by Mark Hodder
“Nothing,” he murmured. “Still nothing. Not the faintest clue. Tinker cannot be in England. Had he failed in his purpose he would have come home. By some means or other—I cannot imagine how—he must have contrived to get to the front. Well, it can’t be helped. I must do without him as best I can.”
He had no appetite. A pain gnawed incessantly at his heart, and he pictured the lad under the fire of the German guns, and lying dead or wounded on the field of battle, as he sipped his coffee and nibbled at his toast. Mrs. Bardell, on coming in to clear the table, found her master at his desk; and she left him there, scarcely aware of her entrance and departure, reading once more the letter which Tinker had written to him from Jack Rokeby’s flat. Every word had a pathetic meaning for him, and there were fragments of sentences that stabbed like a knife-thrust:
“I am sure you will be angry—so it is the only thing to do, as you will blame me for losing the dispatch—will miss you as much as you will miss me—sorry to disobey you, but you won’t think the less of me for—forgive me, dear guv’nor, and try hard to—I hope to come safely back some day, but if I don’t, if you never hear of me again, you will know that I died bravely, for the honour of my—”
Blake put the letter back and shut and locked the desk, then sank down in a chair, and sat there for some minutes, with the bloodhound’s head resting on his knee. When at length he rose there was not a trace of emotion on his features, though the inward pain had not been stifled. He descended the stairs, took his hat and stick from the stand in the hall, and passed out of the house as an empty taxi-cab was approaching. He stopped it, and got in.
“The Horse Guards Parade,” he said to the chauffeur.
Sexton Blake had found a new sphere for his patriotic zeal. For the past two or three days, during the rush to enlist which had followed a slight loss of ground by the Allied armies, he had been assisting the recruiting-officer at the principal station. And he was going there now to scrutinise the applicants, lest some alien, with a fluent knowledge of the British tongue, should seek to take the King’s shilling for a sinister purpose.
ALL SORTS AND conditions of men, belonging to all phases of life, had presented themselves that morning at the recruiting-officer’s marquee on the Horse Guards Parade. Poor and prosperous, shabby and well dressed, wasters with the right stuff in them, and industrious clerks and artisans, and the languid swells who had realised that they could be better employed than by gaping from the bow-windows of West End clubs—all had shown a keen desire to be at arms for their country. They had filed in a steady procession under Blake’s shrewd and discerning eyes, and had for the most part, with very few exceptions, been passed on to the doctor and the swearing-in magistrate.
Between twelve and one o’clock there was a brief lull, and then a fresh applicant stepped into the booth, and advanced to the sergeant’s desk. He did not look at Sexton Blake, but the latter shot a searching glance at him, and knitted his brows in surprise and perplexity. The applicant was a young man, well under thirty, of slim build, with fair hair and a light moustache. He wore a band of black crepe around his arm, and on his face was such an expression of deep-seated, heart-breaking grief as the detective had rarely seen before.
“I wish to enlist, sir,” he said, “if there is any likelihood of my being sent abroad at an early date. I don’t want to be kept at home to guard bridges and railway stations.”
“I can’t guarantee anything,” the recruiting-officer replied, “but it would be to your advantage if you have been in the Service.”
“Yes I have been,” stated the applicant, after a brief hesitation. “I am a trained soldier.”
“Then it probably won’t be long until you are sent to the front. They need trained men there.”
“Very well. I will take the chances.”
The young man was gazing straight before him, and was apparently unaware of the presence of Blake, who then stood off to one side. Having reached for a sheet of blue paper, the sergeant picked up a pen, and dipped it in ink.
“I will have your name and age first,” he said. “What are they?”
“My name is John Davis,” the applicant replied, “and I am little more than twenty-six years of age.”
“Where were you born?”
“In London, in the parish of Hampstead.”
“Any trade or profession?”
“No; since I left the regiment I used to belong to I have been living on my income, which is something under six hundred a year.”
“Are you married?”
“I have been,” was the faltering answer, “but—but I have recently lost my wife. She is dead.”
“I see,” murmured the officer. “What corps do you want to join? Have you any preference?”
“No, it doesn’t matter,” the young man replied. “Only so I get to the front, where there will be a chance of fighting.”
The sergeant nodded. While he had been putting the questions he had been writing the answers on the sheet of blue paper, which he now blotted, and handed to the new recruit.
“There you are,” he said. “You will now report yourself at the office at Scotland Yard, to be examined by the doctor. And if you are passed by him you will be sent upstairs to be sworn in by a magistrate. That is all. I have finished with you.”
The initial formality was over. The young man turned on his heel, and with his gaze still fixed ahead of him, without looking towards the detective, he left the marquee. And he had no more than disappeared when Sexton Blake rose and hastened after him. He had to walk fast for a number of yards.
“Rokeby!” he called, in a low tone.
The new recruit pretended not to have heard. He strode on, increasing his pace.
“Stop, Rokeby!” the detective called again. “I want to speak with you!”
The young man paused and swung round. He was obviously confused and frightened.
“I think you have made a mistake,” he said.
“I think not,” Blake replied. “You have grown a moustache since I last saw you, but it has not altered you very much.”
“I—I have always had a moustache.”
“You had none several months ago. I am sure that you are a friend of Tinker’s, and that your name is Rokeby.”
The young man, who was indeed Jack Rokeby, flushed to his temples. He had a strong reason, other than the false statement he had just made to the recruiting-officer, for being desirous of avoiding an interview with the detective. But he had been cornered, and he knew that further denials would be useless.
“You are quite right,” he said. “I must admit that. I saw you in the marquee, but I did not suppose that you had recognised me.”
“Your identity was obvious,” Sexton Blake answered drily.
“Don’t betray me, please. I did no wrong in giving a false name.”
“I am not so certain of that. It calls for an explanation, at all events.”
“There was nothing wrong about it,” Jack Rokeby persisted, in a dogged tone. “I want to get to the front, and as long as I do my duty out there how can it matter what name I go by?”
“I have been under the impression that you went to the front some weeks ago. I understood, from what Tinker told me, that you had applied to the War Office, and that they had given you a commission, or a billet of some kind, because you had been in the Middlesex Regiment.”
“Yes, that is true. I did have an appointment, and I was ordered abroad. I fully intended to go. But my wife was so ill that I could not leave her. She has since died, down in Cornwall, and—and—”
The young man’s voice faltered and choked, and his eyes filled with tears. His distress moved Blake, whose cold expression relaxed. He stepped closer to him, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I am sorry for you,” he said—“very sorry. Come along with me! We will have luncheon together, and a friendly chat.”
“But I must go to the medical officer at Scotland Yard,” Jack Rokeby demurred.
“
You can go there afterwards. Come along!”
“Will you promise not to betray me to the recruiting-sergeant, Mr. Blake?”
“I can’t promise anything now. I will tell you later.”
“Very well. I don’t mind having something to eat with you. I can’t see what there is for us to talk about, though.”
Sexton Blake knew, but he judged it best to drop the subject for the present. Having passed out to Whitehall, the two walked up to a modest restaurant near Trafalgar Square, where they found a quiet corner table in a room that was far from crowded. A small glass of sherry whetted the young man’s appetite, and some champagne that followed, in the course of the meal, slightly loosed his tongue. He was not communicative in regard to himself, however. It was not until he had finished and had lighted a cigarette that he was led to speak of the illness and death of his wife.
“You can understand what that was to me,” he continued, striving hard to retain his control. “I don’t believe any man ever loved a girl as I loved Lilian. She was charming in every way. She appealed to all my senses. I don’t think I fully realised that that I was going to lose her until she was dead, until I heard the sods falling on her coffin. Then something seemed to break inside me. I suffered acutely for a time, and next came a feeling of numbness, and after that a sort of resignation. But I had lost all interest in life. There was nothing worth living for. That is why I am going to the front, in the hope that a bullet may soon find its way to my heart. On the day when I left Penzance I put a wreath of flowers on Lilian’s grave, and before the winter snow has fallen on them I trust I shall be with her, and if there is another world where the spirits of true lovers are—are—”
Jack Rokeby gulped down a sob, and looked at the detective through a veil of unshed tears.
“That’s my story,” he murmured. “That explains everything.”
“You have my deepest sympathy,” Blake replied. “It must be hard to lose a beloved wife—bitterly hard.”
“It has broken my heart.”
“Time heals all wounds, Rokeby, and brings consolation.”
“It won’t to me, sir. I am sure of that.”
There was an interval of silence, while the young man toyed with a liqueur glass, and stared into vacancy. Sexton Blake bit the end off a cigar, and touched a match to it. He had been not a little moved by the pathetic story he had heard, but he did not propose to let sympathy for his companion divert him from the object with which he had invited him to luncheon. It was his duty, he felt, to probe the matter to the bottom.
“Either way,” he said quietly, “you have not explained everything.”
“I think I have,” Jack Rokeby answered.
“No; there is one point in regard to which I am rather curious.”
“And what is that, sir?”
“Why did you give a false name to the recruiting officer?”
There was silence again for a few seconds. The simple question, which could not be evaded, had taken the young man by surprise. He could not hide his confusion. He hesitated, at a loss for words.
“Why did you do it?” the detective sharply asked.
“I—I don’t know,” Jack Rokeby stammered.
“You don’t know? Come, you can’t expect me to believe that. You must have had some motive for the deception.”
“I had no motive in particular.”
“You must have had, Rokeby. There can be no doubt of it. Have you committed any crime that leads you to fear arrest? Is there any person from whom you are anxious to conceal your whereabouts?”
“No, nothing of the sort.”
“Is there any other reason that would account for your being afraid to fight for your country under your real name?”
“None whatever, sir. It—it was a mere whim that—”
“Don’t lie to me. I ask you again why you gave a false name to the sergeant. Will you answer me?”
“You have had my answer. I can’t tell you anything more. I shall have to leave you now, if you will excuse me.”
As the young man spoke he rose from his chair, but Blake leaned over the table and forced him down. A light had dawned suddenly on his mind, a conviction that thrilled him to the heart. He believed that he had hit on the solution of the mystery.
“You have let somebody else take your place,” he declared, “and go to the front in your name, and with your papers.”
“What has put such an idea into your head?” faltered Jack Rokeby.
“Don’t deny it. Own up to the truth.”
“I suppose I will have to, Mr. Blake. There is somebody in the British Expeditionary Force in my name.”
“And that person is my boy, Tinker?”
“Yes, it—it is.”
“I thought so, Rokeby.”
Sexton Blake leaned back in his chair, his features twitching. The memory of his futile search, of the anxious days and nights he had spent, had roused his indignation. He looked angrily at the young man, who was a picture of guilt and fear now that his secret had been dragged from him. He was ready to confess, and he did so in a low, tremulous voice, taking the blame on himself.
“I have no excuses to offer,” he went on. “I should not have yielded, I know.”
“Tinker must have pressed you very hard,” said the detective.
“Yes, he did,” Jack Rokeby admitted. “He was in trouble, and I was sorry for him. He was afraid to go home because he had been robbed of the despatch.”
“I should not have blamed him for that.”
“So I told him. It was no use, though. He dreaded your anger, for one thing, and he was very keen on enlisting. He was determined to get to the front, and he begged me to let him take my place.”
“By now, I suppose, he is somewhere in France with the Army Transport Corps.”
“I have no doubt that he is. I have not heard from him since he left London for Avonmouth Docks.”
“I presume that work the work in which he is engaged,” said Blake, “will not be as dangerous as ordinary soldiering?”
“Not nearly, I should imagine,” the young man answered. “He will be in charge of the supplies that are sent to the soldiers at the front.”
“But transport trains are liable to be cut off by the enemy.”
“That might happen, of course.”
The detective nodded, and puffed at his cigar, blowing a cloud of smoke that masked his thoughtful, worried features. His anger had been appeased, and it was sorrow he felt now.
“I have been having a bad time of it,” he said, after a pause. “I have been searching for Tinker high and low, making enquiries everywhere. You probably know how dear he is to me, Rokeby, so you can realise how desolate and lonely my chambers in Baker Street are without him.”
“I am sure they are,” Jack Rokeby assented. “I am more than sorry for you. I did a wrong thing, and I wish with all my heart that I had not.”
“You thought it was for the best, no doubt.”
“I did, Mr. Blake. I hope you will forgive me.”
“Yes, I will. What has been done can’t be undone, and I won’t harbour any ill-feeling. As for Tinker, he will have to stay where he is, at least for the present.”
“And what about my enlistment?” asked the young man. “I have told you how anxious I am to get to the front. It was impossible for me to go under my own name, so I was compelled to—”
“I will keep your secret, under the circumstances,” Blake interrupted. “It can do no harm, as the motive for the deception was a good one. Go off to the war, and fight for your country. But don’t seek to end your existence. Remember that your wife would have wished you to live. Think of her and keep up your courage.”
“I will try, sir,” was the low reply. “Really I will.”
The waiter had brought the bill. Blake paid it, and then he and Jack Rokeby left the restaurant, and separated a few moments later in Whitehall. The young man went off to Scotland Yard to pass the medical officer; and Sexton Blake slowly retrace
d his steps across the Horse Guards Parade. Deeply attached to Tinker though he was, there was in his mind now a very slight tinge of resentment.
“The boy should not have kept me in suspense,” he reflected. “He has made his bed, and I will let him lie on it.”
THE FOURTH CHAPTER
Sexton Blake Consents to Go to the Front.
BLAKE WAS NOT used to a sedentary life, and the long hours in the booth on the Horse Guards Parade, seated at a desk, tired him more than active work could have done. He was glad to leave off at six o’clock. Having walked home, and let himself into the house, he met Mrs. Bardell in the hall, and was informed by her that visitors were waiting for him. He mounted the stairs, and entered his consulting-room, to find there two persons. The one was a gentleman of middle-age, tall and slim, with iron-grey hair and a military moustache; the other was a lady of perhaps thirty, simply but expensively dressed, with a very lovely face on which sorrow had stamped its mark.
Sir Francis Leeson, an influential official of the War Office, rose from his chair.
“Ah, here you are!” he said, as he shook hands with the detective.
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” Blake replied.
“We have not had a long wait,” Sir Francis answered. “We were told that you would probably be back soon after six. But let me introduce you to Mrs. Chumleigh, the wife of Colonel Chumleigh, of the Guards. It is on her behalf that I have called.”
“I am very glad to make Mr. Blake’s acquaintance,” murmured the lady. “I have heard so much of him.”
The detective bowed to her, and sat down on a couch. He looked expectantly at the Government official, who twisted his moustache, and glanced at his fair companion.
“Mrs. Chumleigh is in trouble,” he said. “She has appealed to me, and I have concluded that you are the person to help her. It would be best, however, if she were to tell you the story herself.”
“If it is in my power to assist her,” Sexton Blake replied, “I will be glad to do so.”
Mrs. Chumleigh lifted her veil with a daintily-gloved hand, disclosing to view a face that was even more beautiful than the detective had judged it to be.
