The Joker ds(e-3

by Edgar Wallace

‘Don’t!’ she warned him.

  ‘—I’ve ever met with a real sense of humour,’ he concluded. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘I wasn’t disappointed. I expected something banal,’ she said. ‘My house is the third on the left…thank you.’

  She got down without assistance and offered her hand, and as he looked past her towards the door of the house:

  ‘The number is 163,’ she said, ‘but you needn’t write unless you’ve something very policey to write about. Good night!’

  Jim Carlton was smiling all the way to Whitehall Gardens and his sense of amusement still held when he followed the footman into Sir Joseph Layton’s study.

  The words ‘Joseph Layton’ are familiar to all who carry passports, for he was the Foreign Secretary, a man of slight figure and ascetic face; and possibly the most cartooned politician in Britain.

  He looked up over his big horn-rimmed glasses as Jim came in. ‘Sit down, Carlton.’ He blotted the letter he had been writing, inserted it with punctilious care into an envelope, and addressed it with a flourish before he spoke. ‘I’ve just come back from the House. Did you call before?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Humph!’ He settled himself more easily in his padded chair, put the tips of his fingers together, and again scrutinised the detective over his glasses. ‘Well, what are the developments?’ he asked, and added: ‘I’ve seen the cables you sent me. Curious—very curious indeed. You intercepted them?’

  ‘Some of them, sir,’ said Jim. ‘A great deal of the correspondence of the Rata Syndicate goes through other channels. But there’s enough to show that Rata is there preparing for a big killing. I should imagine that every big broking house in the world has received similar instructions.’

  Sir Joseph unlocked a drawer of his desk and, pulling it open, took out a number of sheets of paper fastened together by a big brass clip. He turned the leaves slowly.

  ‘I suppose this one is typical,’ he said.

  It was a message addressed to Rata Syndicate, Wall Street: ‘Be ready to sell for 15 per cent. drop undermentioned securities.’

  Here followed a long list that covered two pages of writing, and against each stock was the number to be sold.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sir Joseph, stroking his little white moustache thoughtfully. ‘Very peculiar, very remarkable! As you said in your letter, these are the very stocks which would be instantly affected by the threat of war. But who on earth are we going to fight? The International situation was never easier. The Moroccan question has been settled. You read my speech in the House last night?’ Jim nodded. ‘Upon my word,’ said Sir Joseph, ‘I think I was very careful to avoid anything like unjustifiable optimism, but, searching the world from East to West, I can see no single cloud on the horizon.’

  Jim Carlton reached out, took the papers and read them through carefully.

  ‘I think,’ said the Foreign Minister with a twinkle in his eye, ‘you have at the back of your mind the vision of some diabolical conspiracy to embroil the world in war. Am I right? Secret agents, traffic in secret plans, cellar meetings with masked and highly-placed diplomats?’

  ‘Nothing so romantic,’ smiled Jim. ‘No; I wasn’t brought up in that school. I know how wars are made. They grow as storms grow—out of the mists that gather on marshlands and meadows. Label them “the rising clouds of national prejudice,” and you’ve got a rough illustration.’

  ‘Come now, Mr Carlton, who is your ideal conspirator? I’m sure I know. You think Harlow is behind Rata; and that he has some diabolical scheme for stirring up the nations?’

  ‘I think Harlow is behind most of the big disturbances,’ said Jim slowly. ‘He’s got too much money; can’t you get some of it away from him?’

  ‘We do our best,’ said the Foreign Minister dryly; ‘but he is one of the few people in England who can look the sur-tax collector in the eye and never quail!’

  Jim went back to Scotland Yard expecting to find Elk, but learned that that intelligent officer had left earlier in the evening for Devonshire. He was to meet Ingle on his release from prison and accompany him to town. And Inspector Elk’s mission was certainly not on Aileen’s behalf, nor had he any humanitarian idea of preparing the convict for news of the burglary.

  The first idea (and this proved to be wrong) was that there was a reason and a mind behind this crime. Something had been taken of such value as justified the risk.

  The sudden appearance of Harlow in the flat immediately after the crime had been committed had convinced Carlton that his visit was associated with the safe robbery. Harlow should have been at a City banquet—Jim had been trailing him all that day, and had known his destination. Indeed, his name had appeared in the morning newspapers as having been present at the dinner. And yet, within an hour of the accident on the Embankment, Harlow had turned up at Fotheringay Mansions, and had not deigned to offer an excuse for his absence from the dinner, although Jim was sure he knew that he had been trailed.

  The early morning found Inspector Elk shivering on the wind-swept platform of Princetown. There were very few people in the waiting train at that hour; a workman or two on their way to an intermediate station, a commercial traveller who had been detained overnight and was probably looking forward to the comforts of Plymouth, comprised the list. It was within a minute of starting time, and he was beginning to think that he had wasted his time getting up so early, when he saw two men walk on to the platform.

  One was a warder, and the other a thin man in an ill-fitting blue suit. The warder disappeared into the booking-office and came back with a ticket, which he handed to the other.

  ‘So long, Ingle!’ said the officer, and held out his hand, which the ex-convict took grudgingly.

  Ingle stepped into the carriage and was turning to shut the door when Elk followed him and the recognition was immediate. Into the keen eyes of Arthur Ingle came a look of deep suspicion.

  ‘Hallo! What do you want?’ he asked harshly.

  ‘Why, bless my life, if it isn’t Ingle!’ said Elk with a gasp. ‘Well, well, well! It doesn’t seem five years ago—’

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Ingle again.

  ‘Me? Nothing! I’ve been up to the prison making a few inquiries about a friend of one of those mocking birds, but you know what they are—it was love’s labour lost, so to speak,’ said Elk, lighting a cigar and offering the case to his companion.

  Ingle took the brown cylinder, smelt it and, biting off the end savagely, accepted the light which the detective held for him. By this time the train was moving and they were free from any possibility of interruption.

  ‘Let me see: I heard something about you the other day…What was it?’ Mr Elk held his forehead, a picture of perplexity. ‘I’ve got it!’ he said. ‘There was a burglary at your flat.’

  The cigar dropped from the man’s hand.

  ‘A burglary?’ he said shrilly. ‘What was stolen?’

  ‘Somebody opened the safe in your locker room—’

  Ingle sprang to his feet, his teeth bared, his eyes glaring. ‘The safe!’ He almost screamed the words. ‘Opened the safe—damn them! They’re not satisfied with sending me to five years of this hell, but they want to catch me again, do they…?’

  Elk let him rave on until, in his rage, the man’s voice sank to a hoarse rattle of sound.

  ‘I hope you didn’t lose any money?’

  ‘Money!’ snarled the man. ‘Do you think I’m the kind who puts money in a safe? You know what I lost!’ He pointed an accusing finger at the detective. ‘You fellows did it! So that’s why you’re here, eh? A prison gate arrest, is it?’

  ‘My dear, good man!’ Elk was pained. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about! You’re no more under arrest than I am. You could walk out of that door as free as the air, if the train wasn’t moving.’ And then he asked: ‘What did they pinch?’

  It was a long time before the man recovered himself. ‘If you don’t know I’m not going to tell you,’ he sa
id. ‘Some day—’ He ground his teeth and in his eyes glared; the fires of fanaticism. ‘You, and the like of you, call me a thief!’ His voice rose again as he talked rapidly. ‘You branded me and put me into prison—segregated me from my kind…a pariah, a leper! For what? For skimming off a little of the stolen cream! For taking a little of the money wrested from sweating bodies and breaking hearts! It was mine—mine!’ He struck his chest with a bony fist, his eyes blazing. ‘The money belonged to me—to my fellows, to those men there!’ He pointed back to where, beyond the brow of a rise, lay the grim prison building. ‘I took it from those fat and greasy men and I’m glad of it! One jewel less for their horrible women; one motor-car fewer for their slaves to clean!’

  ‘Great idea,’ murmured Elk sympathetically.

  ‘You! What are you? The lackey of a class,’ sneered Ingle. ‘The hired torturer—the prison-feeder!’

  ‘Quite right,’ murmured Elk, listening with closed eyes.

  ‘If they found those papers they’ve something to think about—do you hear?—something to spoil their night’s sleep! And if there is sedition in them I’m willing to go back to Princetown.’

  Elk opened his eyes quickly. ‘Oh, was that what it was?’ he asked, disappointed. ‘Revolution stuff?’

  The man nodded curtly.

  ‘I thought it was something worth while!’ said Elk, annoyed. ‘Silly idea though, isn’t it. Ingle?’

  ‘To you, yes. To me, no,’ snapped the other. ‘I hate England! I hate the English! I hate all middle-class people, the smirking self-satisfied swine! I hated them when I was a starving actor and they sat in their stalls with a sneer on their overfed faces…’ He choked.

  ‘There’s a lot to be said for fat people,’ mused Elk. ‘Now take Harlow-though you wouldn’t call him a fat man.’

  ‘Harlow!’ scoffed the other. ‘Another of your moneyed gods!’ Evidently he remembered something, for he stopped suddenly.

  ‘Moneyed gods—?’ suggested Elk.

  ‘I don’t know.’ The man shook his head. ‘He may not be what he seems. In there’—he jerked his head backwards—‘they say he’s crook to his back teeth! But he doesn’t rob the poor. He takes it in large slabs from the fat men.’

  ‘If that’s so, I’ve nothing to say. He’s on the side of law and order,’ said Elk gently. ‘A man who hands out police stations as Christmas presents can’t be wholly bad!’

  By the time the train pulled into Plymouth station, Detective-Inspector Elk was perfectly satisfied that there was nothing further to be learnt from the man. He went to the post office and sent a telegram to Jim which was short and expressive.

  ‘Revolution stuff. Nothing important.’

  He was on the same train that carried Mr Ingle to London, but he did not occupy the same compartment, except for half an hour after the train flashed through Bath, when he strolled into the carriage and sat down by the man’s side; and apparently he was welcome, for Ingle started talking.

  ‘Have you seen anything of my niece? Docs she know about the burglary? I think you told me, but I was so angry that I can’t remember.’ And, when Elk had given him the fullest particulars: ‘Harlow! Why did he come? He met Aileen at Dartmoor, you say?’ He frowned and suddenly slapped his knee. ‘I remember the fellow. He was sprawling in his car by the side of the road when we came back from the field that day. So that was Harlow! Does he know Aileen?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘They met at Dartmoor; that’s all I know.’ Ingle gave one of his characteristic shrugs.

  ‘I suppose he’s running after her? She’s a pretty sort of girl. With that type of man, money’s no object. She’s old enough to look after herself without my assistance.’ So this Utopian left Aileen Rivers to her fate.

  CHAPTER 7

  HE HAD wired from Plymouth asking her to call at the flat that night, and she arrived just as he had finished a dinner he had cooked for himself.

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard about the burglary,’ he said, cutting short her question. ‘They’ve got nothing that was worth a shilling to them, thank God! Why did you call in the police?’

  And then he had a shock.

  ‘Who else should I have called in—a doctor?’ she asked.

  It was the first time he had met her in a period of freedom. She had had her instructions to look after the flat, smuggled out of prison by a discharged convict; and their talks during the brief visiting hours had been mainly on business.

  ‘What does one usually do when a burglary is discovered?’ she asked. ‘I sent for the police—of course I sent!’

  He stared at her fiercely, but she did not flinch. It was his eyes which dropped first.

  ‘I suppose it’s all right,’ he said, and then: ‘You know Harlow, don’t you?’

  ‘I met him at Dartmoor, yes.’

  ‘A friend of yours?’

  ‘No more than you are,’ she said; and he had his second shock. ‘I’m not going to quarrel with you, and I don’t see why you should want to be rude to me,’ he snapped. ‘You’ve been useful, but I’ve not been ungenerous. Harlow is a friend of yours—’

  ‘He called here on the night of the burglary to offer me a job,’ she replied, without any visible evidence other rising anger. ‘I met him at Princetown and he seemed to think that because of my relationship with you, I should find it rather difficult to get employment.’

  He muttered something under his breath which she did not catch and it occurred to her that she had cowed this bullying little man, though she had had no such intention.

  ‘I shall not want you any more.’ He took out his pocket-book, opened it and extracted a banknote. ‘This is in the nature of a bonus,’ he said. ‘I do not intend continuing your allowance.’

  He expected her to refuse the money and he was not wrong.

  ‘Is that all?’ she asked. She did not attempt to take the note.

  ‘That is all.’

  With a nod she turned and walked to the door. ‘The charwoman is coming tonight to clean up,’ she said. ‘You had better make arrangements for her to stay on—but I suppose you’ve already made your plans.’

  Before he could reply, she was gone. He heard the street door slam after her, took up the money and put it back in his case; and he was without regret for, if the truth be told, Mr Arthur Ingle, despite the largeness of his political views, was exceedingly mean.

  There was a great deal for him to do: old boxes to open and sort, papers and memoranda to retrieve from strange hiding-places. The seat of the big settee on which Aileen had sat so often waiting for the cleaner to finish her work, opened like a lid and here he had documents and, in a steel box, books that might not have come to light even if the police had been aware of the flat at the time of his arrest, an had made their usual search.

  Ingle was a man of wide political activities. No party man in the sense that he found a party to match his own views; rather, he was one of those violent and compelling thinkers who are unconsciously the nucleus of a movement. His grudge against the world was a sincere one. He saw injustice in the simplest consequences of cause and effect. His opinions had not made him a thief; they had merely justified him in his disregard for the law and his obligation to society.

  Imprisonment had made him neither better nor worse, had merely confirmed him in certain theories. Inconsistently, he loathed his prison associates, men who had been unsupported by his high motives in their felonies. The company of them was contamination. He hated the chaplain; and only one inmate of that terrible place touched what in him still remained tender. That was the old, blind horse who had his stable in the prison, and whose sight seemed to have been destroyed by Providence that he might not witness the degradation of the superior mammals that tramped the exercise ring, or went trudging and shuffling up the hill and through the gates.

  He was the one man in the prison who was thankful when the cell door closed on him and the key turned in the lock.

  The foulness of these old lags, their talk, their boasts, the horri
ble things that may not be written about…he could not think back without feeling physically sick. In truth he would not have stretched out his hand if, by so doing, he could have opened those cell doors and released to the world the social sweepings whom it was his professed mission to salve.

  His work finished, he lit a cigarette, fitted it carefully into an amber holder and, adjusting the cushions, lay down on the settee and smoked and thought till the telephone bell roused him and he got up.

  The voice that spoke to him was quite unfamiliar. ‘Is that Mr Ingle?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Will you make a sacrifice of your principles?’ was the astonishing request, and the man smiled sourly.

  ‘What I have left, yes. What do you wish?’

  It might be an old friend in need of money, in which case the conversation would be short. For Arthur Ingle had no foolish ideas about charity.

  ‘Could you meet me tonight on the sidewalk immediately opposite Horse Guards Parade?’

  ‘In the park, you mean?’ asked Ingle, astonished. ‘Who are you? I’ll tell you before you go any further that I’m not inclined to go out of my way to meet strangers. I’m a pretty tired man tonight.’

  ‘My name is—’ a pause—‘Harlow.’

  Involuntarily, Ingle uttered an exclamation.

  ‘Stratford Harlow?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes, Stratford Harlow.’

  There was a long pause before Arthur Ingle spoke. ‘It’s rather an extraordinary request, but I realise that it isn’t an idle one. How do I know you’re Harlow?’

  ‘Call me up in ten minutes at my house and ask for me,’ said the voice. ‘Will you come?’

  Again Mr Ingle hesitated. ‘Yes, I’ll come,’ he said. ‘At what time?’

  ‘At ten o’clock exactly. I won’t keep you hanging about this cold night. You can get into my car and we’ll drive somewhere.’

  Ingle hung up the telephone a little bewildered. He was a cautious man and after ten minutes had expired he put through the number he discovered in the phone directory, and the same voice answered him. ‘Are you satisfied?’