This site is full of FREE ebooks - Project Gutenberg Australia

Title: The Joker (1926)
Author: Edgar Wallace
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0701181.txt
Language:  English
Date first posted: October 2007
Date most recently updated: December 2007

This eBook was produced by: Jon Jermey

Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions
which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice
is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular
paper edition.

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this
file.

This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at
http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html

To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title: The Joker (1926)
Author: Edgar Wallace





CHAPTER 1


MR STRATFORD HARLOW was a gentleman with no particular call to hurry. By
every standard he was a member of the leisured classes, and to his
opportunities for lingering, he added the desire of one who was
pertinently curious.

The most commonplace phenomena interested Mr Harlow. He had all the
requisite qualities of an observer; his enjoyment was without the
handicap of sentimentality, a weakness which is fatal to accurate
judgement.

Leonardo da Vinci could stand by the scaffold using the dreadful floor as
his desk; and sketch the agonies of malefactors given to the torture. Mr
Harlow, no great lover of painters, thought well of Leonardo. He too
could stop to look at sights which sent the average man shuddering and
hurrying past; he could stop (even when he was really in a hurry) to
analyse the colour scheme in an autumn sunset, not to rhapsodise
poetically, but to mark down for his own information the quantities of
beauty.

He was a large man of forty-eight, fair and slightly bald. His
clean-shaven face was unlined, his skin without blemish. Pale blue eyes
are not accounted beautiful and the pallor of Mr Harlow's eyes was such
that, seeing him for the first time, many sensitive people experienced a
shock, thinking he was sightless. His nose was big and long, and of the
same width from forehead to tip. He had very red, thick lips that seemed
to be pouting even when they were in repose. A rounded chin with a dimple
in the centre and unusually small cars, completes the description.

His powerful car was drawn up by the side of the road, its two near
wheels on the green verge, and Mr Harlow sat, one hand on the wheel,
watching the marshalling of the men in a field. In such moments of
contemplative reveries as these, splendid ideas were born in Stratford
Harlow's mind, great schemes loomed out of the nowhere which is beyond
vision. And, curiously enough, prisons invariably had this inspirational
effect.

They were trudging now across the field, led by a lank warder, cheerful,
sunburnt men in prison uniform.

Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!

The convicts had reached the hard road and were coming towards him. The
leading warder glanced suspiciously at the well-dressed stranger, but the
gang were neither abashed nor distressed by this witness of their shame.
Rather, they carried themselves with a new perkiness as though conscious
of their value as an unusual spectacle. The first two files glanced
sideways and grinned in a friendly manner, half the third file followed
suit, but the second man looked neither left nor right. He had a scowl on
his face, a sneer on his thin lips and he lifted one shoulder in a shrug
of contemptuous defiance, delivered, as the watcher realised, not so much
towards the curious sightseer, but the world of free men which Mr Harlow
represented.

Twisting round in his seat, he watched the little column filing through
the Arch of Despair and out of sight through the gun-metal gates which he
could not see.

The motorist stepped on the starter and brought the car round in a
half-circle. Patiently he manoeuvred the long chassis until it headed
back towards Princetown. Tavistock and Ellenbury could wait a day--a week
if necessary. For here was a great thought to be shaped and exploited.

His car stopped noiselessly before the Duchy Hotel, and the porter came
running down the steps.

'Anything wrong, sir?'

'No. I thought I'd stay another day. Can I have the suite? If not, any
room will do.'

The suite was not let, he learnt, and he had his case carried upstairs.

It was then that he decided that Ellenbury, being within driving
distance, might come across the moor and save him the tedium of a day
spent in Tavistock. He picked up the telephone and in minutes Ellenbury's
anxious voice answered him.

'Come over to Princetown. I'm staying at the Duchy. Don't let people see
that you know me. We will get acquainted in the smoke-room after lunch.'

Mr Harlow was eating his frugal lunch at a table over-looking the untidy
square in front of the Duchy, when he saw Ellenbury arrive: a small,
thin, nervous man, with white hair. Soon after the visitor came down to
the big dining-room, gazed quickly round, located Mr Harlow with a start,
and sat himself at the nearest table.

The dining-room was sparsely occupied. Two parties that had driven up
from Torquay ate talkatively in opposite corners of the room. An elderly
man and his stout wife sat at another table, and at a fourth, conveying a
curious sense of aloofness, a girl. Women interested Mr Harlow only in so
far as they were factors in a problem or the elements of an experiment;
but since he must classify all things he saw, he noticed, in his
cold-blooded fashion, that she was pretty and therefore unusual; for to
him the bulk of humanity bore a marked resemblance to the cheap little
suburban streets in which they lived, and the drab centres of commerce
where they found their livelihood.

He had once stood at the corner of a busy street in the Midlands and had
taken a twelve-hour census of beauty. In that period, though thousands
upon thousands hurried past, he had seen one passably pretty girl and two
that were not ill-favoured. It was unusual that this girl, who sat
sidefaced to him, should be pretty; but she was unusually pretty.

Though he could not see her eyes, her visible features were perfect and
her complexion was without flaw. Her hair was a gleaming chestnut and he
liked the way she used her hands. He believed in the test of hands as a
revelation of the mind. Her figure--what was the word? Mr Harlow pursed
his lips. His was a cold and exact vocabulary, lacking in floweriness.
'Gracious,' perhaps. He pursed his lips again. Yes, gracious--though why
it should be gracious...He found himself wandering down into the roots of
language, and even as he speculated she raised her head slightly and
looked at him. In profile she was pleasing enough, but now--

'She is beautiful,' agreed Stratford Harlow with himself, 'but in all
probability she has a voice that would drive a man insane.'

Nevertheless, he determined to risk disillusionment. His interest in her
was impersonal. Two women, one young, one old, had played important parts
in his life; but he could think of women unprejudiced by his experience.
He neither liked nor disliked them, any more than he liked or disliked
the Farnese vase, which could be admired but had no special utility.

Presently the waiter came to take away his plate. 'Miss Rivers,' said the
waiter in a low voice, in answer to his query. 'The young lady came this
morning and she's going back to Plymouth by the last train. She's here to
see somebody.' He glanced significantly at Mr Harlow, who raised his
bushy eyebrows.

'Inside?' he asked, in a low voice.

The waiter nodded. 'Her uncle--Arthur Ingle, the actor chap.'

Mr Harlow nodded. The name was dimly familiar. Ingle?...Nosegay with a
flower drooping out...and a judge with a cold in his head.

He began to reconstruct from his association of ideas.

He had been in court at the Old Bailey and seen the nosegay which every
judge carries--a practice which had its beginning in olden times, when a
bunch of herbs was supposed to shield his lordship from the taint of
Newgate fever. As the judge had laid the nosegay on the ledge three
little pimpernels in the centre had fallen on to the head of the clerk.
Now he remembered! Ingle! An ascetic face distorted with fury. Ingle, the
actor, who had forged and swindled, and had at last been caught. Mr
Stratford Harlow laughed softly; he not only remembered the name but the
man, and he had seen him that morning, scowling, and shrugging one
shoulder as he slouched past in the field gang So that was Ingle! And he
was an actor.

Mr Harlow had come back especially to Princetown to find out who he was.
As he looked up he saw the girl walking quickly from the room and,
rising, he strolled out after her, to find the lounge empty. Selecting
the most secluded corner, he rang for his coffee and lit a cigar.

Presently Ellenbury came in, but for the moment Mr Harlow had other
interests. Through the window he saw Miss Rivers walking across the
square in the direction of the post office and, rising, he strolled out
of the hotel and followed. She was buying stamps when he entered, and it
was pleasing to discover that her voice had all the qualities he could
desire.

Forty-eight has certain privileges; and can find the openings which would
lead to twenty-eight's eternal confusion.

'Good morning, young lady. You're a fellow guest of ours, aren't you?'

He said this with a smile which could be construed as fatherly. She shot
a glance at him and her lips twitched. She was too ready to smile, he
thought, for this visitation of hers to be wholly sorrowful.

'I lunched at the Duchy, yes, but I'm not staying here. It is a dreadful
little town!'

'It has its beauty,' protested Mr Harlow.

He dropped sixpence on the counter, took up a local time-table, waited
while the girl's change was counted and fell in beside her as they came
out of the office.

'And romance,' he added. 'Take the Feathers Inn. There's a building put
up by the labour of French prisoners of war.'

From where they stood only the top of one of the high chimneys of the
prison was visible.

She saw him glance in that direction and shake his head.

'The other place, of course, is dreadful-dreadful! I've been trying to
work up my courage to go inside, but somehow I can't.'

'Have you--' She did not finish the question.

'A friend--yes. A very dear friend he was, many years ago, but the poor
fellow couldn't go straight. I half promised to visit him, but I dreaded
the experience.'

Mr Harlow had no friend in any prison.

She looked at him thoughtfully.

'It isn't really so dreadful. I've been before,' she said, without the
slightest embarrassment. 'My uncle is there.'

'Really?' His voice had just the right quantity of sympathy and
understanding.

'This is my second visit in four years. I hate it, of course, and I'll be
glad when it's over. It is usually rather--trying.'

They were pacing slowly towards the hotel now.

'Naturally it is very dreadful for you. You feel so sorry for the poor
fellows--'

She was smiling; he was almost shocked.

'That doesn't distress me very much. I suppose it's a brutal thing to
say, but it doesn't. There is no'--she hesitated--'there is no affection
between my uncle and myself, but I'm his only relative and I look after
his affairs'--again she seemed at a loss as to how she would
explain--'and whatever money he has. And he's rather difficult to
please.'

Mr Harlow was intensely interested; this was an aspect of the visit which
he could not have imagined.

'It would be dreadful if I liked him, or if he was fond of me,' she went
on, stopping at the foot of the hotel steps. 'As it is, we have a
business talk and that is all.'

With a friendly nod she passed into the hotel ahead of him. Mr Harlow
stood for a long time in the doorway, looking at nothing, his mind very
busy, and then he strolled back to his cooling coffee; and presently fell
into discussion; about the weather and the crops with the nervous little
man who awaited his coming.

They were quite alone now. The car parties had vanished in noisy
confusion; the old gentleman and the stout old lady were leaving the
hotel on a walking excursion as he had come in.

'Is everything all right, Ellenbury?'

'Yes, Mr Harlow,' said the little man eagerly. 'Everything is in perfect
shape and trim. I have settled the action that the French underwriters
were bringing against the Rata Company, and--'

Suddenly he was stricken to silence. Following the direction of his
staring eyes, Mr Harlow also looked out of the window. Eight convicts
were walking down the street in the direction of the railway station; Mr
Harlow looked and pointed.

'Not a very pleasant or an agreeable sight,' he said. In his oracular
moments his voice was very rich and pleasant. 'Yet one, I think, to which
the callous people of Princetown are quite accustomed. These men are
being transferred to another prison, I imagine. Do you ever realise what
your feelings would be if you had been, say, the leader of that gang,
they used to be chained like wild beasts--'

'For God's sake, stop!' said the little man hoarsely. 'Don't talk about
it, don't talk about it!' His trembling hands covered his eyes. 'I had a
horror of coming here,' he said, in a voice that was scarcely audible.
'I've never been before...the car passed that terrible archway and I
nearly fainted!'

Mr Harlow, one eye on the door, smiled indulgently. 'You have nothing to
fear, my dear Ellenbury,' he said in a paternal voice. 'I have in a sense
condoned your felony. In a sense,' he emphasised carefully. 'Whether a
judge would take the same view, I do not know. You understand the law
better than I. This much is certain; you are free, your debts are paid,
the money you stole from your clients has been made good and you have, I
think, an income which is, shall we say, satisfactory.'

The little man nodded and swallowed something. He was white to the lips,
and when he tried to lift a glass of water his hand shook so that he had
to put it down again. 'I'm very grateful,' he said. 'Very--very
grateful...I'm sorry-it was rather upsetting.'

'Naturally,' murmured Mr Harlow.

He took a notebook from his pocket, opened it with the greatest
deliberation and wrote for five minutes, the little lawyer watching him.
When he had finished he tore out the sheet and passed it across the
table.

'I want to know all about this man Arthur Ingle,' he said. 'When his
sentence expires, where he lives in London or elsewhere, his means and
especially his grudge against life. I don't know what it is, but I rather
suspect that it is a pretty big one. I should also like to know where his
niece is employed. Her name you will find on the paper, with a query mark
attached. I want to know who are her friends, what are her amusements,
her financial position is very important.'

'I understand.' Ellenbury put the paper carefully in a worn pocket-book.
And then, with one of his habitual starts: 'I had forgotten one thing, Mr
Harlow,' he said. 'On Monday last I had a visit at my office in Lincoln's
Inn Fields from the police.'

He said the last two words apologetically as though he were in some way
responsible for the character of his caller. Mr Harlow turned his pale
eyes upon his companion, made a long scrutiny of his face before he
asked: 'in what connection?'

'I don't know exactly,' said Ellenbury, who had a trick of reproducing at
a second's notice all the emotions he described. 'It was rather
puzzling.' He screwed up his face into an expression of bewilderment.
'You see, Mr Carlton did not come to any point.'

'Carlton?' demanded Harlow, quickly for him. 'That's the man at the
Foreign Office, isn't it?'

Ellenbury nodded.

'It was about the rubber fire. You remember the fire at the United
International factory? He wanted to know if Rata had any insurance on the
stock that was burnt and of course I told him that as far as I knew, we
hadn't.'

'Don't say "we,"' said Mr Harlow gently. 'Say the Rata Syndicate hadn't.
You are a lawyer acting for undisclosed principals. Well?'

'That was all,' said Ellenbury. 'He was very vague.'

'He always is vague,' interrupted Harlow with a faint smile, 'and he's
always unscrupulous--remember that, Ellenbury. Sub-Inspector James
Carlton is the most unscrupulous man that Scotland Yard has ever
employed. Some day he will be irretrievably ruined or irretrievably
promoted. I have a great admiration for him. I know of no man
in the world I rate higher in point of intelligence, acumen
and--unscrupulousness! He has a theory which is both admirable and
baffling. Which means that he has the right theory. For rectitude is the
most baffling of all human qualities, because you never know, if a man
is doing right, what he will do next. I think that is almost an epigram,
Ellenbury: you had best jot it down, so that if ever you are called upon
to write my biography you may have material to lighten its pages.' He
looked at his watch. I shall be at Park Lane at eleven o'clock on Friday
night, and I can give you ten minutes,' he said.

Ellenbury twiddled his fingers unhappily.

'Isn't there a risk--to you, I mean?' he blurted. 'Perhaps I'm stupid,
but I can't see why you do...well, why you take chances. With all your
money--'

Mr Harlow leaned back in the cushioned seat, amusement faintly visible in
his pale eyes.

'If you had millions what would you do? Retire, of course. Build or buy a
beautiful house--and then?'

'I don't know,' said the older man vaguely. 'One could travel...'

'The English people have two ideas of happiness: one comes from travel,
one from staying still! Rushing or rusting! I might marry but I don't
wish to marry. I might have a great stable of race-horses, but I detest
racing. I might yacht--I loathe the sea. Suppose I want a thrill? I do!
The art of living is the art of victory. Make a note of that. Where is
happiness in cards, horses, golf, women-anything you like? I'll tell you:
in beating the best man to it! That's An Americanism. Where is the joy of
mountain climbing, of exploration, of scientific discovery? To do better
than somebody else--to go farther, to put your foot on the head of the
next best.'

He blew a cloud of smoke through the open window and waited until the
breeze had torn the misty gossamer into shreds and nothingness.

'When you're a millionaire you either get inside yourself and become a
beast, or get outside of yourself and become a nuisance to your fellows.
If you're a Napoleon you will play the game of power, if you're a
Leonardo you'll play for knowledge--the stakes hardly matter; it's the
game that counts. Accomplishment has its thrill, whether it is hitting a
golf ball farther than the next fellow, or strewing the battle fields
with the bodies of your enemies. My thrill is harder to get than most
people's. I'm a millionaire. Sterling and dollars are my soldiers--I am
entitled to frame my own rules of war, conduct my forays in my own way.
Don't ask any further questions!'

He waved his hand towards the door and Mr Ellenbury was dismissed; and
shortly afterwards his hired car rattled loudly up the hill and past the
gates of the jail. Mr Ellenbury studiously turned his face in the
opposite direction.



CHAPTER 2


SOME EIGHT months later there was an accident on the Thames Embankment.
The girl in the yellow raincoat and the man in the black beret were of
one accord--they were anxious, for different reasons, to cross the most
dangerous stretch of the Embankment in the quickest possible space of
time. There was a slight fog which gave promise of being just plain fog
before the evening was far advanced. And through the fog percolated an
unpleasant drizzle which turned the polished surface of the road into an
insurance risk which no self-respecting company would have accepted.

The mudguard of the ancient Ford caught Aileen Rivers just below the left
elbow, and she found herself performing a series of unrehearsed
pirouettes. Then her nose struck a shining button and she slid
romantically to her knees at the feet of a resentful policeman. He lifted
her, looked at her, put her aside with great firmness and crossed to
where the radiator of the car was staring pathetically up a bent
lamp-post.

'What's the idea?' he asked sternly, and groped for his notebook.

The young man in the beret wiped his soiled face with the back of his
hand, a gesture which resulted in the further spread of his griminess.

'Was the girl hurt?' he asked quickly.

'Never mind about the girl; let's have a look at your licence.'

Unheeding his authoritative demand, the young man stalked across to where
Aileen, embarrassed by the crowd which gathered, was assuring several old
ladies that she wasn't hurt. She was standing on her two feet to prove
it.

'Waggle your toes about,' suggested a hoarse-voiced woman. 'If they won't
move, your back's broke!'

The experiment was not made, for at that moment the tall young man pushed
his way to the centre of the curious throng.

'Not hurt, are you?' he asked anxiously. 'I'm awfully sorry--really!
Didn't see you till the car was right on top of you.'

A voice from the crowd offered advice and admonition.

'You orter be careful, mister! You might 'a' killed somebody.'

'Tell me your name, won't you?'

He dived into his pocket, found an old envelope and paused.

'Really it isn't necessary, I'm quite unhurt,' she insisted, but he was
also insistent.

He jotted down name and address and he had finished writing when the
outraged constable melted through the crowd.

'Here!' he said, in a tone in which fierceness and reproach were mingled.
'You can't go running away when I'm talking to you, my friend! Just you
stand still and show me that licence of yours.'

'Did you see the blue Rolls?' demanded the young man. 'It was just ahead
of me when I hit the lamp-post.'

'Never mind about blue Rolls's,' said the officer in cold exasperation.
'Let me have a look at your licence.'

The young man slipped something out of his pocket and held it in the palm
of his hand. It was not unlike a driver's licence and yet it was
something else.

'What's the idea?' asked the policeman testily.

He snatched the little canvas-backed booklet and opened it, turning his
torch on the written words.

'Humph!' he said. 'Sorry, sir.'

'Not at all,' said Sub-Inspector James Carlton of Scotland Yard. 'I'll
send somebody down to clear away the mess. Did you see the Rolls?'

'Yes sir, just in front of you. Petrol tank dented.'

Carlton chuckled. 'Saw that too? I'll remember you, constable. You had
better send the girl home in a taxi--no, I'll take her myself.'

Aileen heard the proposal without enthusiasm. 'I much prefer to walk,'
she said definitely.

He led her aside from the crowd now being dispersed, authoritatively. And
in such privacy as could be obtained momentarily, he revealed himself.

'I am, in fact, a policeman,' he said; and she opened her eyes in wonder.

He did not look like a policeman, even in the fog which plays so many
tricks. He had the appearance of a motor mechanic, and not a prosperous
one. On his head was a black beret that had seen better days; he wore an
old mack reaching to his knees; and the gloves he carried under his arm
were black with grease.

'Nevertheless,' he said firmly, as though she had given oral expression
to her surprise, 'I am a policeman. But no ordinary policeman. I am an
inspector at Scotland Yard--a sub-inspector, it is true, but I have a
position to uphold.'

'Why are you telling me all this?'

'He had already hailed a taxi and now he opened the door. 'You might
object to the escort of an ordinary policeman,' he said airily, 'but my
rank is so exalted that you do not need a chaperon.'

She entered the cab between laughter and tears, for her elbow really did
hurt more than she was ready to confess.

'Rivers--Aileen Rivers,' he mused, as the cab went cautiously along the
Embankment. 'I've got you on the tip of my tongue and at the back of my
mind, but I can't place you.'

'Perhaps if you look up my record at Scotland Yard?' she suggested,
with a certain anger at his impertinence.

'I thought of doing that,' he replied calmly; 'but Aileen Rivers?' He
shook his head. 'No, I can't place you.' And of course he had placed her.
He knew her as the niece of Arthur Ingle, sometime Shakespearean actor
and now serving five years for an ingenious system of fraud and forgery.
But then, he was unscrupulous, as Mr Harlow had said. He had a power of
invention which carried him far beyond the creative line, but he was not
averse to stooping on the way to the most petty deceptions. And this in
spite of the fact that he had been well educated and immense sums had
been spent on the development of his mind, so that lie might distinguish
between right and wrong.

'Fotheringay Mansions.' He fingered his grimy chin. 'How positively
exclusive!'

She turned on him in sudden anger. 'I've accepted your escort, Mr--' She
paused insultingly.

'Carlton,' he murmured; 'half-brother to the hotel but no relation to the
club. And this is fame! You were saying?'

'I was going to say that I wished you would not talk. You have done your
best to kill me this evening; you might at least let me die in peace.'

He peered through the fog-shrouded windows. 'There's an old woman selling
chrysanthemums near Westminster Bridge; we might stop and buy you some
flowers.' And then, quickly: 'I'm terribly sorry, I won't ask you any
questions at all or make any comments upon your plutocratic residence.'

'I don't live there,' she said in self-defence. 'I go there sometimes to
see the place is kept in order. It belongs to a-a-relation of mine who is
abroad.'

'Monte Carlo?' he murmured. 'And a jolly nice place too! Rien ne va plus!
Faites vos jeux, monsieurs et mesdames! Personally I prefer San Remo.
Blue sky, blue sea, green hills, white houses--everything like a railway
poster.' And then he went off at a tangent. 'And talking of blueness, you
were lucky not to be hit by the blue Rolls; it was going faster than me,
but it has better brakes. I rammed his petrol tank in the fog, but even
that didn't make him stop.'

Her lips curled in the darkness. 'A criminal escaping from justice, one
thinks? How terribly romantic!'

The young man chuckled.

'One thinks wrong. It was a millionaire on his way to a City banquet. And
the only criminal charge I can bring home to him is that he wears large
diamond studs in his shirt, which offence is more against my aesthetic
taste than the laws of my country, God bless it!'

The cab was slowing, the driver leaning sideways seeking to identify the
locality.

'We're here,' said Mr Carlton; opened the door of the taxi while it was
still in motion and jumped out.

The machine stopped before the portals of Fotheringay Mansions.

'Thank you very much for bringing me home,' said Aileen primly and
politely, and added not without malice: 'I've enjoyed your conversation.'

'You should hear my aunt,' said the young man. 'Her line of talk is sheer
poetry!'

He watched her until she was swallowed in the gloom, and returned to the
cab.

'Scotland Yard,' he said laconically; 'and take a bit of a risk, O son of
Nimshi.'

The cabman took the necessary risk and arrived without hurt at the gloomy
entrance of police headquarters. Jim Carlton waved a brotherly greeting
to the sergeant at the desk, took the stairs two at a time, and came to
his own little room. As a rule he was not particularly interested in his
personal appearance, but now, glancing at the small mirror which
decorated the upturned top of a washstand, he uttered a groan.

He was busy getting the grease from his face when the melancholy face of
Inspector Elk appeared in the doorway.

'Going to a party?' he asked gloomily.

'No,' said Jim through the lather; 'I often wash.'

Elk sniffed, seated himself on the edge of a hard chair, searched his
pockets slowly and thoroughly.

'It's in the inside pocket of my jacket,' spluttered Carlton. 'Take one;
I've counted 'em.'

Elk sighed heavily as he took out the long leather case, and, selecting a
cigar, lit it.

'Seegars are not what they was when I was a boy,' he said, gazing at the
weed disparagingly. 'For sixpence you could get a real Havana. Over in
New York everybody smokes cigars. But then, they pay the police a livin'
wage; they can afford it.'

Mr Carlton looked over his towel. 'I've never known you to buy a cigar in
your life,' he said deliberately. 'You can't get them cheaper than for
nothing!'

Inspector Elk was not offended. 'I've smoked some good cigars in my
time,' he said. 'Over in the Public Prosecutor's office in Mr Gordon's
days--he was the fellow that smashed the Frogs--him and me, that is to
say,' he corrected himself carefully.

'The Frogs? Oh, yes, I remember. Mr Gordon had good cigars, did he?'

'Pretty good,' said Elk cautiously. 'I wouldn't say yours was worse, but
it's not better.' And then, without a change of voice: 'Have you pinched
Stratford Harlow?'

Jim Carlton made a grimace of disgust. 'Tell me something I can pinch him
for,' he invited.

'He's worth fifteen millions according to accounts,' said Elk. 'No man
ever got fifteen million honest.'

Jim Carlton turned a white, wet face to his companion. 'He inherited
three from his father, two from one aunt, one from another. The Harlows
have always been a rich family, and in the last decade they've graded
down to maiden aunts. He had a brother in America who left him eight
million dollars.'

Elk sighed and scratched his thin nose.

'He's in Ratas too,' he said complainingly.

'Of course he's in Ratas!' scoffed Jim. 'Ellenbury hides him, but even if
he didn't, there's nothing criminal in Ratas. And supposing he was openly
in it, that would be no offence.

'Oh!' said Elk, and by that 'Oh!' indicated his tentative disagreement.

There was nothing furtive or underhand about the Rata Syndicate. It was
registered as a public company, and had its offices in Westshire House,
Old Broad Street, in the City of London, and its New York office on Wall
Street. The Rata Syndicate published a balance sheet and employed a staff
of ten clerks, three of whom gained further emoluments by acting as
directors of the company, under the chairmanship of a retired colonel of
infantry. The capital was a curiously small one, but the resources of the
syndicate were enormous. When Rata cornered rubber, cheques amounting to
five millions sterling passed outward through its banking accounts; in
fact every cent involved in that great transaction appeared in the books
except the fifty thousand dollars that somebody paid to Lee Hertz and his
two friends.

Lee arrived from New York on a Friday afternoon. On the Sunday morning
the United Continental Rubber Company's stores went up in smoke. Nearly
eighteen thousand tons of rubber were destroyed in that well-organised
conflagration, and rubber jumped 80 per cent in twenty-four hours and 200
per cent in a week. For the big reserves that kept the market steady had
been wiped out in the twinkling of an eye, to the profit of Rata
Incorporated.

Said the New York Headquarters to Scotland Yard: Lee Hertz, Jo Klein and
Philip Serrett well known fire bugs believed to be in London stop See
record NY 9514 mailed you October 7 for description stop Possibility you
may connect them United Continental fire.

By the time Scotland Yard located Lee he was in Paris in his well-known
role of American Gentleman Seeing the Sights.

'It doesn't look right to me,' said Elk, puffing luxuriously at the
cigar. 'Here's Rata, buys rubber with not a ghost of a chance of its
rising. And suddenly, biff! A quarter of the reserve stock in this
country is burnt out, and naturally prices and shares rise. Rata's been
buying 'em for months. Did they know that the United was going west?'

'I thought it might have been an accident,' said Jim, who had never
thought anything of the sort.

'Accident my grandmother's right foot!' said Elk, without heat. 'The
stores were lit up in three places--the salvage people located the
petrol. A man answering the description of Jo Klein was drinking with the
night watchman the day before, and that watchman swears he never saw this
Jo bird again, but he's probably lying. The lower classes lie easier than
they drink. Ten millions, and if Harlow's behind Rata, he made more than
that on the rubber deal. Buying orders everywhere! Toronto, Rio,
Calcutta--every loose bit of rubber lifted off the market. Then comes the
fire, and up she goes! All I got to say is--'

The telephone bell rang shrilly at that second, and Jim Carlton picked up
the receiver.

'Somebody wants you, Inspector,' said the exchange clerk.

There was a click, an interval of silence, and then a troubled voice
asked:

'Can I speak to Mr Carlton?'

'Yes, Miss Rivers.'

'Oh, it's you, is it?' There was a nattering relief in the voice. 'I
wonder if you would come to Fotheringay Mansions, No. 63?'

'Is anything wrong?' he asked quickly.

'I don't know, but one of the bedroom doors is locked, and I'm sure
there's nobody in there.'



CHAPTER 3


THE GIRL was standing in the open doorway of the flat as the two men
stepped from the elevator. She seemed a little disconcerted at the sight
of Inspector Elk, but Jim Carlton introduced him as a friend and
obliterated him as a factor with one comprehensive gesture.

'I suppose I ought to have sent for the local police, only there
are--well, there are certain reasons why I shouldn't,' she said.

Somehow Jim had never thought she could be so agitated. The discovery had
evidently thrown her off her balance, and she was hardly lucid when she
explained.

'I come here to collect my uncle's letters,' she said. 'He's abroad...his
name is Jackson,' she said breathlessly. 'And every Thursday I have a
woman in to clean up the fiat. I can't afford the time; I'm working in an
office.'

They had left Elk staring at an engraving in the corridor, and it was an
opportunity to make matters a little easier, if at first a little more
uncomfortable, for her.

'Miss Rivers, your uncle is Arthur Ingle,' said Jim kindly, and she went
very red. 'It is quite understandable that you shouldn't wish to
advertise the fact, but I thought I'd tell you I knew, just to save you a
great deal of unnecessary--' He stopped and seemed at a loss.

'"Lying" is the word you want,' she said frankly. 'Yes, Arthur Ingle
lived here, but he lived here in the name of Jackson. Did you know that?'
she asked anxiously.

He nodded.

'That's the door.' She pointed.

The flat was of an unusual construction. There was a very large
dining-room with a low-timbered roof and panelled walls, from which led
three doors--one to the kitchenette, the other two, she explained, to
Arthur Ingle's bedroom and a spare apartment which he used as a lumber
room. It was the door of the lumber room which she indicated.

Jim tried the handle; the door was fast. Stooping down he peered through
the keyhole and had a glimpse of an open window through which the yellow
fog showed.

'Are these doors usually left open?'

'Always,' she said emphatically. 'Sometimes the cleaning woman comes
before I return. Tonight she is late and I'm rather early.'

'Where does that door lead?'

'To the kitchen.'

She went in front of him into the tiny room. It was spotlessly clean and
had one window, flush with that which he had seen through the keyhole of
the next room. He looked down into a bottomless void, but just beneath
was a narrow parapet. He swung one leg across the sill, only to find his
arm held in a frenzied grip by the girl.

'You mustn't go, you'll be killed!' she gasped and he laughed at her, not
ill pleased, for the risk was practically nil.

'I've got a pretty high regard for me,' he said, and in another instant
he had swung clear, gripped the lower sash of the second window and had
pulled himself into the room.

He could see nothing except the dim outlines of three trunks stacked one
on top of the other. He switched on the light and turned to survey the
confusion. Old boxes and trunks which, he guessed, had been piled in some
order, were dragged into the centre of the room to allow the free
operation of the vanished burglar. Recessed into the wall, thus cleared,
was a safe the door of which was open. On the floor beneath was a rough
circle of metal burnt from the door--it was still hot when he touched
it--by the small blowlamp that the burglar had left behind him.

He unlocked the door of the room and admitted Elk and the girl.

'That's good work,' said Elk, whose detached admiration for the genius of
law-breakers was at least sincere. 'Safe's empty! Not so much as a
cigarette card left behind. Good work! Toby Haggitt or Lew
Yakobi--they're the only two men in London that could have done it.'

The girl was gazing wide-eyed at the 'good work'. She was very pale, Jim
noticed, and misread the cause.

'What was in the safe?' he asked.

She shook her head.

'I don't know--I didn't even know that there was a safe in the room. He
will be terrible about this!'

Carlton knew the 'he' was the absent Ingle. 'He won't know for some time,
anyway--' he began, but she broke in upon his reassurance.

'Next week,' she said; 'he is being released on Wednesday.'

Elk scratched his chin thoughtfully. 'Somebody knew that,' he said; 'he
hadn't a partner either.'

Arthur Ingle was indeed a solitary worker. His frauds had been
unsuspected even by such friends as he had in his acting days--for they
had covered a period of twelve years before his arrest and conviction. To
the members of his company he was known as a bad paymaster and an
unscrupulous manager; none imagined that this clever player of character
parts was 'Lobber & Syne, Manufacturing Jewellers, of Clerkenwell,' and
other aliases that produced him such golden harvests.

'It was no fault of yours,' said Jim Carlton; and she submitted to a
gentle pat on the shoulder. 'There's no sense in worrying about it.'

Elk was examining the blowlamp under the electric light.

'Bet it's Toby,' he said, and walked to the window.

'That's his graft. He'd make a cat burglar look like a wool-eatin'
kitten! Parapets are like the Great West Road to Toby--he'd stop to
manicure his nails on three inches of rotten sandstone.'

The identity of the burglar worried Jim less than it did the girl. He had
the brain of a lightning calculator. A hundred aspects of the crime, a
hundred possibilities and explanations flickered through his mind and
none completely satisfied him. Unless--

The Splendid Harlow was on the way to becoming an obsession. There was no
immense sum of money to be made from discovering the secrets of a
convicted swindler.

That there was money in the safe he did not for one moment believe. Ingle
was not the type of criminal which hid its wealth in safes. He credited
him with a dozen banking accounts in fictitious names, and each holding
money on deposit.

They went back into the panelled dining-room. The apartment interested
Jim, for here was every evidence of luxury and refinement. The flat must
have cost thousands of pounds to furnish. And then he remembered that
Arthur Ingle had been convicted on three charges. Evidence in a number of
others, which must have produced enormous profits, was either missing or
of too shaky a character to produce. This apartment represented coups
more successful than those for which Arthur Ingle had been convicted.

'Do you know your uncle very well?'

She shook her head.

'I knew him better many years ago,' she said, 'when he was an actor,
before he--well, before he got rich! I am his only living relation.' She
raised her head, listening.

Somebody had knocked at the outer door.

'It may be the charwoman,' she said, and went along the passage to open
the door.

A man was standing on the mat outside, tall, commanding, magnificent in
his well-cut evening clothes. His snowy linen blazed and twinkled with
diamonds; the buttons on his white waistcoat were aglitter.

It was part of the primitive in the man, so that she saw nothing vulgar
in the display. But something within her shrank under his pale gaze. She
had a strange and inexplicable sensation of being in the presence of a
power beyond earthly control. She was crushed by the sense of his immense
superiority. So she might have felt had she found herself confronted by a
tiger.

'My name is Harlow--we met on Dartmoor,' he said, and showed a line of
even teeth in a smile. 'May I come in?'

She could not speak in her astonishment, but somebody answered for her.

'Come in, Harlow,' drawled Jim Carlton's voice. 'I'd love to have your
first impression of Dartmoor; is it really as snappy as people think?'



CHAPTER 4


MR. HARLOW'S attitude towards this impertinent man struck the girl as
remarkable. It was mild, almost benevolent; he seemed to regard James
Carlton as a good joke. And he was the great Harlow! She had learnt that
at Princetown.

You could not work in the City without hearing of Harlow, his coups and
successes. Important bankers spoke of him with bated breath. His money
was too liquid for safety: it flowed here and there in floods that were
more often than not destructive. Sometimes it would disappear into
subterranean caverns, only to gush forth in greater and more devastating
volume to cut new channels through old cultivations and presently to
recede, leaving havoc and ruin behind.

And of course she had heard of the police station. When Mr Harlow
interested himself in the public weal he did so thoroughly and
unconventionally. His letters to the press on the subject of penology
were the best of their kind that have appeared in print. He pestered
Ministers and commissioners with his plans for a model police station,
and when his enthusiasm was rebuffed he did what no philanthropist,
however public-minded, has ever done before.

He bought a freehold plot in Evory Street (which is not a stone's throw
from Park Lane), built his model police headquarters at the cost of two
hundred thousand pounds, and presented the building to the police
commissioners. It was a model police office in every respect. The men's
quarters above the station were the finest of their kind in the world.
Even the cells had the quality of comfort, though they contained the
regulation plank bed. This gift was a nine days' wonder. Topical revues
had their jokes about it; the cartoonists flung their gibes at the
Government upon the happening.

The City had ceased to think of him as eccentric, they called him 'sharp'
and contrasted him unfavourably with his father. They were a little
afraid of him. His money was too fluid for stability.

He nodded smilingly at Jim Carlton, fixed the unhappy Elk with a glance,
and then: 'I did not know that you and my friend Carlton were
acquainted.' And then, in a changed tone: 'I hope I am not de trop.'

His voice, his attitude said as plainly as words could express: 'I
presume this is a police visitation due to the notorious character of
your uncle?' The girl thought this. Jim knew it.

'There has been a burglary here and Miss Rivers called us in,' he said.

Harlow murmured his regrets and sympathy. 'I congratulate you upon having
secured the shrewdest officer in the police force.' He addressed the girl
blandly.

'And I congratulate the police force'--he looked at Jim--'upon detaching
you from the Foreign Office--you were wasted there, Mr Carlton, if I may
be so impertinent as to express an opinion.'

'I am still in the Foreign Office,' said Jim. 'This is spare-time work.
Even policemen are entitled to their amusements. And how did you like
Dartmoor?'

The Splendid Harlow smiled sadly. 'Very impressive, very tragic,' he
said. 'I am referring of course to Princetown, where I spent a couple of
nights.'

Aileen was waiting to hear the reason for the call; even though her
distress and foreboding she was curious to learn what whim had brought
this super-magnate to the home of a convict.

He looked slowly from her to the men and again Jim interpreted his
wishes; he glanced at Elk and walked with him into the lumber room.

'It occurred to me,' said Mr Harlow, 'that I might be in a position to
afford you some little help. My name may not be wholly unknown to you; I
am Mr Stratford Harlow.'

She nodded.

'I knew that,' she said.

'They told you at the Duchy, did they?' It seemed that he was relieved
that she had identified him.

'Mine is rather a delicate errand, but it struck me--I have found myself
thinking about you many times since we met--that possibly...I might be
able to find a good position for you. Your situation, if you will forgive
my saying as much, is a little tragic. Association with--er--criminals or
people with criminal records has a drugging effect even upon the finest
nature.'

She smiled. 'In other words, Mr Harlow,' she said quietly, 'you're under
the impression I'm rather badly off and that you would like to make life
easier for me?'

He beamed at this. 'Exactly,' he said.

'It is very kind of you--most kind,' she said, and meant it. 'But I have
a very good job in a lawyer's office.' He inclined his head graciously.
'Mr Stebbings has been very good to me--'

'Mr ----?' His head jerked on one side. 'Stebbings--of Stebbings, Field &
Farrow--surely not! They were my lawyers until a few years ago.'

She knew this also.

'Quite good people, though a little old-fashioned,' he said. 'Then of
course you have heard Mr Stebbings speak of me?'

'Only once,' she confessed. 'He is a very reticent man and never talks
about his clients.'

Harlow bit his lip in thought. 'An excellent fellow! I have often
wondered whether I was wrong in taking my affairs from him. I wish you
would mention that to him when you see him. I understood you were working
in the office of the New Library Syndicate?'

She smiled at this. 'It's curious you should say that; their offices are
in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but next door.'

'Ah!' he said. 'I see how the mistake arose,' and added quickly: 'A
friend of mine who knows you saw you going into--er--an office; and
obviously made a mistake.'

He did not tell her who was their mutual friend, and she was not
sufficiently interested to inquire.

This time the knock at the door was more pronounced.

'Will you excuse me?' she said. 'That is my cleaner, and she is rather
inclined to tell me her troubles. I may keep you waiting a little while.'

She left him and he heard the sounds of a door opening, as Jim Carlton
and Elk came back into the dining-room.

'A very charming young lady that,' said Mr Harlow.

'Very,' said Jim shortly.

'Women do not interest me greatly'--the Splendid Harlow picked a tiny
thread of cotton from his immaculate coat and dropped it on the floor.
'They think along lines which I find it difficult to follow. They are
emotional, too--swayed by momentary fears and scruples...'

The sound of voices in the passage, one high-pitched and complaining:

'...what with the fog and everything, miss, it's lucky I'm here at
all...'

A shabby figure passed the open door, followed by Aileen.

'I suppose you don't know Ingle, Mr Harlow?' Jim was examining the
photograph on the mantelpiece. 'A long-firm swindler; clever, but with a
kink even in his kinkiness! Believes in revolution and all that sort of
thing...blood and guillotines and tumbrils; the whole box of tricks--'

Something made him look round.

Mr Stratford Harlow was standing in the centre of the room, gripping the
edge of a small table to keep him upright.

His face was white and haggard and drawn; and in his pale eyes was a look
of horror such as Jim Carlton had never seen in the face of a man. Elk
sprang forward and caught him as he swayed and led him to a big settee.
Into this Stratford Harlow sank and leaning forward, covered his face
with his hands.

'Oh, my God!' he said as he rocked slowly from side to side and fell in a
heap on the ground.

The colossus had fainted.



CHAPTER 5


'A LITTLE heart trouble,' said Mr Harlow, smiling as he set down the
glass of water. 'I'm terribly sorry to have given you so much trouble,
Miss Rivers. I haven't had an attack in years.'

He was still pale, but such was his extraordinary self-control that the
hand that put down the glass was without a tremor.

'Phew!' He dabbed his forehead with a silk handkerchief and rose steadily
to his feet.

Elk was engaged in the prosaic task of brushing the dust stains from his
knees and looked up.

'You'd better let me take you home, Mr Harlow,' he said.

Stratford Harlow shook his head.

'That is quite unnecessary--quite,' he said. 'I have my car at the door
and a remedy for all such mental disturbances as these! And it is not a
drug!' he smiled.

Nevertheless, Elk went with him to the car.

'Will you tell my chauffeur to drive to the Charing Cross power station?'
was the surprising request; and long after the car had moved off in the
fog Elk stood on the sidewalk, wondering what business took this
multi-millionaire to such a venue.

They evidently knew Mr Harlow at the power station and they at any rate
saw nothing remarkable in his visit.

The engineer, who was smoking at the door, stood back to let him walk
into the great machinery hall, and placed a stool for him. And there for
half an hour he sat, and the droning of the dynamos and the whirr and
thud of the great engines were sedatives and anodynes to his troubled
mind.

Here he had come before, to think out great schemes, which developed best
in this atmosphere. The power and majesty of big wheels, the rhythm of
the driving belts as they sagged and rose, the shaded lights above the
marble switchboards, the noisy quiet of it all, stimulated him as nothing
else could. Here he found the illusion of irresistibility that attuned so
perfectly to his own mood; the inevitable effects of the inevitable
causes. The sense that he was standing near the very heart of power was
an inspiration. This lofty hall was a very home of the gods to him.

Half an hour, an hour, passed, and then he rose with a catch of his
breath, and a slow smile lit the big face. 'Thank you, Harry, thank you.'

He shook the attendant's hand and left something that crinkled in the
hard palm of the workman. A few minutes later he drove through
brilliantly illuminated Piccadilly Circus and could offer a friendly nod
to the flickering and flashing lights whose birth he had seen and whose
very brilliance was a homage to the steel godhead.

To be thoroughly understood, Mr Stratford Harlow must be known.

There had been five members of the Harlow family when Stratford Selwyn
Mortimer Harlow was born, and they were all immensely rich. His mother
died a week later, his father when he was aged three, leaving the infant
child to the care of his Aunt Mercy, a spinster who was accounted, even
by her charitable relatives, as 'strange'. The boy was never sent to
school, for his health was none of the best and he had his education at
the hands of his aunt. An enormously rich woman with no interest in life,
she guarded her charge jealously. Family interference drove her to a
frenzy. The one call that her two sisters paid her, when the boy was
seven, ended in a scene on which Miss Alice, the younger, based most of
her conversation for years afterwards.

The main result of the quarrel between Miss Mercy and her maiden sisters
was that she shut up Kravelly Hall and removed, with her maid Mrs Edwins,
to a little cottage at Teignmouth. Here she lived unmolested by her
relatives for seven years. She then went to Scarborough for three years
and thence to Bournemouth. Regularly every month she wrote to her two
sisters and her bachelor brother in New York; and the terminology of the
letters did not vary by so much as a comma:

"Miss Mercy Harlow presents her compliments and begs to state that The
Boy is in Good Health and is receiving adequate tuition in the essential
subjects together with a sound instruction in the tenets of the
Protestant Faith."

She had engaged a tutor, a bearded young man from Oxford University (she
deigned to mention this fact to her brother, with whom she had not
quarrelled), whose name was Marling. There came to the ears of Aunt Alice
a story which called into question the fitness of Mr Marling to mould the
plastic mind of youth. A mild scandal at Oxford. Miss Alice felt it her
duty to write, and after a long interval had a reply:

"Miss Mercy Harlow begs to thank Miss Alice Harlow for her communication
and in reply begs to state that she has conducted a very thorough and
searching enquiry into the charges preferred against Mr Saul Marling
(B.A. Oxon) and is satisfied that Mr Marling acted in the most honourable
manner, and has done nothing with which he may reproach himself or which
renders him unfit to direct the studies of The Boy."

This happened a year before Miss Mercy's death. When nature took its toll
and she passed to her Maker, Miss Alice hastened to Bournemouth and in a
small and secluded cottage near Christchurch found a big and solemn young
man of twenty-three, dressed a little gawkily in black. He was tearless;
and indeed, his aunt suspected, almost cheerful, at the prospect of being
freed from Miss Mercy's drastic management.

The bearded tutor had left (Mrs Edwins, the maid, tearfully explained) a
fortnight before the passing of Miss Mercy.

'And if he hadn't gone,' said Miss Alice with tight lips, 'I should have
made short work of him. The Boy has been suppressed! He hasn't a word to
say for himself!'

A council was held, including the family lawyer, who was making his first
acquaintance with Stratford. It was agreed that The Boy should have a
flat in Park Lane and the companionship of an elder man who combined a
knowledge of the world with a leaning towards piety. Such was found in
the Rev. John Barthurst, M.A., an ex-naval chaplain.

Miss Edwins was pensioned off and the beginning of Stratford's
independent life was celebrated with a dinner and a visit to Charley's
Aunt, through which roaring farce he sat with a stony face.

The tutelage lasted the best part of a year; and then the quiet young man
suddenly came to life, dismissed his worldly and pious companion with a
cheque for a thousand pounds, summoned Mrs Edwins to be his housekeeper;
and bought and reconstructed the Duke of Greenhart's house in Park Lane.

And thenceforward Mr Harlow's name began to appear in the records of
important transactions. Family fortunes dropped into his lap. Miss Mercy
had been fabulously rich. She had left him every penny of her fortune,
with the exception of £100 to Lucy Edwins in recognition of her faithful
service, realising that she will not regard this sum as inadequate in
view of the great service I rendered to her.' Then Miss Henrietta died;
and when the death duties were paid there was the greater part of two
millions. Miss Alice left more. The bachelor uncle in New York died a
comparative pauper, leaving a beggarly six hundred thousand.

Mr Harlow's house was a rather ugly three-storey building which occupied
a small island site, possibly the most valuable in Park Lane, though the
actual entrance was not in that exclusive thoroughfare, but in the side
street. He opened the door with a key and walked into the hall. The door
to the library faced him. There were some letters on the table, which he
scanned through rapidly, opening only one. It was from Ellenbury; and
just then Mr Harlow was annoyed with Ellenbury; he had supplied erroneous
information about Aileen Rivers, and had made him look a fool.

He read the letter carefully, and then dropped it in the fire and watched
it turn black.

'A useful man, but a thought too anxious. It was a mistake perhaps to
keep him so taut. He must be let down,' Mr Harlow decided. A little of
his own confidence must be infused into his helper. Too great a desire to
please, too present a fear of failure: those were Ellenbury's weaknesses.

He pressed an ivory bell on his desk, sat down, reached to the wall, slid
back a panel and took out a small black bottle, a siphon and a glass. He
poured out barely more whisky than was enough to cover the bottom of the
tumbler, and filled it to the top with soda-water. The glass was
half-empty when Mrs Edwins, his housekeeper, came in without knocking. A
tall, yellow-faced woman, with burning black eyes, she showed nothing of
the slowness or decrepitude that might have been expected in a woman near
seventy.

'You rang?'

Miss Mercy's maid of other days had a voice as sharp and clear as a bugle
note. She stood before the desk, her hands behind her, her eyes fixed on
his.

'Yes,' he said, turning over his letters once more. 'Is everything all
right?'

'Everything.'

Like a bugle note and with some of a bugle's stridency.

'Couldn't we keep a servant in the house?' she asked. 'The hours are a
little too long for me. I didn't get to bed until one o'clock yesterday,
and I had to be up at seven to let them in.'

It was a curious fact that no servants slept at No. 704, Park Lane. There
was not a house of its size, or an establishment of such pretensions, in
all the country where every servant slept out. Mr Harlow's excuse to his
friends was that the room space was too valuable for servants, but he
denied this by hiring an expensive house in Charles Street for their
accommodation.

'No, I don't think it is necessary,' he said, pursing his lips. 'I
thought you understood that.'

'I might die, or be taken ill in the night,' said Mrs Edwins
dispassionately, 'and then where would you be?'

He smiled. 'It would be rather a case of where would you be, I think.' he
said in excellent humour. 'Nothing has happened?'

She considered her answer before she replied. 'Somebody called, that was
all,' she said, 'but I'll tell you about that afterwards.'

He was amused. 'A good many people call. Very well--be mysterious!'

He got up from his chair and walked out of the room, and she followed.
There was a tiny elevator in the hall, big enough for two, but she
declined this conveyance.

'I'll walk,' she said, and he laughed softly.

'You were complaining about feeling tired just now,' he retorted as he
closed the grille before the little lift.

He pressed the top button, the elevator moved swiftly and noiselessly
upwards and came at last to a stop on the third floor, where he stepped
out to a square-carpeted landing from which led two doors. Here he
waited, humming softly to himself, until the woman came in sight round
the bend of the stairs.

'You're an athlete,' he said pleasantly and, jerking out a pocket-chain,
selected a small key and opened the door on the left.

It was a big and artistically furnished apartment, lit from the cornice
by concealed light and from the floor by two red-shaded lamps. In one
corner of the room was an ornate wooden bed of red lacquer decorated with
Chinese paintings in gold. At a small Empire desk near one of the
windows, which were heavily curtained, sat a man. He was almost as tall
as Stratford Harlow; and the features which would have arrested the
attention of a stranger were his big, dome-shaped forehead and the long
golden-yellow beard which, in spite of his age--and he must have been as
old as Harlow himself--was untinged with grey.

He was reading, one thin hand on his cheek, his eyes fixed upon the book
that lay or the desk, and not until Mr Harlow spoke did he look up.

'Hallo, Marling!' said Stratford Harlow gently.

The man leaned back in his chair, closed the book, mechanically marking
his place with a thin tortoise-shell paper-knife.

'Good evening,' he said simply.

'Time you had your walk, isn't it?'

There was a second door in the room and towards this Mr Harlow glanced.

'Yes, I suppose it is,' said the man, and rose.

He wore a short dressing-jacket of dark blue velvet; his feet were
encased in red morocco slippers. His glance strayed back to the closed
book as though he were reluctant to have his reading interrupted.

'The Odes of Horace,' he said; 'an English translation, but full of
errors.'

'Yes, yes,' smiled Mr Harlow. 'It's rather late for Horace.'

The woman was standing by the door, stiffly erect, her hands folded in
front of her, her dark eyes on her master.

'Do you know who you are, my friend?' he asked.

The bearded man put his white hand to his forehead.

'I am Saul Marling, a graduate of Balliol,' he said.

Mr Harlow nodded.

'And--anything eke?' he asked.

Again the hand went up to the dome-shaped forehead.

'I forget...how absurd! It was something I saw, wasn't it?' he asked
anxiously.

'Something you saw,' agreed Mr Harlow, 'just before Miss Mercy died.'

The other heaved a sigh.

'She died very suddenly. She was very kind to me in all my little
troubles. Awfully suddenly! She used to sit on the chair talking to you,
and then one night after dinner she fell down.'

'On the floor,' nodded Mr Harlow, almost cheerfully. 'But you saw
something, didn't you?' he encouraged. 'A little bottle and some blue
stuff. Wake up, Marling! You remember the little bottle and the blue
stuff?'

The man shook his head.

'Not clearly...that was before you and Mrs Edwins took me away. I drank
the white powders--they fizzed like a seidlitz powder--and then...'

'To the country,' smiled Harlow. 'You were ill, my poor old fellow, and
we had to prescribe something to quieten you. You're all right?'

'My head is a little confused--' began the man, but Harlow laughed,
caught him almost affectionately by the arm and, opening the narrow door,
led his companion up a flight of steep stairs. At the top of this was
another door, which Mr Harlow unlocked. They were on the roof of
Greenhart House, a wide, flat expanse of asphalt confined within a
breast-high parapet. For half an hour they walked up and down arm-in-arm,
the bigger man talking all the time. The fog was thick, the street lamps
showed themselves below as patches of dull yellow luminosity.

'Cold? I told you to put on your scarf, you stupid chap!' Mr Harlow was
good-humoured even in his annoyance.

'Conic along, we'll go down.'

In the room below he fastened the door and gazed approvingly round the
comfortable apartment. He took up one of the eight volumes that lay on a
table. They still wore the publishers' wrappers and had arrived that day.

'Reading maketh a full man--you will find the Augustan histories a little
heavy even for a graduate of Oxford, eh? Good night. Marling--sleep
well.'

He locked the door and went out on to the landing with Mrs Edwins. Her
hard eyes were fixed on his face, and until he spoke she was silent.

'He's quite all right,' he said.

'Is he?' Her harsh voice was disagreeable. 'How can he be all right if
he's reading and writing?'

'Writing?' he asked quickly. 'What?'

'Oh, just stuff about the Romans, but it reads sensible.'

Mr Harlow considered this frowningly. 'That means nothing. He gives no
trouble.'

'No,' she said shortly. 'I get worried,' she went on, 'but he's quiet.
Who is Mr Carlton?'

Harlow drew a quick breath. 'Has he been here?'

She nodded. 'Yes--this afternoon. He asked me if I was Miss Mercy's old
maid--she must have died soon after he was born.'

'He's older than that--well?'

'I thought it was queer, but he said he'd been asked to trace Mr Saul
Marling.'

'By whom?'

She confessed her ignorance with a look. 'I don't know; but it was a
proper inquiry. He showed me the papers. They were from Eastbourne. I
told him Marling was dead. "Where?" he said. "In South America," I told
him.'

'Pernambuco,' emphasised Mr Harlow, 'in the plague epidemic. Humph!
Clever...and unscrupulous. Thank you.'

She watched him pass into the elevator and drop out of sight, then she
went into the second room that opened from the landing. This too, was
pleasantly furnished. Turning on the lights she sat down and opened a big
chintz bag.

From this she took an unfinished stocking and adjusted her knitting
needles. And as her nimble fingers moved, so did her lips.

'Pernambuco-in the plague epidemic,' she was saying.



CHAPTER 6


AILEEN RIVERS lived in Bloomsbury, which had the advantage of being near
her work. She had spent a restless night, and the day that followed had
been full of vexation. Mr Stebbings, her immediate chief, was away
nursing a cold; and his junior partner, with whom she was constantly
brought into contact that day, was a tetchy and disagreeable man, with a
habit of mislaying important documents and blaming the person who
happened to be most handy for their disappearance.

At six o'clock in the evening she locked up her desk with a sigh of
thankfulness, looking forward to a light dinner and an early bedtime.
Through her window she had seen the car drawn up by the kerb, and at
first had thought it was waiting for a client, so that she was a little
surprised, and by no means pleased, when, as she came down the steps of
the old-fashioned house where the office was situate, a young man crossed
the broad sidewalk towards her and lifted his hat.

'Oh, you!' she said in some dismay,

'Me, or I, as the case may be; I'm not quite certain which,' said Jim
Carlton. 'And your tone is offensive,' he said sternly. 'By rights Elk or
I should have been interviewing you at all sorts of odd hours during the
day.'

'But what on earth can I tell you?' she asked, exasperated. You know
everything about the burglary--I suppose that is what you mean?'

'That is what I mean,' said Jim. 'It is very evident that you know
nothing about policemen. You imagine, I suppose, that Scotland Yard says
"Hallo, there's been a burglary in Victoria. How interesting! Nobody
knows, anything about it, so we'll let the matter drop." You're wrong!'

'I'm much too hungry to talk.'

'So I guessed,' he said. 'There is an unpretentious restaurant at King's
Cross, where the sole bonne femme is worthy only of the pure of heart.'

She hesitated. 'Very well,' she said a little ungraciously. 'Is that your
car? How funny!'

'There's nothing funny about my car,' he said with dignity, 'and it is
not my car. I borrowed it.'

It was a clear night of stars and there was a touch of frost in the air
and, although she would not have admitted as much for untold wealth, she
enjoyed the short run that brought them to the side entrance of a large
restaurant filled with people in varying stages of gastronomic enjoyment.

'I have booked a table,' he said, piloting her through an avenue of
working jaws to a secluded corner of the annexe.

The atmosphere of the place was very satisfying. The pink table-lamps had
a soothing effect, and she could examine him at her leisure. In truth it
had been one of the sources of irritation of that very unhappy day that
she could not quite remember what he looked like. She knew that he was
not repulsive, and had a misty idea that he was rather good-looking, but
that his nose was too short. It proved on inspection to be of a
reasonable length. His eyes were blue and he was a little older than she
had thought. Half her disrespect was based on the illusion of his youth.

'Now ask all your horrid questions,' she said as she took off her gloves.

'Number one,' he began. 'What did Harlow offer you when I so discreetly
withdrew last night?'

'That has nothing to do with the burglary,' she answered promptly. 'But
as it wasn't very important, I will tell you. He offered me a position.'

'Where?' he asked quickly.

She shook her head.

'I don't know. We didn't get as far as that; I told him I was perfectly
happy with Mr Stebbings--who, by the way, used to be the lawyer of the
Harlow family.'

'Did you tell him that?' He thrust his head forward eagerly.

'Why, no--he told me, though of course I knew,' she said. 'He knew, the
moment I mentioned Stebbings's name.'

'Was he impressed?' he asked after a pause and she laughed.

'How ridiculous you are! Seriously, Mr--'she paused insultingly.

'Carlton,' he murmured; 'half-brother to the hotel but no relation to the
club.'

'You worked that one last night,' she said.

'And I shall work it every night you pretend to forget my name! Anyway,
it is a confession of crass ignorance which no modern young woman can
afford to make. I am one of the most famous men in London.'

'I think I've heard you say that before,' she said mendaciously. 'Now
tell me seriously, Mr Carlton--'

'Got it!' he murmured.

'What do you want to know about the burglary?'

'Nothing,' was the shameless reply. 'As a matter of fact, I have saved
you a great deal of trouble by supplying headquarters with all the
details they need. Your uncle emerges tomorrow; do you know that?'

'Tomorrow?' she said, with a pang of apprehension.

'And Elk is going to meet him and take some of the sting out of his
anger. I suppose he will be very angry?'

'He'll be furious,' said the girl, troubled. And then, with a quick sigh,
'I'll be awfully glad when he has "emerged," as you call it. He allows me
two pounds a week for my trouble, but I can well spare that.'

'Arthur Ingle ought to be ashamed of himself to drag you into the light
which shines so brightly upon the unjust,' he said. 'There is only one
thing I want to know about him, and perhaps you can tell me--was your
uncle a great speculator?'

'I don't think so. But really I don't know. He never spoke to me about
any investments. Is that what you mean?'

'That is just what I mean,' said Jim. He found it difficult to put the
question without offence. 'You've had interviews with him and I dare say
you've discussed his business to some extent. I shouldn't ask you to
betray his confidence and I don't suppose for one minute you will. Did he
ever talk about foreign gilt-edged investments?'

She was shaking her head before he finished the question.

'Never,' she said. 'I don't think he knows much about them. I remember
the first time I saw him at Dartmoor he told me he didn't believe in
putting money in shares. Of course, I'm well aware he has money, but you
know that, too, and I suppose it is stolen money that he's--'

'Cached--yes,' said Jim.

He was very serious. It was the first time she had seen him in that mood
and she rather liked it.

'Only one more question. You don't know that he is in any way connected
with a firm called Rata?'

And, when she confessed that she had never heard of such a firm, his
seriousness was at an end.

'And that's the whole of the questionnaire, back page and everything!'

He leaned back to allow the burly waiter to place the dish on the table.
'Sole bonne femme is good for the tired business girl. Will you have
wine, or just the Lord's good water?'

After this he became his old flippant self. He made no further allusion
to her uncle; and if he talked a great deal about himself, it was
interesting, for he talked shop, and Scotland Yard shop is the second
most interesting in the world. He lived at his club.

'I'd better give you the telephone number in case you ever want me.' He
scrawled the address on the back of the menu and tore off the corner.

'Why should I want you?'

'I don't know. I've just got a feeling that you might. I'm a hunch
merchant--do you know what a hunch merchant is?'

She could guess.

'Premonitions are my long suit, telepathy my sixth sense, and I've got a
hunch...perhaps I'm wrong. I hope I am.'

Once or twice he had looked at his watch, a little furtively, she
thought, yet it seemed that he was prepared to break any appointment he
had made, for he lingered over his coffee until she brought a happy
evening to an abrupt close by putting on her gloves. As they were driving
back to her rooms: 'I haven't asked you very much about yourself. That is
the kind of impertinence which really scares me,' he said, 'but I gather
that you're unmarried--and unengaged?' he asked.

'I have no followers,' she said without embarrassment, 'and I hope that
confession will offer no encouragement to the philandering constabulary!'

He chuckled for fully a minute.

'That's good,' he said at last.' "Philandering constabulary" is taken
into use for special occasions. You're the first woman--'

'Don't!' she warned him.

'--I've ever met with a real sense of humour,' he concluded. 'I'm sorry
to disappoint you.'

'I wasn't disappointed. I expected something banal,' she said. 'My house
is the third on the left...thank you.'

She got down without assistance and offered her hand, and as he looked
past her towards the door of the house:

'The number is 163,' she said, 'but you needn't write unless you've
something very policey to write about. Good night!'

Jim Carlton was smiling all the way to Whitehall Gardens and his sense of
amusement still held when he followed the footman into Sir Joseph
Layton's study.

The words 'Joseph Layton' are familiar to all who carry passports, for he
was the Foreign Secretary, a man of slight figure and ascetic face; and
possibly the most cartooned politician in Britain.

He looked up over his big horn-rimmed glasses as Jim came in. 'Sit down,
Carlton.' He blotted the letter he had been writing, inserted it with
punctilious care into an envelope, and addressed it with a flourish
before he spoke. 'I've just come back from the House. Did you call
before?'

'No, sir.'

'Humph!' He settled himself more easily in his padded chair, put the tips
of his fingers together, and again scrutinised the detective over his
glasses. 'Well, what are the developments?' he asked, and added: 'I've
seen the cables you sent me. Curious--very curious indeed. You
intercepted them?'

'Some of them, sir,' said Jim. 'A great deal of the correspondence of the
Rata Syndicate goes through other channels. But there's enough to show
that Rata is there preparing for a big killing. I should imagine that
every big broking house in the world has received similar instructions.'

Sir Joseph unlocked a drawer of his desk and, pulling it open, took out a
number of sheets of paper fastened together by a big brass clip. He
turned the leaves slowly.

'I suppose this one is typical,' he said.

It was a message addressed to Rata Syndicate, Wall Street: 'Be ready to
sell for 15 per cent. drop undermentioned securities.'

Here followed a long list that covered two pages of writing, and against
each stock was the number to be sold.

'Yes,' said Sir Joseph, stroking his little white moustache thoughtfully.
'Very peculiar, very remarkable! As you said in your letter, these are
the very stocks which would be instantly affected by the threat of war.
But who on earth are we going to fight? The International situation was
never easier. The Moroccan question has been settled. You read my speech
in the House last night?' Jim nodded. 'Upon my word,' said Sir Joseph, 'I
think I was very careful to avoid anything like unjustifiable optimism,
but, searching the world from East to West, I can see no single cloud on
the horizon.'

Jim Carlton reached out, took the papers and read them through carefully.

'I think,' said the Foreign Minister with a twinkle in his eye, 'you have
at the back of your mind the vision of some diabolical conspiracy to
embroil the world in war. Am I right? Secret agents, traffic in secret
plans, cellar meetings with masked and highly-placed diplomats?'

'Nothing so romantic,' smiled Jim. 'No; I wasn't brought up in that
school. I know how wars are made. They grow as storms grow--out of the
mists that gather on marshlands and meadows. Label them "the rising
clouds of national prejudice," and you've got a rough illustration.'

'Come now, Mr Carlton, who is your ideal conspirator? I'm sure I know.
You think Harlow is behind Rata; and that he has some diabolical scheme
for stirring up the nations?'

'I think Harlow is behind most of the big disturbances,' said Jim slowly.
'He's got too much money; can't you get some of it away from him?'

'We do our best,' said the Foreign Minister dryly; 'but he is one of the
few people in England who can look the sur-tax collector in the eye and
never quail!'

Jim went back to Scotland Yard expecting to find Elk, but learned that
that intelligent officer had left earlier in the evening for Devonshire.
He was to meet Ingle on his release from prison and accompany him to
town. And Inspector Elk's mission was certainly not on Aileen's behalf,
nor had he any humanitarian idea of preparing the convict for news of the
burglary.

The first idea (and this proved to be wrong) was that there was a reason
and a mind behind this crime. Something had been taken of such value as
justified the risk.

The sudden appearance of Harlow in the flat immediately after the crime
had been committed had convinced Carlton that his visit was associated
with the safe robbery. Harlow should have been at a City banquet--Jim had
been trailing him all that day, and had known his destination. Indeed,
his name had appeared in the morning newspapers as having been present at
the dinner. And yet, within an hour of the accident on the Embankment,
Harlow had turned up at Fotheringay Mansions, and had not deigned to
offer an excuse for his absence from the dinner, although Jim was sure he
knew that he had been trailed.

The early morning found Inspector Elk shivering on the wind-swept
platform of Princetown. There were very few people in the waiting train
at that hour; a workman or two on their way to an intermediate station, a
commercial traveller who had been detained overnight and was probably
looking forward to the comforts of Plymouth, comprised the list. It was
within a minute of starting time, and he was beginning to think that he
had wasted his time getting up so early, when he saw two men walk on to
the platform.

One was a warder, and the other a thin man in an ill-fitting blue suit.
The warder disappeared into the booking-office and came back with a
ticket, which he handed to the other.

'So long, Ingle!' said the officer, and held out his hand, which the
ex-convict took grudgingly.

Ingle stepped into the carriage and was turning to shut the door when Elk
followed him and the recognition was immediate. Into the keen eyes of
Arthur Ingle came a look of deep suspicion.

'Hallo! What do you want?' he asked harshly.

'Why, bless my life, if it isn't Ingle!' said Elk with a gasp. 'Well,
well, well! It doesn't seem five years ago--'

'What do you want?' asked Ingle again.

'Me? Nothing! I've been up to the prison making a few inquiries about a
friend of one of those mocking birds, but you know what they are--it was
love's labour lost, so to speak,' said Elk, lighting a cigar and offering
the case to his companion.

Ingle took the brown cylinder, smelt it and, biting off the end savagely,
accepted the light which the detective held for him. By this time the
train was moving and they were free from any possibility of interruption.

'Let me see: I heard something about you the other day...What was it?' Mr
Elk held his forehead, a picture of perplexity. 'I've got it!' he said.
'There was a burglary at your flat.'

The cigar dropped from the man's hand.

'A burglary?' he said shrilly. 'What was stolen?'

'Somebody opened the safe in your locker room--'

Ingle sprang to his feet, his teeth bared, his eyes glaring. 'The safe!'
He almost screamed the words. 'Opened the safe--damn them! They're not
satisfied with sending me to five years of this hell, but they want to
catch me again, do they...?'

Elk let him rave on until, in his rage, the man's voice sank to a hoarse
rattle of sound.

'I hope you didn't lose any money?'

'Money!' snarled the man. 'Do you think I'm the kind who puts money in a
safe? You know what I lost!' He pointed an accusing finger at the
detective. 'You fellows did it! So that's why you're here, eh? A prison
gate arrest, is it?'

'My dear, good man!' Elk was pained. 'I don't know what you're talking
about! You're no more under arrest than I am. You could walk out of that
door as free as the air, if the train wasn't moving.' And then he asked:
'What did they pinch?'

It was a long time before the man recovered himself. 'If you don't know
I'm not going to tell you,' he said. 'Some day--' He ground his teeth and
in his eyes glared; the fires of fanaticism. 'You, and the like of you,
call me a thief!' His voice rose again as he talked rapidly. 'You branded
me and put me into prison--segregated me from my kind...a pariah, a
leper! For what? For skimming off a little of the stolen cream! For
taking a little of the money wrested from sweating bodies and breaking
hearts! It was mine--mine!' He struck his chest with a bony fist, his
eyes blazing. 'The money belonged to me--to my fellows, to those men
there!' He pointed back to where, beyond the brow of a rise, lay the grim
prison building. 'I took it from those fat and greasy men and I'm glad of
it! One jewel less for their horrible women; one motor-car fewer for
their slaves to clean!'

'Great idea,' murmured Elk sympathetically.

'You! What are you? The lackey of a class,' sneered Ingle. 'The hired
torturer--the prison-feeder!'

'Quite right,' murmured Elk, listening with closed eyes.

'If they found those papers they've something to think about--do you
hear?--something to spoil their night's sleep! And if there is sedition
in them I'm willing to go back to Princetown.'

Elk opened his eyes quickly. 'Oh, was that what it was?' he asked,
disappointed. 'Revolution stuff?'

The man nodded curtly.

'I thought it was something worth while!' said Elk, annoyed. 'Silly idea
though, isn't it. Ingle?'

'To you, yes. To me, no,' snapped the other. 'I hate England! I hate the
English! I hate all middle-class people, the smirking self-satisfied
swine! I hated them when I was a starving actor and they sat in their
stalls with a sneer on their overfed faces...' He choked.

'There's a lot to be said for fat people,' mused Elk. 'Now take
Harlow-though you wouldn't call him a fat man.'

'Harlow!' scoffed the other. 'Another of your moneyed gods!' Evidently he
remembered something, for he stopped suddenly.

'Moneyed gods--?' suggested Elk.

'I don't know.' The man shook his head. 'He may not be what he seems. In
there'--he jerked his head backwards--'they say he's crook to his back
teeth! But he doesn't rob the poor. He takes it in large slabs from the
fat men.'

'If that's so, I've nothing to say. He's on the side of law and order,'
said Elk gently. 'A man who hands out police stations as Christmas
presents can't be wholly bad!'

By the time the train pulled into Plymouth station, Detective-Inspector
Elk was perfectly satisfied that there was nothing further to be learnt
from the man. He went to the post office and sent a telegram to Jim which
was short and expressive.

'Revolution stuff. Nothing important.'

He was on the same train that carried Mr Ingle to London, but he did not
occupy the same compartment, except for half an hour after the train
flashed through Bath, when he strolled into the carriage and sat down by
the man's side; and apparently he was welcome, for Ingle started talking.

'Have you seen anything of my niece? Docs she know about the burglary? I
think you told me, but I was so angry that I can't remember.' And, when
Elk had given him the fullest particulars: 'Harlow! Why did he come? He
met Aileen at Dartmoor, you say?' He frowned and suddenly slapped his
knee. 'I remember the fellow. He was sprawling in his car by the side of
the road when we came back from the field that day. So that was Harlow!
Does he know Aileen?' he asked suspiciously.

'They met at Dartmoor; that's all I know.' Ingle gave one of his
characteristic shrugs.

'I suppose he's running after her? She's a pretty sort of girl. With that
type of man, money's no object. She's old enough to look after herself
without my assistance.' So this Utopian left Aileen Rivers to her fate.



CHAPTER 7


HE HAD wired from Plymouth asking her to call at the flat that night, and
she arrived just as he had finished a dinner he had cooked for himself.

'Yes, I've heard about the burglary,' he said, cutting short her
question. 'They've got nothing that was worth a shilling to them, thank
God! Why did you call in the police?'

And then he had a shock.

'Who else should I have called in--a doctor?' she asked.

It was the first time he had met her in a period of freedom. She had had
her instructions to look after the flat, smuggled out of prison by a
discharged convict; and their talks during the brief visiting hours had
been mainly on business.

'What does one usually do when a burglary is discovered?' she asked. 'I
sent for the police--of course I sent!'

He stared at her fiercely, but she did not flinch. It was his eyes which
dropped first.

'I suppose it's all right,' he said, and then: 'You know Harlow, don't
you?'

'I met him at Dartmoor, yes.'

'A friend of yours?'

'No more than you are,' she said; and he had his second shock. 'I'm not
going to quarrel with you, and I don't see why you should want to be rude
to me,' he snapped. 'You've been useful, but I've not been ungenerous.
Harlow is a friend of yours--'

'He called here on the night of the burglary to offer me a job,' she
replied, without any visible evidence other rising anger. 'I met him at
Princetown and he seemed to think that because of my relationship with
you, I should find it rather difficult to get employment.'

He muttered something under his breath which she did not catch and it
occurred to her that she had cowed this bullying little man, though she
had had no such intention.

'I shall not want you any more.' He took out his pocket-book, opened it
and extracted a banknote. 'This is in the nature of a bonus,' he said. 'I
do not intend continuing your allowance.'

He expected her to refuse the money and he was not wrong.

'Is that all?' she asked. She did not attempt to take the note.

'That is all.'

With a nod she turned and walked to the door. 'The charwoman is coming
tonight to clean up,' she said. 'You had better make arrangements for her
to stay on--but I suppose you've already made your plans.'

Before he could reply, she was gone. He heard the street door slam after
her, took up the money and put it back in his case; and he was without
regret for, if the truth be told, Mr Arthur Ingle, despite the largeness
of his political views, was exceedingly mean.

There was a great deal for him to do: old boxes to open and sort, papers
and memoranda to retrieve from strange hiding-places. The seat of the big
settee on which Aileen had sat so often waiting for the cleaner to finish
her work, opened like a lid and here he had documents and, in a steel
box, books that might not have come to light even if the police had been
aware of the flat at the time of his arrest, an had made their usual
search.

Ingle was a man of wide political activities. No party man in the sense
that he found a party to match his own views; rather, he was one of those
violent and compelling thinkers who are unconsciously the nucleus of a
movement. His grudge against the world was a sincere one. He saw
injustice in the simplest consequences of cause and effect. His opinions
had not made him a thief; they had merely justified him in his disregard
for the law and his obligation to society.

Imprisonment had made him neither better nor worse, had merely confirmed
him in certain theories. Inconsistently, he loathed his prison
associates, men who had been unsupported by his high motives in their
felonies. The company of them was contamination. He hated the chaplain;
and only one inmate of that terrible place touched what in him still
remained tender. That was the old, blind horse who had his stable in the
prison, and whose sight seemed to have been destroyed by Providence that
he might not witness the degradation of the superior mammals that tramped
the exercise ring, or went trudging and shuffling up the hill and through
the gates.

He was the one man in the prison who was thankful when the cell door
closed on him and the key turned in the lock.

The foulness of these old lags, their talk, their boasts, the horrible
things that may not be written about...he could not think back without
feeling physically sick. In truth he would not have stretched out his
hand if, by so doing, he could have opened those cell doors and released
to the world the social sweepings whom it was his professed mission to
salve.

His work finished, he lit a cigarette, fitted it carefully into an amber
holder and, adjusting the cushions, lay down on the settee and smoked and
thought till the telephone bell roused him and he got up.

The voice that spoke to him was quite unfamiliar. 'Is that Mr Ingle?'

'Yes,' he said shortly.

'Will you make a sacrifice of your principles?' was the astonishing
request, and the man smiled sourly.

'What I have left, yes. What do you wish?'

It might be an old friend in need of money, in which case the
conversation would be short. For Arthur Ingle had no foolish ideas about
charity.

'Could you meet me tonight on the sidewalk immediately opposite Horse
Guards Parade?'

'In the park, you mean?' asked Ingle, astonished. 'Who are you? I'll tell
you before you go any further that I'm not inclined to go out of my way
to meet strangers. I'm a pretty tired man tonight.'

'My name is--' a pause--'Harlow.'

Involuntarily, Ingle uttered an exclamation.

'Stratford Harlow?' he asked incredulously.

'Yes, Stratford Harlow.'

There was a long pause before Arthur Ingle spoke. 'It's rather an
extraordinary request, but I realise that it isn't an idle one. How do I
know you're Harlow?'

'Call me up in ten minutes at my house and ask for me,' said the voice.
'Will you come?'

Again Mr Ingle hesitated. 'Yes, I'll come,' he said. 'At what time?'

'At ten o'clock exactly. I won't keep you hanging about this cold night.
You can get into my car and we'll drive somewhere.'

Ingle hung up the telephone a little bewildered. He was a cautious man
and after ten minutes had expired he put through the number he discovered
in the phone directory, and the same voice answered him. 'Are you
satisfied?'

'Yes, I'll be there--ten o'clock,' he said.

He had two hours to wait. The charwoman did not arrive till nine. He gave
her instructions, made arrangements for the following day; and went back
to the dining-room to think out the extraordinary request which Stratford
Harlow had made of him. And the more he thought, the less inclined he as
to keep the appointment. At last he turned to his writing table, took out
a sheet of paper and scrawled a note.

"DEAR MR HARLOW,

"I am afraid I must disappoint you. I am in such a position, being an
ex-convict, that I cannot afford to take the slightest risk. I will tell
you I frankly that what I have in my mind is that this may be a frame-up
organised by my friends the police, and I think that it would be, to say
the least, foolish on my part to go any farther until I know your
requirements, or at least have written proof that you have approached me.

"Yours sincerely,

"ARTHUR INGLE."

He put the letter in an envelope, addressed it, and marked in the corner
in bold letters 'By hand. Urgent.' Even now he was not satisfied. He went
to the telephone to call a district messenger, but he did not lift the
receiver. His curiosity was piqued. He felt he must know, with the least
possible delay, just why Stratford Harlow had summoned Arthur Ingle, late
of Dartmoor convict establishment. And why should the meeting be secret?
A man of Harlow's standing would not lose caste, even if he sent for him
to go to his house. He came to a sudden resolve, pitched the letter on to
the table, went into his bedroom and changed into a dark suit.

By the time he had climbed into his overcoat he was satisfied that he was
taking the wisest course. The char-woman was in the kitchen and he opened
the door to pass his last admonition. She was on her knees,
scrubbing-brush in hand, and he looked down into a long, weak face over
which strayed lank wisps of grey-black hair.

'I'm going out. You needn't wait. Finish your work and be here in the
morning before eight,' he barked and slammed the door on this
inconsiderable member of the proletariat and went down the stairs in a
spirit of adventure that made him feel almost young.

As the Horse Guards clock was chiming the three-quarters he came into
Birdcage Walk and turned along the lonely footpath that runs parallel
with the House Guards and flanks the broad parade ground. There was no
hurry; he fell into a gentle stroll, fast enough to keep him warm and to
avoid any suspicion of loitering within the meaning of the act.

It could not be a frame-up, he had decided. A man of Harlow's character
would hardly lend himself to such a plot; and in his heart of hearts, for
all his bitter gibes at the police, he did not believe seriously in the
prison legend of innocent men being trapped by cunning police plots.

He looked at his watch under a street standard; it was five minutes to
ten, and he strolled back the way he had come, and stopped immediately in
a line with the gates that closed the arch of the Horse Guards. As he did
so a car came noiselessly along the sidewalk from the direction of
Westminster.

It stopped in front of him and the door opened.

'Will you come in, Mr Ingle?' said a low voice; and without a word he
stepped inside, pulling the door close after him and sank down on a soft
seat by the side of a man who, he at once recognised, was that Splendid
Harlow, whose name, even in Dartmoor, symbolised wealth beyond dreams.

The car, gathering speed, turned into the Mall, swung round towards
Buckingham Palace and across the Corner into Hyde Park. It slackened
speed now, and Stratford Harlow began to talk...

For an hour the car moved at a leisurely pace round the Circle. Sleet was
falling. Ingle listened like a man in a dream to the amazing proposition
which his companion advanced.

He, at any rate, sat in comfort. Inspector Jim Carlton, following in an
aged convertible was chilled and wet, and the highly sensitive microphone
which he had placed in Harlow's car failed to transmit the talk it was so
vital he should hear.

Arthur Ingle arrived home at his flat soon after eleven. The cleaner had
gone and he was glad; dull clod and unimaginative as she was she yet
might have read and interpreted the light that shone in his eyes or have
sensed the exultation of his heart.

Brewing himself some coffee, he sat down at his desk and in to make
notes. Once he rose and, entering his bedroom, turned on the light above
his dressing-table and stared at himself for five minutes in the glass.
The scrutiny seemed to afford him a certain amount of satisfaction, for
he; smiled and returned to his notemaking.

That smile did not leave his lips; and once he laughed out loud.
Evidently something had happened that afforded him the most exquisite
happiness.



CHAPTER 8


'Could you please come and see me in the lunch hour?--A.R.'

JIM CARLTON looked at the 'A.R.' blankly before he placed 'A' as
indicating Aileen--he was under the impression that she spelt her name
with an 'E'. It had been delivered at Scotland Yard by a messenger half
an hour before he arrived. Literally he was waiting on the mat when she
came out; and she seemed very glad to see him.

'You will probably be very angry that I've sent for you about such a
little thing,' she said, 'and you're so busy--'

'I won't tell you how I feel about it,' he interrupted, 'or you'll think
I'm not sincere.'

'You see, you are the only policeman I know and I don't know you very
well, but I thought you wouldn't mind. Mrs Gibbins has disappeared; she
didn't go home last night nor the night before.'

'I'm thrilled,' he said. 'And her husband fears the worst?'

'She hasn't a husband; she's a widow. Her landlady came in to see me this
morning. She's dreadfully upset.'

'But who's Mrs Gibbins?'

'Mrs Gibbins is the charwoman at Uncle's flat. Rather a wretched-looking
lady with untidy hair. I'm rather worried about it because she's a woman
without friends. I called up my Uncle's flat this morning and he was
almost polite, and told me that she didn't arrive yesterday morning and
she hasn't been there today.'

'She may have met with an accident,' was his natural suggestion.

'I've telephoned to the big hospitals, but nothing has been heard of her.
I want you to tell me what I can do next. It's such a little matter that
I'll listen meekly to any rude comment you care to think up!'

He was not interested in Mrs Gibbins; the case of a lonely woman who
disappears as from the face of the earth was so common a phenomenon in
the life of any great city that he could hardly work up enthusiasm for
the search. But Aileen was so concerned that he would have been a brute
to have treated her request lightly; and after lunch, the day being his
own, he went to Stanmore Rents in Lambeth, a little riverside slum and
made a few inquiries at first hand.

Mrs Gibbins had lived there, the slatternly landlady told him, for five
years. She was a good, sober, honest woman, never went out, had no
friends, and subsisted on what she earned and a pound a week which was
paid to her quarterly by some distant relation. In fact, she was due to
receive the money on the following Monday. Her chief virtue was that she
paid her rent every Monday morning and gave no trouble.

'Do you mind if I search her room?'

The landlady wished that and showed him the way; it gave her a nice
feeling of authority to be present during the operation.

Jim was shown into a small back room, scrupulously clean, with a bed and
a sort of home-made hanging cupboard that had been fixed in one corner
and was shrouded by a cheap curtain. Here was the meagre wardrobe of the
missing charwoman: a skirt or two, a light summer coat that had seen its
brightest days, and a best hat. He tried the chest of drawers and found
one drawer locked. This he opened with the first key on his own bunch, to
the awe and admiration of the landlady. Here was proof of the woman's
affluence--a post office bank-book showing £87 to her credit, four new £1
Treasury notes, and a threadbare bag with a broken catch.

Inside this were one or two proofs of the vanity of the eternal
feminine--a greasy powder-puff, a cheap trinket or two, and between
lining and outer cover a folded paper of some sort.

It had not got there by accident, he saw, when he carried the bag to the
light, for it was carefully sewn into the lining. He took out his pocket
knife and, picking the stitches, extracted what he thought was one sheet
of paper, lightly folded. When he opened the paper out he found there
were two sheets.

The landlady ducked her head sideways in an effort to catch a glimpse of
the writing, but Jim was aware of this manoeuvre.

'Do you mind going downstairs,' he asked politely, 'and seeing if you can
find in your ash-can--'

'Dustbin,' corrected the lady.

'Whatever it is, the envelope of any letter addressed to Mrs Gibbins?'

By the time she returned from her profitless task the papers had
disappeared, and Jim Carlton was sitting on the narrow window ledge, a
cigar between his teeth and he was examining the threadbare carpet with
such intentness that the landlady was certain that he had discovered some
blood-stains.

'Eh?' He woke from his dream with a start. 'You can't find it? I'm sorry.
What was it I asked you to get? Oh, yes, an envelope. Thank you. I found
it in the bag.'

He relocked the drawer, and with another glance round the apartment came
down the treacherous stairs.

'You don't think she's drownded herself, sir?' asked the landlady
tremulously.

'No. Why? Did she ever threaten to commit suicide?'

'She's been pretty miserable for some time, poor dear!' The woman wiped a
tear from her cheek, and the fascinated Jim observed that the spot where
the apron had been rubbed was perceptibly cleaner.

'No, I don't think she has--committed suicide,' he said.  'She may turn
up. If she does, will you send me a telegram?'

He scribbled his name and address on a blank that he found in his pocket
and gave her the money for its dispatch.

'I know there's something wrong,' insisted the tearful lady. 'Foul play
or something. She bought some stuff to make up into a dress; I've got it
in my kitchen--it only came the night before last.'

She showed him the package, which was unopened.

'My niece was coming in yesterday morning to show her how to cut it out,'
continued the woman, 'but, of course, Mrs Gibbins didn't come home, and
my niece lives over in Peckham, and it's a long drag here--'

'Yes. I suppose so,' said Jim absently.

He walked down the noisome street, got into the car that was waiting at
the end, and went slowly back across Westminster Bridge to his room.

Elk was not in and, even if he had been, Jim was not in the mood for
consultation. He spread out on the table the papers he had taken from Mrs
Gibbins's bag and read them carefully, jotted down a few particulars and,
refolding them, put them in his pocket-book. He passed the next hour
dictating letters to the last people in the world one would have imagined
would be interested in the disappearance of a charwoman.

Aileen did not expect to see him again that day and was surprised, almost
pleasurably, when he walked into the outer office and sent in his name.
She was on the point of leaving and the office boy, impatient to be gone,
misinterpreted the colour that came to her cheeks.

'You'll be getting me a very bad name, Mr Carlton,' she said as they went
into the street together.

'Did I tell you that my front name was Jim, or James, as the case may
be?' he asked. 'Shall we try something more snappy in the restaurant
line? I know a place in Soho--'

'No, I think I'll go home now.'

'I wanted to talk to you about our Mrs Gibbins,' he said flippantly,
though he was not feeling at all flippant. 'And I  told our people that I
can be found there if I am wanted.'

'Have you had any news?' she asked; and he guessed by her penitent tone
that she had altogether forgotten the existence of the charwoman. At any
rate she did not demur when he handed her into the car and she accepted
his restaurant, dingy though it was, without protest.

They were passing from the street when Jim heard his name called and,
looking round, saw a headquarters man.

'Came through just after you left, sir.'

Jim read the hastily-written phone message.

'I'll be back in an hour,' he said, and followed the girl who was waiting
for him in the vestibule.

When they were seated: 'I want to ask you: was Mrs Gibbins in the flat
that night your uncle's safe was burgled?'

She considered. 'No, she wasn't there; at least, she oughtn't to have
been there. She came later, you remember. I opened the door to her.'

'Oh!' he said, and she smiled.

'What does "Oh!" mean?' And then quickly: 'You don't think she was the
burglar, do you?'

'No, I don't think that,' he said; his tone was very grave--she wondered
why. 'Tell me something about her; was she well educated?'

Aileen shook her head.

'No, she was rather illiterate. I've had many of her notes, and they were
scarcely decipherable. The spelling was--well, very original.'

'Oh!' he said again, and she could have boxed his ears.

'Well, that's that!' he said at last. 'I don't think that even your
uncle, with his well-known passion for humanity, will so much as shed a
silent tear. She was just nothing, nobody--a wisp of straw caught up in
the wind and deposited God knows where! Stale fruit under the dustman's
broom. Horrible, isn't it? Think of it! All the theatres will soon be
crowded and people will be screaming with laughter at the antics and
clowning of the comedians! There will be a State ball at the Palace and
tonight happy men and women will I be dancing on a hundred floors. Who
cares about Mrs Gibbins?'

He was very serious, and a minute before he had been almost gay.

'The passing of a friendless woman is a small thing.' He rubbed his nose
irritably. 'And now it is a big thing!' he said, raising a warning finger
and looking at her. 'Mrs Gibbins is stirring the minds of eighteen
thousand London policemen, who if need be would have the support of the
whole Brigade of Guards and every one of these dancers, diners and
theatregoers would move with one accord and not rest day or night till
they found the man who struck her down and dropped her poor, wasted body
in the waters of the Regent's Canal!' She half rose, but he motioned her
down. 'I've spoilt your dinner and I've spoilt my own, too,' he said.

'Dead?' she whispered. He nodded. 'Murdered?'

'Yes...I think so. They took her out of the canal a few minutes before I
left the office, and there were marks to show that she'd been bludgeoned.
I had the news just before I came in. What was she doing near the Edgware
Road--in  Regent's Park, let us say? Give her two days to drift as far.'

The waiter came and stood at his elbow in an attitude of expectancy. The
girl shook her head. 'I can't eat.'

'Omelettes,' said Jim. 'That isn't eating; it's just nourishment.'

Arthur Ingle had the discomfort of a police visitation, but he knew
nothing of Mrs Gibbins, knew much less indeed than his niece.

'I have seen the woman, but I shouldn't recognise her.'

This accorded with the information already in their possession, and the
two detectives who called had a whisky-and-soda with him and departed.

The landlady of the Rents could say no more than she had said on the
previous afternoon to Sub-Inspector Carlton.

Jim went down himself to see this worthy soul; and he had a particular
reason, because on that morning, 'regular as clockwork,' came the
envelope which contained Mrs Gibbins's quarterly allowance; and that lady
was rather in a fluster, because the letter had not arrived.

'No, sir, it was never registered, that's why I feel so awkward about it.
People might think...but you can ask the postman yourself, sir.'

'I've asked him,' smiled Jim. 'Tell me, where were those letters posted?
You must have seen the date-stamp at some time or other.'

But she swore she hadn't; she was not inquisitive, indeed regarded
inquisitiveness as one of the vices which had come into existence with
reading newspapers. She did not explain the connection between the
popular press and the inquiring mind, though it was there plain to be
seen.

The local police inspector had cleared the wardrobe and drawers of all
portable articles, including the bag.

'I told him you found a paper in the bag, but he couldn't see it, sir,
though he searched high and low for it.'

'There wasn't a paper to find,' said Jim untruthfully.

His position was a delicate one. He had withdrawn important evidence from
what might perhaps be a very serious case. There was only one course to
take and this he followed.

Returning to Scotland Yard, he requested an interview with the
Commissioners, explained what he had done, told them frankly his
suspicions and asked for the suppression of the evidence he held. The
consultation was postponed for the attendance of a representative of the
Public Prosecutor, but in the end he had his way, and when the inquest
was held on Annie Maud Gibbins the jury returned an open verdict, which
meant that they were content with the statement that the deceased woman
had been 'found dead', and expressed no opinion as to how she met her
fate--a laudable verdict, since no member of the jury, not even the
coroner, nor the doctors who testified with so many reservations, had the
slightest idea how the life of Mrs Gibbins, the charlady, had gone out.



CHAPTER 9


AILEEN RIVERS was annoyed, and since the object of her annoyance lived in
the same room, and to use a vulgar idiom, under the same hat as herself,
a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs was produced. She was annoyed
because she had not seen Mr James Carlton for a week. But she was furious
with herself that she was annoyed at all. Mr Stebbings, that stout
lawyer, had reached an age when he was no longer susceptible to
atmosphere, yet even he was conscious that his favourite employee had
departed in some degree from the normal. He asked her if she was not
well; and suggested that she should take a week off and go to Margate.
The suggestion of Margate was purely mechanical; he invariably prescribed
Margate for all disorders of body and mind, having been once in the
remote past cured of the whooping cough in that delightful town. It was
not Margate weather, and Aileen was not Margate-minded.

'I remember'--Mr Stebbings unfolded several of his heavy chins to gaze
meditatively at the ceiling--'many years ago suggesting to Miss Mercy
Harlow--ahem!--'

It occurred to him that the girl would not know Miss Mercy Harlow and
that the name would be without significance; for the great heights to
which the living Harlow had risen were outside his comprehension.

'You used to act for the Harlows once, didn't you; Mr Stebbings?'

'Yes,' said Mr Stebbings carefully. 'It was--er--a great responsibility.
I was not sorry when young Mr Stratford went elsewhere.'

He said no more than this, which was quite a lot for Mr Stebbings, but by
one of those coincidences which are a daily feature of life she came
again into contact with the Harlow family.

Mr Stebbings was dealing with a probate case. A will had been propounded
in the court, and was being opposed by a distant relative of the legator.
The question turned on whether, in the spring of a certain year the
legator had advanced certain money to one of the numerous beneficiaries
under the will with the object of taking him out of the country.

Aileen was sent to inspect the cash book, since it was alleged the money
had been paid through the lawyers. She found the entry without a great
deal of difficulty, and, running down the index to discover if she had
missed any further reference, her finger stopped at the words:

'Harlow--Mercy Mildred.
Harlow-Stratford Selwyn Mortimer.'

She would not have been human if she had not turned up the pages. For a
quarter of an hour she pored over the accounts of the dead and gone Miss
Mercy, that stern and eccentric woman, and then she saw an item 'To L.
Edwins, £125.' An entry occurred four months later: 'To L. Edwins, £183
17s. 4d.' She knew of Mrs Edwins, and had seen a copy of Miss Mercy
Harlow's will--she had looked it up after the Dartmoor meeting, being
momentarily interested in the millionaire.

She turned to Stratford's account, which was a very small one. Evidently,
Mr Harlow made no payments through his lawyers. If an opportunity had
occurred she would have asked Mr Stebbings for further information about
the family, though she was fairly sure that such a request would have
produced no satisfactory result.

Deprived of this interest, Aileen was thrown back upon the dominating
occupation of life--her amazement and disapproval of Aileen Rivers in
relation to Mr James Carlton.

He knew her address: she had particularly told him the number. Equally
true it was that she had asked him only to write on official business. By
some miracle she had not been called to give evidence at the inquest and
she might, and did, trace his influence here. But even that could not be
set against a week's neglect.

'Ridiculous' (said the saner part other, in tones of reprobation). 'You
hardly know the man! Just because he's been civil to you and has taken
you out to dinner twice (and they were both more or less business
occasions), you're expecting him to behave as though he were engaged to
you!'

The unregenerate Aileen Rivers merely tossed her head at this and was
unashamed.

She could, of course, have written to him: there was excuse enough; and
she actually did begin a letter, until the scandalous character of her
behaviour grew apparent even to Aileen II.

Saturday passed and Sunday; she stayed at home both days in case--

He called on Sunday night, when she had given up--well, if not hope, at
any rate expectation.

'I've been down to the country,' he said.

She interviewed him in the sitting room, which her landlady set aside for
formal calls.

'Couldn't you come out somewhere? Have you dined?'

She had dined.

'Come along and walk; it's rather a nice night. We can have coffee
somewhere.'

Her duty was to tell him that he was taking much for granted, but she
didn't. She went upstairs, got her coat and in the shortest space of time
was walking with him through Bloomsbury Square.

'I'm rather worried about you,' he said.

'Are you?' Her surprise was genuine.

Yes, I am a little. Didn't you tell me Mrs Gibbins used to confide her
troubles to you?' There was a note of anxiety in his voice.

'She was rather confidential at times.'

'Did she ever tell you anything about her past?'

'Oh, no,' said Aileen quickly. 'It was mostly about her mother, who died
about four years ago.'

'Did she ever tell you her Christian name--her mother's, I mean?'

'Louisa,' answered the girl promptly. 'You're awfully mysterious, Mr
James Carlton. What has this to do with poor Mrs Gibbins?'

'Nothing, except that her name was Annie Maud, and the letters containing
the money, which came to her quarterly, were addressed to "Louisa," 14
Kennet Road, Birmingham, and readdressed by the postal authorities. A
letter came this morning.'

'Poor soul!' said the girl softly.

'Yes.'

It was surprising how well she understood him, remembering the shortness
of their acquaintance. She knew, for example, when he was thinking of
something else--his voice rose half a tone.

'Isn't that strange? Do you remember my telling you of the eighteen
thousand policemen and the Brigade of Guards, and the whole congregation
of the blessed? And now they are all agitated because Mrs Gibbins's
mother was named Louisa! That discovery--I shouldn't have asked you,
because I knew it already--proved two things: first, that Mrs Gibbins
committed a crime some fifteen years ago, and secondly, that this is the
second time she's been dead!'

He suddenly relaxed and laughed softly.

'Don't tell me,' he warned her. 'I know just the fictional detective whom
I am imitating! The whole thing is rather complicated. Did I say coffee
or dinner?'

'You said coffee,' she said.

The popular restaurant into which they went was just a little overcrowded
and after being served they lost no time in making their escape.

They were passing along Coventry Street when a big car rolled slowly
past. The man who was driving was in evening dress...they saw the sheen
of his diamond studs, the red tip of his cigar.

'Nobody on earth but the Splendid Harlow could so scintillate,' said Jim.
'What does he do in this part of the world at such an hour?'

The car turned to the right through Leicester Square and passed down
Orange Street at a pace which was strangely majestic. It was as though it
formed part of and led a magnificent procession. The same thought
occurred to both of them.

'He should really travel with a band!'

'I was thinking that, too,' laughed the girl. 'He frightened me terribly
the night he came to the flat. I mean, when I opened the door to him. And
I'm not easily scared. He looked so big and powerful and ruthless that my
soul cowered before him!'

They passed up deserted Long Acre; it was too early for the market carts
to have assembled, and the street was a wilderness. Suddenly the girl
found her hand held loosely in Jim Carlton's. He was swinging it to and
fro. The severer side of Miss Aileen Rivers closed its eyes and pretended
not to see.

'I've got a very friendly feeling for you,' said Jim huskily. 'I don't
know why, but I just have. And if you talk about the philandering
constabulary, I will never forgive you.'

Three men had suddenly debouched from a side street; they were talking
noisily and violently and were moving slowly towards them. Jim looked
round: the only man in sight was walking in the opposite direction,
having passed them a minute or so before.

'I think we'll cross the road,' he said. He took her arm, and, quickening
his step, led her to the opposite sidewalk.

The quarrelling three turned back and Jim stopped.  'I want you to run
back to the other end of Long Acre and fetch a policeman,' he said in a
low voice. 'Will you do this for me? Run!'

Obediently she turned and fled, and as she did so one of the three came
lurching towards him.

'What's the idea?' he said loudly. 'Can't we have an argument without you
butting in?'

'Stay where you are, Donovan,' said Jim. 'I know you and I know just what
you're after.'

'Get him,' said somebody angrily, and Jim Carlton whipped out the twelve
inch length of jambok that he carried in his pocket and struck at the
nearest man. As the flexible hide reached its billet the man dropped like
one shot. In another second his two companions had sprung at the
detective; and he knew that he was fighting, if not for his life, at any
rate to save himself from an injury which would incapacitate him for
months.

Again the jambok reached home; a second man reeled.

And then a taxicab came flying down Long Acre with a policeman on each
footboard...

'No, not Bow Street,' said Jim, 'take them to Cannon Row.'

Aileen was in the taxicab, a most unheroic woman, on the verge of tears.

'I guessed what they were after,' said Jim, as they were driving home.
'It is one of the oldest tricks in the world, that rehearsed street
fight.'

'But why? Why did they do it? Were they old enemies of yours?' she asked,
bewildered.

'One,' he said. 'Donovan.' He carefully avoided her second question.

The presence of Mr Harlow in his lordly car was no accident. The car
which passed down Orange Street was ostensibly carrying him to Vira's
Club, but there was a short cut which brought him through St Martin's
Lane to the end of Long Acre before the two walkers could possibly reach
there. What was more important was that it was very clear to Jim that he
and the girl were under observation, and had been followed that night
from the moment he left the club where he lived, until the attack was
delivered.

The reason for the hold-up was not difficult to understand, even
supposing he ruled out the very remote possibility that it was associated
with Mrs Gibbins's death. And that he must exclude, unless he gave Mr
Harlow credit for supernatural powers.

He saw the girl to her boarding house and went back to Scotland Yard, to
find a telegram awaiting him. It was from the detective force of
Birmingham, and ran:

'Your inquiry 793 Mrs Louisa Gibbins, deceased. Letter which came to her
regularly every quarter, and which was subsequently readdressed to Mrs
Gibbins, of Stanmore Rents, Lambeth, invariably had Norwood postmark.
This fact verified by lodger of late Mrs Gibbins of this town. Annie Maud
Gibbins's real name, Smith. She married William Smith, a platelayer on
Midland Railway. Further details follow, Hooge. Ends.'

A great deal of this information was not new to Jim Carlton. But the
Norwood postmark was invaluable, for in that suburb of London lived Mr
Ellenbury. Further details he would not need.

But before that clue could be followed, Jim Carlton's attention was
wholly occupied by the strange behaviour of Arthur Ingle, who suddenly
turned recluse, declined all communication with the outside world and,
locking himself in his flat, gave himself to the study of cinematography.



CHAPTER 10


IN THE days which followed Jim Carlton was a busy man,  and only once
during the week did he find time to see Aileen, and then she related one
of the minor troubles of life.

A new boarder had come to the establishment where she lived, an athletic
young man who occupied the room immediately beneath hers and whose
apparent admiration took the form of following tier to her work every
morning at a respectful distance.

'I wouldn't mind that, but he makes a point of being in the neighbourhood
of the office when I come out for lunch, and when I go home at nights.'

'Has he spoken to you?' asked Jim, interested.

'Oh, no, he's been most correct; he doesn't even speak at meals.'

'Bear with him,' said Jim, a twinkle in his eye. 'It is one of the
penalties attached to the moderately good-looking.'

Jim interviewed the girl's new admirer.

'As a shadow you're a little on the heavy side, Brown,' he said. 'You
should have found a way of watching her without her knowing.'

'I'm very sorry, sir,' said Detective Brown, and thereafter his espionage
was less oppressive.

It was remarkable that in none of the excursions which Jim Carlton made
from day to day did he once see Arthur Ingle. Deliberately he called at
those restaurants and places of resort which in the old days were
favoured by the man. It would not be a sense of shame or an unwillingness
to meet old friends and associates of a more law-abiding life, that would
keep him away. If anything, he was proud of his accomplishments, for by
his fantastic twist of reasoning he had come to regard himself as a
public benefactor.

Nobody had seen him; even the comrades whom it was his joy to address in
frowsy Soho halls had not been honoured by speech or presence.

'It almost looks as if he had gone over to the capitalists,' said one.

'I didn't notice the flags were flying in Piccadilly,' said Jim.

One night it happened that he found himself walking along the street at
the back of Fotheringay Mansions and, looking up, noticed a bright light
burning behind the green blind in an  upper room. Mr Ingle's apartment
was easily located. There was a narrow parapet to identify the height;
the lumber room where the light showed was four windows from the fire
escape.

Elk was with him, and to that unenthusiastic man he confided his
intentions.

'He'll start a squeal about police persecution,' suggested Elk.

Undeterred, Jim went up in the elevator, though the man in charge
discouraged him.

'I don't think Mr Jackson is at home,' he said. 'A gentleman called an
hour ago and knocked twice but could get no answer.'

'Maybe I can knock louder,' suggested Jim.

But ring and knock as he did, he had no answer. Yet, as he listened at
the letterbox aperture, to make certain that the bell was ringing, he
could have sworn he heard a stealthy footstep inside. Why was Ingle
hiding?

There was, of course, the possibility that the man was engaged in some
new piece of roguery. But from his experience of swindlers, Jim Carlton
knew that they were never furtive when they were planning a coup.

The landing was deserted and he could wait without attracting to himself
the suspicion of the lift man. Again he stooped and listened; and now he
heard a sound which puzzled him-a rapid whirring. He had heard that noise
before somewhere, and yet he could not locate or diagnose the sound. It
came very faintly as through a closed door...

He saw the ascending light of the elevator and walked to the gate. The
car passed to the next floor to discharge its passenger, and then came
down to his level.

'Couldn't make him hear, I suppose, sir?' asked the elevator man, with
the satisfaction of one whose dire prophecy has been realised. 'He won't
see anybody these days. Why, he doesn't even come out for his meals.'

'He has a servant, hasn't he?'

'Not now,' said the lift-man gloomily, as they sank slowly down the well.
'Used to have, but she--' He told the story of Mrs Gibbins. 'Now he gets
his food and stuff delivered. I think Mr Jackson is going in for
something unusual,' he added as they reached the ground floor and he
pulled back the gates.

'What do you mean by "something unusual"?'

The man scratched his head.

'I don't know exactly. About four days ago a man came here with a long
black box--the sort of thing that they use for carrying films--'

Films! Now Jim Carlton understood. This was the sound he had heard: the
whirr of a cine projector!

'He took it up and left it. I asked him if Mr Jackson was taking on film
work, but he said nothing--the man who brought it, I mean. Of course, if
I knew for certain that he had any celluloid stored on the premises, I'd
have to report it. Fire risk...'

Jim listened without hearing. He was dumbfounded by the discovery. Every
man has his secret weakness, but though he had credited Mr Arthur Ingle
with many peculiarities, he had never suspected him of a passion for the
cinema.

Elk was waiting outside, the stub of a cigar between his teeth, a large
unfurled umbrella in his hand, and in a few words Jim told him what he
had learnt.

'Pitchers!' said Elk, shaking his head. 'Never thought he would lower
himself to that! Queer thing how these crooks sort of run to weakness one
way or the other. I knew a man, the cleverest safe-breaker in Europe,
who'd risk a lagging to get a game of ping-pong! There was another fellow
named Moses who had the finest long-firm business in England--'

'Let us go round and look at the back of the house again,' Jim
interrupted the reminiscences ruthlessly.

The bright light was showing again, clear through the dark green blinds,
even as he looked it was extinguished, but when his eyes became
accustomed to the darkness he could see the reflected glow of another
light. It was in this room, then, that Mr Ingle was engaged in his new
hobby.

Jim looked naturally at the fire-escape. There was a wall to be scaled,
or easier perhaps, a door into the courtyard of the building might be
opened with one of his keys. But the door needed no forcing; it was
unlocked and gave easy entry to a stone-paved yard, whence a flight of
iron stairs led up to the roof. An iron bar was fastened across the rails
at the bottom, for what purpose was not clear, since it was possible to
get either over or beneath it.

'Maybe it's to keep it airtight,' suggested Elk, 'or to trip up the
fellers that are not burnt to death. Going up?'

Jim nodded, and Inspector Elk followed him from landing to landing until
they came level with the floor on which Mr Ingle's flat was situated.
Without a word, Jim Carlton swung himself over the rail and, balancing
precariously upon the narrow ledge of stone, felt forward and gripped the
nearest window-sill. Progress in front of the windows was an easy matter
to one with his nerves: it was in the intervening spaces, where he had to
depend for his life upon a fine sense of balance, that the danger lay.
Elk watched him anxiously as he moved nearer and nearer to the window,
flattening himself against the wall and edging forward inch by inch; in
this perilous fashion, he came sidling to the window from behind which
came the ceaseless rattle of the projector.

The moment he reached his objective Jim knew that his effort had been in
vain. Behind blind and window he could see the small projector at work,
was dazzled by the flicker of the light, and Arthur Ingle showed clearly
in the glow thrown back from the invisible screen. He was staring at the
picture which he was projecting, and the first thing the detective
noticed was that Mr Ingle was in need of a barber, for his face was
covered by a ragged white stubble and his grey hair was long and unkempt.

But what was the picture he was viewing so intently? Jim screwed his head
round, but on the left-hand side of the window the blind ran flush with
the sash. There was nothing to but to make his way back and noiselessly
he edged towards the fire ladder.

He had not gone more than halfway before he had a shock. He felt a stone
yield beneath his feet, the edge broke off and fell into the courtyard
below. It might be one rotten piece, he argued, but stepped more
carefully. If the parapet gave under his weight while he was traversing