“Now don’t waste time; you don’t look altogether a fool.” ‘The Toff’ drew a revolver from his pocket, and carelessly counted the chambers which were all loaded. “One, two, three, four, five, six! I’ve got six reasons for what I’ve said. Let’s see now—First, you saw me hiding the stuff; second, no one else did; third, it’s not there now; fourth, the Maharajah hasn’t got it; fifth, there’s no news of its having been found by any one else; sixth, and last, therefore you’ve got it!” He checked the several heads of his reasoning, one by one, on the chambers of the revolver as one might tell them on the fingers.
“Very logically reasoned!” remarked Pringle calmly. “But may I inquire how it is you are so positive in all these statements?”
“I’m not the man to let the grass grow under my feet,” said ‘The Toff’ vaingloriously. “I’ve been making inquiries all the morning, and right up to now! I hear the poor old Maharajah has gone to Scotland Yard for help. But it strikes me the affair will remain a mystery ‘for ever and always’, as the people say hereabouts. And, as I said just now, you seem to be rather a mystery to most people. I spotted you right enough last night, but I wanted to find out all I could about you from your amiable flock before I tackled you in person. Well, I think I have very good grounds for believing you to be an impostor. That’s no concern of mine, of course, but I presume you have your own reasons for coming down here. Now, a word to your principal, and a hint or two judiciously dropped in a few quarters round the place, will soon make it too hot for you, and so your little game, whatever it may be, will be spoiled.”
“But supposing I am unable to help you?”
“I can’t suppose any such thing! I am going to stick to you like tar, my reverend sir, and if you think of doing a bolt”—he glanced at the revolver, and then put it in his pocket—“take my advice and only think of it!”
“Is that all you have to say?” asked Pringle.
“Not quite. Look here now! I’ve been planning this job for the last four months and more, and I’m not going to take all the risk, and let you or any one else collar all the profit. By George, you’ve mistaken your man if you think that! I am willing to even go the length of recognizing you as a partner, and giving you ten percent for your trouble in taking charge of the stuff, and bringing it to a place of safety and so on, but now you’ve got to shell out!”
“Very well,” said Pringle, rising. “Let me first get the house-keeper out of the way.”
“No larks now,” growled ‘The Toff’; adding peremptorily, “I give you a couple of minutes only—and leave the door open!”
Without replying, Pringle walked to the door, and slipping through, closed and double-locked it behind him before ‘The Toff’ had time to even rise from his chair.
“You white-livered cur! You—you infernal sneak!” vociferated the latter as Pringle crossed the hall.
Being summer-time, the fire-irons were absent from the study. There was no other lethal weapon wherewith to operate. Escape by the window was negatived by the bars.
For the time then ‘The Toff’ was a negligible quantity. Pringle ran down the kitchen-stairs. At the bottom was a gas-bracket, and stretching out his hand he turned on the gas as he passed. Out in the little kitchen there was much clattering of pots and dishes. The housekeeper was engaged in urgent culinary operations against Mr. Honeyby’s return.
“Mrs. Johnson!” he bawled, as a furious knocking sounded from the study.
“Whatever’s the matter, sir?” cried the startled woman.
“Escape of gas! We’ve been looking for it up-stairs! Don’t you smell it out here? You must turn it off at the main!” He rattled off the alarming intelligence in well-simulated excitement.
“Gas it is!” she exclaimed nervously, as the familiar odour greeted her nostrils.
Now the meter, as is customary, resided in the coal-cellar, and as the faithful creature opened the door and stumbled forwards, she suddenly found herself stretched upon the floor, while all became darkness. It almost seemed as if she had received a push from behind, and her head whirling with the unexpected shock, she painfully arose from her rocky bed, and slowly groped towards the door. But for all her pulling and tugging it held fast and never gave an inch. Desisting, as the truth dawned upon her that in some mysterious way she had become a prisoner, she bleated plaintively for help, and began to hammer at the door with a lump of coal.
Up the stairs again, Pringle glanced at the hall-door, then shot the bolts top and bottom, and put the chain up. ‘The Toff’ seemed to be using some of the furniture as a battering-ram. Thunderous blows and the sharp splintering of wood showed that, despite his lack of tools, he was (however clumsily) engaged in the active work of his profession, and the door shivered and rattled ominously beneath the onslaught.
Pringle raced up-stairs, and in breathless haste tore off his clerical garb. Bang, bang, crash! He wished the door were iron. How ‘The Toff’ roused the echoes as he savagely laboured for freedom! And whenever he paused, a feeble diapason ascended from the basement. The study-door would soon give at this rate. Luckily the house stood at the end of the town, or the whole neighbourhood would have been roused by this time. He hunted for his cycling suit. Where could that wretched old woman have stowed it? Curse her officiousness! He almost thought of rushing down and releasing her that she might disclose its whereabouts. Every second was priceless. At last! Where had that button-hook hidden itself now? How stiff the box-cloth seemed—he had never noticed it before. Now the coat. Collar and tie? Yes, indeed, he had nearly forgotten he still wore the clerical tie. No matter, a muffler would hide it all. Cap—that was all! Gloves he could do without for once.
Bang, crash, crack!
With a last look round he turned to leave the room, and faced the window. A little way down the road a figure was approaching. Something about it looked familiar, he thought; seemed to be coming from the direction of the railway-station, too. He stared harder. So it was! There was no doubt about it! Swathed in a Scotch maud, his hand grasping a portmanteau, the Rev. Adolphus Honeyby advanced blithely in the autumn twilight.
Down the stairs Pringle bounded, three at a time. ‘The Toff’ could hear, but not see him as yet. The study-door was already tottering; one hinge had gone, Even as he landed with a thud at the foot of the stairs, “The Toff’s” hand and arm appeared at the back of the door.
“I’d have blown the lock off if it wasn’t for giving the show away,” ‘The Toff’ snarled through his clenched teeth, as loudly as his panting respiration would permit. “I’ll soon be through now, and then we’ll square accounts!” What he said was a trifle more full-flavoured, but this will suffice.
Crash! Bang!! Crack!!! from the study-door.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat! was the sudden response from the hall-door. It was Mr. Honeyby knocking! And, startled at the noise, ‘The Toff’ took a momentary respite from his task.
Down to the basement once more, Mrs. Johnson’s pummelling sounded louder away from the more virile efforts of the others. Fiercely ‘The Toff’ resumed his labours. What an uproar! Mr. Honeyby’s curiosity could not stand much more of that. He would be round at the back presently. The bicycle stood by the garden-door. Pringle shook it slightly, and something rattled; the precious contents of the head and handle-bar were safe enough. He opened the door, and wheeled the machine down the back-garden, and out into the little lane behind.
Loud and louder banged the knocker. But as a triumphant crash and clatter of wood-work resounded from the house, Pringle rode into the fast-gathering darkness.
Romney Pringle in THE SUBMARINE BOAT
Tric-trac! Tric-trac! went the black and white discs as the players moved them over the backgammon board in expressive justification of the French term for the game. Tric-trac! They are indeed a nation of poets, reflected Mr Pringle. Was not Teuf-teuf! for the motor-car a veritable inspiration? And as he smoked, the not unmusical c
latter of the enormous wooden discs filled the atmosphere.
In these days of cookery not entirely based upon air-tights—to use the expressive Americanism for tinned meats—it is no longer necessary for the man who wishes to dine, as distinguished from the mere feeding animal, to furtively seek some restaurant in remote Soho, jealously guarding its secret from his fellows. But Mr Pringle, in his favourite study of human nature, was an occasional visitor to the “Poissonière” in Gerrard Street, and, the better to pursue his researches, had always denied familiarity with the foreign tongues he heard around him. The restaurant was distinctly close—indeed, some might have called it stuffy—and Pringle, though near a ventilator, thoughtfully provided by the management, was fast being lulled into drowsiness, when a man who had taken his seat with a companion at the next table leaned across the intervening gulf and addressed him.
“Nous ne vous dérangeons pas, monsieur?”
Pringle, with a smile of fatuous uncomprehending, bowed, but said never a word.
“Cochon d’Anglais, n’entendez-vous pas?”
“I’m afraid I do not understand,” returned Pringle, shaking his head hopelessly, but still smiling.
“Canaille! Faut-il que je vous tire le nez?” persisted the Frenchman, as, apparently still sceptical of Pringle’s assurance, he added threats to abuse.
“I have known the English gentleman a long time, and without a doubt he does not understand French,” testified the waiter who had now come forward for orders. Satisfied by this corroboration of Pringle’s innocence, the Frenchman bowed and smiled sweetly to him, and, ordering a bottle of Clos de Vougeot, commenced an earnest conversation with his neighbour.
By the time this little incident had closed, Pringle’s drowsiness had given place to an intense feeling of curiosity. For what purpose could the Frenchman have been so insistent in disbelieving his expressed ignorance of the language? Why, too, had he striven to make Pringle betray himself by resenting the insults showered upon him? In a Parisian restaurant, as he knew, far more trivial affronts had ended in meetings in the Bois de Boulogne. Besides, cochon was an actionable term of opprobrium in France. The Frenchman and his companion had seated themselves at the only vacant table, also it was in a corner; Pringle, at the next, was the single person within ear-shot, and the Frenchman’s extraordinary behaviour could only be due to a consuming thirst for privacy. Settling himself in an easy position, Pringle closed his eyes, and while appearing to resume his slumber, strained every nerve to discern the lightest word that passed at the next table. Dressed in the choicest mode of Piccadilly, the Frenchman bore himself with all the intolerable self-consciousness of the Boulevardier; but there was no trace of good-natured levity in the dark aquiline features, and the evil glint of the eyes recalled visions of an operatic Mephistopheles. His guest was unmistakably an Englishman of the bank-clerk type, who contributed his share of the conversation in halting Anglo-French, punctuated by nervous laughter as, with agonising pains, he dredged his memory for elusive colloquialisms.
Freely translated, this was what Pringle heard:
“So your people have really decided to take up the submarine, after all?”
“Yes; I am working out the details of some drawings in small-scale.”
“But are they from headquarters?”
“Certainly! Duly initialled and passed by the chief constructor.”
“And you are making——”
“Full working drawings.”
“There will be no code or other secret about them?”
“What I am doing can be understood by any naval architect.”
“Ah, an English one!”
“The measurements of course, are English, but they are easily convertible.”
“You could do that?”
“Too dangerous! Suppose a copy in metric scale were found in my possession! Besides, any draughtsman could reduce them in an hour or two.”
“And when can you let me have it?”
“In about two weeks.”
“Impossible! I shall not be here.”
“Unless something happens to let me get on with it quickly, I don’t see how I can do it even then. I am never sufficiently free from interruption to take tracings; there are far too many eyes upon me. The only chance I have is to spoil the thing as soon as I have the salient points worked out on it, and after I have pretended to destroy it, smuggle it home; then I shall have to take elaborate notes every day and work out the details from them in the evening. It is simply impossible for me to attempt to take a finished drawing out of the yard, and, as it is, I don’t quite see my way to getting the spoilt one out—they look so sharply after spoilt drawings.”
“Two weeks you say, then?”
“Yes; and I shall have to sit up most nights copying the day’s work from my notes to do it.”
“Listen! In a week I must attend at the Ministry of Marine in Paris, but our military attaché is my friend. I can trust him; he shall come down to you.”
“What, at Chatham? Do you wish to ruin me?” A smile from the Frenchman. “No; it must be in London, where no one knows me.”
“Admirable! My friend will be better able to meet you.”
“Very well, as soon as I am ready I will telegraph to you.”
“Might not the address of the embassy be remarked by the telegraph officials? Your English post-office is charmingly unsuspicious, but we must not risk anything.”
“Ah, perhaps so. Well, I will come up to London and telegraph to you from here. But your representative—will he be prepared for it?”
“I will warn him to expect it in fourteen days.” He made an entry in his pocket-book. “How will you sign the message?”
“Gustave Zédé,” suggested the Englishman, sniggering for the first and only time.
“Too suggestive. Sign yourself ‘Pauline’, and simply add the time.”
“‘Pauline’, then. Where shall the rendezvous be?”
“The most public place we can find.”
“Public?”
“Certainly. Some place where everyone will be too much occupied with his own affairs to notice you. What say you to your Nelson’s Column? There you can wait in a way we shall agree upon.”
“It would be a difficult thing for me to wear a disguise.”
“All disguises are clumsy unless one is an expert. Listen! You shall be gazing at the statue with one hand in your breast—so.”
“Yes; and I might hold a Baedeker in my other hand.”
“Admirable, my friend! You have the true spirit of an artist,” sneered the Frenchman.
“Your representative will advance and say to me, ‘Pauline’, and the exchange can be made without another word.”
“Exchange?”
“I presume your Government is prepared to pay me handsomely for the very heavy risks I am running in this matter,” said the Englishman stiffly.
“Pardon, my friend! How imbecile of me! I am authorised to offer you ten thousand francs.”
A pause, during which the Englishman made a calculation on the back of an envelope.
“That is four hundred pounds,” he remarked, tearing the envelope into carefully minute fragments. “Far too little for such a risk.”
“Permit me to remind you, my friend, that you came in search of me, or rather of those I represent. You have something to sell? Good! But it is customary for the merchant to display his wares first.”
“I pledge myself to give you copies of the working drawings made for the use of the artificers themselves. I have already met you oftener than is prudent. As I say, you offer too little.”
“Should the drawings prove useless to us, we should, of course, return them to your Admiralty, explaining how they came into our possession.” There was an unpleasant smile beneath the Frenchman’s waxed moustache as he spoke. “What sum do you ask?”<
br />
“Five hundred pounds in small notes—say, five pounds each.”
“That is—what do you say? Ah, twelve thousand five hundred francs! Impossible! My limit is twelve thousand.”
To this the Englishman at length gave an ungracious consent, and after some adroit compliments beneath which the other sought to bury his implied threat, the pair rose from the table. Either by accident or design, the Frenchman stumbled over the feet of Pringle, who, with his long legs stretching out from under the table, his head bowed and his lips parted, appeared in a profound slumber. Opening his eyes slowly, he feigned a lifelike yawn, stretched his arms, and gazed lazily around, to the entire satisfaction of the Frenchman, who, in the act of parting with his companion, was watching him from the door.
Calling for some coffee, Pringle lighted a cigarette, and reflected with a glow of indignant patriotism upon the sordid transaction he had become privy to. It is seldom that public servants are in this country found ready to betray their trust—with all honour be it recorded of them! But there ever exists the possibility of some under-paid official succumbing to the temptation at the command of the less scrupulous representatives of foreign powers, whose actions in this respect are always ignored officially by their superiors. To Pringle’s somewhat cynical imagination, the sordid huckstering of a dockyard draughtsman with a French naval attaché appealed as corroboration of Walpole’s famous principle, and as he walked homewards to Furnival’s Inn, he determined, if possible, to turn his discovery to the mutual advantage of his country and himself—especially the latter.
During the next few days Pringle elaborated a plan of taking up a residence at Chatham, only to reject it as he had done many previous ones. Indeed, so many difficulties presented themselves to every single course of action, that the tenth day after found him strolling down Bond Street in the morning without having taken any further step in the matter. With his characteristic fastidious neatness in personal matters, he was bound for the Piccadilly establishment of the chief and, for West-Enders, the only firm of hatters in London.
The Victorian Villains Megapack Page 27
