Both Jennifer and Robin felt the strain growing almost unbearable, and Sacret himself, his nerves keyed to fever pitch, constantly betrayed his agitation by little nervous tricks which might have given him away to a more acute observer than the smiling village policeman.
The man hung about until he had satisfied himself that Madame Julie’s driving license was in order, and then he seemed anxious to stay and make conversation.
At length, in despair, old Mary gave him a cup of tea and he sat on the edge of his chair sipping it happily.
The talk had become fitful, to say the least of it, and old Mary, anxious to divert her latest visitor’s attention as much as possible from her other guests, switched on the wireless.
They heard the end of a vaudeville turn through the somewhat nasal loudspeaker, and no audience ever listened to a comedian in a less appreciative frame of mind.
Then the clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour, and at once the music faded and the academic voice of the announcer filled the little room.
“Before reading the news tonight I have here two SOS’s and a police message.”
The moment the announcement was made they realized what was coming, and a cold chill of alarm passed down the spines of at least five people seated round the fire. Mary made a half-movement to turn off the instrument but realized just in time that to do such a thing would call attention to the announcement rather than detract from it.
Meanwhile the impersonal voice continued.
“The police of the Metropolitan and East Kent districts ask the assistance of the public in tracing the whereabouts of James Wendon Sacret: height about five feet ten inches, thin build, greyish hair, grey eyes, heavily lined face, good teeth. When last seen this man was wearing a dark blue or grey suit, brown raincoat, and trilby hat. This man has escaped from Porchester Prison and is believed to be hiding in the eastern-counties district. Any person knowing the whereabouts of this man is asked to communicate at once with Scotland Yard, telephone Whitehall 1212, or any police station.
“This is the first SOS. Will Gladys West, last heard of at ...”
Robin never heard that SOS. His eyes were fixed upon the village constable. The man sat, his cup half raised to his lips, staring thoughtfully upon the white face of the convict, and as Robin watched, the man seemed to take in every detail of his face and dress.
Then his eyes wandered to the peg in the corner where the brown raincoat hung beside Mrs. Bourne’s old black plush coat.
The next moment the constable had risen to his feet. Madame Julie’s nails dug into her palms as she watched him, and Jennifer was pale with apprehension.
The constable seemed to be sizing them up, and apparently he decided that if it came to a scrap they would be too many for him. He appeared to determine to use subterfuge, therefore, and turned towards the door.
“Well, thank you very much,” he said in a tone that was only a thin imitation of his bluff greeting when he had first entered. “I think I’ll be getting along if you don’t mind. Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Bourne. Goodnight, all.”
He opened the door and was gone.
Madame Julie sprang to her feet with an exclamation, but her husband silenced her. Moving cautiously over to the doorway, he peered out and, having satisfied himself that the constable had really gone, he turned back into the room.
Robin took the initiative. He had now definitely made up his mind upon the only course left to him. One good turn not only deserved but demanded another.
“You take the car, Sacret,” he said. “That man’ll go to the village. He’ll phone up his superior anyway, and if he’s a conscientious man he’ll come back himself with volunteer assistants. I don’t think he was sure of himself or he would have made the arrest on the spot and risked it. If you take the car and drive away from the village you’ve just got a chance. But you’ll have to hurry or the roads will be blocked.”
Madame Julie clung to her husband. “I’ll go with you.”
The man kissed her upturned face.
“No, my dear,” he said gently. “Not this time. The risk is too great. Besides,” he added softly, “he travels fastest who travels alone, you know.”
This argument carried more weight with her than any other could have done, and, dry-eyed but white-lipped, she helped him into his coat and urged him to hurry.
They went with him down to the car. Just before he climbed in he turned to Robin.
“I’ll remember this,” he said. “If I win through this time I know what I’m out for, and if I succeed you will hear from me again. Good-bye and good luck to you both.”
Robin shook the man’s hand and then stepped back as Madame Julie flung herself into the arms of the husband she adored and kissed him passionately.
Robin left her staring out in the night, watching the disappearing tail light of the great car as it shot off down the lane in a wild bid for freedom.
When she returned to the cottage, Robin and Jennifer were standing on the hearthrug. They looked up as she came in, and there was something majestic in her grief and her courage.
“There’s a second car,” she said. “Not a very good one, but it’ll carry us to a railway station at least. We must get to London.”
She turned to Robin.
“Don’t go to the police for twenty-four hours. Promise me that. If you see them you’ll feel it’s your duty to tell them the whole story. If you don’t see them, that temptation will not arise. Besides, there’s Jennifer to think of. We must hide her. I shall go back to my post in Sir Ferdinand Shawle’s house. I feel I can do more there than anywhere else.”
Robin looked at her squarely.
“Is Sir Ferdinand Shawle the Dealer, Madame Julie?” he asked softly.
The woman’s pallor increased as she glanced nervously behind her, as though even here she were afraid of being overheard by that mysterious being whose power seemed to be so enormous.
“I—I don’t know,” she whispered. “Sometimes I wonder.”
She was silent for a moment, but a minute or so later she had pulled herself together again.
“We must go quickly,” she said. “At any moment those people may come, and they would question us and we might give something away.”
Their adieux were quickly said, and less than five minutes later they were trundling through the narrow roads towards the nearest railway station in an old Morris-Cowley whose battered sides and halting engine told of hard work done in the past.
Robin drove, and Jennifer sat beside him, while Madame Julie leant forward in her seat at the back urging them on ever faster.
“You must hide, Jennifer,” she said again as they turned on to the main road. “At all costs they must not get you back, my dear.”
The girl hesitated.
“I want Robin to take me to my father,” she said at last. “He can convince him that I’m perfectly all right, and with them both to look after me surely I should be all right.”
They heard Madame Julie catch her breath, and when she spoke her tone was vehement.
“Oh, no, my dear!” she said. “Whatever you do, don’t do that. Hide her somewhere else, Robin, somewhere safe.”
Jennifer caught at the tone in the woman’s voice.
“Why?” she said. “Madame Julie, you know something. You’re keeping something back! What is it? Tell me—I implore you to tell me!”
Madame Julie hesitated. Then she seemed to make up her mind.
“D’you remember,” she said softly, “when we first saw the pursuing car turning out of the nursing-home gates? They had the dashboard lights on then, and I saw the man who sat beside the driver quite clearly. I shall never forget his face—never.”
Robin’s jaw set in a hard line.
“I can guess what you’re going to say, Madame Julie,” he said. “And in that case I shall take your advice. My landlady has a married daughter living in the heart of Bayswater. Jennifer, I know, will be a welcome guest there, and no one will ever find her.”
“But I insist that you tell me.”
Jennifer’s voice had a ring of command in its childish depths.
“I insist,” she repeated. “Who sat beside the driver in the pursuing car, Madame Julie? Whom did you see?”
Still Madame Julie hesitated, but at length, as the girl insisted, she spoke, and her voice was very low and unmistakably severe.
“Jennifer, my dear, you must be very brave and face this thing. It was your father, Sir Henry Fern.”
CHAPTER 21
The Man of Power
“I TELL you, Sir Ferdinand, this is serious. Crupiner blundered, and blundered badly.”
Nelson Ash leant across the desk in Sir Ferdinand Shawle’s luxurious office and spoke forcefully. There was an unwonted touch of colour in his white face, and his indeterminate eyes had something in their depths that might almost have been fear.
Sir Ferdinand Shawle leant back in his chair and surveyed his visitor thoughtfully. He was not a man who showed emotion, and his eyes were cold and hard.
Ash went on, his high voice sounding even more reedy than usual in his indignation.
“Think of it,” he continued. “He locked that young blackguard Grey in a room next the robing room of the theatre, not realizing that the youngster might overpower his reprobate surgeon, and then stood calmly by while the boy recognized her and carried her off under his very nose.
“He had assistants, though, and I don’t think they were the police. We must go into that.
“Then there was Crupiner’s ridiculous story of the escape across the marsh. Why, the fool had to be pulled out by a police van searching for an escaped convict and very nearly had a scrap with them. They were led away by marsh lights. I think that fellow Crupiner loses his head.
“Now think of it,” he went on with animation. “Consider the position. The girl’s gone, and the boy with her. They may get married at any moment. I expect to hear that the police have raided the nursing home any second now. What’s the matter with you, man? You ought to be off your head with anxiety.”
Sir Ferdinand Shawle smiled grimly.
“Don’t worry, Ash,” he said. “Grey has not gone to the police, and Jennifer has not gone to her father. And that puts us onto a rather interesting point. I believe those young people have found out about the box. I believe they’re after it. Moreover, I know where they are.”
Ash looked at him incredulously.
Sir Ferdinand nodded.
“Mrs. Phipps, Robin Grey’s landlady, has a married daughter, and I rather fancy that it is there that our two youngsters are hiding. Very well, let them stay. I have a rather clever intelligence system of my own devising and I rather fancy that we can make use of this pair. Let them go after the box. Let us watch, and then at the psychological moment step in and get it. D’you see where that puts us? Completely on the top and out of the Dealer’s clutches for ever.”
Ash stood looking at the other man, a mixture of admiration and surprise on his strange, unhandsome face.
“I think I’ve always underestimated you, Sir Ferdinand,” he said at last. “I was not going to bring up the subject of the Dealer, but since you raise it, I think I may mention a fact that has occurred to me. Since Bourbon disappeared, our ranks have become thinned. There are only four of us now. One of those four is the man who holds the others in such complete submission.
“Shawle, suppose that the Dealer were dead. Suppose that, unknown to us, this burden had been lifted.
“Think of it,” he went on quickly. “Since Bourbon vanished no one has heard from the Dealer, so far as we know. Suppose this ghastly business were like a railway train that goes on for a little after its driver is dead. Suppose that, without realizing it, we were all free men. After all, who is left? You, I, Caithby Fisher, Sir Henry Fern.”
A strange expression had come into Sir Ferdinand’s eyes. It almost seemed as though the proffered relief had already been seized by that queer, unemotional mind.
“Ash,” he said hoarsely, “that’s a great thought, but a dangerous one.”
“Well”—the other man was frankly defiant—“why not? It is a point to be considered. Once we had the box, at least we should be safe. And—who knows?—perhaps it may be within our grasp. None of us has attempted even to get hold of it before because, frankly, we were afraid of the Dealer, but with the Dealer out of the way, what is there to stop us?”
Sir Ferdinand Shawle rose from his seat and walked slowly up and down. His feet sank into the thick pile of the carpet. When he spoke, it was almost as though he were chatting to himself.
“Caithby Fisher and Sir Henry Fern,” he said aloud. “Both men of unexpected powers and resource.”
He looked at Ash sharply.
“Fern’s love for his child,” he said—“that’s always struck you as being perfectly genuine, hasn’t it? As his business partner, you know him better than I do.”
Ash hesitated.
“It’s queer you should ask me that,” he said. “It’s a subject that has been worrying me for some time. Sir Henry Fern has a dual personality. There are times when he seems the most gentle, natural father in the world, but there are others when I have doubted his sincerity. He has strange, sullen moods which last for days, and those trips abroad that he is supposed to make for the firm—I may be indiscreet in saying so, Shawle, but I sometimes wonder if he ever leaves the country.”
Sir Ferdinand swept aside these revelations with a gesture:
“Even so,” he said, “Sir Henry Fern is not the type of which men like the Dealer are made.
“Then there’s Fisher. Caithby Fisher is a weird personality. In that crooked little body there hides a most courageous spirit and a mind as warped as the body itself. I wonder ... If what you suggest were only true, Ash, if the Dealer were out of our way, life would be very different.”
He was interrupted by the ringing of the phone on his table. He picked up the instrument casually and, after a moment’s conversation, turned to his visitor.
“It’s for you, Ash,” he said. “Personal call.”
The other man looked surprised. “I didn’t know anyone knew I was here,” he said and took the instrument from his host’s hand.
As he listened, an extraordinary change passed over his face. Every tinge of colour seemed to vanish, his jaw dropped, and his eyes widened.
“A message?” he said huskily. “Where? Under the door? My God, Shawle, look!”
He dropped the instrument and turned towards the heavily curtained door on the other side of the room. Darting over, he swept the hanging aside, and there on the floor, projecting a little into the room, lay an envelope.
Sir Ferdinand Shawle, who had had some experience of these mysterious phone messages, hurried after his friend, nearly as white as the paper itself.
“The Dealer?” he inquired.
Ash nodded. He was shaking, and his pale, contorted face was not a pleasant sight to see. The man had abject fear written in every line of his countenance.
“Yes,” he said hastily. “He said ‘under the door.’”
Sir Ferdinand snatched up the envelope and threw the door open.
Save for an inoffensive-looking clerk who came hurrying down the corridor, it was empty.
Shawle stopped the man.
“Wilkinson, has any stranger been down this corridor this morning?”
“Why, no, sir. Certainly not, sir.”
The young man looked scandalized.
“I haven’t left my desk by the half-glass door all the morning. I should have seen anyone who passed.”
“I see. Thank you, Wilkinson.”
Sir Ferdinand went back into the room and with trembling fingers tore open the mysterious note. The message consisted of only a few words:
“These private conferences will do you no good, my friends. Remember the sad story of the mouse who took the sleeping cat for dead. THE DEALER.”
The note dropped from the man’s nerveless fingers.
>
Ash pounced upon it and read it through.
Sir Ferdinand Shawle spoke the words which must have been uppermost in his mind:
“Sir Henry Fern or Caithby Fisher ... which?”
Ash echoed the last word, his voice barely rising above a whisper:
“Which?”
CHAPTER 22
Police Trail
“AH, INSPECTOR, will you sit down? It was very kind of you to come.”
The frail elderly lady in the stiff grey silk dress and the priceless lace fichu swathed round her bent shoulders held out one tiny blue-veined hand for Inspector Whybrow to take.
He touched it with his own and accepted her invitation to be seated.
When he had first made up his mind to comply with Miss Alice Bourbon’s request that he should call on her at her house in Belgravia, he had somehow not expected Rex Bourbon’s sister to have such a definite personality, or the air of gracious elegance which would have distinguished any duchess.
He judged her to be little more than sixty, a good twenty years older than her brother, but in spite of all the affectations and helplessness of a woman of her class and era she had nevertheless something strong and determinate in her bright, very blue eyes and her sharp, well-chiselled features.
She sat down opposite him in one of the brocaded rosewood chairs.
“You have nothing to tell me about my poor brother yet?”
Her eyes watched his face anxiously.
He shook his head.
“No, madam, I’m afraid I haven’t. I told you,” he went on gently, “that on the receipt of any information at all concerning your brother we would communicate with you immediately.
“I’m a very busy man, Miss Bourbon,” he went on with just a touch of reproach in his kindly voice, “and although I appreciate your concern at the continued absence of your brother I’m afraid I shouldn’t have come down here this morning if in your telephone message you had not promised me something in the nature of a revelation. All I can tell you is that we’re doing everything that can possibly be done in our efforts to trace Mr. Rex Bourbon.
The Man of Dangerous Secrets Page 19
