Title: The Clue of the Silver Key (1930)
Author: Edgar Wallace
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Title: The Clue of the Silver Key (1930)
Author: Edgar Wallace




Chapter One


They were all in this business--Dick Allenby, inventor and heir-at-law;
Jerry Dornford, man about town and wastrel; Mike Hennessey, theatrical
adventurer; Mary Lane, small part actress; Leo Moran, banker and
speculator; Horace Tom Tickler--alas, for him!--was very much in it,
though he knew nothing about it.

Mr Washington Wirth, who gave parties and loved flattery; old Hervey Lyne
and the patient Binny, who pushed his invalid chair and made his
breakfast and wrote his letters--and Surefoot Smith.

There came a day when Binny, who was an assiduous reader of newspapers
that dealt with the more picturesque aspects of crime, was to find
himself the focal point of attention and his evidence read by millions
who had never before heard of him--a wonderful experience.

Mr Washington Wirth's parties were most exclusive affairs and, in a
sense, select. The guests were chosen with care, and might not, in the
manner of the age, invite the uninvited to accompany them; but they were,
as Mary Lane said, 'an odd lot'. She went because Mike Hennessey asked
her, and she rather liked the stout and lethargic Mike. People called him
'poor old Mike' because of his bankruptcies, but just now sympathy would
be wasted on him. He had found Mr Washington Wirth, a patron of the
theatre and things theatrical, and Mr Washington Wirth was a very rich
man.

He was also a mysterious man. He was generally believed to live in the
Midlands and to be associated with industry.

His London address was the Kellner Hotel, but he never slept there. His
secretary would telephone in advance for the Imperial suite on a certain
day, and on the evening of that day, when supper was laid for his twenty
or thirty guests, and the specially hired orchestra was tuning up, he
would appear, a stout, flaxen-haired man in horn-rimmed glasses. The
uncharitable said his flaxen hair was a wig, which may or may not have
been true.

He was perfectly tailored. He spoke in a high, falsetto voice, had a
trick of clicking his heels and kissing the hands of his lady guests
which was very Continental.

His guests were hand-picked. He chose--or Mike chose for him--the smaller
theatrical fry; members of the chorus, small part actresses, an obscure
singer or two.

Once Mike had suggested a brighter kind of party. Mr Wirth was shocked.

'I want nothing fast,' he said.

He loved adulation--and had his fill of it. He was a generous spender, a
giver of expensive presents; people living on the verge of poverty might
be excused a little flattering.

You could not gate-crash one of Mr Washington Wirth's parties,
invitations to which came in the shape of a small oblong badge, not
unlike the badge worn by the ladies in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, on
which the name of the invited guest was written. This the recipient wore;
it served a double purpose, for it enabled Mr Wirth to read and address
each of his guests by her name.

Mary Lane was well aware that the invitation was no tribute to her own
eminence.

'I suppose if I had been a really important guest I shouldn't have been
invited?' she said.

Mike smiled good-naturedly.

'You are important, Mary--the most important person here. The old boy
wanted to know you.'

'Who is he?'

Mike shook his head. 'He's got all the money in the world,' he said.

She laughed. Mary Lane was very lovely when she laughed.

She was conscious that Washington Wirth, albeit occupied with the cooing
attention of two blonde lovelies, was watching her out of the side of his
eyes.

'He gives lots of parties, doesn't he?' she asked. 'Dick Allenby told me
today that they are monthly affairs. He must be rich, of course, or he
wouldn't keep our play running. Honestly, Mike, we must be losing a
fortune at the Sheridan.'

Mike Hennessey took his cigar from his mouth and looked at the ash. 'I'm
not losing a fortune,' he said. Then, most unexpectedly: 'Old Hervey Lyne
a friend of yours, Mary?'

She denied the friendship with some vigour. 'No, he's my guardian. Why?'

Mike put back his cigar deliberately.

The orchestra had struck up a waltz. Mr Wirth was gyrating awkwardly,
holding at arm's length a lady who was used to being held more tightly.

'I had an idea you were connected,' he said. 'Money-lender, wasn't he?
That's how he made his stuff. Is Mr Allenby related to him?'

There was a certain significance in the question, and she flushed.

'Yes--his nephew.' She was a little disconcerted. 'Why?'

Mike looked past her at the dancers.

'Trying to pretend they enjoy it,' he said.' They're all getting
gold-mounted handbags tonight--you'll get yours.'

'But why do you ask about Mr Lyne?' she persisted.

'Just wondering how well you knew the old man. No, he's never lent me
money. He wants gilt-edged security and I've never had it. Moran's his
banker.'

Mike was one of those disconcerting men whose speech followed the
eccentric course of their thoughts.

He chuckled.

'Funny, that, Mary. Moran's his banker. You don't see the joke, but I
do.'

She knew Leo Moran slightly. He was by way of being a friend of Dick
Allenby's, and he was, she knew, a frequent visitor to the theatre,
though he never came 'back stage'.

When Mike was being cryptic it was a waste of time trying to catch up
with him. She looked at her watch.

'Will he be very annoyed if I leave soon? I've promised to go on to the
Legation.'

He shook his head, took her gently by the arm, and led her up to where Mr
Wirth was being delightfully entertained by three pretty girls who were
trying to guess his age.

'My little friend has to go, Mr Wirth,' he said. 'She's got a rehearsal
in the morning.'

'Perfectly understood!' said the host.

When he smiled he had white, even teeth, for which no thanks were due to
nature.

'Perfectly understood. Come again, Miss Mary Lane. I'll be back from
abroad in three weeks.'

She took his big, limp hand and shook it. Mike escorted her out and
helped her into her coat.

'Another hour for me and then I pack up,' he said,' He never stays after
one. By the way, I'll bring on your gift to the theatre.'

She liked Mike--everybody liked Mike. There was hardly an actor or an
actress in London who had not agreed to take half-salary from him. He
could cry very convincingly when he was ruined, and he was always ruined
when hard-hearted people expected him to pay what he owed them.

A lovable soul, entirely dishonest. Nobody knew what he did with the
money which he had lost for so many people, but the probability is that
it was usefully employed.

'I don't know what's the matter with our play,' he said, as he walked
with her along the corridor to the elevator. 'Maybe it's the
title--Cliffs of Fate--what does it mean? I've seen the darn' thing forty
times and still I don't know what it's about.'

She stared at him, aghast.' But you chose it!' she protested.

He shook his head. 'He did.' He jerked his thumb back to Mr Wirth's
suite. 'He said it made him feel a better man when he read it. It's never
made me want to go more regularly to the synagogue!'

He saw Mary depart, fussed over her like a broody hen. He liked Mary
because she was real in a world of unreality. The first time he had taken
her out to supper he had offered her a few suggestions on the quickest
method by which a young actress might reach stardom, and her name in
lights, and she had answered him sanely and yet in a way that did not
entirely wound his vanity--and the vanity of a fat man is prodigious.

Thereafter she went into a new category: he had many; she was the only
woman in the world he really liked, though, it is said, he loved many. He
strolled back to the hectic atmosphere of the supper-room--Mr Wirth was
presenting the bags.

He was unusually gay: usually he drank very little, but tonight...Well,
he had promised to drink a whole bottle of champagne if anybody guessed
his age, and one of the three pretty girls had guessed thirty-two.

'Good God!' said Mike, when they told him.

As soon as was expedient he took his patron aside.

'About time these people went, Mr Wirth,' he said.

Mr Wirth smiled foolishly; spoke with the refeenment which wine brings to
some. 'My deah, deah fellah! I'm quate ceepable of draving myself to deah
old Coventry.'

Certainly this was a new Mr Wirth. Mike Hennessey was troubled. He felt
he was in danger of losing a priceless possession. It was as though the
owner of a secret gold mine, from which he was drawing a rich dividend,
were hoisting a great napping flag to mark its site.

'What you want,' he said agitatedly, 'is something cooling. Just wait
here, will you?'

He ran out, saw the head waiter, and came back very soon with a little
blue bottle. He measured a tablespoonful of white granules into a
wine-glass and filled it with water; then he handed this fizzling,
hissing potion to the giver of the feast.

'Drink,' he said.

Mr Wirth obeyed. He stopped and gasped between the gulps.

By now the last guest had gone.

'All right?' asked Mike anxiously.

'Quite all right,' snapped the other.

He seemed suddenly sober. Mike, at any rate, was deceived.

He did not see his friend to his car, because that was against the rules.
Mr Wirth, wrapped in a heavy coat, the collar of which was turned up, his
hat at a rakish angle over his eyes, made his way to the garage near the
hotel, had his car brought out, and was getting into it when the watcher
sidled up to him.

'Can I have a word with you, mister?'

Mr Wirth surveyed him glassily, climbed into his seat and shifted his
gear.

'Can I have a word--'

The car jerked forward. The little interviewer, who had one foot on the
running board, was sent sprawling. He got up and began to run after the
car, to the amusement of the garage workers; car and pursuer vanished in
the darkness.



Chapter Two

The trailer lost his quarry in Oxford Street and wandered disconsolately
onward. A sort of homing instinct led him towards Regent's Park. Naylors
Crescent was a magnificent little side street leading from the outer
circle. It was very silent, its small, but stately, houses were in
darkness.

Mr Tickler--such was his peculiar name--stopped before No. 17 and looked
up at the window. The white blinds were drawn down and the house was
lifeless. He stood, with his hands thrust into his pockets, blinking at
the green door that he knew so well, at the three worn steps leading
down, and the hollow steel railway that masons had fixed into the
stonework to allow the easy descent of an invalid chair.

Inside was wealth, immense, incalculable wealth, and a stupid old man on
the verge of the grave. Outside were poverty and resentment, the
recollection of the rigours of Pentonville Prison, a sense of injustice.
Old Lyne slept on the first floor.

His bed was between these two high windows. That lower window marked the
study where he sat in the daytime. There was a safe in the wall, full of
useless old papers. Old Lyne never kept money in the house. All his life
he had advertised this habit. A burglar or two had gone to enormous
trouble to prove him a liar and had got nothing for their pains.

There he was, sleeping in luxury, the old rat, under feather-weight
blankets specially woven for him, under a satin coverlet packed tight
with rare down, and here was he, Horace Tom Tickler, with a pinch of
silver in his pocket.

But, perhaps he was not there at all? That was an old trick of his, to be
out when everybody thought he was in, and in when they thought he was
out.

He walked up and down the quiet cul-de-sac for nearly an hour, turning
over in his mind numerous schemes, mostly impracticable, then he slouched
back towards the bright streets and coffee stalls. He took a short cut
through the mews to reach Portland Place, and the most astounding luck
was with him.

A policeman walking through Baynes Mews heard the sound of a man singing.
It was, if his hearing gave a right impression, the voice of one who had
gone far in insobriety, and the voice came from a tiny flat, one of the
many above the garages that lined each side of the mews. Time was when
they were occupied exclusively by chauffeurs, but the artistic and
aristocratic classes had swamped these humble West End habitations, and
most of the new population of Baynes Mews were people who came home from
parties and night clubs, their arms filled with gala favours, some of
which made strange and distressing noises.

There was nothing in the voice to indicate anything more startling than
normal inebriety. The policeman would have passed on but for the fact
that he saw a figure sitting on the step of the narrow door which led to
the little flat above.

The officer turned his torch on the sitter and saw nothing which paid for
illumination. The little man who grinned up at the policeman was, as the
officer said to his sergeant later, 'nothing to write home about'. He was
red-faced, unshaven, wretchedly shabby. His collar might have been white
a week before; he wore no tie and his linen, even in the uncertain light
of the lamp, was uncleanly.

''Ear him?' He jerked his head upward and grinned. 'First time it's ever
happened. Soused! What a mug, eh? Gettin' soused. He slipped me tonight,
an' I'd never have tailed him--but for this bit of luck...'Eard him by
accident...Soused!'

'You're a bit soused yourself, aren't you?' The policeman's tone was
unfriendly.

'I've had three whiskies and a glass of beer. Does a man of the world get
soused on that, I ask you?'

The voice upstairs had died down to a deep hum.

'A friend of yours?'

The little man shook his head.

'I don't know. Perhaps; that's what I got to find out. Is he friendly or
ain't he?'

The policeman made a gesture.

'Get out of this. I can't have you loungin' about. I seem to know your
face, too. Didn't I see you at Clerkenwell Police Court once?'

This officer prided himself on his memory for faces. It was his practice
to say that he could never remember names, but never forgot faces. He
thought he was unique and his remark original, and was not conscious of
being one of forty million fellow citizens who also remembered faces and
forgot names.

The little man rose and fell in by the officer's side.

'That's right.' His step was a little unsteady. 'I got nine munce for
fraud.'

He had in truth been convicted of petty larceny and had gone to prison
for a month, but thieves have their pride.

Could a man convicted of fraud be arrested on suspicion because he sat in
the doorway of a mews flat? This was the problem that exercised the mind
of the constable. At the end of the mews he looked round for his
sergeant, but that authority was not in sight.

A thought occurred to him. 'What you got in your pocket?'

The little man stretched out his arms.

'Search me--go on. You ain't entitled to, but I'll let you.'

Another dilemma for the policeman, who was young and not quite sure of
his rights and duties.

'Push off. Don't let me see you hanging around here,' he ordered.

If the little man argued or refused he could be arrested for
'obstruction', for 'insulting behaviour', for almost anything. But he did
nothing. 'All right,' he said, and walked off.

The policeman was tempted to recall him and discover the identity of the
singer. Instead, he watched Mr Tickler until he was out of sight. The
hour was a quarter to two in the morning. The patrol marched on to the
point where his sergeant would meet him.

As for Mr Tickler, he went shuffling down Portland Place, looking in
every doorway to find a cigarette end or cigar butt, which might have
been dropped by returning householders.

What a tale to tell if he could sell the information in the right
quarter! Or he could but the 'black' on the singer. Blackmail gets easy
money--if there is money to get. He stopped at a stall in Oxford Circus
and drank a scalding cup of coffee. He was not entirely without funds and
had a bed to go to and money for bus fares, if the buses were running.
Refreshed, he continued his way down Regent Street and met the one man in
the world he would willingly have avoided.

Surefoot Smith was standing in the shadow of a recessed shop window, a
stocky man, in a tightly buttoned overcoat. His hat was, as usual, on the
back of his head; his round face, ruddier than Mr Tickler's, was
impassive. But for the periodical puffs of smoke which came from his big
briar pipe he might have been a statue carved out of red brick.

'Hey!'

Reluctantly Tickler turned. He had been quick to identify the silent
watcher. By straightening his shoulders and adding something of
jauntiness to his stride he hoped to prevent the recognition from
becoming mutual.

Surefoot Smith was one of the few people in the world who have minds like
a well-organized card index. Not the smallest and least important
offender who had passed through his hands could hope to reach a blissful
oblivion.

'Come here--you.'

Tickler came.

'What are you doing now, Tickler? Burglary, or just fetching the beer for
the con. men? Two a.m.! Got a home?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Ah, somewhere in the West End! Gone scientific, maybe. Science is the
ruin of the country!'

Rights or no rights, he passed his hands swiftly over Tickler's person;
the little man stretched out his arms obediently and smiled. It was not a
pretty smile, for his teeth were few and his mouth large and lop-sided.
But it was a smile of conscious virtue.

'No jemmy, no chisel, no bit, no gat.' Surefoot Smith gave Mr Tickler
absolution.

'No, Mr Smith; I'm runnin' straight now. I'm going after a job tomorrow.'

'Don't waste my time, boy,' said Surefoot reproachfully. 'Work! You've
read about it. What kind of thieving do you do now? Whizzing? No, you're
not clever enough.'

Tickler said a bold thing. The lees of wine were still sizzling within
him. 'I'm a detective,' he said.

If Surefoot Smith was revolted he did not betray his emotion. 'Did you
say "defective" or "detective"?' he asked.

He might have asked further questions, but at that moment a torch flashed
twice from the roof of the building he was watching. Instantly the
roadway seemed to be covered by the figures of overcoated men converging
on the building. Surefoot Smith was one of the first to reach the
opposite sidewalk.

A loud rapping on the door told Mr Tickler all he wanted to know: The
place was being raided--a spieling club, or maybe worse. He was grateful
for the relief and hurried on his way.

At Piccadilly Circus he paused and considered matters. He was quite sober
now and could review the position calmly; and the more he thought, the
more thoroughly he realized that he had allowed opportunity to slip past
him.

He turned and walked along Piccadilly, his chin on his chest, dreaming
dreams of easy money.



Chapter Three

Mary Lane looked at the plain gold watch on her wrist and gasped.

'Four o'clock, dear!'

There were still twenty couples on the dancing floor of the Legation
Club. It was a gala night, and they kept late hours on these occasions.

'Sorry you've had such a tiring evening.' Dick Allenby didn't look sorry;
he certainly did not look tired. There were no shadows under the laughing
grey eyes, the tanned face was unlined. Yet he had not seen his bed for
twenty-four hours. 'Anyway, you rescued me,' he said as he called a
waiter. 'Think of it! I was alone until you came. When I said Moran had
been and gone I was lying. The devil didn't turn up. Jerry Dornford tried
to edge in on the party--he's still hoping.'

He glanced across to a table on the other side of the room where the
immaculately dressed Jerry sat.

I hardly know him,' she said.

Dick smiled. 'He wants to know you better--but he is distinctly a person
not to know. Jerry has been out all the night--went away just before
supper and has only just come back. Your other party was dull, was it?
Funny devil, this man Wirth. It was cheek of Mike Hennessey to invite you
there.'

'Mike is rather a dear,' she protested.

'Mike is a crook--a pleasant crook, but a crook. Whilst he is at large it
is disgraceful that there is anybody else in prison!'

They passed out into the street, and as they stood waiting for a taxi
Dick Allenby saw a familiar figure. 'Why, Mr Smith, you're out late!'

'Early,' said Surefoot Smith. He lifted his hat to the girl. 'Evening,
Miss Lane. Shockin' habit, night clubs.'

'I'm full of bad habits,' she smiled.

Here was another man she liked. Chief Inspector Smith of Scotland Yard
was liked by many people and heartily disliked by many more. The taxi
drew up. She refused Dick's escort any farther and drove off.

'Nice young lady that,' said Surefoot. 'Actresses don't mean anything to
me--I've just come from Marlborough Street, where I've been chargin'
three of 'em--at least, they called themselves actresses.'

'A little raid?'

'A mere nothing,' said Surefoot sadly. 'I expected to find kings and only
pulled in prawns.'

'Pawns,' suggested Dick.

'Small fish, anyway,' said Surefoot.

That he was called 'Surefoot' was no testimony to his gifts as a sleuth.
It was his baptismal name. His father had been a bookmaking publican, and
a month before his child was born the late Mr Smith, obsessed with the
conviction that Surefoot, the Derby favourite, would not win, had laid
that horse to win himself a fortune. If Surefoot had won, the late Mr
Smith would have been a ruined man. Surefoot lost, and in gratitude he
had named his infant child after the equine unfortunate.

'I nearly came up to your workshop the other day and had a squint at that
gun of yours--air-gun, ain't it?'

'A sort of one,' said Dick. 'Who told you about it?'

'That feller Dornford. He's a bad egg! I can't understand it--your gun.
Dornford said you put in a cartridge and fire it, and that charges the
gun.'

'It compresses the air--yes.'

Dick Allenby was not in the mood to discuss inventions.

'You ought to sell it in America,' said Mr Smith, and made a clicking
noise with his lips. 'These ride murders,' Surefoot went on. 'I mean
takin' fellers out into the country in a car and shootin' 'em. Would it
be possible here? No!'

'I'm not so sure.' Dick shook his head. 'Anyway, it's nearly half past
four and I'm not going to talk crime with you. Come up to my flat and
we'll have a drink.'

Surefoot Smith hesitated. 'All right; there's no sleep for me tonight.
There's a taxi.'

The taxi stood in the middle of the road near an island. Smith whistled.

'Driver's gone away, sir.' It was the club porter who offered the
information. 'I tried to get it for the lady.'

'He's asleep inside,' said Smith, and walked across the road, Dick
following.

Surefoot peered through the closed window of the cab, but saw nothing.

'He's not there,' he said, and looked again.

Then he turned the handle and pulled open the door. Somebody was
there--somebody lying on the floor, with his legs on the seat.

'Drunk!' said Smith.

He flashed his torch on the figure. The face was visible, yet
indistinguishable, for he had been shot through the head at close
quarters; but Smith saw enough to recognize something which had once been
Mr Horace Tom Tickler and was now just a dead, mangled thing.

'Taken for a ride!' gasped Surefoot. 'Good God! What's this--America?'



Chapter Four

IN FIVE MINUTES there were a dozen policemen round the cab, holding back
the crowd which had gathered, as crowds will gather at any hour of the
day or night in London.

Fortunately, a police surgeon had been at Marlborough Street attending to
a drunk, and he was on the spot within a few minutes.

'Shot at close quarters by a very small-bore gun,' was his first verdict
after a casual examination.

In a very short time the ambulance arrived, and all that was mortal of
Horace Tom Tickler was removed. A police officer started up the engine of
the taxi and drove it into the station yard for closer inspection. The
number had already been taken.

Scotland Yard had sent a swift car to find the owner, a taxi driver named
Wells.

Dick Allenby had not been specifically invited to the investigations, but
had found himself in conversation with Surefoot Smith at crucial moments
of the search, and had drifted with him to the police station.

The man had been shot in the cab; they found a bullet-hole through the
lining of the roof. The body, Smith thought, had sagged forward to the
ground and the legs had been lifted in the approved gang style.

'He was probably still alive when he was on the floor. The murderer must
have fired a second shot. We've found a bullet in the floorboard of the
cab.'

'Have you found the driver?' asked Dick.

'He's on his way.'

Mr Wells, the driver, proved to be a very stout and thoroughly alarmed
man. His story was a simple one. He had got to the garage where he kept
his car a little before 2 o'clock. The door of the garage was closed and
he left the cab outside. This was evidently a practice of his, for the
cleaner came on duty at 6 o'clock and prepared the cab for the day's
work. He could leave it outside with impunity, because taxis are very
rarely stolen; they are so easily identified and so useless to the
average car thief that they are very seldom 'knocked off'. His garage was
in a yard off the Marylebone Road.

So far as he was concerned, he had a complete alibi for, after leaving
the cab, he had gone to the nearest police station to deposit an umbrella
and a pocket-book which had been left by a previous passenger. A
policeman had seen him leave the car, and to this policeman he had shown
the lost property, which he had afterwards deposited at the station. It
was a very lonely yard, and, unlike such places, was entirely without
inhabitants, the garages forming part of a building which was used as a
furniture store.

It was seven o'clock when Dick drove home to his flat at Queen's Gate. It
was curious that the only impression left on him was one of relief that
Mary had not walked across the road to the cab and opened the door, as
she might have done, and made the hideous discovery. The car had been
parked outside the club twenty minutes before the discovery; the driver
had been seen to leave the taxi and walk towards Air Street.

The earliest discovery that had been made was that the taxi flag was down
and a sum of seventeen shillings was registered on the clock. This gave
the police approximately the period between the murder being committed
and the body being found.

Late that afternoon Surefoot Smith called on Dick Allenby.

'Thought you'd like to know how far we've got,' he said. 'We found a
hundred one-pound notes in this bird's pocket.'

'Tickler's?'

'How did you know his name was Tickler?' Surefoot Smith regarded him with
suspicion.

Dick did not answer immediately. 'Well, the odd thing is, I recognized
him when I saw him. He used to be a servant of my uncle's.'

'You didn't tell me that last night.'

'I wasn't sure last night; I wasn't sure, in fact, until I saw the body
lifted out. I don't know very much about my uncle's business, but I
understand this man was fired for stealing, about six or seven years
ago.'

Surefoot nodded. 'That's right. I'd come to give you that bit of
information. I saw old Lyne this morning, but, bless you, Scotland Yard
means nothing to him. Your uncle, is he?' He nodded again.

'Congratulations!'

'What did he say?' asked Dick, curious.

'If you think he broke down, I am here to put you right. All he could
remember about Tickler was that he was a scoundrel, and anyway we knew
that. A hundred one-pound notes! If there had only been a fiver amongst
them it might have been easy.' He cleared a space on a crowded bench and
perched himself on it. 'I wonder who the fellow was who took him for a
ride? American, I'll bet you! That's what's worrying me--science coming
into crime!'

Dick laughed. 'According to you, Surefoot, science is responsible for all
crime.'

Mr Smith raised his eyebrows inquiringly. 'Well, isn't it? What's science
done? It's given us photography to make forgery easy, planes to get
thieves out of the country, cars for burglars. What's radio done? I've
had four cases in the last six months of fellows who used radio to rob
people! What's electricity done? It helps safe smashers to drill holes in
strong-rooms! Science!'

Dick thought there was very little evidence of applied science in the
taxi murder, and said so. 'It might have been committed in a horse-drawn
carriage.'

'The driver couldn't have left a horse,' was the crushing retort. 'I'll
bet you this is the first of many.' He reached out and put his hand on
the oblong steel box that lay on the bench near him. 'That's science, and
therefore it's going to be used by criminals. It's a noiseless gun--'

'Was the gun last night noiseless?' asked Dick.

Surefoot Smith thought a moment, and then: 'Have you got any beer?' he
asked.

There were a dozen bottles under one of the benches. Dick had many
visitors who required refreshment. Surefoot Smith opened two and drank
them in rapid succession. He was a great drinker of beer, had been known
to polish off twenty bottles at a sitting without being any the worse for
it--claiming, indeed, that beer intensified his powers of reasoning.

'No,' he said, and wiped his mouth with a large red handkerchief; 'and
yet we have seen nobody who heard the shots. Where were they fired? That
cab could have been driven somewhere into the country. There are plenty
of lonely places where a couple of shots wouldn't be noticed or heard.
You can go a long way in a couple of hours. There were rain marks on the
windscreen and mud on the wheels. There was no rain in London; there's
been a lot just outside of London.'

He reached mechanically under the bench, took out a third and fourth
bottle and opened them absent-mindedly.

'And how did you find my noble relative?'

'Friend of yours?' asked Surefoot. Dick shook his head. 'Well, I can tell
you what I think of him.'

Mr Smith described Hervey Lyne in a pungent sentence.

'Very likely,' agreed Dick Allenby, watching his beer vanish. 'I'm hardly
on speaking terms with him.'

'This fellow Tickler--you had a few words with him, didn't you, about
five years ago?'

Dick's eyes narrowed. 'Did Mr Lyne tell you that?'

'Somebody told me,' said Surefoot vaguely.

'I kicked him out of my flat, yes. He brought rather an insulting message
from my uncle and supplemented it with a few remarks of his own.'

Surefoot got down from the bench and brushed himself carefully.

'You ought to have told me all this last night,' he said reproachfully.
'It might have saved me a bit of trouble.'

'I also might have saved myself four bottles of beer,' said Dick,
slightly irritated.

'That's been put to a good use,' said Surefoot.

He examined the odd-looking air-gun again, lifted it without difficulty
and replaced it. 'That might have done it,' he said.

'Are you suggesting I killed this fellow?' Dick Allenby's anger was
rising.

Surefoot smiled. 'Don't lose your temper. It's not you I'm up against,
but science.'

'It certainly is a gun,' said Dick, controlling his wrath; 'but the main
idea--I don't know whether you can get it into your thick head--'

'Thank you,' murmured Surefoot.

'--is that this should be put to commercial use. By exploding an ordinary
cartridge, or nearly an ordinary cartridge, in this breech, I create a
tremendous air pressure, which can be just as well used for running a
machine as for shooting a jailbird.'

'You knew he'd been in jail?' asked Surefoot, almost apologetically.

'Of course I knew he'd been in jail-two or three times, I should imagine,
but I only know of one occasion, when my uncle prosecuted him. If I were
you, Surefoot, I'd go to Chicago and learn something of the police
methods there--'

'There ain't any,' interrupted Surefoot decidedly. 'I've studied the
subject.'

As Surefoot Smith walked towards Hyde Park he observed that all other
events in the world had slumped to insignificance by the side of the
taxicab murder. Every newspaper bill flamed with the words. One said
'Important Clue'; he wasted his money to discover that the clue was the
first news that a hundred pounds had been found in the dead man's pocket,
a fact which had not previously been revealed.

The antecedents of Wells had been investigated during the day and he had
been given a clean bill by a man whose chief desire was to find the most
damning evidence against him.

Smith was due at Scotland Yard for a conference at four o'clock. He hated
conferences, where people sat round and smoked and expressed extravagant
views on subjects they knew nothing about. But on this occasion, the
first time for many years, he arrived promptly and had the satisfaction
of finding that his four colleagues were as barren of ideas as he. They
knew--and this was no discovery--that there was a possibility that this
was a new type of crime which might become prevalent. Desperadoes had
before now stolen cars, but had confined their operations to minor
out-of-town burglaries.

There was one scrap of news. A policeman patrolling Portland Place from
one of the mews behind had identified the body as that of a man to whom
he had spoken at a quarter to two, and this tallied with Smith's own
knowledge, for at two o'clock he had seen Tickler walking down Regent
Street from the direction of Portland Place.

Curiously enough, though a familiar phenomenon to police investigators,
the policeman had said nothing about the drunken man in whose voice
Tickler had been interested. Nor, in his report, had he given so much as
a hint of that part of the conversation which revealed his knowledge of a
man against whom he had had a grudge, and who might conceivably have had
as deep an animosity towards him.

'This tells me no more than I know,' said Surefoot, putting down the
report. 'Except that it is not true that Tickler ever had nine months;
all his sentences were shorter. Who killed this poor little hound? He was
broke, or nearly broke. I saw him stop to pick up a cigarette from the
sidewalk just before he came up to me. Who picked him up in the stolen
cab, and why?'

Fat McEwan leaned back in his well-filled chair and blew a trumpet of
smoke to the ceiling.

'If there were such things as gangs you could guess it in at once,' he
said despairingly.' But there are no gangs. This man wasn't even a nose,
was he, Surefoot?' Surefoot shook his head. Tickler had never been that.
'Then why the dickens should he have been killed? Tell me that.'

This was a fair summary of an hour's discussion. Surefoot Smith went down
to his little office entirely unenlightened. He found a number of
letters, and one that had been posted at Westminster and had been
delivered that afternoon. The envelope was dirty; his address was
scrawled in an illiterate hand. He tore open the envelope and took out a
sheet of paper, obviously extracted from a memorandum book of the cheaper
kind. In pencil were the words:

'If you want to know who killed poor Mr Tickler you'd better go and have
a talk with Mr L. Moran.'

Smith looked at the letter for a long time, and then: 'Why not?' he asked
himself aloud.

There were a great many things about Mr Moran that he could never quite
understand.



Chapter Five

FAITH NEEDS THE garnishing of romance as much as hope requires the
support of courage. Mary Lane had faith in her future, courage to brace
the hope of ultimate achievement.

Otherwise she was without the more important and disastrous illusions
which do so much to create rosy prospects and unhappy memories.

She knew that some day she would be accepted by the West End of London as
an important actress, that her name would appear in lights outside a
theatre, but she never dreamed vain dreams of sudden fame, though, in the
nature of things, fame is as sudden as the transition of a sound sleeper
to wakefulness.

Some day the slumbering public would open its eyes and be aware of Mary
Lane. In the meantime it was oblivious of her existence--all except a few
wide-awake dramatic critics. These very few, having a weakness for
discovery, continuously swept the theatrical sky in search of nth
dimension stars which would one day (here the astronomical analogy became
absurd) blaze into the first dimension. Occasionally they 'found'; more
often than not they made themselves ridiculous, but covered their failure
with well-designed fun poked at themselves and their own
enthusiasms--which is one of the tricks of their business.

It was only a half-hearted discovery so far as Mary was concerned. She
was a brighter speck in the nebula of young actresses. She might be (they
said) a very great actress some day, if she overcame her habit of
dropping her voice, if she learned how to use her hands. Mary strove
diligently, for she was at the age when dramatic critics seem infallible.
She did not dream unprofitably; never lay awake at night, imagining the
eruption of an agitated management into the dressing-room she shared with
two other girls.

'You're understudying Miss Fortescue, aren't you? Get into her clothes
quickly; she's been taken ill.'

She did not visualize newspaper columns acclaiming the young actress who
had found fame in a night. She knew that understudy performances, however
politely received, are as politely forgotten, and that a girl who grows
famous in an evening steps into oblivion between Saturday and Monday.

On the second morning after Washington Wirth's party, she had a brief
interview with Mr Hervey Lyne on the subject of her allowance. It was not
a pleasant interview. None of her interviews with Mr Lyne had ever been
that.

'If you go on the stage you must expect to starve!' he snarled. 'Your
fool of a father made me his executor and gave me full authority. Two
hundred and fifty a year is all that you get until you're twenty-five.
And there's nothing more to be said!'

She was very pretty and very angry, but she kept her temper admirably.

'Thirty thousand brings in more than two hundred and fifty a year,' she
said.

He glared in her direction; she was just a blotch of blue and pink to his
myopic vision.

'It's all you will get until you're twenty-five--and then I'll be glad to
get rid of you. And another thing, young lady: you're a friend of my
nephew, Richard Allenby?'

Her chin went up. 'Yes.'

He wagged a skinny forefinger at her. 'He gets nothing from me--whether
I'm alive or dead. Understand that!'

She did not trust herself to reply.

Binny showed her out and was incoherently sympathetic.

'Don't worry, miss,' he said in his dull voice; 'he ain't himself this
mornin'.'

She said nothing, hardly noticing Binny, who sighed heavily and wagged
his head mournfully as he shut the door. He was by way of being a
sentimentalist.

Ten minutes later she was talking vehemently over the telephone to Dick
Allenby. His sympathy was more acceptable.

People used to say about Hervey Lyne that he was the sort of character
that only Dickens could have drawn, which is discouraging to a lesser
chronicler. He was eccentric in appearance and habit; naturally, so,
because he was old and self-willed and had a vivid memory of his past
importance.

Everybody who was anybody had borrowed money from Hervey Lyne, and most
of them had paid it back with considerable interest. Unlike the late
'Chippy' Isaacs, as mild and pleasant a gentleman as ever issued money on
note of hand, Hervey was harsh, unconscionable and rude. But he was
quick.

The young men of yesterday who had given champagne suppers and had bet in
thousands on their horses, were sometimes in difficulties to find ready
money, and generally they chose Hervey first because they knew their fate
sooner than if they applied to Chippy.

Hervey said 'No' or 'Yes', and meant 'No' or 'Yes'. You could go into
Hervey's parlour in Naylors Crescent and either come out in five minutes
with the money you needed or in two minutes with the sure knowledge that
if you had stayed two hours you would not have persuaded him.

He gave up lending money when the trustees of the Duke of Crewdson's
estate fought him in the Law Courts and lost. Hervey thought they would
win, and had the shock of his life. Thereafter he only lent very
occasionally, just as a gambler will play cards occasionally--and then
for small stakes--to recover something of the old thrill.

His attitude to the world can be briefly defined: the galley of his life
floated serenely on a sluggish sea of fools. His clients were fools; he
had never felt the least respect for any of them. They were fools to
borrow, fools to agree to enormous and staggering rates of interest,
fools to repay him.

Dick Allenby was a fool, a pottering inventor and an insolent cub who
hadn't the brains to see on which side his bread was buttered. Mary Lane
was a fool, a posturing actress who painted her face and kicked her legs
about--he invariably employed this inelegant illustration--for a
pittance. One was his nephew, and might with tact have inherited a
million; the other was the daughter of his sometime partner and might,
had she been a good actress, have enjoyed the same inheritance--would
enjoy it yet if he could arouse himself from his surprising lethargy and
alter his will.

His servants were complete fools. Old Binny, bald, stout, perspiring, who
pushed his invalid chair into the park and read him to sleep, was a fool.
He might have taken a kindlier view of Binny and left him a hundred or so
'for his unfailing loyalty and tireless services', but Binny hummed hymn
tunes in the house and hummed them a key or so flat.

Not that Binny cared. He was a cheery soul with large eyes and a
completely bald head. A bit of a sluggard, whom his thin and whining
wife--who was also the cook of 17 Naylors Crescent--found a difficult man
to get out of bed in the mornings. Valet, confidential servant,
messenger, butler, chair-pusher and reader, Binny, alert or asleep, was
worth exactly three times as much wages as he received.

Old Hervey sat propped up in his armchair, glooming at the egg and toast
that had been put before him. His thin old face wore an expression of
discontent. The thick tinted glasses which hid the hard blue eyes were
staring at the tray, and his mind was far away.

'Has that jackass of a detective called again?'

'No, sir,' said Binny. 'You mean Mr Smith?'

'I mean the fool that came to ask questions about that blackguard
Tickler,' stormed the old man, emphasizing every sentence with a blow on
the table that set the cups rattling.

'The man who was found in the cab--?'

'You know who I mean,' snarled the old man. 'I suppose one of his
thieving friends killed him. It's the sort of end a man like that would
come to.'

Hervey Lyne relapsed into silence, a scowl on his face. He wondered if
Binny was robbing him too. There had been a suspicious increase in the
grocery bill, lately, Binny's explanation that the cost of food had gone
up being entirely unacceptable. And Binny was one of those smooth, smug,
crawling slaves who wouldn't think twice about robbing an employer.

It was about time Binny was changed. He had hinted as much that morning,
and Binny had almost moaned his anguish.

'It's going to be a fine day, sir, for your outing.'

He stirred the contents of the teapot surreptitiously.

'Don't talk,' snapped the old man. There was another long silence, and
then: 'What time is that fellow calling?' he asked harshly.

Binny, who was pouring out the tea at a side table, turned his big head
and gazed pathetically at his employer. 'What feller, sir? The young lady
came at nine--'

Hervey's thin lip curled in silent fury. 'Of course she did, you fool!
But the bank manager...didn't you ask him to come--'

'At ten, sir--Mr Moran--'

'Get the letter--get it!'

Binny placed the cup of tea before his employer, rummaged through a small
heap of papers on an open secretaire and found what he sought.

'Read it--read it!' snapped the old man. 'I can't be bothered.'

He never would be bothered again. He could tell light from dark; knew by
a pale blur where the window was, could find his way unaided up the
seventeen stairs which led to his bed-room, but no more. He could sign
his name, and you would never suspect that a man more than half blind was
responsible for that flourish.

'DEAR MR LYNE' (read Binny in the monotonous voice he adopted for reading
aloud),' I will give myself the pleasure of calling on you at ten o'clock
tomorrow morning.

'Yours faithfully,

'LEO MORAN.'

Hervey smiled again. 'Give himself the pleasure, eh?' His thin voice grew
shrill. 'Does he think I'm asking him here for his amusement? There's the
door bell.'

Binny shuffled out and came back in a few seconds with the visitor. 'Mr
Moran,' he announced.

'Sit down--sit down, Mr Moran.' The old man waved a hand vaguely. 'Find
him a chair, Binny, and get out--d'ye hear? Get out! And don't listen at
the door, damn you!'

The visitor smiled as the door closed on a Binny who was unconcerned,
unemotional, unresentful.

'Now, Moran--you're my bank manager.'

'Yes, Mr Lyne. I asked if I could see you a year ago, if you remember--'

'I remember'--testily. 'I don't want to see bank managers: I want them to
look after my money. That's your job--you're paid for it, handsomely,
I've no doubt. You've brought the bank statement?'

The visitor took an envelope from his pocket, and, opening it, brought
out two folded sheets of paper.

'Here--' he began, and his chair creaked as he rose.

'I don't want to see them--just tell me what my balance is.'

'Two hundred and twelve thousand seven hundred and sixty pounds and a few
shillings.'

'M'm!' The' in 'm' was a purr of satisfaction. 'That includes the
deposit, eh? And you hold stock...?'

'The stock held amounts to six hundred and thirty-two thousand pounds.'

'I'll tell you why I want you--' began Lyne; and then, suspiciously:
'Open the door and see if that fellow's listening.'

The visitor rose, opened the door and closed it again. 'There's nobody
there,' he said.

He was slightly amused, though Mr Lyne's infirmities prevented him from
observing this fact.

'Nobody, eh? Well, Moran, I'll tell you candidly: I regard myself as a
remarkably able man. That's not boastful, it's fact which you yourself
could probably certify. I trust nobody--not even bank managers. My
eyesight isn't as good as it was, and it's a little difficult to check up
accounts. But I have a remarkable memory. I've trained myself to carry
figures in my head, and I could have told you to within a few shillings
exactly the figures that you gave to me.'

He paused, stared through his thick glasses in the direction of the man
who sat at the other side of his desk.

'You're not a speculator or a gambler?'

'No, Mr Lyne, I am not.'

A pause.

'H'm! That fool Binny was reading to me a few days ago the story of a
bank manager who'd absconded, taking with him a very considerable sum. I
confess I was uneasy. People have robbed me before--'

'You're not being very polite, Mr Lyne.'

'I'm not trying to be polite,' snapped the old man. 'I'm merely telling
you what has happened to me. There was a scoundrelly servant of mine, a
fellow called Tickler. The fellow who was killed...'

He rambled on, a long, long story about the minor depredations of his
dishonest servant, and the man who called himself Moran listened
patiently. He was very relieved when he had taken the thin, limp hand in
his and the door of No. 17 Naylors Crescent, closed behind him.

'Phew!' he said. He had a habit of speaking his thoughts aloud.' I
wouldn't go through that again for a lot of money.'

Binny, summoned from the deeps by a bell, came in to find the visitor
gone.

'What does he look like? Has he an honest face?'

Binny thought profoundly.

'Just a face,' he said vaguely, and the old man snorted.

'Clear those breakfast things away. Who else is coming to see me?'

Binny thought for a long time. 'A man named Dornford, sir.'

'A gentleman named Dornford,' corrected his master. 'He owes me money,
therefore he is a gentleman. At what hour?'

'About eight o'clock, sir.'

Lyne dismissed him with a gesture.

At three o'clock that afternoon he ambled out of his sitting-room,
wrapped in his thick Inverness coat and wearing his soft felt hat,
allowed himself, growling complaints the while, to be tucked into his
invalid chair, and was pushed painfully into the street; more painfully
up the gentle slope to the park and into the private gardens, entry to
which was exclusively reserved for tenants of Naylors and other terraces.
Here he sat, under the shade of a tree, while Binny, perched
uncomfortably on a folding stool, read in his monotonous voice the
happenings of the day.

Only once the old man interrupted. 'What time is Mr Dornford calling?'

'At eight o'clock, sir,' said Binny.

Lyne nodded, pushed his blue-tinted glasses higher up the thin bridge of
his nose and folded his gloved hands over the rug which protected his
knees from errant breezes.

'You be in when he comes, d'ye hear? A tricky fellow--a dangerous fellow.
You hear me, Binny?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then why the devil didn't you say so? Go on reading that trash.'

Binny obeyed, and continued with great relish the story of London's
latest murder. Binny was a great student of crime in the abstract.



Chapter Six

JULES BARELY DESERVES description because he plays so small a part; but
as that small part was big enough to put one man in the shadow of the
gallows, he may be catalogued as a plump, sallow-faced young man with
perfectly brushed hair, who was invariably dressed as though he were on
his way to a wedding reception.

He was a sort of attache to a South American Legation, and a free-lance
of diplomacy generally. In more suspicious countries he would have been
handed his passport with extreme politeness, and his departure from
Southampton would have been watched by the bored detective whose business
it is to superintend the shipment of oddities.

He was always important and profound; never more so than when he sat at
the bay window overlooking St James's Street, stroking his little black
moustache thoughtfully and speaking with just the slightest trace of an
accent to Jerry Dornford.

Everybody knew and liked Jerry, whose other name was Gerald. He had all
the qualities which endear a wastrel to the monied classes. He was, of
course, a member of Snell's, as was Jules. He was, indeed, a member of
all the important clubs where gentlemen meet. He paid his subscription,
never passed a cheque which was dishonoured, had never been warned off or
posted as a bankrupt. A tall man, with a slight stoop, brownish hair very
thin on the top, deep-set eyes that smiled in a worn, tired face.

Jerry had lived very fast. Few of his creditors could keep up with him.
He had been a co-respondent, and again a co-respondent, and was single,
and lived in a little flat in Half Moon Street, where he gave small
parties; very small. He retained his membership of exclusive racing
clubs--bookmakers lived in the hope that he would one day settle with
them. He had certain very rich relations who would certainly die, but
were not so certain whether they would bequeath their undoubted wealth to
this profligate son of Sir George Dornford.

On the other hand, why shouldn't they?

He was in desperate need of money now. Jules knew how desperate; they had
few secrets from one another. Whenever the little party in Half Moon
Street was as many as four, Jules was the third.

'What is this fellow's name?'

'Hervey Lyne.'

'Hervey Lyne? Yes, I know him. A very odd man'--reminiscently. 'When my
dear father was Secretary of Legation he borrowed money from Lyne. But I
thought he had retired from business. He was a money-lender, wasn't he?'

Jerry's lips twisted in an unpleasant smile.

'Financier,' he said laconically. 'Yes, he's retired. I owed him three
thousand for years; it's four now. There was, of course, a chance that
the dowager would leave a packet, but the old devil left it away, to the
other side of the family.'

'And he is pressing you?'

Jerry's jaw set.

'Yes,' he said shortly.' To be exact, he is getting a judgement in
bankruptcy, and I can't stop him. I've been dodging Carey Street all my
life. Things have looked very black at times, but there's always been
something that turned up.'

There was a long and gloomy silence. Jules--he had another name, but
nobody could remember it--stroked his little black moustache more
quickly.

'Two thousand--that would stop the action, eh? Well, why not? There is
nothing to it. I do not ask you, like the fellow in the story-books, to
go to the War Office and rob them of their plans. But I do want
something, for a gentleman who has himself been working on the lines of
your friend. To me it seems a very large sum to pay for so small a thing.
Naturally I do not say that to my gentleman. If he desires to be
extravagant and my friend would benefit--well, why not?'

Jerry Dornford made a wry face at the street below. When he was asked to
work for money he never forgot that he was a gentleman--it was rather a
disgusting thing he was now asked to do, but he had contemplated things
even more distressful. He had, in fact, found every solution to his
difficulty except suicide.

'I'm not so sure that it can be done, anyway,' he said.

Two men came into the smoke-room. He looked up quickly and recognized
both, but was interested particularly in one.

'That's Fate,' he said.

'Who are they?' asked Jules.

He knew the second of the two, who was a member, but the first man,
middle-aged, rather rotund, fair-haired, was a stranger to him.

'That's my bank manager. Incidentally, he's Lyne's banker too, a fellow
named Moran--Major Moran, he loves to call himself. A Territorial
fellow.'

Jules shot a swift glance in the direction of the men, who at that moment
were seating themselves at the table. 'A great rifle shot. I saw him at
Bisley. I was there with one of our generals, watching the shooting.' He
turned his black eyes to Jerry. 'Well, my friend?'

Jerry breathed heavily through his nose and shook his head. 'I'll have to
think it over,' he said. 'It's an awful thing to do.'

'More awful to be a bankrupt, my friend,' said Jules in his caressing
voice.' Resignation from all clubs...Poor old Jerry, eh? You are going
into the Mike Hennessey class. You don't want to be that.'

'Why Mike Hennessey?' asked Jerry quickly, and the other laughed.

'An association of ideas. You go often to the Sheridan, eh? I do not
blame you...a very charming girl.' He nodded. 'Association of ideas, eh?
Allenby also likes the young lady. Queer how all things fit in, like the
pieces of a puzzle. Think it over, my dear Jerry, and ring me up at the
Grosvenor.'

He snapped his fingers towards a club waiter, scribbled his initials on a
bill and strolled towards the door, Jerry following.

They had to pass Moran and his friend; that bluff, jolly-looking man
looked up, nodded with careless friendliness and caught Jerry's sleeve as
he was passing.

'I'd like to see you one day this week, if you're not busy, Jerry.'

Jerry never forgot he was a member of Snell's and a gentleman. He never
forgot that Mr Leo Moran was a sort of glorified bank clerk, who had
probably had his education at the State's expense; and, knowing all these
things, he resented the 'Jerry'. It added to his irritation that he knew
why Mr Moran wanted to see him. It was outrageous that one couldn't lunch
in one's club without being dunned by people like this.

He pulled his sleeve away from the detaining finger and thumb. 'All
right,' he said.

He would have been more offensive if this man had not been a guest at the
club and, more important, if it were not in Moran's power to make things
extremely uncomfortable for Mr Gerald Dornford.

As he and Jules were passing down the stairs...'The swine! Who brought
that kind of chap into the club? Snell's is getting impossible!'

Jules, who had a weakness for the rococo qualities of Italian opera, was
humming a favourite aria of Puccini's. He smiled and shook his head. 'It
takes all sorts of people to make a world, my friend,' he said
sententiously. He flicked a speck from his immaculate coat sleeve, patted
Jerry on the arm as though he were a child, and went swinging up St
James's Street towards his mysterious Legation.

Jerry Dornford stood for a moment hesitant, then walked slowly down
towards the palace. He was in a jam, a tight jam, and it wasn't going to
be so very easy to get out. He obeyed an impulse, called a taxi and drove
to near Queen's Gate, where he alighted, paid his fare, and walked on.

Dick Allenby lived in a big house that had been converted into flats.
There was no attendant on duty at the door, and the elevator that took
him up to the fourth floor was automatic. He knocked at the door of
Dick's studio--for studio it had once been, before Dick Allenby had
converted it into a work-room. There was no answer, and he turned the
handle and walked in.

The room was empty. Evidently there had been visitors, for half a dozen
empty beer bottles stood on a bench, though there was only one used
tumbler visible. If he had known something of Surefoot Smith, he might
have reduced the visiting list to one.

'Are you there, Allenby?' he called.

There was no answer. He walked across to the bench where the odd-looking
steel box lay, and lifted it. To his relief he found he could carry it
without an effort. Putting it down again, he walked to the door. The key
was on the inside; he drew it out and examined it carefully. If he had
been an expert at the job he would have carried wax and taken an
impression. As it was, his early technical training came to his aid--it
had once been intended that he should follow the profession of engineer.

He listened; there was no sound of the lift moving. Dick, he knew, had
his bedroom on the upper floor, and was probably there now. Dornford made
a rapid sketch on the back of an envelope--rapid but accurate. He judged
the width of the key, made a brief note and replaced it as the sound of
somebody coming down the stairs reached him.

He was standing examining the empty beer bottles when Dick came in.

'Hello, Dornford!' There was no great welcome in the tone. 'Did you want
to see me?'

Jerry smiled. 'I was bored. I thought I'd come up and see what an
inventor looked like. By the way, I saw you at the theatre the other
night--nice girl that. She was damned rude to me the only time I spoke to
her.'

Dick faced him squarely. 'And I shall be damned rude to you the next time
you speak to her,' he said.

Jerry Dornford chuckled. 'Like that, eh? By the way, I'm seeing the old
man tonight. Shall I give him your love?'

'He'd prefer that you gave him something more substantial,' said Dick
coldly. It was a shot at a venture, but it got home. Gerald the
imperturbable winced. It was odd that up to that moment Dick Allenby had
never realized how intensely he disliked this man.

'Why this sudden antagonism? After all, I've no feeling about this girl
of yours. She's a nice little thing; a bad actress, but a good girl. They
don't go very far on the London stage--'

'If you're talking about Miss Lane I will bring the conversation to a
very abrupt termination,' said Dick; and then, bluntly: 'Why did you come
up here? You're quite right about the antagonism, but it's not very
sudden, is it? I don't seem to remember that you and I were ever very
great friends.'

'We were in the same regiment, old boy--brother officers and all that,'
said Jerry flippantly. 'Good Lord! It doesn't seem like twelve years
ago--'

Dick opened the door and stood by it.

'I don't want you here. I don't particularly want to know you. If you see
my uncle tonight you'd better tell him that: it will be a point in my
favour.'

Jerry Dornford smiled. His skin was thick, though he was very sensitive
on certain unimportant matters.

'I suppose you knew this fellow Tickler who was killed the other night?'
he began.

'I don't want even to discuss murders with you,' said Dick.

He went out of the room, pulled open the door of the lift and shot back
the folding iron gate. He was angry with himself afterwards that he had
lost his temper, but he never knew the time when Jerry Dornford did not
arouse a fury in him. He hated Jerry's views of life, his philosophy, the
looseness of his code. He remembered Jerry's extraordinary dexterity with
cards and a ruined subaltern who went gladly to his death rather than
face the consequence of a night's play.

As he heard the elevator stop at the bottom floor he opened the window of
the workshop to air it--an extravagant gesture, but one which accurately
marked his attitude of mind towards his visitor.



Chapter Seven

THE BANK WAS closed and Mr Moran had gone home, when Surefoot Smith
called to make his inquiry.

Surefoot knew almost everybody who had any importance in London. Indeed,
quite a number of people would have had a shock if they had known how
very completely informed he was about their private lives. It is true
that almost every man and woman in any civilized community has, to
himself or herself, a criminal history. They may have broken no laws, yet
there is guilt on their conscience; and it is a knowledge of this
psychology which is of such invaluable aid to investigating detectives.

The nearest way to Parkview Terrace led him across the open end of
Naylors Crescent. Glancing down, he saw a man coming towards him and
stopped. Binny he knew to be an inveterate gossip, a great collector of
stories and scandals, most of which were ill-founded. At the back of his
mind, however, he associated Hervey Lyne's manservant with the banker.
Years before, Surefoot Smith had been in control of this division, and
his memory was extraordinary good.

'Good afternoon, Mr Smith.'

Binny tipped his wide-brimmed bowler hat, and then, after a moment's
hesitation:

'May I be so bold to ask, sir, if there is any news?'

'You told me you knew this man Tickler?'

Binny shook his head. 'An acquaintance. He was my predecessor--'

'I'd have that word framed,' said Surefoot Smith testily. 'You mean he
was the fellow who had your job before, don't you?' And, when Binny
nodded:' Then why didn't you say so? Didn't you work for Moran?'

Binny smiled. 'I've worked for almost every kind of gentleman,' he said.
'I was Lord Frenley's valet--'

'I don't want your family history,' said Surefoot Smith. 'What sort of a
man is Moran? Nice fellow--generous? Free spender?'

Binny considered the matter as though his life depended upon his answer.
'He was a very nice gentleman. I was only with him six months,' he said.
'He lives just round the corner, overlooking the park. In fact, you can
see his flat from the gardens.'

'A quiet sort of man?' asked Surefoot.

'I never heard him make much noise--' began Binny.

'When I say "quiet",' explained Surefoot Smith with a pained expression,
'I mean, does he gad about? Women, wine, and song--you know the kind of
thing I mean. I suppose your mother told you something when you were
young?'

'I don't remember my mother,' said Binny. 'No, sir, I can't say that Mr
Moran was a gadder. He used to have little parties--ladies and gentlemen
from the theatre--but he gave that up after he lost his money.'

Surefoot's eyes narrowed.

'Lost his money? He's a bank manager, isn't he? Had he any money to
lose?'

'It was his own money, sir.' Binny was shocked and hastened to correct a
wrong impression. 'That was why I left him. He had some shares in a
bank--not his own bank, but another one--and it went bust. I mean to
say--'

'Don't try to interpret "bust" to me. I know the word,' said Surefoot.
'Gave little theatrical parties like that fellow What's-his-name?
Drinking and all that sort of thing?'

Binny could not help him. He was looking left and right anxiously, as
though seeking a means of escape.

'In a hurry?' asked the detective.

'The big picture comes on in ten minutes; I don't want to miss it.'

Surefoot was not impressed. 'Now what about this man Tickler? Did he ever
work for Moran?'

Binny considered this and shook his head. 'No, sir, I think he was
working for Mr Lyne when I was with Mr Moran, but I'm not certain.' And
then, as a thought struck him: 'He's on the radio tonight.'

Surefoot was staggered. 'Who?'

'Mr Moran. He's talking on economics or something. He often talks on
banking and things like that--he's a regular lecturer.'

Surefoot Smith was not very much interested in lecturers.

He asked a few more questions about the unfortunate Tickler and went on
his way.

Parkview Terrace was a noble block of buildings which had suffered the
indignity of being converted into apartments. Leo Moran lived in the top
flat, and he was at home, his man told Surefoot when he came to the door.
In point of fact he was dressing for dinner. Smith was shown into a large
and hand--some sitting-room, furnished expensively and with some taste.

There were two windows which commanded a view of Regent's Park and the
Canal, but it was the luxury of the appointments which arrested
Surefoot's interest.

He knew the financial position of the average bank manager; could tell to
within a few pounds just what their salaries were; and it was rather a
shock to find even a two thousand, five hundred a year manager living in
an apartment which must have absorbed at least eight hundred, and
displaying evidence of wealth which men in his position have rarely the
opportunity of acquiring.

A Persian carpet covered the floor; the crystal chandelier was certainly
of the more exquisite kind that are not to be duplicated in a department
store. There was a big Knolle couch ('Cost five hundred,' Smith noted
mentally); in an illuminated glass case were a number of beautiful
miniatures, and in another, rare ornaments of jade, some of which must
have been worth a considerable sum.

Surefoot knew nothing about pictures, but he was satisfied that more than
one of those on the wall were valuable.

He was examining the cabinet when he heard a step behind him and turned
to meet the owner of the flat. Mr Leo Moran was half-dressed and wore a
silk dressing-gown over his shirt,

'Hullo, Smith! We don't often see you. Sit down and have a drink.' He
rang the bell. 'Beer, isn't it?'

'Beer it is,' said Surefoot heartily. 'Nice place you've got here, Mr
Moran.'

'Not bad,' said the other carelessly. He pointed to a picture. That's a
Sisley. My father paid three hundred pounds for it, and it's probably
worth six thousand today.'

'Your father was well off, was he, Mr Moran?'

Moran looked at him quickly. 'He had money. Why do you ask? You don't
imagine I could have furnished a flat like this on two and a half
thousand a year do you?' His eyes twinkled. 'Or has it occurred to you
that this is part of my illicit gains--moneys pinched from the bank?'

'I hope,' said Surefoot Smith solemnly, 'that such a thought never
entered into my head.'

'Beer,' said Mr Leo Moran, addressing the man who had appeared in the
doorway. 'You've come about something, haven't you? What is it?'

Surefoot pursed his lips thoughtfully. 'I'm making inquiries about this
man Tickler--'

'The fellow who was murdered. Do I know him, you mean? Of course I know
him! The fellow was a pest. I never went from this house without finding
him on the kerb outside, wanting to tell me something or sell me
something--I've never discovered which.'

He had a rapid method of speaking. His voice was not what Smith would
have described as a gentleman's. Indeed, Leo Moran was very much of the
people. His life had been an adventurous one. He had sailed before the
mast, he had worked at a brass founder's in the Midlands, been in a dozen
kinds of employment before he eventually drifted into banking.

A rough diamond, with now and again a rough voice; more often, however, a
suave one, for he had the poise and presence which authority and wealth
bring. Now and again his voice grew harsh, almost common, and in moments
he became very much a man of the people. It was in that tone he asked:
'Do you suppose I killed him?'

Surefoot smiled; whether at the absurdity of the question or the
appearance of a large bottle of beer and a tumbler, which were carried in
at that moment, Moran was undecided.

'You know Miss Lane, don't you?'

'Slightly.' Moran's tone was cold.

'Nice girl--here's luck.' Surefoot raised his glass and swallowed its
contents at a gulp. 'Good beer, Lord! I remember the time when you could
get the best ale in the world for fivepence a pint.'

He sighed heavily, and tried to squeeze a little more out of the bottle,
but failed.

Moran touched the bell again. 'Why do you ask me about Miss Lane?'

'I knew you were interested in theatricals.'

'Another bottle of beer for Mr Smith,' said Moran as the valet answered
his ring. 'What do you mean by theatricals?'

'You used to give parties, didn't you, once upon a time?'

The banker nodded. 'Years ago, in my salad days. Why?'

'I was just wondering,' said Smith vaguely.

His host strode up and down the floor, his hands thrust into the silken
pockets of his gown.

'What the devil did you come here for, Smith? You're not the sort of man
to go barging round making stupid inquiries. Are you connecting me with
this absurd murder--the murder of a cheap little gutter rat I scarcely
know by sight?'

Surefoot shook his head. 'Is it likely?' he murmured.

Then the beer came, and Moran's fit of annoyance seemed to pass.

'Well, the least you can do is to tell me the strength of it--or aren't
you inquiring about the murder at all? Come along, my dear fellow, don't
be mysterious!'

Smith wiped his moustache, got up slowly from the chair an adjusted his
horrible pink tie before an old Venetian mirror.

'I'll tell you the strength of it, man to man,' he said. 'We had an
anonymous letter. That was easy to trace. It was sent by Tickler's
landlady, and it appeared that when he was very drunk, which was every
day, sometimes twice a day, he used to talk to this good lady about you.'

'About me?' said the other quickly. 'But he didn't know me!'

'Lots of people talk about people they don't know,' began Smith. 'It's
publicity--'

'Nonsense! I'm not a public man. I'm just a poor little bank manager, who
hates banking, and would gladly pay a fortune, if he had one to pay, for
the privilege of taking all the books of the bank and burning 'em in
Regent's Park, making the clerks drunk, throwing open the vault to the
petty thieves of London, and turning the whole damn thing into a night
club!'

Gazing at him with open mouth, genuinely staggered by such a confession,
Smith saw an expression in that sometime genial face that he had never
seen before: a certain harshness; heard in his voice the vibration of a
hidden fury.

'They nearly kicked me out once because I speculated,' Moran went on.
'I'm a gambler; I always have been a gambler. If they'd kicked me out I'd
have been ruined at that time. I had to crawl on my hands and knees to
the directors to let me stay on. I was managing a branch at Chalk Farm at
the time, and I've had to pretend that the Northern and Southern Bank's
something holy, that its directors are gods; and every time I've tried to
get a bit of money so that I could clear out, the market has gone--!' He
snapped his fingers. 'I don't really know Tickler. Why he should talk
about me I haven't the slightest idea.'

Surefoot Smith looked into his hat.

'Do you know Mr Hervey Lyne?' he asked.

'Yes, he's a client of ours.'

'Have you seen him lately?'

A pause, and then: 'No, I haven't seen him for two years.'

'Oh!' said Surefoot Smith.

He said 'Oh!' because he could think of nothing else to say. 'Well, I'll
be getting along. Sorry to bother you, but you know what we are at the
Yard.' He offered his huge hand to the banker, but Moran was so absorbed
in his thoughts that he did not see it.

After he had closed the door upon his visitor Moran walked slowly back to
his room and sat down on the edge of the bed.

He sat there for a long time before he got up, walked across the room to
a wall safe behind a picture, opened it and took out a number of
documents, which he examined very carefully. He put them back and,
groping, found a flat leather case which was packed with strangely
coloured documents. They were train and boat tickets; his passport lay
handy and, fastened to his passport by a thick rubber band, a thick
bundle of ten-pound banknotes.

He locked the safe again, replaced the picture, and went on with his
dressing. He was more than a little perturbed. The casual reference to
Hervey Lyne had shaken him.



Chapter Eight

At 10 O'CLOCK that night quite a number of radios would be shut off at
the item 'The Economy of our Banking System', and would be tuned on again
at ten fifteen for a programme of light music relayed from Manchester.

Binny read the programme through and came at last to the 10 o'clock item.

'Moran. Is that the fellow who saw me yesterday?' asked the old man.

'Yes, sir,' said Binny.

'Banking systems--bah!' snarled old Lyne.' I don't want to hear it. Do
you understand, Binny?--I don't want to hear it!'

'No, sir,' said Binny.

The white, gnarled hands groped along the table till they reached a
repeater watch, and pressed a knob.

'Six o'clock. Get me my salad.'

'I saw that detective today, sir--Mr Smith.'

'Get me my salad!'

Chicken salad was his invariable meal at the close of day. Binny served
him, but could do nothing right. If he spoke he was told to be quiet; if
he relapsed into silence old Hervey cursed him for his sulkiness.

He had cleared away the meal, put a cup of weak tea before his master,
and was leaving him to doze, when Lyne called him back. 'What are Cassari
Oils?' he demanded.

It was so long since Binny had read the fluctuation of the oil market
that he had no information to give.

'Get a newspaper, you fool!'

Binny went in search of an evening newspaper. It was his habit to read,
morning and night, the movements of industrial shares; a monotonous
proceeding, for Mr Lyne's money was invested in gilt-edged securities
which were stately and steadfast and seldom moved except by
thirty-seconds.

Cassari Oils had been one of his errors. The shares had been part of a
trust fund--he had hesitated for a long time before he converted them to
a more stable stock. The period of his holding had been two years of
torture to him, for they flamed up and down like a paper fire, and never
stayed in one place for more than a week at a time.

Binny came back with the newspaper and read the quotation, which was
received with a grunt.

'If they'd gone up I'd have sued the bank. That brute Moran advised me to
sell.'

'Have they gone up, sir?' asked Binny, interested.

'Mind your own business!' snapped the other.

Hervey Lyne used often to sit and wonder and fret himself over those
Cassaris. They were founder's shares, not lightly come by, not easy to
dispose of. The thought that he might have thrown away a fortune on the
advice of a conservative bank manager, and that when he came to hand over
his stewardship to Mary Lane he might be liable--which he would not have
been--was a nightmare to him. The unease had been renewed that day by
something which Binny had read to him from the morning newspaper
concerning oil discoveries in Asia.

In the course of the years he had accumulated quite a lot of data
concerning the Cassari Oilfield, most of it very depressing to anybody
who had money in the concern. He directed Binny to unearth the pamphlets
and reports, and promised himself a possibly exasperating evening.

Eight o'clock brought a visitor, a reluctant man, who had rehearsed quite
a number of plausible excuses. He had the feeling that he, being the last
of the old man's debtors, was in the position of a mouse in the paws of
an ancient cat, not to be killed too quickly; and here, to some extent,
he was right. Hervey Lyne received him with a set grin which was a parody
of the smile he had used for so many years on such occasions.

'Sit down, Mr Dornford,' he piped. 'Binny, go out!'

'Binny's not here, Mr Lyne.'

'He's listening outside the door--he's always listening. Have a look.'

Dornford opened the door; there was no sign of the libelled servant.

'Now, now.' Again he was his old businesslike self, repeating a speech
which was part of a formula. 'About this money--three thousand seven
hundred, I think. You're going to settle tonight?'

'Unfortunately I can't settle tonight, and not for many nights,' said
Jerry. 'In fact, there's no immediate prospect of my settling at all.
I've made arrangements to get you four or five hundred on account--'

'From Isaac and Solomon, eh?'

Jerry cursed himself for his stupidity. He knew that the money-lenders
exchanged daily a list of proposals which had come to them.

'Well, you're not going to get it, my friend. You've got to find money to
settle this account, or it goes into the hands of my collectors
tomorrow.'

Jerry had expected nothing better than this.

'Suppose I find you two thousand by the end of the week?' he said. 'Will
you give me a reasonable time to find the remainder?'

To his surprise he was speaking huskily--the imperturbable Jerry, who had
faced so many crises with equanimity, was amazingly agitated in this, the
most crucial of all.

'If you can find two thousand you can find three thousand seven hundred,'
boomed the old man.' A week? I wouldn't give you a day--and where are you
getting the two thousand from?'

Jerry cleared his throat.

'A friend of mine--'

'That's a lie to begin with, Mr Gerald Dornford,' said the hateful voice.
'You have no friends; you've used them all up. I'll tell you what I'll do
with you.' He leaned over the table, his elbows on the polished mahogany.
He was enjoying this moment of his triumph, recovering some of the old
values of a life that was now only a memory. 'I'll give you till tomorrow
night at six o'clock. Your money's here'--he tapped the table
vigorously--'or I'll bankrupt you!'

If his sight had been only near to normal he would have seen the look
that came into Jerry's face, and would have been frightened to silence.
But, if he saw nothing, he sensed the effect of his words.

'You understand, don't you?'

Some of the steel went out of his tone.

'I understand.' Jerry's voice was low.

'Tomorrow you bring the money, and I will give you your bill. A minute
after six o'clock, and it goes to the collector.'

'But surely, Mr Lyne'--Jerry found coherent speech at last--'two thousand
pounds on account is not to be sniffed at?'

'We shall see,' said the old man, nodding. 'I've nothing else to say.'

Jerry rose; he was shaking with anger. 'I've got something to say, you
damned old usurer!' He quivered with rage. 'You blood-sucking old brute!
You'll bankrupt me, will you?'

Hervey Lyne had come to his feet, his skinny hands pointing to the door.

'Get out!' His voice was little more than a whisper.'
Blood-sucker...damned old usurer, am I? Binny--BINNY!'

Binny came stumbling up from the kitchen.

'Throw him out--throw him on his head--smash him!' screamed the old man.

Binny looked at the man who was head and shoulders taller than he, and
his smile was sickly.

'Better get out, sir,' he said under his breath,' and don't take no
notice of me.' Then, in a louder, truculent tone: 'Get out of here, will
you?' He pulled open the street door noisily. 'Out you get!'

He struck his palm with his fist, and all the time his imploring eyes
begged the visitor to pardon his lapse of manners.

When he came back the money-lender was lying back, exhausted, in his
chair.

'Did you hit him?' he asked weakly.

'Did I hit him, sir? I nearly broke me wrist.'

'Did you break his wrist or anything else of him?' snarled Hervey, not at
all interested in the injuries which might have come to the assailant.

'It'll take two doctors to put him right,' said Binny.

The old man's thin lips curled in a sneer. 'I don't believe you touched
him, you poor worm!' he said.

'Didn't you hear me--' began Binny, aggrieved.

'Clapping your hands together! Liar and fool, do you think I didn't know
that? I may be blind, but I've got ears. Did you hit the burglar last
night--or when was it? You didn't even hear him.'

Binny blinked at him helplessly. Two nights before somebody had smashed a
glass at the back of the house and opened a window. Whether they
succeeded in entering the kitchen or not it was impossible to say. Old
Hervey, a light sleeper, heard the crash and came to the head of the
stairs, screaming for Binny, who occupied a subterranean room adjoining
the kitchen.

'Did you hit him? Did you hear him?'

'My idea was to bring in the police,' began Binny. 'There's nothing like
the lor in cases like this....'

'Get out!' roared the old man. 'The law! Do you think I wanted a lot of
clumsy-footed louts in my house...get away, you make me sick!'

Binny left hurriedly.

For the greater part of two hours the old man sat, muttering to himself,
twisting and untwisting his fingers one in the other; and then, as his
repeater struck ten, he turned to the radio at his side and switched it
on. A voice immediately blared at him...

'Before I discuss the banking systems of this country I would like to say
a few words about the history of banking from the earliest times....'

Hervey Lyne sat up and listened. His hearing, as he had said, was
extraordinarily sensitive.



Chapter Nine

DICK ALLENBY NEVER described himself as being engaged, and the tell-tale
finger of Mary Lane bore no ring indicative of her future. He mentioned
the fact casually as he sat in her dressing-room between the last two
acts of Cliffs of Fate and he talked to her through a curtain behind
which she was changing her dress.

'I shall be getting a bad name,' he said. 'Nothing damages the reputation
of an inventor more readily than to be recognized by stage-door keepers.
He admits me now without question.'

'Then you shouldn't come so often,' she said, coming through the curtain,
and sitting before her dressing-table.

'I won't say you're a matter of life and death to me,' said Dick, 'but
very nearly. You're more important than anything in the world.'

'Including the Allenby gun?'

'Oh that!' he said contemptuously. 'By the way, a German engineer came in
today and offered me, on behalf of Eckstein's--they're the big Essen
engineers--ten thousand pounds for the patent.'

'What was the matter with him?' she asked flippantly.

'That's what I wondered,' said Dick, lighting a forbidden cigarette. 'No,
he wasn't drunk--quite a capable bloke, and terribly discerning. He told
me he thought I was one of the greatest inventors of the age.'

'Darling, you are,' she said.

'I know I am,' said Dick complacently. 'But it sounded awfully nice in
German. Honestly, Mary I had no idea this thing was worth so much.'

'Are you selling it?' She turned her head to ask the question.

Dick hesitated. 'I'm not sure,' he said. 'But it's this enormous
accession of wealth that has brought me to the point of your unadorned
engagement finger.'

She turned to the mirror, patted her face gently with a puff, and shook
her head. 'I'm going to be a very successful actress,' she said.

'You are a very successful actress,' said Dick lazily. 'You've extracted
a proposal of marriage from a great genius.'

She swung round in her chair. 'Do you know what I'm in dread of?' she
asked.

'Besides marriage, nothing, I should think.'

'No, there's one prospect that terrifies me.' She was very serious. 'And
that is that your uncle should leave me all his money.'

He chuckled softly. 'It's a fear that has never disturbed my night's
rest--why do you say that?'

She looked at him, biting her lip thoughtfully. 'Once he said something
about it, and it struck me quite recently that he loathes you so much
that out of sheer pique he might leave it to me, and that would be
dreadful.'

He stared at her. 'In Heaven's name, why?' he asked.

'I should have to marry you,' she said.

'Out of sheer pique?'

She shook her head. 'No; but it would be dreadful, wouldn't it, Dick?'

'I think you're worrying yourself unnecessarily,' he said dryly. 'The old
boy is more likely to leave it to a dogs' home. Do you see much of him?'

She told him of her visit to Naylors Crescent, but that was old news to
him.

They were talking when there came a tap at the door. She half rose,
thinking it was the call boy; but when the knock was repeated and she
said 'Come in', it was Leo Moran who made an appearance.

He favoured Dick with a wry smile. 'Instead of wasting your time here you
ought to be sitting at home, tuning in to my epoch-making address.'

'Been broadcasting, have you?' smiled Dick.' Do they make you dress up
for it?'

'I'm going on to supper.'

This time the knock was followed by the sing-song voice of the call boy,
and Mary hurried out. She was glad to escape: for some reason she never
felt quite at ease in Mr Moran's presence.

'Have you seen this show?' asked Dick.

Moran nodded.

'For my sins, yes,' he said. 'It's the most ghastly play in London. I
wonder why old Mike keeps it on? He must have a very rich backer.'

'Have you ever heard of Washington Wirth?'

Leo Moran's face was a blank.

'Never heard of him, no. What is he--an American?'

'Something unusual,' said Dick. 'I was reckoning up the other day; he
must have lost ten thousand pounds on this play already, and there's no
special reason, so far as I know, why he's keeping it running. Mary's the
only woman in the cast who's worth looking at, and she's no friend of
his.'

'Washington Wirth? The name's familiar.' Moran looked at the wall above
Dick's head. 'I've heard something about him or seen his name. By the
way, I met an old friend of yours tonight, Surefoot Smith. You were
present when that wretched man Tickler was found, weren't you?'

Dick nodded. 'The fool treated me as though I were an accomplice.'

'If the fool you are referring to is Surefoot Smith, he treated me as
though I were the murderer,' said Dick.

'Did you give him some beer?'

Leo Moran opened the door, looked down the deserted corridor and then
closed the door quietly. 'I was hoping I should see you here, Dick. I
want to ask you a favour.'

Dick grinned. 'Nothing would give me greater joy than to refuse a favour
to a bank manager,' he said.

'Don't be a fool; it has nothing to do with money. Only--' He stopped,
and it seemed as if he were carefully framing his words. 'I may be out of
London for a week or two. My leave is due, and I want to get into the
country. I wonder if you would collect my letters at the flat and keep
them for me till I come back?'

'Why not have them sent on?' said Dick, in surprise.

Leo Moran shook his head impatiently. 'I have a special reason for
asking. I'm having nothing sent on. My man is going away on his holiday,
and the flat will be in charge of Heaven knows who. If I send you the
key, will you keep an eye on the place?'

'When are you going?' asked Dick.

Moran was vague on this point; there was no certainty whether his leave
would be granted. Head office was being rather difficult, although he had
a most capable assistant and could have handed over at any moment.

'I want to go at once, but these brutes in the City are just being
tin-godlike. You'll never know how near human beings can approach
divinity until you've had dealings with general managers of banks,' he
said. 'When you approach them, you make three genuflections and stand on
your head, and even then they hardly notice you! Is it a bet?'

'Surely,' said Dick. 'You know where to send the key. And I'll take a
little cheap advice from you, now you're here.'

He told him of the offer he had received for the gun. There was no need
to explain what the gun was, for Leo had both seen and tested it.

'I shouldn't take an outright offer. I should prefer to take half on
account of a royalty,' he said, when Dick had finished.

'Are you going to your flat soon?'

'Almost immediately,' said the other. 'Mary has a supper engagement.'

'With Mr Wirth?' asked Moran with a smile.

'I thought you'd never heard of him?' said Dick.

'His name came to me as I was speaking. He's the fellow who gives these
supper parties. I used to give them myself once upon a time, and Dead Sea
fruit they are! But if you're going back I'll walk with you, and renew my
acquaintance with your remarkable invention.'

Leo Moran would have been much more popular but for the fact that there
was invariably a hint of sarcasm in his most commonplace remarks.
Sometimes Dick, who liked him well enough, thought he had been soured by
some big misfortune; for, despite his geniality, there was generally a
bite to his remarks. Dick forgave him as they walked along the Strand for
all that he had to say concerning Jerry Dornford.

'There's a wastrel!' said Moran.' I can't tell you why I think so,
because I'm interviewing him tomorrow on bank business.'

Though the evening was warm, a fog had formed, which, as their taxi
approached the park, increased in density. It was clearing off as they
passed through Knightsbridge.

'As a matter of fact,' said Dick, 'you're making me do something it has
been on my conscience to do all the evening, and that is, go home and
look at that gun. Like a fool, I charged it before I came out. I was
about to make the experiment of trying to shoot a nickel bullet through a
steel plate, and like an idiot I left it loaded.'

The fog was very patchy, and was so dense that the driver had to feel his
way along the kerb as they approached the house where Dick had his
workshop.

The little lift was in darkness, and even when Dick turned the switch no
light came. As he moved he trod on something which crashed under his
feet.

'What the devil was that?' asked Moran irritably.

Dick struck a match. He saw on the floor the remains of a small light
bulb which had evidently been removed from the roof of the lift.

'That's odd. Our janitor is a little careless,' he said, and pushed the
button that sent the elevator up to the top floor. He took out a key and
had another surprise, for a key was already in the lock, so tightly
fitted that it could not be turned one way or the other.

He twisted the handle; the door gave.

'There's somebody been playing monkey tricks here,' he said.

Turning on the light, he stood stock still, momentarily incapable of
speech. The bench on which the gun had stood was empty. The gun was gone!



Chapter Ten

HE RECOVERED HIS voice at last.

'Well, I'll be...!'

Who could have taken it? He was staggered, so staggered that he could not
be angry. Pulling back the door, he examined the key and, with the aid of
a pair of powerful pliers, presently extracted it. It was a rough and
ready affair, badly filed, but evidently it had fitted, and had done all
that its owner had required, for the lock had turned back.

It was when the unknown had tried to relock the door and take away the
key that he had failed.

Dick walked to where the gun had been and glared down at the bench. Then
he began to laugh.

'The brute!'

'It's a very serious loss to you, isn't it?' asked Moran.

Dick shook his head. 'Not really. All the plans and specifications are in
the hands of a model-maker, and fortunately I applied for a provisional
patent for the main features three days ago.' He stared at Moran. 'The
question is, who did it?' And then his jaw dropped. 'If he doesn't know
how to handle that thing, and isn't jolly careful, he'll either kill
himself or some innocent passer-by!' he said. 'I wonder if he knows how
to unload it?'

He pulled out a chair and sat down, and with a gesture invited his
visitor to sit. 'I suppose we ought to tell the police. Now, if old man
Surefoot is at the Yard...'

He consulted an address book and gave a number. After a long parley with
a suspicious girl at the Scotland Yard exchange, he found himself
connected with Smith. In a few words he explained what had happened.

'I'll come up. Is there anything else missing?'

'No--the beer is intact,' said Dick.

When he had hung up the receiver he went into his little larder and
dragged in a wooden case.

'Surefoot will be glad; he loathes science. Don't make a face like that,
my dear chap--Surefoot's clever. I used to think that beer had a
deadening effect on people, but Surefoot is an amazing proof of the
contrary. You don't like him?'

'I'm not passionately attached to him,' said Moran. He looked at his
watch. 'If you don't mind, I'll leave you alone with your grief. It's
hard luck--is it insured?'

'Spoken like a banker!' said Dick.' No, it isn't. Leo, I never realized I
was a genius till now--it's like the things that you read about in
thrillers! You see what has happened? Our friend came here in the fog,
but to make absolutely sure he shouldn't be seen he took out the light in
the lift, so that nobody should spot him on his way down. The door is
lattice work, and if the light had been on he could have been seen from
any of the floors, supposing somebody was there to see him. I presume he
had a car outside; he put the gun into the vehicle and got away. Probably
we passed him.'

'Who would know you had the gun?'

Dick thought for a while. 'Mary knew; Jerry Dornford knew--Good Lord!'

Leo Moran smiled and shook his head. 'Jerry wouldn't have the energy,
anyway; and he wouldn't know where to market--'

He stopped suddenly. 'I saw him the other day at Snell's Club, with that
poisonous little devil Jules--the fellow who is supposed to have been
concerned in pinching the French mobilization plans.'

Dick hesitated, reached for the telephone directory, found the number he
wanted and dialled it. The line was engaged.

Five minutes later he tried again and heard Jerry's voice.

'Hullo, Dornford! Got my gun?' asked Dick.

'Your what?' asked Jerry's steady voice.

'Somebody said they saw you walking out of my house with something under
your arm this evening.'

'I haven't seen your infernal house, and I'm not likely to see it after
your rudeness this afternoon!' Click! Jerry Dornford had hung up on him.

I wonder,' said Dick, and frowned as he slowly replaced the receiver.' I
can't believe he did it, though there's nothing bad I wouldn't believe
about him.'

'Do you think it was your German friend?' asked Leo.

'Rubbish! Why should he offer me the money? He would have given me a
draft right away this afternoon if I'd wanted it. No, we'll leave it to
old man Surefoot.'

'Then you'll leave it to him alone,' said Leo, and buttoned up his
overcoat.

He went to the door and turned back.

'You'll not go back on your promise, about clearing my letters? It all
depends on what happens tomorrow how soon I go, and the first intimation
you'll get will be when you receive my key.'

'Where are you going?' asked Dick.

Leo shook his head. 'That's the one thing I can't tell you,' he said.

Sitting alone, surveying the empty bench, Dick Allenby began to realize
the seriousness of his loss. If he was bewildered by the theft, the last
thing in the world he expected, he was by no means shattered. He tried to
get Mary on the phone, but thought better of it. It would be selfish to
spoil her night's amusement. Better start again. He was working at his
drawing-board on a new plan, and had already conceived an improvement on
the older model, when Surefoot Smith arrived.

He listened while Dick described the circumstances of his return;
examined the key casually, and seemed more interested in the marks that
the machine had made, visible against its dusty surroundings, than in
anything else.

'No, it's not remarkable,' he said when Dick so described the theft.
'Dozens of inventions are stolen in the course of a year...yes, I mean
burgled. I know a company promoter who floated a business to sell
cameras, he had his house burgled and the plans of the inventions stolen
a week before the company was put on the market. I've known other
promoters to have police guards in their houses day and night.'

He walked round the room and presently related the sum of his
discoveries.

'The man who took this was taller than you.' He pointed to a bench near
the door, the contents of which were in some disorder.' He rested the gun
there while he tried to operate the lock, and that bench is higher than
this. He wore gloves; he must have handled this cylinder and there's no
finger-prints on it. Who's been here lately?'

Dick told him.

'Mr Gerald Dornford, eh? I shouldn't think he'd have the nerve. We had
some trouble with him once; he was running a little game in the West End.
I might look him up, but it would be asking for trouble. I hardly think
it's worth while putting him under observation,' said Surefoot. 'Are you
going to call up the Press and tell them all about it? They'll make a
story of it--"Sensational Invention Stolen".'

'I didn't think of doing anything so silly.'

'Then you're wise,' said Surefoot.

He looked helplessly around; Dick pointed to the beer case under the
bench.

'In a way, and without any offence to you, Mr Allenby, I'm glad to see it
go. All these new inventions are coming so thick and fast that you can't
keep track of them.'

'Which reminds me,' said Dick, 'that this thing was loaded.'

Surefoot was not gravely concerned. 'If somebody gets shot,' he said
calmly, 'we shall find out who did it.'

He was less interested in the robbery than in the killing of Tickler.
'It's a puzzle to me. I can't understand it. I wouldn't mind if it hadn't
been in that cab. It's the Americanization of English crime that's
worrying me. These Americans have got our car trade, they've got our tool
trade; if they come here and corner our murder market there's going to be
trouble.' He stopped suddenly, stooped and picked something from the
floor. It was a pearl waistcoat button. 'This sort of thing only happens
in stories,' he said as he turned it over. 'The fellow was in evening
dress, and rubbed this off when he was carrying the gun. As a clue it's
about as much use as the evidence of the old lady in every murder case
who saw a tall, dark man in a big, grey car.'

He looked at the button carefully. 'You can buy these at almost any store
in London. You don't even have to buy 'em--they give 'em away.' He made a
careful scrutiny of the floor but found nothing new. 'Still, I'll put it
in my pocket,' he said.

'It may have been Leo Moran's,' said Dick, remembering. 'He wore a white
waistcoat. He and I came back together.'

Surefoot's nose wrinkled.

'This! It would have been diamonds and sapphires. Ain't he a bank
manager? No this is the button of some poor depositor. I shouldn't be
surprised if it was somebody with an overdraft! What do you think of Mr
Moran?' He was looking at Dick keenly.

'He's a nice fellow; I like him,' said Dick.

'There are moments when I don't but, generally speaking, I do. Who's
Sisley?'

'Sisley?' said Dick. 'You mean Alfred Sisley the painter?' Smith nodded.
'Oh, he's a very famous impressionist.'

'Expensive?' asked Surefoot.

'Very,' said Dick. 'His pictures sell for thousands.'

Surefoot rubbed his nose irritably. 'That's what I thought. In fact, he
said as much. Seen his flat? It looks as though it had been furnished for
the Queen of Sheba, the well-known Egyptian. Persian carpet, diamond
lampshades...'

'You're talking about Moran's flat? Yes, it's rather beautiful. But he's
got money of his own.'

'It was his own when he had it, anyway,' said Smith darkly, and left on
this cryptic note.

He had left Scotland Yard with some reluctance, for there was visiting
London at that period one John Kelly, Deputy Chief Commissioner of the
Chicago Police, and one of America's foremost detectives. Earlier in the
evening Surefoot had discussed the Regent Street murder.

'It sounds like a "ride",' said Kelly, shaking his head, 'but I guess
that kind of crime will never be popular in this country. In the first
place, you've no big men in your underworld, and if you had, your police
force and Government are pull-proof. It reads to me like an "imitation
murder". I suppose you've got bad men here--I only know one English
gangster. They called him London Len. He was a bad egg--bumped off half a
dozen men before a rival gang got after him and got him on the run. He
was English-born--so far as I've been able to trace he wasn't in the
country five years.'

London Len was an 'inside man'--he got himself into positions of trust,
and at the first opportunity cleared the contents of the office safe.

'Quick on the draw and ruthless,' said John; 'but he certainly wouldn't
give a man a hundred pounds and leave it behind when he shot him!'

Now that he was abroad on this foggy night, Surefoot decided to interview
a certain forgetful constable, and before he left the Yard he arranged to
meet the man at Marylebone Road station. He found the police officer,
waiting in the charge-room, rather proud, if anything, that he had
recalled the one fact that he should not have forgotten.

Surefoot Smith listened to the story of the little man who had been found
sitting on the doorstep of an apartment in Baynes Mews, and of the
inebriated songster.

'It's funny I should have forgotten that--' began the policeman. 'But as
I was shaving this morning I thought--'

'It's not funny. If it was, I should be laughing. Am I laughing?'

'No, sir,' admitted the police officer.

'It's not funny, it's tragic. If you'd been a rabbit wearing uniform, you
would have remembered to tell your superior officer about that incident.
A poor, harmless, lop-eared rabbit would have gone straight to his
sergeant and said "So-and-so and so-and-so". And if a rabbit can do
that, why couldn't you?'

The question was unanswerable, partly because the bewildered young
constable was not sure whether 'rabbit' had any special esoteric meaning.

'And you're taking credit,' Surefoot went on inexorably,' for thinking--I
repeat, thinking--as you were shaving this morning, that you ought to
have told somebody about meeting that man in the mews. Do you use a
safety razor, my man?'

'Yes, sir,' said the officer.

'Then you couldn't cut your throat, which is a pity,' said Surefoot. 'Now
lead me to this place, and don't speak unless I speak to you. I am not
suspending you from duty, because I am not associated with the uniformed
branch. There was a time when I was associated,' he said carefully, 'but
in those days police constables had brains.'



Chapter Eleven

The crushed policeman led the way to Baynes Mews and pointed out the door
where he had seen the figure of Tickler sitting. The door did not yield
to Surefoot's pressure.

He took from his pocket some skeleton keys which he had borrowed at the
station without authority, and tried them on the door. Presently he so
manipulated the key that he succeeded in snapping back the lock. He
pushed open the door, sent a ray of light up the dusty stairs, and
climbed, breathing stertorously, to the top. He came upon a landing and a
barrier of matchwood, in which was a door. He tried this and again had
recourse to his skeleton key.

Without a warrant he had no right whatever to invade the privacy of an
English home; but Surefoot had never hesitated to break the law in the
interests of justice or the satisfaction of his curiosity.

He found he was in a large bare room, almost unfurnished except for a
big, cheap-looking wardrobe, a table, a large mirror, and a square of
carpet. At the back of the room, behind the matchboarding partition, was
a washplace. Singularly enough, there was no bed, not even a couch. On
the wall was an old print representing the marriage of Queen Victoria. It
was in a dusty maple frame and hung groggily. Mr Smith, who had a tidy
mind, tried to straighten the picture, and something fell to the floor.
It was a white glove which contained something heavy; it struck the floor
with a clump. He picked it up and laid it on the dressing-table. The
glove was of kid, and it held a key--a large, old-fashioned door-key.

What was remarkable about this key was its colour; it had been painted
with silver paint.

Surefoot looked at the key thoughtfully. An amateur had painted it--the
inside of the business end had not been touched; the steel was bright and
evidently the key was often used.

He brought it beneath the one naked electric globe which served to
illuminate the room, but found nothing new about it.

Putting the key in his pocket, he continued his search without, however,
discovering anything more noteworthy, until he found the cupboard. Its
door seemed part of the matchboard lining of the room, to the height of
which it rose. There was no handle, and the keyhole was so concealed in
the dovetailing that it might have passed unnoticed but for the fact that
Surefoot Smith was a very painstaking man.

He thought at first it was a Yale lock, but when he tested it out with
the aid of a big clasp-knife, which contained half a dozen tools, he
found it was a very simple 'catch'. The cupboard held a complete dress
suit, including silk hat and overcoat. On a shelf was a number of plain
but exquisitely woven handkerchiefs, socks, folded dress ties and the
like.

He searched the pockets but could find no clue to the ownership of the
suit. There was no maker's tab on the inside of the coat, or concealed in
the breast pocket. Even the trousers buttons were not inscribed with the
tailor's name.

He examined the dress shirts; they were similarly unidentifiable. He
found nothing more except a large bottle of expensive perfume and a
locked box. This he forced under the lamp, and found three wigs,
perfectly made. One was wrapped in silver tissue, and it was either new
or had been newly dressed.

'Bit odd, isn't it?' said Surefoot Smith aloud.

'Yes, sir,' said the constable, who had been silent until that moment.

'I was talking to myself,' said Surefoot coldly.

He made another round of the room, but without adding to the sum of his
knowledge.

He replaced everything where he had found it, except the key and the
glove. After all, there might be a perfectly simple explanation of his
finds. The man may have been an actor. The fact that Tickler had been
sitting on his doorstep, listening to his drunken song, meant little, and
would certainly carry no weight with a jury.

On the other hand, if the explanation was so simple, Surefoot Smith was
in a position of some embarrassment. Against his name, if the truth be
told, were many black marks for unauthorized entry. This might very well
be the cause of another.

He went out into the mews, locked the door, and walked silently into
Portland Place, followed by the policeman. And Surefoot Smith did not
forget that the constable might be a witness at any inquiry before the
Commissioner.

'I think that is all, officer,' he said, 'but I am not blaming you for
failing to report. Things like that,' he went on, 'slip out of a man's
mind. For instance, I left my house yesterday and forgot to take my
pipe.'

The officer murmured his polite surprise. He was a little mollified, and
was sufficiently intelligent to understand the reason for this change of
attitude.

'I suppose it's all right, sir, going into that place without a warrant?'
he said.' I'm asking because I'm a young officer, new to the force--'

Surefoot Smith surveyed him soberly.

'I went,' he said, with great deliberation, 'because you reported a
suspicious circumstance. You told me you had reason to believe that the
murderer might be hiding in that loft.'

The constable gasped at this atrocious charge, gasped but was speechless.

'So that, if there's any trouble over it,' said Surefoot, 'we're both in
it. And my word's better than yours. Now go home and keep your mouth
shut--it won't be hard for you.' He could not resist the temptation to
gibe. 'In fact, I should say you were a pretty good mouth-shutter.'

The key and the white glove he locked away in a drawer of his desk at
Scotland Yard. There was nothing remarkable about either article.
Surefoot Smith would indeed have been glad to sacrifice his finds for one
packet of cartridges, the bullets of which corresponded to those
extracted from the unfortunate Tickler. In his mind, however, he was
satisfied that there was some connexion between that flat in Baynes Mews
and the murder of the little thief. The finding of the dress clothes
signified little; it might only mean that someone, for reasons best known
to himself, wanted a place where he could change without going home. Such
things happen in the West End of London, and in the east or any other end
of any other large city.

The absence of the bed rather puzzled him, but here again it simply
removed one explanation of the flat being used. Yet, if he could have
foreseen the future, he would have known that he had in his possession a
clue more valuable than the science of ballistics could have given to
him.



Chapter Twelve

MARY LANE'S PARTY was a very dull one. She was one of ten young people,
and young people can be very boring.

Three of the girls had a giggling secret, and throughout the meal made
esoteric references to some happening which none but they understood. The
young men were vapid and vacuous, after their kind. She was glad to get
away on the excuse of a matinee.

Mary lived in a large block of flats in the Marylebone Road.

These three small rooms and a kitchenette were home and independence to
her. She seldom received visitors, rarely men visitors, and never in any
circumstances invited a guest so late at night. She was staggered when
the lift-man told her that 'a gentleman had just gone up to her flat'.

'No, miss, I've never seen him before. It wasn't Mr Allenby, but he says
he knows you.'

He opened the door of the lift and walked along the corridor with her. To
her amazement she saw Leo Moran, who had evidently rung the bell of the
flat several times, and was returning to the elevator when they met.

'It is unpardonable of me to come so late, Miss Lane, but when I explain
to you that it's rather a vital matter I'm sure you won't be angry with
me. Your maid is asleep.'

Mary smiled. 'I haven't a maid,' she said.

The situation was a little embarrassing: she did not want to ask him into
the flat; nor could she talk to him in the passage. She compromised by
asking him in and leaving the front door open.

Moran was nervous; his voice, when he spoke, was husky; the hand that
took a large envelope from his inside pocket was unsteady.

'I wouldn't have bothered you at all, but I had rather a disconcerting
letter when I got home, from--an agent of mine.'

She knew Moran, though she had never regarded him as a friend, and felt a
sense of resentment every time he had come unbidden to her dressing-room.
Since she received her allowance from old Hervey, she had it also through
the bank of which Leo Moran was manager.

'I'll be perfectly frank with you, Miss Lane,' he said, speaking quickly
and nervously. 'It's a matter entirely personal to myself, in the sense
that I am personally responsible. The one man who could get me out of my
trouble is the one man I do not wish to approach--your guardian, Mr
Hervey Lyne.'

To say she was astonished is to put it mildly. She had always regarded
Moran as a man so perfectly self-possessed that nothing could break
through his reserve, and here he was, fidgeting and stammering like a
schoolboy.

'If I can help you of course I will,' she said, wondering what was coming
next.

'It concerns some shares which I purchased on behalf of a client of the
bank. Mr Lyne signed the transfer, but the other people--that is to say,
the people to whom the shares were transferred--have just discovered that
it is necessary also that your name shall be on the transfer, as they
were originally part of the stocks left in trust to you. I might say,' he
went on quickly, 'that the price of this stock is exactly the same, or
practically the same, as it was when it was taken over.'

'My name--is that all you want? I thought at least it was something
valuable,' she laughed.

He put the paper on the table; it was indubitably a stock transfer; she
had seen such documents before. He indicated where her name should be
signed, and she noticed above it the scrawl of old Lyne.

'Well, that's done.' There was no mistaking his relief. 'You'll think
it's awful of me to come at this hour of the night. I can't tell you how
grateful I am. It simply meant that I had paid out money of the bank's
without the necessary authorization. Also, if old Mr Lyne died tomorrow,
this transfer would be practically valueless.'

'Is he likely to die tomorrow?'

He shook his head. 'I don't know; he's a pretty old man.' Abruptly he
held out his hand. 'Good night, and thank you again.'

She closed the door on him, went back to her kitchenette to make herself
a cup of chocolate before she went to bed, and sat for a long time at the
kitchen table, sipping the hot decoction, and trying to discover
something sinister in his midnight visitation. Herein she failed. If
Hervey Lyne died tomorrow? By his agitation and hurry one might imagine
that the old man was in extremis. Yet, the last time she had seen old
Hervey, he was very much in possession of his faculties.

She was at breakfast the following morning when Dick Allenby called her
up and told her of his loss. She listened incredulously, and thought he
was joking until he told her of the visit of Surefoot Smith.

'My dear--how terrible!' she said.

'Surefoot thought it was providential. Moran thought nothing.'

'Was he there?' she asked quickly.

'Yes--why?'

She hesitated. Moran had so evidently wished his visit to her to be a
private matter that it seemed like betraying him.

'Oh, nothing,' she said. And then, as an afterthought: 'Come round and
tell me all about it.'

He was there in half an hour, singularly unemotional and cheerful, she
thought.

'It really isn't as dramatically important as it sounds,' he said. 'If it
has been stolen, as Surefoot thinks it has, with the idea of pinching the
patent, the buyer will be shrewd enough to make a search of the
registrations at the various Patent Offices. I had an acknowledgement
from Germany this morning that it has been entered there.'

He was interrupted by a knock at the outer door and she opened it to
admit a second visitor. It was not usual, she explained apologetically to
Dick, that she should receive guests so early, but Mike Hennessey had
telephoned, asking whether he might come.

The first thing she noticed when Mike came into the room was his
embarrassment at finding Dick Allenby there. A genial soul was Mike,
big-faced, heavy-featured, sleepy-eyed, constitutionally lazy and
lethargic in his movements. He was never a healthy-looking individual,
but now he looked positively ill, and she remarked upon the fact. Mike
shook his head.

'Had a bad night,' he said. 'Good morning, Mr Allenby--don't go: I've
nothing private; only I wanted to see this young lady about our play.
It's coming off.'

'Thank Heaven for that!' said Mary gratefully.' It's the best news I've
had for months.'

'It's about the worst I've had,' he grumbled.

'Has Mr Wirth withdrawn his support?'

It was nearer the truth than she guessed. Mr Wirth's weekly cheque had
been due on the previous day, it had not arrived and Mike was taking no
chances. 'The notice goes up tonight that we finish on Saturday,' he
said. 'I've had the luck to let the theatre--I wish I'd taken a better
offer that I had last week.'

He was even more nervous than Moran had been; could not keep his hands
still or his body either. He got up from the chair, walked to the window,
came back and sat down, only to rise again a few moments later.

'Who is this old fellow Wirth? What's his job?' asked Dick.

'I don't know. He's in some sort of business at Coventry,' said Mike. 'I
thought of running up there today to see him. The point is this'--he came
to that point bluntly--'tomorrow night's Treasury, and I haven't enough
money in the bank to pay the artistes. I may get it today, in which case
there's no fuss. You're the heaviest salary in the cast. Mary: will you
trust me till next week if things go wrong?'

She was staggered at the suggestion. In the case of other productions
Mike's solvency had always been a matter of the gravest doubt, but Cliffs
of Fate had been under more distinguished patronage, and the general
impression was that, whatever else happened, the money for its
continuance would come in.

'Of course I will, Mike,' she said; 'but surely Mr Wirth hasn't--'

'Gone broke? No, I shouldn't think so. He's a strange man,' said Mike
vaguely.

He did not particularize his patron's strangeness, but was satisfied to
leave it at that. His departure was almost as abrupt a gesture as any he
had performed.

'There's a pretty sick man,' said Dick.

'Do you mean he's ill?'

'Mentally. Something's upset him. I should imagine that the failure of
old Wirth's cheque was quite sufficient; but there's something else
besides.' He rose. 'Come and lunch,' he invited, but she shook her head.

She was lunching at home; her matinee excuse at the over-night party had
been on the spur of the moment. She wondered how many would remember it
against her.

Dick went on to Scotland Yard, and had to wait half an hour before
Surefoot Smith returned. He had no news of any importance. A description
of the stolen gun had been circulated.

'But that won't help very much. It's hardly likely to be pawned or
offered for sale in the Caledonian Market,' said Surefoot. And then,
abruptly: 'Do you know Mr Washington Wirth?'

'I've heard of him.'

'Have you ever met him? Great party-giver, isn't he?'

Dick smiled. 'He's never given me a party, but I believe he's rather fond
of that sort of amusement.'

Surefoot nodded. 'I've just been up to the Kellner Hotel. They know
nothing about him, except that he always pays in cash. He's been using
the hotel for three years; orders a suite whenever he feels inclined,
leaves the supper and the orchestra to the head waiter; but that's the
only thing they know about him--that his money is good money, which is
all they want to know, I suppose.'

'Are you interested in him?' asked Dick, and told the story of Mike
Hennessey's agitation.

Surefoot Smith was interested.

'He's got a bank, has he? Well, he may be one of those Midland people.
I've never understood what makes the corn and coal merchants go in for
theatricals. It's a form of insanity that's getting quite common.'

'Mike will tell you all about it,' suggested Allenby.

Mr Smith's lips curled.

'Mike'll tell us a whole lot,' he said sarcastically. 'That fellow
wouldn't tell you his right hand had four fingers, for fear you brought
it up in evidence against him. I know Mike!'

'At any rate, he's got a line on Wirth,' said Dick.' He's been financing
this play.'

Since he could find nobody to lunch with, he decided to take that meal at
Snell's, which had all the values of a good club except that there were
one or two members who were personally objectionable to him. And the most
poisonous were the first two he saw at the entrance of the dining-room.
Gerald Dornford and Jules had their little table in the window. Jules
favoured him with a nod, but Jerry kept his eyes steadily averted as Dick
passed.

They had, in point of fact, only just sat down when Allenby had arrived,
and in his furtive way Jules had been avoiding the one subject which his
companion wished to discuss. He spoke of the people who were passing in
the street, recognizing every important car that passed; he talked of the
military conference which was in session just then, of the party to which
he had been the night before, of anything but--

'Now what about this gun?' said Jerry.

'The gun?'

Jules looked at him blankly, then leaned back in his chair and chuckled.
'What a good thing you came today! I wanted to see you. That little
project of mine must be abandoned.'

'What do you mean?' gasped Jerry, turning pale.

'I mean that my principals, or rather the principals of my principals,
have decided not to go any further in the matter. You see, we've
discovered that all the salient points of the gun have been protected by
patents, especially in those countries where the invention could be best
exploited.'

Jerry looked at him, dumbfounded. 'Do you mean to say that you don't want
it?'

Jules nodded. 'I mean to say there's no need for you to take any
unnecessary risks. Now let us discuss some other way of raising the
money--'

'Discuss be damned!' said Jerry savagely.' I've got the gun--I took it
last night!'

Jules stroked his smooth chin and looked at his companion thoughtfully.
'That's awkward,' he said. 'You took it from the workshop, did you? Well,
you can hardly put it back. I advise you to drive somewhere out of London
and dump it in a deep pond. Or, better still, try the river, somewhere
between Temple Lock and Hambleden.'

'Do you mean to tell me,' Jerry's husky voice was almost hoarse--'that
I've taken this risk for nothing? What's the idea?'

Jules shrugged. 'I'm sorry. My principals--'

'Damn your principals! You gave me a specific promise that if I got the
thing you'd give me a couple of thousand.'

Jules smiled. 'And now, my dear fellow, I give you a specific assurance
that I cannot get two thousand shillings for the gun! It is unfortunate.
If you had procured the invention when I first suggested it, the matter
would have been all over--and paid for. Now it is too late.' He leaned
over and patted the other gently on the arm as though he were a child.
'There is no sense in being foolish about this matter,' he said. 'Let us
find some other way of raising the wind, eh?'

Jerry Dornford was crushed. He knew Hervey Lyne sufficiently well to
realize that, had he produced the two thousand pounds, the old man would
have grabbed at the money and given him the extra time he had asked.
Hervey could never resist the argument of cash.

He could have grabbed the smiling little so-and-so opposite him and
thrown him out of the window. There was murder in his glance when he
looked into the round, brown eyes of his companion. But Jerry Dornford
never forgot that he was a gentleman, and as such was expected to
exercise the self-control which is the peculiar and popular attribute of
the well-bred man.

'Well, it can't be helped,' he said. 'Order me a drink; I'm a bit upset.'

Jules played an invisible piano on the edge of the table.

'Our friend Allenby is at the third table on the right. Would it not be a
good idea,' he suggested,' to go over and say: "What a little joke I
played on you, eh"?'

'Don't be a fool,' interrupted Jerry roughly. 'He called me up last night
and asked me if I had it. He's put the matter in the hands of the police.
I had a visit from Smith this morning.'

'So!' Jules pursed his red lips. 'That is a pity. Here is your drink.'

They sat for a long time over their coffee, saw Dick Allenby leave the
club and cross to the opposite side of St James's Street.

'Clever fellow, that,' said Jules, almost with enthusiasm. 'He doesn't
like me. I forget the name he called me the last time we had a little
discussion, but it was terribly offensive. But I like him. I am fond of
clever people; there is nothing so amusing as cleverness.'

Dick had hardly left the club before a telephone message came through for
him, and this he missed. It was Mary Lane, and at that moment she needed
Dick's advice very badly. She called his flat again; he had not returned.
She tried a second club, where he sometimes called in the afternoon, but
again was unsuccessful.

She had been writing out the small cheques which her house-keeping
necessitated, when the strange message had arrived. It came in the hands
of a grubby little boy, who carried an envelope which was covered with
uncleanly finger-marks.

'An old gentleman told me to bring it here,' he said in his shrill
cockney.

An old gentleman? She looked at the superscription; her name and address
were scrawled untidily and she guessed at once that it was Hervey Lyne
who had sent the letter.

The boy explained that he had been delivering a parcel at No. 19, and had
seen the old gentleman leaning on his stick in the doorway. He wore his
dressing-gown and had the letter in his hand. He had called the boy,
given him half a crown (that must have been a wrench for Hervey), and
ordered him to deliver the letter at once.

She tore it open. It was written on the back of a ruled sheet of paper
covered with typewritten figures, and the writing was in pencil.

'Bring Moran to me without fail at three o'clock this afternoon. I saw
him two days ago, but I'm not satisfied. Bring police officer.'

Here was written, above, a word which she deciphered as 'Smith'.

'Do not let Moran or anybody know about P.O. This is very urgent.'

The note was signed 'H.L.'.

The little boy could give her no other information. She would have called
up Hervey Lyne's house, but the old man had an insuperable objection to
the telephone and had never had one installed. She looked at her watch;
it was after two, and for ten minutes she was making a frantic effort to
get in touch with Dick.

Surefoot Smith she hardly knew well enough to consult, and she had a
woman's distaste for approaching the police direct.

She called up Leo Moran's bank; he had gone home. She tried his club,
with no better success. Moran had left his flat that morning, announcing
that he had no intention of returning for two or three weeks. He had gone
on leave. Curiously enough, the bank did not tell her that: they merely
said that Mr Moran had gone home early--a completely inaccurate piece of
information, she discovered when the first man, who was evidently a
clerk, was interrupted and a more authoritative voice spoke:

'This is the chief accountant speaking, Miss Lane. You were asking about
Mr Moran? He has not been to the bank today.'

'He's gone on leave, hasn't he?'

'I'm not aware of the fact. I know he has applied for leave, but I don't
think he's gone--in fact, I'm certain. I opened all the letters this
morning.'

She replaced the receiver, bewildered, and was sitting at the window,
cogitating on what else she should do, when to her joy the telephone
rang. It was Dick, who had returned to Snell's Club to collect some
letters he had forgotten, and had been told of her call.

'That's very odd,' was his comment when he heard about 'the note.