The Symbol Seekers

by A. A. Glynn

  He yanked the bell-pull which brought Frederick, the family’s elderly, frozen faced butler, to the door.

  ‘I’m calling on Miss Van Trask, Frederick, though I’m not expected,’ Dacers said.

  The ghost of a knowing smile flickered over Frederick’s usually immobile face. ‘I’m sure Miss Roberta is always at home to you, sir,’ the butler said. ‘Do step inside.’

  Roberta met him in the small ante-room off the entrance hall. She wore an elegant crinoline of green velvet and seemed to be glowing with good spirits. Evidently the hectic experiences and the chase through Cremorne Gardens the previous evening had not put her out in the least.

  ‘Miss Roberta, I wanted to smooth things out with you and acquaint you with a new development concerning the fellows at Cremorne last evening,’ he said.

  ‘Smooth things out?’ she queried, frowning.

  ‘Yes, The other day, when you showed such sharpness in seeing the connection between Father Ryan’s poem and the newspaper messages to the LUB members, I said you might make a professor of literature but hardly a detective. That was ungracious of me. Your acute reasoning made you put your finger on this LUB affair being some form of American conspiracy and you deserve praise for it. Look at what we now know—an almost unbelievable plan to unhook Georgia from the rest of the American nation and even start hostilities between our two nations.’

  Roberta gave a light laugh. ‘Oh, my goodness, you had no need to be troubled. I took no offence.’ Her eyes suddenly twinkled and he saw her old tomboy spirit in her face as she added, mischievously: ‘After all, Mr. Dacers, you were simply acting true to form—merely being a natural man.’

  She smiled at him disarmingly with her face lit up with what he hoped was affection and he felt a surge of undeniable love for her.

  ‘You said there’s a new development in what I am going to boldly call our case, she said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You might recall that the American fellow who addressed the meeting at Cremorne spoke of someone called Mr. O who had something he and his friends want. It seemed to me that this man might be a key to finding out more about the antics of these fellows from Georgia if we could locate him. Well, I now know who he is—a man with a very murky background who figured in some devious work years ago. And I know of a man who might know his whereabouts. I hope to see him tomorrow morning and maybe he can lead me to Mr. O.’

  ‘You mean lead us to Mr. O, do you not? Surely you now fully agree that we are sharing this case. I’d like to come with you to find this man who can lead us to this other man,’ said Roberta. ‘Is he in London?’

  ‘Yes and not very far from Bloomsbury. He’s a young artist living in Marlborough Dwellings in Thistle Street near Southampton Row. There’s no need for you to come along. It’s only a matter of seeking him out and talking to him.’

  Roberta looked at him with her exaggerated pout. ‘I’d like to go with you. I feel you have accepted me as a bona fide assistant and I’d like to follow up every move.’

  ‘There’s really no need for you to be involved with this aspect of the affair. I’ll see what transpires after finding our artist and I’ll keep you well informed’ he said. Then he added gravely: ‘There’s something I have not told you. There are some aspects possibly arising out of this affair that are distinctly dangerous. Only a couple of days ago, a man tried to shoot me in the street.’

  Roberta’s mouth fell open with shock and she listened with wide eyes as he outlined the incident with the mounted gunman.

  ‘I have his gun which he dropped,’ he told her. ‘It bears some reference to a Georgia regiment and you’ll remember that the men in Cremorne Gardens were former Confederates from Georgia. I feel that the gunman was involved with them but, at the same time, I have an uncanny feeling he was somehow mixed up in that Dixie Ghosts matter. After all, I can’t think the LUB people have any quarrel with me. It might be that the deeper we go into this affair, the more likely we are to encounter people who will shoot. And I will not put you at risk.’

  Roberta gave him an enigmatic smile. ‘My father firmly believes that I can never come to any harm when I’m with you,’ she stated. ‘So long as I was under your protection, I don’t think he’d worry how many guns were ranged against us.’

  He looked at her in near astonishment. ‘Then he must have a remarkably high opinion of me,’ he gasped.

  ‘He has. And let me tell you of the new development I have to report. Last night I had a heart-to-heart talk with my father. I took your advice, realising that I should let both Mr. Adams and my father know about what we heard at Cremorne Gardens. After all, it’s all very serious, verging on treason if not actually treasonable. My loyalty to the United States was challenged and I could not keep quiet about what I knew. I just had to tell him about how I went to Cremorne and what I heard and how we were chased. I kept nothing back. He was startled and very concerned by news of the Georgia plot but he praised what you did to get me out of the fix I put myself into. He even seemed proud of me and astonished me by laughing and saying he was pleased the old Van Trask adventurous spirit was still alive and said I should not go far wrong so long as I was with Septimus Dacers. Then he had me write out all I heard at Cremorne Gardens to pass on to Mr. Adams who’ll have to report the matter to Washington.’

  Dacers gave a low whistle of surprise. ‘It looks as if we’ve sparked off an urgent international incident,’ he commented. ‘We disrupted the meeting our friends from Georgia organised to whip up support for their plans. They’ll possibly never reconvene it if the chiefs in Washington and London get their heads together and act quickly to jointly scotch the LUB’s plans. Meantime, though, I still intend to follow up the attempt on my life and chase Mr. O and whatever it is he owns that is so important to the men from Georgia. I’ll still call on young Mr. Crayford in Thistle Street early tomorrow.’

  Roberta put on her mock pout to look like a disappointed child.

  ‘And I still wish I was coming with you,’ she said.

  The morrow brought a morning of sharp frost coupled with stimulating sunshine. It was the sort of day to inspire men to action and five men in different parts of London set out to journey to a single destination. The destination was Marlborough Dwellngs, in Thistle Street, Three of the men sought possession of the long wooden box, stolen from the Birkenhead home of a distinguished American exile.

  The third man was Septimus Dacers who wanted to meet Adolphus Crayford and discover the whereabouts of Mr. O.

  The fifth man embarked on a journey that morning with a different object in view and finished up heading to Marlborough Dwellings against his will. He was Ned Grandon who met the morning in a sweat of apprehension and a state of near panic he could scarcely control.

  The earliest abroad was Mr. O. He left his Putney lodging when it was barely daylight to take the first suburban train into awakening London proper. He hurried to the station still fearful that the pair from America might still be lurking in Putney’s streets and could jump on him with bloodthirsty intent from any shadowy corner.

  Septimus Dacers was out of doors considerably later. His path to Thistle Street was much shorter. He needed to navigate a few of Bloomsbury’s streets and cross the pleasant expanse of the gardens in the middle of Russell Square to reach Southampton Row.

  Not far away, in Camden Town, Lewis Sadler and Jefferson Dobbs were setting out from their lodging at the home of the supplier of breech-loading rifles to the Confederate States whom they hoped would support Georgia’s breakaway plans with money. They had very definite ideas about obtaining the box General Edmund Vavasour required so urgently. The terrified O had revealed that a certain man named Crayford had it in his keeping at Thistle Street. If Crayford proved reluctant to hand it over, some of the rough play learned in the American Civil War would come into play and he would be forced to hand it over. The carefully laid plan to organise the League of the Unconque
red Banner among Georgia’s friends in Britain at the Cremorne Gardens meeting had been thrown into chaos thanks to the interference of the ludicrously disguised unknown girl and her equally unknown male companion.

  The Georgian General’s agents, however, now had a definite lead to the box stolen from Birkenhead and, by hook or by crook, Sadler and Dobbs were determined to collect it. Possession of it would give them at least one face-saving triumph when they reported back to Vavasour in Georgia.

  Then there was the fifth man, Ned Grandon. The world of the mid-Nineteenth Century did not know the word neurosis, but Grandon was very firmly in the grip of a neurosis that numbed his brain and almost paralysed his thought. He was decamping from the home of his relatives in Somers Town, leaving bag and baggage behind. He had run so low on cash that after handing over a few pounds to placate his cousin’s dunning for rent he was nearly penniless.

  Not for the first time, he wondered if the mental strain and ill-usage he had suffered during the American war had thrown his brain out of kilter. His obsession with killing Septimus Dacers to avenge his criminal brother caused him to dream up an elaborate plan which ended in disaster. He had become prey to nagging terrors of persecution. He felt the police might seize him at any moment for his attempt to shoot Dacers. He was haunted by the illogical fear that the livery stable owner was close on his tail, demanding satisfaction for the horse swept away in the ride of panicking cattle with the muscles of prize-fighter friends to back his claim.

  In his fevered imagination, he was a wanted man, stranded in London without money and he did not leave his cousin’s household entirely because of rent. He did not want Hector and his family lifted by the police if they tracked him down for the murder attempt.

  Like Sadler and Dobbs, Grandon was to have stayed with the London friend of the old Confederacy the maker of breech-loading rifles and a supporter of General Vavasour’s plot to turn back the clock in Georgia. He knew the man’s Camden Town address and set out for it that morning. Long before embarking for Liverpool, he made up his mind to abscond to London and put up at his cousin’s home to follow his own mission to avenge the imprisoning of his brother, Howard and the ruination of the Dixie Ghosts.

  Now, with the bleak feeling that his plans were totally wrecked, it seemed his only course of salvation was to reconnect with his two companions from Georgia. They had money and could obtain more from LUB contacts in England. They could ensure his ultimate return to America.

  They would see his desertion as treason and, doubtless, both would want to shoot him the moment they set eyes on him but he’d spin a yarn of running off to London in a hurry because of some crisis among his relatives there. He’d wheedle his way into their acceptance once more and he’d eat humble pie with grovelling assurances that he had not deserved General Vavasour or the aims of the LUB.

  He’d remind them that he was still their comrade in arms, a proud veteran of the regiment called Vavasour’s Georgia Crackers who had shared their battlefield hardships and had suffered for the old flag.

  He made his limping way into Camden Town trying to instil some confidence into his queasy innards by rehearsing what he would say to Sadler and Dobbs. Their lodging was in Mornington Street and he was just turning into that thoroughfare when he saw both men walking toward him.

  He was spotted first by Jefferson Dobbs who gave an almost choking splutter of surprise then a growl of anger.

  ‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing!’ he exclaimed. ‘Look who’s coming along the street and heading straight for us—Ned Grandon! The double-dyed, treacherous polecat who ran out on us is showing up bold as brass. By God, I’ll put a bullet in him!’ He moved his hand impetuously towards his coat pocket but Sadler grabbed his arm.

  ‘Wait!’ he commanded. ‘I’m as mad at him as you but leave him be! Let’s find out where he’s been and what he’s been up to and what’s happened to the money he ran off with.’

  The two hastened their footsteps to meet up with Grandon.

  ‘Explain yourself!’ barked Sadler when they were face to face.

  ‘Yes, explain yourself pronto or it’s a bullet for you,’ snarled Dobbs with his hand in his topcoat pocket.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry I ran out on you but, before leaving the States, I had word that things were not well with my London relatives and they needed help. I didn’t mention it at the time but, when we reached Liverpool, I got a big notion to run off to London as quick as possible.’ He delivered his excuse in a voice nearly as thin as the excuse itself.

  Lewis Sadler glowered into his face. ‘See here, Grandon, you have more explaining than that to do and you’ll be made to. It happens that we know where that box from Birkenhead is and we’re off to collect it. You’ll not be let out of our sight and you’re coming with us.’

  ‘And I’ll be behind you every step of the way—with a loaded Colt in my pocket!’ promised Jefferson Dobbs.

  CHAPTER 13

  CONTEST FOR THE BOX

  Mr. O, whom some called ‘Owl’, was the first of the men bound for Marlborough Dwellings to arrive there. It was still early and the unpretentious street was empty. Its residents were of the poorer classes who, if they had any occupation at all, had usually to be out extraordinarily early to fulfil long hours.

  O was still fearful of an encounter with the pair from America and could not help worrying that that they might even have reached Thistle Street the night before after leaving Putney. He pinned all his hopes on being the first on the scene in Thistle Street that morning and, if his luck was in, he would collect the box from young Crayford and bear it away without mishap. At the woebegone frontage of Marlborough Dwellings, with one of his Turkish cigarettes jutting from his mouth, he hastened into the doorless entrance and climbed the creaking stairs to Adolphus Crayford’s small apartment. He knocked on the door but received no answer. He knocked again with the same result. Thinking Crayford might still be in bed, he called his name but there was still no answer.

  Could it be that young Crayford had stepped out for a brief time, perhaps to one of the shops in Southampton Row to make a purchase? He decided to descend to the front of the building to perhaps catch Crayford returning. He did so, looked up and down the empty street and stood for a time, smoking furiously until his cigarette was the smallest of butts. This he tossed away and immediately lit up a fresh cigarette. He had hardly begun to smoke it when he was aware that time was wasting and he must do something about obtaining the box immediately. He threw away the new cigarette impatiently, quickly entered the tenement building and climbed the stairs again.

  At the door of Crayford’s room, he turned the knob and pressed the door inwards. Everything in this building was old and sub-standard and the lock was obviously not strong, Some pressure on the door with a man’s shoulder would surely cause the lock to yield. O placed his shoulder against the door and forced the wood inward. He did not need to charge the door and thus alert others living along the corridor. The door creaked and the lock yielded. The door swung inward and fell slanting on its hinges. With desperate eagerness, O stepped into the young artist’s apartment.

  He made a bee-line for the corner where he had deposited the box and with a sense of relief quivering through his whole body saw it was still there. He grasped it and hastily made for the door again.

  Outside, Septimus Dacers arrived in Thistle Street, finding it empty except for a scraggy, villainous looking cat. He saw the ugly bulk of the tenement building and read its title formed in moulded lettering over the entrance. As he approached the doorway, he was aware of a sweet aroma in the air—that of Turkish cigarettes. He looked on the ground and saw a butt, smoked to almost nothing and not far from it a fuller cigarette, still alight and sending up a thin ribbon of aromatic smoke.

  He recalled what Setty Wilkins had told him of O’s smoking habit: how he smoked Turkish cigarettes until there was almost nothing left of them. Mr. O, the man of dub
ious character of whom he sought information, had plainly been on this spot very recently. He had smoked one cigarette fully and, for some reason, had cast away another hardly smoked. Since Dacers had not encountered him in the street, he reasoned he was inside the building, possibly conferring with the artist, Crayford.

  Dacers entered Marlborough Dwellings, climbed the stair remembering that young Melbourne said Crayford lived at number two just up the stair. Just as he reached the top of the stairs and had a good view of the corridor, a man came out one of the first doors, hastily. He was well dressed, had an olive cast of skin and carried a long wooden box. His whole demeanour was furtive and Dacers noticed that the door of the room he had just left was slanted on its hinges as if it had been forced.

  The man with the box looked at Dacers, surprised. Then his expression turned hostile as he saw that Dacers was blocking the narrow stairway. To Dacers who had a long acquaintance with criminal types, everything about him was manifestly suspicious.

  ‘Mr. O, sometimes called Owl?’ asked Dacers.

  O made a meaningless grunting sound. He was terrified of encountering the two dangerous Americans to whom he had revealed the whereabouts of the box nor did he wish to encounter police who might be investigating the theft from Birkenhead. On top of the fear of the Americans came the panicky notion that this lean, side-whiskered and lithe-bodied fellow who was so effectively blocking the stairway might well be a plainclothes peeler.

  Dacers stepped up and stood just several steps down from the corridor’s level. ‘Mr. O, or Owl?’ he repeated. ‘I’d like a word or two with you.’ To O, it was exactly the style of language a policeman might use and it brought a snarling answer from him.