The Ringer, Book 1

by Edgar Wallace

  “Lomond’s a clever fellow!” he protested.

  Bliss was turning the leaves of a book he had taken from the table.

  “So he admits in this book of his. I suppose this sort of thing impresses you, eh? I’ve been two years in America, the home of all this anthropology sort of muck. I’ve met madmen who could give points to Lomond. Suppose Hackitt says he knows The Ringer, who else is going to identify him?” he asked, throwing down the volume.

  “You, for one. I understand you tried to arrest him after the Attaman case.”

  Bliss looked at him sharply. “I? I never saw the swine. He had his back to me the day I went to pinch him. I just laid my hands on him when —bingo! I was on the ground with four inches of good knife in me. Who’s seen him?”

  “Meister?” suggested Alan.

  The other man frowned. “Meister! Will he ever have a chance of talking? That is what I want to know!”

  It was the second surprise of the morning for Wembury. “Why shouldn’t he?”

  But Inspector Bliss avoided the question. “I’ll bet Meister never saw him plainly in his life. Too full of dope, for one thing. The Ringer’s clever. I hand it to him. I wish to God I’d never left Washington—I had a soft job there.”

  “You don’t seem very happy,” smiled the younger man.

  “If you’d been there they’d have kept you there,” snapped the other. “They wanted me back at the Yard.”

  In spite of his annoyance Wembury laughed. “I like your manners, but I hate your modesty,” he said. “And yet we seem to have been catching ‘em all right. I haven’t noticed very much depression amongst the criminal classes since you returned.”

  But Bliss was not to be drawn. He was studying the title page of the book in his hand, and was on the point of making some sarcastic reference to Dr. Lomond and his anthropological studies when Colonel Walford came in and the two men stiffened to attention.

  “Sorry, gentlemen, to keep you waiting,” he said cheerfully. “Good morning, Bliss.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “There’s a letter for you, sir,” said Wembury.

  “Yes,” growled Bliss impatiently. “The Assistant Commissioner can see that for himself.”

  “The man who wrote to you from Maidstone is here, sir,” reported Alan.

  “Oh, Hackitt?”

  “You don’t think he knows The Ringer, do you, sir?” asked Bliss with a contemptuous smile.

  “Honestly, I don’t. But he comes from Deptford. There’s just a remote chance that he’s speaking the truth. Have him up, Wembury—I’ll go along and tell the Chief Commissioner I am taking the inquiry.”

  When he had gone: “Hackitt!” said Bliss. “Huh! I remember him. Five-six years ago I got him eighteen months at the London Sessions for housebreaking. A born liar!”

  Two minutes later, in response to Alan’s telephoned instructions, the “born liar” was ushered into the room.

  Mr. Samuel Cuthbert Hackitt had the pert manner of the irrepressible Cockney. He stood now, in no wise abashed by the surroundings or awed by the imponderable menace of Scotland Yard.

  Alan Wembury smiled a greeting.

  “Hallo, Mr. Wembury!” said Sam cheerfully. “You’re looking bright an’ ‘ealthy.”

  He was looking hard at Alan’s companion.

  “You remember Mr. Bliss?”

  “Bliss?” Sam frowned. “You’ve changed a bit, ain’t yer? Where did yer get your whiskers from?”

  “You shut your ugly mouth,” snapped Bliss, and Sam grinned.

  “That’s more like yer.”

  “Remember where you are, Hackitt,” warned Wembury.

  The ex-convict showed his white teeth again. “I know where I am, sir. Scotland Yard. You don’t arf do yourselves well, don’t you? Where’s the grand planner? Meister’s got one! Look at the flowers—love a duck, everything the ‘eart can desire.”

  If looks could kill, the scowl on the face of Bliss would have removed one law breaker from the world. What he might have said is a matter for conjecture as the Commissioner came back at that moment.

  “Good mornin’, sir,” said Sam affably. “Nice pitch you’ve got here. All made out of thieving and murder!”

  Colonel Walford concealed a smile. “We have a letter from you when you were in prison, Hackitt.” He opened a folder and, taking out a sheet of blue note-paper, read: ‘Dear Sir: This comes hoping to find you well, and all kind friends at Scotland Yard—’

  “I didn’t know Bliss was back,” interjected Sam.

  “‘There’s a lot of talk about The Ringer,’“ continued the Colonel, “‘down here—him that was drowned in Australia. Dear sir, I can tell you a lot about him now that he’s departed this life, as I once see him though only for a second and I knew where he lodged.’ Is that true?”

  “Yes, sir,” nodded Sam. “I lodged in the same ‘ouse.”

  “Oh, then, you know what he looks like?”

  “What he looked like,” corrected Sam. “He’s dead.”

  Colonel Walford shook his head, and the man’s jaw dropped. Looking at him, Alan saw his face change colour.

  “Not dead? The Ringer alive? Good morning, thank you very much!” He turned to go.

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Nothing!” said Hackitt emphatically. “I’ll tell you the truth, sir, without any madam whatsoever. [Madam = telling the tale. EW] Nosing on a dead man’s one thing,” said Sam earnestly; “nosing on a live Ringer is another, I give you my word! I know a bit about The Ringer—not much, but a bit. And I’m not goin’ to tell that bit. And why? Because I just come out of ‘stir’ and Meister’s give me a job. I want to live peaceable without any trouble from anybody.”

  “Now don’t be foolish, Hackitt,” said the Commissioner “If you can help us we may be able to help you.”

  Sam’s long lip curled in a sardonic smile.

  “If I’m dead, can you help me to get alive?” he asked sarcastically. “I don’t nose on The Ringer. He’s a bit too hot for me.”

  “I don’t believe you know anything,” sneered Bliss.

  “What you believe don’t interest me,” growled the convict.

  “Come on—if you know anything, tell the Commissioner, What are you afraid of?”

  “What you’re afraid of,” snapped Hackitt. “He nearly got you once! Ah! That don’t make you laugh! I’m very sorry; I come up here under what is termed a misapprehension. Good-bye, everybody.”

  He turned to go.

  “Here, wait,” said Bliss.

  “Let him go—let him go!” The Commissioner waved Sam Hackitt out of existence.

  “He never saw The Ringer,” said Bliss when the man had gone.

  Walford shook his head. “I don’t agree. His whole attitude shows that he has. Is Meister here?”

  “Yes, sir—he’s in the waiting-room,” replied Alan.

  CHAPTER 24

  A few seconds later came Maurice Meister, his debonair self, yet not wholly at his ease. He strode into the room, examined his wrist-watch ostentatiously, and looked from one to the other.

  “I think there must be some mistake,” he said. “I thought I was going to see the Chief Constable.”

  Walford nodded. “Yes, but unfortunately he’s ill; I’m taking his place.”

  “I was asked to call at eleven-thirty; it is now”—he consulted his watch—“twelve-forty-nine. I have a case to defend at the Greenwich Police Court. God knows what will happen to the poor devil if I’m not there.”

  “I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” said Colonel Walford coldly. “Take a seat.”

  As he went to sit, putting his stick and hat on the desk, he looked at Bliss. “Your face is vaguely familiar,” he said.

  “My name is Bliss,” replied the detective. The eyes of t
he two men met.

  So this was Bliss: Maurice averted his eyes from that defiant stare. “I’m sorry—I thought I knew you.”

  He seated himself carefully near the desk, placed his hat on the table and drew off his gloves.

  “It is a little unusual, is it not, to summon an officer of the Royal Courts of Justice to Scotland Yard?” he asked.

  The Assistant Commissioner settled himself back in his chair: he had dealt with men far cleverer than Maurice Meister.

  “Now, Mr. Meister, I am going to speak very frankly—that is why I brought you here.”

  Meister’s brows met. “‘Brought’ is not a word I like, Mr. Walford.”

  “Colonel Walford,” prompted Alan. The Colonel took up a minute paper and read a line or two.

  “Mr. Meister,” he began, “you are a lawyer with a large clientele in Deptford?” Meister nodded. “There isn’t a thief in South London who doesn’t know Mr. Meister of Flanders Lane. You are famous both as a defender of hopeless cases—and—er—as a philanthropist.” Again Meister inclined his head as though at a compliment. “A man commits a burglary and gets away with it. Later he is arrested; none of the stolen property is found—he is apparently penniless. Yet you not only defend him personally in the police court, and through eminent counsel at the Old Bailey, but during the time the man is in prison you support his relatives.”

  “Mere humanity! Am I—am I to be suspect, as it were, because I—I help these unfortunate people? I will not see the wives and the wretched children suffer through the faults of their parents,” said Maurice Meister virtuously.

  Bliss had stepped out of the room. Why, he wondered, in some apprehension.

  “Oh, yes; I’m sure of that,” answered the Colonel dryly. “Now, Mr. Meister, I haven’t brought you here to ask you about the money that you distribute from week to week, or where it comes from. I’m not even going to suggest that somebody who has access to the prisoner in a professional capacity has learnt where the proceeds of the robbery are hidden, and has acted as his agent.”

  “I am glad you do not say that, Colonel.” Meister had recovered his nerve by now; was his old urbane self. There was danger here, deadly, devastating danger. He had need for a cool head. “If you had said that, I should have been extremely—”

  “I’m not insisting on it, I tell you. The money comes from somewhere, Meister. I am not curious. Sometimes you do not support your clients with money—you take their relatives into your employment?”

  “I help them in one way or another,” admitted Meister.

  The Colonel was eyeing him closely.

  “When a convict has a pretty sister, for example, you find it convenient to employ her. You have a girl secretary now, a Miss Lenley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Her brother Went to prison for three years on information supplied to the police—by you!”

  Meister shrugged his shoulders. “It was my duty. In whatever other respect I fail, my duty as a citizen is paramount.”

  “Two years ago,” said Walford slowly, “she had a predecessor, a girl who was subsequently found drowned.” He paused, as though waiting for a response. “You heard me?”

  Maurice sighed and nodded. “Yes, I heard you. It was a tragedy. I’ve never been so shocked in my life—never. I don’t like even to think about it.”

  “The girl’s name was Gwenda Milton.” Walford spoke deliberately. “The sister of Henry Arthur Milton—otherwise known as—The Ringer!”

  There was something in his tone which was significant. Meister looked at the Colonel strangely.

  “The most brilliant criminal we have in our records—and the most dangerous.”

  Two spots of dull red came into the sallow face of the lawyer.

  “And never caught. Colonel—never caught!” he almost shouted. “Although the police knew that he was passing through Paris—knew the time to a minute—he slipped through their fingers. All the clever policemen in England and all the clever policemen in Australia have never caught him.”

  He gained control of his voice; was his old urbane self in an instant.

  “I’m not saying anything against the police. As a ratepayer, I am proud of them—but it wasn’t clever to let him slip. I don’t mind saying this to you because you’re new to the business.”

  The Commissioner overlooked the implied insolence of this reference to his recent appointment.

  “He should have been taken, I admit,” he said quietly. “But that is beside the point. The Ringer left his sister in your care. Whether he trusted you with his money I don’t know—he trusted you with his sister.”

  “I treated her well,” protested Meister. “Was it my fault that she died? Did I throw her into the river? Be reasonable. Colonel!”

  “Why did she end her life?” asked Walford sternly.

  “How should I know? I never dreamt that she was in any kind of trouble. As God is my judge!”

  The Colonel checked him with a gesture. “And yet you made all the arrangements for her at the nursing home,” he said significantly.

  Meister’s face paled. “That’s a lie!”

  “It didn’t come out at the inquest. Nobody knows but Scotland Yard and—Henry Arthur Milton!”

  Maurice Meister smiled. “How can he know—he’s dead. He died in Australia.”

  There was a pause, and then Walford spoke.

  “The Ringer is alive—he’s here,” he said, and Meister came to his feet, white to the lips.

  CHAPTER 25

  Maurice Meister faced the Assistant Commissioner with horror in his eyes.

  “The Ringer here! Are you serious?”

  The Commissioner nodded.

  “I repeat—he’s alive—he’s here.”

  “That can’t be true! He wouldn’t dare come here with a death sentence hanging over him. The Ringer! You’re trying to scare me—ha! ha!” He forced a laugh. “Your little joke, Colonel.”

  “He’s here—I’ve sent for you to warn you.”

  “Why warn me?” demanded Meister. “I never saw him in my life, I don’t even know what he looks like. I knew the girl he used to run around with an American girl. She was crazy about him. Where is she? Where she is, he is.”

  “She’s in London. In this very building at this very moment!”

  Meister’s eyes opened wide.

  “Here? The Ringer wouldn’t dare do it!” And then, with sudden violence: “If you know he’s in London, why don’t you take him? The man’s a madman. What are you for? To protect people—to protect me! Can’t you get in touch with him? Can’t you tell him that I knew nothing about his sister, that I looked after her and was like a father to her? Wembury, you know that I had nothing to do with this girl’s death?”

  He turned to Alan.

  “I know nothing about it,” said the detective coldly. “The only thing I know is that if anything happens to Mary Lenley, I’ll—”

  “Don’t you threaten me!” stormed Meister.

  “I don’t know what women see in you, Meister! Your reputation is foul!”

  Meister’s lips were trembling. “Lies, more lies! They tear a man’s character to rags, these scum! There have been women—naturally. We’re men of the world. One isn’t an anchorite. The Ringer!”—he forced a smile. “Pshaw! Somebody has been fooling you! Don’t you think I should have heard? Not a bird moves in Deptford but I know it. Who has seen him?”

  “Meister, I’ve warned you,” said Walford seriously as he rang a bell. “From now on your house will be under our observation. Have bars put on your windows; don’t admit anybody after dark and never leave the house by night except with a police escort.”

  Inspector Bliss came in at that moment.

  “Oh, Bliss—I think Mr. Meister may need a little care taken of him—I put him in your charge. Watch over him like a father.” Th
e dark eyes of the detective fell upon the lawyer as he rose. “The day you take him I’ll give a thousand pounds to the Police Orphanage,” said Meister.

  “We don’t want money so badly as that. I think that is all. It is not my business to pass judgment on any man. It is a dangerous game that you are playing. Your profession gives you an advantage over other receivers—”

  It was the one word above all others that Meister hated.

  “Receiver! You hardly realise what you are saying.”

  “Indeed I do. Good morning.”

  Meister polished his hat on his sleeve as he walked to the door. “You will be sorry for that statement, Colonel. For my own part, I am unmoved by your hasty judgment.” He looked at his watch. “Five minutes to one—”

  He had left behind his walking stick. Bliss picked it up. The handle was loose, and with a twist he drew out a long steel blade. “Your swordstick, Mr. Meister—you seem to be looking after yourself pretty well,” he said with an unholy grin.

  Meister shot one baleful look at him as he went out of the room.

  He scarcely remembered leaving the Chief Constable’s office, but walked down the corridor and into the yard like a man in a dream. It was not possible. The Ringer back in London! All these stories at which he had scoffed were true. A terrible miracle had happened. Henry Arthur Milton was here, in this great city, might be this man or that … he found himself peering into the faces he met between the Yard and the sidewalk where his car was parked.

  “Is anything wrong, Maurice?” asked Mary anxiously, as she came to meet him.

  “Wrong?” His voice was thick, unnatural; the eyes had a queer, glazed expression. “Wrong? No, nothing is wrong—why? What can be wrong?”

  All the time he was speaking, his head turned nervously left and right. Who was that man walking towards him, swinging a cane so light-heartedly? Might he not be The Ringer? And that pedlar, shuffling along with a tray of matches and studs before him, an unkempt, grimy, dirty-looking old man—it was such a disguise as The Ringer would love to adopt. Bliss? Where had he seen Bliss before? Somewhere … his voice, too, had a familiar sound. He racked his brains to recall. Even the chauffeur came under his terrified scrutiny: a burly man with a long upper lip and a snub nose. That could not be The Ringer …