‘You will, eh? Well, it’s about the least you can do as things are, isn’t it? Especially as I am considering bringing an action for very heavy damages if I don’t get satisfaction. And how am I to know that you will do as you say after all? I haven’t any guarantee.’
‘Well, really, I—I don’t quite know what to say to that,’ admitted Mr Carrados. ‘What do you suggest for instance?’
Mr Joolby appeared to consider deeply.
‘Suppose you write a letter now to Scotland Yard, admitting that you’ve been mistaken, and let me post it. Then there can’t be any double shuffling. You say you are going to notify them, don’t you? Well, if you are honest about it you may just as well write a letter here and now and tell them.’
‘Just as you like, Mr Joolby, if that will set your mind at rest. As you say, it’s the same thing in the end. Have you a sheet of paper handy?’
‘Ah!’ pounced Mr Joolby with an unpleasant spit of laughter, ‘I thought as much! So that was to be the way, was it? On strange note-paper and written with my pen and ink—then it would not be a very hard matter to write a little differently and repudiate the whole business if it is more convenient afterwards, eh, eh? No, no, Mr Carrados; the special tablet that you always use and written with pencil if you please the same as usual.’
Apparently not in any way disconcerted Mr Carrados produced one of the small writing-pads that he invariably carried.
‘You seem to be a very well-informed, simple, private gentleman,’ he remarked good-naturedly as he began to comply with the injunction.
‘You have to be, in the antique line,’ retorted the dealer.
‘Paper is often the difficulty, I understand,’ was the dry thrust. ‘Well, how will this do, Mr Joolby? “Dear Inspector Beedel, Not too late in the day to admit a mistake, I hope, I am hastening to let you know that I was entirely at fault in my suspicions of the Joolby ménage—”’
‘No, I don’t like that,’ objected the gentleman concerned; ‘“Joolby ménage” is too familiar when you are supposed to be doing your best to get out of the pretty mess you’re in; it doesn’t sound natural. “Mr Joolby’s household” or “the establishment of J. Joolby, Esquire” is more what one would expect to be written.’
‘True; perhaps I was becoming a little too colloquial. “The establishment of J. Joolby Esquire.” May I, by any chance, add “O.B.E.”, some little distinction of that sort? No? A pity but gross oversights were common. Well: “From personal observation I am now satisfied that nothing in the nature of what I had suspected had been going on there.”’
Absorbed in the composition of this odd document Mr Carrados alternately spoke and wrote while Mr Joolby, offering frequent helpful comment, betrayed the excited state of his mind shuffling here and there about the room to accompaniment of the continual tapping of sticks and the slither of his crippled extremities, indeed to anyone less deeply engaged than the blind man appeared to be it might have occurred that the amount of noise which this performance raised was out of all proportion with the extent of ground covered. The move was not lost on Nora but she felt that it would be madness to intervene with an open warning that must inevitably precipitate a crisis. Even when Nickle and Won Chou casually but very quietly appeared on the scene she clung to a desperate hope that this did not necessarily mean a breach of faith, but as they began gradually to draw in significantly on each side of Mr Carrados it was no longer possible to doubt some crooked intention.
‘Uncle—’
In three swift steps Nickle was by Nora’s side. His attitude and action were an open challenge.
‘Keep your mouth shut or—’ they said as plainly as though it had been spoken.
‘“Will you therefore please call off any attention—which might prove embarrassing to me—in that quarter,”’ continued the writer, still blandly immersed in his task. ‘“Now that I am leaving London for a few days—”’
‘Uncle! don’t—’ The words half unconsciously sprang from her lips as she realised in a flash the possibilities that this opened up and the risk—the fatalness indeed—of the admission. There was no chance of more. Nickle’s strong hand closed instantly over her mouth while his arms held her in a grip that smothered all resistance. Won Chou had already glided forward to add his weight and from his sleeve there appeared a stoppered bottle and a pad that had doubtless been intended for another. Neatly, expeditiously, and without a sound that would not pass for Mr Joolby’s gasps and clatter, the work was done and the unconscious girl carried away through the open door of the ante-room. Joolby’s twisted grin lengthened.
‘But, my dear, I’ve already arranged it all,’ protested Carrados, at this point becoming aware of his niece’s neglected interruption. ‘Thanks, nevertheless—it’s very flattering to find that you are so appreciated on the spot, isn’t it, Mr Joolby? And I wouldn’t say that I’m not every bit as fond of her on my side. Between ourselves,’ he continued, writing a line that concluded the letter, ‘since our little misunderstanding is now satisfactorily cleared up, I don’t mind admitting that I really came here with an absurd fancy that the child might be in some sort of danger.’ He chuckled quiet appreciation. ‘Sounds absurd now, doesn’t it? Eh, Nora? Here we are, then’—running a confirming finger along the words he had last written—‘“Now that I am leaving London for a few days and shall not see you before I go I thought it better to put the matter straight at once by letter.” There, Mr Joolby, just see if that doesn’t satisfy all your scruples.’
Nickle had now returned, leaving Won Chou, aided doubtless by Mrs Larch’s practical hand, to cope with any emotional outburst when Nora came round again. There remained Carrados to deal with but even if he should be armed, two useful men—Larch and himself; Joolby didn’t count—could settle the issue of that without the possibility of mischance. He noiselessly closed and locked the door of the ante-room as he came back to secure the next few minutes from the chance of disturbing interruption.
In all good faith Joolby accepted the sheet and half turned away to get a better light so as to make sure that this shifty fellow Carrados had been playing no tricks with the composition … How it happened he never knew and the other two could not quite see as they were close upon the cripple, and behind, but in the second that his attention was directed to the paper something undoubtedly caused Mr Joolby to stumble back and he floundered into the arms—and incidentally upon the toes—of his fellow conspirators. That was the moment chosen for the room to be blacked completely out and Mr Carrados’s dry chuckle from the neighbourhood of the door—the general door—made it comparatively obvious to connect him with the phenomenon. He had not attempted to escape; he had simply snapped the light off, locked the second door, and was now apparently enjoying the effect of his manoeuvre. Exactly what that move implied did not at first convey itself to any of the trio.
‘What the hell’s happened?’ shouted Nickle—the first to find his voice because he was the least involved in the gymnastics. ‘Do either of you know—’
‘Stop him, you fools—don’t talk,’ rasped out the more discerning Joolby. ‘You know I can’t get along. After him, can’t you?’
‘Blast that table!’ was Larch’s hearty contribution, and the sound of the impact that had immediately preceded the remark indicated his precise condition.
‘That will do nicely,’ came Mr Carrados’s unruffled voice across the darkness. ‘Please all remain exactly where you are or two of your heads may get in line and I don’t want to shoot more of you than need be.’
‘Has he gone mad?’ whispered George in genuine bewilderment. ‘He seemed all right up to now.’
‘He is still all right, thank you, Mr Larch.’ There was a smile yet in the voice but the tone was no longer that of the conciliatory Mr Carrados at the table. ‘Possibly it was the initial jockeying for position that may have misled you. You will surely recognise that it was necessary for me to finesse Miss Melhuish out of the room before we got on to the shooting?’
&nbs
p; ‘Shoot and be damned, you skug!’ exploded Nickle. ‘As soon as we can see, by God! you’ll squeal for this pretty loudly.’
‘Doubtless,’ was the smooth reply ‘—as soon as you can see. But the point of the situation, Mr Nickle, is that you can’t see, and as I am a trained dead shot by sound, it would almost seem as though it might be I who could enforce the squealing.’
‘He has us there,’ admitted George Larch. ‘By golly!’
‘Has he!’ The scraping of a match against its box-side followed.
Two spurts of light whipped into the black; one upwards from the match, the other across from the door. The match at once went out and Nickle only just saved himself from screaming.
‘Damnation!’ he yelled, spinning round. ‘He’s shot the box out of my hand!’
‘Quite a safe mark—it was such an explicit sound,’ said Mr Carrados reassuringly. ‘I was rather afraid that you might strike the match on your trouser seat. That would have been unfortunate, wouldn’t it?’
It fell to Mr Joolby to break the silence that hung rather heavily over the room after this demonstration.
‘Mr Carrados. I don’t pretend to understand what grievance you think you have, but if you will kindly turn on the light again we can all discuss it amicably and no doubt afford you complete satisfaction.’
‘Mr Joolby,’ replied Carrados, determined to be no less civil, ‘whatever grievance I may think I have we can discuss equally well in the dark. And all my arguments are capable of being put even more forcibly in those conditions.’
‘But there must be some mistake—’ pleaded George Larch, still hopeful.
‘I think there really must—but it is yours … My dear sirs, did you actually imagine that one could not follow every clumsy move you made, with Joolby’s low comedy tramp and the other two stealing in like a couple of hired assassins in a penny gaff melodrama?’
‘All this is quite unknown to me—’ protested the deeply hurt Joolby.
‘But not quite to me. Why, our good friend Larch wears an old family watch that has a voice like an alarum clock to my ears. You, Nickle, use something for your hair that would serve a drag-hunt.’
‘You son of a bitch! We’ll get you yet,’ snapped Nickle. Of the three he appeared to feel the reverse the most—to him, under Carrados’s caustic tongue, it was a personal humiliation. Larch was ingenuously amazed, while Joolby—to Joolby, wrapped in an imperforable armour of fatalistic certitude, it could be nothing but a passing trial.
‘Ah,’ replied Mr Carrados with his unquenchable aplomb, ‘I have often wondered where I got my nose from.’
‘Be quiet, Nickle,’ directed his chief. ‘What’s the use of foolishness like calling a gentleman bad names when he can gun you in the dark and you’re no good even at striking matches? But Mr Carrados will no doubt remember that whatever happens here, somewhere else we hold two hostages.’
‘Mr Carrados will,’ he assented. ‘And Mr Joolby will have no chance of forgetting that in this room I hold three.’
‘Short of shooting us all in cold blood how’s that going to help you, Mr Carrados?’ asked Larch, coming down to the commonplace of the situation. ‘It looks like stalemate to me and the sensible thing would be to make it a draw and all call off in good order. As things are what do you think you can do, sir?’
‘To be quite candid, Mr Larch, so far I haven’t given it a thought. But to a man of resource there’s always something. If you happen to be a theatre-goer yourself no doubt you’ve seen a number of ingenious tricks brought off in what I believe are called “crook plays”—the trouble is that one can seldom remember a suitable dodge just when it’s wanted. Now there’s wireless; any amount of plots turn on that, but how on earth am I to use wireless? If only you happened to have a telephone about the room I might manage to call up reinforcements.’
‘And do you think that we’d be mugs enough to let you?’ contemptuously came from Nickle.
‘Oh, I don’t know. You might not—or on the other hand you might. You might be interested in hearing what I should send—at any rate I don’t mind telling you in advance and you can say what you think about it. Something—let me see—like this: Yes, Exchange, quite right, but—one moment—this is special and urgent. I want to get through to Scotland Yard—Victoria 7000—but I can’t wait for the connection, because it’s a matter of life and death. Ask Inspector Beedel there to send Flying Squad to Max Carrados in immediate danger at source of this message. Yes, B-E-E-D-E-L and C-A-R-R-A-D-O-S. You’ve got that quite all right? Thank you.’
‘You bloody fools!’ shrieked Nickle, stung by a sudden dreadful inspiration, ‘we’ve let him phone. He has got through!’ In a transport of infuriation his hand went to his hip and the telephone stand crashed to the floor under the impact of his erratic bullet. Another shot and Nickle’s automatic followed his matchbox.
‘It only needed that sensational touch to convince the young lady at the Exchange that she was in the thick of the Real Thing,’ remarked Mr Carrados. ‘Thank you, Nickle. I might have overlooked it. Now we can all close our eyes and open our mouths and see what the Yard will send us.’
‘Well, that about puts the lid on,’ summed up George Larch philosophically. ‘It’s all U.P. this journey.’
‘Not quite I think,’ ventured a sad, unconcerned voice and before Carrados could move—the dramatic opening of the door barred all chance of interference indeed—the light blazed on again, and Won Chou was revealed standing apathetically before them. ‘I happen to have met Mr Carrados in the past and knowing how clever a gentleman he is I took the precaution of cutting the wires as soon as I guessed that he was likely to be busy. Always best with a gentleman so brainful. He got nothing through to anywhere.’
‘The hell! And how the blazes did you get here? He locked the door.’
‘Little tool,’ explained Won Chou, modestly displaying a delicate implement from his inexhaustible sleeve. ‘Turn keys from other side. Always carry. Very useful.’
‘This from the downtrodden brother!’ bitterly exclaimed Mr Carrados, throwing away his pistol and folding his useless arms. ‘Trick and game to you, Mr Joolby!’ True he might still have put up a hopeless fight, but it had been a battle of wits throughout and psychologically he was beaten.
‘And this to remember me by, you swine!’ The blind man went down at the blow—a vicious smashing right, delivered with all the pent-up spleen of a practised boxer, and remained down unstirring. Nickle, in one of his uglier moods, considered that he had settled that reckoning.
CHAPTER XIV
A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS INTO THE UNKNOWN
IT was Saturday morning, the morning of the day when, according to sundry remarks, two things were going to happen. Vallett had promised that by that date he would be prepared to bring off their wholesale raid of the Tapsfield bank-note paper and Nora Melhuish had given Mr Carrados to understand that on Saturday she would be ready to quit Mr Joolby’s house and service. Of the two contracts the first seemed immeasurably the more likely to be met for while Vallett was freely at large to mature his plans daybreak found—or would have done if it could have penetrated six feet of earth and several courses of brick and mortar—Nora asleep on a long stone slab which was the chief feature of a cellar that was unpleasantly suggestive of a prison cell or even at a pinch a dungeon. Mr Carrados himself was there also only he happened to be awake, the sleeping accommodation not being of the class to entice a man of slightly luxurious tastes to somnolence. Nora slept as a young animal will: without any particular regard to which way up she was or what she lay on.
No matter how much Mr Carrados might ‘look’ around there was very little to see and he had long since investigated every loophole. Of these there was quite literally one: a grated opening, six inches square, above the door; possibly not without its use to ventilate the cellar but almost negligible as a source of light since it gave upon a scarcely less dark passage. The only real illuminant had been one candle at a time from the pair that t
hey had found burning when they came to themselves and discovered their plight—the last of them carefully hoarded by Nora, she alone being concerned, but this had long since burned down to its last flicker.
The cellar itself was long and narrow, brick built and whitewashed, stone flagged, reasonably dry but intolerably fusty. Its smell was that of ancient lees, decaying mushrooms, bad earth, snails and just a dash of drain to spice it. The low stone bench, running all the length, had doubtless in its palmy days stored casks of wines and beer.
For the hundredth time the blind man paced the meagre limits of their cell and for the hundredth time he found that none of his senses brought the faintest ray of inspiration. The solid oak door—he fingered it again—was as though made to resist a ram, the walls built to withstand a siege, and every stone and brick in wall, bench, or floor was as immovable as the face of a rock. They built well in those days of leisure.
The fittings of the door were in keeping with its timber—massive and bolted through and doubly fixed by rust and long disusage. Under his hand a stubborn latch sprung noisily: on the bench Nora turned in her sleep, half rose with a sudden cry and at once began to pour out a wild string of protestation:
‘I tell you it’s all right! The people here are absolutely straightforward and honest. They are! They are! You mustn’t think because the man is like a loathsome creature—Don’t you hear, Uncle Max, I swear it’s quite all right and Geoffrey isn’t here only if you don’t—Oh, that filthy dream again. Nightmares are bad enough but when it comes to night-toads—!’
Uncle Max walked unerringly to where she was, sat down and put a firm arm protectively about her.
‘There, there,’ he said, as simply as though she had been a child of nine, ‘I’m here with you, little woman. This place certainly is enough to give anyone dreams about reptiles—not that there are any here as a matter of fact,’ he hastened to assure her. ‘But you’re awake now and all right, my dear.’
The Bravo of London Page 20
