‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Willie, ‘ ’andsome is as ’andsome does. Say, Mr Fellowe, why don’t the police go after a man like Olloroff? What are they worrying about a little hook like me for – getting my living at great inconvenience, in a manner of speaking. He is a fellow who makes his thousands, and has ruined his hundreds. Can you get him a lagging?’
‘In time I hope we shall,’ said Frank.
‘There’s a feller!’ said Willie. ‘He baits the poor little clerk – gets him to put up a fiver to buy a million pounds’ worth of gold mines. Clerk puts it – pinches the money from the till, not meanin’ to be dishonest, in a manner of speakin’, but expectin’ one day to walk into his boss, covered with fame and diamonds, and say, “Look at your long-lost Horace!” See what I mean?’
Frank nodded.
‘ “Look at your prodigal cashier”,’ Jakobs continued, carried away by his imagination. ‘ “Put your lamps over my shiners, run your hooks over me Astrakhan collar. Master, it is I, thy servant!” ’
It was not curious that they should speak of Black. There had been a case in court that day in which a too-credulous client of Black’s, who had suffered as a result of that credulity, had sued the colonel for the return of his money, and the case had not been defended.
‘I used to work for him,’ said Mr Jakobs, reminiscently. ‘Messenger at twenty-nine shillings a week – like bein’ messenger at a mortuary.’
He looked up at Frank.
‘Ever count up the number of Black’s friends who’ve died suddenly?’ he asked. ‘Ever reckon that up? He’s a regular jujube tree, he is.’
‘ “Upas” is the word you want, Willie,’ said Frank gently.
‘You wait till the Four get him,’ warned Mr Jakobs cheerfully. ‘They won’t half put his light out.’
He said no more for a while, then he turned suddenly to Frank.
‘Come to think of it, Fellowe,’ he said, with the gross familiarity of the habitué in dealing with his captor, ‘this is the third time you’ve pinched me.’
‘Come to think of it,’ admitted Frank cheerfully, ‘it is.’
‘Harf a mo’.’ Mr Jakobs halted and surveyed the other with a puzzled air. ‘He took me in the Tottenham Court Road, he took me in the Charin’ Cross Road, an’ he apperryhended me in Cheapside.’
‘You’ve a wonderful memory,’ smiled the young man.
‘Never on his beat,’ said Mr Jakobs to himself, ‘always in plain clothes, an’ generally watchin’ me – now, why?’
Frank thought a moment. ‘Come and have a cup of tea, Willie,’ he said, ‘and I will tell you a fairy story.’
‘I think we shall be gettin’ at facts very soon,’ said Willie, in his best judicial manner.
‘I am going to be perfectly frank with you, my friend,’ said Fellowe, when they were seated in a neighbouring coffee-shop.
‘If you don’t mind,’ begged Willie, ‘I’d rather call you by your surname – I don’t want it to get about that I’m a pal of yours.’
Frank smiled again. Willie had ever been a source of amusement.
‘You have been taken by me three times,’ he said, ‘and this is the first time you have mentioned our friend Black. I think I can say that if you had mentioned him before it might have made a lot of difference to you, Willie.’
Mr Jakobs addressed the ceiling. ‘Come to think of it,’ he said, ‘he ’inted at this once before.’
‘I ’int at it once again,’ said Frank. ‘Will you tell me why Black pays you two pounds a week?’
‘Because he don’t,’ said Willie promptly. ‘Because he’s a sneakin’ hook an’ because he’s a twister, because he’s a liar – ’
‘If there’s any reason you haven’t mentioned, give it a run,’ said Constable Fellowe in the vernacular.
Willie hesitated. ‘What’s the good of my tellin’ you?’ he asked. ‘Sure as death you’ll tell me I’m only lyin’.’
‘Try me,’ said Frank, and for an hour they sat talking, policeman and thief.
At the end of that time they went different ways – Frank to the police-station, where he found an irate owner of property awaiting him, and Mr Jakobs, thankfully, yet apprehensively, to his Somers Town home.
His business completed at the station, and a station sergeant alternately annoyed and mystified by the erratic behaviour of a plain-clothes constable, who gave orders with the assurance of an Assistant-Commissioner, Frank found a taxi and drove first to the house of Black, and later (with instructions to the driver to break all the rules laid down for the regulation of traffic) to Hampstead.
May Sandford was expecting the colonel. She stood by the drawing-room fire, buttoning her glove and endeavouring to disguise her pleasure that her sometime friend had called.
‘Where are you going?’ was his first blunt greeting, and the girl stiffened.
‘You have no right to ask in that tone,’ she said quietly, ‘but I will tell you. I am going to dinner.’
‘With whom?’
The colour came to her face, for she was really annoyed. ‘With Colonel Black,’ she said an effort to restrain her rising anger.
He nodded. ‘I’m afraid I cannot allow you to go,’ he said coolly.
The girl stared. ‘Once and for all, Mr Fellowe,’ she said with quiet dignity, ‘you will understand that I am my own mistress. I shall do as I please. You have no right to dictate to me – you have no right whatever – ’ she stamped her foot angrily – ‘to say what I may do and what I may not do. I shall go where and with whom I choose.’
‘You will not go out tonight, at any rate,’ said Frank grimly.
An angry flush came to her cheeks. ‘If I chose to go tonight, I should go tonight,’ she said.
‘Indeed, you will do nothing of the sort.’ He was quite cool now – master of himself – completely under control.
‘I shall be outside this house,’ he said, ‘for the rest of the night. If you go out with this man I shall arrest you.’
She started and took a step back.
‘I shall arrest you,’ he went on determinedly. ‘I don’t care what happens to me afterwards. I will trump up any charge against you. I will take you to the station, through the streets, and put you in the iron dock as though you were a common thief. I’ll do it because I love you,’ he said passionately, ‘because you are the biggest thing in the world to me – because I love you better than life, better than you can love yourself, better than any man could love you. And do you know why I will take you to the police-station?’ he went on earnestly. ‘Because you will be safe there, and the women who look after you will allow no dog like this fellow to have communication with you – because he dare not follow you there, whatever else he dare. As for him – ’
He turned savagely about as a resplendent Black entered the room.
Black stopped at the sight of the other’s face and dropped his hand to his pocket.
‘You look out for me,’ said Frank, and Black’s face blanched.
The girl had recovered her speech.
‘How dare you – how dare you!’ she whispered. ‘You tell me that you will arrest me. How dare you! And you say you love me!’ she said scornfully.
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said, quietly enough. ‘I love you. I love you enough to make you hate me. Can I love you any more than that?’
His voice was bitter, and there was something of helplessness in it too, but the determination that underlay his words could not be mistaken.
He did not leave her until Black had taken his leave, and in his pardonable perturbation he forgot that he intended searching the colonel for a certain green bottle with a glass stopper.
* * *
Colonel Black returned to his flat that night to find unmistakable evidence that the apartment had been most sy
stematically searched. There existed, however, no evidence as to how his visitors had gained admission. The doors had been opened, despite the fact that they were fastened by a key which had no duplicate, and with locks that were apparently unpickable. The windows were intact, and no attempt had been made to remove money and valuables from the desk which had been ransacked. The only proof of identity they had left behind was the seal which he found attached to the blotting-pad on his desk.
They had gone methodically to work, dropped a neat round splash of sealing-wax, and had as neatly pressed the seal of the organization upon it. There was no other communication, but in its very simplicity this plain ‘IV’ was a little terrifying. It seemed that the members of the Four defied all his efforts at security, laughed to scorn his patent locks, knew more about his movements than his most intimate friends, and chose their own time for their visitations.
This would have been disconcerting to a man of less character than Black; but Black was one who had lived through a score of years – each year punctuated, at regular intervals, with threats of the most terrible character. He had ever lived in the shadow of reprisal, yet he had never suffered punishment.
It was his most fervent boast that he never lost his temper, that he never did anything in a flurry. Now, perhaps for the first time in his life, he was going to work actuated by a greater consideration than self-interest – a consideration of vengeance.
It made him less careful than he was wont to be. He did not look for shadowers that evening, yet shadowers there had been – not one but many.
Chapter 11
To Lincoln races
Sir Isaac Tramber went to Lincoln in an evil frame of mind. He had reserved a compartment, and cursed his luck when he discovered that his reservation adjoined that of Horace Gresham.
He paced the long platform at King’s Cross, waiting for his guests. The Earl of Verlond had promised to go down with him and to bring Lady Mary, and it was no joy to Sir Isaac to observe on the adjoining carriage the label, ‘Reserved for Mr Horace Gresham and party’.
Horace came along about five minutes before the train started. He was as cheerful as the noonday sun, in striking contrast to Sir Isaac, whose night had not been too wisely spent. He nodded carelessly to Sir Isaac’s almost imperceptible greeting.
The baronet glanced at his watch and inwardly swore at the old earl and his caprices. It wanted three minutes to the hour at which the train left. His tongue was framing a bitter indictment of the old man when he caught a glimpse of his tall, angular figure striding along the platform.
‘Thought we weren’t coming. I suppose?’ asked the earl, as he made his way to the compartment. ‘I say, you thought we weren’t coming?’ he repeated, as Lady Mary entered the compartment, assisted with awkward solicitude by Sir Isaac.
‘Well, I didn’t expect you to be late.’
‘We are not late,’ said the earl.
He settled himself comfortably in a corner seat – the seat which Sir Isaac had specially arranged for the girl. Friends of his and of the old man who passed nodded. An indiscreet few came up to speak.
‘Going up to Lincoln, Lord Verlond?’ asked one idle youth.
‘No,’ said the earl sweetly, ‘I am going to bed with the mumps.’ He snarled the last word, and the young seeker after information fled.
‘You can sit by me, Ikey – leave Mary alone,’ said the old man sharply. ‘I want to know all about this horse. I have £150 on this thoroughbred of yours; it is far more important than those fatuous inquiries you intend making of my niece.’
‘Inquiries?’ grumbled Sir Isaac resentfully.
‘Inquiries!’ repeated the other. ‘You want to know whether she slept last night; whether she finds it too warm in this carriage; whether she would like a corner seat or a middle seat, her back to the engine or her face to the engine. Leave her alone, leave her alone, Ikey. She’ll decide all that. I know her better than you.’
He glared, with that amusing glint in his eyes, across at the girl.
‘Young Gresham is in the next carriage. Go and tap at the window and bring him out. Go along!’
‘He’s got some friends there, I think, uncle,’ said the girl.
‘Never mind about his friends,’ said Verlond irritably. ‘What the devil does it matter about his friends? Aren’t you a friend? Go and tap at the door and bring him out.’
Sir Isaac was fuming.
‘I don’t want him in here,’ he said loudly. ‘You seem to forget, Verlond, that if you want to talk about horses, this is the very chap who should know nothing about Timbolino.’
‘Ach!’ said the earl testily, ‘don’t you suppose he knows all there is to be known. What do you think sporting papers are for?’
‘Sporting papers can’t tell a man what the owner knows,’ said Sir Isaac importantly.
‘They tell me more than he knows,’ he said. ‘Your horse was favourite yesterday morning – it isn’t favourite any more, Ikey.’
‘I can’t control the investments of silly asses,’ grumbled Sir Isaac.
‘Except one,’ said the earl rudely. ‘But these silly asses you refer to do not throw their money away – remember that, Ikey. When you have had as much racing as I have had, and won as much money as I have won, you’ll take no notice of what owners think of their horses. You might as well ask a mother to give a candid opinion of her own daughter’s charms as to ask an owner for unbiased information about his own horse.’
The train had slipped through the grimy purlieus of London and was now speeding through green fields to Hatfield. It was a glorious spring day, mellow with sunlight: such a day as a man at peace with the world might live with complete enjoyment.
Sir Isaac was not in this happy position, nor was he in a mood to discuss either the probity of racing men or the general question of the sport itself.
He observed with an inward curse the girl rise and walk, apparently carelessly, into the corridor. He could have sworn he heard a tap at the window of the next compartment, but in this, of course, he was wrong. She merely moved across the vision of the little coterie who sat laughing and talking, and in an instant Horace had come out.
‘It is not my fault this, really,’ she greeted him, with a little flush in her cheeks. ‘It was uncle’s idea.’
‘Your uncle is an admirable old gentleman,’ said Horace fervently. ‘I retract anything I may have said to his discredit.’
‘I will tell him,’ she said, with mock gravity.
‘No, no,’ cried Horace, ‘I don’t want you to do that exactly.’
‘I want to talk to you seriously,’ said she suddenly. ‘Come into our compartment. Uncle and Sir Isaac are so busy discussing the merits of Timbolino – is that the right name?’ He nodded, his lips twitching with amusement. ‘That they won’t notice anything we have to say,’ she concluded.
The old earl gave him a curt nod. Sir Isaac only vouchsafed a scowl. It was difficult to maintain anything like a confidential character in their conversation, but by manoeuvring so that they spoke only of the more important things when Sir Isaac and his truculent guest were at the most heated point of their argument, she was able to unburden the anxiety of her mind.
‘I am worried about uncle,’ she said in a low tone.
‘Is he ill?’ asked Horace.
She shook her head. ‘No, it isn’t his illness – yet it may be. But he is so contradictory; I am so afraid that it might react to our disadvantage. You know how willing he was that you should . . . ’ She hesitated, and his hand sought hers under the cover of an open newspaper.
‘It was marvellous,’ he whispered, ‘wasn’t it? I never expected for one moment that the old dev – that your dear uncle,’ he corrected himself, ‘would have been so amenable.’
She nodded again. ‘You see,’ she said, taking advantage of another heated pa
ssage between the old man and the irritated baronet, ‘what he does so impetuously he can undo just as easily. I am so afraid he will turn and rend you.’
‘Let him try,’ said Horace. ‘I am not easily rent.’
Their conversation was cut short abruptly by the intervention of the man they were discussing.
‘Look here, Gresham,’ snapped the earl shortly, ‘you’re one of the cognoscenti, and I suppose you know everything. Who are the Four Just Men I hear people talking about?’
Horace was conscious of the fact that the eyes of Sir Isaac Tramber were fixed on him curiously. He was a man who made no disguise of his suspicion.
‘I know no more than you,’ said Horace. ‘They seem to me to be an admirable body of people who go about correcting social evils.’
‘Who are they to judge what is and what is not evil?’ growled the earl, scowling from under his heavy eyebrows. ‘Infernal cheek! What do we pay judges and jurymen and coroners and policemen and people of that sort for, eh? What do we pay taxes for, and rent for, and police rates, and gas rates, and water rates, and every kind of dam’ rate that the devilish ingenuity of man can devise? Do we do it that these jackanapes can come along and interfere with the course of justice? It’s absurd! It’s ridiculous!’ he stormed.
Horace threw out a protesting hand.
‘Don’t blame me,’ he said.
‘But you approve of them,’ accused the earl. ‘Ikey says you do, and Ikey knows everything – don’t you, Ikey?’
Sir Isaac shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I didn’t say Gresham knew anything about it,’ he began lamely.
‘Why do you lie, Ikey; why do you lie?’ asked the old man testily. ‘You just told me that you were perfectly sure that Gresham was one of the leading spirits of the gang.’
Sir Isaac, inured as he was to the brutal indiscretions of his friends, went a dull red. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that exactly,’ he said awkwardly and a little angrily. ‘Dash it, Lord Verlond, don’t embarrass a fellow by rendering him liable to heavy damages and all that sort of thing.’
The Complete Four Just Men Page 44
