotland Yard itself, and another in the Public Prosecutor’s office, it was no wonder that the carefully drafted police court evidence should collapse at the crucial moment.

“Now, Mr. New,” said the Blacker conversationally. “We all readily admit you’re intelligent and you’ve charm of manner. Unfortunately, however, you are a serious menace to my plans. You know too much.”

“Indeed!” said Nick, and his smile was polite. With his eyes he gauged the distance between himself and the door. If he could only distract their attention for one moment there would be a slim chance of playing his trump card.

He held his bound wrists awkwardly in front of him, and relaxed his muscles. Very, very cautiously he edged near a pile of empty coffins ranged one on top of the other.

Suddenly he straightened and slammed out viciously with his right foot. There was a crash and the pile of coffins toppled ominously forward.

“Look out!” snapped the Blacker, moving nimbly aside.

That second’s diversion was all that Nick needed. With lightning rapidity he jerked apart his hands and reached for his arm-pit. During his incarceration in the cellar he had managed to work his wrists loose. When assuming his role of Loo Siniter, Nick invariably carried a shoulder holster in the American fashion. A small automatic in addition to his ordinary weapon.

He grabbed the butt of the gun like a flash of lightning and whirled about.

“If any man moves I’ll drop him!” he snapped as the pile of coffins crashed to the floor.

So utterly unexpected was his manoeuvre that the crooks were taken aback for a split second. It was enough for Nick. With a pantherine leap he reached the door, opened it, and in the passageway outside paused merely to send a huge stone statue of an angel crashing against the doorway as some sort of barrier against his pursuers.

Crack! Crack!

Two revolver shots whistled unpleasantly close, but Nick reached the outer door within two bounds. He shut it with a reverberating slam, and grinned exultantly as he saw Meadows’ speedy little roadster drawn up beside the kerb. The engine was still warm, and, pressing the self-starter, Nick was away down the dreary, deserted street before the crooks could reach the outer door.

He smiled happily as he stepped on the gas. The Blacker, his face convulsed with rage, fired frenziedly after the car, whose red tail light winked at him derisively. He turned in a fury on Meadows.

“You blamed fool, you’ve done for yourself this time!” he snarled. “Scatter, you fellows—and scatter darned quick before the Flying Squad is here in force!”

Chapter 12

THE LAST THROW

NICK drove like a fiend until he reached the outer circle of Regent’s Park. A blue light above a police ’phone box appeared, and hurriedly he dismounted and rang up Scotland Yard.

His information was terse but sensational, judging from the gasp at the other end of the wire.

“And now for Flite Street!” said Nick New, a fierce exultation in his heart.

Meadows, who was no mean driver, had never extracted so much speed out of his roadster. The needle of the speedometer hovered between forty-five and fifty, and Nick took the corners very often on two wheels. No fewer than eleven policemen solemnly noted the car’s number as it whizzed past them in the chill dawn.

Dorothy Somerville had fallen into a troubled sleep. She was physically and mentally exhausted by her ordeal. She awoke shivering as the pale grey dawn light peered through the window. Her ears suddenly caught the roar of a motor, followed by the shrill scream of brakes.

She sat up, chill with fear. A moment later there was a thunderous knocking that reverberated through the house. Her heart almost stopped beating with terror.

Crash!

There was a splintering shock, and she gave a strangled scream as the door of the dingy room was torn from its hinges and a tall figure was precipitated into the room. She stared at the apparition with horror. Wildeyed and dishevelled though he was, a glad light of recognition suddenly displaced the look of terror in her eyes.

“Nick, Nick!” she cried. “I knew you’d come!”

Her voice broke as Inspector Nicholas New leapt forward and took her into his arms. She allowed herself to relax, and Nick held her tightly to him.

“My dear,” he said, “I came as soon as I could. Those devils——”

“They—they haven’t hurt you?” he added, in concern, as he noticed her white, drawn face.

She smiled, and her lips curved invitingly. From the passage outside came the hoarse voice of the gaunt-faced woman.

“ ’Ere, wot’s all this?”

“Nothing to do with you, ma,” said Nicholas New happily. “You go on back to bed.”

With a light of triumph shining in his eyes, Nick strode out into the dawn. Away in the cast the sun was rising in a glow of amber and gold.

• • • • • •

When Nicholas New started to move things happened. After wrapping Dorothy warmly in a rug he sped Chelseawards, and took her straight back to her little bachelor flat off the King’s Road.

“You lie down on the couch, my dear,” he said, “and don’t attempt to talk until I’ve made you a cup of hot tea, and if there’s any brandy or whisky in the place so much the better.”

Dorothy smiled happily, well content.

“On the sideboard, my dear,” she said. “Help yourself to a whisky and splash, you look dreadfully tired.”

“Nonsense,” returned Nick cheerfully.

He stepped over to the window and pointed to the clear, sunshiny sky.

” ‘So here hath been dawning another blue day,

Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?”

he quoted, with a twinkle.

For a few minutes he busied himself in the little kitchenette and returned into the sitting-room with a pot of tea and some sandwiches. To her astonishment, Dorothy found that she was hungry, and it was not until after she had broken her fast that Nick questioned her about her ordeal.

He listened grimly as she described how she had received a letter of instructions purporting to have come from him.

“Meadows’ work, of course,” he said. “The letter was a forgery. The diabolical cunning of it,” he said, with smouldering eyes as he realised that but for an accident he would now be reposing on Mr. Tapp’s mortuary slab. But it was when Dorothy described the Blacker’s return and his infamous proposal that Nick realised to the full the frightful machinations of that master blackmailer.

He glanced at his watch. It was a little after six-thirty.

“By Jove, Dorothy,” he said, “there may yet be a chance! If I know anything of the Blacker he’ll bluff it out to the end. The last place where one would suspect him to be is very likely the place he’ll make for. I’m beginning to understand the workings of that man’s Machiavellian mind. To think of it, all these years he has been working right under our noses and none of us ever suspected. He is the really original master crook, content to hide his personality in that of an utterly colourless individual.”

He started to his feet, and Dorothy laid a hand on his sleeve.

“Where are you going, Nick?” she inquired.

“To the Home Office,” said Nick grimly.

“Then I’m coming with you,” said the girl.

Despite Nick’s remonstrances she overcame his scruples.

“What a blind fool I’ve been,” said Nick, as he realised the number of people he had suspected in turn of being the Blacker.

Shortly before half-past seven Nick drew up with Dorothy at the drab, grey building in Whitehall. A policeman was on duty outside, and there was an atmosphere of subdued gloom about the place.

The day porter had just arrived, and some half a dozen nondescript women in grey shawls and shabby clothes ascended the steps of the building. They were the cleaners. Queer creatures who lived in humble homes, and toiled for a pittance perpetually cleaning out the offices of people they hardly ever saw.

Nick strode upstairs,.his face set and purposeful. He smiled grimly as he saw the smashed evidence of his imprisonment.

Dorothy gave an involuntary shiver.

“You go in there, dear,” said Nick, “and don’t’ you stir out until I give you the word.”

He had already rung up the Home Secretary and Sir Alastair Benskin, much to those gentlemen’s indignation. Nick drew out his watch and placed it on the desk before him. Would the Blacker be audacious enough to come?

Nick felt certain that his hunch was correct. He had made his arrangements with the Yard by ’phone from Dorothy’s flat. The minutes went by with maddening slowness. Suddenly he heard the rattle of a tin bucket and the shuffle of ill-shod feet. He made out the shadow of a woman against the frosted door of the outer room. A moment later the knob was turned, and a cleaner entered with a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other.

Nick rose to his feet, and his eyes gleamed exultantly.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Raddell,” he commenced in a cheerful voice. “You’ve come to clean up, I see. I shouldn’t bother, if I were you,” he added, and his voice changed swiftly as he leapt forward, automatic gripped in his fingers.

“Stick ’em up. Mr. Blacker!” he rasped, and with a swift gesture he tore off the “woman’s” grey wig.

The effect was astounding, uncanny. The placid features of “Mrs. Raddell” seemed to alter in a flash, and a face, malignant and cruel, appeared in its place.

“Curse you, New—curse you!” snarled the Blacker, and his lips writhed back with fury.

“Yes, I’ll clean up for you,” said New.

He looked up with a smile a his colleague, Detective-inspector Mathews, accompanied by three plain clothes men and a bewildered Public Prosecutor, entered the room.

“Allow me to present the Blacker, gentlemen,” said Inspector Nicholas New.

Sir Alastair Benskin stared for a moment or two in speechless astonishment.

“Great Scott!” he gasped. “A woman!”

Nick laughed.

“No, but an admirable imitation.”

“What right, have you to detain me?” snapped the Blacker. “You have no warrant, and——”

“You can hold him for attempted murder to go on with,” said Nick. “He tried to do me in twice tonight.”

The Yard men closed in ominously round the master blackmailer, and in the eyes of F. X. Quarles was a light of unutterable hatred as they rested on Nicholas New.

“I’ll get—you—yet!” he said vindictively.

“Thanks!” laughed Nick nonchalantly. “That will be all for to-day, thank you! You might leave the pail,” he added maliciously. “It belongs to His Majesty. He’s probably got another one waiting for you at Pentonworth!”

• • • • • •

It was not until some time afterwards that the amazed Sir Alastair fully realised the ramifications of the Blacker’s campaign of crime.

“You see,” explained Nick, “during his seven years stretch Quarles brooded over the fact that it was information laid anonymously to your predecessor that led to his conviction. He realised what a gold mine it would be if he could gain access to the secret dossiers of this department.

“For seven long years he planned. Time meant nothing to him. It was his consummate patience and acting ability that enabled him to get away with it. He led at least three, separate existences, and, covered up his trails so well that we might never have found him but for his kidnapping of Miss Somerville.

“He religiously sustained his role of a hardworking widow from half-past six until half-past eight every morning. He had a house in Fulham, and lived there in the role he had created, that of Mrs Raddell. His make-up was perfect. He did not hurry the job, but waited until, bit by bit, he had established confidence.

“He had even invented an errant son, Jem, to keep in character. Who would suspect a humble, uneducated charwoman? He had plenty of opportunity to take impressions of the locks and make keys to fit. What he did, of course, was to photograph various documents. Most of us have skeletons in our cupboards, and it was with these that he terrorised his victims.”

“Amazing, amazing!” commented Sir Alastair. “Never for one moment did I dream that the Raddell woman was other than she appeared.”

Nick lit a cigarette.

“I admit, Sir Alastair, that I suspected everybody—including yourself—and when I heard that unfortunate altercation between yourself and your son I was almost convinced. I suspected the man, Dibney, too. Fortunately for us, however,” he added, “the Blacker, like most crooks, grew vain and over-reached himself. He tried to organise a gang, wherein he made a fatal mistake, he should have worked alone. As it is, we’ve pulled in the Clincher, Crewe and half a dozen others. And if you don’t mind reminding the Home Secretary, sir, I think I’ll get busy on that exhumation order in Aylesdon. I don’t think we’ll have any difficulty in proving Dr. Kronin guilty.”

It was a prognostication which proved correct. As his colleagues of the Yard said afterwards:

“Inspector Nicholas Knew!”

THE END

THE ASSASSIN

GWYN EVANS

POWERFUL LONG NOVEL OF ACTION AND SINISTER MYSTERY

PROLOGUE

IN THE NIGHT

“SHE had a dark and roving eye,

And her hair hung down in ring-a-lets.”

Her name on the silver screen was Fifi Ducaine. In Tooting, where she was born, her name was Hannah Gomm.

It was night. It was Elstree. It was not her car. She could not drive well, for Miss Fifi Ducaine had looked upon the wine when it was red, and now her bejewelled fingers on the steering-wheel of the car were anything but steady.

Fifi was a clever kid. She had graduated from the chorus into the Elstree elect, and was now a minor star that twinkled occasionally and nasally for the Talkophone Film Corporation.

Fifi had a friend. That friend had a grievance, and that grievance was Fifi. Hence the road, hence the ear and her unsteady fingers.

That same day a man named Sam Westerbrook had come out of prison in a bad temper, high dudgeon, and an ill-fitting suit of plus fours.

Now he walked out into the night from a disreputable public-house in the Walworth Road. He wanted to meet Don Mariford, the star of Talkophone Films. Don Mariford, the Man With a Thousand Faces, each of which his friends described as more terrifying then the other.

Sam Westerbrook had a grievance, too—a thousand grievances, in fact—and each grievance was Don Mariford’s face. He wanted to pound each and every one into pulp.

Sam was an ex-convict, an ex-valet, and was shortly to be extinct. In Elstree at midnight he was slouching along the Broadway, harbouring grievances against Don Mariford, his late employer, who had dismissed him for theft. It was at the precise moment when Sam was wondering which of Mr. Mariford’s many faces he could conveniently, “slosh” that Miss Fifi Ducaine’s slim and highly-hennaed fingers wobbled on the wheel. The bonnet of the car caught Sam unawares.

Fifi, as I have said, had looked upon the wine when it was red. She now looked upon a crimson of a deeper stain. She had sickened many men. This time a man sickened her, and the one concerned was Sam Westerbrook.

He was very deceased.

Boom! Boom!

Two guns thundered through the night, and the peaceful silence of Hertfordshire was shattered in order to make Louis Schultzler’s super-film, “All Riot on the Eastern Front.”

Mr. Schultzler was very Eastern. Mr. Westerbrook was very dead. Fifi was very drunk.

Swoosh!

As if to emphasise it, a Very light illumined the quiet Hertfordshire lane. Fifi jammed on her brakes and swerved violently. Too late! The back wheels gave a squelchy heave which jerked her into sobriety and the front mudguards smashed into the hedge.

It was at this moment that Don Mariford was returning home to his modest bungalow in England’s Hollywood, and that Police-constable Wilkinson was reflecting about his chances of promotion. The concatenation of circumstances were destined later to slay many men—but Miss Fifi Ducaine had only slain one at the moment.

Don Mariford, who was probably the greatest character-actor Europe had ever produced, strolled thoughtfully down the highway. His face, mobile, uncanny in its facility for metamorphosis, was very thoughtful.

It is difficult to describe Don Mariford. Those cinema patrons who saw him in “The Street of Shame,” “The Wolf of Paris,” and “Shanghai Jim,” will recall his masterly use of make-up. He had earned, in the course of his film career, half a million pounds and the approbation of all critics.

Boom!

Again a howitzer thundered across the Hertfordshire plain, and searchlights stabbed through the darkness. They were the Kleig lights of the Talkophone Film Company. By accident they mirrored the tragedy of the car and Mr. Sam Westerbrook’s untimely demise, when they should have focused the sham battle that was destined to increase Mr. Schultzler’s dividends.

Don Mariford glimpsed the car, the drunken girl, the dead man, in that blinding flash of illumination. He glimpsed it two minutes before Constable Wilkinson. Had he not done so this story would never have been written.

And that amazing society, “The Soundless Six,” would not have burst like a bombshell on an astounded world!

Don Mariford was not the ordinary type of cinema actor. He had brains, personality, and a genius for disguise. He recognised instantly the sticky mess in the roadway and the stickier mess in the car—noticed also the perambulatory policeman.

“Hoy!” said P.-c. Wilkinson.

Boom! went the shells from the adjacent cinema field.

Don Mariford sprang on the running-board of the car. Don was as quixotic as his famous namesake. Fifi Ducaine giggled foolishly. With one heave of his mighty shoulders, Don flung her into the rear of the tonneau. When P.-c. Wilkinson arrived he found a drunken driver at the wheel and a crumpled bunch of crepe-de-Chine in a corner of the car.

“ ’Ere!” said P.-c. Wilkinson. “Wot’s all this?”

“Hic!” said Mr. Mariford.

Fifi said nothing. She had fainted. Mr. Westerbrook said less. He was dead.

Of the subsequent appearance of Don Mariford on a charge of manslaughter at the Old Bailey, it is not necessary to write.

The public, whose film favourite he had been for years, learnt with horror that he was a debauche—a drunkard—and had, after an Elstree studio orgy, killed a man.

Mr. Justice Gravely, passing sentence of three years’ penal servitude for manslaughter, voiced the jury’s sentiments when he described Don’s deed as that of a “drunken and dissolute scoundrel.”

It was manslaughter—and as Don Mariford, the whitest, cleanest man who had ever worked at Elstree, left the dock, to disappear, he smiled bitterly.

Chapter 1

“THE SOUNDLESS SIX.”

IN a quiet room in Bloomsbury six figures sat. One was known as the “Doc” to his friends. His real name was known to Scotland Yard, but he had so many aliases that even that astute official, Inspector Nicholas New, did not know them all.

The others round the oval-shaped table in that quiet Bloomsbury flat were almost as silent and taciturn as the Doc himself.

As that engaging little crook, Whiny Wick, privately described the Doc to his many acquaintances:

“We calls ’im the ‘Big Noise’—because ’e don’t make none!”

If Inspector Nicholas New, who was at present combing London for that enigmatic baud of criminals known as the Soundless Six, had taken a snapshot of that oval table, he would have discovered, not only the Big Noise, but Professor Everard Langdon, Mlle Desiree la Lune, and Hereward Marsh—to say nothing of Mr. Latimer Ridley, whose candle he would have longed to put out.

The six sat in silence. Inspector New didn’t know. The Big Noise rose to his feet and poked Whiny Wick in the ribs.

“Whiny,” he said. “Do you squeak?”

There was dead silence, for the Doc had mentioned the unutterable word of the underworld. Whiny was no squeaker.

The Doc crossed over to the mirror in the corner of the room and surveyed himself in front of the fly-blown glass. He glanced with more or less approval at his features and smiled satirically at his companions.

Whiny Wick, for once in his life, said nothing. He had nothing to say—and, besides, that night he was not on duty.

“My friends,” said the Chief of the Soundless Six. “My very dear friends,” he repeated with subtle emphasis. “Each one of us has been in prison. I myself served three years for manslaughter. You, Desiree”—he turned to the slim figure who was seated in the chair on the left—“have also served penal servitude. There are six of us here. Each one of us has a grievance against society. I don’t want to make a speech, but——”

He paused, and the plaintive voice of Whiny Wick came from the corner of the table.

“ ’Alf a mo’, Doc. Ye’ve got us togev’er. I see’d yer at the Hotel de Ville. But wot are we goin’ ter do abaht it?”

“Exactment, ma cherie,” came the voice of Desiree. “What are we going to do? Eet is all veree well to talk about makin’ war against society, but——”

“One moment,” boomed the deep voice of Latimer Ridley. “As a lawyer of some substance and considerable years of experience——”

“In gaol,” interjected the Big Noise acidly. “You will kindly remember that I have gathered you five here together in order that we may prove to the world the truth of AEsop’s fable—that ‘Unity is Strength.’ ”

Outside, in the gathering darkness of a November evening, a policeman passed along his beat. He did not realise, as he ambled by that quiet, modest-fronted house in Bloomsbury, that he was passing by the headquarters of the Soundless Six.

• • • • • •

That thin-lipped doyen of the bench, Mr. Justice Gravely, Chairman of the Special Commission inquiring into crime and its motives, was a complex individual. His cold, calm, logical mind seemed to be stimulated by the sentences he inflicted upon the unfortunate crooks who appeared before him.

Hardened crime reporters were wont to say that hearing Mr. Justice Gravely condemn a man to death was worse than seeing the actual execution.

He had a wizened face. Thin, almost ascetic—save when he was condemning his fellow men to the scaffold, when into his stone-cold eyes there would then creep a strange gleam, almost of malice.

It was Mr. Justice Gravely who sentenced Don Mariford to three years’ penal servitude precisely two years and three months before the formation of that unique association, the Soundless Six.

Don Mariford came out of prison a ruined man, socially, but not financially. The hard, brutalising prison tasks had warped the finer instincts of his nature, and contact with the poor, drab outcasts in the prison cells had brought him out into the world a convinced enemy of the legal system.

Society, that had once fawned upon him, now treated him like a pariah. Never again could the Man of a Thousand Faces appear on the silver screen, nor his rich and resonant voice charm the talkie audiences.

Don Mariford came out of the living tomb of Pentonworth a dead man. In his place there reigned that enigmatic individual who was known at police headquarters as the Doc or the Big Noise.

While in prison Don had discovered that at least twenty-five per cent, of the convicts were there because of the activities of the “Man Higher Up.” They were mostly poor weaklings, creatures of heredity and environment who had blundered into crime and had been sentenced with all the severity which Mr. Justice Gravely could inflict within the strict limits of the law.

Don Mariford’s hobby was criminology. Until his incarceration he had taken only a theoretic interest in crime. While in gaol, however, he had been brought face to face with its ugly and sordid realities. He had arrived at the conclusion that most criminals were fools, and that the real crooks were not inside, but outside.

Prison bred crime.

While inside, Don had heard vague rumours of a man known variously as the “Chief,” “Agate Eyes,” and the “Assassin.” He was said to be the mysterious leader of the Shinwell lot, that tough gang of racecourse crooks. Ho was also said to be one of the most astute fences since the demise of Kemmy Grizzard.

All sorts of rumours were current about the activities of Agate Eyes. They spread in that queer, telepathic fashion by which new’s is transmitted in the underworld, and Don Mariford became gradually convinced that the illusive super-crook was no figment of a sensational novelist’s imagination, but a very tangible reality.

It was Agate Eyes who was responsible for the conviction of half a dozen young criminals. He was known to be utterly ruthless in the use of his tools—an assassin of souls. Mariford classed him privately as the “crime breeder,” who used his uncannily clever brain to make the world safe for crookocracy!

He had no compunction whatsoever in sending the failures to prison, and it was not until his release that Mariford, by devious methods, obtained his first clue to the identity of the master-crook.

At Scotland Yard also the existence, if not the identity, of Agate Eyes was known. Inspector Nicholas New, that knowledgeable and surprising young man, had long suspected Agate Eyes of being the prime mover behind a score of sensational jewel robberies and the instigator of dozens of the more daring smash and grab raids in the West End.

It tickled Inspector New’s mordant sense of humour that at least a dozen of the more sensational mail-bag thefts had been committed by old lags who had spent most of their time in prison making the very mail-bags which they subsequently stole. He called it poetic justice—but then Inspector New was a remarkable young man, and possibly one of the most unconventional members of the C.I.D.

Tall, loose-limbed, blue-eyed, Nicholas New was a public-school product whose hobby in life was the cult of nonsense. He had, much to the horrified indignation of his titled relatives, joined the police force as an ordinary constable. It is reported of him that on one occasion he actually assumed an aggressive waxed moustache, number 10 shoes, and a hard bowler hat, in order to look so like a plain clothes policeman that nobody would believe he was one, on the momentous occasion when he raided Ma Hayrick’s night club.

His brilliant handling and exposure of those two master villains, the “Croucher” and the “Blacker,” earned a rapid promotion for Nick New, but it was not until the activities of that extraordinary association, the Soundless Six, became known to an incredulous world, that he revealed his genius for criminal investigation and swift action.

It was one of the most complicated and diabolically ingenious criminal conspiracies ever hatched that he was called upon to unravel, and its beginnings were as trivial as its developments were spectacular.

Chapter 2

ENTER NICHOLAS NEW

ON a foggy November afternoon, Inspector Nicholas New surveyed gloomily the polished toe-caps of his patent leather shoes which were conveniently placed for his inspection, for he had parked them and his long legs on the desk of his austerely furnished room at Scotland Yard.

The window was open and looked out over the Thames Embankment. On the floor beside him was a pile of newspapers, the “Personal” columns of which had been ringed round by blue pencil.

Nick lifted up a copy of that morning’s “Daily Ray” and scanned the various announcements in the “Personal” column with detached interest. He learnt, not without amusement, that “Tootles” would be delighted to meet “Bonzo” under the clock at Charing Cross at six-thirty that evening, and “all would be forgiven.”

Inspector Nicholas New was not a sentimental young man. This touching proof of affection on the part of two sundered hearts caused no stir in his bosom. He dialled a certain number on the telephone on his desk and called up his colleague, Sergeant Benskin, of the Flying Squad.

“Pick up Toots Macgrady,” he said laconically. “He’s meeting Mike the Whiz outside Marble Arch at half-past twelve.”

“Sure,” said Benskin, who was a man of many deeds and few words.

New yawned. The unoriginality of the average criminal bored him. Invariably when that unimaginative cracksman, Toots Macgrady, had committed a smash, he communicated with his fence, Mike the Whiz, in the “Personal” column of the “Ray.” When he said Charing Cross he meant Marble Arch, and vice versa. Those touching love messages to Bonzo had cost Toots many weary months.

Nick yawned as his eye traversed the “Personal” column again. He learnt without enthusiasm that a lady—a respectable officer’s widow—shortly going abroad, was desirous of selling her expensive furs.

Nick smiled cynically. He knew that “officer’s widow.” Her name was Izidore Blumenbaum, a furrier from Whitechapel who had an extensive acquaintance with the feline denizens of that salubrious district. Izzy had been going abroad for years—but he never went.

Suddenly New’s eyes narrowed as his gaze fell upon the following cryptic item:

“BULBS! BULBS! BULBS!—Black Tulips a specialty. Watch for forthcoming consignments.—VAN KAMP, Antwerp.”

It was Nicholas New’s quirk for the nonsensical and the unusual that caused him to study the item with more than usual care. He had a queer penchant for absurd nursery rhymes, and it was the repetition of the word “bulb” that riveted his attention. There was something fantastic about the very sound of the word.

“Bulb—bulb—bulb,” said Nicholas. “Now I wonder what the devil rhymes with that? It has no rhyme, therefore has no reason. Therefore it is nonsense—therefore it is true!”

Nick’s peculiar mental processes need to be explained. He believed implicitly that if a thing was described as all nonsense it must indubitably be true. He believed also in Chesterton’s dictum, who said that “most people begin by believing” that “faith is nonsense,” and generally end up by knowing that “nonsense is faith.”

He recalled that Shackleton, Scott, and Peary had hoped all things and endured all things to find the imaginary meeting-places of lines which do not exist; and where nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand would have seen nothing significant about the word “bulb,” Nicholas New, in a blinding flash of illumination, realised that he had stumbled against a secret that had baffled Scotland Yard for months.

“Great heavens!” said Nicholas New. “It’s Agate Eyes!”

Again he dialled the telephone receiver and waited for Benskin’s laconic reply.

“Have a cordon drawn round Covent Garden for the next week,” he said briskly.

“Sure, Chief,” said Benskin. “Any particular reason?”

“Bulbs, boob!” barked Nicholas New.

“I see,” said Benskin.

“I’m dashed if you do,” returned Nicholas New. “ ’Ware the ‘Black Tulip,’ Benskin, old fruit.”

“I see,” said Benskin again in a puzzled tone.

“Good—Perspicacious Percy,” chuckled Nick, and rang off.

It was thus that Scotland Yard first became officially aware of Agate Eyes, and, through Agate Eyes, discovered that astounding organisation, the Soundless Six.

Nick removed his feet from their parking-place and went out to lunch that day in a happier frame of mind than he had done for months. It was typical of his whimsical humour that he ordered pickled onions. He impaled one on his fork and regarded it meditatively.

“Bulb!” he murmured. “The little word—and, oh, how much it is!”

Benskin, who had accompanied his superior to the discreet little hostelry near Scotland Yard, forebore to comment. He thought privately that Nick was a little mad.

The door of the public-house swooshed open.

“Pi’per, sir?” bawled the ragged newsvendor who entered.

Nick solemnly ate his onion and bought a copy of that go-ahead newspaper, the “Evening Ray.”

“Anything new?” asked Benskin, cocking an interrogative eyebrow over the rim of his tankard.

Nick scanned the headlines and grinned.

“This bloomin’ Crime Commission still dodders on,” he remarked. “I see that they’ve received the vital and, doubtless, horrifying evidence of Miss Anastasia Entwhistle on the subject of penal reform.”

“Oh, Lor’!” said Benskin.

Nick chuckled. In police headquarters the Crime Commission appointed for the inquiry into the “causes and cure” of crime was a standing—or at least a sitting joke. For eighteen months an amiable group of middle-aged gentlemen under the presidency of Mr. justice Gravely had received evidence from the most homogeneous assortment of individuals on the subject of crime.

It tickled Nick to death to learn that that militant suffragette, Miss Anastasia Entwhistle, had given her opinion in no uncertain terms on the correct and proper treatment for recidivists, or habitual criminals.

The Commission itself consisted of Mr. Justice Gravely, the Right Honourable George Jessel, Superintendent Wilding, of Scotland Yard—that slow and mountainous man—and the eminent philanthropist, Lord Flichester.

Nick wondered what these eminently respectable but somewhat fossilised old gentlemen, would arrive at by way of conclusion when their three years’ deliberations were done.

He turned over the leaves of the bright journal of which Mr. Bannerton Bruce was the star crime reporter.

Suddenly his eyes narrowed as he read the leading article. It was headed:

“THE DRUG MENACE.”

And ran as follows:

“The revelations of the recent recrudescence of the cocaine menace in the West End of London, exemplified at the trial at the Old Bailey last week, have come as a shock to the public. The International Drug Convention at Geneva have issued their report, and there is no doubt that there is a determined and widespread conspiracy to reintroduce the insidious white drug into London. In passing sentence of three years’ penal servitude on Osbert Snowfield, who was found guilty of smuggling cocaine through the Customs from Germany, Mr. Justice Gravely rightly stressed the heinousness of the offence when he referred to cocaine as a soul-destroying drug which sapped the moral and physical qualities of its addicts.

In passing the maximum sentence, his lordship added that he trusted the authorities would take drastic steps to deal with the recrudescence of the dope dens.

“We view with alarm, as our special crime reporter writes in a vivid article on page three, the terrible increase of drug addicts in the West End of London.

“Scotland Yard seems to have relaxed its vigilance. Whether this can be blamed on the recent findings of the Special Commission or on the more highly organised gang of International dope traffickers, it is not our province to infer. We simply endorse Mr. Justice Gravely’s words and demand the fullest inquiries into the activities of certain undesirable aliens who should have been deported from these shores months ago.”

“Blah!” ejaculated Nicholas New. “Blah and—bulbs!”

It was at that moment that he noticed a slip of saffron-tinted paper which had evidently been inserted in the newspaper. He picked it up with an exclamation of surprise. On it was written, in block capitals and Indian ink:

“INSPECTOR NEW, PREPARE FOR THE BATTLE.—THE SOUNDLESS SIX.”

Chapter 3

THROUGH THE JUDAS GATE

SCOTLAND YARD, that grim, barrack-like building at the corner of Westminster, has several entrances, but one discreet and unobtrusive means of ingress is difficult to find. It is known as the “Nose’s Gate”—a “Nose” being the underworld term for an informer, or “squeaker.”

It is a “nose” who is generally referred to in the discreet phrase, often used by the police to the magistrates, “from information received.”

Through this gate, when dusk has fallen, there shamble furtive-faced nondescript men with caps pulled low over their eyes to hide their shame.

A “nose” is looked on with contempt alike by his acquaintances in the underworld as well as by the police. He is a pariah and an outcast, and his life is generally very short.

On a fog-laden night in November, a thick yellowish “London particular” which shrouded Scotland Yard in a vaporous mist, Whiny Wick sidled furtively through the Judas gate. He paused for a moment or two and adjusted his muffler about his throat.

He was a thick-set man of nondescript appearance and age. His thin lips were pursed now in contemplation, his sandy hair and eyebrows and thin nose added to the sly foxiness of his face.

He paused for fully a minute beneath the pale, sickly blue glare of the police lamp. Then, squaring his shoulders, slipped into the vaulted side entrance to the Yard itself.

A big, fresh-faced young man in a tight-fitting blue serge suit looked up suspiciously on his entrance.

“Is Inspector New in?” demanded Whiny Wick in his habitual sing-song tones.

The C.I.D. man glanced at him, sized him up for what he was, and motioned him to sit down on a hard plank bench.

Whiny took off his cap and fiddled with its peak. The detective dialled a certain number, murmured a few words into the receiver, then turned and said curtly:

“Come on up!”

He led the way through the bare, echoing stone corridors, and stopped before the glass-panelled doorway of Inspector Nicholas New’s room. The Yard man knocked and entered, followed by the shambling Whiny.

Nick New was seated in his swivel chair, a resplendent figure in a well-cut dinner-jacket, and with his dark hair matching in shiny brilliance his patent leather pumps.

Whiny Wick’s eyes widened at this sartorial magnificence.

“Well,” said Nick. “What do you want, Whiny?”

“I’ve got the goods, inspector,” mumbled the “nose” without moving his lips.

“Cough it up, then!” replied Nick curtly.

He signalled to the attendant detective, who opened a notebook and sat down.

“Which particular ‘squeak’ are you putting over now, Whiny?” asked Nick, and there was a sneer in his tone.

“It’s that cuss, the ‘Clincher,’ said the informer, malice in his sandy-lashed eyes. “ ’E’s in on this ‘coke’-runnin’, an’ that’s a fact.”

Nicholas New’s eyes narrowed.

“The Clincher, eh?” he said thoughtfully. “I never knew he went in for ‘snow’-running. It’s a new departure for him, isn’t it?”

Whiny nodded.

“Yes, boss, but I ’appen ter know as ’e’s gettin’ well paid for the job. ’E’s swallowed the anchor—or, at least, serpposed ter ’ave,” he added, using the crook’s expressive idiom for going straight.

Nick pressed a bell-push and a constable entered.

“Nip up to Records. Get me Clincher Clay’s file,” he ordered. When the door had closed, he swung round in his chair, and his blue eyes were hard as they rested on Whiny Wick. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

“Well,” said Whiny. “When Clincher came out o’ stir the las’ time ’e done me dirty. I don’t believe as ’e swallowed no anchor, an’ I ’appen ter know likewise as ’e’s workin’ for——”

He lowered his voice to a whisper, and glanced apprehensively round.

“ ’E’s workin’ for the ‘Up an’ Up.’ ”

“The Up and Up?” repeated Nick. “You mean Agate Eyes?”

Whiny nodded.

“Yus,” guv’nor,” he said. “But for Heavin’s sake don’t let it get out as I told yer or he’ll croak me for sure.”

Stark fear appeared in Whiny’s foxy face, and he licked his lips nervously.

“What do you know about Agate Eyes?” demanded New sharply.

“Nothin’, guv’nor—so ’elp me Bob, nothin’—except that ’e’s the Big Noise amongst the crooks, and if they don’t divvy up or try any narkin’ ’e either croaks or clinks ’em.”

The door opened, and the constable deposited a buff file on Nick’s desk. The inspector ran his eyes critically over the dossier of the versatile Mr. Clincher Clay. It was a complete and damning record of the Clincher’s character.

“H’m! I see he was released on licence six months back from a two years’ stretch. The Prisoners’ Aid Society gave him enough money to start with a vegetable barrow in Covent Garden. Somehow or other, he acquired a donkey-cart, and the latest information is that he has got a job with Eckstein Brothers, wholesale florists and fruiterers, in Endell Street. His conduct there seems to be fairly satisfactory.”

A slight sneer curled the lips of the informer.

“Yus—the low ’ound. But I tell you ’e’s snow-runnin’. I see’d ’im all dolled up in the Blue Dragon two nights back an’ ’e was with ‘Sniffy Nelly.’ ”

Nick’s eyebrows lifted. He knew the Blue Dragon—that disreputable dance club in Soho—knew also the lady who rejoiced in the soubriquet of “Sniffy,” a notorious crook who had been convicted several times for being in unauthorised possession of drugs.

“That’s all very well,” said Nick New. “But one Sniffy doesn’t make a ‘Bummer.’ It might have been accident.”

“Say, listen, guv’nor,” continued Whiny Wick. “This is the real low-down stuff on this——”

“Yes, darned low down,” said Nick acidly.

“Ecksteins are crooks, Abe imports snow from Germany via ’Olland. I’ve got that straight from an ’orse’s mouth,” protested Wick.

Nick New’s lips tightened.

“Bulbs,” he murmured.

Whiny Wick continued volubly.

“So ’elp me Bob, it’s true,” he said earnestly.

“All right,” said Nick soothingly. “Got all that down?”

He turned to the detective who had been industriously taking notes of the conversation.

“Yes, sir,” replied the other.

“Then type it out in triplicate, leaving a copy on Superintendent Wilding’s desk.”

The detective closed his notebook with a snap and went out.

“Half a minute, Wick,” said New. “In the course of your unsavoury profession have you ever heard of a crowd who call themselves the Soundless Six?”

Whiny hesitated.

“Never ’eard of ‘em, sir,” he said. “It ain’t the Shinwell lot, for a rowdier bunch o’ toughs than them don’t exist.”

Nick surveyed the informer steadily for a moment or two. Then said casually:

“All right—chase yourself. Call downstairs for your thirty pieces of silver.”

A sickly smile crept over the “nose’s” face as he slid furtively out through the door. Nick fanned himself with his handkerchief after his departure,

“Phew!” he said in disgust. There were moments when his job revolted him.

Whiny Wick had to wait some little time for his blood money. Meanwhile, upstairs, the vast machinery of the greatest police organisation in the world began to revolve with soundless efficiency.

Superintendent Wilding, one of the “Big Six,” that bluff, farmer-like man, had just returned from a wearisome sitting of the Crime Commission to inquire into the cause and cure of crime.

The fatuity of the proceedings bored him to distraction, but his eyes kindled with interest when he scanned the neatly typewritten report of Whiny Wick’s spiel.

He called in to Nicholas New, and that debonair young man confirmed and amplified the nark’s information.

“You’d better handle this case, New,” said Wilding. “By the way, where is Whiny now ?”

“Hanging about waiting for his money, I guess,” said Nick.

Superintendent Wilding stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“Better keep an observation squad busy on our friend Eckstein’s place,” he said.

“I’ve done that,” said Nick shortly. Then added, with a smile: “Er—what d’you think of Miss Anastasia Entwhistle?”

“That woman’s a born fool, and a meddlesome one at that,” said the super curtly. “I wish,” he added regretfully, as he thought of the days when he had carried that vinegary-visaged and militant suffragette kicking and screaming into Holloway. “I wish we still had the ‘Cat and Mouse’ Act.”

Nick grinned.

“Why the glad rags?” asked the super.

“I thought I’d go along to the Blue Dragon,” said Nick. “I’ve got a date with Sniffy Nelly.”

Wilding chuckled.

“Go to it, my son!”

Nick returned to his room for his overcoat and hat. Before switching out the light he turned to lock his roll-top desk. Suddenly he gave a startled exclamation.

Placed exactly in the centre of his blotting-pad was a slip of yellow linengrained notepaper.

“Watch out for yourself, Inspector New. Your days are numbered!”

It was signed “The Soundless Six.”

Nick looked at it in puzzled wonder. How on earth had the warning got there? He would have sworn that it was not there when he went to make his report to Wilding.

It was with a thoughtful frown that he pocketed the slip and wrapped his white silk muffler round his throat, for the night was raw and foggy.

As he stepped out into the courtyard to where his roadster was parked, a stab of flame spat through the mist, followed by the staccato crack of an automatic.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Again three reports rang out. One bullet phutted against the brickwork above Nick’s head. His hand snaked hipwards, as he saw a shambling, furtive figure emerge from the side entrance of Scotland Yard.

Crack!

Another spurt of flame flashed through the fog, and, with a howl of terror, Whiny Wick dropped flat on his face.

In the momentary glare of that final bullet Nick New glimpsed a high-powered limousine with engine running, and a hand gripping a squat automatic firing over the lowered window of the tonneau. Instantly his own gun spat back, but, with a harsh shriek of gears, the black limousine shot forward and was swallowed instantly by the all-pervading fog.

Nick swore helplessly. He had not been able to identify anything, save for the vague outline of the sinister limousine. He turned as half a dozen constables came tumbling down the steps of police headquarters.

A low moan came from the lips of Whiny Wick. His face was pallid with fright. He clutched at Nick’s sleeve.

“Curse! Did yer see that?” he demanded hoarsely. “They was out ter get me.”

“And didn’t they?” asked Inspector Nicholas New unsympathetically.

Whiny felt himself ruefully.

Save for a bruised chin received in his fall, he was unhurt.

“No—thank ’Eaven, they didn’t,” he said. “If it wasn’t for me presence o’ mind I’d ’ave been dead nah!”

“Pity,” said Nick. Then added emphatically: “Just follow up your presence of mind with your absence of body, Whiny.”

Chapter 4

MESSRS. ECKSTEIN HAVE VISITORS

DON MARIFORD was a conscientious man. In the days when he had been a leading film star he had been known to spend at least five days a week with one leg tightly strapped behind him in order to portray successfully the character of Long John Silver in “Treasure Island.”

He even went to the length of sleeping with that disfiguring impediment round his perfectly sound limb.

When he came out of prison determined to expose the mysterious Agate Eyes and his gang of super-crooks—whom he mentally designated as the real crime breeders—he went to work with the same painstaking thoroughness.

He planned his campaign with the acumen and far-sightedness of a general planning a battle. He arranged six strategic points in London, and, with the invaluable aid of those diverse and clever personalities who composed the Soundless Six, he proceeded to wage war on the elusive Agate Eyes.

First, there was Mr. Latimer Ridley, a reputably respectable lawyer with chambers in Rackett Court, just off Fleet Street, a dry individual in marked contrast to Miss Desiree la Lune, that flighty and fluffy young person who had a discreet maisonette off Shaftesbury Avenue.

Then there was the lean, bronzed Hereward Marsh, a bluff, bearded big game hunter, who made his home in the Shikari Club in Piccadilly. Hereward Marsh was a genial soul, who explained his long absence from the club as a result of taking jungle films in Africa. He did not mention, however, that his hardened muscles and wiry frame had been toughened by three years’ penal servitude. None would have suspected Hereward Marsh of being the same person as Dr. Lucien Carey, that amiable, short-sighted, middle-aged man who lived in Bloomsbury within a stone’s throw of the British Museum. Don Mariford posed as Dr. Carey, a doctor of philology with an absent-minded manner and a childish unworldliness, in marked contrast to that of the jovial Hereward Marsh.

The other members of the Soundless Six covered areas as diverse as their characters.

Professor Everard Langdon, a morose dyspeptic savant, lived in a temperance hotel in Shepherd’s Bush, and his chief hobby in life seemed to be the collection of postage stamps.

Last, but not least, there was Whiny Wick, and that many-sided individual lived in a dingy tenement in Whitechapel—when he was not poking his ferret-like nose into the unsavoury night haunts of the West End.

Don had perfected his plans to the last detail. The Soundless Six opened their campaign against Agate Eyes, or the Crime Breeder, on the night when Whiny Wick called on Inspector New. Literally the first shots in the battle were fired in the sacred precincts of Scotland Yard itself.

The thick fog not only swallowed up the sinister black limousine, but eventually the furtive figure of Whiny himself.

Inspector New was a very thoughtful man when presently he emerged from the Yard after making his report. He was not quite certain in his own mind whether the dastardly attack had been meant for him or for the whining little “nose.” But he realised that the Soundless Six was a very real and tangible force.

Sergeant Benskin had already proceeded to keep watch on the affable Mr. Eckstein’s shop in Covent Garden—that curious thoroughfare which works while London sleeps. Covent Garden by night is one of the busiest spots in the metropolis, crammed with traffic.

Rumbling motor-lorries laden with farm produce from the country, swift motor-vans and slow-moving drays loaded with flowers and exotic goods from the docks rumble over the cobble-stones amidst the raucous Cockney voices of the porters slamming and banging their trucks and cursing good humouredly as they pass by into the huge glass-domed market itself, balancing on their heads with the skill of Cinquevalli an incredible number of baskets.

Such is Covent Garden to-day, where once placid and quiet nuns told their beads in what was then the Convent Garden, from which the place derives its name.

Here, also, during the season, arrive, incongruously enough, amidst a welter of vegetables, the leading figures of Society in their glittering limousines at the Opera House. An enchanted, magic place, Covent Garden, where literally one can see “Cabbages and Kings” jostling cheek by jowl.

It was also other attractions. Especially for the hard-worked reporters and newspaper men of Fleet Street who, wending wearily their homeward way in the grey hours of the dawn, can be certain of a drink, for at Covent Garden the pubs are open at the fairy-like hour of five.

The shop of Eckstein Brothers, wholesale fruiterers and florists, opened punctually at midnight, and the Brothers Eckstein themselves, Abe and Maurice, lived over the shop. They were two dapper, dark-eyed little Jews, rather too flashily dressed, and with an excess of gold in their smiles.

The fog had thickened now at Covent Garden until the traffic was brought almost to a standstill.

Sergeant Benskin, that dour member of the “Feared Forty” of the Flying Squad, sat hunched over the wheel of his plain, unobtrusive motor-van, which bore outside the unromantic name of “James Smith, Greengrocer and Seedsman.”

Considering that the legend had only been painted on the van a couple of hours before, the Yard had made a neat job of it, for it did not appear too blatantly new.

Within the van, sitting quietly, where one would have suspected nothing but spuds, were half a dozen “peelers,” and a powerful and efficient wireless set.

The van nosed its way cautiously along Endell Street, and drew up shortly after midnight about fifty yards away from the Eckstein Brothers’ emporium.

Nick New had been swift to act. The raid on the shop was planned for 1 a.m. No one would have suspected the apparently slightly tipsy young man in evening dress at an adjacent coffee-stall of being one of the most astute members of the C.I.D. Yet, while ostensibly sipping a cup of hot Bovril, Nick kept a wary eye on the lighted shop front of Ecksteins’.

Meanwhile a taxi-cab crawled hesitantly from Wellington Street into Endell Street through the mist. Within sat a short, rotund little man with chubby features and an enormous pair of horn-rimmed spectacles balanced precariously on his snub, button nose. He carried a small suit-case, and his voice was thick and guttural as he peered through the fog and inquired from the driver:

“How mooch farder?”

The taxi-cab eventually drew up with a jerk outside Ecksteins’, and the fare paid off the grumbling driver, who unbuttoned an incredible number of overcoats with exasperating deliberation before disgorging the change.

Mynheer Otto van Kamp, who had arrived earlier that evening by air from Antwerp, entered the shop. The place was fragrant with flowers, and golden pyramids of oranges and barrels made a pleasing harmonious colour scheme in marked contrast to the dingy drabness outside.

“Ach zo!”’exclaimed Mynheer van Kamp, rubbing his podgy fingers. “This fog ees terrible, hein?”

A burly, thick-set individual, with beetling brows and a wisp of sandy moustache, peered over the counter suspiciously.

“Is Mr. Eckstein at home?” inquired Mr. van Kamp with a beaming smile.

Clincher Clay, quondam convict, nodded.

“Yes, they’re both upstairs,” he said gruffly.

“Goot!” said Mr. van Kamp. “I will show my vay oop, is it not?”

The Clincher opened the flap of the counter and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“Yer knows yer way up,” he said in a surly voice.

Making his way through a passage flanked by sacks of potatoes and parsnips, Mr. van Kamp proceeded up the creaking stairs and knocked at a glass-panelled door marked “Private.”

He found the two brothers Eckstein feverishly engaged in cramming hundreds of Treasury notes into a black attache-case.

Mynheer van Kamp’s eyes rounded with astonishment as he beheld the scene.

“Ach, vot is the meaning of this?” he inquired. “You got der lovely black tulip boolbs I consigned to you, hein?”

Abe, the elder of the two, jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where reposed a packing case marked: “Van Kamp, Bulb Grower, Antwerp.”

“It arrived yesterday,” he said. “But say, listen, we’ve got to beat it—and beat it quick. I’ve just had a ’phone call through from Agate Eyes. The cops are wise to us, and they’re raiding the place at one o’clock.”

His face was pale and his hands were agitated.

“We’ve got a fast car outside the back entrance, and if it wasn’t for this accursed fog I shouldn’t worry.”

“But this is serious, mein friend,” said van Kamp. “Very serious. There is twenty thousand pounds’ worth of de white stuff in that case. You are not goin’ to leaf it here, eh?”

“Do you think we’re mad fools?” snarled Maurice, and he crammed a final wad of Treasury notes into the suit-case and snapped it shut. “Our get-away’s fixed. The Chief has squared the rozzers at the back entrance, and we’ve got an hour to be clear.”

“Vot about your amiable assistant in front?” inquired the Dutchman.

“Oh, him?” The Brothers Eckstein shrugged their shoulders. Though only minor members of the Crime Breeder’s gang, they, like Agate Eyes, were ruthless in sacrificing the smaller fry—the poor unfortunates who usually paid the penalties. “Let the police grab him. He’s of no account, anyway,” said Abe. “Give me a hand with the packing-case,” he added to the Dutchman. “There’s a narrow lane at the back here, and we’ve got a Bentley parked.”

Van Kamp mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, and his fingers shook slightly.

Suddenly footsteps sounded on the stairs, and the three froze into instant immobility.

“Who’s that?” queried Abe hoarsely, his hand darting from his hip pocket.

“On’y me, guv’nor,” came a gruff voice.

“There’s a bloke ere as wants ter know wot abaht them Ribstone Pippins ’e ordered?”

Abe gave a sigh of relief as he recognised the voice of his assistant. The door opened and a lumbering figure stood on the threshold, blinking sheepishly in the light.

“Oh, tell him we’ll fix it to-morrow,” snarled Maurice over his shoulder. “Can’t you see we’re busy?”

“Yus, that’s all very well, Mr. Bloomin’ Eckstein,” grumbled the other.

And a second later it happened.

Slam!

The glass-panelled door snapped shut, the lumbering figure of the Clincher straightened, and in his hand, as if by magic, appeared an automatic.

“Stick ’em up!” rasped a crisp voice. “Go on—all of you—or, by heck, I’ll, shoot!”

The three crooks gazed in dumbfounded wonder at the uncanny change that had come over their assistant’s ill-favoured visage. The beetle brows seemed to vanish and straighten before their eyes. The hangdog, furtive expression was wiped away as if it had been a smudge of paint and another face seemed uncannily to appear through the thin, nebulous, and rapidly vanishing visage of the Clincher.

It was Don Mariford’s swiftest and most subtle disguise. A genius at make-up, it had been a comparatively simple matter to adopt the outward characteristics of the unfortunate Clincher, who even at that moment was lying as harmless and as comatose as the sacks of potatoes that surrounded him in the basement cellar.

Don Mariford smiled. In his hand he held a coil of rope, and he jabbed his gun viciously into Abe’s waisted suit.

The little Jew’s hands scrabbled ceiling-ward, and his face was the colour of death.

“Who—who are you?” he gasped hoarsely.

His assailant smiled satirically, and his eyes hardened.

“You have heard of the Soundless Six?” he said.

Chapter 5

A SHOCK FOR NICHOLAS NEW

WITHIN the interior of the unobtrusive motor-van belonging to the mythical James Smith, Greengrocer and Seedsman, five blue sparks crackled on the wireless receiver. Above the shop of Eckstein Brothers an oblong of yellow light shone feebly through the fog. At the wheel Sergeant Benskin straightened, and, after cautiously letting in the clutch, the van slipped towards it.

At the coffee-stall the drunken young man in evening-dress became suddenly very sober.

From an adjacent church clock chimed the hour of one. The Flying Squad was doing its stuff. Silently, speedily, but without fuss.

From the rear of the van four plain clothes men converged on the Eckstein Brothers’ fragrant emporium. They spoke no word. One took his place at the door. Another at the foot of the stairs.

Benskin touched his peaked cap as Inspector Nicholas New entered.

“Quickly does it,” said Nick, and his good-looking face was grim. From his pocket he withdrew a tiny, but efficient automatic. “Up you get, Benskin,” he said. “That must have been van Kamp we saw go in some time back.”

Very cautiously they tiptoed up the stairs. Queer muffled thumps came from behind the panels of the door marked “Private,” and, bracing his shoulders resolutely, Nick turned the knob and flung it open.

“Hands up, or——”

His voice trailed away in astonishment at the extraordinary sight that met his gaze.

Trussed and helpless, and bound to three chairs, were three miserable men, gags in mouths, and a wild and wondering fear in their eyes.

Opened before them on the floor was a packing-case in which reposed in sawdust about a hundred round objects that resembled onions. One of them had been sliced neatly open, and carefully embedded in its centre was a tiny phial containing a white crystalline powder.

For a moment or two Nick and Sergeant Benskin stared in speechless astonishment at the trussed trio. Then their wondering gaze fell on a yellow slip neatly pinned to the lapel of Abe Eckstein’s extravagantly-cut jacket.

Nick snatched it away, and a bitter little smile played about his lips.

“These vermin. With our compliments, Mr. New.—The Soundless Six.”

“Well, I’ll be——” gasped Nicholas New.

“Jiggered,” suggested Sergeant Benskin helpfully.

It was not until four dazed and unhappy men had been bundled into the swift Flying Squad van and formally charged with being in unlawful possession of cocaine, that Nick New learnt how he had been forestalled by that elusive organisation who, judging by results, were as secretive as they were soundless.

The unfortunate Clincher had no very clear idea what had happened to him, but a spluttering and incoherent Abe described with a wealth of detail and Semitic gestures how he had been forced at the pistol point to tie up his two accomplices—afterwards submitting to that indignity at the hands of the unknown himself.

Nick New was fed up and showed it. The Soundless Six were beginning to get on his nerves. He would have to answer a lot of awkward questions when he arrived back at police headquarters.

It was the indignity of the whole thing that annoyed him. To be forestalled by a gang of crooks after a carefully planned and timed raid was ignominious, to say the least.

Superintendent Wilding would certainly demand the why and wherefore of it.

But, Nick reflected, there was some consolation at least in the fact that that Argus-eyed young man, Bannerton Bruce, of the “Daily Ray,” knew nothing of the affair. He vowed on entering Scotland Yard that, if he could help it, Bannerton Bruce never would.

Nick arrived in his room in a thoroughly bad temper, which was not improved by finding the occupant of his chair was a long, lanky young man with a shock of tow-coloured hair and an ingenuous smile.

“What the deuce are you doing here, Bruce?” snapped Nick irritably.

“Waitin’ for you to come in, young feller,” remarked the crime reporter urbanely. “Have a gasper?”

He proffered a shagreen case.

“Virginia this side, Turkish that.”

Nick muttered something about “infernal impudence,” and scowled savagely at the journalist.

“And how are the Soundless Six?” queried Bannerton. “I—er—hope you collected the parcel they left for you safely?”

“Now, see here, Bruce,” began Nick savagely. “It’s like your darned cheek barging into here like this. What do you know about the Soundless Six, anyway?”

“About as much as you do,” said Bruce in his exasperating drawl. “And that isn’t much.”

“Now, come on,” said Nick. “You must have obtained some dope on the business. What is it?”

For answer Bannerton Bruce drew out a sheet of notepaper yellow in colour and linengrained in texture.

“We received this to-night—half an hour ago, to be exact. That’s why I’m here.”

Nick almost snatched it from the young man’s hand. The missive bore no date, and was addressed to the Editor of the “Daily Ray.” It ran as follows:

“Sir,—We are in complete agreement with your leader on the drug scandal, and agree that the police seem powerless to deal with the matter. Being convinced that there is corruption in high places, we have determined to take the matter into our own hands. To-night, therefore, at one a.m., we propose to hand over to the police four of the most dangerous drug traffickers in the metropolis. We propose to make sure that they do not escape the law’s net by capturing them ourselves. We shall also expose in our good time who the real crime breeders of the nation are.

“THE SOUNDLESS SIX.”

“Well, I’ll be——”

“Bothered,” supplied Bannerton Bruce sweetly. “Come on, Nick, let’s have the news.”

Chapter 6

THE DELIGHTFUL DESIREE

THE man they called Agate Eyes sat in his luxuriously furnished library in his the Queen Anne house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.

The glow of the fire was reflected on the rich gold and vellum bindings of the rare first editions that lined the walls. Outside, the gathering dusk of a November day was deepening into night. A tug-boat hooted mournfully as it chugged up the turgid Thames.

Three days had elapsed since the arrest of the Eckstein brothers and that ubiquitous bulb merchant, Mynheer van Kamp.

Agate Eyes sat there by the fire, chin cupped on hands, his hard, stone-grey eyes gazing unblinkingly into the flickering flames. He was an extraordinary individual with a high, domed forehead, the bulging cranium of which indicated his vast intellectual powers and organising ability.

His body, however, was almost shrunken and wizened in comparison with that massive head.

Agate Eyes had formed by reason of some queer warped kink in his nature, probably the most unique band of criminals that had ever plagued society. Each member of his gang was a person of outstanding intellectual attainments and of different sphere of life. Many had been honoured by their country for distinguished public service, and none save the confraternity itself realised their double, and even treble lives.

Agate Eyes, with that sardonic sense of humour and genius for plotting which had characterised his whole career, had hit upon probably the most novel plan ever evolved by a criminal—a plan by which he could deliberate with his five henchmen in full security, unsuspected by the police, the public, or the all-powerful Press. It was a project worthy of a better object, but suffice to say that Agate Eyes had planned and engineered the most audacious crimes and robberies under the very noses of the police—and got away with it.

His first reverse was when the shadow of the Soundless Six had fallen across his path.

Agate Eyes had, with consummate cunning, organised the wholesale import of cocaine into England. With the aid of his lieutenants he had established highly efficient distributing centres and made enormous profits from the sale of the insidious white drug.

Eckstein and van Kamp had been the chief of his outside agents, and their arrest had been a heavy blow to him. Fortunately he himself was so far removed from his minor agents that his position was unassailable. But nevertheless the arrest had to be counted as a distinct reverse.

Superintendent Wilding, that portly and good-humoured man, had been considerably worried during the past three days also. Nick’s account of the mysterious activities of the Soundless Six had caused him much serious heart-searching.

When, therefore, he arrived at Scotland Yard late one evening after one of the interminable sittings of the moribund commission inquiring into the causes and the cure of crime, which sat daily in a dingy little room in Westminster, and found on his desk a letter on saffron-hued notepaper, he swore softly in his beard.

The note was laconic, but pregnant with meaning.

“You, Wilding, are the next. We never warn twice.—The SOUNDLESS SIX.”

Wilding jerked himself to his feet. He was a married man whose wife was a confirmed invalid. He had a very large house at Putney, and a passionate interest in poultry, apart from crime. Yet somehow or other this evening the super, felt that even an evening spent in adjusting his patent electric incubator, which he had recently acquired, would not afford him much satisfaction.

He wanted a little gaiety and distraction. He thought of a pleasant little interlude in his official duties which had occurred a few days previously when dining at the Hotel Cosmos.

He had made the acquaintance through a mutual friend and bon vivant of a fascinating, if somewhat pert, young woman named Desiree la Lune. She was, it seemed, a French actress shortly to appear in a big West End revue.

Wilding’s big, slow-moving mind had responded to her Gallic allure. She had been whimsical, gay, and had helped him to forget for a while the querulous wife in his Putney home.

The super, stroked his nose thoughtfully, then pulled out his notebook with sudden decision.

“Dash it all, why not?”

She had given him an address and ’phone number, and had told him in her artless way that she adored detectives. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to give her a ’phone call. Perhaps a spot of dinner, tete-a-tete, and a cabaret afterwards.

Quickly then he crossed ever to the ’phone and dialled a number in Shaftesbury Avenue. He waited expectantly for a while, then suddenly heard the treble, slightly accented voice of Desiree.

He cleared his throat rather selfconsciously before speaking, then boomed forth:

“Ah, is that you, mam’zelle? This is Superintendent Wilding, of Scotland Yard, speaking.”

He heard a little gasp over the wire.

“Ah, zee great detective! Bon soir, Monsieur Wilding. ’Ave you catched many criminals, to-day?”

The super, laughed gruffly.

“No, mam’zelle. To tell you the truth, I’m getting a little tired of crime, and I—er—thought I’d like a little relaxation.”

“Poor man,” came the soft reply. “You are veree tired perhaps, no?”

“Not too tired to speak to you, miss,” said the super., with clumsy gallantry.

“Well, zen,” came the reply. “I am veree lonely. Won’t you come round and tell me more about zee big cases you have handled? We will have a drink, and perhaps zen——”

“That’s very kind of you, mam’zelle,” he said heavily. “As a matter of fact I was thinking of asking you to come and have a spot of dinner with me somewhere, if you had no other engagement.”

“One little appointment, but I will put that off. Do come along!”

“Very well,” said Wilding with a chuckle. “Supposing we call it half-past seven, mam’zelle?”

“Admirable,” was the reply.

The super.’s chest swelled as he smoothed his iron-grey hair complacently. He was somewhat vain of his personal appearance—the sort of man who could not enter a room without instinctively straightening his cravat in the mirror.

Amberley Mansions, in Shaftesbury Avenue, are nothing if not discreet, and the most discreet tenant of them all was that in Number Nine. Modest was the brass plate on the door, the size of a small visiting-card. “Desiree la Lune,” written in old English script.

Superintendent Wilding also prided himself on his discretion. He dismissed the cab half a block away from the mansions, and walked the remaining distance.

It was with some inward trepidation that he mounted the steps and ascended two flights in preference to using the elevator. A big burly man, he breathed a little heavily as he reached Number Nine and pressed the bell.

The door opened almost at once, and a vision in scarlet marocain greeted him with an ecstatic little coo of delight. Audaciously scarlet were her high-heeled shoes and Rose du Barry silk stockings. Her jet black hair had that rare sheen of blue seen only in a raven’s wing.

“Er—good-evening, mam’zelle,” said the super., gazing with frank approval at the plump, but piquant figure.

He noticed that her lips were vividly vermilioned, and that her eyes owed more to artifice than to nature. The mascara shade lent an air of mystery to her features.

“Ah, e’est le grande detective! You are like a great big bear.”

She led the way into a dainty boudoir whose colour motif was pink. The super. felt incongruously out of place amidst that atmosphere of charming femininity. He sat down heavily on an orange-hued divan, hanging on like grim death to his hard bowler hat.

He cleared his throat and essayed to speak.

“Er—nice room, mam’zelle,” he began.

She shrugged.

“It ees charmant, but you should see ze delightful apartment zat I have in Mont Parnasse in Paris.”

She touched her vermilion lips lightly with her finger tips.

But softly she remarked. “I will go to shake ze cocktails.”

She opened the door, and Wilding noticed a tiny dining-room with a table set with snowy napery and twinkling cut glass. From an adjacent sideboard she took down a cocktail shaker, and he watched with frank admiration the deft manner with which she mixed the ingredients.

He took the fragile Manhattan glass between his podgy fingers and bowed awkwardly.

“This is indeed a pleasure, mam’zelle,” he said.

They chattered for a while on inconsequential subjects, then suddenly his hostess set down her glass.

“You will excuse me—no? My maid, Celeste, she ’ave gone out this evening, and eef I do not attend to ze dinner it will spoil. Please smoke, do,” she added, as the super. groped instinctively in his pocket for the cigars he affected.

He watched her scarlet-clad figure with admiration as she disappeared into an adjoining room which he presumed was the kitchen. He heard her high, resonant voice singing a gay little French chanson as she bustled about.

The super. glanced meditatively at the glowing red tip of his cigar.

“This,” he murmured, “is the goods.”

A pendant bowl of alabaster shed a soft orange glow over the room, and he waited there for a few minutes reflecting that there was some compensation in life after all. Evidently the girl was alone in the flat. He wondered what her age was. She was no flapper, that was evident. There was a maturity about her eyes and a sophistication about her manner despite her gaiety.

Suddenly the super. became aware of a subtle change in the atmosphere of the room which he found at first difficult to define.

He was conscious of a vague uneasiness. What first attracted his attention was that the tip of his cigar no longer glowed redly, but had a greenish hue—and even as he looked the orange glow of the pendant bowl changed into a vivid greenish glare.

He started to his feet. Evidently there was something wrong with the light. He glanced towards the kitchen wondering whether he should advise his hostess of the fact. He was about to knock at the door when very slowly it opened, and in place of Desiree la Lune he saw–-——

“My Heaven!” The exclamation was torn from the super.’s lips, and his flesh crawled with the horror of it.

Confronting him was a black-garbed figure with a face of such horrible, revolting beastliness that he staggered back. Huge fangs, like those of a gorilla, snarled at him, and in the man’s eyes blazed a light of maniacal triumph.

The face seemed to be entirely fleshless and the nose to have rotted away. Deep in the cavernous black sockets of this ghoulish apparition glittered two blazing eyes. Round the creature’s throat a noose of long hempen rope was knotted beneath its left ear, and the coils dangled on to the floor.

The super. was not easily scared, but his mouth went parched and dry with horror. For a moment or two he could not speak as the dreadful thing, bathed in that ghastly greenish radiance, lifted one skeleton arm and stabbed a fleshless forefinger menacingly at him.

“Great heavens!” croaked Wilding. “Who—who are you?”

“I am Steenie Levine,” came the sepulchral reply.

The super. raised a shaking hand to his eyes, and the whole room seemed to sway dizzily about him—for Steenie Levine had been hanged in Pentonworth Gaol two years before!

Chapter 7

THE “SOUNDLESS SIX” STRIKE AGAIN

IF Agate Eyes had a genius for organisation, so also had Don Mariford. He had not produced and directed those million dollar super-film productions in the old days before his disgrace without learning how to handle both men and women. His directive ability had earned for him, in addition to his acting, a fortune of a cool half million.

He realised that if he was to make war on the all-powerful Agate Eyes he would have to cover up every line of retreat, and also find a place where he could incarcerate any prisoners taken in that war.

Superintendent Wilding, after the appearance of Steenie Levine, whom he had believed buried deep and in oblivion two years before, fainted for the first time in his life.

How long he remained unconscious he was never able to tell clearly, but when he came to it was to find himself lying on a hard plank bed in a small stone-walled room with an iron door.

He rubbed his eyes dazedly and sat up. His head ached abominably, and his mouth was parched and dry. He strove to recall his scattered wits, and pressed his hands to his throbbing temples.

Was he still in the throes of some diabolical nightmare? He remembered vividly enough drinking that Manhattan cocktail. Remembered also that something had seemed to have gone wrong with the lights in Desiree’s flat. And then——

He shuddered involuntarily. Then the amazing, the incredible, had happened, and he gazed on the revolting features of Steenie Levine, one of the minor agents of Agate Eyes’ gang.

It must be a dream, he reflected.

With a groan he rose to his feet and stared about him. His surroundings seemed vaguely familiar. There was a steel door in which was set a little grille. A wooden shelf in the corner contained a few tin utensils. A Bible reposed on a top shelf, and on the wall was a faded buff document headed:

“H.M.’S PRISONS.

Daily Routine.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated Wilding. “I’m in gaol!”

His head reeled at the fantastic situation in which he found himself. There was no doubt about it, however, for he recognised the hard plank bed, the oval barred window set high up in the wall.

“In gaol,” he repeated mechanically.

Panic seized him. With his powerful hand he pounded on the steel grille of the door. He had no idea what time it was, nor how long he had been unconscious, but had a confused memory of a motor ride through the darkness.

“Hi, hi! Let me out of this!” he bellowed in his bull-like tones, beating frenziedly on the grille until his knuckles were raw and bleeding.

His voice echoed eerily down the dreary stone corridor, but no other sound came back to him.

After ten minutes of fruitless shouting he sat down, baffled and bewildered. He sucked his bleeding knuckles, but his mind was unable to cope with the fantastic situation in which he found himself.

Always the memory of the hideous face of Steenie Levine seemed to mock at him from the darkened shadows of his cell.

Steenie Levine!

The man he had railroaded to the gallows!

A man had been killed during one of the raids organised by Agate Eyes. It was the night watchman of the London and Devon Bank. Someone had blundered. Agate Eyes realised that a scapegoat had to be found, and Steenie Levine was made that scapegoat.

In vain the poor wretch had protested his innocence, and striven to escape from the net of incriminating evidence which Wilding had woven about him. He had been found guilty, and the real culprit was now a prominent member of Agate Eyes’ gang.

It had been Wilding who had been chief witness for the prosecution. Strand by strand he had woven the rope round the neck of the unfortunate Steenie. The man had a bad record, and had been unable to prove an alibi. It had been Wilding, however, who found the jemmy in Steenie’s digs, and one bearing the unfortunate crook’s fingerprints. He it was, too, who had planted it on the scene of the crime, to be found by a zealous constable.

By devious methods Don Mariford had discovered that Superintendent Wilding, of Scotland Yard, a prominent member of the Crime Commission, was a leading light in that sinister organisation run by Agate Eyes.

And now, by some incredible freak, Wilding reflected, he himself, a superintendent of Scotland Yard, was occupying the condemned cell.

Again he rose to his feet, and his voice was cracked and hoarse as he called out.

Suddenly, down the bare, echoing corridor, there sounded heavy clumping footsteps. There was a jingle of keys in the lock, and the cell door was opened.

A burly blue-uniformed warder stood there, and with him was a thick-set man with iron-grey hair and short-clipped moustache.

“Stand to attention!” snapped the warder.

Wilding stared speechlessly for a moment or two, then gasped out:

“Wh-what’s the meaning of this outrage? Who—who are you?”

“I am Colonel Hereward Marsh, the governor of this prison,” said the grey-haired man. “What is it you want to see me about, Wilding?”

“I—I want to know what’s the meaning of all this nonsense. I am Superintendent Wilding, of Scotland Yard, and you will pay dearly for this outrage,” he added, recovering his composure a little.

“I’m quite aware of that fact,” said Hereward Marsh. “And you’re here charged and found guilty of the deliberate murder of Steenie Levine in 1927.”

“But—but this is impossible. You’re mad!” gasped Wilding. “I—I’ve had no trial. I——”

He passed his hand dazedly over his forehead.

“I am the sole arbiter of your fate,” said Hereward Marsh. “And my sentence is that you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead.”

“Preposterous,” blustered Wilding. “I’d have you know that there is a law in England——”

“I make my own laws,” snapped Hereward Marsh. “Even as I buy my own prisons I have not yet fixed the date for your execution. There are certain other matters to attend to first. Possibly I may even induce Mr. Justice Gravely to pass sentence upon you for—er—shall we call it incompetence?”

Hereward Marsh smiled satirically, and before Wilding could recover, the cell door slammed shut, and he was left alone with his dreadful thoughts.

Now he recognised where he was—in Sandstone Gaol. He remembered that the gaol had been put up for auction a few months before, and had been bought by a certain Hereward Marsh to be converted into a factory.

Who was Hereward Marsh, and how did he know Wilding’s secret? That was the question that agitated the mind of the wretched man as he tossed sleeplessly through the night on his plank bed.

• • • • • •

Inspector Nicholas New was a very worried man. Two days had elapsed since the amazing disappearance of his chief, Superintendent Wilding, of the C.I.D.

He glanced at the headlines of that morning’s newspaper and bit his lip. Young Bannerton Bruce had let himself go with a vengeance.

MISSING YARD MAN MYSTERY.

KIDNAPPING THEORY.

POLICE BAFFLED.

WHO ARE THE SOUNDLESS SIX?

The headlines smote New like a blow between the eyes, and he anathematised the star crime reporter of the “Daily Ray” under his breath.

The inexplicable disappearance of the super. had caused Nick two sleepless nights, and the mystery was made the more baffling by the fact that that morning Mr. Justice Gravely, chief of the Crime Commission, had called in person at Scotland Yard and shown him a letter which he had received that morning.

That letter now lay on Nick’s desk. It was written on the now familiar saffron-tinted notepaper, and was laconic and pointed as the other missives had been:

“To the President of the Crime Commission.

“You are deliberating into the cause of crime. In order to facilitate your work, we have removed one of the chief causes of crime in this country—Superintendent Wilding—an unworthy member of the Commission. THE SOUNDLESS SIX.”

Nick winced as he recalled the biting words of the judge regarding police inefficiency. Mr. Justice Gravely had not minced matters, and Nick had had an uncomfortable half-hour.

He yawned wearily, for he had not been to bed for thirty-six hours. How had Wilding been kidnapped—and why? These and a thousand other questions ran through his brain.

With sudden decision he rose to his feet and crossed over to the super.’s room. Maybe, by going through Wilding’s desk once again he might chance upon some stray clue that might give him a lead.

He had already made exhaustive inquiries at Putney and learnt that Wilding had not gone home on Tuesday night. He had left the Yard, according to the evidence of the policeman on duty, shortly after seven-thirty, and seemed in the best of spirits.

Nick ran through the filed documents pigeon-holed in the desk for the umpteenth time, but they afforded him no satisfaction. Had Wilding been decoyed away by someone, or had he been waylaid by one of the Soundless Six?

The puzzled detective sat down and began to scribble several meaningless little squiggles on the blotting-pad—a habit of his when concentrating. The blotting-paper was fresh, for Wilding was a methodical man, and his foible was to have his desk as orderly and neat at night as at the beginning of each day’s work.

Nick had drawn three skeletons, a fish and a weird animal that he called the “squidge” on the pad, when his gaze fell on a number scribbled near the top right-hand corner in Wilding’s neat, microscopic handwriting.

The number was placed so near the leather corner of the pad that it had hitherto escaped Nick’s notice.

“Nonsense again,” said Nick. “Thank you, ‘squidge.’ ”

It was quite obvious that the number had been written there sub-consciously on the night that Wilding left. He had not been to the office all day as he had attended a sitting of the Commission, ergo, it had been scribbled down shortly before Wilding left on the Tuesday night.

Nick acted instantly, and lifted the ’phone receiver.

“Find out at once what Shaf. 09801 is!” he snapped, and replaced the receiver.

He added three more “squidges” and a jabberwock to the squiggles on the pad. In a few minutes the reply came, and Nick’s eyes glittered as he received the information.

“Desiree la Lune—h’m!” he said. “The ‘Desire of the Moon’—now that’s all moonshine, and moonshine is nonsense—therefore it must be true. Wilding, I’m afraid you’re a naughty old philanderer.”

He crammed on his hat, and ten minutes later he was in a Westbound taxi on the way to Shaftesbury Avenue.

Chapter 8

TWO WITH ONE STONE

That popular politician, the Right Hon. George Jessol, P.C., an exmember of the Cabinet, whose pear-shaped head and waxed, pointed moustache had been the joy of cartoonists ever since he took office, looked up thoughtfully from the letter he had been reading and crunched the final morsel of his matutinal toast and marmalade.

It was a somewhat cryptic communication. A typical lawyer’s letter, headed by the names of Moody, Fothersgill, Moody and Ridley, attorneys-at-law, and ran as follows:

“Dear Sir,—Re the late R. C. Apfelbaum, decd. Under the will of our late client, probate for which has just been proved, there are references made in a codicil to your good self. There are certain documents, however, which require your signature before the envelope entrusted to us by our client can be duly transferred to you in accordance with his wishes.

“Perhaps you would favour us with a call at your convenience?—We are, sir, your obedient servants,

“MOODY, FOTHERSGILL, MOODY & RIDLEY.”

George Jessel pulled thoughtfully at the end of his spiked, waxed moustache and murmured aloud: “Apfelbaum!”

The name awoke a vague chord of memory. There was a certain Apfelbaum, the director of a large cotton and textile mill with whom he had had dealings in the days when he was a political force in Lancashire. What those dealings were the Right Hon. George Jessel did not at the moment find it convenient to recall.

A self-made man, with a shrewd, alert brain, Jessel had always an eye to the main chance, and he owed his success to the fact that he had never allowed an opportunity to slip by without grabbing it with both hands.

He pushed aside his plate and rang the bell for his man.

“Fetch the car round, ’Awkins,” he said.

He had never bothered about his aitches even when he attained Cabinet rank. In fact, he discovered that a dropped aspirate served to increase his reputation as a popular demagogue.

The time was eleven a.m. Twenty minutes later he stepped into that secluded little backwater off Fleet Street, Rackett Court, having dismissed his chauffeur.

He found the offices of Messrs. Moody, Fothersgill, Moody & Ridley were situated on the second floor of an old Queen Anne house, the first floor of which was occupied by a moribund publishing concern. He mounted the steps and smoothed his bulging waistcoat before knocking at the “oak.”

The door opened, and he was greeted by a grey-haired, stoop-shouldered man clad in an old-fashioned stock collar with a suit faintly Georgian in style.

“Mr. Moody?” ventured Jessel.

Mr. Latimer Ridley shook his head.

“Mr.—ah—Moody has been deceased these many years,” he said in a dry, impersonal voice. “My name is Ridley.”

“Glad to know you,” said George Jessel, with the bluff heartiness he affected towards his constituents. “I got your letter,” he added. “And, seein’ as ’ow I’d a little time to spare this morning, I thought I’d blow in.”

“Very kind of you, I am sure,” said Mr. Latimer Ridley. “Pray step this way.”

He led the way to an inner office which was comfortably furnished in a heavy Victorian fashion. The walls were lined with black japanned deed boxes, and the sole concession to modernity was the telephone on the desk.

On an oaken table in the corner reposed a decanter and several bottles.

George Jessel’s eyes wandered instinctively towards the corner as Mr. Ridley bowed courteously and bade him be seated.

“Would you—ah—care for a glass of sherry before we begin the somewhat dry business of the law, my dear sir?” asked Ridley. “I generally indulge myself at this hour in the morning.”

“A very good idea, too,” agreed George Jessel with a glance at his watch.

It was at that precise moment that Inspector Nicholas New did, to quote legal phraseology, “feloniously and unlawfully break in and enter” the flat of one, Desiree la Lune.

Nick had no earthly right to commit the offence, but when he received no response after repeated rings he decided to take a chance.

When Nick had a hunch he generally took chances. It was the work of a few minutes, with the aid of the little bunch of skeleton keys he possessed, to snip back the latch and enter the daintily furnished maisonette of that exotic young woman.

Nick’s sharp eyes roved over the sitting-room and noticed two slender cocktail glasses placed on the rosewood table. Saw also a heavy bulge in the orange divan, and noticed that the hearthrug had been rucked.

“H’m!” he said thoughtfully. “First it’s bulb and now it’s bulge, and very possibly bilge. We’ll have a look into this.”

Very carefully he picked up one of the slender-stemmed glasses with his silk handkerchief. He crossed over to the window and gave a faint sigh of satisfaction. Clearly defined was a fingerprint. He noticed also a smudged imprint on the second glass.

“Good,” he said laconically. “We will now see what sort of library the fair Desiree has.” For it was a dictum of Nick’s that a man or woman’s character could be deduced from the libraries they kept.

He walked over to the bookshelf in the corner and saw a collection of paper-backed novels with lurid covers, mostly tropical love tales and translations from the French.

“I thought as much,” he mused.

He moved to a little red escritoire against the wall and opened it. It had a brass ink-stand on which reposed an enormous scarlet quill pen. His eyes narrowed suddenly as he saw, in addition to perfumed pink notepaper, half a dozen sheets of the familiar yellow with the linen texture.

“Ah-ha!” said Nick grimly. “The plot thickens. I’ll just have a look at those fingerprints back at the Yard, and maybe we will find something interesting about the fair Desiree.”

Meanwhile, in Rackett Court, Mr. Latimer Ridley courteously lifted his glass and drank to Mr. George Jessel’s very good health.

“Cheerio,” said Mr. Jessel affably.

Brrrrring!

The ’phone bell shrilled on the desk, and, with a murmured apology, Mr. Latimer Ridley lifted the receiver, and a little later his eyebrows.

“Indeed?” he said. “Thank you so much for the information. I will ring up immediately.

“If you will excuse me just one moment?” He turned to Mr. Jessel as he replaced the receiver. “I have rather an urgent call to make.”

“Go ahead, don’t mind me!” said Jessel, sipping his dry sherry appreciatively.

“Thank you,” murmured Mr. Ridley. “Hallo!” He turned to the ’phone again. “Give me Shaf. 09801.”

He waited for a few moments, then a queer, furtive little smile crept round the corners of his lips, for he knew that at that precise moment Inspector Nicholas New had crashed unconscious to the floor, and that in a very few minutes the same fate would overcome the bluff Mr. Jessel.

“And now,” he said, turning to his client. “Regarding the late Mr. Apfelbaum——”

“That’s right,” said George Jessel, draining his drink and wiping his waxed moustache. “I knew old Apfelbaum well. A hard man in many ways, but ’e ’ad ’is ’eart in the right place. I don’t know quite what you mean about this envelope, but——”

Latimer watched from across the desk, and noticed that his speech had grown thick, and a queer, glassy look had crept into his eyes.

“ ’Ere,” said Jessel, clutching suddenly at his throat. “It’s kind of close in ’ere. I feel——”

His voice trailed away. His head sagged forward on to his chest, and a moment later he slipped inertly to the floor.

Butyl chloride is swift and efficacious in sherry. The Soundless Six had struck again, remorselessly and silently.

The Napoleonic brain of Don Mariford had arranged for all eventualities and covered up each vulnerable point.

The ’phone call which Mr. Latimer Ridley had just received was from a ragged newsvendor on duty outside the mansions in Shaftesbury Avenue. That spy in the service of the Soundless Six had orders to report at once the arrival of any unauthorised person at Desiree la Lune’s flat.

The spy had recognised Nicholas New, and though the flat was empty, it was typical of their diabolical ingenuity that they could strike down Nick New from a distance of a couple of miles. It had been forethought and foresight that had made Don Mariford fix in between the bells of the telephone a fragile phial of phosphone gas. Immediately Latimer had rung up, the bell clapper had smashed the tiny glass globe, releasing that extremely volatile and powerful anaesthetic.

Nick lay now, an unconscious heap, in front of the escritoire, and, by a strange irony, in his hand was clutched a piece of saffron-hued notepaper.

• • • • • •

It took a good deal to shock that most unshockable thoroughfare, Fleet Street, but when the news came through that a second member of the Crime Commission was missing, and that it was none other than the Hon. George Jessel, even hardened newspaper men were surprised.

Swift on the heels of that mystery, the editor of the “Daily Ray” received a curt note signed “The Soundless Six,” saying that by the kidnapping of the politician another cause of crime had been removed.

When this was published in a special edition that night, all the news hounds of Fleet Street bayed on the trail. Foremost among them was Mr. Bannerton Bruce.

He called up Nick New at the Yard, and learnt that that astute young detective was too busily occupied to see any Pressmen.

If the news of Jessel’s disappearance caused perturbation in Scotland Yard, it caused consternation in the gang which Agate Eyes controlled.

It was a definite challenge to his leadership, and a cold fury seized him. It was the first time his authority had been challenged: The first time, too, that anyone, apart from its members, had suspected Superintendent Wilding and George Jessel of being crooks. Yet crooks they had been these many years, masking their villainy by seemingly disinterested public service.

Wilding had been receiving bribes for years, and had salted away hundreds of thousands of pounds. So also had George Jessel, who had posed as a disinterested philanthropist and received fabulous sums from unscrupulous capitalists in order to arrange Government contracts.

The deluded public never in their wildest dreams suspected that the leader of the greatest criminal confederation in England—he who was known as Agate Eyes—was one of His Majesty’s most respected judges, yet such was the case.

Mr. Justice Gravely had for twenty-five years lived a double life. He was a born crook, whose shrewd wit and vast knowledge of the law had enabled him to weld together the four men whom he needed for his purpose. He ruled by fear and by his dominating brain.

It was typical of the man’s colossal confidence in his own powers that it was he, in his official position, who had recommended the formation of the Commission to inquire into the causes and cure of crime.

With the aid of his ally, George Jessel, it had been easy enough to get the Cabinet’s consent to its statutory powers, and herein lay the greatness of Gravely and his sardonic humour.

Under the very nose of Scotland Yard, in an austere office in Whitehall, the Big Four of crime—Gravely, Jessel, Wilding, and that hypocritical philanthropist, the Earl of Flichester—planned their coups and plotted further crimes, while ostensibly inquiring into its cause.

The Earl of Flichester was a man of amazing charm and personality who, by sheer force of intellect and a certain natural aptitude of chicanery, had come into the title at the comparatively early age of forty. He posed as the bluff, hearty type of sportsman. His early career had been varied and chequered. Born in Canada, he came back to England, and inherited a small fortune, which was quickly dissipated in debts. He did not believe in letting his right hand know what his left hand did.

The kidnapping of Jessel by the Soundless Six flung the remaining two members of the Big Four into consternation.

Lord Flichester and Mr. Justice Gravely were seated in the latter’s house at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. The curtains were drawn, and the soft light of candelabra shed a mellow glow over the luxury of the room.

Flichester, a big, broad-shouldered, jovial-faced man, with a mop of silver hair and a rich, resonant voice, stood with his back to the fireplace and his usually smooth forehead was corrugated into a frown.

“Well, Gravely,” he said. “What’s to be done? Who and what are the Soundless Six? With Wilding gone, and Jessel gone, our situation, to say the least of it, is perilous.”

“There is no necessity to repeat the obvious,” cut in the harsh voice of the judge. “They must be dealt with—and dealt with at once. I have already informed Numbers 9 and 10 what stops to take.”

He was referring to the heads of the Shinwell gang—the notorious toughs who had been responsible for the attack on Whiny Wick.

Agate Eyes held sway over the underworld mainly through anonymity. Only Jessel, Wilding, and Lord Flichester knew his identity, and they were far too deeply implicated themselves in his grandiose schemes to dare betray him.

They in turn had retained their anonymity, and controlled eight sub-lieutenants, dependable men who were blackmailed into submission. Beneath these again were the gangsters of the underworld, followed by innumerable smaller fry. And now Gravely realised that a crisis had been reached in the confederation of crime.

First the Ecksteins, van Kamp, Wilding, and now Jessel!

The Soundless Six had struck surely and swiftly, and unless their identity was discovered, disaster threatened irretrievably.

Chapter 9

NICK TAKES THE TRAIL

INSPECTOR NICHOLAS NEW sat up with a jerk and clapped his hands to his forehead.

What on earth had happened to him?

“I must have fainted, I guess,” he muttered. “Strange!”

Nick was a robust young man, and not given to fainting fits. He rose rather shakily to his feet, and suddenly his nostrils were assailed by a sweet, sickly odour as of pear drops.

He glanced at his watch, and saw, to his astonishment, that it was quarter to one.

“Gosh!” he murmured. “This is what comes of not having enough sleep.”

He sat down on the divan for a moment or two to consider his amazing lapse.

“But a man doesn’t stick in a faint for two hours?” he said.

Curiously enough he had no feeling of nausea—in fact, he felt very little the worse for his experience. Again he sniffed, and strove to remember exactly what had happened when he had been overcome by that strange dizziness.

Presently he recalled the faint whir of the ’phone bell. It had not been loud, but he remembered wondering at the time who it was that had rung up the fair Desiree.

He crossed over to the instrument, and his eyes narrowed as he saw several infinitesimal slivers of broken glass. The odour of pear drops was more pronounced now, and Nick swore softly below his breath.

“By gosh—phosphone gas!” he ejaculated. “What a diabolically clever idea! They must have expected me!”

He had studied chemistry, and knew that a new and volatile anaesthetic had recently been invented by the well-known scientist, Dr. Weldon Holmes, which, derived from Phosgene, yet had none of the latter’s deleterious effects.

Nick squared his shoulders resolutely. Had the ‘phone call been an accident or design?

He lifted the receiver, and, by giving his name, got at once in touch with the supervisor. He asked him to trace the call, and then prowled round the flat, finding little, however, to reward him in the way of clues. Mlle. Desiree’s wardrobe did not appear to be too extensive, but she was evidently lavish with cosmetic—judging by her toilet table.

The reply came through with remarkable promptitude, and, after having ascertained the address of Messrs. Moody, Fothersgill, Moody & Ridley, Nick called up his colleague, Benskin, at the Yard.

“Send a photographer and a couple of fingerprint men down to Amberley Mansions—Number 9,” he ordered. “Things are moving. Concentrate on the telephone and on the wine-glasses you’ll find there. I’m going down to Fleet Street, and I’ll see you later.”

Nick jammed on his hat, let himself out carefully, and, hailing a taxi, reached Rackett Court within ten minutes.

His heart beat a trifle faster as he mounted the steps that led to Mr. Latimer Ridley’s office. He pressed the bell and waited for the reply, but none came.

His suspicions fully aroused, the detective determined not to waste time by applying for a warrant. He would make certain, however, in case the ‘phone call from Moody & Co. was accidental. Accordingly he hurried over to St. Bride’s Institute, a few yards away, where he scanned the law list.

He gave a grim smile of satisfaction when he discovered that the firm was non-existent.

Armed with this information—or, rather, lack of information—Nick returned, and, by the use of those slender implements which, though useful, were entirely unlawful, managed after a little while to unlock the door.

The keys were a gift to him from a cracksman—one Soapy Grimes, who had now “swallowed the anchor.”

He entered the office and made a rapid survey. There was a small wash-bowl in a corner of the room, and Nick noted that it had recently been used. There were suds of foamy lather adhering to its edges, and speckled within them were several short, stiff hairs.

His keen eyes also noted on the linoleum several pieces of hair, some of them waxed at the ends.

“H’m!” said Nicholas New shortly, little realising that he was at that moment gazing at all that was left of George Jessel’s crowning glory, his waxed moustache. “Evidently our friend was in a hurry!”

He noticed the two sherry glasses on the table, and sniffed them delicately. There was a slight sediment in the bottom of one, and Nick, who had a very keen sense of smell, recognised it as Butyl chloride.

He whistled softly.

“H’m—knock-out drops!”

He looked under the desk and found on the floor a letter addressed to the Right Hon. George Jessel. Eyes agleam, Nick called up the ex-M.P.’s number and learnt that Mr. Jessel had left two hours before for Fleet Street.

“Now what?” said Nick, pushing back his velour hat and scratching his head. “Now what does all this mean? Butyl chloride, a hurried shave, a lawyer’s locked office, and a ’phone ring that releases phosphone. It sounds nonsensical, therefore——”

With a sudden decision Nick gave a rapid glance round the room and went downstairs.

A pimply-faced, watery-eyed clerk in the publishing office below looked up curiously as he entered.

“Yes, sir?” he inquired deferentially, arching his eyebrows.

“Can you tell me if Mr. Latimer Ridley has gone out, and when he is likely to return?” asked Nick.

“Meanin’ the bloke upstairs?” queried the youth.

Nick nodded.

“I can’t say, sir,” was the reply. “ ’E ain’t been ’ere very long, an’ ’e doesn’t come often. ’E’s wot you might call eractic in ’is ’abits. Bit too fond of liftin’ ’is elbow, if you ask me. ’Im an’ ’is pal looked ’alf sozzled this mornin’.”

“What’s that?” demanded Nick sharply.

“Well, if ’e wasn’t, ’is mate was. Canned ter the wide! I ’ad ter call ’im a taxi. ’E could ’ardly stand.”

“What was he like, this friend?” demanded Nick. From his pocket he took two silver coins and clinked them suggestively.

The clerk rubbed his chin.

“Oh, a tubby, clean-shaven cove wiv a red face an’ bowler ’at,” he volunteered.

Nick’s heart leapt.

“And this Mr. Ridley? What’s he like?”

The youth gave him a description that was vague and unsatisfying of the mysterious Mr. Ridley.

“Where did you get the taxi?”

“At the rank in New Bridge Street,” said the other.

“Good for you!” Nick’s voice was triumphant. “And about what time was this, you say?”

“Oo, abaht ’alf an hour ago,” returned the clerk.

Nick’s heart beat exultantly. Things were moving—and moving fast. He tossed five shillings to the youth and hailed a cab. Undoubtedly Mr. George Jessel had been drugged. It would be comparatively easy later on to find out from the taxi man on the rank if he remembered the two fares, one of whom was inebriated.

Meanwhile Nick went straight up to Scotland Yard to make an exhaustive report. He found there was no news of Superintendent Wilding, and he went out to lunch to a nearby hostelry until Benskin returned with his report.

• • • • • •

Don Mariford, thorough as he was in most things, had slipped up badly when he under-estimated Nick’s imaginative intelligence. He had planned with consummate care and cunning, but he was not to know that Nick, by five o’clock that evening, had already traced the taxi and discovered that the ex-cinema actor, Don Mariford, was a member of the Soundless Six.

Mariford sat now in his role of Dr. Lucien Carey in the quiet, modest-fronted house in Bloomsbury. His clever, amazingly mobile face was furrowed in thought, and he smiled slightly.

The Soundless Six had delivered smashing blows at the four big crime breeders.

Wilding was still in gaol. It was Don himself who had driven him in his big limousine from Desiree’s flat after he had been drugged. Don had met the unfortunate Steenie during his own imprisonment, and had been convinced of his innocence. Indeed, it was while reviewing the evidence in the quietude of his prison cell, that Don had realised dimly the existence of the four crime breeders.

He had long suspected Superintendent Wilding, but it was not until after months of patient search and the following up of thousands of whispered clues from the underworld that he was finally able to link up the chain of evidence against the Big Four. And now, he reflected, Jessel, too, was on his way to that grim grey building in Kent—Sandstone Prison.

He could trust Horrocks, his chauffeur, implicitly.

Don’s mind cast back a moment to the past. To that dark night in Elstree when Sam Westerbrook had been killed. Perhaps he had been a fool in his quixotic action? Perhaps it had been his fate to have taken the blame from the slim sequined shoulders of Miss Fifi Ducaine?

Don’s lips parted into a smile, which made his face singularly attractive, as he pulled from his pocket a letter he had received many months ago. It was from Canada, and in her big, sprawling, schoolgirl handwriting, Fifi Ducaine, nee Gomm,

was enthusiastic about her ranch in Alberta and her strapping husband, Jim.

It was the postscript that amused Don Mariford, however. “And he’s such a whopper, too, though only three months old. We are calling him ‘Don,’ after you, and teaching him to grow up a man.”

“Yes,” reflected Don Mariford. It had undoubtedly been worth it. He had saved one woman’s soul at least from perdition. The shock of that wild night had changed Fifi Ducaine from an empty-headed little chorus girl to a worth-while Daughter of Empire. What if he were a hunted man and an outcast? Was he not a man with a thousand faces, and had he not achieved more than the law itself?

He folded up the letter, and suddenly his amazing face hardened into a granite mask. There were still Agate Eyes, that assassin of men’s souls, and that archscoundrel, Lord Flichester, to deal with.

Chapter 10

ENTER THE PROFESSOR

THE same evening of that eventful day, after they had learnt from an evening paper that Jessel had been kidnapped, Lord Flichester and Mr. Justice Gravely still sat in conclave. They had discussed at length the Soundless Six in the quietude of the judge’s library. What baffled them was the speed and the deadly precision with which the blows at their organisation had been struck. And, above all, the illusiveness of the enemy.

“We must get in touch with Numbers 9 and 10 at once,” repeated Gravely. “And wipe this infernal gang out of existence.”

Gravely used as his lieutenant and tool a shyster lawyer named Larkin, who would have been struck off the rolls long ago had it not been for the judge’s influence.

It was through the man Larkin that Agate Eyes was able to get into communication with the tough gangsters of Shinwell and Soho. Larkin was bound body and soul to his chief.

“By all means,” said Lord Flichester. “Otherwise the end will be disastrous.”

“Don’t talk to me of disaster,” snarled the chief. He was white with fury, and he crumpled up the sheet announcing Jessel’s disappearance into a ball and tossed it into the fire.

In the glow of the flames his face looked diabolic. It was the face of a fiend, and even that archscoundrel, Flichester, recoiled.

“What about this detective fellow, New?” he asked.

Gravely made a contemptuous gesture.

“He is utterly negligible,” he said with scorn. “No, the man we must get—and get quickly—is the leader of this Soundless Six. Possibly, once we are certain of his identity, we can frame him, and then it will give me exquisite pleasure to sentence him to death.”

He licked his thin lips as he spoke, and there was an unholy gleam in his eyes.

A tap sounded at the door, and a smooth-faced butler entered.

“A gentleman to see you, sir,” he announced, holding out a thin slip of pasteboard on a salver.

“Tell him I can’t see him,” snapped the judge.

“He says he has an appointment, sir,” answered the butler, again proffering the salver.

The judge picked up the card impatiently. It was inscribed:

PROFESSOR EVERARD LANGDON, D.Sc., D.Ph.

Mr. Justice Gravely clucked his tongue with annoyance.

“Confound it!” he said. “I had forgotten all about him. He’s a doddering old fool, Flichester, but he has one of the finest philatelic collections in Europe. I had arranged to meet him this evening to discuss a particularly fine specimen of a Post Office Mauritius with him, and also one of the rare Finnish over-printed stamps during the Russian occupation of Finland.”

It was curious how a sudden note of enthusiasm crept into the master crook’s voice as he spoke. The psychology of the collector is a complex thing. Men have been known to commit murder for a porcelain vase that to another man seems dingy and dull compared with one from some cheap store.

If Justice Gravely could be said to have any human emotion whatsoever, it was his enthusiasm for philately. It seemed strange that a man of his calibre should be so interested in what many people regard as a harmless schoolboy hobby—the collecting of postage stamps.

Lord Flichester himself was a mild enthusiast, and he said non-committally:

“Spare him five minutes, at least. It will serve as a distraction from our immediate problems.”

Already the gleam of the born collector had appeared in the agate eyes of Judge Gravely. He turned to the butler.

“Show the professor in,” he commanded.

The butler withdrew like a well-oiled automaton, to return a few moments later accompanied by the venerable figure of Professor Everard Langdon.

He was dressed quaintly in an old-fashioned black broadcloth cape, which, descended in folds from his bent and stooping shoulders. His glistening bald cranium had a fringe of white hair which flowed in a snowy cascade over his shoulder. His face was the colour of old parchment and as wrinkled, and his voice was quavery and somewhat high-pitched.

He bowed courteously as Judge Gravely formally introduced him to his lordship.

“It is exceedingly good of you—exceedingly good of you, indeed, my dear sir,” he said, “to evince such a marked interest in my philatelic collection.”

“Not at all, my dear professor,” said Gravely, with as much cordiality as he could infuse into his acidulous voice. “May I offer you a glass of Madeira?”

The professor raised a gnarled, thin hand with rheumaticky joints. “You will pardon me,” he said. “But I have been a life-long abstainer.”

Gravely, who was anxious to cut short the interview, could not restrain the impatience in his voice.

“Did you bring the stamps with you?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” replied the other.

With pathetic eagerness, he pulled out a parcel, knotted and heavily scaled, from beneath his long Inverness cape.

“I have kept this in the bank for sake of security, gentlemen,” he added, with a smile which creased his sunken cheek. “Unfortunately, pecuniary necessity forces me to part with the gems of my collection,” he added, turning to Lord Flichester.

There was something pitiful about his genteel poverty as the old man’s fingers fumbled clumsily with the string.

An impatient look appeared on Judge Gravely’s face.

“Here, let me do that!” he said briskly.

With his slim, capable white hands he took the parcel from the old man, who stood respectfully on one side. At last the brown paper coverings were unwrapped, disclosing a leather-bound loose-leaf album.

“Now look, Flichester,” said Gravely, motioning to his colleague. “We have here one of the rarest stamps in the world. Its value roughly I would compute at——”

“Well,” said their guest. “It was catalogued last at five thousand pounds, but, of course——”

He stretched his arms deprecatingly.

Judge Gravely opened the cover of the book.

Came a dull plop!—a tinkling of breaking glass, and the room was full of the sickly sweet odour of pear drops.

For a moment both Gravely and Flichester swayed dizzily. Then, without a sound of a cry, they both slumped forward.

The figure of the old professor bent—then straightened. His face filled out. With an agility surprising in a man of his apparent age he crossed over to the French windows which overlooked a spacious garden at the back of the judge’s house. A dark shadow crouched beneath, and, at the professor’s signal, sprang into the room.

“Did you deal with the butler, Horrocks?” he whispered.

“Yes, sir,” came that sturdy henchman’s reply.

“Then, quick. Take this!”

With a heave of his shoulders the man in the cloak lifted the limp, inanimate body of Mr. Justice Gravely and dumped it unceremoniously in the waiting chauffeur’s arms.

Horrocks grinned, turned, and slipped through the window again, and raced back across the lawn towards the rear of the gardens to where a high-powered limousine thrummed softly. He was followed a moment later by his master, and when Soames, the butler, recovered his dazed senses eight minutes later, wondering exactly what had hit him in the hallway leading from the pantry, the mighty car was roaring away through the night.

Again the Soundless Six had struck!

Chapter 11

NICK MEETS THE “SOUNDLESS SIX.”

SCOTLAND YARD, those fishers of men, spread out their drag-net far and wide when that omniscience up aloft in C.R.O. (that vast room in which blue-clad recording angels infallibly record the dossier of wrongdoers) discovered that Don Mariford was a member of the Soundless Six.

Inspector Nicholas New, harassed but elated, had discovered the infallible proof in fingerprints. An A.S. message was sent out giving a description of the wanted man. All night long the telegraph wires clicked. Shortly after midnight New went back to his flat in Trafalgar Square for an hour’s kip. His head had hardly touched the pillow when the insistent whir of the ’phone bell awoke him.

He cursed lucidly and categorically as he recognised the voice of the night inspector.

“Have you found him?” he demanded.

“Not on your life,” came the excited voice over the wire. “The very latest is that Judge Gravely and Lord Flichester have both disappeared. The butler was coshed and, according to the Chelsea police, the two were kidnapped and taken off in a car.”

“I hope Judge Gravely was coshed good and hard,” muttered Nick viciously. The wigging he had received from Mr. Justice Gravely still rankled.

“You had better come along,” said Detective-inspector Borage. “There’s a report through from Mitcham that a man answering Mariford’s description was seen near the common ten minutes ago. The Flying Squad are following it up.”

Nick divested himself of his pyjamas, dashed into the bathroom, and, after a cold plunge, was himself again.

He arrived at the Yard to find the C.I.D. in a turmoil. The West End had been combed, and all suspects had been pulled in by a tight-meshed police net. In Whitechapel, too, and the East End, Inspector “Red” Berry, in charge of that unsavoury district, went trawling, and caught many queer fish from the sluggish waters of the underworld.

All through the night the hunt was on. The morning came, and there was no sign of Don Mariford. The papers screamed in headlines. Bannerton Bruce wrote a slashing attack on Scotland Yard, for he was peeved with Nick’s refusal to see him the previous day. There was only one man who was unperturbed, and that was Don Mariford himself, who slept peacefully in the governor’s quarters in Sandstone Gaol.

Horrocks, his faithful chauffeur and manservant, woke him at nine a.m.

“The prisoners seem kind o’ perturbed, sir,” he announced with a grin. “Gettin’ all hot an’ bothered, they are. That Wildin’ chap looks ter me as if ’e’d gone daft. ’E must ’ave lost ’alf a stone in weight since ’e’s been ’ere.”

“Splendid!” laughed Don Mariford. “They’ll lose a little more before I’m through with them. How is his lordship?”

“Foamin’ at the mouth, sir,” said the faithful Horrocks.

Mariford chuckled. He rose to his feet and stepped over to the large pilot mirror in the corner of the room. On the dressing-table was an elaborate make-up box. From it he took out an iron-grey wig and scanned his features narrowly.

“Go and warn the others,” he jerked over his shoulder. “I suppose it’s all ready?”

“It’s all fixed, sir,” replied Horrocks, who was now dressed in the uniform of a prison warder.

“Good! I shall be along in twenty minutes,” said the Man of a Thousand Faces.

He grinned reminiscently as he recalled one of the best roles he had ever played—that of Professor Everard Langdon. It had taken him many weeks to perfect, and it was typical of his inventive genius to have invented two absorbent plugs for his nostrils saturated with an antidote for the phosphone gas that was released when the stamp album was opened.

The whole thing had been ludicrously easy, but Don Mariford, ever the master artist, had rehearsed for weeks before he pulled off his audacious coup and carried off Agate Eyes and his chief lieutenant.

Typical also was his ingenuity in wrapping the parcel he carried so carefully so that it was difficult to open. It gave Horrocks time to deal with the butler, the only member of the judge’s household on duty.

Meanwhile, in their separate cells, four dazed, angry, and dangerous men paced restlessly up and down, murderous hatred in their hearts for the man who had outwitted them.

For once in his life the cold, logical brain of Judge Gravely did not function with its accustomed clarity. He was utterly unable to account for the indignity of his position. Suddenly the door of his cell opened, and five uniformed warders entered accompanied by the spare military figure of Hereward Marsh.

“What is the meaning of this outrage?” stuttered the judge, white to the lips with suppressed fury.

“You will come with us,” said Hereward Marsh, alias Don Mariford. “Quick, pinion him!”

The judge foamed at the mouth with fury as rough hands seized him and pinioned his arms with leather straps. He lashed out savagely with his feet, but, though his brain was massive, his form was wizened, and he was carried screaming along the echoing stone prison corridor, a gibbering thing, the fear of Death in his heart.

Soon the procession halted before a steel door, which Don Mariford unlocked. The judge trembled violently on the threshold, but he was pushed in remorselessly. He found himself in a long, dimly-lit room in which were placed half a dozen chairs.

It was a bare, whitewashed chamber that stank of carbolic.

“Sit down, Judge Gravely,” snapped the chief of the Soundless Six. “The charge against you is that of wilful murder. You will be tried, and if you are found guilty you know what sentence to expect.”

“Let me out, curse you, let me out!” cried the judge, and his voice was hoarse with terror.

He was forced into a chair, and suddenly the room grew dark. For a moment they were all left in Stygian blackness. Then it seemed as if a thousand voices cried in unison:

“You shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead!”

From out the gloom sprang the monstrous face of a man with close-cropped hair and black, beaded eyes. He raised an enormous finger and pointed it at the cowering judge.

“You know me, Judge Gravely,” said the voice. “I am Sefton, whom you sentenced to death for a crime I did not commit!”

The monstrous face opened its mouth and laughed—peal after peal of hysterical laughter horrible to hear. The judge, for once in his life, felt fear.

Had he gone mad? Even as he looked, the face of the man Sefton, whom he had condemned to death ten years before, vanished, and he was confronted by that of a young boy of about eighteen, a good-looking youngster with crisp, curly hair and dark, long-lashed eyes.

“You condemned me to death,” said the boy, and again a finger was pointed unerringly at the wretched judge. “You remember me, my name is Saintsbury.”

The judge writhed, and tried to close his eyes, but he could not shut out the sound of the accusing voice.

“I find you guilty. You shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead.”

Beads of perspiration prickled on the judge’s forehead. He shook as with a palsy. The face vanished. In its place there appeared a tall, middle-aged woman dressed in black. Her hair was grey, and her careworn face held all the sorrow in the world.

“I was accused of murdering the husband I loved, Judge Gravely,” she said, and her voice was pleasantly low and modulated. “I pleaded with you for mercy, but you ignored it. I find you guilty.”

“Stop—stop!” screamed the judge.

Something seemed to have snapped in his brain, and yet he was compelled to stare with fascinated horror at twelve figures, including that of Steenie Levine, each pointing at him, and uttering the dread words which he had so often employed with such sadistic enjoyment from the bench.

Don Mariford rose to his feet.

“And that is the verdict of you all?” he demanded.

“Ay—of us all!” came the chorus in unison, and twelve dead people pointed at the gibbering thing that had once been the most feared judge on the bench.

“Good!” Instantly the room was flooded with light, and the semi-fainting judge realised that what he had seen were mere phantoms projected on to the whitewashed wall by a cinema projector. Don Mariford had produced his masterpiece.

“Take him away!” came a voice in diabolical mimicry of the judge’s own.

Fainting with fear, the wretched man was dragged along the corridor. Beyond he could see a small whitewashed shed and a hideous contraption which he recognised all too well. From it dangled a hempen rope with a noose. By the lever stood a small, insignificant figure in black.

“Mercy—mercy!” yelled Gravely, his voice was a quivering scream of fear. Gone was that cold indifference with which he had driven men to everlasting purgatory. Gone was the colossus of crime. In his place there was nothing but a craven coward, with his nerves racked with the anguish of the unknown.

“Come along, Gravely, be a man. You have been well and truly found guilty, and—there—is—no—reprieve.”

A shrill peal of hysterical laughter welled and bubbled from Gravely’s throat, to die away as suddenly as it had risen. His bony knees sagged under him like wet cardboard. Foam flecked his lips, and he went suddenly very still.

Instantly Mariford bent over him. One glance at the glassy eyeballs and ashen face was enough. Gravely was dead!

• • • • • •

Inspector Nicholas New glanced up irritably at the constable who entered his sanctum. It was the night following the dramatic kidnapping of Judge Gravely and Lord Flichester.

“ ‘Scuse me, sir,” said the constable. “But that there little ‘nose,’ Whiny Wick’s ’ere. ’E says ’e’s got some important information about the Soundless Six.”

“What’s that?” demanded New, instantly all attention. “Bring him in at once!”

The young detective’s face looked careworn and harassed. He had worked all through the night, and still there were no signs of the missing men. The Home Office was raising Cain. Scores of men in different parts of the country had been pulled in on suspicion of being Don Mariford and subsequently released. The police were at their wit’s end, and Nick was ready to listen even to the whining Wick if any stray crumb of information were likely to come of it.

Presently that unsavoury specimen of humanity entered, nervously twiddling his cap.

“Well?” barked Nick. “What do you want?”

The other’s foxy face relaxed into a grin, showing his yellow teeth.

“ ’Ow much would it be worf ter yer, guv’nor, eff I was ter point out ter yer the headquarters of the Soundless Six?”

“What’s that?” demanded Nick. “You’re dreaming, man.”

“S’welp me Bob, I ain’t, guv’nor,” protested the informer. “Eff you guarantee me police protection I’ll take yer right there this very minute. Yer can bring the ’ole bloomin’ Flyin’ Squad out an’ surround the ’ouse. All I asks yer is not ter tell Don as ’ow I told yer.”

Nick glanced incredulously at the man, but there was perfect sincerity in his tone. It held conviction.

“How do I know you’re speaking the truth?” he demanded sternly.

“Because I’ve got this ’ere ter prove it,” replied the other. From the pockets of his greasy and disreputable jacket he produced a crumpled slip of saffron-coloured notepaper, a colour which by now Nick had learnt to loathe.

The C.I.D. man’s eyes narrowed.

“Where did you get this?” he rasped.

“From a bloke where the Clincher used ter ’ang out,” replied Whiny Wick. “I dursen’t tell yer ‘is nime or ’e’ll croak me.”

Nick pounced on the document. It was laconic as usual.

“Get Agate Eyes to-night. FI. mtd. 37, Power St., to-night.—S. S.”

Nick glanced incredulously at this document for a moment, and then gave a long, low whistle. From a drawer in the desk he pulled out some of the previous missives and compared the paper. It was identical in texture.

“Know anything more?”

Whiny Wick shuffled uneasily.

“No; but the bloke wot passed the info ter me is scared ter death, an’ ‘e used ter work for them Soundless coves. It’s a big ’ouse in Bloomsbury—an’ that’s all I knows, guv’nor—s’welp me Bob. Now, honest, wot’s it worth ter you?”

Nick pressed a bell on his desk.

“Quick,” he said to the constable who entered. “Call up all reserves. Get a cordon round 37, Power Street, Bloomsbury. Get Benskin to station a van at each point of the block. We’ve got the Soundless Six.”

Nick’s eyes literally blazed with excitement as he crammed on his hat.

“By the way,” he said. “What time is this meeting supposed to be?”

“About nine o’clock, guv’nor, so the bloke told me.”

Nicholas New promptly began to ’phone up feverishly, while Whiny Wick scampered gleefully towards the canteen.

For the next half hour radio crackled, ’phone bells rang, and telegraphs buzzed. All the mighty forces of Scotland Yard were set in motion. Nick had planned the raid to afford no possible loophole of escape, and punctually at nine o’clock an unobtrusive police cordon was drawn about the house.

Meanwhile, back once more in his quiet Bloomsbury house, Don Mariford sat with the other five striking personalities that made up that formidable organisation, the Soundless Six.

He was quite calm and unruffled. His object had been achieved. Agate Eyes and his gang of crooks had been smashed. The three men were still incarcerated in their cells at Sandstone Gaol. Superintendent Wilding was a broken wreck of a man, and their power had gone for ever.

Outside in the gloom fifty plain clothes men watched and waited until they received the signal from Nicholas New when the raid was to be expected. Nick New himself, tense and taut as a bow-string, glanced at his wrist-watch. It was zero hour.

Against the oblong of yellow light he saw six shadows move. From his pocket he took out a squat blue metal automatic and signalled to his henchman Benskin. Even that dour man betrayed signs of the excitement that he felt.

“I’ll go up first, Benskin,” said New. “You follow as soon as I blow the whistle.”

With the aid of his pick-lock, Nick New forced back the lock of the door as silently as any burglar. He tiptoed stealthily, his heart hammering against his ribs. Upstairs he could hear the sound of voices.

Nick felt his blood tingling in his veins as he reached the climax of the greatest case of his career. He tiptoed towards the door of the room from which the voices came. Then, bracing himself, he levelled his gun and placed the policeman’s whistle to his lips. He heaved, and the flimsy lock gave way beneath his sturdy shoulder.

Five figures were grouped round the table—four men and a girl. It was a luxuriously furnished room illumined by a chandelier. In that split second Nick was able to recognise the lean, ferret-like features of Whiny Wick.

“Hands up, curse you—hands up!” he snarled, then blew three piercing blasts on his whistle.

The motionless figures round the table did not stir. To Nick’s tautened nerves he fancied there carried the sound of a mocking laugh.

“Hands up,” he repeated again, “or, by heck, I’ll shoot!”

Outside in the street came the shrill pheep-pheep of police whistles, and he heard the pounding of Benskin’s heavy boots on the stairs.

“D’you hear me, Whiny, you doublecrossing little snitch?” cried Nick, white with fury, stretching out a hand and shaking him roughly by the shoulder.

The figure made no sound, but fell forward with a dull, heavy thud—and it was in that instant that Nick realised—and a great bitterness welled up in his heart—for the five figures round the oval table were wax. Their features startlingly life-like in the mellow glow of the electrolier—but wax!

It was just as Benskin came into the room that Nick noticed a further door at the far end. He raced towards it, and found affixed thereon a yellow envelope addressed to himself.

Beneath the superscription:

“You shouldn’t strain your shoulders on this—it’s steel!”

Sick with chagrin, Nick turned to Benskin.

“Quick, mobilise a double force round the back—we’ve been fooled!”

He tore off the envelope, and held it in shaking fingers.

“Dear Inspector New,” (it ran),—“The game is over, my work is done. To assuage a little of your disappointment, I will tell you where to find three members of the Crime Commission. I kept them in there for safe custody. If you will look on the mantelpiece you will find a steel box containing sufficient documentary evidence to prove their responsibility for at least a third of the crimes committed in the last ten years.

“Sandstone Prison is rather dilapidated, and I suggest that you take the prisoners to Pentonworth for safer custody. I’m sorry I could not stop to offer you a glass of wine, but you will find some bubbly on the sideboard.—Yours very sincerely,

“DON MARIFORD, alias

DESIREE LA LUNE,

PPROESSOR EVERARD LANGDON,

HEREWARD MARSH,

and your old friend

WHINY WICK,

otherwise known as

THE SOUNDLESS SIX.”

Nick’s jaws sagged open. He strove to speak, but no words came. It was incredible, nonsensical—but true. There was no such gang as the Soundless Six. It was Don Mariford, that consummate actor, who had played each and every role.

“The Man with a Thousand Faces,” said Nick ruefully. “I might have known. Gott in Himmel, what a fool I’ve been!”

He crossed to the sideboard and helped himself to a glass of champagne with shaking hand.

At that juncture Benskin entered. He glanced dazedly at the dummies. Nick handed him the letter without a word.

“Well—I’ll be—— Of course, Mariford is that film star who went down for three years,” he said. “Greatest film actor I ever saw—twist his face into any shape—and a wonderful ventriloquist, too! I remember seeing him in a film once called ‘The Talking Doll,’ and——”

“I don’t want any of your talkie reminiscences,” snarled Nicholas New. “Get this darned door open. Did you see about the back?” he added.

“Sure I did,” said Benskin indignantly. “I found a constable on duty there just walking slowly down the alley. ’E said ’e’d seen nobody go by.”

“Oh, you darned fool,” said Nicholas New in a flash of inspiration. “That was Don Mariford in his thousand and first face!”

THE END

ROGUES REPRIEVE

GWYN EVANS

A SENSATIONAL NEW NOVEL OF THRILLS AND SINISTER MYSTERY

Chapter 1

AN EERIE NIGHT

“BLOW me if I don’t believe the bloomin’ world’s comin’ to an end!”

Artie, the coffee-stall keeper, gave a little laugh.

“Cheerful blokes, you coppers! I’ve noticed it before!”

P.-c. Dunn snorted.

“Cheerful or not, facts is facts!” he persisted. “I mean, wot with these earthquakes and tornadoes and floods and whatnot, something’s going to happen!”

After a hot day there had been a heavy and prolonged thunder-shower, and the result of this, on the over-heated pavements of the great metropolis, had been to produce a heavy, humid mist amounting almost to a fog in density, and very much like a Turkish bath in effect.

“Phew!” P.-c. Dunn, as he removed his helmet and wiped the perspiration from his brow, gave a little shiver. “Well, I s’pose I’d better be getting on now, and just see that nobody runs away with St. Paul’s! Cheerio, Artie!”

“Good-night, mate!”

With the slow and dignified gait which is peculiar to the Loudon policeman, P.-c. Dunn moved off along his beat, turned the corner by Cannon Street Station, and proceeded along Queen Victoria Street, trying shop doors as he went.

A close observer would have noted that P.-c. Dunn was suffering rather badly from nerves. As a matter of fact, what with the heat, the uncanny mist, and the loneliness of the streets, the constable was feeling far from comfortable.

“The sort o’ night one might well meet Old Nick in!” was his comment, as he passed along his way.

He turned into an arched doorway, inscribed above which was the legend, in large copper letters: “The League of Hope Renewed,” and as he did so started hack with a sharp exclamation.

For standing on the doorstep was a form which, as it seemed to his excited and nervous vision, might well have been the very individual to whom he had just referred.

A tall, upright, thin figure, clad in a frock-coat which clung closely to his spare form, was standing in the dimness of the porch. The faint reflection of a distant street lamp just caught the face, and it was at this that the scared policeman was staring.

It was a lean, hatchet face, with a ‘long, sharp nose, and pointed chin. The eyes were deepset, and seemed to be gleaming with a strange, lambent glow behind them which was hardly of this world, and the thin lips were drawn back from the white teeth in a sort of horrid snarl.

As the constable started back he turned the switch of his flash-lamp, and the light shone full on the strange figure in the porch. It spoke.

“It’s all right, officer! I am not engaged upon any nefarious work, believe me!”

P.-c. Dunn gave vent to a little gasp of relief, and then laughed nervously.

For there was nothing in the least sinister about the face or the form revealed in the bright light of his lamp. Just a tall, thin gentleman with a long, ascetic face, grey hair, and deepset, thoughtful, but very kindly, eyes. On the mouth, too, there was a gentle, benevolent smile!

Furthermore, the man who stood in the porch was quite well-known personally to P.-c. Dunn, as he was to most of the members of the force.

“Why, Mr. Dale!” The constable gave a nervous laugh as he spoke. “You gave me quite a start, sir! I don’t know how it is, but what with the heat and the mist the night seems quite uncanny, sir, and then to see you standing there so quiet, sir——”

Pontifex Dale smiled.

“Oh, I understand—I quite understand, officer,” he said, with a little nod. “It must be eerie work patrolling these silent and deserted streets. For myself I like to see London when she is quiet and sleeping; it is such a pleasant contrast to the noise and bustle, the scramble and the wickedness of the day, do you see? When I have been working late—as I have had to tonight ”—here he made a little gesture towards the oaken door, made very much like that of a church—“I often stand for a few moments watching London asleep!”

“You can’t see much tonight, sir, with this mist!” commented the constable.

“Ah, but one can still see it all in imagination, and think of all the sorrows and the sins which this great city of ours holds!”

“Quite, sir—quite!”

The policeman was not quite sure what the other was driving at, but he looked wise and did his best to appear to understand.

Mr. Dale put his top hat more firmly on his head, gripped the plain, crook-handled umbrella without which he was never seen, and prepared to depart.

“Well, well,” he said, with his kindly smile. “We must both get on with our work, officer, for I have yet some to do when I reach home, and you have yours on the spot.” He paused for a moment and gave a little sigh, then continued: “It in curious to think how different our tasks are, is it not? Yours to catch the criminal and lodge him behind bolts and bars, mine to reclaim him when you have done with him, and endeavour to lead him back to the strait and narrow path from which, very often through no fault of his own, he has strayed. Yes, officer, you and I are at the two ends of the scales of justice, so to speak.”

P.-c. Dunn grinned and nodded.

“Ah, well, sir, it takes all sorts to make a world; and, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, you’re one of the best of ’em! I’ve heard many an old lag speak of you as though you was an angel, sir, what with what you’ve done for them and their wives and kids while they’re inside, and so on.”

Pontifex Dale drew his tall figure a little more erect, and his fine, dark eyes looked upwards to the stars for a moment as he replied:

“Ah, well! Like many another, I do my best in my poor way.” He shook his shoulders slightly, the gesture of one bringing himself back to earth after a moment’s communion with the unseen, and his right hand went into his trousers pocket.

“Well, good-night, officer!”

He extended his hand, and P.-c. Dunn, taking it, found himself the richer by half-a-crown.

“Good-night, sir, and thank you!”

He watched the tall, spare figure of the philanthropist as he walked along, the street until it disappeared into the mist, and then turned to resume his beat.

Chapter 2

THE FROZEN MAN!

The hours pass slowly to the policeman on night duty, and on this particular night they passed even slower than usual for P.-c Dunn. For the fourth time

he passed the offices of the League of Hope Renewed, and as he did so it was noticeable that he kept turning his head sharply from side to side, and peering through the mist.

To a casual observer it might have appeared that the officer was an especially zealous one, on the look-out for possible marauders. But a closer observer would have detected that the officer’s main trouble was sheer nerves, and that he was concerned more with lurking shadows than with lurking criminals.

And now, as the first streaks of dawn cleft the eastern sky with a faint streak of silver, there came also a faint dawn wind, which caught up the mist and drove it into weird, whirling spirals which looked strangely like sheeted ghosts mopping and mowing in some wild and horrible dance of death!

P.-c. Dunn turned down an alley.

Here the wind was sweeping through the narrow passage, and swirling the mist from side to side, sometimes cleaving it so that a momentary view of the whole alley could be obtained from time to time.

Just as P.-c. Dunn turned the corner, such a moment occurred, and as in a flash the constable saw something which rooted his attention.

He caught just a flash of a dark and sinister-looking figure, crouching with hunched shoulders and bent knees, and yet running along the side of the alley in the shadows like a frightened rat.

And midway down the alley another man seemed to be wrestling with a third, and the struggle appeared to he a desperate one. They were swaying about, apparently locked in a close grip, just on the step of a warehouse door.

The mist closed in again, but the flash that P.-c. Dunn had seen was sufficient for that astute officer. And now that some real action was required, his nervousness had vanished.

His whistle shrilled out, waking the echoes of the sleeping City, and then as he ran down the alley in his silent, rubber-shod boots he heard the quick scuttling of feet, running away from him.

Again his whistle rang out its shrill note of alarm, and then, as he ran, he tripped and fell heavily to the ground.

P.-c. Dunn was a big man; he was also an active one.

Suspecting that he had been tripped, he was up on his feet again in a second, his hands ready for defence and his eyes peering through the mist, which had momentarily become denser in all directions.

But there was nothing there!

Then the constable’s eyes dropped to the ground, and he gave a sharp cry and peered down at the thing which lay there, prone, at his feet. The body of a well-dressed man, and something in his attitude as he lay there told the constable the dread truth.

The man was dead!

P.-c. Dunn bent over the still form, and flashed his torch upon the still features. They were twisted into an expression of dreadful horror, and the glazed, staring eyes looking up sightlessly at the starlit heavens told their own story.

In Queen Victoria Street a young man, who had been strolling along the pavement, his hands behind his back and a cigar in his mouth, deep in thought, started as he heard the alarm note of the constable’s whistle. He waited for the second blast to locate the direction, and then, with the swift, springy action of the trained athlete he dashed along the wet pavement, across the road, and into the alley. The mist was clearing, and he clearly saw the bulky form of P.-c. Dunn with another form lying at his feet.

“What’s wrong, constable? Can I do anything? I am a doctor.”

P.-c. Dunn shook his head.

“Afraid it’d be a clever doctor who could do anything for this poor beggar!” he said.

As he spoke he bent down and touched the still figure, and then started back with a sharp cry and stared with a horrified expression at the still, silent form on the ground.

“What the deuce’s the matter?” asked the young man.

The constable now was staring at his hands with a look of amazement and horror on his face which, in other circumstances, might have been comic.

“Cold, sir!” he gasped. “He—he’s cold!”

“Good lor’, what about it? Most corpses are cold!”

The constable stared at him with a deathly white face.

“Yes, sir; but not like he is! He—he’s so cold it—it hurts to touch him!”

“Pshaw, man! You’re nervy! That’s what’s the matter with you!”

He bent over the corpse and touched the white check with a tentative forefinger. Then he also gave a sharp exclamation and started back.

Across the stark, silent body the two men stared at each other in amazement.

“Good lor’!” the young man gasped. “Why, he’s not merely cold; he’s frozen—stiff!”

The constable nodded.

“Stiff as mutton; might have been in a glacier!” he said, and then added in a ruminative tone: “And what I should like to know is: how came he like that, on a warm night like this, eh?”

But the young man did not heed him. He was staring blankly into nothing, with a strange look on his face, and muttering to himself:

“Frozen, by heavens—frozen!”

In the distance sounded the thub, thub, thub of rubber-soled boots; other police officers were coming in answer to their comrade’s alarm. But the young man took no notice; he still stared into infinity, and muttered again and again:

“Frozen—frozen!”

And the expression on his face was that of a man who had seen a ghost.

Chapter 3

AT SCOTLAND YARD

“IT’s no good, New! Something’s got to be done about it, and done pretty smartly, too!”

The tanned, lined face of the chief inspector was grim, and there was a worried look in his keen eyes.

“D’you realise, New, that this is the fourth murder in four months, and not only have we not made an arrest, but we haven’t got the shadow of a clue to any of ’em?”

Detective-Inspector Nicholas New wriggled uncomfortably. He was “going through it,” and he didn’t like the process.

“Yes, it’s the fourth all right,” he murmured, and then added, without conviction; “If this one is a murder, of course!”

His superior snorted indignantly.

“Don’t be a darned fool!” he snapped. “What else can it be? A man can’t freeze to death on a warm, misty night; and, anyway, if you’ve ever heard of anyone freezing themselves to death, it’s more than I have! It’s murder all right, and a darned queer murder at that!”

Inspector New sighed.

“Yes, I suppose there’s no reasonable doubt about it!”

“Not a shred! And this time, by George, we’ve got to pull someone in for it! Four murders, and not an arrest! Every newspaper in London is howling at us, and the public regard us as a set of incompetent fools—and not without reason, either! You’ll have to get real busy on this case, New!”

“I’ll do my best, sir——”

“You’ll do more than that! You’ll get the man who did it or——”

Inspector New, returning to his own office in a decidedly chastened mood, was accosted by a constable who handed him a slip of paper.

“Ah!” muttered the inspector, as he read what was written thereon:

“Herbert Cheyne—re the frozen man case.”

He turned to the constable.

“Bring him straight up, Jones!”

“Very good, sir!”

A few moments later the young man who had been the first to arrive on the scene after P.-c. Dunn blew his whistle was ushered into the inspector’s office.

“Good-afternoon, Mr. Cheyne. Will you take a seat?”

As he waved his visitor to a chair the inspector made a swift, keen, and comprehensive professional scrutiny of him.

Herbert Cheyne was a tall, well-built young fellow with the figure of an athlete, clean-cut features, including a strong mouth and chin, crisp dark-brown hair, and keen grey eyes. He was smartly dressed, and had the air of a professional man. The inspector, practised in “sizing-up” all sorts and conditions of men, decided that here was a definitely good type.

“And now what can I do for you, Mr. Cheyne?”

“Well, I—I——” The young fellow seemed a little uncertain what to say, and concluded a trifle lamely: “I—er—well, I wanted to have a chat with you about this frozen man case, if you don’t mind.”

“Ah, yes!” The inspector’s manner was suave, but his keen eyes were constantly searching the features of his visitor.

“Let me see, you were the first on the scene after the constable who found the body, were you not?”

“I was——”

Herbert Cheyne paused for a moment.

“Of course, you know all the main facts of the case, and I came here to call your attention to one or two significant items.”

“That is very kind of you!” There was faint sarcasm in the inspector’s tone. “And what are these facts, doctor?”

“In the first place, will you answer me a question?”

“If I can.”

“Has the dead man been identified?”

“Yes; an hour or so ago!”

“ And do you mind telling me who he is—or was?”

“I don’t think there’s any harm in that; it will be in the early evening papers, anyway. The deceased man is Sir Robert Higgs!”

Cheyne, whose eyes were glowing with alertness, nodded quickly with the air of one who has heard something expected.

“The name is not familiar to me, but I take it that the late Sir Robert was in a good position financially?”

“A big City man. I understand he was worth some hundreds of thousands.”

“Right!” Cheyne was all alertness now. He leaned towards the detective, his eyes fixed on the latter’s face.

“Now, inspector, forgive me if I touch on what may be a sore subject, but during this year—in the past few months, in fact—there have been three other murders, and no arrests have been made?”

The inspector nodded, with a frown.

“That is so!” he agreed a trifle sulkily.

“Precisely. Now the other three—Mr. Herbert Tryman, financier; Mr. Edward Montray, moneylender; and Mr. Ernest Richards, wholesale butcher—all these gentlemen left large sums behind them?”

“They did!”

The younger man leaned back in his chair with an eloquent gesture of his hands.

“Then there is your first clue!”

A sudden gleam came into the inspector’s eye.

With a sudden movement the detective leaned forward in his chair, and a stubby forefinger stabbed at Cheyne’s chest.

“See here, young man, you’re mightily interested in this case, aren’t you?”

Despite the obvious suspicion in the detective’s manner, the young man did not turn a hair.

“I am,” he responded quietly.

“And why, might I ask?”

“I will tell you. But first, does not my name recall anything to you?”

The other thought for a moment, and then shook his head.

“Very well, I will explain to you. My father, Randolph Cheyne, was a big man in the City. He died leaving a large fortune.”

He paused for a moment, as though expecting some question or comment from the other. It did not come, so he resumed:

“He died under peculiar circumstances. He was found dead one morning in Hyde Park—frozen to death!”

The inspector stared, his attention completely held now.

“The devil he was!” he ejaculated.

“As it happened it was a bitterly cold night in January, just five years ago. It was considered that my father, in some way or another, had got locked in the park, or had had a temporary lapse of memory, and wandered about until he died of cold and exposure. In consequence an open verdict was returned at the inquest. He had no business troubles and no known enemies. Nevertheless, my mother has always been under the impression that he was murdered!”

“And now you’re suggesting that he was murdered by the same man or men who have murdered Sir Robert?”

“Wait! I’ll come to that in a moment. My mother is by no means an ordinary woman. She is the daughter of a country squire of the old school. She was passionately devoted to my father, and she has never recovered from the shock of his death. Since then she has been—well, eccentric. To find the murderer of my father has become an obsession with her. She even took me away from college, and sent me to learn medicine, because she said I would have to earn my own living, in all probability, as all the money would be needed for the purpose of bringing the murderer or murderers to justice. She has already spent some thousands on private detectives and so on!”

“And they have found—nothing?”

“Absolutely nothing!”

The inspector smiled in an annoyingly superior manner.

“Isn’t it possible that the original theory was right—that your father died of exposure?”

“No doubt it is possible, but I don’t believe it!”

“Just because the body of Sir Robert was frozen?”

“No; I have always thought so.”

The detective shrugged.

“Your mother has infected you with her own suspicions. Poor lady, her mind being shaken by the tragedy, she has——”

“Just a moment!”

The young man arrested the other’s speech with a quick gesture.

“There is more to it than that! I have spent the whole morning in looking up old newspaper files for the past five years. I have acquired some interesting information. Now, in the other three cases of unsolved murder, how were the victims killed?”

“Tryman was shot, Montray stabbed, and Richards strangled with a cord.”

“Quite! Now, listen!” The young man drew a notebook from his pocket and rapidly ran his eye over several of the pages. Then he looked sharply at the inspector.

“I have here,” he continued, “all the details, names, addresses and so on. But to save time a summary will do for the present. In brief, inspector, are you aware of the fact that, in the past five years, no less than thirty-five people—twenty-nine men and six women—have been picked up, dead, in the streets of London?”

“I dare say you’re right!” The detective looked puzzled. “The actual figures are available from the department which deals with that sort of thing. But how does it affect this case?”

Herbert Cheyne leaned forward, a curious gleam in his eyes.

“I will explain. In the first place, every one of them was found in the early hours of the morning, in some quiet street which they did not normally frequent. In the second place, in every case the diagnosis made on autopsy was—heart failure!”

The detective was leaning forward in his chair now, his face as keen and eager as that of the amateur.

“Well, what then?”

“Just this, inspector. Speaking as a doctor, I can tell you that if a person were to be frozen to death—that is, to die from extreme cold—and the corpse were afterwards to be thawed out, so to speak, it would be extremely unlikely that any doctor, unaware of those circumstances, would be able to detect the actual cause of death. And, in that case, the diagnosis would almost certainly be—heart failure. Which would be perfectly correct, the cause of death being failure of the heart owing to sudden and extreme cold!”

The inspector was staring at his visitor in amazement.

“Good lor’!” he gasped.

“Precisely! And now I will give you one other significant fact—the last link in my little chain of evidence. Of the thirty-five people I have mentioned, and whose names I have in this notebook, not one left less than a hundred thousand pounds!”

“Great Scott! Why—— What do you infer?”

The younger man shrugged his broad, athletic shoulders.

“I suggest that every one of these cases was one of murder, and that the same hand, or hands, were responsible for them all! As for the rest—well, I should make a few inquiries regarding the heirs and legatees of these folk if I were you, and if you don’t mind me making a suggestion!”

As he spoke, Cheyne rose abruptly from his chair, with the inspector looking decidedly bewildered, but with that look in his eye which, to those who knew him, usually spelt trouble for somebody!

“By gad, doctor, but I reckon you’ve missed your vocation! You ought to have been in the force!”

The other smiled.

“I suppose that’s a compliment, coming from you. But in the ordinary way I am not interested in crime detection. In this case, however, the matter strikes near home, as I have indicated.”

“And what do you propose to do, sir?”

There was a definite note of respect in the policeman’s tone which had not been there previously.

The other shrugged once more.

“I shall pursue my own line of inquiry in my own amateurish way, that’s all. I am determined, however, to run down the man—or men—who murdered my father!”

Inspector New took a deep breath.

“Well, doctor, look here. I dare say it’s very irregular and unprofessional and all that, but, frankly, you’ve astonished me and opened my eyes no end. Any little tip or information that comes your way that you could pass on——”

Herbert Cheyne smiled, and, looking the detective frankly in the eyes, held out his hand.

“That’s a bet, if you will reciprocate, inspector.”

“I most certainly will, sir—so far as the regulations will allow me, of course,” he answered, as he took the proffered hand and felt his own gripped with a strength that made him wince.

“Good enough, inspector! And good-bye for the present!”

“Good-day, sir, and thank you!”

And Herbert Cheyne, L.R.C.P., took his departure, leaving behind him a wiser and more thoughtful police officer than he had found there.

From the Yard, Cheyne went straight to his mother’s house in Grosvenor Square, and there a shock awaited him. His mother, worn out with grief and disappointment, had died in the night.

She had left in the care of old Beale, the family butler, a letter for her son—for it seemed that she had had some idea for the last day or two that she might die suddenly and this letter he opened in the seclusion of the dead woman’s private study.

Cheyne could not pretend any great grief, for his mother had been a strange, hard woman, and had been harder than ever since the death of her husband, the one person in the world she had cared for. Nevertheless, naturally, her death came as a shock to him, and it was with a strange sensation that he opened the heavily-sealed envelope and read the contents thereof:

“Dear son,” the letter started, “I have a suspicion that my days are now numbered, and since I may die in my sleep without the opportunity of talking with you, I am leaving this letter in charge of Beale, who will hand it to you should what I suspect occur.

“You are the last of the Cheynes, and they are a good family. I should like you to marry some nice, sensible girl, with blood as good as your own, or approximately so, at the first opportunity.

But before you do this I have a task for you, and I would ask you to remember that this is my last—my dying wish. I want you to devote at least one year to a final and determined effort to run your father’s murderer to earth. I want you to use all your time, brains, and energy to this effort; the necessary money I will provide.

“If you agree, as I am sure you will, to carry out this wish, you will receive from my solicitors a personal allowance of one thousand pounds, and you can draw on them up to any amount for such expenses as are necessary for the prosecution of your search. Should you succeed in your endeavour, my will provides that the whole of the remainder of my fortune—about five hundred thousand pounds—goes to you. If, on the other hand, you fail, I have arranged for it to be used as a nucleus for a charity for the maintenance of the wives and children of murdered men.

“I am sure, apart from any personal interest, you will do your best to carry out my wishes. Good-bye, your MOTHER.

“P.S.—I enclose the key of my private safe, together with that of a black japanned box contained therein. In that box are such small clues as I have managed to collect in my own investigations into the death of your father.—L. C.”

After considering this strange epistle for a few moments, Cheyne rose, crossed to the safe, and having taken the black japanned box from it placed it on the table before him and proceeded to examine its contents. These consisted of a number of papers—notes, newspaper cuttings and other matter dealing with his father’s death and the inquest, and the one real clue enclosed in an envelope on which was written:

“Found on Randolph’s desk at his office on the day of his death. Note postmark on envelope.”

Enclosed in the first envelope was a second, addressed in typewritten characters to “Randolph Cheyne, Esq., 232, Greatfriars Street, E.C.3,” and bearing on the postmark the date of the day on which Randolph Cheyne had met his end. Inside the second envelope there was a card, and at this, as it lay on the table before him, Herbert Cheyne sat staring for a long time, his brows drawn together in a deep frown.

Chapter 4

THE LEAGUE OF HOPE RENEWED

THERE was a deep hush in the tall, rather gloomy room—the room which represented many a desperate and tortured man’s last hope of liberty, or—as in this case—even of life. The Court of Appeal!

The three solemn judges, stern-faced men whose only concern was with the law, and who had no power in any case to extend mercy, had just returned from a long conference. The white-faced prisoner with the haunted eyes stood with his hands gripping the rail before him to steady him as he swayed on his heels, waiting in agony to hear the result of his last bid for life and freedom. He who had already heard the judge, with his black cap, pronounce sentence of death upon him in accents as cold and toneless as those of a mere automaton!

What would it be? Life or——

At last, with startling suddenness, the solemn voice of the presiding judge cut through the dead stillness of the court.

“Having considered the case most carefully, and given all the facts the most mature consideration, we find that there was misdirection by the learned judge, also the evidence for the prosecution was insufficient and in some cases would appear to be unreliable. We therefore——”

As he emerged from the court into the open air and the sunshine, he who had only a few minutes before been shivering under the dread shadow of the gallows, the young man clutched for a moment at one of the great stone pillars for support. It all seemed too good—too utterly amazing to be true!

He was a tall, slender, young fellow, with a good-looking but rather weak face. His clothes and his bearing were those of a gentleman.

He started violently at a touch on the shoulder. Were they going to drag him back? Could there have been some mistake?

But the scared gaze he turned over his shoulder met, not the stern, hard face of policeman or detective, but the sad, kindly regard of an old gentleman with a thin, ascetic face, who said, with a gentle smile:

“May I be permitted, my young friend, to offer my most sincere congratulations on the result of your case? I am the more glad to do so since you seem to have no one else here to congratulate you!”

The young man was obviously moved.

“Thanks very much indeed,” he said. “It is kind of you. As you say, there is no one else. I have few friends or relatives, and most of those apparently believe me to be guilty.”

“And you are innocent?” the other asked almost sharply.

“Absolutely!”

The other nodded understandingly, then slipped his arm through that of the young man.

“Come with me and have some lunch,” he said. “I understand all that you feel, and while we are lunching I will tell you about it. Also I may, perhaps, be able to assist you in some ways.”

A few moments later, in a small restaurant in the Strand, the two sat opposite each other, and the older man, with his gentle and benevolent smile, remarked:

“Perhaps it would be as well if we knew each other. Your name, of course, is familiar to me. You are Ronald Fellowes.”

The other nodded.

“The name is familiar to most readers of the newspapers,” he said a trifle bitterly.

The other laid a hand on his arm.

“Quite,” he said. “And so was mine a few years ago.”

“But not in the same way, I’ll wager.”

“On the contrary, it was! My name, by the way, is Pontifex Dale. Have you ever heard it?”

Fellowes considered for a moment, and then shook his head.

“I think not, and yet, somehow, it has a familiar ring,” he answered.

“Maybe. I am what I believe is commonly called a philanthropist. Ten years ago I stood in almost the same position in which you stood to-day. I was a big business man in the City, and I had a partner. The firm of Pontifex Dale and Smart was known throughout the metropolis, and the firm had a good name. We sought to enter into a business alliance with another firm, the head of which was an individual named Randolph Cheyne.

“In the course of the preliminary negotiations we met one night at my office, after the staff had left. Cheyne proved conclusively that our firm had been indulging in some negotiations which did not by any means reflect credit upon it. Only Harley Sharp, my partner, or myself could have been responsible for it. Knowing myself to be innocent, I accused Sharp of it. He denied it and accused me. Cheyne refused to negotiate further, and left the office, leaving Sharp and myself in the middle of a most bitter quarrel. I left Sharp in the office, and the following morning he was found, stabbed through the back!

“I was arrested and charged with the murder; the principal witness for the prosecution was Randolph Cheyne. At the first trial the jury disagreed, at the second I was acquitted, mainly for lack of evidence. But the tang remained; my old friends would have nothing to do with me. I suffered horrible tortures in prison during my two trials, and suffered worse when I came out. So I decided to devote the rest of my life to trying to do some good for people like myself—most of them less fortunate, for I have always been a wealthy man. So I founded the League of Hope Renewed.

“We have offices in Queen Victoria Street, and our main objects are to help those who have been in prison by looking after their dependants while they are serving their sentence, and by aiding them to find employment when they come out. But, of course, I am particularly desirous of aiding those who, like myself, have stood their trial on the most dreadful of all charges. Now, Mr. Fellowes, can I be of any assistance to you?”

The younger man, greatly impressed by the other’s story, hesitated a little.

“Well, I—I, of course, I have lost my employment,” he began, but Pontifex Dale cut him short with a gesture of his white, long-fingered hand.

“Then we will find some for you—better and more remunerative than you have hitherto had, I expect. Now, listen; the League run a number of clubs all over London and the provinces. Tonight there is a meeting at one of these clubs, and I should like you to be present. The ‘T Club’—each club is known by a letter—is situated on the Grosvenor Embankment—Grosvenor Road, you know, near Victoria. Here is the exact address. If you will come along there tonight and ask for me, we will have an offer for you. Will you do this?”

Young Fellowes said he would, gladly, and eventually departed.

At the appointed hour he entered the club and, having asked for Pontifex Dale, he was conducted to a small waiting-room and told to wait there. After a few moments he was joined by another man—a strongly-built fellow, with a coarse face which bore the now, to Fellowes, familiar pallor of the man who has spent some months in prison.

The two eyed each other for a few moments and then the newcomer spoke:

“Hallo, cully. You one of us, are you?”

“I—er—how do you mean?” Fellowes asked, a trifle nervously.

“Just come out of stir, ain’t you? You got the look of it, anyhow!”

Fellowes, reddening a little, nodded.

“Yes, I—er—have just come out of prison,” he admitted.

“First lagging, too, I’ll bet!” remarked the other, with a coarse grin. “What did you go down for, cully? I just done two years for killing my old woman. Luckily, they reduced the charge to manslaughter, or else——”

The fellow made a significant gesture with his hand round his throat which caused Fellowes to go pale. Before he could answer the other’s question, a small, stout man, with a smiling face and a good-humouredly pompous manner, emerged from the inner room and beckoned his companion, who immediately passed through the inner door, leaving Fellowes alone once more, and very much relieved to be so.

He waited for over half an hour, and then the door opened and the released murderer emerged. The fat man was with him, but, in the covert manner known to old “lags,” the man gave Fellowes a quick glance and a grin and turned both his thumbs upwards—indicating, presumably, that his interview had been satisfactory.

The fat man beckoned silently to Fellowes, who followed him into what proved to be a small room, comfortably furnished in semi-office style, where, at a desk, sat Pontifex Dale.

He looked up keenly as the young man entered, and it seemed to the latter that some sort of subtle change had come over the philanthropist. There was a curious alertness about him—a strange gleam in his dark, deepset eyes, and a rather grim twist to the strong, thinlipped mouth.

He did not mince matters, but came straight to the point, first waving the young man to a chair, while the fat man took another, still radiating his beaming smile.

“Listen, Ronald Fellowes!” commenced Dale, in a curiously hard, cold voice, very different to his manner of the morning. “Correct me if I am wrong, please. You have been accused of a crime which you did not commit. You have been herded with criminals in a common prison; you have undergone the ineffable torture of being tried for your life. You have even been sentenced to death. By luck, or Providence, or whatever you like to call it, you have been acquitted by a court of appeal. Do you realise where you might have been, how you might have felt, had matters gone the other way, and the court have upheld the verdict of the jury at your trial?”

The young man, his face pale as death, bowed his head.

“You do? Very well. During your long months in prison, have you never felt any rebellion against the state of things which has permitted such suffering on your part? No desire to hit out at the law and the people who have made and who uphold the law which has thus made you suffer?”

Fellowes bowed his head.

“I am afraid I have!” he admitted.

Pontifex Dale laughed—a harsh, mirthless laugh.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, in a low, fierce whisper. “That is how it should be. Now, listen, and I will explain to you how you can get satisfaction for what you have suffered, and at the same time become if not a wealthy man at least one in comfortable circumstances. Listen!”

He leaned forward and spoke in a low, tense whisper for some minutes, his thinlipped mouth close to the ear of the other, who, as he listened to what was said, gradually grew paler and paler with a dawning horror in his eyes.

At last he sprang to his feet and made a gesture of repugnance.

“Never—never!” he cried, in a voice so high pitched as to be almost hysterical. “What are you suggesting to me? I won’t do it. I have told you—and I spoke the truth—that I was innocent of that murder. I have always been honest, and I intend to remain honest! I—I——”

His voice broke, and he turned away, momentarily hiding his face in his hands.

The voice of Pontifex Dale came to him, harsh and cold, with more than a suggestion of menace in it.

“Think carefully, Ronald Fellowes, before you decide! This may be your last chance, remember!” There was a curious inflection in the man’s voice as he said those last words, and then he added: “The world is not over kind to a man who has been accused of murder, even though he be acquitted, you know!”

But the young man was not to be moved.

“I can’t help that!” he said doggedly. “I would rather—rather starve than—than do what you suggest!”

“Very well; you are, of course, your own master!” Pontifex Dale turned to the fat man: “Auguste, you might have a word with our friend who was here just now,” he said significantly, and the man addressed as Auguste nodded, and, still with that beaming smile, left the room.

When they were left alone, Pontifex Dale fixed the young man with his deepset, gleaming eyes, and said grimly:

“I suppose, my young friend, you will now feel it your duty to go to the police and inform them of our interview here tonight, since you are so virtuous?”

The other, white-faced and with staring eyes, looked at him with the air of a man dazed.

“I—er—no! I—I won’t do that!”

As he was speaking, the man addressed as Auguste re-entered, followed by the lowbrowed ruffian who had previously had an interview with Dale and himself.

Pontifex Dale glanced up as the two entered, and again his harsh, satiric laugh rang out:

“No, my young friend, you are right—you certainly will not!” he said grimly. “We shall not lay you open to the temptation!”

He turned to the newcomers, and addressed the tough.

“In order that we may be definitely assured of your loyalty to us,” he said, “we have a little job for you, after you have done which you will not be in a position to squeal. Are you willing?”

The ruffian showed his discoloured teeth in a horrible grin:

“Sure thing, guv’nor!”

Dale waved a white hand in the direction of the staring, white-faced Fellowes.

“Get hold of him and bring him along!” he ordered curtly.

The ruffian and the other turned upon the young man, and the latter shrank back into a corner, screaming horribly as the two men approached him.

• • • • • •

The following day the body of Ronald Fellowes was found on the Chelsea Embankment. The doctor diagnosed heart failure; the coroner’s verdict was “Death from natural causes.” And the only two people who were a little dubious about that verdict were Herbert Cheyne and Inspector New, of Scotland Yard!

Chapter 5

A STRANGE CLUE

HERBERT CHEYNE sent his card up to Detective-Inspector New at the Yard, and was immediately shown up.

“Funny thing,” remarked the inspector, after greetings had been exchanged, “but evidently great minds think alike! I was going to ’phone and ask you to come round, and here you are!”

“Well, that’s all to the good,” smiled Cheyne. “What is it?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that, but I’ve found something that looks like a clue, if one could only make anything of it. I must frankly confess that I can’t!”

“And you think I might?”

The detective shrugged.

“Goodness knows; you’ll be clever if you do! But one daren’t leave a stone unturned in a case like that, and it struck me yesterday that you were pretty quick on the uptake!”

“Thanks! What is it you’ve got hold of, anyway?”

“Well, look here, does two part of a triangle and a piece of silk suggest anything to you?”

Cheyne looked bewildered and shook his head.

“Can’t say it does. But let’s hear all about it.”

“Well, you see, on a first inspection it seemed as though the pockets of Sir Robert Higgs had been cleared right out. But a second search revealed this!”

The detective, as he spoke, opened a draw of his desk and produced therefrom an object which he placed on the blotting-pad in front of Cheyne.

It consisted of a small piece of pasteboard, apparently the torn corner of a card, on which, as he had indicated, had been drawn part of two sides of a triangle, from the apex of which depended about two and a half inches of red silk thread, with a loop at the end of it.

To the complete amazement of Inspector New, Cheyne, at the sight of it, gave a sudden cry:

“By all that’s holy, but that proves it!”

The inspector stared.

“Proves what?”

“That the hand that killed Sir Robert is the same hand that killed my father!”

The inspector’s stare became intensified.

“How do you make that out?”

Herbert Cheyne slipped his hand into his inside breast pocket.

“Because this was found on his desk. It came by post on the day he died!” he said quietly.

The object he took from his pocket and laid on the desk was a complete postcard, and at a glance it was plain that the piece in the detective’s possession was a corner torn from an exactly similar card. And the design on the card was a rough drawing of a gibbet, while the rope was represented by the piece of red silk thread, with a slipknot for the noose!

The two men looked steadily at each other across the desk.

“By Jupiter!” It was the detective who first broke the silence. “You were right enough. Your father was murdered, and by the same person, or persons, who killed Sir Robert!”

Cheyne nodded gravely.

“That’s pretty plain,” he agreed.

”The question is—who? And how?”

Cheyne repeated his nod.

“And why?” he added.

New’s brows were knitted, his eyes keen and alert.

“I’ll try to find out where these blessed cards were printed.”

“You’re not likely to be very successful. A private press, I expect.”

“More than likely,” agreed the inspector gloomily.

“Look here,” said Cheyne thoughtfully. “I’ve got a vague sort of notion which might lead us somewhere. Might I suggest that you make inquiries regarding the nearest relatives of the people included in the list of mysterious deaths I gave you yesterday? Find out if any of them are down on their luck, by any chance.”

“I could do that, doctor. But what’s the big idea, anyway?”

Cheyne smiled deprecatingly.

“If you don’t mind, inspector, I’ll keep that to myself for the moment. I’m a little nervous of making a fool of myself in front of you professionals, you know!”

• • • • • •

A few hours later, Herbert Cheyne, wearing immaculate evening dress, and acting on the old—and very true—adage that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” was setting out really to enjoy himself for a few hours.

During the past months his search for some clue to the murder of his father had led him into all sorts of strange places. Little foreign cafes in Soho, where almost every customer was a criminal of some type or other, public-houses where racing and other gangs were apt to resort, and strange little night clubs all over the West End were the members of London’s underworld were apt to disport themselves for a few hours—occasionally mixing business with pleasure.

It was in one of the latter that he had first met Stella Daune.

He had caught sight of her as she entered—a gloriously beautiful vision, with her perfect Grecian features, her sapphire-blue eyes, and her crown of corn-coloured golden hair. Perfectly gowned, with the figure of an Aphrodite and the carriage of a queen, she had immediately struck Cheyne as being an incongruous but delightful figure amongst the crowd there—faded women with hard eyes and men with brutal, weak, or cunning faces.

Cheyne, with his athletic figure and his handsome, frank face must have struck her in much the same way. Be that as may, the attraction was immediate and mutual, and within fifteen minutes of her entrance they had been dancing together. Since then he had, frankly, fallen deeply in love with the beautiful girl. She would tell him little about herself, and her only explanation for her presence in the club had been that she “was a student of psychology and deeply interested in humanity.” But mysterious, as she was, he was prepared to wager his soul that there was nothing evil or wicked about her.

He had seen her a number of times since that first meeting. They had been to theatres, concerts, and dinners together, and every time he saw her he fell more and more under the spell of her charm.

Now, as he hurried to keep his rendezvous with her, his mother’s words in her last letter seemed to be ringing in his ears:

“I should like you to marry some nice, sensible girl, with blood as good as your own, at the first opportunity!”

Well, he was pretty certain that Stella’s blood was as good as his own. She was nothing if not patrician to her dainty fingertips, and the opportunity seemed to be there. Without conceit, or in any way flattering himself, he was almost sure that she was as fond of him as he was of her.

Of course, there was his position in life.

If he did not succeed in his quest for the murderer of his father, he would be a comparatively poor man, and it was not all honey to be the wife of a hard-working general practitioner. But, after all, she was not rich. He knew she was out at business somewhere—a secretary, or something. She had told him that.

By gad, but he would do it! He would ask her to marry him, and at the very thought of having that magnificent creature for his own, his wife, his heart thrilled, and his step, as he hurried along, became lighter and more buoyant.

Yes, he would ask her that very night!

In the foyer of the fashionable restaurant where he had arranged to meet her, there was a great crowd of well-dressed men and beautifully gowned and jewelled women. Nevertheless, he picked her out in a moment as she came into the room, about ten minutes after he had arrived. Wearing a simple evening gown of white satin, and with no jewels other than a plain necklace and a bracelet, yet she stood out from the others like a fairy queen amid mere pixies, and his heart beat high as he hurried to meet her.

“Ah! Here you are at last then!”

She raised her delicately moulded eyebrows as her warm, soft hand slipped into his.

“At last! Am I so late, then?”

“No; quite punctual. But minutes seem hours when I am waiting for you!”

She laughed a little, and a soft blush mounted into the smoothness of her cheek, making her seem to him more beautiful than ever.

“You are pleased to be complimentary, sir,” she said, with a tiny, mocking curtsy, and then she added almost plaintively: “And I am very hungry!”

“Then come right along,” he said. “I have booked a table.”

He had—a little table for two, discreetly tucked away in a far corner of the great dining-room. But his intention of asking her that momentous question that evening was frustrated.

For despite her assertion that she was hungry she no more than played with her food, and it was quite plain, both from her conversation and the faraway look which from time to time glazed her blue eyes, that she was distrait and troubled about something.

And Herbert Cheyne, wise in his generation, decided that the moment was not propitious, and that his declaration had better be postponed.

Over coffee and cigarettes she became even more distrait, and he watched her with mingled admiration and anxiety as scratched designs on the spotless cloth with the handle of a fork.

“You are worried about something, Stella!” he exclaimed at last, leaning forward in his chair. They had been using each other’s Christian names for some time.

She started and glanced up at him with an expression in her eyes which might have have almost be translated as a fearful one.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’m afraid I’m being terribly rude!” she told him. And then, with a little, nervous laugh, she added: “It is nothing—just a little business worry, that’s all!”

“Tell me all about it,” he urged her. “I might be able to help, perhaps, and you know nothing would please me more if I could!”

She looked at him with a soft light in her eyes which brought joy to his heart, but shook her head.

“No, you couldn’t help in the least!” she assured him. “And, anyway, it’s only a silly little office trouble, which doesn’t really matter in the least!”

“Doesn’t it?” He was disappointed at her refusal to confide in him. “Well, it seems to be bothering you a good deal, anyhow!”

But she shook her head, and laughed with all admirable effort at gaiety.

“It isn’t really! Not a bit! And I’m sorry if I seem to be rude. I don’t mean to really. Look, let’s go somewhere and dance, and then I shall forget all about it!”

The implied compliment pleased him again, and he almost forgot his chagrin at the mystery of her as she rose from her chair and stood, radiant, in front of him.

“I’ll slip up and get my cloak while you pay the bill.”

He watched her with unconcealed admiration as she passed down the room, and he noted how men and women alike turned to stare at her as she went.

The waiter came up with the bill, and Cheyne paid it.

Then, as the man went for change, he absentmindedly moved round to the other side of the table and glanced down at the design she had been drawing on the cloth, and as he did so his face blanched and his hands clenched involuntarily.

For a moment or two Cheyne stared in amazement and horror. Then, with an effort, he pulled himself together. A remarkable coincidence, he told himself, but plainly it could be nothing more!

By the time the waiter returned with the change he was no longer staring at the cloth, but was standing, in an easy position, with one hand in his pocket.

Stella, cloaked, was waiting for him in the foyer.

As they stood on the steps waiting for the taxi which the commissionaire was procuring for them, Cheyne said:

“In addition to being bothered, you’re feeling a trifle morbid tonight, aren’t you?”

She looked at him with her eyebrows arched in surprise.

“Morbid? Not that I know of! What makes you think that?”

Cheyne laughed.

“When you take a girl out to dinner and find that she has been amusing herself by drawing gibbets on the tablecloth——”

He never finished his sentence; but broke off, startled by her expression. For her face had suddenly gone white, and there was a look as of haunting fear in her beautiful eyes.

“Gibbets? I? What do you mean?”

He forced another laugh—forced it because he had been startled and chilled by her expression.

“Nothing, my dear girl, except that you were certainly drawing nice little gibbets, complete with noosed rope, while you were talking to me, and that seems a little morbid, doesn’t it?”

That speech gave her an opportunity of recovering herself, but he could see that she did it with something of an effort.

She laughed, this time lightly, but just a little shrilly.

“It does seem a bit morbid, doesn’t it? As a matter of fact I didn’t even know I was doing it. You see, I—I’m reading a book about murders and hangings, and I suppose that was in the back of my mind when I was doing that, although I wasn’t actually thinking about it!”

She was looking at him anxiously as she made this explanation, which somehow did not seem to him to ring true.

“It must be a good book,” was his quiet remark, “if it has such an effect as all that upon your sub-conscious mind!”

“Oh, it is a really wonderful book!”

“What’s the title? I should like to read it.”

“Oh, it’s—it’s called—er—dear me, I’ve forgotten the title. I’m a perfect idiot over book titles at any time!”

“Well, the author’s name, then? I could get it by that.”

“I—er—I’m afraid I’ve forgotten that, too! I am silly, aren’t I? Never mind; I’ll tell you next time I see you!”

“Thanks. I should like to have a go at it. I am very interested in such matters—at the moment!”

He said this in a tone of considerable significance, and did not fail to notice her slight start, or the quick, sharp glance she gave him.

“Why?” she asked quickly.

“Oh, I don’t know! It’s rather an interesting subject, don’t you think?”

The shudder she gave was palpably genuine.

“Do you think so?”

He gave a short laugh.

“Well, you seem to, since you read books about it.”

Before she could answer the taxi drove up, and he handed her in. Usually it was a huge pleasure for him to ride in the dark, soft intimacy of a taxi beside Stella Daune, but on this occasion he was hardly conscious of her.

She had lied to him—or, at least, evaded his questions!

Why did she, this lovely thing who should have been so far removed from all the ugliness and sordidness of life? Why did she draw gibbets on tablecloths? And why did she seem so nervous and peculiar when he spoke to her about it?

However, when they arrived at the smart little night club for which they were bound, and when he found himself dancing to delightful music, with his arm about her slender waist, he speedily forgot all about the perplexing problem—for the time being. Herbert Cheyne was very much in love!

Chapter 6

QUICK BUSINESS

MR. AUGUSTE KINIPLE wiped his thick, heavy lips with the snowy table-napkin, which he crumpled slowly in his fat, white hands. Then he tossed it across to the other side of the table, smacked his lips, and pulled a very handsome gold cigar-case from his pocket.

To the casual observer Mr. Kiniple looked the height of placid prosperity, reliable respectability and beaming benevolence. But a really keen psychologist, observing him at such a moment as this, would have immediately deduced three things: from the way he wiped his lips that he was a cool and calculating individual; from the way he smacked them that he was a gourmand, and from the way he crumpled his napkin that he was a cruel and ruthless individual.

And that observer, had such a one been present, would have been perfectly right.

And yet even such an observer, gazing upon Mr. Kiniple’s faultless attire, his fat and smiling face, and the placidity of his gaze, would hardly have guessed that Mr. Auguste Kiniple was the agent and apostle of modern, organised and commercialised murder!

Mr. Kiniple rose, signed his bill, and, taking his gold-topped ebony stick, his yellow suede gloves, and his spotless grey “topper” from an obsequious attendant, and issued forth from the portals of his club—one of the most exclusive in the City—to walk with solemn and pompous steps to his office in Cheapside.

Well-dressed and prosperous-looking men—many of them individuals whose names were things to conjure with in the commercial world, saluted him as he passed them. He responded to their salutations with a grave and dignified courtesy, and in or two cases added to his greeting that beaming smile for which he was so famous.

On one other occasion also he smiled, and that was when he passed the Old Bailey. He gave it a quick glance from his small, dark eyes, and his fat and good-humoured face wrinkled ever so slightly into an expression which might, in anyone else, have almost been taken to indicate satirical amusement!

Finally he entered the vast block of offices which were honoured by including his own business premises.

His offices were on the first floor, a half-glass door bearing the inscription in sober, black letters.

“MR. A. KINIPLE,

“Inquiries.”

While a second door, a little farther along the corridor, bore the legend:

“MR. A. KINIPLE—Private.”

There was also a third door, but this was intended as an exit rather than an entrance, and opened from Kiniple’s private office on to another corridor. It bore no name.

On this occasion Mr. Kiniple opened the front door, and passed through it into a little waiting-room, with another glass door at the further end, a small window of frosted glass, and a bell.

He passed through the further door into a spacious and handsomely, but sedately-furnished general office, which was occupied by one clerk, a tall, lanky and rather delicate-looking youth, who was busy over a typewriter at a desk.

Auguste acknowledged his servile greeting by a gracious nod of the head, and then passed into the second office, where he favoured his lady secretary with a beaming smile.

That smile seemed to irradiate the room like a shaft of pure sunlight as he passed on into his own sumptuous office—the inner room of all. Having closed the door, Mr. Kiniple proceeded to compose himself to sleep on the luxurious couch which occupied one corner of it.

At ten minutes past three precisely, his secretary knocked at the door. He was awake instantly.

“Mr. Dering is here, if you please, Mr. Kiniple.”

“Very good, my dear. Show him in in three minutes!”

Mr. Kiniple rose, stretched himself, adjusted a pair of hornrimmed glasses on his small, fat nose, and seated himself in an imposing, carved armchair before a heap of equally imposing-looking documents.

By the time he had really settled himself the three minutes was up. There came another discreet tap at the door, and it was opened to allow the entrance of a tall, slim, well-dressed man with pale blue eyes and a noticeable absence of chin.

Mr. Kiniple rose from his seat, and his face beamed like the rising sun on a September morn.

“Good-afternoon, sir—good-afternoon!”

His fat and pudgy white hand was extended, and the slim hand of the young man almost engulfed in it.

The secretary noiselessly placed a chair—according to a standing direction—in such a way that the afternoon light would fall upon the person who sat there, while Mr. Kiniple would be left in comparative obscurity, and left the room, noiselessly closing the heavy door behind her.

Mr. Kiniple. indulged in a few conventional remarks about the weather, the political situation, and so on, and then turned over some of the papers before him.

“Ah! Here we are!” He studied the paper. “Mr. Dering—Mr. Horace Dering. Now, let’s see, Mr. Dering; you have been referred to me by Messrs. Stodges & Company, of Victoria. It seems you have had a loan or two from them, and a large payment on account is now due. You, however, are desirous of a little consideration in the matter of time, I believe? Am I right, Mr. Dering?”

“Perfectly. But I—I do not quite understand why——”

Mr. Kiniple raised his hand, with another of his bright, fat smiles.

“How the business came into my hands, is that it? Well, my dear Mr. Dering, I will be quite frank with you. I always am frank. I believe in frankness. If everyone was to be perfectly frank, the world would be a much better place!”

He paused for a moment and coughed, and then went on:

“The truth of the matter is Mr. Bering, that bills of the sort you gave to Messrs. Stodges are negotiable articles in a way. I happen to have purchased them from Messrs. Stodges, and therefore I am, so to speak, your actual creditor!”

Here he laughed, with a manner so infectious that his visitor joined wholeheartedly in the mirth.

It seemed to be a great joke.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Bering; you will not find me a very hard or difficult creditor! Now, as regards the accommodation you require at the moment. The security for the loan is a reversionary interest, I believe. You are, I understand, the son and heir of Mr. Henry Dering, and, the estates being entailed, you come into a fortune of something like seven hundred thousand pounds on the death of your father. Am I right?”

“You are, sir!”

“And is your father in good health, Mr. Dering?”

“Excellent!”

“Splendid! Splendid!”

Mr. Kiniple rubbed his hands together, and his smile was full of the effulgence of the midday sun. He continued:

“Then in that case, Mr. Bering, you will not have the least hesitation in complying with the small condition I must exact in return for the renewal of your note for another three months. I simply wish you to sign a document to the effect that, should anything happen to your father during the three months period—anything that would—which Heaven forfend—result in his death, you will pay to me the sum of ten thousand pounds in addition to the five thousand which you already owe! Do you agree to that, Mr. Dering?”

The young man looked startled and a trifle shocked.

“But, Mr. Kiniple, I—I hardly like——”

Kiniple waved his hand deprecatingly.

“My dear sir, it is nothing! A mere foolish formality, imposed, as a matter of fact”—here Auguste leaned forward and spoke in a confidential tone, dropping his voice almost to a whisper—“imposed by my partner—my sleeping partner—Mr. Poltrude. Here is the document, Mr. Dering; as you will see, a perfectly simple one, and you will have no further trouble whatever. At any rate for another three months. Sign just there, Mr. Dering, where it is marked. And if you would care for another small advance—say another hundred——”

Mr. Dering, of course, would, and the result was that, in less than ten minutes, Mr. Dering had left the office with a hundred pounds in his pocket in notes, and a firm conviction that Mr. Auguste Kiniple was a really good and charming individual. He left, of course, the signed paper behind him, and he had not been gone five minutes when Mr. Kiniple got a certain number on the ‘phone:

“Hallo! Is that the M.M.? Good! Kiniple speaking. We have a new client—Mr. Henry Dering, who, at present, has rooms in the Albany. Will you see to him? Right, thank you.”

There was a curious expression on the fat, good-humoured face of Mr. Kiniple as he sent this message—a strange gleam in his small eyes, an almost cruel twist to the thick-lipped mouth. He smiled, nodded, and hung up the receiver.

Half an hour later Mr. Greet was announced, and was received much as the first one had been.

But Mr. Greet was a totally different type to Mr. Dering. He was a small, undersized, foxy-looking man, with a thinlipped, cunning mouth, and small eyes set far too close together. He and Auguste Kiniple had met before.

“I was surprised to receive my cheque back, Mr. Kiniple!” was his first remark after greetings had been exchanged.

Kiniple beamed upon him.

“Indeed? Well, Mr. Greet, we prefer these matters to be settled personally, and, as I informed you, in cash!”

“But, my dear sir, seeing that I have just inherited a fortune of five thousand pounds, surely my cheque is good enough?”

“Absolutely—absolutely, my dear sir! But rules are rules, and my partner—my sleeping partner, Mr. Poltrude—always insists upon it. After all, we pay out in cash, you know! Ha, ha!”

Kiniple was the very epitome of good humour, and there was a smile, too, on the face of Mr. Greet as he extracted from his pocket notes to the value of five thousand pounds, and laid them on the table in front of Mr. Kiniple.

But that smile vanished as snow before sun at Kiniple’s next words.

“A slight mistake, I think, Mr. Greet? It is ten thousand we require!”

The other stared at him in blank amazement; Mr. Kiniple smile increased in intensity and effulgence.

“How the devil do you make that out, Mr. Kiniple? There is nothing on the bond about it.”

Kiniple, still smiling, bowed his head.

“Agreed, my dear sir—agreed! But was there not a little private arrangement between us to that effect?”

“Decidedly there was not?”

“But certainly there was!”

Prom the pile of papers before him, Kiniple selected one, and showed it to the other. His smile remained, but his eyes were hard and merciless.

“I trust, Mr. Greet, that you will make no attempt to evade this obligation. In that case this little note bearing your signature would look, perhaps, a little—shall we say curious?—if it were handed to the police!”

Greet stared dumbly at the note. It was a replica of the one just signed by Dering, and read as follows:

“In consideration of value received, I, the undersigned, hereby agree to hand to Auguste Kiniple, of Halliday House, Cheapside, E.C., the sum of three thousand pounds, in addition to the two thousand pounds already due to him, should anything occur to my uncle, Bernard Percival Greet, which should result in his death within three months of date.

“(Signed) BERNARD W. GREET.”

Greet stared from his signature at the bottom of the note to the face of the man who held it. On the latter he saw a beaming smile, but the hard, ruthless look in the little, piggy eyes sadly belied it!

“You—you—— But I have already paid you the five thousand! There it is!”

“But not the other five thousand, which you gave your word you would pay!”

“You—you——”

“Now, Mr. Greet! A debt of honour, my friend—a debt of honour, you know!”

The stubby, white forefinger wagged at the victim with a strange hint of mercilessness in the movement.

“Honour! You darned blackmailer! That’s what you are!”

Kiniple, with one narrow glance at the man, picked up the telephone receiver and spoke to his secretary:

“Get me through to Scotland Yard, at once, if you please!”

The other man’s face blanched as Kiniple replaced the receiver.

“What—what are you doing?”

“Couldn’t you hear? Getting on to Scotland Yard. They will be interested in this little document, and also in another fact!”

“And what is that?” The fellow’s voice was trembling, and Kiniple’s smile broadened visibly.

“Your late lamented uncle was killed in an accident—run down by a motor-car, was he not?”

“Yes. He fell in front of it; the driver was exonerated from all blame at the inquest.”

“Exactly. Well, the other little matter which will interest the police is the fact that you were having a drink in a West End hotel, the previous night, with the man who pushed him under that car!”

“That’s a lie! He wasn’t pushed, and I never had a drink with any man——”

“I am sorry, Mr. Greet, but I assure you I can bring three witnesses to prove that your uncle was pushed; and two more to prove that you were buying drinks for the man who pushed him, in the Snake’s Head, on the previous evening!”

The other’s face had gone deathly white.

He remembered now that well-dressed, plausible and amusing stranger for whom he had bought drinks in that particular public-house, and the night before the accident, too! He had forgotten the incident, but now he remembered it.

Tr-r-r-r-ring-g-g!

The ‘phone bell shrilled. Kiniple’s smile grew even more effulgent.

“Ah, that will be the Yard! Now we will see what they have to say!”

He reached out his hand for the receiver.

“Stop! For Heaven’s sake stop!”

Kiniple turned on him.

“Do you mean you will pay?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so! Anything!”

“That is sensible!” Kiniple’s voice was full of benevolence.

He removed the receiver.

“Hallo! What? You’ve got Scotland Yard? Oh, tell them a mistake has been made; we do not want them now. Yes, apologise nicely. Thank you!”

He put down the receiver, and rose briskly from his chair.

“That’s the idea, Mr. Greet! That is reasonable; always best to be reasonable, you know. Ha, ha! Five thousand—in cash—not later than this time to-morrow! Good-afternoon, Mr. Greet—good-afternoon!”

The hand that was put into his extended one was cold, wet, and trembling noticeably. Kiniple smiled more broadly than ever.

Ten minutes later the ’phone bell rang again.

Kiniple, after a word with his secretary, took the call.

“Hallo! Oh, yes. Mr. Higgs, is it? Oh, yes, I heard about the accident to Sir Robert. Very sad. What’s that? Murder suspected? Dear, dear! That’s worse, isn’t it? Oh, well, I suppose it will all be cleared up at the inquest. In any case, you as next of kin will inherit. Of course, of course! Yes, as soon as possible, please, and in cash. We—that is, my partner, Mr. Poltrude—always insists on that. Oh, yes, I dare say we could accommodate you with another hundred or two if you need it. You look after us, and we’ll look after you. Assuredly! Ha, ha! All right, come along and see me, Mr. Higgs; make an appointment through my secretary. Terribly sorry to hear about Sir Robert; hope the case will be satisfactorily cleared up. Good-bye—good-bye!”

Mr. Kiniple hung up the receiver, stood up, and rubbed his hands together with a fat smile of satisfaction.

A very brisk afternoon’s work—very brisk indeed!

• • • • • •

The following moaning Mr. Henry Dering was surprised to receive, at his chambers in the Albany, a postcard enclosed in a plain envelope. It bore just the representation of an old-fashioned gibbet, to which was attached a “rope” and noose formed of a small piece of scarlet silk.

He regarded it as a joke—a rather silly joke—and having torn it up tossed it into his fireplace.

That evening, as was his wont, he strolled out, intent on taking dinner at his club.

On the way a well-dressed stranger asked him for a match.

He handed him a silver lighter, and in taking it the stranger stood so close that he actually touched him.

A moment later he felt something hard pressed against his stomach, and the stranger said in a low voice:

“In case you don’t know what that is, Dering, I’ll tell you. It’s a gun! I want you just to keep quiet and come along with me.”

Mr. Dering was startled, but he kept his head.

“What’s the idea? What do you want?”

“You’re coming for a little ride with me, that’s all!”

Mr. Dering had been in America, and knew the significance of the term.

He saw a black car, one of the cheaper make, and indistinguishable from hundreds of others, draw unobtrusively up to the kerb.

“Come on!” ordered the stranger.

Dering made up his mind.

He struck the man with his fist, and simultaneously sprang backward, at the same time crying loudly:

“Help! Help!”

But Dering was not a strong man, and the blow was only a light one. Passers-by heard his call, and saw the tall stranger turn towards him. At the same moment, with a strangled cry, Dering fell to the ground, and lay there writhing.

The stranger set up a shout.

“Help, help! My friend is in a fit! Someone get a doctor!”

He bent over the writhing man, and in an instant a crowd gathered.

But when they discovered that Mr Dering had been fatally shot through the lungs, and looked for the tall stranger, both he and the car had disappeared!

The news was in the late evening papers, and Mr. Kiniple, reading it, rubbed his hands together once more and beamed upon the world as he murmured very softly:

“Quick business! Quick business!”

Mr. Auguste Kiniple was a great believer in efficiency!

Chapter 7

MAN PROPOSES

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR NICHOLAS NEW, who always took a great pride in his personal appearance, sat in his office looking more like a Bond Street “blood” than a really keen detective. Then the door opened, and Cheyne, whose name had just been sent up, entered. He looked eager and excited.

“You wanted to see me, inspector?”

“Yes. I’ve been through that list of deaths you gave me, and looked into the matter of surviving heirs. I find that most of them are in pretty good circumstances, but there is one who has gone rather wild and is definitely on the rocks.”

Cheyne nodded eagerly.

“That’s the fellow I want. Who is he, and where’s he to be found?”

“He lives anywhere—Rowton Houses mostly. But he does odd spots of work in Covent Garden market, and here’s his description. His name is Denis O’Brien—an Irishman.”

“That’s fine. I’ll get hold of him right away!”

“All right. I’ll leave you to that. Now, there’s another little point. Have you read your papers, last night or this morning?”

“Glanced over ’em. I’m not a great newspaper reader.”

“No? Well, did you notice that a man—a Mr. Henry Dering—was shot by a gunman using a revolver with a silencer attachment, in Piccadilly last evening?”

“Yes, I did see something about it.”

“Weil, his next of kin is his son, Horace Dering. I am having Horace Dering watched. Take it from me, Cheyne, there’s more than one individual concerned in this job. This is the work of a gang—a highly skilful and well-organised murder and blackmail gang!”

It was Cheyne’s turn to stare in surprise.

“How d’you get at that?”

“I’m not saying too much at the moment, but get this: Looking into the affairs of these relatives, I find that every one of ’em since they inherited their money have spent about anything from five to twenty thousand which can’t be accounted for reasonably. This fellow O’Brien has run through a fortune of a quarter of a million which he inherited from his cousin in a little over two years. He’s wild, but even then——”

Cheyne was staring into vacancy, the pupils of his eyes contracted almost to pin points. He was thinking hard.

“Yes,” smiled New, “I can see that’s given you furiously to think. Chew it over hard, doc!”

The following morning. Cheyne, inconspicuously dressed in a well-worn lounge suit, might have been seen hanging about Covent Garden during the busy hours. His attention was particularly attracted to a tall, well-built fellow with a dissipated face and a shock of bright red hair, who was acting as a porter.

After a while, when things slackened a bit, Cheyne followed him as he carried a dozen boxes on his head from the warehouse to a waiting van. As he deposited them and turned away, Cheyne stepped up to him.

“Good-morning, Mr. O’Brien!”

The other started, and stared at him with narrowed eyes and a truculent expression.

“Ye’re makin’ a mishtake: me name is not O’Brien at all!”

Cheyne laughed lightly and shook his head.

“I’m making no mistake; you’re Denis O’Brien all right!”

The other shrugged his shoulders.

“If you’re a creditor, or representing me creditors, why waste your time? Do I look like a man that has money to pay his debts with?”

Cheyne laughed genially.

“No. But you’re mistaking me, O’Brien. I’m nothing at all like that. Don’t you remember me, man?”

The Irishman looked at him closely and then shook his head. There was suspicion in his eyes.

“I do not!” he announced briefly.

“Well, look here, I’ll hang on to my incognito for the time being, then. But once upon a time you did me a good turn, O’Brien!”

The other laughed a trifle bitterly.

“Shure, and I’ve done hundreds of ’em. That’s one reason why I’m where I am—on the floor!”

Cheyne laid a hand on the Irishman’s broad and dusty shoulder.

“Well, here’s one that remembers, even if you don’t, O’Brien. Now, you’re down and out. Make an appointment to meet me later, will you? And take this—as a temporary loan, of course—in the meantime.”

O’Brien stared at the crisp fiver in his hand, and the suspicion faded from his eyes. Money talks!

“Good man! Well, see here, I must finish the job I’m on now, but I’ll meet you in the Essex Serpent at one o’clock. How’s that?”

“That’s a bet!” said Cheyne, grasped his hand, and walked away.

The following morning Denis O’Brien was not touting for work in the market. In a brand-new fit out he was lunching in Piccadilly with Herbert Cheyne. In the evening they went to a show and to a night club afterwards. Neither of them noticed the tall, hard-faced man who watched them furtively from the moment they entered, and later made his way unobtrusively to the telephone box.

Later—in the small hours of the morning—Cheyne took O’Brien home to Grosvenor Square, and, sitting in the library, listened to the Irishman’s life story with great interest, particularly that part of it which dealt with how the fortune he had inherited from his father—who had, unfortunately, died in the street of heart failure—had been dissipated.

The following morning Inspector New received a telephone message from Cheyne:

“Find out all you can about a man named Auguste Kiniple, who has an office in Halliday House. Cheapside. I’ll get in touch again soon.”

During the afternoon the inspector’s thoughts roamed to his amateur colleague several times, and once or twice he murmured to himself:

“I wonder what the young feller me lad’s up to?”

As it happened—and the inspector would have been surprised to know it—at that very moment Cheyne was sitting in an intimate little teashop in Shaftesbury Avenue asking Stella Daune to marry him.

She listened quietly to all he had to say, and then she looked him steadily in the eyes, and he saw that big tears were gathering in her own beautiful ones.

“I am so sorry, Herbert.” She laid her hand gently on his. “I am ever so sorry, but I am going to hurt you. What you wish is quite impossible. I will not pretend I am not fond of you, and to marry you would be the greatest joy of my life. But I cannot do it!”

He stared at her, white-faced and tense.

“You—you—you mean you are married already?”

She shook her head with a sad little smile.

“No, it is not that. You are the first man I have ever cared for.”

“There is some other bar, then?”

She nodded silently.

“Cannot it be removed?”

She looked him straight in the eyes again, her own swimming with unshed tears.

“No, it can never be removed and I can never marry you!”

He took it like a man, and never doubted her word.

“But we can still be friends, Stella?”

“Oh, yes, of course!”

A little later, as she was about to leave him, she opened her crocodile leather bag to get her handkerchief, and for a moment left the bag open on the table. Cheyne glanced at it casually, and then suddenly his gaze concentrated and he clutched the arms of his chair until his knuckles showed white.

For there in Stella’s bag, perfectly plainly to be seen, was a postcard with the printed gibbet upon it. Identical with those found on the murdered men, except that in this case the noose was formed of black silk, and at the foot of the gibbet some initials were written in ink: M. M.

She saw his deathly pale face and his staring eyes and looked at him in surprise.

“Herbert! What’s the matter? What is it?”

For the moment he had lost control of himself. So great was the shock that he was confused. He could only point a shaking finger and gasp:

“That postcard! What is it? What does it mean?”

And now it was her turn to look startled. Her beautiful face blanched, and fear—stark, haunting fear crept into her eyes.

Then with a desperate effort she pulled herself together and replied quite coolly: “Oh, that? That’s nothing really!” He was not looking at her, or he would have seen a desperate swallow in her throat as she went on: “It’s just a membership card to a—a club I belong to!”

“A club!”

He was looking at her now, with white lips and horrified eyes.

“What club, in the name of Heaven?”

She was acting now with every ounce of art she possessed, and she actually managed to simulate a light laugh.

“Don’t look so tragic, for goodness sake; you’re almost scaring me! It’s just a perfectly innocent and innocuous club!” A curious smile twisted her beautifully-moulded lips. “A tea club, as a matter of fact!”

The first part of her sentence made Cheyne realise that lie was giving himself away—and badly! So he too made an effort, and pulled himself together, so that he was able to retort in a lighter tone: “Pretty gruesome idea to connect with a tea-party, isn’t it?”

She shrugged her pretty shoulders:

“It is, a bit. But it’s fashionable to be morbid in these days, you know!”

No more was said—but two very worried young people parted from each other outside that teashop!

She was thinking: “He knows—or suspects something! What is his interest? And what does he know?”

And he was thinking: “What has Stella—the girl I love—to do with the people who murdered my father and dozens of others?” Certainly a sufficiently distressing thought for a young lover to have!

It was significant that, when he called at the Yard the following morning, Cheyne said nothing to Inspector New regarding the discovery of that postcard in his sweetheart’s possession!

“Tell me,” asked the inspector, “what’s all this about Mr. Kiniple? What have you got on him?”

Cheyne’s smile was cryptically complacent.

“Jusf this, inspector. Our friend O’Brien got into the hands of moneylenders, and borrowed money on the strength of the money he was to inherit from his cousin. His bills were bought up by Auguste Kiniple, who lent him more money, on condition that he signed a note agreeing to pay another five thousand should anything happen to his cousin within six months of date. Within a month his cousin was found, dead of ‘heart-failure.’ And when he paid the five thousand, Kiniple coolly pointed out that the note he had signed, in the circumstances, looked pretty suspicious! Looked as though he had paid someone to kill his cousin! Suggested another five thousand, if he didn’t want that note to be made public. He paid up—not only then, but on other occassions—to the tune of fifteen thousand pounds! That’s what I know about Mr. Kiniple! What have you found out?”

Inspector New’s eyes were half-closed—his face grim and tense.

“Mr. Auguste Kiniple,” he answered slowly, “is a well-known and respected citizen—prosperous and respectable! But he is a foreigner, and, not so many years ago, was tried for murder in Poland, under his real name! Was acquitted for lack of evidence! His secretary, curiously enough, has also been tried on the capital charge, and acquitted. The third member of his staff—a male clerk—has no record. I think, Doc., we are going to take a great deal of interest in Mr. Auguste Kiniple!”

Cheyne leaned forward in his chair, quickly and eagerly:

“But don’t touch him! It’s the whole gang we want—and I think I can see how to get ’em!”

The inspector nodded compliance.

After Cheyne had left the office, the inspector sat for some time, his cigarette extinguished in the corner of his mouth, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, deep in thought.

For Inspector New was the possessor of a little piece of information which, for the nonce, ho had kept back from Herbert Cheyne.

Auguste Kiniple had been a witness for the defence at the trial of Pontifex Dale, for murder. The principal witness for the prosecution had been Randolph Cheyne—Herbert’s father. In addition to which Kiniple was associated closely with Dale in his work for the League of Hope Renewed!

Chapter 8

ON THE TRAIL

THAT evening Cheyne met Denis O’Brien by appointment, near Piccadilly Circus. Thanks to the money Cheyue had given him, O’Brien looked a new man, smartly dressed and prosperous. He was also a good deal happier—for Cheyne had promised him a fresh start in life, and it was to discuss this they had met tonight.

They walked into a public-house for a drink, and, as they entered, a man, with his hat pulled over his eyes, who was emerging, pushed into them, and O’Brien gave a sharp cry:

“That darned idiot’s got a pin on him, or something!” he said. “It stuck into my arm!”

They went to the bar, and called for a drink.

“Here!” exclaimed O’Brien in a faint voice. “I—I’m not feeling well! There’s—there’s something wrong with me!”

Cheyne gave him a quick glance. The follow looked terrible, his face was a ghastly colour, and his eyes turned slowly to an angle producing a horrible squint.

Cheyne was always a quick thinker, and instantly O’Brien’s words about the man with the pin recurred to his mind. He caught the fellow’s wrist and pulled his sleeve up. On the forearm there was a tiny red mark, as from a pin-prick, and, extending up the arm towards the shoulder, and vanishing under the sleeve, was a narrow, angry red line!

“Poisoned—by hypodermic!”

The thought flashed into Cheyne’s mind—and, with it, another thought. This had been done by some emissary of the mysterious murder gang, because they suspected that O’Brien had been giving, or was likely to give, information. And, if that was so, then he himself was by no means safe!

The man beside him gave an inarticulate gurgle and suddenly collapsed on to the floor, his face horribly convulsed!

People crowded round, and Cheyne, as he bent over the fallen man, had every sense on the alert—for, for all he knew, there might be another assassin among them, and his position at the moment was uncomfortably vulnerable!

He slipped his hand beneath the man’s waistcoat, felt the pulse, and, being a doctor, knew in a moment that O’Brien was dead.

He sprang to his feet.

“My friend—a fit, I think! I’ll get a doctor—look after him.”

Apparently in great excitement and distress, he pushed his way through the crowd, and ran out of the door.

He had an instant sense that he was being followed, but did not look back. In Gerard Street a taxi was crawling along.

“Through Leicester Square and up Rupert Street!” he told the man. “And make it slippy!”

He jumped in and the taxi accelerated. He thrust his head out of the window and looked back, but there were a number of taxi-cabs and other vehicles in the street, and he could not tell whether or not he was being followed.

In Leicester Square he put his head out of the window, and, leaning forward, said to the driver:

“Here, take this ten-shilling note! At the top of Rupert Street, pull over to the right as much as you can and go slow. Then stop your engine and hold up the traffic for a few minutes! Get me?”

“Right-o, mate! Wot’s the trouble—bogeys after yer?”

“Something like that!” answered Cheyne.

“Orlright, cocky, you can depend on me!”

And he was as good as his word.

At the top of Rupert Street he veered suddenly to the right, slowing down. As Cheyne leapt from the cab, on the wrong side, the driver stopped his engine. Klaxons growled and horns hooted behind him, but he took no notice as he slowly and deliberately alighted and fumbled with the starting-handle, temporarily holding up all the traffic behind him.

Meanwhile Cheyne had slipped round the corner into Shaftesbury Avenue, and commenced to run towards the Palace Theatre, keeping on the other side of the road.

A man stepped out of a shop doorway and moved towards him. Whether he had any fell intent or not, Cheyne did not know, but he took no chances. He, apparently by accident, barged heavily into the fellow and sent him flying.

A second later he had boarded a swiftly moving bus making for Piccadilly Circus, bending to adjust his bootlace as the vehicle passed the top of Rupert Street. He paid his fare, crossed the Circus in the bus, and then sprang off, while it was still moving rapidly, at the top of the Haymarket. He ran along Panton Street, crossed the road, and dived down the stairs to the tube subway. There he booked to Waterloo, alighted at Charing Cross, and took a taxi to Grosvenor Square, satisfied that, for the moment, he had shaken off his pursuers.

As soon as Beale, the butler, had admitted him to the house, Cheyne went straight to the study and, having carefully shut himself in, ’phoned Scotland Yard and asked for Inspector New.

When he had explained to that astute officer what had just occurred, a low whistle came to him over the wire.

“I suppose you realise what this means, doc?”

“You mean that the gang have got wise to me?”

“Precisely; they’re out for your blood!”

“That’s pretty obvious from the way they’ve just been chasing me!”

“You’ll have to be careful, lad. They’re about as desperate a lot as you’re likely to meet in an average lifetime. You’d better disappear for a bit.”

“I’m proposing to do so. Can your people fix me up with a disguise of some sort?”

“Sure thing. Come right along and I’ll get our expert on the job.”

“Good man; I will. And then I’m going right out on the track of Mr. Auguste Kiniple, financier and philanthropist!”

Cheyne rang off, packed a small suitcase, and having told Beale he would be away in the country for some time, he made for Scotland Yard in a taxi.

Whoever may have seen Cheyne enter the Yard never saw him emerge, for no one would have recognised him in the neatly-dressed, middle-aged man, with short clipped beard and rather long hair, who, stooping slightly and peering shortsightedly through a pair of hornrimmed glasses, came out through the Embankment entrance of the Yard and hurried away in the direction of the City.

With the grim tenacity of a bloodhound, Herbert Cheyne—or, to give him his new name, Horace Mervyn—was sticking to the trail of his father’s murderers!

• • • • • •

LATE the following afternoon Mr. Horace Mervyn walked rather nervously into the office of Auguste Kiniple.

“Have you an appointment, sir?” the clerk asked him.

“I have,” was the answer, delivered in a nervous, rather halting manner.

“Very good, sir. I will inform Mr. Kiniple’s secretary.”

The clerk departed, to return in a few minutes.

“Kindly come this way, sir.”

He conducted the visitor through the general office, and opened a door.

“Mr. Mervyn, miss!” he announced; and Horace Mervyn, otherwise Herbert Cheyne, passed into the inner room, to find himself face to face with Stella Daune!

It was, without doubt, the biggest and most complete shock that Herbert Cheyne had ever experienced!

Normally he was as cold as steel and as self-possessed as an automatic machine, but on this occasion he almost gave himself away, so great was the shock of finding that the girl he loved, and desired to marry, was in the employment—if she was not actually an accomplice—of his most deadly enemies!

Her name, “Stella!” was on the tip of his tongue, and, cried as he would have cried it, in his natural voice and with a tone of startled surprise, it must have betrayed him!

As it was he started back; gasped something inarticulate, and saved himself by dropping the parcel he was carrying and instantly stooping to pick it up.

When he rose he was very red in his face, but he had recovered command of himself. Stella was looking at him with a faint smile curving her pretty lips.

He spoke immediately in his assumed voice—a mild, sing-song tone, with a faint lisp:

“Good-good-morning! I am sorry; that was a twinge of rheumatism—an old enemy of mine! Very clumsy of me, I am afraid.”

Stella smiled on him kindly enough.

“Yes, I wondered what had happened,” she said, and then added, in brisker and more business-like tones : “And now, what can I do for you?”

“I—er—I wanted to see Mr. Kiniple. Is he in?”

“I’m afraid not. But I am his secretary. Can I do anything for you?”

Cheyne’s brain was in a chaotic state.

So she was his secretary—secretary to this man who he strongly suspected was one of the most dangerous and most callous criminals unhung! She, the girl he loved!

Thoughts of other little things—the gibbets she had drawn on the tablecloth; the postcard he had seen in her bag, flocked into his mind. But even in that chaotic moment he strove to thrust them aside—strove to convince himself even against his own reasoning that this beautiful girl could not be an accomplice of Auguste Kiniple and the murder gang to which he undoubtedly belonged. But it was not easy!

He was still struggling to recover his self-control when the door opened, and a fat, well-dressed, smiling individual entered—Auguste Kiniple himself!

“Ah! Mr.—er—Mervyn, I presume? We have an appointment, have we not? I must apologise for being a little late, but I have been detained at a City meeting. Come in, Mr. Mervyn—come in!”

So benign was the smile with which Mr. Kiniple favoured his visitor, that it was difficult to believe that he was really the human monster Cheyne suspected him of being. Cheyne bowed and followed him into the inner sanctum.

“And now, Mr. Mervyn,” said the financier, when he had waved him to a chair, “what can I do for you?”

“Well, as a matter of fact”—Cheyne had completely recovered his self-control now, and spoke in the nervous, halting tones of his assumed part—“as a matter of fact I was—er—wondering whether you could grant me a loan? As a matter of business, of course—purely as a matter of business.”

Kiniple gave his visitor a quick, searching glance, although the beaming smile never left his face.

He leaned back in his chair and thoughtfully placed the tips of his fat, white fingers together.

“That, Mr. Mervyn, of course depends upon certain circumstances.”

“Quite, quite!”

The visitor leaned forward and peered nervously at Kiniple through his hornrimmed glasses.

“I can offer you quite a good security, I assure you!”

Mr. Kiniple nodded benevolently.

“I am sure of that, Mr. Mervyn,” he replied smoothly, “but perhaps you are not aware that we deal only in certain forms of security in this office. Have you by any chance, Mr. Mervyn, any wealthy relatives from whom you have definite expectations?”

The head of the visitor was bent so that Kiniple did not see the flash of excitement that came into his eyes behind the hornrimmed glasses.

He expected something like this!

“I am afraid not, Mr. Kiniple,” he replied, and then added with a well-assumed note of anxiety in his halting voice: “But I have some house property——”

Kiniple interrupted him with a gesture of his fat, white hand.

“I am sorry, Mr. Mervyn, but I will not waste your time or raise your hopes unduly. At the present time we can deal only with borrowers who have reversionary interests to offer.”

Cheyne rose from his chair with an assumed air of disappointment.

“Then I am afraid, Mr. Kiniple, that I have wasted your time, since I have nothing of the kind to offer.”

Kiniple rose from his chair and smiled benignly upon the visitor.

“Not at all, Mr. Mervyn—not at all! At any time you have what we require I shall be delighted to accommodate you. Good-afternoon, sir—good-afternoon!”

He extended his fat, white hand, and Cheyne took it and, realising the type of man with whom he was shaking hands, had some difficulty in repressing a shudder.

As he passed through the secretary’s office, Stella gave him a formal smile and a gracious “good-afternoon.”

It was always a marvel to him afterwards how he managed to reply to her farewell in the tone similar to her own.

As he passed to the outer office, Cheyne noticed that the clerk was preparing a mail—a fairly bulky one—for posting.

On reaching the street, Cheyne made a mental note of the position of the nearest pillar-box, and then returned to the humble lodging which, in the name of Mervyn, he had rented.

The evening and night that followed was a truly uncomfortable time for Cheyne. He was on the horns of a terrible dilemma. To relinquish his task now was to break his vow to himself and to ignore the last wishes of his dead mother—to say nothing of the fact that he would lose his inheritance. To go on possibly to bring the girl he loved within the grip of the law—possibly even to the shadow of the gallows!

And then suddenly a new horror came to him; he remembered Inspector New’s words: “Both Kiniple and his secretary had been charged with murder!”

So she—the girl he loved—was actually an old criminal!

Impossible! He could not believe it! She was so beautiful, and he was prepared almost to stake his life on her goodness.

And so on throughout the night. Dawn showed him pale and haggard beneath his make-up, but he had made his decision.

At all costs he would go on with it! And that evening showed him playing his next move in the dangerous game.

• • • • • •

Early in the evening a quietly-dressed, nervous-looking individual, who might have been a student, seemed to be having some difficulty in inserting a rather large envelope in the pillar-box adjacent to the offices of Mr. Auguste Kiniple. He worked so cleverly that no passer-by noticed that he was working an ingenious little trick with a strong hair-net and some wire clips, which held the said net in place behind the slot of the letter-box.

Nor did anyone notice the said individual retire to a convenient doorway and wait there until Mr. Kiniple’s clerk came along and posted some letters—the evening mail of the office.

Extracting the net—with the “catch”—from the pillar-box was not so easy, but Cheyne managed it, and bore his spoils home to his bed-sitting-room, where, with the aid of a kettle of boiling water, he opened and examined each one.

He was particularly lucky; in that collection included half a dozen of the “gibbet” postcards. On this occasion the “noose” was of black silk, from which fact Cheyne deduced that the red silk was used as a sort of warning to intended victims, while the black, he gathered, indicated a summons of the members of the gang to a meeting.

His subsequent operations that night confirmed this theory.

Late in the evening the same quiet, studious-looking individual passed through the portals of the building wherein the offices of Auguste Kiniple were situated. The offices were, of course, closed for the night, but the studious-looking gentleman carried in his bag a sheet of brown-paper well treacled and neatly folded and a glazier’s diamond.

Cheyne’s visit to Kiniple had not been by any means unprofitable. He had noticed that that private door bore an ordinary lock, and that the key was in the inside of of it.

A small square of glass, neatly removed from the frosted panel and extracted by means of the treacled paper, and it was an easy matter to slip one’s hand inside, turn the key, and then having entered, replace the glass by means of sticking it with some special adhesive mixture.

After that he had the office to himself, and by the time he left it he had acquired quite a lot of useful knowledge about the activities of Mr. Kiniple and his accomplices. Amongst other things he knew that there was to be a meeting of the gang the following night, and that both Stella and Kiniple would be there!

As a result of this he was watching the entrance to the building, very unobtrusively, when Stella left at seven o’clock the following evening.

He did not attempt to follow her, but remained watching until, some half an hour later, Kiniple himself emerged from the office.

He called a taxi, and Cheyne did likewise, giving his driver instructions to follow the first cab.

This was done until, eventually, Kiniple stopped his cab and alighted near the Houses of Parliament.

Cheyne’s cab drew up some distance behind the other, and Cheyne, having paid off his driver, proceeded to shadow the fat financier as he walked off at a brisk pace, looking neither to the left nor the right.

Chapter 9

THE DEATH CLUB!

MEANWHILE, in a small room buried below the level of the ground, a strange interview was taking place.

Stella Daune. flushed and beautiful, was facing a tall man, with a dark, clean-shaven face and a professional air.

“Listen, Stella!” the man was saying, “I have been watching you very closely for a long time! You know that I love you, and one is apt to take notice of the person one happens to love! Now I have seen quite plainly, that you are as sick of this business as I am—but, like myself, you are helpless in the grip of the man Pontifex Dale, who calls himself the Murder-Master!”

Stella, looking at him with frank blue eyes, nodded—and the blue of those eyes dimmed with tears unshed—tears of a hopeless longing. Had the man realised that the longing was for another man, his feelings—and his actions—might have been different!

“Indeed—indeed, you are right!” she murmured. “This man Dale was good to me when I was first acquitted—and I had an invalid mother to keep. And so he gradually got me into his toils, and I have to assist him and the rest in this awful business! Oh, if I could only get out of it! Sometimes I feel that it is driving me mad.”

The other nodded.

“I quite understand—my dear! But now, listen; I have a plan—a plan whereby you and I can get out of it! As you know, I am essential to Dale because I am a doctor—the only doctor in the gang! Now, if I were to denounce you to Dale as a traitor, do you know what would happen?”

The girl gave a violent shudder.

“Yes, I do!”

“You would be killed—by being placed in the freezing machine, and your body left in some street or park, as the others have been. And the verdict would be death from heart failure. But—see here!”

The small room in which they stood was fitted up as a sort of medical dispensary. The doctor crossed to a cupboard and opened it, and from it took a bottle of pale pink fluid and a gleaming hypodermic syringe.

“See!” he exclaimed, as he held them up for her inspection. “Here is the means of salvation! An injection of this—just one charge of the syringe—and you have in your veins a powerful stimulant which will enable you to resist the effects of the refrigerator! To all intents and purposes you will be dead—at any rate, you will appear to be! But, in the course of a few hours, you will recover and be none the worse for the experience! This, I may tell you, is a secret I have most carefully kept from Dale and the others! Now—do you see my plan?”

But Stella, staring at him in bewilderment, shook her head.

“Why, it is simple! I shall denounce you as a traitor, and then, before you are put in the refrigerator, I shall secretly—it is quite easy to do unseen—give you an injection of this! Afterwards, I shall arrange to dispose of your body. Actually, I shall take you to a little cottage I have in the country, and you can lie low there until I can effectively plan my own escape! I shall also adopt the plan of pretending to die, and thus they, believing us dead, will never look for us! And we can fly to some place abroad and live in happiness! What do you say to that, Stella, my dariing?”

He put out his hand to take hers, but before he could so do, before he even had a chance to notice the repugnance with which she shrunk away from him, they were interrupted by the sound of a harsh, commanding voice:

“Hey, doctor, where are you?”

He started violently.

“Look out!” he hissed in a low, tense whisper. “That’s Dale; he mustn’t see us talking, or know we have seen each other! You stop here while I get him out of the way, then slip into the big room!”

Even as he spoke the doctor made for the door.

“All right, sir—I’m coming!”

And, with a swift gesture of caution to Stella, he vanished from the room, leaving her staring at the bottle of pink fluid and the gleaming hypodermic syringe, which still lay on the table.

• • • • • •

Kiniple walked at a brisk pace along the Embankment, and shadowing him was a decidedly ticklish job, for there were no corners or shadows to take advantage of. Cheyne adopted a very simple ruse—keeping about seventy yards in the rear, he slipped off his coat and carried it over his arm, altered the shape of his soft felt hat, putting it on at an angle, and adopted his natural, swinging walk instead of the short steps and hesitating gait of the clerk Mervyn. He flattered himself that, at that distance, his quarry would never recognise him, were he to glance around.

However, he did not do so, but kept on walking steadily until, half-way along Grosvenor Road, he turned into a gateway and disappeared. Approaching with apparent carelessness, but actually entirely on the alert, Cheyne discovered that the gateway belonged to an old mansion, the lower rooms of which were—as a board over the doorway testified—being used as the headquarters of the League of Hope Renewed!

An innocent enough place, in all conscience!

Determined to make sure, he hit on a simple if, in the circumstances, a somewhat daring expedient. He entered the gates and walked boldly to the door.

There was a young man on duty there.

“Pardon me,” said Cheyne politely, “but is Mr. Smith in the club?”

The young fellow laughed.

“He is!” he replied.

“About a dozen of him! Which one do you want?”

“I—I’m awfully sorry, but I don’t know his Christian name! He told me to meet him here, though!”

The young man shot a keen glance at him.

“You one of us, mate?”

Cheyne looked puzzled—as he felt.

“How d’you mean?” he asked.

The young man made a significant gesture.

“Been—inside?”

Enlightenment came to Cheyne in a flash.

“Yes!” he answered, with a nod.

“Then, in that case, it’s the guv’nor you want to see, my lad!”

“Guv’nor? Who’s the guv’nor, anyway?”

“Why, Pontifex Dale, of course! Pontifex Dale, the pal of every man who’s been in stir! Didn’t you know that he was at the head of the League of Hope Renewed?”

The heart of Herbert Cheyne gave a sudden leap! Heard of Pontifex Dale—had he not! In a flash it came to him—his father had been a principal witness against Dale in the murder trial—Dale had killed his father.

With a desperate effort he regained control of himself, and looked as stupid as he could.

“Oh, yes, I have heard of him, now I come to think of it!” he answered. “Think he’ll help me?”

“Bet your life he will, if you’ve been in stir!” was the answer. “Come on in, mate, and I’ll try to get him for you! He’s in the committee-room, I think; there’s a meeting of the committee tonight, but I don’t think it’s started yet!”

Inside, Cheyne looked cautiously round the room. It would not do for Kiniple or Stella to see him there. But. there was no sign of either of them.

The room was a large one, with a bar at the far end, a billiards table at the other one, and tables for cards and reading scattered about. There were number of men and women there of an amazing variety of types. So far as he could see, there was only one door to the room.

His guide crossed to the bar and spoke to the barman, a rather tough-looking specimen. The latter nodded and spoke into a house ‘phone. A moment later Cheyne’s guide came back to him.

“It’s all right!” he announced. “The guv’nor’s coming up—the committee meeting hasn’t started yet. You wait here and you’ll see him!”

The young fellow hurried back to his door and Cheyne was left alone. A moment later he saw a figure emerge from behind the cheap plush curtain which screened one end of the bar.

A tall, thin figure, wearing frock-coat and striped trousers, with dead white hair and a face so gaunt that it looked almost like a skull, except that from the deepset eye-sockets two dark eyes blazed with a strange light.

He saw Cheyne and came towards him, and as he did so the light died from his eyes, the satiric, snarling smile faded from his lips, and his expression became one of gentle benevolence. His tone, when he spoke, was soft and kindly.

“You wanted to see me, young man?”

And Cheyne, his heart beating high with excitement, answered:

“Yes, sir—if you are Mr. Dale!”

“Yes, I am Pontifex Dale! You have been—in trouble?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah—poor lad! What was it?”

“Twelve months, sir—forgery!”

The older man nodded kindly and placed a long, thin-fingered hand upon his shoulder with a gentle pressure.

“All right, my lad. You must join our club and we will try to help you. Is this one near your home, by the way? We have others in London—the ‘S’ Club, in Hoxton; the ‘R’ Club, in Bermondsey, and so on!”

“Thank you, sir—this one will suit me all right!”

“Good! Go to Thomson on the door and ask him to give you a visitor’s card—I can’t stay longer now, as I have an important committee meeting on. But call in to-morrow night again, and I will have a chat with you, and see how we can help you! For the present, good-bye!”

He extended his hand and Cheyne took it. A slight shudder shook him inwardly, as it struck him that he was grasping the hand of his father’s murderer! But, somehow, it seemed impossible, that this kindly, benevolent old gentleman should actually be a coldblooded, wholesale murderer!

But, as to that, he was grimly determined to find out. At any rate, he was on the trail!

He went to the doorman and got his visitor’s card, and then, having found an obscure corner, sat down to watch.

Evidently both Stella and Kiniple were members of the committee—and the thought occurred to him, in view of what New had said about these two, that the qualification for the committee was to have stood one’s trial for murder!

He looked unobtrusively around him, all eyes and ears.

He saw nothing of interest—the club appeared to be an entirely ordinary one—until a man entered, walked briskly up to the bar and called for a drink. Having got it, he picked up his glass in a peculiar manner and raised it to the level of his eyes.

“Cheerio, Sam!” he said to the barman.

Then, having drunk his drink, he quietly drew aside a cheap plush curtain on the left of the bar and disappeared behind it.

Almost immediately afterwards another man entered, and he also walked straight to the bar. As he did so, Cheyne, getting a good view of his face, could hardly suppress an exclamation.

It was the man who had killed O’Brien.

“Cheerio, Sam!”

Holding his glass in the same peculiar manner as the other man had done, the newcomer drained it, and then, like the other, quietly disappeared behind the curtain.

Cheyne got up from his seat and unobtrusively left the room.

“Just came to tell you I’d found my friend Smith,” he said to the man at the door.

“That’s good,” said the other.

“Thanks very much,” smiled Cheyne, and, turning, he re-entered the room—this time briskly and with no uncertain gait.

He walked straight across to the bar, called for a beer and tossed a shilling on the counter. He picked up his change, raised the glass to eye-level, holding it just as he had seen the other two do, and said quietly:

“Cheerio, Sam!”

He thought the man gave him a quick, keen glance, but, having done that, he nodded and turned away.

With his heart beating fast, but outwardly quite casual, Cheyne drew aside the curtain and passed behind it, not in the least knowing what awaited him there.

At first, in the semi-darkness, he could see nothing. Then he saw that he was standing in a small, bare alcove, and that facing him was a door—apparently the door of a cupboard. He opened it cautiously, and discovered that it belonged to a small, entirely empty and shelveless cupboard, just about large enough to hold a man.

Still holding the door ajar, he stared around him in dismay. There was nothing else in the place but the bare walls and the curtain through which he had passed. He was completely baffled.

Then from the other side of the curtain a voice said:

“Cheerio, Sam!”

Someone else was coming!

Quick as a flash he sought the only possible refuge. He slipped into the cupboard and silently pulled the door to.

No sooner had he done this, than he felt a curious sensation of movement. He was in complete darkness, but the sensation was so eerie and startling that he instinctively stretched out his hand for the door-handle.

But there was no handle there, and no door!

Instead, something moving met his fingertips—and he had an impression that the walls were moving upward past the opening where the door had been.

He remembered the electric torch in his pocket and flashed it on. Sure enough, what seemed to be a wall of whitewashed bricks was moving upwards past the place where the door had been—and then, in a flash, he realised what it was. The cupboard was nothing but a camouflaged lift, and it was automatically descending with him.

To where?

Even as the thought crossed his mind, the lift stopped with a slight jerk, and he found himself looking at another door, the replica of the one he had just closed upon himself.

Without hesitation he opened it and stepped out into a dark passage, at the further end of which a faint streak of light showed—plainly coming from the crack of a door.

He suddenly remembered that another man was coming down, and, turning, he tiptoed away from the light. For one moment he flashed his torch on, and saw that he was standing in a long, whitewashed passage, apparently once part of the cellars of the old house. Then he heard a sound, switched off his torch, and crouched in the darkness against the wall of the passage. It was the only possible means of concealment.

He heard the lift door open and close, brisk footsteps receding along the passage, and then the door at the end was opened. He saw, for a moment, the silhouette of a man entering, and saw also that the door was shielded from the room within by curtains.

Then the door closed again.

Cheyne’s heart was beating fast, but he did not hesitate. He knew the risk he ran, but his blood was up now that he was so close upon his long-sought quarry. He tiptoed towards the door and laid his hand upon the handle. It turned beneath his pressure, and then, as he pushed gently on it, the door softly and noiselessly opened.

He held it ajar, and, by thrusting his head round it, found that he had an excellent view of the room within, through a small division in the curtains which shielded the door.

And, truly, it was a strange enough sight.

The room was long and low, and, like the passage, was plainly part of the old cellars. There were arches along each side, supported by pillars. The latter were painted a brilliant white, the arches between them hung with heavy curtains of black velvet—each curtain bearing the representation of a gibbet, done in white, in the centre!

At the extreme end of the room, facing the door, a man was seated. That man was Pontifex Dale!

Cheyne had a good chance of examining him at leisure, and, as a doctor, he could see at a glance now that the man was mad—probably a dangerous maniac.

Even as Cheyne looked the tall man rose and faced his audience—and a motley enough crowd they were! There were some twenty people present, and they seemed to be drawn from all nationalities—English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greeks and Jew’s. There was a swarthy Egyptian, two dusky Indians, a coal-black negro, and a Chinaman. There were four women present, and amongst them Cheyne saw. with a sinking feeling at his heart, the fair face of Stella Daune!

As they were of all nations, so they wore of all classes and ranks, as their clothes and facial expressions showed. Rich men and poor men; men of breeding and education; lowbrowed, brutal-looking ruffians—all sorts and conditions of men and women. And now all their eyes were fixed on the man who stood at the far end of the room.

Pontifex Dale spoke, and his voice had a harsh rasp—a curious, vibrant intonation which had the strange effect of causing his hearers to shudder:

“My children—children of the gallows—windfalls from the dread tree of death!”

He paused for a moment, and then went on:

“Since our last meeting, friends, Howard Tregarth, acquitted at Leicester Assizes of the murder of his wife, has joined our order. Toni Belasini, of Naples, released after serving a five-year sentence for the murder of his sweetheart, is on his way to us. Our esteemed secretary will now give you a few other details of interest!”

Pontifex Dale sat down, and an individual sitting to the left, and out of Cheyne’s view, rose and stepped into a position in front of Dale. It was Auguste Kiniple, fat and smiling as ever.

“Mr. Murder-Master, ladies and gentlemen!” He turned first to Pontifex Dale, and then to the others. His voice was suave as he read from some notes in his hand. “It is my pleasure to be able to inform you that the following expenditures have been authorised—a pension of three hundred pounds per annum to Anatole Leibez, recently released from a life sentence for murder, and too old and feeble to work. Also five hundred pounds offered to any member who can find the whereabouts, and bring us proof of the death of one Herbert Cheyne, whose father passed through our hands some years ago, and who is now a danger to our community!”

Cheyne started violently at mention of his name—grim enough, in the circumstances—and then noticed that Stella Daune had gone deathly pale and was swaying as though about to faint. It was curious how that sight warmed his heart.

Chapter 10

DISASTER!

“THE following profits have been made: Horace Dering, on account of the murder of his father, five thousand pounds. There is more to come! Thomas Mole, Henrietta Staling, Otto Schwartz and Adreas Constantinopulous, second payments, two thousand pounds each. I am pleased to state that the treasury is, at the moment, in a very healthy state—and the prospects are good. I have sent out two red postcards today, three more are pending—and we have, I think, a little business to do tonight!”

He bowed and passed back to his own chair.

The grim figure of the master-murderer rose once more.

“We have now, my children, some serious business to perform!” Beneath the harshness of his voice there was a strange undercurrent of satisfaction, so evil, so abhorrent, that many there, including Cheyne, shuddered visibly. “Kindly assume your headgear!”

In obedience to that command, every individual seated around the long table which took up the centre of the room lifted hands to his or her head and pulled over it a sort of white bag—the dreadful white cap used by the hangman in the last dread rites to muffle the victim’s sight and voice—except that, in this case, it was pierced by two eye-holes. A weird and dreadful sight!

The Murder-Master alone remained uncovered.

“Bring in the victim!”

From one of the curtained arches towards which he turned as he gave this command there issued a strange and awful trio. Between two masked men a third walked—with the aid of their support. He was a white-faced, dishevelled man in well-cut clothes, and his arms were fastened to his sides by the conventional harness of the gallows, the leg-straps dangling from the leather waist-belt as ho walked, or rather stumbled, along until he was halted by his warders and turned to face the Murder-Master, who looked at him with mad, glowing eyes and spoke in measured accents.

“Arthur Haines, you are now in the presence of the strangest and most dreadful assembly you have ever met. Every man and every woman in this room has stood, at some time or other, in the dread shadow of death, in which you yourself now stand! Only, in their case, it was death in its most dreadful form—the strangling rope of the gallows! Each and every one, by some means or other—by acquittal, by commutation of sentence, or by escape—has avoided that death, but all have suffered, and all are determined to wreak vengeance against society for their sufferings! And you are one of the chosen victims! Arthur Haines, it is my duty to inform you that you are about to die!”

He paused, and the bound man, with an obvious and terrible effort, found his tongue.

“But why? What have I done? It is not my fault that you have suffered.”

The voice of the Murder-Master, cold as ice, answered:

“You are a member of that society which permits such things to happen, that allows innocent men, as I was innocent, to be hauled to gaols, confined there for long months of torture, and, finally, to be acquitted and turned back into the world, shamed, disgraced and friendless, as I was, for a crime I never committed! Your death will form part of our vengeance; it will also form part of our profits, that is the irony of it. Your next-of-kin has already, unwittingly, agreed to pay us ten thousand pounds for your death. She will pay more thereafter, thanks to a little subtle blackmail!”

The man gave a great cry.

“My daughter? My Dorothy?”

The Murder-Master grinned horribly.

“Precisely! Your daughter has been living rather beyond her income—without telling you, she has been gambling, and has got into serious difficulties. In this manner she came into our hands. But these things hardly matter to you now! There is one thing, however, that does—we are going to extend to you a mercy which the average poor wretch, facing the gallows, does not get. You will be killed by the simple means of being frozen to death in an electric refrigerator. Our reason for doing this is that, after the body has been thawed out, no trace of the actual cause of death remains. You will be found somewhere, and an intelligent jury will bring in a verdict of natural death, on the evidence of an equally intelligent doctor who will pronounce that you died from heart failure—which will be perfectly true, so far as it goes!”

The victim said nothing, he appeared dazed with terror.

The Murder-Master gave a signal, and the two masked men swiftly secured his legs with the dangling straps, then picked up the helpless man and placed him in the great freezing machine.

The Murder-Master turned to the rest of the assembly.

“If any of you wish to withdraw you are at liberty to do so!”

Almost as one, the whole party rose and passed through one of the curtained arches. In a moment or two there were left only the two masked assistants, the Murder-Master himself and Auguste Kiniple left in the great room. The latter was smiling his blandest, but his eyes, with a curious, gloating expression in them, continually wandered to the refrigerator.

It was plain that Auguste Kiniple was enjoying himself!

The brain of Cheyne was seething, and through it all the time there ran one thought:

“My father suffered like this!”

He caught sight of Kiniple’s expression, and that finished him! With all that crowd there he had been helpless, now, with only four against him, he might do something.

Automatic in hand, he burst through the curtains.

“You dogs!”

Without change of expression, the Murder-Master glanced at him, and his hand went out to a little handle on the refrigerator. He turned it as the automatic barked, and a bullet chipped the enamel beside his hand. He withdrew his hand and sprang back. Kiniple was fumbling at his pocket.

Crack!

The second bullet found Kiniple before he could pull his gun, and he yelped like a kicked dog. Again Cheyne’s weapon spoke, and one of the masked men fell, cursing and writhing, on the floor. The other, crouching low, made a dash at Cheyne, who fired and missed him. Next second they were at grips and, in that second, the lights went out, and the place was plunged into darkness.

The masked man was tough and wiry, but Cheyne was almost mad with fury. He got the man by the hair and bashed his head against the edge of the table. He felt the skull crack beneath the force of the impact, and the fellow went limp in his grip. He released him, and, working from memory, groped his way to the refrigerator, found it, and, feeling for the locking-levers, turned them. He opened the door and a gush of ice-cold air almost made him choke. He coughed, and there was a spatter of flame in the darkness. A bullet sang past his head.

He crouched and felt for the man’s body in the safe, found it and pulled it out. It was so cold that it hurt his hands, but, still working from memory, he made for the door, carrying the bound man with him. Found the door, and, once out in the passage, laid the man down and turned his torch on him. A glance was enough.

The poor wretch was dead!

Cheyne remembered how the Murder-Master had turned that handle—evidently he had put the cursed thing on at full blast, and so made an end of his victim before he could be rescued.

Well he could do no more now. Best try to save himself. There were shouts coming from the room.

He dashed to the lift-door and opened it, and saw in a flash that the lift was not there. Looked around and discovered a button, like a bell-push. Pressed it home and heard with relief the lift descending.

The others were coming now—that crowd of desperate murderers—mighty little chance he’d have if they once got at him. Pistol in hand, he waited which should come first, the crowd or the lift. As it happened it was the latter, and he turned to leap into it and make a dash upwards for safety. Then, with a startled exclamation, he recoiled.

There was a man already in the lift—the stalwart figure of Sam the barman, with a revolver in his hand!

“Now then, you!” Sam snarled at him.

With strained, bloodshot eyes the hunted man stared round. The passage was a cul-de-sac—no hope there!

The element of surprise was always something, and if he could get through that crowd there might be some other exit!

He turned and dashed back into the room. All the men were crowding towards the door, most of them armed, and he plunged into the midst of them. He could not fire because there were women present, but he fought like twenty fiends with the butt of his pistol and one fist. He heard a woman’s voice scream:

“Herbert! My Heaven, Herbert!”

It was Stella’s voice. So she had recognised him!

He got a stunning blow on the back of the neck, and, at the same moment, somebody tripped him. He was down, with a crowd of them, cursing and striking, on top of him.

A crushing blow on the head, a flame of fire before his eyes—and then silence and darkness!

He was still in silence and darkness when he came to. As memory filtered back into his aching head he tried to move, and found that he could not. He was securely and artistically bound, hand and foot!

He realised that his position was indeed desperate. These men would stick at nothing, and, knowing him a menace to them, they were eager for his blood.

Suddenly, in the darkness, there came a stealthy movement—a queer, rustling sound, as of a woman’s garments.

Then a hand, a soft, scented hand, moved over his body.

“What’s the idea?” he said hoarsely, “Going to make an end of me?”

There came a quick, suppressed: “Hush!” and then what sounded like a muffled sob in a woman’s voice. Then a sharp, pricking sensation in his forearm—again that rustling, and silence. He was alone in the darkness once more.

Then two men came and lifted him up. They carried him into the great hall again. He looked for Stella, but she, and most of the others had gone. The Murder-Master was there; Kiniple, with his arm in a hastily constructed sling, and some half-dozen others.

The Murder-Master bent over him, his face convulsed, his deepset eyes blazing with mad hate.

“Glad to have you, my friend! D’you know why I killed your father? Well, I’ll tell you—because he was guilty of the murder of which I was accused. That’s why! Now I’ve got you, and so the accursed brood is wiped out! Later, your friend, Inspector New, will get a pleasant little surprise!”

His mad rage mastered him so that he could no longer speak, and he signed to the others. They picked Cheyne up and thrust him into the refrigerator, and closed the door with a clang, leaving him lying on the metal grating in pitch darkness.

So this was the end!

A humming sound and a rush of ice-cold air which seemed to be tearing at his lungs like the teeth of wild animals. A roaring in his ears and a horrid sensation of sinking. And then he knew no more.

Chapter 11

THE LAST JUDGMENT

THE following night, Detective-inspector New and a strong force of armed constabulary raided the club in Grosvenor Road, and found the place deserted.

New found the lift and went down. The place below was stripped and empty—all that was left was the refrigerator—and in that was a card bearing the familiar representation of a gibbet, and written on it in pencil: “With kind regards to Detective-inspector New.—M. M.”

New cursed and retired in good order. It was all there was to do, for the master murderer and his gang had disappeared as completely as though they had vanished into thin air.

The offices of Mr. Auguste Kiniple were visited and found to be deserted. Other branch clubs of the League of Hope Renewed knew nothing of the whereabouts of either their president or the committee. At Pontifex Dale’s private residence, the servants stated that he was away on the Continent.

But Inspector New was not beaten yet!

A week later the police arrested a man, who called himself Alfred Neech, for the murder of Denis O’Brien. He was brought up at the police court, committed for trial, laid a month in gaol, and was then tried at the Old Bailey and acquitted.

Ho made a strong speech from the dock on the injustice done to him, and how his career had been ruined. It struck some people as curious that he should have been allowed to do this, but the speech was widely reported in the paper.

Two days later, Alfred Neech received a curiously worded letter:

“Sir,—If you really mean what you said in the dock the other day, there are those who will be pleased to help you. Call at the Hotel Magnificent and ask for Mr. Blunden, who will be glad to explain to you.

“A FRIEND.”

Alfred Neech went, and was invited to join the League of Hope Renewed and to serve on the committee, for which the one qualification was that a would-be member must have stood his trial for murder. Neech accepted the offer willingly. Blunden would not tell him where the headquarters of the gang were, but called for him in his car and whirled him down into the country. But, fast as they went, there were those who kept them in sight—a little chain of cars, in fact, running some distance apart, and covering a mile or so of road.

Blunden never saw the shadowing cars. They were directed by various means—by wireless and by patrols of police who were out on every road leading out of London. Scotland Yard was on its mettle, and the police in all the southern counties, previously warned, were co-operating nobly.

Through Streatham, Norbury, Croydon and Merstham the shadowed car sped—and the pursuers unerringly followed. At last, just beyond Redhill, the car turned into a by-road, and, a few minutes later, sped up to the front door of a lonely, old-fashioned manor-house, and Alfred Neech alighted and entered the place.

The room into which he was taken was a replica of the one which had been at the Grosvenor Road Club. There were a crowd of people present—the committee was in full force.

Neech entered the room nervously. He was a young man, with rather full face and a curiously upturned nose. His hair was long and fair, and he had a small moustache, a slight impediment in his speech, and walked with a pronounced stoop.

At sight of the ghastly representation of the gibbet on the curtains he fell back, shuddering.

The Murder-Master, from his usual seat, laughed harshly.

“It is well, my friend, that you should be reminded of your luck in escaping this little instrument!” he said. Then, leaning forward in his chair, he explained all about the Committee of the League of Hope Renewed, the reasons for its existence, its aims and objects, and its past activities. He spoke of the coldblooded crimes committed, with a horrible pride and exultation.

Alfred Neech listened with a curious look of impassivity on his round, full face.

“Now, Alfred Neech,” the Murder-Master concluded. “You have heard all about us! Are you still willing to join us?”

Neech was plainly nervous. He glanced down on the floor, up at the ceiling, and finally at the watch on his wrist.

He asked some questions—rather idle ones. They were answered patiently up to a point, and then came the question again:

“Now, Neech, answer me—do you join us, or do you not?”

There was a threat behind the question, and, after a momentary hesitation, came the answer in Neech’s thick, slurred voice:

“Yes, if you please, sir!”

“Very well! Now, listen—of late we have had trouble. We are no longer sure whom we can trust—and we have got to be sure of you! Are you willing to prove your loyalty?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

The harsh, rasping voice of the Murder-Master rose:

“Bring in the traitor!”

As he spoke he rose, and then, from behind one of the black velvet curtains, three women stepped forward, two of them guarding the third, who was pinioned with straps in the conventional manner of the condemned murderer about to meet her fate.

All eyes were on the prisoner, and so it was that nobody noticed the convulsive start which Alfred Neech gave when he saw her face.

For the pinioned girl was Stella Daune!

“This woman,” rasped the voice of Pontifex Dale, “a member of the society, befriended by the society, a servant of the society—has proved herself a traitor. She has been in communication with our natural enemies, the police. For this reason she has been condemned to die. Alfred Neech, to prove your fidelity, and to bind you to us inviolably, you have been selected to act as one of the executioners. The other two will be chosen by ballot.”

Stella was deathly pale, but she stood there, beneath the gallows, straight, tall and unflinching.

Alfred Neech, trembling in every limb, shambled forward, glancing furtively at his watch as he did so. He addressed the Murder-Master in a low trembling voice:

“I—I didn’t reckon on this, sir. I—I——”

The Murder-Master leaned towards him, fixing him with a baleful ey,. and hissed:

“Fool! Do you imagine that I should have let you into our secrets if I had not intended that you should be bound inviolably to us? You have gone too far now to draw back—seen and heard too much! You will either do this, or——”

The sentence needed no ending, and Neech, recoiling with a shudder, took in a trembling hand the revolver that Pontifex Dale handed to him.

Under the direction of the Murder-Master the rest drew lots—with the exception of the women. A negro and the man who had really killed O’Brien drew the fatal numbers—and both seemed pleased rather than otherwise about it!

The Murder-Master pointed to the end of the room:

“There is a clock there!” he announced. “When the hour hand reaches the hour, the clock will strike—ten. On the first stroke you three will fire—simultaneously—and launch this pretty traitor into eternity!”

Neech, thinking hard, met the eyes of Kiniple. The fat face was set and tense—veins standing out on the high, white forehead. Kiniple was gloating over the situation with huge delight—and there were other faces like that amongst the crowd, too! Neech fought with a sense of nausea. Heaven knew, he needed all his faculties unimpaired at the moment!

There came an unexpected interruption. The man known as the Doctor suddenly left the crowd and, with a quick movement, placed himself in front of the bound form of Stella.

“By Heaven, you shan’t do it!” he shouted, his face dead white and his eyes narrowed and blazing. “I love that girl—and if you want to kill her, you’ve got to kill me first!”

His hands leapt from his pockets, a revolver in each. One gun threatened the Murder-Master himself, the other made patterns over the heads of the tense crowd.

“The first one of you that moves—dies!” he snapped.

No one seemed to move, but almost immediately there came a sharp “crack,” and with a choking gasp the man reeled and fell. Auguste Kiniple had fired through the cloth of his side-pocket!

“It is two minutes to the hour!” The rasping voice of Pontifex Dale was calm and unmoved. “Take your places, you three!”

Alfred Neech was in an agony of anxiety—for at ten o’clock Inspector New and his men were due to make their raid—and the clock was three minutes fast!

He and the other men took their positions where the Murder-Master indicated—facing Stella and about twelve feet away. The face of Kiniple was almost purple and beads of sweat stood out on his brow. His little, piggy eyes gloated horribly over the form of the bound and helpless girl, who was about to die before his eyes.

As for Neech, he was in a cold perspiration. He was racking his brains to find some means to save that girl—for saved she had to be, he was determined about that. But how could he protect her for just that two minutes before the police would make their entrance.

There was just one possibility. He must take a chance—a desperate one enough, but still—a chance!

His eyes became glued on the clock. The large hand moved forward with a series of small jerks—one for each fifteen seconds. There were now two left to go!

Came the voice of Pontifex Dale, the Murder-Master:

“Get ready!”

Oh, he was ready enough—but time was everything, he must hang it out to the very last second. That second might make all the difference between life and death!

The clock-hand jerked forward again!

Silently, Alfred Neech was counting. One—two—three—five—seven—ten!

Five seconds to go! Now!

With a sudden and unexpected movement his arms shot out, and the murderer of O’Brien on the one side, and the nigger on the other, went spinning away and crashed to the ground.

With one leap he was standing in front of the girl, covering her so that she was safe, for the moment, from any flying bullets.

One came even then. It was from the gun of the murderer of O’Brien—and it missed.

Crack! Neech fired, and the fellow collapsed with a scream and lay writhing on the floor.

“That’s one for O’Brien, anyway!”

Kiniple had risen from his chair. He and the Murder-Master were coming at him when his revolver covered them and he played his last, desperate card.

Only two minutes to go!

“Stop!” Neech faced the two men with a curious smile on his lips and his unwavering revolver covered them. “You have murdered—or been responsible for the murder—of many people! Have none of them ever come back to haunt you?”

The Murder-Master laughed.

“No—we do our work too thoroughly! Stand away from there and let us get at the girl. We’ll deal with you later!”

“One moment!”

For an instant his free hand went up to his face—and then even the Murder-Master started back with a cry.

Gone was the long fair hair and the little moustache, and with them the two half-sections of rubber ball, removed from inside his cheeks, and the invisible wire clip from the hitherto upturned nostrils! The man facing them was no longer Alfred Neech! From Kiniple there came a horrible, strangled cry:

“Herbert Cheyne—or his phantom! Great Heaven!”

His face went purple, and in another second he was on the floor in a fit. Others of the crowd, recognising Cheyne, fell back with exclamations of horror and fear.

Before they could recover themselves there came a distant crash, and then, with a rush of feet, New and his men burst into the room.

“Betrayed, by heavens!” shouted the Murder-Master—and then he did an amazing thing.

Turning swiftly to the writhing figure of Kiniple, he levelled his weapon and calmly shot the helpless man. Then he tried to turn the revolver on himself, but New leapt on him like a panther.

“No, you don’t!” he said grimly. “We have other ideas on that subject, Mr. Pontifex Dale!”

Two other officers seized the Murder-Master and held him securely. Inspector New turned to the man who was holding the swooning girl in his arms.

“Better get her out of here, Doctor!” he said quietly. “We’ll have a chat later, you and I!”

• • • • • •

A couple of months later, Inspector New and Herbert Cheyne sat together in a West End restaurant. They had dined well, for they were celebrating Cheyne’s last night of bachelorhood.

“Well,” remarked the detective as he luxuriously puffed his fat Corona, “it’s been said before—but I may as well say it again: ‘All’s well that ends well!’ ”

Cheyne smiled a little grimly.

“I doubt if Pontifex Dale feels like that about it!” he commented.

“I guess Dale’s not feeling anything much, at the moment. Our friend the public executioner does his work too well for that!”

Cheyne nodded.

“A curious thing, though, that Dale should have gone to the gallows for the murder of his best friend! It’s always puzzled me why he shot him like that!”

The detective shrugged.

“I fancy it was some sort of a compact between them,” he said. “That they would never be taken alive—and, as Kiniple was incapable of committing suicide at the moment, Dale killed him before he tried to kill himself.”

Cheyne nodded.

“Likely enough you’re right,” he said, “Anyway, as you say, all’s well—the biggest murder gang in history has been cleaned up, and you’ve won promotion through it!”

“Really it was you who should have won the promotion,” commented New. “You certainly did most of the work.”

Cheyne smiled.

“I’ve won something better than that!” he said. “The sweetest little wife in the world!”

“And, by George, one of the cleverest! If she hadn’t been sharp enough to remember the dope and the hypodermic the doctor-fellow left on the table that night the gang got you—well, you’d never have woken up in Hyde Park and found that you were alive, after all, would you?”

Cheyne shook his head.

“No, and we might never have run the Murder-Master to earth, either! Well, young fellow-my-lad, what about getting home to bed? You, as best man, will have a hard day’s work to-morrow!”

“Maybe!” grinned the detective as he rose from his chair. “But, by George, I’ve had less enjoyable ones!”

THE END

THE CASE OF THE CLIMBING CORPSE

GWYN EVANS

CHAPTER I

ENTER NUMBER ONE

THE offices of Jas. Brown, in Cobbett Court, that quiet little backwater of Fleet Street, near the Temple, were eminently respectable.

For that matter so also was Mr. Jas. Brown.

It is one of the charms of the Metropolis, and especially of the E.C. district of London, that it is possible to step from the roaring traffic of the twentieth century into the leisurely peace of the nineteenth, the calm and dignified seclusion of the eighteenth or even the romance of the twelfth in a minute or two.

Fleet Street, that extraordinary thoroughfare of ink and adventure which literally hums day and night with the roar of high-powered rotary machines, disseminating news garnered and winnowed from the four corners of the earth, is particularly rich in these unexpected pools of quietude.

One can step from a six-wheeled omnibus at Temple Bar with its hideous griffin where once the still more hideous heads of traitors leered down on a mediaeval mob and enter within a few minutes the calm sedentary seclusion of King’s Bench Walk, redolent with memories of the past.

On one’s left one of the oldest churches in England, sheltered lovingly from the march of progress by those watchful keepers of the storied past, the men of law, rears its round Norman tower skyward. Within its hushed silence lie buried the gallant Templars who wrested the Holy Lands from the Saracens, and in its calm austerity it seems as if it were only yesterday.

Hard by one can wander through Pump Court and find the grave of gentle Noll Goldsmith, who “spoke like poor Poll and wrote like an angel.” Or, if one prefers, stroll through the Temple Gardens with Tom Pinch and Ruth.

Every age is represented near that miraculous thoroughfare, the Street of Ink. It is the street of peradventure, but most certainly not “Peradventure he Sleepeth,” for Fleet Street has not slept by day or night since the Press achieved the proud distinction of the Fourth Estate.

But before we leave the Temple one must give tribute to the greatest name in all our English history. Here once a strolling player named William Shakespeare acted in his own play by a Royal command of Queen Elizabeth.

Whereat, says the old historian, her Majestie was mightilie pleased with the playwright.

One mentions Shakespeare in order to emphasise the genius of Mr. Jas. Brown, for he had a genius for the commonplace.

He lived hard by the Temple in Cobbett’s Court. Hardly a sound from the Street of Ink disturbed the calm serenity of that quaint little court which has changed hardly a whit since the days when portly Dr. Sam Johnson, accompanied by Spindle Shank Bozzy, dined and wined and spoke so magnificently in the very room in which Mr. Jas. Brown now sat.

Situated on the second floor of an austere Queen Anne house, the exterior with its mellow red brickwork gave little indication of the luxury within. But then Mr. Jas. Brown disliked ostentation. He was as shy and as reticent as Cobbett’s Court itself.

The unobtrusive little brass plate about the size of a doll’s visiting-card was his one concession to the modem business slogan—“It Pays to Advertise.”

It bore simply in old English letters the legend:

Jas. Brown (Agent).

What he was agent for no one troubled to inquire. It certainly did not interest his neighbours, grave old solicitors, snuffy attorneys at law, who anathematised progress and had never heard of “Pep.”

Mr. Brown in England was accountable to no one for his actions, at least, so it seemed. He paid no rent for the offices, for the simple reason that he owned the whole of Cobbett’s Court. His business must have been select but lucrative, for in the past six months since he acquired the leasehold of Cobbett’s Court, hardly six men had been known to call on him.

He was seated now at an exquisite Chippendale escritoire and gazed with frank approval at the Grinling Gibbons carving of his mahogany. The room was furnished with exquisite taste that stamped Mr. Jas. Brown’s love of the eighteenth century.

There was something vaguely Georgian about the cut of his clothes. He was a tall, dark man with greying hair, a handsome if slightly sallow face of the hue of old parchment, delicately ornamented by two grey wisps of side whiskers. His clothes had the indefinable stamp of Savile Row. His high stock collar and perfectly-tied cravat were reminiscent of Beau Brummel at his best.

Mr. Jas. Brown was a hundred per cent American.

The only concession to his native land that was apparent in that charming room which overlooked the silver sheen of the Thames was one of his own country’s greatest boons to mankind—the telephone.

Perhaps because he realised that it was an anachronism, and that it raised a somewhat discordant note in the mellow mahogany surroundings, Mr. Brown lifted the receiver with a sigh.

He called a certain number in Whitehall and waited a little, drumming the beautiful waxen surface of his Chippendale desk with fingers long and slender and the faint rose hue of old ivory.

At the other end of the wire in a quiet, shabbily-furnished room just off Whitehall an insignificant little man in a snuff-coloured suit lifted up his vulcanite receiver and stroked his drooping moustache.

In appearance he resembled a thousand and one other middle-aged, precisely dressed and conventional civil servants, who from ten to five daily attend to the dull routine of Empire at Whitehall to return on the five-twenty to gloomy little boardinghouses in Balham, Bloomsbury or—greatly daring—Thornton Heath.

Mr. Armitage, as he was known to his fellow civil servants, was a drab little man who lived in a hideous rough-cast, semi-detached dwelling place in Golders Green. His hobby was bridge, and his collection of birds’ eggs was probably unrivalled in the north-west district of London.

He was a member of the dullest club in St. James’, and his intellect was probably the keenest in the whole civil service.

He possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of foreign politics, and as for secret diplomacy, he was probably Europe’s leading authority on that intricate subject.

In his immediate entourage he was known as Mr. Armitage, but to the grim, hard-bitten, keen-witted members of the British Secret Service he was referred to simply as Number One, or He Who Must Be Obeyed.

His taciturnity was a legend of the Service. He seldom censured and never praised. Behind his dome-like forehead, however, he possessed one of the most brilliant brains that was ever placed at the disposal of Empire.

He could, if he had wished, have achieved high honour, but he preferred to live as he did.

His unique gifts, however, were known to that little band of devoted servants who in all parts of the world and in many guises guard the interests of Empire with little hope of reward save the thrill of the game. It is significant that of the six callers Mr. Jas. Brown had received in his chambers at Cobbett’s Court that Mr. Armitage should have been three of them.

Each recognised the other’s sterling worth. James Brown, multi-millionaire, owner of the vast Brown Publishing Syndicate of America, was an ardent friend of England. He preferred to serve his country by establishing Anglo-American friendship to joining the wild, mad scramble for power which the jingoes of both countries indulged in.

Mr. Armitage, blue pencil poised above a secret dispatch from Afghanistan announcing the movements of Tubla Khan, the latest pretender to the throne, smiled slightly as he heard the voice of the chief of the European branch of the American Secret Service.

With the characteristic British phlegm which induced Stanley, the explorer, after incredible hardships to remark: “Dr. Livingstone I presume?” he replied.

“Is that Mr. Brown?”

“Mr. Brown speaking,” was the quiet reply. “Would you mind putting me on to Mr. Armitage, Mr. Vincent Armitage of the department of accounts and queries?”

“Armitage speaking,” said the head of the British Secret Service. “What can I do for you?”

“Ah, Mr. Armitage, I trust your lumbago is better? I have a young friend named Snaith, Mr. William Snaith, arriving with some samples of German ferro-concretes this evening. I wonder if I would be presuming too much on our very pleasant acquaintanceship if I asked you to facilitate his progress on his arrival? He is staying at the Hotel Cosmo, and as he is rather unversed in London ways, I should be so grateful if you would keep an eye upon him.”

“My dear sir, I shall be delighted,” replied Mr. Armitage urbanely. “You mustn’t forget that you owe me my revenge for the last rubber of bridge we had together in the National Forum Club.”

“My conscience has been pricking me ever since, Mr. Armitage,” replied Mr. Jas. Brown. “Incidentally, I must hold you to your long standing promise to come and see my collection of birds’ eggs.”

Mr. Armitage chuckled softly.

“Exceedingly remiss of me, my dear sir. I shall be delighted to dine with you on Thursday if you are disengaged?”

“That will suit me admirably. Shall we call it seven p.m.?”

“Excellent,” said the laconic Mr. Armitage, and rang off.

He waited a moment or two and suddenly into his thin, pale face there crept an expression which few save the Companions of the Road had been permitted to see.

He dialled an additional telephone and his thin lips set in a grim, hard line.

“Scotland Yard, special branch,” he snapped. “One speaking. Give me Sir Playfair Roon.”

He waited a moment and his voice was laconic and incisive.

“That you, Roon? One speaking.”

Sir Playfair Roon, head of the Special branch of Scotland Yard, barked an affirmative.

“There’s a man named Snaith, the American Secret Service, arriving at 10.30 this evening at Croydon aerodrome. Guard him well, he is on a secret and diplomatic mission and must be given all facilities to arrive at Southampton to catch the Berengaria to-morrow morning without mishap.

“I happen to know that it is vital for Anglo-American friendship that he gets through. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Number One,” said Sir Playfair Roon, humbly.

Mr. Armitage rang off and poised his pencil delicately over a cablegram received from Agent 19 in Mukden, China, describing the machinations of a man named Ratski. Few people would have realised save the members of the Secret Service themselves, that the pleasant spoken conversation between two middle-aged old gentlemen, was in elaborate code.

It meant that Mr. William Snaith, an agent of the American Secret Service, would have a clear passport and police protection while he stayed in England.

Very solemnly, Mr. Armitage entered the cablegram from his Mukden correspondent into a locked volume. Then, yawning slightly and caressing his drooping grey moustache turned to leave.

On his desk was a leather bound copy of Shakespeare’s plays. He rustled the leaves idly with his fingers and with a whimsical smile, remarked.

“ ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be.’ ”

CHAPTER II

THE SECRET MISSION

MR. JULIUS JONES, the dour Welsh night news editor of the Daily Radio absently dipped his pen into his lukewarm teacup and raised a brimming inkwell to his lips, when a stentorian yell froze him into immobility as Splash Page, the dynamic star crime reporter, catapulted into the news room.

“Your mannerrs arre getting almost as bad as yourr morrals,” said Julius Jones. “There is certain amount of dignity to be obserrved in the Strreet of Ink—especially to yourr news editorr.”

Splash Page, so-called because of his uncanny knack of securing sensational stories liberally bedecked with headlines, grinned widely.

“Sorry, Julius, but I think you’ve got quite enough ink in your system without absorbing any more.”

“Huh!” grunted the news editor, ungraciously replacing the pewter inkstand and lifting up his lukewarm tea.

With his sandy moustache drooping over his disgruntled lips and his hair flying wildly in the current dispensed by an electric fan, he looked, Splash thought, like a cross between a bemused walrus and a bewildered cockatoo.

“What’s biting you now, Herod?” he inquired pleasantly. “Fed up about the infant mortality rate?”

Julius Jones sucked at the disreputable clay cutty he affected, and frowned gloomily at the number of flimsies on the “spike.”

“Not a single decent murrderr, Splash,” he grumbled. “The rag is as dull as a speech by Lorrd Passmorre on the ethics of the economical structure applied to foot and mouth disease.”

Splash Page grinned.

“Poor old Julius, you want a nice ‘juicy murrderr’ to cheer you up, I suppose? Three murrderrs a day, keep your Willies away——”

“And that’s a fact, sirr,” breathed the news editor. He plunged his hand frenziedly into the mass of papers on his desk and unearthed his famous “crimegraph.”

Julius had a theory that all crimes, whether they ranged from the theft of apples by a schoolboy to the dismemberment of a duke, fell into some obscure law of rhythm which he himself had invented.

Be that as it may, there was no doubt about it that Julius Jones’s forecasts were uncannily accurate.

From some obscure source—Splash said it was the great pyramid—Julius derived a full weekly list of every crime committed in all the civilised places of Europe. His hobby was to tabulate the same and deduce from a premise the probability of another crime.

It was a rough and ready method, and had rather interested that great criminologist, Commander Chester Brett of Cheyne Walk when he called at the offices of the Daily Radio.

The gentle Julius’ especial delight in his character and calendar was marked by a symbolical red and crimson pencil.

He called it “Murrderr Day,” and according to to is abstruse theory, it took place once per month.

The amusing part of the whole thing was that in eight cases out of ten the man was quite right.

Splash Page grinned. He admired the brilliant brain and tenacity of purpose which had brought a humble little printer’s devil to his present exalted position.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes,” he said, amidst the rat-tat-tat of the reporters’ typewriters and the swoosh of the pneumatic tube which was connected with the linotype room.

“Then, go and find it,” snapped Julius Jones. “What’s the use of having a high class crime rreporrterr if he can’t reporrt a high class crime?”

Splash Page executed a few dainty steps and pirouetted around the room.

“Oh, boy!” he breathed ecstatically. “And how?”

Julius Jones did not reply.

Still sucking moodily at his clay pipe, he opened a cablegram from Hobart, Tasmania, announcing the fact that an old lady, aged a hundred and four, had just flown a hundred miles to a hairdresser’s, and described it as:

“Uneventful.”

“If only the old dear had fallen out!” murmured Julius regretfully. “What a storry!”

The swing door swooshed open and a gingerheaded printer’s devil entered with an orange envelope.

Julius took it automatically and equally automatically consigned the devil to the lower regions.

He ripped it open and, in his usual lackadaisical fashion, scanned its contents.

It was from the Vladivostok correspondent of the Daily Radio, and announced the sudden death of a man named Jones, who had died under mysterious circumstances in the province of Chang Fou.

“I wonder if he was a relative of mine?” said Julius as he absently spiked the flimsy. “It takes a man named Jones to be murrderred nearr Vladivostok.”

Splash Page grinned amiably.

• • • • • •

The arrival of Mr. William Snaith at Croydon Aerodrome from the vast Junker ’plane, which had left Berlin a little over three hours before, was as unobtrusive as his own very undistinguished appearance.

He was a youngish man, with thinning fair hair, a rather solemn, horse-like face, and a nasal twang which betrayed his transatlantic nationality.

The Customs formalities at Croydon are not unpleasant, but efficient and soon over. Mr. Snaith duly opened his one leather valise for inspection, and it was duly passed by a courteous Customs official, who betrayed a mild curiosity in half a dozen heavy concrete bricks, about six inches long, reposing in the bottom of the bag.

A quiet word from a redfaced plainclothes man hovering near the entrance of the Customs, however, allayed his curiosity, and Mr. Snaith stepped aboard an Airways private omnibus with the few passengers who had flown with him from Germany.

They were a heterogeneous lot. Two or three obvious Germans, with square heads, bristling moustaches and guttural accents, typical commercial travellers in appearance. There was an elderly, white-haired lady dressed in unrelieved black, and her companion, a strikingly pretty girl, clad in a three-piece suit, with a tight-fitting helmet-shaped toque moulded close to her shingled head. Her one article of jewellery was simple but striking. An emerald arrow gleamed vividly and greenly against the black of her hat.

The debonair young man, dressed in a fleecy grey overcoat and a grey Homburg hat, with a somewhat vacuous expression enhanced by a monocle screwed into his left eye, and a burly, redfaced figure in a blue serge suit, with a billycock hat perched at an aggressive angle on his bullet head, comprised the rest of the passengers on the bus.

The latter, however, had not arrived from Germany. From his square-toed boots to the crown of his bowler hat, he was blatantly and unmistakably British.

The Hotel Cosmo is one of those modest-fronted, discreet but rather expensive hotels just off St. James’s.

It is used in the main by the better class of tourists, and minor royalty, knowing the discretion of M. Valenta, the manager, have often been known to stay there incognito.

Mr. William Snaith descended from the omnibus and, clutching his sample-case, registered himself at the reception-desk in simple, non-committal phrase:

WILLIAM P. SNAITH,

Sales Manager.

AMERICAN FERRO-CONCRETE CO.,

Pittsburg, Pa.

It was nearly seven p.m., and, parking his overcoat in the cloak-room, he took his key from the reception-clerk and proceeded to his room on the third floor, preceded by a diminutive pageboy.

“Number fifty-four, sir,” announced Buttons unnecessarily, opening the door with a flourish.

“Thanks, son,” returned Mr. Snaith laconically.

He entered a comfortable bed-sittingroom. The apartments at the Cosmo are comfortable without being ostentatious.

He glanced round approvingly and saw a mall single bed in the corner of the room, a desk on which reposed a telephone, two easy-chairs, an electric radiator in the grate, and the usual appurtenances.

The window, he noticed with satisfaction, gave on to a deep well with glazed tiled walls. There was no fire-escape on that side of the building—a fact which seemed to afford Mr. Snaith a certain amount of satisfaction.

He had scarcely deposited his valise on the bed and was finishing his toilet, when a knock sounded at the door, and with an exclamation of surprise Snaith opened it.

Framed on the threshold stood the burly, redfaced man who had accompanied him in the bus from Croydon.

“Good evening, Mr. Snaith!” he greeted the American. “My name is Barker—Detective-inspector Barker of Scotland Yard.”

“Waal, say, now,” drawled Mr Snaith, “that’s mighty kinda you to call an’ have me know you! Won’t you sit down, inspector? Try one o’ these cigars?”

He held out an ornate silver case, and the Yard man carefully selected a weed.

Mr. Snaith sat down in his armchair and flung one lean leg over the other.

“I guess that’s mighty slick of you to locate me so soon, inspector.”

Barker grunted his appreciation of the compliment and the cigar.

“That’s all right, sir. We received instructions that you’d be arriving by the 6.30 ’plane. You’re leaving in the morning, I take it, by the 8.30 boat-train for Southampton?”

“You’re right, inspector,” said the American. “An’ I ain’t stirring out of this hotel until that time. I can do all my work by ’phone, an’ it ain’t safe, I guess, to wander round London, in the circumstances.”

“Quite right, sir,” said Barker decisively. “I don’t want to seem too obtrusive, but I may say we’ve kept in touch with your movements ever since we heard you were leaving Berlin. We have received information that Shaylor caught the 6.35 air liner from Munich.”

“Shaylor?” echoed Mr. Snaith. “The devil, you did!”

“Furthermore,” continued Barker, rubbing his bristly moustache with a slight air of complacence, “Lili la Rue, alias Orinoco Lil, disappeared very suddenly from the Hotel Triumphe, Paris, two nights ago.”

“Blue Bells!” said Snaith, and his face went grey. “Then the sooner I’m aboard the Berengaria the better!”

“Of one thing you may be certain, sir,” said Barker. “Neither Shaylor nor the girl will be able to get aboard the ship. We’ll attend to that.

“Furthermore, a Scotland Yard executive, with one of your own Special Branch men, will accompany you as far as Washington.”

Mr. Snaith’s hand crept to his hip. He withdrew a vicious-looking Derringer automatic.

“I reckon I can look after myself pretty well inspector,” he remarked. “I’ve done it up to now.”

Barker shook his head. He had the Scotland Yard man’s instinctive prejudice against firearms.

“I have posted one of our men as a temporary lift attendant on this floor, sir,” he announced. “I myself shall be within call if you need me.”

Mr. Snaith yawned and replaced his automatic.

“Thanks! That seems kinda satisfactory,” he remarked.

“If it’s not too personal,” said Barker, “do you intend dining in your room, or downstairs, sir?”

The American shrugged.

“I guess I’ll eat in the dining-room. I’ve gotta lot o’ reports to make to-night and shall turn in early.”

“Just as you wish, sir.”

“An’, say, if you’d care to join me at dinner, I’d be mighty glad to have your company,” added Mr. Snaith hospitably.

Barker hesitated.

“I hardly think that’s advisable, sir,” he said, and, preening his scrubby moustache, added, not without complacence:

“I am rather well known in the West End, and it may draw attention to yourself.”

“Just as you like,” said the American, and, pressing the bell-push, ordered up a bottle of Scotch.

Barker shared a drink and, with a few admonitory remarks, took his leave.

Mr. Snaith completed his toilet and leisurely-descended the stairs into the lounge.

From the tail of his eye he saw Barker sitting with elaborate unconcern behind a palm, ostensibly reading an evening newspaper.

He passed into the dining-room and chose an unobtrusive table in the corner.

Barker finished his cigar and helped himself to one of the vicious-looking black cheroots he affected.

“Why, hallo, Barker, dear old sleuth!” said a cheerful voice at his elbow. “Hitting the high spots?”

Barker frowned irritably. The last man he wanted to see at that moment was Splash Page, the star crime reporter of the Daily Radio.

“Huh, it’s you, is it?” he grunted.

“It ain’t anyone else but,” returned Splash. “Have a cocktail?”

“Now see here, Splash,” said the Yard man. “I——”

Splash Page shaded his eyes to tone the somewhat hectic hue of the Yard man’s tie.

“My occulist told me to be very careful with my eyes,” he remarked. “What are you doing at the Cosmo, Barker?”

“Minding my own business!” snapped the inspector, as Splash signalled the hovering waiter. “It’s a pity you can’t mind yours.”

Splash smiled amiably.

“I’ve often thought that the only drawback of my brilliant career as a journalist, Barker, is that I was not born twins, so that I could be in two places at once.”

“Twins!” echoed Barker, with a grunt of disgust. “Thank Heaven there’s only one of you!”

“Beau Reville’s back,” said Splash Page unexpectedly.

“What’s that?” ejaculated the Yard man.

“Monty Reville, alias Beau Reville, the cleverest con. man of this or any other country, arrived from the Continent this evening,” announced Splash Page complacently.

“How d’you know?” demanded Parker, in a disgruntled voice.

“The power of the Press,” responded Splash sweetly. “Furthermore, I’m dining with him this evening.”

The Yard man’s protuberant eyes goggled.

“Dining with him?” he echoed.

“Certainly,” replied Splash. “Any objection? I like Beau. He’s an engaging cove, and he can tie a cravat better than any man in Europe.”

“One of these days,” growled Barker, “he’ll have a cravat tied for him—a hemp one!”

Splash Page chuckled, and helped himself to a cigarette.

“Don’t be absurd, Parker! You know that Beau never uses any violence. He gets away with his stuff by sheer charm of personality, and, for a crook, he’s a very fine fellow.”

Barker’s face purpled, for at that moment a slim, elegant figure strolled across the lounge. He was dressed in what lady novelists call “immaculate” evening dress. It was a phrase that Mr. Beau Reville abhorred.

From the tips of his glossy patent-leather pumps to the crown of his sleek, black patent-leather hair he was sartorial perfection.

His clean-cut features were bronzed, and his lazy blue eyes twinkled mischievously as they rested on the pair in the alcove.

“Handsome men are slightly sunburnt,” said Splash, as Mr. Reville dropped his monocle at the end of its silken cord, and advanced to meet them with outstretched hand.

Barker frowned disgustedly. In the comparative darkness of the bus he had not recognised the languid young man who had landed with Mr. Snaith that evening. It was some years since the engaging Mr. Reville had confined his operations to the West End of London. The Riviera and the Transatlantic liners had been his haunts during his unlamented absence from the Metropolis, and, judging from the neat but undoubtedly expensive black pearl studs in his waistcoat, it had not been an unlucrative period.

“Meet an old friend of yours, Beau,” said Splash.

“Why, Mr. Barker, how are you?” smiled Reville. “This is indeed an unexpected pleasure. How are all my good friends at the Yard?”

Barker’s face purpled.

“Funny, ain’t you?” he snapped. “You watch your step, Mr. Reville, otherwise——”

He did not finish the sentence, but paused eloquently.

“Dear, dear, dear!” said the con. man. “This is hardly the welcome I would have expected from you, my dear fellow. Here am I, an exile, returning back to the jolly old Metropolis, and the friend of my youth speaks almost harshly to me. Tut, tut, Barker, I diagnose that you have been indulging in far too many cocktails lately. You’re a bit liverish.

“It’s very sad to see a worthy upholder of the glorious traditions of Sir Robert Peel indulging in the gay night life of the West End.”

Barker’s face was a study. Impudence had long been Reville’s forte. He was, to use Barker’s remark, as clever as the devil himself, and as persuasive.

Though the Yard know perfectly well that he had robbed guileless tourists of thousands of pounds by means of the confidence trick, they had never yet been able to obtain sufficient evidence to arrest the debonair crook, let alone convict him.

“Now what d’you say to joining us in a little dinner, my dear Barker?” said Reville.

Barker folded up his copy of the Evening Wireless with decision, and rose stiffly to his feet.

He glanced meaningly at the journalist.

“A man is known by the company he keeps,” he said significantly. “Watch out for yourself, Reville.”

“I’m watching!”

“Dear little guardian angel!” chuckled the crook. “By the by, I have brought some rather valuable jewellery with me from Dusseldorf, Barker. I am rather anxious about it. Isn’t it possible to engage the services of one of your honest, if unintelligent, flatties to guard it for me until I can place it in my safe deposit? I believe one can hire policemen.”

Barker, apoplectic with fury, jammed his hard bowler-hat on his head, and stalked out of the lounge without a word.

“Poor old Barkie!” laughed Splash Page. “Honestly, Beau, you’ll come a cropper one of these days,” he warned.

The con. man smiled.

“You’ve been telling me that for years, my friend,” he remarked. “You got my wire?”

Splash Page nodded.

“Yes, thanks. I don’t quite know to what I’m indebted for this charming dinner invitation, Beau,” he added.

“You will soon,” was the cryptic reply.

It was typical of Splash Page’s unique position as a crime reporter that his dinner with Beau Reville was entirely cordial and free from innuendo on either side. If Splash had a fault, it was one he shared in common with many other people who came into association with rogues, and that was a sneaking sympathy with the criminal classes.

Splash knew all there was to know about crooks from the humble dip who works the bus queues to the portly men with hooked noses and elaborate City offices who call themselves financiers.

He knew, and was known to, every detective in the Metropolitan police.

Furthermore, Splash, in so far as an honest person could be, was popular with the crooks with whom he came into contact.

He always gave them a square deal, and his facile pen had often been instrumental in alleviating many hard cases amongst the smaller fry of the underworld who had no one else to defend them.

He had received a telegram from Reville that evening. Splash was wise to the ways of high-class tricksters and top-notch con. men. He could smell a fake a mile away, and he knew that Mr. Reville had not asked him to dinner at the Cosmo for the sheer pleasure of his company.

He determined, therefore, to wait until the Beau deigned to reveal the ostensible, if not the real, reason of his invitation. In any case, there was a story in it somewhere.

They chatted idly about various odd topics over an excellently cooked meal. Then, over liqueurs, Reville became confidential.

“Ever hear of Lili la Rue, Splash?” he inquired suddenly, and Splash saw his eyes narrow.

“What’s her graft?” the journalist demanded.

The Beau shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s rather difficult to define her exact speciality, but we’ll compromise by calling her a female Beau Reville.”

“Always were modest, weren’t you?” chuckled Splash.

The Beau polished his monocle.

“Splash,” he said, and his voice became suddenly grave, “we crooks come into contact with many different angles of life.”

“Thanks for including me in your category,” said Splash dryly.

The Beau shrugged.

“Seriously,” he said. “You know that I earn a fairly lucrative living by selling gold bricks to saps, but that I draw the line at some things.”

Splash Page nodded. He knew that in the hierarchy of crookdom the con. man ranks highest. With a plausible tongue and with a clever knowledge of psychology, the confidence trickster selects his victim, not from the poor, but from the rich and so-called clever business men who are out to make extra money themselves by dubious means.

It was an axiom of Splash Page’s that no strictly honest man would fall for the confidence trick. It is always the “would-be smarty,” anxious to get rich quick, that falls a victim to the con. man’s silver tongue.

He knew also that as crooks went, Reville held a high record for square dealing. When, therefore, the Beau suddenly became serious and dropped his flippancy, Splash Page was instantly alert.

“What exactly are you driving at, Reville?” he asked.

“You’re a journalist, Splash,” said Reville. “And as such know something about melodrama. I suppose in the course of your career you have heard or written about dozens of beautiful female spies?”

“I have an’ all,” said Splash.

“Ever hear of Mata Hari, the beautiful Eurasian dancer that was shot for espionage in Paris during the war?” queried Reville.

“Of course I did. I met her,” said Splash. “Dashed fascinating woman.”

“So is Lili la Rue,” broke in Reville suddenly. “And on top of that Lili’s a crook with brains. Now it seems strange, Splash,” he continued, “that with all this talk about pacts and Disarmament Conferences, that espionage and Secret Service work is as much to the fore as ever it was.”

Beau Reville’s voice was unwontedly grave.

“They’re brewing war on the Continent, my lad, despite all these pious talks about ‘No More War,’ and the rest of it. They’re furious about the Anglo-American peace parley, and if they can they’d like to wreck it.”

Splash Page considered the confidence trickster speculatively over the rim of his glass.

A Public School man, Reville, but for the queer criminal kink in his brain, might have risen high in the Diplomatic Service. His War record was admirable. Splash knew that he had won the D.S.O. early in the War, but he seldom paraded the fact.

Reville lowered his voice.

“I may be a crook,” he remarked. “But I am also a patriot, and I tell you seriously that Lili la Rue and Herr Nathan Shaylor are a serious menace to England. What exactly their game is, I don’t know, but I heard some darned queer stories when I was over in Germany.”

He lifted up his glass for a moment or two, and suddenly his long, slender fingers stiffened round the delicate stem.

Crossing the dining-room was a tall, elegant figure in somewhat flamboyantly cut evening clothes.

It was a Chinese with slanting sloe-black eyes and high Mongol cheekbones. His hair was brushed sleekly back from his saffron-hued forehead. Round his neck on a crimson silk ribbon dangled the jewelled order of Si Fan’s Ten Thousand Virtues.

His face was as inscrutable as a yellow sphinx as he took his seat at a near-by table.

From his inner pocket he took out a delicate envelope of pure Hang-Chow silk, spun from silkworms whose lineage was as old as the ancestors of Confucius.

His slender lemon-hued fingers extracted therefrom a cigarette of black rice-paper with a rose leaf tip.

Languidly he surveyed the dining-room with his inscrutable slant eyes. His gaze rested speculatively for a moment on the solitary figure of Mr. William Snaith, then turned to the hovering waiter.

Splash Page made a sudden decision.

“Things,” he said, turning to Beau Reville, “promise to be interesting.”

“Who’s the Chink?” replied Reville.

Splash Page shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know,” he remarked blandly. “But I rather think something’s going to happen here this evening, an’ I guess I’ll stay. Julius tells me that his crimegraph indicates an upward curve.”

Reville’s eyebrows elevated slightly.

“What d’you mean?”

“We shall see,” said Splash Page.

CHAPTER III

THE CLIMBING CORPSE

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR BARKER was pardonably-annoyed. The fact that a notorious confidence man was staying at the Hotel Cosmo was aggravating enough, but the presence of Splash Page, that inquisitive young man, who had actually booked a room in the place, was doubly upsetting.

Of course, he could have warned M. Valenta about Reville’s presence, but the con. man with his consummate impudence would probably have made things exceedingly unpleasant for the man from Scotland Yard.

Barker, therefore, contented himself with keeping a wary eye on Mr. Snaith, and was relieved to note that shortly after nine p.m. the American retired to his room.

He strode over to the lift and murmured a few words to Wilks, the plainclothes detective who, for one night only, fulfilled the role of elevator man. He issued a few curt instructions, then strolled along to Room 54.

He tapped at the door.

“Everything O.K., sir?” he asked gruffly as the American opened it.

Snaith nodded.

“Everything O.K., inspector. I’ve issued instructions that I must not be disturbed before the morning,” he added. “I shall be able to give my necessary reports by ’phone. Don’t you worry about me, inspector.”

“Very good, sir,” said the Yard man with a quick glance round the room. “I shall make my own reports and shall be here at seven-thirty in the morning to escort you as far as the boat train. If you want anything you have only to ring up,” he announced with a significant glance towards the telephone receiver.

Mr. Snaith yawned and stretched his arms luxuriously.

“Gee, but I guess I’m tired, bo,” he announced. “Have a cigar before you go,” he added hospitably.

Barker took a Havana and his departure.

Mr. Snaith flung open the window and drew in several deep breaths of the cold night air—a practice of his before retiring. He pulled the heavy plush portieres to and then lifted the telephone receiver and inquired for a certain number.

The voice of Mr. Jas. Brown, agent, responded to his call in a few minutes.

No one who listened in to the conversation, however, would have been either edified or interested in it. It seemed to consist mainly of dry, statistical information regarding Ferro Concretes and Portland Cement.

It seemed to interest Mr. Jas. Brown a good deal, however, for there was a grimly triumphant smile on his face when he finally replaced his receiver after congratulating Mr. Snaith on his ability as a super salesman.

Meanwhile, down below in the lounge of the Cosmo, Splash Page and Reville sat chatting. From the adjacent ballroom came the wail of a saxophone, the slither of silver slippers and gay bursts of laughter.

Splash smiled as he recognised most of the more frivolous elements of fashionable society who gyrated round the floor.

Suddenly Reville’s eyes narrowed as he glimpsed a lissom figure in a bouffant frock of green and diamante. She looked ethereally beautiful beneath the rose glow of the chandeliers.

There was a faint hint of rouge on the perfect bow of her lips. A deftly applied touch of dark blue on her eyelids gave a sparkle of diablerie to the girl’s piquantly lovely face. Her glossy black hair was cut to a point in the fashion of a mediaeval page with two alluring V-shaped curls against the ivory pallor of her cheeks.

She was femininity incarnate from the tips of her high-heeled slippers of green brocade to the raven blue sheen of her shingled head.

“Lili la Rue,” said Beau Reville. “She knocks ’em cold.”

Splash Page glanced at the girl. She certainly was exotically beautiful.

“Where did she get her monniker of Orinoco Lil?” he asked. “What nationality is she?”

“South American—Brazilian, I believe,” replied Reville. “I understand she was the daughter of a saloon-keeper on the banks of the Orinoco river, one of the toughest joints in Latin America. What she doesn’t know about crooks and crooking couldn’t be covered by a gnat’s spat.”

Splash Page glanced speculatively at the girl as he lit a cigarette.

“She looks as if she’d graduated early in the art of vamping,” he remarked. “Can’t you introduce me?”

The con. man shrugged.

“I’m rather fond of you, Splash,” he remarked. “Let’s go into the bar. I don’t want that young lady to recognise me—yet.”

It was after midnight when Splash Page retired. Some subtle sixth sense, which is the prerogative of every good crime reporter, had warned him that it was very likely that dramatic events were to be enacted under the decorous roof of the Hotel Cosmo.

Beau Reville’s information, though not detailed, was highly significant. Reville was not the type of man to make a mountain out of a molehill. Of his patriotism there could be no doubt. The presence in the hotel of Inspector Barker was also intriguing, and Splash Page was not surprised when he recognised in the somewhat burly lift man Detective Wilks of Barker’s staff at Scotland Yard.

He was sufficient of a diplomat, however, to pretend that he did not know the man.

“It’s a dashed queer thing,” he reflected as he retired to his room on the fourth floor. “There’s something mighty mysterious afoot.”

He knew that minor royalties sometimes stayed at the Cosmo, and racked his brains to see which of the diners he had seen that evening would correspond to a prince incognito.

The only person, however, that looked in the least like a notability was the lemon-hued Chinaman, who smoked black cigarettes.

Splash crossed over to the telephone before turning in, and called up the office. The dour voice of Julius Jones grumbled at him over the wires.

“I’m sitting on a story, Julius,” he remarked. “It’s a waiting game, but I think your jolly old crimegraph is likely to be justified.”

“Huh!” grunted the news editor. “I know you, my boy. Any excuse to go drinking in the night ‘aunts of the gay West End.”

Splash Page chuckled.

“Bye-bye, pleasant nightmares—full o’ corpses,” and he rang off.

Splash Page had the facility of being able to sleep when and where he wanted. Within five minutes after his head had touched the pillow, he was in deep slumber, untroubled by dreams of any sort.

It was nearly one o’clock, and the final strains of the orchestra in the ballroom had died away into silence and a peaceful calm had fallen on the Hotel Cosmo.

Sleep had touched the dark and fascinating eyelids of Mademoiselle Lili la Rue, and even the active brain of Beau Reville had ceased to weave his multifarious schemes for mulcting millions from the sap-heads.

It was a dark, moonless night with little wind.

Detective Wilks yawned as he sat somewhat disgruntedly in the lift. Three or four tired-looking waiters removed the debris from the ballroom, and the last taxi had bowled homeward with its cargo of tired revellers.

Suddenly Splash Page awoke.

Every one of his acute senses was on the qui vive. He reached under his pillow for the little pearl-handled automatic he habitually carried and listened intently, for from the window which overlooked the deep well of the courtyard and a blank white-tiled wall opposite came three distinct taps.

Tap—tap—tap!

Splash stared forward through the darkness, his shrewd wits striving to analyse the reason for those strange and startling sounds.

With sudden decision, he reached out and pressed the ivory button of the electric switch and then he saw, and hardened newspaper man though he was, his flesh crawled with the horror of it.

In the vivid yellow glare he saw the limp body of a man in evening dress staring with sightless eyes into his. The ghastly part, however, was that he recognised that the awful apparition was that of a corpse. A corpse that climbed!

Even as he stared with fascinated eyes, the ghastly grey face ascended, revealing a snowy shirt front discoloured with an ominous crimson stain, in the centre of which he glimpsed a dagger’s gleaming haft.

For a moment or two Splash Page was too utterly dumbfounded to do anything save stare with horror-struck amazement.

The dead man’s mouth was twisted into a queer lop-sided grin, and even as he watched, Splash saw the figure ascend yet higher. He glimpsed two limp and dangling legs, a patent-leather pump rapped sharply on the window-pane and then the whole thing vanished!

“Well I’m darned!” said Splash Page.

For a moment or two he thought that he was dreaming. The thing was incredible, fantastic. He recognised the face, distorted though it was in death, as that of the quiet man who had sat at the adjacent table at dinner.

Splash hesitated a fraction of a second. Then with a bound he leapt out of bed.

Even as he did so the night silence was shattered by a long drawn out scream of agony that held stark terror in its bubbling, hysterical shrillness.

Then silence.

It took a good deal to shake Splash Page, but never in the course of his journalistic career had he encountered anything so weird and bizarre as that brief vision he had seen outlined in that oblong of yellow light—a climbing corpse.

His journalistic training, however, triumphed over his momentary stupefaction. He dashed to the window and stared out over the quiet well which is a usual feature of West End hotels.

Down below he saw nothing but a conglomeration of packing-cases and dust-bins huddling together in the asphalted courtyard.

Gripping the pearl handle of his automatic, he stared upwards and saw nothing except the cold unwinking eyes of the distant stars in the far off sky. But he heard once again that frenzied feminine shriek, and with a muttered imprecation he donned his dress trousers over his pyjamas and raced for the door.

Wrenching it open, he flew down the corridor in his bare feet, to collide at the end of the passage with the burly figure of Wilks, the Scotland Yard detective.

“What the deuce has happened?” he demanded brusquely.

” ’Eaven knows, sir,” said Wilks, and his face was grey with fear. “Somethink seems to ’ave ’appened in Room 54.”

Something about the Scotland Yard man’s manifest distress caused Splash to take a grip of himself. Doors on either side of the corridor opened suddenly. Tousled and dishevelled heads peered fearfully round the jambs.

“You’re Mr. Page, ain’t you, sir?” said the pseudo liftman with deference. “I wish you’d come along with me and see wot’s ’appened. Lord knows, Inspector Barker won’t ’alf——”

He broke off suddenly.

“Wilks!” bellowed a voice, and Splash recognised it as that of the C.I.D. man, which floated upwards from the floor below.

“Come on,” said Splash curtly, and there was almost a joyous twinkle in his eye as he realised that his hunch was proving correct.

Wilks slammed open the doors of the elevator and, shivering slightly with cold, Splash entered the lift and swooshed downwards to the floor below.

As the elevator stopped he saw the agitated figure of Detective-inspector Barker, his red face redder than usual, pacing agitatedly up and down the corridor.

“Wilks, you fool!” he snapped belligerently. “What’s all this nonsense?”

The plainclothes man touched his gold-braided hat deferentially.

“Blimey, sir, I don’t know what’s ’appened,” he said in a scared voice. “There seems to be murder goin’ on upstairs.”

Barker dashed as far as Room 54 and pounded urgently on the panels with his pudgy fists.

“Mr. Snaith, Mr. Snaith!” he said excitedly. “Are you all right?”

No reply came from behind the locked and bolted portal, and forgetting for a moment his animosity, the Yard man turned to Splash.

“What the deuce has happened?” he snapped.

The journalist shook his head.

“I’m blowed if I know—except that I saw a corpse climbing, my dear Barker!” he said.

“A climbing corpse?” echoed Barker blankly. “What do you mean? This is no time for——”

Again a woman’s shriek rang out, a shriek of mortal terror.

“Run upstairs and see what’s wrong with ’em, Wilks!” snapped the Yard man, now thoroughly awake. He had been keeping a more or less routine vigil on a settee in the cloak-room below.

He rattled the handle of the door, and called out again urgently:

“Mr. Snaith, Mr. Snaith!”

No reply came from behind the portal, but excited voices sounded on the third floor above him, and floated down the lift shaft.

With an exclamation, Wilks seized the propelling handle himself and shot away to reconnoitre. Barker, with a grave foreboding in his heart, turned to the journalist.

“There’s trouble, serious trouble here,” he said. “It seems to me like murder.”

“I’m with you, Barker,” said Splash as the Yard man rattled the handle of the door.

Barker glanced at the jamb and squared his burly shoulders.

“Stand back, Splash,” he said, and flung his two hundred pounds of brawn and muscle against the flimsy portals.

Crash!

With a splintering shock the door was torn away from its jamb, and the Yard man was nearly precipitated into the centre of the room.

Splash Page, now thoroughly awake and alert, followed fast on his heels. An electric-light bulb still beamed above the desk in the middle of the room. The night wind played gently with the portieres of the window, but of Mr. William Snaith there was no sign.

The bed clothes had been turned back, and on the eiderdown a pair of pyjamas had been laid. The bed, however, had obviously not been slept in, for the pillows were creaseless.

Barker stared in bewilderment round the room. Then suddenly his gaze fell upon the blotting-pad on the desk. It had once been white, but it was now stained with an ominous crimson.

“Signor, signor, vot is ze matter?” begged a voice from the doorway.

The Yard man flung round with a snarl, and found himself confronting the olive-skinned figure of M. Valenta, the manager.

“Matter?” snapped Barker; then turned suddenly and appealingly to Splash Page. “For Heaven’s sake pacify these wretches,” he said. “This is uncanny, and if it leaks out that——”

“Can I be of any assistance, inspector?” drawled a debonair voice, and Beau Reville, in an immaculate dressing-gown of flowered crepe-de-chine, and a cigarette between his slim fingers, appeared in the corridor.

Barker turned with a snarl as he recognised the con. man.

“Get to blazes out of this!” he rasped.

The crook shrugged his shoulders.

“Hallo, Splash, first on the spot as usual,” he drawled.

“What’s the trouble?”

Splash, remembering that ghastly vision he had seen outside his window on the floor above, did not answer for a moment. Then, with that winning smile which had so often secured for him interviews from the most taciturn people, he turned to the con. man.

“It’ll probably tickle your sense of humour, Beau, to go downstairs and fetch a policeman.”

The con. man shrugged again.

“It’s a beastly bore,” he remarked. “But, seeing you are in somewhat of a dilemma, I shall be delighted.”

He gave a glance at the splintered doorway and spun on his heel.

Meanwhile, Splash Page had taken a swift survey of the room. His keen eyes saw at once that the door had been locked and bolted on the inside by the usual flimsy lock. Opposite him was the half-open window, overlooking a sheer drop of at least a hundred and thirty feet to the asphalted courtyard below. With a queer little pang of misgiving, he realised that his own room, No. 181, was immediately above that of the missing American.

He turned to the voluble M. Valenta, and in fluent Italian said:

“For your hotel’s reputation, it would be better if you devised a story of a lady suffering from nightmare. Keep everybody out of this corridor—otherwise, I am afraid the scandal about the place will ruin you.”

“It is tereeble!” wailed Valenta, wringing his olive-hued hands. “Zee disgrace an’ zee scandal—it is tereeble.”

“That’ll do, you!” snapped Barker brusquely.

At that moment there was a clang of the lift gates and Wilks appeared, a very shame-faced and singularly bewildered man. In his arms he held the limp body of an elderly lady in a kimono.

In the glare of the electric light she was a singularly repulsive figure. Her straggly grey hair hung lankly down her thin yellow cheeks like the tails of long-drowned rats, and through her half-open eyelids one glimpsed yellow eyeballs turned upwards rather like those of halibuts on a fishmonger’s slab.

“This ‘ere lady fainted, sir,” said Wilks with a shiver. “She said as how she’s seen a ghost at the winder of ’er bedroom an’——”

“Plunk her on the bed!” broke in Barker briskly. “You’ll find a sponge on the washhand-stand, and you, Valenta, bring some brandy.”

The Yard man was beginning to take charge of the situation. The agitated manager, having calmed down a little, rubbed his slim olive fingers nervously and shuffled off to obey the order.

Meanwhile, Splash Page was his cool, clearheaded self again. He crossed over to the telephone receiver and called up a certain Fleet Street number.

“That you, Julius?” he demanded.

A sleepy voice punctuated by yawns answered him.

“Yes, you rascal, I’m just going home. I have just put the last edition to bed, and if you think I’m going to bail you out frrom Bow Street, then you’rre vastly mistaken.”

“Bow Street be sugared!” snapped Splash Page incisively. “Hold that edition, get your re-write men ready. I’ve got a big story waiting for you. Stand right by.”

A chuckle floated over the wires.

“Didn’t I tell you that my crrimegrraph was rright?” said the imperturbable Julius Jones.

Splash Page’s gaze fell on the crimson-stained blotting pad and his smile was a trifle wry. Even now he could not quite realise the magnitude of the story that had broken. He knew instinctively that he was in on one of the most sensational West End stories of modern times, but even Splash, with all his intuition, did not realise the full extent of that dark web of mystery and horror in which he had been entangled. Nor of the far-reaching results which had followed that sinister tap, tap, tap on his window-pane.

Some of the journalist’s coolness had infected Detective-inspector Barker. Valenta, manager of the Cosmos Hotel, usually so imperturbable in a crisis, had gone to pieces, and the reappearance of Mr. Beau Reville, accompanied by a constable, did not succeed in restoring his equanimity.

Barker hustled him downstairs, and in response to the unspoken query in the newspaper man’s eyes, said:

“Splash, I’m relying on you. I can’t tell you much, and what I do tell you is not for publication. Do you understand?”

Splash Page nodded.

Despite their bickering, which was mostly good-humoured, he had a genuine regard for the man from Scotland Yard. Barker may not have been great on the intelligence stakes, as Splash was frequently known to remark, but for bulldog courage, tenacity and painstaking thoroughness, he was without a rival.

“Let’s have the low-down dope on this, Barkie, old man,” he begged. “I might as well tell you what I saw. It was a corpse at the window——”

“A—a—corpse at the window?” gasped Barker.

“Whoooogh!”

A shrill scream rose from the bed, and instinctively the three men started as the cadaverous female rose suddenly bolt upright and screamed.

“I saw it—the face—the ghastly face—and blood streaming down—his chest.”

Barker turned round somewhat helplessly.

“Isn’t there a manageress or a matron or someone who can look after this woman?” he snapped.

There came a quiet laugh from the corridor outside.

“I dare say Miss Lili la Rue could deal with her,” suggested Beau Reville. “What is the trouble, my dear Barker?”

“Trouble,” snarled the man from Scotland Yard. “There’s a man been murdered—here in this room—and we can’t find his body.”

Splash Page pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“Whether you like it or not, Barker,” he remarked, “I don’t mind telling you that I saw the body of the dead man, whatever his name is——”

“Snaith,” broke in Barker. “William Snaith.”

“Well, I saw the corpse of Mr. William Snaith with a dagger in his chest climbing up the sheer wall of this hotel.”

“You had a nightmare,” accused Barker. “That’s what.”

“Indeed,” said Splash icily, “I’m not given to hallucinations. You heard what this poor lady said. I’m going upstairs to investigate right now.”

“I suppose there’s a floor or two above this?” he added to the dazed-looking Wilks.

“Yes, sir. This lady, Mrs. Samways Seton, occupied the room above yours,” said the plainclothes man.

“Who occupied the room above that?” snapped Splash Page.

“I don’t know, sir,” was the reply; “but I think it was taken by a Chinaman.”

CHAPTER IV

A CRYPTIC CALL

COMMANDER CHESTER BRETT, D.S.O., R.N. (ret.), and now a celebrated private detective, was a very human man. Most of the criminal confraternity of the underworld knew him by reputation as a keen, relentless man-hunter. But they did not consider that he was the sort of ’tec who was out to make a capture at all costs, by fair means or foul, in order to get his man.

Indeed, among the smaller fry of roguedom the name of Chester Brett was venerated. He was treated with an odd admixture of esteem as a man, and a wholesome respect for his prowess as a detective.

“He’s a white ’tec, an’ plays the game,” was one of the generally expressed sentiments of the underworld.

It was an odd but not unjust tribute, coming as it did from a community against which Chester Brett waged an incessant war.

Many a convict’s wife had reason to bless the name of Chester Brett, who, even if he were responsible for placing the husband behind prison bars, saw to it that the kiddies had food and clothes, and was always willing to help the erring crook go straight on his release.

Brett was a crook catcher and not a crook maker, a distinction with a profound difference.

He did not overlook the human element in the vast number of cases in which his keen analytical wits had matched themselves against the brilliant if warped brains of the underworld.

Brett was an omnivorously-minded man. He was one of those unique many-sided geniuses who could have been almost anything had he chosen, but far from being a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, his unique brain, superbly balanced, gave him his prestige amongst the foremost criminologists of the world.

He was entitled to so many letters after his name that with characteristic modesty he ignored them all.

At one o’clock on a crisp winter morning, arrayed in the disreputable dressing-gown for which he had a particular fondness, Chester Brett was busily engaged in his small but well-equipped laboratory in an intricate chemical experiment.

As he bent over the flickering flame of a Bunsen burner, his shrewd, clever face glowed with the joy of abstruse work well done. For an almost unexampled period in his career as a criminologist, Brett had found no case for some time where he could use his gifts, and, taking in advantage of the temporary lull in criminal activities, he had decided to devote his unique talents to his first love, chemical research.

It was just at that moment that the ’phone bell rang, and with a sigh Brett took down the extension receiver from the consulting-room and answered the call.

A curiously dry, impersonal voice twanged over the wires, and Brett stiffened suddenly as he recognised the commonplace but paradoxically invigorating tones of Mr. Armitage, of Golders Green.

“Is that you, my dear Brett?” came the dry tones.

“Speaking,” replied the detective.

“I’m so sorry to trouble you at this time of night,” came the voice again, “but regarding that little game of chess we were talking about, I think you will find that in the last problem I have made a mistake. P.K.4 white and P.K.4 black returns to K.K.B., and that P. plus P., and, if you prefer, Konig Terum Laufer Schech.”

“But, my dear fellow,” said Brett, “I quite agree with you. Bauern are always liable to be shifted, and I make it K.B. Q.B.4. A—as the French say—j’aude.”

“I’m awfully grateful to you, Brett,” replied the voice of Mr. Armitage. “I wondered where I’d gone wrong on that particular problem. As you know, white usually opens with P.K.4 or P.Q.4, and black has a choice of several replies. Those most in favour at the moment being P.Q.B.4, the Sicilian defence or P.K.3 under the French defence.”

“I quite get you,” replied Brett. “I think I will play the Ruy Lopez gambit.”

“Has it ever struck you,” broke in the dry voice of Mr. Armitage of Golders Green, “that the American gambit is rather popular nowadays? There is the Snaith opening, for instance—P.K.4. White, of course; that gives black chances of a counter-attack, but does not leave white at a great disadvantage. It is unnecessary, as the king’s pawn is not attacked.”

“Yes, I have heard of it,” said Brett with a whimsical smile. “I hope to let you have your revenge at the Forum Club to-morrow. Good night, Mr. Armitage.”

“Good night, and don’t forget, Number Thirteen,” was the quiet reply from Golders Green.

Brett replaced the receiver, and his face was very grave. It was not very often that Number One of the British Secret Service rang up Number Thirteen, alias Chester Brett, of the same brilliant and mysterious force. When he did, it was impossible for any layman to understand the elaborate code which they used. Ostensibly, it was the ordinary formula used in international chess.

Brett, however, realised from the foregoing conversation, which had probably driven a sleepy night operator absolutely to slumber, that trouble was brewing, and he had a shrewd idea what was happening.

He realised, for instance, by Number One’s cryptic reference, that a certain secret agent was over in England with documents of immense importance, and that he had been followed by the swiftest, slickest members of the Continental Secret Service. Brett slowly rammed a wad of tobacco into his battered briar pipe and his face was very thoughtful as he re-entered his laboratory and continued his intricate chemical experiment.

None knew better than this keen, alert student of foreign affairs the delicate situation which had now arisen in Europe because of the Anglo-American alliance. He realised that the warmongers were raising up their hydra heads, and that the dragon’s teeth of Cadmus were being sown in order to provide fighting men for another war.

That war was quite a possibility in the present state of Europe, Chester Brett was far too shrewd a judge of human nature to disavow.

With his characteristic detachment, however, he donned a pair of rubber gloves, picked up a bubbling beaker from the flame of a Bunsen burner, and examined its contents. Here also war took place. The whole of life was warfare. It was the war between bacteria and healthy tissues.

Again the ’phone bell rang, and with a muttered imprecation the detective crossed over to the receiver and listened to the voice that twanged over the wires.

He smiled slightly as he realised it emanated from Splash Page of the Daily Radio.

“That you, Brett old dear?” came the query.

“Speaking,” replied the detective laconically. “And confoundedly busy also.”

“I say, old man,” said the journalist eagerly. “I wish to Heaven you could come over. It’s the story of the century. There’s a bloke named Snaith been murdered, and——”

“What’s his name?” said Brett.

“Snaith,” came the reply. “Believe me, Brett, it’s the queerest case I’ve ever tackled. I actually saw his corpse climbing up the wall of the hotel, and—well, old man, I know your fondness for the bizarre. I wish to Mike you’d come here and mollify Barker. He looks to me as if he’ll die of apoplexy at any moment.”

Chester Brett glanced at the bubbling beaker, then smiled. He and Splash Page had been comrades on many an adventurous trail together.

“Very well, Splash,” he remarked. “The situation sounds somewhat intriguing. I suppose you’re holding up your poor lamented night news editor?”

“What else is he paid for?” came Splash Page’s indignant voice over the wires.

Brett shrugged his shoulders infinitesimally.

“If you can give me a rapid resume I’d be obliged. Not that I want to start the case with any pre-conceived ideas, but I do not want Barker to mislead me with his obvious and ineradicable mistakes.”

“Well, if you want the truth, here it goes in a few short rapid sentences,” replied Splash Page.

“I went to bed to-night somewhere about midnight sensing there was something doing at the Cosmo. I bargained for some excitement at least, but I’m blowed if I bargained for a murder. Take it from me, Brett, old man, it’s the weirdest murder I’ve ever been on. Can you imagine being wakened up by a corpse tapping and leering in at the window?”

“I can imagine it,” said Brett dryly. “Let’s hope you haven’t.”

“You sceptical blighter!” replied Splash Page. “Honestly, I saw it, Brett. It gave me the willies.”

“Yes, go on,” said Chester Brett. “Your own personal reactions are irrelevant.”

“I’m not the only one who saw it,” pursued Splash indignantly. “An old girl sleeping on the floor above me was thrown into hysterics by the thing. What’s more, the corpse climbed up to the top floor, and it’s there now.”

“Very interesting indeed,” said Brett. “I shall be with you within half an hour. Barker, I understand, is still there?”

“Yes, he’s here all right,” replied Splash. “Poor old Valenta’s in a deuce of a state, though.”

“Hold the fort,” said Chester Brett laconically, and rang off.

A frown furrowed his forehead as he replaced the receiver. He recalled the ominous message of the omniscient Number One. He had mentioned the Snaith opening in that grim and intricate game of international chess. It looked like checkmate at the moment.

CHAPTER V

THE DEAD DIPLOMAT

CHESTER BRETT reached the Hotel Cosmo in the Grey Streak within record time.

M. Valenta, that excitable man, had recovered a little of his equanimity on his arrival, but his olive-hued face still betrayed his agitation.

Brett had met him several times before. Indeed, he had been instrumental in assisting the dapper little man to hush up a rather unpleasant scandal concerning a Balkan princeling who had stayed at the hotel.

The manager bowed obsequiously as he recognised the famous detective.

“Ah, Commander Brett, I am pleased zat you have arrived! The inspector of police an’ hees men with the big feets, they are like the Toros—stamping all over my beautiful hotel. An’ the scandal; it will ruin me.”

“Nonsense, Valenta; take a grip of yourself!” said Chester Brett.

He turned with a smile as Splash Page descended the stairs.

The newspaper man had managed to put on a little more clothing by this time, and he hurried towards Brett eagerly.

“Gosh, you’ve been quick, old man!” he said. “Come and have a drink, Brett. There’s rather an unpleasant sight for you to look at upstairs. Barker has sent for the divisional surgeon, and is ramping round tearing his hair.”

“A drink will do later,” said Brett. “Let’s hear what happened?”

Splash led the way into the elevator, and Brett’s keen eyes instantly recognised the plainclothes man.

“Well, Wilks, this appears to be a bad business,” he remarked.

“Yes, sir,” replied the other. “I’m blowed if ever I see anything like it. What with climbing corpses, murders in locked rooms an’ crooks all over the place, it’s a fair ’olocaust, that’s what it is,” he added, shaking his head lugubriously.

As they shot up in the elevator Splash rapidly outlined the main details of his experience. At the second floor he pointed dramatically to the smashed and splintered doorway of Room 54, at the entrance of which a stolid constable mounted guard.

Brett entered, and found Barker on his hands and knees scrutinising the imitation Persian rug before the desk near the window. His face was purple with exertion as he rose to his feet.

“Hallo, Brett!” he greeted. “This is a devil of a business, this is. I’ve sworn Splash here to secrecy, so I can tell you in confidence that there’s going to be international complications rising out of this business. This man Snaith was——” He lowered his voice.

“A Secret Service man,” broke in Chester Brett. “From Washington. He arrived from Berlin this evening and you had strict orders to keep him well guarded till he boarded the boat-train at eight-thirty to-morrow morning.”

Inspector Barker’s face was a study.

“Well, I’m dashed!” he ejaculated. “Are you a bloomin’ thought-reader, or what?”

Brett smiled cryptically.

“No; but I want to play a very good game of chess,” he remarked, and, without bothering to explain, took in a rapid survey of the room.

“What time did Snaith retire, and what precautions did you take?” he demanded.

“First,” said Barker, “I engaged Wilks here, one of our best shadowers, to be on duty on the elevator. I myself chose Room Fifty-four and searched it thoroughly before Snaith took up his quarters; and, as you can see, there is no room for anyone to hide himself here.

“Snaith dined downstairs while Wilks kept an eye on the door all the time he was away. The door, as you see, locks automatically when pulled to, so that it was impossible for anyone to enter during his absence without Wilks seeing him.

“There is no stairway on this landing—only the elevator.”

“Your precautions were admirable,” said Brett. “What time did Snaith retire for the night?”

“About ten minutes past nine,” answered Barker. “I checked the time with my watch, saw him into his room, and he told me that he did not want to be disturbed until morning.”

“Good! That fixes one point at least,” interjected Brett. “Now, Splash”—he turned to the journalist—“what time did you wake up and see this alleged climbing corpse outside the window?”

“About ten minutes past one,” replied the journalist promptly.

“H’m—four hours!” said Brett thoughtfully. “And you say that you recognised him as Snaith?”

“I didn’t know his name,” said the newspaper man; “but I had seen him at the next table to us at dinner this evening. I was too rattled, I guess, for a few minutes to think coherently about anything. You try waking up in a strange hotel with a corpse rattling at your window!” he added in an aggrieved voice.

Brett stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“And where is this peripatetic corpse now?” he inquired.

“That’s the astounding part of it,” said Inspector Barker. “He’s in Room 221 on the top floor of the hotel.”

“Let’s go and see,” said Brett laconically.

Together they ascended to the room immediately above that in which Mrs. Samways Seton had had her terrifying ordeal.

A constable guarded the door, and stood aside deferentially as Brett entered the room.

Lying on the floor, arms outstretched, lay the dead body of William Snaith. A dagger protruded from his chest in the region of the top-left corner of his lung.

Brett knelt beside the body for a moment or two.

“Is this the exact position you found him in?”

“I never touched a thing,” said Barker. “I’m expecting the divisional surgeon round, and the photographers, any minute.”

Brett nodded, and with deft, practised fingers examined the wound.

“Death was practically instantaneous,” he announced.

He took out a magnifying-glass and examined the ornate handle of the dagger which protruded from the wound.

“Remarkable!” he commented. “This case presents some extraordinary features.”

“Extraordinary!” echoed Barker. “Why, man, it’s uncanny! See here”—he crossed over to the half-open window and pointed down to the abyss below.

“See, there’s absolutely no foothold for a human being, not a stack-pipe or crevice of any description. Just these smooth glazed tiles. What I want to know is this—how could any living person enter Snaith’s room when Wilks had his eyes on the door all the time, murder the poor devil, and carry his body in pitch darkness up the side of the wall to this room? It’s humanly impossible!”

“On the face of it, it seems like it,” said Brett. “But we must have more data. Have you noticed the peculiar significance of the handle of this dagger?” he added.

Barker shook his head.

“No, except that it seems rather a clumsy sort of weapon to handle,” he answered.

He looked up suddenly as a short, stocky, grey-haired man entered carrying a little leather valise.

“Ah, here’s the divisional surgeon!” he announced. “Good evening, doctor!”

“Good evening!” replied the other in crisp, impersonal tones. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but there was rather a bad motor accident at the station I had to attend to.”

He nodded to Brett, who recognised Dr. Lomas, the medico attached to Gate Street Police Station.

“It’s a clear case of murder, I think you’ll find, doctor,” said Barker helpfully, as the medico took off his coat and opened his leather valise.

The divisional surgeon was inured to such sights and, while Brett prowled round the room, continued his examination.

He rose at length to his feet.

“I think we have both arrived at the same diagnosis, Commander Brett,” he remarked.

“Sit down, doctor,” said Chester Brett. “You look as if you were tired out.”

Barker coughed importantly and drew out his black, official notebook.

“On the whole,” said Chester Brett, “there is very little external bleeding apparent. It looks as if the blade had pierced the intercostal artery.”

Dr. Lomas nodded.

“He’s bled a lot internally, I suspect,” he remarked. “However, the post-mortem will confirm that.”

“Excuse me,” said Barker. “Can you possibly give me the approximate time that the poor chap was stabbed?”

“He’s been dead four hours at least. One cannot rely with absolute exactitude on rigor mortis,” said the medico.

“What!” gasped Splash Page and the Yard man simultaneously. “Dead four hours? Then the poor fellow must have been stabbed almost as soon as he entered his room!”

“I’ll swear that no one was there,” said Barker.

“I think that Commander Brett will confirm my hypothesis,” claimed Dr. Lomas.

Brett nodded.

“Undoubtedly,” he remarked. “It looks to me, Barker, as if you were the last person to see poor Snaith alive.”

The Scotland Yard man gulped uneasily.

“Except his murderer,” he said with a forced laugh.

Brett smiled cryptically.

“No, Barker,” he said. “You were the very last man to see him alive!” he repeated deliberately.

A tense little silence fell on the room, and Barker’s face went a dirty grey.

CHAPTER VI

THE SCARLET STAIN

SPLASH PAGE was the first to break the silence that had ensued since Brett’s sinisterly significant remark.

Knowing a little of Brett’s satiric humour, he waited for the criminologist’s explanation; but, with a malicious smile, he said in a husky whisper to the indignant Yard man:

“And it’s my duty to inform you that anything you now say will be taken down and used in evidence against you.”

Barker’s prominent eyes goggled.

“There is no necessity for you to be disturbed,” Brett cut in. “As you shall learn later—and, I think, agree with me—you are undoubtedly the last person who saw the unfortunate Snaith alive.”

He looked up suddenly as two brisk-looking men in bowler hats entered the room. They were the official photographers from C.R.O. (Criminal Record Office.)

Barker for once in his life was utterly at a loss for words. His pudgy fingers groped feebly for his scrubby moustache.

Chester Brett bent over the dead man for a moment or two, and turned to one of the Yard men.

“Have you an insufflator with you?” he demanded.

One of them, a sandy-moustached individual with restless eyes, placed his camera on the bed, which Brett had observed on his arrival had not been slept in.

“Certainly, Commander Brett,” he said deferentially.

“Have I your permission to remove the dagger, Barker?” asked the detective.

Barker nodded glumly.

Keen and efficient officer though he was, he was utterly out of his depth in this strange and complex case.

Brett whipped out a silk bandanna handkerchief and gently removed the dagger from the wound by means of its hilt guard. He placed it on the dressing-table, and gently switched over the mirror to an angle of 45 degrees in order to catch as much reflection from the electric light bulb, which glowed above the bed, as possible.

One of the photographers handed him a small spray to which was attached a rubber bulb.

Brett bent over the weapon. The blade was triangular, fully six inches long, and the handle was of carved ebony at least four inches long by an inch in diameter.

It was one of the most repulsive and deadly-looking daggers that the detective had seen in all his long career. He pressed the bulb of the insufflator, and a cloud of grey powder emerged from the nozzle on to the handle of the dagger.

Whipping out his pocket lens, the criminologist peered intently through, and then signalled Barker and the divisional surgeon.

“A professional crook arranged this, by the look of it,” he commented. “He must have been wearing gloves. See, there is not the slightest indication of a fingerprint.”

“Gosh, Brent, it’s uncanny!” broke in Barker. “Do you think there can be anything occult in the business? If no human being could approach him through the window, and no human being could have entered the room and hidden himself in there without being spotted, I’m blowed if I can see how the murder could have been committed—unless it was by a ghost.”

“I’m looking,” said Brett with one of his whimsical smiles, “for a scarlet stain.”

“Great Scott!” broke in Splash Page. “Isn’t there enough of a scarlet stain on the poor chap’s shirt front? And if you want any more you’ll find one on the blotting-pad of his desk.”

“I’m afraid that you are rather colour blind,” said Chester Brett suavely. “Their exact hue is crimson lake. I am looking for scarlet.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” demanded the exasperated Barker. “I wish to heaven, man, you wouldn’t be so bally puzzling.”

“All in good time, my dear fellow,” interposed Chester Brett. “I want data, data, and yet more data. May I take charge of this dagger for a moment?” he added.

Barker nodded dumbly as Brett crossed over to the window-sill and peered down into the abyss below.

The detective switched on the electric torch which he habitually carried, and flashed it downwards. On one of the white tiled bricks that composed the facade of the well shone a crimson smear midway between Room 221 and that previously occupied by the hysterical Mrs. Samways Seton.

Brett’s eyes narrowed suddenly, and he glanced across to the opposite side of the well, which was a blank wall.

“Short of getting a rope ladder, I doubt if it would be possible to photograph that mark,” he said. “However, if my theory proves correct, there should be something here at the edge of the window-sill that would confirm my hypothesis.”

He switched his torch upwards and examined the cold slab of Portland cement which jutted out about six inches above the abyss. He gave a soft whistle of satisfaction, and his long, lean fingers pounced upon three strands of coarse brown hair, which looked as if they had been plaited together, affixed to the edge of the lintel.

They were all of uneven length, however, and taking a small envelope out of his wallet, the detective gave them a perfunctory glance through his magnifying-glass, and placed them within the receptacle.

Splash Page was an interested observer of his friend and colleague’s actions.

“What is the big idea, Brett?” demanded the newspaper man. “I’m holding out for a special edition, and up to now, apart from my own experience, I haven’t got much of a story to go on.”

“If I were you, Splash,” said Brett quietly, “I would interview Mrs. Samways Seton. I attach very little credence to the first impression of people suddenly woken up from a long and refreshing sleep.”

“Meaning that you think I dreamt it all?” blustered Splash indignantly.

“Not at all, my dear fellow,” replied Brett. “If it had been anybody else but you, I would have dismissed the story of the climbing corpse as pure fabrication. As it is, I have had it confirmed to the last detail.”

He looked round the room and saw that the photographers had started busying themselves with the flash-light apparatus.

“I think we’re about through here,” he remarked.

And then in an undertone to Barker:

“You, of course, searched the dead man’s pockets for his effects and found precious little to go upon, I’ll warrant, Snaith being a Secret Service man?”

Barker nodded in a disgruntled fashion.

“I’ve got ’em all listed downstairs, Brett. He carried the usual sort of stuff that you’d expect the average American tourist to have. A cheque-book on the Anglo-American Express Co., a passport, about fifty dollars in notes, a wallet containing a girl’s photograph, and half a dozen letters in a language I don’t understand—to say nothing of various other oddments like bits of coal and other mascots,” he added with an indignant snort.

“Then let us adjourn,” said Brett. “I want to see that scarlet stain, my dear fellow.”

“Dare say you do,” replied the inspector. “But I want to know how poor Snaith was stabbed, who stabbed him, why, when and where?”

“All of which will be made manifest to you if you will but possess your soul in patience,” said Chester Brett.

He picked up the dagger gingerly in the silk handkerchief and slipped it into his pocket.

Used though he was to murder, there was something rather nauseating about the Cosmo Hotel mystery.

Brett felt instinctively that there was a queer miasmic atmosphere of evil about the whole affair.

Splash Page looked longingly at the telephone receiver. He realised that away in the Radio office Julius Jones was waiting, with impatience bordering on insanity, for full details of his “juicy murrderr,” and it was with a sigh of relief that he followed Chester Brett downstairs to Room 54.

Brett stepped gingerly over the threshold, carefully avoiding the splintered doorway. He rubbed his lean chin thoughtfully, and then, with a sudden gesture, crossed over to the telephone and called up a certain number.

Splash Page glanced in bewilderment at the famous detective. Brett’s face was utterly inscrutable as he said in a quiet, conversational voice:

“That you, Armitage? Black moves and loses. P.Q. plus K.T. check.”

At the other end of the wire a grey-haired, insignificant-looking man clucked his tongue disapprovingly and decided that a red asterisk should be added to a carefully selected list of names that he had in a certain dingy little office in Whitehall.

“Did you say red or black, my dear Thirteen?” said Number One.

“Red—at the moment, I fancy,” said Chester Brett, and his keen grey eyes strayed upwards to the ceiling on which was a scarlet circular stain.

CHAPTER VII

THE HEATHEN CHINEE

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR BARKER, having superintended the removal of the unfortunate Mr. Snaith’s body, returned to Room 54 in a particularly disgruntled frame of mind.

“What the Chief Commissioner will say about this,” he grumbled, “lord only knows. And as for the chief of the special branch—it looks to me I’m for it.”

Splash Page looked up. He had just ’phoned through in terse and vivid journalese to the Daily Radio his impressions of the night’s events.

“Come, come, Barkie, don’t be despondent,” he remarked playfully. “I have just ’phoned over to my rag that the case is in the eminently capable hands of Detective-inspector Barker, and that an early arrest is expected.”

“Huh!” grunted the Yard man, subsiding into a chair. “Fat lot of good that will do me with the Commissioner.”

Chester Brett smiled. While Splash Page had been ’phoning up to the Radio office, the detective had been busy in his usual silent fashion, and had discovered one or two significant details which had given him a correct orientation towards the solution of the grim mystery.

Dawn was breaking in the east, and although the electric radiator in Room 54 still glowed brightly, there was a chill tang in the air.

“I think I have seen all there is to see,” said Chester Brett. “I have discovered the scarlet stain and solved the secret of poor Snaith’s end. Did you, by any chance, take a statement from the Samways Seton woman, Barker?”

The Yard man stared blankly at Chester Brett, and suddenly, with a desperate air of a drowning man clutching at a straw, grabbed hold of his black official notebook.

“A statement,” he said. “For what it’s worth, here it is.”

He cleared his throat.

“Maria Samways Seton, aged 39. (I cautioned her but she persisted),” he said in an aside, and Brett’s lips twitched. “Widow of the late Ezekiel Samways Seton, drysalter of Leighton Buzzard. ‘I was awakened suddenly at about 1.10 a.m. I was staying in London on a shopping expedition and had retired to bed. At 10.25 p.m. I woke up. I looked out of the window, and I saw the face of a man in evening dress. There seemed to be something round his shoulders. I did not notice whether he was dead or alive. I seem to remember a red mark like a blood stain on his left chest. I distinctly remember seeing a big, black hand that appeared to have black gloves pressed against his right side. He did not say a word. I was too terrified to cry out for a moment or two, and when I looked again the man had disappeared.’ ”

“Did you say a black hand?” asked Chester Brett.

“Yes,” said Barker; “and she mentioned something about green eyes, but the woman was so hysterical that I didn’t put that down. After all, juries aren’t going to stand for that sort of rot.”

“A black hand,” said Chester Brett.

He nodded his head thoughtfully.

“A singularly illuminating statement, Barker, thank you so much.”

Even as he spoke there appeared round the jamb of the door a slim, yellow hand with long, highly-polished finger-nails.

Brett’s eyes narrowed.

“Pray pardon this intrusion, gentlemen,” cooed a soft, mellifluous voice from the corridor, “but there seems to be something untoward in the usually smooth and efficient running of the Hotel Cosmo.”

Barker started to his feet with an oath.

Framed on the threshold of Room 54 was the slim, elegantly-dressed figure of a Chinaman. His bland, yellow face and slanting, sloe eyes were completely devoid of expression.

In his hand, the Celestial held an opera hat and gloves. A cloak lined with scarlet silk fell in graceful folds from his shoulder, and beneath his faultlessly-tied bow dangled a jewelled order.

“I hope I am not intruding, gentlemen,” he repeated, “but I have just returned from a nocturnal perambulation of your continually exciting metropolis.”

Inspector Barker rose to his feet, and his moustache seemed to bristle with fury.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

The Celestial smiled blandly.

“A yellow rose by any name would tell you as sweetly,” he said in his cool, mellifluous tones. “If I told you that my name was Rung Fu Tze, it would doubtless be received with the same incredulity as the first holder of that illustrious name, which you occidentals have so barbarously translated as Confucius.”

“Now, look here,” broke in Barker truculently. “You’re an alien. I must know your name. You’re registered at this hotel, and I insist upon knowing it.”

“Ah Foo,” said the Chinese softly. “Without the ‘I,’ my dear inspector.”

“And your room number, Ah Foo?” asked Brett quietly.

“Two hundred and twenty-one,” said the Celestial with a slight bow.

Barker pushed back his chair. He jammed his billycock hat, symbol of his authority over his bullet head.

“Two hundred and twenty-one?” he echoed, in a truculent tone.

“Ah, I beg your pardon,” said the Chinese. “That was my number when I first arrived here. I have transferred to Room 55—hence my natural inquisitiveness as to why the portal of my honourable neighbour should be so desecrated.”

Barker gulped hard.

“You’d better get out of this,” he said brusquely. “And get to bed,” he added.

The Yard man was utterly nonplussed by the calm suavity of the Celestial.

“Precisely what I was thinking of doing,” responded the Chinaman.

With a ceremonious bow the Chinaman withdrew. Barker’s face was choleric with rage.

“That’s the feller,” he remarked. “I’ll bet he’s had something to do with this business.”

Brett shrugged his shoulders.

“Don’t jump too suddenly to conclusions, my dear fellow,” he remarked. “I dare say, if you interrogate Valenta or Wilks, you’ll find that the man has a perfect alibi.”

Barker glanced around the room a trifle helplessly, and then turned appealingly towards Brett. It was not often that the tenacious bulldog of Scotland Yard admitted himself beaten, but there was something almost pathetic in his manner now.

“For heaven’s sake, Brett, stop being inscrutable,” he said. “I don’t see a line to work on in this mystery. What with climbing corpses, confidence men and—and crazy Chinks, I’m right out of my depth.”

Brett shrugged his shoulders humorously.

“In the first place, my dear fellow, let me point out to you that, according to your own statement, it was utterly impossible for a man to be concealed in this room.”

“That’s true enough,” said Barker stoutly.

“In the second place,” continued the criminologist urbanely, “it was utterly impossible for anyone to climb up or down and enter in or out of the window to accomplish the crime. As you pointed out there is absolutely no foothold for any human being. We cannot fall back on the favourite device of fictional novelists and bring in secret panels and trapdoors. The Hotel Cosmo is quite a modern building.”

“Yes, but——” muttered Barker. “He was stabbed—somebody must have stabbed him.”

“Not necessarily somebody,” said Chester Brett, bringing out from his pocket the dagger. “There are no fingerprints on this hilt.”

A little thrill of superstitious fear swept over Inspector Barker.

“I told you to look for a scarlet stain,” said Chester Brett. “If I cared to quote from that splendid novel the Pilgrim’s Progress, which doubtless our Celestial friend derives great amusement from, I would instance the celebrated simile of the man with the muck-rake whose eyes were glued on the ground, and who was heedless of the crown above his head. Men seldom look upward,” he added. “More’s the pity.”

“Pilgrim’s Progress,” ejaculated Barker, in an exasperated tone. “What on earth are you talking about, Brett?”

Splash Page chuckled. His keen journalistic brain had already followed the criminologist’s analogy.

“Yes,” he said maliciously. “Bunyan’s celebrated portrait of the Yard following Chelsea.”

“Look here, Brett,” said Barker, now thoroughly incensed, “I’m not standing for this. This is a serious business. A man’s been murdered, and as far as I can see——”

“Look up, my friend, look up,” said Chester Brett blandly, “and see the scarlet stain.”

Barker’s gaze followed the detective’s outstretched hand. On the ceiling above the desk on which the telephone reposed there was a tiny little circle of scarlet.

Barker stared at it in bewilderment.

“Gosh!” he ejaculated. “I haven’t seen that before!”

“No—precisely—because you would not look up,” said Chester Brett. “If you will examine the hilt of this dagger you will find that there is, adhering on the end of it, another scarlet stain, which is not blood, but adhesive wax.

“In all good faith you said that you had examined the room. In nine cases out of ten a man is so taken with what he sees on the level of his own eyes that he seldom gazes upwards. I reconstruct this diabolically clever crime this way:

“During the time occupied by Snaith at dinner someone must have entered this room and affixed this dagger by the aid of adhesive wax to the ceiling. He must have had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the man’s movements, and I think a thorough search would reveal the presence of a microphone. Probably behind the wardrobe over there,” explained Chester Brett.

“But that’s impossible,” said Barker. “Wilks would have known at once if anybody entered the room.”

“Pardon me,” said Chester Brett, “Wilks was in charge of the elevator. He was just as often up as down.”

“Well, I’m dashed!” ejaculated Barker. “I never thought of that!”

“Less than a minute was enough,” continued the criminologist, “for a clever man with a pass-key to enter this bedroom, climb on the desk and affix this knife, which you will see is heavily weighted, to the ceiling.

“Incidentally, did Snaith mention to you that he intended to do any telephoning?” demanded Brett.

Barker rubbed his bristly chin.

“As a matter of. fact, he did,” he replied.

Brett’s eyes twinkled.

“Ah, that accounts for it. You will note that the electric radiator has been switched on. This specially prepared adhesive wax slowly melts with heat. From a superficial examination I conjecture that it is a blend of chicle and gum tragacanth,” he explained.

“Elementary science will tell you that hot air rises. By the time Snaith had seated himself at the desk to telephone, this death-dealing dagger was ready to fall. Q.E.D.”

“Brett, you’re a living marvel!” said Barker, jumping to his feet. “I see it all now!”

He dived his left hand to his hip-pocket, and produced a glinting pair of handcuffs.

“Where on earth are you going?” demanded Chester Brett.

“To arrest that blamed Chink!” snarled the Yard man savagely.

Brett smiled inscrutably.

“I shouldn’t if I were you, Barker,” he said urbanely.

Splash Page chuckled.

“I’d let him have a rest instead,” he remarked.

CHAPTER VIII

FOUR IN CONFERENCE

DOWN COVENT GARDEN way, that queer quarter of London that works by night and sleeps by day, there are countless little hotels whose modest fronts hide impeccable virtues and incredible evils.

The so-called wickedness of the gay West End, with its garish night haunts and vulgar appeal to tourists and provincial jaded appetites, is merely on the surface.

Between the hours of ten and three, amidst the blare of jazz bands, the popping of champagne-corks, and shrill, unnatural laughter, the West End is at its liveliest but its least vicious mood.

But when dawn breaks eastward, and tired revellers return, yawning, homeward, it is then that men slip furtively up narrow and sinister side-streets to the shuttered, modest hotels, to work out their crimes against society.

The ’bus queue dips, with pockets stuffed with wallets, meet their fences; the dope fiends, with twitching lips and washed-out eyes, knock avidly for their snow-man, be it spring, summer, autumn, or winter.

It is day—not night—that veils the evil of Ebor Street.

At eight a.m. three men and one woman sat in a dingy, dreary sittingroom in a discreet little hotel in the shadow of St. Botolph’s Church at the corner of Ebor Street.

On the table before them was a late London edition of that go-ahead newspaper, the Daily Radio.

One of the occupants of that depressing room was a thin, lantern-jawed individual, dressed in a nondescript suit of grey tweed.

He stabbed a trembling forefinger at the front page of the newspaper.

“Look at it, Lil!” he remarked. “Gosh darn these newspaper men. Who’d ’a’ guessed they’d ’ave copped the foist edition?”

He spoke with the East Side twang of the New York thug.

The girl next to him, dressed a little less exotically now, but still emanating the charm of her personality, shrugged her slim, sequined shoulders.

“But what does it matter?” said Orinoco Lil. “The sheets were bound to get it anyways.”

She glanced at the flaring scare headlines across the front page of the Daily Radio.

MAYFAIR MURDER MYSTERY CORPSE THAT CLIMBED RIDDLE OF ROOM 54

There followed a vivid description of some of the last night’s events, graphically related by Splash Page.

“Gee! That boy knows how to put his story over!” remarked Lili la Rue.

“I wish you’d drop it!” growled her companion, a thick-set stripling, with a white, strained face, and the nervous, twitching lips of a dope fiend.

He was known amongst his intimates as Harry the Hop, and among his intimates was his thin companion known to the police as Pierre le Brune—or Brown Peter—in New York, and that engaging and charming young lady, Lili la Rue, alias Orinoco Lil.

The fourth occupant of the round-table conference rejoiced in the monniker of “Relative” Ray. He had been so often in prison that time to him was merely relative. But Scotland Yard, in its dull, methodical fashion, listed him as William Miggs, plumber, of no fixed abode.

Their sobriquets were an index to their characters. Harry the Hop was so called from his dope proclivities. Pierre le Brune because he had once impersonated an Indian rajah, and succeeded in blackmailing—or, rather, brownmailing—an English lady out of ten thousand pounds for certain questionable proceedings in a Paris hotel; and Lili la Rue because most of the men she met rued the day they met her.

And now in the quiet of the Hotel in Covent Garden, the three men listened while the girl that was born on the Orinoco river, a veritable Amazon, took charge of the proceedings.

“Have you fixed up with Charley the Chuff?” demanded Orinoco Lil.

Pierre le Brune, alias Brown Peter, stroked his sandy moustache.

“All fixed, dearie,” he said. “You trust Charley. Shaylor pays well,” he added, touching his pocket significantly.

The girl smiled.

“He’s got the kale, kids,” she said. “It sure has got ’em phased how that Yank got his.”

“I say,” broke in Relative Ray. “You come from South America, not North. For Newton’s sake speak with a Spanish accent.”

The girl laughed, a trifle discordantly.

“Say, kids, if you’ve got the Secret Services of half the world tagging and trailin’ around after you, then you’re apt to get rattled.”

She leaned forward confidently and approached Brown Peter.

“What did you do with Chiswick?” she demanded in an undertone.

The crook shrugged his shoulders and took out a small phial from his waistcoat pocket. He emptied out its crystallised contents on the palm of his hand and sniffed it up each nostril.

Instantly his vacant blue eyes grew bright.

Replacing the phial, he turned round and smiled, and his smile could be very fascinating when he wanted it to be.

“That’s my little secret,” he said. “And——”

A thunderous knock sounded at the door and the hoarse voice of the dago proprietor of the hotel came from the other side of the portal.

“Eff you please, ladies and gentlemen. Eet is eight o’clock.”

“Darn it!” ejaculated Brown Peter.

“That’s all right, Giuseppi, we’ve got it all fixed up.”

Lili la Rue shivered slightly.

“I saw Beau Reville to-night,” she said, and her remark seemed inconsequent in that frowsty room. “If Shaylor wasn’t financing this,” she added, and her tone altered subtly, “I’d see all you lot o’ cheap skates in blazes first before I’d come up against Beau.”

There was a catch in her throat that would have amused the languid Mr. Reville, who at that moment yawned luxuriously and stretched out his hand for a copy of the newspaper which his valet had brought to him in his bedroom.

“Dear, dear, dear,” he remarked, turning to his factotum friend and familiar, the valet, Frank Grey. “And has all this happened under our friend Valenta’s hospitable roof?”

He glanced down the headlines at the slick newspaper story which Splash Page had ’phoned over to the Radio the previous evening.

It was clever, succinct, but contained no clue to the mystery of the death of Mr. Snaith.

Mr. Reville seemed somewhat perturbed as he rose leisurely after reading the report, and followed his attentive valet who had provided his bath.

“I don’t like it,” he muttered. “I don’t like it at all.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but Hi hendeavoured to get the water warm to your liking.”

“I’m not referring to that, you idiot,” said Reville, lazily divesting himself of his exotic dressing gown and pyjamas. “I am referring to last night’s murder.”

“Indeed, sir,” said that admirable man, deftly catching the discarded garments. “Was there a murder last night?”

“And the Radio has a million and a half circulation,” murmured Beau Reville bitterly into his hot bath.

CHAPTER IX

TROUBLE AT THE YARD

IN his plainly furnished room at Scotland Yard, that capable but choleric officer of the C.I.D., Detective-inspector Barker, gloomily surveyed his highly polished and sturdy number nine boots.

They were placed conveniently enough for his inspection, for he was seated in his favourite attitude, hunched up in his swivel-backed chair with his pudgy legs hoisted up inelegantly on to his mahogany desk.

One of the vicious black cheroots he affected was stuck at an angle of forty-five degrees in the left hand corner of his mouth, and with his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, he played a complacent tattoo on his constabulary bosom.

A tug, towing a long line of squat barges, fussed up the grey Thames, while along the Embankment some of London’s millions hurried cityward by ’bus and tram.

A tap sounded at the door and a fresh complexioned young constable entered with a bundle of newspapers under his arm.

He coughed and saluted simultaneously.

“The morning papers, sir,” he said, depositing a pile of journals about six inches away from the inspector’s sturdy boots.

“Seems to have been a rare murder last night, sir,” he went on. “This ’ere Climbing Corpse business——”

“Tch!” snorted Barker. “When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it, my man.”

The constable flushed and murmured an apology. It was obvious that “old Barkie” was upset.

“Pah!” said Barker, as the door closed behind the retreating and crestfallen figure. “It’s a bit thick, that’s what it is—THICK!”

The inspector’s remark was not meant to apply to the pungent cheroot smoke which surrounded him, but to the situation in general. Inspector Barker was peeved and not without reason.

He had spent the whole night at the Hotel Cosmo interviewing, taking down statements and depositions and the net result of the whole of his labours was, he frankly admitted, nothing.

If Chester Brett had not pointed out to him the method by which Snaith had been killed, he would unquestionably have followed dozens of false trails. As it was, there was still a tremendous amount to be explained.

Barker could not, rack his brain as much as he would, discover why a man murdered in Room 54 should be found in Room 221 five minutes later.

He glanced at the Daily Radio, the only paper incidentally which carried the full story, whereat at that moment, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the other editorial offices of Fleet Street.

“H’m,” said Barker. “The boy has put over his story well.”

He swelled his chest importantly, as his gaze fell on the following paragraph at the end of Splash Page’s vividly written story.

“This baffling and mysterious case is at present in the hands of that capable officer, Detective-inspector Barker, whose recent work in solving the Croydon mystery is still in the public mind.”

“Yes, I must admit the young fellow can write,” said Barker to nobody in particular. “Though, Lord knows what the Chief’ll say when——”

He broke off suddenly as the telephone bell shrilled on his desk.

He lifted the receiver and heard the voice of Sir Henry Fairfax, the Chief Commissioner.

Immediately, Barker removed his boots from the desk.

“That you, Barker? I want to see you immediately,” came the sharp, incisive tones of the Scotland Yard Chief.

“Very good, Sir Henry, I’ll be there at once,” he replied.

He crushed the stub of his cheroot in the ash-tray and, bracing himself for the ordeal, entered a moment later into the presence.

Sir Henry Fairfax, a tall, elegant, middle-aged man, dressed in morning clothes, with a greying imperial beard, sat at his desk, his fingers drumming a thoughtful tattoo on the arm of his chair.

His keen, brown eyes glanced sharply at the inspector as he entered the room.

“Good-morning, Barker!” he said abruptly. “Sit down.”

Barker balanced himself precariously on the edge of a chair and gripped his bowler hat—that very present help in time of trouble—on his knee.

“This is a very bad business, Barker,” said Sir Henry Fairfax, tapping Splash Page’s story on the front page of the Daily Radio. “Its consequences are liable to be far reaching, and I hesitate to suggest the international complications that might ensure from your gross and culpable negligence.”

Barker swallowed hard.

Sir Henry Fairfax, late District Commissioner of Bombay, was a stern but fair-minded man. To his subordinates in the Yard he combined courtesy with discipline. He was not exactly

popular. The attitude of his staff towards him was somewhat similar to the schoolboy’s attitude to the famous Dr. Arnold of Rugby.

“He’s a beast—but he’s a just beast.”

Barker realised that he was in for a bad half-hour, but he squared his shoulders and prepared for the brunt of the broadside attack.

“I would like your depositions, Barker,” said Sir Henry.

And the Yard man scrabbled in his pocket for that black official notebook which was his mainstay and prop. He snapped back the elastic band, cleared his throat, and commenced—policemen never begin.

“On the evening of the eleventh inst., in accordance with instructions received from the Special Branch, I, in company with Sergeant Wilks, proceeded in Taxi UR 5902 in the direction of Croydon Aerodrome.”

“Tut-tut, Barker,” broke in Sir Henry testily, “cut out all that nonsense and let’s have the main facts of the case!”

Barker, already nervous, was almost nonplussed by being thrown out of gear by the command to desist from his official notebook.

From the mass of details Sir Henry Fairfax eventually managed to get some coherent story out of the jumbled statements of Wilks, Mrs. Samways Seton, Valenta, the manager, and half a dozen of the hotel staff.

His face became more grave when Barker carefully listed the contents of the dead man’s pockets and also his valise.

“You found no papers of any description that could remotely resemble diplomatic correspondence?” he snapped.

“No, Sir Henry,” said Barker. “To all intents and purposes the luggage was that of a perfectly innocuous commercial traveller.”

“See that the valise is sent at once to the research department,” said Sir Henry. “Very possibly those samples of ferro-concrete are not what they seem.”

Barker started.

“By Jove, sir, that’s a suggestion!” he remarked, his eyes brightening. “My own theory is that the poor fellow was murdered on account of certain secret documents that he was taking back to the Capitol in Washington.”

“Your perspicacity is amazing,” said Sir Henry acidly.

Barker coloured.

At that moment a buzzer trilled at Sir Henry’s elbow. He lifted the receiver and listened for a minute or two.

Barker fidgeted uneasily in his chair. He noted that the commissioner’s face had grown very grave and stern.

“What’s that you say?” he snapped; and suddenly his voice altered subtly, for he recognised at the other end of the wire the dry, impersonal voice of Chester Brett.

“Ah, is that you, Brett?” he said, with more cordiality than he had hitherto displayed that morning.

“Good morning, Sir Henry!” greeted the criminologist. “I just wanted to let you know that I have managed to discover a fairly plausible theory to account for the death of the man Snaith. Could you possibly issue me a blank warrant?”

“What’s that?” gasped the amazed commissioner. “You’ve discovered who murdered him?”

“I fancy so,” said Brett. “Incidentally, is it possible for me to obtain from the Home Office a return of recently arrived primates in this country?”

Sir Henry Fairfax gasped.

“I should think the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would be able to supply you with the names of visiting archbishops,” he remarked. “But what on earth that’s got to do with this murder I cannot conjecture.”

Brett chuckled.

“I had better call and see you, Sir Henry,” he said. “There are many things I want to discuss.”

“I shall be delighted,” replied the Chief Commissioner. “I am always at your service, as you know, Brett.”

Barker heaved a sigh of relief, for he knew that the man from Chelsea would never have rung up unless he had discovered a clue of some vital importance.

Brett was not the man to jump to conclusions, and very possibly his laboratory had revealed some secret of the strange weighted dagger which would give Barker a main line of inquiry to pursue.

CHAPTER X

THE PROFESSOR’S PARCEL

SERGEANT BERRY, in charge of West Street police-station, sat meditatively at his desk. He had just come on duty, and he glanced at the record of the charge-room depositions after taking over from his predecessor.

It was a typical West End police-station assortment. He saw that there were five drunks and disorderlies cooling their heels in the cells. He smiled grimly as he recognised one or two familiar names in the charge book.

Lemuel Luck, labourer, of no fixed abode, was an old acquaintance of the sergeant. He would do the usual seven days, after the police-court proceedings, without demur. He also recognised Rosy Cravencourt, the charming old lady who sold flowers at the end of Shaftesbury Avenue. Rosy had once been a famous music-hall star. Once every month she would remember the fact, and her aged eyes would lighten when she became for one brief moment the leading figure in the somewhat dusty setting of the police-court.

Poor old Rosy! Her appearances were brief, but regular. It was her one crowded minute of glorious life when Sir Thomas Avery, the magistrate, admonished her kindly and charged her the usual five shillings for her appearance.

“I still ’as me public, dearie,” she would say beamingly to the gaoler. “An’ I treats the five bob as a hagent’s fee.”

Sergeant Berry, who was an understanding man, turned to a young constable who was hovering near the charge-room.

“See that old Rosy gets a mug of tea,” he remarked. “And it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you accidentally emptied a drop of rum into it when you’re passing the canteen. It’s chilly for the old girl in the mornings.”

The constable winked. Everyone at West Street had a soft spot for Rosy.

Sergeant Berry’s gaze travelled down the list.

Maurice Rosenthal, dealer, of Shinwell, had, he noted, been pulled in for loitering with intent.

“And I hope he gets three years,” commented Sergeant Berry below his breath.

He pulled his waxed moustache thoughtfully as he saw the brief depositions relating to the murder at the Cosmo Hotel.

“That means there’s a stiff in the mortuary,” he remarked, glancing at the clock.

It was about 8 a.m. and with a prodigious yawn the sergeant furtively unearthed a copy of the Sporting Post and pretended to be deeply engrossed in his constabulary duties.

Suddenly outside the entrance of the police-station a long white ambulance drew up with a final clang of its warning bell.

The sergeant frowned irritably and thrust that pink and sportive journal into his desk as a white-uniformed figure ascended the steps of the station.

“Morning, sergeant,” said the man affably. “I believe you’ve got a body in the mortuary. I’ve got a letter ’ere from Sir Brian Horberry. He wants to conduct the P.M. down at Westminster. They ain’t satisfied with the case.”

Sergeant Berry stretched out a ham-like hand for the bluff official envelope which was marked O.H.M.S. and addressed to the sergeant-incharge of West Street.

“I don’t envy you your job, mate,” he remarked feelingly. “I suppose you knows your way to the mortuary?”

“Yus, sure!” said the attendant. “Somewhere round the back ’ere, ain’t it?”

Sergeant Berry signalled to the subordinate. He was rather glad that duty precluded his accompanying the attendants on their gruesome errand.

“One moment,” he said officially, ripping open the buff-coloured envelope. “I’ll just see that this is O.K.”

It was a typewritten letter addressed from the Home Office and authorised the bearer one, William Jennings and his assistant, Frederick Edsall, to bear away the body at present in the West Street mortuary to St. Peter’s Hospital, Westminster.

Sergeant Berry cordially approved. He disliked corpses in his vicinity.

Less than eight minutes later he saw the two uniformed attendants carrying a stretcher shrouded ominously in grey government blankets into the waiting ambulance. They closed the door with a clang and Mr. William Jennings, slightly breathless, reappeared in the charge-room.

“I suppose I’ve got to sign for the body,” he remarked.

Sergeant Berry, stickler for convention, produced a buff-coloured form.

“Sign along the dotted line, please,” he said, and in laborious handwriting, the obliging Mr. Jennings signed.

With a clang of its warning bell the ambulance steered its way through the traffic. At the wheel Mr. Jennings smiled evilly as the policeman on point duty waved him on.

“Mr. Shaylor will be pleased,” he chuckled.

• • • • • •

In a grey little sittingroom in a greyer street in Bloomsbury, Professor Ethrelred Entwhistle was engaged in the pleasant task of toasting a round of bread before a cheery fire.

It crackled merrily and dispelled some of the grey soggy haze which seems to surround perpetually in winter-time the environments of Bloomsbury.

A tall thin man was Professor Entwhistle with a mop of grey, leonine hair, a long thin intellectual face, and eyes that blinked mildly behind a pair of old-fashioned steel spectacles.

He was dressed in a suit of rusty black and wore a high, old-fashioned collar and a cravat that was vaguely Victorian in design.

Despite the cheerful glow of the fire on his thin features as he extended a toasting-fork towards the blaze, he made an oddly pathetic figure as he sat in an armchair with a hideous antimacassar.

The fire did its best, but the room was a depressing one. On the mantelpiece stood brown and faded photographs of grim-looking women in hard, straw hats, voluminous skirts and leg of mutton sleeves.

In this depressing company, bullet-headed men with weeping whiskers, protuberant eyes and stove-pipe hats, looked terribly self-conscious.

The mantelpiece in addition to the faded portrait gallery, contained flora and fauna that never was on sea or land. They consisted of a glass case of anaemic-looking wax fruits and two squint-eyed China dogs that looked as if they had been born with congenital spotted fever.

Above them hung a steel engraving of the Albert Memorial, and from both gas-brackets on either side there hung, in little nets of silk, two huge ostrich eggs.

A tap sounded at the door, and the professor’s landlady entered, a slightly larger edition of Queen Victoria, in a gown of black bombazine with jet earrings that rattled as she set down the breakfast tray.

Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay was a lady with a grievance. Sole relict of a clerk in the India Office who had shuffled off this mortal coil long before the war, she never tired of expatiating on his virtues to the guests of her boardinghouse. She would have been not only indignant but hysterical if one had mentioned the rude word “lodgers” to her. She always referred to them mincingly as P.G.’s.

As a lady born, to quote her own apt expression, it was a conspiracy on the part of the wicked Government which had reduced her to the indignity of letting furnished apartments to single gentlemen.

The word “lodger” was anathema, and Mrs. Fotheringay was perfectly “refained.”

“Good morning, professor,” she said in a dirge-like voice. “It is a very clement day.”

Professor Entwhistle looked up from his toast and smiled agreeably.

“A trifle foggy, though,” he remarked, and added with an effort: ‘‘My dear Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay.”

“But how typically London, my dear professor,” returned the landlady. “I’m sure that after the sunny clime you have been used to in Egypt, with the turquoise sky overhead and the burning sun on the desert, you must be delighted to see what my poor dear husband used to call a dear old London Particular.”

“Quite, quite!” said Professor Entwhistle, fumbling with his toast.

Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay was apt to be somewhat overpowering. She took, as a friend of the professor had once remarked, the Bloom off Bloomsbury, leaving the place to bury itself.

The reference to the deceased Mr. Fotheringay reminded the professor, who was an ardent Egyptologist, of a certain delicate matter which he wished to negotiate with his somewhat exacting landlady. He had taken the lodgings because they were within a stone’s throw of the British Museum, and as he had pointed out, it was so comfortable for a lonely bachelor like himself to have all the comforts of a refined gentlewoman’s home.

“I hope you will not mind, my dear Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay,” he remarked. “But I am expecting a large packing-case from a friend of mine, Professor Murgatroyd of Cairo, containing a mummy, I believe, of Amenwhoosis the First, who, as of course you know, reigned in Egypt in the Eleventh Dynasty.”

Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay simpered.

“But how fearfully interesting, professor. To think that I have at last a member of the Royal Family staying under my roof.”

She glanced affectionately at the portrait of the Albert Memorial and withdrew in a cloud of bombast and bombazine.

“Damned fool!” said Professor Entwhistle. “But useful.”

As the door closed the benevolent lines were smoothed away from his face, and one saw ruthlessness in the iron jaw and a steely glint in the eyes that had been so mild a minute or two before.

Herr Nathan Shaylor, prince of international spies, was at last on the threshold of the greatest coup of his career.

There was a clatter of hoofs outside the door and a large delivery van drew up before the door with a flourish.

Two green baize-aproned men descended from the cart and pounded at the door-knocker.

On their shoulders they bore a long slim package, and Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay curtsied in spite of herself.

Professor Entwhistle, alias Herr Nathan Shaylor, hovered about the gloomy corridor like a hen after chicks. He signed the buff form. With an apologetic smile to his landlady he begged her leave to take the precious relic of a long-dead king of Egypt into his bedroom.

“I will be having one or two friends along—distinguished savants, Mrs. Fotheringay,” he said. “Some time after ten, and also my secretary and niece, about whom I have told you, to take down particulars as to whether Amen is Whoosis or not.”

Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay’s jet earrings clanked with awe.

“But certainly, professor, I am most interested—most interested,” she remarked. “I will see that you are not disturbed.”

The professor watched the packing-case being borne upstairs and deposited on his bed. Saw also his landlady, bursting with importance and a sense of royal patronage, bustling away to inform the other P.G.‘s of her “refained” establishment.

Then, locking the door, he set to work to open the packing-case. Some time later he stood staring down at the grim, stark figure on the bed with a quizzical expression on his clever face.

There was a ring at the front door bell.

A slatternly maid appeared from some dim, mysterious region in the basement. Hortense, whose real name was Amelia, crossed over to answer the door. A luxurious grey motor-car purred softly outside by the kerb.

Framed on the threshold when the maid opened the door was a thick-set little man with alert black eyes, set rather too closely together on either side of his beaky nose.

“Is Professor Entwhistle in, my dear?” he asked, and his voice shook a little.

At that moment there alighted from the tonneau of the automobile a radiant vision of loveliness that reminded Hortense (Amelia) of the one night off per week which she spent at the local cinema.

She was a combination of Clara Bow, Greta Garbo, and Lupe Velez rolled into one in the bewildered eyes of the awed little skivvy.

“O-er!” said Amelia Hortense, as the gentleman at the doorway unbuttoned his heavy, fur-lined overcoat, took out an ornate wallet, and presented his card.

“Is Professor Entwhistle at home?” he asked in the aristocratic voice which Amelia Hortense usually connected with the wireless.

“Yessir,” said Amelia Hortense.

At that moment, like a heavily-loaded galleon in full sail, Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay emerged from her incredible parlour.

“Hortense,” she said haughtily, as the little maid took the visiting-card from the distinguished caller’s hand, “how many times have I told you to use the salver?” She flashed pink, vulcanite gums in the direction of the caller. “So gauche, don’t you know. You are, I presume——”

The visitor swept off his hat with a gallant gesture, while the unhappy Hortense fumbled feverishly for the electro-plated tray on the hall stand. With a ceremonious gesture he dropped a bit of paste-board in the centre of the salver.

Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay raised her lorgnettes and smirked as she beheld the name:

PROFESSOR LUCIEN BRUNE,

L.O.B., L.O.D.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” she said. “Dear Professor Entwhistle was telling me he was expecting you, and this, I presume, is Miss Entwhistle, his niece?”

Her smile was a trifle frosty as she bent her gaze towards the slim, svelte figure who looked far too well dressed to be the niece of an impecunious professor.

Lili la Rue smiled devastatingly.

“I’ve heard such a lot about you, Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay. You’re one of the Shropshire Fotheringays, are you not?” she added. “My dear father used to hunt with the Lycester before——”

Her lips trembled with supreme artistry. The quiver of those coral lips at the psychological moment had cost many men many hundreds of pounds.

“The dear professor,” said Mrs. Spofforth Fotheringay, “is so anxiously awaiting your arrival. I feel so flustered,” she added. “I have so many distinguished guests, and almost you might say I have royalty staying under my roof.”

She giggled inanely, then frowned at the gaping Hortense.

“Show this lady and gentleman to the professor’s room at once,” she commanded.

Professor Entwhistle’s face was far from amiable when his visitors were admitted.

“Well, Pierre,” he grunted, “it looks as if I’d drawn a blank.”

“What d’you mean?” demanded Pierre le Brune gruffly. “Didn’t Larry and Charley pull their stuff? It was some job fixing up the ambulance and then switching over and getting Jimmy the Whizz and Eddy, the driver, and fixing that fake delivery-van was no mean achievement.”

“I know—I know,” said Shaylor soothingly. “But, darn it, do you realise that I’ve stripped the—er——”

Lili la Rue gave a little moue.

“Go on, don’t mind me,” she said, crossing her slim, silk-sheathed legs. She gave an involuntary shiver, however, as she glanced at that grim, shrouded form on the professor’s bed.

“Incidentally,” broke in the latter, “what exact identity have you taken?”

A faint smile passed over Pierre’s features.

“It has evidently impressed your excellent landlady,” he remarked. “Especially my degrees. Thoroughness, that’s what, my dear Shaylor.”

He flicked over a visiting-card, and Shaylor’s eyebrows raised themselves in surprise.

“Clever of you, Pete,” he remarked. “You’ve got them printed mighty quick. But what do the cryptic degrees L.O.B., L.O.D. stand for?”

“Late of Borstal—late of Dartmoor,” grinned the crook. “Now, come on, what about this corpse?” he added, in a more serious tone. “It’s not good enough. Schultz is waiting at Toni’s for the papers and we’re getting low—darned low, ain’t we, Lil?”

He turned to the adventuress, who lit a cigarette.

“Low is what we ain’t anything else but,” said Lili la Rue. “Besides, I’ve got my future to consider.”

“Judging from your past,” said Shaylor acidly, “it’s likely to be a pretty hot one. Where’s Chundra Lai?” he added, turning to the alleged professor of Borstal.

Pierre smiled.

“Where else d’you think but at Hasaballa’s house? He’s not likely to be seen abroad for some days.”

At which cryptic remark Shaylor’s face crinkled into a grin, and he gave a soft chuckle of laughter. He slowly drew back the coverlet from the dead man’s face.

CHAPTER XI

CHESTER BRETT EXPLAINS

IT was a very important conference that took place in a quiet room at Scotland Yard on the morning following the murder of Mr. Snaith.

Four men were present—Sir Henry Fairfax, the Chief Commissioner; Mr. Armitage of the Secret Service; Chester Brett, No. 13 of the same body; and Detective-inspector Barker.

“That is the situation, Sir Henry,” said Chester Brett. “I can only deduce by inference that Snaith, poor devil, carried documents of importance in regard to the Anglo-American peace parley, and that some persons interested on the Continent knew of the fact.”

“My dear Brett, I think your deductions have been perfectly astounding,” said Sir Henry Fairfax. “The publicity is regrettable, for at the present delicate stage of negotiations between Britain and the U.S. an event like this is bound to have its repercussions.”

“The facts to date, I take it, are these,” put in Number One: “The American Embassy ask us to guard Snaith, who is bearing important information regarding the activities of Hiram Snelling, who last year endeavoured to wreck the disarmament conference in the interests of the American steel trusts.

“Snelling is now on trial in the U.S. for conspiracy. He states that he has been subsidised by the American Government to make propaganda for a bigger Navy party.”

“The man is a scoundrel,” broke in Sir Henry Fairfax.

“Exactly,” broke in Number One dryly. “I have just had information from Number 103, our agent in New York, telling me that Snaith, who was one of the cleverest men in the American Secret Service, had been sent all the way to Germany to fetch proof of the complicity of this man Snelling’s activities. Here is his dossier,” he added.

Flicking over the pages, he finally arrived at one which was heavily underscored in red. It bore the portrait of a square-jawed man with singularly penetrating eyes, above which a pair of extremely black and pugnacious eyebrows protruded.

“That,” said Number One, touching the portrait gently with the top of his quill, “is Hiram Snelling, the biggest menace to peace that exists in the world to-day. He is clever, unscrupulous, a wonderful linguist, and hand-in-glove with the steel trusts of America, Germany and Italy.

“The one way by which we can establish Anglo-American friendship is to impeach Snelling by a record of his misdemeanours and intrigues, so throughly proved that they will stand in any international court.”

Chester Brett puffed thoughtfully at his briar pipe.

“Exactly,” he remarked. “I believe that Snaith had those proofs—and that was why he was murdered.”

“But what I can’t understand,” broke in Sir Henry Fairfax, “is how the man was murdered. Here he is in an hotel bedroom, and, according to that highly imaginative and gifted young man, Splash Page, his corpse is found climbing up the wall of the hotel.”

Chester Brett smiled cryptically.

“I’ll confess that your remarks about ecclesiastical commissioners amused me, Sir Henry. But I was not referring specially to archbishops, but to the larger apes when I mentioned the word ‘primates.’ It is obvious that what my friend Page saw from the window of his bedroom was not mere hallucination. He is far too level-headed for that, and in any case it has been confirmed by the somewhat incoherent evidence of Mrs. Samways Seton.”

“But hang it all,” broke in the gruff voice of Detective-inspector Barker, “it’s this climbing that gets me, Brett. It’s absolutely impossible.”

“Not so impossible as you think, my friend; you have simply backed the wrong colour, that is all.”

There were moments when Brett’s bland imperturbability reduced Barker to the verge of apoplexy. In the august presence of the Commissioner, however, he dissembled his wrath. He gulped faintly and echoed:

“The wrong colour? Archbishops? What on earth are you driving at?”

“Simply that instead of suspecting the yellow you should have gone after the black or the brown,” said Chester Brett. “I have made discreet inquiries from Valetta, and discovered that amongst the kitchen staff is a lascar dishwasher—or, rather, was. His name, I believe was Ram Lai, and his sleeping quarters seem to have been in the roof of the hotel.

“Ram Lai disappeared suddenly yesterday afternoon. There may or may not be something in the coincidence.”

“But this infernal Chink,” broke in Barker. “I don’t trust the blighter. He is——”

“A very remarkable man,” interrupted Chester Brett. “But to return to our primates.”

He pulled out from his pocket a tiny, sealed envelope, which he opened. From it he withdrew a few strands of coarse rope, which he had discovered on the edge of the window-sill in Room No. 221.

“Under the microscope,” he remarked,“this revealed some interesting features. It is hemp, and, whether the fact is symbolical or not, I have an idea that the strands of this rope are likely to eventually hang the ingenious murderer of the unfortunate Snaith.

“As you know, Sir Henry,” said Brett leaning forward, “hemp or cannabis sativa, is a herb with a tough, fibrous inner bark used in making ropes and cordage. There are many varieties of the family, and to a trained observer it is not difficult to distinguish between the various kinds of this useful plant. I happen to have made somewhat of a study of jute and hemp. Indeed, I have written a small monograph on the subject inspired by the fact that hasheesh, that deadly drug, is prepared from the resin of the plant.”

“Yes, yes,” broke in the Commissioner. “But what precisely has that to do with the murder of Snaith?”

“Simply to point out to you that it is possible to distinguish the different varieties, if one studies them. For instance, there is the African bow-string hemp, manufactured from the fibre of the tropical plant of the bloodwort family. This must not be confused, however, with the black fellows’ hemp, commersonia fraseri, the wiry Australian hemp.”

Barker’s eyes goggled in his round, red face as Brett expounded with the air of a professor speaking to a couple of unruly pupils.

“This rope, however,” continued the detective “is undoubtedly the Bombay or Bengal hemp, the hibiscus cannabinus, of which the fibre is used for making rope of the better sort. It is superior in elasticity to the other species of hemp, and not very common in England.

“Most hemp comes from Tanpeco, Madras and the Bahamas.”

“Very interesting, indeed,” said the Commissioner dryly. “But I do not quite see its relevance.”

“Probably not,” said Brett patiently. “But it simply explains the mystery of the climbing corpse. You will note that this fibre is perfectly dry. It rained considerably the night before last. Had this piece of fibre been there for some days, then undoubtedly it would have become frayed and sodden. As it is, you will see that it is quite firm. It is not difficult, therefore, to infer that a rope of this exceedingly pliable and tough material was lowered down from the roof. You thus have an opportunity of access into Snaith’s bedroom.”

“But really, Brett, there is no human being that could climb down that ghastly precipice and live. And to climb up again, carrying a body in his arms, is wellnigh impossible. In fact, it is impossible!” Barker added with a snort.

“I did not mention human beings,” said Brett blandly. “The body of Snaith was carried up the rope by a distant relative of the human family. Everything points to the fact, from the disjointed narrative of Mrs. Samways Seton to the peculiar prints which I discovered in the dust outside the lintel. The body of Snaith was carried up in the darkness by one of the larger primates—most probably a chimpanzee.”

“A chimp?” echoed Barker incredulously. “Why, it couldn’t be done. How could you train a blooming ape to go to the right room and——”

“One moment,” said Brett easily. “You do not appreciate the fact that a chimpanzee is probably the nearest of all the large anthropoids in intelligence to man. Though it walks on all fours, it is abundantly attested that the chimpanzee anatomically and cranially is almost identical with the human tribe.

“An adult male may weigh as much as two hundred pounds, and, standing erect, be four and a half to five feet in height.”

“Good gad!” broke in the Commissioner. “You don’t say so, Brett! I always thought that the orang outang was the most intelligent of the monkeys.”

“You mean apes, my dear, Sir Henry,” rejoined Brett. “Quite a different species. In the first place the chimpanzee belongs to Africa, where the orang outang is never found. Its superior intelligence has been amply confirmed by elaborate experimental studies.”

“Good gad!” ejaculated Sir Henry again.

“Then you think——”

“I think it is extremely likely that if you look for a brownskinned man who possesses a chimpanzee—probably just recently arrived in England—you will be well on your way to discover the murderer of poor Snaith. All animals must be quarantined on their arrival in England. If this ape came from Africa, the customs authorities are bound to have a record of it. If, on the other hand, it was born in captivity here in England, the Zoological authorities are bound to have information regarding its purchaser.

“I make you a present of the information, Barker,” concluded Brett. “That is not the main point of my investigation,” he added. “Much as we both desire to bring the murderer of poor Snaith to justice, Sir Henry, there is a much more vital factor in this strange case.”

Brett’s shrewd, clever face grew suddenly very stern.

“Poor Snaith’s murder, deplorable as it is, is not so serious as the loss of the vitally important documents which he carried. Documents which, if they are not recovered within forty-eight hours, may possibly lead to a break-off of Anglo-American relationships, and eventually war.”

The buzzer went off suddenly on the Commissioner’s desk. He lifted the receiver, and his face looked grey and old as he listened.

“What’s that you say?” he barked. “I issued no such authority! I shall make immediate inquiries, and get into touch with Sir Everard Pembury at once. Meanwhile send an A.S. message out. I will send Inspector Barker down immediately.”

He coughed dryly, and replaced the receiver.

“Well, gentlemen,” he remarked, in his incisive voice, “it may interest you to know that the body of Mr. William Snaith was stolen from West Street mortuary half an hour ago.”

“What’s that?” gasped Barker, leaping to his feet. “Stolen—the body!”

“So Inspector Berry has just informed me,” replied the commissioner. “There seems to be gross negligence somewhere. I want you to go right along, Barker, and make immediate inquiries.”

It took a good deal to surprise Chester Brett, but even his mask-like face lost a good deal of its impassivity at this startling news. He rose to his feet, and his jaw set doggedly.

“Sir Henry, you may rely upon my co-operation,” he said sternly. “It is quite evident that we are dealing with Shaylor, the cleverest Secret Service man in Europe. It is only he who would have the consummate daring to pull off a coup like this. It means also,” he added, “that our chances of recovering the documents which Snaith was sent to Germany to obtain, are exceedingly remote.”

“Heaven bless my soul!” said Sir Henry Fairfax. “I have already been summoned to a Cabinet meeting on the subject. The Government regard the affair with great gravity. What on earth the Foreign Secretary will say when he learns of this further development heaven only knows!”

Barker donned his hard bowler hat aggressively.

“By God, Sir Henry,” he said belligerently, “I’ll make somebody smart for this! Come, Brett,” he added, “we’ll go and interview those dolts at West Street.”

Brett forebore to smile at the Yard man’s characteristic impetuosity. He shook hands with Mr. Armitage and Sir Henry Fairfax, and left the Chief Commissioner gazing with brooding eyes at the grey expanse of the Thames. He was in for a bad half-hour with the members of the Cabinet, and his face looked haggard and old.

CHAPTER XII

THE FENCE OF LUPIN STREET

THAT elegant crook, Mr. Beau Reville, surveyed his reflection in the cheval mirror in his private suite at the Hotel Cosmo, and smiled complacently. In his faultlessly cut morning-clothes, with an orchid in his button-hole, and a lavender-hued cravat, he looked the acme of sartorial perfection.

He donned his glossy silk hat, carefully selected a gold-tipped Malacca cane from half a dozen walking-sticks, and sauntered elegantly into the elevator.

He noticed that the big-booted Yard man of the night before had been replaced by the regular attendant, and grinned sardonically as the lift swooshed downwards. It was nearly noon, and Mr. Reville had an important engagement at 12.30 with a gentleman who called himself Thomson.

Reville glanced at his jewelled wristwatch, and nodded condescendingly to the harassed M. Valenta, who had spent a sleepless night and an agitated morning.

Beau crossed over to the cocktail-bar and swung himself gracefully on to the high stool by the counter.

“Tell me, Giuseppi,” he drawled, “what does one drink the morning after a murder.”

Giuseppi, prince of bar-tenders, flashed his teeth in a smile.

“I think, sair,” he said, shaking the silver mixer vigorously, “a death-rattle cocktail!”

“Singularly appropriate,” said Beau Reville. “What’s the latest from the courts? Many people left the hotel?”

“Two or three guests have already departed, sair,” replied Giuseppi. “But that is but natural. I do not think, however, that the scandal will kill the Cosmo.”

“I suppose you have been pestered to death by these perishing policemen? The hue-and-cry is up, and all that?” remarked Beau. “Though what the deuce the hue is I’m blowed if I know. I suppose a hue is a half-formed clue?”—with a chuckle.

“Well, sair,” said Giuseppi, “Detective-inspector Barker was here this morning, and he seems to think——”

“You’re quite right. He seems to think, but I doubt if he does,” said Beau, with a malicious smile.

It was at that moment that a figure almost as elegant as that of the Beau himself entered the American bar, and that saffron-hued exquisite who called himself Ah Foo bowed slightly to Reville, and hoisted up his immaculately creased, striped trousers after hoisting himself on to an adjacent stool.

“Have you, perchance,” he said, addressing the bar-tender, “any rice-water?”

For the first time in his long and varied career as a bar-tender the great Giuseppi was taken off his guard.

“Rice-water, sair?” he gasped. “I’m afraid——”

“Don’t be afraid, my dear dispenser of drinks,” said Ah Foo urbanely. “For we have a proverb in China attributed to the honoured Laotze: ‘Fear is a fox that gnaws at the vitals.’ To kill fear one should soothe the fox with rice-water.”

Giuseppi gulped, and Beau Reville regarded the Chinaman with astonishment.

“Pray, pardon me, sir,” he remarked in that silver-tongued voice of his which had charmed thousands, “but I have never heard of rice-water as a drink.”

“Then, indeed, my dear sir,” replied the urbane Ah Foo, “you have missed one of the most delightful beverages that bounteous nature has provided for unworthy humanity.”

It took a good deal to throw Beau Reville off his balance. He had met many men in the course of his long, criminal career, but keen psychologist though he was, he could not fathom the emotions hidden behind that bland impassivity.

“Rice,” said Ah Foo, taking out his silken cigarette-case and extracting therefrom one of the black rice-paper cigarettes with the rose-leaf tip he affected, “rice is a remarkable plant. May I proffer you one of my somewhat exotic cigarettes?” he added, with an ineffable smile. “I am afraid they are not quite innocuous, but they only contain about one-third of a grain of hasheesh, which, as you know, is a narcotic distilled from hemp, Indian hemp.”

He paused, and the strangely compelling eyes of the con. man flickered. Used as he was to the strange and varied types of humanity he encountered in his nefarious career, he had never met one quite so difficult to place as this bland and smiling Celestial.

“Thanks, all the same,” he replied, “but I am afraid that hemp sounds rather ominous this morning, in view of last night’s murder. Mr.—er——”

“Foo—Ah Foo!” supplied the saffron-hued stranger. “It must have been rather an unpleasant affair for the manager,” he added.

“Not half so unpleasant as it was for the unfortunate victim, Mr. Ah Foo,” replied Beau Reville.

Fairly hardened though he was, there was something rather uncanny about the mysterious Chinaman, and he was glad of the diversion when Giuseppi broke in deferentially.

“If monsieur will be so good as to state his requirements again, I shall be pleased to try and serve him.”

“Rice-water,” said Ah Foo urbanely. “Known in Latin as oryza sativa. It is an annual cereal grass bearing its seeds in a branching panicle of racemes, and is the principal food of the mass of the population of my country, and does, I believe, form a staple article of diet in the more depressing of Bloomsbury boardinghouses.”

The Chinaman spoke with such utter gravity that Beau Reville was impressed in spite of himself. He could not tell whether Ah Foo was serious or not.

Giuseppi blinked.

“I have heard of rice-water for invalids, sair,” he remarked.

“Ah, yes!” replied Ah Foo tolerantly. “It is a nourishing, mucilaginous drink for the sick prepared from water in which rice has been boiled. In China, however, rice water is prepared differently. One first of all——”

Beau Reville was never destined to know exactly how the delectable drink was prepared in far Cathay, for at that moment a large, redfaced man, bearing the unmistakable stamp of a plainclothes policeman, waddled towards the counter and tapped the Chinaman on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said huskily, “but does your name happen to be Ah Foo?”

“That is my nomenclature,” replied the Chinese courteously. “What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?”

The Scotland Yard man looked a trifle nonplussed. He cleared his throat, and noticing his obvious embarrassment, Ah Foo smiled his bland and ineffable smile.

“Velly good, me Ah Foo,” he said. “Plenty good Chinaman, me, chop-chop.”

Was it fancy, or did Beau Reville see a flicker of a wink in those oblique almond eyes? The detective seemed to have recovered his confidence a little. A Chinaman who spoke like an Oxford don was beyond his ken, but the “velly good” reassured him. His manner grew a shade less deferential.

“Inspector Parker would like to speak to you,” he said. “It’s important. Will you step this way?”

“Velly good, mistel, me come plenty quick,” said Ah Foo.

Then, turning to Beau Reville, said in his impeccable English:

“Pray pardon this sudden interruption of what promised to develop into quite an interesting tete-a-tete. I hope to see you to ponder on the profound words of the late Mr. Bret Harte, the famous American author. Good morning!”

Beau Reville ordered another drink. He had a queer, uneasy feeling that the Chinaman knew more than he cared to divulge. He watched the Celestial and the Yard man as they crossed the bar into the manager’s office, then hurriedly ordered another drink.

Was there any significance in the yellow man’s parting remark about Bret Harte?

Suddenly Reville remembered the famous verse, and he pursed his lips thoughtfully as he murmured it aloud from memory:

“ ‘Which I wish to remark,

And my language is plain,

That for ways that are dark

And tricks that are vain,

The heathen Chinee is peculiar.’

“Now I wonder what the devil he meant by that?” said Reville, draining his drink.

It was not until long afterwards that he understood.

He hailed a taxi outside the Cosmo, and gave an address in Pimlico. All the way to his destination the personality of Ah Foo puzzled and intrigued him. What was he? He must be rather wealthy to stay at the Cosmo Hotel. He was obviously a man of education, and yet clever student of humanity though he was, Reville could not place Ah Foo in his correct category.

Resolutely he strove to turn his mind away from the murder of the previous night by concentrating on the enigmatic Ah Foo, but strive as he would the memory of poor Snaith’s stark body with the dagger in his chest obtruded itself. He tried to think of Lili la Rue, that fascinating adventuress, who would cheerfully have shopped him to the police if she could. Strange that both he and she who were engaged on the same nefarious errand should have flown over in the same ’plane.

The taxi bowled along down Whitehall to Victoria Street, and swung to the left of Pimlico Bridge down a gloomy, depressing street. It drew up a few minutes later before a dingy-looking timber yard.

Lupin Street, Pimlico, was a narrow thoroughfare abutting a railway goods depot. Two-storied, dilapidated houses, with a dispirited, forlorn look, postered end gables and unclean windows, gave the thoroughfare an air of drab uniformity.

Reville paid off the taxi-driver and gingerly ascended the steps of No. 13, Lupin Street. He knocked tentatively, and heard the shuffle of footsteps from behind the quaint, painted portal. A slatternly-looking maidservant peered at him suspiciously from behind the jamb of the door.

“Good morning!” said Reville pleasantly. “Is Mr. Untermeyer at home?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the girl in a sullen voice. “Wot nime?”

“Say Mr. Beau—Mr. Beau Bell,” replied Reville, with a ghost of a smile.

The girl looked a trifle awestricken at his sartorial magnificence. She hesitated on the threshold for a moment or two when suddenly from the dingy corridor behind floated a hoarse voice.

“Show the gentleman in at once, slavey!”

The maidservant stood aside, and Reville entered a dark, noisome passage curtained at the end by heavy, plush portieres. A chipped marble-topped hat-stand and a hideous oleograph were the only decorations, if decorations they could be called, in that gloomy passage.

Suddenly the curtains at the end of the hallway were drawn back by a skinny claw.

“That you, Untermeyer?” Beau inquired pleasantly.

A sinister-looking face, yellow as old ivory, peered round the curtain, and Izzy Untermeyer revealed his disfavoured countenance to his caller.

Izzy Untermeyer was probably one of the most elusive fences in London. A typical Jew with a hooked, Semitic nose like a predatory beak, and straggling grizzled beard. He wore a long, loose dressing-gown and a black skull cap that emphasized his Hebraic appearance. He was as paunchy and as bloated as a toad with regard to his body, but his dark, restless eyes betrayed the shrewd intelligence which had kept him from the hands of the police for most of his ill-spent career. He rubbed his skinny hands and flashed his yellow, tobacco-stained teeth in a smile of welcome.

“Ach, Reville, my boy!” he said gutturally. “You look more like a fashion plate than ever!”

“And you, Izzy, grow uglier as you grow older,” said Reville offensively.

Mr. Untermeyer chuckled as if at a good joke.

“Come in, my boy, come in!” he said, and, turning to the scared servant girl, rasped harshly: “Back to your cellar, Miriam! Back to the rats where you belong!”

The girl was obviously in deadly fear of the sinister fence. She hurried away without a backward glance.

“Pleasant little fellow, aren’t you?” said Beau Reville, as the Jew led the way to an incredibly untidy room in the rear.

It was a strange apartment. On the table was a queer and heterogeneous assortment of articles which comprised half a loaf of bread, a chunk of hard, unwholesome-looking cheese, a quart bottle of beer, a grease-stained copy of a Hebrew newspaper, and what appeared to be the entrails of half a dozen clocks and watches.

At a work bench in the corner, thirty timepieces of all shapes and sizes from a cheap alarm clock to an ornate ormolu, ticked with maddening insistence.

Untermeyer licked his lips and waved his arm towards a rickety chair beside an infinitesimal fire which burned idly in the grate.

Reville’s sensitive nose wrinkled with disfavour as he glanced round the rest of the apartment. A massive steel safe occupied one corner of the room and he noted that the window was shuttered by a heavy curtain of steel and asbestos. Noticed also, that the door was similarly armoured against possible depredations by Mr. Untermeyer’s strange clients.

He had never visited the crook’s headquarters before and he was not impressed. He knew well that Izzy was probably the richest fence in the business and the hardest driver at a bargain in the game.

“So, this is your funk hole, you old rat?” he remarked. “What are all these clocks for?”

“Ah, ha,” said Mr. Untermeyer tapping the side of his nose knowingly in a gesture which betrayed his Ghetto origin. “You did not know, my boy, that I am a clock maker by profession. There is no one in London that knows more about clocks and watches than I do.”

Reville smiled.

“I’ll bet there isn’t,” he said dryly. “Considering the amount that have passed through your hands professionally,” he added.

“Ah, ha, ha,” laughed Mr. Untermeyer dutifully. “You will have your joke, my boy. Sit down, my dear friend, and have a drink of beer with me. I’m afraid I cannot offer you much in the way of a meal, but if you care to join me in a little bread and cheese——”

Reville shuddered.

“Let’s get down to brass tacks, Izzy,” he remarked.

A cunning, avaricious gleam crept into the Jew’s crafty eyes.

“Ven did you arrive from Berlin?” he inquired.

“Last night,” replied the con. man.

“Did you get the stuff?” asked the fence eagerly.

Reville nodded. Ostentatiously he produced a small, nickel revolver and pointed it straight at the Jew’s heart.

“Sit down, Izzy, you human wolf,” he snapped and a steely glint appeared in his well-spaced eyes. “I’m holding the whip hand on this deal. You’re not going to cheat me out of my share.”

Tremblingly the fence raised up his hands and his pasty face grew grey with fear. He licked his thick, blubber lips nervously.

“Ach boy,” he pleaded in a quavering voice. “Don’t shoot—don’t shoot.”

Reville laughed.

“I shan’t shoot you, you fat toad,” he said. “Unless you try any double-cross stuff. I haven’t forgotten what you did to poor little Wally the Snitch, you traitor—and I’m taking no chances.

“Sit down! I want to talk to you—I’d add for the good of your soul, but you haven’t got one. I’ve got the stuff and I’m not leaving here till you pay me ten grand.”

The Jew laughed nervously.

“Ten grand?” he echoed. “Don’t be silly, my boy.”

“You heard what I said,” snapped Reville, and his lips tightened. “Ten thousand doubloons—and not a simoleon less. And listen, Yid,” he added. “I’ve got a piece of news for you. Lili la Rue’s in town—an’ she’s out to get you—if—you—don’t—watch—out!”

Fear, stark fear, shone in the Jew’s shifty eyes, and his face was the colour of death.

CHAPTER XIII

BARKER APOLOGIZES

WHEN engaged on an intricate case, Chester Brett was sometimes taciturn to the point of rudeness, but once he had amassed sufficient data to found a theory upon, he was perfectly willing to explain his conclusions, if justice could be served thereby.

After their interview with Sir Henry Fairfax he gave Barker a lift in the Grey Streak to West Street police station.

Barker was thoroughly mystified and plied Brett with questions, but received only monosyllabic replies. It was not the unwillingness of a conjurer to explain to his puzzled audience that so often caused the man from Chelsea to be reluctant to outline his mental processes, but rather the caution of a scientist who wishes to prove each link in the chain of theory, before announcing his discovery to the world.

Barker was frankly irritated.

“All this talk about hemp and jute and chimps has got me groggy, Brett,” he remarked gruffly. “And now they’ve gone and pinched the darned body! All I can say is I’m thoroughly up a gum tree.”

Brett soothed the Yard man’s ruffled feelings by proffering his cigar case, as Ginger Mullins drew up before West Street police station.

“If I were you, Barker,” said Brett. “I should concentrate on those customs reports I mentioned and also enquire from the Zoological authorities.”

“I’ll do that, old man,” grunted the inspector. “But I’m hanged if I know what you’re driving at.”

He mounted the steps of the police station and, cocking his hat an an aggressive angle, he glowered at the desk sergeant.

“Now, what’s all this about a missing body, Berry?” he demanded gruffly. “The Commissioner’s sent down at once to discover what the blazes you’re playing at.”

At that moment burly Inspector Parker emerged into the charge-room and greeted Barker with a grin.

“What are you grinnin’ at?” snapped the Yard man. “It’s nothin’ to laugh about.”

“I’ve pulled in that Chink, Ah Foo, or whatever his name is,” replied Parker with satisfaction. “He’s a dark horse and no error,” he added.

“Pulled in the Chink—what?” barked Barker. “Have you charged him with murder?”

“No,” replied Parker. “Just detained him on suspicion. He’s in the cooler now. Good morning Commander Brett,” he added, turning to the detective.

“Good morning, Parker,” replied Brett urbanely. “You seem to have been working pretty fast.”

“I never was one to let the grass grow under my feet,” replied Parker complacently, with a sidelong glance at the fuming Barker.

“Well, let’s get inside and sift this business out,” said the C.I.D. man. “Care to listen, Brett?”

“I shall be very interested,” replied Chester Brett. “Very interested indeed.”

Together the three passed into the Inspector’s room, an austerely furnished place with the regulation chairs, table and desk, and the peculiar drab green walls which is the recognised hue for all police stations.

“Now, let’s have the dope on this body-snatching,” said Barker. “How, when and why did it happen?”

Parker opened his book of depositions.

“Happened about an hour ago,” he said. “When I was at the Cosmo Hotel—so it’s not my responsibility. Here’s the desk sergeant’s report.”

He pushed over the buff bound volume and Barker grunted as he read the brief, businesslike deposition.

“You see, the sergeant got a bit uneasy and telephoned for confirmation to the Home Office who stated that they issued no such order,” he explained. “It was a daring scheme. The ambulance was regulation—or as near regulation as makes no matter.”

“The desk sergeant’s a fool,” snapped Barker, chewing savagely at the end of his cigar, as Parker outlined briefly the ingenious scheme by which the body of Snaith had been spirited from the mortuary.

Brett scanned the reports, and his eyes grew abstracted.

“Clever,” he remarked, admiringly. “Very clever. There is a clever, far seeing brain at the back of this, Barker. I know of only one or two men in Europe who are capable of planning a coup like this with such foresight and audacity. One is a man named Schultz, another is a clever international spy named Shaylor. Neither of these men are crooks in the accepted sense of the term, so it is useless for you to look up any record of them in the finger print department. Of course, that prince of French crooks, Lupin Lenoir, might have had a hand in it. It is just the sort of whimsical audacious thing that would appeal to his sense of humour.”

“That’s all very well,” grumbled Barker. “But what’s the sense in stealing a body? We’re not living in the days of Burke and Hare. There aren’t any resurrection men about nowadays. This corpse is altogether too lively for me. First it climbs, then it takes a joy ride! Goodness knows what it’s up to now!”

Brett’s lips twitched. He had a shrewd suspicion as to why the corpse of the unfortunate Secret Service man had been stolen. There was a certain note in the voluminous archives of the insignificant Mr. Armitage which gave him a possible explanation. But it was one he did not intend to divulge until the right moment came—and it was not yet.

Close allies though the members of the Special Branch and the British Secret Service undoubtedly were, it was not until absolutely necessary that the latter furnished the former with its closely guarded secrets.

“I think,” commented Chester Brett, “that between you, you are both eminently capable of dealing with this angle of the affair. It will be comparatively simple to discover whether an ambulance has been stolen or——”

At that moment the ’phone bell rang, and with a murmur of apology Parker lifted the receiver.

“Yes. West Street police-station speaking. What’s that? Missed this morning, you say? And the caretaker found unconscious. Right, I’m very much obliged for the information. I’ll send round at once, Dr. Grinstead. Thank you so much.”

He replaced the receiver with a satisfied gesture.

“That was the house-surgeon of St. Mathew’s Hospital speaking,” he said. “We sent a message to find out whether any ambulances were missing. It seems that the auxiliary ambulance of St. Mathew’s was taken from the garage at about seven-thirty this morning. The caretaker has been knocked unconscious, and the vehicle wasn’t missed until some unlucky person had a motor smash in High Street half an hour ago.”

Barker grunted.

“Good! If I were you, Parker, I’d detail a couple of men to cover that end of the stuff at once.”

Parker pressed a spatulate thumb down on the ivory bell-push on his desk, and two plainclothes men appeared as if by magic. Briefly he gave them curt, incisive directions, while Brett slowly filled his briar and cogitated on this new and unexpected development in the intricate case.

“And now,” he remarked, placing the tips of his long, lean fingers together when the two detectives had taken their leave, “what exactly does the—er—er—detention of this Chinese imply?”

Parker cleared his throat.

“Well, it’s like this, Commander Brett. I made exhaustive inquiries at the Cosmo, and narrowed down suspicion to about half a dozen. The most suspicious of the whole bunch is this Chink, Ah Foo. I asked him to come along to the station with me, and to make a voluntary statement if he cared to. He’s a cynical, flippant devil, and I believe he knows far more about this murder than he is prepared to admit.”

Barker rubbed his bristly chin.

“Did you get any statement out of him?” he asked.

Parker flushed a trifle guiltily.

“Well, no, not exactly,” he remarked.

“Well, what exactly did he say?” asked Chester Brett, with a hint of amusement in his shrewd grey eyes.

Parker reddened.

“The heathen image simply said that he was sorry he could not oblige me, but that it was his invariable custom to devote the hours from eleven until twelve to meditating upon the golden precepts of the late Prince Albert.”

Brett gave one of his rare laughs.

“I’d be rather interested to see your prisoner,” he remarked.

“You have the bloomin’ impertinent Chink brought in here,” said Barker belligerently. “I’ll Prince Albert him!”

Parker rang the bell again, and a uniformed turnkey entered.

“Bring in prisoner No. 9,” he ordered, and then, turning to Brett, said: “Look here, Commander Brett, there’s something sinister about this ’ere Chink. ’E’s dressed like a fashion plate. I found him in the bar of the Cosmo talking to that simpering crook, Beau Reville.”

Barker’s moustache bristled fiercely.

“I’ll get that fellow some day yet,” he growled. “Mark my words—I’ll get him!”

Brett’s eyes twinkled as if with secret mirth.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” continued Barker, “if the two of them were in league. Reville arrived at Croydon from Germany last night in the same ’plane as Snaith. Don’t tell me that’s mere coincidence.”

“Coincidence has a very long arm,” said Chester Brett. “Almost as long and as far-reaching as the arm of the law,” he added.

Barker was about to reply when the door opened and with a jingle of keys the turnkey ushered in the bland and imperturbable Chinaman.

“Now, see here,” began Barker truculently, “I want a word with you.”

“Words, as the late lamented Prince Consort remarked on an auspicious occasion, are entrusted to us like jewels, to treat reverently and circumspectly. They are not lightly to be cast like pearls——”

“None o’ that!” snapped Barker. “What’s your name?”

“I am afraid it is rather diabolic in origin,” he remarked, and not a muscle of his impassive countenance betrayed his inward emotions. “Li—which, as your scripture avers, is of the devil—and Sin, which is of the same satanic origin,” he added, his slant eyes resting obliquely on Chester Brett, whose face was almost as impassive as the Chinaman’s own.

Barker’s red face grew almost purple. To be spoken to like this before one of his subordinates by a heathen Chink was insufferable.

“None of your confounded impudence!” he snapped. “You don’t realise the serious situation you are in.”

“Humility,” replied Li Sin, with downcast eyes, “is a virtue which is not the prerogative only of the lower orders, but universal if one should seek true and lasting happiness in the sight of men——”

“Cut that out!” broke in Parker brusquely.

“Velly good, sir. Me velly solly,” said Li Sin mockingly. “Me plenty good Chinaman. No makee tlouble.”

“Barker, my dear fellow,” Brett remarked. “I wish you would not subject my very good friend, Professor Li Sin, of Pekin University and of the British Secret Service, to the indignity of the cooler. I shall vouch for him myself.”

For a moment a flicker of amusement appeared in the Chinaman’s slow eyes, but he made no comment. The two inspectors stared speechlessly at Chester Brett, and then Barker gasped out:

“A—a—a friend of yours, Brett?”

The detective nodded.

“One of the very best,” he said. “His integrity is unimpeachable. If you need the formality of bail I shall be delighted to furnish it up to any amount. As he is, however, only detained, I do not think the necessity arises. But I certainly do not think that Dr. Li Sin should be submitted to the indignity of a police cell.”

“On the contrary,” replied the Chinese, with his ineffable smile, “as your gallant cavalier poet, Lovelace, has it—‘Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.’ The cool and the calm of my cell have enabled me to spend a profitable hour of meditation.”

Brett chuckled as he watched the choleric faces of the two inspectors.

“To quote another poet,” he remarked urbanely, “ ‘a yellow-hammer in a cage puts all Scotland Yard to rage.’ ”

Li Sin’s imperturbable mask relaxed for an instant. Barker started to stammer out a gruff apology. Fortunately the ’phone bell rang and relieved the situation.

Seven minutes later Nos. 13 and 7 of the British Secret Service left the police-station together. Two inspectors stared speechlessly at the ceiling, and their feelings at that moment were too deep for words.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CORPSE REAPPEARS AGAIN

MR. JULIUS JONES, the night news editor of the Daily Radio, was the greatest cynic in that thoroughfare of cynics, Fleet Street.

Never once in the memory of the oldest reporter had that imperturbable man been known to be surprised at anything. He received the news of a king’s death, the declaration of war, an Atlantic flight, a foul and revolting murder, with the same calm detachment as the report of an agricultural show or the lost pearls of an actress.

In the early evening after the momentous conference between Brett and Sir Henry Fairfax of Scotland Yard, Splash Page seated himself in his usual negligent attitude on the news editor’s untidy desk.

It was littered as usual with piles of flimsies, typewritten stories and damp-proof sheets. He scowled malevolently at Splash.

“Look here, my boy, this climbing corpse story of yours is all very well, but I want to follow up——”

“I dare say you do,” replied Splash. “Aren’t you satisfied with the fact that the perishing corpse has been pinched since this morning?”

“Hum!” said Julius, sucking moodily at his clay cutty. “Not so bad. The prroblem of the peripatetic corrpse. Make a nice headline. But somehow therre’s not enough juice to this murrderr,” he added regretfully.

Splash Page sighed wearily. He had had a trying day.

“You old corpse snatcher,” he remarked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d pinched it yourself to get the headlines. Aren’t you satisfied?”

Splash cursed below his breath. He crossed over to the Creed machine. That uncanny instrument spelt out stutteringly on a reel of paper the report of the bursting of a dam near Rio de Janeiro, followed by the account of a mad bull which had run amok in the High Street of Leighton Buzzard.

Splash sighed as he glanced at the thin paper, jerking in a staccato fashion out of the machine. He felt tired and somewhat fatalistic.

There came a hiatus of a few moments in the whirring machinery, and then again the tape ground out a message reporting a revolution in one of the minor Balkan states.

The ’phone bell suddenly tinkled on the news editor’s desk.

Thrusting his ink-stained fingers through his ruffled hair so that he looked more like a bewildered cockatoo than ever, Julius Jones answered the summons.

Splash Page yawned again, and Julius motioned him to take the call.

“Mitcham police-station,” he remarked.

The crime reporter took the receiver wearily and listened to the voice at the other end of the wire. He recognised it as that of Inspector Lunn, an old friend of his who had recently been transferred to that division.

“Hallo, Lunn!” he inquired cheerfully. “Anything doing?”

“Why, yes, rather!” came the enthusiastic reply.

Lunn was still young enough in his inspectorship—he had been promoted from sergeant for his clever handling of a recent case—to be enthusiastic about cases.

“A most extraordinary story,” he continued. “One of my constables patrolling the common this afternoon found an Egyptian mummy case hidden behind some bushes there. I thought I’d let you know before the rest of the papers got wise to it.”

“Bully for you, Lunn,” said Splash Page, and his eyes sparkled. “I’ll be round as soon as I can. Hold that as an exclusive, will you?”

“Sure thing!” said Inspector Lunn, and rang off.

The sparkle deepened in the reporter’s merry blue eyes as he turned to the shirt-sleeved news editor.

“Another corpse, laddie,” he remarked cheerfully. “But I’m afraid you can’t exactly call it juicy. As far as I can gather it’s been dead about two thousand years.”

Julius Jones snorted disgruntedly.

“Oh, well,” he growled, “better go and see. If therre’s a human interrest storry in it send it along.”

He ripped open a telegram announcing a disastrous mining accident in Northumberland.

Splash Page donned his hat at a rakish angle and clattered out of the humming news-room downstairs into his swift little vermilion roadster which Ginger Mullins had aptly nicknamed the “Red Peril.”

Ten minutes later he was steering his way through the traffic.

Arrived at Mitcham police-station well under scheduled time, Splash mounted the steps and was greeted cordially by Inspector Lunn.

The police-officer was young for his position. He had an alert, clean-cut, intelligent face and a very disarming smile.

“Hallo, Lunn,” said Splash with a grin. “What’s all this about mummies?”

The inspector opened a trap which separated the charge-room proper from his own room at the back.

“Come in and have a look and tell me what you make of it,” he remarked, opening the door.

Splash whistled softly. Lying on the American leather-covered table usually reserved for accident cases was a most incongruous object. It was a painted wooden mummy case whose colours were still brilliant though the artist who had depicted the hieroglyphs had mouldered into dust over two thousand years before.

Splash had lived in Egypt and was a clever amateur Egyptologist. He recognised the case as one belonging to the tenth dynasty. The gold death-mask was still bright, and portrayed in the conventional manner of the Egyptians the face of a scribe or priest. Round the sides of the wooden casket were hieroglyphs of Thoth, Horus and the crocodile god Sebak.

“What d’you think of that?” inquired Lunn with twinkling eyes. “Constable Willet found it an hour ago less than half a mile away from this station. It was lying behind a clump of gorse on the common, and it was the afternoon sun shining on the gilded face that first attracted his attention towards it.”

Splash Page whistled softly.

“Have you opened the thing yet?” he inquired.

The young inspector shook his head.

“No; I ’phoned up the Yard immediately after they brought it in here, and I was instructed to hold everything until the C.I.D. men arrive. They should be here at any moment now.”

Even as he spoke one of the fast tenders of the Flying Squad drew up before the police-station. Out of it, aggressive, self-important and as choleric as ever, stepped Detective-inspector Barker followed by two young detectives.

“Hallo, Barker!” greeted Splash with a grin. “Late again!”

“Woof!” said Inspector Barker with a grunt of disgust. “What are you doing here, you news hound?”

“Hound yourself,” said Splash. “Don’t you ‘woof’ at me.”

Barker’s red face grew almost apoplectic.

“Get out o’ this!” he snarled. “Lunn, how dare you allow the Press in here without——”

“The conduct of this case,” broke in Splash sweetly, “has been entrusted to the eminently capable hands of Inspector Barker, whose brilliant handling of the Bloomsbury murder, exclusively reported in the Daily Radio, will be remembered——”

“Pah!” said Barker, and then his sense of humour asserted itself. “Confound you, Splash, I suppose I must give you best,” he remarked. “Now what does all this mean?” he continued, as they entered the room. “Nobody’s reported the theft of any mummy cases at H.Q. Is there anything inside this coffin?”

“I think there is,” replied Inspector Lunn as Barker tapped the mummy case with his pudgy fingers. “It seemed very heavy to me.”

“Then we’d better open it,” said the Yard man with sudden decision.

The lid and the body of the sarcophagus had, Splash observed, been bound together by a peculiar type of brown flaxen cloth, rather like a thin hospital bandage.

Barker took a sharp penknife out of his pocket and severed the tape between lid and casket. He halted a moment irresolutely, then turned to Splash.

“Look here, young fellow,” he remarked. “You’ve been to Egypt. What exactly does one find here?”

“One should, of course,” returned Splash, “find the albah or outer mummy cloth, and beneath it the embalmed body of—let me see——”

He scanned the hieroglyphs for a moment and then translated.

“Amen Holen, the scribe to Rameses——”

Barker did not wait to hear the end of Splash Page’s sentence. Motioning to Lunn, between them they lifted the lid of the wooden sarcophagus and peered inside.

Suddenly Barker gave vent to a startled imprecation. Lying still in death, his sightless eyes staring towards the drab ceiling of the police-station, was not the mummy of an ancient Egyptian scribe, but the body of William Snaith of the American Secret Service.

“My heavens,” said Splash Page, and his eyes sparkled, “it’s the climbing corpse!”

CHAPTER XV

PARKER’S EXCITING NEWS

A CHEERFUL fire blazed in the grate of Brett’s consulting-room in Cheyne Walk. At the sideboard Chester Brett himself, clad once more in his garment of ease, his favoured, tattered dressing-gown, made pleasant tinkling music with a decanter and glasses.

Lounging on the divan, Ginger Mullins sprawled, scanning a copy of the Evening Wireless, while in a saddlebag chair, seated rather uncomfortably, was Inspector Parker.

“Well, Parker,” said Brett turning with two whiskies and sodas in his hands, one of which he deposited before the police official, “you seem to have done remarkably well, despite your somewhat precipitate action of this morning.”

Parker flushed.

“I’m frightfully sorry about Professor Li Sin, sir,” he said humbly. “But he acted in such a queer way that——”

“Don’t apologise, my dear fellow,” returned Brett. “Li Sin has a somewhat subtle sense of humour. He assures me that he bears no malice for this morning’s little contretemps. I believe he rather enjoyed his novel experience.”

“It’s very good of you, sir, to smooth it over like this,” answered Parker apologetically. “I’d have had a rap over the knuckles from H.Q. if the Chink—I mean the professor—’ad decided to cut up nasty about it.”

“Don’t worry,” said Brett easily. “In the circumstances one cannot blame you. As I told him, his conduct was highly suspicious. Especially as you find him in the dubious company of our friend Beau Reville.”

Parker smiled gratefully and lifted up the amber fluid in his glass.

“Here’s wishing you health, Commander Brett,” he remarked. “As I was sayin’, the report from St. Mathews’s Hospital doesn’t get us much forrader. The caretaker is still unconscious, and as far as I can see whoever was responsible for pinchin’ the ambulance ’ave left precious little trace behind them. I think I told you we found the vehicle in a mews in Bloomsbury about an hour ago, sir?”

Brett nodded.

“What interests me more, inspector,” he said, “is the result of your inquiries into the recent importation of chimpanzees to this country. Have you the list there?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve got a copy of the Customs returns relating to the importation of wild animals, includin’ the quarantine papers here,” he said. “As you’ll see, most of ’em deals with

lions, tigers and such—and there’s only four cases of fully grown chimpanzees brought into the country except ‘alf a dozen to the Zoo. Two o’ these died within a month of their arrival, an’ the Zoological authorities say they have not parted with another of the apes to any private person.”

“H’m!” sighed Brett thoughtfully, taking up the list the inspector handed to him. “This narrows our search somewhat. Let me see now.” He scanned the list of names. “One chimpanzee arrived six months ago and was destined for Moxer’s Mammoth Menagerie. A second, I see, went straight to the private zoo of Lord Cordale, the celebrated big game hunter. Both these animals died. Of the other two, one seems to have gone to a Professor Colebrook, a music-hall performer, and another, to an Indian doctor named Chundra Lal.

“There doesn’t seem to be any trace of any further distribution of these engaging beasts. This certainly simplifies matters,” he added. “A few discreet inquiries may possibly attain for us the information we require. Of course, it is possible, but highly improbable, that some half-breed lascar might have brought a chimpanzee to England with him from Africa and smuggled it ashore—but I hardly think that it is likely.”

Parker nodded.

“I see what you’re driving at, sir.”

“I think that we will start with the most promising name on the list,” said Chester Brett. “It’s a long shot, but very often the long shot comes off. As I pointed out to the commissioner this afternoon, the rope used in this case undoubtedly points to an Eastern origin. Furthermore, microscopic examination of the few hairs I found adhering to the window-sill point to a Simian species.

“Add to that the fact of M. Valenta’s statement that he had a Hindoo dishwasher in his employ who has unaccountably disappeared, and the probability is that the antecedents of our friend Chundra Lal are worth inquiring into.

“I made an examination of the man’s sleeping-quarters, which are situated near the roof of the Cosmo, and found undoubted traces of a chimpanzee’s presence and also fingerprints which might be useful. I sent them to my friend Burton, of the fingerprint department, this afternoon, and am expecting his report at any moment.”

Parker glanced admiringly at the great detective.

“My word, Commander Brett, but you’re a fast worker,” he said.

Brett shrugged his shoulders.

“It was just elementary precaution,” he rejoined. “The crime was ingenious but rather too ingenious. For instance, I would like to know the names of the mysterious occupants of those rooms on the third floor adjacent to that in which we found poor Snaith’s body.”

The ’phone bell in the consulting-room tinkled sharply.

Ginger Mullins unhooked the receiver and handed it to Chester Brett. The detective listened and his lips compressed suddenly as he recognised the voice of Inspector Barker.

“I say, Brett,” cried the Yard man excitedly, “we’ve found Snaith’s body. It was discovered this afternoon in a mummy case on Mitcham Common.”

It took a good deal to jolt Brett out of his habitual impassivity, but the Yard man’s startling announcement came as a surprise.

“In a mummy case?” he echoed incredulously. “Tell me about it.”

With that Barker in brisk, official sentences described that afternoon’s discovery. Brett listened and absently jotted down a few salient notes on the telephone pad.

“Good,” he said at last. “You tell me that you’ve taken the whole thing round to the mortuary of the Yard?”

“You bet I have,” said Barker. “That corpse is safe under lock and key. I’m not going to have it climbing or running around London any more.”

“I shall be round at H.Q. in half an hour,” said Chester Brett, and a faint flush of excitement crept into his cheeks.

Ginger Mullin, who knew his beloved guv’nor’s many moods, realised that at last Brett had struck a really tangible clue in this complex web of crime and mystery and that clue meant action, and swift action at that.

Brett replaced the receiver and turned to Parker.

“If I were you,” he remarked, “I would concentrate now on the St. Matthew’s angle of this case. Discreet inquiries may possibly yield some tangible results. Don’t relax your activities at the Cosmo. Very possibly we shall arrive at a solution of poor Snaith’s murder before the morning.”

He rose to his feet, swiftly doffed his tattered dressing-gown and donned his blue Melton overcoat. Gone was the introspective, analytical scientist of a while before. Brett was now the keen, relentless man-hunter on the trail.

He gave a few words of instructions to his assistant, and a few minutes later he entered the Grey Streak and steered his way through the traffic in the direction of that grim barrackslike building at the end of Whitehall.

Night had fallen, and homeward bound city-goers were being borne to their various suburbs by the great red ’buses as Brett neared Scotland Yard. The detective’s face was very grave and his capable hands gripped the steering wheel of his luxurious limousine.

Primarily, his work was not to discover the murderer of the unfortunate American, but at all costs to recover the documents which, unless they were found, would undoubtedly cause an international scandal and possibly war between the two great English-speaking countries.

The time was so short, so very short. Already a hurried cabinet meeting had been called in Downing Street to discuss the situation. Not even Scotland Yard realised the gravity of the case, but the jaw of Number Thirteen of the Secret Service set grimly. He had promised his chief, Number One, to do his best, and Brett was determined not to relax until he had exhausted every possible avenue in order to prevent those vitally important documents from falling into the hands of the warmongers who would delight in plunging the world into another disastrous calamity.

CHAPTER XVI

LILI LA RUE’S REVENGE

SEVEN o’clock pealed from the cracked bell of St. Sulpice’s Church, Pimlico. A train rumbled under the dark, forbidding arches of Pimlico Bridge, and from the river a tug-boat hooted like a lost soul as it chugged up the turgid Thames.

The long, grey, drab street was shrouded in fog and shadow. A gaunt crane from a timber merchant’s yard reared its skeleton form against the sky like a black gallows.

P.C. Crump slapped his arms across his chest as he tramped his dismal beat. Night had fallen, black and starless. He carefully inspected the doors of the dingy houses, and his bull’s-eye beam cut through the misty gloom like a knife of gold.

A taxi-cab drew up at the end of the street. The door clanged and a shambling furtive figure emerged from the tonneau and merged as one with the shadows of the night.

P.C. Crump heard the ting of the meter-bell as the taximan raised his little red flag and bowled off. The shambling figure disappeared down a cul-de-sac, and the policeman made a sub-conscious note of the fact.

He passed slowly down the street which abutted the railway. It was a dismal thoroughfare of two storied dilapidated houses with a dispirited forlorn look, cracked walls of stucco and the depressing drabness of uniformity.

When the blue uniformed figure had turned the corner, a furtive, weasel-faced little man emerged from the darkened alleyway. He glanced suspiciously over his shoulder, then halted at the broken railings of the house of Izzy Untermeyer.

The street was deserted, and Wally the Snitch, just released from a long stretch at Bleakmoor, bared his broken yellow teeth in an evil smile.

“Bless the kid!” he muttered.

For five long weary years Wally the Snitch had endured the misery of that grim, grey prison on the moors. His hands, gnarled and strong after his toil in the quarries, fumbled in his pocket for a slender steel instrument. He jiggled it in the lock. There was a slight click, and the door was open.

To his nostrils came a sickly smell of stale cabbage water. Without a sound he stepped into the dingy hallway, its dank walls illumined by a single gas jet. The ceiling was cracked, displaying laths like naked ribs.

Wally the Snitch stood there, tense and expectant. He had once been chauffeur to Lili la Rue and Flash Jack McAnn in the old days.

It had been Izzy Untermeyer’s perverted sense of humour that had fastened a crime on the little crook and Jack McAnn. A crime of which they were both innocent. It was one of Izzy’s little ways to drop a hint to a knowledgable “nose” whenever he needed a scapegoat to keep the attention of the police off any of his nefarious doings.

Wally the Snitch had sworn to get even with the fence, and he stood there in the corridor, murder in his heart, listening intently. Jack had been Lili’s side kick in many a graft before Izzy’s treachery placed him behind prison bars.

No sound came from behind the heavy plush portieres at the end of the corridor save the tick-tick of the innumerable clocks in the fence’s work-room.

Wally reached for his hip-pocket. From it he withdrew his cosh, a fearsome-looking weapon, a piece of lead-piping about eight inches long, the head of which was padded with a fold of dirty flannel.

He tip-toed stealthily towards the curtains and drew them back. Behind was a paint-blistered door. Cautiously, very cautiously, he opened it a fraction of an inch, and a queer gleam shone in his close-set eyes.

Dozing in his chair was the gaunt figure of Izzy Untermeyer, the fence. His greasy, draggled beard was covered with cigar ash, and he snored stertorously through his beaky nose. His dingy skull cap protruded three or four inches above the top of the chair, and Wally the Snitch grinned as he licked his thin lips.

“The black cap,” he muttered. It was symbolic somehow. “Yer’ve sentenced yerself ter death, yer Jew wolf!”

Five years of prison lent rage and ferocity to the crook’s arm, hardened by years of toil in the stone quarries.

He brought down his cosh with a sickening thud on the greasy skull cap.

Izzy the fence gave a strangled gasp and opened his eyes. In them was the terror of death. He caught one glimpse of his assailant, and then a curtain of red shot with sparks danced before his rheumy eyes. His head fell sideways, and without another moan Izzy Untermeyer crumpled to the floor, a lifeless heap.

Wally the Snitch gazed down at the fence, then calmly and unflurriedly replaced his cosh in his hip-pocket. Killer MacBride, in Bleakmoor, had taught him that love tap. One blow was sufficient. No mess—very little blood—and——

Very calmly Wally the Snitch glanced at his gloved hands. It was very quiet and still. Only the clocks tick-tick-ticked remorselessly in that room of death.

Fifteen minutes later Wally the Snitch turned into a garish gin palace at the corner of Wilton Street. Drawn up at the kerb was a luxurious limousine. In the tonneau a girl wrapped in a expensive fur coat, her slender throat encircled with pearls, craned forward as he passed.

Wally the Snitch paused for a moment. The window was lowered.

“Can you tell me the way to the King’s Road, Chelsea?” asked a musical voice.

The crook nodded.

“Yaas, miss. Yer turns ter the right.” And then, without a movement of his lips, added: “I done it, miss. Let’s ’ave the rest of the oof.”

Lili la Rue’s slender fingers clutched at her throat for a moment, then a hard expression crept into her dark-lashed eyes. With a quick gesture she thrust an envelope, bulky with Treasury notes, into Wally the Snitch’s gloved hand.

“Good for you, Wally,” she said. “Beat it while the going’s good.”

The grey limousine shot forward. Wally the Snitch grinned faintly. There was a boat leaving Tidal Basin for Hamburg that night. Lili la Rue sat back in her cushioned seat, and her lips curled back in a tigerish smile from her white, even teeth.

Jack McAnn, who had died on the stark wastes of Bleakmoor, was avenged. No more would the Nark of Pimlico, Izzy Untermeyer, play his dirty game of the double cross.

CHAPTER XVII

DEATH RATTLE COCKTAILS

AT seven p.m. in the spacious lounge at the Hotel Cosmo, two men sat sipping Manhattan cocktails, watching the fashionable crowd that thronged the lounge from a discreet alcove behind the shadow of palm trees.

One was the distinguished American Egyptologist, Professor Entwhistle, and the second his colleague, Dr. Lucien Berne, the equally distinguished French savant. Outwardly, at least, they conformed to the conventional idea of slightly absent-minded archaeologists.

The celebrated Hotel Cosmo orchestra discoursed sweet music from the ballroom, and the subdued hum of conversation and the tinkle of ice in glasses made a pleasant accompaniment to one of the latest Transatlantic blues.

There was no hint of the tragedy that had occurred the previous night. M. Valenta, the maitre d’hotel, had a genius for compromise and discretion. He would have made an admirable diplomat.

Half fashionable Mayfair was present in that luxurious caravanserai which catered almost exclusively for the brighter part of the Bright Young People.

Beau Reville, sartorially perfect, as usual, in an evening dress that would have made the late Beau Brummel himself turn green with envy, strolled languidly from Giuseppi’s bar. His interview that morning with Mr. Untermeyer had been eminently satisfactory, and, conscious of the fact that he possessed eight thousand pounds and an easy conscience, Beau Reville was out to enjoy himself.

He sat down at a discreet table near the ballroom and signalled to a hovering waiter for one of his favourite Death Rattle cocktails.

He took out a slender gold cigarette case and selected a Mirafleurs Cuban cigarette which he affected when in funds. He surveyed the room leisurely with his lazy, speculative eyes.

Suddenly a peculiar little smile played round his lips as a woman, tall, slender and exquisitely gowned in a dress redolent of the Rue de la Paix swept imperiously into the lounge.

She was the epitome of feminity from her silver shoes to her shingle. Her face was strikingly beautiful even in that Mecca of beautiful women, the Hotel Cosmo.

She had a perfect mouth, crimson as a crushed rose, an olive complexion, and she walked with that conscious allure and pride which belongs to a woman who knows that she looks lovely.

Her eyes, long-lashed and languorous, surveyed the palm lounge, and a faint flicker of amusement crept into them as she saw Reville. He rose gallantly to his feet and bowed, with a hint of mockery in his eyes.

“Good evening, Mademoiselle la Rue. If it is not presuming I would be honoured and charmed if you would join me in one of my innocuous concoctions, a Death Rattle cocktail.”

Lili la Rue, international adventuress, surveyed the con. man with narrowed eyes. And suddenly she saw beyond him the figures of Shaylor and Le Brune deep in animated conversation.

“Well, bo,” she said flippantly, “you look as if you’d picked up a mug. Who’ve you got in tow this time?”

Gracefully she sank into a chair beside the confidence man.

“You look topping to-night, Lili,” said Beau admiringly. “Suppose we do a show somewhere?”

“Can that stuff,” replied mademoiselle inelegantly. “You know I don’t like you, Beau, after that deal you put over on me at the Crillon, in Paris.”

“Can’t you forget that?” laughed Beau as the waiter brought up a second cocktail. “Say, Lil, can’t we work a double together?”

“A double with you?” was the contemptuous reply.

“Why not?” parried Reville. “You’re a good-looker and a flash worker. So’m I,” he added complacently.

Lili laughed.

“Still as egotistical as ever, I notice,” she remarked, daintily sipping her cocktail.

“Sure, why shouldn’t I be?” Then lowering his voice: “I saw Untermeyer this morning. Trimmed him for eight thousand berries.”

Her face stiffened. A hunted look crept into her dark eyes. Her jewelled fan dropped from her nerveless fingers which Reville instantly retrieved.

“You—saw Izzy?” she echoed faintly.

“Sure I did,” laughed Reville easily. “Pleasant little fellow, ain’t he, Lil?”

Her fingers closed on the slender stem of her wineglass, and her eyes gleamed with a malignant hate.

“The rat—the dirty, double-crossing rat,” she hissed. Then suddenly, changing her tone, added:

“Beau, if I’ll be nice to you”—her voice was a caress—“tell me where I can find Izzy?”

She was dissembling, of course, but Beau did not guess the truth. Beau Reville shrugged.

If anything should come out about the murder Beau could not possibly connect her with it.

“Can’t you like me for myself, alone?” he said flippantly. “Tell me, Lil, what exactly is your graft? If you look round very carefully you’ll find a Scotland Yard dick trying his best to look like one of the Bright Young People standing by that pillar,” he added, with a chuckle.

She shrugged her sequined shoulders contemptuously.

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“Oh, nothing,” returned Reville easily. “I thought you might be interested. Incidentally what d’you think of our murder? Valenta’s hushed it up very well, hasn’t he? I’m afraid it will all come out at the inquest, however.”

“If there is an inquest,” said Lili la Rue—and suddenly she bit her lip, for she realised she had made a bad slip.

Reville, a keen psychologist, affected not to notice it, however.

“Who are your two friends?” he asked, as his keen eyes noticed the obvious interest with which Shaylor and Le Brune were regarding their conversation.

“Oh, a couple of mugs I’ve got in tow,” returned Lili la Rue, with a shrug. “Au revoir, Beau, and good pickings. I’ll probably see you later.”

She shimmered to her feet, and Reville glanced after her speculatively as she joined the two men at the other table.

“Now I wonder exactly what her game is?” he mused, and his eyes were abstracted as he lit another cigarette.

He smiled pleasantly at a tall, broad-shouldered, redfaced man in evening dress who had strolled casually towards his table.

“Hallo!” he said cheerfully. “Come and join me in a cocktail? I hate drinking alone.”

The other flushed, and drew himself up haughtily.

“I’m afraid I don’t know you,” he remarked stiffly.

“Oh, yes, you do,” laughed Beau Reville. “And I know you, too, inspector. Tell me, Turner, why on earth you Scotland Yard fellows don’t get a respectable tailor to advise you on the correct wear in evening clothes? I should be delighted to offer my advice to the Yard for nothing. Then perhaps, when you assumed the garments of respectability, you’d look less like Soho waiters.”

The red face of Inspector Turner of the C.I.D. grew choleric.

“Now, look here, Reville—” he snapped with suppressed fury.

“Is it really necessary, my dear fellow,” drawled Reville. “The cut of that jacket is an abomination—and that tie——”

He held up his hands in a gesture of dismay.

With an audible snort, the Yard man walked stiffly away. Beau Reville chuckled and called out:

“Waiter!” He was feeling in a very good humour.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HOUSE OF HASABALLA

THE Shinwell Road and its purlieus between Shadwell and Limehouse is probably the dreariest in London. It has not the romance of the latter nor even the hard-working industry of the former. It is a sort of no-man’s land between romance and reality.

Shinwell Dock, with its dilapidated warehouses, its gaunt cranes, rearing like gallows to the sky, its mean side streets, squalid and odoriferous, possesses probably the most heterogeneous assortment of inhabitants in London.

Lascars, Chinamen, negroes and Jews live in squalid tenement houses and a perpetual state of poverty and friction. One of the dingiest restaurants in that dismal thoroughfare, Shinwell Road, was kept by an ex-Arab seaman named Hasaballa.

It was situated close to the docks. Over the door was the faded, unveracious legend:

A. HASABALLA

Elite Restaurant

GOOD BEDS FOR MEN

The windows of the restaurant—where they were not covered by grime and grease—revealed a tired-looking assortment of stale vegetables and four tin dish pans containing unsavoury messes simmering slowly over four gas jets.

Yet there was no more popular hostelry in the Shinwell district than the House of Hasaballa. The proprietor himself could not be called popular, but he was complacent and, on payment of a fee, was willing to wink at many irregularities so that the scum of the London docks frequented his place with spasmodic regularity.

On the evening following the murder at the Cosmo, when the cracked bell of St. Sepulchre’s Church, Shinwell, chimed the hour of nine, and a tug-boat hooted mournfully as it chugged up the Thames, a slant-eyed Chinaman, dressed in a nondescript slop suit, shuffled into Hasaballa’s far-from-elite restaurant.

He had heard strange tales of Chandu (opium) which could be had on payment of a liberal fee in certain back rooms in the House of Hasaballa.

With his yellow hands thrust into his capacious sleeves, he shuffled into the malodorous restaurant and blinked in the foul atmosphere of the place.

Brownskinned lascar seamen, sitting at filthy marble-topped tables, shovelled curry and rice into their capacious mouths. Shifty-eyed, ferret-faced little wharf rats whispered evil and unnameable things in the corners of the room, which was blue and heavy with the haze of tobacco smoke and the rancid smell of burning fat.

A burst of music, brassy and raucous, greeted his entrance, as an ancient piano ground out a still more ancient fox-trot. A drunken sailor, clasped in the arms of a frowsy hag, laughed maudlinly as he swayed in a crazy hornpipe.

The Chinaman noticed several of his fellow countrymen grouped together solemnly playing tric-trac in another corner of the room, occasionally commenting in shrill Cantonese.

On one of the side tables a gigantic negro was playing dice with a half-caste, and through the thick and reeking atmosphere the newcomer discerned the squat, ungainly figure of Hasaballa himself. He was seated like a gigantic toad at the cash-desk. A tarbrush that had once been scarlet, but was now grimy with dirt and grease, was perched rakishly at the back of his bald head. His brown, unhealthy-looking face was like a slab of dough, and a five days’ growth of beard ornamented each of his five chins.

The Chinaman edged furtively towards a vacant table near the cash-desk and sat down. A miserable-looking, undersized waiter with a filthy apron shuffled towards him.

“Well, Chinky, vot d’you vant?”

The Chinaman glanced at him.

“Me want whisky and chop suey,” he remarked and, with Oriental fatalism, sat with crossed arms until his order could be supplied.

Hasaballa, from his dais behind the cash-desk, glanced at the newcomer dispassionately, but his attention was distracted by a draggled-looking girl with peroxided hair and a raucous voice, who staggered up to his desk.

“You gyppy scum!” she yelled. “Charging me ten pence for that filthy swipes. I’ll tell the cops the kinda bloomin’ parties you’re ’oldin’ back o’——”

Hasaballa’s thick blubber lips parted in a smile, revealing his broken, yellow teeth.

“Now, dearie—now, dearie,” he said soothingly, “you have that on the House.”

The virago quietened down and went, mumbling to herself, into a corner where she rejoined a shifty-eyed little Jew.

The Chinaman’s narrow eyes became mere slits as he sidled towards the obese Hasaballa.

“Chandu, chandu!”

The Egyptian’s slate-grey, rheumy eyes glanced down at his yellow interrogator. He noticed the man’s twitching lips and dilated nostrils, the infallible sign of the opium smoker.

“Who sent you?” he demanded.

“So Ling, effendi,” replied the Chinaman.

“And your name is?” snapped Hasaballa.

“Ah Foo,” replied the Celestial.

For a moment the two orientals studied each other with the calm, appraising scrutiny of the East. Then, with a sudden gesture, Hasaballa jerked a podgy thumb over his shoulder.

“Get inside and ask for Achmad,” he rasped.

Ah Foo shuffled behind the purple curtains that screened the restaurant proper from the rest of the ill-omened House of Hasaballa.

He found himself in a dingy passage, a foul, noisome hole. A rickety staircase stood to the right of the passage, and a flickering gas jet gave a sickly light on the shadowed stairs.

A dark figure appeared from the top of the stairs.

“Who is that?” inquired a voice in Arabic.

“Ah Foo, chandu,” replied the Chinaman, and instantly a hunchback with an incredibly evil visage shuffled down the stairs towards him.

He regarded the Chinaman with a long and evil look, and the scrutiny seemed to satisfy him.

“This way,” he said in English.

Ah Foo followed, and the acrid smell of opium reached his nose. The hunchback drew aside an old horse blanket, dingy with filth, which served as a curtain, revealing a room so dark, dank and evil-smelling that even Ah Foo flinched on its threshold.

The one illumination in that sinister chamber was the glow of a charcoal fire in a brazier in the centre of the room. It winked and frowned through the smoke clouds like a malignant goblin eye.

Half a dozen frowsy beds were grouped around the centre stove, and from the shadowed corners came the mutterings of the opium fiends.

From behind tattered blankets which hung from the ceiling in a mockery of privacy came moans, curses and animal-like mouthings.

Ah Foo bowed his head.

“Velly good, siree,” and his slant eyes were inscrutable.

He flung himself down on a filthy couch and motioned to the Arab attendant for his pipe, holding up two lemon fingers in gesture, meaning that he needed two pills of opium.

The Arab nodded to show that he understood, and advanced towards the brazier where, with deft and practised fingers, he kneaded the little black opium pillules over the flickering flames.

The almond eyes of Ah Foo scanned that foul room of depravity. He noticed in one corner, a brownskinned man in European clothes, muttering and coughing in the delirium of his opium-clouded dreams. He spoke Hindustani and, feigning complete exhaustion, Ah Foo snuggled back on his frowsy bed.

Incongruously from downstairs floated the raucous strains of the electric piano blaring——

“I don’t care wot you used to be;

It’s wot you are to-day!”

Ah Foo smiled inscrutably. A few hours before he had mixed with the elite of London on terms of equality. Now he was as one with the dregs and derelicts of Shinwell’s sinister underworld.

CHAPTER XIX

MONEY TO BURN

CHESTER BRETT was in the lounge at the Hotel Cosmos watching the throng of guests passing to and fro amongst the palms in a seemingly indolent fashion. No one could appear so utterly bored and disinterested as Chester Brett when he wanted to give the impression that he wasn’t worrying about anything in the world.

A casual observer would have said that here was a man-about-town, bored and utterly weary with the social round, yet without the initiative to break away from a life of gaiety that had long since grown distasteful.

But Brett was actually extremely interested. He found himself up against a brick wall in his conduct of the case of the climbing corpse. The finding of Snaith’s body in the mummy case had so far proved his theories and told him much that he had wanted to know. But it had also provided him with a problem that called for a swift solution if it was not to cause utter disaster.

No one knew better the need for urgency, yet Brett was apparently idling his time away amidst a fashionable throng in the lounge of the Hotel Cosmo.

But his idling was, after all, only apparent. Actually, he was watching Reville. From where he lounged, Brett could see into the cocktail bar where Splash Page sat beside Reville exchanging light banter to judge from the pleasant expression on their faces.

It was a scene familiar enough to Brett, but there was one significant difference about it. Reville had money—wads of it!

Even as the detective watched, Reville paid the man behind the bar with a five pound note extracted from what looked like a bundle.

Chester Brett began to wonder many things. Just what part Reville had played in this mysterious affair of the climbing corpse he could not tell. Sometimes he thought that there was no connection between the suave, gentlemanly crook and the death of poor Snaith. At others, the coincidence presented by Reville’s appearance in the hotel at that particular time seemed significant, to say the least.

And now that the plans of the conspirators behind the affair had reached a crucial stage it was remarkable that Reville should be suddenly in funds. It might mean nothing, of course. On the other hand, it might mean a lot.

Brett saw Splash Page glance at the clock and slide from his stool with a word of farewell and a jovial pat on Reville’s shoulder. The newspaper man came walking leisurely into the lounge.

Brett touched his arm as he passed and drew him into the shelter of the seductive palms.

“One moment, Page,” he said.

“Hullo, there!” cried Splash, merrily. “Are you sleuthing, or just hitting the high spots, Brett?”

“I’m wondering,” returned Brett, quietly.

“Just what is agitating the grey matter?”

“Reville’s wallet,” said Brett.

Splash Page straightened and eyed the detective with sudden amazement.

“You’re not linking him up with Snaith’s death?” he asked.

“Not yet,” said Brett, quietly, “but, at the moment, I cannot afford to neglect any significant lead.”

“But, dash it all!” protested Splash. “What can Reville have to do with that business?”

“I don’t know. But it is a remarkable coincidence that he should suddenly be in funds at this particular moment. No,” Brett went on hurriedly, as the reporter was about to interrupt, “don’t ask me what I mean. I can’t explain, yet. It’s Just that I can’t afford to overlook this.”

“But Reville wouldn’t kill anybody,” argued Splash Page. “I’ve known him for a long time. I know he’s a crook. He’d pinch the stoppings from your eye teeth, given half a chance. But he wouldn’t kill.”

Brett nodded agreement.

“I am well aware of Reville’s peculiarities,” he said. “All the same, it is imperative that I should check up on this. Will you wait for me here, Page, or are you too busy?”

The reporter’s nostrils quivered like a hound on the trail.

“It smells like a story,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

Brett smiled and moved away. He went into the bar and unobtrusively occupied the stool lately vacated by Splash Page.

Reville glanced round for a look at his new neighbour, and grinned a welcome.

“The mighty crime fighter, himself,” he said. “What will you have, Commander Brett? It’s on me. I’m flush.”

“So I noticed,” observed Brett, quietly.

Reville laughed in a carefree manner.

“So you’ve come to find out where I got it from, eh?”

If he hoped to embarrass Brett by that remark he was doomed to disappointment.

“Are you afraid I should ask you where it came from?” returned Brett.

Reville shrugged his shoulders.

“Not afraid,” he said. “Just sorry I can’t satisfy your curiosity.”

“How do you know I am curious?”

“You’ve been curious about me ever since you started on the case of the hotel spook that climbs walls and taps at windows. You’ve been wondering what I am doing here, where I came from and all the rest of it.”

“I know where you came from,” said Brett, not even troubling to look at Reville.

The crook frowned slightly.

“Going to arrest me on suspicion?” he asked, and the banter had gone from his tones.

Brett shook his head.

“If I thought you knew anything about Snaith’s death I wouldn’t hesitate,” he retorted. “Beyond that I am not interested in you, Reville.”

The gentleman crook was very serious.

“I give you my word I know nothing about it,” he said, soberly. “I’m no killer.”

“You could be connected with the affair without being the actual murderer.”

“You’re right, there,” admitted Reville. “I might not be the one who struck Snaith down, and yet I might have collected cash on the deal. I see that. And when you see me flashing the notes around you begin to wonder.”

“I couldn’t have put it better, myself,” observed Brett.

“Then forget it,” retorted Reville, sharply. “I never have dealings with murderers—at least, not knowingly or willingly. Splash Page will tell you that.”

“He has told me so, already. But there is still the money you have—er—collected.”

“So you noticed I wasn’t over flush before to-day.”

“Of course. It’s my job to notice things like that.”

“And you wouldn’t miss it. Not you! I take my hat off to you for that. When you’re on a job you do it thoroughly. No doubt about it.”

Brett ignored the compliment.

“I suppose you won’t tell me where the money came from?”

“I certainly shall not, Commander Brett.”

“I can’t force you to tell me.”

“I know that. Just take it for granted that I lifted some duchess’s jewel-case and found a fence.”

“There is no way of proving your statement.”

“No way at all. You’ll have to take my word for it, Commander Brett.”

Brett looked straight into Reville’s eyes. He saw there open defiance, but not a shred of guilty fear.

“Very well,” he said, eventually. “We’ll leave it at that, Reville. But let me warn you. Up to now you have been very successful, but the pitcher sometimes goes too often to the well. You’d better be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” replied Reville, with a swift smile, “or I’d be breaking stones on Dartmoor now, instead of sitting here talking to you.”

“It may only be a postponement,” returned Brett, and sliding from his stool, returned to the lounge.

“Well?” queried Splash Page. “I’ll wager you got nothing out of him.”

“You’ve lost the bet,” said Brett. “He as good as told me that he visited a fence to-day and pulled off a deal.”

“Reville wouldn’t confess to a thing like that,” exclaimed Page.

“Oh, he didn’t confess,” said Brett, with a dry smile. “But he told me, almost without knowing it. Now,” he mused, “I wonder what fence Reville would deal with, in London.”

“That’s something wild horses wouldn’t drag from him,” said the reporter. “But the fence would have to be in a big way of business to judge from the size of Reville’s wallet.”

“Just what I was thinking,” returned Brett. “And I fancy I know the very man.”

“Who is that?”

“Mr. Untermeyer of Pimlico.”

“Never heard of him,” confessed the reporter.

“Mr. Untermeyer—or, perhaps I should say, Herr Untermeyer—is a character. I’m going to pay him a visit. As I know quite a deal about his activities I think I can persuade him to talk.”

“But, surely, you’re not going to bother with Reville and the loot from some big-wig’s house, while you’ve got Snaith’s death still unsolved.”

“I’ve got to eliminate Reville, or connect him with the crime,” said Brett. “Are you coming with me, Page? I can promise you that Untermeyer is worth a visit.”

“I’ll try anything once,” replied Page.

So they set out on foot from the Hotel Cosmo and walked from the West End to the dingy mean streets of Pimlico.

There was precious little about London’s underworld that Chester Brett did not know, and Mr. Untermeyer’s noisome den was not at all strange to him. Mr. Untermeyer may not have known it, but Brett had been there several times, in disguise, when on the track of stolen property.

He was well aware that Untermeyer was one of the biggest fences in London—knew, too, that Scotland Yard would have given much to have proof against the man. But, it was worth far more to Brett to have Untermeyer at large than in prison, for many a knotty problem could be solved by a discreet visit to Mr. Untermeyer’s dingy premises.

Brett knew that sooner or later Mr. Untermeyer would over-reach himself and his career would come to a sudden end. Someone would give him away. His reputation, even amongst the thieves who brought him their loot, was frankly rotten. His name was seldom muttered in the underworld without the addition of lurid curses and growled threats.

If any man had reason to go in fear of his life, that man was Mr. Untermeyer, for he had cheated desperate men, hoodwinked hunted men, and double-crossed many a crook who had dared to haggle with him or protest at his ruinous prices.

All this Brett knew, and more besides. And he reckoned he could so scare Mr. Untermeyer as to make him talk. And if he confessed to paying Reville big money that day, then, at least, Brett would have no reason to worry any more about the presence of Reville in the Hotel Cosmo, and something would have been gained by the process of elimination.

Splash Page realised this, dimly, but his main reason for accompanying Brett was to get a fresh glimpse at London’s underworld in the hope of acquiring fresh copy for his facile pen.

Brett led the way up the alley which led to Untermeyer’s door. He had been that way before and knew just where to go and just how to knock on the grimy panels.

He raised his hand to knock—then checked. The door was ajar.

He said nothing. Splash Page moved, impatiently. Then he too, saw that the door was slightly open.

“Is it an accident?” he asked, in a whisper, “or is this Mr. Untermeyer a trusting soul?”

“Untermeyer wouldn’t trust his own mother,” returned Brett. “I don’t like the look of this, Page.”

He thrust the door open, deliberately, slowly, standing well back ready for any danger that might spring out of the darkness beyond.

Nothing happened. The door stood wide open and all was dark and still.

Brett moved forward, slowly, cautiously. He crossed the threshold, and thrusting his hand into his pocket brought out an electric torch.

The vivid beam of dazzling light stabbed the gloom like a sword. It moved around the passage and revealed nothing save the worn linoleum on the floor and the dust on the walls.

To one side was the door of a room. It was ajar.

Brett went in, noiselessly. Guardedly, he pushed the door open. The beam of his torch pierced the gloom of the room, travelled across the floor. Then stopped.

Splash Page, close behind Brett, sensed how the detective stiffened.

“Trouble?” he hissed.

“Murder, I believe,” replied Brett, tensely.

He went into the room. No need for caution, now.

Untermeyer lay on the floor. He had been struck down by some heavy, blunt instrument. He was not a pleasant sight.

He moved slightly, and a faint moan sounded in the stillness of the room.

Chester Brett handed his torch to Splash Page, while he went down on one knee beside the stricken fence.

“Who did it?” he asked.

Untermeyer made a terrific effort. He half raised his head.

“Wally,” he whispered, hoarsely. “Wally—the Snitch—he came——”

Then Untermeyer’s head sagged sideways. He would never pay for his crimes in this world, unless the manner of his end was ample payment.

Brett rose to his feet. His face was set and stern.

Splash Page had found a lamp and had lit it. The flickering flame cast leaping shadows on the grimy walls.

“He can’t tell us about Reville, now,” he said.

“He’s told me something far more important,” said Brett. “Go to the nearest ‘phone box and get through to the Yard, Page.”

Splash Page didn’t argue. Here was a story and he valued that above anything else—almost—on earth. And, for another matter, the expression on Brett’s face was not conducive to further conversation.

The reporter ran from the room—from the house—down the alley to the public call-box he had noted on the corner of the next street.

Brett surveyed the room, swiftly, keenly. He was looking for signs of a robbery and found none.

He knew Wally the Snitch—knew just what such a sneak thief would do and how he would do it. But the signs of Wally’s handiwork were missing this time.

What did that mean? The safe had not been tampered with, and the drawers of Untermeyer’s desk were closed. Brett opened the drawers himself to find the contents still neat and in order.

Wally the Snitch had not come to rob, unless, having killed Untermeyer, he had taken fright and bolted.

That was certainly a possibility, especially as the murderer had not even stayed to close the outer door properly.

It crossed Brett’s mind that Reville might have done this murder. Untermeyer, he knew, was the fence patronised by the gentleman crook, and Reville was certainly in funds.

But several things went to disprove the theory. Reville was no killer, but if he were he would not have taken fright so easily as Wally the Snitch and would not have left that

outer door unlatched to attract the attention of any casual passer-by.

Besides, Reville had been in the Hotel Cosmo when Brett left there, and had been there for several hours, while Brett’s expert eye told him that Untermeyer must have met his death within the last sixty minutes. Of course, the detective could not be definitely sure on that point without a proper examination of the body, but he sensed that the results of a post mortem would go far to vindicate Reville.

And, above all, Untermeyer’s last words fixed the guilt on Wally the Snitch, and made the whole affair more perplexing.

Brett wondered whether he had any right to meddle in this new case when he was already engaged on another of deeper importance and far greater national significance.

But thinking over what he knew of Wally the Snitch—and the detective’s brain was always something like an encyclopaedia of the underworld—he came up against facts that brought a serious expression to his face.

He recalled that Wally had only recently come out of prison, that Wally had been sent up together with his accomplice, Jack McAnn, who had died in prison. He remembered how the underworld had been convinced all along that both Wally and McAnn had been double-crossed by Untermeyer.

The thing was linking up all right. The murder of Untermeyer was a pay-off for a double-crosser.

And then Brett had a flash from the past that engrossed him instantly. Jack McAnn had been going around with a girl—Lili la Rue. And that girl was mixed up with the international plot that had come to a climax in the untimely death of poor Snaith.

Here was the connection for which Brett had been probing.

Even so, much of it was guess work. Wally the Snitch might conceivably have wrought this act of vengeance on his own account, but Brett didn’t think it likely. Wally might have liked Jack McAnn but he was not the sort of man who would put his head in a noose even for his best friend.

And further, having killed Untermeyer, the fence, Wally would never have left those premises without lining his own pockets—unless he were forced to do so. Robbery was Wally’s main purpose in life, and the only way he knew of making a living.

Then, why had Wally left the safe untouched and the bureau drawers unopened?

Had he been scared off? Possibly. On the other hand, if he had not been sure of himself, would he have struck Untermeyer down? Wally wasn’t a natural killer. There must have been some very powerful impulse to have nerved him to commit this crime at all.

And the only thing that could urge Wally to do anything was money—money to supply his wants in food, drink and drugs. Nothing had been taken from Untermeyer’s premises so the rewards for this murder came from elsewhere—probably from someone else who desired to avenge the death of Jack McAnn.

The answer was quick in coming to Brett’s shrewd brain. Lili la Rue had paid Wally to do this thing!

And in consequence Brett was desperate, for he realised that the girl would not have indulged in this piece of private vengeance while she was engaged in a bigger conspiracy. Her employers in the affair of Snaith’s death—the men who were gambling for far bigger things than the death of a fence—would have resented the mere thought of any member of their gang indulging in private feuds of this nature and thus probably endangering the whole enterprise.

So Lili’s connivance in the murder of Untermeyer meant that the other affair was over and successful, thus leaving her free to conclude her private war with Untermeyer.

Chester Brett forgot all about Splash Page. He cared less for the crumpled, lifeless form of Untermeyer. What he suspected—that the international criminals who had planned the death of Snaith had so far succeeded in their aim—was, to his mind, adequately proved. If they were to be caught at all—if the international situation was to be protected and the peace of the world safeguarded—then he must get on the trail at once.

And the death of Untermeyer provided the lead he wanted!

He left the house of Untermeyer and sped away into the night. Splash Page would find him gone and would, no doubt, revile him good-naturedly. But that couldn’t be helped. Splash Page had a good story for his paper, anyway.

But back at the Hotel Cosmo, Lili la Rue was not to be found. She had left those palatial quarters and no one knew where she had gone.

Brett was not nonplussed, however. If he could not find Lili la Rue, he was tolerably certain he knew where to lay his hands on Wally the Snitch.

The underworld was an open book to him, and he knew just where Wally would hide out. It meant a hasty journey to Chelsea, to disguise himself as a denizen of mean streets and thieves’ kitchens. Then he set out on his quest.

Wally probably had money now. He would not rest until it had been spent. And it would be spent in drink and drugs, mainly.

Chester Brett knew the underworld like the palm of his hand. He had no doubts about being able to find Wally. And Wally would talk! Brett would see to that!

CHAPTER XX

THE TRAIL

AH FOO lay in the noisome shadows of Hasaballa’s opium den, and to all appearances he was dreaming beautiful dreams amidst the pungent clouds of smoke that floated lazily about him.

But appearances are often deceptive. No one knew better than Ah Foo how to look like an opium fiend. He knew how to time his reactions to the drug so as not to arouse suspicions.

The eagerness, the contented enjoyment of the forbidden smoke, the gradual succumbing, and then the fitful slumber, wrapt in the cloying aroma of the drug—all these things had to be noticeable in him at the right intervals of time. The slightest mistake, and Achmad, the Arab, would have guessed that he was not all he made himself out to be.

There was no doubt that Achmad was watching the newcomer. Any newcomer was suspect at Hasaballa’s establishment. That was an insurance against police interference. Ah Foo’s credentials were so far in order. They had been too carefully prepared to admit of a mistake. All the same, Hasaballa was nervous whenever a fresh face loomed on his horizon, even when the newcomer had money to lose.

Hasaballa had sent word up to Achmad to keep an eye on the strange Chinese until he had satisfied himself that all was well. And Achmad was obeying his instructions to the letter, as Ah Foo had no difficulty in noticing. The number of times the Arab passed the bunk on which Ah Foo lay was amazing.

But Ah Foo never blundered. He revelled in the forbidden smoke. He was talkative at first to anyone who listened, and then he went on being talkative, whether anyone listened or not. Then came the slow stupefaction, stealing over his senses. He laughed at times, then broke into gibberish no one could understand; finally lapsing into fitful slumber, broken by the twitching of his limbs and his dreams.

At least, it seemed so to Achmad. He went over to the house ‘phone and spoke to Hasaballa downstairs.

“That Chink,” he said, tersely. “He all right.”

Hasaballa muttered a word of thankfulness in Arabic and gave Ah Foo no further thought. The police would not come to-night. Hasaballa felt safe with such a trustworthy servant as Achmad to safeguard his interests.

But Ah Foo was not under the influence of opium. He had not taken so much as one whiff of the stupefying stuff. He had been playacting all the time, and his artistry was amazing. It had to be, for the slightest slip would have meant death.

Achmad had a wicked looking knife stuck in his belt, and from the look of him he would have no compunctions about using it. And even if Ah Foo got past Achmad there was still Hasaballa and probably a score of Oriental cutthroats downstairs, ready to deal with the intruder.

Ah Foo was well aware of his danger, but he did not allow it to disturb him. He had come here on a mission that must be fulfilled. He was looking for Chundra Lal and a chimpanzee—an Indian—probably a Lascar, who had a pet chimpanzee.

That such a man existed he well knew. There had been whispers of it throughout the underworld in the vicinity of the docks. The Lascar and his pet had been seen, and then he had suddenly vanished from human ken. No one knew just why, nor cared. Ah Foo, however, knew why, and wanted to find him. So did Chester Brett.

And Hasaballa’s place was just the sort of hideout that would serve Chundra Lal at this juncture. Moreover, an opium addict who had talked of his dreams in a Limehouse public house had mentioned a dark-hued man wandering through a haze with a big monkey beside him. The story had reached Ah Foo’s ears as he wandered through dock town in a search for Chundra Lal.

The addict had laughed at his own dreams, dismissing them as phantasies of a drug-sodden brain. But Ah Foo wondered. Maybe the man had actually seen Chundra Lal and the chimpanzee through a haze of blue smoke and had dreamt he was dreaming.

It was a lead, vague, yet hopeful. Ah Foo had visited one opium den after another, until, at long last, he had come to Hasaballa’s.

He felt more hopeful than ever, for he realised that this place was a likely hideout for anyone who had reason to evade the eyes of policemen. Hasaballa hated policemen and if ever they crossed his threshold he had elaborate plans to protect his secrets—and his clients.

So Ah Foo lay on his bunk in a distorted posture, writhing and muttering at times, just like the other addicts. And all the time he was watching what went on in the hazy room.

Dim figures came and went. Achmad padded about in his grass sandals, his keen eyes missing nothing—except Ah Foo’s deception.

Eventually, the Arab disappeared and did not return. He was satisfied and at ease in his own mind.

There seemed to be a number of men coming and going through that opium den, and it was safe to guess that they were all wanted by the police.

But some time passed before Ah Foo saw what he had come to see—a slim, brownskinned man, peering through the haze, and beside him a squat, powerful form that snarled and breathed heavily, waddling awkwardly beside him, a chain fastened about its neck.

Chundra Lal was exercising his pet. He passed across the den and vanished. Ah Foo remained where he was. He did not think that Chundra Lal would venture far while the chimpanzee was with him.

He was right. Before half an hour had passed the Indian returned, the chimpanzee still waddling beside him. They vanished through a curtained door on the far side of the smoke-filled room.

Ah Foo had found his man, but he did not stir. He lay there wondering what was best to do, now—go back and report to No. I., get into touch with Brett, or try to get hold of Chundra Lal single-handed and take him to Scotland Yard.

The last suggestion appealed to Ah Foo, but he dismissed it as dangerous, if not impossible. As for the other ideas, he soon forgot them, for Chundra Lal reappeared without his dangerous pet.

He crossed the opium den just as Achmad came in by another door.

The Arab peered at the Indian and fired a question at him in Hindustani. Chundra Lal replied in the same tongue, and then they were arguing vehemently.

Ah Foo writhed, twisted and turned and muttered incoherently to himself, as all opium addicts do when “enjoying” their illegal ecstasy. But all the time he was listening.

There was scarcely a dialect of any importance from east of Suez but what Ah Foo could understand it, if not speak it, and he was perfectly familiar with Hindustani.

Achmad was objecting to Chundra Lal going out again.

“Art thou a fool?” he was querying, “to venture out into the danger of the streets? What if the police-sahibs should see thee, Chundra Lal?”

“They will not see me,” argued Chundra Lal. “For am I not as the fox, crafty and skilful in covering my tracks?”

“Yet the fox is caught at last,” retorted Achmad. “Stay in thy lair and be thankful for the shelter.”

“How can I stay here,” complained the Indian, “when I have no money and those who promised to pay me are on the other side of this City?”

“Better to have freedom than money,” advised Achmad.

“What is freedom without money?” insisted Chundra Lal. “Stand aside, Achmad, for my blood runs hot within me at the thought of those who vowed to pay me for certain work and have cheated me of my wages. Did I not do the work they required of me? Shall not the labourer be paid his due? Verily, Achmad, I will wait no longer, skulking here like a jackal in its hole. I would go out and demand my deserts of these Feringhee dogs who withhold the money they promised me.”

“Hasaballa may not like it, Chundra Lal,” objected the Arab.

“If Hasaballa should prevent me going, then will he get no money from me for his hospitality, for I have none wherewith to pay him.”

That was a telling argument. Achmad stroked his beard, very thoughtfully.

“I will have speech with Hasaballa,” he said, and went over to the house ‘phone.

Chundra Lal waited, the whites of his eyes gleaming angrily through the haze.

Achmad spoke to Hasaballa in Arabic. From Chundra Lal’s frowns it was plain he did not understand a word of that flowery tongue. But Ah Foo did!

Achmad was explaining the situation fluently and volubly to Hasaballa. Chundra Lal wanted to go out and collect his money. It was dangerous, but if Hasaballa prevented his going then Hasaballa would lose on the deal, for the Indian had not one pice to his name. The one consoling factor was that Chundra Lal was leaving his chimpanzee behind, so that, if he did not return, Hasaballa could probably sell the animal to reimburse him for what was already owing.

Then Achmad listened to what Hasaballa had to say, and Ah Foo began to stir from his noisome bunk. He had seen and heard all he had come to see and hear. He realised that Hasaballa could not reasonably prevent Chundra Lal going out. Indeed, it was to his own advantage that the Indian should visit his former employers and collect bis wages. Hard cash was much to be preferred to a snarling chimpanzee. Hard cash has no substitute and leaves but little trace, but a chimpanzee would be hard to explain when it came to selling it.

And when Chundra Lal left Hasaballa’s place Ah Foo wanted to be handy to follow on his trail. So Ah Foo went through all the motions of an addict coming out of his stupor, and cleverly he did it, too. For Achmad coming away from the house ’phone, saw him rising unsteadily from the bunk and viewed the scene with no sort of suspicion in his keen, alert eyes.

Ah Foo stumbled about the room for a bit, then tossed Achmad a number of coins, carelessly. The payment was in excess of what was due and the Arab grinned his thanks.

“Peace, brother,” he mumbled, into his beard.

“And with thee, peace,” muttered Ah Foo.

He was reeling his way to the door, and before he went out he heard Achmad’s words to Chundra Lal.

“Hasaballa saith thou canst go, but shouldest thou bring the police-sahibs hither, then wilt thou taste his knife in thine heart.”

“No police-sahib shall see me,” promised Chundra Lal. “I will travel with the speed of the wind and as secretly, and be back before the moon has gone down.”

“And see thou bringest money back with thee,” said Achmad. “That is the word of Hasaballa.”

Ah Foo heard no more. He had gone, stumbling and reeling down the stairs and out through the saloon downstairs, under the watchful eyes of Hasaballa, seated like a toad behind his till.

Ah Foo vanished into the streets and the shadows swallowed him up. He reeled to the corner, became suddenly alert, and flattened his form against a door.

Cautiously he peered back the way he had come for fear that Hasaballa might have sent someone to shadow him. But no one emerged from Hasaballa’s place until Chundra Lal appeared, glancing up and down the street furtively.

The Indian passed within a yard of where Ah Foo lurked, without seeing him. He went padding away into the darkness like a shadow, and another shadow came out of that doorway and followed him.

Chundra Lal was a wanted man. The public did not know it for they had never been told. There had been no spectacular police messages on the wireless, no posters outside the police-stations, for this matter of Snaith’s death at the Hotel Cosmo was not a crime that the authorities wanted noised abroad too much, as yet.

But every policeman knew about Chundra Lal and was looking for him. The trouble was, as Ah Foo knew only too well, that to the European eye—at least to those not familiar with Orientals—one Lascar was very much like another. And as Chundra Lal did not have his chimpanzee with him, it was more than likely that he would go unchallenged.

Of Chundra Lal’s cunning there was no doubt. He kept to the dark, deserted streets as far as ever he could and headed westwards. When he had to cross the main thoroughfares he mingled boldly with the crowds, and brushed shoulders with several policemen.

He was by no means the only Lascar in that neighbourhood, although he was not wearing the usual Lascar seamen’s jeans and overalls, nor the distinctly round headgear. He was dressed in a European lounge suit, and a soft hat. He might have been an Indian medical student to judge from his appearance. And as the police had been provided with descriptions of him as a Lascar, they looked for a Lascar seaman and nothing else.

So Chundra Lal came to an underground railway station and bought a ticket to King’s Cross. Ah Foo was close behind him. He, too, purchased a ticket and boarded the same train that whisked Chundra Lal to Aldgate and beyond to Liverpool Street and King’s Cross where they both alighted.

Chundra Lal’s eyes were keen and alert. All the time he was watching for signs of danger. But Ah Foo had nothing distinctive about him, and in any case Chundra Lal was too preoccupied with thoughts of Scotland Yard and plainclothes detectives to worry about a Chinese, supposing he noticed Ah Foo.

Actually, he never saw Ah Foo, thanks to the latter’s skill at trailing.

From King’s Cross the trailing became difficult. Chundra Lal led the way across the wide thoroughfare and walked swiftly down the Grays Inn Road towards Bloomsbury.

Ah Foo realised he was on the verge of discoveries. So far, none of the clues in this affair of poor Snaith’s death had led anyone to Bloomsbury.

He felt the need for help. He wanted to get into touch with Chester Brett but he dared not relinquish his self-imposed task to enter a telephone box. Maybe, when Chundra Lal entered some house a way of communicating with Brett would present itself.

Chundra Lal padded on his way, keeping in the shadows as far as he could. The moon rode high in the sky with silvery brilliance, and if at times the light was a handicap to the fugitive, at others it aided him for every wall cast a dense shadow, all the darker by reason of the moonlight beyond it.

So the hunt progressed through Bloomsbury, through many a side street, until, at last, Chundra Lal’s steps slackened. He was more watchful than ever. He came to a corner and peered round it furtively before ever he dared to turn into the quiet road.

The end of the trail was close at hand. Ah Foo felt it in his bones. He crept onward, close to the railings, ready to dart into a gateway should Chundra Lal turn his head.

The Indian was studying the houses now, as if he were not familiar with the neighbourhood, but knew the number he wanted. The house stood well back from the pavement, and before each one was a wide garden. Most of those gardens were bedraggled and grimy, with dusty laurels and gloomy privets struggling to thrive in a dirt-laden atmosphere.

Ah Foo shot into an open gateway. Chundra Lal had stopped by a gate, and was looking this way and that to make sure he was not observed.

The Indian entered a gateway, padded down the path and up the steps to the front door of a large, dreary-looking house. Faintly Ah Foo heard a bell jangle.

There was a wait. The bell jangled faintly once more. Then a door opened and a shaft of light stabbed the night. Muffled voices sounded. Then the door slammed.

All was quiet. Ah Foo came from his hiding place and crept as silent as a shadow along by the railing until he came to the house into which Chundra Lal had gone.

Not a light showed there, now. Ah Foo went into the front garden and crouched under a laurel bush. He was wondering what he ought to do for the best—wait here for eventualities or ’phone Brett.

He was afraid that if he left his vantage post he would miss something of importance. He crouched there, conning the matter over and over in his mind. He would have given his right hand to have known what was going on in that house and who Chundra Lal was visiting.

It occurred to Ah Foo that he could effect an entry into the house. The lower windows were not barred or shuttered. He could break in there, and maybe the secret of Snaith’s death would be a secret no longer.

He was well aware of the danger he ran, for it was easy to guess that the men inside the house would be desperate. But Ah Foo, if he ever recognised danger, turned his gaze away from it and ignored it.

He half rose from his crouching attitude and was about to leave the dense shade of the laurel bush, when suddenly there came a movement from behind him and the faint rustling of leaves.

Before he could turn, something hard and metallic pressed into the small of his back and a low, tense voice whispered in his ear,

“One sound and I’ll shoot! Up with your hands!”

CHAPTER XXI

THE EVIDENCE

Chester Brett found Wally the Snitch in a low saloon in the Camden Town area. The place was hidden away in a maze of evil side-streets. There was nothing on the door to proclaim that one could enter and obtain refreshment there. From the outside it looked like all the other dingy houses in that dingy road.

But Brett knew his way around in the underworld. He knew that men on the run could find concealment here, and it was just the sort of place Wally the Snitch would patronise, especially after he had pulled off a job.

Seeing that his last job was his worst—murder—it had been safe to assume that he would make tracks for the best hiding-place he knew. This was it!

Wally sat at a table in the windowless room which served as a bar. Beyond the counter were doors that led to the recesses of the secretive house, where, no doubt, lurked many men wanted by the police.

Brett doubted whether Inspector Barker knew of this house, but he did not intend to enlighten that worthy, yet awhile. The existence of the thieves’ kitchen was invaluable to him in his work, for while he allowed the proprietor to carry on secure in the belief that his activities were known to no one outside the ranks of his criminal patrons, so long had Brett one rendezvous to visit every time he sought some dweller in the underworld.

This knowledge was standing him in good stead and saved him many hours of fruitless wandering in the shadows of nocturnal London. This was only the third noisome den he had visited, and his quest had come to a successful end.

Wally the Snitch was suspicious and frightened. Brett could see that in his eyes. The little crook had never committed murder before, and he had not yet become hardened to it. Every time the door opened, he would swing round in his chair to eye the newcomer anxiously. The shadow of the rope was upon him, and the money, which had brought his danger upon him, rested now in his pocket.

He drew it out and thumbed over the notes for the twentieth time. A hundred pounds, Lili la Rue had given him in return for avenging Jack McAnn and sending Untermeyer to his well-deserved doom.

A hundred pounds! Never in his life before had he possessed so much money at one time. He could scarcely believe he was so rich. And, at the same time, he was wondering whether it was worth it.

He could not forget Untermeyer’s gasp—his last gasp. He could not blot out the sight of Untermeyer’s face. He could not forget that if he were caught he would go to the gallows.

He shivered at the thought. Untermeyer deserved all he got. Even the police would agree with him there. But that wouldn’t save him from the eight o’clock walk if they caught him.

Going to Dartmoor was bad enough, but a man did stand a chance of coming out again. But the gallows—the black cap—was Untermeyer worth that?

Wally was beginning to doubt it. Actually, the hundred pounds had tempted him. Newly out of prison, with no chance of getting busy at his usual graft, hard up and fed up, Lili la Rue’s offer, coupled with Wally’s craving for drink and drugs, had urged him on to do for Untermeyer.

But fear, far more than remorse, was gnawing at Wally’s vitals, and it was taking larger doses of his favourite dope to drown it than he had ever indulged in before.

He was quivering with apprehension even as Brett entered the den. Wally scrutinised the newcomer and decided he didn’t know him, which wasn’t surprising. Brett was disguised and looked like a man just out of jail. His clothes were shabby and creased. His face was pallid with the prison pallor only too familiar to the customers at this joint.

Brett had given a name that was known by repute in the underworld of London—the name of a man who had operated mainly in the provinces, had served a sentence of ten years on the Moor, and was due out that week. What the underworld did not know, as yet, was that this criminal had attacked a warder and had his sentence lengthened in consequence.

Brett banked on their ignorance of that fact. The name was known but the man’s face was not. Brett, however, had made himself to look like the provincial crook, as near as he could, and trusted to luck.

He came and sat down at Wally’s table. He needed no excuse for that because all the other tables were occupied by two or more men. Wally was alone at his table.

Brett’s gaze dropped at once to the wad of notes in Wally’s hands.

“Hullo, Wally,” he said, prison fashion, out of the corner of his mouth. “In funds?”

Wally whisked the notes out of sight with amazing alacrity.

“Maybe,” he growled. “And what if I am?”

Brett chuckled grimly.

“That’s a nice way to meet a pal,” he complained, good-humouredly. “And me just off the Moor, too. I remember seeing you there, Wally.”

“Me?” Wally squinted at his companion through the tobacco haze. “Don’t recall you, mate.”

“I wasn’t in your squad,” explained Brett. “But you’ll know the name.”

He gave it, in a husky whisper, and Wally nodded his head.

“I remember the name,” Wally admitted, suspiciously, “but these ain’t your stamping grounds.”

“Manchester is too hot for me just now,” explained Brett. “Besides, I’m looking for somebody.”

Wally shifted uneasily in his chair.

“Wish you luck,” he mumbled, “but I ain’t being dragged into other bloke’s troubles. Got enough o’ my own.”

Brett grinned across the table at him.

“Don’t blame you for that,” he replied. “I’m not asking you to come in with me on anything. I work alone, I do. Leastways, I’m going to from now on. I worked with a woman, once, and that landed me up on the Moor.” He was suddenly grim. “I only want to find that skirt, and then——”

He left the rest to Wally’s imagination.

“Have one with me, Wally,” said Brett, suddenly. “I’m in funds, too. Had it cached away and the cops never got wise to where it was.”

“You’re a sport,” mumbled Wally.

Brett beckoned one of the frowsy waiters and gave his order.

“Don’t mind me talking to you?” he asked Wally. “Don’t know anybody down here.”

“That’s all right.” Wally was cheering up at the idea of being treated.

“Don’t know my way about,” complained Brett. “Not in London. But I know she’s here, somewhere. She gypped me and she’s got to pay for it. I wonder if you know her? She’s got a dozen different names, but, mostly, they call her Lili la Rue. Don’t suppose you know where I can find her, do you?”

“Lili la Rue!” Wally echoed the words and what little colour he had drained from his sunken cheeks. “And she gypped you?”

“Sure, she gypped me,” said Brett, with a scowl. “Got me to do her dirty work for her, then double-crossed me.”

Wally was gripping the edge of the table hard.

“What did she do? Did she—give you away—to the cops?”

Brett sneered in a superior fashion.

“Not much! She daren’t do that. I know too much about her to make that healthy. If she had squealed on me I’d have blabbed quite a lot about her. And she knew it.”

“Then what did she do?”

Brett frowned across the table.

“You’re mighty curious,” he complained. “Do you know her?”

Wally flinched under the steady stare that confronted him, but he shook his head.

“I’ve heard of her,” he mumbled. “That’s all.”

“Don’t get nearer to her than that,” advised Brett. “She’s poison. She got me to do a job for her and paid me off with phoney notes. That’s what she did!”

Wally’s eyes bulged. If Lili la Rue had done the same thing to him there would be a second murder, he was telling himself. He had killed once, so killing twice wouldn’t matter. He could only hang once, anyway.

His craven fears were swamped for the moment by suspicious rage.

The waiter had come to the table with a dirty tray, on which were dusty bottles and grimy glasses.

Brett sat there, both elbows on the table, half sprawled across towards Wally who was so amazed by what he had heard that he had hauled out the wad of notes from his pocket and had planted them on the table.

“Phoney notes!” he repeated, huskily. “Gosh, if that stunt’s been pulled on me——”

The waiter went away after Brett had paid him from what looked like a bigger wad than Wally exposed. Brett’s show of wealth was not lost on Wally the Snitch. It gave him confidence in his new friend.

“Did you get that packet from Lili?” asked Brett.

Wally hesitated. He might be confident, but he wasn’t quite a fool. If this man did anything to Lili la Rue, he might be blamed for it—supposing anyone knew what he had done for the woman.

“No,” he said. “But I got it from a man who got ’em from her.”

It was a lame explanation and, naturally, Brett was not deceived. Wally was playing for safety.

“And if there are any phoneys in this,” growled Wally, “I’ll cut his heart out.”

“Better make sure,” advised Brett, pouring out a generous drink for the little crook.

Wally squinted at the notes. His dope and the drink he had already imbibed were not helping either his vision or his brain to function successfully.

“The trouble is,” he grumbled, “I ain’t clever at picking out phoneys.”

“Let’s see ’em,” offered Brett. “I can spot a phoney a mile off—now.”

Wally hesitated, eyeing Brett with misgiving. But his natural aversion to being cheated overcame his suspicions.

“All right,” he agreed. “Take a look.”

Brett drew the wad of notes towards him as Wally lifted his glass and drained it with gusto.

That movement was all the cover that Brett needed to indulge in a little sleight of hand. He had several forged notes in his pocket, and deftly he extracted two genuine notes from the wad and replaced them with the duds.

By the time Wally had lowered his empty glass to the table the stage was set for the show-down.

Brett drew out two notes from Wally’s wad, and flicked them across the table.

“Phoney’s,” he said, curtly.

“What!”

Wally’s face was convulsed with savage rage. He picked up the notes, turned them over and over in his hands, compared them with other notes, and frowned at them.

“I can’t see much difference,” he complained.

“You wouldn’t,” declared Brett, easily. “You aren’t an expert. But try ’em out.”

He jerked his head towards the bar.

Wally rose, being careful to pocket his wad before he went, and walked uncertainly across the bar. Brett lit a cigarette and watched the little crook show the notes to the proprietor behind the bar, who raised his eyebrows, shook his head and promptly handed them back again.

Wally returned to the table, glowering at the forged notes.

“And she swung ’em on me!” he was muttering.

He stood there, glaring at Brett.

“I’ve got to go,” he growled. “Sorry!”

He snatched up his battered hat and made for the door. Brett knew where he was going—to find Lili la Rue. He meant to ask her what she meant by passing slush to him in return for a job.

But what job had Wally done for Lili la Rue? Brett knew that, too. He had killed Untermeyer, the fence, and already, fear of the consequences was gnawing at Wally’s vitals. He was a very dangerous man at that moment.

No sooner had the door closed on Wally the Snitch, than Brett rose from his seat, stretched himself lazily and sauntered out. He moved with the listlessness of the habitual criminal, resting between jobs.

But once he had gained the street, he was alert and active. He was in time to see the furtive figure of Wally the Snitch turn the corner of the road. He sped after him and stuck to his trail, down to the main road and along to Mornington Crescent.

Wally did not take to a bus or any sort of vehicle. He was afraid of crowds—afraid of any light falling on his face. He was a murderer, and even in imagination could feel the heavy hand of the law clamping down on his bowed shoulder.

He shuffled along at a fairly brisk pace, hands thrust deep in his coat pockets, shooting questing glances this way and that as he went, keeping in the shadows as far as ever he could.

The trail took Brett down the Hampstead Road to the Tottenham Court Road, then down a side street into the labyrinth of gloomy roads—the maze of Bloomsbury.

In the crowded main thoroughfares Brett had little difficulty in following Wally the Snitch. There was plenty of cover and at no time did the fugitive have a direct look at anyone who might be tailing him.

But the quiet, deserted streets of Bloomsbury offered another problem altogether, although Chester Brett was well qualified to tackle it.

The grimy privets and laurels cast a dense shade, rendered all the blacker by the vivid moonlight on the other side of the road. Wally was shunning the moonlight like the plague, and under the circumstances Brett could not blame him.

It was, perhaps, something of a shabby trick Brett had played on the sneak thief, but the ruse had succeeded. Wally the Snitch was leading Brett to the London hideout of Lili la Rue, and probably of Shaylor and his associates, as well.

The fact that Lili la Rue had indulged in a spot of private vengeance hinted that the main scheme was completed and that the gang was on the verge of breaking up and getting away with the all-important papers which had cost poor Snaith his life.

In a few moments, thought Brett, he might have a chance of snatching those papers back and thus safeguard the peace of the world.

Wally the Snitch suddenly stopped by a gateway. Brett immediately side-stepped into the gateway nearest to him and vanished.

Swiftly glancing up and down the road, Wally apparently decided that he was unobserved. He darted from the pavement down a tradesman’s entrance.

Brett crept along by the ragged hedge to the spot. The path down which Wally had vanished ran to the rear of a tall, gloomy-looking house.

The detective went down it, as soft-footed as any cat. He came to a wooden door. It was closed but not bolted. Wally had undoubtedly passed that way.

Listening there, he heard someone tapping on another door. He heard the door open, a muttered ejaculation from a man, and a beam of light showed for an instant. Then the door creaked and closed, and all was quiet again.

Brett opened the wooden door at the end of the path. He found himself in a back garden, overgrown and unkempt. Before him was the back door of the house.

No lights showed, save on the first floor, where he could just make out a chink of brilliance leaking from a tiny tear in the blind that covered the window.

He would have given much to have seen into that room, but there was no means of climbing up to the window—no stack pipe, no fire-escape, and no creeper on the wall.

He decided that as the occupants of the house were apparently in the back of the house it would be advisable for him to go to the front in order to effect an entry.

He retraced his silent steps, back down the path to the pavement and along by the hedge to the gate that led to the front door. He moved like a shadow, and with no more noise. He stood by the gate surveying the dark front of the house and the bedraggled front garden.

And then a dark patch under a laurel hedge moved slightly. A man was crouching there.

Brett drew a gun and crept forward towards the spot. No one was more stealthy on the trail than he. His feet made no sound at all. He glided along rather than walked.

But when he was within a yard of the man a twig cracked under his foot. The stranger started up, but before he could turn Brett’s gun was pressing against his spine.

“Make a sound and I shoot!” hissed Brett. “Put up your hands!”

The man obeyed, but he laughed, softly, through the darkness.

“If anyone but you had so surprised me,” he said, “I should have blamed myself for carelessness. But to be caught by the renowned Chester Brett——”

“Ah Foo!” exclaimed Brett.

“In person, Commander Brett. Can a poor Chink put his hands down?”

“Of course.” Brett was puzzled. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“Trailing Chundra Lai,” explained Ah Foo, softly. “He is in that house.”

“Where did you find him?” asked Brett. Ah Foo explained how he had visited the opium den of Hasaballa, and all that had occurred there. It was told briefly, and in soft whispers that scarcely carried a yard from the speaker.

Brett was grim as he recounted his own adventures and how Wally the Snitch had murdered Untermeyer, the fence, and how he had been tricked into guiding the detective to the gang’s headquarters.

“We’ve got them penned up here,” said Brett. “With luck we might get the papers back.”

“We shall need a lot of luck,” said Ah Foo. “They are desperate men in there.”

“There’s a public call box on the corner of the street,” replied Brett. “Go and ’phone Barker. He can bring a squad car here inside five minutes.”

“Very well.”

Ah Foo went off into the shadows.

Chester Brett watched him go then turned to the house. Where there was danger such as this he preferred to work alone. It gave him a better chance of surprising the dangerous men inside the house.

He knew that if Ah Foo returned and did not find him he would guess what he had done and remain on guard outside for anything that might happen.

Brett went up to the front door. It looked massive, and indeed it was, like most old-fashioned front doors. But the lock was also old-fashioned and, therefore, easily opened by an expert such as Chester Brett.

Taking certain illegal implements from his pocket he set to work and within three minutes had the door open. He thrust it open, cautiously.

The hall was in total darkness, but from the rear of the house came muffled voices. They sounded angry, as if in altercation. Then came a woman’s voice, shrill and vituperative.

Brett kept the door ajar. He crept down the dark passage to the door of the back room, and stopped there, listening.

He heard Shaylor cursing savagely.

“Am I to have my plans wrecked by a miserable sneak thief and a dog of a Lascar?” he was saying. “You have both been paid——”

“Not enough,” whined Chundra Lal. “You promised——”

“I paid all I promised.”

“So did I?” hissed Lili la Rue.

“In phoney notes,” snarled Wally the Snitch. “I’ll squeak. That’s what I’ll do. I don’t mind swinging, but I’ll see you swing with me. I know what I know, and I’ll——”

There was a sinister plop. A silenced gun. Wally the Snitch cried out, gasped. Then his body thudded to the floor.

Brett had seen nothing but it was easy to guess what had happened.

“That’s the safest way with squealers,” snarled Shaylor. “Do you want the same dose, Chundra Lal? I tell you I won’t have my plans wrecked by fools. I have the papers here, and I’m leaving London—this country—to-night. D’you think I’ve risked my neck over this to let you put it in the noose? You fool! You dared to come here——”

Chundra Lal burst into a torrent of terrified Hindustani.

Brett applied his eye to the keyhole. Fortunately there was no key in the lock.

He saw Shaylor pick up some sheets of paper from the table, fold them carefully and deposit them in the breast pocket of his jacket.

“You others can do as you like,” he said. “I’m off.”

Brett straightened. The crucial moment had arrived. It was now—or never.

He flung the door open and faced the crooks with levelled gun.

“I don’t think you’ll leave us yet, Shaylor,” he said.

For a moment everyone in that room was silent, horrified—standing motionless like statues. There was Shaylor, white-lipped and savage, Le Brune, snarling like a wild beast, Lili la Rue, one hand clasped to her heaving breast, and Chundra Lal, back against the wall, his eyes goggling with fear. Wally the Snitch lay flat on his back, half under the table. He had nothing to say. He would never say anything at all in this world, again.

But the scene held for only a second. It was the terrified Lascar who acted. His hand came from behind him. He hurled a knife—not at Brett but at the light. The bulb exploded and the room was plunged into darkness.

Brett hurled himself forward. What happened to the others he did not care, but Shaylor had the papers. Even in the darkness his sense of direction was faultless. His outflung arms found Shaylor’s legs and they came down together on the floor with a crash.

The room was in an uproar. Le Brune was shouting in lurid French. Chundra Lal spluttered something in Hindustani. Lili la Rue was crying out—“Lights, you fool! He’s got Shaylor!”

But then came hoarse shouts from outside the house, and the crunching of feet on the gravel path that led to the front door.

“Police!” gasped Lili la Rue. She recognised those sounds only too well.

There was a wild scamper from the room, the shattering of glass from somewhere in the passage.

Not that Brett could do anything about it. Shaylor was fighting like a madman, kicking, clawing, scratching. Brett managed to get hold of his wrists and hold on to them. More than that he could not do in the darkness. It was largely guess work, but he meant to hold his man until Barker and his men arrived.

Outside came curses and oaths. Then the door of the room was burst open and several electric torches shone vivid beams through the gloom. Shaylor made one more desperate bid to escape but Brett refused to relax his hold.

A policeman stepped round the struggling pair. His truncheon descended on Shaylor’s head, and the fight ended.

“Thanks,” said Brett, shortly. But before he picked himself up he thrust one hand into Shaylor’s breast pocket and pulled out the papers.

Ah Foo blinked with satisfaction, although he was a trifle rueful.

“You should have waited for me,” he complained.

“If I had, it would have been too late,” returned Brett, quietly. “You came just when you were wanted, Ah Foo. Did you catch them all?”

“All except Chundra Lal,” said Ah Foo. “But, don’t worry. I know where to find him.”

CHAPTER XXII

THE FLYING SQUAD

IN his quiet office in Cobbett’s Court, that reticent little man, Mr. Jas. Brown, lovingly fingered a first edition of Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler. He found the words of the fisherman soothing after the stress and the turmoil of the day.

It was a quiet hour, the rumble of ’buses in nearby Fleet Street sounded as aloof as breakers on a distant shore, and Mr. Brown was well content, despite the fact that he had heard from the omnipotent Number One at Whitehall the news that one of his government’s Secret Service men had been foully done to death.

Mr. Brown was always calm in every crisis. It was one of the reasons why he had been elected head of his country’s Secret Service in England. He knew that his friend, Mr. Armitage, had promised to deal with the matter of William Snaith, and, as one chess player to another, he realised that the cool, calm, logical mind of Number One would use every gambit in order to circumvent the powers that were interested.

Mr. Armitage rang him up immediately on his arrival and asked whether he could play a game of chess with him at the Mausoleum Club. They discussed the weather, the political situation and the latest murder in an entirely abstract fashion over the wires and it was not until he met Armitage in a shadowy alcove of that austere club that Mr. Brown was put in possession of the full facts up to date of the sensational case.

The two men discussed the situation amicably in subdued tones over their game of chess in the corner. None of the members of that famous club realised that the two rather old-fashioned gentlemen in the corner were the brains behind the Anglo-American Secret Services.

Mr. Brown, after his inexpensive luncheon at the club, spent two hundred and twenty-five pounds that afternoon on a Transatlantic telephone call to an obscure man named Jones in Washington, U.S.A.

That being done, he relaxed and plodded around his magnificent library of first editions. The insignificant Mr. Armitage had told him during their insignificant game of chess that the Snaith affair had been entrusted to the capable hands of Number Seven and Number Thirteen of the British Secret Service. With that Mr. Brown was well content. He believed, as he often remarked, in relaxation. He was just skimming through the fisherman philosopher’s restful aphorisms when the ‘phone bell rang, and, with a sigh at the profanation of his silence, he lifted the receiver. The voice at the other end of the wire was Armitage.

“That you, Brown? White to win in two moves,” was the message.

Mr. Brown scribbled a note on his pad.

“And the time?” he inquired.

“Twenty-four hours,” came the reply. “I believe,” added Mr. Armitage, “there is a spot of yellow in the game.”

“Excellent,” said Mr. Brown.

An hour later at the White House in Washington, a clean-shaven, stern-eyed man lifted up his telephone receiver, and a look of relief passed over his face as he recognised the voice of Mr. Jas. Brown, of Cobbett’s Court, Fleet Street.

The time was getting very close. To-morrow the vital debate on peace would take place in the Senate. And, as Mr. Brown was careful to point out to the high dignitary at the Washington end, its success depended on one man, and that was Number Thirteen of the British Secret Service—alias Chester Brett.

Meanwhile, in the House of Hasaballa the raucous notes of the electric piano blared forth.

At his cash desk Hasaballa squatted, a monstrous toad, without even the redeeming feature of a jewel in his head.

Upstairs, in the room of black smoke, Ah Foo, the Chinaman, sat listening, a goza between his thin lips, to the mutterings of the Hindoo, who tossed and squirmed in the frowsty bed adjacent to him.

The fun was at its height at the house of Hasaballa, and the place was crowded to suffocation.

Suddenly, outside the entrance to the dingy restaurant, an inconspicuous motor van, speedy and very silent, drew up. It was a Flying Squad tender.

Almost before anyone realised it a dozen stalwart figures alighted from the van and swept into that low and squalid restaurant. They were headed by a burly, redfaced man in an aggressive bowler hat, and a tall, keen-faced individual clad in a blue Melton overcoat.

A sudden hush fell on the restaurant. The strident strains of the electric piano stopped as if by magic as Detective-inspector Barker, accompanied by Chester Brett, strode up to Hasaballa’s cash desk.

The Egyptian smiled, but there was a look of fear at the back of his strange slate-grey eyes.

“Ah, good evening, sir,” he remarked. “Did you wish to see me?”

“I did,” snapped Barker grimly.

Tense silence fell on that crowded restaurant of derelicts and outcasts.

Hasaballa realised that the game was up. He pressed a gouty foot towards a bell-push on the floor. Somewhere up above an electric bell clanged. It was the raid signal.

“What can I have the pleasure of doing for you?” said Hasaballa in his thick, guttural voice.

“You can shut up,” snapped Barker. “This is a pinch.”

He signalled to the stalwart members of the Flying Squad, two of which had taken strategic positions by the door. Fear and hatred struggled for rivalry in the Egyptian’s fish-like eyes.

“Why, inspector,” he said. “We ain’t breaking the law. Just an ’armless bit of amusement like,” he protested with a wave of his brown palm.

A burly Lascar edged furtively towards the dingy curtain that screened the entrance to the upstairs opium den. Chester Brett spoke suddenly.

“Stay where you are. Not a man moves without my permission.”

His voice snapped like a whip-lash through the silence of the room.

“Hasaballa,” he demanded suddenly, “where is Chundra Lal? ”

The Egyptian staggered as if he had been shot. His flabby brown cheeks were pasty with fear.

“Ch-Ch-Chundra Lal,” he gasped. “I don’t know anybody of that name—sir.”

“Don’t lie!” said Chester Brett. “Stand back from that curtain, you.” His lean, sinewy fingers shot out and seized the wizened-looking Lascar by the throat.

“Come on, Barker,” he said, jerking his head over his shoulder.

“I swear to you, sir, I don’t know that man,” gasped Hasaballa frenziedly, plucking at the detective’s sleeve.

Brett brushed him aside contemptuously. He ripped down the frowsty curtain and strode into the malodorous passage, an automatic glinting in his fingers. He found himself in a dank, noisome passage illumined by a feeble gas jet that threw fantastic shadows on the slimy ceiling.

On his left was a doorway from behind which came the low murmur of voices. Brett turned the handle and the voices ceased. The door was locked. Behind the man from Chelsea loomed the burly figure of Inspector Barker.

“Smash it in,” he said grimly.

Poising himself for a second on his sturdy feet, he hurled his weight against the doorway.

Crash!

It fell back with a splintering shock, and Brett strode over the threshold, purposefulness in his keen grey eyes.

“Stick ’em up,” he commanded.

Three badly frightened men seated round a rickety table on which reposed a half empty whisky bottle leapt to their feet with an oath. They were flashily dressed in bowler hats and check suits.

Brett’s steely eyes swept over them.

“Something in your line, Barker,” he remarked to the Yard man. “I believe you were anxious to find Nobbier Joe and Scarfaced Jim.”

Barker smiled grimly. He had recognised two notorious members of the Contreni Race Gang. He turned to the burly Flying Squad man at his heel.

“Pull ’em in, Leonard,” he snapped. “Come on, boys,” he added truculently, as one of the men made some effort at resistance. “You’re going for a nice ride with Mr. Leonard.”

The third, an undersized, little man, turned imploringly to Chester Brett.

“Oh, sir, if you please, sir, I ain’t done nothin’! I got a widowed mother ter keep, an’ think o’ the dithgrace!”

“Disgrace be sugared!” snapped Barker. “I know you, Ikey. Pull him in, Leonard,” he added, turning to his subordinate. “This is Ikey the Wiz. He was released from Pentonville a fortnight ago for bashing his darling widowed mother’s head in with a poker. Hold him under the axe.”

Vehemently and volubly protesting, the little crook was hauled to his feet by the capable Leonard. Neither Brett nor Barker, however, stopped to heed his protestations. They swooped to the right up the rickety stairs. On the second flight the detective paused and wrinkled his nostrils.

He had recognised the acrid fumes of opium.

“Chandu,” he remarked over his shoulder.

Barker nodded.

“This means the end of the House of Hasaballa,” he commented. “Come on!”

Warily Brett climbed up the stairs.

“Opium! I thought as much,” he said as the reeking clouds of pungent smoke assailed their nostrils.

“I shall have need of your hefty shoulder again, old man,” he remarked, as they halted on the second landing.

He wrenched down a piece of coarse brown sacking, and together the two of them hurled themselves against the door, which it hid.

Crash!

Brett’s shoulder slammed against the door, and the slender portal trembled on its hinges. A snarl of fury leapt from the gloom of the door beyond. Dimly, through the half-broken door, Brett saw frowsy figures raise themselves up from the opium den’s foul beds. His thin lips pressed together incisively, and then, of a sudden, it happened.

From the corner of the room, like some monstrous, prehistoric animal from a sea of slime, an unearthly figure with green eyes and a monstrous face, inhuman in its malignancy, leapt towards him.

One glance at that glowering visage, those slavering jaws, was enough for Chester Brett. He raised his gun. It was unfortunate, however, that at the moment when that monstrous apparition appeared from the gloom of the opium den, the wiry little hunchback, Achmad, should have appeared from his cubby hole in the corner and tackled Inspector Barker round the knees.

Bang!

Brett’s gun spat flame, but the shot went wide. Taken off his guard, the Yard man had staggered up against Brett and spoilt his aim.

In a second, pandemonium raged. The screaming of the half-mad dope fiends, the clamour from the restaurant down below, made an inferno of noise. Brett, however, faced that monstrous apparition without flinching. Unfortunately, however, Barker’s sudden grab at his arm caused him to trip over a loose board in the floor, so that his automatic was jerked out of his hand and fell with a clatter. A gigantic form chattered shrilly, and suddenly, without an instant’s warning, hurled itself at the detective.

He moved with tigerish velocity, his mighty muscles flexed. The sheer impetus of those three hundred pounds of flesh and sinew caused Brett to stagger backwards. But it was the face, the horrible face that stared from the gloom, half human and half beast, that sickened the detective.

He realised at last that he was face to face with the real author of the mystery of the climbing corpse.

It was Chiswick, Chundra Lal’s chimpanzee.

Crack!

Barker drew his gun, handicapped as he was in his struggle with the hunchback. His revolver spat once, but harmlessly.

Achmad’s onslaught had spoilt his aim, and the great ape merely grunted as the scorching tongue of flame seared its hairy arms, which were twined round Brett’s taut body.

The detective strove dizzily to maintain his balance, while Barker strove desperately to shake off his assailant.

Suddenly the Yard man raised his knee and caught the hunchback a violent blow at the pit of the stomach. With a howl of anguish Achmad relinquished his hold and clattered down the rickety stairs.

The great ape’s hairy arms closed round Chester Brett’s body, while Barker, dazed and trembling, circled warily around the combatants while they closed with each other.

From the corner came the high piping of Chundra Lal, the Hindoo, urging his pet to kill his quarry.

Barker, with trembling finger on the trigger, circled round the strangely matched opponents. It would have been dangerous to shoot at such short range. For the mighty chimpanzee squirmed like an eel, swinging Brett round like a living shield between itself and Barker’s menacing gun.

It was almost human in its sense of the danger which threatened it. Brett’s temple throbbed, and his heart seemed to burst beneath the pressure of that terrible hug.

With a supreme effort he wrenched back his deadly left from the ape’s clutch, and drove it with every ounce of his remaining strength full into the gibbering, leering jaw.

The ape’s head snicked backward with the pain and the suddenness of the blow. For an instant the grip of its huge, hairy arms relaxed, and Brett was enabled to plant a kick full in the beast’s stomach.

The kick visibly shook even the ape’s mighty body. It was not scientific nor pretty to watch, but Brett knew that only quick and instant action could save him from being crushed to death, once the chimpanzee succeeded in gaining its terrible stranglehold.

The ape chattered shrilly, swayed like a storm-bent tree, and then fell with a crash that shook the ramshackle building. Its head struck the floor with a bone-shattering jolt.

Crack!

Barker’s revolver spat flame again, and the great, hairy body stiffened in death.

A bedraggled figure emerged from the opium-infested gloom, and a cultured voice remarked:

“Pardon me, inspector, if I intrude. But that was a very excellent shot.”

Barker’s eyes goggled as they fell on the figure of a dilapidated Celestial in a slop-shop suit.

“Well, I’ll be——”

“Ssh!” said Professor Li Sin, of Pekin University, waving a lemon-hued hand round the opium den. “Ssh, inspector. Not before the children!”

CHAPTER XXIII

BRETT ANSWERS QUESTIONS

CLAD in the familiar dressing-gown, which was alike his mantle of reflection and relaxation, and, wreathed in the blue smoke which circled up from his beloved briar, Chester Brett looked up thoughtfully at the circle of friends who were assembled in his Chelsea consulting-room.

It was two hours after the dramatic raid on the House of Hasaballa. Barker was there, the inevitable cigar between his lips. Ginger Mullins, seated on a hassock, smoked a consolatory gasper. Seated in a saddlebag chair opposite, clothed and in his right mind, as he expressed it, was Professor Li Sin, late of Pekin University.

And sprawled in an inelegant attitude on the divan, Splash Page beamed over a glass of whisky.

“Now let’s have the story, Brett,” he cajoled. “I’ve been on the inside of it since the word ‘Go,’ and even now I can’t make head or tail of it.”

Brett’s grey eyes twinkled.

“Very possibly, my dear Splash. But I will tell you on one condition. At least fifty per cent. of it is not for publication.”

The newspaper man’s face fell, but he said nothing.

Brett puffed thoughtfully at his briar, took up his usual position with his back to the mantelpiece when he finally elucidated a mystery and remarked:

“I think, gentlemen, the best way to give you a true solution is by answering questions. Now, Splash, you were present, as you say, from the beginning of the mystery. What is it that troubles you?”

Splash Page took a deep drink before replying.

“First of all, Brett, I might as well tell you what I know,” he said, “and you can fill in the gaps.”

Brett nodded.

“Go ahead, my son!”

Splash glanced across at the impeccable figure of Dr. Li Sin, who had managed miraculously to change from the bedraggled opium-smoker of the house of Hasaballa to his debonair self.

“To tell my story in the first three lines,” said Splash Page, quoting the Daily Radio slogan, “this is what I know. William Snaith, American Secret Service man, aged forty, was murdered for secret papers of international importance. His corpse climbed up a Mayfair hotel, was stolen from a mortuary, and found in a mummy-case on Mitcham Common.”

“Admirably succinct,” said Chester Brett. “You have stated the mystery. What is your theory?”

“Theory?” echoed Splash Page. “I have a dozen of them. I want yours, Chester Brett.”

Barker waggled his fingers uneasily inside the neck of his collar.

“Look here, Brett, d’you think it’s wise to tell this newspaper man——”

Brett’s keen eyes rested coldly on the Yard man for a moment.

“Splash Page is a friend of mine,” he remarked. “Anything that is said within the walls of this consulting-room is sacrosanct as far as he is concerned!”

Barker mumbled an apology.

“Briefly, Splash, this is the explanation of the whole affair,” said Brett, turning to the newspaper man. “As you doubtless know, over in America a man named Shaffer has been employed by the armament powers and the steel kings of America to upset the peace negotiations, and make mischief between England and America.

“He is now on trial before the Senate, and has produced a document purporting to be a secret treaty between France and England and Italy, in which we enter into an agreement to unite on building battleships and co-operate in the event of warfare between Europe and America. This document is a forgery,” added Brett gravely.

“Any far-seeing man can see that the thing is a forgery, but it has been so well done, and Shaffer is so well paid and represented by the armament firms that if he put in the document without absolute proof that it was a forgery, undoubtedly it would stir both England and America to their depths.”

Splash Page whistled.

“I’m beginning to see it now, Brett,” he remarked.

Brett smiled tolerantly.

“It was to the interests of certain firms in both Europe and America to foster the belief that this document was authentic. Fortunately for the world-peace, the President of the U.S.A. and the Premier of England were not likely to be stampeded by these sort of tactics by the armaments trusts.”

Splash Page broke in with a grin:

“I understand that. That fellow Shaffer’s a twisty bloke. But what on earth has that to do with the climbing corpse?”

“Simply this,” said Chester Brett. “That Snaith, one of the best Secret Service men in America, was sent over to Europe to discover the full details of the plot. You must remember that the international armament firms are immensely strong,” he added.

“I’ll tell the world they are,” broke in Splash Page.

“They are so strong and so powerful,” continued Brett, “that it is unsafe to send their names across the ether by radiophone, because they control so many shares, and the intelligence service is almost equal to that of the British Government.”

“Yes, but, guv’nor,” broke in Ginger Mullins from his hassock, “what has all this got to do with the murder of poor Snaith, and why was his body found on Mitcham Common?”

“I am coming to that,” responded Chester Brett. “Schultz, in Europe, is almost as dangerous as Shaffer, in America. By his secret espionage he discovered that Snaith had found out not only the names of the alleged forgers, but their confessions as well. At all costs he was determined that these names and confessions should not reach America.”

“For East is East and West is West,” broke in Dr. Li Sin, with his imperturbable smile. “Shall I take up the trail for you now, Brett?”

Barker had allowed his cigar to go out. These questions of international diplomacy were above his head. He cleared his throat.

“You’ve already explained, Brett, old man,” he remarked, “how that poor fellow Snaith was killed—and the fingerprints we found up in the servant’s room corresponding to those of Chung Las, the doctor who was struck off the rolls recently. But who was it that stole the body, and why?”

Brett and Dr. Li Sin looked at each other, and smiled.

They alone knew the entry that had been put in the dossier of Number One of Whitehall against the name of William Snaith.

“Knocked out by bandits in Southern Mexico. Unconscious for three days. Has had skull trepanned with silver plate. Uses cavity in skull for secret documents written on rice-paper.”

Splash Page leapt to his feet, eyes glowing with excitement.

“Half a sec., Brett,” he remarked. “I’ll give you a precis of the story. Snaith was murdered by the knife placed there by one of Schultz’s agents. They knew he carried the papers on him somewhere, and not in his cases. They wanted his body to examine it. They worked the whole thing out, even to employing Chundra Lal’s pet chimpanzee. Unfortunately for them, they did not know where exactly he had hidden his papers. They were disturbed, and had to bolt——”

“Your perspicuity is certainly marvellous,” said Chester Brett. “As a matter of fact, clever as the espionage of the corporation was, they were not aware that Snaith’s hiding-place was carried in his head. The confessions and the signatures of the forged treaty had been photographed on specially prepared rice-paper, and hidden between the dent of his skull and the trephining. But Shaylor eventually guessed the truth and decided to examine Snaith’s body.

“How the corpse was stolen from West Street mortuary you already know. Fortunately for us, the fingerprint department of Scotland Yard works very well.”

“Fingerprints!” broke in Dr. Li Sin. “Fingerprints have been known in China for nearly twelve hundred years. I was asked by Number One to superintend the arrival of Mr. William——”

An indignant snort came from Inspector Barker.

“If they’re going over our heads in the Yard,” he growled, “then I’m about finished.”

He rose to his feet truculently, fists clenched, moustache bristling.

“My dear inspector,” said Dr. Li Sin suavely, “there is no necessity for you to incommode yourself in any way. The affair has ended.”

Barker rather gruffly thanked Brett for his assistance, but the detective did not want any credit. He was satisfied, because he knew that over in America an O.K. message had gone via Mr. Armitage and Mr. Brown of Cobbett’s Court, and the peace of the world was assured for a while at least.

Thrilling Mystery Novels

By

GWYN EVANS

DEATH SPEAKING

THE RIDDLE OF THE RED DRAGON

THE MAN WITH THE SCARLET SKULL

ROGUE ROYAL

SATAN LTD.

THE HANGING JUDGE

CASTLE SINISTER

HIS MAJESTY THE CROOK

THE SIGN OF THE SARACEN

THE MYSTERIOUS MISS DEATH

BLUEBEARD’S KEYS

THE CLUE OF THE MISSING LINK

THE CASE OF THE CLIMBING CORPSE

THE TRIANGLE OF TERROR

COFFINS FOR TWO

THE IRON MASK

WRIGHT & BROWN LTD.

Table of Contents

HERCULES, ESQ

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE MAN FROM ABYSSINIA

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

THE SECRET OF ALI BABA’S JARS

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

THE MAN WITH THE DIAMOND MASK

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CROUCHER

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

EPILOGUE

THE CROOK CRUSADERS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

THE ASSASSIN

PROLOGUE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

ROGUES REPRIEVE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

THE CASE OF THE CLIMBING CORPSE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII