Title: The Flying Squad (1924)
Author: Edgar Wallace
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Language:  English
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Title: The Flying Squad (1924)
Author: Edgar Wallace






CHAPTER 1



Lady's Stairs was a crazy wooden house overlooking and overhanging the
creek between canal and river. You saw it from the lock that marked the
place where canal ended and the broad, muddy estuary began, a sagging
barn of a place, supported on huge wooden piles, with a dingy facade
which had once been painted white, and then not painted again. It was
streaked and blurred by nature to strange neutral shades that would have
rendered it invisible but for the fact that it was wedged between a high
warehouse on the one side and the barrel-roof of an ironworks on the
other. Beneath the main rooms the creek ran, rising to within a few feet
of Li Yoseph's sitting-room in flood-time.

Lady's Stairs, whence it took its name, has vanished. Once this dark and
oily waste had been a pleasant backwater to the Thames, and there was
still evidence of its one-time pastoral character. Stock Gardens was a
slum that ran parallel with the canal; Lavender Lane and Lordhouse Road
were no less unsavoury; and where the tenements raised their ugly heads,
and the squeals of playing children sounded night and day, was still
called The Meadows.

Li Yoseph used to sit in his little room and watch the colliers tie up
at Brands Wharf at high tide, and see the barges towed slowly towards
the lock. He found cause for satisfaction that, by craning his neck
through the window, he could also see the big Dutch steamers that went
down Thames River to the sea.

The police had nothing against Li Yoseph. They knew him to be a fence
and a smuggler, but they had no positive evidence, and did not expect to
find more on this fatal visit of theirs than they had upon previous
visits.

All the neighbourhood thought Li was rich, and knew for certain that he
was mad.

He had a habit of holding lengthy conversations with invisible friends.
As he shuffled through the streets, a strange-looking creature with his
big yellow face as hairless as a child's, yet wrinkled and creased into
a thousand criss-crossing lines, he would be talking and gesticulating
and smiling dreadfully to his unseen companions. Mostly he spoke in a
foreign language which was believed to be German, but was in fact
Russian. He confessed to an acquaintance with fairies--good fairies and
bad; he saw and conversed with dead men, who told him the strangest
tales of unknown worlds. And he was a seer, for he foresaw the future
surprisingly.

He was walking about the sloping floor of his room overlooking the
creek, mumbling and muttering to himself. It was a strangely lofty room,
and in the light of three candles, which served to accentuate the
darkness of the apartment, was a place of terrifying shadows. The walls,
which had once been lime-washed, were streaked yellow and green, and in
wet weather the roof leaked, and little streams of moisture appeared on
the walls. This was his living-room--he slept in a big cupboard, which
had only this advantage, that it was in the one part of the house that
was over dry land.

But the bigger apartment was office, store and recreation-room. Here he
interviewed Dutch, German and French sailors who came rowing softly up
the creek at high tide, and, steering their little boats through a maze
of green piles that held up the overhanging out-thrust of the house,
moored at last at the foot of the crazy ladder, down which the old man
would climb and chaffer for certain articles they brought to him.

It was quite dark beneath the house, even in the daytime the forest of
props and piles letting in the faintest twilight. Only at certain times
could these water-borne negotiators come, for when the tide dropped
there was nothing below but mud, the depth of two men--thick, watery
mud, that moved all the while in great unease as though beneath its
blanket some silurian monster was turning in his sleep.

Old Li always had a boat tied up here, fitted with a little motor which
he had learned to work. In this he made infrequent excursions on to the
river itself. He was contemplating some such trip that night; twice he
had rolled up the discoloured square of carpet, pulled open the
trap-door which the carpet covered, and, grunting and muttering, had
gone down the rungs of the ladder, depositing something in the boat,
which lay on its side in the mud. At last his work was finished, and he
could devote his time to the shadowy host which peopled the room.

He talked to them, always in Russian, joked with them, rubbed his hands
and chuckled at the amazing wit of their repartee. They had been
whispering a thing all day--to a normal man a dreadful thing that would
have made him cringe in fear. But for once Li did not believe the
ghosts.

A bell clanged, and he shuffled out of the room, down the steep stairs,
to a little side door.

"Who is it?" he asked.

He heard the low reply, and turned the key.

"You have come early or late--I don't know which." Li had a deep, husky
voice, with only a trace of a foreign accent.

Closing and locking the door behind him, he followed his visitor up the
stairs.

"Here there is no time," he chuckled hoarsely. "Days or nights, I do not
know them. There is high tide, when I must make business very quickly,
and low tide, when I may sit and talk to my beautiful little friends."
He kissed his hand to a dark corner, and Mark McGill snarled round on
him.

"Cut that out--you and your damned ghosts! His sister's coming here
to-night."

"His?"

The yellow-faced man peered at him. "Ronnie Perryman's--she's come over
from Paris." Li Yoseph gaped at the visitor, but asked no questions of
the big man.

There was something about Mark McGill that inhibited a request for
confidence. He was a commanding man, broad of shoulder. His coarse
features had a certain handsomeness; yet the terror he inspired in his
many subordinates had its origin less in its patent strength or the
brutality of his big hands than in a pair of the palest blue eyes that
aver stared from the face of man.

He rolled his half-smoked cigar from one corner of his mouth to the
other, walked into the recess where Li had his bed, and eyed the
darkening waters thoughtfully,

"High tide in an hour." He was speaking half to himself.

Li Yoseph, watching him as a cat would a mouse, saw him lift a violin
from the bed.

"Been playing your fiddle all day, I'll bet--have the police been here
again?" The Jew shook his head.

"No more questions about Ronnie? Well, she'll ask you some. I tried to
keep her away. You know what you're going to tell her, don't you?"

A pause; slowly he nodded.

"He was kilt--by the p'lice. They caught him in a boat wit' something he
find in the ship. So they say 'where you get this?' an' they beat him so
he fell in the river and died"

"Good for you." Mark bent his head and listened. "That's Tiser and the
girl--bring 'em up."

Li went noiselessly down the stairs. He came back, leading the way;
Tiser followed--a twittering, nervous man with a big-toothed smile. His
brow was perennially moist, his shining black hat and neat black tie
added to his repulsiveness. Ann Perryman disliked him from the moment
she saw him at the station--a clammy man, whose everlasting smile was an
offence.

She came slowly into the room, paused for a second, and in that period
of time took in, without perceptible emotion, the squalor of the place
in which she found herself. Her eyes rested for the space of a few
seconds upon Mark, and he grew strangely uncomfortable under her
scrutiny.

She was a straight, neat figure of a girl. In some lights her hair was a
deep gold, in others you saw a reddish tinge that almost changed her
appearance. She had a high, wide forehead from which the hair was
brushed back, and that gave her a certain old-fashionedness. She was
straight-backed, held herself rather stiffly, and conveyed by this very
poise her aloofness. She was not easily approached; men found her rather
coldly austere, and said she was deficient in humour because she could
not appreciate theirs. Her grey eyes, set wide apart, could be very
hard. Ronnie had known how soft they could be, but Ronnie was dead and
no other man had seen love shining there.

Ann Perryman had the stuff of martyrs in her; intellectually and
spiritually she was made for grand experiences. Her will was inflexible,
her courage sublime.

So this was Ann Perryman! He had never seen her before, and was struck
dumb by her unexpected loveliness.

She put out a cold hand and he took it, held it for a second and then
released his grip. He hardly knew where to begin.

"Tiser has told you, of course?"

She nodded gravely.

"I saw the account a fortnight ago. I am teaching in a school in Paris,
and one has the English papers. But I didn't know that"--she
hesitated--"Ronnie went under an assumed name."

She said this in a quiet, even, conversational tone.

"I might have told you before," said Mark, "but I thought I would wait
till everything was over before I broke the news."

There was so much sympathy in his voice that Mr. Tiser, whose restless
eyes had been roving the apartment, brought them back to his confederate
with a stare of genuine amazement. Mark was really wonderful!

"It was rather a difficult situation," Mark went on in the low, strained
voice of one who is telling an unpleasant story. "You see, if Ronnie was
breaking the law, so was I. One naturally hesitates to incriminate
oneself."

She inclined her head at this.

"Of course, I know Ronnie wasn't--" She hesitated. "He has been rather
unfortunate all his life, poor darling! Where was he found?"

Mark pointed towards the creek.

"I'm going to be frank with you. Miss Perryman. Your poor brother and I
were smugglers. I suppose it's very reprehensible, and I'm not excusing
myself: I'm being perfectly candid with you. The police were keen to
trap us, and I think they regarded Ronnie as rather a weak vessel, and I
happen to know that they had made several overtures to him--they hoped
to induce him to betray the organisation. That sounds highly
melodramatic, but it is the truth."

She looked from him to Tiser. The old Jew had crept behind the curtains
of his recess.

"Mr. Tiser has told me that the police murdered Ronnie--it is
incredible!"

Mark shrugged his shoulders.

"There's nothing incredible about the London police," he said dryly. "I
don't say they intended killing him, but they certainly beat him up.
They must have caught him coming back in a boat from one of the ships
that bring the contraband to us, and either he got a blow that knocked
him overboard or else he was deliberately thrown into the water when
they found how badly they had injured him."

She nodded again.

"Inspector Bradley?" she asked.

"That's the man. He always hated Ronnie. Bradley is one of these clever
Scotland Yard men who have acquired a little education and an
inferiority complex."

From behind the drawn curtains of the recess came a thin wail of sound.
Mark started round with a snarl, but the girl's hand dropped on his arm.
By a gesture she silenced him.

From the recess came the sweet, melancholy cadence of Tosti's "Adieu."

"Who is it?" she asked in a low voice.

Mark shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

"It's the Jew--Li Yoseph. I want you to see him."

"Li Yoseph? The man who saw Ronnie killed?"

Mr. Tiser found his voice.

"From a distance, my dear young lady," he twittered. "Nothing definite
was seen; I think I explained that. Our dear friend merely saw the
police officers struggling with our dear departed comrade--"

Mark's cold eyes fixed him.

"That will do, Tiser," he said. "Ask Li Yoseph to come out."

The music ceased. She became suddenly aware of a curious presence. Li
Yoseph came forward, his shoulders stooped, looking at her from under
his brows, his long hands rubbing over one another. He was a terrifying
figure; her first sensation was one of revulsion.

"This is Miss Perryman, Ronnie's sister."

The Jew's face twisted in a little grimace.

"I haf just been speaking to him," he said. His voice was singularly low
and melodious, except for the gutturals which occurred at rare
intervals.

The girl stared at him.

"You've been speaking to him?"

"Don't take any notice of Li." Mark's voice was sharp, almost
peremptory. "He's a little..." He touched his head significantly. "Sees
ghosts and things."

"And things," repeated the Jew, his eyes opening wider and wider. "Queer
t'ings, t'ings no man sees but me--Li Yoseph!"

She saw his face crease into a grotesque smile. He was looking at
something that stood between them.

"So you are there!" he said softly. "Ah, you would come, of course, my
leetle Freda."

He stooped and patted the head of an invisible child and chuckled.

"You been goot girl since you was drowned in canal, eh? Ach! you look so
happy--"

"Shut up, Yoseph," interrupted Mark roughly. "You're frightening the
lady."

"He does not frighten me," said Ann steadily. Li Yoseph was walking back
to his little room, his shoulders shaking with laughter. "Is he often
like this?"

"Always," said Mark, and added quickly: "But he's perfectly sane in all
other respects. Yoseph, don't go away! I want you to tell this lady what
you saw."

Li Yoseph came slowly back till he was within a few paces of the girl.
His hands were clasped at his breast; it was almost a gesture of prayer.

"I tell you what I see." His tone had become suddenly mechanical. "First
de boat mit Ronnie, she pull from the sheep. And den Ronnie he pull and
pull, and den de police launch she op-kom. Den I see dey light and dey
fight, and I hear de splash in de water, and presently Mr. Bradley's
voice I hear...'We got him; say nodings about it.'"

All the time he was speaking he was looking at her, and she almost
thought she saw in his eyes a mild defiance, as though he were primed
for the challenge to his story which she might offer at any moment.

"You saw this?"

He bowed his head, and she turned to Mark.

"Why wasn't a charge laid against these men? Why did they allow it to go
under the cases of 'Murder against some person or persons unknown'? Are
the police in this country sacrosanct? Can they commit with impunity any
crime...murder and never be charged?"

For the first time he realised something of the volcano that was
smouldering in her heart. Ann's voice was vibrant, almost electrifying.

"Bradley--who is Bradley? He is the man you were speaking about. I shall
remember him."

She looked at the old man again. He stood with closed eyes, his hands
still clasped, swaying to and fro.

"Did he make a complaint to the police?"

Mark smiled.

"What is the use? You've got to understand, Miss Perryman, that the
police are a law unto themselves, not only in this but in every other
country. I could tell you stories of what happened in New York--"

"I don't want to know what happened in New York." She was a little
breathless. "Will you tell me this: is this man to be relied upon?" She
nodded to the Jew.

"Absolutely." Mark was emphatic.

"Absolutely, my dear young lady!" said Mr. Tiser, too long held outside
the circle of conversation. "I ran assure you he is a highly respectable
man. His unfortunate origin is, of course, all against him. But why
should we despise Jews? Was not Moses a Jew? Was not Solomon, the wisest
of all ages, and that same interesting--"

He met Mark's eye and passed through an incoherent stage to silence.

She stood for a moment, her head bent, her finger at her lips, her wide
forehead wrinkled in a frown. Mark had offered her a chair, but this she
had ignored. He waited for her to speak.

"What did Ronnie do for you?" she asked at last. "You can tell me
everything, Mr. McGill, he has often spoken to me about you and I
gathered that you were engaged in something...illegal. I suppose I've
got a curious moral outlook, but I'm not so shocked now as I was then.
Was he valuable to you? And is his loss a very...serious one?"

McGill did not answer instantly. He was turning over in his mind just
what lay behind that question.

"Yes," he said at length, "he was almost indispensable. He was the type
of boy who could go about the country without creating suspicion. He was
a marvellous car-driver, and that was extraordinarily useful, for just
now the police have a Flying Squad--Bradley is at the head of it--which
needs considerable evasion. Ronnie used to collect the stuff we
smuggled, sometimes distribute it--and I trusted him. Why do you ask?"

"I was wondering," she said. "This man Bradley, what is he like?"

Before Mark could answer, she heard a little chuckle of laughter and
spun round.

A man was standing by the door; how long he had been there she could not
tell. Long enough to settle himself, for he was leaning lazily against
the door-post. His soft felt hat was pulled rakishly down over one eye,
and though the night was chilly he wore no overcoat. A tall, slim-built
man, with a long, good-humoured face and sleepy eyes that were regarding
her now with amused interest.

"I shouldn't be surprised if this was Miss Perryman," he said,
straightening himself and taking off his hat leisurely. "I don't know
whether you feel you'd like to introduce me. Mark?"

Mark stiffened.

"My name is McGill," he said harshly.

"Sensation," said the other sardonically. "It's been McGill all your
life."

And then the humour went out of his face and left it a little
sad-looking, as he lounged across to where the girl was standing. She
knew him instinctively, and the eyes that met his were like steel.

"I'm terribly sorry you've had all this trouble, Miss Perryman," he
said. "I wish I knew the man who killed your brother."

He bit his nether lip, a trick of his, and looked thoughtfully at Mark.

"I did my best to keep Ronnie out of bad company."

He paused, as if inviting an answer, but she did not reply, and his eyes
began to rove around the apartment.

"Where's that musical spiritualist?" he asked. "Hallo, Li! I see you've
got company."

Li Yoseph came fawning forward, his yellow face tense and alert; shot
one quick glance at the detective--a strange glance, thought Mark, and
watched Bradley; but that man's face was inscrutable.

"I wonder why they brought you down here?"

He spoke to Ann, but was looking at Tiser, and in his agitation that
oily man's eyes were blinking with extraordinary rapidity.

"They haven't been trying to stuff you with that I story about the
police killing your brother, have they? I should imagine you're just a
little too intelligent to accept that kind of fairy-tale. Your brother
was killed on land and left in the river."

Again he paused; he saw the tightening of her lips and realised that she
was not convinced.

"Do you want anything?" demanded Mark aggressively.

Inspector Bradley's eyebrows rose.

"Pardon me," he said with exaggerated politeness. "I didn't know you'd
taken over Li Yoseph's establishment and were acting as host. I shall be
at the Yard to-night between ten and two."

A chill passed down the spine of Mark McGill. To whom were those words
addressed? Not to him; not to Ann Perryman; certainly not to Mr. Tiser.
Why had Bradley called? Mark knew him well enough to realise that he
would never have come had he known Ann Perryman was there. He had called
to see Li! And the reminder that he would be at Scotland Yard was also
addressed to Li.

He turned and loafed towards the door, swinging his soft-brimmed hat. On
the landing which was immediately outside the door he turned and waved a
cheery farewell.

"I'd like to have a little chat with you. Miss--er--Perryman. Perhaps I
could call at your hotel tomorrow?"

She did not answer him. The eyes fixed on his were heavy with hate and
loathing--Inspector Bradley was too sensitive a man to make any mistake
about that.

They heard his footsteps going down the uncarpeted stairs, and the slam
of the door. Mark turned to Tiser, showing his teeth.

"You left that door open, you--" He checked himself. "Go down and see
that it's closed now, and locked. And stay at the bottom of the stairs
till I call you up."

He banged the door after the man and left him to flounder down in the
dark; then he came back to where Ann was standing.

"That was Bradley?" she said in a low voice.

"That was Bradley," he replied grimly. "The clever Alec of Scotland
Yard. What do you think of him?"

She dropped her eyes to the ground and considered this question.

"Who is taking Ronnie's place in your--organisation?" she asked.

Mark threw out his hands.

"Who could take his place? That kind of man isn't found very easily."

"I could."

His mouth opened in shocked surprise. "You?" incredulously. She nodded.

"Yes, I. I drive a car quite as well as poor dear Ronnie."

He was staggered, momentarily thrown out of control. He had expected to
meet a weakling dependent who would need a little help for her immediate
wants. But for the desire to convince Ronnie's one relative, and to stop
those persistent inquiries which relations sometimes make, he would not
have seen her at all, certainly would never have brought her to Lady's
Stairs.

A thousand possibilities flashed through his mind. "You'll join us, eh?"
He threw out his hands enthusiastically. "Little girl, you're the
partner I've been looking for." Her eyes met his.

"My name is Ann; you may call me that," she said. "And the partnership
will be on business lines."

This was one of the few occasions in his life that Mark McGill accepted
a rebuff without resentment.



CHAPTER 2


THERE was no telephone at Lady's Stairs. Li Yoseph was a careful man,
who never spent money unnecessarily. Long after his visitors had left he
sat huddled up in a springless old arm-chair which he had drawn to the
big round table. A lamp burnt at his elbow; before him were the five
scrawled sheets of an unfinished letter which he had taken from a box
beneath his bed.

He rose slowly and went into the tiny room, looked through the long
window on to the creek. The green and red lights of a tug making for the
lock gates fascinated him, and he watched it until it was out of sight.
Then he took up his violin, cuddled it under his chin and drew the bow
softly across the strings. For once the sound of his own music
disconcerted him; he put down the violin, came back to the table, and
after a while took up his pen.

It was not an easy letter to write, but it had to be done. Presently he
would put it in an envelope and, stealing out, find old Sedeman, who
occupied a frowsy room in the neighbourhood; and Sedeman, for a
consideration, would carry the message to Inspector Bradley.

Though his spoken English was bad, he expressed himself well in the
written language. He picked up one of the sheets at random.

'McGill knew that Ronnie was in touch with you. Ronnie Perryman was very
untrustworthy when he drank. He drank a great deal. He had quarrelled
with McGill and talked about getting out. He discussed it with me, and I
also said that I wanted to get back to Memel, where my home is and my
nephews and nieces live. I think that McGill must have found out, for he
came down here on the night in question, having followed Ronnie from
London. Ronnie was rather drunk. It was one o'clock in the morning when
McGill and Tiser arrived. They quarrelled. Ronnie said he would not have
anything to do with murder. He said McGill was responsible for the
hold-up at the Northern and Southern Bank, where a watchman was killed.
He also boasted that he had only to lift his finger to have us all in
jail. If he had not said that I think I should no be alive. It was
because he brought me into it that way that McGill did not get
suspicious about me. Ronnie was standing by the table with a large glass
of port, which I had poured out for him. He was lifting this to his lips
when McGill struck him with a life-preserver, and hit him again before
he fell. McGill tied a sheet round Ronnie and lowered him through the
trap into my boat. I don't know where he and Tiser dropped him into the
water, but in half an hour they came back and said that Ronnie had
recovered and had gone home. McGill told me he would kill me if I spoke
a word. He did not then say I was to tell any story to Ronnie's sister.
It was only later, when he sent for her, that he told me...

He put down the sheet. There was very little more to write; he finished
his narrative on the next page, blotted the paper, folded it and put the
letter into an envelope. And all the time he was doing this he was
talking softly in Russian.

"...you see, my little pigeon, I must do this, or they will take old Li
and put a rope round his neck, and I shall be with you, my little
ghost!"

Sometimes he would turn and stoop to caress one of the strange little
shapes that only his crazy eyes could see.

"So, so...this wicked McGill, it is better that he should die, eh? That
nice young lady who came here, it would be too bad if she should become
his friend--"

He heard the sound of a turning key and looked up, thrusting the letter
inside his coat. It was Mark's step; he knew it too well; and Tiser was
with him, he noted, before the door opened and they came into the room.

Mark walked straight across to the table. He looked down at the pen and
paper.

"You've been writing a letter, eh? Posted it?"

The old man shook his head.

"My dear friend!" Tiser's voice was an agitated squeak. "Perhaps you are
wrong, dear comrade. Now, tell Mr. McGill that his suspicions are not
well founded. Tell him--"

"You needn't tell him what he's got to say." Mark's tone was deadly
calm. "Let's see that letter. You haven't had time to post it--there's
still ink on the table."

Mark tore open the envelope, glanced quickly through the contents.

"Going to put up a squeal, were you? That was why Bradley was going to
be in his office from ten till two. Well, he'll wait a damned long time
for this letter!"

The old Jew did not move; he stood at the edge of the closed trap, his
hands lightly clasped before him, looking. All this was inevitable;
perhaps the little ghosts that crowded round him were whispering
encouragingly, for he smiled again.

"Now, Li," said Mark breathlessly, and Li Yoseph saw death in his eyes.

"Me you cannot kill, my goot Mark," he said. "I may die, yes, but I
shall come back. The little spirits--"

Suddenly the old man stooped, flung up the trap, and twisting, dropped
to the first rung of the ladder that led to life and safety. Mark
whipped a revolver from his pocket; the silencer fixed to the barrel's
end caught in the lining of his coat but gave the doomed man no respite.
Plop! Plop!

The second "plop" was louder; right between the shoulders the bullets
struck. They heard the squelch of the body as it fell in the water
below. "Shut the trap!"

Mark's face was white; he spoke with difficulty. Tiser came forward,
making strange, whimpering noises, and dropped the trap in its place
gently. "Now pull the carpet over it." Mark walked to the window, tugged
it open and looked out. It was a very dark night; a drizzle of rain was
falling, and the tide was high.

Tiser was leaning on a chair, breathing heavily like a man who had taken
enormous exercise. He was incapable of speech, nor did Mark McGill
demand his approval. Tiser dared not look up until he heard the window
close.

"That's all right. Come on, you...don't forget what you've seen
to-night, Tiser."

The man's teeth were chattering as he followed his sombre master to the
head of the stairs. They had reached the landing when there came a heavy
knock on the door below. Tiser put up his hand to check the scream that
rose. Again came the knock.

"Open the door!"

McGill reeled back into the room. In one wall was a small closed
shutter, and, extinguishing the light, he opened this and looked out
into the street.

Three cars were drawn up by the kerbside--the third arrived as he
looked, and before it came to a standstill half a dozen men were jumping
to the pavement. Tall, alert men, who moved towards the house quickly.

In the bright light of a head-lamp he saw a well-hated face--only for a
second, and then it passed into the darkness.

"Bradley!" he said thickly. "The Flying Squad--the place is surrounded!"



CHAPTER 3


MARK closed the trap and, reaching out his hand, switched on the light.
He took one eagle-keen look around, walked quickly to the table,
examined it carefully for any sign of writing, and then pointed to the
door.

"Go downstairs and let them in," he said.

The knocking was resumed at this moment, heavier, more insistent.

"Wait!"

Tiser was in the doorway. Mark rolled back the carpet, pulled open the
trap and flashed a lamp down. He saw nothing but the dark water. And
then he remembered his pistol. He watched it strike, heard its faint
splash, before he closed the trap again and pulled over the carpet.

"Let them up," he said curtly.

Bradley was the first in the room. One of the four detectives who
followed him had an automatic in his hand.

"Stick 'em up!" said Bradley briefly.

Mark's hands went over his head.

"Where's your gat?" asked the detective, whose quick hands passed over
the big man's frame.

"If by 'gat' you mean revolver," said McGill coolly, "you're wasting
your time. May I ask what is the meaning of this piece of melodrama?" He
addressed Bradley.

"Where is Li Yoseph?"

Mark shrugged his shoulders.

"That is exactly what I'd like to know. I was talking with him in quite
the friendliest way when he told me that he had to see a man and went
out, promising to return in ten minutes."

The detective's lips curled.

"Went to see a man--about a dog, I'll bet!" He sniffed and frowned.
"Queer smell here, rather like cordite. Been having a little rifle
practice, Tiser?"

Mr. Tiser's face was pale, his teeth were chattering, but Bradley had
seen him that way before. The man was such an arrant coward that his
present agitation meant nothing except that he was terrified to find
himself in contact with the police.

Bradley walked to the recess, looked round, and took up the violin and
bow, regarding them thoughtfully.

"Ho didn't take the orchestra, I notice," he said. He tucked the fiddle
under his chin, drew the bow across the strings softly and played a
short aria. "You didn't know I was musical?" he asked.

He put down the instrument on the table.

"I only know you're theatrical; I suppose the artistic temperament has
to find some expression," said Mark.

Bradley's eyes were fixed on his.

"Will you stop thinking you're addressing a public meeting, McGill, and
tell me where I can find Li Yoseph?"

The man's face flushed a deep red; the hatred in his eyes was beyond
hiding.

"If you want to know why I came here, I'll tell you. Tiser and I are
trying to do a bit of good in the world, raising up the men you've
crushed, Bradley--"

Again Bradley smiled.

"I know the Home of Rest, if that institution is the subject of your
lecture," he said dryly. "A convenient meeting-place for useful crooks.
A great idea. They tell me you preach to them, Tiser."

Tiser grinned dreadfully, but was incapable of articulation.

"You're not going to tell me that you made this journey to induce Mr. Li
Yoseph to join in the general reformation of the criminal classes?
Because, if you are--"

A man called him urgently from the doorway. He went over, spoke to him,
and Mark McGill saw the surprise in his face.

"All right, tell Miss Perryman she can come up."

Ann Perryman walked slowly into the room, looking from one to the other.

"Where is Mr. Yoseph?"

"Exactly what I'm asking," said Bradley cheerfully.

She ignored him and repeated the question.

"I don't know," said Mark. "He was here a few minutes ago, but went out
for some reason or other--he hasn't been back since."

A hand closed over her arm and drew her round. She faced Inspector
Bradley, trembling with fury at the indignity.

"Now, Miss Perryman, will you kindly tell me why you came to Lady's
Stairs to-night? I'm asking you not as a friend but as a police
officer."

The expression in her face would have abashed most men--Mr. Bradley was
not easily perturbed.

"I came because he wrote asking me to come," she said breathlessly.

"May I see the note?"

Tiser was staring at her open-mouthed. From Mark McGill's face it was
evident he was unusually concerned.

Ann Perryman hesitated, then, with a savage movement of her hand, she
snapped open the bag and produced a sheet of paper. Bradley read the two
scrawled lines.

"I must see you at 10. It is urgent."

"Where is the envelope?"

"I've thrown it away." She was breathing very quickly; her voice
trembled, and Bradley had reason to believe that it was not from fear.
"It was delivered by hand, of course? He intended posting it. He meant
to-morrow night--I also had an appointment with him to-morrow night."

Bradley's glance transfixed the big man, but McGill did not quail.

"Will you please tell me what is the meaning of all this?" she asked.

She had regained her self-control with an effort.

"The meaning of all which?" asked Bradley coolly. "This is the Flying
Squad--or one of them. I am Inspector Bradley. I came to gather in Li
Yoseph before something happened to him. He had arranged to send me a
letter to-night; I had an idea that it would have come by hand through
the same messenger he employed to communicate with you. I'm not
betraying police secrets when I tell you that I was scared about Li
Yoseph, and wanted to get him to a place of safety before he went the
same way as your brother."

Ann Perryman's lips were trembling, but again she controlled her
emotions.

"Before he died at the hands of the police?" she said, in a voice that
was not above a whisper. "That is the way my brother went--did you
expect to send that old man along the same road? When you held my arm
just now and pulled me round as though I were one of your prisoners, I
realised just what a brute you were!"

"Who told you I killed your brother?" he asked quietly, and was not
prepared for the reply.

"Li Yoseph," she said.

He was silent for a moment.

"I think that's the maddest story I have ever heard," was his only
comment. And then he became his business-like self. "I may want to see
you again to-night, McGill, and you, Tiser. In the meantime you can go
home the way you came. As for you, young lady, I will escort you
myself--I particularly wish to see you in the morning."

"I don't need your escort; I will go with Mr. McGill."

"You will go with me," he said calmly. "Let me at any rate have the
satisfaction of keeping you out of bad company for one evening."

"What's the idea, Bradley?" McGill almost shouted. "What charge have you
got against me? I'm just about through with your innuendoes and
mysterious hints! Lets have it out!"

Bradley beckoned one of his men to him.

"See Miss Perryman into my car," he said.

For a second she looked her defiance, and then, without a word, turned
and followed the detective down the stairs. It was after she had gone
that Bradley answered the question.

"I'll tell you what I have against you, McGill. Up and down the country
there has been a big increase in crimes of violence. For the first time
in our history the gunman has appeared in our midst and is a
considerable factor. A policeman was shot on the Oxley Road last week;
and when that gang broke into the Islington jewellers and were
surprised, they shot their way to safety. That's unusual; you know the
English criminal doesn't carry a gun. And there's only one reason why he
should. There's a new race of gunmen in this country--that is why I'm
sore about you."

"Are you suggesting I run a shooting gallery?" sneered the other, and
Bradley nodded slowly.

"That's just what I am suggesting--the worst kind of shooting gallery
that the devil could invent! Any man who knows the history of the
American gangster knows just what is happening in England. You've found
a new avenue for supplying dope to the criminal classes--and that is
what you're doing. And when I get you, I'll get you good! There will be
a stretch of twenty years between the hour you leave the dock and the
minute you leave Dartmoor."

He walked a little closer to the pallid man.

"And I'll tell you another thing. I don't know what you're going to do
with Miss Ann Perryman, but you might bear in mind that I'll be watching
you like a cat; and if there is any funny business, I'll find a way of
getting you inside--without evidence!"

"Frame me, eh?" breathed Mark.

"An interesting Americanism which accurately describes my intentions,"
replied Bradley with mock politeness.



CHAPTER 4


ANN PERRYMAN scarcely knew during that ride to town that she was being
subjected to a cross-examination, so skilfully was it conducted. They
passed many cab stands, but not once did the tender check its pace.

At the corner of Westminster Bridge and the Embankment it stopped.

"I will get you a cab. Miss Perryman," said Bradley.

In the little saloon attached to her bedroom she had an interview with
Bradley on the following morning; he had 'phoned asking for this. By the
time he came she had collected her thoughts, and w coldly normal. He
noticed that she did not take her eyes from his all the time he was
speaking, and in their clear depths he read an abysmal loathing of him
and his profession.

"There is no trace of Li Yoseph," he said, "but think he will be found,
unless he has been got away. He used to keep a small boat fastened to a
pile beneath the house: that we found in the Thames, but empty."

She was examining him cold-bloodedly. Ordinarily she would have thought
him rather a nice-looking man. He had the face of an intellectual:
large, deep set eves, and a trick of peering through half-closed lids.
The trick of laughter, too; his lips twitched on when he was talking of
the people who lived in the squalid neighbourhood where Li Yoseph had
his house. He was refreshingly clean-looking; he had the shoulders and
waist of an athlete, large, capable hands, outspread on the table over
which he leaned she did not ask him to sit. And her hatred of him grew
in inverse ratio to the appreciation of his attractive values. So might
one bereaved by the operations of Caesar Borgia have grown revolted at
the sight of his handsome face.

She had been silent during most of the interview--suddenly she dropped a
bombshell.

"I don't think you need bother to invent theories, Mr. Bradley;" she
said quietly. "Li Yoseph was probably killed by the police--as they
killed Ronnie!"

The suggestion was so ludicrous that for a moment the quick-witted
Bradley had no answer for her.

"He was beaten up--I think that is the expression--because he would not
tell you what you wanted to know. Why should Li Yoseph escape? He was a
witness to the crime."

The eyes were narrowed now to the thinnest slits.

"I see," he said. And then: "Do you know what your brother was doing
before his death, or why he had this association with Li Yoseph?"

She did not answer this.

"I'd like to help you." He leaned farther over the table and his voice
dropped to a softness which, in any other circumstances, would have
appealed to her.

"You're teaching at a school in Paris, I understand, and I am hoping
that you are going back to Paris and that you'll try to forget this
awful business. I liked your brother: in a sense he was a friend of
mine. I must have been the last person who spoke to him."

He saw her lips curl and hook his head.

"It must be because you're not quite normal that you are thinking as you
do. Why should the police hurt him? Why should I, of all people in the
world? I would have gone a long way to give him help. I know his past,
every bit of it. I know just how unstable he was--"

"I think we can spare ourselves this discussion," she said. "Whether I
go back to Paris or not is entirely my own affair. I know you hated
him--I believe you killed him. There isn't a man or woman who lives in
that neighbourhood who doesn't believe that Ronnie was killed by the
police. I don't say they intended murdering him, but they did."

He threw out his hands in despair.

"May I talk to you when you're not feeling the strain?"

And then she flared out at him.

"I never want to see you again. I hate you and men like you! You are all
so smug and suave and so patently dishonest! You are liars, every one of
you! You cover up your villainies with perjury and your mistakes with
persecution. It is a beastly trade you're following. You live on human
misery and you build up your reputations on the hearts you break and the
lives you ruin--that is all I want to say to you."

He opened his lips to speak, but thought better of it and, smiling
faintly, he took up his hat and went out of the room.

She repented of her outburst later, and despised herself for her
repentance. Ronnie had been killed by that man...

She was not singular in her belief. The Meadows and the folk of Stock
Gardens had their own views, supported by the evidence of their eyes.
They knew Ronnie was in the habit of visiting Lady's Stairs, they knew
that the police staged a raid upon the place and that a car-load of
detectives had descended upon Li Yoseph's house at one o'clock in the
morning, and that Brad of the Flying Squad had been heard to say: "I'll
get the truth out of this boy if I have to beat his head off!"

This was overheard by Harry the Cosh, who was up and about when the
tender of the Flying Squad came on the scene.

"Take it from me," said Cosh--so called because he had been twice
convicted for using a life-preserver on policemen--"they caught him and
coshed him, and when they found they'd done him in, they dropped him in
the mud--I know the police. Why, they bashed me something awful the last
time they took me."

Nobody suggested that old Li had been the murderer. Not even the police.
They simply said that he had disappeared. It leaked out that the night
he went a big Dutch steamer had slipped down the river on the tide and
it was believed that he had sailed on her.

Li Yoseph's house was shut up and the keys deposited with an agent. He
had a banking account at Woolwich, and it happened that, because of his
ignorance of forms, he had authorised his banker to pay rates and taxes,
so that, his house being a freehold, his theoretical occupation was not
disturbed.

"Brad said: 'I'll get the truth out of that boy if I have to beat his
head off!'"

Cosh repeated the story to many people--to Mark McGill, sombre and
silent, to Mr. Tiser of the Rest House, to Ann Perryman, dry-eyed, her
heart hot with hate at the vision of Ronnie's end.

An hour after Bradley left her at the hotel came Mark McGill. He was
very frank and open. He did not know then how much Bradley had told her,
of what secrets she was the repository. He only knew that she was
surprisingly beautiful and might possibly be the most useful recruit to
his organisation.

"I'm not hiding anything from you, Miss Perryman. Ronnie and I and Tiser
are smugglers. I've been in the game for years, and Ronnie was my best
pal. You see, I can only trust Tiser up to a point--he drinks.
He's--well, he's erratic. I'm not pretending that I'm a saint, but you
know what the law is--it's death on the man who offends against
property. A brute can kick his wife half to death and get away with
three months; let him take a few shillings out of the till or rob a
capitalist of a few hundred pounds, and he's lucky to get away with
six."

It did not seem so terribly sinful to Ann; there was romance in it. He
watched her as he spoke and saw resolve kindle.

There were lots of articles that paid heavy duties--saccharine, for
example, was three and ninepence an ounce. He--and Ronnie, of
course--had got as much as ten thousand ounces over in a week: nearly a
thousand pounds profit at the rate they sold. And there were other
articles--one or two sidelines--about these he was vague. Ronnie had
told her all this before--she was reconciled to the "crime."

It was a clean method of lawbreaking: nobody was hurt but the
Government. The common people were in point of fact benefited: they
could buy cheaply. "Naturally I'm not going to let poor Ronnie's death
interfere with your position. If you've changed your mind about joining
us--"

She shook her head emphatically; there was a light in her eyes that he
could interpret, for she had told him how Bradley had so coolly returned
her to Paris.

"I have not changed my mind," she said.

"Bradley will tell you that we're doing things--smuggling dope and all
that sort of rubbish. Naturally he wants to paint us--and Ronnie--as
black as he can. Dope! I'd rather cut off my right hand!"

She interrupted him.

"Does it really matter what Bradley says?" she asked.

That day she became a member of McGill's organisation.

It was curious that she thought no more of Li Yoseph and did not
speculate upon the mystery of his disappearance. But Bradley was
thinking a great deal, and day after day men sat in boats on the muddy
waters of the creek and drew their grappling hooks through the mud,
seeking the old man who loved to sit at the open window of his den and
play Tosti's "Adieu."



CHAPTER 5


LITTLE more than a year later, on the evening of an early spring day..

The far-away drone of an aeroplane engine came to Ann Perryman at last.
She closed her book, rose from the running-board of the little saloon
car where she had been sitting, and glanced at the watch on her wrist.
It was seven forty-five--the pilot was punctual, almost to the second.

Opening the door of the car, she took out a long-barrelled prismatic
glass, and, walking clear of the bushes which obscured her view and
screened the car from observation, swept the sky. There was the machine,
already planing down. The engines were no longer audible.

She went back quickly to the saloon, and, groping in the interior,
pulled a handle set in the dashboard. The black roof of the car was
formed of lateral strips, and as she manipulated the lever each strip
turned on itself like the slats of a Venetian blind. The underside was
made of mirrored glass that caught the last rays of the setting sun.
Three times she pulled the handle; three times the roof opened and
closed. She left it with the mirrors exposed, and ran out again to watch
the swiftly moving machine.

The pilot had seen; his signal lamp was blinking hysterically, and he
had already banked over towards her. Now his engines were thundering
again...

He was scarcely twenty yards above the earth when the package dropped
the silken parachute to which the parcel was attached opened instantly,
but did no more than break the fall for the wooden box struck the ground
heavily. No sooner had she located it than the 'plane was rising
steeply.

She did not wait until it was out of sight, but, running to the place
where the parcel had fallen, she lifted it, carrying it back to the car,
and placed it with the folded parachute in a deep cavity beneath the
seat of the saloon. It was not heavy. Mark McGill never allowed her to
collect the heavier stuff--he arranged it in some way--and only the
lighter parcels which were brought unchecked across the sea frontiers of
the kingdom were left to her handling.

It was growing dark, and she sent the car cautiously across the uneven
ground of the forest-common. Doubtless there were others--belated
picnickers who had spent the afternoon amidst the wild beauties of
Ashdown--who had seen the aeroplane dip, but it was very unlikely that
any would be close at hand, for she had followed one of the tracks which
of itself was but a feeder to a subsidiary road.

The main road she came to after a jolting passage. Turning the bonnet of
the machine toward London, she sent the car flying northward. The
engines were more powerful than even an expert would suppose from casual
observation. Mark, who was an engineer, had taken certain liberties with
the design, and this light car of hers could hold the road at seventy.

Speed was a passion with Ann Perryman; to bit at the wheel of a racing
machine and watch the indicator needle swing beyond ninety stood for her
chiefest satisfaction.

The car came at a steady pace up Kingston Hill. A policeman shouted
something, and Ann Perryman switched on the lights, though the dusk had
hardly fallen and the man had no right other than his own officious
sense of authority to order her lamps to be lit.

A year ago she would have smiled on, ignoring the request, and found a
sense of pleasure in flaunting this arbitrary and insignificant man in
uniform. But Mark had insisted upon submission to the law and its
representatives, in all minor manifestations. She hated policemen. The
sight of a white glove upraised at a cross road brought the colour to
her cheeks and a hard light to her eyes. Policemen stood in her mind for
cruelty and cunning, for treachery unspeakable; for murder, even.

She slowed at his signal, and he gave her a grin as she passed. She
would have struck the red, stupid face if she had dared. And yet his
appearance brought her a sense of satisfaction and triumph. If he knew!
If, gifted by second sight, he had pulled up the car and pried into the
contents of the box which was hidden beneath the seat!

She slowed, approaching Hammersmith Broadway, whose blazing lights
definitely advertised the close of the day; and here she found the
inevitable traffic block. Worming her car between a lorry and a bus, she
came to a stop near the kerb. And then she saw the man standing on the
edge of the sidewalk, and shrank back. But the lights of a grocer's shop
were on her face, and there was no escaping the observation of that
keen-eyed gentleman.

His attitude was characteristic: hands thrust deep into trousers
pockets, shoulders and head bent forward; and, though the keen brown
face was in shadow, it was easy to suppose from his attitude that his
mind was miles away from Hammersmith Broadway. At first, he made no sign
that he knew her; she thought that she was not recognised, and, turning
her head, stared fixedly at the delivery van drawn up on her right. Out
of the tail of her eye she saw him move, and now his elbows were resting
on the sill of the open window.

"Been taking a joy-ride, Miss Perryman?"

She hated him, she hated his drawling voice, she hated all that he stood
for. Mark preached the gospel of expediency, but she owed her
acquaintance with this man to her own deliberate act. Deliberately and
cold-bloodedly, she had manoeuvred a second and a third and many
meetings. She was still bearing the smart of Ronnie's death, but she
acted her part well, was volubly penitent for all she had said to him:
he could not know the hate that still smouldered in her heart.

"Mr. Bradley! I didn't see you."

"People seldom see me when they're looking the other way," he said
pleasantly.

She imagined that his eyes were searching the dark interior of the car.

"All alone? That's fine! Speaking personally, I don't know anybody I'd
rather be alone with than myself! I suppose you feel that way, too."

He saw the head of the traffic jam was breaking.

"You're not going anywhere near Marble Arch?--I'm trying to save bus
fares; it is believed that I'm Scotch."

She hesitated. If he came into the car and sat by her side, she felt she
would scream. But Mark had said...

"Do please come in! I'm passing Marble Arch," she said.

He seemed to open the door and sit by her side in one motion.

"This is where my stock gets a rise," he drawled. "If the Deputy
Commissioner or the Chief Constable could only see me riding in such
good company, I'd be promoted next week. What snobs we are!"

She loathed him for his calm assurance, for the undernote of superficial
cynicism; she hated him worse because she felt he was laughing at her,
that he knew just the part she had been playing in the combination, and,
knowing, was rather amused than shocked. The insufferable hint of
patronage in his tone was hateful.

She set her lips tighter as the car sped quickly through the tangle of
lorries and tramcars and up the road towards Shepherd's Bush.

"Mr. McGill well?" he asked politely--almost deferentially.

"I know very little about Mr. McGill," was the prompt retort. "I see him
occasionally."

"Naturally," he murmured, "living in the same block of flats you
wouldn't see much of him. The Home going strong? There's a man who's
doing good work! Give me the philanthropist! If I hadn't been a
detective, I should have been a banker and given away money."

She gave him no further encouragement, but Brad did not need
provocation.

"Will you be going to the theatre to-night. Miss Perryman?"

"No," she said shortly.

"To supper, perhaps?"

As a matter of fact, Mark had told her that he might need her.

"Were you thinking of asking me out to supper?" she asked, heavily
sarcastic.

Bradley coughed. "In a sense, yes."

For the second time she saw him glance over the seat to the back of the
car.

"If I hadn't been a detective I should have gone on the stage. Did you
ever read what the West London Gazette said about my performance in 'The
School for Scandal' which our dramatic society put on?"

"It seems an appropriate play for members of Scotland Yard," she said.

He nodded.

"If I weren't amused, I'd laugh. School for Scandal--Scotland Yard!"

Then he relapsed into silence until the car drew up by the pavement
opposite Marble Arch, and he alighted.

"Thank you very much for the ride. Miss Perryman," he said.

He would have lingered by the window of the car to talk, but before he
could speak again she had moved on.

Mark employed a chauffeur-mechanic to look after the car--a lame man who
lived alone in rooms above the garage; he was waiting for the girl at
the end of the mews when she drove up.

"Good evenin', miss--you're a bit late."

She smiled at his anxiety. Mark found his servants in queer places. This
man had come to his service by way of the Rest House.

"It is all right, Manford--I had a passenger who might not have liked
fast driving."

A taxicab passed at that moment and turned the corner into Cavendish
Square. When she herself walked towards the Square, she saw that it had
stopped. Its passenger had alighted and was standing by the kerb. She
had a glimpse of him as she passed...

Had she seen him before? She had a vague sense of acquaintance...Or had
she evolved a mental picture of such a man as this? He stood motionless,
silent, a grotesque figure in the formal and decorous setting of
Cavendish Square. When, as she walked up the steps of the flat and
looked back, he was still standing by the kerb, she imagined that he was
watching her.

Mark, she knew, was in. There were two lights showing in the fanlight
over the door. Ann used her key and went in, and found him in the
sitting-room, reading an evening paper with his back to a small fire.

She had applied to Mark the supreme test of propinquity, and he had not
failed her. He was affectionate in a heavy, brotherly way.

"Back--good business! That fellow picked you up? Fine! He ought to--he
was once a French Ace."

Ann had taken off her close-fitting hat and was arranging her hair
before a mirror.

"I had a travelling companion from Hammersmith to the Marble Arch--I
will give you three guesses."

He shook his head, reached to the silver cabinet on the table and found
a cigar.

"I am too lazy to guess," he said. "Besides, I am not boy friends with
your girl friends."

"Guess."

Mark McGill groaned and settled himself comfortably on the couch.

"Riddles I never attempt to answer. The riddle of a Customs authority
which charges exorbitant duties upon saccharine is, I'm sure, the
easiest, and I haven't even attempted to solve that. It was somebody
interesting, I'm sure."

"It was Central Inspector Bradley." He was startled.

"Bradley? What was the idea? Did he hold you up? Where was the stuff--"

She laughed at this staccato rattle of questions, and the relief which
her amusement gave him was visible.

"He begged a ride and I gave it to him. I couldn't very well refuse. He
asked after you."

Mark blinked at this.

"A comic fellow!" He smiled uneasily.

She stood before the mirror, pushing her hair into place with a little
golden comb. He could see the oval of her face reflected, red lips and
big grey eyes under the straight golden fringe.

"Every time I see myself I seem to be growing more and more like a Real
Bad Woman, Mark! I think I'll dye my hair black!"

Mark did not answer, and there was a silence of a minute. He was sitting
on the sofa-head, frowning down at the carpet, when she spoke again.

"Sometimes my resolution wants a lot of supporting. About Bradley--what
do you call him--Brad? I couldn't somehow get the proper feeling about
him as I drove him along the Bayswater Road. I ought to have felt sick
and yet I didn't--it is a very wearing business, flogging up one's
animosities. I kept saying to myself: here is the man who killed dear
Ronnie--he did kill him? It may have been one of the other
men--Simmonds--that brute?"

"Brad killed him all right." Mark was staring gloomily at the carpet.
"And old Li, too, I expect--"

He brooded on this, walking up and down the room, his arms folded
tightly, his usually placid face screwed into an expression of distaste.

"I hate to talk of Ronnie, but you've raised the question twice in the
past month. What happened nobody knows."

He stopped in his walk at a desk, unlocked a drawer, took out a small
envelope and shook the contents on to the blotting-pad. He sorted these
out and found a newspaper cutting. He came back towards the fire-place,
where the light was better.

"I've never shown you this before--it is an extract from the
South-Eastern Herald, and gives a fairly accurate description of what
took place." Fixing a pair of pince-nez on his nose, he read:

"In the early hours of last Wednesday, the Flying Squad, under Inspector
Bradley, paid a visit to Lady's Stairs, a ramshackle old house, the
property of Elijah Yoseph, a Dutch or Russian Jew. It is believed that
the activities of the police were connected, with a complaint made by
the Customs that certain dutiable articles were being smuggled into the
country. When the police arrived at Lady's Stairs they found the house
empty, but the room in which Yoseph lived presented a scene of such
extraordinary disorder that the police were under the impression that
there had been some sort of struggle. On the sash of a window which
opened on to the Creek were bloodstains, and on the floor about three
feet from the open window. A search was made of the Creek foreshore, and
the body of a man, who has since been identified as Ronald Perryman,
904, Brook Street, was discovered. He had been beaten to death by some
blunt instrument. Li Yoseph had also disappeared. Scotland Yard has a
clue which may lead to an arrest. Garage keepers who had the car of any
stranger to the neighbourhood, and which was seen driving from Meadow
Lane after the murder, are requested to communicate with Scotland Yard."

"That is their story," said Mark, folding up the paper. "Mine is a
little different. Li Yoseph's house was what has been picturesquely
called a smuggler's den. We had one or two deals with him, and Ronnie
was usually the go-between. Li Yoseph liked him. On that night Ronnie
was sent down to fix the passage of a large quantity of tobacco. There
is no doubt that whilst he was there the police made their raid."

"What happened to Li Yoseph?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"God knows. He probably cleared out at the first hint of danger. He had
arrangements with most of the Dutch and German ships going down the
river, and we know that he had a rowing boat to get him to their side.
He was an extraordinarily strong old man. The police surprised Ronnie
and tried to make him talk; when he wouldn't, they beat him up. Somebody
gave him an unlucky blow, and to cover up their story this yarn was
invented. Where was the taxi-man who dropped these mysterious strangers?
Whoever saw them? They have never been heard of. That part of the tale's
a fake."

"Have you tried to find Li Yoseph?" she asked, and only for a second did
he hesitate.

"Yes, I sent a man over to Holland and to Lithuania to make
inquiries--he's dead. He died at Utrecht. Nobody knows this but you and
I."

There was an odd look in her eyes. For one panic moment he thought she
disbelieved him, that she had acquired some knowledge of what really
happened at Lady's Stairs.

"What did he--look like--will you describe him?" she said.

"Who--Li Yoseph? Don't you remember? He was about sixty--rather tall,
with a stoop. A shortish grey beard that ran up to his cheekbones. He
always dressed the same, summer and winter--a black coat almost like a
kaftan, buttoned up to his neck, and a Russian fur cap of
astrakhan--what is the matter?"

She was staring at him with wide-opened eyes. "I saw him--a quarter of
an hour ago--standing outside this house," she said, and the face of
Mark McGill went grey.



CHAPTER 6


MARK McGill was like a man paralysed: he neither moved nor spoke. At
last:

"You saw him--Li Yoseph?" His voice was thick. "You saw Li Yoseph in--in
Cavendish Square? You're mad--phew!"

He shook himself as if he were throwing off the burden she had suddenly
imposed upon him.

"Where--tell me?"

She told him of the man she had seen standing on the kerb by the waiting
cab, and, running to the window, he wrenched back the curtains, threw up
the window and stepped out on to the balcony.

"Where?"

She had followed him and pointed.

"He was there--at that comer."

The cab was no longer in sight, nor the man.

"Rubbish--God! you gave me a--a turn! Of course, I understand. There's a
fellow lives at the corner house, a Russian prince or something of the
sort. He often has visitors, Russians and people of that sort..."

The hand that went up to his lips was trembling; she had never seen him
like that before, and could only wonder at the agitation into which the
very possibility of Li Yoseph's existence had thrown him. "He is dead--I
know that he is dead--what the hell--?"

He spun round with the snarl of a frightened beast as Mr. Tiser came
into the room. Mr. Tiser was dressed in his tidy black. He wore
frock-coats that were a little too long for him and a ready--to--wear
black tie, and his linen was always spotless. He had large rabbit teeth,
which he showed in a perpetual smile. Mr. Tiser was a very happy man. He
was happy that he was alive (and he had good reason for this), happy
that he had the opportunity of helping his fellow creatures, mostly
happy always to welcome any distinguished visitor to the Rest House. He
was happy now as he danced into the room.

"Goodness gracious, my dear friends, I seem to have startled you! I
really must knock in the future. Did I come at an inconvenient moment?"

His voice, his manner, the lift of his eyebrows stood for archness. Ann
did not actively dislike him, but she found it difficult at times to
offer the admiration for his disinterested services to humanity which
they deserved. Being human, she discounted the virtues and resented the
perfections which were too apparent in Mr. Tiser.

"My good fellow, you look ill. Positively! Do you agree. Miss Ann? I am
concerned. Perhaps I observe these signs because I live, move, and have
my being in an atmosphere of rude health? Take old Sedeman, for
example--my old man of the sea--wicked but well. Ha, ha! Ha, ha!"

He laughed mechanically at his own witticisms.

All the time he was speaking he was employing himself usefully. There
was a lacquered cabinet in an alcove, and from this he had taken a
bottle and a tumbler.

"Look not thou upon the wine when it is red: when it giveth its colour
aright, eh? But when it is yellow and tawny and smelleth of peat, eh?
Another matter, I think."

He sipped the whisky; his pale blue eyes were smiling approval.

"All is well at the Rest House--"

"Ann thought she saw Li Yoseph to-day."

Mr. Tiser's face contorted painfully.

"For God's sake don't be comic!" he said shrilly. "Li Yoseph...pleasant
subject to talk about, eh? Let the dead rest, old boy. Li Yoseph--ugh!"
He shivered and put down his glass.

There was perspiration on his face; little beads appeared under his
eyes; all his jauntiness had left him. The shock of the announcement
threw him off his balance, and Ann realised for the first time how near
the edge this suave missioner lived.

"Li Yoseph...do you remember, Mark? All those bogeys and ghosts of his?
By heavens, he used to make my flesh creep! And now he's a ghost
himself--most amusing!"

He chuckled foolishly, filled the glass again and drank the raw spirit
eagerly.

"Li Yoseph is dead, as far as we know." Mark forced his voice to a calm
he did not feel.

Mr. Tiser stared at him, his mouth working foolishly.

"You bet he's dead! Very good thing for everybody. Do you remember how
he used to see things, Mark...talked to them...it made my blood run
cold!"

He shivered, and the hand that held the glass trembled violently. He was
looking into vacancy as though he himself saw something. In his terror
he was oblivious of his audience. Ann heard him as a man who was
speaking his thoughts aloud.

"It was horrible...confoundedly so. I wouldn't go through that again.
Can't you see him as he stood grinning at us and saying--he--he'd come
back--hey?"

Mark was at his side, gripped him by the arm and swung him round.

"Wake up, will you?" he said harshly. "And shut up! Can't you see you're
worrying Ann?"

"Sorry, sorry!" mumbled the quivering Mr. Tiser. "Before a lady, too!
Most awfully bad form."

Mark caught the girl's eyes and signalled. She needed no encouragement.
Picking up her hat and her handbag, she went quickly out of the room.
From the passage she heard Tiser's shrill voice.

"Li Yoseph--Li Yoseph...men aren't immortal. Mark, you know he's
dead!...Ten paces, old boy, what...?"

She was glad to close the door on the sound of his whining voice. Tiser
stood for the ugly aspect of the game. He was always drunk, always
talking wildly; his unctuousness and hypocrisy were alike unpleasant.
Ann very rarely spoke to him: she could count their conversations in the
past year on the fingers of one hand.

She crossed the landing and opened the door of her own flat, a smaller
apartment. Her daily maid had left her a cold dinner waiting and the
table laid. She was not very hungry, and she delayed the meal until she
had had a bath and changed.

Ronnie had been done to death over a year now. She tried to recover from
the past something of her blind, insensate hatred of this suave officer
of the law, something of the bitter contempt, something of the old
schemes of vengeance she had hugged to her heart, and which had made
imperative the cunning re-introduction which Mark had manoeuvred. She
had a portrait of Brad cut from a newspaper, and that her bitterness
should not die of inertia she had placed it in a double frame, so that
they looked at one another: Ronnie, with his clear-cut profile and the
youthful smile in his eyes; Brad, his murderer, sombre, cynical,
hateful. She had set out to make this man like her, and Mark had not
only approved her plan, but given it encouragement. It had been a
heart-breaking task; all the time she had to fight down the memory of
that ghastly thing she had seen, and which they told her was Ronald
Perryman; but she had schooled herself so well that she could sit
vis-a-vis his slayer, and smile in his eyes as she tapped her ash into
the saucer of the coffee cup.

He liked her very well, she knew that that bitter day when she heard
about Ronnie; but he went no further than liking. He was interested in
her, seemed genuinely sympathetic in her sorrow. Not until that very
night had he ever mentioned Mark McGill, though he had often spoken of
Ronnie.

"He got into pretty bad hands, that boy," he had once said. "I could see
him drifting deeper and deeper, and I did my best to save him. If he'd
only told me just how far he was committed I might have done it."

As she dressed she set the photo frame squarely on her dressing-table.
There was a little frown on her forehead as she brushed back her
shingled hair. Had she been as clever as she had thought? She had
learned nothing, was no nearer to his confidence than ever she had been.
Mark used to ask her, when she came back from these meetings, what he
had said--she could tell him nothing more about his work and himself
than Mark already knew.

Bradley was not of the gentle class: his father had been a country
wheelwright whose hobby had been the study of bird life; his mother was
a labourer's daughter.

The labourer's ancestry was, in the days of his childhood, a subject for
whispering gossips. The lad started life as a stable-boy; he graduated
to the police through a variety of employments, all of which contributed
something to his knowledge of life.

To learn had been his absorbing passion. He might be imagined parading
his midnight beat, muttering strangely as he murdered the French
irregular verbs, or spending hours of leisure reading such elementary
textbooks on law as were intelligible to him.

At twenty-two he was a sergeant, at twenty-three a war captain. He came
back to Scotland Yard from Mesopotamia with a knowledge of Arabic,
written and spoken, a small and uncleanly library of Oriental works,
which he confessed he had scrounged, and two new methods of lock-picking
that he had learnt from a shameless Arabian burglar who called himself
Alt Ibn Assuallah. He might have held an important post in Bagdad: he
preferred the sergeant's rank, which was grudgingly restored.

Ann had finished her meal and was brewing coffee when Mark telephoned
through to her.

"I don't know what is the matter with Tiser--it looks to me like a
nervous breakdown. He has been overworking at the Rest House and I don't
think the company has too good an effect on him. I hope it hasn't
worried you?"

He heard her laugh and was relieved.

"I haven't thought of it since. I don't like him very much. He drinks,
and I don't like people who drink."

Mark said something about "over-strain" and added that he had sent him
back to the Rest House. He made no further reference to Li Yoseph.

There were so many things about Mark that were altogether admirable. Who
but he would have devoted some of his illicit gains to the moral uplift
of less fortunate breakers of the law? Viewed calmly, there was
something grotesque, something Gilbcrtian, in the idea, and yet the Rest
House was an accomplished scheme. Mark had bought an old public-house
that had lost its licence, and had furnished the hostel at a
considerable cost for the use of old convicts. Here, for a minimum sum,
the old lag could find a bed and food.

"My amusing hobby," Mark described it; and though it cost him five
thousand a year he regarded the money as being well spent.

She thought it was wonderful of him, and would have given up one night a
week to the work, but he would not sanction this.

"I don't want your name associated with mine," he said. "One of these
days I may fall, and I'd like to keep you out of it."

That was so like Mark--her heart glowed towards him.

"Bring your coffee with you--I want to talk," he suggested when she told
him what she was doing.

He was waiting at the open door to take the cup from her.

"Tiser's getting more and more impossible--with the drink he takes he
ought to be dead," he said. "We'll have to look around for another
superintendent."

"I don't like him," she confessed.

"I'm glad you don't. I had a devil of a time with him after you left.
He's got a new craze--the Flying Squad! Every car he sees in the streets
he thinks is a police car. He wants to go out of the game, and I'm
inclined to let him."

This was an opportunity.

"I realise that you must have all sorts and conditions of agents--I've
met a lot of queer ones who didn't seem like saccharine Merchants!--but
I've never bothered my head about that side of it--the fetching and
carrying is the fun! But I always thought Mr. Tiser was--a sort of good
man--I don't like him, but I'm so curiously perverse that good people
aren't very interesting to me."

He was taken aback by her surprise.

"He's a good fellow all right," he said hastily, "but even the best
people are ready to cheat the Customs. I've never regarded myself as a
great sinner, and I don't suppose he does, either. Which reminds me that
I shall want you to go down to Oxford to-night with a little parcel.
I'll give you a plan of the road and show you where they'll be waiting
for you."

"In spite of the Flying Squad!" she bantered.

But he did not smile.

"I'm hoping great things from your friendship with Brad. He'll never
have the nerve to arrest you, and if he did--well, I trust you, Ann.
There would be quite a lot of people who would go to prison if you
talked."

She smiled contemptuously.

"If I talked! Mark, you have the Flying Squad complex too!"

The drawing-room was in half darkness except for two soft, shaded lamps,
one of which stood on Mark's writing-table, the other on a cabinet near
the door. The night was chilly, and the red glow of the tire was very
welcome. She sat down on a low stool and stretched her hand to the
warmth. For a long time she looked at the red coal thoughtfully.

"Isn't it strange that every time one mentions Li Yoseph--"

"Li Yoseph seems to be growing into an obsession," he said, and changed
the subject, but only for a while. Again they came back to the old Jew
who owned Lady's Stairs and to that tumbledown house.

"Are you sure Li Yoseph is really dead?"

He fetched a long breath. Nobody knew better than he that Li Yoseph was
dead.



CHAPTER 7


"I--" he began, and then he heard the telephone ring in his bedroom.

There were two phones there and a small house-wire. Of the two, one rang
with a deep, resonant note, and this was the one that Mark never liked
to hear.

He had some excellent agents--excellent in the quality of their
services, however deficient they might be in the qualities which are
usually associated with excellence, and they invariably called him on a
number which was not in the telephone book.

He went out, closing the door behind him.

Ann looked up as Mark McGill came back into the room.

"Will you want me to go to Oxford--or anywhere?"

"I don't know." His voice was sharp, and she looked at him with a little
frown of wonder.

"Is anything wrong, Mark?"

"Nothing very much--only one of my people told me that the flyers were
out and the police may be coming here."

Mark huddled up in a comer of the settee, his arms folded tightly across
his chest, his head bent. He had the appearance of a man in pain. It was
Ann who broke the silence.

"Can you rely on the man who phoned? Do you really think the police will
come to-night?"

He nodded.

"I don't know where he gets his information," he said at last, speaking
slowly, "but I never remember his being wrong." And then, as if he
realised the urgency of the situation, he jumped to his feet. "You left
the stuff in the car, of course? I'll go down and deal with that--"

"Do you want me?"

He shook his head.

His flat was on the ground floor, and he was in the privileged position
of having a private passage-way to the garage at the back. Passing
through a narrow passage which opened from the kitchen, and down a short
flight of stairs, he opened a door and went into the big garage. He
could afford to switch on the lights, for the windows were darkened.

Ann's car stood as it had been when it was backed into the building.
With a key he took from his pocket he unlocked the back panel and
removed it. He then drew out the square box and the parachute, and,
detaching the fastening, rolled the parachute into a ball. He then
turned his attention to the box. It had a sliding lid, which was also
unfastened with a key. From the interior of the box he removed
twenty-five little packets wrapped in thin blue paper. In one corner of
the garage was a large galvanised steel receptacle. It was connected to
ceiling and floor by a big iron pipe. He opened the steel door and
looked carefully inside. To the lower end of the funnel was fitted a
cone-shaped plug, which he removed carefully and examined. The plug was
of salt, and, having tested this, he returned it carefully to fill the
lower part of the funnel. On this he laid the twenty-five packets, very
carefully, and re-fastened the door.

He bundled the parachute into a box and carried this back the way he had
come, into the kitchen. In place of the usual kitchen range was a
tub-shaped steel receptacle, and into the interior he dropped the box
containing the parachute, and clamped down the steel lid. Pulling open a
sliding panel, he lit a match, and thrust it amidst the shavings that
showed through a grating. He waited till the furnace was alight, covered
the bars again, slid the panel into its place.

"Now let the flyers come!"

When he returned to the sitting-room he found Ann sitting on a stool
before the fire, her face in her hands. She turned her head, and he saw
that something had puzzled her.

"Suppose the police came and found--things? What would it mean to us?"
she asked. "I've been reading a few leading cases lately. Magistrates
very seldom give imprisonment for first offences; usually it's a fine of
a hundred pounds. Of course, it would be rather awful for you--I mean
the publicity of it--but it wouldn't be terribly scandalous, would it?"

She waited for a reply, and when he did not speak, she went on:

"Mark, you must do a much larger business than I help you with. The
packets are so small and the profits hardly seem to pay for the
motor-car service. I'm wondering if I'm not more of a danger and a
nuisance to you than I'm worth. I know that that isn't the whole of
your"--she hesitated--"transactions, but even with a profit of two or
three shillings an ounce I hardly seem justified."

For a year Mark McGill had been dreading this curiosity of hers, and for
some reason his answer was not so glib as it could have been.

"You're only in on a small section of the business," he said awkwardly.
"The organisation is a much larger affair than you can see. It isn't
because I want you to fetch and carry--you're useful to me in a dozen
other ways, Ann. There are so few people in this game that I can trust.
My dear, you know my angle. I've been frank with you all through.
Smuggling is as much a breach of the law as burglary. I am not
pretending it isn't. I put that point to you--"

"Of course you did, Mark," she said penitently. I "Poor Ronnie was a
law-breaker, and so am I. You don't suppose I'm weakening--I glory in
it!" She gloried in it, but--

He had not exactly answered her question. Before she could pursue the
subject she heard the shrill sound of the house phone in Mark's room,
and he went in. He had an arrangement with the hall porter whereby all
unusual callers were announced to him. Though he kept a staff of
servants, they went off duty after dinner, and he had found that the
assistance of the hall porter saved him many useless journeys to the
door. She heard him talking in monosyllables, and then he said:

"Yes, all right; show him up." On his desk were two little brass levers
that looked like light switches, and when he heard a knock at the outer
door he turned over one of these. She heard a deep, gruff voice ask if
the owner might come in, and when the foot of the caller sounded in the
passage, Mark turned back the switch.

"Come in," he snarled in answer to the loud rapping on the panel of the
sitting-room.

The man who swaggered into the room might have been of any age that was
between sixty and eighty. His head was completely bald, and the polished
dome shone as though it had been waxed. His beard was of a dazzling
whiteness, and hung half-way down his waistcoat. Incidentally, it
concealed the fact that he wore neither collar nor tie. He was unusually
tall and straight, broad of shoulder, powerfully built. In one hand he
carried what had once been a white top-hat, but which was now a
patchwork of fadings that varied between the palest primrose and the
richest brown. A long ulster, slightly ragged at the wrists, covered his
massive frame from shoulders to shoes, which were enormous, odd and
patched.

He looked round the room with a certain haughty condescension which
should have amused, but only added to his awesomeness.

"A good pitch, my boy--I've never seen a better, except perhaps the
palace of my friend the Marquis of Bona-Marfosio."

He looked at Ann thoughtfully and stroked his heavy white moustache.

"Do you know the Marquis, my lady? A rare man to hounds, and a deuce of
a feller with the wimmin--"

Mark's impatience had not eased.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

Mr. Philip Sedeman put his hat on a chair.

"The cicerone of our little community has been taken ill. A mere
nothing, but the members, like the good fellows they are--"

"Taken ill?" asked Mark quickly.

"--deputed me to call upon our admirable patron with the sad
information," continued the patriarch, as though he had never been
interrupted.

"How long has he been ill?"

The old man looked up at the ceiling.

"It may have been two or three minutes before I volunteered to come
along and see you. The cost in omnibus fares was considerable, but that
is a matter we will not discuss. A man of my training and experience
would hardly wrangle over a question of eightpence, nor, I am bold to
say, would a man of your attainments, birth and education."

He looked at the girl with the benignity of a saint.

"What is the matter with him--Tiser, I mean?" asked Mark, eyeing the old
man with no favour.

Again Mr. Sedeman sought inspiration from the ceiling.

"An uncharitable mind--and there are many--might describe his symptoms
as indistinguishable from delirium tremens," he said gravely.
"Personally, I consider it to be no more serious than a very simple
souse."

"Souse?" repeated the girl, puzzled.

"Pickled," explained Mr. Sedeman courteously--"He has climbed above the
eight mark. I had my doubts as to whether it would be advisable to come
to you or whether I should seek out the young lady with whom he is, I
believe, on terms of the deepest affection. You may have seen her--she
is a suicide blonde."

In spite of the anxiety which Mark's obvious perturbation induced, Ann
laughed.

"And what is a suicide blonde?" she asked.

"She dyes by her own hand," said Mr. Sedeman gravely.

Mark's harsh voice broke into her laughter.

"All right, Sedeman, I'll come along," he said, and, walking to the
door, jerked it open.

Mr. Sedeman took up his hat, smoothed it very carefully with his greasy
elbow, ran his long fingers through his white beard, and sighed.

"The expenses involved, not counting loss of time, are a mere beggarly
eightpence," he murmured.

Mark put his hand in his pocket, took out a piece of silver, and almost
threw it at Mr. Sedeman; but the old man was in no wise distressed; he
favoured the girl with a flourishing bow, strode to the door, and
turned.

"Heaven bless thy comings and goings, fair flower!" he said poetically.

"Get out!" snapped Mark, but the patriarch left at his leisure.

"Who is he?" she asked, when Mark had come back from seeing their
peculiar visitor to the front door. "Is Mr. Tiser very ill?"

Mark shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know, and care less."

Then he went into his room, and she heard him calling a number. He came
away from the instrument to close the door; this was unusual in Mark,
who had, she imagined, no secrets from her, and yet had taken this
precaution twice in one night.

Ann Perryman was uneasy, and she had tried unsuccessfully during the
past month to find the cause for her mental unrest. It was not
conscience that was working: she was sure of that. She had no
compunction, gloried in her work, but--always there was that but--Mark's
arrangement with her was on the strictest business footing; he neither
asked nor expected favours; her salary was regularly paid, the bonuses
which came her way were modest. Only the cold-blooded regularity of
their relationship made this strange life of hers possible.

In many ways Mark was a careful man: he checked petrol consumption,
would spend an evening debating the problem of new tyres, and when, as
she sometimes did, she went to Paris for "the firm," bringing back with
her quite a number of little packages concealed in specially designed
pockets, her expenses were in the friendliest way audited, and she was
expected to account for all her movements. This latter arrangement she
rather resented at first, until he explained that until he knew where
she was and what she was doing, he could not be sure that she had
escaped the shadowing detectives.

Mark came out of the room, his face as black as thunder.

"There's nothing much the matter with him," he said harshly. "Sedeman
saw him come in and thought it was an opportunity for tapping me--I
suppose Tiser looked a bit green."

He looked at her thoughtfully.

"I don't know...about that police visit..."

She saw his jaw drop, and he went quickly to the wall. Pushing back a
panel, he revealed the green face of a little safe, which he opened,
taking out an oblong package.

"I had forgotten this," he said breathlessly. "It ought to go in the
container, and yet it can't!"

He looked at the package helplessly, and then at her.

"I ought to get this out of the house."

"What is it?" she asked quickly.

"It's the stuff for Oxford. There's a man there named Mellun, who will
be waiting, anyway."

Again he looked at the package irresolutely.

"I don't like to run the risk."

"I'll take it," she said promptly, and before he could protest she was
out of the room.

In five minutes she was back in her leather driving-coat. Yet he was
reluctant to surrender the package.

"It may be a plant...Sedeman...Bradley--they may all be in it. I don't
want you to take the risk."

Yet she knew instinctively he did want her to take the risk, and wanted
very badly to have that package out of the house.

"You might slip into your coat and make your way to the Thames
Embankment...throw it in the water."

She laughed at his nervousness.

"How stupid!"

She almost wrenched the package from his hand and dropped it into her
deep inside pocket.

"If anything happens--I shall be brought into this. Naturally I shall
stand by you, and if you bring me into it--"

She stared at him, hardly believing it was he who spoke.

"Of course I shall not bring you into it. Mark. If I am caught it's
entirely my own affair."

He turned to relock the safe; she thought it was to conceal some emotion
which was expressed in his face--apprehension or--

Mark was puzzling her to-night. Something had happened which had thrown
him completely off his balance.



CHAPTER 8


SHE made her way down to the garage, put on the lights and examined the
petrol tank before she threw open the doors and, knocking away the
chocks, let the car roll of its own volition down the gentle incline to
the mews. She closed the doors and took one quick survey left and right.
There were two ways out, that which led into New Cavendish Street and
that to the street that ran parallel. She decided on the latter route,
sent the car quickly over the uneven paving of the mews, turned back to
Portland Place and ran steadily and without check into Regent's Park.

She followed the Outer Circle, making the widest detour, until she came
to Avenue Road, and a few minutes later she was speeding up Fitzjohn's
Avenue to the Heath. The straight road to Oxford, which would take her
through Maidenhead and Henley, she avoided, and came by a little-used
road to Beaconsfield and Marlow.

Henley was more difficult to avoid. She ran through the wide main street
at a leisurely pace, and, as she believed, unobserved; had reached the
foot of the long, wide, tree-lined Oxford Road, when she heard a voice
shout at her. She turned her head quickly. Drawn up in a side lane was a
big car, its lights burning dimly. She saw three men standing at the end
of the lane rush for the machine as another jumped towards her
footboard.

He missed, and almost at the same moment she saw the other car swing out
of the lane and the men who formed its crew scramble aboard. She stepped
on the accelerator and the machine leapt forward. There was need for
haste. Somebody in the pursuing car was signalling with a red lamp to
"stop." Police obviously--she knew by its drone the new type of car they
were using.

She had a clear road and only one crossing to chance--she came in sight
of this at eighty miles an hour, She ignored the frantically waving
danger lamp and flashed across the bonnet of a swift Rolls that was
coming at right angles with not more than a foot to spare. Behind the
Rolls she saw, out of the tail of her eye, the flickering lights of a
big lorry--that would block pursuit for a minute. The mirror fixed at
the side of the windscreen showed her the lights of the police car (now
ablaze) swerving--skidding, probably, under a sudden application of
brakes. A distant "plop"--a burst tyre; nothing else could make that
sound.

Now she had careened round a sharp bend of the road. Half a mile away
were two rows of cottages flanking the road, and she knew that beyond
there was a crossing, and in the daytime a policeman. Short of the
cottages a side road ran northward, and this was only safe if she could
negotiate the little village which she knew lay midway. She always
thought of this village as a bead through which ran the narrowest of
threads. Her speedometer was down to forty-five, and, looking back, she
could see or hear nothing, though she might well be deceived, for the
narrow road twisted and turned. Here was the village ahead of her--she
dropped to twenty.

Yet another policeman appeared out of the darkness--a mounted man, whose
horse grew restless in the glare of her head-lamps. He had heard nothing
apparently--and waved her on. And then she heard the shrill of his
whistle and increased her speed. On the farther edge of the village the
road ran straight and the surface had been recently made up. She stepped
on the pedal and hew. It was pitch dark the lamps turned the road and
the fringing hedge into a lane of gold.

There was a bridge over a deep stream. She slowed for the hump of it;
and then, right ahead of her, she saw two blazing lights appear, and
above these the little green lamp which advertised the profession of its
passengers.

She had to decide quickly. There was no room to turn the machine--if
that mounted policeman's whistle meant anything, it meant that she was
being followed and that he had received some signal to hold her. She
knew that the Buckinghamshire police had a code of rocket signals to
meet the depredations of motor bandits.

Switching off her lights, she stopped the car dead on the crest of the
bridge, took out the package she was carrying, and, peering into the
night, flung it into the swollen river. Then, restarting the car, she
went on at her leisure.

The car coming towards her was moving as slowly and keeping to the crown
of the road. Turning her head-lamps on full, she sounded her klaxon, but
the machine ahead did not budge. There was nothing to do but to stop.
Both cars halted together, their bonnets within a few inches one of the
other. She saw two men approach and come running towards her, and heard
a hated voice.

"Why, if it isn't Miss Perryman!"

He could not have recognised her, and his simulated surprise was all the
more offensive.

"You slipped us rather nicely, and I'm afraid there's going to be a
little trouble."

It was the voice of Sergeant Simmonds.

"Now, young lady, perhaps you'll explain what you mean by driving to the
common danger?"

The stout man with his bristling moustache she had not met since the day
he brought her the dreadful news of Ronnie's end.

"I'm not aware that I was so driving," was her answer.

He snorted at this.

"You're under arrest," he said gruffly, and called one of his men to
take charge of her car. "Get down, please."

He gripped her firmly by the arm, and she went hot with fury.

"Let me go! There's no need to hold my arm."

She struggled to free herself, and he released her. But she was now
visible in the light of the electric lamps that were focussed on her.

"Get into that car." He pushed her into the tender, sat on one side of
her and another detective on the other.

The man who had taken charge of her machine backed it almost into the
hedge to give them a dear passage. As they passed, Simmonds shouted:

"Bring that car back to the station-yard. I want it searched
thoroughly."

Mr. Simmonds's manner changed once they were on the way to London.

"A sensible young lady like you ought not to give the police all this
trouble, Miss Perryman," he said reproachfully. "You might have killed
somebody running your car at that rate! I don't suppose you knew what
you were doing, or else you've been led into this by others."

A very sententious man was Sergeant Simmonds of the bristling moustache;
but he was not a good actor. He was in truth the most obvious of
kidders.

"You tell me where you were going and all about your little game. Miss
Perryman, and I'll make things easy for you. I'm going to mention no
names, but I know you're doing something which you wouldn't do if you
knew what it was you were doing."

"That sounds rather involved," she said coldly, and he chuckled in the
most genial manner.

"Ah, I haven't had your education. Miss Perryman! You know, a young lady
like you oughtn't to be running around the country at this time of
night; you're liable to meet all sorts of unpleasant people--"

"I have," she said grimly, and this time he was really amused.

"Sharp, eh, Walters?" He addressed the other detective. "Like a needle!
We're not so bad, Miss Perryman--we're doing our duty. We're here for
the protection of the citizen, his life, property and personal
belongings. A lady like you ought to give us all the help you can,
instead of--"

"What law have I broken?"

Mr. Simmonds considered this. "Well, you've driven to the common danger
for one thing," and she smiled contemptuously in the darkness.

"It is a little difficult to prove, isn't it? I don't remember a case of
a driver being summoned for speeding at night."

Sergeant Simmonds was well aware of his difficulty. Magistrates are
chary of accepting evidence of identification. Cars on that part of the
road where she had been chased were fairly frequent and difficult to
identify; besides which, she was coming in the opposite direction to
that she had been following when he had chased her.

"That won't be any trouble," he said, with spurious confidence. "But I
don't want to charge you with anything. All I want is five minutes' talk
with you. Just tell me who you were going to meet and what you had to
deliver, like a sensible young lady, and you'll never see the inside of
a police court." He added under his breath: "Except to give evidence."

Ann was unimpressed.

"I don't know what you're talking about--you've certainly no right to
cross-examine me. You're not beating me, are you?" she demanded
sarcastically.

Sergeant Simmonds emitted sounds of protest.

She answered no further questions, and after a while Simmonds sank back
into the corner of the car and dozed for the remainder of the journey to
London.

They took her to the little police station which lies in Scotland Yard.
Ten minutes later a cell door clanged upon her.



CHAPTER 9


MARK McGill was pacing up and down his sitting-room. The clock at which
he glanced every few minutes pointed to two. No message had come through
from Ann; he had been on the phone to one of his agents at Oxford and
had learned that she had not arrived. That was hardly alarming. Ann was
clever, and would make a long detour, avoiding the points at which the
Flying Squad might pick her up. But he ought to hear from her soon. The
Oxford man had promised to telephone again, but the instrument had been
silent for an hour.

Ann was getting a little difficult. He knew that her faith in him had
been shaken. Try as he did, he could not flog her into the old
enthusiasm for vengeance. Many causes were operating against Mark
McGill. The pitiable cowardice of Tiser was one of these; the fear of
the man seemed to translate itself into doubt; and he had noticed that
the girl was never brought into contact with that shivering confederate
of his but she became a little more sceptical.

He looked up quickly. There was a buzzer in the hall and it had sounded
three times. Walking to the window, he peered out. Cavendish Square was
deserted and no car was in sight. It must be Ann--she always pressed the
second button concealed beneath the ordinary bell-push and invisible to
the casual visitor.

He passed into the hall, opened the door, and took a step backward at
the sight of his callers. Bradley was there, and behind him two of his
bulls.

The detective's cold eyes were fixed upon the big man.

"Expecting somebody?" he asked.

In a second Mark had recovered himself.

"Of course. I was expecting news about Tiser. He was taken ill
to-night."

"Is your telephone taken ill too?" asked the other in even, deliberate
tones.

"There's nobody at the Home who can use a phone," replied Mark with a
smile. "You know what an ignorant lot of devils they are. I really must
put in an assistant to Tiser. Did you want to see me?"

Bradley opened his pocket-book and took out an official-looking
document.

"I have a warrant to search your place," he said. "I can only hope I
haven't come too late!"

McGill's self-possession was amazing, he thought. It was also a little
disappointing. Obviously he had come too late. He would not smile if he
had any fear that this visitation would be followed by unpleasant
consequences.

"Come in," he said, almost genially, and the detectives followed him
into the sitting-room.

Mark walked straight to the desk and turned one of the two switches that
were affixed to the table.

"Take your hand away from that!" said Bradley sharply. "What is the
idea?"

McGill shrugged his broad shoulders.

"It is merely an automatic arrangement to close the front door. You
gentlemen left it open, and I'm rather susceptible to draughts."

"The door was closed," said Bradley curtly. "What is the other switch?"

"That opens the door," was the glib reply.

The detective put his hand on the little lever and nodded to one of his
men.

"Go into the hall and see what happens."

He turned the control lever, and the man standing in the doorway
verified McGill's statement. Bradley turned the other.

"Anything happened?" he asked.

"No, sir."

"It doesn't close the door, eh? What does it do?" he demanded.

McGill met his eyes without flinching.

"The mechanism is probably out of order," he said. "Try the first
switch. Either of them operates the door."

Bradley turned back the lever and heard the thud of the door closing.

"Now you can sit here while these men make a tiresome search of your
rooms," he said, and obediently Mark McGill sat down on the sofa and
readied for a cigar.

"There is no objection to my smoking, one presumes?" he asked
sardonically.

"One day you'll roast," said Bradley.

For an hour and a half the detectives searched and probed, turning every
article out of every drawer, inspecting wardrobes and cupboards, turning
back mattresses, sounding panels. McGill washed with amusement the
search of the room in which he was sitting. After a while he put his
hand in his pocket and took out a key.

"There is a small safe behind a panel on the left of the mantelpiece,"
he said. "This is the key of it."

Bradley took the key without a word, opened the safe and inspected its
contents. When he had finished;

"Yon have a garage, haven't you? There's a door leading from the
kitchen?"

"Let me show you the way," said McGill politely, and, rising, walked
before them.

In the kitchen Bradley saw the iron furnace. It was still warm. He
opened the little steel door and prodded amongst the still glowing
embers.

"Useful," he said.

"Very," replied McGill. "I burn my love letters there."

Inspector Bradley's lips twitched: he was not without a sense of humour,
and the reply tickled him momentarily.

"You're something of a Lothario, they tell me?"

Though he did not appear to be, he was watching the man narrowly as he
spoke.

"And who is your latest conquest--Miss Perryman?"

He saw McGill frown and was relieved. Before he could make a rejoinder,
Bradley pointed to the door leading to the garage.

"Unlock this," he said.

He followed McGill down the stairs, waited till the lights were switched
on, and then looked around. There was a sound in the little
building--the sound of rushing water. Presently he located it. It came
from the interior of a cigar-shaped container of galvanised iron.

"What is that?" he asked.

"A new system of ventilation," said McGill airily. "I have a scientific
mind." The detective unfastened the steel panel and pulled it open. He
could see nothing in the light of his handle lamp except the glitter of
falling water. Pulling up his sleeve, he reached in his hand till he
came to the bottom of the container, where he found the place of egress:
a round aperture through which the water was gurgling noisily.

"Anything there?" asked McGill pleasantly. In a corner of the garage was
a big cylinder of brown paper. Bradley tore the paper cover and drew out
a white crystalline slab. It was round and perforated at regular
intervals with holes as big as a sixpence. This he smelt, and, wetting
his finger, rubbed it along the top and tasted it.

"Salt!" he said.

He pushed the disc into the container and laid it on the bottom. In a
few seconds it had dissolved and disappeared.

"May I reconstruct this little scheme of yours, McGill?" he asked. "You
put in there a disc of sugar or salt--I have an idea that the sugar is
safer--and on this you put your illicit possessions and close the door.
At the first hint of danger you start water running--the switch, of
course!"

He nodded smilingly, and for the first time McGill showed some sign of
uneasiness.

"When the police visit you, you turn the switch, the water washes away
the support of your 'coke,' and before the police can reach the spot the
evidence has vanished! Rather ingenious." He tapped Mark McGill on the
chest. "Don't try that again--I shall probably raid the garage first,
with very unpleasant consequences to you. Where is Miss Perryman?"

He asked the question abruptly, so abruptly that Mark was taken aback.

"Miss Perryman doesn't occupy this flat," he said.

"But you were expecting news of her, eh? She is the person you were
waiting for?"

McGill's laugh was not very hearty.

"Really, my dear inspector, you have the most fantastic ideas--where do
you get them from? It is, I admit, a relief to find a police officer
with sufficient imagination to invent stories, but it is also rather
trying--"

"You're expecting Ann Perryman, and you may have to wait some time,"
said Bradley. "She was arrested to-night on the Oxford road!"

Mark stood absolutely still, not a muscle of his face moved, by not so
much as the lowering of his eyelid did he betray his concern.

"I'm sorry to hear that--what is the charge against her?"

"Being in possession of dangerous drugs," said Bradley.

Ordinarily, Mark McGill would have been suspicious, but for the moment
he was rattled and did not even consider the possibility that Bradley
might be bluffing.

"I know nothing about it," he said loudly. "If she was carrying drugs it
was without my knowledge. If she says she got them from here, she is
lying--where did you find them in the car?"

He had hardly spoken the words before he realised his error. Ann would
have thrown away the package at the first sign of real danger. He was
telling the detective what even the girl did not know--that the car
contained something more than Ann Ferryman realised.



CHAPTER 10


To give him what credit was due. Mark McGill had, in a half-hearted way,
endeavoured to minimise the risk which Ann so often ran. In nine cases
out of ten she carried an innocuous package of common salt in her
journeys to the country. The real "cargo" was hidden in a specially
constructed cupboard let into the side of the car and concealed behind
the leather lining.

Ann had certainly carried a dangerous load to Oxford that night, and he
trusted her native wit to get rid of it if there was the slightest
danger of detection. In the presence of Bradley, he recalled an alarming
circumstance. A week before he had sent her to Birmingham, and the
hollow side of the car had contained a fairly large quantity of cocaine.

There was always a man to meet Ann at her destination and garage her
car. It was then, unknown to her, that the real cargo was removed. But
something had frightened the Birmingham crowd; she had not delivered the
package she carried, nor had the car been met. Neither Mark nor his lame
mechanic had removed the stuff: it was still there when Ann had gone out
to meet the aeroplane.

He had not been greatly troubled by the fact; the car was as good a
hiding-place as the container. Some time after Ann had left it had
occurred to him that the Oxford crowd might relieve the car of its
contents, and probably be surprised to find such quantities on their
hands.. But that was a matter which could easily be adjusted.

He saw Bradley's eyes searching his, and forced a laugh.

"What I meant to say was--" he began.

"What you meant to say," said Bradley, "was that Ann Perryman was
carrying something in the car besides the packet she threw into the
river."

Mark McGill blinked at this.

"I know nothing about that," he said quickly. "There's no reason why she
should throw anything in the river. She was taking a trip to
Oxford--where is she?"

For a little time Bradley did not answer.

"She is at Cannon Row Police Station. I presume you wish to offer bail,
and I'm telling you in plain English that I shall oppose the bail. I've
tried my best to save that young lady, but she's in the limelight now
and I can do nothing."

He stroked his chin thoughtfully, still looking at the man he hated.

"There's only one chance, and it is that she will give me evidence to
get you, McGill. If she will oblige me in that respect I'll undertake to
draw a red line under all her troubles."

His tone lacked the vehemence that Mark expected; it was almost mild in
comparison with the nature of his threats. And Mark, who had a knowledge
of men, realised that he had before him one whose mind was occupied with
another problem. He was talking of one thing, and his mind was groping
in an entirely different direction.

Mark saw him to the door, stood on the pavement whilst the police tender
drew up noiselessly to the kerb, and watched it till it disappeared in
the direction of Oxford Street.

There was a solicitor, a creature of his, a man whom he had promoted
from the precarious livelihood he gained at a South London police court.
Him he had installed in a respectable suburban villa, and had almost
completely cured of his reprehensible habits. He spoke to the man on the
telephone.

"I'm sending my car down for you: I want you to come up at once."

Mr. Durther arrived at half-past three, a hollow-faced man, whose hands
everlastingly trembled.

"They have a friend of mine inside. I want you to see her in the
morning, brief the best counsel to defend her, and see that she has
everything she requires. She will probably be charged at the Southern
police court. When you see her, tell her that there is nothing to fear
if she keeps quiet and refuses to answer questions. Another thing you
can rub in is the fact that Bradley will move heaven and earth to get
her convicted."

"What was she carrying?" asked Mr. Durther, in his tremulous voice.

"Coke," was the laconic reply. "I'm not so sure they found it--you'll
have to watch that, and if there's a remand, I want counsel to ask for
bail and, if necessary, apply to a Judge in chambers."

After the solicitor had left Mark brewed himself a strong cup of coffee,
took a cold bath, and sat down to wait for the hour that would bring the
report of the solicitor.



CHAPTER 11


Bradley went back to the garage where Ann's car had been deposited. He
dismissed his men after the been wheeled out into the yard, and with the
aid of his hand torch, he began a careful search of the car.

It was not difficult to find the box under the seat, or the method by
which the contents of that box could be removed from the outside. The
receptacle was empty. He searched the tool-box, with no better result.

He had almost finished his inspection when it occurred to him that the
leather upholstery along the roof was a little more elaborate than was
usually to be found in cars of this type. This he probed inch by inch.
There was a pocket on each side of the door, but he had already felt in
these without result. He felt again, and this time he realised that the
door was thicker than seemed absolutely necessary.

Lifting the pocket which hung loose, his lamp went up and down the
leather. There was a distinct square patch here. He looked under the
pocket of the other door and found the same feature. There was no
necessity for a patch in the middle of the door, unless it represented
an opening of some kind. He prodded with a pocket-knife, and the point
struck steel.

And then, quite by accident, he found the hiding-place. He was raising
up the covering pocket, and must have exercised more than usual
pressure, for there was a click, and the square of leather opened like a
trap. Inside he saw a dozen flat packages packed tight. These he removed
carefully before he made an attempt on the second door.

He wasted little time here, for he had learned the trick. The upward
jerk of the pocket released a spring, but this time the hidden cupboard
held nothing.

He tried the front doors of the driving space, but evidently the secret
receptacles were confined to the saloon portion of the car. Carefully
he stowed away the packages in his pocket, re-closed the trap and
pushed the car back into its lock-up garage.

He had a queer sense of thankfulness which he could not quite
understand. Why should he be so pleased with his discovery--a discovery
which would hopelessly incriminate the woman who occupied his thoughts
day and night? It wasn't that at all, he discovered: his gratitude was
for having had the intelligence to send away his men so that there were,
no witnesses to the finding of the packages. He was shocked to realise
this.

He did not return to Scotland Yard, but hurried to the modest flat he
occupied. Letting himself in, he switched on the lights in the
dining-room and locked the door before he removed the small parcels from
his pocket. One of these he opened--there could be no doubt as to what
that crystalline powder was which sparkled under the overhead light. He
wetted his finger and put some of the stuff to his tongue. Cocaine!

For a long time he sat staring at the deadly drug, and then the phone
rang. The sound of the bell made him jump. He hurried to the instrument,
more to stop its continuous ringing than with any eagerness to stop its
continuous ringing than with any eagerness to learn who was at the other
end.

He recognised the voice of his superintendent. "Is that you, Bradley?
We've just had a squeak in from Oxford--one of these coke merchants says
hat we'll probably find a parcel of the stuff hidden in hat girl's car.
There's a secret pocket in one of the doors. I'll send Simmonds
down--"

"No, sir, I'll go myself," said Bradley quickly. He hung up the phone,
came back to the table and eyed the packages. Whatever decision he made
must be made quickly.

He went out into his little kitchen and had a look round. A woman
cook-housekeeper came daily; she was a methodical and frugal person, and
he knew she bought articles in large quantities. The flour bin was half
full. He could substitute this for the stuff...And then the absurdity of
the exchange struck him and he laughed. And in that laughter he took his
decision; went quickly back to the sitting-room, gathered the packages,
brought them into the kitchen, and poured their contents into the sink.

For ten minutes he stood, watching the water dissolve the white powder.
When it had all disappeared, and he had burnt the paper, he put on his
coat and hat and went back to the garage to search for something which
was not there.

An hour later he went to report to his chief, and found that that wise
man had left the office for his home.

It was no exaggeration to say that John Bradley stood aghast at his own
amazing dereliction of duty. If anybody had told him that night that he
would have wilfully destroyed evidence in a most serious case for the
love of a prisoner, he might have laughed, had it not been that always
at the back of his mind was the uneasy conviction that sooner or later
Ann Ferryman would come within the purview of the law. She hated him: he
had no doubt on that question; less doubt that her hatred was inspired
by Mark.

She had made some faint attempt to be pleasant, but she was a bad
actress. He never met her but she strove vainly to hide her loathing,
never left her but her face openly expressed her relief.

He went back to his office at Scotland Yard and dozed in his chair till
a messenger brought him a cup of hot coffee and the realisation that in
a few hours he would be prosecuting the woman he loved.

At eight o'clock that morning Ann was removed to the South London Police
Court. She had the distinction of riding in a taxicab accompanied by a
matron and a detective; sure evidence, if she could but read the signs,
that the charge on which she was held was regarded by the police as
being more than ordinarily serious.

She had hardly been locked in the cell attached to the police court when
the matron came to her.

"Your solicitor has arrived--Mr. Durther. You had better see him in my
room."

Although the matron was present, the interview was obviously to be more
or less private, for the quivering solicitor led her to a corner of the
room near the window. At first she was a little alarmed by his apparent
nervousness, and this he must have seen.

"Don't take any notice of my hands shaking," he mumbled. "Suffer from
nerves."

He looked round past her at the matron. "I've got a message from Mark,"
he said, lowering his voice still deeper. "There may have been a lot
of stuff in the car...saccharine."

"In the car?" she said, amazed. He nodded rapidly. "There were a couple
of pockets...If you are questioned about it...know nothing...understand?"

"What is going to happen?" she asked.

His thin shoulders went up and down in a gesture intended to express his
ignorance. "I don't know...can't get counsel down to defend you
to-day...bound to be a remand."

She stared at him in consternation. "Does that mean I shall go to prison
for another week?"

Mr. Durther avoided her eyes. "Maybe. We'll try to get bail...do
everything possible...police are bound to ask for a remand, especially
if they found the stuff. Prison's nothing...get used to it."

Ann Ferryman felt her heart sink within her. Prison was an experience to
which she could never grow accustomed; and at the prospect she thought
of Bradley, and hated him more bitterly than ever.

"How was the...saccharine packed?" And, when he told her: "How many
parcels were there?" asked Ann after a long silence.

"Five. They were in the space let into the doors. Mr. McGill says you
are to deny all knowledge that they were there."

Another silence.

"What was in them?"

"Saccharine, my dear young lady--nothing more than saccharine," quavered
Durther.

"What could happen to me?" she asked. "I mean, suppose they found them?"

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. It was not an easy question to
answer. Well he knew what would happen!

"Does one get imprisonment for smuggling?"

He shook his head.

"Not for the first offence. You would probably be fined a hundred pounds
or so, which of course Mark would gladly pay."

He was rather relieved, and she wondered why. It was not easy to guess
that Mr. Durther wanted to forget what might follow the discovery of the
cocaine, and was glad enough to discuss her hypothetical offence.

All Lady's Stairs were here to-day. She saw a majestic and bearded
figure being pushed into a cell after his morning ablutions. Evidently
Mr. Sedeman had also fallen from grace. She smiled to herself, but as
the door closed upon her she was serious enough. All that night she had
turned on her hard plank bed, with a leather cushion under her head,
thinking, thinking...

She was not frightened; the novelty of her position had sustained her
for a while, but now that had worn off. This cell with the glazed brick
lining, its ugly bench, set loose a train of tormenting thoughts. Ronnie
had known the interior of such a place as this, had been familiar with
the ghastly routine of servitude.

The matron brought her some coffee and two thick slices of bread and
butter, and she was glad of these. Until now she had not realised how
famished she was. She had hardly finished before the door opened again.
At the matron's command she followed the woman into a smaller room than
that in which she had interviewed the solicitor.

A man was standing by the window, staring out into the courtyard. He
turned at the sound of the opening door, and she found herself face to
face with Inspector Bradley. Her first inclination was to walk from the
room. The matron, standing squarely by the closed door, made this course
impossible.

He looked heavy-eyed, tired, slightly haggard, she thought. Some of his
undoubted good looks seemed to have disappeared.

"Good morning," he said. His voice was sharp, peremptory, the voice of a
police inspector rather than a friend.

She did not answer, but stood stiffly before him, her hands clasped
behind her. He looked past her.

"You can go, matron. Wait outside the door; I have something to say to
this lady."

Obediently the stout woman retired.

"Now, my young friend, you're in a very serious position. I'm taking a
charitable view and am supposing that you do not know what you've been
doing."

His old flippancy of tone had gone; his voice was grave but not
unfriendly. She recognised this through the rising mists of her fury,
although why she should be enraged by his obvious endeavour to help her
she could not understand. Only she knew that at that moment she could
have killed him.

"I know exactly what I've been doing," she said, trying to keep her
voice steady. "I have been driving a car at night, and in some way I
have made you hate me. You're anxious to do for me what you did for
Ronnie."

"You are not going to say you're innocent?" he asked bluntly. "Or that
you're the victim of police persecution? Will you say that you have not
broken the law?"

He waited breathlessly for her denial, but she was silent, and his heart
sank.

"Are you conscious that you have broken the law?" he repeated.

"I will tell the magistrate that," she answered coldly.

"Are you aware that you have been trafficking in noxious drugs?" he
asked.

Her lips curled. "Really, Mr. Bradley, you're most unoriginal! That was
the story you told me last year after Ronnie was murdered--that he was a
dealer in drugs. Are you suggesting that I am doing the same thing?"

His very look was a challenge.

"Are you?"

She went white with anger, turned abruptly, walked to the door and flung
it open. The matron was standing outside, her head resting against the
doorpost. She might have been interested in the conversation which had
taken place in the room, and probably was.

"Take me back to my cell," ordered Ann peremptorily.

"Has Mr. Bradley finished with you?" asked the matron.

"I'm finished with him," said Ann.

She almost welcomed the solitude of the cell. She was shaking with
anger, and, had there been occasion for speech, would have been
inarticulate. How dare he!

To revive that old lie, and label her as he had labelled Ronnie!
Whatever happened, whatever came, fine or imprisonment, no punishment
would equal the humiliation this man had put upon her.

Bradley had followed her from the waiting-room, and none who saw his
inscrutable face could have guessed the despair that was in his heart.

As he was going into the court, Simmonds took him by the arm.

"The doctor says that Smith ought to have some sort of sedative before
he goes into court."

"Smith?" Bradley was shocked when he realised that he had forgotten that
he had another case on his hands, one infinitely more serious than that
of Ann Perryman.

There had been a murder a week before; a shop assistant had been killed,
a jeweller's shop rifled, and the murderer had got away, later to be
arrested. Bradley knew him at once as a drug addict, a nerve-tortured
decadent who might well trace his ruin to the activities of Mark McGill.

"You hadn't forgotten Smith, sir?" Simmonds smiled at the absurdity of
his own question.

"No, I hadn't forgotten him," said Bradley slowly. "He wants a sedative,
does he? How long can we keep him going without?"

"Not more than an hour," said Simmonds.

Bradley nodded. "I'll arrange for his case to be taken next," he said.

He was turning away when again Simmonds detained him.

"Steen wants to see you. He's been to the Yard, and they sent him down
here."

Bradley stared at his subordinate in astonishment.

"Steen?" he said incredulously. "What is wrong?"

Simmonds shook his head.

"I think you'd better see him. He's got a Home Office letter."

Hurrying back to the small room where he had interviewed Ann, Bradley
found a man waiting for him, sitting patiently on the edge of a chair,
his big hands resting on his knees. He was a tall, angular,
awkward-looking man, wearing a black suit a little too large for him,
and round his neck a knotted handkerchief. He rose and touched his
forelock.

"Good morning, Mr. Bradley. They told me I'd find thee here."

He spoke in a broad north country accent.

"What's the trouble, Steen?" asked Bradley.

The man jerked his head in a gesture of deprecation.

"I want nowt of police protection, but tha knows what the fellows are at
Home Office. It's over this man Libbitt--they say his friends talk of
getting me. I'll get them first, I'm thinking." He chuckled at his
mysterious joke.

"Go along to the jailer's office," said Bradley. "I'll see you after
these two cases are over."

"Only two this morning?" said Steen, in astonishment.

"Two that count."

Bradley smiled to himself at the confession. Not even the case of Smith
counted with him.

He was in court when Sedeman was brought in, jaunty and rather
magnificent. He greeted the magistrate as an old friend; admitted
certain errors of his on the night before; reminded the policeman
witness, not once but many times, of the immediate consequences of
perjury; and blandly awaited sentence. Not even the three weeks' hard
labour he received affected him.

The clerk and a solicitor were in whispered consultation. Bradley
recognised the lawyer as a friend of Mark McGill's, and when he heard
the word "Smith" wondered exactly why McGill was interfering in that
matter. It was the last case in the world he would have expected the big
man to meddle with. Presently he was enlightened. Mr. Durther went back
to his table immediately after Sedeman had been removed.

In his proper environment he was no longer the timid and tremulous man
Ann had met.

"Before your worship takes the next case," he began briskly, "I hope
your worship will allow me to make an application. It has some relation
to a case which is coming on later. Your worship will remember that I
applied here a year ago for certain documents which were the property of
my client, Mr. Marcus McGill, that were in the possession of the late
Elijah Yoseph, who was the freeholder of Lady's Stairs."

What was Mark's game? Why did he choose this moment to recall the
disappearance of Li?

The magistrate nodded.

"I remember," he said tersely.

"The police took possession of his house, and I believe they still have
a technical possession until his death is presumed in a Higher Court. We
produced an affidavit by a man named Sedeman, who, curiously enough,
came before your worship just now."

"I remember the affidavit," said the magistrate. "He swore that the
documents had been left by mistake at Yoseph's house."

"They were quite unimportant--" began the solicitor, and the magistrate
shook his head.

"That is not my recollection. The documents were lists of Continental
chemists, and the suggestion was that these people had been supplying
Yoseph or his principals with drugs," he said. "Isn't that so, Mr.
Bradley?"

"That is so, your worship."

"We can prove," said the solicitor, "that these lists had reference to a
perfectly legitimate business."

Now Bradley understood. Mark had learnt that the police had found the
hiding-place and was preparing a defence in advance. It was true that
those documents which he had impounded on the night of the murder might
tend to show that McGill was carrying on a legitimate business in
chemicals.

"It is a matter entirely for the police," said the magistrate. "If they
consider the documents vital, I will do nothing."

He looked at Bradley, who rose from his chair.

"We have as yet been unable to secure the evidence we want," he said
quickly, "but I regard the documents as very important and I must oppose
the application."

The man on the bench nodded.

"Very well. The application is refused."

Mr. Durther was apparently not unprepared for this refusal. Bradley
again rose.

"I would like to ask your worship if you would now take the case of
William Charles Smith. I asked your worship if it could be taken this
afternoon, but for a very special reason I wish the case to be dealt
with at once. It will not take more than a few minutes."

The magistrate signalled his assent, and there came, through the door
leading from the cells, a pallid man of slight build, a detective at
each elbow. His wrists were held together by handcuffs, and this the
keen-eyed stipendiary saw.

"Is it necessary that this man should be handcuffed?" he asked.

"Yes, your