‘You ask him how he liked it when you next meet, and see,’ continued Mr Joolby dryly. ‘Now listen for we haven’t much time to waste—least of all on passengers. I’ve said I’m sorry about the grub but we can’t wait for that now. We’ll take just what we find—most of us haven’t had our own breakfasts yet—and you will get your share of what there is and can eat it as you travel.’
‘Travel?’ interrogated Mr Carrados with some concern. ‘You surely can’t think of taking me? Consider how a blind man would be in the way on a journey.’
‘Leave that to us,’ was the curt reply; ‘we’re going to take you for a ride and—’
‘Take me for a ride!’ The victim seemed to grow even more apprehensive. ‘Not in the transatlantic—I might say the Chicago—sense surely, I hope, Mr Joolby?’
Mr Joolby snapped a raw laugh. ‘That depends on how you act,’ he replied, not sorry to have the opportunity to introduce the menace. ‘Do exactly as you’re told and you’ll come through all right; lack, and—’ He did not resort to melodramatic signs but the hiatus was sufficiently expressive.
‘You certainly hold all the cards this hand,’ admitted the blind man. ‘It’s only for me to make the best terms I can as things have turned out.’
This brought in Nickle who had been enduring his chief’s derisive courtesy with rising impatience.
‘Make terms, you hear!’ he cried scornfully. ‘I like the beggar’s cheek. Do you think it’s a case of what you agree to or what you don’t, damn your eyes, Max Carrados!’
‘You can’t do that, Nickle,’ replied Carrados with deadly quietness, ‘they are blasted already … Doesn’t that inspire you with—I won’t say pity or compunction in your case—but with a sort of vague misgiving? Superstition, if you like, but there has always been an uneasy dread of incurring the just resentment of the sightless. A blind man’s curse—’
‘Won’t wash,’ interrupted Nickle. ‘Cut him short, for the Almighty’s sake, Joolby. Can’t you see he’s only playing for time with all this day-of-judgment stuff patter?’
‘Rather an ominous phrase in your position, Nickle—“Playing for time”. Suppose I get it for you?’
‘This “time”—I do not grasp quite what it imply,’ put in Mr Bronsky intelligently. ‘It is—’
‘Just an idiom, Mr Bronsky,’ explained Carrados, becoming quietly amused in rather an inexplicable way considering his situation. ‘I almost think that you look like finding out what it means also.’
‘That’s enough,’ announced Joolby with decision. ‘You’ve put up all the bluff you know, Carrados, and we’ve got you dog-beaten. Now listen to what you’ve got to do, and this time if you deviate a single hair or try any of your monkey tricks it’s the deep end you’ll go off at. We’re going to take you in the car—’
‘I don’t think so now,’ broke in the prisoner, with so marked a change of front—so confident an air and smile—that they were paralysed into holding themselves up and letting him run on from sheer amazement. ‘You have waited too long; I’ve got to like it here. It’s peaceful and almost rural. In the early morning—now for instance—one can scent the copse outside (another homonymous word, Mr Bronsky; it means woodland—among other things)—you can hear the song of birds: the early birds out to get their foolish worms. Really, they whistle more than they sing … surely you can hear them now?’ and, account for it as they might, a series of low sharp whistles at various distances did reach their ears, as though a preconcerted signal was announcing, for instance, that a circle of men had taken up position.
‘To hell!’ suddenly exclaimed Nickle, making a dash. ‘The cops are here. They’ll be on us next.’ An unnerving peal of the ancient bell and an insistent crash of the heavy door knocker gave point to this expression. Without waiting to think twice Nickle flung up a window and dropped down. A shout, a shot, and the sound of hard wood striking something slightly less solid followed in quick succession.
‘Nickle will never make a reliable shot,’ confided Mr Carrados to the little band of paralysed listeners. ‘He always takes sight too low—fault of British army musketry training. Now, about the door? My friends are evidently waiting.’
Won Chou slid his almond eyes to his master’s face and getting no guidance from that rigid mask went off docilely on his own account to obey the summons. At this critical moment Mr Bronsky, who from the first suggestion of alarm had been hovering between the expedience of following Nickle’s lead, walking out by the front door in a dignified way, hiding under the table, or fainting, decided to be straightforward and honest. Although the detestable myrmidons of the law were not yet on the scene the good Mr Carrados would no doubt bear satisfactory witness.
‘There would appear to be somethings going on but I do not gather what ensues,’ accordingly remarked Mr Bronsky with convincing detachment. ‘I understand that this was a peaceful place where a Mr Joolby merchandises antique wares. I have arrived here soon so as to make early bargains. Mr Joolby,’ he continued, raising his voice as steps approached, and cramming his silk hat more firmly on so as to demonstrate the casualness of his presence there, ‘if you have any particular articles of choice rarity I would address myself to your negotiations. I am in the desire for buying—’
‘Number one man makee say must look-see and come-go every side,’ announced Won Chou, a little superfluously it might appear since the official referred to was following him in. There are occasions when members of the force do not trouble to stand on ceremony. But Mr Carrados, at all events, found it amusing.
‘No, no, Mr Won,’ he protested, laughing appreciation; ‘I’m afraid it’s really too late to get back to talkee talkee chop now. Not after giving us a taste of your college style, if you remember.’
‘Mr Joolby,’ insisted the honest customer, rising to a passionate intensity as he realised that Detective-Inspector Beedel was at the door and taking in the situation, ‘Mr Joolby, I am wholly a stranger to you, never having seen you formerly to this morning; but I am of the inclination to acquire works of ancient if you have of such for disposition at reasonable costages—’
Having surveyed the room and its inmates the inspector turned to speak over his shoulder.
‘Come in, West,’ he said to a uniformed policeman behind. ‘You other two stay out there in the hall. See that no one passes on any pretext in either direction. Well, Mr Carrados, I’m glad to find that you’re all right, sir. I made a dash for it when the district office passed your news on. You got us a bit anxious.’
‘No need, inspector,’ replied Mr Carrados—he had greeted Beedel’s salute with a smile and a nod when he first appeared. ‘Children, drunkards, and the blind, you know—we have a special indulgence with providence.’
‘Providence—why yes,’ admitted his friend. ‘But this lot represent the other place, sir! Now let’s have a look at them. I suppose,’ he spoke back as he strolled across to Won Chou, ‘I suppose we may take it that all are concerned, sir?’
‘We can assume that much responsibility I think. I have been assaulted and forcibly detained and can identify all as actively or passively involved. Two others—Miss Melhuish and Mr Tilehurst—are still confined in the cellars. And then, of course, there is the original business.’
‘If they’re in no immediate danger we’ll go through the house when we’ve ticked off this lot, sir. Well, my lad, I think I’ve seen your face before. “Snow”, wasn’t it?’
‘Very much no savvy,’ courteously replied Won Chou, evidently anxious to afford any information he could but unfortunately only imperfectly acquainted with the language.
‘You wouldn’t. Put them on and pass him out to wait in the hall, West,’ said the inspector. ‘Ah, Mr Joolby, I believe? I’ve often thought that I should like the opportunity of going through your little place. You should have some very interesting old stuff there—one sort and another.’
‘I am only a poor man,’ touchingly protested Mr Joolby, ‘but what little I have has been made by hard wo
rk and honest dealing. Still, there may be something you want—no matter how careful one is in buying, unscrupulous persons occasionally impose on one with stolen property. At any rate let us go there and you shall pick out whatever you consider doubtful.’ In his anxiety to attract the police away from that spot Mr Joolby seemed to have forgotten that he was no longer the proprietor of the East End business.
‘All in good time, Mr Joolby,’ undertook the inspector. ‘But that doesn’t come into the charge—so far.’
‘What is this charge?’ inquired Mr Joolby faintly.
‘Well, suppose we have a look at these now’—Inspector Beedel did not appear to have been taking any particular notice of the surroundings so far but doubtless he used his eyes and had his methods, for at the word he turned abruptly, penknife in hand, and a string was cut, the brown paper ripped, and the contents of one of the parcels exposed before Mr Joolby could do anything but give an involuntary cry of shattered hopes, and take a single feebly threatening step forward, or Mr Bronsky get off more than a faint ‘psssh’ and ‘tsssh’ of indignation.
‘Books, eh?’ observed the inspector picking up the topmost. ‘Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic feels a trifle heavy for my taste.’ He shook it loosely open and a metal plate fell out and rang upon the floor—a copper sheet engraved, among other details of words and figures, with the name of the Bank of England. ‘Ah, I thought as much,’ commented Beedel as he recovered the plate and satisfied himself about its purpose. ‘George’s work, I suppose? He’s lucky—for the moment. Well, pass him out too, West.’
‘What about—?’ The constable indicated Joolby’s wrists. ‘He can’t get along without using his hands, inspector.’
‘Search him and take everything away. Then let him keep his sticks,’ decided Beedel. ‘Be particular you miss nothing he may have got about him and tell them out there.’ He turned to give his attention to Mr Bronsky.
‘I suppose we must call that the rubber, Mr Joolby,’ moralised Max Carrados, as the cripple was being put through this process. ‘It’s been a very interesting game throughout with its surprising changes of fortune, but the break-up of a party is always a little sad though, isn’t it? I’m afraid that it’s no good to say that you can claim your revenge when we next meet on equal terms; we shall both be too aged to care about it.’
For a second it looked as if the bankrupt plotter was attempting some reply; the muscles of his uncouth mouth were stirred and twisted, but if the impulse had carried to effect, not to retort by words but to spit venomously at his adversary’s face would have been Julian Joolby’s final gesture. As it happened, Constable West caught something of the baleful look and with even this meagre satisfaction just too late the prisoner was hustled away beyond the range of his recrimination.
‘It is amusing if it should not be laughable,’ suddenly exclaimed Mr Bronsky, compelled to realise at last that his person was being regarded as no more sacrosanct than those of all the others. ‘Otherwise the injustice shall put back the day of freedom for a hundred year!’
‘Oh, I don’t think you’ll get that long, Mr Bronsky,’ the inspector reassured him. ‘But it certainly looks like putting back the day of your freedom for about eighteen months or three years. Well, now that the lot’s mopped up I’ll go down and look into the matter of those two you spoke of, sir. Will you be all right here?’
‘Perfectly,’ replied Mr Carrados, with a private smile at the ineradicable foible of even those who should know best to regard him as intrinsically helpless. ‘But if you happen to be too long I wouldn’t say that you won’t find me in the larder. By the way, we are not forgetting Tapsfield and that end of it though? Forgive my mentioning it but I take a kind of proprietary interest in that delightfully restful village.’
‘Quite all right, sir—just as well to speak. As a matter of fact I’ve sent a word. Of course after what you’d told me before, your S.O.S. from here put two and two together. I’ve no doubt that at this moment the place looks just as peaceful as usual and it mayn’t be hard to get into the works, but when it comes to getting out and away with it they’ll find that they’ve trod on the live rail.’
Actually Mr Carrados was neither in the larder nor in the room when the inspector was recalled, for as he was examining Mr Larch’s consummate work with appreciative touch, a hasty call from the hall beyond brought everyone within hearing scurrying there to lend assistance at this new development. As it happened none was required—at least not what they had thought. Joolby—
‘He must be in a sort of fit,’ the constable kneeling at his side explained. ‘Sitting quietly there and then without a word or sign he rolled clean off the chair and lay here. I can’t make it out—you’d think he’d kick or twitch or make some sort of movement, wouldn’t you?’
Carrados bent over his fallen antagonist, by the policeman’s side, and brought his own face close to the upturned one which now made no motion to retort with venom. (‘A damned sight closer than I’d ha’ cared mine to go,’ was the frank pronouncement of the constable afterwards. ‘But then of course he couldn’t see what I did—luckily.’)
‘Not now—he’s given his last kick at this hated world,’ he said, rising from the contemplation. ‘I suppose you’ll have to get in a doctor or call up your own man, but it makes no difference really.’
‘You mean that he’s—gone?’ Inspector Beedel was staring hard and inclined to be a shade incredulous in view of the suddenness of the unfortunate proceeding.
‘Yes, inspector; he’s managed to slip through your hands after all. Poison.’
‘He had no poison about him just now—that I will swear,’ warmly protested P.C. West, conscious of Beedel’s rigorous eyes fixed accusingly on him. ‘I don’t mind saying that I had that in mind and I went through the lining and every seam for the least screw of paper.’
‘Besides, he never made a move to reach anything while he was in here,’ loyally confirmed one of the other policemen. ‘Just sat with his hands resting on the top of one of his sticks and his face buried in them.’
‘Of course—his stick,’ exclaimed Mr Carrados, enlightened. ‘Please give me the one he had. Yes, there it is—that little cavity at the top. A tiny phial sunk in and undetectably covered over. An ideal place, you see, because he must always have it with him. Then as he sat, apparently sunk in thought, he worked out the little tube and crushed it up between his strong teeth and heroically swallowed the lot. You will find that his tongue is cut—just as it might very easily be in a fit, which makes it all quite convincing. Mr Joolby was a connoisseur of the subtler poisons, inspector, and I don’t doubt that he had reserved something very choice indeed for his own consumption.’
‘Well I’ll go to Hanover!’ apostrophised Beedel, after exploring the stick. Despite a lifelong association with the conventional forms of crime, not even the contents bill of an evening newspaper were more liable to be ‘amazed’ by the least variant of a ruse than was the worthy, and, let it be added, extremely capable inspector.
The net had been fully drawn; every member of the gang had been accounted for and now the outposts stationed in the garden were coming in to take over the work of guarding and escorting the haul of prisoners. Tapsfield was being spoken with over the wire; an antique shop in the East End would be inconspicuously watched by a perhaps rather too noticeably leisured stranger, and George Larch was in the process of being described (and surely we may hope unsuccessfully in his case this once) as ‘wanted’. Mr Carrados, his work for the time being done, was following his usual rule of not getting in anyone’s way and in conforming to this excellent precept had withdrawn to the deserted dining-room where in his rather famished state he found sufficient material to interest him. Beedel could be trusted to keep his word in the other directions.
‘Uncle Max! Oh, my old darling, I am glad to find you here safe but please do leave me a spot of marmalade.’ Nora, of course, and the inspector had kept his word in that direction at least. ‘A policeman let me out but
they sort of shuffed me through the hall. What’s happening now?’
‘Nothing, I imagine. It’s all happened I should say. You’ve had your adventure, my dear, and no power below will ever induce me to put you in the way of another.’
‘But Geoffrey?’ she interposed, paying no heed to that. ‘I thought I might find him up here before me. I wanted to look round down there but the policeman sent me on. Oh, Uncle Max, do you think—?’
‘No, I don’t,’ anticipated Uncle Max cuttingly; ‘and I have more than half a doubt whether Geoffrey Tilehurst has ever been in any sort of—?’
‘I suppose I may come in since I think I heard my name,’ and Tilehurst himself appeared, looking of all three there considerably the most presentable.
‘Geoffrey!’ exclaimed Nora, running over with joy, and she had started across the room when—account for it how you will—she stopped, repressed by the sight of his remarkably sleek trim and a realisation of her own draggle-tailed appearance.
‘I say—Nora, you, really you?’ he cried, transported in turn, and to do him justice he did not seem to notice anything aversive in her disorder—or, indeed, to notice anything but her excited young face. ‘How on earth do you come to turn up here? I’m rather out of touch with what’s been going on but it’s like a twist of magic.’
‘But surely you could guess that I might still be here,’ she said; ‘after what happened—in this very room—on Wednesday?’
‘Wednesday—in this room?’ he repeated darkly. ‘But I haven’t the ghost of an idea what did happen here. I’ve been shut up in a beast of a cellar for the past week.’
‘You didn’t come up and see me here in this room?’ she faltered. ‘You didn’t beg me—to—to save you?’
‘Not unless I was talking in my sleep,’ he declared, looking still more puzzled. ‘Or am now,’ he added.
‘Geoffrey: let me introduce you to my uncle, Max Carrados. This is Geoffrey Tilehurst, Uncle Max. Now please go on and tell me all about it—I’ve given it up.’ She sat down, helped herself liberally to more bread and marmalade and her eyes ranged incessantly from one to the other in turn as she gorged steadily through the simple banquet.
The Bravo of London Page 24
