by Otto Penzler
“Of course I grabbed him. Come out of it. What are you giving me, you josser?” said Collins with a wink and a grin. “Ain’t you found out even yet, you silly? Why, it was only a faked-up thing—the taking of a kinematograph picture for the Alhambra. You and Petrie ought to have been here sooner and got your wages, you goats. I got half a quid for my share when I let him go.”
Smathers and Petrie lifted up their voices in one despairing howl.
“When you what?” fairly yelled Smathers. “You fool! You don’t mean to tell me that you let them take you in like that—those two? You don’t mean to tell me that you had him—had him in your hands—and then let him go? You did? Oh! you seventy-seven kinds of a double-barrelled ass! Had him—think of it!—had him, and let him go! Did yourself out of a share in a reward of two hundred quid when you’d only to shut your hands and hold on to it!”
“Two hundred quid? Two hun—W-what are you talking about? Wasn’t it true? Wasn’t it a kinematograph picture, after all?”
“No, you fool, no!” howled Smathers, fairly dancing with despair. “Oh, you blithering idiot! You ninety-seven varieties of a fool! Do you know who you had in your hands? Do you know who you let go? It was that devil ‘Forty Faces’—‘The Vanishing Cracksman’—the man who calls himself ‘Hamilton Cleek’; and the woman was his pal, his confederate, his blessed stool-pigeon—‘Margot, the Queen of the Apache’; and she came over from Paris to help him in that clean scoop of Lady Dresmer’s jewels last week!”
“Heavens!” gulped Collins, too far gone to say anything else, too deeply dejected to think of anything but that he had had the man for whom Scotland Yard had been groping for a year—the man over whom all England, all France, all Germany wondered—close shut in the grip of his hands and then had let him go. The biggest and boldest criminal the police had ever had to cope with, the almost supernatural genius of crime, who defied all systems, laughed at all laws, mocked at all the Vidocqs, and Dupins, and Sherlock Holmeses, whether amateur or professional, French or English, German or American, that ever had been or ever could be pitted against him, and who, for sheer devilry, for diabolical ingenuity and for colossal impudence, as well as for a nature-bestowed power that was simply amazing, had not his match in all the universe.
Who or what he really was, whence he came, whether he was English, Irish, French, German, Yankee, Canadian, Italian, or Dutchman, no man knew and no man might ever hope to know unless he himself chose to reveal it. In his many encounters with the police he had assumed the speech, the characteristics, and, indeed, the facial attributes of each in turn, and assumed them with an ease and a perfection that were simply marvellous, and had gained for him the sobriquet of “Forty Faces” among the police, and of “The Vanishing Cracksman” among the scribes and reporters of newspaperdom. That he came, in time, to possess another name than these was due to his own whim and caprice, his own bald, unblushing impudence; for, of a sudden, whilst London was in a fever of excitement and all the newspapers up in arms over one of the most daring and successful coups, he chose to write boldly to both editors and police complaining that the title given him by each was both vulgar and cheap.
“You would not think of calling Paganini a ‘fiddler,’ ” he wrote; “why, then, should you degrade me with the coarse term of ‘cracksman’? I claim to be as much an artist in my profession as Paganini was in his, and I claim also a like courtesy from you. So, then, if in the future it becomes necessary to allude to me—and I fear it often will—I shall be obliged if you do so as ‘The Man Who Calls Himself Hamilton Cleek.’ In return for that courtesy, gentlemen, I promise to alter my mode of procedure, to turn over a new leaf, as it were, to give you at all times hereafter distinct information, in advance, of such places as I elect for the field of my operations, and of the time when I shall pay my respects to them, and, on the morning after each such visit, to bestow some small portion of the loot upon Scotland Yard as a souvenir of the event.”
And to that remarkable programme he rigidly adhered from that time forth—always giving the police twelve hours’ notice, always evading their traps and snares, always carrying out his plans in spite of them, and always, on the morning after, sending some trinket or trifle to Superintendent Narkom at Scotland Yard, in a little pink cardboard box, tied up with rose-coloured ribbon, and marked “With the compliments of The Man Who Calls Himself Hamilton Cleek.”
The detectives of the United Kingdom, the detectives of the Continent, the detectives of America—each and all had measured swords with him, tried wits with him, spread snares and laid traps for him, and each and all had retired from the field vanquished.
And this was the man that he—Police Constable Samuel James Collins—had actually had in his hands; nay, in his very arms, and then had given up for half a sovereign and let go!
“Oh, so help me! You make my head swim, Smathers, that you do!” he managed to say at last. “I had him—I had the Vanishing Cracksman—in my blessed paws—and then went and let that French hussy—But look here; I say, now, how do you know it was him? Nobody can go by his looks; so how do you know?”
“Know, you footler!” growled Smathers, disgustedly. “Why shouldn’t I know when I’ve been after him ever since he left Scotland Yard half an hour ago?”
“Left what? My hat! You ain’t a-going to tell me that he’s been there? When? Why? What for?”
“To leave one of his blessed notices, the dare-devil. What a detective he’d a made, wouldn’t he, if he’d only a-turned his attention that way, and been on the side of the law instead of against it? He walked in bold as brass, sat down, and talked with the superintendent over some cock-and-bull yarn about a ‘Black Hand’ letter that he said had been sent to him, and asked if he couldn’t have police protection whilst he was in town. It wasn’t until after he’d left that the super he sees a note on the chair where the blighter had been sitting, and when he opened it, there it was in black and white, something like this:
“ ‘The list of presents that have been sent for the wedding tomorrow of Sir Horace Wyvern’s eldest daughter make interesting reading, particularly that part which describes the jewels sent—no doubt as a tribute to her father’s position as the greatest brain specialist in the world—from the Austrian Court and the Continental principalities. The care of such gems is too great a responsibility for the bride. I propose, therefore, to relieve her of it tonight, and to send you the customary souvenir of the event tomorrow morning. Yours faithfully,
“ ‘The Man Who Calls Himself Hamilton Cleek.’
“That’s how I know, dash you! Superintendent sent me out after him, hot foot; and after a bit I picked him up in the Strand, toddling along with that French hussy as cool as you please. But, blow him! he must have eyes all round his head, for he saw me just as soon as I saw him, and he and Frenchy separated like a shot. She hopped into a taxi and flew off in one direction; he dived into a crowd and bolted in another, and before you could say Jack Robinson he was doubling and twisting, jumping into cabs and jumping out again—all to gain time, of course, for the woman to do what he’d put her up to doing—and leading me the devil’s own chase through the devil’s own tangle till he was ready to bunk for the Embankment. And you let him go, you blooming footler! Had him and let him go, and chucked away a third of £200 for the price of half a quid!”
And long after Smathers and Petrie had left him, and the wondering crowd had dispersed, and point duty at “Dead Man’s Corner” was just point duty again and nothing more, P.C. Collins stood there, chewing the cud of bitter reflection over those words, and trying to reckon up just how many pounds and how much glory had been lost to him.
II
“But, damme, sir, the thing’s an outrage! I don’t mince my words, Mr. Narkom—I say plump and plain the thing’s an outrage, a disgrace to the police, an indignity upon the community at large; and for Scotland Yard to permit itself to be defied, bamboozled, mocked at in this appalling fashion by a paltry burglar—”
“Un
cle, dear, pray don’t excite yourself in this manner. I am quite sure that if Mr. Narkom could prevent the things—”
“Hold your tongue, Ailsa—I will not be interfered with! It’s time that somebody spoke out plainly and let this establishment know what the public has a right to expect of it. What do I pay my rates and taxes for—and devilish high ones they are, too, b’gad—if it’s not to maintain law and order and the proper protection of property? And to have the whole blessed country terrorised, the police defied, and people’s houses invaded with impunity by a gutter-bred brute of a cracksman is nothing short of a scandal and a shame! Call this sort of tomfoolery being protected by the police? God bless my soul! one might as well be in charge of a parcel of doddering old women and be done with it!”
It was an hour and a half after that exciting affair at “Dead Man’s Corner.” The scene was Superintendent Narkom’s private room at headquarters, the dramatis personae, Mr. Maverick Narkom himself, Sir Horace Wyvern, and Miss Ailsa Lorne, his niece, a slight, fair-haired, extremely attractive girl of twenty, the only and orphaned daughter of a much-loved sister, who, up till a year ago, had known nothing more exciting in the way of “life” than that which is to be found in a small village in Suffolk, and falls to the lot of an underpaid vicar’s only child. A railway accident had suddenly deprived her of both parents, throwing her wholly upon her own resources, without a penny in the world. Sir Horace had gracefully come to the rescue and given her a home and a refuge, being doubly repaid for it by the affection and care she gave him and the manner in which she assumed control of a household which hitherto had been left wholly to the attention of servants, Lady Wyvern having long been dead, and her two daughters of that type which devotes itself entirely to the pleasures of society and the demands of the world. A regular pepper-box of a man—testy, short-tempered, exacting—Sir Horace had flown headlong to Superintendent Narkom’s office as soon as that gentleman’s note, telling him of the Vanishing Cracksman’s latest threat, had been delivered, and, on Miss Lorne’s advice, had withheld all news of it from the members of his household and brought her with him.
“I tell you that Scotland Yard must do something—must! must! must!” stormed he as Narkom, resenting that stigma upon the institution, puckered up his lips and looked savage. “That fellow has always kept his word—always, in spite of your precious band of muffs—and if you let him keep it this time, when there’s upwards of £40,000 worth of jewels in the house, it will be nothing less than a national disgrace, and you and your wretched collection of bunglers will be covered with deserved ridicule.”
Narkom swung round, smarting under these continued taunts, these “flings” at the efficiency of his prided department, his nostrils dilated, his temper strained to the breaking-point.
“Well, he won’t keep it this time—I promise you that!” he rapped out sharply. “Sooner or later every criminal, no matter how clever, meets his Waterloo—and this shall be his! I’ll take this affair in hand myself, Sir Horace. I’ll not only send the pick of my men to guard the jewels, but I’ll go with them; and if that fellow crosses the threshold of Wyvern House tonight, by the Lord, I’ll have him. He will have to be the devil himself to get away from me! Miss Lorne”—recollecting himself and bowing apologetically—“I ask your pardon for this strong language—my temper got the better of my manners.”
“It does not matter, Mr. Narkom, so that you preserve my cousin’s wedding-gifts from that appalling man,” she answered with a gentle inclination of the head and with a smile that made the superintendent think she must certainly be the most beautiful creature in all the world, it so irradiated her face and added to the magic of her glorious eyes. “It does not matter what you say, what you do, so long as you accomplish that.”
“And I will accomplish it—as I’m a living man, I will! You may go home feeling assured of that. Look for my men some time before dusk, Sir Horace—I will arrive later. They will come in one at a time. See that they are admitted by the area door, and that, once in, not one of them leaves the house again before I put in an appearance. I’ll look them over when I arrive to be sure that there’s no wolf in sheep’s clothing amongst them. With a fellow like that—a diabolical rascal with a diabolical gift for impersonation—one can’t be too careful. Meantime, it is just as well not to have confided this news to your daughters, who, naturally, would be nervous and upset; but I assume that you have taken some one of the servants into your confidence in order that nobody may pass them and enter the house under any pretext whatsoever?”
“No, I have not. Miss Lorne advised against it, and, as I am always guided by her, I said nothing of the matter to anybody.”
“Was that wrong, do you think, Mr. Narkom?” queried Ailsa anxiously. “I feared that if they knew they might lose their heads, and that my cousins, who are intensely nervous and highly emotional, might hear of it, and add to our difficulties by becoming hysterical and demanding our attention at a time when we ought to be giving every moment to watching for the possible arrival of that man. And as he has always lived up to the strict letter of his dreadful promises heretofore, I knew that he was not to be expected before nightfall. Besides, the jewels are locked up in the safe in Sir Horace’s consulting-room, and his assistant, Mr. Merfroy, has promised not to leave it for one instant before we return.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right, then. I dare say there is very little likelihood of our man getting in whilst you and Sir Horace are here, and taking such a risk as stopping in the house until nightfall to begin his operations. Still, it was hardly wise, and I should advise hurrying back as fast as possible and taking at least one servant—the one you feel least likely to lose his head—into your confidence, Sir Horace, and putting him on the watch for my men. Otherwise, keep the matter as quiet as you have done, and look for me about nine o’clock. And rely upon this as a certainty: the Vanishing Cracksman will never get away with even one of those jewels if he enters that house tonight, and never get out of it unshackled!”
With that, he suavely bowed his visitors out and rang up the pick of his men without an instant’s delay.
Promptly at nine o’clock he arrived, as he had promised, at Wyvern House, and was shown into Sir Horace’s consulting-room, where Sir Horace himself and Miss Lorne were awaiting him, and keeping close watch before the locked door of a communicating apartment in which sat the six men who had preceded him. He went in and put them all and severally through a rigid examination—pulling their hair and beards, rubbing their faces with a clean handkerchief in quest of any trace of “make-up” or disguise of any sort, examining their badges and the marks on the handcuffs they carried with them to make sure that they bore the sign which he himself had scratched upon them in the privacy of his own room a couple of hours ago.
“No mistake about this lot,” he announced, with a smile. “Has anybody else entered or attempted to enter the house?”
“Not a soul,” replied Miss Lorne. “I didn’t trust anybody to do the watching, Mr. Narkom—I watched myself.”
“Good. Where are the jewels? In that safe?”
“No,” replied Sir Horace. “They are to be exhibited in the picture-gallery for the benefit of the guests at the wedding breakfast tomorrow, and as Miss Wyvern wished to superintend the arrangement of them herself, and there would be no time for that in the morning, she and her sister are in there laying them out at this moment. As I could not prevent that without telling them what we have to dread, I did not protest against it; but if you think it will be safer to return them to the safe after my daughters have gone to bed, Mr. Narkom—”
“Not at all necessary. If our man gets in, their lying there in full view like that will prove a tempting bait, and—well, he’ll find there’s a hook behind it. I shall be there waiting for him. Now go and join the ladies, you and Miss Lorne, and act as though nothing out of the common was in the wind. My men and I will stop here, and you had better put out the light and lock us in, so that there may be no danger of anybody
finding out that we are here. No doubt Miss Wyvern and her sister will go to bed earlier than usual on this particular occasion. Let them do so. Send the servants to bed, too. You and Miss Lorne go to your beds at the same time as the others—or, at least, let them think that you have done so; then come down and let us out.”
To this Sir Horace assented, and, taking Miss Lorne with him, went at once to the picture-gallery and joined his daughters, with whom they remained until eleven o’clock. Promptly at that hour, however, the house was locked up, the bride-elect and her sister went to bed—the servants having already gone to theirs—and stillness settled down over the darkened house. At the end of a dozen minutes, however, it was faintly disturbed by the sound of slippered feet coming along the passage outside the consulting-room, then a key slipped into the lock, the door was opened, the light switched on, and Sir Horace and Miss Lorne appeared before the eager watchers.
“Now, then, lively, my men—look sharp!” whispered Narkom. “A man to each window and each staircase, so that nobody may go up or down or in or out without dropping into the arms of one of you. Confine your attention to this particular floor, and if you hear anybody coming, lay low until he’s within reach, and you can drop on him before he bolts. Is this the door of the picture-gallery, Sir Horace?”
“Yes,” answered Sir Horace, as he fitted a key to the lock. “But surely you will need more men than you have brought, Mr. Narkom, if it is your intention to guard every window individually, for there are four to this room—see!”
With that he swung open the door, switched on the electric light, and Narkom fairly blinked at the dazzling sight that confronted him. Three long tables, laden with crystal and silver, cut glass and jewels, and running the full length of the room, flashed and scintillated under the glare of the electric bulbs which encircled the cornice of the gallery, and clustered in luminous splendour in the crystal and frosted silver of a huge central chandelier, and spread out on the middle one of these—a dazzle of splintered rainbows, a very plain of living light—lay caskets and cases, boxes and trays, containing those royal gifts of which the newspapers had made so much and the Vanishing Cracksman had sworn to make so few.
