“This won’t do, Hughes,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “We are behaving like a couple of fools. Of course we sink or swim together. I understand that. I was annoyed at having my arrangements upset and lost my temper. Let us have a look at that stuff.”
Without a word, Hughes rose and walked across to a small safe which he unlocked and threw open. From some inner recess in it he produced a parcel which he laid on the table. Then he stepped over to the door, and, having slipped the catch of the lock, came back and began methodically to untie the string of the parcel. When the various wrappings were loosened, there was exposed to view a miscellaneous collection of jewellery which Mr. Toke diagnosed as probably the pooled swag from several different robberies. He looked it over with tepid interest, being anxious chiefly to get the business over and bring the rather unpleasant interview to an end.
“Well,” he said, “there’s nothing sensational about it. You say you want a hundred and fifty for this lot. It’s quite enough, but it isn’t worth while to haggle over a trifle. I’ll give you what you ask. I suppose a cheque won’t do for you?”
“No,” Hughes replied gruffly, “of course it won’t.”
“It’s infernally inconvenient,” Toke grumbled. “This will eat up the greater part of the cash that I had provided for travelling.”
He produced a fat wallet from his pocket, and sorted out its contents; a process that was watched by Hughes with a curious, avid interest as he retied the string of the parcel.
“Fifteen tens,” said Toke. “Will that do? I would rather keep the fives for use on the road.”
As Hughes made no reply, but silently held out his hand, Toke placed in the latter the sheaf of crisp, rustling notes, and closed his wallet, fastening it and returning it to his pocket.
“Now, Hughes,” he said as he dropped the parcel into his handbag and put on his hat, “let us forget the nonsense that we talked just now and bury the hatchet. We shan’t see each other again for a month or two. Don’t let us carry away unpleasant memories.”
He held out his hand genially, and Hughes, relaxing with an effort the grimness of his expression, took it and gave it a formal shake.
“I suppose,” said he, “you will spend the night at Hartsden?”
“No,” replied Toke, “I can’t do that. I want to catch the night—or rather early morning—train to Dover.”
“You will have some trouble in making the various connections,” Hughes remarked. “There aren’t so very many trains to and from Hartsden. It is a pity that you didn’t keep your car for another hour or two.”
“Yes,” Toke agreed reflectively. “I think you are right. The trains will be an awkward complication. I rather think that I will just get the car out again or borrow another. That will make me independent of trains.”
“But what will you do with the car?” asked Hughes, who was beginning to take an interest in Toke’s movements.
“I dare say I shall be able to run it down to the garage. Or perhaps I shall be able to get a taxi driver to run it round from the station. It will only take him a few minutes.”
“Yes,” Hughes agreed, “that will be quite simple. And the car will enable you to take your own time. Much better than the suburban trains. Well, so long. I hope you will have a pleasant and profitable trip.”
He gave a sort of valedictory grin—the nearest that he could get to the semblance of a friendly smile—and accompanied Toke out into the corridor, where he stood, watching the retreating figure of his associate in iniquity. And, even as he looked, the grin faded from his features and was replaced by a scowl of the most intense malice.
He went back into his office, still scowling forbiddingly, and with the air of one wrapped in profound thought. Which was, in fact, his condition. For Mr. Toke’s indiscreet outburst had furnished him with the matter for anxious cogitation. That Toke could or would “blow on” the little transactions that took place between them had never occurred to him. Nor did it now. He had made his position at least as safe as that of Mr. Toke himself. Neither of them could effectively blow on the other. But now it appeared that Mr. Toke could, by merely uttering a few words in the proper quarter, send him, Mr. Hughes, to a term of penal servitude. This was quite a different affair. The sudden appearance of Mr. Toke as a potential accuser was, to put it very mildly, an extremely disagreeable surprise. Up to this time, Hughes had believed that one person only in the whole world had penetrated the very effective disguise with which a natural affliction had furnished him as a free gift. For Mr. Hughes’s wig was, in any case, a necessity. An attack of the complaint known as Alopecia areata had produced large bald patches which had to be covered up by a wig; and this, together with the loss of his eyebrows, and aided by the removal of his beard and moustache, had so metamorphosed him that, though he avoided all old haunts and old acquaintances, he was almost completely secure from recognition. But, as we have said, there was one person who had appeared, at least, to suspect his identity, and whose existence kept him in a state of constant watchfulness and anxiety. And now there was another.
Mr. Hughes was not a scrupulous man; and if he was a cautious man, he was ready to take a present risk for the sake of future safety. In the very moment when Mr. Toke had foolishly proclaimed his power, he had made a decision. He was not going to walk abroad with this everlasting menace at his elbow. One dangerous enemy was more than enough. Two were more than could be borne. The plain fact was that Mr. Toke knew too much; and that fact pointed to the obvious remedy. So much Hughes had decided even while Toke was speaking. The rest was only a question of ways and means.
Apparently, this question also was in course of being settled, for Mr. Hughes, after pacing up and down the office for a few minutes, began, in a leisurely and deliberate fashion, to make certain changes in his visible characteristics that suggested a definite purpose. It is one of the compensations of being compelled to wear a wig that one can choose one’s wig and even, on occasion, change it. Of this privilege Mr. Hughes proceeded to avail himself. From a locked drawer in a locked cupboard he took out a wig of a pronounced red and of a fluffy, rather ragged texture, strikingly different from the sleek, dark brown one that he was wearing. Having locked the door, he put on the new wig, and then produced from the drawer a reddish moustache, a small bunch of hair of the same colour, and a bottle of spirit gum. With some of the latter, he anointed the base of the moustache (which was not one of those artless devices used by the amateur actor, but a workmanlike affair, made by a regular theatrical wig-maker) and carefully affixed it to his upper lip with the aid of a small mirror.
When he had fixed it securely in position he cut off some wisps of hair from the bundle, and, having stuck them along the upper margin of the moustache, combed them over the latter and finally trimmed them off with scissors. The effect was extremely realistic; and when, in the same way, a pair of darkish eyebrows had been attached, the transformation was complete.
But Mr. Hughes was too old a hand to trust a make up, no matter how excellent, farther than was unavoidable. The afternoon was already merging into evening. Another half-hour and the dusk would have fallen. Then not even close inspection would penetrate the disguise. So Mr. Hughes proceeded with caution. Having tidied up the office, he put away the bottle and the other materials and appliances which he had been using, and was in the act of locking the cupboard when he seemed to remember something that he had forgotten, and hastily reopened the door. Then that something was searched for and found in another locked drawer; revealing itself as a sheath-knife of the kind used by old-fashioned sailors (and commonly known as a “Green river knife”), furnished with a narrow waist-strap. Having slipped the knife inside the waistband of his trousers, he secured it in place by means of the strap. Then he took a glance at a time table and jotted down a few figures on a slip of paper which he put in his pocket, after which he walked over to the window and stood for a while, looking down into the fast-emptying street.
Already the daylight was beginning to
fade, and the quiet of evening was settling down on the city. Judging that the time had come, he emerged cautiously into the dim corridor, locked the door behind him and set forth. Emulating Mr. Toke’s discretion, he avoided the lift, taking his way down the unfrequented staircase, from the bottom of which he hurried along the lower corridors, and so out into the street. Even there he preserved his attitude of caution, threading his way through the quieter back thoroughfares, and maintaining that incessant watchfulness that has to be habitual with those who are on unsatisfactory terms with the law.
By the time that he reached the station the daylight was visibly weakening. He walked confidently to the booking-office, where he took a first-class single ticket to Hartsden Junction, which, as he knew, was some three-quarters of a mile from the hamlet which gave it its name. He was by no means unacquainted with the locality, for, if the truth must be told, he and Dobey had reconnoitred the neighbourhood with the idea of a possible nocturnal visit to Mr. Toke’s premises on some occasion when that gentleman was absent on one of his periodical excursions abroad. That visit had never been made, for the reason that Mr. Toke had let it be very clearly understood that he kept on those premises nothing but the “pieces” that formed his collection—porcelain figures, bronzes, and other objects, valuable enough in themselves, but of no use to merchants of the class to which Hughes and Dobey belonged. All negotiable property, he had explained, was kept securely in the strong room of his bank or in the safe that he rented at the safe-deposit establishment; and this had seemed such an obvious precaution that both rascals had accepted the statement and abandoned the idea of the nocturnal raid.
But now, by the light of the admission that Mr. Toke had so incautiously made, that he was proposing to convey this parcel of stolen property to his house, evidently with the intention of leaving it there during his absence abroad, Mr. Hughes began to reconsider the situation. The main object of his journey was not irreconcilable with certain other transactions; and, as he was borne by the fast express to the neighbourhood of Mr. Toke’s residence, he turned over quite a number of interesting possibilities.
The night had definitely fallen when Mr. Hughes approached the hamlet of Hartsden by the road from the Junction. He looked about him with his habitual wariness, but there was little need; for, as he passed through the single street, not a soul was to be seen, and, but for the lighted windows, the place might have been uninhabited. Beyond the hamlet the old manor house stood in dignified isolation, and adjoining it was the disused churchyard, enclosing the ruinous church—now also disused and replaced by a new building at the other end of the village.
It was towards the churchyard that Hughes directed his steps, making for the gateway without hesitation as if by a considered plan. On arriving there, he paused for a moment to glance down the road—of which the gateway commanded a clear view; then he pushed open the rickety gate and entered. Slowly he walked along the narrow path that led to the church, looking back from time to time to see that he still had an uninterrupted view of the road. Presently the path turned slightly to the right, and, passing into the shadow of a great yew tree, was encompassed by darkness so complete that Hughes was able only with the greatest difficulty to grope his way along it. Here, by the side of a large sarcophagus tomb which stood between the yew tree and the wall, he stopped and looked about him. Finding that the road was now no longer in sight, he slowly retraced his steps until he was, able once more to look out through the gateway along the road that formed the only approach to the village. And here he selected a spot where he could keep a lookout, secure from the observation of any chance wayfarer who might pass along from the village.
He was prepared for a long vigil, for it was possible that Toke might be delayed; and, in any case, the car would take considerably longer to cover the distance than the fast train by which Hughes had travelled. To beguile the time, he produced his cigarette-case and took out a cigarette. But his habitual caution warned him not to light it in view of the road. Accordingly, he retired past the yew tree into the darkest corner of the churchyard, behind the great tomb, and there, crouching low against the plinth of the tomb, he struck a match, held it for a moment to the cigarette and blew it out. But even then he held the cigarette shrouded in his hand; and when he returned to his lookout, he was careful to ensconce himself behind the tall headstone that he had selected as cover so that the glow of the cigarette should not be visible from outside.
But it was a tedious business, waiting in the gloom of the darkening churchyard for the coming of the man who could send him to penal servitude. And it was rendered none the more pleasant by a somewhat acute anxiety. For, though he had a perfectly clear purpose, the carrying into effect of that purpose could not be planned in exact detail. The precise method of procedure must be determined by Mr. Toke’s actions; and these could not be foreseen.
Time ran on. One by one, the lights in the windows of the few houses that were visible from the churchyard went out, and the chime of the clock in the new church at the end of the village, borne faintly on the night air, told out quarter after quarter. It was just striking the hour of ten when Hughes, having lighted his sixth cigarette, came out from behind the sarcophagus tomb and crept back to his lookout; and at that moment the lights of a car came into sight far away down the road.
Hughes was not a nervous man. But the message that those glimmering lights conveyed to him set his heart thumping and his hands trembling so that the cigarette dropped unheeded from his fingers. It is one thing to contemplate an atrocious deed from afar, but quite another to feel the irrevocable moment of action drawing nigh. With a feeling of shuddering dread, but yet never for an instant abandoning his dreadful intent, he watched the lights gradually wax brighter until the approaching car was actually entering the village. Apparently it was fitted with a powerful but silent engine, for no throb or hum of mechanism was borne to his ears.
Suddenly the lights went out, and for a few moments the car was perceptible neither to eye nor ear. Then it became faintly visible as a dim spot of deeper darkness. Nearer and nearer it came, now growing into a defined shape, and recognizable as a large, closed car. Hughes craned out from behind the headstone to watch it as it passed the gate. But it did not pass the gate. Just as it reached the farther wall of the churchyard, it slowed down suddenly and turned off to the left and was instantly lost to view.
To Hughes, in his state of extreme nervous tension, this unexpected behaviour was highly disconcerting. He had assumed that Mr. Toke would drive up to his gate, get out, and open it, and then run the car up the drive to the door of the house. Much puzzled and somewhat alarmed, he crept out from behind the headstone and began to steal softly and cautiously down the path towards the gate. But he had gone only a few steps when he was startled by the sudden appearance of Mr. Toke within a few paces of the gate and walking briskly towards it with the evident intention of entering the churchyard.
Sweating and trembling from the sudden shock, Hughes staggered back to the headstone and crouched down behind it, cursing silently and for the moment overcome by terror. A step or two more and he must have been seen; and who could say what would have happened then? Toke could hardly have failed to grasp the situation; and Toke was no weakling. It had been a near thing.
From his lurking-place he saw Mr. Toke, handbag in hand, walk up the path with the assured manner of a man who is making for a definite destination. When he had passed the headstone Hughes craned out to watch the retreating figure; and, as it disappeared into the darkness under the yew tree, he rose and followed stealthily, crouching low to keep out of sight among the crowded tombstones. Presently he halted just at the edge of the patch of shadow and watched from the shelter of a crumbling tomb that was enclosed by an ivy-covered railing. From the impenetrable darkness under the yew tree there came a faint grinding or creaking sound. It lasted but a few moments, but, after a brief interval it was repeated. After yet another short interval, Hughes rose and came out from behind the railed tomb. The
n he, too, disappeared into the darkness under the yew tree.
The minutes passed, but no sound came from that eerie corner of the churchyard over which the yew tree cast its sinister shadow. The clock of the distant church told out a quarter and then another. The reverberations of the bell had just died away when the silence was broken once more by that curious faint grinding or creaking sound. It was followed, almost immediately, by what sounded like a muffled cry. Again there was a brief space of silence. Then the grinding sound was repeated. And, after that, again silence.
The time ran on. Save for the murmur of the trees, as the leaves were gently stirred by the soft breeze, and the faint, indefinite voices of the night, not a sound disturbed the stillness that brooded over the churchyard. Away in the distance, the clock of the new church made its announcements to the sleeping village of the passage of the minutes that perish for us and are reckoned. But among the grey headstones and under the solemn yew tree, nothing stirred and no sound broke in to disturb the peace of the dead.
So the time passed, measured out impassively, quarter by quarter, by the distant chimes. More than an hour had slipped away since those two figures had been swallowed up in the dark cavernous depths under the yew tree, when the silence of the night was at last broken by the faint grinding creak. After the lapse of a few seconds, it was repeated. Then a figure appeared creeping stealthily out of the shadow and down the path towards the gate, which, as it emerged into the dim light, revealed itself as that of Mr. Hughes.
There was something curiously secret and furtive in his demeanour. He walked slowly, setting down his foot at each step with evident care to make no sound, and every few seconds he paused to listen and look about him. Thus he crept down to the gate, where again he halted and stood, listening intently and gazing into the darkness, first up the village street, and then across at the old manor house, sleeping among its trees. But it seemed that in the whole village there was no living creature besides himself waking and moving.
The Third R. Austin Freeman Megapack Page 113
