The Bravo of London

by Ernest Bramah

  ‘Of course!’ responded Violet readily; ‘how stupid of me! It was my mother’s wedding ring. I found it in an old desk and wore it to keep it safe. That was really how I found out that I could not bear the feel of one and I soon gave it up.’

  ‘What did I say?’ claimed Darragh genially. ‘I thought that we should be right.’

  ‘This is really much interesting,’ said Kato. ‘I very greatly like your system, Mr Carrados.’

  ‘Oh, it’s scarcely a system,’ deprecated Max good-naturedly; ‘it’s almost second nature with me now. I don’t have to consider, say, “Where is the window?” if I want it. I know with certainty that the window lies over here.’ He had not yet taken the chair provided, and suiting the action to the word he now took a few steps towards the wall where the windows were. ‘Am I not right?’ And to assure himself he stretched out a hand and encountered the heavy curtains.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ admitted Violet hurriedly, ‘but, oh, please do be careful, Mr Carrados. They are most awfully particular about the light here since the last raid. We go in fear and trembling lest a glimmer should escape.’

  Carrados smiled and nodded and withdrew from the dangerous area. He faced the room again.

  ‘Then there is the electric light—heat at a certain height of course.’

  ‘True,’ assented Kato, ‘but why electric light?’

  ‘Because no other is noiseless and entirely without smell; think—gas, oil, candles, all betray their composition yards away. Then’—indicating the fireplace—‘I suppose you can only smell soot in damp weather? The mantelpiece’—touching it—‘inlaid marble. The wallpaper’—brushing his hand over its surface—‘arrangement of pansies on a criss-cross background’; lifting one finger to his lips—‘colour scheme largely green and gold.’

  Possibly Mr Hulse thought that his friend had demonstrated his qualities quite enough. Possibly—at any rate he now created a diversion:

  ‘Engraving of Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse, suspended two feet seven inches from the ceiling on a brass-headed nail supplied by a one-legged ironmonger whose Aunt Jane—’

  All contributed a sufficiently appreciative laugh—Carrados’s not the least hearty—except Kato, whose Asiatic dignity was proof against the form of jesting.

  ‘You see what contempt familiarity breeds, Miss Darragh?’ remarked the blind man. ‘I look to you, Mr Kuromi, to avenge me by putting Hulse in a variety of undignified attitudes on the floor.’

  ‘Oh, I shan’t mind that if at the same time you put me up to a trick or two,’ said Hulse, turning to the Japanese.

  ‘You wish?’

  ‘Indeed I do. I’ve seen the use of it. It’s good; it’s scientific. When I was crossing, one of the passengers held up a bully twice his weight in the neatest way possible. It looked quite simple, something like this, if I may?’ Kato nodded his grave assent and submitted himself to Mr Hulse’s vigorous grasp. ‘“Now,” said the man I’m speaking of, “struggle and your right arm’s broken.” But I expect you know the grip?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ replied Kato, veiling his private amusement, ‘and therefore foolish to struggle. Expert does not struggle; gives way.’ He appeared to do so, to be falling helplessly in fact, but the assailant found himself compelled to follow, and the next moment he was lying on his back with Kato politely extending a hand to assist him up again.

  ‘I must remember that,’ said Hulse thoughtfully. ‘Let me see, it goes—do you mind putting me wise on that again, Mr Kuromi? The motion picture just one iota slower this time, please.’

  For the next ten or twenty minutes the demonstration went on in admirable good humour, and could Max Carrados have seen he would certainly have witnessed his revenge. At the end of the lesson both men were warm and dusty—so dusty that Miss Darragh felt called upon to apologise laughingly for the condition of the rug. But if clothes were dusty, hands were positively dirty—there was no other word for it.

  ‘No, really, the poor mat can’t be so awful as that,’ declared the girl. ‘Wherever have you been, Mr Kuromi? and, oh, Mr Hulse you are just as bad.’

  ‘I do not know,’ declared Kato, regarding his grimy fingers seriously. ‘Nowhere of myself. Yes, I think it must be your London atmosphere among the rug after all.’

  ‘At all events you can’t—Oh, Hugh, take them to the bathroom, will you? And I’ll try to entertain Mr Carrados meanwhile—only he will entertain me instead, I know.’

  It was well and simply done throughout—nothing forced, and the sequence of development quite natural. Indeed, it was not until Hulse saw Kuromi take off his coat in the bathroom that he even thought of what he carried. ‘Well, Carrados,’ he afterwards pleaded to his friend, ‘now could I wash my hands before those fellows like a guy who isn’t used to washing? It isn’t natural. It isn’t human.’ So for those few minutes the two coats hung side by side, and Darragh kindly brushed them. When Hulse put on his own again his hand instinctively felt for the hidden packet; his fingers reassured themselves among the familiar objects of his pockets, and his mind was perfectly at ease.

  ‘You old scoundrel, Max,’ he said, when he returned to the drawing-room. ‘You told Kuromi to wipe the floor with me and, by crumbs, he did! Have a cigarette all the same.’

  Miss Darragh laughed pleasantly and took the opportunity to move away to learn from her accomplices if all had gone well. Carrados was on the point of passing over the proffered olive branch when he changed his mind. He leaned forward and with slow deliberation chose a cigarette from the American’s case. Exactly when the first subtle monition of treachery reached him—by what sense it was conveyed—Hulse never learned, for there were experiences among the finer perceptions that the blind man did not willingly discuss. Not by voice or outward manner in that arresting moment did he betray an inkling of his suspicion, yet by some responsive telephony Hulse at once, though scarcely conscious of it then, grew uneasy and alert.

  ‘Thanks; I’ll take a light from yours,’ remarked Carrados, ignoring the lit match, and he rose to avail himself. His back was towards the others, who still had a word of instruction to exchange. With cool precision he handled the cloth on Hulse’s outstretched arm, critically touched the pocket he was already familiar with, and then deliberately drew the lapel to his face.

  ‘You wore some violets?’ he said beneath his breath.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Hulse, ‘but I—Miss Darragh—’

  ‘But there never have been any here! By heavens, Hulse, we’re in it! You had your coat off just now?’

  ‘Yes, for a minute—’

  ‘Quietly. Keep your cigarette going. You’ll have to leave this to me. Back me up—discreetly—whatever I do.’

  ‘Can’t we challenge it and insist—’

  ‘Not in this world. They have at least one other man downstairs—in Cairo, a Turk by the way, before I was blind, of course. Not up to Mr Kuromi, I expect—’

  ‘Cool again?’ asked Miss Darragh sociably. It was her approach that had sent Carrados off into irrelevancies. ‘Was the experience up to anticipation?’

  ‘Yes, I think I may say it was,’ admitted Hulse guardedly. ‘There is certainly a lot to learn here. I expect you’ve seen it all before?’

  ‘Oh, no. It is a great honour to get Mr Kuromi to “show it off”, as he quaintly calls it.’

  ‘Yes, I should say so,’ replied the disillusioned young man with deadly simplicity. ‘I quite feel that.’

  ‘J.B.H. is getting strung up,’ thought Carrados. ‘He may say something unfortunate presently.’ So he deftly insinuated himself into the conversation and for a few minutes the commonplaces of the topic were rigidly maintained.

  ‘Care for a hand at auction?’ suggested Darragh, joining the group. He had no desire to keep his guests a minute longer than he need, but at the same time it was his line to behave quite naturally until they left. ‘Oh, but I forgot—Mr Carrados—’

  ‘I am well content to sit and listen’ Carrados assured him. ‘Consider how often I hav
e to do that without the entertainment of a game to listen to! And you are four without me.’

  ‘It really hardly seems—’ began Violet.

  ‘I’m sure Max will feel it if he thinks that he is depriving us,’ put in Hulse loyally, so with some more polite protestation it was arranged and the game began, Carrados remaining where he was. In the circumstances a very high standard of bridge could not be looked for; the calling was a little wild; the play more than a little loose; the laughter rather shrill or rather flat; the conversation between the hands forced and spasmodic. All were playing for time in their several interpretations of it; the blind man alone was thinking beyond the immediate moment.

  Presently there was a more genuine burst of laughter than any hitherto. Kato had revoked, and, confronted with it, had made a naïve excuse. Carrados rose with the intention of going nearer when a distressing thing occurred. Half-way across the room he seemed to slip, plunged forward helplessly, and came to the floor, involved in a light table as he fell. All the players were on their feet in an instant. Darragh assisted his guest to rise; Violet took an arm; Kato looked about the floor curiously, and Hulse—Hulse stared hard at Max and wondered what the thunder this portended.

  ‘Clumsy, clumsy,’ murmured Carrados beneath his breath. ‘Forgive me, Miss Darragh.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Carrados!’ she exclaimed in genuine distress. ‘Aren’t you really hurt?’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ he declared lightly. ‘Or at all events,’ he amended, bearing rather more heavily upon her support as he took a step, ‘nothing to speak of.’

  ‘Here is pencil,’ said Kuromi, picking one up from the polished floor. ‘You must have slipped on this.’

  ‘Stepping on a pencil is like that,’ contributed Hulse wisely. ‘It acts as a kind of roller-skate.’

  ‘Please don’t interrupt the game any more,’ pleaded the victim. ‘At the most, at the very worst, it is only—oh!—a negligible strain.’

  ‘I don’t know that any strain, especially of the ankle, is negligible, Mr Carrados,’ said Darragh with cunning foresight. ‘I think it perhaps ought to be seen to.’

  ‘A compress when I get back will be all that is required,’ maintained Carrados. ‘I should hate to break up the evening.’

  ‘Don’t consider that for a moment,’ urged the host hospitably. ‘If you really think that it would be wiser in the end—’

  ‘Well, perhaps—’ assented the other, weakening in his resolution.

  ‘Shall I ’phone up a taxi?’ asked Violet.

  ‘Thank you, if you would be so kind—or, no; perhaps my own car would be rather easier in the circumstances. My man will be about, so that it will take very little longer.’

  ‘I’ll get through for you,’ volunteered Darragh. ‘What’s your number?’

  The telephone was in a corner of the room. The connection was soon obtained and Darragh turned to his guest for the message.

  ‘I’d better speak,’ said Carrados—he had limped across on Hulse’s arm—taking over the receiver. ‘Excellent fellow, but he’d probably conclude that I’d been killed … That you, Parkinson?… Yes, at 155 Densham Gardens. I’m held up here by a slight accident … No, no, nothing serious, but I might have some difficulty in getting back without assistance. Tell Harris I shall need him after all, as soon as he can get here—the car that’s handiest. That’s—oh, and, Parkinson, bring along a couple of substantial walking-sticks with you. Any time now. That’s all … Yes … yes.’ He put up the receiver with a thrill of satisfaction that he had got his message safely through. ‘Held up’—a phrase at once harmless and significant—was the arranged shift-key into code. It was easy for a blind man to receive some hurt that held him up. Once or twice Carrados’s investigations had got him into tight places, but in one way or another he had invariably got out again.

  ‘How far is your place away?’ someone asked, and out of the reply a time-marking conversation on the subject of getting about London’s darkened streets and locomotion in general arose. Under cover of this Kato drew Darragh aside to the deserted card-table.

  ‘Not your pencil, Darragh?’ he said quietly, displaying the one he had picked up.

  ‘No; why?’

  ‘I not altogether like this, is why,’ replied the Japanese. ‘I think it Carrados own pencil. That man have too many ways of doing things, Darragh. It was mistake to let him ’phone.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense; you heard what he said. Don’t get jumpy, man. The thing has gone like clockwork.’

  ‘So far, yes. But I think I better go now and come back in one hour or so, safer for all much.’

  Darragh, for very good reasons, had the strongest objections to allowing his accomplice an opportunity of examining the spoil alone. ‘Look here, Katty,’ he said with decision, ‘I must have you in case there does come a scrimmage. I’ll tell Phillips to fasten the front door well, and then we can see that it’s all right before anyone comes in. If it is, there’s no need for you to run away; if there’s the least doubt we can knock these two out and have plenty of time to clear by the back way we’ve got.’ Without giving Kato any chance of raising further objection he turned to his guests again.

  ‘I think I remember your tastes, Hulse,’ he said suavely. ‘I hope that you have no objection to Scotch whisky, Mr Carrados? We still have a few bottles left. Or perhaps you prefer champagne?’

  Carrados had very little intention of drinking anything in that house, nor did he think that with ordinary procrastination it would be necessary.

  ‘You are very kind,’ he replied tentatively. ‘Should you permit the invalid either, Miss Darragh?’

  ‘Oh, yes, in moderation,’ she smiled. ‘I think I hear your car,’ she added, and stepping to the window ventured to peep out.

  It was true. Mr Darragh had run it a shade too fine for once. For a moment he hesitated which course to take—to see who was arriving or to convey a warning to his henchman down below. He had turned towards the door when Violet’s startled voice recalled him to the window.

  ‘Hugh!’ she called sharply. ‘Here, Hugh;’ and as he reached her, in a breathless whisper, ‘There are men inside the car—two more at least.’

  Darragh had to decide very quickly this time. His choice was not without its element of fineness. ‘Go down and see about it, Katty,’ he said, looking Kato straight in the eyes. ‘And tell Phillips about the whisky.’

  ‘Door locked,’ said the Japanese tersely. ‘Key other side.’

  ‘The key was on this side,’ exclaimed Darragh fiercely. ‘Hulse—’

  ‘Hell!’ retorted Beringer expressively. ‘That jacket doesn’t go out of the room without me this journey.’

  Darragh had him covered before he had finished speaking.

  ‘Quick,’ he rapped out. ‘I’ll give you up to three, and if the key isn’t out then, by God, I’ll plug you, Hulse! One, two—’

  The little ‘ping!’ that followed was not the automatic speaking, but the release of the electric light switch as Carrados, unmarked among this climax, pressed it up. In the absolute blackness that followed Darragh spun round to face the direction of this new opponent.

  ‘Shoot by all means, Mr Darragh, if you are used to firing in the dark,’ said Carrados’s imperturbable voice. ‘But in any case remember that I am. As I am a dead shot by sound, perhaps everyone had better remain exactly where he—or she, I regret to have to add, Miss Darragh—now is.’

  ‘You dog!’ spat out Darragh.

  ‘I should not even talk,’ advised the blind man. ‘I am listening for my friends and I might easily mistake your motive among the hum of conversation.’

  He had not long to wait. In all innocence Phillips had opened the door to Parkinson, and immeasurably to his surprise two formidable-looking men of official type had followed in from somewhere. By a sort of instinct—or possibly a momentary ray of light had been their guide—they came direct to the locked door.

  ‘Parkinson,’ called Carrados.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ r
eplied that model attendant.

  ‘We are all in here; Mr Hulse and myself, and three—I am afraid that I can make no exception—three unfriendlies. At the moment the electric light is out of action, the key of the locked door has been mislaid, and firearms are being promiscuously flourished in the dark. That is the position. Now if you have the key, Hulse?’

  ‘I have,’ replied Hulse grimly, ‘but for a fact I dropped it down my neck out of harm’s way and where the plague it’s got to—’

  As it happened the key was not required. The heavier of the officers outside, believing in the element of surprise, stood upon one foot and shot the other forward with the force and action of an engine piston-rod. The shattered door swung inward and the three men rushed into the room.

  Darragh had made up his mind, and as the door crashed he raised his hand to fire into the thick. But at that moment the light flashed on again and almost instantly was gone. Before his dazzled eyes and startled mind could adjust themselves to this he was borne down. When he rose again his hands were manacled.

  ‘So,’ he breathed laboriously, bending a vindictive eye, upon his outwitter. ‘When next we meet it will be my turn, I think.’

  ‘We shall never meet again,’ replied Carrados impassively. ‘There is no other turn for you, Darragh.’

  ‘But where the blazes has Kuromi got to?’ demanded Hulse with sharp concern. ‘He can’t have quit?’

  One of the policemen walked to a table in the farthest corner of the room, looked down beyond it, and silently raised a beckoning hand. They joined him there.

  ‘Rum way these foreigners have of doing things,’ remarked the other disapprovingly. ‘Now who the Hanover would ever think of a job like that?’

  ‘I suppose,’ mused the blind man, as he waited for the official arrangements to go through, ‘that presently I shall have to live up to Hulse’s overwhelming bewonderment. And yet if I pointed out to him that the button-hole of the coat he is now wearing still has a stitch in it to keep it in shape and could not by any possibility … Well, well, perhaps better not. It is a mistake for the conjurer to explain.